SIIGIL by HARTZLER RUTH

Author:HARTZLER, RUTH [HARTZLER, RUTH]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781922595041
Publisher: Artifacts Press
Published: 2021-06-29T04:00:00+00:00

16

The Present Day

KECHRIES

Upon hearing Riley cry out, Abigail climbed inside the trapdoor. As she did so, the light came on.

When Abigail reached the bottom of the ladder, she spun around to see Riley standing there, looking sheepish. “I hope I didn’t scare you,” he said. “I tripped over.”

Abigail let out a long sigh of relief. “I thought Vortex agents had grabbed you!” she exclaimed.

Riley gestured around the room. “I don’t mean to state the obvious, but we found his storage room.”

Abigail at first was delighted, but then her mood turned somber. “You don’t think all these are stolen, do you?”

Riley shrugged. “I have no idea. It’s going to involve a lot of paperwork, at any rate.”

“I hope the stolen object represented as the Seal of Solomon is here.” Abigail didn’t know where to look. To her left, in glass cabinets, were small bronze figures, and just ahead of her were ostraca, small pieces of pottery with writing on them.

The room was small but climate-controlled. Abigail pulled out a storage drawer and exclaimed with delight. “Papyri!” she said.

Riley did not respond, but after an interval, said, “There’s no sign of a safe down here.”

“Most likely everything in here is valuable.” Abigail amended that to say, “Well, some things are far more valuable than others, but I’m sure Yannis Papanikou treated this entire room as a safe.”

Riley nodded in agreement. “If he hadn’t sold this seal, then it must be here. If he kept the seal, it must be in this room.”

Abigail thought it over. “He’s probably hidden it with similar objects. That’s what I would do, anyway. It would be the safest.”

“I haven’t seen any stone rings,” Riley said. “We will have to keep looking. He managed to pack a lot into the small room.”

Something occurred to Abigail. She pulled out her phone. “Thank goodness we have cell phone service down here.” When Riley quirked one eyebrow, she added, “I was worried someone might shut the trapdoor over us, and we wouldn’t be able to get out.”

Riley looked as though he was about to say something but then simply nodded.

Abigail let out a sigh of frustration. “He doesn’t have any of these items grouped nicely.”

Riley walked over to her side. She caught his scent, cedarwood and citrus.

Abigail read somewhere that spies don’t wear aftershave so as not to alert anyone of their presence, but Riley was certainly wearing aftershave. Maybe it depended on the type of mission. She looked up to see Riley staring at her and said the first thing that came into her head. “Strangely, he has ancient Greek items mixed in with Roman items.”

Riley chuckled. “The items are not on display for spectators.”

Abigail sat on the floor and pulled out one box after another. She painstakingly made her way through item after item. One box was filled with trays of stone items with Hebrew inscriptions and another, Egyptian scarabs from the Hyksos period. “Charles would like these.”

Riley’s expression tightened at the mention of Charles. “That’s a good sign.”

Abigail looked up.

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