Tomb of the First Priest: A Lost Origins Novel

by A D Davies

  “I need your memory of what you saw on that plane, the photos you said you sent to this Lost Origins Institute, and any other background that might come to you.”

  “Don’t call me ‘boy,’ or we’re gonna have a problem.”

  Colin exhaled hard through his nose. “Have it your way. But your friends are in the middle of something very unsavory.” He gestured toward one of eight body bags arranged by the Mongolian National Police Agency. Cops had broken down in tears at the sight, unused to this level of violence outside the gangs and drugs smugglers on their society’s outskirts. “Tell me... what were you here to steal?”

  “We were here on legitimate business.” Toby wafted a hand at the medic. “Thank you, but I’m perfectly fine.”

  The medic waited on Colin, who nodded to all three, and they departed to help with the removal of Valerio’s victims.

  “Legitimate business?” Colin’s eyebrow popped up. “With whom?”

  “I already made my statement. Our contact was killed in the raid.”

  “Right, right. A raid orchestrated by someone working with Valerio Conchin no doubt. Valerio Conchin, who, I expect, will prove very difficult to pin down to this country. But there is one young man who flew in on his plane and sent some postal workers to free a drugged woman. I don’t think it will take much to pin that on a member of your group.”

  “Valerio isn’t a member of the institute.” Toby stared at Jules for a beat before returning to Colin.

  “Your boy here is directly connected to Valerio and to you. It’s enough to hold you.”

  “Amir Fong was going to loan us a piece that might have profound bearing on our understanding of a short passage of time represented by gaps in the Bible. Nothing blasphemous, but a curiosity all the same.”

  “And he was just going to lend you this? Like you expected me to lend you the Kerala manuscript?”

  “I asked nicely. And Mr. Fong wasn’t quite the cad you are.”

  Jules had never heard the word “cad” used without irony before. He stood, stretched his arms. “What actually happens now?”

  “Depends on you, my boy.” Colin rocked back and forth on his heels, hands behind his back. “Do I arrest your friends and keep them locked up in Mongolia until we conclude matters? Legally. Or do I simply deport them and have them arrested as soon as they land in Europe?”

  “There’s no need for that,” Jules said. “Let ’em go. They got nothing. Couldn’t interfere if they wanted.”

  “And you?”

  “They were here to ask for a loan. Willing to pay for it. I’ll testify to that. You want my photos of Saint Thomas’s journal, you let ’em go.”

  Bridget and Toby stood now. Shakily.

  “That won’t work for me,” Colin said. “Because I am not some bargain-basement deal maker. I am a representative of Her Majesty’s government in pursuit of property of the crown. You will not stand in my way, especially when you can prove so useful. At the same time, I don’t actually need you. You’re ‘gravy’ as the youths say these days. But you, my boy, you do need me.”

  It was a common tactic in law enforcement circles, minimizing the suspect’s bargaining chip and rejecting any notion that they can be helpful to the bigger fish. Like the Reid interrogation method, it was negotiable if you spotted it. And Jules was still there despite the grogginess of the flashbang, the fighting, and the poor night’s sleep.

  “Then I’m with them,” Jules said. “We’ll spend a couple hours, maybe a couple days, banged up here while Valerio does who knows what with your Queen’s book. You said you want my photos, so good luck with that. Guess that means the book was just a trophy for the royal family and of no actual value to them. Unlike the folks your people stole it from. Pics are on a phone hidden somewhere between here and that parcel depot you know about, which is almost two hours of Mongolian countryside and freeways. You ain’t finding that, my man.”

  He just had to hope they didn’t search him. He had two phones on him, and they’d found the one he was using to communicate with LORI but not the dead one he’d used on the plane, which was currently nestled uncomfortably in a pouch at his groin.

  “If you didn’t need that,” Jules said, “you’d have said something already.”

  Colin’s deeply offended expression suggested he was taken aback, unused to being challenged in such a manner. Must have military service in his backstory.

  He pursed his lips in an exaggerated pout before standing tall and stiff. “For the sake of expediency, I put this deal to you. Any assistance you offer in retrieving the items allegedly stolen by the suspect known as Valerio Conchin will be taken into consideration when the matter of charges against your...” He swiped a hand at Toby and Bridget as if they’d just broken wind. “Friends. They are taken into custody here, house arrest. Treated well, but guarded like unwelcome guests. In return, we will not pursue criminal charges if the Ruby Rock bangle is returned to the Mongolians, the manuscript of Doubting Thomas is returned to Her Majesty, and your dear mama’s Aradia bracelet back in your thieving hands. Fair? But you have to tell me everything. Right now. In front of Toby Smith.”

  Jules observed Toby’s cheeks redden. Bridget looked away.

  The deal was a good one.

  So he spilled. He told Colin the two bangles slotted together, that they opened a tomb of someone called “the first priest,” and how Jules suspected this to be where Saint Thomas ended up rather than Chennai. He almost segued into the revisionist chronology of the term “Aradia,” his theory that the original manuscript referred to it as such, and that it was pinned to Herodias intentionally at a later date rather than a confusion in pronunciation. As he spoke, Toby’s face creased more and more, and Bridget continued to focus anywhere but on Jules. He said nothing about the effect his touch had on the stones but revealed that Valerio knew the tomb’s location, that it was likely in Thomas’s old stomping ground of India—

  “Why only ‘likely’?” Colin asked, cutting him off.

  “Valerio never said. But Thomas got ill here and left Mary’s bangle with the local Buddhists, then went home to die. Assuming he made it that far, his biggest congregation was in India.”

  “Ah, yes, Kerala. Do continue.”

  Jules finished up with Valerio’s delusion that Saint Thomas’s final gospel would imbue him with a knowledge that would lead to power. He even quoted the man verbatim: magic exists in this world.

  A fortyish Caucasian woman in a pantsuit sidled up to Colin, and the pair stepped away while she whispered in his ear, hand cupped to prevent lipreading. Colin sighed, dismissed the woman, and faced Toby.

  “Mr. Smith, do you know anything about an unauthorized—”

  The noise was terrific. A combined roar and scream blasted through the internal PA system, forcing the cops and Interpol agents and medics to cringe and cover their ears. Colin and Jules also fell victim. Toby and Bridget cowered but were less affected than those around them.

  They’d been expecting it.

  Then a downdraft thrummed from the blown-out roof. Up above, a helicopter loomed, and Harpal stood upon a skid, strapped in firmly, with a bulky pack on his back, holding what appeared to be a gun attached to the pack by a metallic hose. A flame flickered at the end.

  The screeching fell silent, the power cut most likely by an agent inside the museum. By then, though, Harpal had unleashed the flames. A wide arc at first. Enough to scatter the cops and agents, Colin leaping for cover too, yelping for action. The wind threw the fire in too many directions to be controlled.

  Bridget and Toby held stock-still without a hint of fear. They held hands and walked calmly toward the epicenter of the downdraft. Jules stepped toward them but caught himself.

  Bridget beckoned. “Come with us!”

  Toby seemed less enthused. But nodded anyway.

  Them or Colin?

  Who gave him a better chance of success?

  He owed LORI nothing.

  They weren’t his family.
>
  A line with three harnesses dropped from the chopper as another circle of fire pinned the Interpol agents back farther, dispersing before it hit anything important.

  Jules had only seconds to decide.

  Come on, Bridget pleaded silently. She beckoned, but Toby squeezed her hand. She’d recognized his defeat and embarrassment under Colin’s gaze, and this confusion wouldn’t last much longer. The flamethrower was a distraction that could only last so long.

  Toby clipped the harness around his torso. “Bridget! Now!”

  She complied, strapped in like someone being hoisted from the sea by a lifeguard. “Jules! Please come with us. You had no choice before. But we’re out of here now.”

  Jules came toward them. Stopped again. He gritted his teeth behind his lips. The supposedly emotionless wreck must have been wrestling with serious emotions there, suppressing what was right with what was easier. Jules didn’t take the easy route for the sake of it. If there was one thing she’d learned about him over the past few days, it was that.

  But they also knew he was single-minded and belligerently focused on his mission. Hence the turmoil tearing him between Colin and LORI.

  “He’s made his choice,” Toby said, and whirled his hand over his head.

  “Wait!” Bridget reached for Jules, but it was too late. She lifted off vertically. “No! Toby, he was nearly there!”

  They whooshed up, free of the roof, the fresh air hitting her like a cloak of ice, freezing her mouth, her eyes, her fingers. The line hoisted her smoothly, and Harpal helped her inside the rear of the helicopter he’d stolen from Valerio’s backup team. Once Toby was also on board, the door slammed shut, and Bridget donned the proffered earphones.

  Still shivering, she said, “You could have waited ten more seconds.”

  Toby had already equipped himself. “As I said, he made his choice.”

  “Screw him,” Dan said at the controls. “He’s done. We’re wanted criminals ’cause of him.”

  “Dan is correct,” Toby said. “We cannot return to Mongolia. Ever. Jules Sibeko must make his own way now.”

  Bridget stared out the window, watching first the museum then the city recede at high speed, leaving behind someone she truly believed had the potential to add a new dimension to the Lost Origins Recovery Institute. And possibly to her own world too.

  But he had indeed made his choice. And his choice did not involve her.

  Part Five

  Civilization grew in the beginning from the minute that we had communication—particularly communication by sea that enabled people to get inspiration and ideas from each other and to exchange basic raw materials —Thor Heyerdahl

  He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious —Sun Tzu

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ladoh, Gujarat Region, India

  Valerio’s main fear now was that he’d lose Jules entirely; after the display in Mongolia with the Ruby Rock bangle, he was sure the kid would be useful. Perhaps even essential. A missing cog he hadn’t known was absent until he saw it in action.

  Not that the cog would be hard to draw out. Jules Sibeko would keep on coming, so Valerio had no doubt there’d be another opportunity to recruit him. This time, a more forceful means of persuasion. No more Mr. Nice Billionaire Explorer.

  In fact, before falling asleep on the Gulfstream for a deep, dreamless ten hours, Valerio and Horse batted around the possibility that Jules didn’t necessarily need to be alive to activate the metal flecks within the key, and Horse promised to cut off one of the lad’s fingers next time they met. An experiment of sorts.

  Science.

  Refreshed, showered at his house on the outskirts of Ladoh, and medicated as high as he dared, Valerio departed in the back of an armored Humvee. Accompanied as ever by Horse and a driver, they trundled from the hills along a single-lane blacktop toward the town occupied by around a thousand souls.

  The streets were clean, the traffic light but chaotic, revving and honking and zipping in and out of each other’s paths—as in much of India. Most of the buildings were new thanks largely to Valerio’s investment in a fledgling tech startup five years ago, his entrepreneurship endearing him to a local people who believed the government had long forgotten they existed. A middle-class born out of the dirt.

  “How’s the cut?” Valerio asked.

  Horse flexed his fingers on the arm Jules wounded first in Prague and then exacerbated in Rome. The hand turned purple at one point, but an intravenous spurt of antibiotics sorted it out within hours. “It’s okay. Painkillers give me pretty much full movement. I’ll rest it properly once we’re done. If you don’t mind me taking a couple of days off.”

  “Of course, my friend. You’ve got me this far. Take the week.”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  No one outside Gujarat knew Valerio’s location, and he existed under the alias Brandon Robinson, a name so bland he got sleepy just introducing himself. Yet it was necessary. Brandon Robinson was on his way to meet a man he’d only spoken with on the phone and via email, and the meeting at the town hall needed to go well.

  They pulled up and disembarked, entering a building born from British colonial rule where they met with Ladoh’s mayor in the marbled hallway.

  “Sanjeev Kaur.” The youthful fifty-year-old offered a handshake, which Valerio gladly accepted.

  The initial up-and-down glance over his appearance was something Valerio had come to expect with every new acquaintance, but it never got easier. Jaundiced skin looked rotten, as if he were already dead, so it was a natural reaction, and he didn’t hold it against Mr. Kaur.

  Not much, anyway.

  “Congratulations on your election, Mr. Mayor,” Valerio said, breaking away.

  “Sanjeev, please. If I may call you Brandon.”

  Jules acquiesced. First names were good for diplomacy. “I hope I can continue the relationship I had with your predecessor.”

  “Of course, of course. Please.”

  Sanjeev led Valerio into his office where two wood-framed, gold-painted chairs with green decorative padding sewn over the seats and backs waited before a table with tea upon it. In his office, positioned before the window overlooking the gardens, the scene would make a neat photo op for visiting dignitaries. This, however, was a private meeting. Even Horse wasn’t invited. And after the serving boy entered and finished pouring the tea, he left too.

  “So,” Sanjeev said jovially, “what can I do for the illustrious Brandon Robinson?”

  “You won this post on a platform of supporting local independence for the Ladoh region,” Valerio said. “Which leads me to believe you have access to our friends in one of many militias.”

  Sanjeev steepled his fingers, maintaining his cordial mien, giving nothing away. “I believe compromise is essential. Sometimes you must talk with people you disagree with. You are a businessman. You understand this, no?”

  He was leading somewhere Valerio didn’t want to go. But the hand doing the leading was gentle, so he had no choice. “Yes. My investment here has brought riches to the town of Ladoh and Ladoh’s surrounding region. It’s this wealth that allows the separatists to campaign for independence.”

  “But by that same token, you would not be making... what was it? Eighty-two million US dollars last year in India alone? You would not be making that money if not for the ingenuity and hard work of our local population. Is a symbiotic relationship, no?”

  Valerio suppressed an urge to press his thumbs through the man’s eyes. He was getting played here. He hated being played.

  What’s your angle?

  “Of course,” Valerio said. “I don’t mean to pretend I’m some sort of savior. Only that... as a gesture of friendship, I have other interests in the region. A hobby, of sorts.”

  Sanjeev sipped his tea. “Your company started as a factory. Cheap labor. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Taking advantage of our poverty and our lack of education. But unlike many American
firms, you give your workers good facilities, you have a genuine code of conduct for the supervisors, you pay above living wages. And apprenticeships...”

  Part of the agreement with Sanjeev’s predecessor. “I believe strongly in workers’ rights,” Valerio said. “Investment in the community is essential.” Big smile. The longer this summary of events both knew of went on, the more Valerio suspected there’d be some sort of sting in the tail. He hadn’t even made his request yet.

  “Now we have restaurants and bars, even two coffee shops. Good school, a technical college. And we are all reliant on your continued investment.”

  Valerio nodded. “I’m not here to ask for much, or to threaten withdrawal if I don’t get it.”

  “Good. Because that would end badly.”

  Valerio bristled at the implied threat but remained cordial. “I would’ve gotten much higher tax breaks in Mumbai or Chennai. But I set up here. Because I liked the people’s attitude but also because I suspect there is a site of great archeological interest located amid the ten thousand square miles of jungle out there. I mentioned my hobbies earlier.”

  “And you invested millions here to facilitate your hobby?”

  “Here and...” Valerio counted on his fingers. “Eight other locations. Three in India. I do this because my business needs to manufacture items, design hardware and software, that sort of thing. I need locations around the world, so I pick places that can serve as a base for my pleasures as well as being sound business decisions. Does that strike you as odd?”

  Sanjeev relaxed into his chair, having been somewhat tense throughout. “Not at all. It sounds most commendable. However, I do believe you need something from me.”

  No point in padding it out further. “Yes. The Ladoh town and region is contained with Gujarat, but we’re on the coast, and this town alone makes more money than the whole of Gujarat. There are even people out here who demand independence so that we answer directly to the Indian government.”

  “And you no doubt picked up from my election campaign that I am a supporter of this view.”