Riddle Of The Diamond Dove (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 4) Read online

  Cassie felt unaccountably irritated by Erik’s fascination with somebody named Amaka. She tried to hide her annoyance but her scowl caused the Paladin to cock an eyebrow in amusement. “Amaka and I started out as tyros at the same time,” he explained. “We went through orientation training together.”

  “I know she would welcome a call from her old chum,” Oluoma remarked and then turned abruptly toward Cassie. “And you!” she exclaimed, drawing Cassie into an enthusiastic embrace. “I have been looking forward to meeting our new Pythia face-to-face. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend your investiture ceremony last month.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you too,” Cassie replied uncertainly. “Are you the trove-keeper here?”

  “Forgive my manners.” Their contact chuckled. “My name is Oluoma Okoli. I am working with a task force on special assignment in the area but since I’m a native of Nigeria I volunteered to be your guide while you’re in the country.”

  Cassie noticed that the woman’s accent was a mixture of exotic West African and flat American English which implied she had spent a good deal of time in the States.

  Oluoma placed an arm around Cassie’s shoulder. “Poor dear, you look very tired. Such dark circles under your eyes.”

  “That’s really considerate of you to notice,” Cassie said pointedly for Erik’s benefit. “I don’t sleep well on planes.”

  “Nor do I,” their contact agreed. “Come, we’ll go straight to your hotel and get you checked in. It will be an all-day trip to the monoliths tomorrow so you’ll need your rest.”

  Shepherding her charges into the Toyota, she sped away from the curb and took the exit that led to the center of town.

  From what Cassie could see out the car window, Calabar seemed like a prosperous modern city. The streets were bustling with cars, mopeds and trucks. The sidewalks were thick with pedestrians who spilled out into the road, causing Oluoma to slap on the brakes repeatedly.

  “There sure is a lot of traffic for this time of day,” the Pythia ventured.

  Much to her surprise, Oluoma threw back her head and laughed. “You consider this a lot of traffic? My dear young lady, you should try driving in Lagos and then talk to me about the traffic.”

  “Lagos?” Cassie repeated.

  “It’s the largest city in Nigeria,” Griffin offered from the back seat. “And Nigeria is the most heavily-populated country in all of Africa. I believe Lagos alone accounts for fifteen million people.”

  “That’s one big town,” Cassie remarked.

  “It isn’t actually,” the Scrivener retorted. “In terms of land mass, Lagos isn’t nearly big enough to accommodate that many people.”

  “The traffic jams are infamous,” Oluoma said. “People think nothing of sitting in their cars for three hours or more to get anywhere. The capital, Abuja, is much nicer. Of course, Calabar is the nicest of all.” She smiled. “I may be slightly biased since I was born right here in Cross River State. People say it is the most beautiful part of Nigeria.”

  After several more minor traffic snarls, the Arkana group managed to arrive at the upscale hotel which Maddie had booked for them. Like many of the other buildings they had passed, compound walls surrounded the structure. It was a one-story U-shaped building framed by palm trees. A fountain splashed exuberantly from the center of the tiled courtyard where Oluoma parked her car.

  She took charge of checking them in and then left them to get settled, cautioning them that she would return to collect them at eight sharp the following morning. “I will enjoy showing you the Ikom monoliths,” she said in parting. “I’m quite sure you’ve never seen anything like them before.”

  Since by now Cassie had spent the better part of a year examining boulders, she decided to reserve judgment. After Oluoma left, she told her teammates, “Don’t anybody wake me til it’s time to stare at some more rocks.”

  Chapter 14—Who’s Who?

  Leroy Hunt jammed his thumb into the elevator call button for the third time. It was already lit but he thought he’d give it another poke since he’d been waiting for that blasted contraption since Hector was a pup. He was standing in the lobby of a high rise apartment building which he’d visited one night about a year before.

  Leroy thought back to the chain of events that first brought him to this place. It all started when Miz Sybil, the antique store lady, met with her unfortunate accident. She wouldn’t tell him where she hid the preacher’s stone key. Then she tripped, bumped her head and went to glory. After that, Leroy started tailing her little sister Cassie which led him to a flat on the fourth floor of this very building. That was where he nicked the key that had caused all his misadventures since.

  Leroy reasoned that since the preacher’s runaway wife had got enough information to find her way to Miz Sybil’s antique shop, she might have got a line on Miss Cassie’s apartment too. Of course, Miss Cassie wouldn’t have been here since she met with an unfortunate accident of her own on the island of Crete. All the same, he figured to go upstairs and ask around. Maybe somebody had seen something. He pushed the elevator button again. This time he could hear gears grinding which meant it was on its way down.

  As he waited, a tiny blue-haired lady with a paper sack of groceries came to stand beside him.

  “Afternoon, ma’am.” He tipped his hat and smiled down at her. His momma had taught him to always be polite.

  She squinted up at him through her bifocals. “Good afternoon.”

  At that moment, the elevator doors opened.

  “After you, ma’am.” He held the door for her.

  “Oh, thank you very much, young man.” She toddled inside and he followed.

  “Could you press ‘4’ for me?” she asked.

  “I’d be glad to.” Leroy complied.

  Wasn’t the fourth floor his destination too? He got an idea. He followed her out when the doors opened again and waited to see which apartment she would head for. Sure enough, it was right next to the one where Miss Cassie used to live.

  “Ma’am, could I ask you a question?”

  She stopped fiddling with her keys for a minute. “Yes?”

  “Well, I’m lookin’ for a little gal who might of showed up here some months back. She’s a runaway and her folks are real worried about her.” He fished in his jacket pocket and produced Hannah’s scared rabbit wedding photo.

  “Now let me see.” The old woman took the photo and adjusted her glasses.

  “Why don’t I hold that for you, ma’am?” Leroy hoisted the grocery bag out of her arms. He wondered if she was packing a ten pound ham in that sack. It had to weigh as much as she did.

  “Oh, thank you.” This time she smiled. “That’s very thoughtful.” She turned her attention back to the photo and peered at it for several seconds. “Yes, I do believe I’ve seen her before. Of course, her hair wasn’t braided like it is here but I’m sure it’s the same girl.”

  Leroy inwardly danced a jig. “Well now, ain’t that somethin’. Do you recollect anything particular about when you saw her?”

  “I certainly do.” The woman sounded vexed. “She was sitting on the floor right next to my neighbor’s door. I thought she was a vagrant. We don’t get that sort of thing in this neighborhood. I asked her what she was doing there. She said she was waiting for someone named ‘Cassie’.”

  “Ain’t that your neighbor’s name, ma’am?” Leroy asked cautiously.

  “My neighbor’s name was Sybil. That is, she was my neighbor until that horrible robbery at her store where she was murdered.”

  Leroy chafed inwardly at her phrasing. Everybody kept tossing around that word “murder” but the fact was Miz Sybil died of natural causes. A terminal case of the clumsies. It was none of his doing.

  The old lady was still talking. “But I recall that Sybil did have a younger sister named Cassie. I never saw her. I suppose she must have taken over the lease.”

  “And did our little runaway find Miss Cassie at home?” Leroy nudged the conversation
forward.

  The old woman shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea. Somebody arrived later because I heard two voices in the hall. This was all a long time ago.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Maybe last October?”

  “I think so,” the woman agreed vaguely. She seemed distracted by another idea. “Something strange happened right after that.”

  Leroy’s ears perked up but he didn’t rush her, fearing she might lose her train of thought.

  “It must have been about a week after I saw the girl in the hall. That’s when the movers came.”

  “Movers?” Leroy was puzzled now too.

  “A week afterward. I never saw the person who was moving out but there was a truck and it whisked all Sybil’s things away.”

  This bit of news took Hunt by surprise.

  “Is anybody living in that flat now?” he asked.

  The old woman shook her head. “No, it’s been vacant but you could check with the building manager. He’s got an office in the lobby.”

  “Why thank you kindly, ma’am. I believe I’ll do that.” He helped her with her keys and gave her back her groceries.

  “And you never saw the gal in the photo again?”

  “No, never.”

  Hunt tipped his hat and let her go on her way.

  ***

  The cowboy opted to take the stairs down instead of waiting for the elevator again. He crossed the lobby and made straight for a black painted door which was partially open. It revealed a squat, dark-haired man whose eyebrows met in the middle. He was hunched over a computer in fierce concentration.

  Leroy tapped lightly on the door.

  The building manager looked up at him. “Yeah?” he asked belligerently. Apparently he didn’t like to be interrupted.

  Hunt remained standing in the doorway. “I wonder if you might remember the party who moved out of apartment 4C last fall?”

  The man stared at him in disbelief. “You gotta be kidding me!”

  “No, sir, I ain’t.” Leroy felt an urge to haul that cracker up by his collar and teach him some manners. Of course it would be hard to get any useful info out of him through a crushed windpipe. “Might of been a short gal, dark hair. Went by the name of Cassie Forsythe?”

  After giving him a dirty look, the manager turned in his swivel chair and scooted over to a filing cabinet in the corner. He flipped through a row of manila folders and finally pulled one from the drawer. Laying it flat on his desk, he studied it before shifting his attention back to the cowboy.

  “My records say that the lease to 4C was transferred from Sybil Forsythe after her decease to her sister Cassie. It looks like this Cassie paid the last month’s rent in October and moved out.”

  “You got any particular memory of that transaction?” Hunt asked, already knowing the answer. “It would of been a little brunette gal who paid you.”

  The manager rolled his eyes. “It might have been a brunette girl. It might have been a little green space alien. I don’t remember. Buddy, this building has a hundred apartment units. I don’t know any of the tenants from Adam. All I care about is that I got my money. It says so right in the paperwork. End of story.” He flipped the manila folder closed with a loud slap.

  Leroy wordlessly tipped the brim of his hat, turned on his heel and left the building. Instead of finding some answers, all he’d gotten for his trouble was a skull full of questions. He climbed in his truck and pulled away from the curb, intent on finding the nearest watering hole where he could mull over the day’s events. By his reckoning, Miss Cassie would have been dead for months before little Hannah came knocking on her door. So who did the gal meet when she got here? And who paid the building manager off? Most important of all, who arranged to have Miz Sybil’s things carted away? All those “who’s” were making more noise in his head than a nest of barn owls. One thing he knew for sure. It would take some serious drinking to sort this mess out.

  Chapter 15—Sitting Pretty

  Much to her teammates’ amazement, Cassie strolled into the hotel dining room the next morning appearing rested and cheerful. Erik’s look of relief told Cassie that he had braced himself for another day of moody complaints. After eating a hearty breakfast, the trio wandered to the hotel lobby where they waited for Oluoma’s return.

  Their guide bustled through the entrance punctually at eight o’clock and greeted them all with a broad smile. Cassie noted that Oluoma was wearing a cotton blouson in a bright fuschia and white print over a long black skirt. Her feet were clad in sandals. Given the heat and humidity, this seemed a wise decision but the rest of her attire caused the Pythia to ask, “Will you be comfortable hiking in that outfit?”

  Oluoma gave her a dubious glance. “Hiking? No, no. There will be no hiking. The monoliths are practically in the middle of town.”

  “Well, that’s a first,” Cassie murmured as the team filed out of the hotel and back into Oluoma’s car.

  In less than ten minutes, they were out of the traffic in Calabar and moving quickly down a blacktop country road. At least in the United States it would have been called a country road. In Nigeria, it was a major highway.

  Cassie sat up front with Oluoma while the men occupied the back seat. Since the trip to the little village of Alok would take a while, Cassie decided to pass the time by learning more about Oluoma’s work. Turning to face their guide, she asked, “So what’s your special assignment in Nigeria about?”

  Oluoma shrugged briefly at the question. “It’s very much like the general mission of the Arkana—recovering the lost record of civilization before the rise of the overlords—but this continent presents a special challenge. The history of sub-Saharan Africa has been sadly neglected. Everybody knows what happened in Egypt because so much has been written about it. But what about the rest of the continent? There are gaping holes in our knowledge of overlord infiltration of the interior. It is my task, and that of my associates, to fill in the blanks. Africa, in its original state, was wholly matristic. You have only to look at the way the San live today to see what the entire continent was like thousands of years ago but something happened to change that way of life.”

  “Don’t tell me.” Cassie said archly. “It was the Kurgans, right?”

  “Actually, it wasn’t,” Griffin piped up from the back seat. “They weren’t the only purveyors of overlord ideology.”

  “They weren’t?” Cassie swiveled around to stare at him.

  “No. In the case of Africa, the overlords would have been Semitic.”

  “You’re kidding!” The Pythia was aghast. “You mean Jewish people came to Africa and oppressed the natives?”

  “Semitic doesn’t only mean Jewish, toots.” Erik joined the conversation. “It’s a term that covers the language of a whole bunch of different groups. Everybody who used to live in the Middle and Near East would be considered Semitic. Arabs, Hebrews, people from southeastern Turkey, Assyrians, and lots of extinct tribes.”

  “But why would they travel all the way to Africa to bother the people here?” the Pythia asked. “Why not start by harassing their neighbors?”

  “Because of desiccation,” Griffin said.

  “Oh, that.” Cassie commented knowingly. “You mean the landscape dried out just like what happened to the Russian steppes around five thousand years ago.”

  The Scrivener nodded. “Precisely the same as the Russian steppes and at approximately the same time as well. The Sahara desert wasn’t always a desert. There were lakes and rivers and much of it was verdant grassland where nomads could graze their livestock. This was also true of the Arabian Peninsula. Beneath the desert there lies evidence of river beds, even dams and irrigation canals—all covered with sand now. A devastating climate shift swept from the western Sahara all the way through Arabia to central Asia, leaving nothing but dust in its wake.”

  “So I guess the Semites ended up acting the same as the Kurgans,” Cassie observed.

  “Yup,” Erik concurred. “Desperate times call for desperate me
asures. Or in their case, theft and murder of anybody who had anything they could steal. Too bad it didn’t stop when they finally got to greener pastures but they never seemed to get over it. All overlord cultures are fueled by fear. Fear of not having enough—ever. So even after the nomads invaded richer territories, they kept on fighting amongst themselves for more land, more wealth, more slaves, more...” He paused uncomfortably. “More women to produce heirs to carry on their bloodlines.”

  “And patriarchy was born,” Griffin commented softly.

  Cassie sighed and glanced out the car window. “Same old, same old,” she murmured to herself. High grey clouds were rolling across the sun. The air was heavy with the promise of an afternoon shower.

  Oluoma picked up the narrative. “Overlord patriarchy evolved in two separate regions. You have the Kurgans who left the steppes and moved northwest to invade Old Europe. And then you have the Semites who moved southwest to invade northern and coastal Africa. Of course, these would-be overlords honed their battle skills against one another in their increasingly inhospitable homeland centuries before they spread out to pillage other areas.”

  “The Semites and the Kurgans did cross paths and swords occasionally,” Griffin remarked. “For example, they clashed with each other over domination of Mesopotamia. The Kurgans also made inroads into Egypt and crowned themselves its pharaohs, but for the most part, incursions into Africa were perpetrated by Semites.”

  “No matter who was responsible for the pilfering, the result is still the same,” Cassie said. “You have a bunch of peaceful gatherer-hunters or farmers getting preyed on by greedy hordes of nomads.”

  “That is correct,” Oluoma agreed. “Some scholars insist that the influx of foreigners was a friendly migration of entire tribes. However, we in the Arkana disagree. Overlords, whether Semite or Kurgan, traveled in predatory male packs.”

  “How to you know that?” Cassie asked.

  “The DNA studies bear out that theory,” Griffin answered. “In Africa, the maternal DNA is all indigenous whereas some of the male DNA is Semitic.”