Wayward Son

by Tom Pollack

  Silvio cleared his throat as he walked alongside Juan Carlos. “Well, Archibald, that is a surprise. Ah, I look forward to seeing you, and meeting Mr. Renard. Is there anything you need?”

  “Thank you, but Mr. Renard has us well taken care of. Is everything arranged for the press conference tomorrow afternoon?”

  Silvio hesitated while he thought of Amanda, inside the chamber and possibly trapped.

  “Yes. The podium and sound system will be set up this evening, and I’ve reconfirmed all the attendees from the media.”

  “Delightful! Of course, I’ll want you on the podium with me in front of the television cameras when the donation to the Getty is announced.” Walker made a mental note to have someone get him fresh hair gel for his appearance. “Now, the cameras will focus on me slipping into the crack just before I open the doors to the chamber, correct?”

  Silvio shook his head. Archibald sure hadn’t changed. “Absolutely. We’ll have several handheld cameras in addition to the fixed locations near the podium.”

  “Perfect. Now, what about Amanda’s progress in evaluating the doorway?”

  With Walker’s arrival imminent, Silvio had no option besides candor. “We’re at the dig now. Amanda succeeded in breaking the door code much faster than we anticipated. She’s actually inside the chamber as we speak…just to take a brief look around.”

  Walker irritably complained, “But we agreed that no one would…”

  “I know, I know. But now we have a problem. She must have triggered some mechanism inadvertently, because the doors have closed again. She’s been in the chamber for over two hours, and we can’t get through to her wireless.”

  “What?” Walker forced down a spasm of acid reflux. “We specifically agreed that I would be the first person to enter the chamber, Silvio! How dare you let this happen! Amanda is a junior colleague. A very junior colleague, I may remind you!”

  “I understand. But we had to get a head start, and the main thing is that she successfully solved the combination lock.”

  Walker sniffed. “I’m sure that, had I been there in person, I would have cracked the code as well. But listen to me. Renard has chartered a helicopter. We’ll be at the site by noon, or a little afterward. You had better figure out how to extricate her from the chamber—or she can figure it out herself, if she’s that clever. But she must be out by noon, and no one at the press conference needs to know she was in there first!”

  “We’ll do our best, Archibald. See you later today. Have a safe flight.” Silvio ended the call before Walker could say anything else and turned to Juan Carlos.

  “I need to make another quick call. Could you please go find Carmelo and tell him to come see me?”

  As Juan Carlos departed, Silvio dialed a telephone number in Rome.

  ***

  Aboard Renard’s jet, Dr. Walker clicked off the connection and rose from his seat. He found Luc Renard deeply engrossed in his laptop. From all appearances, Giovanni Genoa, sprawled in the row ahead, was still fast asleep.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Renard. I hate to interrupt you,” said Walker, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the sleeping painter, “but I think there is something you should know.”

  Luc gazed up from his work and then motioned Walker into the adjacent seat.

  “What do I need to know?”

  Dr. Walker rubbed his hands nervously on the legs of his slacks. “I was just on the phone with Silvio Sforza. He’s at the excavation site. Amanda James succeeded in cracking the language code on the door.”

  “That’s great news! Good for her. It certainly simplifies our task.”

  “But there’s one more thing. Amanda explicitly violated my understanding with Sforza. He allowed her to enter the chamber. Then the doors closed, for whatever reason. She’s trapped inside.”

  Luc’s eyes narrowed. “How long has she been in there?”

  “More than two hours.”

  The icy stare that greeted Walker made him wish he’d brought a fresh cocktail along for this conversation.

  “Dr. Walker,” Luc intoned sternly. “We’ve known each other for, what, six or seven years?”

  “I…uh, yes, I believe so.”

  “I would think by now you would have learned from me how to keep subordinates under control!”

  Expecting no response, Luc looked at his watch and then waved Walker away.

  “Well, don’t be concerned, Doctor. We’ll be arriving there shortly. Then we’ll sort things out.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The Ark

  CAIN AWOKE SEVERAL HOURS later, greeted by waves of pain from the deep gash in his bleeding shoulder. As his consciousness returned, so did a torrent of the horrific images he had just witnessed. Attempting to suppress them, but with only limited success, he rose slowly to begin exploring what he now realized was his lifeboat.

  Yet it was a boat full of danger as well. Noah and his sons were unknown quantities. They could be zealots, or even fanatics. Still in shock from what he had seen, Cain felt intensely vulnerable. He was now nothing more than a stowaway. He had no way of telling if the ark’s makers were armed, or what action they might take if he were discovered. Cain had only his small knife to defend himself, as his larger weapons were torn off his body by the rogue wave that deposited him in the tunnel.

  He had no idea how long he had been unconscious, but he noted that the deafening sound of the downpour outside had subsided, and the motion of the ark was more languid. He wasn’t certain, but he guessed he was on the bottom deck of the ark. Peering around the support post, Cain stared down a long aisle of cages and stalls. At the end of this aisle, he saw a tall haystack and noted it as a promising hiding place. As he walked by, he gathered a handful of fresh straw and dressed his bloody shoulder as best he could. Gazing down the row of cages, he saw hundreds—no, thousands—of birds. In the dim light that filtered down the stairwells from the vessel’s upper decks, they clucked, chirped, and twittered. Species after species stood in pairs, like the large animals he had seen on the ramp before the ark’s door closed. Cain wondered if their annoying din would go on and on, but it soon trailed off. After a while, only an occasional screech could be heard.

  Still apprehensive about being discovered, Cain inadvertently mumbled in a low voice that Noah’s sons might “throw me overboard if they find me.” With a start, he heard an echo: “Throw me overboard!” When he looked for the source of the echo, he spotted a large green bird with a red streak on its belly, perched on a wooden bar nearby. He was stunned to hear the bird repeat the phrase. A talking bird? Was this the master of spirits tormenting him, or God?

  “Who are you?” demanded Cain, but the bird simply continued to scratch its molting plumage.

  He was tempted to retreat back behind the post, lest the bird draw attention to his whereabouts. But with no sign of human activity, Cain pushed onward. Inside, the ark seemed far larger than outside. Walking down the aisle from the stern to the bow, Cain reckoned the length at many times the height of Enoch’s inner wall. He realized that a ship on this scale was an exceptional feat of engineering and construction. He admired how the impossibly thick timbers were expertly milled and joined, forming a robust interior frame from bow to stern and side to side.

  It seemed likely that the ark could accommodate tens of thousands of animals. But how would they be fed and watered? And what would be done with the tons of waste they would produce each day?

  Cain carefully examined a stall holding sheep and goats. Water was dripping from a channel that ran up to the slatted ceiling and then, presumably, to a tank on the middle or upper deck. Feed had been placed in baskets around the stall. Like the ceiling, the floor of the stall was slatted and angled at a slight slope. Thus the animals’ excrement would either be trampled into a pit below the cage or would roll into a gutter that ran outside the cages all the way from the bow to the stern. Investigating further, Cain realized he was wise to have extricated himself from the chute at the stern. For the tun
nel that had afforded him entry to the ark was, in fact, one of the ship’s main sewage outlets.

  Amidship in the lower level of the ark, in a pool of bilge water, Cain saw what looked to be a large, vertical metal tube with several projecting bars. The dangling chains at the end of the spokes were fitted around the neck of several beasts walking in a circle to power the mechanism. The sound of water rushing through pipes at the top of the device gave away its use: a giant water pump. For even a ship as expertly crafted as the ark leaked water and needed to be pumped dry to stay afloat.

  Glancing upward, Cain noticed several ramps and ladders leading to an upper level. He wanted to explore further, but he had no way of knowing the whereabouts of Noah and his family, nor what they might do if he were discovered. Might there be others on the ark like himself—stowaways who had sneaked aboard at the last minute? But back in Enoch, the traveler Tarn had said that no one in the region took Noah’s flood prophecy seriously. Cain thought it likely that he was the only extra passenger.

  As he stood indecisively by the ramp, Cain’s mind buzzed with further questions. Even if he could stay hidden, how would he feed himself? Killing an animal was out of the question; the risk of detection was simply too great. A better choice would be to eat the animals’ food. After all, with apparently ample provisions for thousands of beasts, one more stomach to feed would hardly deplete the supply.

  Where were they headed, he wondered, and how long would the voyage last? Any flood that could destroy cities and mountains could take many months to subside—not that there was anything for Cain to go back to outside the ark. The world as he knew it was gone, and Cain understood that if and when the journey ended, he would be starting over.

  The whole world would be starting over.

  Shaking his head, Cain banished such thoughts. He would live as he always had, with survival as his chief goal. Within a single day, his fortunes had brought him from a position of royalty to that of a penniless stowaway. Yet he had not drowned but lived. His confidence rekindled, Cain gingerly mounted the ladder.

  On the next level, Cain found a setup that very much resembled the arrangements on the bottom deck. Whereas birds, reptiles, and small mammals had predominated below, here there were larger creatures, including cattle, donkeys, pigs, monkeys, great apes, and many kinds of horses. To Cain’s surprise, several species of the big cats, including lions and leopards, were lodged very close to the cattle, whom they eyed with interest.

  Also on this level were several types of large mammals. Cain had heard his father’s description of elephants, although he had never seen one himself. He stared in fascination at the huge beasts, lazily flapping their ears and exploring the feed baskets with their trunks. On the other side of the ark, he was equally intrigued by pairs of large, powerful looking beasts with thick skin, enormous snouts, and either one or two protruding horns. He did not have a name for them, but he knew he would not enjoy being the target of such an animal’s charge. The elephants looked decidedly better tempered.

  Just as on the bottom deck, ramps and ladders stretched upward from points about halfway down each of the main aisles. Standing at the foot of the starboard stairway, Cain hesitated to climb further, for he heard the sound of human voices. For the moment, at least, he could probably learn more by eavesdropping than by exploring.

  Noah was evidently instructing his sons in their duties.

  “Ham, Shem, and Japheth, my sons! We all must pitch in with the food and water supplies. Remember to check every cage and stall for signs of a sick animal. And keep in mind that this is a temporary sojourn for these creatures. We will not have to give these beasts long-term care, only an emergency rescue.”

  So Noah envisioned an end to their voyage sooner, rather than later, thought Cain.

  “As you know, my sons, many of these animals are free-ranging by nature. Unaccustomed to confinement, they may grow nervous. Do not become severe with them, my sons. Like you and me, they are God’s creatures.”

  The silence that ensued was Cain’s cue for departure. Ham, Shem, and Japheth might well be preparing to descend below decks. Cain retreated down a level to the haystack.

  ***

  During the next few weeks, he fell into a hide-and-seek routine, eluding Noah’s sons on the bottom deck and venturing out only in search of food. His shoulder wound had quickly healed and left no trace of a scar. Cain had been careful not to leave drops of blood creating a trail back to his hiding place in the haystack. To lessen the chance of discovery, he jettisoned the bloodied straw dressings out the back of the ark.

  His best source of sustenance was the bird cages, where ample quantities of seeds were provided. He also pilfered from the squirrels, whose supply of nuts diminished rather more swiftly than expected, thus puzzling the well-muscled but somewhat ingenuous sons of Noah. From the monkeys, Cain procured roots and dried fruit.

  One day, while hiding in the haystack, Cain overheard Japheth and Shem talking. Like Ham, the third son, both of them were much taller and more physically powerful than Cain. Brawny from the years of physical labor in building the ark, they could easily overpower him if he were discovered. Perhaps they would even throw him overboard.

  “Throw me overboard!” came an echo. As Shem and Japheth stared at the green bird in disbelief, Cain could not suppress a grin. Was the bird a mind reader?

  Periodically, great waves of noise washed over the ark. Provoked by some unaccountable trigger, and joining in chorus to outdo each other, the animals howled, brayed, roared, and trumpeted. After a brief pause, they took up the calls again: barking, squeaking, shrieking, bellowing, whinnying, bleating, grunting, and caterwauling. They neighed, hissed, and whined. When it happened at night, Cain was forced to stuff crushed hay into his ears.

  It was another month before he thought it safe to venture upward to the top of the ark. Here Cain glimpsed another collection of smaller mammals, including rabbits, hares, mongooses, small wild cats, and jackals. Around the ark ran a semi-enclosed balcony, affording light and adequate ventilation to the whole vessel.

  Cain gazed in amazement from the balcony. Rain was still falling. By now the height of the waters was staggering. There was not a single trace of dry land to be seen. Just small islands of tangled vegetation floating in the water. Logs, branches, and sticks mainly. But more disturbing were the bloated carcasses of cattle and other animals, along with what looked like human remains in those clusters. Cain grimaced at the occasional sight of large, saw-toothed fishes with gaping jaws frenetically feeding on the corpses. It was a ghastly image he hoped not to remember, but he knew his perfect memory would record its every detail for future nightmares, as it had for more than a millennium.

  Angry at God’s vengeance, Cain made his way back to the haystack, which was beginning to shrink as time wore on. Having just witnessed a fate far worse than drowning if he were discovered and thrown overboard, he dug even deeper into the remaining straw pile before falling asleep. Thankfully, none of his wives or mistresses had ever mentioned to him that he snored.

  Several days later, after night had fallen, Cain ascended surreptitiously to the middle deck and crouched at his listening post to eavesdrop again. He overheard Noah delivering what sounded like a sermon to his sons.

  “My sons, as you tend these animals, remain mindful of God’s mercy and his care for us. Life after this great deluge will be hard. We will have to rebuild everything we had before the flood. We are still alive because God found us righteous in his sight. All the others succumbed to corruption and evil, and that is why they have perished.”

  “But Father,” Shem asked, “why did God create all peoples only to destroy them?”

  “The flood grieves God’s heart,” Noah replied. “He had no wish to destroy humanity. But human beings rejected God by their actions. Murder and lust, greed and theft, and betrayal and idolatry had no end. False idol worship especially angered the Lord.”

  “Why did God spare the animals, Father?” asked Japheth.<
br />
  “Animals cannot commit idolatry, Japheth. They follow their instincts. Animals may slay each other, but we would never call their violence acts of murder. God has made them so that they live by the laws of nature. God had mercy on them, just as he pitied us. That is why he gathered them from all parts of the earth and brought them to the ark.”

  “And how long will the flood last?” Ham wanted to know.

  “God has his own purposes, my son. We will know that the deluge is near its end when the waters from above and below recede. Then, after the ark comes to rest, we will send out winged messengers to explore the Earth.”

  Silence signaled that the conversation was over. Cain crept back to his hiding place and lay down to rest. Before he fell asleep, he could not help but reflect on the paradox Noah seemed to embody. Cain had never heard such confidence mingled with such dependence. Noah, too, believed in survival, but only at the will and pleasure of his God.

  Cain had kept only rough track of his days on the ark, but he knew that months had elapsed since the ship’s great doorway closed. The animals were becoming noisier and ever more restless. The thick odor of animal waste smothered the ark like a fetid blanket. In contrast to Noah’s steely resolve, Cain was beginning to despair at, what for him, were the prisonlike conditions he had no choice but to endure.

  ***

  One evening at his listening post, Cain overheard Noah speaking to his sons about an “altar” and a “covenant.” Cain shuddered at the remembrance of his own disfavored sacrifice and the curse it had brought upon him, but he had no idea what a covenant referred to.

  “The rains have ceased!” Noah announced with joy. “A drying wind has been sent from God. The floodwaters will begin to recede. Within the next week or so, our ark will come to rest.”

  Noah proved correct. One week to the day after he had made his prediction, the ark lodged on a mountainside with a loud thud. But release for her passengers was not imminent. The waters would still have to retreat far enough to make disembarking—and spreading out afterward—practical and safe.