Pavlos nodded. As a reserve NATO officer who occasionally helped out in expeditions to desolate regions, he had seen examples of amazing photography from space. And he had the feeling they hadn’t ever shown him all they could do.

“So let us see the best you have.” He waved with his right hand as Frank pulled out the fourth photo. “You have me curious about this mystery of yours.”

It showed a plateau in the middle of a set of concentric, parched creek beds, surrounded by rugged, goat-ravaged hills. At the corners of the photo there were signs of humanity, as one would expect everywhere in a land that had been inhabited at high density for four thousand years. In two places there were the ubiquitous shepherd’s shacks for overnight shelter. Goat tracks lay everywhere.

But in the center, all trace of man and animal disappeared. Puzzled, Pavlos peered closer. “Are those…? No, they cannot be.”

“What are they, Pavlos?”

He rubbed his chin. “I believe those are cedars, very large cedars, of a kind you can only find in the Caucasus these days… or on the estates of old and very wealthy families.”

“There are no estates here, Pavlos. What else do you see?”

“There are cypress, and some other large trees I cannot identify, and…” He peered closely. “There is a building of some kind. A large, rectangular structure, mostly shaded by trees.”

Frank stood up straight and tapped the photo.

“See these faint lines? I had the computer draw them along curves of accessibility. See the gradients? If all roads lead to Rome, then all roads, all trails—hell, all goat tracks—lead away from this place. Now, how the hell could anyone have built a thing that size on top of that plateau?”