Читать книгу Tear Of The Gods - Alex Archer - Страница 11

Shortly after midnight a man slipped out of a tent in the middle of the camp and quietly made his way across the clearing to the tree line just beyond. At the edge of the woods he stopped and turned, looking back the way he’d come. He waited, one long moment, then another, watching, listening, making certain that no one had followed him.

Assured that he was unobserved and alone, the man disappeared into the woods, following a faint path through the trees until he reached the deadfall he’d selected as a landmark. There he turned and traveled for another hundred yards before stopping beside a huge boulder that had probably been there since the last ice age.

Again he paused, listening, sweeping the path behind him with his peripheral vision, searching for anyone who might be on his tail. While it was unlikely, it never hurt to be careful, and with something like this he didn’t want to be wrong.

Finally satisfied, he reached into a cleft in the rock and pulled out a satellite phone. Switching it on, he waited for it to power up and then dialed a number. When it was picked up on the other end, he said, “It’s Novick. I need to speak to him.”

There was a pause. Novick figured the man on the other end of the line was considering the wisdom of waking their joint employer at this hour of the night, and so he said, “It’s about the torc.”

That seemed to convince the other man, for he said, “Just a moment,” and put the receiver down.

Several minutes passed.

Finally Novick heard the phone on the other end being picked up.

“You have something for me?”

Novick swallowed the sudden hesitation he felt at the sound of that voice and answered him. “Yes. At the new site in the West Midlands. We found a body in the bog this morning, an Iceni warrior.”

“And?”

“And he was wearing a torc that fits the description of the one you’ve been seeking for the past several years.”

“You’re certain?”

“Absolutely.”

“What about the test?”

Sneaking into the artifact tent with the device in hand had been easy. “It was positive.”

There was a long silence as the other man considered the implications, then he said, “Very good. I will dispatch someone to meet you tomorrow afternoon.”

With thoughts of the reward money he’d been promised for finding the torc dancing in his head, Novick said that he understood and ended the call.