Carpathian by David Lynn Golemon Read Free Book Online

yours.”
    Lee reached into his dinner jacket and produced the wax-sealed invitation forged by the same agent at the complex that created the fake documents for Alice.
    “Sir, I have no need to see your invitation. I just wanted to greet my guests and offer any explanation of the items that I may.”
    “Well,” Garrison said as he replaced the forged invite into his jacket, “I must say these are two very important pieces—if they’re real, of course. I mean, the ruins at Tell es-Sultan are closed to archaeological study, ordered by your government in the forties and the no-dig policy has been carried over by the new state of Israel.”
    Lord Harrington smiled and nodded his head. “Yes, the ruins at Tell es-Sultan have been closed, as you can see for very good reason. There are some unscrupulous people in the world today that would take advantage of such marvelous finds, Mr. Kilroy.”
    Lee nodded his head and smiled crookedly. “There are indeed, sir, very unscrupulous people. I mean, the mystical city of Jericho? A lot of people would call that blasphemous to dig there.” Lee leaned in close to Lord Harrington, who stood his ground not too comfortably against the scarred and very much larger Garrison Lee. “I mean, the city was supposedly destroyed on the orders of God himself. Frightening stuff,” Lee said with his brow arched high above his eye patch, waiting for a reaction from his host.
    “Fairy tales to scare the unenlightened, Mr. Kilroy.”
    Lee smiled, broadly this time. “I’ve learned that fairy tales, when ignored as such, tend to be more truthful in the end than first thought and that they also usually come back and bite you right in your hindquarters when taken too lightly, Lord Harrington.”
    The smile from the American was unsettling to the Englishman, enough so that he half bowed and slowly backed away, nodding toward his security people that this man was to be watched. Lee lost his smile as he turned back to the stolen urns.
    Alice nervously looked over her shoulder and saw that Lee was holding his own with their host. She closed her eyes and nearly walked into a woman standing in her path.
    “Oh, excuse me,” Alice said as she placed her empty champagne glass on the tray of a passing waiter. Then her eyes locked on the young girl she had nearly collided with. They were approximately the same age. As Alice looked closer at the raven-haired woman she could see that the dark beauty had one brown eye and one green eye. She was a beautiful girl. Then Alice saw that she was also being examined, or more to the point , she thought, she was being sized up by the girl like she was a possible adversary.
    “American?” the girl asked as her eyes roamed over the dress Alice was wearing. The strange young woman wore a plain black satin dress that was as gorgeous as Alice’s expensive gown. Her equally black and shiny hair was straight and shiny and she wore large but not ostentatious gold hoop earrings.
    “Yes, I’m American,” Alice answered as she watched the young girl with the strange European accent and multicolored eyes look over every inch of her.
    “Yes, I can actually smell the difference,” the girl said as she finally stopped examining Alice and then looked into her eyes under the veil.
    “Excuse me?” Alice said with that tinge of anger that exposed itself at most times unbidden—Garrison was rubbing off on her to her horror as she felt her defensive hackles rise.
    “Well fed—Americans smell well fed,” the gorgeous young woman answered as she turned to look at a large stone block. She crossed her arms and looked at the ancient section of wall that once stood at Tell es-Sultan—the ruins of the city of Jericho. “Interesting piece, don’t you think … Miss…?”
    “Hamilton, and it’s Mrs.,” Alice said, looking from the girl to the giant block that appeared as if it taxed the carpeted salon deck with its massive weight. Suddenly Alice’s eyes widened when she