The Tombs of Eden
Page 27
After rationalizing that nothing could be saved, he ran for the decks. The yacht was empty as Savage had stated. The safety boats adrift. The moment the boat listed dangerously far to the right, he dived into the water and swam as far away as he could from the suction as the ship was being drawn down.
From a distance, he began to thread water, watching his yacht settle on its starboard side a moment before its stern sank, the shift causing the bow to rise above the surface, and then it was gone, leaving nothing in its wake but a vortex of frothing bubbles.
“You’re a dead man, Savage,” he said to himself. “And then more loudly and at the top of his lungs. “You’re a dead man!”
And that’s when he saw them, the two dorsal fins of the bull sharks heading right at him. He raised his injured arm; saw the blood coursing from the wound. A shark could smell a drop of blood from hundreds of yards away and hone in to the very spot. The fins were cutting a quick swath across the surface of the water, closing in.
Nature, he thought. Savage said he would allow Nature to take its course. And just as that thought occurred to him, the bull sharks converged and tore Hall apart until he was nothing more than bits and pieces of chum.
#
Alyssa was back at the Göbekli Tepe site wearing a boot cast on her ankle. Mobility was tough along the rises and falls of the terrain, but she managed.
Inside her tent she was documenting her latest finds at the dig, correlating the bas-relief carvings against the temple pillars to the constellations of the sky, with Heaven and Earth having a symbiotic relationship with one another—the creatures upon the land, the stars overhead.
“They said you were hard at study.”
Alyssa turned to see Savage enter the tent. In his hand was a backpack. When she got to her feet, she nearly tripped in the attempt.
“Careful,” he said, letting the flap fall behind him. He could tell by the way her eyes lit up, by the way she smiled, that she was glad to see him at a level that was much higher than platonic.
“You came back,” she said.
“I told you I would.”
She drew closer. Their eyes met. And then she fell into his embrace. He never felt warmer or so uplifted. He knew he was free. As he allowed her to pull away he showed her the backpack. “I got this from Hall’s yacht,” he said.
“I heard about the Seafarer sinking. It appears that Hall’s missing. I don’t suppose you know anything about that, do you?”
“No.” And then: “Maybe.” And then: “Yes. But we can discuss this later. Right now I want to show you something.”
He walked to her table, lay the backpack down, and unzipped it. “Hall had this in his collection,” he said. “I couldn’t allow him to have it, at least not with so many questions that need to be answered.” When he opened the pack Alyssa brought her hands to her chest and gasped.
Staring back at her was the head of Adam.
#
“Apparently he had enough presence of mind to take the head as I was jumping into the hole to escape,” he said.
She reached in and grabbed the head with such care; Savage thought she was paying homage to it. And perhaps she was, he considered, and rightfully so as she placed the head down onto the sparse area of the desktop.
The skin was brown and waxy, the orbital area of the eyes were malformed with its lids having sunk into the orbital sockets, covering them like a blanket. The area where the head had been lifted from the body by Hall was a clean cut. “Hall should have let it be,” she said softly.
“I agree. But it would have been far worse if he was allowed to keep it under display.”
She traced her fingers gently across the skull with an adoring touch. And then: “Alyssa, don’t you at least want to know the truth?”
“I already know the truth,” she said.
“One DNA test,” he said. “That’s all it will take to find his true origin. Our true origin.”
“I already know the truth,” she repeated.
“Alyssa, come on—so many questions. The truth is literally at your fingertips.” She remained quiet, her fingers running along the malformed curvatures of the skull. “How do you explain the creation of a temple created entirely of black silica, a substance found halfway around the planet?”
“Eden was at the head of four major waterways,” she said. “It was the first true hub of an advanced civilization where the waterways became the center of a shipping trade. The silica was a mineral of trade for cultural goods that eventually spanned the globe from the ports of Egypt to Mesoamerica, where some of these cultures share similar aspects of architecture and text.”
“Even you have doubts, Alyssa. I know you do, which is why I brought this to you. Just one test.” He could tell that she was warring with herself. “What would your father have done?”
She turned on him fiercely. “I’m not my father!”
He held his hands up in surrender and backed away. “That wasn’t fair, I know. But still,” he pointed to the skull, “the truth lies in front of us.”
She reached out, grabbed him by the shirt, and pulled him close. “I’m sorry,” she told him contritely. “I’ll never be like my father. He was a special man.”
He stroked her hair gently. “And you’re a special woman, Alyssa, so don’t sell yourself short. If you want to seek the truth, then the opportunity lies before you. I won’t pressure you to do anything you don’t want to. This is your call.”
Yeah, she thought. This is my call.
She sighed.
#
Alyssa Moore had driven to an area that was abysmally barren and about four miles away from the Göbekli Tepe site. She was alone, having taken the Jeep.
As she parked and exited the driver’s side, the wind jumpstarted dust devils, little funnel clouds, to gyrate across the landscape, kicking up dust. She hobbled to the Jeep’s rear, grabbed a shovel and backpack, and made her way to a spot where she stabbed the spade of the shovel into the desert sand. From there she dug a deep hole, about four feet down, such labor coming easy to her from years of working diligently at sites.
When she was finished, she looked skyward and wiped a hand across her brow. The sun was behind a series of scudding clouds, the temperature not as hot as it could be—a blessing. She then got her GPS unit, found her exact location and logged it into the unit’s memory banks. Some things were never meant to be understood, she thought. And then she carefully laid the backpack into the hole with reverence along with the Photostat pages taken from her father’s journal.
After filling in the hole, after tapping the earth hard against the surface with the flat of the blade, she tossed the shovel in the Jeep, started it up, and made her way back to Göbekli Tepe; the only person who knew the whereabouts of Adam’s remains.
EPILOGUE
Ankara, Turkey
Alyssa looked stunningly beautiful dressed up in a gown that embraced and accentuated her lithe frame. Her hair was flowing with wreaths of light dancing along her crown from the reflection of the overhead lamp that shined down onto their dinner table.
John Savage was equally charismatic in dress wearing a tux. His hair was conservatively cut, not a fiber out of place, and the features of his eyes held a certain glow to them. They were reaching across the table, their hands cupped, waiting for the first course of a Turkish dinner.
“You didn’t do it, did you?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t.”
“Well, I guess there are more important issues.”
“Like what?”
He couldn’t think of any.
“I’m a scientist,” she told him. “I search for facts. But by doing what I did . . . I let the entire scientific community down.”
But he heard something riding the wave of her voice, so he led her on. “But?”
“But some things were never meant to be found as Montario said. I really believe that.”
“Are you happy with what you did?”
“I think s
o, yes.”
“You think so?”
She reconsidered. “I know so.”
“Then if you believe what you did was right and no one was hurt by this, then that’s all that matters.”
She nodded. “And what about you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
“You’re unemployed.”
“There’re jobs. I’m not totally without skills, you know.”
“Really?”
He smiled “Really.”
“Well, I know of an archeological institute looking to hire someone. But he needs to be skilled in certain labors.”
“Such as?”
“Are you open for an interview, John Savage?”
“It all depends. Are there perks?”
She smiled. “Good ones,” she said.
“Then interview away.”
She leaned back and squared her shoulders, then giggled after she realized how silly she was acting. “Mr. Savage, have you ever used a pickax?”
“No. But I’ve seen one before.”
“Have you ever worked at an archeological site?”
“Never.”
“What does ‘stratigraphy’ mean?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“Where is the ‘Valley of the Kings’ located?”
“Are we talking about the Sacramento Kings?”
She smiled. “You know something, John Savage?”
“What?”
They leaned across the table and kissed each other, the two finally breaking away with reluctance.
“You’re hired.”
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue