Restless Soul - Alex Archer [101]
“So much for hauling away any evidence,” she muttered. Still, she pulled out one file and placed it next to the skull bowl; she’d have someone translate it later.
Then Annja entered the shop. It was similar to the setup of the shop in Chiang Mai. There was a comfortable sameness to all old buildings—a showroom and a back office, with a restroom tucked to the side for the employees and patrons.
The odors were intense. She was far enough below the apartment that she no longer smelled Lanh, but she picked up the strong scents of old things—wood and clay, cloth, relics threatened by mildew and the years in general. Annja relished these kinds of smells and wanted to turn on the ceiling lights so she could get a better look. The beam of the flashlight was terribly inadequate.
There were packing crates at the back, and mounds of packing materials. They extended farther than she could see, and she realized that the antiques shop was much bigger than the outside storefront implied. It extended into the other boarded-up businesses and was virtually a warehouse of antiquities ready to be packed up and moved out to buyers in other countries.
The shelves were unfinished plywood, but they were massive and braced to support the weight of the objects spaced out across them. Busts, urns, statues and more stretched farther than the flashlight beam. Annja could not help herself; she had to take a closer look at some of the works.
One shelf was filled with what to her practiced archaeological eye looked to be artifacts from the Champa culture in Binh Dinh’s coastal central province, hundreds upon hundreds of years old. They included ancient bowls, cups and vases made of fire-hardened clay. They were museum pieces, especially the soccer-ball-size containers covered with reliefs of a sea monster called a makara, and a mythological naga.
Another shelf was filled with a collection of jewelry pieces from the holy land of Cat Tien, including figurines of deities made from terra-cotta, silver, gold and bronze.
There were stone tools that were clearly prehistoric. Annja would have liked to take them back for study to determine what region they came from and just how old they were. It wouldn’t hurt to take one small piece, she told herself. She reached for a stone ax and stopped herself. She was upset that Luartaro had taken jewelry and who knew what else from the treasure cave. She had no right to take anything.
She edged toward a gap in the aisles, where some large objects took up a considerable section of floor. An ancient cart with intact wheels captivated her. Nearby was a large bronze drum she guessed was at least two thousand years old. These large treasures were priceless archaeological treasures that Annja knew should be displayed in a major museum.
It was a crime against the world to smuggle these things. Annja recalled reading an article several months earlier about two Chinese men arrested in Vietnam with a truck full of antiquities they were taking across the border. She wondered if they’d been part of this operation.
The artifacts had been Vietnamese—a bronze drum, dozens of earrings, statues and ceramic jars. She rubbed her forehead, smearing dirt and the gnats that had stuck there. She was feeling so many things at the same time—anger that people would steal from history and deprive the public of an opportunity to see these relics and deny archaeologists the opportunity to study them; elation that she’d uncovered what obviously had been a massive smuggling operation; fear that some of the parties involved were still out there and could resume the nefarious practice; worry that the authorities might not properly handle all these priceless things.
She pulled in a deep breath, taking the dusty air into her lungs and relishing the oldness. Her breathing was loud in the stillness of the building. That and the shush-shushing of her shoes against the plank wood floor