The Blood of Alexander: A Novel - Hardcover

CHAPTER ONE



Bamiyan, Afghanistan
I’d spent the day in the place where the gods used to abide, staring for hours at one of the enormous, empty stone cradles where, nearly two thousand years ago, men carved the gigantic likeness of the Buddha out of the living rock. For hundreds of years, travelers along the Silk Road would come and see and be amazed. No one knows how long it took to create the magnificent images of the Light of the Universe. But it took only minutes for men to destroy them.
The mountainside was sun-bleached and wind-scoured, pockmarked with man-made caves that used to serve as homes for the refugees who were forced to live in them. I’d come to this largely forsaken part of the world along with a convoy of United Nations relief workers—until this morning, when I slipped away from the motorized caravan and kept out of sight until they had left for the return trip to Kabul. The local men and women paid me no attention as they went about the business of scratching out a living, save for the times they would keep their curious children, whose robes and clothes provided the only flecks of color against the timeworn landscape, from looking too long at the stranger near their village.
I stayed until nightfall near the place where a half-blind mullah and his illiterate henchmen had used tank shells and explosives to destroy a sacred and ancient marvel, all because they believed their god would have wanted it that way. At the time it was the best place I could be. The sight of the massive ugly scars where beauty once dwelt burned into my soul the reason I was here, and why I was going to meet with a man who would doubtless try to kill me.
When the moon crested the surrounding mountains and washed the desolate outskirts of Bamiyan in silver and sepia, I made my way to the lonely rendezvous point, wondering if I was going to freeze to death before I made my appointment. Finally, I spotted vehicle headlights cautiously bouncing along the dirt road. I shielded my eyes against the glare as I waited for the Land Rover to grind to a halt. The sound of the four doors opening was followed by the clicks and clacks of automatic rifles being brought to ready and a booming laugh I remembered all too well.
“Jonathan Blake! My good friend!”
“Yusef Mohammad,” I called in return, opening my arms in a gesture of greeting and to show that I was the only person around for miles that didn’t carry a firearm. The last time I had seen Yusef, he had been dressed in the Western-style suit of an Istanbul businessman, but tonight I saw that he’d donned the traditional headdress with army-style fatigues, complete with a pistol and gun belt as opposed to an automatic rifle, showing that he was in management. “What have you brought for me?” he asked.
“My friendship. And a large amount of money,” I replied.
Yusef stepped around to the front of his Land Rover while his three men scoured the roadside with flashlight beams. “I thought we’d agreed to meet alone,” I said. “What’s with the henchmen?”
Yusef stroked his beard with a pudgy hand. “Henchmen? What henchmen? These men are practically my family. I am quite certain that one of them will marry my sister one day. Now, will you take some tea?”
Yusef Mohammad was an opium smuggler, a small arms dealer, and a trafficker in anything valuable that he could lay his hands on, but he always respected tradition and hospitality. This meant he wouldn’t try to poison me until he’d gotten his money. Yusef and I had a history together in this part of the world. The first time we collided was when the Argo Foundation sent me to help smuggle out part of the Bactrian Hoard, a collection of two-thousand-year-old golden artifacts discovered in the 1970s and hidden away by the Afghanistan people in the wake of Russian invasions and the Taliban regime. My job was to see that the treasure didn’t fall into the wrong hands. I employed Yusef for his criminal expertise and told him that I’d need to get two shipments out of the country, and that I’d send the first shipment, of less valuable antiquities, as a test to make sure we could pull it off. Sure enough, the first shipment made it safely over the border into Pakistan, but the second one mysteriously vanished.
My only regret was that I couldn’t see Yusef Mohammad’s face as he broke open the second crate, which he doubtless stole, only to find all the carefully packaged pieces of army tank parts, spent shell casings, and other worthless junk I’d packed instead. Ever since, the knowledge that Yusef would always try and double-cross me was one of the very few constants in my world.
I came up to the hood of the car while Yusef produced a thermos and plastic cups and poured for the two of us. His men stood back in a rough semicircle, ready to kill me when the social pleasantries were concluded.
The tea was sweet though tepid, and a welcome relief to my desert-parched throat. After I had my drink, Yusef rubbed his hands together in anticipation, the universal signal to commence business. “So, my good friend, about this money you have for me, is it American dollars, or euros? I am hoping for euros.”
“Gold, actually.”
I could see Yusef, underlit by the headlights, wince through his beard. “Gold? What are you, a barbarian? What am I to do with gold?”
I shrugged. “Best I could do at the time. I got ahold of a stash of pre-Apartheid Krugerrands. If it makes you feel better, last time I checked the world market prices, you’re getting over ten percent of what we agreed upon.”
“Ten percent, eh?” Yusef mused. He looked me up and down. “And just where is this treasure?”
“Close by. I’d like to see what I came for first.”
Yusef’s eyes flashed, then he remembered to smile. He opened his hands and performed a little bow. “As you wish.” I watched as he picked up the thermos and unscrewed the top, carefully removing a hollow cylinder of black plastic. Without making any sudden moves, I brought out a small but potent flashlight of my own and illuminated the hood of the vehicle. With a surprising bit of delicacy, Yusef slowly unrolled the plastic until it revealed the ancient curved birch-bark parchment that I had traveled over half the world to see.
I hardly dared to breathe as I beheld the nearly two-thousand-year-old artifact, as if afraid it would crumble into the dust of history before my eyes. Through the chilled, dry air came a faint scent of something that evoked ashes and old incense. In recent past years, other such scrolls had been unearthed from their hiding places and smuggled out of Afghanistan. Since their discovery they’d been dubbed “The Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism,” and every fragment was a fragile pearl beyond price. The blood beat in my ears as I matched the faded letters with the photograph Yusef had sent along with a letter inquiring if I wanted to purchase this “little scrap of paper,” or should he just blow his nose with it?
I suddenly realized that Yusef had been clearing his throat for my attention. “So,” he said finally. “If you are satisfied?”
I was. The experts back at the Argo Foundation had analyzed the writing on the photograph, and I’d memorized the pattern of the characters before leaving New York. I’d personally handled scrolls of this nature before, but never one so old and valuable. I just nodded and carefully rewrapped the scroll, taking great pains not to stress the delicate material. “Was this piece the only one you found?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes. The man I got it from convinced me he was not...