2013: Beyond Armageddon

by Robert Ryan

  “So are you saying I’m not the prettiest burgomeister you’ve ever seen?”

  “Oh no. By far.” They held each other’s gaze, trying not to laugh. “I know what side my popcorn is buttered on.”

  “And don’t you forget it.” She turned to Mordecai. “Are we done with the tour? I’m pretty beat.”

  “We’re done. Anything else can wait.”

  “What time are we meeting in the morning?” she asked.

  “Once we are officially underway we will be starting as early as possible. But for our first day, seven. Is that okay for you?”

  “Seven will be fine. See you then.”

  She took Zeke by the hand and gently led him away.

  CHAPTER 35

  While the rest of the team was at the boats getting everything ready for departure to the site, the nine people who would be supervising various aspects of the dig sat around the large table in the center of the War Room.

  “Seven o’clock,” Mordecai said. “Now that Zeke and Leah have arrived, the Sodom and Gomorrah dig is officially under way.”

  He waited for the cheer to die down and continued. “As you can see, English will be the official language of the dig, since it is the one we all have in common. You’ve had a chance to meet each other over breakfast, and there will be plenty of time later to get to know each other. For now I’ll just formally introduce myself, then we can discuss our strategy for the dig.

  “I am Mordecai Rosen. I’ve been doing marine archaeology for over 40 years. In 2000, I went to the doctor for my first annual physical. He told me I had a heart murmur and should stop diving. I was foolish enough to listen to him, so since then I have been grounded as the head of marine archaeology at the Antiquities Authority. Zeke came into my office with his proposal, needed someone with experience to be the director, and hired me. The first thing I did was get another physical. The heart murmur is gone, and I have been cleared to dive again—which I will. I will be leading the team on the largest anomaly. But before I go on, let me make something very clear.

  “I am the director, yes, but—although Zeke doesn’t have an official title—he is the one ultimately in charge. He is our sponsor, and this dig is entirely his, from beginning to end. He’s happy to leave the details of the dig in the hands of the professionals, but when in doubt, he has the final word. Zeke, did you want to say something?”

  “I do. Mordecai has probably already addressed this, but I want to say it now, while we’re all together, so everyone understands. We have Jews, Christians, and a Muslim on our team. That mix has caused a lot of trouble in the world, but it’s not going to cause any trouble on this dig. I know you’re all professionals, and good people, or Mordecai wouldn’t have hired you. But we are still human.

  “I have only one rule on this dig: Thou shalt get along. We are a team, and we will help each other. Our religion, our nationality—all that gets left outside. In here, the team—the dig—is all that matters. On this dig, we are not Christians and Jews and Muslims. We are good human beings, trying to bring a little light into the world.

  “Don’t get me wrong. We’ll have some fun along the way, I’ll make sure of that. But there will be no arguing, no politics.

  “Period. I won’t have it. If anyone has a problem with that, they can leave now. No hard feelings. Better to leave now, amicably, than have it flare up later. Because if it does, it’ll be ugly, and you will still be gone.”

  He looked around the table, pointedly making eye contact with each person. No one said anything. “Good. Sorry to be unpleasant, but that’s one thing I wanted to be perfectly clear on from day one.”

  “All right,” Mordecai said. “So. We are the ones responsible for making this whole thing run smoothly. Let’s go over procedures for a moment.

  “We have twenty divers to start with. When Zeke and Hassan are up to speed, we will have two more. We’ll be digging in shallow water—ten to fifteen feet—so we won’t need to use any special air mixture to extend our bottom time. Still, three to four hours is probably the maximum—and even that may be stretching it. We’ll find our limits once we start doing it. We’ll divide into teams. One team will dig while the other rests, does equipment maintenance and so forth, then they will trade places. The teams will keep alternating so we can dig as long as possible.”

  “What about that salt crust on the bottom?” Zeke said.

  “It’s been ground up and moved away. After that we did a survey with a subbottom profiler, in the area where we saw the anomalies in the shuttle photos. This new survey gives us a much clearer picture of what’s underneath the bottom.”

  “Subbottom profiler?” Leah said. “How does that work?”

  “You tow the profiler with your boat and shoot a sonar beam at the bottom. Different types of material reflect the sound waves back differently, like concrete, gas, an old sunken boat. The image shows up on your monitor.”

  “Kind of like X-raying the bottom,” she said.

  “In effect, yes. A GPS unit gives us very precise coordinates of the anomaly. A map of the site.”

  “You said the survey showed several anomalies,” Zeke said. “One in particular you were excited about.”

  “Yes. It’s by far the largest. Two six-man teams will be assigned to it initially.”

  “Any idea what it is?”

  “This is a humbling business,” Mordecai said. “Painful experience teaches us never to get too excited based on the survey. Still…” He paused, obviously trying to contain his excitement. “…the overall size and shape of this particular anomaly makes us think…it could be a building.”

  CHAPTER 36

  The Dead Sea

  An hour later the two identical tour boats they’d chartered came to the anomalies where the dig would begin. Marker buoys from earlier dives showed them exactly where to anchor.

  As the first boat glided into position, Zeke stood on the upper deck at the bow, taking it all in. He knew little about boats, but these had seen better days. They looked clumsy and top-heavy. Their double decks reminded him of a sightseeing cruise his family had taken on a Florida vacation when he was little. Years of sailing on the Dead Sea had badly weathered their wooden hulls; the white paint of the decks was all but gone.

  Mordecai came up and touched him on the elbow. “Come on. Let me show you the map of the site.” They went downstairs to the main deck.

  The rows of seats for tourists had been removed, and the space converted into a large control room that ran nearly the length of the boat. Several large windows along each side, normally open to give the tourists a breeze and a better view, were closed to minimize the salt air and spray that would inevitably get on the equipment.

  Several monitors were arrayed around a long table in the center of the room. The two men went to the largest, a 32” widescreen flat panel. Mordecai clicked the mouse and an image filled the screen. Against a white background, he pointed to four thin black lines that formed a very even rectangle.

  “I inserted those to show the boundaries of the dig. Anomalies show up in green.” He pointed to a smaller green rectangle, about the size of a business card, inside the boundaries. “This is the one I told you about. It’s almost right underneath us. These could be the walls of a building.”

  “‘Could be?’ What else could they be?”

  “Hard to say, but I’ve learned never to assume. The mining company uses solar ponds to collect the salt and chemicals for extraction. These could be what’s left of old bulkheads they replaced decades ago. They could be something we can’t even guess at. Something that fell off a ship in antiquity, maybe. There used to be a lot of trade. Only digging will tell us.”

  “How large is it?”

  “About 40 yards by 50 yards. That makes it similar in size to ancient temples or palaces. But the mining company says some of their original solar ponds were about that size. Again, only digging will give us the answer.”

  “If these are the walls of a building, wouldn’t you
see signs of a floor in the middle?”

  “Not necessarily. It could have eroded away. Or it might be too far down for sonar to reach.”

  “I see a few other green spots that don’t seem to have any definite shape. Are we planning on excavating those also?”

  “Yes. As you can see, there are three other anomalies, considerably smaller. All in an area about a hundred yards to the northeast. We will work our way through those one at a time, starting with the closest. The teams on the other boat are starting on the first one while we work on this.”

  A man in an abbreviated version of a wetsuit came in. Zeke had met him only long enough to shake hands in the War Room. He’d already forgotten his name, but had been impressed by his imposing presence. He obviously worked out and had swarthy good looks: strong square face, thick curly black hair. The shadow of his dark beard was already visible.

  “We’re almost ready, Mordecai.”

  “Very good. Zeke, have you met Joe Dayagi?”

  “Yes, I met Joe in the War Room. Just for a second, though.” They nodded at each other in acknowledgment.

  “Joe is a particularly good man to have on our team. He’s an ex-Israeli Naval commando, with expertise in a lot of areas: electronics, navigation systems, munitions. Didn’t you help design some weapons, Joe?”

  “Not design them exactly, just modified a couple things for certain types of combat.”

  “Joe will be showing up in different places on the dig, depending on where we need him.” Dayagi nodded and left.

  Mordecai put a hand on Zeke’s shoulder. “All right. You’re in charge of monitoring things in here. Time for me to pull my dive team together.”

  “I’ll be back there in a few minutes to see you off. I want to witness the official plunge that will begin the search for Sodom and Gomorrah.”

  Mordecai started to leave but stopped and turned back around. “By the way. Remember when you first came into my office, we talked about dusting off the Oslo Accords, seeing if we could use them to make this a joint Israeli-Palestinian project? Maybe actually start to bring about the economic cooperation that was agreed upon?”

  “I remember.”

  “They’re going to keep collecting dust. I got nowhere with that idea.”

  “I’m not surprised. It’s been almost twenty years. If they were going to be acted upon, it would have been done by now.” Zeke shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

  Mordecai nodded and left to join the other divers at the stern. Zeke went up the stairs to the bow to fully savor the moment.

  The first thing he noticed was the ever-present briny smell. Tinged with sulfur. Brimstone.

  The Bible said God had rained fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gomorrah. Could they still be smoldering after thousands of years? He thought of the long-smoldering remains of the World Trade Center. One of many hells around the world…a network of demons…

  The water was slightly choppy in the morning breeze. The Devil’s Sea, the ancient Greeks had called it. Looking around, Zeke could easily see why. Behind them, the steep, craggy hills of the Judaean Wilderness formed the western shoreline, their gnarled faces glowering down in seeming disapproval of all who came there. To the east, along the Jordanian shore, higher, more forbidding cliffs loomed. Deeply shadowed furrows resembled a monstrous brow, forever clenched in angry witness of intruders into its domain.

  Zeke remembered the lush, beautiful mountains of Maui, cloud halos often encircling their peaks. He and Leah had agreed that only the most hardened atheist could look at something so transportingly beautiful and not feel the presence of a God.

  Here, the feeling was one of death and despair. This was a sea in which virtually nothing lived and a land on which almost nothing grew. Dogged persistence and technology had made certain areas habitable, but even so, none but the hardy Bedouin had ever truly called this area home. From the moment Zeke had first laid eyes on this region, one word kept coming to him to describe it: Godforsaken.

  It was time to bring God back to reclaim this unhallowed ground.

  The water was changing from a bleak, leaden gray to a vibrant blue, as if light from the rising sun were breathing life into it. The choppy water was becoming calm. An eerie layer of evaporation haze began dispersing into wraiths of smoke. They struck Zeke as wary souls, wondering at the sudden intrusion of this alien life form into their lifeless realm.

  “Whatever secrets you have,” he said to the strange body of water, “we are going to uncover.”

  The divers had finished dressing out when he reached the stern. After experimenting with several different types of wetsuits, they’d settled on the thinnest, lightest short john they could get. Worn by triathletes, short johns were sleeveless and only covered the legs above the knees, allowing for maximum flexibility while adding the least warmth in water that, even in winter, would already be approaching ninety degrees. They wore full-face masks to protect them from swallowing any of the potentially fatal chemical stew that was the Dead Sea. The masks also allowed them to have microphones for voice communication.

  Zeke shook each man’s hand and wished him well, then watched the series of small splashes that heralded the underwater phase of their quest. He watched until they all disappeared into the Devil’s Sea.

  “Now there’s a leap of faith,” he said quietly, and the slightest hint of a smile brightened his somber mood. When the last ripples faded, he went into the control room to begin his monitoring duties.

  The limited visibility at the bottom was improved somewhat by the diver handling the airlift, who floated around sucking away the sediment stirred up by digging. Another diver was recording the dig with a video camera wirelessly connected to a receiver in the control room. A visibility enhancement unit was plugged into the receiver, which in turn was connected to the computer. The end result was that objects barely visible through the camera’s viewfinder were reasonably clear and distinct on the large screen monitor in the control room.

  Zeke sat watching the live footage. He estimated visibility below at about ten feet. Plenty to get the job done. The divers began executing their duties with well-rehearsed precision.

  Swimming to the rectangular anomaly, the six-man team started at the marker buoy they’d left earlier at the nearest corner. They quickly settled into a smooth routine as they focused on their various tasks. Four diggers fanned away silt with gloved hands. The diver with the airlift sucked the stirred-up sediment through the six-inch opening, ready to instantly modify his approach when they reached the anomaly. The videographer floated around documenting the dig.

  With the salt crust removed, the loose bottom yielded easily and they quickly came to the anomaly. Finding no artifacts to slow their digging, in three hours they had cleared a section ten feet long and ten deep—more than enough to determine what it was. Several courses of large stones carefully laid in a precise pattern made the conclusion unmistakable. Mordecai had held off on making any pronouncements about what they were uncovering, not wanting to jinx anything. Now he stated the obvious into his microphone.

  “It’s a wall,” he said with an almost exaggerated calm. “Stone. Very well quarried from somewhere. Expertly laid by masons, obviously. This has to be a man-made building.”

  “Copy,” Zeke said.

  Looking at the dedicated hands working to uncover a wall that other long-dead hands had built, perhaps thousands of years ago to honor their god or king, he finally understood why people became archaeologists.

  CHAPTER 37

  About a hundred yards northeast of the wall, the four-man team headed by Jack Shelby was excavating the first of the other three smaller anomalies. Shelby had worked for many seasons at the buried city of Caesarea in the Mediterranean. An expert on the Middle Bronze Era of Sodom and Gomorrah, his specialty was epigraphy—inscriptions.

  His team had run a cord around the perimeter of the anomaly, marking off a square about 30 feet on each side. One person manned the camcorder and another the airlift, leav
ing Shelby and an Israeli grad student named Lev to do the digging. Working their way in tandem back and forth—“mowing the lawn”—in two hours they’d excavated the square to a depth of about two feet. So far they had not found anything.

  Shelby looked at the dive computer on his wrist. “We can go for at least another hour,” he said into the voice-activated microphone positioned near his mouth. “Everybody okay?” He got a quick affirmative, and the digging continued. A few minutes later he said, “Hold it. I’ve got something.”

  It was a fragment, apparently of pottery. One of the commonest finds, it could mean anything. The location was logged, the potsherd bagged, and the work continued.

  “What’s this?”

  Lev was pointing at something clumped over with mud. An encrusted protuberance jutted out from a buried circular mass about two feet in diameter. The videographer was keeping a record of the in situ locations of the finds, so before the anomaly was moved he punched its location into the larger dive computer affixed to his waist. When that was done, Shelby gently coaxed the shape from the muck. Mud that may have encased it for millennia washed away easily, revealing a heavily corroded metal object with a handle—almost certainly a pot or other implement used for cooking.

  “We may be uncovering somebody’s kitchen,” he said.

  Something a little farther away glinted in the light from the camcorder. He handed the pot to Lev. “Hold this for a second.” A few gentle kicks of his fins took him down to the spot.

  There were several shiny objects. He called the videographer down to log the location, then plucked one of the finds from the ooze. The videographer came in for a close-up as Shelby very delicately brushed the mud away with a fingertip.

  A coin.

  Coins were invaluable not only because they could help date a period, but their depictions and inscriptions could provide information about the society in which they were used. The one he held had what looked like a man’s likeness on one side, with words underneath. He couldn’t decipher them at this point, but most likely they identified the man whose face was on the coin.