Destination Eden

by Jim Payton

  Chapter 18

  The next day went routinely, as did the following three. It was on the fifth day after the attack that they came upon the helicopter. The day, as with the previous few, had started out routinely. The area was extremely mountainous but their fitness levels, by now, were extremely high, and they were making good progress to wards Kalkali. They had stopped for a midday break beside a mountain stream. Just upstream from where they were, they could see a waterfall. These had become quite common occurrences since leaving Lake Hazar and they no longer regarded them with awe. As Janet scooped water from the stream, she noticed what appeared to be an oil slick. It was on the water closest to the stream edge. She called Eti over and showed him. He also agreed that it looked and acted like oil. They followed the stream up towards the waterfall. There was oil in the pool at its base. They returned to their lunch area and packed up having decided to take the time to investigate the source of the oil. It took them three hours to find a way to the top of the waterfall. That was where they found the helicopter. The smell led them to it. Lying on its side, with its rotors damaged, oil and aviation fuel had leaked from it and found its way to the stream.

  "Phew, what a stink," said Janet when they were still several hundred yards from it.

  "Something has died," agreed Eti.

  When they actually reached the helicopter, they both took one look in the cockpit bubble and vomited. Two bodies lay inside the bubble but were barely recognizable as humans. They were hugely bloated, and although still wearing helmets, they only had partial skulls showing under them. Birds and other creatures had eaten the flesh away. The rest of their bodies had not fared any better. The easily accessible skin had been eaten, and their clothing was in the process of being torn away for further access. Maggots crawled everywhere and the flies were like a solid black cloud.

  Once Janet and Eti had recovered, they sat up-wind from the crash site.

  "What do we do Eti," asked Janet. "We can't just leave them there can we?"

  "Yes we can," replied Eti. "That's the chopper that attacked us. They have got what they deserved don't you think?"

  "You are probably right, but even so . . ."

  "Okay, I know you're right. We have to do something."

  "There's not much soil is there."

  "Not really. I know, we will wrap them in blankets, or whatever we can find in the chopper, and cover them with stones. At least that will stop the animals and birds getting at them. Then, when we reach civilization we'll let the authorities know and they can come and collect them if they want to."

  "Sounds like a plan Eti."

  "First though, we are going to have to get them out of there. It's not going to be easy or pretty. Do you think we are up to it?"

  "It's just going to have to be done isn't it? They're rotten so it's likely they'll fall apart isn't it?"

  "Yep."

  "So how do you reckon we go about it?"

  "With the chopper on its side, we are going to have to take them out the top door. First, though, we'll have to cut them free of their harnesses. Are you ready?"

  It took three hours to remove the bodies and get them onto a tarpaulin engine cover they discovered tucked behind the seats. To start with, they were stopping to vomit, or reach, every few minutes. They were also being very careful how they handled the bodies. In the end though, they just wanted to get the job over with and treated the bodies as though they were cleaning up animal remains. By the time it was too dark to continue, they had the bodies, and their various parts, out of the helicopter and lying on the tarpaulin. They covered them by folding in the sides of the tarpaulin and weighing it down with stones to prevent any scavengers getting at the contents. They lit a fire nearby to further deter interference, and then camped themselves some distance outside the smell zone.

  Exhausted, physically and emotionally, they fell quickly into a deep sleep.

  The next day they scooped out a small hollow at the base of a rock wall and dragged the tarpaulin and its contents over to it. They managed to get the tarpaulin into the hollow so that its contents lay on top of it with the edges folded over as it had been during the night. They then covered it with the soil they had scooped out, and placed rocks on top. They said a small prayer over the gravesite asking God to forgive the dead.

  They spent the remainder of the day going through the helicopter to check what it carried. They had also gone though the occupant's pockets and clothing before burial. The resultant pile was considerable, and included firearms. The helicopter logbook confirmed it as the one that had been checking on them. The pilot was from Iraq and the co-pilot, or person who had been in the co-pilots seat, was an American named Randy Albert Henderson from California. Both had cellphones, but there was no coverage available. The radio in the helicopter did not work, and while they located what the thought was the 'black box', which was actually yellow, they were unable to remove it. They did not recognize any distress signal equipment that they could have used to summon help.

  Amongst the items recovered were several specimen jars. Eti examined them with great interest. They contained chips of rock, soil and vegetation. One of them even contained a plant that Eti had never seen before. He was unable to identify it via his books either. Affixed to the top of each jar were a date and a GPS location. There was no computer. The helicopter base was in the town of Batman. Janet and Eti rued the fact that their computer was down and that they were unable to check the GPS locations. In the end, Eti took the specimen jar with the unidentifiable plant and put it into his own pack. He made a note of the other GPS locations and the contents of each specimen jar. They then placed everything into steel toolboxes and left them beside the helicopter. With them, they took the logbook and the personal stuff relating to the helicopter's occupants, including their cellphones.

  Three days later Janet and Eti made it to Halkali. From there, they made contact with the Police who interviewed them at length. At the request of the Police, they camped at Halkali until the helicopter and human remains were recovered. The Police confirmed that the bullets recovered by Eti had come from the rifles recovered with the helicopter. However, as Janet and Eti were alive, the offenders were dead, and they were all foreigners, the matter went no further.

  Eti and Janet had removed the memory cards from the cellphones, so when the cellphones had not worked, the Police threw them away. The Police thanked them for their assistance, wished them well, and provided transport down to Diyarbakir.

  The luxury of a bed, warm baths, fresh laundry and food seduced Janet and Eti. They allowed themselves two days of idleness, after they had placed a comment on their website from an internet café, advising they were safe and sound, and with a promise to update happenings in the near future.

  After their break, they knew there were decisions required regarding the future of their expedition. Janet and Eti spent a solid day setting out all that had happened to them since they had left Lake Hazar to travel over the mountains to Halkali. They posted the information to their website. They then e-mailed Jason in New Zealand. They gave him the details of the helicopter, including its registration details, the details of the pilot and co-pilot and advised that they were couriering him two cellphone memory cards. They asked Jason to get his Private Investigator friend to look into all the information and provide a report upon it. Janet also made an insurance claim on her computer and their satellite telephone. The insurance company settled immediately as they had reported the matter to the Police. Janet had thought there might have been a problem as they had been shot at, but the company paid promptly. Eti thought that their media profile might have had something to do with it.

  A computer specialist in Diyarbakir removed the hard drive from their old computer and downloaded its contents onto a new computer. Eti entered the GPS co-ordinates for the specimen collection sites taken from the jars on the helicopter. In the main, they were from the sites he and Janet had travelled.

  "Why did they get stuff from where we have al
ready been?" asked Janet.

  "I would say so they could check that we had not found anything out of the ordinary, or, if we had, that they were aware of it and could prepare a defense or something."

  "That's pretty desperate stuff. We would have allowed them access to our findings for them to recheck wouldn't we?"

  "Yes, but we are not them. They are thinking everyone is like them. If they found something, they would never let anyone else peer check it until they had put safeguards into place to ensure their version was going to be the one and only version."

  "Sad."

  "Very."

  "What about those other GPS readings?"

  "I am not sure Janet. The unknown plant one is from the Lake Van area and the others are from widely separate places; Mus, Munzar, Vadiri, Milli, Parki, Cozre, Hakkon, Patnos and even some from Hani on the Armenian border."

  "So they know something we don't?"

  "Possibly, but really we have considered most of those areas. Some we are choosing to ignore, at the moment, because the task is too great. Besides, we now know what they found at each place from my examination of the specimens.

  "The fact that they have a specimen from Patmos is interesting although my examination of it showed it only to be a sample of petrified wood. Maybe that fact requires further examination. The Lake Van plant is what really interests me but we have already decided to 'do' that area anyway. I don't know anything about that place up on the Armenian Border."

  "Okay, so what next?"

  "I'll send off all the samples we have taken, along with the 'Van' plant we got from the baddies. My colleagues can analyse them, compare them etc. and ensure that they conform to what one would expect to find where they were located. I'm sending the 'Van' plant because I am actually hoping for great things from that."

  "Do you think it could be something worthwhile?"

  "Maybe. It's probably just something I am unfamiliar with, but you never know. Let's wait and see. If it has possibilities, we will look further into it when we get to Lake Van. We have to consider the possibility that it might be a red herring so let's continue to where we were going to go, and see what eventuates."

  "So you are going to carry on?"

  "I am tempted," said Eti seriously. He took Janet's hands into his. "If you still feel as though you cannot carry on then so be it. I'll either carry on alone or call it quits also."

  "Have you prayed about it Eti?"

  "Yes."

  "And have you had an answer?"

  "I believe so."

  "And that answer told you to go on."

  Eti nodded. They sat in silence for a while.

  "Exactly what did you ask?" queried Janet quietly.

  When Eti did not immediately reply, Janet pulled her hands free.

  "If you would rather not say," she said. "I would understand?"

  Eti took her hands again. He looked embarrassed.

  "No, no, it's alright." He said. "It's just that I am not good at explaining how these things happen." He paused as he collected his thoughts. "I asked God for his guidance. I went over all that had happened, even though he would already know. I then asked whether or not I should continue. I had set out a list of what I thought a course of action was, and I held that in my hand as I asked. I got this warm calm feeling come over me. I have had it many times before. It is hard to actually explain, but my mind becomes suddenly at peace. There is no voice in my head or anything like that. It is just a comfortable feeling. I know that I am not explaining this very well but that's just the way it feels to me. As I said, I have had the feeling before and I have always taken it as a 'go ahead, I'll be with you' acknowledgement."

  "That seems like an answer to me Eti."

  "Yeah," agreed Eti. "I know. I just don't feel right about it though. There is just a nagging bit of doubt there. Anyway, what about you? Have you decided?"

  "Actually I have," acknowledged Janet. She pulled Eti to her and gave him a hug. "I want to go on. I know I said that I just had to get out of here, but just being able to relax for a while and analyse, if that's the right expression, the pros and cons, I have changed my mind.

  "Maybe I am just being bloody minded, but I don't see why I should be pushed around. Perhaps it is the feminist coming out in me."

  "Was there any other feeling or anything?"

  "You want to know if God spoke to me?"

  "Perhaps."

  "I don't know. Maybe. That dream with Joan of Arc had a bit to do with it. The fact that those who shot at us have died seemed a bit like Divine justice. Oh, I don't know Eti. It just seems that I need to go on. Let's not analyse it. Let's just see where it takes us."

  Eti squeezed her hand

  "I'm all for that," he promised.

  "So where do you reckon we go now?" asked Janet eating another delicious apricot, a fruit Diyarbikir was famous for.

  "Ah," sighed Eti. "The big question. I know I said that we should do Batman, Mus and Tercan but I really do want to go to Lake Van. Let's leave them at this stage. I have a good feeling about Van. With Mt Ararat not far from it, it appears, in a warm feeling type of way, to be important. Mt Judi, or Cudi Dagi, near Crzie also has some history regarding Noah's Ark. Actually I prefer Mt Judi over Ararat for the site of Noah's Ark. For a long time, Mt Judi was considered to be where the Ark came to rest. Cizre, the modern day city, is said to be the original site of a town called Thamanine, founded by Noah. Also, a so-called Tomb of Noah is there, and local legend has it that the Mosque incorporates remnants of the Ark. I know where Noah landed doesn't necessarily equate with Eden, but even so . . ."

  "Let's put the Ark to one side for another day," suggested Janet. "Let's do Van."

  "Sounds like a plan," agreed Eti. "Hey, perhaps I am a poet and don't know it."

  "What?"

  "Van and plan."

  "Don't give up your day job. So when, where, how?"

  They opened their maps, and Eti opened one of his notebooks. He told Janet how Lake Van was Turkey's largest lake and that it had no outlet, the original outlet having been blocked by an ancient volcanic eruption. Geologists believed that the eruption that blocked the outlet occurred in the Quaternay period of the Pleistocene era."

  "Gee," interrupted Janet. "The Pleistocene era. I'm impressed."

  "Now, now," grinned Eti. "Sarcasm."

  "Well," responded Janet.

  "Oh such ignorance," sighed Eti with another grin. "What it all means is that secular dating would put the date of the volcanic eruption blocking the outlet as between naught and sixty million years ago. In evolutionary terms, the Quaternay period means the era of recent life: when man first appeared. Creationists say that everything prior to six thousand years ago happened at the time of creation. I would say it could fit within the parameters of when Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden."

  "Really, Eti, really?"

  "It opens me up to a lot of criticism from my 'peers' but there are those who would support my view. It would seem, to me, that this volcano, Nemrut, appeared about the time God created man, or shortly after. For us, you and me, perhaps this volcano appeared when God banished man from the Garden of Eden. So, you can see why I like Lake Van and its time frame in relation to what we are looking for.

  "Now, if I may, let me carry on with what I was saying about Lake Van.

  "It also contains four islands within its 1,499 square miles of area and is very salty. So salty in fact, that there appears to be only one breed of fish capable of living in it, the Pearl Mullet.

  "Various geological expeditions have explored the area and drilled core holes to ascertain climatic and geological data. That information shows that there have been at least fifteen volcanic eruptions and that the water level of the lake varied dramatically in the 1990's and is currently on the rise again. Why, I don't know, I'd have to look into that. Probably something to do with goodness knows what.

  "There are also a lot of Monasteries around the lake and the islands in it. That suggests to me that ther
e must be some good spiritual vibes in the area."

  "Spiritual vibes?"

  Eti blushed.

  "Well, yeah," he acknowledged. "You know, the things that give you good warm, happy, caring feelings."

  Janet laughed.

  "I knew what you meant."

  "Of course you did," agreed Eti. "I suggest we fly to Van, to start with, and see what historical information we can find and then do the Western and Northern shores. With luck we'll be able to find some indications of an earlier age."

  LONELINESS