by Nathan Swain
“Get back from the window,” Eastgate said, tugging on Olivia’s arm.
Olivia crouched down to the floor.
“There’s something else.” Olivia’s voice shrank to a raspy whisper.
“What?”
“This figurine,” she said, “it isn’t just a warning.”
“OK.”
“It’s a calling card.”
“I’m not following you,” Eastgate said, turning the cherub over in his hand.
Olivia had a pained look on her face.
“It’s a legend. A silly story. Apocryphal, I had thought.”
“Story of what?”
“Of”—Olivia looked behind her—“guardians, entrusted with protecting the Garden of Eden. The story is that they’ve been protecting the Garden ever since God drove out Adam and Eve. Even to this day.”
“Who are they?”
“According to legend, they’re called the Flaming Sword.”
“What do you mean, ‘according to legend’?”
“Until recently, I never believed the Flaming Sword actually existed. There’s been no real proof. Only rumors, and one scholarly work, but it’s very obscure. I first began looking into them six months ago.”
“Why?”
“I was receiving letters in the post warning me to stop looking for the Garden of Eden. They were sent by a group that identified itself as the Flaming Sword. The letters were stamped with a strange wax seal.”
Eastgate took the pin worn by the old man at the checkpoint out of his pocket. “Let me guess, the seal looked something like this.” He displayed the pin in the palm of his hand. The little red stones reflected the morning light streaming into Allison’s office.
“Where did you get that?”
Chapter 34
No matter how hard he tried, Samir could not get the maroon stain on his thumb to disappear. He poured a little coffee from his McDonald’s cup onto a napkin and scrubbed the blotch of blood until the skin blistered, but it made no difference. Samir sighed. Another annoyance. The blotch and the crimson streaks of dried blood down his arm were evidence linking him to Allison’s murder. If the police found him, he would be in trouble.
But other than their potential to be used as evidence against him, the stains did not bother him. Quite the opposite, he viewed them as a badge of honor.
Just as pressing at the moment were the pains in his stomach. Samir was famished from the activities of the last 24 hours. He hurriedly swallowed two breakfast sandwiches and folded a stack of pancakes into his mouth, washing them down with more coffee. He shut his eyes, waiting for the caffeine and sugar to kick in, and considered his next move.
So far, Eastgate and Olivia had acted just as his father had anticipated. They didn’t call the police. Instead, they went directly to Allison’s office to look for the tablet. They had been in there for ten minutes, by Samir’s count. Watching from his Mercedes in a parking lot across the street, a ketchup and syrup-stained bag sitting on the passenger seat next to him, he expected them to emerge from the building soon, trembling and bumbling, afraid of their own shadows.
Westerners reacted with shock and fear when confronted with violence. It amused Samir to watch. Violence had been part of his people’s lives for centuries. They reacted bravely in the face of it. By comparison, Westerners acted like children.
Samir snorted in amusement and scanned the building exit one more time.
He took another swig of coffee, dribbling a little on the tablet, which he held on his lap.
“Shit.” He tried to soak up the spilled liquid with his shirt.
Samir had no idea what the tablet said. Despite course work on cuneiform the past semester, and his multiple readings of Olivia’s book, his understanding of basic cuneiform was nil. He certainly had no hope of translating the proto-cuneiform script on the tablet, even if he slaved over the inscription for a year. He knew enough to realize that it was a marvelous artifact: its size, the column structure, and the age. Based on the radiocarbon document left with Allison’s corpse, he knew it was extraordinarily old. This truly was the tablet his father told him about, carved by Adam himself. That’s why Samir wanted to place it underneath the back wheel of his Mercedes and turn it into rubble. Why not destroy it and protect the secret of Eden forever?
Relics, even ancient ones with incredible historical significance, held no meaning for Samir. All that mattered was accumulating and exercising power. His father had taught him that.
But his father’s instructions had been clear: “Take the tablet and capture them. Kill the man if you wish. Keep Professor Nazarian alive and bring her to me.”
Samir intended to follow his father’s orders. But not without a few detours.
Chapter 35
“The man who had the tablet at the checkpoint in Iraq was wearing this when we stopped him,” Eastgate said, rubbing the silver backing of the pin with his thumb.
“You mean the one who promised you unspeakable harm?”
“That’s the one.”
“Great, well, the Flaming Sword is definitely attempting to deliver on its promise.”
Eastgate glanced at the parking lot outside the museum. “We need a fast way out of here. We should have planned this better.”
“You’re right,” Olivia responded, exasperated. “I should have had some procedures at hand in case my friend and mentor was murdered in his lab.
“You’re the one in the Special Forces. There must have been training for this.”
Training? Eastgate considered. You have no idea. Everything he had learned since Camp Mackall helped train him for moments like this. But training only went so far. Every emergency was unique. Every op required a little creativity and improvisation. This was no different.
Eastgate took Olivia by the hand. They raced down a curving staircase back to the basement door of the museum, which lead to the parking lot. His eyes scanned the rows of cars sitting outside. The nearest was a MINI Cooper.
“A vehicle with cross-hairs on the roof is not the ideal get-away car,” Eastgate said, pointing at the MINI.
Olivia shrugged. “These are not ideal times.”
Eastgate couldn’t disagree. “OK, let’s go.”
Running, Eastgate led Olivia from the museum entrance to the MINI Cooper. He shattered the driver side window with the handle of his M11 and unlocked the car.
He paused a moment, waiting for his memory to kick in. It wasn’t from SF training. He learned how to jack a car from Jim Meachum, the greens keeper’s son at his father’s golf course.
Eastgate removed the clips holding the plastic cover on the steering column with the saw tool on his knife.
“Hurry, please,” Olivia implored, looking around them nervously.
Eastgate searched for the battery and starter wires. By twisting them together, he hoped, the engine would start. It worked on Buicks and Fords in 1989. Hopefully it would start the MINI Cooper now. Eastgate stripped the insulation from the wires and joined the wires together into a braid. The engine roared to life.
Eastgate smiled. Thanks Jimmy.
Samir jumped when he heard the engine start, spilling his coffee on his lap. “God damn it,” he screamed, feeling the scalding heat creep down his pant leg.
Olivia looked across the street. “It’s… Samir. What is he doing here?”
“Do you know him?” Eastgate asked.
“Yes, I—”
“Is he looking at us?”
“Yes, but—”
“That’s Allison’s murderer.”
“What?”
Eastgate took the wheel and pulled Olivia into the passenger seat.
He considered driving directly into Samir. An aggressive move was the last thing Samir would expect. But a public scene would be nearly as bad as capture.
The MINI screamed down the street away from the museum. Samir threw the remnants of his breakfast out the window and followed.
Olivia barked directions to the M11, the main highway
connecting Cambridge to the A10, which funneled south into London. The fern lands and flatlands of outer Cambridge flew past. The needle on the speedometer trembled between 150 and 160 kilometers per hour.
“Is he following us?” Olivia asked. “Are we just going to run?”
“We’ll find out,” Eastgate said, scanning a map on his GPS.
“What are you doing?”
“Setting a trap. We need a stretch of highway and an exit ramp,” Eastgate said, squinting into the screen. “This will do right here,” he said, tapping on the GPS.
“Let’s just outrun him,” Olivia pleaded. “We have the advantage.”
“You’re right. We have the advantage,” Eastgate said, slamming the stick shift into fourth gear. “Let’s press it.”
About 800 feet before the exit, Eastgate slowed the car and pulled over to the shoulder.
“What’s wrong? Why are you slowing down?”
“If we’re being followed, he’ll either have to pull over or drive by. If he stops, we’ve forced him to reveal himself.”
“And if he keeps driving?”
“Then we exit. If he exits, we go straight. Whatever decision he makes, we improve our position.”
“What if he has a gun?” Olivia asked.
“That will make two of us.”
Samir followed three cars back. He saw the MINI Cooper lurch left onto the shoulder of the M11 and come to an abrupt stop.
“Son of a bitch,” he shouted, pounding the steering wheel. He wrenched the steering wheel to the left and brought his foot down on the brakes. The Mercedes came to a stop about a hundred feet behind the MINI Cooper, spraying a cloud of brown and white pebbles and leaving a ten-foot stripe of steaming rubber behind.
“Gotcha,” Eastgate said, his fingers probing his rucksack for the black box Pearl had given him.
Olivia craned her neck out the passenger window and saw a black Mercedes, with a Manchester United vanity plate, smoldering on the sun-soaked asphalt, the tinted windows rolled up.
“Oh my God, it is him,” said Olivia. “It’s Samir.”
“That’s our man.”
“Wait here,” Olivia said, opening the door and striding along the shoulder toward Samir’s car.
Eastgate reached over to the passenger seat to try to stop Olivia, but it was too late. “Wait, no—”
“Samir, what are you doing here?” Olivia shouted, striding purposefully down the highway shoulder toward the Mercedes.
Samir got out of the car and walked slowly to meet Olivia, his eyes down. “I was worried about you. I saw you running from the museum with this strange man and wanted to make sure you’re OK. You didn’t look like yourself.”
Olivia was bewildered. Is it possible he’s telling the truth?
“Who is that man? Do you need help?”
Maybe Samir was right to be concerned. After all, she had just met Eastgate. Isn’t it more likely that Eastgate conned me? Why was I so quick to trust him? Maybe he killed Professor Allison.
She looked back at Eastgate. He was standing in front of the MINI Cooper pointing a black machine gun at Samir.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said.
Samir grabbed Olivia by the arm. “Get in the car,” he demanded, pulling her into his chest. And then she noticed it: the silver pin with the red rubies. The same pin Eastgate showed her in Allison’s office. Samir had been wearing it all along—the seal of the Flaming Sword.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, Samir. Why are you wearing that pin?”
Samir was speechless. This woman. She thinks she is the smartest person alive. She thinks she is superior to me. He wanted to tell her all about the Flaming Sword, and how he would never allow her to find the Garden of Eden. That he had killed her precious Professor Allison and would kill the American soon.
He twisted her wrist, pulling her closer.
Olivia raised her leg and sent the heel of her boot crashing into the toe of Samir’s shoe. He howled and crumpled to the ground.
“Goddamn bitch!” he screamed, losing his grip on her.
Olivia pivoted on her other foot and ran back to the MINI Cooper. Samir lurched after Olivia, but he could only brush his fingers on her pant leg.
“I’ll kill you,” Samir shouted, drawing a handgun from his jacket.
“I wouldn’t,” Eastgate shouted, placing the machine gun’s laser sight onto Samir’s forehead.
“Go! Go!” shouted Olivia, jumping back into the car.
Eastgate fired five rounds from the machine gun. The tires of Samir’s car exploded, sending shards of hub caps and metal siding flying into the expressway. A plume of acrid smoke rose above the car. When Samir looked up, the MINI was speeding away.
They were headed to London.
Chapter 36
Olivia learned long ago that the story of the Garden of Eden triggered strange emotions in the human soul. For many, it crystalized their world view. Fundamentalists of all stripes—Muslims, Jews, Christians—viewed it as literal truth and shunned Olivia’s discovery showing Tell Eatiq dating back no later than other nearby ancient cities. Atheists disliked that Olivia’s discovery tended to legitimize the Bible as a historical record. Even religious progressives had a bone to pick, criticizing her for distracting the public’s attention from the moral message of the Bible. They regarded the sensation over Tell Eatiq as a media-driven sideshow.
Olivia knew that scholars and intellectuals had been hunted for hundreds of years by those who advocated for a historical understanding of the story of Adam and Eve. For pointing out that the chronology set out in the Bible placed Adam and Eve thousands of years after the first humans, the English poet Christopher Marlowe ended up with a knife in his eye and the Italian monk Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake.
Olivia had felt the malevolent influence of radical fundamentalism encroaching on the outer edges of her life for years now. But she had never expected anything like what had happened: violence, and the death of someone she loved. Professor Allison was not just a mentor, but a true friend. In the cutthroat world of academia, those were hard to come by. Maybe it was their age difference, or the fact that their academic specialties were so different, but Allison never seemed burdened with the same jealousy shared by the rest of the department when Olivia became the most celebrated archaeologist of the past century.
It was his willingness to continue to engage with her, even as the rest of the department treated her like a one-hit pop musician, that made him so different. To Olivia’s horror, it was this same kindness that got Allison killed. Had he washed his hands of her like the rest of the department, he’d never have gotten caught up in this tragedy. Shallow pools of tears covered Olivia’s eyes. The MINI Cooper was moving swiftly down the A10 highway. London was less than thirty miles away.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Eastgate said, sensing Olivia’s sorrow.
Olivia was speechless. Her father’s tough love whispered in her memory. “Stiff upper lip, O.”
Bollocks your stiff upper lip, daddy. My friend was killed.
Olivia’s grief also mixed with waves of fear, which turned her stomach inside out. She had experienced death before. Her mother’s death two years ago was deeply painful. But she had never confronted a murder, much less the kind of grotesque, merciless attack wrought upon Allison. She shuddered at the image of Allison’s crushed cranium, scatted in pieces across the lab.
A small voice inside told her to open the door to the car and jump out.
Run. Leave. Now!
Olivia fought back the urge. She needed to calm down. She needed to focus on what she could control.
Facts, Olivia. Think of facts.
She moved her finger tips in tiny circles over her temples, until her physical surroundings began to recede from her consciousness. Facts. The tablet was real. The crumpled paper, stained with Allison’s blood, listed its conventional radiocarbon date as 5,800 years before present. Present was the year 1950—the date the carbon dating
method was invented. It meant the tablet was made in approximately 3,850 BCE, give or take a couple hundred years.
The fact that it was one of the oldest tablets ever discovered was remarkable. Its apparent reference to the Garden of Eden was extraordinary.
And now we’ve lost it, Olivia despaired. Allison’s killer has it.
She gripped the bottom of her car seat and tried to refocus.
Facts. Facts.
The writers of Genesis 2 likely drew from oral histories and prior writings to compile the story of man’s creation. The tablet could have been one of those writings, Olivia surmised. Perhaps it was a first edition. And it was common for the writers of the Bible to borrow from the literature and folk lore of Mesopotamia. One well-known example was the story of the great flood in Genesis chapters 5 to 10, which likely was influenced by the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh written hundreds of years earlier.
That the tablet was legitimate was indisputable. That people were willing to kill to have it was clear. But something still puzzled Olivia: the symbol on the bottom of the tablet. To the Western mind, it signified infinity. But it had no meaning in ancient Mesopotamia. As she and Eastgate speeded toward London, she still wasn’t able to recall any occurrence of an infinity symbol in Ancient Near East iconography, much less any connection with Eden. A feeling continued to nag at her, though. I’ve seen this before. But where? When?
Then there was the Flaming Sword. They had killed Allison, Olivia had no doubt. Samir’s behavior on the M11 highway all but confirmed that he was one of them. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that she started receiving their letters the same time he arrived at Cambridge. He probably delivered them to her inbox personally.
A shiver of terror crept up Olivia’s spine as she thought of Samir dropping off those letters, watching her day and night, all at the direction of a secret order. Even their nights together in Samir’s flat must have been part of their plan. That damn ruby pin was probably sitting on his bedside table.
Fortunately, Eastgate and Olivia had caught a break. Just as they were about to run from Allison’s office, Olivia noticed among his ransacked possessions a copy of an obscure book about the Flaming Sword. She had no idea Allison had a copy. When she began to crawl away from the window, her knee bumped into it: The Protectors of Paradise: The Secret History of The Society of the Flaming Sword by Owen Sandwith. It was as if Allison had reached down from heaven and placed it in her path so she couldn’t miss it. She had quickly stuffed it into her bag on the way out of Allison’s office.
