The blonde man looked up. “They’re coming out.”

  “Let’s hurry,” the leader said.

  They stashed their gear back in their suitcases and walked down the stairs from the room they had rented to keep an eye on Bulut’s store and apartment. There were two hotels on that road, both offering a view of the store. One of the rooms with a view over the street had been vacant, but even if it hadn’t been vacant, the leader would have found a way to make it vacant.

  The man slid into the street, and then the leader himself took the wheel.

  “I’m the driver,” one of the men protested.

  “Not for now,” the leader said as another man slid into the back seat. “Did you get that tracking device on the car?” the leader asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll stay far enough back so they don’t see us.”

  “What’s the plan?” the man asked. “Did you see anything?”

  The leader shrugged one musclebound shoulder. “The curtains were shut most of the time. For now, we’ll follow them.”

  “Maybe they have the scroll in their possession,” the man continued. “Should we ambush them?”

  The leader took one hand off the wheel to rub his forehead. He would have to complain about these men. Surely Vortex could have found better men than these. Pack of idiots!

  “No, because we don’t know if they have the scroll for sure,” he said with forced patience. “And no one shoots unless on my orders. Understood?”

  The men all answered in the affirmative, and quickly.

  “I’ll know soon enough if they have the scroll. But for now, we’ll follow them at a distance.”

  The leader gripped the wheel with both hands. It did look as though the RHTF agents were heading back to the airport. If they had the scroll, then they would go to the airport. The only other reason they would go to the airport was that Eymen had hidden the scroll far away. But why would he do such a thing? Surely there were plenty of good hiding places around Selcuk to hide the scroll. It didn’t make sense.

  No, it looked to him as though they did have the scroll in their possession. And then he would have to arrange an accident for the group.

  First, he would wait for confirmation.

  11

  SELCUK

  “What is it?” Thatcher asked as soon as they were in the car.

  They had gone out the back door, through some alleys, and found their way to the car. Anyone watching the store entrance would not know they’d left. They had waited until a man and a woman had materialized out of nowhere and escorted the widow out the back door.

  The agents had arrived soon after Riley made a call. Abigail realized they had been nearby the whole time. She noticed that Ellis and Thatcher both looked irritated, no doubt as they too had been unaware of the other agents’ presence.

  Before Abigail could speak, Riley said to Ellis, “Head back to Izmir while we figure this out.” He nodded to Abigail to proceed.

  “It’s a quote, two verses in Revelation Chapter Two,” Abigail said. “The note quoted an English translation:

  ‘And to the angel of the church in Pergamon write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword.

  I know where you live, where Satan’s throne is.’”

  “It doesn’t mean a thing!” Ellis snapped.

  Abigail took a deep breath and pushed on. “And there’s more. He wrote ‘Revelation 3:18’ under it, but he didn’t quote that verse.”

  Riley turned to Abigail and lifted one eyebrow. “Abigail, is Satan’s throne a reference to a specific location?”

  “Satan’s throne is likely a reference to the Altar of Zeus. The podium is still in Pergamon today, but the altar is in the Pergamon Museum.”

  “So we head to Pergamon?” Thatcher asked.

  Abigail shook her head. “The Pergamon Museum is in Berlin.”

  Ellis grunted. “Could it mean anything else?”

  Abigail thought for a moment. “Pergamon was the cult center of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. The Greeks described him as a mighty miracle worker. Still, a reference to Asclepius would be too obscure in the context. The consensus among Biblical scholars is that the throne of Satan is a reference to the Altar of Zeus, so it would make sense that Bulut followed this line of reasoning.”

  “Surely Bulut didn’t hide the scroll in a museum in Berlin,” Ellis continued in more reasonable tones, “and it seems just as unlikely that he dug a hole under the podium in Pergamon and buried it there. The note may be a clue, but it’s not an obvious clue. So do we go to Pergamon or Berlin?”

  “We can’t go to Berlin,” Abigail said. “The Pergamon Exhibit has been closed for years and won’t be opened for a few more years yet.”

  “And it doesn’t make sense to go to Pergamon,” Riley agreed, “at least not yet. Abigail, tell us everything you know about the Altar of Zeus.”

  Why is it so hard? Abigail thought. The clue should surely be more obvious than this. Aloud she said, “We’re forgetting the other clue: Revelation 13:18.”

  Riley was already searching on his phone before Abigail finished talking. He read the verse aloud.

  “‘This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.’”

  He turned to Abigail. “Does that make sense?”

  Abigail nodded slowly. “There are some nuances in the original Greek, but all that aside, I think this clue refers to a person. The two Scriptures have to be linked.”

  Ellis made a strangled sound at the back of his throat. “A Satanist? You want us to look for a Satanist?”

  “Of course not!” Abigail said. “I’m just saying that the second clue suggests it’s a person.”

  Thatcher piped up. “Or maybe the clue is the number 666? An address in Pergamon?”

  “Pergamon is now Pergamum. The Pergamon of the Book of Revelation is no longer standing,” Abigail told him. “It’s all ancient ruins now. Possibly the clue is to a street number, 666, but that would be too obvious.”

  Ellis snorted, drawing Riley’s ire.

  “Drop the attitude, Ellis!” he said firmly. “Can you do any better? If you have a theory, maybe you should speak up now.”

  Abigail shot Riley a grateful look. It was hard to concentrate under circumstances such as these and Ellis’s continual attitude certainly did not help matters. She considered for a moment before speaking. “Maybe there are two clues in Revelation Chapter Two: the sword and the Altar of Zeus. Riley, can I have that iPad?”

  “I don’t know if this is it, but it certainly fits,” she said after several minutes. “There’s a knife shop in Pergamon Street, Selcuk. The name of the knife shop is Pergamon Blades.”

  No one spoke for a moment. Abigail thought she had better say something else. “What if we are meant to contact a person rather than find a buried clue or read an inscription or the like? Nehir said the copper scroll had been in the family for centuries. It stands to reason that more than one person would be entrusted to protect it.”

  Thatcher craned his neck in the passenger seat and turned to look at Abigail. “You mean like a secret society? A secret society entrusted with keeping the copper scroll safe?”

  Abigail shrugged. “I don’t know about a secret society as such; I was thinking more of a group of men entrusted to guard the scroll. Maybe the scroll is being hidden by someone in the Pergamon Blades knife shop.”

  This time Riley was quick to speak. “It does make sense,” he said. “If Eymen knew there was a clue or even the scroll itself in Berlin, he wouldn’t have left that piece of paper. As it is, the clues he left do tend to suggest what Abigail is saying. It won’t hurt to look. Turn the car around, Ellis.”

  Abigail was surprised Ellis did not object. After a moment, Riley leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder. “Actually, drive to the airport. We’ll swap cars just in case someone’s tracking this one.”

  “If we go to the knife shop, how do we make the person trust us?” Abigail said. “If his family’s been guarding the copper scroll for generations, why would he hand it over now?”

  “For the same reason Eymen’s widow handed over a clue,” Riley said. “Others are on the track of it now, and it can’t fall into the wrong hands. Obviously, Eymen thought they no longer had sufficient resources to guard the scroll.”

  Abigail’s head was spinning. Was she right about that clue? Would it even be worth going to Pergamum and having a look around the Altar of Zeus there? She thought not. What clue could possibly be there? Any graffiti would have been removed by now and people were hardly likely to leave a clue buried under something. No, the more she thought about it, the more she thought she was right.

  Her stomach rumbled loudly and she wondered when government agents ever found time to eat.

  “We’ll eat soon,” Riley said to nobody in particular.

  Abigail was relieved that Ellis hired a new car quickly, and soon afterward, stopped the car in a busy street filled with cafés.

  They all piled out and followed Riley into a modern yet cozy café. The marble floors screamed expense. The walls were rendered white, and the unusually shaped ceiling lights cast shadows reminding Abigail of a spaceship. The chairs were yellow, but a red cloth was draped over the back of each chair.

  The menu was in English as well as Turkish. Abigail was surprised to see it was a pizza restaurant. Nothing else was on the menu, simply pizzas with seafood, all types of meat including smoked tongue—Abigail was going to avoid that one—pizzas with cheese only, pizzas with vegetables, and even sweet pizzas.

  Abigail realized they had chosen a table at the back of the room so they could see outside the window. She noticed all three men glanced surreptitiously out the window from time to time and she was certain Riley kept the road outside in his peripheral vision at all times.

  The men ate quickly. Abigail was a slow eater, so did her best to eat faster.

  As soon as they were back in the car, Riley said, “The knife shop is next to a Turkish delight shop and a spice shop. We’ll go into every shop on that street and stay in each one for several minutes, to confuse anyone who’s following us.”

  Ellis cracked his knuckles. “And if Abigail’s right and this is the person Bulut wanted us to contact, then he might not have the scroll in his possession. He might simply have another clue.”

  Abigail had been thinking that, but she hoped it wasn’t true. Despite the fact she had always planned to spend time in Turkey, she had planned it to be on vacation and at a leisurely pace, not running around looking for clues leading to an ancient copper scroll with assassins hard on her tail. Her stomach churned and she wished she hadn’t eaten so quickly. She reached for the bottle of water at her feet and took a few slow sips.

  Soon they were driving down the winding streets of Selcuk with Thatcher navigating. Ellis parked the car outside a rug store and they all got out. Abigail did her best to act like a tourist, staring in every window. The first shop they went into was the spice shop.

  It smelled delightful. Abigail almost forgot the real reason she was there and looked at the rows of bottles on wooden shelves.

  Abigail turned to look at some pink Turkish tea crystals and did a double-take at a man looking on the shelves by the front window. Was he following them? He looked like a man she had seen at the airport earlier when they were getting a different hire car. She quietly pointed him out to Riley.

  “Stay here until I get back,” he whispered. His breath was warm against her ear, sending little shivers of electricity down her spine. She did her best to turn her attention to the rows of spices: cardamom, turmeric, and fenugreek.

  Before long, Riley was back at her side. “He’s a local man,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He patted her back briefly. “Don’t be sorry. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Just between us, I don’t think we’ve been followed.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” Abigail said, wondering why Riley didn’t sound pleased.

  He shook his head ever so slightly. “If we not being followed, it means they know exactly what we’re doing.”

  She was about to ask him to clarify when Ellis walked over to them. “Turkish delight next?”

  They walked into the Turkish delight shop which doubled as a little café. “Maybe we should sit here and look over the street at the locals, to take in the local culture,” Riley said.

  Everyone knew what he meant. They sat down in a booth. Abigail sat next to Riley, who this time had the window seat. Riley ordered for her—Turkish coffee, a small glass of peppermint, and a glass of water as well as some Turkish delight.

  “Drink the water first,” Riley suggested. “The Turkish coffee is very thick and strong, and the water makes it taste better. It’s healthier that way too.”

  “And the peppermint?”

  Riley looked confused. “I have no idea, only that it’s traditional to drink it with Turkish coffee, or it was when I first started coming to Turkey. It’s thick and sugary.”

  Abigail had read about this and was keen to try it. The Turkish delight melted in her mouth. It was nothing like the Turkish delight she’d had back home. For a moment, she almost forgot the urgency of her problems. She stared out the window but didn’t see anybody suspicious. Then again, what would someone suspicious look like? Agents would be too well trained to look like mercenaries—they would blend with the locals. Maybe she was looking at a Vortex agent right now. She shuddered at the thought.

  Soon the pleasant divergence was over and they walked next door into the knife shop. A bell rang as they walked inside. The man behind the counter looked up, seemingly startled to see them.

  “Are you the owner?” Riley asked him.

  “This store was my great-grandfather’s,” the man said. “It’s been here for years.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have time to beat about the bush,” Riley said. “We’ve come straight from Eymen Bulut’s house.”

  A look of fear and something else that Abigail could not identify passed across the man’s face.

  “Eymen’s dead,” he spat.

  “Yes.”

  Riley nodded to Abigail so she supposed she was to mention Jason. “I’m an academic and Professor Jason Hobbs was a good friend of mine,” she told the man. “Eymen Bulut was to meet my friend, Jason, but somebody impersonated him. At the time of the meeting, Jason had already been murdered at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. He was there researching a copper scroll.”

  The man narrowed his eyes. “The Dead Sea Scrolls.”

  Abigail knew he was trying to throw them off the track or maybe test her to see what she knew.

  She shook her head. “No, not 3Q15. This copper scroll was Lydian.” She pulled up the photo of her with Jason Hobbs on her phone once more and showed it to the man.

  He took her phone and stared at the image. “I am giving a lecture on Lydia’s relations with the Iron Age Greeks next week,” she said. “Jason Hobbs was doing some research in the same area. That led him to the copper scroll that told of the treasure of Croesus. I think that’s why he was murdered in Oxford.”

  The man handed her phone back and she immediately searched for the conference website. She handed the phone back to the man. “You can see I am who I say I am. I’m giving that lecture next week. Whoever killed Eymen Bulut impersonated my friend, Jason. We’re sure of it. Mr. Bulut thought he was meeting Jason, but Jason had already been murdered in England.”

  She could not help the tear that formed in the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. She saw that the man noticed it too. “And who are these men?” he asked her.

  “They’re helping me,” she said. “We can’t let the copper scroll fall into the wrong hands, and mercenaries are already after it. Dangerous mercenaries killed Jason and killed your friend, Eymen. They’re after the scroll so they can fund terrorist activities with the treasure.”

  “And what of Nehir Bulut?”

  “We got her to safety,” Riley said. “She was in danger from the mercenaries.”

  The man regarded them with fresh interest. “And are you certain you could keep the scroll safe?” He addressed the question to Abigail.

  “I’ll guarantee I will do my best to stop it from falling into the wrong hands,” she said.

  Silence hung in the air for what seemed to Abigail like an age. She wondered if the man believed them.

  Finally, he spoke. “Eymen said it was no longer safe for us to keep the scroll,” he said. “He did want to give it to Professor Hobbs.”

  Abigail caught her breath. So she was right after all. “Do you have it?” she asked breathlessly.

  “I do not,” he said. “I’m just the keeper of a clue, I’m afraid. Maybe this clue will lead you to the scroll itself. Maybe it will lead to another clue.”

  Abigail could not resist a question. “So are you in some sort of secret society, protecting the scroll?”

  The man laughed, but it wasn’t a laugh of derision. “No, nothing like that,” he said. “You’ve been watching too many American movies. No, Eymen and I were friends, and I have the next clue, but I don’t know where it will lead. This is all I know.” As if for emphasis, he added, “Eymen and I knew each other, but we didn’t know anyone else who was involved. Eymen had the fake scroll, but I have nothing.”

  “Do you want our protection too?” Riley said. “They’ll be coming after you. They could come for you today. Maybe even within the hour.”

  The man shook his head. “I can disappear. Some of my trade is not necessarily legal, if you get my meaning.”

  Abigail didn’t get his meaning, but she wasn’t about to comment. “I’ll get you what you need,” the man said before disappearing through a back door.

  After he was gone a few moments, Abigail wondered if he’d slipped outside and made a run for it, but he returned presently. He handed her an envelope.