David Gibbins - The Tiger warrior

“What do they know about it?” Costas asked. “The local people, I mean?”

“It’s impossible to tell. There might be some residual memory of their ancestry. But they’re desperately poor, and buying into the Roman theory might be a ticket to tourist dollars.”

Katya spoke. “Anywhere along the Silk Route you could have genetic input from the west-Persian, Sogdian, Bactrian, Indian and yes, Greek and Roman-but with input going as far back as the early Neolithic, even to Indo-Europeans who came this far. You just couldn’t be certain.”

Jack nodded. “DNA studies have been carried out and are pretty inconclusive. And the whole idea’s based on a Chinese misapprehension about the Romans, that they were blue-eyed, blond-haired giants. Ironically, Roman legionaries from the heartland of Italy would have had more in common with the physiognomy of Han Chinese warriors-short, stocky, dark-haired, brown-eyed. What the Chinese were imagining is much closer to the Celtic or Nordic type. Of course, by the time of Julius Caesar and Crassus, there were plenty of men like that in the legions, Celts from northern Italy, Gauls, even Britons. The Huns weren’t the only ones to employ mercenaries in their armies.”

“What’s your gut instinct?” Costas said.

Jack pursed his lips. In the distance he could see a farmer hacking at the ground, his implement bouncing off the rock-hard surface. Beyond him the mountains rose like crumpled paper, the folds and valleys in dark shadow. “My gut instinct,” he replied. “This place would have been more fertile in antiquity, a more viable agricultural settlement, but always demanding, not a place of choice. My gut instinct is that prisoners of war could have been settled here.”

Rebecca came over and stood in front of them. She had stripped off her fleece to reveal a gray T-shirt with the letters USMC stenciled across the front.

“You seem to have made some new friends,” Jack said.

Costas inspected the shirt, nodding his approval. “Hoo-ah,” he said.

“Hoo-ah,” Rebecca replied, high-fiving him. Jack rolled his eyes. She flopped down on the low wall beside him and took off her cap, wiping her forehead. “It’s deuced hot,” she said.

Jack turned to her in astonishment. “What did you just say?”

“I said it’s deuced hot.” She looked at him sheepishly. “That’s what John Howard would have said. I read it in a letter you have he wrote to his wife, from the jungle. When their little boy was ill. It was one of his favorite expressions. I’ve been thinking about him a lot. He so much wanted to be with them, but couldn’t. I hope he found them in the end.”

Jack put his arm around her and smiled. He remembered the lapis lazuli mine, the body. For a moment he saw them, Howard and Wauchope, standing together, not old men in ragged sheepskins but young officers, in white helmets and khaki tunics with telescopes and maps, staring off toward the horizon. He held Rebecca tight and then took his arm away. “You’ve just been on the cellphone to Bishkek, haven’t you? How’s Pradesh?”

“He’s good.” Rebecca suddenly looked downcast. “Altamaty and I went to see him at the U.S. medical complex at Bishkek just before we flew out here. The bullet missed everything vital. But without the first aid he would have bled to death. He’s grateful to you for saving his life.”

“Costas did the triage. And I hardly saved him. I was the one who put him in danger.”

“The army doctor said that if it had been an explosive bullet or a fifty-caliber Browning round, he’d have been dead on impact. He said that when the bullet hit Pradesh it was subsonic and must have been fired from an incredible distance, apparently from an old rifle. It was only one inch from the heart. He’d never seen anything like it.”

“And he’ll never see it again,” Costas murmured.

“How’s his archaeology reading getting on?” Jack said.

“He’s lapping it up. He wants more. He said he was already seeing the Roman finds from Arikamedu in a new way, as evidence of trade, society, beliefs, Roman, Egyptian, Indian, his own history. He’s itching to get back there.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Jack murmured.

“And Altamaty?” Jack glanced at Katya.

“He’s staying with Pradesh until they fly him out. Pradesh is trying to teach him English. They get on like a house on fire. Altamaty even brought him a doggie bag of mutton stew. He says it’ll cure anything.”

Costas cleared his throat. “Well, Jack. Maybe you’d like to join them. Maybe you’d like to eat some more sheep’s lip.”

Rebecca looked incredulous. “What?”

“It’s true,” Costas said. “In Kyrgyzstan, when we first met Altamaty. He ate sheep’s lip. Your dad ate sheep’s lip.”

“Oh my God.”

“I had to,” Jack protested. “If I hadn’t, it would have been deeply offensive. Altamaty would never have spoken to me again.”

“I thought you hated mutton.”

“It’s the only food I can’t eat.”

“Couldn’t you have chosen some other bit? Did it have to be, like, lip?”

“I had no choice.” He eyed Katya despairingly. “It had to be lip.”

“I have got,” Rebecca said quietly, “the grossest dad. Ever.”

Jack grinned. “We need to show Pradesh and Altamaty the ropes. A crash course at the IMU campus, and some onboard experience with our research vessels. I need to talk to the commandant of the Madras Engineering Group to arrange a secondment. Pradesh’ll need recuperation leave anyway and the campus in Cornwall is perfect. As for Altamaty, his training can be part of our funding for the underwater work at Issyk-Kul and the petroglyph research project. We can put temporary staff there while he’s away.”

“That would be wonderful,” Katya murmured. “The funding.”

“It’s what I promised,” Jack replied. “You may well find me back up there again soon.”

“If Altamaty’s away, Katya will definitely need company,” Rebecca said. Costas coughed, and Rebecca continued. “When Costas finally teaches me to dive, in Hawaii, which he’s promised to, I’m going to teach Altamaty all the English words for the equipment so he can order everything he needs from the IMU technical people without having to go through Costas. I told him Costas is a great guy, but usually he’s obsessed with some new submersible or whatever, and if Altamaty wants stuff he should come to me.” She leaned over and gave Costas a doe-eyed look.

“Good to see you’re on top of things, Rebecca,” Jack replied, raising his eyes at Costas.

“And the trouble with you, Dad, is that you hop from one adventure to the next. That’s what Hiemy told me. You know, back in Egypt. He says that when he finds something, he sticks with it, teases out every possible scrap of information from the site. Obsessively.”

“Tell me about it,” Costas muttered.

“He says that he, Professor Hiebermeyer, is the true archaeologist. He said that when he found those fragments of pottery with the Periplus on them, he deliberately put them aside, didn’t allow himself to get ex cited.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. “He was on the phone to me in about ten seconds. You remember, Costas? He even came to visit us when we were digging up Istanbul harbor looking for the Jewish menorah. I was the one who was too busy. Sticking with my project.”

“He said that if he hadn’t spent months painstakingly excavating that Roman house by the Red Sea, this whole adventure would never have taken off He said he always did the real work while you were off searching for the Holy Grail or something. He said it was like Star Trek, you’d gone over to the dark side. I said it was Star Wars, not Star Trek. I don’t think he’d ever seen either of them. He said you’d become a treasure hunter, and he was only saying this because you still have potential, and it’s for your own good.”