Marah Chase and the Fountain of Youth

by Jay Stringer

  She held back her real thoughts. Questions about the nature of the Ark. About how the faces of the cherubim could so closely match statues she’d found in Alexandria. Of an impossible link.

  Turning on her heel, she strode out of the bar and across the lobby to the elevator. She could feel all eyes on her back as she left. She leaned against the inside of the elevator as she rode up to the eighth floor, feeling the energy draining away now. The alcohol had done the trick. And maybe talking to Nash had helped, added a sense of closure to the day. The elevator slowed, and Chase rocked on her feet as it came to a stop on her floor. She stepped out and walked down the hallway. She always stayed in the same room here, one near the fire escape. For as long as she could remember, she made sure to know more than one way out of every room or building. Even now, in her apartment in New York, she had a bag packed beneath the window, just in case.

  She slipped her electronic key card out of her pocket and let herself into the room.

  The lights were on.

  Bekele was perched on the end of the bed. She was barefoot, her sandals lying on the floor. She was dressed in blue jeans and a black blazer, opened to show a blue bralette. Chase played it cool. She wasn’t going to let Bekele see either her surprise or her interest. And she knew if she bluffed it for a few seconds, her anger would take over. She paced over to the bed.

  “You’ve got nerve.”

  Bekele shuffled forward, staying calm and trying to show she wasn’t there to argue. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really didn’t have a choice.”

  “Sure you did. You could’ve not done it. Or, you could’ve just called your friends to begin with, get them to do all the hard work.”

  Bekele’s face scrunched up. “I did call a friend. I knew you’d get it done.”

  “And then you handed it over to them.”

  Bekele sighed. She deflated as the anger passed. “I know. Look, I… I tried contacting them first, to tell them the Ark was in danger, to ask where it was, so we could secure it. But trust doesn’t come easy here. You have to understand it, the church, they’ve been here so long. They see regimes come and go. Haile Selassie. The communists. The Eritrean war. The modern state. Every new era comes with people who would use the Ark for their own gain. The church, the way they see it, they’re not just protecting the Ark from outsiders; they’re protecting it from Ethiopia. They didn’t believe me or trust me. But I knew Nash was good enough to find it, so I couldn’t do nothing.”

  “You used me to get to them.”

  “No, I…” Bekele paused, sighed again, nodded. “Maybe.”

  “How long have you known about it? That it was here?”

  Bekele shrugged. “Everybody knew the legends.”

  “No, you wouldn’t mobilize like that over a legend. There’s more to it. When you heard Nash was in the country, you took it seriously enough to contact me, reach out to your friends in black robes. You knew it was here and that he might find it.”

  Bekele stood up and turned to walk away from Chase, over to the window. She let her jacket slip from her shoulders and draped it on a chair. She pulled the curtains apart enough to look out onto the city.

  “I always knew, I think. When you work with the right people here, in the government, or the NISS, there’s always something in the way people act when the Ark is mentioned. It’s a certainty. Almost just a normal thing. So, I suppose I just believed.”

  Chase stepped in behind Bekele to share the view over her shoulder. “And when you heard Nash was after it…”

  “I knew Nash could find it, and he’d take it out of the country. Away from us. And I knew you’d be able to find it, too. If anyone could, it would be you.”

  “Which brings us back to how you used me.” Chase pulled on the strap to Bekele’s bralette. “So who are they?”

  Bekele tensed. “It’s complicated.”

  Chase let go of the strap, taking satisfaction at the noise it made as it snapped back into place. Chase started to move away. Bekele turned and took her arm, gently but firmly.

  “I meant my offer,” she said. “And I still do. The Ark belongs here. It’s ours. But the world needs to know. The longer it’s hidden, the more people like Nash will come looking. But once everyone knows it’s here, the politics will start. Israel. Rome. The fundamentalists in your country. They’ll all demand it.”

  Chase sighed, nodded. “It’s complicated.”

  “But if I can convince them to announce what we have, to keep it safe here, then I think I can get them to let you study it, to say that you’re the one who found it. You get the glory.”

  She slipped her hands under the labels of Chase’s jacket and pushed it back off her shoulders. Chase didn’t move, letting Bekele guide the jacket off her and down to the floor.

  Bekele ran her hand over the tattoos on Chase’s upper arm. “You’ve got some new ones.”

  “Each one is a story.”

  Bekele stepped in close, sliding one hand each into the back pockets of Chase’s jeans, pulling her forward. “I am sorry. But your flight isn’t until tomorrow. Maybe I can make it up to you?”

  Chase let her see the beginnings of a smile. “You can try.”

  FIVE

  Nash stared into the bottom of his glass.

  There was a film he’d seen as a boy. A scene where the hero drained a beer, only to find a message written in the bottom. You have just been poisoned. Nash thought of that every time he saw the bottom of a glass come into view. How would he respond? He couldn’t remember what the guy in the film did. Nash always suspected, if it was him, he’d probably just order the same again.

  And hadn’t today been just like that?

  Get to the end and find a metaphorical note from Marah Chase. Beat you to it.

  And of course, it would be her.

  How long had he been looking for the Ark? It was impossible to put a number on it. There were the two months he’d spent actively following the latest trail, finding the map and putting it together with the legends. There were the three years he’d spent researching it, earning a reputation as one of the go-to guys on the topic. And then there was the entire lifetime spent thinking about it.

  And then she stepped in at the last minute.

  He patted his thigh, where the imaginary gun had rested during their conversation. Would things have gone differently if they weren’t in the Royale? And would things go differently next time they saw each other, in whatever dirty backwater town they found themselves in? Technically, the neutral ground was only the bar. There was nothing stopping him going up to Chase’s room, putting two rounds in her, walking away.

  But what would that solve, really?

  Nash held up his empty glass for Hass to see. A signal he wanted another. The barman came over with a glass bottle of water and two tumblers. Nash knew Hass never touched alcohol himself. It was his personal take on Islam, in which God looked the other way on the things he’d done to earn a living, and was completely accepting of some pretty big changes Hass made in his life, but would still insist on him staying sober.

  Nash couldn’t judge. In both the military and the CIA, he’d seen people making similar deals with their higher powers on a daily basis. Forming their own private version of religion, one that accepted the things they needed to do but gave the comfort and support in the darker moments.

  He thought of the last job he did for the agency. He remembered the desert heat. The dry air in his mouth. The feel of the gun in his hand, sweat finding the cracks between skin and metal. His target, right in front of him, begging to stay alive.

  The moment Nash knew he needed to quit.

  He was snapped back to the present as Hass settled into the vacant seat, filling both tumblers and passing one across to Nash.

  “Hitting it pretty hard,” Hass said.

  Nash blinked, looked at the empty liquor glass. “Just getting started.”

  Nash’s fingers trembled. The first sign of an old problem. Something he hadn’t fel
t in years. He balled his hand into a fist to cover the twitch.

  Hass sipped the water and waited a few seconds before saying, “A friend once said to me, never go to bed drunk after a bad job. You don’t want a hangover the next day. Go to bed sober, so you wake up fresh and ready to do better.”

  “Your friend sounds like an asshole.”

  “I agree.” Hass smiled, leaned in close. “But if anyone else calls you an asshole, I’ll kill them.”

  “And when did I give you that nugget of wisdom?”

  Nash was just being stubborn for the fun of it now. He well remembered giving that advice. It was something he’d said many times over the years, and he’d stuck to it—until recently. Another sign he was losing his edge.

  “My last night on the job,” Hass said. “Right after I limped into the bar in Tokyo with a sprained ankle and two cracked ribs, out several thousand dollars from the job I’d just failed at.”

  “Chase beat you, too?”

  Hass grinned. “No, you did.”

  “I beat you to the prize, then gave you, a guy who doesn’t drink, a pep talk about staying sober? I really am an asshole.”

  “I woke up the next day in a load of pain, thinking maybe my first-ever hangover would’ve been a good distraction from all of it. But your point was still right. I got up, decided I could be better, and got on with my life.”

  Nash turned the empty liquor glass around in circles on the table, ignoring the water. “And how do I do better, Hass? It was the Ark. I was so close. Ten minutes earlier, and it would’ve been mine. That’s the greatest prize. That’s it, right there. The whole game. And I missed it. How do I get up tomorrow and decide to do better?”

  “Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn to ice-skate?”

  Hass held a straight face long enough for Nash to crack, and they both laughed.

  “I’ve always wanted to learn how to wrap a burrito the right way,” Nash said. “Everyone else can do it. I mess it up. The ends flop open, or I just get this mushy mess that looks like a box.”

  “There you go, my friend. Ambition.”

  Nash picked up the water and toasted—“To big dreams”—before knocking it back. “I think you might be right about the other thing, too. Maybe it’s time to get out, find something else.”

  Hass put on a frown for show. “You want to steal my job behind the bar? Wasn’t bad enough you beat me in the field, now you want to do this?”

  This time Hass couldn’t hold the straight face.

  “Seriously, though,” he continued. “Chase got there first? So what? The two of you are the best at this. Today, she got there. On another day, you’d get there and I’d be having this conversation with her. The time to worry is if either of you start being beat by any of the other jamokes in this room.”

  He let his voice rise at the end, for everyone listening in to hear. They all went back to their own conversations, pretending they hadn’t been eavesdropping. The usual low rumble of chatter that had quieted down when Chase walked in finally returned.

  “You ever miss it?” Nash poured himself another glass of water, then did the same for Hass. “The job?”

  “Sometimes. I miss the successes. And the adrenaline. Not much excitement in lumping barrels and cleaning pipes. But I don’t miss the traveling, or the time wasted.”

  Nash offered another toast. “To time wasted.”

  Hass’s face darkened. “Is it true what they say? Bakari and Romain?”

  Nash ran his upper teeth across his lower lip for a moment before answering. “Yeah. Booby traps.”

  “Only, I know you had Imran in on it, and his chopper wouldn’t have had room for all four of you with the Ark. So I was just wondering…” Hass’s words dried up.

  Nash guessed he didn’t want to ask the question.

  “Remember the time we were both in Syria?” Hass asked instead.

  “Sure.”

  “I only went in once.” Hass smiled, but it looked fake. “Not enough jungle. But I got caught, pinned between the government and the insurgents, and then mercenaries, the ones pretending to be Islamists? They would’ve killed me for sure; they’d heard about what I am.”

  “I remember,” Nash said.

  “And then a friend showed up, wasn’t even working the same job as me, there for a different reason. And he dropped what he was working on to help me, make sure I got out alive.”

  “Sounds like a real hero.”

  “Same friend who gave me advice about going to bed sober.”

  Nash nodded and smiled. He knew where this was going. The message Hass was working his way up to, like some wise man in a movie.

  “Job’s mean,” Hass said. “Cruel. But doesn’t mean we have to be.”

  Nash smiled. “The gig in Tokyo, when I gave you that pep talk? I knew you were there ahead of me. Gave your details to some guys I owed money to, said Interpol had a warrant on you, there’d be a reward.” Nash paused. Watched the smile disappear from Hass’s face. “You got beat up bad, and I got the prize.” He stood to leave, putting his hand on Hass’s shoulder as he walked by. “Stop confusing me for a nice guy.”

  He headed out of the bar feeling wobbly on his feet but a little clearer of mind. There was one element of his friend’s advice he was going to take. He wanted to hit the pillow with a clear head. But after putting away so much booze, he was going to need to burn it all off to sober up. Maybe getting laid would ease his mind. Fortunately, he knew of several establishments within walking distance where he could do just that.

  SIX

  The walls were shaking. The bed moved a foot across the room. Hass gripped the woman who was grinding away on top of him and said, “Is the earth moving for you, too?”

  The woman, Freema Nkya, laughed as she placed her palms on his chest, steadying herself. “Scared?”

  They kept going as the tremor faded around them. Hass had been tired and ready for bed at the end of his shift. But he was never too tired to drop everything when Freema walked into his life and, really, who was ever too tired for this? He and Freema went back a long way. Best friends at school, and best friends with benefits as adults. She taught at Banaadir University in Somalia and called Hass whenever she was passing through on business.

  They rocked in rhythm, bringing each other close. Hass finished first, then made up for it by helping Freema get there. They lay in bed afterward, catching their breaths and listening to the chaos outside. Car alarms were going off all across the city.

  “Guess that’s why you’re in town?” Hass said, between deep breaths.

  Freema was a seismologist. She got up off the bed and walked to the window. Hass watched her naked silhouette against the night sky.

  “This was just a tremor,” she said. “I think the big one is coming.”

  Hass smiled. “I think something big just did.”

  Freema turned back to look at him. “Big?”

  “Hey.”

  Hass watched the lines around her fake smile. She was playing along well enough, but he could tell something was worrying at her. Her cell rang, and he passed it across from beside the bed, then slipped into the bathroom while she talked. He cleaned himself up and waited until Freema stopped talking before stepping back out into the bedroom.

  Freema was picking up her clothes off the floor. Her whole demeanor had changed. She’d already been serious, but now she was looking rushed.

  “What’s up?” Hass asked.

  “They’re calling me in. That one has them worried. Erta Ale has spiked; they think she could blow for real.”

  Erta Ale was an active volcano to the north of the country. It was permanently active, with a lava lake at the summit. Everyone had learned to live with the volcano. It was a tourist attraction. But the volcanic activity had been increasing lately, filling the sky with clouds of ash and smoke that could sometimes be seen even from here, three hundred and fifty miles southwest.

  “When you say blow…”

  “They don’t kno
w how big it could be.”

  “But why do they need you?”

  She carried her clothes in a bundle to the bathroom, leaving the door ajar to keep talking. “It’s not just the volcano. We’re worried about the rift.”

  “So when you say big one…”

  Freema poked her head back out and nodded. “Exactly.”

  Everyone in the region knew the deal. Ethiopia was sitting on top of the Great Rift Valley. Africa was split across two tectonic plates, and they were slowly pulling apart. Erta Ale was at the tip of the rift. But the process was slow. Scientists said it could take another ten million years for the two plates to separate. Earthquakes were a fact of life when you lived here. Hass had experienced several. But he’d never given thought to something of the scale Freema seemed to be talking about. When he’d been living in California, he’d had friends there who said they didn’t worry about “the big one,” but it only ever took a couple of minutes for Hass to peel away at that and make his friends realize how scared they were, all the time, of the San Andreas Fault.

  “How big are we talking? San Andreas?”

  “We don’t know. And…”

  He heard a sigh.

  She opened the bathroom door, half dressed. “I can’t really put this into—”

  “Stupid.”

  Freema grinned. “Well, maybe that I can do. You’re comparing it to San Andreas, but they don’t match. Different kinds of quake.” She put her hands together. “San Andreas is two plates side by side, rubbing against each other.” She mimicked the motion. “It’s long overdue, and it’ll be bad when it happens, but not as bad as people think. Los Angeles has been preparing for it. The biggest threat in America is farther north, the Pacific Northwest, where one plate is being pushed under the other.” She showed what she meant, sliding one hand over the other. “It’s called subduction, and that’s the worst kind of quake. That’s what happened off the coast of Chile in 1960, for the biggest quake in recorded history, and the American one is due to go anytime in the next fifty years. But here we have two plates moving in opposite directions.” She pulled her hands apart. “With some land sinking in the middle, as support goes. The big one in California will probably be an eight on the Richter scale. California could move. But we don’t think it will go up to a Richter nine. Only subduction earthquakes have ever done that, that we know of.”