The larger halls had been carved from multicolored sandstone, as had the pillars and building edifices. Lanes were further canyons extending from the central valley. Caves that had once been used as pantries for rock-hewn houses now served as teahouses and museums.
Allison was picking her way up temple steps more than three thousand years old when a voice beside her said, “Let us join that tour group over there, shall we?”
She jumped and spun around. It was Smathers, the little man from the British Embassy. “You scared me.”
“No more theatrics than absolutely necessary, all right? Just gather with the other gawkers and pretend you’re having a good time.”
“One theory,” droned the English guide at the front of the group, her voice bounding off the distant walls, “is that this temple was intended for funerals of high officials. This lower level where we are standing was for humans, the upper levels for spirits only. That would explain the absence of stairways leading to the higher floors. Templegoers would have left their libations in these basins you see carved in the floor here and here. Upon death the bodies would be dried in the sun, then the desiccated remains would be deposited up above, to dwell with the spirits.”
As the group was herded back out into the sunlight, Allison whispered, “What am I doing here?”
“A perfectly acceptable question.” As the group emerged into the glare, the little man slipped a floppy white hat from his pocket and plopped it onto his peeling head. “And one which I asked myself a dozen times already this morning. Stay close to the group, please.”
They walked down the main valley, the guide stopping to point out various tombs along the way. “The Nabateans were famous traders,” she explained, “and over the centuries they borrowed architectural ideas from quite a variety of lands with whom they dealt—Egypt, Persia, Greece, even China. You will see the results grafted onto the tombs, which became increasingly intricate over the centuries.”
She raised her umbrella aloft, signaling the group forward. As they walked, she continued in a voice trained to carry over distances. “Then came the Romans, and even here the wily Nabatean traders did not give up easily. There was one local hero by the name of Sikarius. When the Romans under Augustus tried to take control of the region, he pretended to be a traitor and offered to lead them into this fortified city by a secret back route. He led them around in circles for six months, then left them to die in the desert. The Jordanians hold Sikarius up as their sort of David against the Goliath of other, greater nations. What they don’t bother to mention is that Augustus responded to the trickery with some Roman-style economic sanctions; he moved the spice and silk route so that it bypassed the Nabateans entirely. In thirty years the Nabatean Empire was decimated, and they accepted incorporation into the Roman Empire, coming to be known as the state of Arabia Petra.”
Smathers stopped Allison’s forward progress with a hand on her arm. When the tour group had departed, he pointed up a set of stairs that mounted the rise behind them. “Up there, if you will.”
“After you.”
“I was not invited,” he snapped.
“First I want—”
“Oh do go on; that’s a good girl. You can play the stubborn American some other time.”
Allison bit back her reply. She turned and started up the stairs, anger speeding her climb.
The steps were carved from the mountainside, and had been smoothed by millions of feet over the previous three thousand years. They climbed up one cliffside, made a series of sharp turns, and continued on to breathtaking heights. Every supposed pinnacle proved at its summit to be nothing more than the base for yet another climb. The steps numbered well over a thousand. With each sharp turn the views became more spectacular and her breath harder to find.
She finally crested the last rise to find herself standing in a flat space carved from the very top of the mountain. Cyril rose from his seated position and dusted off his trousers. “My dear Allison, how lovely to see you. Do come sit down.”
She allowed herself to be guided to the ledge and seated, her lungs still pumping like overworked bellows. Her shirt was plastered to her back, her hair sticking to the perspiration that streamed down from under her sun hat and onto her neck and face. Cyril looked neat as a pin and untouched by the heat. She could have shoved him over the edge.
“We are now standing in the triclinium,” he said, politely ignoring her efforts to compose herself, “a three-sided gathering place for worshipers. The carved stone there at the center of the forefront dais area is called a djinn, or god-block. Probably in the late Mesolithic or early Neolithic times, people began taking the unformed stones that they worshiped and shaping them. From these crude square blocks later came the formation of statues and idols. But not here—at least not as far as we know. Here it appears that the people remained content to offer their sacrifices upon the djinn.”
Allison turned and looked over the ledge at the magnificent vista. “I feel as though I can see to the ends of the earth.”
“Probably why the high places were originally chosen as places of worship; the view granted people the feeling that they were closer to their gods.” Cyril pointed again to the god-block. “Of course, this is a perfect example of one of the high places destroyed by King Josiah. Do you know your Bible, my dear?”
Instead of answering, Allison lifted her hat and pushed the hair back from her face. The desert wind had already dried her skin. “Why did you bring me here?”
Cyril pointed back down the stairs. “Security, my dear. Anyone following you up the ceremonial way, as it is called, would long since have shown themselves. “Our dear Mr. Smathers is stationed at the bottom to watch for anyone who might have followed.”
Allison stood and walked over to where she had emerged from the stairway. “Who would they be following, you or me?”
“Do come back and sit down by me.” Cyril raised a thermos from his bag. “Would you care for some tea?”
“I would prefer some answers.”
“Very well.” He replaced the thermos. “I can only tell you what I know. We think you are being trailed, but we cannot say for sure. We had thought that perhaps this little trip today would flush them out.”
She nodded. Her suspicions of the past week were becoming as solid as the surrounding peaks. “You’re using me as bait.”
“My dear Allison, you are our liaison. I would never dream of referring to you as anything so crass as bait.”
“A decoy, then.” Now that it was out in the open, she found she did not really mind. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Ben is perfectly capable of keeping watch on his own. You wanted to draw attention to your search and see what or who pops out of the woodwork.”
Cyril did not bother to deny it. “You are clearly your father’s daughter,” he said approvingly.
“I just hope you’re keeping a careful eye on me.”
“Rest assured,” he replied. “You are better watched than the crown jewels.”
She continued her guessing game. “I give Ben a convenient out, don’t I? If all of this ever comes to light, he can deny all knowledge of anything.”
“His work helps so many,” Cyril agreed. “It would be a great pity if his assistance with our efforts forced him to make an untimely departure.” He reached into his bag once again and extracted a thin circular object about two inches in diameter. “I think it would be a good idea if you were to carry this upon your person at all times.”
Allison accepted the object and inspected its smooth black surface. The only marking was a switch embedded in one side. “What is it?”
“A satellite tracking device.” Cyril pointed to the switch. “In case you are ever unsure of your safety, you should immediately switch this on. Do not hesitate, my dear. It would be far better to have a few false alarms than once to have you wait a bit too long.”
“All right.” She slid the object into her pocket. “So what do we do now?”
“We wait. Wa
it and hope that our efforts will not go unnoticed.”
“And if I flush them out?” Allison pressed. “What then?”
“Then you flee,” he replied gravely, “just as fast as your feet will carry you.”
16
Two days after his narrow escape, Wade arrived at the outskirts of Tbilisi, footsore and filthy.
His pack was a burlap feed sack, compliments of the farmer who had picked him up outside Beloti. Wade had raced out of a side alley, almost colliding with the farmer’s donkey cart, and had pleaded for a ride with the urgency of one frightened for his very life. The farmer had been returning from market, more than a little drunk. His cart had been empty of anything worth stealing, so he had waved Wade on board and offered him a drink from an almost-empty vodka bottle. Wade had politely declined, and had crammed a tattered straw hat he had found under the seat down hard on his head. The farmer had thought that hilarious. Three minutes later, a jeep had roared by in pursuit of a young man now masquerading as a farmer’s helper.
After a night in a smelly barn with a donkey for company, Wade bathed in the horse trough and walked back to the main road. While waiting for a ride, he opened the money belt still firmly attached to his waist, pulled out a few dollars, and rolled them in the dirt. This gave them the look of Western currency hoarded for years and given up only as a last resort.
As he expected, the truck driver who stopped demanded money for the ride. In such lands where gasoline was scarce as diamonds, drivers often stopped for paying passengers. Still standing on the road, Wade argued the fare down to half the asking price—to do otherwise would attract attention. The driver heard his accent and asked if he was a Latvian down seeking work. Wade responded with a half-nod, half-shrug. The driver snorted his derision at a fool who would travel in any other direction than westward, but he opened the truck door for Wade to clamber in.
The road leading into Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, was barricaded with sandbags and barbed wire and guarded by machine guns and mobile rocket launchers. To Wade’s astonishment, the barricades came in two distinct sections—the first guarded by the Russians and the second, a hundred meters later, by the Ossetians. When asked about the double barricade, the driver replied that the Russians wanted to pretend they controlled the capital city, and the Ossetians were not fool enough to openly attack the Russians—not yet, anyway.
From Tskhinvali, Wade obtained, with more dollars, a ride in what once had been a proud Communist limousine. A hard life and countless kilometers had reduced it to a rattling junk heap with fenders held in place with baling wire, two plastic sheets for side windows, no lights, and a faulty exhaust that sent continuous foul puffs up into his face as he wallowed on the springless backseat.
The town of Gori was thoroughly Georgian and relatively safe. It was best known for having produced the half-Georgian, half-Ossetian man named at birth as Josif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, and whom the world knew as Joseph Stalin. Wade used a few more dollars to obtain a bed and his first decent meal in two days. By then his clothes resembled those of the Georgians around him, dirty and nondescript, and in this land of swarthy features and numerous accents he was taken simply as another northerner.
After eating, Wade stretched out on the first bed he had felt since Grozny. His time at the clinic now seemed like ages ago. He stared up into the darkness of a strange room in a strange town, more alone than he had ever been in his life, and wondered at all the mistakes that had brought him to this point. Yet as he lay and tried to condemn himself, something as all-enveloping as the darkness closed in, granting him a peace he could not understand.
As his eyelids grew increasingly heavy, he found himself seeing his life anew. The convoluted path that had taken him from a small town in Illinois to this strange room south of the Caucasus Mountains was not simply a series of errors, but a means of both testing and hardening him for something that lay ahead.
Wade drifted in and out of the first layers of sleep and found himself thinking that although the idea of being guided made no logical sense at all, there was indeed great comfort to be found in the hope that it was so.
When he first arrived at the outskirts of Tbilisi, Wade was of two minds. On the one hand, he had no idea what he should do next. On the other, there was the growing sense of ordered process, of a clear purpose rising from the chaos and confusion of his circumstances. Wade sat in the rear of the empty produce truck, jounced heavily by every bump in the road, surrounded by choking clouds of dust and diesel fumes, thirstier than he had ever been in his life, yet retaining a strong sense of determination and direction.
Tbilisi’s architecture spoke of two distinct and clashing cultures. Ancient buildings climbed the steep-sided hills in the pattern of formerly walled enclaves, covering every possible inch of available land. Streets were narrow and winding and ever in shadows. The multistoried dwellings were brightly painted and well kept. Delicate balustrades curved into ornate balconies. Yet sharing the streets with these fairy-tale houses stood newer Communist structures, squat and stolid and featureless as tombstones. The newer buildings dominated much of the city like the foreign rule they represented—alien, unwanted, hated, scorned.
The buildings along the main thoroughfares showed scars from recent conflict. Windows blown to gaping holes. Facades stripped of paint and punctured by thousands of bullet holes. Whole structures reduced to ashes.
Also along these main streets were shops where men gathered and smoked and drank innumerable glasses of spiced tea. The truck halted outside a tumbledown department store. Wade climbed down, thanked the driver, and headed into the cool depths of the nearest caf;aae.
Everyone spoke simultaneously. Faces were grim yet spirited. There were few smiles, yet none of the resigned hopelessness Wade had often seen in Russia.
Wade accepted his bread and tea from the counter and carried it back to a table by the wall. His arrival brought the usual frank stares. He responded with a greeting in Russian, this time strengthening his American accent as much as he knew how.
His efforts had the desired effect. After a proper pause for him to sip his tea and taste his bread, the nearest man, a grizzled elder with the nose of a hawk, asked, “The stranger is not Russian?”
Wade shook his head. “American.”
“Ah.” The news brought around the head of the other person at the old man’s table, a younger man with the wiry strength of an underpaid day worker. The old man continued his queries. “Truly you are from the United States?”
“Yes.” Wade took another tentative sip from his steaming glass. “Forgive me for not speaking your own language, but I have just arrived in Georgia.”
“My own language was seldom heard outside the home for many years, and even now I speak the Russian tongue better,” the old man confessed. In the ways of his world, too many direct questions would be an offense, so he simply commented, “I have never had the pleasure of speaking with an American. Is it normal for Americans to know the tongue of our former oppressors?”
“I come from Grozny,” Wade said, supplying the desired information. “I worked with the sick and wounded.”
This the old man could understand. “We have many such in these troubled times.”
“My own brother lies wounded in the central hospital,” the younger man confirmed. “He has just this week been returned from the Abkhazi front.”
“It is a difficult time for our nation,” the old man agreed. “And yet at least we are a nation once again.”
“I have heard that yours is a land with a long and glorious heritage,” Wade said politely.
“Sakartvelo, it was known in the dim reaches of man and memory,” the old man replied, his eyes alight. “The land of the Kartvelian tribes. It was the very first of the northern lands to accept Christianity, when our king was converted in the year 337. Since that time, Georgia has had its own Orthodox church, its own patriarch, its own struggle against foes who sought to bury its name and its nationhood forever.�
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Through the open door Wade could see a fire-blackened shopfront before which rested the remains of a burned-out bus. “You have had a hard struggle.”
“Indeed. Schevardnaze rules not one nation, but twenty, with all the old tribes now saying since we cannot trust Tbilisi to govern us fairly, then we will govern ourselves.”
“Civil war,” Wade interpreted.
“Chaos,” the old man moaned. “Chaos and bloodshed and hatred from which this land may never recover.”
Wade finished his tea and asked, “Where would I find the main hospital?”
“Just off the Rustaveli Avenue, not a kilometer from here,” the younger man replied. “And may you bring peace and healing to those who are in need.”
Before the trauma of independence, Rustaveli Avenue had been a main artery of Tbilisi. Its great trees had shaded thousands as they took their regular evening strolls. But recent battles had transformed the city’s heart. Nowadays Rustaveli Avenue was a bombed and gutted ruin. Its length was no longer littered with the smoke-stained hulks of cars and buses and tanks and bodies, refuse from the civil war that brought Schevardnaze to power. Yet scarcely a building was left unscarred by shells and smoke. The central government building at the avenue’s end was little more than a blackened skeleton.
Wade turned off the main boulevard and a hundred yards farther entered the central hospital’s main gates. After an interminable wait he was allowed to see one of the head doctors, a heavyset man with the girth and hands and rumbling voice of a human bear. Swiftly Wade explained his mission and asked if Red Cross personnel had appeared from the highlands.
“They were here,” the man replied, his eyes bearing the same fatigue smudges as every doctor Wade had met in these war-torn lands. “But they returned to the West.”
Riders of the Pale Horse Page 19