Return (Matt Turner Series Book 3) (34 page)

Wasting no time, she boosted Alexander over the threshold, then climbed up and joined him in the prickly brush. After listening for an instant, she hauled him up and ran.

In the daylight, the house enjoyed an unhampered view of a wide hill, its peak speckled with tall, white wind turbines. Nearing dusk, she could now make out the faint silhouette against a midnight blue sky. The hilltop appeared taller than any building in New York City, but the approach hadn’t looked all that steep to her. If it proved too much, they’d walk around it, and see what’s on the other side. In her mind, everything in the other direction was far scarier than ending up lost.

As they reached one hundred yards from the house, Yulian’s voice called behind them.

“No run, ledi! Come back, ledi!”

Trudging on, she watched the uneven ground before her. The last thing they needed was for her to roll an ankle. Alexander felt to be gaining a couple pounds with each dozen steps. Soon, she’d have to put him down and have him jog with her.

“Please, ledi! Not safe! I can’t chase!”

Keep yelling, Yulian,
she thought. It was good to hear his voice grow more distant. And each time he called out reassured her that he had no intention of pulling out a gun and shooting into the darkness.

“It has the wild, ledi! Not safe! The baby with … wild!”

Safer with wild than kidnappers, comrade.

“Please come! Simba waporini, ledi!”

Lions? That can’t be true.

“Lions, Mama?”

“Not true, bubu,” she panted. “He’s kidding.”

“He sound scared … And this hurts. Can I walk?”

She set him down, taking a moment to breathe. The light from the farmhouse was a tiny square. No sign of Yulian, but dusk had now fully set in.

“I’m scared, Mama. How you know there’s no lions?”

She wished he’d stop saying it. Each time the word was spoken made it sound a fraction more possible. When was the last time she heard of someone being attacked by a wild cat? Last year? But that was in the Preserve—the National Park.

Oh, bollocks …

It suddenly struck her what lay on the other side of this hill. The highways they’d taken, the exit, right turn, left, the fork, and then on in that direction for what felt like forever. This hill was the National Park’s southern border.

You bonehead. You daft cow. “Mmm, that hill looks familiar!”

Gazing back at the little light, Yulian’s faint voice still beckoned, but she was tuning him out.

“I want to go back, Mama.”

She looked down at Alexander, his eyes ashine with stars.

She took his hand. “Yes, bubu. Let’s go back.”

Alexandria, Egypt – Present day

In light of the yellow minivan earlier parked on Grandma Bubsy’s street, Matt convinced the spirited archaeologist to let them drop her off somewhere else. After she and Joss swapped seats, Grandma Bubsy opted for her office in the Al-Labban district.

“I’ve got a poop-ton of Ministry reqs to file, anyway,” she said, turning to Joss. “Just follow the signs to the Temple/Rhakotis Village, but you’re going to turn right before we get there. I’ll tell you when.”

Matt perked up from the van’s back row. “The Temple? Rhakotis?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, and swigged from her water bottle.

He caught Joss’s curious look in the rearview mirror.

“Temple of Serapis,” he explained. “The Serapeum.”

“Correctamundo, amigo,” Grandma Bubsy said. She motioned to the high-rise buildings on the left side of the street. “If these weren’t in the way, right now you’d see a great big pillar holding up the sky. Just don’t call it ‘Pompey’s Pillar,’ for the love of Chrysler.”

“Diocletian’s Column,” Matt said just as Joss passed through an intersection.

A clear strip of sky flashed by, exposing the towering monument, only a few blocks away.

“Whup, that was it!” Grandma pointed. “Didja see it? We can stop by there, if you like. I mean … I don’t have all afternoon, but it’s really quite breathtaking.”

“Yes, please,” Matt said. “That’d be fantastic. Just a quick stop, if you really don’t mind.”

“Sure don’t,” she said. “Turn left up here, Ms. Joss.”

* * *

Joss peered up at the looming stone pillar—so much taller now that she stood right at its base—and wondered what occasion was so momentous that people decided this thing just had to be made. The nearby bronze plaque pegged its height at eighty-eight feet, and the column alone, carved from a single piece of red granite, weighed 285 tons. But the only history mentioned on the plaque (at least the section in English) said it was made in 297 AD to honor the Roman Emperor, Diocletian, for the successful repression and murders of ancient Alexandrians.

Matt knelt a short distance from her, gazing absently at the shabby apartment buildings that blocked the seaward views, as he plucked little rocks from the dirt and flicked them away.

She called to him, “Hey, you seen this thing when it was brand new?”

He kept on with the pebbles. “Nah. That went up a couple decades later … honoring the Emperor who suppressed a bunch of rebelling Alexandrians, bringing the city back under Rome’s control.”

“Oh, so is this for
the
dude? I thought his name was Antonius.”

“It is … was.” He stood up, ambling over to her. “The pillar was put up for Diocletian—a different Emperor than Antonius—who did basically the same horrible stuff as Antonius, except Diocletian was actually trying to quell a rebellion and dethrone a self-appointed Emperor named Domitianus. In Patra’s time, Emperor Antonius was only using that whole ‘savage Zenobia took over!’ thing as an excuse. He did what he did because his ego had been stabbed. Only the agony and blood of his
‘attackers’
could satisfy him. I think the Library’s destruction had a few different purposes. Punishment, of course, but also a message to other ‘uppity’ intellectuals around—this is what happens when you try to express yourself. Third, I believe he wanted to take the whole city down a few notches. Alexandria was the wealthiest, most cultured, beautiful city in the world. Nowadays, people say it was the Paris of ancient times. He wanted to put them in their place. ‘Everything you have here, everything you think is so much better than everyone else, it can all be taken away.’”

Grandma Bubsy appeared, making her way up the short hill from the visitor’s center. “My, oh my. Those facilities are
not
for the faint of heart.” Reaching the top of the rise, she paused to catch her breath, pulled off her hat, and wiped her forehead on her sleeve. “Just couldn’t wait for the office. You need to use it, Ms. Joss?”

Joss frowned and waved an
I’ll pass.

“Probably wise,” Grandma said, and peered around. “Sites like this are always a mix for me. Beautiful and inspiring, gives you a more physical sense of the history. But centuries of souvenir-takers, vandals, and everything? So much more is lost to those who actually appreciate a place than in the wars that ruined it in the first place. Depressing. That’s why I prefer my
buried
treasures.” She winked. “We ready to scoot?”

“Yeah,” Joss said. “Matt was just telling me about this emperor and why they put this up for him.”

Grandma Bubsy nodded. “He tell you how the monster ordered all the Manicheans to be burnt alive along with every one of their group’s scriptures? Cut tongues out, scourging, decapitations, you name it. A real sweetheart. I’m heading down to the lot. Don’t rush on my account … but don’t take your time either.” She smiled and started back down the hill toward the parking lot.

Joss turned to Matt. “Is that what happened to Patra and Kaleb and everyone else?”

“She’s talking about Diocletian, again, but … yeah … I don’t know about Patra yet, but it definitely didn’t end well for Kaleb. He was crucified, among other things, down by the harbor.”

Joss caught herself before
“Jesus”
slipped out.

They began following Grandma Bubsy down the hill.

“Yikes,” Joss said. “So … I guess it’s hard for me to grasp the amount of power these people had, or how much fear ruled over those people, or something. I mean, I’d think there’s a certain amount of brutality you can get away with where people stay scared and in line, or whatever, but if you go hog wild, burning half the people alive, chopping heads and stuff, it seems like you risk the people rising up.”

Matt eyed her. “If they put you in charge, you’d, what, limit public choppings to hands or limbs?”

She laughed, and raised her chin regally. “That’s right. And for my leniency, I shall be beloved.”

“In truth,” Matt said thoughtfully, “most of the texts and philosophies on war miss a vital component. People write about how to achieve victory, but what happens
after
one side has won the war? Some of them say the only way to truly win is by vanquishing the enemy so utterly that they couldn’t ever rebuild for a future attack. Less extreme folks might agree you have to break the enemy, but then immediately make peace afterward. Others suggest, ‘True victory in war can only be achieved if you never begin in the first place.’”

They passed under the plaster archway to the parking lot.

Joss asked, “And what do
you
say?”

“Me … I think the most important thing is being able to walk away from a conflict without living the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, or worrying about your friends and family’s safety. I'd maybe try to find some way to combine the two extremes.”

“Completely vanquish the enemy without ever fighting?”

Grandma Bubsy was already sitting in the van, the sliding door open wide for ventilation. She was clapping them on to rush.

“Sure,” Matt said as he walked to the passenger side. “Seems like that'd be the ideal, right?”

Joss climbed into the driver’s seat. “Right.”

“Hang a left out the driveway,” Grandma said from the second row. “Well, Mr. Matt, it’s been a privilege. You’re every bit as eccentric as I expected, and I love it. When do I get to buy you dinner and pick your brain?”

Matt chuckled. “Whenever you want, Grandma Bubsy, but
I’ll
be buying. Well … after this week, whenever you want.”

“Left at the light, then first right. I’m going to take you up on that, sir. Balbaa Village. If you haven’t been, then I insist on treating you!”

“We’ll see,” Matt said calmly, and then placed his hand on Joss’s forearm—a gentle-yet-purposeful grip. “I need you to slow down, safely but quickly, and stop up here on the right.”

Joss had no clue what he’d suddenly seen, heard, or sensed. She nodded as her fingers tightened on the steering wheel, her foot shifting to the brake. “Hang on to something, Grandma.”

“Oh, what now with you two? We’re a block away. Just one more block.”

The brakes squeaked as Joss brought the van to a full stop by the curb, her eyes darting about in search of danger. Still nothing apparent.

Matt unclipped his seatbelt and grabbed his door handle. “I’m getting out here. Grandma, please take my spot up front. Show Joss where it’s safe and legal to park, and hopefully out in the open, then please take her into your office with you. I’m sure this is nothing, but just making sure. Joss?”

She nodded confidently as he stepped out, only realizing as his door shut that her
“confidently”
was wide eyes, a too-fast head nod, and knit brow.

Grandma Bubsy climbed in front, grumbling. “You two. Why does everything have to be a thing? So nice for a bit there … Got to see the ruins, a little history, some scholarly discourse, making dinner plans, and then
plppb
.”

Joss waited for a truck to pass, then pulled back into traffic, passing Matt on the sidewalk. He walked with one hand in his shorts pocket and the other holding his dead phone at belly height—head down as one engrossed with their device.

Grandma Bubsy directed her around the block to what looked like a big shipping dock’s roll-up door. She had Joss enter a code on a keypad post in the driveway, and the door clanged and clattered as it slowly opened.

“Follow the lines to the right for the underground parking,” Grandma Bubsy said, but Joss stopped just past the door’s threshold, her eyes fixed on the mirror. Grandma gawked. “Well … what?”

“It goes down automatically?”

Grandma shrugged. “Yes. Of course!”

“Well, then I’m waiting for it to go down.”

“Ah, yes … prudent.
My bad
, as the grandkids say.”

Now they both watched the loading bay with edgy eyes, ensuring no one would slip in behind them. Finally, the door touched down on the concrete with an echoing bang and rattle. Joss proceeded down the curving ramp to the parking lot.

* * *

Chin down, but eyes aimed up before him, Matt strolled the sidewalk alongside a deteriorating apartment building. Locals chatted at a small table outside a café in the building’s ground floor. The two men glanced up at him as he passed, but didn’t skip a beat in their football discussion.

Reaching the intersection, he kept his head down. Across the street, beside another high-rise apartment building with a row of cluttered storefronts, the yellow minivan with the black stripe down the sides sat parked, facing away. Inside sat three men—two in front, and one in the second row. Backseat guy’s body seemed to be pressed oddly close to the window on the driver side, hinting toward a fourth passenger recently occupying the space beside him.

Judging only by the backs of heads, the minivan crew’s attention appeared split between their respective laps, and the large, nondescript building across the street: the building Grandma Bubsy had pointed out as her office. Rising three stories, and stretching out the full length of the block, its clean, ground-floor walls bore no windows, and only one pair of tinted glass doors stood all the way down the street. Offices on floors two and three enjoyed no shortage of windows, with a few tilted open on the second level. With such a narrow road below, someone would have to stand close to one of the windows to be visible from street level.

The light changed, and Matt proceeded to cross.