The Artifact

by Quinn, Jack

  On their third day out, Mitchell’s fire team stopped at an oasis where they encountered a vicious sand storm. The ground was firmer there, so they dug in under and between their vehicles for the entire day and night that followed. When the sirocco abated, Mitchell saw that it had obliterated the scant definition of the road, so he was forced to proceed with compass, GPS, and map. Since he couldn’t tell exactly where the road was, he sent soldiers out ahead to scout from atop dunes to the left and right of his little convoy. The Iraqis had been planting personnel mines indiscriminately along various routes from town to town, first against the Kurds, then in ’91 during Desert Storm, even though the Gulf War was fought mainly down in Kuwait. And mines dropped by American planes. One of the scouts triggered a cluster bomb, and Hannah ran out to him with her triage kit. The nomads must have heard the explosion, because the following morning about fifty tribesmen came charging over a steep incline on horseback and camels directly out of the rising sun, yelling and screaming their lungs out.

  “They began shooting,” Callaghan continued, “as they rushed down the slope, gesticulating wildly and circling the convoy like a bunch of bloodthirsty savages in burnoose, billowing robes, right out of Lawrence of Arabia.

  “Our guys were already in position in the vehicles behind their machine guns, but the Bedouins were moving so fast and close, it took us a while to scatter them. Mitchell ran up to drag the casualties back, and that’s when he lost it. The nomads got organized for a second sally, so the rest of the squad was pretty busy until they drove them off for good. When they examined the mine crater more carefully they found the amphora.”

  Andrea said, “So they knew it was not precious icons and gems right off the bat.”

  “That’s when they called Colonel, General Callaghan,” Geoff said, “and I flew him out.”

  Andrea looked at Callaghan. “At which point you came into the picture and decided to smuggle the document back home.”

  “That about sums it up,” Callaghan said.

  Sammy’s tone was skeptical. “The remains of the soldier killed by the bomb drove Mitchell insane?”

  “He’d been under a great deal of pressure.”

  “Sixty-four dollar question: how did you manage to get the artifact parchment out?”

  “Private Wilson, one of dead heroes, took it with him in his coffin,” Callaghan answered.

  Andrea grimaced. “And your dress green send-off to the Second Platoon boarding their transport home was actually deference for him?”

  “Wilson and the document were being loaded at the same time as the platoon embarked on the aircraft,” Geoff told her.

  “Mitchell was ranting about God, the Bedouins and document, so I sent him home immediately with another battalion under tight security,” Callaghan said. “Sergeant Conté pretended PTSD as the result of supposedly failing to prevent Mitchell’s body from being carried off by the Nomads. The lieutenant was classified MIA to confuse any subsequent inquiries. Fortunately, he was unmarried with no close relatives. You know the rest.”

  Paula Najarian had sent the locked metal briefcase to WFO handcuffed to the wrist of one of three armed couriers within an hour of apprehending Eddie DiBiasio and his Providence henchmen, whom she had moved from the cramped, four-cell jail in Machias to the Federal Penitentiary in

  Saranac, New York. The sole result of their arrest for armed theft, arson, murder and ‘round the clock interrogation was their adoption of omerta, the inviolate code of self-imposed silence of organized crime.

  Their lawyers had arrived from Providence within six hours following Eddie’s cryptic phone call to his Uncle Vinnie, from which point Paula and the U.S. Attorney from Plattsburgh had to deal not only with the recalcitrant Mafiosi, but their obstreperous legal counsel bent on setting their clients free on bail.

  Deputy Director Tom Harrington called her out of an interrogation session with DiBiasio the following afternoon. “You screwed up,” he told her. “The Director wants you off the case.”

  She could hear his barely controlled anger over the encrypted phone line as he related the outcome of the linguistics experts who had analyzed the original artifact document and its translation into English: both were the carefully rendered ancient manuscript unearthed by an Arab peasant in Nag Hammadi in upper Egypt in 1945 known as the Gnostic Gospels.

  “How the hell was I supposed to determine that from the field?” she demanded.

  “What have you learned from the Mafia thugs?”

  “Zilch. Young guy named DiBiasio claims the Iraqi’s car-bombed the farmhouse with Callaghan and his people in it before they got there.”

  “They offed the Arabs and took what Callaghan had evidently convinced them was the real thing?”

  “Sounds like it. Forensics dug four bodies out of the rubble, no I.D.’s yet. Two Arabs, probably Iraqis, dead in the woods. One shot, the other with a big smile under his chin.”

  “Either this entire escapade is a hoax that sucked Callaghan right up the flue...” Harrington began.

  “...or he’s a damned sight more devious than we gave him credit for,” Paula finished.

  “Whatever. I’m sending Jim Travis out to take charge.”

  Paula argued unsuccessfully.

  “Fill Jim in on everything when he gets there. Then get back here for a complete debriefing and written report.”

  She began to protest further, but slammed the receiver down when she heard the dial tone. Paula Najarian was unused to failure. If she obeyed Harrington’s orders and returned to Washington, her 23-year agency career was in the toilet. If she ignored this mandate she could be brought up on charges and on the street, probably without her pension. Unless she found the real document and took Callaghan alive. Killing him would leave her without a hand to play. By holding him hostage, threatening to let the press interview him, she could negotiate a deal with Harrington.

  She opened the door to the small conference room smiling. Eddie was still seated at the head of the narrow metal table wearing the orange prison coveralls on which Paula had insisted, his smarmy lawyers to his left, Don Jackson, the U.S Attorney opposite.

  She explained her good humor as the result of the phone call from Washington that authorized her to offer a substantial reduction of charges in exchange for Eddie’s total cooperation in relating the events that had taken place in the Machias farmhouse. There would be no need to divulge any information regarding his associates or connection to organized crime.

  She stood in the cold damp air by her rental car in the parking lot outside the foreboding stone wall topped with razor wire. Eddie claimed that the helicopter was still in the field near the barn when they had arrived at the blazing farmhouse. Since it was gone when she had reached the scene a half hour later, Callaghan and perps were alive and in possession of the real document at some new hideaway. But where? She pressed the instant dial key of her cell phone that rang up Jerry Roland.

  “I just got the word,” he said. “Shit happens, pal.”

  “Not yet, it hasn’t. I’m betting that Callaghan and friends did not die in the firebomb the Arabs or DiBiasio planted, but somehow took off with Madigan in the helicopter before the house blew.”

  “Paula, you’re not going to....”

  “I’m going to catch that bastard, Jer. Question is, what are you going to do?”

  Paula determined that the average range of the helicopter described by Eddie DiBiasio was roughly five hundred miles. She would begin calling local police on the outer perimeter of a circle describing that distance from Machias; Jerry would call those closest to town. With any luck, someone would report sighting an unauthorized chopper flying or sitting in an open field before Travis came out and took charge. As usual, municipal cops were usually not forthcoming with requests from Washington agencies due to provincial egos and traditional antipathy toward any federal investigation of incidents or suspects in their hallowed domain, so progress was slow.

  Jerry started his inquiries in Machias w
ith the realtor and airfield manager from whom he gathered a verbal portrait of the five renegade soldiers, Samuel Simkowski and the AmerAsian woman. If they were flying any distance, they would need to refuel nearby. If not, they would have to land somewhere within a five hundred or so mile radius of Machias.

  Paula was bone weary when they checked into the Augusta motel. Jerry began to stroke her ego and usually responsive physical properties soon after he placed the chain on the door of the room, but she slapped his hand away with a series of expletives that must have burned the ears of adjacent occupants.

  Jerry used his laptop to make a list all aircraft fueling facilities in the area, but canvassing every private airfield by phone for an unknown helicopter was time consuming and eventually unproductive. Paula wanted a helicopter on standby when they located Callaghan, and found a charter aircraft service at Augusta International Airport, but it was closed by the time she called it. Damn! She should have reserved that first. Working on her own like some paperback P.I. was a new experience, and frustrating. If she had the resources of the entire federal justice system at her disposal her quest would be infinitely more easy and, she was convinced, enable her to apprehended Callaghan quickly. Harrington and Travis were enjoying that luxury, but they didn’t have the background leads she had. Her best advantage, she believed, was her possession of Madigan’s cell phone number acquired during the unauthorized tap she had placed on the reporter’s home phone. Harrington might not have that, and could be so focused on finding Callaghan, that Andrea’s presence among the artifact thieves may have escaped him. She could hire a private GPS search firm to locate the phone, but that could get back to the Bureau. Her best bet was to get one of the advanced Beta cell phones issued to the Bureau by the developer, Loopt, that could pinpoint the location of any cell phone via Global Positioning Satellite. Maybe Maria, Harrington’s aggressive woman’s lib secretary could send her one. Then all she would have to do was wait for Andrea to turn her phone on.

  The occupants of the isolated hunting lodge had reconvened in the spacious kitchen for a dinner of roast turkey and vegetables prepared by Sammy and Geoff. The five non-coms had eaten earlier, were back at their task assembling the random segments submitted to experts for translation into the finished translated pages in their proper sequence; the remaining ex-troopers patrolled the lodge perimeter. Andrea looked at Cassandra seated beside her at the long table covered with a colorful patterned cloth and depleted dishes of hearty country food. She was still uneasy at the woman’s mirror image of the assassinated Preacher and determined to learn how the twins fit into Callaghan’s artifact scheme. “Do you feel up to answering a couple of questions about your sister?”

  Callaghan shot her a look of amused disgust. “You people would try to interview Jimmy Hoffa’s corpse if you could find it.”

  Cassandra had seemed upset at his sparse narrative earlier that afternoon, yet now appeared resigned to disclosing some portion of her sister’s role in the artifact phenomenon. “It’s all right, Clyde. I guess there’s a clock running for all of us.”

  Callaghan crossed his arms over his chest, emitting a gruff sound of acquiescence.

  “Hannah’s crusade to reject all religions,” Andy asked,” when did that start?”

  “In Iraq, I suppose. Before that, she was a dedicated career soldier.”

  “Where are you from, parents, other siblings, background?”

  “She didn’t want to get into that for reasons that may become clear later. I will respect her wishes.”

  “I thought you were after the artifact story,” Callaghan said.

  “What about it?”

  “There were twelve of them,” he replied. “Lieutenant Mitchell, Sergeant Conté, Bogosian, Franks, Palagi, Alvarez, Gerlach, Crandall, Hannah, and five more whose names you do not need to know.”

  “I may want to talk to them for purposes of corroboration,” Andrea said.

  “Do you want to hear this,” Callaghan asked her, “or continue being a pain in the neck?”

  Andy drew in a deep breath, compressing her lips as Sammy tried to hide a knowing grin.

  “Mitchell’s fire team found the sealed amphora,” Callaghan picked up where he had left off that afternoon, “but didn’t have a clue what was in it.”

  There were no markings on the urn to give any indication of its age or contents. It looked old, but the reason the U.S. had invaded Iraq was that Saddam was supposed to have weapons of mass destruction. The amphora could have been one of several containers that held deadly bacteria, planted along similar outlying tracks. When Conté radioed HQ about the nomad firefight, Mitchell’s mental condition, and discovering the vessel, Callaghan had ordered him to keep the amphora intact until he and Geoff flew a chopper out to their position. When they arrived, a closer inspection discovered that the amphora showed minute cracks and seemed harmless.

  The troopers gathered around their company commander as Geoff opened the ancient vase, all hoping to share the gold icons and jewels everyone supposed was in it. Callaghan pried away a corner of the waxy substance that sealed a protective leather casing to reveal the fragile papyrus document within. His immediate reaction was to bring their find to his division commander, until he recalled the controversies attending the discoveries of other ancient documents, often resulting in subjective interpretations, inexpert tampering or downright suppression of true content.

  Some of the men were disgruntled at the prospect of turning over an artifact that could be valuable to a museum or private collector, while others expressed their concern that the army might turn it over to Iraqi religious leaders or politicians, or even send it home to disappear forever in the Pentagon archives rightly known as Foggy Bottom.

  Callaghan finally decided that the document could be an important discovery that should be delivered to an international group of experts when they had determined in what area of expertise the document should reside, and with whom. He explained to the members of demented Lieutenant Mitchell’s decimated squad what he believed was their proper course of action, which superseded the questionable rights of any government or entity, until the contents and provenance of the document had been established. After considerable discussion for which Callaghan abandoned his rank and established a democratic atmosphere, every soldier swore to uphold the plan he proposed and secrecy required.

  “So we farmed a dozen innocuous pages out for authentication by experts, followed by the whole thing piecemeal for translation,” Geoff said.

  “Now what?” Sammy asked.

  Callaghan called out for Palagi to join them from the adjacent dining room where he, Alvarez, Gerlach and Palagi were working on long tables with annotated copies of the ancient papyrus scroll, painstakingly reassembling the translated manuscript, then running the finished 11” X 14” pages through a copy machine.

  “We’re just reversing the cut-and-paste scrambling we did to conceal the contents from the translators,” Palagi explained. “Even with all our notes and cues, we have to proof, check and triple check for sense and continuity.”

  “When will you finish?” Geoff asked him.

  “Sometimes the translators got the Greek derivation of Aramaic wrong,” Palagi said, “because we purposely hadn’t given them the proper context. Lucky my mother’s maiden name is Papadopoulos and we spoke Greek at home. Modern Greek isn’t that different from the ancient version once I got the hang of it.”

  “When will you finish?” Geoff repeated.

  Palagi looked over his shoulder into the dining room where his associates were sorting through papers on the tables. “Couple of days.”

  Andrea glanced at Geoff. “As long as most of the cards are on the green baize, what the devil is this document, anyway?”

  Now the artifact thieves exchanged glances. “A manuscript that could change the way of the world,” Cassandra said.

  “If the world will listen,” Callaghan added.

  “That’s a tough assignment in today’s fragmented mas
s media,” Andrea admitted. “Each of the major TV news programs command a max of 10 percent viewers, meaning any announcement on just those three will miss seventy percent. Add cable, newspapers….”

  “This document deserves more than an announcement,” Geoff injected.

  “You expect to have the whole thing read by a talking head on television?” Andrea scoffed in her forced whisper. “Boring.”

  Sammy asked, “How long will it take to tell? An hour? Five? You won’t get half of that, unless you plan on proving Cleopatra was a man.”

  “We haven’t gone very far down that road,” Callaghan admitted. “We just began to get the feel of it a couple of weeks ago when the first of the translations came in, and started putting them in order.”

  “You better think on it, General,” Andy told him, “because if nobody knew we put a man on the moon, it wouldn’t have happened, do you catch my drift?”

  “We’ve thought of that,” Callaghan replied grudgingly.

  “I guess maybe we’re a bit out of our league on this aspect of the program,” Cassandra admitted.

  “Program?” Andrea asked. “What in God’s good name did you find out there in the desert, and what are you trying to do with it?”

  “Present it to the global public in a way that will encourage them to absorb it with open minds and reflection,” Callaghan said.

  Andrea’s expression registered wonderment accompanied by a shake of the head. “Now that you know what it is, you claim that your purely altruistic objective is to communicate its contents to the world simultaneously, is that correct?”

  “Correct,” Callaghan answered.

  If they did not provide some outlet for discussion of its contents by experts and lay people, the general believed, there could be a serious backlash from the population not only in the United States, but abroad. Other nations and factions would challenge the legitimacy of the document itself and the scruples of America for its unilateral release without consulting them.