by J. R. Rain
“I’m sensing a pattern here,” said the professor. “Other than being a masterwork of impressionistic painting—five thousand years before the impressionist movement began in France—these paintings appear to be a sort of homage to earth and nature.”
“Or eulogy,” I said.
Caesar shrugged. “Also, the murals and carvings could have been therapeutic. Talk about your rainy day blues.”
The next pillar depicted jagged mountains. Again, the craftsmanship was unrivaled. Grass swayed in the wind. Near the base of a mountain, a farmer moved behind his mule, plowing deep furrows into the earth. Birds soared overhead, out-stretched wings catching the light of the setting sun. Deer, ibex, antelope and something that looked amazingly like a unicorn bounded along the many animal trails. There were no predators, and again life seemed to be celebrated.
Caesar said, “There is more going on here than just a spontaneous, undetailed rendering of simple life. There is a love for life. A love for the simple act of living. Perhaps even a tribute to life.” He paused. “But there is one thing I don’t get: how is the paint glowing?”
I thought about that. “The base for the paint may be pigments extracted from phosphorescent lichen, combined with linseed oil for added adherence. Of course the cold of Ararat would preserve it perfectly, perhaps even glowing to this day.”
“But why use glowing lichen as a base for the paint?” Caesar asked.
I shrugged. “What better way to enhance your requiem for Mother Earth?”
Caesar inhaled. He seemed to want to reach out and touch the painting. He managed to control himself. “Truly a miracle,” he said.
“At this point, professor, I’ve lost sight of what is a miracle and what isn’t.”
Next was a portrait of a striking woman. Hair hidden behind a shawl, she was robed in many colorful layers of heavy material. The bones of her face seemed both fragile and strong. Lips full and unpainted. Her eyes were not just green but Earth green. The color of new grass. Budding leaves. Moss on a tree.
“Naamah, I presume,” I said.
“I certainly hope so,” said the professor. “Otherwise Noah has some explaining to do.”
We were silent, staring at the woman who stared back at us. I said, “Do you think Noah was the artist?”
Caesar inhaled. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
There were more paintings. More columns. We saw scenes of family life, community life, workers plying their trades. But as we neared the end of the hall, we sensed an ominous change, from the innocent to the carnal. Drunken brawls. A public stoning of two children…then we came upon the next mural.
It was a massive public orgy. And detailed at that. Caesar leaned forward, hastily wiping his glasses. His face turned a shade redder than a turnip. “Rather imaginative,” he mumbled.
Hundreds of bodies were contorted and writhing and gleaming with sweat, men and women sprawled across the furs of bears and oxen, men vastly outnumbering the women. No orifice was left unviolated, no man or woman left wanting. As a whole, they could have been one endless, undulating serpent of flesh. They appeared to be in a palace, or perhaps a temple. Gleaming fixtures surrounded the room, and golden human-like statues stood regally off to the side, impassively watching the heaving masses, perhaps the only items left unmolested in the room.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly through my nose. The painting was disturbing. Most involved in the orgy seemed unwilling participants. Indeed, some were even bound, although not gagged.
“I can’t say the women are exhibiting the same looks of sexual glee as the men,” I said.
“And even some of the men seem a bit repulsed,” added the professor. He tilted his head and raked his beard with a single index finger. I think his glasses were fogging up. “Limber bunch.”
“So what do you make of it, professor?”
“Makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like a carnival ride.”
At the end of the hall we came to the final mural. It showed a starry night above a field of green meadows. It could have been “Starry Night” by Van Gogh. The grass was bent as if blown by gale-force winds. And yet there was something quite ominous about the painting.
“Do you see it?” asked the professor.
“Yes.”
A blazing fireball streaked across the sky, followed by a long, burning tail. The fireball seemed to be on a direct course with Earth. We were silent, digesting the information portrayed in the painting.
“An asteroid,” Caesar finally said, nodding to himself as if to confirm his own suspicions. “It would have impacted the earth with the force of ten thousand nuclear explosions. Earthquakes, volcanoes and tidal waves would have swept throughout the land…perhaps global, perhaps not. Great cities, small towns, and villages would have been equally drowned in an instant. Nothing would have been spared.”
Chapter Fifty-two
From the hallway we moved into a small, domed room. The room was vaguely reminiscent of a tabernacle, complete with lectern and altar.
“A place of worship,” I said.
“Yes,” said Caesar. “Which in hindsight seems obvious, especially for one as deeply devoted as Noah.”
Sconces made of gold hung in pairs on the curved walls, distributed liberally throughout the circular room. Stretched before us were eight rectangular wooden mats. They appeared to be designations for kneeling. If so, they looked uncomfortable at best; then again, perhaps sore knees inspired humility. Beyond was a limestone altar carved in the shape of a box, that must have been hell loading onto the ark. And at the back of the temple, sitting side by side on the raised semi-circular platform of the lectern, were two massive alabaster sarcophagi. The alabaster glowed ivory-white in the flickering torch.
The temple was very silent, and a little spooky. The only noise was Caesar’s labored breathing through his damaged nose, and the crackle of the torch, which continued to whip in my hand as if from a draft, although I was fairly certain there was no draft. The air itself was heavy and difficult to breathe. I found it difficult to relax in the presence of the two stone coffins.
Caesar was game, moving between the wooden mats, rubbing his thick beard. “Many fertility cults arose with the advent of farming,” he said. “Later, in Mesopotamia, nature gods were worshipped. The gods were organized as a democratic council, reflecting the political relations among the various city-states of Mesopotamia. Although Noah is believed to have lived near Mesopotamia, it is interesting to note that he worshipped a single godhead. Also, it is thought that he was an adherent to an ancient tradition called the Sethites, named for one of the sons of Adam.”
I followed Caesar to the altar. Built from a single massive block of limestone, it was surprisingly archaic, edges roughly hued. It seemed to pre-date much of the artistic splendor within the ark.
Caesar said, “Noah brought seven pairs of clean animals into the ark to be sacrificed. Early in biblical tradition, God demanded blood sacrifices to appease his wrath and atone for man’s sin.”
“Just as long as it wasn’t virgin maidens.”
I had an extreme sense that precious time was slipping by. We needed to find an exit. And soon. Even now, Faye might be on her way to the Kingdom of Saudi, via the emir’s private Lear jet.
We moved beyond the altar, up two or three stairs to the lectern. The torchlight crawled over the two sarcophagi. Both had sliding panels on one end. The panels appeared to slide down into grooves, locked in place with stone pins on either side. Removal of the pins would doubtless open the sarcophagi. The flickering light revealed a simple form of writing etched deeply into the crown of each coffin.
“Two very old vampires?” I suggested.
Caesar ignored me and leaned over the first sarcophagus, blowing away dust, revealing more of the writing. “Some speculate that Noah was entombed within his ark, coming full circle, if you will. Although according to a Lebanese tradition, he was buried in the mountains near the ancient city of Damascus.”Caesar paused
.“However, found in the Apocrypha, those books not included in the Protestant Bible today, is the legend that Adam’s body was preserved on the ark as protection from the Flood.”
“Adam and Eve.” I grinned, then waved the torch toward the inscriptions. “Maybe these engravings will shed some light on the identity of our friends.”
Caesar breathed loudly through his mouth, ruffling the whiskers around his lips. His nose had taken on a deeper shade of red. Magenta, perhaps. It seemed ready to explode. He shook his head with great regret. “Unfortunately, these pictographs or ideograms pre-date anything I’m familiar with, although they do appear to be calendrical.” Caesar paused, a wicked twinkle his eye. “Of course, we could open them and see what’s inside.”
I shook my head and stepped back. “And risk the wrath of God?”
“Wrong ark, Sam.”
“Still, that sounds like a very bad idea.”
He sighed, “Yeah, you’re probably right. Let’s wait for the experts.”
I gladly moved away from the sarcophagi. The wavering torchlight crawled over the curved walls. Sconces gleamed, shadows fled. The platform, however, was empty. I sighed, frustrated. We had reached a dead end—
I stopped in mid-step. No, not entirely empty.
At the far end of the curved wall was a small opening, perhaps five feet high and no wider than a man’s shoulders—a very short man’s shoulders. Just inside the opening was the beginnings of a wooden staircase that led straight up into the darkness.
* * *
We left the temple with its creepy stone coffins. The stairs were spaced far apart, each riser more than ten inches high. The five foot tall Noah would have taken two steps for every one of ours. There were no balustrades to guide our hands, just smooth walls to either side, cold to the touch. With each step, the temperature dropped until our breaths frosted before us. The increased cold would keep Caesar’s nose from exploding.
The stairs ended in a short landing and a blank wall, like the Winchester mansion with its stairs to nowhere. “Was Noah insane?” I asked.
Caesar brushed past me, feeling the wall with the tips of his fingers. “No, Sam, although many claimed he was.”
I leaned a shoulder against the fossilized wood and watched him quietly, wishing I had a cigarette. Even something that resembled a cigarette. The professor’s fingers began tracing a wide, rectangular outline. He nodded, grinning through his nest of whiskers.
“It’s a window,” he said.
“Doesn’t look like much of a window, professor.”
He ignored me, pushing with his hands. The veins on his neck stood out like frayed rope. “You could help, you know,” he said, grunting.
“Sure,” I said. “Looks like fun.”
I moved over and applied my own weight to the wall. Suddenly two massive shutters swung out to either side. A shaft of murky light slanted through the opening, falling across Caesar’s triumphant face. The shutter itself was held in place by hidden joints that creaked horribly, but worked perfectly.
“They probably used a rope to haul the shutters back in,” said Caesar. He leaned out the window, grinning like a fool. The wind whipped his hair into a gray cyclone. Snow fell across his shoulders and stuck to his beard like Velcro. Watching Caesar, I could almost imagine another old man leaning out this same window at the end of a very long journey. Perhaps even releasing a dove….
* * *
The ark’s hull was wedged tightly against a steep ice cliff. We climbed through the square window and shimmied our way down between the hull and the cliff to the canyon floor below.
We moved past the ship’s prow, which rose majestically up into the swirling snow. A short while later, I stopped and looked back. Already the ark was barely distinguishable under a thick blanket of snow, and soon it would be buried entirely. Perhaps forever.
Chapter Fifty-three
Snow blew directly into our faces, funneled through the granite cliffs that rose steeply to either side. The weather was merciless and foul, and seemed intent to kick us when we were already down. But we persisted doggedly, often moving blindly through the storm.
We emerged onto the Abich glacier, far above Omar’s camp. Alert for crevasses, knowing we would have been incalculably safer roped together, I led the way across the ice field. Caesar, subdued since leaving the ark, followed silently. Together, we moved cautiously down the glacier, toward camp, keeping to the safety of boulders which thrust up through the ice like the bony plates of a stegosaurus.
* * *
I spotted a solitary guard, smoking a cigarette, an AK-47 hanging casually from a strap around his neck, trudging slowly through the snow on the north side of camp. Probably at the tail-end of a graveyard shift.
The guard stopped and propped his weapon against a boulder and sat on a rock ledge that could have been carved naturally from the mountain. He appeared to be speaking with someone. Or talking to himself.
I motioned for the professor to wait. But the stubborn bastard shook his head and continued to follow me. Like father, like daughter.
We descended from above, and when we were ten feet away I slowed the pace. The howling wind masked our crunching feet. I removed the gun from my waist, and took a deep breath—
* * *
Sheltered in a small cul-de-sac, safe from the wind, two guards were playing hooky from their rounds, hidden from view. When they saw us, their cigarettes dropped from their opened mouths, and if they saw my gun pointed at their faces, they didn’t care. Immediately, both swung their weapons in our direction. Caesar lunged into view, flying through the air, tackling one of the soldiers like a linebacker sacking a quarterback.
“Ah, hell,” I said, and threw myself into the next soldier.
We tumbled together in the snow. His hand gripped my throat. When I found leverage, my face no doubt purple from lack of oxygen, I knocked his hand away and leveled a clean blow to his jaw. The force of my punch shoved the back of his skull into the ice and his eyes rolled up into his head.
I shook my hand, which hurt like hell. I turned to see how Caesar was faring—
Caesar stood over his man like a predator guarding his prey. The guard lay on his side holding his stomach as if his intestines would spill out. Caesar smiled wolfishly. “Damn, that felt good.”
* * *
The cul-de-sac was a nice place to have a smoke. So I did, snagging one from the breast pocket of the older soldier, along with a lighter. As I puffed contentedly, I stared at our two prisoners. Black-eyed and cut, both looked as if they had seen better days.
In Arabic, I said, “When does the emir plan on launching the warhead?”
The older one, still holding his stomach and having difficulty breathing, was heavy-set and sported a thick beard. He looked much too soft to be a soldier. Despite his pain, he grinned. “It’s your lucky day, my friend.”
“I’m short on luck and patience,” I said. “What do you mean?”
He stood proudly. “I’m the ballistic technician hired to arm the weapon.”
“Why are you here and not with the others?”
“I needed a smoke, worked all day. Also, I skipped the unveiling ceremonies.”
“Unveiling? What do you mean?”
“The tent has been removed in preparation for tonight’s launch.”
“The missile has been armed?”
The man beamed proudly. “By none other than me.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“I’m Jabbar, from Ankara.”
“Do you realize that you’ve just set in motion a process that could kill hundreds of thousands?”
He shrugged. “If not me, then it would have been someone else. The pay was good.”
I wanted to punch him in the mouth, break every tooth in his scrappy little face. “How long until it’s launched?”
He glanced at his watch. “Thirty-two minutes.”
“How long will it take to disarm the missile?” I asked
“It�
�s been a while since I’ve disarmed a launching sequence.” He shrugged and looked up, doing the calculations in his head as if the fate of millions were not at stake. “I would need at least two hours.”
I pointed my gun at his head. “I will give you twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes should be fine.”
I suddenly turned and hit the other soldier, who had only recently awakened, across his forehead with the stock of his own rifle. It was too late in the game to worry about him, as my level of human compassion was approaching zero. I tied him up with his own jacket, and pushed Jabbar before me.
“C’mon,” I said. “We have a bomb to dismantle.”
Chapter Fifty-four
We hid behind a snow-covered boulder just outside of camp. Soldiers were loading boxes and personal belongings into the chopper. The prince was packing it in. No doubt returning home to his capitol in Riyadh. And Faye would join his harem, hidden forever from Western eyes, with no means to escape. Until she was too old and ugly to please young princes. And then perhaps she would take a long walk into the empty desert.
Off to one side, Farid was supervising the whole operation. The big man had saved our lives, risking much in return. The price would almost certainly be termination and the loss of face, and to the Arab that is priceless.
Jabbar sat quietly between us. There was a spark in his wild eyes. I found it interesting that Jabbar put up little protest. Indeed, he seemed almost eager to cooperate.
I turned to the professor and motioned to his automatic weapon. “Do you know how to use that thing?”
Caesar grinned. “I imagine you press the trigger and point.”
“I see you’re no slouch. But remember: aim low. These things shoot high.”
