by Rob Jones
“Got it in one,” Amy said. “I know we were all shocked by the implications of the eagle statue he showed us, and the reference to the apocalypse painted on it.”
“Um, yeah,” said Jodie. “You might say that.”
“Where did the eagle ágalma come from exactly?” Hunter asked.
“The what?” said Jodie.
“Ágalma,” Hunter repeated. “It’s the correct word for a Greek votive offering – a statue representing some kind of divine being.”
“That’s real interesting, Hunter,” Jodie said.
He leaned forward and smiled. “The plural being agálmata, just in case you want some small talk for your next dinner party.”
“Yeah, right.”
Amy was enjoying the banter, but moved things back to business. “Several years ago, Jim’s previous team infiltrated a team of relic smugglers. It was a long and expensive operation designed to bring down one of the biggest artifact smuggling rings on the black market. It worked, but at a cost. Two of his men were shot dead on board the smugglers’ boat and dumped overboard in the Gulf of Mexico.”
The tension rose. Blanco tapped his pen on the arm of the chair. Jodie chewed her lip and stared into the middle distance. Quinn pretended not to have heard at all, and simply gazed out of the window at the cloud tops. Lewis dipped his head and sighed.
“Despite the loss of the two men,” Hunter said, “you said the operation was a success?”
“That’s right.” With the hard part over, her voice was now rising in tone again. “The entire network was brought down, from the smugglers on the boat all the way to the men in suits pulling their strings from their headquarters in Salzburg.”
“An expensive success,” Blanco said mindfully.
“Ain’t cheap flying to Salzburg,” Quinn said.
The man from Brooklyn frowned. “I wasn’t talking about the money.”
After a pause, Amy said, “We work in law enforcement, Sal.”
“I know.”
Amy continued, “When his team was going through the haul on the boat and building an inventory for the trial, they numbered over two thousand stolen pieces of value, mostly taken from museum burglaries around the world and also some robberies of private collections. However, several of the pieces were completely new and uncatalogued.”
“The eagle ágalma with the apocalypse reference?’ Hunter asked.
Amy nodded.
“Statue,” Jodie said quietly. “Please just say statue. I’m begging you.”
“I’ll consider it, he said. “Just for you.”
“And this is where the plot thickens, right?” Quinn said.
“You bet it is,” said Amy. “Most of the pieces were of relatively little value or interest, except for the legendary Japanese sword, the Kusanagi, which was swiftly dispatched to a…”
“A secure location,” the team said together.
“Yes, very funny,” Amy said. “The sword was taken to a secure location, and no, I don’t know if it’s the same site where the Atlantean fire lance went, so please don’t ask.”
“Wouldn’t even think of it,” Hunter said.
She raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Moving on. Apart from the Kusanagi, the only other item of serious interest was the eagle statue.”
“Which represents the resurrection,” Lewis said.
“No kidding?” said Jodie.
Lewis said, “In biblical times, various animals symbolized different things. The lamb, most famously, represented Christ. The Dove was peace and purity. Dogs usually meant loyalty. Snakes and dragons were symbols of evil, or the devil. The eagle represents the resurrection,”
Amy continued, “So, Jim had the eagle statue studied by all the best experts in the field…”
“Not all of them,” Hunter said with a raised eyebrow. “I never saw it.”
“This was nine years ago,” Amy said. “When you were in grad school.”
“Ah.”
“Ah, exactly.”
Jodie sighed. “Would you let her finish, Hunter? You’re driving me nuts, man.”
He raised his palms. “I won’t say another word.”
Amy said, “So the best experts in the field studied the statue and agreed it was totally unique because of its artwork and coloring, however, a Professor Dominic Barton of…”
“Of Cambridge,” Hunter said. “He died two or three years ago. A brilliant archaeologist. Julian knew him.”
Another silence as the team thought back to Professor Julian Walters, Hunter’s mentor who had been shot and killed by the Creed in Egypt during the hunt for Atlantis. The mysterious organization had revealed itself to be ancient cult secretly controlling much of the world and its mere mention filled them all with a deep sense of dread. To break the tension, Jodie leaned forward, glared at him and said, “Not one more word, or I swear to God I will throw you out of this goddam plane.”
“Not one more word, I promise.” Hunter pretended to zip his lips shut and throw away the key.
Amy smiled. “Anyway, Barton went a step further than the other experts and claimed that the creator of the statue was connected in some way to John of Patmos.”
“Whoa,” Jodie said. “Brake check – who’s that?”
Lewis’s face had changed. “John of Patmos wrote the last book of the Bible.”
“Revelation?” Blanco asked.
“That’s right,” Lewis said. “Some scholars claim he and John the Apostle were one and the same, but there’s a debate about exactly who wrote the book. Either way, we all saw the Apocalypse reference on the statue during the briefing, but connecting it up to John the Apostle is another whole thing altogether. Amy, this is heavy stuff.”
“Right. Heavy.”
“Me no likey,” said Quinn.
Everyone on the team saw Lewis’s historian mind was starting to whir like a well-oiled motor. He was already trying to put pieces of the puzzle together, trying to contribute to the brand new team. “What made them say there was a connection between the eagle statue and John of Patmos – besides the apocalypse reference?”
“Full details can only come from Jim, but in his briefing notes I read that Professor Barton was adamant about the connection. He claimed the signing of the name John found on some of the original Revelation manuscripts was the same as the signature on the statue. He also thought the statue contained some kind of hidden code relating to a missing scroll.”
“An unknown chapter of Revelation?” Lewis asked.
Amy nodded. “Exactly, and along with the reference on the statue to the apocalypse, you can see why we’re so concerned. If Barton was right, the implications are huge. HARPA has to stay on top of this one.”
Mouth clamped shut and with a look of mock-fear at Jodie, Hunter raised his hand.
Jodie sighed and rolled her eyes. “You can speak, Hunter, but I reserve the right to throw you out of the plane if you’re annoying.”
“Got it. Barton never wrote about this, Amy. Trust me, I’d know if he had. I know all the literature in the field. Was he bought off? Silenced by the government?”
“Uncle Sam asked him politely to keep it to himself, classified the statue and his findings Top Secret and hushed it up.”
“But he never found any missing scroll,” Hunter said. “I’m sure I’d have heard about it.”
Amy shook her head and glanced at her watch. “Read the briefing notes before we land – there’s just time. Each of you has a separate copy. The quick answer is that Professor Barton said the information on the statue was incomplete, fragmentary. He needed more to go on and he never got it. As you said, he died three years ago without ever knowing the truth.”
“And Jim says a statue in the Dutch pictures was similar to the one Barton studied?” Blanco asked.
“Eerily similar,” she said. “The form of the statue is different – an ox – but it looks like it’s got the same signature on it.”
“If it gives us the missing information Barton was looking
for,” Hunter said, “this could lead to a serious archaeological find.”
“Tell me about it,” Amy said.
Jodie muttered, “And lots of trouble.”
Then, the silence was broken by a new voice.
“This is your pilot speaking.”
“The voice of God!” Blanco said, causing a gentle titter.
“We’ll be landing in the next twenty minutes. Please ensure you are seated and buckled up.”
Amy looked at Max. “You heard what God said. Buckle up, Max – this ride’s about to get interesting.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The HARPA team’s short flight to the city touched down at JFK and now they were driving west through Brooklyn to reach their destination. Happy in his hometown, Blanco was at the wheel and boring everyone with stories of his wild teenage years in Bensonhurst and Bath Beach. Their journey came to an end in Sunset Park when he pulled to a stop in the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal.
“We’re here,” he said. “Sorry about the rain.”
Hunter stared out of the window and took it all in. The Port of New York and New Jersey is an industrial district on the east coast of the United States built around Upper Bay. Airports, railroads and highways converge and create a major transportation hub where once the vast natural harbor was dominated by tidal salt marshes and oyster banks.
At the heart of it all, a complex system of navigable waterways spills out into Lower Bay and further out, the mighty Atlantic Ocean. Here, some of the world’s biggest ships cruise upstream to specially built container terminals at Howland Hook and Port Jersey and unload millions of tons of imports every year.
Lewis was first to step out into the drizzle with a loud yawn. Behind him, Jodie emerged from the back of the SUV and patted him on the back. “That baby keeping you up at night, Ben?”
“You could say that,” he said wearily. “Not one decent night’s sleep since he was born. It’s like a horror movie – The Man that Sleep Forgot.”
“You love him really,” she said.
Amy stepped out. “How’s Meg?”
“She’s doing fine, thanks,” a beaming Lewis replied. “She’s a great mom. It’s great bringing a brand new life into the world.”
“Sounds like a pain in the ass to me,” said Quinn.
Amy glowered at her. “Hey, you were someone’s baby once.”
She folded her arms in a sign of defiance. “Wrong. Ghost never had parents.”
Lewis turned to her. “That I can almost believe.”
The goth shrugged innocently while Amy walked past her and took in the busy harbor. Among a host of smaller vessels, two supersized container ships were moored up on the gray water. One was mostly empty of containers and quiet with no sign of anyone on deck or on the bridge. The other was full and being unloaded by a colossal ship-to-shore gantry crane. She watched the giant machine hoist a faded red intermodal container off the portside deck and lower it down into a yard busy with forklift trucks and men in hardhats.
“That’s where we want to go,” she said, pointing at the ship. “The MV Goa Express.”
Blanco stared up at the giant vessel. “I think I see our guys on deck, too.”
They walked up an aluminum beam brow gangway and were met by Special Agents Bradley Miller and Nate Brown. The two men were wearing black suits and gave Amy a cheery handshake and a smile when she reached the top of the gangway.
“Where’s the artifact we spoke about?” she asked.
“In an office on the bridge deck,” Brown said.
“And you’re sure it’s what we’re looking for?”
He nodded. “Pretty damn sure. I’ll take you there.”
They followed the two FBI agents along one of the ship’s corridors and then up another metal staircase. The paint was white, but chipped, and the stench of old bunker fuel lingered in the air as they made their way up to the bridge deck. The black molasses-thick fuel used by ships like the Goa Express was the dregs of the oil refining process and loaded with sulfur, which when burnt filled the air with highly noxious emissions. Amy waved the smell away from her face as she climbed to the top of the stairs behind Agent Brown, who now turned and showed them into a small office on their left guarded by another agent.
“This is Special Agent Frank Guy.”
“Hey.”
“There it is,” Guy said. “Knock yourselves out.”
Amy stepped over the door’s lower bulkhead plate and went into the room. The smell of oil was thinner here, almost non-existent, and a cheap, laminate table was pushed up against a white-painted steel wall. Sitting on top of it was a vintage wooden tea chest full of straw stuffing, its lid prised off and resting beside it. In the corner a man was sitting on a chair, his right hand cuffed to a bilge pipe.
“Good news, Markovich,” Miller said to the man. “These nice people are here to put you in jail for the rest of your life.”
Markovich sneered. “Why don’t you improve the world and jump off the side of this ship?”
“Meet Boris Markovich,” said Brown.
“We’ll have a chance to talk later,” Amy said, and then she and Hunter walked over to the chest and peered inside while Blanco checked the small adjoining office was empty. Lewis slipped his hands in his pockets and started to chew the fat with Miller while Jodie and Quinn stood quietly beside him, eyes all over the mysterious chest.
Amy reached inside and pulled out the statue. “What do you make of this, Max?”
Hunter’s eyes were already sparkling with curiosity as he took the eagle from her and started to turn it in his hands. “It’s definitely Bible-era.”
Blanco’s eyebrows raised half an inch. “It’s beautiful.”
“And I’m not entirely sure because my Koine Greek isn’t perfect, but the inscription looks fragmentary, like the one back in DC. It reads They must ask the Lion… and maybe this word here could be man but the rest is in pretty bad shape. I’ll need longer to be more specific, but I’m going to bet this is not a complete sentence. This suggests a preceding sentence that doesn’t fit with the one on the eagle – And the last word of God will unleash the Apocalypse and strike terror into Man. Given that we have an eagle and now an ox, it looks like we could be looking for another statue – a lion.”
Lewis’s face lit up. “Of course! The Four Living Beings of the Revelation!”
Amy looked at him. “Ben?”
“In the third section of Revelation, Before the Throne of God, John wrote about what he called the four living creatures or beings of the Revelation. These were the Lion, the Ox, the Man and the Eagle. Looks like he had four statues created to represent the beings he saw in his vision.”
“Vision?” Jodie asked.
“That’s for a little later, I think,” Amy said with a glance at Markovich.
“Please don’t stop,” Markovich said smugly. “This all makes sense. There was another statue.”
Amy said, “What did you just say?”
“I said there was another statue, just like that one. Back in Beirut.”
Special Agent Brown walked over and stared down at the cuffed man in the chair. “Keep talking, Markovich.”
He shrugged. “I said there was another statue just like the one he is holding but in the form of a lion instead of an ox.”
“Say that again,” Amy said.
Markovich sneered. “What are you all, deaf?”
“Don’t get cute, Markovich,” Miller said. “You’re already looking at a long time behind bars for your role in relic smuggling. Maybe you start talking and tell us something about this other statue and we might whisper something nice about you in the judge’s ear at your trial.”
Markovich’s laugh was dark. “I think you have this deal the other way around, my American friend. You get me immunity from prosecution first, and then I tell you what I know.”
Miller’s face started to redden with anger, but Brown stepped in. “That only works if the information you have is worth the immunity.”
Another shrug. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Amy said. “What is it you know, Markovich?”
“Yeah,” Miller said. “Do you know where this other statue is?”
Markovich sighed. “No, but I know where this one here is supposed to be going and that information is in my head only. Nowhere else. Not even on the manifest. He is a very powerful man and perhaps he knows a little more about the other statue. I can give you his name and location, but only when I see a legal court document giving me full transactional immunity.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” Guy said.
“When you are in my trade, you learn to look after yourself.”
“Trade…” Blanco said with a cynical laugh.
“And you won’t talk without it?” Brown asked.
Markovich shook his head, slowly and deliberately. “Not one word.”
Brown looked at Miller and shrugged. “You know what I think about this kind of thing.”
Miller said, “Agent Fox?”
“If there’s another one of these statues, we need to know where it is,” she said without hesitation. “And fast. Both this one and the one we already have contain only partial fragments of some kind of clue relating to something that may be a threat to the vital national security of the United States, and possibly the world.”
Brown nodded as he mulled it over. “Give me an hour.”
*
When Brown returned, he had what they needed. Pulling his iPhone from a pocket, he flicked to a scanned copy of the Judicial Immunity of Suit and shoved it in Markovich’s face. The man handcuffed to the pipe cast his eye over it and smirked. “Looks official.”
“It is official, you asshole,” Brown said. “I wouldn’t have given it to you. I’d have beaten the information out of you.”
Markovich shrugged. “I guess we know why you are at the bottom of the legal food chain, then.”
Brown bristled, but Miller pulled him back.
“You tell us the location of the man receiving these stolen artifacts,” Brown said, wiggling the phone in front of his captive. “You tell us right now, or you can forget about this. And be careful what you tell us, Markovich, because if we get there and find out you were lying, you can also forget about your immunity.”