Cradle Of Solitude. Alex Archer
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they had entered the original catacombs.
“Annja!” an exuberant voice cried, pulling her away from her study of the skulls before her. She turned to find her colleague, Professor Bernard Reinhardt, emerging from the chamber just beyond, his hand extended in welcome. The smile on his face was outmatched only by the size of his handlebar mustache, which stretched a good inch past his cheeks on either side.
Reinhardt was a large, portly man in his early sixties, though he had the exuberant energy of a man half his size and age. He’d been known to work right through the night and into the next day while on an important dig, putting most of the graduate students who worked with him to shame. In the narrow confines of the underground passageway he appeared twice as big as usual and Annja found herself having to stifle the urge to back away as he thundered toward her. He was dressed in a thick flannel shirt, jeans and solid pair of hiking boots, a far cry from the three-piece suit, complete with pocket watch and chain, that he liked to wear while at the museum.
Annja had met him several years before while in Paris for a symposium during which he’d delivered a presentation on the Saxon conquest of Normandy. She’d been so impressed with his quick mind and engaging delivery that she’d introduced herself after his talk. Despite the obvious difference in their ages and educational backgrounds, their shared love of European history had turned them into colleagues with genuine respect for each other’s specialties.
“Hello, Bernard,” she said, ignoring his outstretched hand and giving him a quick hug, which earned her a hearty embrace.
“It is so good to see you, Annja,” he said, releasing her. “Have they told you why you are here?”
“Just that they’ve discovered something of interest to both your government and mine,” she replied.
Bernard grinned. “Well, then, if they didn’t spoil the surprise, I’m not going to, either. This way, my dear.”
He turned and led her through several other chambers, each one similar to the last. The stacks of bones seemed to go on and on; everywhere she looked, the walls were covered with them. Not that Annja was surprised. She’d heard it estimated that there were more than six million skeletons interred down here in the dark.
That’s a lot of ghosts, she thought.
Ahead of her, Bernard came to a halt at the entrance to a side chamber.
“Is this it?” she asked.
He nodded, then extended a hand, as if to say, After you.
Her lantern held high, Annja entered the chamber.
The room was small, no larger than ten square feet, she estimated, and so it didn’t take her long to pick out what she’d been brought there to see.
The skeleton was seated with its back against the wall of the antechamber, its legs stretched out before it. A cavalry saber was gripped in one hand, in the other, a Colt revolver. At first glance both weapons appeared to be in excellent condition. So, too, was the uniform the skeleton wore—wool trousers and a light shirt, both partially covered by a long frock coat that hung to midthigh. The three bars that designated the rank of captain had been sewn onto the coat’s collar. A kepi hat was still perched atop the skull where it rested against the back wall.
The dirt and dust that had settled on the remains of the clothing made it difficult to determine the exact color of the uniform, but there was no mistaking the brass emblem of a wreath pinned to the front of the hat. The arms of the wreath rose on either side, surrounding the three letters nestled between them.
CSA.
As she stared at the emblem in surprise, Annja finally understood what Laroche had meant. They weren’t questioning that the remains belonged to an American. Not at all. They were questioning his status because the America he’d belonged to no longer existed.
The Confederate States of America.
5
Annja walked over to the skeleton and settled into a crouch before it, her gaze moving slowly and carefully, taking in the details. Behind her, she heard Bernard step into the room.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” he said, his voice hushed, as if in reverence for the dead man before them. “To think he’s been down here for a hundred and fifty years, just waiting for someone to come along and find him.”
Annja nodded. She was amazed that anyone had done so, frankly. The chances of the construction team finding the adjacent tunnel, never mind following the right series of chambers to wind up here, several hundred yards from the entrance, were astronomical.
“Any idea who he was?” she asked, looking back at her colleague.
Bernard shook his head. “Not a clue. But that’s why we’re here, my dear, to solve the mystery.”
And a mystery it was. Annja couldn’t think of a simple reason why a Confederate soldier, a captain no less, would have been wandering around down here in the catacombs miles from any known entrance. Had he simply gotten lost? Stumbled around in the dark, unable to find his way back out, until eventually he’d succumbed to a lack of food or, more likely, water?
If that was the case, what was he doing with a cutlass and pistol in hand? Just who, or what, had he been defending himself against?
An interesting puzzle, to say the least.
And just the kind of thing that Annja lived for.
She reached into the bag at her side and pulled out her digital camera. She rarely went anywhere without it and it was times like this when she was thankful she’d adopted the habit. Eventually, she knew, they were going to have to remove the skeleton from the catacombs and take it back to Bernard’s laboratory for proper examination, but there were a lot of things they needed to do before that and documenting the site as they’d found it was the first priority. The position of items in relation to others and the context in which they were found were just as important to an archaeologist as the items themselves. The photographs would help them establish a record of where each item was in relation to all the others, allowing them to reconstruct the site down to the finest detail if necessary as their investigation progressed.
She started by taking several wide-angle shots, panning her way around the room until she had covered it all. They would be able to make a panorama-style shot from the photographs showing the entire room and even use them to create a three-dimensional computer model.
When she was finished with that task, she focused on the skeleton itself. She took several shots to establish its position against the wall, then moved in for close-ups. She’d taken about a dozen pictures and was about to call it quits when the light from the flash bounced off the uniform the skeleton wore and highlighted something she hadn’t previously noticed.
Bernard must have seen her sudden tension.
“What have you got, Annja?” he asked as she leaned in closer to get a better look.
“Not sure yet,” she murmured, her gaze on the skeleton in front of her.
As the flesh beneath it had decayed, the uniform coat had folded down upon itself, hiding small stretches of fabric between the folds. The light from the flash had thrown back an oddly shaped shadow from one of them, suggesting that there was something else there. Annja withdrew a pen from her pocket and gently lifted the edge of the folded material, revealing what lay beneath.
The blackened edges of a bullet hole stared back at her.
Gently, Annja used her pen to lift the coat’s edge away from the shirt beneath. The dark stain that covered the yellowed linen shirt beneath answered one question that had been nagging at her.
The soldier, whoever he was, hadn’t wandered down here, gotten lost and eventually died of thirst, as she’d first hypothesized.
He’d been shot in the chest.
And from the looks of it, he’d died pretty quickly thereafter.
This