by Jay Stringer
But the altar was empty.
Nash heard laughter coming from the entrance. It was an old, broken sound. He ran back down the steps, taking them two at a time. His heart pounded and anger burned in his stomach. The old man was awake, leaning against the stone doorway. Nash pressed Bakari’s gun to the old man’s face.
He tried to calm down, but the words, when they came, were in a shout almost as high and loud as Romain’s scream.
“Where is the Ark?”
TWO
Marah Chase had the Ark of the Covenant loaded onto the back of a motorboat. She smiled and gunned the engine, racing away from the island. She felt the throttle fight back against her grip, pushing to slow down. Chase turned hard to the right, bringing the boat around the winding shoreline, and headed south, toward the mouth of the Blue Nile.
Aster Bekele stepped forward from where she’d been strapping the Ark to the plastic base they’d loaded it on. “Don’t push her too hard,” she said.
“It’s okay, she has a safe word.”
Bekele laughed, saying, “Of course,” and went back to work on the straps.
Chase glanced back at her friend. Born in Gondar, to the north of the lake, Bekele worked for the Ethiopian government. But back when they first met, she’d been hired by the UN to prepare a report into shutting down the relic runners. Bekele had gone undercover in the trade to investigate, and then under the covers with Chase.
Behind them, even above the roar of the engine, they heard a gunshot.
Bekele said, “Think he’s found the Holy of Holies?”
Chase nodded. “Surprised it took him this long.”
Chase had a long history with Nash. He wouldn’t give up, especially if he figured out she was the one who’d beaten him to the prize.
Bekele lifted up one side of a plastic crate and placed it against the back end of the base the Ark was resting on. It bolted straight into place. She lifted the next piece into position and snapped it in.
She called out, “You want to have a real look before we shut it away?”
Chase turned and said, “Hell yes.”
They swapped positions, with Bekele manning the controls to allow Chase to step to the back of the boat and look at the prize.
She’d hoped to have time to study it in the temple, where it had rested for close to a thousand years. But Nash had already been on the island, and they’d needed to move fast. On the trip from the temple to the boat, a slow journey with Bekele and Chase taking the weight between them, the Ark had remained covered with a dark gold cloth, and Chase had joked they were moving God’s sofa. The cloth still covered the relic now. Bekele hadn’t even been tempted to peek.
Chase couldn’t understand that. This was history. How could she not want to look at it? Chase reached out to pull at the covering, but paused. She recalled the legends, people going blind for daring to look at the Ark. And she’d seen the eyes of the priests on the island. She told herself that was ceremonial, a tradition carried out on everyone chosen as a guard. But that small voice deep down inside said, Are you sure?
She pulled off the cover.
The Ark of the Covenant looked both exactly the way she’d imagined and completely different. It was a large wooden chest, around four feet in length. The sides were coated in a faded gold paint, or wood stain, rather than the thin gilded sheets she had expected. The lid, known as the Mercy Seat, looked to be made of pure gold. Chase had to shield her eyes when it glinted in the sunlight. Standing atop the lid were two cherubim with their wings pointing out behind them, away from the Ark. Both of them had feline bodies and four heads, matching the statues back at the temple. The faces pointing inward, toward each other, were the jackal and the lion. These animals looked a world away from the angels who adorned the Ark in most illustrations. Chase had seen similar depictions before, in a cave beneath Alexandria.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Bekele called back.
Chase nodded but didn’t answer.
The chamber in Alexandria had been ancient. Far older than both Judaism and Christianity, older than the Pharaohs. It hinted at a lost civilization. She’d made a choice to help keep it a secret and spent every day since then doubting her own decision. Had she protected history or defaced it? And now the same faces she’d seen carved out of stone in the cave were staring back at her from the Mercy Seat.
A different voice was speaking at the back of her mind now. The devil on her shoulder. It whispered for her to lift the lid. Look inside. See what had been stored in there for so long. As she reached out to touch the edge, the sun caught the gold again, and Chase was blinded for a few seconds by a flash of light.
“Speaking of ghosts,” Bekele said. She pointed back toward the island, where Nash was now giving chase in his rubber boat, one hand holding the engine’s tiller, the other holding a radio as he shouted instructions.
Chase started to move fast. There were three more plastic panels leaning against the hull. They formed a crate, snapping into the base the Ark was resting on. She started putting each one in place, building the transport container. She put the lid on top, then lifted long black straps off the floor that ran underneath the crate, fastening them tight over the top.
She looked back to see that Nash was getting closer.
“Why is he gaining on us?” Chase ran forward to the controls, to find Bekele had eased off slightly on the throttle.
“We don’t want to flood the engine,” Bekele said. “You want to explain how the Ark is at the bottom of the lake?”
“Might solve a few problems.”
Bekele made an exaggerated huffing sound and pushed forward on the control, the boat gaining speed right away.
“We have a bigger engine,” Chase said. “If we keep hammering, he can’t catch us.”
“But he can.”
Chase followed the direction of Bekele’s gaze. A helicopter was flying low toward them, from the direction of Bahir Dar on the south shore.
Great.
The helicopter made up the distance in a matter of seconds, buzzing low over their heads. Chase and Bekele were buffeted by the downward turbulence of the blades. There was a cargo cable hanging down from beneath the chopper, ending in a large metal hook, which whipped by only a few feet from Chase’s head. A large wake ripped across the surface of the water, rocking the boat when it hit.
The pilot brought the chopper down low to the water and circled around, aiming straight for the boat. The whirlybird tilted forward as it started to move, playing chicken with them. Chase recognized the pilot. A short, stocky smuggler from the UAE named Imran.
“He can’t do anything,” Bekele said, “Can’t risk sinking the Ark.”
Sure enough, the pilot pulled up at the last second, and they were hit again by turbulence. This time, the wake was like a wave, hitting the boat head-on. The front was airborne for a second before slapping back down onto the water.
“He can slow us down,” Chase said.
That would give Nash chance to catch up. He wouldn’t even need to get that close. Chase knew he favored a Glock; plus, he was the best shot in the trade. Even at the top end of the gun’s range, around one hundred yards, he’d stand a chance of hitting them. Any closer than that and, even with a moving target, he wouldn’t miss.
Keeping one hand on the wheel, Chase stooped to open a canvas bag at her feet, pulling out a gun belt with two Ruger Blackhawks strapped into holsters on either side.
Chase preferred revolvers. There was too much to go wrong on a semiautomatic. Out in the grit and sand of a desert, or crawling through the mud of a tomb, she wanted to see the moving parts. But Chase wasn’t as good a shot as Nash. By the time they were close enough for her to hit him, she and Bekele would both be dead. They needed to keep distance between the two boats.
Imran brought the chopper down again, directly in front of them, and started to rush forward, threatening a head-on collision.
Chase eased Bekele aside and placed her hands on the
controls. She accelerated, pushing on headlong toward the oncoming helicopter.
Bekele winced. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Imran lost the game, as Chase knew he would, swerving hard to the right. The resultant wave tipped the boat, almost flipping it over. Bekele slipped and was only just able to hold on. Chase used the controls to steady herself, her knuckles going white with the effort. The cargo cable came straight at them. Chase ducked as it smashed through the glass in front of her.
Behind them, the large crate groaned and slid, hitting the side.
Chase and Bekele shared a look.
That was close.
Two distant gunshots sounded. They both looked back to see Nash, his gun raised, firing off wasted rounds into the distance between them. He barked something into his radio, then lifted the gun and fired again. Still too far for a hit, but he’d gained ground.
The helicopter passed high overhead. Chase saw something fall from it, a small metal object. It hit the water a hundred yards ahead of them. She realized what it was and pulled the wheel hard in the opposite direction, moving clear as the water exploded upward.
“Grenades,” she called out.
“But they can’t risk—”
Chase looked at the crate. “Is that waterproof?”
Bekele was silent for a second, nodding before answering. “Of course. It’s airtight.”
“I think the rules just changed.”
Another grenade fell to their left, followed by a wall of water that washed down on them, tipping the boat in the opposite direction. Chase watched as the chopper turned again to angle toward them. The pilot had the range now. Whether it was on this pass or the next, he’d get close enough to sink them.
That cargo cable…
She waved Bekele back to the controls. “Take over. Don’t slow down, no matter what.”
“What are you going to do?”
Chase brushed past her and stepped to the rear of the boat, climbing up on the crate. “Something stupid.”
As the helicopter headed toward them, Chase steadied herself on the crate, focusing on the cargo line and trying not to think about what was beneath her feet. “Swing toward it,” she called out.
“What?”
“Toward it. Now.”
Bekele banked to the right, crossing into the path of the oncoming vehicle. The pilot must have been caught by surprise, as he hesitated, pulling back on the stick to slow down and come almost to a complete stop. The cable rattled about in the air from the sudden change in direction, then swung from side to side like a pendulum.
This is going to hurt.
She was right.
Leaping from the crate, Chase wrapped her arms around the cable but didn’t get a firm grip. Sliding down, she felt the hook grab ahold of her gun belt at the buckle. The leather dug into her lower back, sending pain all the way up her spine and forcing the air out of her lungs.
She didn’t have time to regain her breath before Imran either saw what she’d done or was warned by Nash. Either way, the chopper pushed out across the lake, getting lower, until her feet were in the water. Chase started to climb, puling herself up the metal cable, but now she was submerged up to her waist. The water temperature was mild, but it still came as a shock. She grabbed one last lungful of air before she was dropped beneath the surface.
Underwater, she was pulled onward, and she closed her eyes, focusing on holding the cable, getting closer to the target she couldn’t see.
Climb.
Hand.
Over.
Hand.
A sharp tug upward pulled her out of the water again, as Imran climbed into the sky and weaved from side to side, trying to shake her loose. He then dipped, making Chase’s stomach turn over. The water’s surface rushed up at her, and this time she didn’t have time to draw a deep breath before she was submerged.
Total darkness.
Chase had been scared of the dark for most of her life. It was a phobia dating back to childhood, when she’d lost her parents in a mudslide on their Washington State farm. She’d worked through it. Reasoned out the fear, banished the demons. But the lifetime of conditioning was still there, and she felt a few pangs of the old primal reaction as the darkness closed in around her.
She felt an impact behind her. The cable quivered against her body. Turning to look, she could see something large on the cable, but it was too murky to make out details.
Climb.
Move.
Pull.
Go.
Another dark shape was coming toward her. This time she could make out a Nile crocodile as it opened its jaws wide, ready to bite. Chase rolled around on the cable, ducking out of the way. This new crocodile slammed into the first one, and they both disappeared into the murk.
She couldn’t see them so much as feel them, circling, waiting to attack. The years of watching shapes form into fake monsters in the dark had prepared her well for spotting the real thing.
Climb.
Move.
Pull.
Go.
The movement was on either side of her now. Two shapes barreling fast out of the murk, opening their jaws, turning onto their sides to clamp down on their meal.
The pilot pulled up. Chase was dragged clear of the water, feeling the air hit her face, the extra drag of her sodden clothes almost enough to tear her loose. The crocodiles surfaced beneath her, snapping at the air. Imran had no way of knowing, but if he’d just kept her under for a couple more seconds, his problem would have gone away.
If Nash had seen the crocs, he’d be radioing the news over now and Chase would be taking another dip. She didn’t have any more time. It was only a few more feet to the bottom of the helicopter. She pulled, once, twice, three times. On the fourth, her head touched the craft’s base. The chopper was motionless now, hovering over the same spot, with the creatures waiting below. Chase swung her legs out and wrapped them round the landing skids as they started to descend. She was hanging upside down when her head hit the water. The crocodiles lunged, but Chase was already moving, pulling herself up to crouch, and then stand, on the skid. One of the crocs gave up, but the other, the larger of the two, bit down onto the skid a few inches from Chase’s foot.
They started to ascend again. The reptile hung in the air, its legs moving frantically.
Chase crouched. “Let go, buddy.”
Gravity was on Chase’s side. The large croc fell back to the water, slapping home with a heavy splash.
Chase turned toward the passenger-side door. Imran was already staring at her. Panicked. She figured he hadn’t signed up for this. She pulled the handle and leaned in, drawing one of her guns slowly enough to let any water dribble out before he could see it.
“Water or lead?”
He stammered, looking down at the surface, then back at Chase. “But c-crocodiles…”
Chase cursed under her breath. All he’d done was take on a job. He had a wife, three kids, and had never done anything to hurt Chase before. She slid onto the passenger seat, keeping her Blackhawk pointed at his temple.
“Okay, take us to Nash.”
He leaned right on the stick, and they turned in a large arc to head back the way they’d come. Up ahead, Nash was now dangerously close to Bekele’s boat. Not quite within a hundred yards, but enough that he was trying some shots. Bekele must have slowed to watch what was happening with Chase and the chopper. She was now pressed down close over the controls, keeping out of the bullets’ range.
They passed overhead once, then turned and headed back. Chase saw the bag of grenades at her feet. She picked one up, pulled the pin, and dropped it. The explosion came just off Nash’s starboard bow. It was close, but not close enough.
She nodded for Imran to bring them around again. A second grenade hit the sweet spot, only a couple of meters to Nash’s port side. This time his rubber boat flipped up in the blast, sending Nash tumbling into the water. The cr
aft righted itself again, but Nash didn’t resurface.
Chase turned the gun back to Imran. “Now you have a boat.”
He hesitated before opening his door and stepping out into the air.
A beat later, Chase realized the flaw in her plan.
She had no idea how to fly a helicopter.
THREE
How hard could it be? It wasn’t like people trained for years to become pilots, right?
There was a large T-bar control rising from a central panel between the seats. Each side of the T ended in a handgrip. Chase took the one in front of her, easing it forward. The helicopter pitched in the same direction. She pulled it back level, and the chopper did the same. There was a lever down beside her. Pulling up on it, she could feel the engine start to produce more power. The helicopter started to climb. Lowering it, she felt the opposite.
Okay.
Forward, back.
Up, down.
She was turning in a lazy circle. Easing up on the throttle increased the drift. There were two pedals on the floor in front of her seat. Chase experimented with each, pressing them forward in turn. The pedals controlled the rotor on the tail, balancing out the blades overhead, keeping her heading straight.
Chase eased into flying it. With some trial and error, she found a balance. She could turn, accelerate, and head in something approaching a straight line. The rest could wait. Bringing the helicopter around to pass over Bekele’s boat, Chase saw her friend was talking into a cell phone. Preparing the next stage of the plan. There was a van waiting for them farther downriver, with a crew of local laborers ready to lift the crate off the boat without ever knowing what they’d touched. When Bekele had caught wind that Nash was after the Ark, she’d made Chase a simple offer. Come and find it first, help her keep it in the possession of the Ethiopian government, and they would let Chase be the one to claim credit for finding it. She would get to be the archaeologist who studied the Ark of the Covenant.