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By the time the dealer from New York called him, Milos had read over one hundred articles about the find and seen nearly as
many pictures of the dusty and smiling archaeologist with his gleaming find of ancient Thracian gold. He had started with
Google news reading each article it located even if it was the Associated Press duplicate piece. Just to be sure. The most
complete information seemed to be coming from places farther away. The Bulgarian news service had scanty details while Reuters
seemed to know all sorts of things. The power of money, he supposed. His eyes burned, hard to imagine that some people did
this, stared at a computer, for both work and pleasure. The keyboard in front of him was stained with currant jam and specked
with crumbs. He couldn't tackle something as boring as research without a snack.
"Do you have anything like that piece?" the dealer had asked him. His clients had seen the pictures of the find
and the desire for Thracian gold was running hot. An instant education for thousands of collectors.
The easiest answer would have been to just say yes and then have realistic fakes made. It could be done, in the years
past he had sold hundreds of trinkets passing for real. He had always specialized in things that had a touch of the real.
Not so much fakes as hybrids. Old stone with an appropriately weathered design, a fresh mosaic created from ancient glass
and then buried for authenticity. Sometimes gold, the bits and flakes of mangled find, sheared by the shovel of an eager night
digger, melted and worked into something sellable.
But what had happened in the States had changed him in ways he still hadn't defined yet. He didn't need to traffic in
fakes anymore, he had a horde of real artifacts. "Not exactly like it," he said, "not a wreath like that."
But he had other things that resemble the other treasures discovered. A rhyton with a ram's head, a gold cuff that wrapped
around the wrist, plates chased with intricate scrollwork. But nothing close to the crown-like gold wreath which had been
the subject of the news articles. In fact, he had never seen any Thracian pieces that were made of gold wire. This dig however,
was far from his own land, the land he had bought based on the map drawn by an insane man. The land that had over the past
year revealed enough finds that if he were to reveal them all at once he would flood the market. Instead he was cautious,
he gave the dealer a list of ten pieces. Just a small sample of his discoveries and they were worth millions.
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