The Explorer's Code: A Novel - Hardcover

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Kitty Pilgrim is the author of three novels and a former award-winning correspondent and anchor for CNN. She is the recipient of an Overseas Press Club Award, a Peabody Award, The New York Society of Black Journalists Award, and is a full member of the historic Explorer’s Club. She lives in New York City and Rhinecliff, New York.

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Explorer’s Code

Ephesus, Turkey

For the last hour, John Sinclair had been crouched over a fragment of bone sticking up from the earth. With a small camel-hair brush he flicked away grains of soil.

“Karl, take a look at this,” he shouted over his shoulder. There was no reply.

Sinclair stood and looked around the site. Ephesus was strangely deserted. The silent ruins stretched out for miles in the sunshine, and not a soul was moving among the white chunks of marble. Even the few off-season tourists had left. He glanced at his watch, dustproof, shockproof, and well suited to his work. It was noon.

He spent most of his time in Ephesus on his hands and knees in the dust, breathing it, smelling it, and—truth be told—worshipping the ground of the ancient city. He loved the palpable heat that beat down on his back every day as he worked, baking the soil, warming the ancient marble ruins. Sinclair experienced Ephesus through his senses: the smell of the dust, and the feel of the warm stones beneath his hands. The carvings were as clear to him as if they had been done yesterday. He would trace, like a man reading Braille, the Greek and Latin inscriptions on a wall, or the secret Christian symbols carved into the marble pavement.

In the ancient graveyard he would handle every bone fragment with a deep reverence, because for him these people were real, and this was a living city. When he walked among the crowds of tourists along the ancient streets, he had no problem imagining that he was walking in the Ephesus of Roman times, along a broad marble avenue trod by leather sandals and resounding with a polyglot of archaic languages.

Sinclair realized his passion for the ancient city bordered on the irrational. If he were a superstitious man he would attribute his obsession to the power of ancient ghosts. If he had a strong belief in reincarnation, he might conclude he was influenced by the memory of a past life. If he were a religious man, he would say God was calling him. But Sinclair was neither superstitious nor very religious; he liked to think of himself as a man of science.

Sinclair wiped his forehead, streaking a smear across his temple. His dark hair was coated with dust. The intense blue eyes swept around the archaeological site. No sign of Karl. He sat down, leaning against a warm marble slab, and closed his eyes to the Turkish sun. There wasn’t a sound.

He drowsed, and his mind roamed freely: first he reviewed his find of the day, a new femur, and the utter thrill of lifting it out of the ancient soil. As he relaxed, he recovered the sense-memory of a pair of beautifully curved buttocks cupped in his hands, and the way he could slide two of his fingers between them as he pulled the woman’s body toward him. Then he felt her beautiful legs as they wound around his back, her head tilted, goading him, her eyes half shut with desire.

The shrill pierce of a cell phone sounded. Without opening his eyes, he worked it out of the pocket of his cargo shorts and flipped it open.

“Sinclair.”

A voice on the other end began speaking at a rapid pace. The pitch was feminine. He listened for a moment in silence, and his eyes finally opened and focused on the distance.

“Sure, I can work it out.”

The woman’s voice continued.

He answered. “I was planning on coming at the end of the week for the award ceremony, but I can come today if you need me.”

He consulted his watch. “I’ll get a flight this afternoon.”

The BMW R1200GSA Adventure was parked under the tree where he left it this morning. He put his notebook in the Zega side pannier, climbed on, and started the engine. The sound of the bike roared over the silence of Ephesus. Sinclair swerved sharply out of the dirt parking lot onto the macadam and followed the road uphill through an olive grove. As he left the dig, he scanned his cherished site. Random bits of marble stuck up from the grass like giant teeth, irregular and gleaming white. Only about 15 percent of Ephesus had been excavated, and the remnants of marble scattered around the fields were hints of more treasure to come.

Sinclair pushed the bike faster, and the wind cooled his face. He loved this ride. The road climbed steadily up into the arid hills for several miles. Across the landscape there was nothing but scrubby vegetation, mostly silver-leafed olive trees and narthex, a plant used in ancient Ephesus as a torch to light early church gatherings.

At the summit of the mountain, Sinclair pulled into the courtyard of a modest stone house and cut the engine. No other vehicles were in the yard. He walked to the door, unlocked it, and pushed it open. Inside, the single room was nearly empty: a neatly made bed, armoire, writing desk, and a couch by the window. He punched the sound system on the desk as he walked past, and the Baroque melody of Arcangelo Corelli’s La Follia filled the air. As he walked to the shower, he stripped naked, his uncovered flesh gleaming white in contrast to his deep tan. Throwing his clothes in a bin, he stepped into the shower and let the hot needles of the water sluice away the dust. He had to bend his knees to rinse his hair.

Sinclair stood at an impressive six feet four inches; his legs hinted of some extreme form of exercise; the muscles of his thighs were striated. An obvious guess would put him as a triathlete or competitive cyclist. But a closer look would reveal one thigh was slightly thicker, the telltale mark of a champion fencer. His broad shoulders had some bulk, but he carried no spare weight.

He finished his shower and walked to the phone naked, a towel thrown over his shoulder, dialed, and waited for the beep.

“Karl, it’s Sinclair. Sorry, but I have to leave for Monaco this afternoon. I’ll be back in a couple of days to help with the new quadrant. I think I just found a very nice femur there. Take a look and let me know what you think.”

The second call was to Charles Bonnard. Voice mail again.

“Charles, I’m heading to Monaco a few days early. If you’re still in Capri, don’t worry. There’s no rush; we can still meet at the end of the week if that works for you.”

He dialed again, and this time someone answered.

“Malik, it’s John Sinclair. Can you come pick me up right away? I need to get to the airport.”

Sinclair listened and then continued.

“It’s not a scheduled flight; I need a charter. Can you arrange it? Yes, for Monaco. Thanks, Malik, I’ll be waiting.”

Then he walked to the armoire and pulled it open. Nothing in the modest room would have given a hint of what lay inside: six immaculately tailored Italian suits, crisply ironed English-made shirts, dozens of silk socks, a rainbow of exquisite ties, and two rows of custom-made shoes. Sinclair pulled on a pair of Egyptian-cotton boxers and started to dress. Five minutes later he was tying his tie. When he heard the van rumbling up the hill, he scooped up his keys and tossed them into an earthenware bowl over the sink and walked out onto the terrace. If all went well, Sinclair would be in Monaco by evening.

Explorer’s Code

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Cordelia Stapleton unzipped her full-body dive skin, peeled it off, and flung it on the deck in a sodden black heap. Underneath was a blue tank suit. She could...