“I don’t get something,” Mercer interrupted. “If Alexander used it for so long and Skenderbeg used it too, how much plutonium ore can there still be in it? It might be big but it isn’t bottomless.”
“There is very little,” Ahmad said, “but it doesn’t matter. The alembic isn’t used to disperse the radioactive dust.”
“Then how does it work?”
“There are two chambers within the alembic. When the mechanism is turned on, the shield separating them is moved and the two samples of ore are allowed to interact. Unlike the raw plutonium found in Africa and the barrels of it here, Alexander’s alchemists had refined it somehow, changed it in such a way that rather than emit weak gamma particles that are unable to penetrate human skin, the alembic belches deadly swarms of alpha and beta particles that sicken in seconds and kill in minutes.
“It was an insidious weapon that Skenderbeg employed only when absolutely necessary but Alexander used to wipe out entire armies. There are accounts of fifty thousand enemy soldiers killed in a single night when his spies activated the alembic in their encampment. When the siege of an ancient city called Qumfar wasn’t going as planned, Alexander opened the alembic outside the city walls and left it there for a week. When he returned, every man, woman, child, and animal within the walls was dead. A scribe wrote that their skin had blackened and peeled off their bodies, that some were so covered in blisters that they weren’t recognizable as human. He said many mothers had slit their own children’s throats to ease their suffering before turning the blades on themselves.”
Cali said, “When something is so heavily irradiated it would remain radioactive for weeks, months even.”
Ahmad shook his head. “I am an historian, not a nuclear engineer. I can only tell you what I know of the alembic. Perhaps Alexander’s scientists did something else to the ore so that the effects were short-lived. I do not know.”
“Or perhaps the town was severely nuked,” Mercer said. “And that is why today there is no such place as Qumfar.”
“Could also explain why Alexander died so young,” Cali added.
“All I know for certain,” Ahmad said, “is that in the wrong hands the alembic is much more dangerous than the ore Feines made off with today.”
“What happened to the alembic?”
“Upon his death Skenderbeg’s generals knew that they would eventually lose to Murad’s army. Even with the device, the driving force of their revolt was dead and it was only a matter of time before the soldiers lost their will to fight. Rather than risk the alembic falling into Ottoman hands they decided to honor both their leader and his namesake and do what Alexander’s men had wanted. That is, return the alembic to his tomb.”
“And did they?”
Ludmilla approached with plates of powdered egg and coffee from what little supplies survived the helicopter crash. It was the first food Mercer had seen since the flight from Germany to Samara, and while surplus Russian rations were far from Cordon Bleu, he and Cali attacked it with relish.
“So did they return the alembic to Alexander’s tomb?” Cali asked around a mouthful of egg.
Ahmad turned to her and said brightly, “Oh, most certainly.”
“Do you know where it is?”
Ahmad didn’t reply to Mercer’s question for several seconds. “You would have died in Africa if we hadn’t shown up. In Atlantic City too. You managed to find Chester Bowie’s crates and make certain that Poli Feines didn’t get them, but it was a close thing, no?” Mercer nodded. “And just now you came here to secure the last of the ore mined by the Soviets and yet Feines escaped with two barrels and there are many dead. Dr. Mercer, even if I knew where Alexander’s tomb was hidden I would not tell you.”
“You don’t know where it is?”
“No, Miss Stowe. I do not. Every schoolchild learns it’s someplace in Egypt, supposedly, but we have kept its location secret by not knowing it ourselves. The Janissaries thwart anyone interested in finding it long before they get close.”
“How do you know when they’re close?” Mercer asked, irritation in his voice.
“There are certain signs along the way. How do you think I knew about Feines?”
“How?”
“He made the same mistake you did, Doctor, only he made it earlier. I am the world expert on Skenderbeg. Anyone interested in him must first come to me. And just as I took over from my mentor, in time young Devrin here will become the gatekeeper of Skenderbeg’s secrets, and anyone interested in following the lore of his alembic will have no choice but to contact him.”
“So Poli called you?”
“We even met,” Ibriham Ahmad admitted.
Mercer was outraged. “What were you thinking giving him enough information to lead him to the mine in Africa?”
“Alas, he was already in possession of that information, though I wasn’t aware of it at the time. No, I tried to send him off in the wrong direction but he was more resourceful than I anticipated. That was why when we learned he had hired a local rebel leader to get him to the Central African Republic we made sure we were there to stop him. Of course he escaped and so he began to track the two of you.”
“How did he already know about the mine?”
“Because my mentor made a mistake.” There was a trace of bitterness in his voice, but also a touch of understanding. “He divulged secrets to a student, a beautiful and fiercely independent woman whom he met while on an archaeological dig in Palestine in the 1920s. She was the daughter of an enlightened businessman who indulged her passion for learning. She was to be the love of my mentor’s life and he wanted her to know all his secrets so that their son could continue on in his role. He told her all about Alexander and how when he returned from the deserts of Egypt he carried a devastating weapon that gave him the power to pronounce himself God. He told her how Alexander believed the weapon was made of adamantine, the mythical metal used to forge Prometheus’s chains. He even told her that after Alexander’s death one of his most loyal generals returned to the African village to erect a stele commemorating the great victories he won because of the alembic.”
Mercer suppressed a smile. While he wasn’t sure what made him think the stele he’d seen was important, he was glad that he’d asked Booker Sykes to photograph it. If it was put in place after Alexander’s death there was a chance, albeit a slim one he admitted, that it might contain information on Alexander’s fabled tomb. He said casually, “Cali and I recalled seeing the stele just before the attack.”
“Beautiful, wasn’t it?”
“Old oblique obelisks aren’t my thing.” Ahmad smiled at Mercer’s wordplay, not knowing that Mercer was trying to distract him away from the subject. “Besides, we didn’t take a close look.”
“Oh, too bad, it was in marvelous condition. I had never seen it before. The hieroglyphics were barely weathered and were quite easy to make out, though I confess I don’t know how to read any of them.”
Mercer’s heart sank. “Was?”
Ahmad gave him a look usually reserved for recalcitrant students who thought they could pull one over on him. “My dear doctor, do you think I would leave it behind for the next Poli Feines to discover? I had no choice but to destroy it. I do feel bad about desecrating such an important antiquity if that makes you feel any better.”
“No,” Mercer said miserably. “It doesn’t.”
Central African Republic
“So what do you think, Book?” Sergeant Paul Rivers asked out of the corner of his mouth.
Booker Sykes didn’t take the low-light binoculars from his eyes as he surveyed the ruined town of Kivu. “That I’m pretty lucky one of my ancestors wasn’t the fastest runner in his village. I’d hate to have been born in a shit hole like this.”
The two of them had come ahead, leaving Sergeant Bernie Cieplicki to guard their truck a few miles shy of Kivu. Although Caribe Dayce had been the greatest threat to the region, his death had done little to quell the unrest. Small bands of armed teens roamed Kivu and the surrounding villages, drunk off their asses or so stoned they could barely see. And that had made it easy for Sykes and his small team to arm themselves.
