The man quickly bowed, then departed. He returned promptly and dropped a rusty bucket at Lourds’ feet.

Lourds couldn’t believe it. ‘Surely you’re jesting.’

‘You can use the bucket or not,’ the leader said. ‘The choice is yours.’

‘I’m going to need to stand up.’

The man nodded. One of the others untied the ropes in a simple movement. Lourds felt even more foolish when the man made it look so easy. His hands and forearms stung as blood rushed back into them.

Lourds looked at the woman. ‘I would prefer it if you turned your back.’

‘You’re modest?’ The woman raised her eyebrows sceptically. ‘After that moment we shared in the alley?’

Lourds wasn’t sure if the young woman was trying to impress him or the men. It didn’t matter. He fumbled with his zip and got everything arranged properly. Gratefully, Lourds let loose and sighed in relief. Unfortunately, his aim wasn’t all it could have been. Or that’s what he made it look like. The boots of at least two of the men standing near him got soaked. They screamed in protest and jumped back.

‘Sorry about that,’ Lourds said as he fastened his trousers again. But he wasn’t.

The leader held out a book open to a page. ‘I want you to read this, Professor Lourds.’

Lourds stared at the page and tried to make sense of the symbols across it. The symbols weren’t written on the page, not exactly. It was more as though the writing had left indentations on the paper, like a brass rubbing of an old tombstone. The writing was actually white blank spaces in the centre of a graphite smear.

‘Professor Lourds,’ the leader repeated impatiently, ‘can you read this?’

Concentrating on the script, Lourds barely registered the man’s question. The symbols were deceptively familiar, yet they stubbornly remained just out of his reach. Excitement filled him and drowned the fear and pain in his mind. As a result of all the years he’d been studying linguistics, there were now few languages he couldn’t fluently decipher in their written form. His professors and later colleagues had insisted his brain had been hardwired with code breakers.

Lourds didn’t think that was true. He loved languages, loved the mystery and beauty of them, and – most of all – he loved to read. So much knowledge was lost in the world because cultures had lost their languages over the years, or gradually changed to that of their conquerors.

‘Professor Lourds.’ The leader stepped forward and touched his pistol barrel between Lourds’ eyes. ‘Are you able to read that?’

Lourds glanced at the man and told him the truth. The professor could lie when he needed to, but that generally involved knowing the person he was lying to well enough to lie believably.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t read it.’

The man thumbed the hammer back on the pistol and growled in frustration.

Despite the obvious threat to his life and the man’s displeasure, Lourds was more afraid he wouldn’t get the chance to puzzle out the document than he was of dying. His death was a given thing. Sooner or later, he would die. But finding a real challenge to his skills and mastery of languages? Those opportunities were few and far between. Even rarer was the puzzle that would not only tax his abilities, but also prove worthy of the effort. The search for Atlantis had taught him those puzzles were still out there.

And now, perhaps, here was another great mystery to be solved.

He stared into the man’s blue eyes. ‘I can’t read it,’ Lourds said again. ‘Yet.’

The pistol shook against his head because the man was so angry. ‘Yet?’ the man repeated.

‘Yet,’ Lourds repeated. ‘If you give me some time, I can figure this out. This is what I do, and I do it better than anyone else.’

Cleena watched the confrontation with a growing unease. Lourds was foolish and didn’t know enough to take care of himself. She’d already seen that. In the SUV and in the alley, he’d obviously been in over his head. But as he had held the book and stared at the page Qayin had indicated, Lourds had changed.

She was certain he still feared for his life, but there was no way to fake the excitement in his eyes. The passion she saw there was unmistakable. She wouldn’t have believed him capable of it. When she’d read his file, and understood how she was to approach him at the airport, she had guessed he was some rich, privileged snob. Exactly the kind of person she wouldn’t care about. Now, seeing him in his element, Cleena understood how young women could find him so attractive – and challenging as well. A woman couldn’t ignore passions which ran that strong in a man.

His fascination about the book kept him focused on that instead of the danger he was in. Cleena actually felt sorry for him. When Lourds was finished decrypting or translating the document Qayin and his followers had brought him, they would kill him. Whatever secrets they were after, they wouldn’t want anyone else to know about them.

Cleena realized her situation wasn’t much better than the professor’s. They had contacted her through one of the drops she used, and offered money. In their world, she was just a disposable as the professor. She didn’t understand why they hadn’t already tried to kill her. But, unlike the professor, she had a pistol, and she knew how to use it.

Keep your calm, girlie, she heard her father say. No one gets out alive who can’t keep a cool head. The best weapon you’ll ever carry is between your ears.

‘If just anyone could have read this page,’ Lourds said in a calm, controlled voice, ‘you would’ve already had it deciphered. Am I correct?’

The silence stretched in the darkness. Three of Qayin’s followers stepped forward menacingly. Two of them grabbed the professor’s arms. The third grabbed him by the neck.

‘Careful,’ Lourds said. ‘Don’t hurt the book.’ Even though the men lifted him from his feet, he tried to protect the book.

One of the men slid a knife free and held the keen edge to Lourds’ throat. He looked at Qayin and waited expectantly.

Lourds didn’t even try to fight back.

Surreptitiously, Cleena slid her hand around the pistol butt. In the darkness, with the men gathered so close together, she liked her chances. At least for a moment, she wouldn’t be able to miss her targets. After that, though, things would quickly become dicey.

Qayin held up a hand to his followers and peered at Lourds. ‘Do you think you can translate this document?’

Lourds didn’t hesitate and spoke with more confidence under the circumstances than Cleena would have thought possible. ‘I can. If you give me time, I can translate anything.’

Cleena said, ‘How much time?’

‘I don’t know. Linguists and archaeologists worked on the Rosetta Stone for years before they made a breakthrough.’

Lifting his pistol, Qayin consulted a Rolex on his wrist. ‘You have twenty minutes to make a believer of me, Professor.’

Cleena expected Lourds to protest over the time frame. There was no way Qayin could seriously expect him to crack whatever was on the page. All Lourds had succeeded in doing was delaying his death for a few minutes.

But he also bought you some more time to think, girlie, so you’d best put your thinking cap on and get to it. You’ve got to come up with a great plan.

She had twenty minutes.

And the clock was ticking.