Plague of Coins (The Judas Chronicles #1)

by Aiden James

  It was Amy who spoke, and she was unable to mask her enthusiasm. Nor did she try to veil her lovely smile. This was probably the best moment she had experienced since she and Alistair ventured into the Alborz Mountains Sunday morning.

  “But it looks like the food consists only of dry products.” Alistair sounded disappointed. “Trail mix, crackers, nutrition bars….”

  “Enough to last a couple of days, since there are three of us!”

  Like a kid with the chance of going to a carnival, Amy would play whatever angle might get her another chance at finding her brother. I wasn’t convinced we had enough food and water to last more than a day, even after taking me out of the equation to further stretch our newfound resources.

  But we did have enough necessities to support a return to the hornets’ nest. Food, water, supplies, and a head start were all good things. Plus, my son and the woman who held such sway upon us both could now rest for a few hours before we engaged in a second round.... Our second attempt to find the elusive Garden of Eden.

  Hopefully, it wasn’t a bigger mistake than the first try.

  Chapter 16

  I waited until the sun began its daily climb above the eastern horizon before rousing Alistair and Amy. Somehow they had managed to position themselves to where both slept comfortably in the backseat...well at least as comfortable as cramped quarters would allow. I wanted them to catch a few hours sleep before we launched ourselves back into insanity. Besides, it seemed like a good idea to allow the locals their Muslim prayer customs before trekking through the village again.

  Yes, that was the plan...to walk back toward the drilling site. Apparently Amy overheard another scientist talk about an ancient well near the gate at the rear of the village. The well was supposed to be the main source of water for the villagers until it dried up a century ago. Since Stanislav’s scientists would also be looking for this well soon—along with mercenaries on patrol and on the lookout for us—driving the stolen Jeep didn’t seem like a good idea.

  When she first mentioned her idea of trying to find this well, which might actually be a part of the extensive cave system where her brother could be hiding, I was skeptical. But while waiting for her and Alistair to awaken, it started to make sense to me.

  More often than not in my double-millennium existence, ideas that at first seemed insane but later have grown on me have, in fact, turned out to be spot on—dead spot on. Many of my coin recoveries have worked that way, and some of the crazy encounters with other immortal beings were born from the absurd hunches—the proverbial ‘wild hair up my ass’, so to speak. Often, it starts with a subtle trembling sensation in my gut. A similar experience visited me that morning while watching the sun peer over the taller peaks in the Alborz range.

  It felt right. If Jeremy Golden Eagle was still alive, that’s where we’d find him—I was certain of it.

  “Hey, why didn’t you wake us up?” Alistair accosted me as I returned to the Jeep after taking a short surveillance stroll around the immediate fifty-foot perimeter of the vehicle. “We wanted to travel in the coolest part of the day, Pops, before the sun came up. Now, we’ll sweat like pigs!”

  Like he wasn’t already in sore need of a bath. For that matter, all three of us were a bit ripe. But so were many of the locals we would encounter shortly, since western hygiene wasn’t the standard here in the ‘town with no name’.

  “Then we should fit right in,” I teased. “All you need is a kippah and wooden sandals, and then you’ll really be styling it!”

  Amy chuckled, which broadened the smile upon my face. Even Alistair cracked a slight grin while shaking his head.

  Yes, that day promised to be better than the night before.

  “I suggest you both eat something, and then we can be on our way,” I said. “Trail mix and a couple of nutritional bars should do the trick!”

  I laughed lightheartedly. Without waiting for their response, I went ahead and gathered the other supplies we might need. A compass, flashlight, and a flare gun were the most useful of the pile of crap in the back seat. Along with a GPS tracker, which was thankfully turned off, I found a lightweight tent in the rear of the vehicle large enough to house two of us. That, of course, would be for my more frail companions, since I could deal with the elements that wouldn’t leave any lasting effects on my physical person. Unfortunately, the scientist to whom the Jeep was assigned must be a rare Russian pacifist, as I found no weapons of any kind.

  “So, you’re actually going to do this?” Amy seemed pleased, once I returned to the front of the Jeep where she and Alistair waited for me. She looked amazing—vibrantly alive, despite light bruising on her face from yesterday’s ordeal. She had managed to repair her blouse to where her other injuries were hidden from view. “I thought you said exploring the old well was ‘a complete waste of precious time’ and ‘a sure way to get our asses turned into an Iranian stew’!”

  “That still might be true.” I motioned for them to follow me back onto the path that led to the village’s main entrance. “Especially, since we have no artillery to ward off Stanislav’s soldiers. But, perhaps we will reach this well you mentioned before they do.”

  I knew they both would keep pace with me after a comment like that...a little coercion from one of the best manipulators to have ever lived. I chuckled, especially after seeing my boy’s expression. Pained...like he truly dreaded the potential hazards involved with this second excursion. Surely, he would’ve been quite content to head back to Tehran. Perhaps another example of how Amy’s charms continued to pull on his chivalrous instincts?

  “What’s so damned funny, Pops?”

  “You,” I told him. “I can read you so well, son.”

  He started to say something—likely something smartass—but I picked up my pace before he could get it out. It probably was foolish for me to say what I did, since often the ‘professor’ side of my son’s personality could turn a short discussion into a drawn-out debate.

  “Or, so you think!” he called after me, sounding indignant.

  He sped up to catch me, and Amy caught up to him. She locked her arm inside his while giving him a playful look. He was in the process of trying to say something else to me. But as she drew his attention to her, his mouth closed as if some invisible hand had reached inside his head from the back and shut him down like a ventriloquist puppet.

  Much more effective than I could’ve done, I shot her a thankful look and turned my full attention to the path ahead. The village entrance, marked by a smaller gateway than the one in the town’s rear, had just come into view. Instinctively I scanned our surroundings, opening all of my senses to determine if any hidden dangers lurked nearby. So far, there was nothing I could pick up on

  “We’ll need to be careful once we enter the village, since Fajr may still be in progress,” I advised. “If we got here earlier, we might’ve faced a good old fashioned stoning for interrupting the beginning of their day. I’d say it’s worth sweating a bit more, wouldn’t you two?”

  I heard a chuckle from her and a groan from him.

  Meanwhile, a trio of men came up to us just as we reached the village entrance. All three were dressed in long robes in a mixture of purple, red, and green hues. They reminded me of what my Hebrew brethren wore many centuries ago. And after some initial seriousness in their expressions, each one’s countenance was transformed to looks of peace and joy once they recognized me from a few days earlier.

  This increased my nostalgia, and I remembered how it was when Jesus travelled through the sea towns near Galilee. All of us—his disciples—were dressed like this, and walked with him either at his side or trailing close behind. There were once seventeen of us—five more disciples than the commonly accepted dozen, and two of these were women. That’s another subject for a later time.

  I assumed the man in the middle was their leader, a handsome middle-aged patriarch. Taller and more assertive than the others, he remembered our conversation from the other day, when we spok
e in a feudal form of Persian from when the Shahs first came to power. His light green eyes were aglow with compassion. A wide, generous smile spread across his face once he recognized Alistair and Amy from their Sunday visit.

  As when we spoke previously, he was the only villager who seemed to understand any English, though not the modern terms and phrases. When I tried to describe the abandoned well we sought, at first my mixture of English and ancient Persian seemed to confuse him. Luckily, Alistair was here this time. Using a combination of gestures and a more modern Persian dialect, he soon made headway toward finding specifics on where the old well sat.

  “Zoran stated to me that the well we seek sits less than thirty cubits from the gate carved in the mountainside,” said Alistair, translating what the man had told him once the trio had stepped back through the entrance, where they motioned for us to follow them. A glint of excitement and dread danced within my son’s eyes. “There apparently are two wells...one much older than the other. Both are hidden within the brush, and one is home to the deadly vipers we discussed the night Cedric was attacked…. Are we really sure we still want to do this?”

  I guess we just found the limit on Alistair’s chivalry barometer. Oh and for those unaware, a cubit is the distance between the thumb and another finger to the elbow of an average person. Of course, what an average person was twenty-five hundred years ago when this system was widely used is significantly different from the modern average Joe. I guess the last time these folks took a math class was back when the ancient Greeks occupied Persia. Suffice it to say, I interpreted Zoran’s advisement to mean the standard definition of a cubit—eighteen inches or so. That would put the abandoned well we sought roughly forty-five to fifty feet away from the gate.

  “Did he say which well has the vipers and which one didn’t?” Even Amy’s tone bore a little trepidation.

  “Or better yet, did he tell you how we would even be able to tell the difference between the wells?” I added, always ready to throw in an impish ante. They both looked at me with expressions of sudden horror. This was going to be such fun! “I guess we’ll find out soon enough...they’re waiting on us to rejoin them.”

  I pointed to where the men stood, just outside the most ancient looking building in the town; a rust colored earthen structure that damned well might be as old as me. Unlike my previous visit, there weren’t many other villagers present. Just a few here and there and none near where the threesome waited for us.

  When we reached the odd-looking building, Zoran motioned to one of his associates to enter it through the only opening I could see, apparently to retrieve something. With no windows and a conical shape, it reminded me of an upside down flower pot.

  While we waited, I tried picturing where the wells could both be sitting. I suddenly remembered the spot where our CIA liaisons had buried the cache of weapons set aside for us. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten about the guns and other ammo! There should be a couple of assault rifles and at least one pistol still there—not to mention several grenades I remembered seeing on Sunday.

  I could hardly wait for us to get fully armed, and then play it by ear from there. Meanwhile, Zoran and his companion stood watching the small doorway their cohort had disappeared through.

  “What are we waiting on?”

  Despite acting like he didn’t understand much English when I previously visited this place, Zoran gave me a perturbed look after I voiced my question. He motioned emphatically for us to wait…that it was crucial to allow his cohort time to return.

  With the morning’s coolness rapidly evaporating away, I worried about Stanislav and his army. Would they continue to stay the course they had started, and forget about the three pesky Americans? Or, did they realize there was much to lose if we got away and were already planning to come after us? Yes, they could’ve looked harder for us the night before, and did not. But, we certainly wouldn’t receive the same warm welcome we got the first time, if they found us spying around their operation’s perimeter again.

  All facetiousness aside, this got me thinking. At the very least, Petr Stanislav had to know that the entire gamut of intelligence agencies around the world already knew what he was up to. They had to know that he was using technology that could easily bring every global power to its knees if the fusion technology demonstrated thus far were used for even less-than-noble aspirations besides destroying virgin mountainsides. Stanislav already qualified as an international threat on the FGRs environmental destruction alone. What would happen if there really were something inside one of these mountains that enabled this asshole and his cronies to take over the entire world?

  Yes, I’m sure that was indeed why the CIA sent me out there—to determine if this was the truth of the situation or not. I thought it was just some billionaire nut case searching for the latest version of the Holy Grail, and nothing more. I planned to take a few surveillance photos and call it a day. Then, Alistair and I would’ve had plenty of time to search for the latest silver coin in Al-haroun.

  If only I had researched things a little more, I might’ve figured out more specifics surrounding what at first looked like chasing a fable...the Tree of Life.

  Zoran’s pal soon emerged from the building, and I saw him climb stone steps when he stepped outside. Who could tell how big the small-looking structure actually was, or what hidden place the stairs led to? It would remain a mystery at present, as the wooden door was quickly shut and then secured with an ancient iron lock.

  The man carried a large clay urn and once he handed it to Zoran, he motioned for Alistair, Amy, and me to kneel before him in the dirt street facing the building.

  “What the hell’s going on, you two?” whispered Amy, alternating glances at both Alistair and me.

  “It looks like some kind of ritual is about to happen,” said Alistair, smiling nervously at Zoran, whose expression was as sweet as a Raphael saint depiction. “What do you think, Pops?”

  “I have no frigging clue, son.” I was concerned about having anything unknown poured on me—especially anything coming from some dark place hidden inside a strange old building. Despite the fact that Zoran and his people had been very kind and gave off no negative vibes to me, the only immediate comfort was an overpowering scent of olives...olive oil. “I say we just roll with it for now.”

  Zoran stepped up to Alistair and splashed the urn’s contents onto his head. Really, it was more like a solid drenching. Next, he moved onto Amy and then me.

  The liquid was definitely oil...somehow old, and yet not rancid. It carried a unique property, as a slight warmth and tingling sensation embraced my face and neck—not so unlike what I often experience with my body when it heals. Only this sensation lasted for just under a minute, and then it felt like the oil somehow disappeared. When I looked over at Amy and Alistair, I watched droplets of oil upon their faces literally shrink and then vanish altogether.

  “Now you will be safe inside the caverns,” said Zoran. “Stay together and be humble before the Almighty, and no harm will come to you.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. The man spoke fluent English. I started to get angry, feeling duped by his charade from earlier and especially the song and dance routine we went through on Sunday. But then I noticed a slight glow upon his face, most noticeable around his eyes and lower forehead. I could’ve missed it, as it steadily faded. And as it did, the next words out of Zoran’s mouth were a mixture of gibberish...the speaking in tongues, or glossolalia, that some religions—especially radical Christian sects—still practice.

  “I think we should be on our way, don’t you, Pops?” said Alistair, a little more nervous than before.

  I think this was more a need for affirmation that things would assuredly be okay. Amy looked at me the same way. Both were visibly stunned by what just happened, and now looked to the one non-normal human being in the bunch for a secure point of reference in this suddenly crazy world.

  “Yes, I believe we should go.” I offered an assuring smile for both
him and Amy, and a polite head nod to Zoran.

  Zoran responded with the same broken English-old Persian mixture he spoke with before the recent bizarre event.

  “I will never forget your kindness,” I told him. I motioned for Amy and Alistair to walk ahead of me toward the rear of the village where the immense gate sat. “May the Lord God bless you always.”

  He nodded and then chuckled, and his two companions chuckled along with him

  “And may He one day forgive your grave trespasses, William Judas Barrow.”

  I had already directed my attention to the gate, which stood less than a half mile away. I was determined to claim our weapons quickly, and try to find the entrance to the caverns mentioned by Zoran. But hearing his voice speak pure English again made us all whip our heads around.

  But by then the mysterious trio had vanished. The small town with no name and a weird building as its most notable hallmark sat deserted. Only a gentle breeze remained, brushing against our faces as if urging us to get moving.

  We didn’t need any further incentive.

  ***

  “Pops...Pops!...Pops!! Slow down for Christ’s sake!!!”

  I could hear Alistair’s pants behind me, but we had to move quickly. I should’ve known that Zoran’s salutation was as much a warning as it was a goodwill statement. Once we were within a quarter of a mile of the gate I heard the soft purr of a motor. At first, I thought it was a truck. A big truck less than five miles away.

  If only that had been the source for the steadily growing rumble in the air.

  “Ali, something bad is about to happen—very bad—so I need you to get your ass in gear!” I told him over my shoulder, motioning again for both him and Amy to step up their pace.

  At the moment, they both looked confused. I forgot that sometimes I can hear things on a different level than most folks. I don’t think it’s a supernatural trait, as I had the same problem as a child, when high-pitched voices from young children and infants used to send me into a violent rage.