by Nathan Swain
Damn it Beck! What use are these weapons going to be if I can’t stay underwater to begin with? It wasn’t like Jarrett to make that kind of mistake.
Perhaps a corrupt bureaucrat lifted the gear as it passed through the border, Eastgate thought. Or maybe someone had sabotaged the crate before it shipped. It could have been the Flaming Sword, scheming to ambush their weakened enemy in the caves, leaving Eastgate with enough equipment to attempt the op but without the proper gear to succeed.
Eastgate could feel his blood pressure tick up a few notches. “Easy, Will,” he cautioned himself, “be rational.” If someone was trying to sabotage the shipment, it hardly made sense they would send on the amphibious weapons. No, the more likely reason was that Jarrett couldn’t get the equipment. It was a logistical problem, not a set up.
Elazığ had a university and might have scuba equipment for sale somewhere. But Eastgate doubted he could find the gear quickly enough, or that it would be good enough to make a difference. The mission couldn’t be delayed.
I better swim fast.
Chapter 75
Olivia stalked around a small room on Karzan’s property, as if looking for something to throw. “I am most certainly going with,” Olivia shouted at Eastgate, her dark eyes smoldering. “I’m a British citizen, free to do as I damn well please. I don’t need your permission.”
Eastgate had no problem with women fighting in combat, he had told Olivia. During the battle of Neptune Spear at the beginning of the invasion, he counted close to a dozen Kurdish women fighting as fiercely against the enemy as their husbands and brothers. Those women grew up in the mountains, hunting and taking target practice on the weekends. Olivia was raised in North London, taking walks in Hampstead Heath and Regents Park, where the greatest danger was a Cocker Spaniel who’d broken free from its leash.
“I’m sorry, have you received combat training that I’m not aware of?” Eastgate asked.
“Yes, it’s called academia, which is every bit as vicious as the US Army.”
Eastgate considered a different approach. “Look, we have to assume danger tomorrow.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Going through Iran worked. Samir lost our trail. Even the Flaming Sword can’t track us through Evin prison. They have no idea where we are.”
“Who do you think alerted Tadita to our arrival? It wasn’t the Tehran Chamber of Commerce.”
“Iran and the Flaming Sword aren’t working together. The reason the government tolerates Sandwith is to gather dirt on the Flaming Sword. Iran and the Flaming Sword are adversaries.”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean they don’t cooperate when it suits their interests. And if it wasn’t for Tadita, the government probably would have handed us over to them. OK, I’ll cut to the point. I’m not willing to risk your life,” Eastgate said, sitting down on the edge of a bed in the middle of the room. He meant it.
Olivia sat down next to him and placed her hand over Eastgate’s. It had been four nights since their would-be kiss in Chalus and Olivia was conflicted. The urge to kiss him was as strong as before. But at the moment, so was the desire to knock his teeth out with an upper cut. “It’s not your decision. No one has more at stake here than me, both professionally and personally.”
Eastgate wasn’t sure about that. His career was on the line too, and he still felt responsible for the death of Hadi and the taxi driver at the checkpoint. Allison’s murder was tragic, but it hadn’t been the only loss of life since the tablet was discovered.
“Even if you’re right,” Olivia continued, “you need me there. There’s no one on Earth who knows more about the Garden of Eden than me.”
“Other than the Flaming Sword, that’s probably true.”
“Rich’s journal is vague. There may be more to finding Eden than we know right now. What if there are reliefs or cuneiform etchings that need to be interpreted?”
Eastgate grimaced. She was right.
“To quote your Secretary of Defense, there are many ‘known unknowns’ at play here. My knowledge of the period could be essential. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m an archaeologist. Our task is as much excavation as special operations.”
As a veteran SF operator, Eastgate appreciated more than most soldiers the role of analysis in completing an op. Having the right personnel with the necessary information and interpretive skills on hand was essential.
He relented. “You’re right. You need to come.”
“Excellent,” Olivia said, giving Eastgate a peck on the cheek.
She paused for a moment.
“Will, there’s something else we need to discuss. What will we do if we find the Garden of Eden, if we find the meadow and tree and potentially a heap of other archaeological evidence?”
Olivia’s question was timely. Traveling overnight to Lake Hazar, inching ever closer to what many would consider the most sacred place on Earth, a kernel of doubt started to take seed in Eastgate’s mind. Stepping onto the site of the actual Garden of Eden, would we be tampering with a spiritual realm we have no business messing with?
When he was a child, Eastgate’s parents brought him and his brother each Sunday to Sea Island First Episcopal Church. He wasn’t very religious any more. At best, he was a foxhole Christian. But he had witnessed enough inexplicable phenomenon in his journeys through the world the past decade that he had picked up a bit of humility when it came to the big questions in life. His instinct was to tread cautiously. Jarrett said it himself back in Iraq. There may still be some “bad mojo” hanging around the Garden of Eden.
“I’m glad you mentioned it,” Eastgate said, “I have some concerns too.”
“Such as?”
“Are there any historical or”—Eastgate cleared his throat—“theological matters we should be considering before we go marching back in time into the Old Testament?”
Olivia looked at Eastgate like he had scorpions crawling out of his ears. That was not even close to her concern.
“What are you afraid of, a horde of locusts devouring us?”
“Now that you mention it.”
“I didn’t realize you were superstitious.”
“Not superstitious. Just careful.”
Olivia snickered.
Eastgate scowled. He was back to being the philistine crank again. “Listen, I’ve been all over this world and seen more than a few things that could never be explained by scientific reasoning. Levitations. Spontaneous healings. People speaking in tongues. That stuff ain’t made up. In other words, there’s more to heaven and Earth, Horatio.”
Olivia breathed in dramatically and looked down at her hands, as if she was reading from notes prepared for a lecture. “The Garden of Eden is not a mythical place from another realm. It’s an actual place on Earth described in the Bible, which is a historical document. It doesn’t have any special power. And it’s not even the place where man was created, despite what the peasant told Rich. Homo sapiens originated somewhere in the Horn of Africa.”
Olivia brushed the hair from her shoulder, trying not to get too worked up. “It’s important for the whole world to grasp this point, to move on from humanity’s superstitious past once and for all.”
Olivia was characteristically blunt. But Eastgate appreciated her cold, hard logic. And he knew she was right. The opportunity to destroy a cornerstone of fundamentalism outweighed his concerns of bad mojo. If there was a God out there, Eastgate was pretty sure he’d approve.
“You’re the perfect person to bring the discovery to the world,” Eastgate said, taking both of Olivia’s hands in his own. “It’s almost like you were fated to do it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who would fabricate the discovery of a place that they already discovered, and that made them an instant celebrity? There would be no reason to doubt you.”
“You have a point. And with the full force and credibility of the University of Cambridge behind the discovery, and hopefully the cooperation of the Turkish government, we may be abl
e to open up the site for everyone to see with their own eyes—Jews, Muslims, Christians, and even the bloody Atheists. All we have to do now is find it without losing our lives in the process.”
“Is that all?” Eastgate asked, running his thumb over Olivia’s cheekbone. He lay back on the bed and Olivia followed, resting her head on his chest.
Chapter 76
It was not like Batur to miss a deadline. He was supposed to call Reso two hours ago. He was going to report that Samir had been beaten and humiliated, chastened and restrained. But the minutes ticked by, and by 10 p.m. Reso assumed something had gone wrong. Samir had bested Batur.
An unexpected surge of pride welled up inside him. He was right about his son. Samir had the ruthlessness of an assassin, the toughness he had tried to instill in him when he first came to Reso as a frail, frightened orphan.
But Batur was right as well. Samir’s psyche was frayed, if not torn apart. After Samir hung up on him, Reso thought Samir would call him back, that his response was just a fit of pique and minor rebellion and that Samir would come to his senses. But Batur’s disappearance confirmed the worst: Samir had gone rogue.
Reso had known his son to be a heartless seducer of women. He hadn’t thought, therefore, that Olivia would give him any trouble. Even if she did, Reso didn’t expect Samir to bruise so deeply from the slights of a woman. But Samir’s failure with Olivia, Reso concluded, had wounded him deeply.
Reso had seen lesser versions of this process play out before. Many men from the Middle East had trouble adapting to Western culture. They never overcame their alienation. Nothing epitomized that more than female rejection. The culture of personal and sexual freedom in the West was ruthless, Reso understood. It gave no quarter to fragile male egos.
Reso accepted that Samir was lost. Even more disturbing, however, was that Samir seemed intent on exacting retribution on Olivia. That, Reso would never allow.
At last, Reso’s cell phone rang, vibrating against the finely-varnished surface of his desk. But it was not Batur.
“My son has gone out on his own,” Reso said to the caller.
“I told you he couldn’t be trusted,” the caller said. “He’s not a professional.”
“Kudos to you then. Now what do you propose doing about it?”
Chapter 77
Eastgate heard the low purr of an engine and looked outside. Daylight had yet to break over the horizon, but a pocket of moonlight revealed a tunnel of dirt and dust churning down the road. Thirty seconds later a black Hummer H2 came into view. Karzan stepped out of the passenger seat with a lantern.
“We are here to escort you to Lake Hazar,” Karzan said, pointing to the other men. “These are my brothers.”
Each was wearing green camouflage and carried an AK-47 by his side. “As you can see, we are well armed.” Karzan patted his rifle. One of the brothers even carried over his shoulder a LAW—a light anti-tank weapon. It was basically a bazooka.
Eastgate was reminded of the ruthlessness of the Peshmerga who had fought beside him at the start of the war. The Kurds do not screw around.
He handed Brody’s map to Karzan. “This is where we need to go.”
“Spooky Bible cave dive. Closed. Bummer!” Karzan read, imitating Brody’s voice. “OK, we will go there now.”
Eastgate and Olivia vaulted themselves into the backseat of the Humvee. Before they could shut the door, Karzan put the car into gear and they were moving.
Eastgate began trouble-shooting the operation. What could go wrong? What were their greatest vulnerabilities?
What came to mind first was their encounter with Brody. Most intelligence agents working for the US and UK were based out of an embassy or consulate and used the cover of a foreign service officer or NGO staffer. But there were outliers. Some agents were under deep cover, embedded in the local society. It was the best way to gather intel. It was also necessary in countries like Iran, where the US had no embassy.
Brody was probably CIA, Eastgate thought. His story seemed like the absurd kind of tale that would be dreamed up at Langley. But the biggest give away was the way he spoke. His accent was pretty convincing, but the rhythm was all off. It was a common mistake made by those attempting to fake their nationality.
If Eastgate was right, Brody could be working with whoever ambushed him at the checkpoint back in Baghdad. On the other hand, Eastgate trusted Karzan. He was experienced and savvy enough to detect subterfuge by Brody.
Of course, it was possible that all of it was true—that Brody was CIA, that he operated a map store and actually did go cave diving and had a map of Lake Hazar. That’s where the world of intelligence lived, somewhere in the fault lines between fiction and reality.
“Let’s review the journal, shall we?” Olivia asked.
Eastgate grimaced and shifted his seat. He was accustomed to absorbing information and then drawing on it at lightning speed to execute an op. This was clearly different. Besides the fact that he was operating outside the military chain of command, their information wasn’t rock solid. Unlike most ops, he and Olivia would be banking on legend and hunch as much as fact. And unlike most of his missions, he wasn’t about to infiltrate a terrorist’s safe house with a unit of veteran green berets. His unit was comprised of himself and an archaeology professor whose most dangerous weapons were a sharp mind and gorgeous smile.
“OK, let’s go over it,” Eastgate said, resigned to move forward. “I’ll read it,” Olivia responded, unfolding her transcription. “He took me to a canyon with a large lake. We walked toward the sun and into a cave near the lakeshore. The water came up to our chest and then we were submerged. I swam after him and almost ran out of breath when the water filled with light and I surfaced to a meadow of tall grass and wild flowers.”
“We walked toward the sun,” Eastgate said. “Sounds like morning or evening, when the sun is low in the sky.”
“He walked east if it was morning and west if it was evening.”
“Brody’s map shows the cave at the southeast section of the lake, so that makes sense.”
The Humvee skidded and then bounced. Even in this region of Turkey, which was relatively well developed, the roads to Lake Hazar were ridden with potholes.
Olivia continued. “In the middle was an enormous cedar tree. Seven men could not wrap their arms around its trunk. Carved into its wood, below the bark, was a symbol. Not having my sketchbook with me at the time, I draw it from memory now.”
She traced the infinity symbol with her index finger on the back of the passenger seat. “There we have it.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It should be, relatively.”
“Cave diving can be treacherous. You can get disoriented easily. The water is likely to be extremely cold. And remember, Rich almost ran out of breath. I don’t suppose you know how good of a swimmer he was?”
“He couldn’t have been that good. He was borne in the bloody eighteenth century. People didn’t exercise then, did they?”
“And what about you?”
“Not bad. Daddy was an excellent diver. He took us to the Maldives for holiday every year when we were children. I practically grew up under water.”
“It’s not exactly SEAL training, but it’ll have to do.”
The land disappeared over the horizon as the Humvee edged closer to the ridgeline above the lake.
“I’m going to give you this gun,” Eastgate said, handing Olivia one of the revolvers sent by Jarrett. “It fires under water. It’s a complex firearm. I’d prefer it if you had two weeks training on it, but we don’t have that luxury.”
Olivia placed the gun beside her. “I’ll do my best.”
“You’ve got six shots but hopefully you’ll need only one—or better yet none at all.”
Karzan eased the Humvee to a stop about ten feet from the ridgeline. The guttural purr of the engine was the only sound breaking the quiet stillness of the morning. In day light, Eastgate had read, the water in the lake was
turquoise, colored by finely ground glacial rock. Now it looked like a pool of inky black. “Below is the cave,” Karzan said, patting the muzzle of his AK-47. “We will cover you.”
“Just do me a favor. Don’t fire that LAW unless we’re being chased by an aircraft carrier, OK?” Karzan looked at him blankly. Restraint with firearms, Eastgate suspected, was not Karzan’s strong suit.
Karzan’s brothers tied two long ropes around fixtures in the back of the Humvee. Eastgate and Olivia carried rucksacks on their backs and repelled down the shallow slope of the mountain into darkness.
Chapter 78
The sun was beginning to crest over the horizon. A flock of gulls flew overhead.
Eastgate kept his eyes on the tires of the Humvee. If Karzan wanted to betray them, this would be the ideal time. By quickly putting the car into drive, their brains would be obliterated in an instant against the sharp rock of the mountain.
Eastgate looked over at Olivia. He was impressed. She was no soldier, but she looked to be in great shape—especially for someone who spent most of her days folded up in a chair with her head in a book.
Fifty feet above the ground, the side of the mountain fell away and they moved by hand down the last section of rope, their feet dangling into emptiness.
At the bottom, Eastgate removed his knife from his leg holster and cut himself and Olivia loose from the rope. The horizon was clear. There didn’t seem to be anything on the lake except for a few canoes tied up next to a pier a few kilometers to the north. Eastgate took Brody’s map out of his pocket and checked his GPS unit.
He grasped the barrel of the underwater defense gun and pointed to the mountainside. “The cave should be right here,” he said, his breath condensing and swirling like smoke in the chill morning air.
Olivia sprinted away from the water. Eastgate followed.
The cave was easy to find. The arched ceiling rose about fifty feet above ground. The opening was narrow, only ten feet wide. It was covered by barbed wire fencing, which appeared to be newly installed. A sign on the fence read: “Closed: Trespassers Will Be Imprisoned.” Imprisonment in Turkey was not a trivial thing. Eastgate had heard stories of torture, rape, and permanent detention. But at the moment, the Turkish government was the least of their concerns.
