Martin Kingston materialized in the room, standing on the other side of Kai’s bed, wearing an exoframe and dressed like a romantic’s version of a 20th-century explorer. “Hey, Esta.” His voice vibrated through Rick’s skull, lower and raspier than he had expected. He realized he’d never actually heard the man talk, only read his written words.
Rick stood and watched the entire message. He was keenly aware of Estelle standing beside him the entire time; he could feel her tense, could sense her replaying her father’s words in her own head. It wasn’t a long message, and it got a bit rambly halfway through. But it convinced Rick of one thing: Martin Kingston had known he was going to die, and not from malaria.
When the message ended he removed the glasses. Estelle looked up at him expectantly. “Well?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I’d say it’s pretty much spelled out.” Rick handed the glasses to Kai, who put them on with one hand.
“Really?” She seemed taken aback.
“Sure. He’s not subtle about it. Basically says, Pharos has gone off the rails and I found out about it, now someone’s out to get me.”
“Booker’s case,” Kai said, eyes screwed up behind the glasses. They looked small on his face. “The missing crews. Think it’s connected?”
“It has to be,” Estelle said, clearly eager now that she knew they didn’t think she was nuts. “I think Radical Dynamics was behind it. I think my dad found out about it and leaked information to Booker.”
Rick shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“What? Why not?”
He glanced at her and Kai. It had to come out sometime. “I just met with Ibis. Our client. We had a chat.”
Both of their jaws dropped. “He was here?” Estelle asked.
Rick nodded. “And he all but confirmed that he’s got something to do with those missing crews. Nearly killed me, too, once I figured it out.”
“What!” Kai thundered, and for a moment it looked like he was about to try and get out of bed. Estelle put a hand on his shoulder, still staring at Rick. “When did this happen?”
“Like, ten minutes ago, in the parking lot. I brought up the missing crews and that kind of chilled the conversation.” Rick frowned. “I think it was the Ark that made him try to kill me, though. He knew I wasn’t going to stop looking for it. He took off right when you showed up, Estelle. I think you spooked him.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t see anyone.”
“Yeah, he’s good at that. Point is, Ibis hired Kai and me to undermine Pharos. Steal the Ark before your team could get to it. So we know he isn’t working for them. Meaning --”
“Radical Dynamics hasn’t been killing crews,” Kai finished. “It’s been Ibis all along.”
“But…” Estelle was frowning. The collapse of her theory, of which she’d seemed so certain, had clearly thrown her. “But then I don’t understand. What did my father find? Was he…was he really just losing his mind?”
Rick and Kai exchanged looks. “I don’t think so,” Kai said, removing the glasses and handing them back to her. “I agree with Rick. He knew he was on someone’s list and didn’t have a lot of time.”
“Ibis,” Estelle said, eyes widening. “Ibis killed him.”
“I asked,” Rick told her. “He denied it.”
“And you believe that?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, honestly, I kind of do. It sounds stupid, but I don’t think the guy has ever lied to us. I trust him to be straight, just not with my life.”
“You’re right,” Estelle said. “That is stupid.” She went to sit in the chair by the window and put her head in her hands. “I don’t know what to think anymore. God, I can’t believe I just ran away from the hotel. Booker’s probably freaking out…”
Kai was watching her with an odd expression. He glanced at Rick, then took a breath. “I disagree with Rick. I do think Ibis killed your dad, and I think Radical Dynamics was involved.”
Rick blinked. “Ok, now you’ve lost me.”
“Think about it. How else would Ibis have known about the Ark, about Pharos? How would he know that they would send Estelle to pick up her dad’s work? He knew because he’s working from inside Pharos.”
Estelle was nodding. “That makes sense. That makes sense.”
Rick raised both hands. “Ok, time out. What’re we talking about here? Are we saying there’s a secret faction inside Pharos that’s using the program as a cover to steal shit and sell it on the black market, and killing the crews they hire to do the dirty work? And that your dad found out about it? And was killed for it?”
“Yeah,” Kai said, “pretty much.”
He nodded. “Ok, then. Just wanted to be clear.” He turned to Estelle. “So what do you want to do about it?”
She took a deep breath, meeting his gaze. He saw resolution in her eyes. “I want you to help me find the Ark of the Covenant.”
He hadn’t been expecting that. “Really? Even after your old man asked you to let it be?”
“That was his decision,” she said sharply. “To keep things hidden. And he died anyway. I’m not going to make the same mistake. So long as the Ark stays out of the spotlight, people like Ibis can operate in the shadows, hide inside Pharos, do what they want, kill who they want, to get it. They won’t stop, that much is clear. But if we can get to it first -- expose it to the world and return it to the Ethiopian people -- then they won’t be able to hide any longer. And it’ll end all this.”
“Ah,” Rick said, nodding sagely. “So you have chosen the path of righteousness.”
She frowned at him. “They need to be stopped. Exposed. And…” She paused; then, in a slightly lower voice. “And they don’t deserve it. Not after what they’ve done. They killed my dad.”
Rick grinned, pointing a finger at her dark expression. “There it is. Revenge. I can work with that.”
Her face brightened. “So you’ll help me?”
“I was going to look for it anyway. You want to foot the bill, I’m more than happy to come to an agreement.”
She smiled, but it faded slightly. “We need to tell Nasim, though. And Booker.”
“What? No, we don’t. Radical Dynamics is the bad guy, remember? Kai, tell her.”
“I was wrong,” Estelle said, shaking her head. “Got ahead of myself. I’m sure Pharos is involved somehow, but it’s not all of them, it can’t be. I can’t believe Nasim is in on it. We have to tell them what we’ve figured out.”
“Why, so Radical Dynamics can swoop in and claim the Ark after we’ve done all the legwork?”
“No!” All at once Estelle was looking rather stern. “Rick, this isn’t just about the Ark anymore! It’s about stopping these people and getting them out of Pharos. Getting justice for my father and your crews. And we cannot do that alone. We need help.”
“She’s right,” Kai said. “I think maybe it’s time to partner up, Rick. If Ibis wants us dead, we’re gonna need some heavy hitters on our side.”
They were both making an annoying amount of sense. “Fine, fine. Just -- give me a minute, ok? Don’t call them until we actually have something to bring to the table. Let’s figure out where to look for the Ark first.”
“Ok. How?”
Good question. “Let’s start with what we know. The Kohen said the Ark had been taken to another sanctuary. A consecrated place.”
“Another church?” Kai suggested.
“Probably, but that’s not exactly helpful. There’s about a bajillion scattered across Ethiopia.” He began to pace, which wasn’t easy in the small room. “It needs to be old. Not a recent church, but one with deep roots in the Solomonic tradition of Ethiopian Christianity. The Kohen wouldn’t just stash it somewhere random. It has to be worthy of the Ark.”
“Can you think of a place like that?”
“A few. Our Lady Mary of Zion was one of the oldest, but we know that’s out. There’s the cliff churches in Abba Yohani, also ancient. Seems like a good hiding spot. Or there’s the rock chu
rches in Lalibela. Carved from a single massive stone, nearly a thousand years ago.” He paused, glancing at Kai. “Some people think they were created by the Templars.”
“The Crusaders?” Estelle asked. “Is that significant?”
Kai was nodding emphatically. “Could be. Your dad seemed to think they had a hand in the history of the Ark in Ethiopia. It was in the notes we got.”
“Should we start in Lalibela, then?”
Rick considered it. “No,” he said slowly. “I don’t think so. Remember, the Ark is central to Ethiopian Christianity. I can’t see the Kohen hiding it in a church built by crusading outsiders. It has to be an Ethiopian place. Something…”
Both Estelle and Kai were leaning forward expectantly.
“Just -- give me a minute, ok?” Rick snatched the glasses from Estelle and jammed them back on his head. Martin Kingston’s image reset.
“Hey, Esta.”
“What’re you doing?” Estelle asked.
“Maybe he hid a clue in this message.”
“I don’t think so, Rick. He didn’t want me to go looking for it…”
Rick closed his eyes, ignoring her, listening to every word and its inflection for some hidden significance. You were a historian. Enough of an adventurer to go looking for it yourself. You couldn’t let something like the Ark of the Covenant stay hidden forever, no matter how much you wanted to.
But no sudden revelations leapt out at him. The message remained exactly the same, progressing from a warning to a request to a farewell. Rick opened his eyes as the recording ended and Martin Kingston disappeared. Estelle was watching him, anxious.
“Anything?” Kai asked.
He didn’t answer, but instead scrubbed back through the recording, making a tiny circle on the right stem of the glasses with his finger to rewind to the final section of the message.
“You’d want to get involved, to move forward. That’s the trap. The one I fell into, thinking I could change things. Change the world. I couldn’t. Not the way I tried, at least. Maybe you can, but you need to take a different path. Do it the hard way. That’s always how it’s been, I think. That’s why they were hidden, erased from our memory. You can’t just give a child a gun and expect him to use it responsibly, he’d got to earn that wisdom.”
Rick watched Martin Kingston’s face as he spoke. Behind the scars and the lines was a melange of emotion. Fear, regret. Maybe even a bit of anger. “What’s he talking about?” Rick asked. “About changing the world, a trap. Things being hidden, erased from memory.”
“I don’t know,” Estelle admitted. “It didn’t make much sense to me.”
“But it has to mean something,” Rick insisted. He opened the settings tab and toggled off visual playback, then replayed the same segment of the message, listening only to the audio. That’s always how it’s been, I think. That’s why they were hidden, erased from our memory. You can’t just give a child a gun and expect him to use it responsibly, he’s got to earn that wisdom.
There was significance here. The strain in Martin Kingston’s voice, the way his words flowed out in an almost disconnected fashion -- he believed in what he was saying, was putting his entire heart into it, so much so that his passion was making him almost incoherent. As if this were the true message of the recording. But Rick still couldn’t figure out what any of it meant. Was it a hint? A clue that pointed towards the Ark’s location? If so, it was too vague. He was missing a crucial puzzle piece, something to provide context.
“Rick,” Estelle said. “I really don’t think there’s anything in there. What about those churches you were talking about?”
“Too many to search, like you said.” He replayed the message.
“By ourselves, maybe. But…” She spoke delicately, as if afraid her words would break something. “If we go to Nasim, maybe she can organize a larger search --”
“We are not going to Nasim,” Rick said firmly. He held his eyes tightly shut, silently mouthing each word as Martin Kingston spoke them, searching for a pattern. “Not until we’ve got the upper hand.”
“Rick,” Kai said. “Come on, let’s just admit --”
“Wait!” Rick quickly paused the message. He opened his eyes to see both of them regarding him uncertainly.
“Wait for what?” Kai asked.
He held up a hand to silence him, then rewound the message by a few seconds. After boosting the volume as high as the safeties would allow, he played it once more. Martin Kingston’s voice rumbled through his skull like the voice of God. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for never telling you about any of this, for keeping secrets -- it killed me to do it.” He chuckled. “Well. Probably not literally. That…”
A pause, but not silence. Noise. Something other than his voice. Wind, maybe, from wherever he’d been when he’d made the recording. But something else, too. Softer -- and then a sort of squeak. When Rick had first noticed it he hadn’t even been certain if it was real or not. Now, with the volume cranked way up, he heard it clearly.
“Bird,” he muttered.
Estelle stared at him. “What?”
“There’s a bird in this recording.”
“Oh.” Silence. Then: “Rick, there’s birds everywhere.”
“Hang on,” Kai said, smiling faintly. “I think he’s got this.”
Rick opened the settings again and navigated to the audio mix options. There he reduced the bass and boosted the treble, hoping it would fade Martin Kingston’s low voice into the background and enhance the squawk of the bird. He replayed the two-second clip and, sure enough, a raucous honk blared through his skull.
“Listen to this.” Rick handed Estelle the glasses. She winced as the bird honked. “What does that sound like to you?”
“I don’t know.” She removed the glasses and massaged her temples. “A goose?”
“There’s only one type of goose in Ethiopia, the blue-winged goose. And they don’t honk, they do a sort of whistle.”
“How do you know so much about Ethiopian birds?”
“He likes birds,” Kai told her.
“I like birds. We had a lot of them in Houston” He pointed at the glasses in her hands. “That is not a blue-winged goose. If I had to guess, I’d say it was some sort of crane or heron.”
Estelle looked supremely skeptical. “Okayyy… How does that help us?”
“Cranes and herons are waterfowl. That other sound? The softer one? It’s water, waves. Your dad made that recording near a body of water. I don’t remember seeing any lakes around Axum, do you?”
Estelle shook her head. She still didn’t look totally convinced, but he could tell she was interested now. “Most of Tigray seemed to be in a drought.”
“Exactly. A lot of the highlands have dried up over the decades, collapsing aquatic ecosystems. No fish means no birds. Only the largest and steadiest bodies of water have survived.”
“I’m still not sure I see how this helps find the Ark --”
“Pull up a map of Ethiopia,” Rick told her. Once she’d done so he said, “Look at Addis Ababa. Where’s the nearest lake?”
“Umm…” It was a moment before she answered. “Lake Tana, forty miles south --”
He slapped a hand to his forehead as a wave of realization surged through him. “That’s it!”
Estelle whipped off her glasses. “What is?”
“Lake Tana. It’s the biggest lake in Ethiopia, and an ecological preserve, home to the endangered grey crowned crane. But that’s not what matters -- what matters is the monastery. On an island, it’s one of the oldest in Ethiopian Christianity. And, according to tradition, it’s where the Ark of the Covenant was first brought by Prince Menelik before eventually continuing on to Axum. See, Lake Tana --”
Estelle gasped, eyes lighting up. “Is the source of the Nile! Berhanu told me, he said the Ark was probably floated up the Nile through Egypt. And the Kohen! He didn’t say the Ark had been moved to a new sanctuary, he said it had returned to one!”
“
And your dad went there, before leaving Ethiopia, he went to Laka Tana --”
Estelle’s face was shining. “Because he’s a historian, he couldn’t help himself!”
For a moment, everyone in the room beamed at each other. “How far is Lake Tana from here?” Estelle asked.
“Forty miles south. We could be there tonight.”
She looked ready to set out immediately. “Now can we call Nasim?”
Rick nodded. “Now we can call Nasim.”
* * *
Nasim al-Faradi arrived twenty minutes later, with Booker Hopkins in tow. Rick and Estelle met with them in the lobby of the hospital. There was a cool, keen intelligence to her tattooed face, as if she were evaluating the potential of everything that fell under her gaze. He couldn’t like her on principal, he decided. She was the CEO of a behemoth of a company, with a mind unable to think beyond the rigors and demands of her data-driven world. Likely she couldn’t help it, but that didn’t matter. There was simply no trusting someone who could alter the lives of billions with a stroke of her finger on a touchscreen.
Unfortunately, Estelle was right. They’d need her backing if they were going to pull this off.
Nasim seemed to have little interest in him, however. After a brief penetrating glance, she turned her attention to Estelle. “Are you alright? When we discovered that you’d left, we didn’t know what to think.”
“I’m alright.” She gave Hopkins a quick smile, which he barely seemed to notice, then glanced at the receptionist behind the desk. It was now early in the evening and the lobby was nearly empty, but Estelle lowered her voice regardless. “We should speak somewhere privately.”
“Of course. We can return to the hotel --”
“No,” Rick said. “Here’s fine. Neutral ground.” He also didn’t want to leave Kai alone with Ibis scuttling around Gondar.
Nasim looked at him as if he were a curious animal that had just came in through a window. “Estelle, I think --”
“Rick’s right,” Estelle said quickly, glancing at Hopkins again. “This is a good place. Please.”
After a moment Nasim nodded, and all four of them headed to the ICU ward. The nurse on duty eyed them warily as they made for Kai’s suite, but didn’t stop them. Once everyone was inside, Rick closed the door and leaned against it so he could watch the entire room. Nasim and Estelle stood around the bed; Hopkins remained standing in a corner.
A Covenant of Thieves Page 48
