The car’s occupants remained in contemplative silence all the way to the airport. When they arrived, Chris drove round to the series of private hangers and flight schools lining one edge.
“I take it we’re flying economy?” asked Justin, as the group exited the car.
“No way. If I ever needed to leave in a hurry, I was always prepared to do it in style!”
The group hurried after Chris, as he marched toward the immense doors of a large, grey-domed hanger. Inside was a solitary plane. The sleek, white, Gulfstream jet sat at a jaunty angle in the massive space. To its side, a lone man busied himself making checks of external instruments, occasionally rubbing marks from the fuselage.
“Lieutenant!” Chris said, striding forward and beaming.
The man stopped what he was doing and looked over, his surprise fading as recognition dawned. “Colonel! It’s a pleasure, sir!”
“Bird looks good. Still making money from her?” Chris said, as he shook the man firmly by the hand.
“Beats fixing cargo planes on a sand runway, colonel.”
“That’s for damn sure lieutenant.”
Chris knew the man from his past. Lieutenant Sean Patrick was once of the RAF. Assigned primarily to Covert Ops, he had seen his fair share of life-threatening situations. He was what many in the armed forces called an ‘Angel’, a fly-boy with nerves of steel, willing to take a risk to save his colleagues.
In ninety-one, just weeks before the end of the first Gulf War, Chris was on his way to Al-Najaf to assist with the insurgents in and around the oil wells. Alone at night in the freezing Iraqi desert with ammo running low and hounded by Islamic rebels intent on his capture, Chris lit a flare on a hillside in last desperate attempt at recovery.
The light from the flare gave his location away to every insurgent within a five-mile radius. Within thirty seconds of lighting it, his position came under fire from both RPG and mortar rounds. Hunkered down by a boulder, only a few feet from the flare, he made his final farewells to this life. There was no way rescue would make it in time, if indeed any came at all.
It was then the night sky lit up. Phosphor flares, usually reserved as heat-seeking missile decoys, poured down from a helicopter flying low and dark over the hillside.
Chris knew that to fly a helicopter at night was practically impossible, but to fly one near a mountain with all external lighting off was tantamount to suicide.
The flares blinded any enemy using night vision, and the dust cloud thrown out by the chopper took line of sight from the rest.
Screaming over the noise of the rotors as he hovered inches from the ground, Lieutenant Patrick hurried Chris inside and set off into the night.
During his career, Chris made it his business to advance Lieutenant Patrick as much as his position would allow; he owed the man at least that.
Just three years ago, Chris received word that Lieutenant Patrick had retired, starting his own private jet company in the process. From that moment on, all Chris’ escapes routes were re-planned to include the five-star comfort of his aircraft. If you have friends with benefits, you may as well use them, he always told himself.
“I’m afraid I’m not here to catch up, Sean.” said Chris, apologetically. “I need to activate my escape clause. I hope you can accommodate the request on short notice. I have three passengers. This is Louisa Marshall, Justin McDonald, and David Edwards.”
A worried look spread across Lieutenant Patrick’s face, as he nodded and motioned toward the side of the plane. “If you’d care to get on board, I’ll organise our take off window and get on with the pre-flight checks. I’m sure you’ll find her a more than pleasant conveyance.”
The interior was unlike anything Chris had ever seen. He was used to cargo planes, where seating consisted of boxes or wooden benches, or helicopters that had seen so much action the back seats were little more than cloth covering the hull; never anything like this.
Even though the fuselage was forty feet long, it held just eight seats. Each was a plush, imperial-looking recliner. Interspersed around the seating, wooden coffee tables, walnut burr panelling, and a dizzying array of flat panel screens provided the cabin a spacious luxury he could not believe possible.
“Nice touch.” said Justin. “I wonder how much this sucker cost?”
Louisa giggled and for the moment at least, forgot the horrors of the morning and slumped into a chair. As she sunk into its lavish covering, her eyes widened and the harsh edges of stress fell away from her face.
Chris smiled as Louisa lounged as far back as the mechanism would allow. He was sure that if she were a cat, she would be purring.
“Is this to everyone’s liking?” said Chris, a round of murmured acquiescence giving him the sense they were all sufficiently impressed. “If you want a drink, there are fridges situated under each of the tables and there’s a small galley at the back if you want anything hot.”
Just fifteen minutes later, their pilot embarked and took up his seat in the cockpit. “We’ll be taxiing to the end of runway shortly and from there we’ll be flying out toward the North Sea and then over to Schiphol Airport. I hope you all have a pleasant flight.”
Chris watched as the group relaxed. Now would be a perfect time to press for more information. He knew that cross-contamination protocols would be raised again, but he had to try. Without the information, both he and Carl would be flying blind in their attempts to track down what was needed.
“Before we land in Amsterdam,” said Chris, finding a pause in the chatter. “I need to know what it is that you’ve all been working on.”
“You realise we are not allowed to discuss that colonel?” said Dave, swivelling his chair to face him.
Chris knew the refusal would come from Dave, but somehow he had to find a way round the impasse. The direct approach was potentially his best option.
“None of that matters now professor.” said Chris, calmly. “The primary reason for the attack on the base has to be what you were doing. Unless we all know what was going on, how are we supposed to work out why?” He could see Justin and Louisa nod as he spoke, they at least agreed with his assessment. He need not wait for a response from Dave. “That being taken as given, I’ll start with you doctor.” he said, turning to Louisa.
“I suppose you’re right.” said Louisa, the conflict between her situation and her duty evident in her distant tone. “Steven and I were investigating a staff.”
Louisa reached into her duffel and brought out a bundle of cloth. Carefully unwrapping its contents, she unveiled something that looked like the top of a shepherd’s crook. Exquisite carvings ran the length of its wooden shaft and met with a head fashioned into the shape of a cobra.
Chris leant back as Louisa spoke about her discoveries. Her voice was light and soothing. As she spoke, she pushed her fringe from her face, tucking the curled length of hair behind her ear and revealing her slender neck.
In his work, beautiful women were at a premium. Sure, the military, even in frontline combat situations, ensured there was no sexism in recruitment or placement, and Chris had certainly met some very capable women during his service. However, none of them, especially after living in squaddie conditions for a few months, could realistically be classified as good looking. After having to snap his focus away from the fantasies of testosterone one too many times during Louisa’s explanation, he now understood why having more beautiful women in the military could be fatal.
Louisa described how they used AMS and Beta-Bound world standards to derive their radiocarbon dating results for the wood of the artefact. She may have well said they used pixie dust; Chris had no idea what those things were. No matter the methods used, the date returned for the age of the staff repeatedly came back within the same range, twelve thousand to twelve thousand five hundred BC.
Justin seemed particularly disturbed by the comment, mentioning an archaeological site in Turkey called Gobekli Tepe. It appeared the staff might have predated even that.
�
�Gobekli Tepe?” asked Chris, lost for the second time in as many minutes.
“A monument or religious temple of some kind from northern Turkey colonel.” said Justin. “It was last used about nine thousand BC when, for some unknown reason, the people who built it, buried it. It’s turning the archaeological world on its head. It’s proof there were civilised people around long before we thought. Most archaeologists don’t think there were any civilised people around much before six and a half thousand years ago. Gobekli Tepe proves that thinking is flawed.”
Even though Dave’s frown said he heavily disagreed with what was being said, Louisa seemed to think similarly to Justin.
It appeared that Louisa thought the staff could be linked to a missing period in the history of humanity. Gobekli Tepe seemed to give credence to the notion there was a breaking point in our modern understanding of pre-history.
“A lost period of history?” said Chris, desperately trying to keep up.
“Not all history comes from writing.” said Louisa, pouting with the effort of finding a suitably easy way of explaining her thinking. “Most of what we know comes from archaeology. There’s a pretty big gap in our knowledge of man from eighteen thousand BC to eight thousand BC because of climactic changes. Not only was the last Ice Age coming to an end, but just after the staff was made, the Earth underwent the largest climatic schism in recent history. What we now know as the Younger Dryas Period.”
According to Louisa, the Younger Dryas Period was an event that occurred about thirteen thousand years ago. Found when scientists began trawling through climate records from ice core data, it showed that the Northern Hemisphere underwent a rapid period of re-cooling that lasted for a thousand years.
Until the Younger Dryas period was discovered, it had been accepted that the last Ice Age ended in about eighteen thousand BC, when the world began to thaw. It was assumed the warming trend continued gradually from that point to the present day, leading to warmer temperatures and the eventual creation of the fertile lands the earliest hunter-gatherers settled in, sowing the seeds of the first city-states in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
However, when the Younger Dryas period was found, that slow trend came into doubt. The ice core data from Greenland and Antarctica showed that about thirteen thousand years ago the northern hemisphere’s temperature took a nosedive, almost out of nowhere.
“The impact of the Younger Dryas is difficult to imagine colonel.” said Louisa, rubbing her hands together as she thought. “However, if you can understand the damage Global Warming has caused with an average temperature increase of just half of one degree, then you can probably begin to comprehend the climatic upheaval unleashed when the Younger Dryas caused a six to eight degree average shift. Plus, the full impact of Global Warming will take centuries to materialise, but the Younger Dryas took perhaps as few as five years to appear.”
Chris watched the news enough to witness the devastation caused by the slight shift in climate recently experienced. To try to understand something fifteen times worse in one twentieth of the timescale was nigh on impossible.
“Events as large as we are talking about have a way of erasing the record, or at least making it difficult to trace with conviction. Sea levels would have fallen, the ice would have come back, and animal species would have migrated. To carbon date, we require organic material, but when these types of events occur the record mixes and your dates become blurred. You simply cannot underestimate what effect the Younger Dryas had on the fragile, emergent eco-systems back then, or even to the humans of the time, let alone what it has done to the carbon record.”
Chris waited as Louisa re-wrapped the staff. He needed to get Dave to talk, to confirm any of what Louisa mentioned.
“Your turn professor.” said Chris, keeping his voice low. “I take it you got the same date from your artefact?” Dave started laughing, and to his side Louisa broke out into a smile. “I don’t get the joke.”
“Sorry colonel.” said Louisa, catching the frown on Chris’ face. “As I’ve said, radiocarbon dating only works on organic material. The professor’s artefact is made of solid gold; it can’t be done with inorganic material.”
“But I’ve seen them date pottery on archaeology shows.” said Justin, confused.
“They don’t date the pot boy,” said Dave, dismissively, “they date the organic material found in the same sedimentary layer. The only way of dating metals is if there is some kind of organic patina on its surface. In the case of my artefact, that material was unfortunately missing. And that’s as much as you’re going to get from me. You know the rules colonel. I can’t talk any further about my artefact.”
Chris wanted to reach into the duffel, remove Dave’s artefact, and study it himself. However, that would only infuriate the man and make him clam up even more. He needed another way to get to the information he required. With a grin, he turned to Louisa.
“How did you know Dave’s artefact was made of gold?” Chris asked, knowing the answer.
“Don’t say a word, Louisa.” said Dave, turning to face her.
“You’ve already broken your silence Louisa. You know we need this information.” said Chris, pushing.
Louisa conceded and started to reach for the bag, as Dave’s voice raised in intensity.
“If you go against my orders, I’ll have you arrested for a breach of National Security young lady!” said Dave, standing.
“If we are going to survive this, Chris is right professor.” said Louisa, ignoring Dave and removing another bound object from the bag. “As and when we are safe, I’ll get right back to listening to what you’ve got to say. Until then, I’ll take the advice of the one person here who is doing everything he can to ensure my safety.”
Chris held back a smirk. That was marvellous. He was beginning to like Louisa’s directness.
Louisa slowly unwrapped the heavy mass, exposing a beautiful golden figurine. The statuette was about ten inches long, depicting a cobra with fangs bared and hood wide. Only the head and a small amount of body were crafted, its surface polished so perfectly it shone, casting scatters of golden light round the cabin. Around its base, a series of curved indentations looked unmistakably like a handgrip.
“As you can see colonel,” said Louisa, in the hush after the reveal, “there was not enough material on the surface to get any kind of result. We could extract less than a Nano gram. Way less than we would need.”
“What the hell is that thing?” said Chris, picking the artefact up.
Chris found his fingers fit perfectly into the grooves. It was a handgrip. The weight of the object was unreal. It felt like it should be much bigger than it was, and he struggled to keep his arm steady as he continued to pour over its surface.
“That’s a uraeus colonel.” said Justin, gazing at the object in wonder.
“A what?” said Chris, surprised Justin would have anything to offer on the subject.
“A uraeus is the name given to the representation of the upright head of a snake. Worn on the headdresses of Pharaohs, they were a symbol of power and knowledge.” said Justin, much to the disgust of Dave. “The most famous example of one can be seen in the middle to early kingdom carvings of Horus, who was one of the first gods of Egypt. The earliest depictions of him go back as far as the written word itself, to around three thousand BC. He was the falcon headed God of the Sun, who was thought to be either the son of, or the reincarnation of the God Osiris.”
Chris blinked, trying to understand where the information Justin was divulging may be coming from. “And you know all this how exactly private?”
“I’m a big fan of the conspiracies that surround ancient Egypt colonel. It has been a hobby of mine since I was a teenager. It’s one of the reasons why I asked to be assigned to the base.”
“You’re barely out of your teens now boy.” said Dave, just loud enough so that everyone could hear.
“Ignore him.” said Chris, attempting to keep Justin’s mind focussed. “What else do you k
now?”
“Just myth really.” said Justin, leaning forward. “The uraeus worn by Horus was usually attached to the front of his Atef Crown, which was a large dome-shaped hat adorned with feathers. The Atef Crown Horus wore actually belonged to Osiris. Osiris received the Atef Crown, with its uraeus adornment, from Ra, when Ra became too old to continue wearing it.”
“How do Gods get old?” asked Chris.
“The Egyptians believed all their Gods grew old and died. They believed Ra died each night, resurrected anew in the morning.” said Justin, happy to be involved in the discussion. “There’s an interesting tale about the uraeus of Ra. The story goes that when Ra gave it to the mighty Osiris to wear, Osiris got an unbearable headache and began to vomit. So, Ra had to take it back until he was used to wearing it. It’s why some people think it’s an example of ancient technology. There’s good evidence mankind may not have been as stupid as we thought all those years ago.”
“Good evidence!” said Dave, almost spitting the words out. “Utter rubbish.”
“There’s all that information from Egypt, the stories in the Bible, and the writings on the tablets from Sumeria.” said Justin, defending his comment.
“Don’t talk poppycock! There isn’t a single shred of actual evidence anywhere.” said Dave, in a demeaning tone. “And its Sumer, Assyria, or Mesopotamia. There’s no such place as Sumeria.”
“That still doesn’t explain why, with what has just been said about Osiris, it sounds like he’s using some kind of device.” said Chris.
“Colonel, colonel, colonel.” said Dave, tutting. “Just because your interpretation, based on your own experience with the use of devices, means that to you the story sounds reminiscent of a piece of equipment. It doesn’t mean the original story had anything to do with it. You’re applying your life experiences where they are not warranted. The early eastern cultures had no idea what a device is, let alone have any inclination to write about them. Any similarity is nothing more than a coincidence.”
“I don’t agree.” said Justin, holding his ground. “There are loads of examples of technology being invented by civilisations that don’t fit our chronological understanding. Just think about how out of place fireworks or grenades are to a race of people who have not mastered glass of grasped the concept of building foundations. Yet, the Chinese developed them both, thousands of years ago. And what about the Baghdad battery or the Antikythera Mechanism? Even the Romans invented central heating and flushing toilets four hundred years before they got their heads around the mathematical notion of zero. I’m not suggesting these things were invented by scientists as we would know them, maybe those people stumbled across them by chance, but you shouldn’t eliminate the possibility just because you don’t like the consequences.”
Justin’s comments were sensible. If the military hierarchy thought of these artefacts as weapons, the possibility they were manufactured had to be at least considered.
“So what do you think these things are professor?” asked Chris, hoping Dave would take the bait.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter now.” said Dave, sighing. “Louisa and Justin have told you just about everything else. As Justin has just said, there is a possibility, and I stress that point very strongly, that my artefact could be the uraeus of Ra. I was hoping to find out if the other artefacts were those of the Ark of Ra, a legendary item from Egyptian mythology that contained three items Ra left to this world before passing to the next; a solid gold uraeus, a staff, and a lock of his hair.” He lounged back in his seat and adjusted his glasses. “However, that theory is blown out of the water because I know for a fact artefact three was a four inch metallic diamond, and not a lock of hair.”
“It could have been a storage vessel.” said Justin, deep in thought. “We’ll never know unless we find it.”
Chris nodded. It was a long shot, but it could be true.
“So, what’s the big deal about them?” said Louisa. “Who would kill for these things?”
“That’s why I need to get to Carl. If anyone knows, he will.” said Chris.
The group dissolved into chatter. Justin walking Louisa through many of the conspiracies he knew about Egypt and Dave constantly interjecting with derogatory comments about the lack of physical proof for any of them.
Chris had heard enough. His head hurt and his bones ached. He yawned reflexively and stretched, exhaustion taking hold.
As the plane taxied into position, and the engines reached their crescendo, his fight with tiredness was finally lost and he was sound asleep.
Chapter 13
Coincidence Theory Page 12