The Frenchman turned his head slowly and glanced at the image then nodded. “Oui, that is the place.” His voice was low and he turned back to staring out the window after his short reply.
“It’s just that, well, it doesn’t look like there is much in that entire region save for an old monastery that was built nearby.” He scrolled around the area on the map with his finger, zooming in occasionally to examine a new point of interest.
“You don’t pay me a ridiculous amount of money to be wrong, Monsieur. You asked me if that was the place described on your little rock. It is the only one on the planet that makes sense. If you wish to continue on without me, pay me my money and I will be gone. I will bid you adieu and good luck.” He never stopped looking out the window while he spoke.
Lindsey caught his irritation, but offered no apology. Instead, he just shut off the iPad and stowed it in the seat back in front of him.
Outside the car, the sun baked landscape whirred by. Everything had a light tan color to it, the color of sand. There were a few occasional trees, but most of them were over near the riverbanks along the Nile. The only sound in the cabin for several minutes was the clacking of the tires when they’d hit a piece of road that had been patched with tar. Otherwise, it was the monotonous whine of the engine.
“Why do you seek immortality?” DeGard’s snide voice cut the silence and he looked over at Lindsey with accusatory eyes.
Lindsey raised an eyebrow at the unexpected query. “My reasons are my own,” he responded in an ominous tone. “But unlike those who came before and failed in their quest for eternal life, my purpose goes beyond the mere desire to live forever. It is my purpose. It is my destiny to shape the world into a better place, void of wickedness and wrongdoing. With immortality, comes time. And with unlimited time, I will someday be able to create a better world.”
DeGard frowned at the answer. It sounded like the ravings of a madman, but he dare not say that. Instead, he decided to be subtler.
“There have been great leaders throughout history who sought various sources of immortality and spoke of a better world. Along the way they murdered millions of people they thought would not fit in with the plan of the future. Do you have such intensions, Monsieur Lindsey? Will you kill millions to make the world what you believe to be better?”
“I will do what is necessary!” the older man snapped. “I do the work of God. There can be no questioning His orders. I am his ambassador to a dying planet full of thieves, rapists, murderers, whores, and filth. I will do whatever it takes to make the Earth new again.” His voice continued to heighten until he finished the last few words. His wrinkled, ashen face had flushed red and a vein popped out on his forehead. DeGard gazed at him, beyond words at what he’d just witnessed.
He calmed himself down before he spoke again. “In the book of Revelation, it talks about a new earth that God will bring. My mission is to create that new earth.” Lindsey turned his head and glanced out the window as they passed a small train of camels. “To you, I’m sure it must sound insane. You probably believe me to be a mad man, power hungry and hell bent on a pointless venture. I assure you, I am quite sane. And I will see my mission through to the end. It was for a great purpose The Order of Golden Dawn was created.”
“Golden Dawn? That group has been gone for nearly a century,” DeGard snorted.
Lindsey shook his head slowly. “No. It was merely sleeping. And like the sleeping church in Revelation, it has been awakened to perform a great task: the cleansing of this world.”
“Cleansing?”
“Yes,” the older man nodded. “We will purge the world of the wicked and begin it anew. The Order of Golden Dawn will establish the true one world government.”
DeGard scowled. “As long as you pay me my money, I do not care what you do with your little group. Just see to it that I get what I was promised.”
“You will. And more, I assure you. Check your account if you wish. I have already made sure the order has made a significant deposit into the bank you specified before.” Lindsey handed the tablet to the archaeologist who took it with some hesitation.
DeGard glanced cautiously at his employer then pulled up his bank account on the device. After entering in his security information, he was greeted with an astounding number at the top of the page. His eyes grew wide.
“And there is more where that came from, my dear professor. Imagine all the carnal pleasures you could buy.” DeGard ignored the last comment.
“I wondered why we didn’t take some of the treasure from the chamber. It would have been worth millions,” his voice trembled.
“As you can see, money is not an issue for us, Monsieur,” Lindsey turned his head again and looked off into the distance. A few jagged hills rose up from the desert, brightly illuminated by the mid-day sun. “There is plenty more where that came from, I assure you.” He took the iPad back from DeGard whose face still seemed shocked.
“Now,” Lindsey changed gears, “Tell me about this Valley of the Eight.”
DeGard rolled his eyebrows and shrugged. “There is not much to know. Obviously, the area is the alleged resting place of the ark of Noah from the Bible’s Old Testament. The story claims that after the great flood, it came to rest high on the mountain. No one has ever been able to confirm it, though. With the severe weather patterns the mountain surely experiences, an object made from wood could not have lasted very long. If there is anything left, it would be buried.”
“I would think that satellite photos would reveal something of such an enormous scale,” Lindsey commented thoughtfully.
“Precisely. If there were anything to be found, it would have been seen by satellites, planes, something. Despite centuries of decay and erosion, there should be substantial evidence of something that size.”
“Evidence? What kind of evidence?” Lindsey leaned closer across the back seat.
“We would at least see an outline of the wreckage. Imagine you are walking on the beach and the ocean waters wash up to your bare feet. When the water withdraws, your foot has sunken into the sand a little. If this happens several times, your foot will be a few inches deep in the sand.” He demonstrated with his hands as he explained the process. “When you remove your foot, the outline of it remains in the sand until the water returns and washes it away.”
Lindsey’s eyebrows knit together, trying to comprehend what the Frenchman was saying. “Just what is your point?”
“The point, Monsieur, is that on the top of that mountain, there was no other source of water. If the flood story were true, the waters would have receded and left a major indention in the soil, soil that eventually would have petrified into stone or rock formations outlining the shape of a large boat.”
“Interesting,” Lindsey seemed to contemplate the new information. “So, if the ark is not there, where could it be?”
“Who knows? I, for one, do not believe in fairy tales, Monsieur. That story is a legend, a myth. There are many cultures around the world with the same plot. What should make the one from the Bible any different?”
Lindsey let out a derisive snort. “You see, Monsieur DeGard, when you say many cultures share the story, that fact makes me believe in it even more.”
“Each person has their own beliefs. But if the ark truly does exist, I highly doubt it will be found on the mountain of Ararat. I will say, though, that based on the stone you have in your hand we may very well find something else.” DeGard pointed at the disc Lindsey was holding loosely in his fingers.
“What might that be?”
“I do not know. I suppose we will find out, although we may have trouble climbing the mountain. It will be cold this time of year. We do not know in which area to look. And then, of course, there is the problem with the government.”
“Problem?” Lindsey asked naively.
“Oui. The government does not take well to westerners climbing the mountain and digging around. And if the government does allow it, the locals will not.”
Chapter 13
Nekhen Temple
Sean scanned the inscriptions on the golden panels. Adriana did the same. Their progress was slow, but the images that had been engraved into the shiny metal helped cover up any deficits they had in reading the ancient language.
“What are you doing?” Dr. Firth shouted down through the opening.
“You know, Doc, it would really speed things along if you two were down here helping,” Sean answered back. “Adriana knows a good bit of this stuff, but I don’t have the background in ancient Hebrew that you have. From what I can tell, these images seem to be a timeline of the flood story from Genesis.” His last jab was half-humorous, half-true.
The two older archaeologists gave each other an apprehensive glance. Unwilling to miss any more, Firth grabbed the rope and began to descend. “Very well,” he grunted, straining to lower himself down into the chamber. He somehow managed to make it to the floor and clumsily landed on his feet, though almost falling over in the process.
“I think I’m going to stay up here until I can get a ladder brought down,” Abdulkarim chimed after seeing the much more fit professor barely make it without breaking his neck.
Dr. Firth brushed off his pants and jacket as if he’d accumulated some dust on the way down the rope, probably an act of habit more than anything else. He pulled the small, aluminum flashlight out of his jacket pocket and stepped slowly over to the nearest wall.
“Pretty amazing, huh?” Sean commented as he noticed the professor analyzing the brilliant panels.
“Amazing,” Firth turned toward him and produced some reading glasses from within another pocket, placing them gently on his nose, “hardly does it justice, my boy.” His voice was full of reverence. “We are seeing something that was designed and crafted thousands of years ago. We are the first people to see it since it was closed up and hidden.”
Sean smiled as the older man ran his fingers along the panels, carefully reading the symbols as he moved down the wall toward the other end where Adriana stood. Sean rejoined her, watching the professor as he finished on one side and made his way to the other.
“It seems this chamber is the final beacon, pointing to the last one,” as he spoke, he stepped sideways along the other long wall. “The people who built this were pre-Egyptian. They were the founders of the first civilization in this region of the world. The pharaohs, the pyramids, all of the great things the subsequent empires left, were as a result of the people who created this room.” He paused his speech for a moment as he finished reading the symbols. “It seems they came from a land far to the east of here.”
“How far east, Professor?” Sean asked eagerly.
Firth was still staring at some of the symbols. His forehead wrinkled, perplexed at something he’d read. “That is preposterous,” he commented vaguely. “There’s nothing there to find.”
“Where, Doctor? What does it say?” Sean pressed and stepped a little closer.
The professor removed the glasses from his face and rubbed his nose for a second. “You were right about the timeline of events. Either this is the most elaborate hoax I have ever seen,” he jabbed a thumb at the nearest wall, “or we may have stumbled upon evidence of Biblical proportions. Quite literally, it would seem.” He chuckled at the last part.
Sean turned to Adriana for a moment then back to Firth. “What are you saying?”
Firth drew in a deep breath and rolled his eyebrows in surrender. “The inscriptions suggest that the people who left this room here were direct descendants of Noah.”
“Now, that is interesting,” Sean agreed and took a closer step to the golden wall. Then his eyes became wider. “It’s all starting to make sense.” The declaration piqued the interest of the other two.
“We found references to a great flood when we found the first chamber in Georgia. Mac said that there was a plausible theory that ancient Egyptians could have colonized the Americas thousands of years ago,” he ignored Firth’s skeptical raised eyebrow and continued. “We found more Biblical references to the Genesis account in South America. And now this.”
He seemed to be trying to recollect something, and stepped away. Adriana could see the gears turning in his mind.
“What is it?” She wondered.
“The stones,” he responded vaguely. “That is the secret of the stones.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. What secret.”
“The first stone Tommy found had two birds on it, divided by a line. According to the ark story, Noah released two birds from the top of the boat to see if they were near dry land. The first was a raven, the second, a dove.” His face became perplexed as he crossed his arms and continued to think. “But I don’t understand the connection. Why the Americas? Why would they go through all that trouble to colonize a land so far away? And I don’t understand the need to leave these golden chambers like a series of ancient bread crumbs to lead them back.”
“Perhaps they didn’t leave to colonize a new world,” a new voice came from the other end of the room. A man stepped from the darkness as they spun and shone their lights on him. He wore black, loose fitting pants and a matching tunic and turban. His face was dark, contrasted only by his darker hair, eyebrows, and beard. The man’s appearance wasn’t what Sean paid the most attention to. It was the gun in the stranger’s hand.
He considered reaching for his Springfield that was holstered around his waist, but he had a feeling the best he could do was get his hand on it before he was cut down. So, he stood still with both hands to his side.
“Who are you?” Sean inquired. “What did you do with Dr. Abdulkarim?”
The man smiled a sinister grin as he stepped closer. He was only ten feet away. “Who do you think called us?”
“Us?” Adriana asked.
Dr. Firth had begun slinking away toward the wall but had run out of real estate.
“We are the protectors of the ark, Miss Villa. We have been following your exploits for some time,” he redirected the latter sentence toward Sean.
“I’m flattered,” Sean quipped sarcastically.
“You and your friend were able to stumble upon something that has been hidden for over five thousand years.”
Sean was incredulous. “I wouldn’t say stumble. It took a lot of hard work and research to—”
“Silence,” the man ordered and brandished the weapon threateningly. “We will protect the ark at all costs. It must never fall into the hands of man. Immortality is only for the righteous.”
Sean’s eyes narrowed at the last statement. “I’ve heard that phrase before,” he spoke in a tone full of curiosity more than fear. “It was one of the clues Tommy and I found. What I want to know is what is so special about that boat that you and your friends seem hell-bent on protecting it, and Alexander Lindsey will do anything to find it.”
The last statement caught the man off guard. “You speak of the man who came here before? He is of no concern. Several of my brethren are en route to intercept this man, Lindsey. Before the sun sets tonight, he will be in our custody.”
“I hope you sent a lot of men, because Lindsey sure will,” Sean stared threateningly into the man’s eyes.
He wasn’t sure who he would cheer for in a fight like that. But he had a gut instinct about the man in front of him with the gun. “You said your job was to protect the ark. What does that gig pay?”
“We have protected the ark of Noah for thousands of years. To serve the order is a great honor,” the man inched closer still. “Every one of us would die to keep it safe. And we would kill as well.” He finished the last sentence and lifted the barrel of his gun.
“All for some ancient boat,” Sean prodded.
“It is more than a boat, Mr. Wyatt. Your lack of knowledge concerning the contents of the ark proves that you are unworthy.”
&nb
sp; “That may be,” Sean’s words came out just above a whisper. “But you should never get too close to your target.”
He dipped to his left and brought his right leg around in a swift kick. The gun barrel fired, sending a bullet pinging off of the metal walls. Firth ducked down and tried to protect himself with his arms over his head.
Adriana reacted instantly, launching herself at the mysterious man and wrapping her hands around his neck. Sean gripped the man’s arm and twisted it in an awkward direction, causing the victim to scream and drop to his knees.
The weapon fell to the floor with a clank. Sean reached down and grabbed it immediately then stretched it out toward the man in the tunic who was struggling to breathe with Adriana’s strong arms around his neck.
“Stop squirming around,” Sean ordered in low tone. “A bullet to the head is better than her snapping your neck. And I guarantee you she knows how.” His warning seemed to catch the man’s attention and he ceased his escape efforts. “Now, who are you?”
“My name...”he tried to speak but his voice was cut off by the tight forearm around his throat.
Sean motioned for Adriana to loosen her grip a little. When she complied, the man let out a desperate gasp.
“Try again,” Sean’s sarcastic tone carried no empathy.
“My name matters not, American. Our mission is the only thing of importance. You can kill me if you wish. You will never get out of here alive.”
If there were others like him waiting above ground, leaving would be a difficult task indeed. Something about Sean’s instincts told him the man wasn’t bluffing.
“I don’t want to kill anyone,” he responded. “I never do.”
“Empty words from a man with so much blood on his hands, Sean Wyatt,” the captive spat.
Sean ignored the barb. “We’ve all done some things we’re not proud of. I’m sure you have too. But right now, I am trying to figure out where Alexander Lindsey is headed. He has the only clue that will lead to the final chamber.”
The stranger’s dark eyes became slits. “And why do you seek the last chamber, Sean Wyatt? For glory? Wealth? Fame?”
Sean Wyatt Compilation Box Set Page 66
