Eden Two

by Mike Sullivan

  “Whoa, hold on a minute,” said Hornsby, “that’s quite a lot you’re asking.” He stared over the top of his glasses at Seabury. “I’m bothered by a number of things,” he said. “First, the location of the tunnel isn’t clear. The arrow points north to the Indonesian side of Eastern Borneo. It leaves the lowland foothills and climbs up to the base of the Muller Mountain Range.”

  Noticing a shipping map on the wall, he stood up and motioned Lois and Seabury over to it. Pointing with his finger to the map of Borneo, he said. “There are coal mines in the eastern part. Beyond them, west of the mountains, are two separate countries—the states of Malaysia and Brunei.”

  He tapped the map with his finger. “It’s all wilderness area up there with steep mountain passes and a drainage system made up of several rivers. There’s the Mendawi, the Kahayan, the Barito, and the Kapuas—all flowing south into the Java Sea.”

  Seabury pointed to the map. “I see the mighty Mahakam River flowing toward the Makassar Strait. That’s the easiest river to take to reach the Muller foothills.”

  Hornsby nodded. “Yes,” he said. Then, he stared away. His ancient eyes glittered with a soft blue light, mesmerized by the treasure map and its content.

  “All my life, I have searched for such a place,” he said. “It supports the research done by Alfred Russell Wallace and Doctor Stephen Oppenheimer. They are convinced the Garden of Eden was someplace other than the Middle East. As for me, I don’t really know.”

  He went and sat down, his body creaking as he eased himself gingerly into the chair. “My research leads me to believe in a simple fact. If there was a garden in Southeast Asia, it had to have been a second garden built after the Great Flood. The garden could have existed in Asia, on the Sunda Shelf. East of the Land of Havilah. That’s where I’ve always believed a God…whoever He is…built a second Garden.”

  Hornsby frowned, shaking his head. “But it’s too dangerous. Only a fool would attempt to go there.”

  Chapter Five

  “What’s so dangerous about it?” Seabury asked, concerned about Hornsby’s sudden fear and lack of interest. Lois stared at him. Signs of anxiety lined her pretty face. He saw the skin crinkle at the corners of her eyes. He knew something was bothering her.

  He turned back to Hornsby. “Why the sudden change of heart, Professor?”

  “I’m afraid of what’s up there,” he said.

  “Like what?” Seabury scratched his head, puzzled.

  Hornsby took another sip of wine and straightened his tie. “For one thing, coal mining excavations,” he said. “For another, there are armed guards on the roads, and security is tight up there. Not everyone is welcome. We also don’t have a permit for treasure hunting…if there is such a thing as a treasure up there.” He cleared his voice and continued. “The cave entrance appears to be in Borneo from the shape of the existing land mass. Look at the drawing of the eastern line. It’s the same line identified by the British explorer and naturalist, Alfred Russell Wallace. Wallace did extensive field work in the Malay Archipelago, but he’s best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection, which prompted Charles Darwin to publish his own ideas in On the Origin of Species.”

  Hornsby checked the Javanese map that nobody could read but him. He checked it again. He pointed a finger down at a series of short, blunted arrows. One arrow pointed north to a squiggly line of distant mountains. To the left of it was the Red Cross insignia of the Knights Templar. Down from that were the King and his garden.

  “My guess,” he said, “is that the mountains in the map are the Muller Mountains.” He tapped the map again for good measure. “Here you can see the Mahakam River flowing out of them. The river is over six hundred miles long and ends up, as I said before, in the Makassar Strait.”

  There was a tiny yellow smudge and something that looked like a round hole in the center of the papyrus map.

  Hornsby said, “See. There. That’s supposed to be the entrance to a leveret of subterranean caverns, but the hills…the hills are all wrong. There are no hills in that direction.”

  The map’s a fake, Seabury thought.

  He and Hornsby exchanged glances. He was starting to like the old professor now after ragged first impressions. “It’s a fake,” he told Hornsby.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then what?”

  “The hills…the bloody hills aren’t where they should be.”

  Seabury stared at the map again. Was the professor saying that a drunken Javanese map maker had drawn the map and put the hills in the wrong place?

  “The hills should be here.” Hornsby pointed a small, slender finger at the top half of the map. Two parallel lines ran in a vertical direction above the picture of the King and his garden. “The hills are supposed to be here.” He pointed northeast to the top half of the map. “Not here,” he said. His finger traced a section of the map south of two vertical lines that ran half the length of the sheet of papyrus. “If the cave entrance were here in the southern part of the map—then, okay—but the spot’s too far north to be real. We’re also talking about a distance of over eighty or ninety miles between where the hills should be and where they are on the map.”

  “Okay,” Seabury said. “Let’s be logical. If the drunken Javanese map maker didn’t know his hills and drew the hills too far north, then the entrance to the cave would have to be south—at the mouth of a spring flowing out of the Muller Mountains.”

  He looked back at Hornsby. “We find the spring,” he said. “Forget about the location of the mountains. The spring is the clue to finding the tunnel.”

  Hornsby continued to study the map, oblivious to the comment. His pale blue eyes alert and focused. His voice suddenly alive and energetic. “If the map leads us anywhere near the tunnel,” he said, “it’s truly a rare find. It will prove my theory about a second Garden.”

  Seabury turned and looked at Lois, shrugged, and raised his eyebrows.

  Hornsby went on. “Call me agnostic, but I don’t for one minute take seriously the early Church Father’s fabrication of the truth. Genesis—the story of the Creation—was strategically placed at the beginning of the Bible by proud and arrogant clergymen.

  “Their sole purpose was to misinform the people to protect their own self interests. If mankind was inherently evil and capable of sinning, then that sin created a whole new cottage industry called organized religion—a religion based on the lies and myths contained in the original teachings of the Bible.” Hornsby lit his pipe and sent a smell of hickory into the cool air of the library.

  He offered the map to Lois, but she wouldn’t look at it. Patient long enough, she said to Seabury, “You can’t possibly believe any of this is true, can you? The idea of a second Garden existing here in Asia.” She shook her head. “Why, that’s just absurd. The very notion contradicts Biblical teaching.”

  As a practicing Christian, Lois took the Bible literally. In that other world—the dark evil world of heretics, atheists, and agnostics–people like Hornsby told lies. Academic studies that supported geological evidence contrary to sacred scripture prompted her to take offense. A strange little man, Hornsby refuted the truths contained in the Bible while she clung to a literal interpretation. In silence, she’d mocked all non-believers who ridiculed her Bible. She knew what she believed, and by God, no one was going to change her mind.

  “Professor, with due respect, you’re wrong,” she said.

  Hornsby looked up over the rim of his glasses. “I believe that remark has something to do with you being a Christian.” She crossed her arms and sat up rigidly in the chair, her face drawn and sullen.

  Ignoring her acrimony, Hornsby said, “The map contains several clues, but the most obvious are the King and his garden. What about the four rivers pouring out of the garden? Could there have been a second Garden built by God after the Great Flood? I think there could have.”

  He looked straight at her. “If there was a second Gard
en, then what does that say about the original Bible…that maybe the Garden wasn’t mentioned in the original text, because the Church Fathers purposely omitted it.”

  Lois sat back in stunned silence. Her lips pursed, and her face took on the color of a ripe tomato.

  Hornsby went on, “I see this new garden as a Temple Garden. It’s a temple with a garden inside. The descendants of Adam and Eve built the garden to honor the existence of God. It’s clear to me that if we find the tunnel that leads to this temple garden—Eden Two, if you like, out there in the wilderness of Eastern Borneo—we’ll have made the discovery of a lifetime. Perhaps, we’ll even find Knights Templar treasure inside.”

  Lois tossed her head back and smirked. “A second Garden. Why, I’ve never heard of such nonsense.”

  “There’s something more,” said Hornsby, keeping his eyes off her. “Flowing in and out of the Garden of Eden were four rivers described in Genesis. There are also four rivers in Borneo, and all of them are flowing out of the mountains. The similarity is quite remarkable.”

  “Meaning what?” Lois suddenly sprang to life.

  “Meaning–the existence of a second garden.” Hornsby took another sip of wine.

  Lois shook her head and responded with a soft chuckle. Hornsby lifted his frail body up out of the chair. He was sixty-seven years old, mentally alert, but not in the best physical condition for a man his age. He took a half turn and stood facing them. “Are you ready to go treasure hunting?” he asked.

  Seabury stood listening to the discussion taking place between them, as terse and combative as it appeared at times. Now, he looked at Hornsby, his eyes full of concern. “Are you sure you want to make the trip?”

  “As sure as my last breath,” Hornsby replied. “But let me tell you, this Garden, if we find it, could turn out to be a dark and evil place. Adam and Even were tossed out of the original one. So, in a moral sense, it was a victory for the serpent over what God created in His own image and likeness. We don’t know what we’ll find once we get inside.”

  “Whoa…that’s a good one.” Lois balked, looking directly at him. “You practically denounce the story of the Creation, yet you tweak and refer to it whenever it’s convenient.”

  “Just call me the world’s greatest agnostic.” He shaped a thin smile. “I don’t have all the answers, Lois,” he said, “but as a scientist, I’ve always spoken my mind, even though I’m not very popular with members of the Christian community. Still, I’m intrigued by the map. I’m also scared of it. I don’t know what we’ll find out there, but I’m willing to take a look.”

  His tired eyes focused on her. “The Garden of Eden may never have existed as a physical place. Who knows? It might have been merely a quest for human development—with man and woman deepening their relationship with their Maker. Perhaps by taking this expedition, we’ll eventually come to know the truth.”

  Lois said nothing.

  Seabury shrugged and tossed his hands in the air. “Any ideas on how we’re going to finance the trip? Here we’ve been talking about going but not talking about the money it’ll take.”

  “That’s what I was wondering, too,” Lois said.

  Seabury anticipated the question from the moment he’d found the map. It would take thirty, maybe forty thousand to undertake the expedition—maybe a lot more. Seabury had no idea but looked for help from Lois, who seemed to sense his concern.

  “Daddy Dearest can maybe help a little. Do you have any money, Sam?” She smiled faintly and faced him with a new found sense of importance.

  “A little,” Seabury said.

  “How much is a little?”

  “Five K, maybe.”

  Lois smiled again. “That isn’t very much.”

  She looked at Hornsby, then back at Seabury. “Let me talk to Daddy this afternoon. Then, I’ll let you know if all systems are go or if we abandon the whole idea.” She sounded like a NASA flight engineer, but no NASA flight engineer he’d seen ever looked as attractive as her. They closed the meeting, left the library, and went out to the pool. Lois was a gracious host. She offered lunch and more beer for Seabury, and a third glass of wine to Hornsby in the time span of less than one hour.

  Chapter Six

  Seabury stared across a pool of blinding sunlight. A blue-canopied area stood at the far end of the swimming pool. Up on a ten-meter diving platform, Seabury noticed the cheek of a jutting ass balloon out from inside the stretched fabric of a yellow polka dot bikini. Slender, bronze legs appeared. He saw two 34B’s holstered on her small, narrow chest. Gretchen Lockett stood poised and ready, aware that eyes were watching her. In a leisurely display of female assets, she continued to put on a show.

  At age twenty, she knew how to get the most out of flashing her lithe, agile body for all to notice. Carefully, she measured the distance between where she stood at the back of the diving platform to the outer edge. Hornsby wasn’t watching, Lois wasn’t watching, but Seabury was.

  Gretchen stood back in the shadows of the canopy. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Her eyes caught sight of the outer edge of the platform. Then, her arms extended in a parallel angle out in front of her body. With a burst of effortless speed, she sprinted down the platform and hurled her lithe, bronze body out into the sunlight. She tucked her chin into her knees and somersaulted down through space in a whirling, spinning motion. At the right height, she pulled out of the dive and entered the water, arms extended, and left very little wake in the water. She swam to the edge of the pool, shimmied out of the water and tugged down her bikini bottom. Lois noticed Seabury looking.

  “Wow!” Seabury said. “That was some dive.”

  “She’s Olympic trained.” Lois spoke in a bland tone, as if to diminish her younger sister’s accomplishments. “But she’s doing it for our benefit. She likes to put on a show. I think it has something to do with being insecure.”

  Seabury noticed a trace of jealousy and the hint of some sort of sibling rivalry going on between them. He stared across the glass table at Hornsby. The umbrella shaded the sharp, bony features of his thin face. Deep hollows appeared below his sunken cheeks. He was staring over the top of his wired glasses, lifting a portion of cracked crab salad into his mouth, really enjoying his lunch. Probably doesn’t eat this good off campus in his bachelor’s apartment, Seabury thought.

  Lois told him Hornsby taught at Trisakti University in Jakarta, where Hornsby worked as a full professor. She’d excused herself a while ago and went back inside the house, presumably to talk to her father about the money. Now, she stared across the table, taking her time to tell them the news. Seabury sat in nervous expectation as he saw her eating her meal. The lunch of crab salad, hard rolls, and brown potatoes was light and superb. Red wine stood on the table. Crepes came later for dessert. Seabury felt a knot churn inside his stomach.

  “Daddy doesn’t think much of the idea,” Lois announced at last, after consuming a bit more salad. Seabury and Hornsby exchanged glances, surprised and disappointed by the news.

  Lois said, “Daddy is a friend of Cyril Barat, CEO at Eastern Temple Mining Corporation. They won the bid to excavate in East Kalimantan, and Daddy doesn’t want to ruffle feathers. He knows how cutthroat Barat is. If it has to do with business, he’s a wolf ripping out someone’s heart. I know. I used to date him. I know how stubborn and hard-nosed he is. I was lucky to escape that relationship in one piece.”

  Seabury listened without commenting.

  “I tried. I’m sorry, Sam,” she said as Hornsby set down his wine glass, dejected, and joined the conversation.

  “The map’s authentic,” Hornsby said after sighing heavily. “I had my doubts at first, but I’m convinced now that it is. I don’t know what kind of grant money is available through the university, but I plan to find out. I don’t want to stop now.” He glanced across at Seabury. “How about you, Sam?”

  Seabury took a long time to answer. He was disappointed with Wes Lockett. Lockett was a shipping magnet with plenty of ca
sh to finance the expedition; however, over the years, he’d come to realize the mindset of rich people. They were traditionally cheap and didn’t like to part with their money so easily. That’s why they’re rich, he supposed, still disappointed, still mulling over the thoughts inside his head.

  He shrugged and said to Hornsby, “I’m in if we can get some financial backing.”

  Just then, Gretchen—changed into a red, frilly sundress—stopped by the table. “Had you fooled, didn’t I?” She pointed down, grinning at Seabury.

  “Yeah…yeah you did, Gretchen.”

  “Did you like my dive?”

  Seabury nodded as Lois rolled her eyes in the air. Hornsby drank more wine from the carafe.

  “I almost made the British Olympic Team,” Gretchen said. “They let me try out, but my scores…” she made a narrow space between her thumb and index finger “were this close. Close, but as they say…no cigar.” She laughed, and Lois winced. Hornsby put down his wine.

  “A platform diving tryout for the Olympics is pretty impressive,” Seabury told her. He paused, then added, “You have to know one thing, though.”

  “What’s that?” Gretchen asked.

  “How to swim.”

  She blushed then laughed. Seabury looked up at her. Gretchen was young and no doubt immature, but something in her wild, bizarre, and impulsive nature appealed to him. She was the exact opposite of her quiet, reserved, and well-mannered sister. Without a doubt, the family’s black sheep, she cried out for attention.

  In a way, he felt sorry for her. His older brother Benjamin, now deceased, had committed suicide in Honolulu where Seabury was born. So, he knew all about sibling rivalry, hand-me-downs, and being second in line. Not quite first but second, like Gretchen’s Olympic scores.

  Seabury figured second place wasn’t good enough. Over the years, the thought of remaining in second place inspired him to seek a move into first place, and he’d never regretting accepting the challenge. Maybe the same thing would happen to Gretchen as she grew older and matured.