Bone Box

by Jay Amberg

  Travers smiles again. Lee is apparently immune to the landscape. “I came to see the cave churches and the underground cities.” There is, he suspects, more truth to that than Lee will believe.

  The waiter brings the can of Coke and a tall glass. Lee takes a paper napkin, folds it, and wipes the top of the can before opening it. He lifts the glass, inspects it, puts it down, and drinks straight from the can. “Cut the crap, Joe,” he says.

  Travers shrugs.

  Stifling a burp, Lee leans forward again. “You may not have figured it out yet, but we’re on the same side in all this.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. And, things’ll go better if you work with me.”

  Travers smiles, shakes his head, and looks at the sky. Sparse clouds line the horizon, and overhead the first stars are appearing. “And what does that involve?” he asks.

  Lee drinks from the can. “We both know that Sophia Altay took off with whatever was in that bone box, and she’s here with it, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “But why do you care? You’ve already told me the ossuary’s a fake.”

  Lee slams the can onto the table. Half an ounce of Coke arcs from the can and splashes onto the table. “Because she’s dragging the Eagle Consortium, all of us, through the mud.”

  Travers glances at the spilled Coke and then looks into Lee’s eyes. “The Eagle Consortium—you’re not at risk.”

  Lee grabs the folded napkin and wipes the Coke from the table. “Don’t be an acorn cracker,” he says. “That Turk back in Selçuk, his death is now officially a murder investigation.” He tosses the napkin to the center of the table. “If you’re not the suspect, she is—and you’re abetting her, sure as shit.”

  Travers looks again at the deepening night sky. Even with the ho-tel’s ambient light, stars are spreading above him. He uses the Big Dipper to locate the North Star. “It is good,” he says, “that we can talk frankly.” He spreads his hands. “I don’t know where Sophia Altay is or exactly what she has. But I do know that she’s afraid of whoever murdered Kenan. And I know that she doesn’t want my help. And she sure as hell isn’t going to want yours.”

  “What was stolen from you?” Lee’s voice rises.

  “Ask your friend Leopold.”

  “What?”

  “It looks like he has it.”

  “What did you have?”

  Travers finishes his apple tea. “Sophia Altay entrusted me with a computer flash drive which I lost. A couple of guys mugged me for it. One of them was Austrian, Viennese, a P.E. teacher who was in Turkey before. He’d worked around Ephesus.”

  Lee’s eyes darken, and his hands grip the edge of the table. “How do you know that?”

  “He’s here. I talked with the guy this afternoon.”

  Lee grabs his can of Coke and takes a long gulp. “And he told you he works for Leopold?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  Lee sets the can next to the empty glass and wipes his mouth. “What was on the flash drive?” he asks.

  “Photos of the ossuary and bones and a couple of scrolls. But they were in some ancient script.” Travers watches Lee’s right fist clench. “I have no way of knowing what they said.”

  “What were you supposed to do with the flash drive?”

  Travers notices a black Mercedes pull up the hill to the hotel’s front entrance. “Deliver it directly to the Glavine Foundation.”

  “Why?”

  As Nihat Monuglu steps out of the car’s passenger door, stretches, and glances around, the driver opens the trunk and takes out a blue garment bag.

  “Why the Glavines?” Travers asks. “Or why me?” Before Lee can answer, he adds, “In the first case, I’m the Foundation’s rep here. That’s something you get.” He doesn’t mention that he was supposed to deliver it only to William Glavine, Sr., not Bill. “In the second, she probably thought it was a good way to get rid of me.” He pushes back his chair, stands, and looks down at Lee. “I have to go,” he says.

  “Sit down. We’re not finished.”

  “There’s stuff I need to do,” Travers says. “But it’s been nice talking with you.”

  “I said, sit down.” Lee’s eyes are ablaze.

  Travers drops an American twenty dollar bill on the table to cover both of their tabs and then limps toward the exterior stairwell which will take him to the street without passing through the lobby.

  40

  Abrahim clears his throat and spits again. He scrubs his hands with the cool water trickling from the crack in the rock, and then he lowers his head so that he can splash water onto his swollen right eye. Fire erupts, and he jerks his head back. With his left eye, he stares at his trembling hands, but a passing cloud shrouds the moon and stars so that in the darkness he cannot see if he has completely cleaned them. He rubs his hands together hard and then dries them on his jeans. Unable to control his breathing, he goes over to the boulder on which she has twice before seated him. He shakes his hands, hoping the shuddering will stop, and when it doesn’t he clasps them tightly. Flames burn behind his right eye, the blaze spreading to his scalp and ear. “Confiteor Dei omnipotenti,” he begins aloud, and he lets the Latin pour out of him into the darkness. He missed their meeting, and it is now past their fallback time. She should have been here by now. Fear wells, and his breath catches despite his ongoing prayer. Dearest God, was he too late to save her? He will go on praying until she appears or his flesh falls from his bones.

  When she finally arrives, the veiled woman passing through the narrow cut in the rock, he is tremendously relieved, but the roiling inside him still will not stop. She sets down her bag, gazes at him in the dark, and gasps. When she holds him in her arms, he can feel his distress pour into her. She will never, though, be able to take on his burden. And he would not wish it on her.

  She steps back, holding his right shoulder and lifting his chin so that she can see his tumid eye. “Oh, Abrahim!” she exclaims. “What happened, my Abrahim?”

  “I gave the American your message,” he says because that is the least of it.

  She raises her hand from his chin but doesn’t touch his eye. “Oh, Abrahim…” she repeats. “Did he do this to you?”

  “No,” he says. “He would not. He would never hurt…”

  She sits him back down on the boulder. Her hand strokes his hair, but even her touch cannot pacify him.

  He shakes his head, the pain firing from temple to temple and un-furling down his neck into his chest. “He said he will not go away, and he is telling the truth. He prayed by the river. I liked him.”

  “I understand,” she says. “I’m beginning to like him, too.” Waiting for him to go on, she pats his shoulder.

  “Herr Doktor Kirchburg had his hellhounds beat him and cut him. That is how he lost the files. He wanted me to tell you that Herr Kirchburg stole the files.”

  When she grips his shoulder hard, he feels her fury. She and Herr Kirchburg despise each other. Something occurred between them before Abrahim came to Saint John’s, and since then the problems have all been personal masked in archeological disputes. Herr Kirchburg wanted everything done exactly to his specifications, but he never did any work himself. Doctor Altay had a better sense of where to unearth artifacts. After all, she grew up on archeological sites. She also treated her workers better. She was highly educated and very intelligent, but she never disdained the diggers as Herr Kirchburg did. Abrahim would do anything for her—and nothing for him.

  “Did Joe, the American, explain how Leopold knew about the flash drive?” she asks.

  “No,” Abrahim says, beginning to shake again. “He asked about me. If I liked working for you at Saint John’s.”

  “He knew you?”

  “Yes.” Abrahim’s hands burn, the heat searing from the inside. “He a
pproached me at Derinkuyu while the others were underground.” He clutches Altay’s wrist. “The hellhound,” he blurts, “followed him, Sophia.”

  It is the only time he has ever called her by her first name, and, startled, she pulls her arm from his grip. When he gasps, she lays her hand on his head. “Who, Abrahim?” she asks, her voice tight.

  “The one that beat him.” He leans forward so that the left side of his head rests against her hip. The tremors will not abate. “The one that came here to harm you,” he whispers.

  She strokes his hair again. “The one that hurt you?”

  The conflagration in his temples raging, he nods once. She says nothing for what seems to him an eternity, but her touch gradually banks the fire. He smells the soap in her long skirt, feels the heat of her through the cloth, tastes metal in his mouth, and hears their breathing—hers even and his own erratic. Crickets chitter, and farther away tires roll across pavement. The cloud slips from the moon, and pale silver light falls onto the dirt he stares at through his tears.

  “My Abrahim,” she says finally, “I brought the documents for you to read.”

  He sits up, the flames bursting again behind his eye.

  “But you must try to get hold of yourself.”

  He nods, but he knows, as she does, that he has never been able to control himself fully—and never will. His desire, though, to know what the scrolls say is so strong that he wipes the left side of his face and takes a series of slow, deep breaths.

  She pulls her computer from her bag, sits down next to him, opens it, and turns it on.

  The screen’s glow halos her face. Her eyes, staring intently, are emeralds. After she selects a file, she slides the computer to him.

  His vision is blurred, and he can barely make out the typescript. The letter begins, Hear, O Israel! Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. The Turkish translation is clearly worded, the document a call to faith, a summons to serve God in every circumstance. But it is also a diatribe against hypocrites, the high priests and those who wield power. Rebellious and messianic and frightening, it does nothing to settle him. His sobbing beclouds his vision even more than his tumescent eye does. This voice is revolutionary, he thinks, but he does not say the word aloud. The Christ he worships, the Christ to whom he prays, is kind. He heals the sick and feeds the hungry. The voice in this letter is not evil, but neither is he gentle or compassionate.

  She leans across him to open another file. The second document declares, I am John, the one Jesus, the Nazarean, loved. He called my brother, James, and me the Sons of Thunder, but now I am old. As he reads on, his hands quiver and his throat constricts. He begins to shake again, his breath coming in those fitful gasps of his childhood. Although she is showing him the letter to help him, it only hurts him more. When she rests her hand on his shoulder, he cringes. The letter strikes him—but not as she expected.

  This second letter lays upon him the unbearable weight of disgrace, of shame and sinfulness. He lies mired far too deeply in the vile valley of his deeds to hear Saint John’s final call. And though he could repent, his act of contrition would be imperfect. Because he is not absolutely remorseful, he is beyond redemption. As he tries—and fails—to read the letter a second time, he becomes inconsolable. The words despair and malice and loathing and hollowness burn deeply. He cannot, through his tears, even make out the words in the last two paragraphs. Had he seen the letter just one day earlier, even a few hours earlier… But he did not.

  “Abrahim?” Sophia’s voice, that beautiful lilting voice, cannot reach him. “Abrahim!”

  Saint John’s letter is all the proof he needs that he does not deserve to live.

  41

  The hammering on the door jars Joseph Travers from a dreamless sleep. The Sarihan’s cave room is cool and pitch black except for the glow of the travel alarm. It is 4:13 A.M., and the knocking doesn’t stop. When he sits up too quickly, the room spins before settling.

  “What?” he shouts. “What is it?”

  “Open the door, Joseph!” he hears. He would not recognize the voice as Nihat Monuglu’s except for the use of his name. As he stands, pain snakes down his right thigh. Wearing only blue boxers and a white T-shirt, he limps to the door, unlocks it, and starts to open it.

  The door swings by him, scraping across his left toes as he tries to step away. A flashlight’s beam blinds him. Two people larger than he is push past him, almost knocking him over. A hand grabs his T-shirt and twists it tight around his neck. He’s shoved back onto the bed.

  “Stop, goddamn it!” he shouts.

  The ceiling light flicks on, but the flashlight remains aimed at his face. He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head. “Hayır!” someone yells from the bathroom. Drawers scrape open, slam shut. “Hayır,” he hears again. And then it’s suddenly quiet. The flashlight turns off. His breathing is shallow; others are breathing above him. Outside along the walkway, a door opens and quickly shuts.

  He sits up and blinks at the three figures, Monuglu flanked by two large, dark men in brown uniforms.

  “What the hell, Nihat!” he says. He avoided Monuglu earlier in the night by walking far into the heart of Cappadocia. He got fresh ekmek and water at a café on the outskirts of town and then trekked into the night for hours. Skirting the clusters of partying young people coming and going, he climbed hills and rounded bends as the night sky spilled moonglow and starshine all about him. He didn’t think consciously about Altay and the bone box or anything else but rather let his thoughts shuffle and turn until he was certain that he would stay in Cappadocia through to the end, whatever happened. He returned to his room after midnight wholly unaware that whatever would occur was already happening.

  “The Austrian is dead,” Monuglu says, his voice edgy.

  Travers plants his feet and sits up straight. As his vision clears, he can see Monuglu’s unshaven frown and the somber faces of the uniformed hulks behind him. “Kirchburg?” he asks.

  “You are not funny.”

  ”Who?” Travers rolls his neck. His clothes are strewn around the room. The toes on his left foot sting. The nail of his big toe is ripped, and his blood marks the rug.

  “Günter Schmidt,” Monuglu says as slaps the flashlight against the palm of his hand.

  “The guy from the tour?”

  “The man you ate lunch with yesterday. The man who followed you out of town last night.”

  “Followed me? But…” Travers pauses as the implications become clear. “Where? How?”

  Monuglu takes a step closer so that he is almost straddling Travers. “Two backpackers…wanting to be alone for a little extra fun…found him in a cave. Half-naked. His cock almost severed.” He scratches at his mustache. “His neck broken.”

  Travers flinches for the first time. “His dick cut?”

  “Bitten. Flies swarmed the bloody pulp. It reportedly upset the young woman a great deal.”

  Travers lowers his head and shakes it.

  “You must come with me,” Monuglu says, his voice fatigued as well as caustic. “The police will question you.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Travers says. He’s not afraid for himself, but Schmidt’s death is bad on a lot of levels. He scans the mess they made of his room, looking for his pants.

  “I came to get you as a courtesy,” Monuglu says.

  Travers squints at Monuglu. “A courtesy?”

  “The police are not so kind.” Monuglu points the flashlight at Travers with one hand while he wipes his head with the other. “You should not have come to Cappadocia without informing me, Joseph. I am the best friend you have in Turkey. The sooner you understand this, the better off you will be.”

  42

  Abrahim climbs barefoot through the darkness. His right eye has swollen completely shut, and his depth perception is curtailed so much that h
e has already slipped three times. He has on only black cotton pants and a gray T-shirt. Carrying a two-liter bottle of water, he chants in Latin, a soft whisper that does not carry into the night much less rise to heaven. He is long past weeping, alone in this vast valley of darkness. After he left Doctor Altay, he returned to his hostel and threw away the shirt specked with blood—the spots on his chest she hadn’t noticed in the dark. He brushed his teeth repeatedly and then showered for a long time but could not cleanse himself. The lukewarm water stung his eye all the more, and the welt on his back burned as though he had been branded.

  He treks through the valley beyond the valley. No light reaches him from the town. Although the moonshine is strong enough to lead him through this darkness, he wants no guidance. He is lost. And that is as it should be. His feet are already bleeding, but he must suffer more severe mortification of the flesh before his eternal damnation. He brought the water so that he can prolong the awareness of his suffering. Saint John was right: out of hopelessness comes malice. Others may be forced to pay for your vengeance, but you will always be caught in your own heart. And your baleful acts are, ultimately, hollow. Although people may be made whole again by love, he will not. He has always been evil, and now he is irredeemable.

  He rejects the first six caves he finds. They are neither deep enough nor damp enough. In the seventh, the dank stench of decay is strong. He bumps his head on a ledge in the darkness, but pain cannot be added to infinite pain. The right side of his face twitches below his eye. When he sits against the rough cold wall, he can feel the tufa rub the welt where the man gouged his back a moment before he took vengeance.

  Before long, he is shivering. He drinks a small portion of the water, then hugs his knees to his chest. He cannot stop the shaking. Even if he could, he would not. The mouth of the cave offers no way out, no escape—and that also is how it should be. He lifts his head, leans hard against the wall, and begins again to pray. His words bounce about the walls, trapped in the cave every bit as much as he is.