by Alten-Steve
Dominique reaches the parking lot, relieved to see the Dodge minivan pull out onto Route 441. She pops open the hood of her car, then dials the preset emergency roadside-service telephone number.
The elevator stops at the seventh floor. Raymond keys the power OFF and steps out.
Marvis looks up. “Something wrong?”
“Just watch your television, Marvis.” Raymond walks through pod 7-C, stopping at room 714. He keys in.
The room is dimly lit. The rancid scent of disinfectant and soured clothing fills the air.
The resident is lying on the mattress, his back to Raymond, a sheet pulled up to his ear.
“Evening, asshole. Here’s a little gift from your girlfriend.”
Raymond swings the rubber hose down hard across the sleeping man’s face. An agonized cry. The man attempts to get up. The hulking redhead kicks him back down, then beats him again and again across his back and shoulders until the testosterone rage is vented.
Raymond stands over the body, heaving from the effort. “Was that good for you, shithead? Hope so, cause it sure was good for me.”
He pulls back the sheet. “Oh, fuck …”
Rabbi Steinberg pulls the Dodge minivan over to the side of the road, parking next to the trash bin behind the convenience store. He slides opens the side door, removes the length of nylon rope, and quickly tosses it into the garbage. Then he climbs in back and helps Mick off the floor and onto the seat. “Are you all right?”
Mick looks up through vacant eyes. “Thorazine.”
“I know.” The rabbi lifts his head and gives him a sip of bottled water, cringing at the bruises along the man’s arms. “You’re going to be all right. Just rest, we have a long ride.”
Mick is unconscious before his head hits the car seat.
The tow truck is already pulling the Pronto Spyder onto its flatbed by the time the first Dade County police cars arrive.
Raymond runs out of the entrance to greet them, then spots Dominique. “It’s her! Arrest her!”
Dominique feigns surprise. “What are you talking about?”
“Fuck you, you know what I’m talking about. Gabriel’s escaped.”
“Mick escaped! Oh my God, how?” She looks at the police officers. “You don’t think I had anything to do with it. I’ve been stuck out here for twenty minutes.”
The tow-truck driver nods. “It’s true, Officer, I can vouch for that. And we haven’t seen a damn thing.”
A brown Lincoln Continental screeches to a halt in front of the main entrance. Anthony Foletta climbs out, dressed in a pale yellow jogging suit. “Raymond, what’s … Dominique, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I stopped by to drop off my letter of resignation. My father was killed in a boating accident. I’m leaving the program.” She glances over at Raymond. “Looks like your goon here screwed up pretty good.”
Foletta looks at her, then pulls one of the officers aside. “Officer, my name’s Dr Foletta. I’m the director of this facility. This woman used to work with the resident that escaped. If they planned this together and she was his ride, then there‘s a good chance he’s still inside.”
The police officer instructs his men to enter the facility with the canine patrol, then he turns his attention to Dominique. “Young lady, get your things, you’re coming with me.”
JOURNAL OF JULIUS GABRIEL
It was in the late fall of 1974 that my two colleagues and I arrived back in England, all of us quite happy to return to “civilization.” I knew Pierre had lost his appetite for the work and wanted to return to the States, the pressure from his politically oriented family finally persuading him to run for office. What I feared most was that he’d insist on Maria joining him.
Yes, feared. Truth be known, I had fallen in love with my best friend’s fiancée.
How does one allow such an act to occur? I pondered the question a thousand times. Affairs of the heart are difficult to justify, though, at first, I certainly tried. It was lust, I convinced myself, brought on by the very nature of our work. Archaeology tends to be a profession of isolation. Teams are often forced to live and labor in primitive conditions, forgoing the simplest pleasures of privacy and hygiene in order to complete the task at hand. Modesty takes a backseat to practicality. The evening bath in a freshwater stream, the daily ritual of dressing and undressing—the very act of cohabitation can become a feast for the senses. A seemingly innocent act can stir the loins and prime the heart’s pump, easily deceiving the weakened mind.
In my heart, I knew these were all excuses, for Maria’s dark beauty had intoxicated me from the moment Pierre had introduced us during our first year together at Cambridge. Those high cheekbones, the long black hair, those ebony eyes radiating an almost animal intelligence—Maria was a vision that had captured my soul, a thunderbolt that struck my being yet forbade me to act, lest I destroy my friendship with Borgia.
But I did not give in. Convincing myself that Maria must remain an exquisite bottle of wine I longed to taste but could never open, I locked up my emotions and threw away the devil’s key—or so I thought.
As we journeyed from London to Salisbury on that fall day, I sensed that a fork in the road loomed ahead for our trio, and that one of us, most likely me, would be venturing down a path of isolation.
Stonehenge is undoubtedly one of the most mysterious places on Earth, a bizarre temple of upright megalithic stones, arranged in a perfect circle as if by giants. Because we had spent time at the ancient site as part of our degree requirements, none of us truly expected to find any new revelations awaiting us on those rolling green plains of southern England.
We were wrong. Another piece of the puzzle was there, staring us straight in the face.
Although not nearly as old as Tiahuanaco, Stonehenge incorporates the same seemingly impossible feats of engineering and astronomy we had seen earlier. The site itself is believed to have been a spiritual magnet for farmers who first appeared on the plains following the end of the last ice age. The hillside must certainly have been deemed holy, for within a two-mile circumference of the monument are no less than 300 burial sites, several of which would provide us with vital clues linking the area with artifacts found earlier in Central and South America.
Carbon dating tells us that Stonehenge was built approximately 5,000 years ago. Phase one of the construction began with a precise, circular outline of 56 wooden totem-like poles surrounded by a ditch and embankment. Small blue stones, transported from a mountain range nearly 100 miles away, would later replace these wooden markings.
They, in turn, would be replaced by megalithic stones, the remains of which are still present today.
The mammoth vertical rocks that make up Stonehenge are called sarsan stones. They are the hardest rocks in the region and are found in the town of Avery, some 20 miles to the north. Stonehenge’s original design consisted of 30 such stones, each weighing an incredible 25 to 40 tons. Each of the great columns of rock had to be transported many miles over hilly terrain, then set upright to form a perfect circle, 100 feet across. Linking the top of these sarsans were nine-ton lintel stones, 30 in all. Each lintel had to be raised 20 feet off the ground, then set into place atop the sarsans. To ensure a proper fit, the ancient engineers carved rounded projections on top of every sarsan column. These “plugs” fit into rounded-out hollow “sockets” formed along the underside of each lintel, allowing the pieces to fit together like giant Lego building blocks.
Once the monumental circle of stone was complete, the builders erected five pairs of trilithons, two upright sarsans connected by a single lintel. These trilithons, composed of the largest stones at the site, stand 25 feet off the ground, with another third of their mass buried underground. Five trilithons were set into place within the circle to form a horseshoe, the open end of which faces an altar stone aligned to the summer solstice. The center and largest of the trilithons has been set to the winter solstice, December 21, the day of the Mayan prophecy, a date consider
ed by most ancient cultures to be associated with death.
How were the Stone Age villagers of ancient England able to haul sarsans weighing 80,000 pounds over 20 miles of rough, hilly terrain? How did they manage to lift 18,000-pound lintels 20 feet off the ground and set them perfectly into place? Moreover, what mission could possibly be so important as to motivate these prehistoric people to complete such an incredible endeavor?
There are no written records left behind to identify the builders of Stonehenge, but one popular (though absurd) legend points to Merlin, the magician of King Arthur’s court, as being the brains behind the brawn. It is said the bearded wise man designed the temple to function as a cosmic observatory and celestial calendar, as well as a place of communion and worship, until it was mysteriously abandoned in 1500 BC.
While Pierre returned to London, Maria and I left Stonehenge to explore the large mound-like tombs surrounding the monument, hoping to find the remains of elongated skulls that would link the Central and South American sites to this ancient burial ground. The largest tomb in the area is a 340-foot-long subterranean burial mound, also constructed of sarsans. Within this tomb lie the skeletal remains of 47 individuals. For some reason, the bones have been anatomically segregated into different chambers.
What we found was not as startling as what we didn’t find— at least a dozen skulls belonging to the largest individuals were missing!
We spent the next four months moving from tomb to tomb, always finding the same results. Eventually we arrived at what many archaeologists believed was the holiest of the sites, a fortification of stone located beneath a burial mound in Loughcrew, a remote area in central Ireland.
Carved within the sarsan walls of this tomb are magnificent hieroglyphs, the premier design being a sales of spiraling concentric circles. I remember watching Maria’s face in the lantern’s light as her dark eyes focused upon the bizarre emblems. My heart leapt as her face lit with recognition. Dragging me from the tomb into daylight, she ran to our auto and began tearing open boxes containing hundreds of photos we had taken together in a hot-air balloon over the Nazca desert.
“Julius, look, it’s here!” she had proclaimed, thrusting a black-and-white photo to my face.
The photo was of the Nazca pyramid, one of the older desert drawings we believed to be of extreme importance. Within its triangular borders were two figures: one, an inverted four-legged animal, the other, a series of concentric circles.
The circles were identical to the carvings found within the burial tomb.
Maria and I were excited by the discovery. Both of us had, for some time, shared the belief that the Nazca drawings represented an ancient message of salvation relating to the doomsday prophecy, intended only for modern man. (Why else would the mysterious artist draw the figures so large that they could be seen only from an aircraft?)
Our enthusiasm was quelled by the next logical question: Which pyramid did the Nazca drawing represent?
Maria insisted the structure had to be the Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest stone temple in the world. By her logic, Giza, Tiahuanaco, Sacsayhuaman, and Stonehenge all consisted of megalithic stones, their dates of construction were close (or so we believed) and the angle of the Nazca pyramid closely resembled the steep sides of the Egyptian pyramid.
I was not so easily convinced. It was my theory that many of the older etchings of Nazca were drawn as navigational markers, intended as references to point us in the right direction. Surrounding the Nazca pyramid were several clues which I believed had been left for us to identify the mysterious triangular figure.
The most important of these icons appears within the pyramid’s own border, drawn below the concentric circles. It is an image of an inverted, four-legged animal, one I reasoned to be a jaguar, arguably the most revered beast in all of Mesoamerica.
The second clue is that of the Nazca monkey. This immense icon, drawn in one continuous line, features a tail that ends in a concentric spiraling circle, identical to the shape appearing within the pyramid figure.
The Maya glorified the monkey, treating it as another species of people. In the creation myth of the Popol Vuh, the fourth cycle of the world was said to have been destroyed by a great flood. The few people who survived were believed to have been turned into monkeys. The fact that monkeys do not exist in either Giza or the southern region of Peru indicated to me that the pyramid referenced on the Nazca pampa had to be in Mesoamerica.
Whales do not belong in the desert either, yet there are likenesses of three of these majestic beasts present on the Nazca plateau. Theorizing the mysterious artist had used the whales to represent a three-sided boundary of water on the pampa, I attempted to convince Maria that the pyramid in question had to represent one of the Mayan temples located on the Yucatán Peninsula.
For his part, Pierre Borgia was not interested in either one of our theories. Chasing after Mayan ghosts no longer mattered to Maria’s fiancé; what mattered was power. As mentioned earlier; I could see this development coming for some time. While Maria and I had been busy exploring the tombs, Pierre had been finalizing plans to run for Congress back in the States. Two days after we had made our discovery, he announced, with great pomp and circumstance, that it was high time he and the future Mrs Borgia moved on to more important things.
I was heartbroken.
Wedding plans were quickly arranged. Pierre and Maria would be married at St John’s Cathedral, I to serve as best man.
What could I do? I felt desperate, believing with all my heart that Maria was destined to be my soulmate. Pierre treated her as a possession, not an equal. She was his trophy, his Jackie Onassis—arm-candy he deemed would serve well as first lady to his political ambitions. Did he love her? Perhaps, for what man could not? But did she truly love him?
This I had to know.
It was not till the eve of their wedding day that I managed the courage to confess my love to her aloud. Looking into those beautiful eyes, swimming in black pools of velvet, I could only imagine the gods smiling upon my wretched soul as Maria pulled my head to her bosom and sobbed.
She had been harboring the same feelings for me! Maria confessed that she had been praying for me to come forward and rescue her from a life with Pierre, whom she cared for but did not love.
In that blessed moment, I became her salvation and she mine. Like desperate lovers, we stole away that night, each leaving Pierre a note, apologizing for our unforgivable act and intentions, neither of us strong enough to face the man in person.
Twenty hours later we arrived in Egypt—Mr and Mrs Julius Gabriel.
—Excerpt from the journal of Professor Julius Gabriel,
Ref. Catalogue 1974–75, pages 45–62
15
NOVEMBER 27, 2012: SANIBEL ISLAND, FLORIDA
The shrill caw of a seagull causes Mick to open his eyes.
He is lying in a double bed, his wrists bound along either side of the frame. His left forearm is heavily bandaged. An IV tube drips into his right.
He is in a bedroom. Slats of golden sunlight reflect along the far wall, seeping in through Venetian blinds rattling above his head. He can smell the salt air. He can hear the ocean’s surf from the open window above his head.
A gray-haired woman in her seventies enters the room. “So, you’re awake.” She removes the Velcro strap from his right wrist, then checks the IV bag.
“Are you Edie?”
“No, I’m Sue, Carl’s wife.”
“Who’s Carl? What am I doing here?”
“We felt it was too dangerous to take you to Edie’s. Dominique’s there, and—”
“Dominique?” Mick struggles to sit up, the dizziness forcing him down again like a heavy, unseen hand.
“Just take it easy, fella. You’ll see Dominique soon enough. Right now, the police are watching her, waiting for you to show up.” She removes the IV tube and places a Band-Aid on his arm.
“Are you a doctor?”
“I was my husband’s dental nurse f
or thirty-eight years.” Methodically, she wraps up the IV bag and tube.
Mick notices the red-rimmed eyes.
“What was in the IV?”
“Vitamins mostly. You were in pretty bad shape when you arrived two nights ago. Mostly just malnourished, although your left arm was butchered pretty good. You’ve slept for almost two days. Last night, you had a nasty nightmare, screaming in your sleep. I had to secure your wrists so you wouldn’t pull out the IV.”
“Thank you. And thanks for getting me out of that asylum.”
“Thank Dominique.” Sue reaches into the pocket of her housecoat.
Mick is startled to see her remove a .44 Magnum. She points the gun at his groin.
“Whoa, hey, wait a second—”
“My husband drowned several days ago aboard Isadore’s boat. Three men died while investigating that location in the Gulf you told Dominique about. What’s down there?”
“I don’t know.” He stares at the gun, shaking within the elderly woman’s hands. “Do you think you could aim that gun at a less vital organ?”
“Dominique’s told us all about you, about why you were locked up, and about your screwball father and his doomsday stories. Personally, I couldn’t give a goddam about whatever psychotic apocalyptic mumbo jumbo you believe in, the only thing I care about is finding out what happened to my Carl. In my book, you’re a dangerous escaped felon. You so much as look at me the wrong way, and I’ll put a bullet in you.”
“I understand.”
“No you don’t. Dominique took a big risk in freeing you. So far, everything having to do with your escape points back to the orderly screwing up and not to her, but the police are still suspicious. They’re watching her closely, which means all of us are at risk. Later tonight, we’re going to smuggle you aboard Rex’s boat. There’s a minisub on board—”