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By Root 367 0

looked like he could use some time at the beach. Though it was that same UV avoidance that probably accounted for his unblemished complexion. If he’d graduated in ‘95, she assumed him to be thirty-six, maybe thirty-seven. But with thick black hair cropped in a short, corporate cut, he easily could pass for thirty. He was wearing a navy blazer - so trademark Boston - and she could tell by the way his arms and shoulders filled it that he was an athletic guy. Brooke was a stickler for a good nose and ears, and he had both; the right mix of pretty boy and man’s man, naturally handsome, light on the manscaping. His magnetic eyes suffered an identity-crisis between blue and green. Despite the bad one-liner he’d opened with back at the auditorium, Agent Thomas Flaherty had passed her first-ten-seconds test with flying colours, she decided.

‘Mind if I take notes?’ he asked.

‘Fine by me.’

He sipped some coffee, then took out a small notepad and a Bic pen. ‘Let’s talk about Iraq, starting with when you were there and why.’

‘Hold on, Agent Flaherty …’

‘Tommy.’

‘Right. Tommy. First you need to tell me why I should be talking to you.’

‘Fair enough.’ He did his best to keep it simple. ‘There was an incident in the Iraqi mountains. Some of our guys were working under cover, patrolling the area. They got into a shooting match with some, how shall we say, hostile locals. An ID card with your name on it was found in the middle of it all.’

‘ID card?’ She considered this. ‘Oh yeah. I did lose one of those. It was more like a security badge.’

‘That’s a good start. So tell me how you lost it. That way I can explain to my boss how you weren’t associated with the other side.’

His deadpan expression showed he wasn’t joking. ‘Look … yes, I’d received an offer to assist in an excavation in the northern mountains. I accepted. I arrived there September 2003. The fourteenth, to be exact.’

This did jibe with the passport activity provided to him. To keep her honest, he jotted down the date anyway.

‘All expenses paid,’ she added. ‘It was a great resume builder, an incredible opportunity … especially since Western archaeologists hadn’t turned a shovel in that region for decades … thanks to politics, of course. Since this was only months after the US invasion, everything was very hush-hush. And I wasn’t told anything specific until I’d arrived in Baghdad.’

‘Who made you this offer … handled the arrangements?’

‘A guy named Frank took care of everything.’

‘Frank …?’

She shrugged. ‘Just Frank. He was a middleman.’

‘He funded the project?’

She gave him a confused look. ‘I was never told who funded the project. Not so unusual. Benefactors sometimes want to keep a low profile. But shouldn’t you guys know this? I mean, why are you asking me?’

‘Sorry?’

She held out her hands. ‘I thought it was you guys.’

He returned a blank stare.

‘You know, the military, some obscure part of Homeland Security, the CIA, or whatever it goes by nowadays. I mean, I’d been given a military escort … US soldiers wearing desert fatigues with American flag arm patches, the works. You might want to ask your boss about that. Might save you some time.’

This temporarily stumped Flaherty. If his boss knew anything about it, this visit wouldn’t be taking place. ‘And what kind of work were you asked to perform?’

‘What I do best, of course: decipher ancient languages. I was brought up north to the mountains … to a tunnel, or a cave actually, that dated back a few thousand years. The walls were covered in ancient picture carvings and cuneiform. Wasn’t easy, either. That language predated anything I’d ever seen. In some ways, more sophisticated than what came centuries after it. Really incredible stuff.’ She checked to make sure nobody was listening in then said in a low tone, ‘The kind of stuff that would challenge every established theory on the emergence of writing.’

‘And what did it say?’

She bit her lower lip. ‘Sorry. Can’t share. I had to sign a confidentiality agreement.’

‘I’ll need to know.’

‘Then you’ll want to talk to Frank. Because if I can’t publish in the