The Genesis Plague (2010)

by Michael Byrnes

  Could this really be Ishtar? he thought

  Nineveh faded in the distance and the chopper began tracing a white pipeline that ran north towards the Tawke oil fields. Crude was once again flowing out from Iraq, and making Hazo think that it wasn’t only Ishtar who’d been a prostitute.

  Back to the pictures, he flipped to an image that showed a warrior presenting the female’s disembodied head to an elder. He couldn’t recall anything about Ishtar being executed so cruelly. Too many inconsistencies. Though if this wasn’t Ishtar, then who could she be?

  The fact that these images came from inside a cave raised even more questions. It was assumed that beneath every earthen mound in Iraq lay remnants of a civilization come and gone. To find such evidence tucked away beneath a mountain, however, seemed highly unusual. Ancient cults were known to practise secret rituals in caves, so maybe the cave was linked to those who worshipped Ishtar.

  The chopper dipped and began its descent.

  Ahead Hazo spotted Mount Maqloub jutting skywards along the fringe of the Nineveh plain. Only as the chopper closed in over the craggy sandstone mountain did the angular lines of the multi-storey Mar Mattai monastery seem to materialize from the cliff face. Its only architecturally significant features were an Arabian-style loggia running along its top level and an onion dome marking the main entrance. Nestled behind the modern facade, however, was one of the world’s oldest Christian chapels, founded in AD 363.

  The Chaldean monks who resided within the monastery’s walls proclaimed to be direct descendants of the Babylonians. They were the earliest Arab Christian converts; the preservers of Aramaic, ‘Christ’s language’. Here they safeguarded the world’s most impressive collection of Syriac Christian manuscripts and ancient codices chronicling Mesopotamia’s lesser-known past.

  None knew ancient Iraq better.

  And like the Kurds, the Chaldeans had suffered their share of persecution in northern Iraq. The Chaldean community was still reeling from the execution of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, who’d vehemently dissented against the proposed inclusion of Islamic law into the Iraqi constitution. On February 29, 2008, he’d been kidnapped at gunpoint by Islamic militants. The body turned up two weeks later in a shallow grave outside Mosul.

  The pilot manoeuvred over the empty visitors’ parking lot and expertly set the Blackhawk down.

  Hazo removed his flight helmet, unbuckled his harness, and hopped out from the fuselage. The copilot, already outside, motioned for him to stay low while scrambling under the slowing rotor blades.

  Climbing the monastery’s precipitous front steps, Hazo pulled the olive wood crucifix out from beneath his galabiya to display it prominently on his chest. Beneath the onion dome he tried opening the main door, but it was locked.

  Before he could knock on the door, a bespectacled young monk with a long black beard and opaline eyes appeared on the other side of the glass and turned the deadbolt. The monk was wearing a traditional black robe with white priest collar, an elaborate Inuit hood and msone ceremonial sandals.

  ‘Shlama illakh,’ the monk said, peering over at the unorthodox sight of the Blackhawk plunked down in the parking lot. He turned and glanced at Hazo’s crucifix. Switching to English, he said, ‘How may I help you, brother?’

  Hazo introduced himself, apologized for his late arrival. Then he explained, ‘I was hoping that one of your brothers might help me. You see, I have these pictures …’ He held out the photos.

  The monk kept his hands folded behind his back as he examined only the top photo.

  ‘And I’ve been asked to determine what these images mean … who this female might be, here,’ he said, pointing.

  ‘And this is of interest to them?’ He motioned to the Blackhawk.

  ‘That’s right.’

  The monk hesitated, weighing the facts. His lips drew tight. ‘You must talk to Monsignor Ibrahim about these things. I will bring you to him. Please, come,’ he said, and set off in a steady shuffle.

  The monk remained silent as he led Hazo through the modern corridors of the main building and out a rear door that fed into a spacious courtyard boxed in by two storeys of arcades.

  The humble stone building they entered next was much, much older. They passed through a barrel vaulted corridor, redolent with incense and age, into an ancient stone nave with Arabian design elements - pointed archways, spiral columns, mosaic tile work.

  The original monastery.

  Hazo noticed that the inscriptions glazed into its intricate friezes and mosaics were not Arabic; they were from a language that the world outside these walls considered dead - Aramaic. There were plenty of carved rosettes adorning the archways too.

  The monk ducked beneath a low archway and continued to a staircase that cut deep beneath the nave. Here Hazo noticed that the stone blocks had given way to hewn, chisel-marred stone worn smooth by passing centuries. To one side, electrical conduit had been installed along the wall to run power to sconces that lit the passage. The subterranean atmosphere was disorienting. It seemed as if the monk was leading him into the mountain itself.

  Hazo’s anxiety eased when up ahead he saw bright light coming out from a formidable glass doorway fitted with steel bars.

  The monk stopped at the door and entered a code on the handle’s integrated keypad. A lock snapped open. He turned the handle, pushed the door inward, and held it as Hazo stepped into a small empty foyer. The air immediately became warmer, dryer. Hazo could hear a filtration system humming overhead.

  Without a word the monk shut the first door and made his way to a second door that was nothing but metal and rivets. Another code was entered and he led Hazo into a vast, window-less space divided into neat aisles by sturdy floor-to-ceiling cabinets. The air was sterile and dry. Trailing the monk past the long study tables that lined the room’s centre, he glimpsed countless spines of the ancient manuscripts lined neatly behind glass panels.

  Deep in the library, they found the elderly monsignor. Wearing a black robe and hood, he was stooped over a drafting table equipped with a gooseneck LED lamp, sweeping a saucer-sized magnifying loupe horizontally across the open pages of a thick codex.

  Well before they reached him, the monk turned to Hazo and motioned for him to go no further. ‘A moment, please.’

  ‘Of course,’ Hazo replied.

  The monk quietly circled the table and bent to whisper in the monsignor’s ear. The monsignor inclined his head so that his suspicious eyes shifted over his bifocals to appraise Hazo. He dismissed the monk with a curt nod. Then he summoned Hazo with a hand gesture.

  Hands crossed behind his back, Hazo approached the table and bowed slightly. ‘Thank you, Monsignor Ibrahim. I was asked to—’

  ‘Let me see your pictures,’ the dour monk demanded. He held out his hand, the severely arthritic fingers quivering.

  Clearly the man disliked formalities, thought Hazo, as he handed Monsignor Ibrahim the photos.

  The moment the monsignor laid eyes on the first picture, Hazo noticed the creases in his brow deepen.

  The monsignor cleared his throat then said, ‘Where did you find these?’

  ‘A cave … to the east, in the Zagros Mountains. Those images were carved into a wall. There was writing too and—’

  The monsignor’s hand went up to stop him. ‘I suppose you want to know who this is?’ he said, almost as an accusation. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  The monsignor stood from the table. He eyed Hazo’s crucifix again. ‘As you wish. Come. I will show you.’ He rounded the table and set off down the aisle.

  19

  BOSTON

  The Concorde’s frigid engine turned over with a grinding cough. The interior was so cold that Thomas Flaherty’s breath crystallized the instant it came into contact with the windshield. He clicked on the defrosters, blew into his hands a couple times, then grabbed his trusty scraper off the floor.

  Hopping out, he cursed the Boston winter a few more times while he swept snow an
d wet ice off the windows. It took him another three gruelling minutes to chip away at the stubborn ice encrusted on the windshield’s wiper blades. Back inside, the artic freeze had barely budged, so he gave the accelerator a few pumps to warm up the engine and speed things along. He blew in his hands again before burying them in his armpits for a long minute.

  Once his fingers had thawed to an itchy tingle, he took out his BlackBerry and started thumbing his preliminary findings into a secure e-mail message addressed to his boss, with a CC to Jason Yaeger.

  Jason Yaeger. They’d met during orientation at Global Security Corporation only two years ago. That high school valedictorian from Alpine, New Jersey, was meant to teach some arcane history course at an Ivy League university or find a cure for cancer - not scour the Middle East for terrorists. But Jason Yaeger was out for vengeance. In his eyes, that hard determination glimmered like a razor’s edge. To lose a brother the way he had …

  Composing the e-mail helped Flaherty formalize his initial assessments: Professor Brooke Thompson had been forthright in answering questions about her involvement in an excavation that had taken place in northern Iraq in 2003; though Ms Thompson was unwilling to breach her confidentiality agreement about the findings in aforementioned project, the nature of her involvement seemed consistent with her expertise in deciphering ancient languages; and though her back-story would require verification, he would not consider her a flight risk should further inquiries be warranted. Flaherty did, however, emphasize that the excavation’s implied covert coordination by the US military merited further investigation.

  He fixed a couple typos, then sent the report off into space.

  A more comprehensive summary would be required. That would happen tonight, on his laptop, at Doyle’s Cafe over a pint of Guinness and an order of steak tips, with the Celtics hoopin’ it up on the big screen. And all the snow in the world wasn’t going to put the kibosh on that.

  He pocketed the BlackBerry and put the car in drive. The mounting snow constricted the street, making a U-turn impractical. So he continued straight on Museum Road and made a right at the T intersection. As he started along The Fenway, a splash of happy pastel colours set against the dreary grey museum edifice caught his eye. He glanced over to the steps leading up to the columned portico overhanging the building’s north entrance. Immediately he recognized the puffy sky-blue ski jacket, pink wool cap and rainbow-striped scarf that had been hanging on the back of Brooke Thompson’s chair.

  Oh yeah, she’s definitely from Florida, he smiled.

  The sidewalks had yet to be shovelled and she was having a tough time getting the wheels of her rolling attache case to spin. The snow won, and she settled for dragging the case over the fresh powder. En route to her car, he guessed.

  Luckily, she didn’t spot him cruising by, because he certainly didn’t want to come off as a stalker.

  As Flaherty continued slowly along the slippery roadway, he noticed the north door open a second time. Out came another familiar face: the nosy guy with the Dumbo ears from the cafe. The guy’s beady eyes immediately went to Brooke Thompson, scanned the area, then snapped back to Brooke Thompson. They were the leering eyes of a real stalker.

  Bundled warmly and revelling in the beauty of the fresh snowfall that blanketed the Fens, Brooke Thompson plodded through the snow while towing her attache case like a dog pulling a dogsled.

  To her right, she noticed that the reflecting pools had frozen over and the snow now reached up to the nose of Antonio Lopez Garcia’s monumental bronze doll’s head, crowned with a dollop of pristine snow. If there was artful expression in plopping a huge head on to the museum’s lawn, the message was lost on her. Seeing it today did manage, nonetheless, to evoke a deep response - it jogged memories about the etchings Brooke had studied in that Iraqi cave, which included a graphic retelling of a woman’s beheading. Those images, though masterfully crafted, were not intended to illicit artistic appreciation. They were meant to convey a warning.

  Maybe if Brooke had been allowed to decipher the entirety of the story chronicled on those walls, she’d know it completely. And she was certain that it was there, deeper in the cave’s recesses. During the excavation she’d been told that other writings and images had been discovered in the protected areas for which she lacked proper clearance. Perhaps if she hadn’t been able to crack the language using only the writings found in the cave’s entry tunnel, they’d have let her examine those other finds.

  She had figured out enough of the story to know that whoever the beheaded woman had been, the devastation that followed her into that ancient Mesopotamian settlement was of a grand scale. And those ancient storytellers had attributed all of it to her.

  During the dig, one of the commissioned archaeologists had come outside the cave entrance to get a clear satellite signal for a phone call. She’d overheard his conversation concerning some carbon-dating results. Though he’d not specified the types of organic specimens that had been dated, she’d guessed at some traces of food, flowers, or maybe bone. Certainly plausible since the famous Shanidar cave, also in Iraq’s Zagros Mountains, had yielded ten Neanderthal skeletons, as well as decayed flowers used during their ritual burial.

  The archaeologist had specifically mentioned ‘a tight confidence interval around 4004 BC’. In the context of Iraq, this date was impossible for Brooke to forget since a seventeenth-century Irish archbishop named James Ussher had meticulously reconstructed the chronology of biblical events to come up with a very precise date for Creation: Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC. And like most theologian scholars, Ussher placed Eden’s locale in ancient Iraq, land of the four rivers mentioned in Genesis 2 - the Tigris and Euphrates, plus the long-ago dried-up Pishon and Gihon.

  What could they have found inside the cave that could be so important … and so ancient?

  The secrecy of the excavation never sat well with her, particularly since nothing she’d witnessed there had ever surfaced in academic journals. And being that that cave was easily the most important archaeological discovery of the last hundred years, such a withholding seemed downright criminal. Who was really behind the dig? And why had the operation been conducted by the US military so soon after the invasion of Iraq?

  It wasn’t all that uncommon for benefactors sponsoring excavations to remain aloof. But recalling the extensive background check she’d gone through with the facilitator known only as ‘Frank’, now she couldn’t help but think she might have taken part in something nefarious. And this Agent Flaherty who’d just bought her tea and quizzed her on stuff he should already know? Why hadn’t he been apprised of what had taken place at the dig?

  She continued past the museum and clambered over a dirty snow berm that lined the kerb along Forsyth Way. Across the street, the only car that remained was her Gumby-green Toyota Corolla. Thanks to a snow plough the car had practically been buried beneath ice and snow.

  ‘Great,’ she mumbled, making her way across the slushy street. Luckily, by now she’d learned to keep a shovel in her trunk for just such occasions.

  Pulling out her car keys, she went to the rear of the car and tried working the key into the frozen trunk lock. But since she’d refused to take off her mittens, she fumbled the keys and they plopped into the snow. When she dipped down to fish them out, she heard a small popping sound. Something whisked overhead an instant before the lamppost behind her let out a resounding clang.

  Startled, she spun to look at the post. She remained in a low crouch. ‘What the hell …?’

  Another small pop sounded and something thwacked into the Corolla’s rear quarter panel, hit the inside of the trunk, and dimpled the sheet metal outward right in front of her face. She screamed and tumbled back into the snow.

  That was when she realized that somebody was shooting at her.

  20

  IRAQ

  The marine colonel stood at the base of the slope next to Big Mama - the boulder slightly taller than she was and streaked with some of the MRAP’s camouflage
paint. He was glaring up at the partially reopened cave where Jason’s men were helping the marines clear more debris. The larger stones were being manhandled out and tossed down the slope. The smaller debris was being ferried out in buckets along a human chain. With the sun dropping fast over the horizon, they were working double-time against the imminent nightfall.

  ‘Once the sun’s down, we’ll need to keep any lighting to a minimum,’ Crawford told Jason. His eyes combed the surrounding mountains. ‘No need to draw more attention to ourselves. Plus we’re light on batteries and I wasn’t planning for a sleepover.’

  ‘Should be clear skies tonight,’ Jason said. ‘We’ll have plenty of moonlight. The guys probably won’t even need their NVGs. The only place we’ll need some lighting is in the tunnels.’

  Crawford circled his gaze to the two snipers posted outside the cave entrance. ‘If it was up to me, I’d skip the formalities and firebomb the fuckers. Yup …’ Crawford exhaled. ‘Al-Zahrani or not, I’d vote for Arab barbecue. These slick bastards have nine lives. If they’re on the grill, I say light the fire.’

  Jason knew the colonel was only half sincere. ‘Washington wants him alive. Intel says he’s plotting to—’

  ‘Don’t preach the rhetoric to me, Yaeger. I know the score. This war’s gotten too goddamn civil for my taste, is all I’m saying. You saw what that prick did to those cathedrals last month. Killed almost 500 civs in one day. In less than a year he’s racked up another thousand or so by sending his martyrs into subways, bus stations and malls strapped with C-4. No warning. No conscience. Just wants to put fear into every human being that doesn’t bow down to Allah. And this psycho’s just getting warmed up. Wants to make a nice impression on his boss. That way when Bin Laden’s diseased kidneys finally give out, he can take Al-Qaeda to the next level. If we still had some balls in Washington maybe we’d get this done the old-fashioned way.’ With arms crossed tight over his chest he gave Jason a sideward glance.