The Gold of Thrace Read Online Free PDF

Turkey?”
    “I was at the Society of American Archaeology meeting in San Francisco that year. It was the talk of the meetings.”
    “You were at the SAA?” Orman asked.
    “I’m a museum man, not a field archaeologist. There was a special session on setting up a worldwide computerized registration code and network. I was at the British Museum that year, and it was my turn to go.”
    While Mustafa spoke, Orman watched Tamar, his eyes narrowed and speculative.
    “You owe it to other archaeologists to do whatever you can to stop the looting,” Orman said to her. “To Binali and to Alex.”
    “To make the world safe for archaeology?”
    “And archaeologists,” Orman said gently.
    And for those who wait anxiously through the endless darkness of long nights in Meride with the cloying scent of night-blooming jasmine, with the humid air heavy as doom.
    “I’ll go,” she said at last.

Chapter Five
    Svilingrad, Bulgaria, August 7, 1990
    Chatham hesitated at the compartment door to check the number. It was his compartment, all right.
    “Who are you?” he asked the woman in his seat. “What are you doing here?”
    The woman looked up at him with a shy smile, then shrugged. “We say in Bulgaria, ‘Every train has its travelers.’”
    Her voice was velvety and musical—like the rest of her, he thought, with her creamy olive skin, the soft curve of her cheek, her slate blue eyes. My God, she was beautiful.
    The train began to move, throwing him off balance. He gripped the doorframe, tried to steady himself. The train lurched away from the platform and he staggered into the compartment toward the seat opposite her. When it jolted to a stop, he fell forward on one knee, feeling awkward and foolish.
    “I don’t mind riding backwards,” he said and felt even more foolish.
    She lowered her eyes and her dark lashes brushed against her cheek. Chatham thought he detected a tear. A strand of hair, soft and glossy, cascaded across her face and danced with the movement of the train. He reached out to touch it and pulled back just in time.
    He wondered again who she was, how she got into his compartment. He wondered about the bracelet on her arm with the horse’s head. Thracian, maybe.
    She lifted her head and moved her hand with liquid grace to tuck the strand behind her ear. Her fingers were long and slender, her arms silky smooth.
    She gave him another smile and crossed her legs. The train jerked forward again. The compartment door slammed shut with the sudden movement and the train heaved out of the station.
    He waited for the woman to speak while they swayed with the motion of the train.
    “You must help me, Professor Chatham,” she said at last.
    “You know who I am?”
    “I waited for you. I need your help.”
    “Who are you?”
    “I am called Irena.” She hesitated. She was shaking. “You must help. You are our only hope.” Her lip quivered and she extended her hand in a beseeching gesture.
    How delicate she was, how vulnerable. “I don’t understand.”
    “I must show you.”
    She clicked open the latch on the suitcase and lifted the lid. The case was packed with parcels wrapped in newspaper. She waited a moment. For drama, he thought. He watched the nervous slide of her tongue across her upper lip before she reached for a parcel, unwrapped it and held up a pair of elaborate gold earrings with a galloping horse and a small worked amphora dangling from the loop. She laid them on the seat beside her. Then she opened another—a golden laurel wreath—and still another—a necklace with a bull pendant.
    He leaned forward and caught his breath. It was Thracian gold, all right, all of it.
    The Thracians had villages and cities along the Euxine Sea: the Black Sea today. Even the fabled Byzantium, long before it became the gilded city where Constantine built his marvels and monuments to rule his empire, had been a Thracian settlement.
    “Thracian, like the bracelet wrapped around your arm?” he asked. Thracians,