44

In the late afternoon, when Sage and I had recovered enough to be discharged, Inspector Lale borrowed a car from the local police precinct and drove us, and Mom, to a hotel run by Aunt Jackie and Uncle Berk’s friends in a nearby village. She told us that she’d reached Voyager Balloons, who’d said the Clarksons had called to cancel their ride.

“They’re on the run, then,” I said.

“They won’t get far,” said Inspector Lale. “They can’t cross a border without getting apprehended.”

“I don’t know.” I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Clarksons might have some devious way to get out of the country with all their illicit goods. “Anyway, even if you catch them, they might have shipped the urn somewhere, or hidden it again. And without that urn, I feel like we failed Uncle Berk.” I leaned my head against the window, in the backseat I shared with Sage.

“We didn’t,” said Inspector Lale. “There’ll be an investigation into his death. This is exactly what your aunt wanted to happen. Lazar and Vasil are going to be in prison for a long, long time.”

“But the urn is gone for good,” I said.

Inspector Lale shook her head. “Not necessarily. We have enough on the Clarksons to get them extradited, if we can locate them. But what’s most important, Zan, is that your Uncle Berk would be so glad that you did everything you could to prevent this crime.” She hesitated, then continued. “You see, your uncle was deeply concerned about our country’s vanishing history. We were working together, these past two years.”

Mom frowned. “I thought you worked together a decade ago.”

“We did, at the museum,” said Inspector Lale. “But more recently, he approached me asking if I had any job leads. I had just started working for the national police, and I told him I had an unusual one. It didn’t pay, and it involved some secrecy, but it was for a very good cause. When we worked together at the archaeology museum, we were secretly writing a catalogue of items in the storage facility, which were at great risk of theft because no one really knew about everything that was there. I asked him if he would continue this work, going into smaller museums and mosques to catalogue their storage collections, too. So many of these places don’t even know what they have, and they have more than they can ever display. This information would help me to identify stolen or confiscated items that might surface, and it would help to make these smaller institutions less vulnerable to theft.”

I nodded, recalling the spreadsheets I’d seen on my uncle’s office computer, and the stack of printouts he’d had in an envelope with Inspector Lale’s name on it. Those documents must have been part of their project. Uncle Berk and the inspector had been like underground warriors, trying to preserve Turkey’s heritage from within.

“I thought everything in museums had to be catalogued anyway,” said Sage.

“It should be,” said Inspector Lale. “But that’s not always the case. Museums and mosques often have more art objects than they can handle. Smuggled artifacts that get confiscated are sometimes given to museums by the police stations, which simply have no room to store them. Or items are given to them when more treasures are unearthed by construction work in cities, or even by earthquakes. It’s a massive project to document these hidden treasures, but we made it our mission. And we told no one, outside a trusted circle of professionals and police officers, thinking that discretion would be to our advantage. Berk’s data can prove that certain stolen items came from particular storerooms.”

“But Berk went to those secret Lycian Society meetings,” said Mom, scratching her head. “And he was given the urn at that meeting. He’d been hiding it in his office, passing it off as a fake. Doesn’t that make him a thief, too? Or at least an accomplice to crime?”

“I understand your concern,” said Inspector Lale. “But I assure you, the urn was housed in his office temporarily, with my full knowledge. He kept it there, with the replicas he used for his lectures, in case anyone broke into his office and went looking around. All the while he was working undercover for me, and we were creating a plan to get the urn into the hands of museum officials. This was going on just days before he died.”

“So he was working for the good guys all along?” I asked, relief flooding over me.

“He was one of the good guys,” Inspector Lale said. “I authorized him to work for Lazar as my undercover agent. He did small jobs for Lazar first, to gain his trust. He certified some smaller antiquities as replicas to facilitate their transport, and worked his way up in Lazar’s business as a freelancer in that way. Ultimately, the goal was for him to expose Lazar’s operation, as well as the Lycian Society’s secret group of illicit collectors. But when Berk saw the seahorse urn, he immediately knew it was a long-lost item from the Karun Treasure that scholars have been seeking. It was a groundbreaking discovery for archaeology scholarship, and for Turkey. He couldn’t let this precious item slip away into the black market, and suddenly the mission was not so easy. We knew we had to expose Lazar with the Karun Treasure urn.”

“But where did Lazar get the urn in the first place?” asked Mom.

“From a villager who was one of the original looters of the tomb,” said the inspector. “The villager had kept this one item, believing it was too beautiful to part with, and that he was meant to care for it. And so it remained in his family for decades, in his little village. But so many bad things happened to this man over the years. All his children died. His wife died. His businesses failed.”

“The Karun Treasure curse,” I whispered. “Maybe it’s true.”

“Maybe. So this man, who by then was quite old, finally decided to sell it,” Inspector Lale continued. “And he knew Lazar and his group because they frequented his village, coming by and shaking artifacts out of villagers’ homes, persuading them to sell. The irony is that the day after giving the urn to Lazar, the old man died. So he cannot even be a witness in a trial.”

“Or maybe it’s not ironic,” Sage said darkly. “Maybe Lazar needed to off him to keep the history of the artifact obscured.”

“That was my fear,” Inspector Lale admitted. “I was concerned about that, and I wanted Berk to stop his work. It was getting too dangerous; we risked angering Lazar. But Berk insisted on seeing it through.” She sighed, then continued. “On the appointed day, Berk gave Lazar the documents. And a fake urn that we had specially made. We had undercover officers ready to arrest Lazar. But we needed the real artifact to remain hidden.”

“That’s what we were planning, too, at the hotel party, only with the real one!” I said.

“Those kinds of reveals can work,” said Inspector Lale. “And the reveal that Berk and I planned was a good idea, in theory. But the problem was that Lazar was smarter than we’d given him credit for. And he didn’t fall for the fake, even though we got the best artisan we could find to create it. He fled the meeting place before the Istanbul police could get him and contacted Berk later. He was furious with Berk for trying to trick him. He said that if Berk didn’t bring him the real urn, his wife would be killed.”

Aunt Jackie! Tears burned my eyes. Aunt Jackie—and my unborn cousin—could have been two more casualties of this mess, had it played out differently. “So how did Lazar lure my uncle to Cappadocia?” I managed to ask.

“Lazar told him to drive out to his headquarters, and to bring the urn. Berk felt he had to do it. He told your aunt he had a tour guide interview because he wanted to protect her. He didn’t want her to be questioned and have to lie. I strongly advised him not to travel. I insisted on sending backup for him. He refused the offer—he was sure Lazar would be suspicious if he showed up with an entourage. So he went, alone, and I assumed he’d given Lazar the real urn. But when I heard he died on a hike, I suspected he’d veered from the plan.” She paused, then said, “And you know the ending.”

Mom raised an eyebrow. “You suspected foul play and you didn’t immediately arrest Lazar?”

“I needed evidence,” said Inspector Lale. “And more importantly, I needed Lazar. He’s slippery, and has many disguises and accomplices. I’ve worked on little else since Berk died. Now, thanks to the work of Zan, Sage, and Nazif these past few days, I believe I can do one last favor for my old friend, and make sure that justice is served. Berk left our mission intact. He protected me, and our secret project, until the very end. I owe him so much for that. It’s a debt I might never fully repay.”

I managed a smile. It was so good to hear my uncle was not a bad person after all. Even though he must have taken some money from Lazar, an advance, to pay for the IVF treatments. But however this baby had come into being, our family was going to grow. That would be my uncle’s real legacy in this world.