Eden Two

by Mike Sullivan

  “Hey, Seabury.” The voice shot back over the line at him. “You married yet?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Then, I still have a chance.”

  Oh, boy…Lois Locket.

  The reedy driver maneuvered the taxi through downtown traffic and then along the highway shoreline highway near the estuary. If he’d known the danger that lay ahead of him, Seabury would have found another cargo ship and headed back to sea.

  Halfway to his destination, his cell phone rang again. He reached into the front pocket of his blue work shirt, clipped his cell phone open, and took the call.

  Lois Lockett’s voice came over the other end. “Hello, Sam.” The voice was soft, almost sensual. “Please forgive my younger sibling, Gretchen. She’s a bit rough around the edges and likes to joke a lot. She used my cell phone–the brat. You had the misfortune of talking to her instead of me. I’m sorry.”

  “I thought there was something strange about the call,” Seabury said, chuckling.

  “She’s like that. She loves to play practical jokes. I’ve always said if you play jokes, expect a little in return. She likes to dish it out but can’t take it. I’ve seen her sulk around the house for days after one of her limited number of friends plays a joke on her.” A slight pause came over the line. “Well, anyway,” Lois said seconds later. “I know what you want. I’ve called Professor Hornsby. He’s agreed to see you. In fact, he’s here right now.”

  “Good,” Seabury said, gazing out the window. “The traffic’s fairly light. I should be there in twenty minutes.”

  * * * *

  At 11:00 a.m., the call came in from Singapore. Behind his desk inside Jakarta Metro Police Headquarters, Lieutenant Rio Reinhart—a Dutch Indonesian—took the call. He listened for a few moments, then responded, “A big guy?”

  “Yes. Good size.”

  Rio shouted over the line, “Speak louder. I can’t hear you.” The muscles tensed inside his thickset body, and his chin stuck out in defiance.

  In Singapore, the female police officer spoke louder into the phone. “Sam Seabury, merchant seaman. He registered last night at Best Hotel, North Singapore. I’m sending you a photo fax.”

  “What for?” Rio asked, confused.

  “We caught Seabury on camera,” the officer said. “He was in the hall immediately after a murder was committed on that floor inside the hotel last night. He’s a prime suspect, but he left Singapore on a flight to Jakarta early this morning.”

  “You can’t send me an e-mail?” aasked Rio, shaking his head.

  “I’m afraid not. The fax is on its way.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll look for it.” Rio nodded his head and said, “Good thing this joker’s here in Jakarta. I can guarantee you he won’t be staying long.”

  Rio hung up. Grim-faced, he strode his beefy body to the back of the squad room and waited for the fax to arrive. Phones rang. Voices shouted. Computers crackled. Sullen looks and red, bleary eyes peered out from faces lined with stress. A caffeine high from too much black coffee filled the room and fed the beasts inside the cubicles. Rio waited.

  Moments later, the slim and curvaceous body of Sergeant Naomi Ellen dressed in her freshly pressed khaki uniform strolled by. She watched the put-put-putter of the fax photo grinding through the rollers. When the fax came out, she handed it to Rio with a cheery smile.

  The middle-aged boner between his thick, stubby legs hardened like the edge of a six-inch piece of industrial pipe. His brow flattened. Then, the brown, Howler Monkey face sprang to life. The look said, I want to do it to you hard…then harder. He imagined her eyes rolling up inside her head as her round, pretty face flushed cherry red, wild with ecstasy.

  Naomi glanced down, brushing her soft breasts against Rio’s right shoulder. She stared down, noticing a tiny pup-tent bulge between the legs of his dark slacks. “Oh, my,” she said, smiling. She knew what she was doing. Beads of sweat rolled down Rio’s face. A damp stain soiled the fabric under the arms of his white cotton, tieless shirt. She grinned as he heated over.

  He spoke perfect English. His voice, quick and authoritative, filled with harsh undertones and guttural comments meant to impress her. “Fugitive’s coming our way,” he said, “It’s time to turn this fuck into a TV star before we jam his ass in the slammer.”

  She laughed, amused by his toxic humor. “Any clue to his whereabouts?” Naomi asked, her dark eyes flashing with a look of enthusiasm. She was up for promotion in two months and knew how to polish the apple.

  Rio shook his head. “No, but when his face hits the five o’clock news, the phones will start ringing off the hook. Our street informants will call in like a pack of old Ninnies, looking for a slice of the pie.”

  “You do have a way with words, Lieutenant.”

  “Does that mean you like me?”

  She blushed. She rubbed the back of her raven hair and said, “Maybe just a little.”

  Rio knew she was faking it. She was soiling the sheets with some hi-so Singapore arms dealer with a bankroll large enough to rival the Sultan of Brunei.

  “Okay.” He twisted back away from her. “I’m calling a Task Force Suppression meeting in ten minutes. So start shagging that apple ass down to Room Seven.”

  He grinned, and she blushed again. “I want boots on the ground this morning.” He found it convenient to use the expression during his daily staff meetings. He’d heard it first from American politicians and ratcheted up his voice each time he used it during the meetings.

  At eleven-thirty, Rio Reinhart’s voice boomed across the squad room. “No big Hawaiian asshole’s gonna enter my city and screw around after committing murder in Singapore.”

  Chapter Four

  As Seabury’s deceased mother would have said in her emotional Irish voice, “’Tis a sight to behold.”

  The Lockett Estate was indeed a sight to behold. Three floors and fifty rooms stood on one acre of private property in a grove near the estuary. The driveway leading in past the front gate baked under a surface of hot red clay. Groundskeepers in conical straw hats clipped a wide, spacious lawn flanked by large trees and patches of bright, tropical flowers. Further in, white stone walls appeared and, in the blistering sun, the rectangular shape of a Corinthian archway shaded the front door.

  Inside the building, a swimming pool, a bowling alley, and a movie theatre entertained overnight guests, dignitaries, and government officials. In an upstairs bedroom on the third floor, a tiny and affectionate Lhasa Apso scampered across tiled floors with yapping voices and sharp, clicking nails.

  A kind of grandiose presence hung over the place. Seabury remembered seeing similar scenes played out in James Bond movies where guests arrived at the villain’s mansion. Uniformed parking valets opened the doors of stretch limos. Dark-suited business types emerged with phones pressed to their ears and black briefcases held in hand. A procession of Arab sheiks clad in white kandoora followed. In bright patches of sunlight, they flowed out the back doors of limos like medieval ghosts, soaring across a mystic landscape of dense forests and winding rivers. The whole thing looked like a scaled down version of an MGM movie lot.

  Seabury approached the front door dressed in chinos and a sky blue work shirt. The squishy noise from his size twelve deck shoes squeaked on a strip of white marble. He tipped his imaginary hat to the attendant at the door and said, “I’m limo-less today, Charles. I hitched a ride in on the midnight express.”

  The silk pants, turban-clad Malay gave him a funny look then frowned in a way that reminded Seabury of ancient caravan merchants, shifting across hot desert sands in-route to manipulate Chinese silk vendors in old Canton. Lois Lockett, minus her sneaky, shifty, practical-joker sister, entered the lobby to meet him.

  She took one look at Seabury and gulped. “My dinner suit’s at the cleaners,” he said. “So, I thought I’d dress…uh…casual.” He glanced around the marbled lobby with crystal chandeliers and shrugged. “Guess I screwed up, didn’t I?” He waited for a reaction. Lois�
�s empty, emotionless expression drifted out past him. “Sorry,” he said, and she turned back.

  Dressed in a gray business suit, Lois Lockett, in her early thirties, reflected everything Seabury lacked in poise and refinement. He was a rough-neck. She was a swan gliding across a moonlit pond. Her tall, angular body never seemed to lose its grace or elegance, he noticed—even after years of knowing her. Alert, intelligent eyes the color of polished emeralds stared up at him. Black, glossy, shoulder-length hair framed a lean, Scottish face with skin as soft and delicate as white silk. Stunning. That’s the only word Seabury could use to describe her.

  “Well…” She exhaled again in obvious discomfort and said, “Shall we, then?”

  She pointed to a winding staircase that seemed to ascend up to the sky. Seabury didn’t feel much like standing around in the lobby and eyeballing crystal chandeliers or marauding desert sheiks. Instead, he followed her up the staircase while eyeballing her firm, tight bottom beneath the gray pants of her business suit. She looked like she exercised twice daily, ate the right kind of food, and took long walks in the garden during the evening.

  They went down a long hall and passed through a heavy white door into a room that looked like a public library. A dowdy, moth-eaten professor sat in a brocade chair and stood up as they entered. Seabury noticed gray, disheveled hair and a sad, serious face. The professor wore wired glasses and had the kind of rose-colored skin that suggested a penchant for sipping wine from long, fluted glasses at least two or three times daily.

  “Professor Harlan Hornsby,” Lois said to Seabury. Then, to the Professor, “This is Sam Seabury,” and completed introductions.

  Seabury took a chair next to Lois. Ever the gracious host, Lois offered drinks. Seabury was right about the professor. He ordered Cabernet. Seabury ordered a bottle of Mexican beer and hoped the house carried it. Yes, the house carried it. Lois called for a servant. The servant whisked away, returning with the drinks as quickly as he’d left the room. Hornsby spoke in a deep voice that sounded like the tone coming out the end of a very large tuba. “Lois has taken the liberty of telling me about your…uh…Javanese mystery map.”

  Seabury had other words for it—more like treasure map or road to riches map, but he went along with the professor. “Yes,” he said, stirring in his chair.

  “May I see it, please?” Hornsby asked.

  Seabury reached into a corner of his bulky brown wallet and came out with the map. He handed it to Hornsby with a cheery smile.

  “Let me suggest something,” said Hornsby. “Never carry a papyrus map in your wallet. The papyrus might be greatly damaged.”

  Seabury eyed the professor with a look of dismay. “If it hasn’t been damaged since Day One,” he said, “I doubt my wallet’s gonna damage it anymore.”

  What was happening here, he could see clearly. He was starting off on the wrong foot with the Professor. He hadn’t a great love for stilted academics anyway, since his days at the University of California. He left the comment dangling out there for Hornsby to wrestle with.

  He didn’t wrestle but came straight to the point. “Yes, it could, young man. Believe me it could.”

  Seabury sucked down a mouthful of beer and shrugged. He noticed the sad, serious expression on Hornsby’s face. It seemed as permanent as etchings chiseled into a chunk of granite rock. A scholarly smugness entered his eyes. Seabury felt a slight irritation crawling through his stomach. Hornsby picked up the map, set it on the lap of his gray cotton pants, and studied it.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked finally.

  “In a fruit jar on a fruit ship,” Seabury said, looking for a changed expression to appear on Hornsby’s face. Lois laughed. A cold look entered his pale blue eyes. Seabury knew he was starting to get pissed off.

  “I’m upset,” Hornsby said.

  “Pissed off?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Hornsby gave him an incredulous look. “Your attitude, young man! If it was any worse, authorities would declare a public execution.”

  “With drums and dancing girls?” Seabury asked.

  Hornsby didn’t respond. He sipped his wine and looked away. Lois glared at Seabury, her eyes like poison darts pygmies shoot at people.

  “Oh…kay,” Seabury drew out the word, raising his hands in a gesture of solidarity. He thought of asking Hornsby to lighten up a bit but decided to avoid the danger of going too far. “You have to know how to take me, Professor,” he said. “Sometimes, I like just being myself…without the need to act strait-laced and serious.”

  Hornsby brushed the comment aside and looked up at Seabury. “Where did you get this?”

  “The map?”

  “Yes.”

  “I found it buried in a mound of clay,” Seabury said. “An urn cracked open in a storm at sea. The map spilled out onto the deck.”

  “The map’s no joking matter.” Hornsby stopped, as if playing a little waiting game, hoping Seabury would budge. Seabury said nothing.

  At last, after a long and awkward pause, Hornsby said, “The map references the last Ice Age here in South East Asia. It took place over twelve thousand years ago. Back then, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Malaysia, and Thailand were joined together. They were all part of the last Asian continental shelf that was here during that time. The islands formed the Sunda Shelf, and the continent was called Sundaland. As the ice receded, the land mass split apart and formed the Malay Archipelago we know of today.”

  Hornsby finished his wine and asked for another. He unloosened his tie and unbuttoned his suit coat. When the wine arrived, he took a big sip and stared at Seabury. “This is a rare find, young man.”

  “Sam. Call me Sam, okay?” Seabury said, and Hornsby nodded his head. “I noticed the red cross just to the left of the King’s image,” said Seabury. “I’m curious about it. Any idea what it means?”

  “I do,” Hornsby said. He paused to sip more wine and went on.

  “It’s the Red Cross of the Knights Templar,” he said. “The knights were monks who took up arms in 1118 A.D. in order to protect Christian pilgrims traveling from Jaffa—a port city in Israel—to Jerusalem. According to legend, the Knights Templar discovered the greatest treasure in history buried in the ruins of King Solomon’s temple. The Knights became rich—so rich in fact that they were the targets of envy and suspicion.”

  Seabury rubbed his chin and said, “ I’ve always been interested in the Knights Templar from a historical perspective.”

  “And their shadowy past,” Lois chimed in. “I can’t imagine monks taking up arms to protect the Christian pilgrims. I always think of monks as soft-spoken and contemplative.”

  “I guess all their wealth and secrecy,” Seabury said, “ did very little to add to their popularity, especially among King Philip the Fourth of France. To him, they were the scourge of the earth. At least according to what I’ve read. I’ve always been interested in history and archeology. The Knights Templar were the first in a long line of secret societies.”

  “Protected by the Judeo-Christian Church, I might add,” Hornsby said before continuing. “ The early church didn’t become rich overnight. They had the Templar to help them. Holy wars were fought in the name of religion. Meantime, precious artifacts, treasures of gold, silver, and expensive jewelry were stolen from the Infidel.

  “Come on,” Lois interrupted. “Let’s not turn the discussion into a religious argument.”

  Seabury shook his head and shrugged. “I’m afraid it’s become one,” he said. “Truth is hard to deny. It keeps springing up around us. Church leaders disagreed with their colleagues and maneuvered into positions of power in seclusion beyond an ignorant population. They invented religion, separated it into sects and cults, and man—too busy obeying a stream of edicts, imprimaturs, and cannon laws—remained unaware of what was going on inside the church hierarchy.”

  Lois crossed her arms and stirred in her chair. Seabury went on. “Used as a way of controlling the faithful, t
he early Church Fathers failed to tell the people the truth about God or Jesus. Their religion sprang forth as one of guilt and punishment to mask the hypocrisy and mindless truth behind their false doctrines.”

  Hornsby sat back, taking in the conversation. He looked at Seabury as if seeing a new side to him—a bright, articulate man with a keen, inquisitive mind.

  “There’s something more,” said Hornsby, entering the conversation and steering it in a new direction. “There’s the matter of a treasure, somewhere in the wilderness.” He sipped more wine and went on. “What happened to the Knights after their imprisonment by King Phillip remains a mystery. Most historians say they went into hiding and continued their work in secret, only to reemerge in Europe during the 1700s as the modern Freemasons.”

  Seabury asked, “What was the possibility of the Knights having a hand in starting the French Revolution? They had a very good motive—the desire to seek vengeance on King Phillip.”

  “A very good question,” said Hornsby. “I believe it’s a distinct possibility. The real question is where did the Knights Templar take refuge and stash their immense treasure? This map may be the key to the puzzle. I see a King and a tropical garden. I see the entrance to a tunnel. I see what looks like gold and treasure somewhere inside.”

  Hornsby looked at Seabury. “For a while, I thought we might have gotten off on the wrong foot. Now, I see I’ve miscalculated.” He sipped his wine, his face flushed and his small, bird-like body relaxed in the chair. “What do you want from me?” he asked at last.

  Seabury sat on the edge of his chair. “I want to find the garden. It sounds like we might be on the verge of a great discovery—a second Garden of Eden or maybe even the real one.” Seabury took another pull from his beer. “I want to see if the map is real or just a feeble attempt by some ancient Javanese map maker to dupe the public. Who knows what we’ll find up there—maybe the Knights Templar treasure discovered in the ruins of King Solomon’s temple. They might have transported part of it here, to Southeast Asia.”