by Nathan Swain
“I only perused this before,” Olivia said, removing the book from her rucksack and scanning its opening pages as the MINI Cooper headed south. “Like I said, I hadn’t taken their threats very seriously.”
“What is it?” Eastgate asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
“The definitive book on the Flaming Sword. In fact, the only book to my knowledge. It’s by a British scholar who moved to the States many years ago.”
Olivia read from the introduction:
The scholarly community is agreed that the Book of Genesis was written around 600 B.C.E during a time of great upheaval for the Jewish people. The Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed their temple. The King of Judah and his court were forcibly moved by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon along with a quarter of his people.
When the Bible is taught as a scholarly subject, our students are instructed that Genesis was written in response to this period of exile. Genesis 2, the story of Adam and Eve and their banishment from the Garden of Eden, is presented as an allegory about the fall of Jerusalem. The loss of paradise, and the removal of man from Eden, we now assume, was a metaphor of the Jews’ exile from their homeland, written for the purpose of weaving the experience of exile into Jewish culture and placing into historical context.
This interpretation is entirely wrong. Rather, compelling evidence shows that the account in Genesis of Eden was not fiction, but historical fact. Four young men from Judah, exiled in Babylon, discovered Eden, the Tree of Life, and recounted their findings in writing. That writing was adapted into Genesis chapters 2-3. They later returned with their wives and children to serve as guardians of the sacred place they had found. Genesis referred to them as cherubim and described their work as that of a flaming sword that turned every way to preserve the Tree of Life.
Those four men are not strangers to the Judeo-Christian world in which we live. In fact, they are known to most anyone who has studied the Bible or attended Sunday school: Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and their celebrated friend, Daniel. The direct descendants of these men continue to guard the Garden of Eden to this day. They are known collectively as the Flaming Sword.
It is believed that there are fewer than 2,000 members of the Flaming Sword alive today, but their influence is wide. Some are key decision makers in government and industry. Others are journalists, engineers, and musicians. While their outward pursuits vary, they are united in one ultimate goal: keeping the location of Eden a secret, and keeping the Garden safe.
“And you didn’t believe this?” Eastgate asked sarcastically. “O ye, of little faith.”
“I know, it sounds so implausible,” Olivia responded, placing the cherubim figurine from Allison’s safe on top of the dash of the car. “But then there’s this part from the book: ‘They are known to take whatever measures necessary to fulfill their sacred obligation, even murder.’ Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”
Olivia looked down at the cover of the book. It was the same pattern, the sword ringed by fire, on the pin Eastgate showed her and that Samir wore. “Samir was wearing the pin with this symbol for months and I never made the connection. I feel so stupid.”
“Never mind that,” Eastgate said. “There’s something important I haven’t told you.”
“What is it?”
“His pain is your path; his path is your pain,” Eastgate said, a look of confusion passing over his face. He nodded at the figurine. “The ox, the eagle, the lion are unbroken.”
Olivia paused, waiting for more. “Very pretty.”
“I thought so. It was whispered to me by the man we arrested that night at the checkpoint, the man who had the tablet and who was wearing the Flaming Sword pin. Until today, I thought it most likely was the ravings of a lunatic. After seeing that little guy”—Eastgate nodded again at the figurine—“I’m starting to think about it in a whole new light. Does it mean anything to you?”
“The ox, eagle and lion are an unmistakable reference to the cherubim.”
“His pain is your path; his path is your pain,” Eastgate interrupted. “The path. The way. It’s classic Christian symbolism, no?”
Olivia snorted. “Hardly. The path to enlightenment is an archetype fundamental to human experience and part of almost every major religious practice. Buddhism has its eightfold path. The first chapter of the Quran implores Allah to ‘guide us on the straight path.’ In ancient Greece, the initiates in the Eleusinian Mysteries walked an actual path called the ‘sacred way’ before participating in the final ceremonial rights. Christianity brings nothing new to the table on this, I assure you.”
“But what about the pain?”
“Again, nothing new. Suffering is how Hindus pay off bad karma. The first noble truth of Buddhism is that life is full of pain and suffering. And by the way, ever heard of Ramadan and Yom Kippur? They’re all about suffering, repentance, self-abnegation.”
Eastgate winced. “I stand corrected.”
“Regardless, it means something, doesn’t it? This bloke told it to you for a reason.”
“I still think one or both of our governments could be responsible for Allison’s murder. But we clearly need to learn more about the Flaming Sword,” Eastgate said. “Who’s the authority?”
“As far as I know, there’s just one. The author of this book.”
Olivia turned to the back jacket. It showed a thumbnail picture of a man in a red turtleneck sweater and hounds tooth jacket with curly white hair. “Owen Sandwith is a professor of history at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. That’s all it says.”
“Why don’t we try to get him on the phone?”
“I already tried six months ago,” Olivia said, dejectedly. She put the book down on her lap. “I talked to the chair of his department.”
“And?”
“He told me Sandwith has been missing for five years.”
Chapter 37
Eastgate entered the street address Pearl had emailed him into his GPS device. A blinking blue dot marked their destination on the map.
“Where are we going?” Olivia asked.
“A safe house,” Eastgate said, reviewing the two-dimensional terrain of the map around the blue dot. “It belongs to a friend in the industry.”
“What industry is that?”
“Intelligence.”
“Oh, brilliant. We need to add a little more intrigue and excitement into this otherwise boring day.”
“You can trust him.”
“How do you know he’s not a double agent?”
“Pearlsy? You don’t have to worry about him. His allegiance is iron clad.”
Eastgate looked sheepishly at Olivia. “We’re fraternity brothers.”
She slapped her hands down onto her legs. “Another bloody frat boy. Well, I suppose that’s preferable to another Jordanian militarist.”
“Is that what your boyfriend is?” Eastgate asked.
“I never said he was my boyfriend. And, yes, that’s what he is. At least, I think so.”
“He never told you?”
“He did. But his story never made a lot of sense.”
“Well, you sure know how to pick ’em, professor.”
Eastgate understood Olivia’s anxiety about Pearl. By definition, spies were not to be trusted. But it was a good bet Pearl had secured an ideal hiding place for them in London.
Pearl had clearly planned for the contingency. Unbeknownst to Eastgate, he had looped the key to the safe house through the base of Eastgate’s knife before he left his lair. Eastgate only discovered it that morning.
From the A10, the orders from the Garmin lead them to Kentishtown, a neighborhood in north London next to Camden.
“What do you know about Kentishtown?” Eastgate asked.
“Multi-ethnic. Not just rich white people. Just dodgy enough to be interesting.”
“Sounds like the perfect location for a safe house. No one looks out of place.”
“I don’t want to just blend in,” Olivia said. “I want to disappear. Londo
n could be crawling with Samir’s cronies.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has a flat in Belsize Park. It’s got photos of his mates. He said they were former Jordanian military like him. They all live in London and, how did he put it, ‘watched each other’s backs.’ ”
“Sounds like the local chapter of the Flaming Sword.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
The MINI Cooper rolled past town houses with stucco façades and a Greek Orthodox Church. Gold and green soccer jerseys hung in the windows of the local convenience shops. Street food—Brazilian, Russian, and Greek—was being sold from dimly-lit store fronts on every other corner, most of them surrounded by a gaggle of middle-aged men passing time in conversation.
Eastgate parked the car across from an apartment complex. It was non-descript, probably built sometime between the wars.
The safe house was a two-bedroom flat on the top floor of the center building, which had an underground garage.
“OK, let’s go.”
“Aren’t you going to park in the garage?” Olivia asked.
“No. They’ll have security. If this car has been reported missing, the garage attendants would probably have the license plate on a list to check.”
When the door to the flat opened, Olivia expected to see red plastic cups rolling on the floor, and a basket of condoms on the coffee table—something befitting the décor of a frat house.
“This must be frat boy chic,” she said. The flat wasn’t finely decorated. Generic watercolor paintings of flying ducks and waterfalls hung on the walls. The furniture was upholstered in drab beige and royal blue. But there wasn’t pizza stuck to the walls.
“Classic safe house,” Eastgate said. “Nothing to draw attention.”
Olivia turned on the television. The London news stations had wall to wall coverage of Professor Allison’s slaying. “Here, turn up the volume,” she instructed Eastgate.
“A brutal slaying of one of Cambridge’s most respected dons,” a BBC reporter intoned, standing in Market Square in Cambridge. “Police have yet to disclose whether they have identified any suspects, but a University official has informed the BBC that the police believe the murderer was a thief attempting to burglarize the museum. The victim, Professor Sidney Allison, may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Oh, turn it off!” Olivia shouted, enraged by the report. “Daft administrators. How could they possibly reach that conclusion after only 24 hours?”
“Just the same, they’ll be looking for you soon.”
“I know. I’ll be back in the tabloids. Hooray!”
“Back in the tabloids?”
“Look on the internet,” she said.
Eastgate knew exactly what she was talking about, but he didn’t let on how much he already knew. Anyway, he was never one to be overly impressed with celebrity.
“I’m turning in,” Olivia said. She shuffled into a bedroom off the hallway from the kitchen and hurled herself onto the bed.
Her head had been pounding all day, she realized. Perhaps it was a rush of adrenaline that had been suppressing the sensation. Or maybe pain had become normalized for her—a consequence of seeing Allison’s brains splattered on a laboratory floor.
I’d give my right kidney for an Ibuprofen, she thought. Clicking on a lamp light switch, she found two Excedrin inside the door of the side table next to her, along with a bottle of water.
They really know their clientele at this place. Victims of trauma and pounding headaches.
After two swigs of water, Olivia placed her hands on her chest. Her racing heart began to calm. She imagined the cocktail of Acetaminophen, caffeine, and aspirin coursing through her veins. Soon, the balloon of pressure that had been building against her cranium would slowly, effortlessly, deflate.
But the questions racing in the back of her mind would not go away. What is the Flaming Sword? Is Samir one of its leaders? Did he kill Allison? Had his interest in me been a lie from the beginning? There was a time she had thought he was handsome, sophisticated, and worth investing time in. Now, she believed he was trying to kill her.
Just as strange, Olivia had now thrown her lot in with a muscled frat boy with a crazy story and what she had thought was a sham tablet. But it had all turned out to be true. Still, Olivia didn’t really know anything about Eastgate. She needed to know how far she could trust him. She willed herself to get out of bed and sat down in front of the PC in her bedroom. She typed out his name in the Yahoo! search engine. She found what she was looking for at the top of the results:
June 30, 1994
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
March 12, 1993, was a day that changed William Eastgate’s life forever. On that day, his parents were among hundreds killed in a series of explosions that ripped through Bombay, India.
Mr. Eastgate, now twenty-three, was more than half-way through his first year as a PhD student at the time of the bombing. He was studying languages of the Middle East, like Arabic and Farsi, at the University of Virginia, and was planning to stay and teach there as a full-time professor.
He remembers the moment he learned about his parents’ death like it was yesterday. “I was playing soccer on the Lawn with some University guides,” said Mr. Eastgate. “The dean of students came up to me and said there had been a terrible accident. Just by looking at him, I knew they were gone.”
It turned out their deaths were not accidents. After a lengthy investigation, it was determined that D-Company, an Indian mafia-terrorist organization, was behind the thirteen bombs set off that day targeting banks, hotels, and the Bombay Stock Exchange. These acts of evil took the lives of more than 250 people, including those of Mr. Eastgate’s father Henry, a PGA golf pro in Sea Island, Georgia, and mother Catherine, a celebrated art historian and biographer. The Eastgates were in Bombay attending the opening of India’s latest championship golf course.
The death of his parents sent Mr. Eastgate’s life on a different course. “I have to admit, I was angry,” Mr. Eastgate said. “I didn’t want to just mourn my parents, I wanted to stop what had happened to them from ever happening again.” Instead of using his language skills in the classroom, Mr. Eastgate decided to apply them on the battlefield, enlisting into the officer school for the US Special Forces, better known as the Green Berets.
“The Special Forces is primarily tasked with unconventional warfare. A big part of that mission is understanding the language and culture of the places in which we operate, and training foreign troops to succeed on their own,” Mr. Eastgate said. “I’ve been able to use my language skills to great effect.”
What could be next for Mr. Eastgate after his military career? Sea Islanders who have known him since birth believe a position in Washington may be in his future. “He’s the American ideal—a scholar and a soldier,” said Sea Island neighbor J.P. Prescott. I would not be surprised to see a Senator Eastgate or President Eastgate someday.” Others project a life in stand-up comedy. “Eastgate’s always been a cut-up, kind of a towel-snapper,” said Lowell Grayson, a high school friend and teammate on the Sea Island High School football team. “I thought he’d be writing for TV by now or working the New York comedy club scene.”
Whatever he does, for the time being, Mr. Eastgate is satisfied protecting America from its enemies. “We will never destroy all evil, but we can reduce it. We can be safe and secure enough to carry on with our democratic experiment.”
Olivia closed out of Yahoo! and stared at the screen saver—a red-barked tree rising from a green-sloped hilltop. The story was tragic. It worried Olivia that Eastgate could still be traumatized from his parents’ death, chasing phantom bad guys around the world in an effort to undo what could never be undone. But the article seemed to be consistent with everything he had told her about his background. As an academic, Olivia liked to back up her perception with secondary sources. She had found a fairly authoritative source on Eastgate. It was more than she could say about Samir.
The other stories online were run-of-the-mill. There were articles in the Sea Island News with high school track times and golf scores. There was another piece in the Journal-Constitution from just after 9/11, much along the lines of the 1994 article, telling Eastgate’s story and describing his commitment to finding those responsible for bringing down the World Trade Center.
Olivia shut down the computer. Eastgate had suffered incredible loss, but had responded with courage. He wasn’t lying about his language skills either. A torrent of guilt poured down on Olivia. Eastgate was a gentleman soldier—the genuine article. She had treated him with the haughty arrogance of an intellectual prig.
Then she remembered that she had other things to feel terrible about: Allison’s death, Samir’s betrayal, their flight from a murderous, secret order that had been hunting the tablet from Iraq to Cambridge.
The grief and fear covered Olivia like a heavy blanket. Her head hit the pillow and she was asleep in seconds.
Chapter 38
Eastgate took a tall glass from the kitchen cabinet and filled it with water. He tilted it over his lower lip and felt the chilled liquid slide down his esophagus. His gaze rested in the dark corner of the room. A subtle form emerged. Each moment it grew bigger, darkening and rising like black smoke from a smoldering fire.
His jaw clenched and his hand went limp. The glass shattered on the floor. Out of the dark shroud, a face emerged. It was the face of an old woman. Her hair was greasy and her skin was gray and creased. She was looming over him.
He stifled a scream and looked for the clock on the wall. It read 3:04 a.m. He took a half-breath and looked back, but the clock was obscured by a shadow, maybe from the old woman. His chest tightened. The old woman was on him now, pressing, staring, it seemed, into his soul.
