Raiders Of the Lost Ark

by Campbell Black

  "I know," Eidel said, leaning against his desk now. "And you understand I am talking about a certain authority of your acquaintance whose expertise in this particular sphere of interest will be invaluable to us. Correct?"

  "The Frenchman," Dietrich said.

  "Of course."

  Dietrich was silent for a time. He felt slightly un­easy. It was as if the face of Hitler were scolding him now for his hesitance. "The Frenchman is hard to find. Like any mercenary, he regards the world as his place of employment."

  "When did you last hear of him?"

  Dietrich shrugged. "In South America, I believe."

  Eidel studied the backs of his hands, thin and pale and yet indelicate, like the hands of someone who has failed in his ambition to be a concert pianist. He said, "You can find him. You understand what I'm saying? You understand where this order comes from?"

  "I can find him," Dietrich said. "But I warn you now-"

  "Don't warn me, Colonel."

  Dietrich felt his throat become dry. This little trumped-up imbecile of a desk clerk. He would have enjoyed throttling him, stuffing those manila folders down his gullet until he choked. "Very well, I advise you-the Frenchman's price is high."

  "No object," Eidel said.

  "And his trustworthiness is less than admirable."

  "That is something you will be expected to deal with. The point, Colonel Dietrich, is that you will find him and you will bring him to the Fuhrer. But it must be done quickly. It must be done, if you understand, yesterday."

  Dietrich stared at the shade on the window. It some­times filled him with dread that the Fuhrer had sur­rounded himself with lackeys and fools like Eidel. It implied a certain cloudiness of judgment where hu­mans were concerned.

  Eidel smiled, as if he was amused by Dietrich's un­ease. Then he said, "Speed is important, of course. Other parties are interested, obviously. These parties do not represent the best interests of the Reich. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Clear," Dietrich said. Dietrich thought about the

  Frenchman for a moment; he knew, even if he hadn't

  told Eidel, that Belloq was in the south of France right

  then. The prospect of doing business with Belloq was

  what appalled him. There was a smooth quality to the

  man that masked an underlying ruthlessness, a selfish­

  ness, a disregard for philosophies, beliefs, politics. If it

  served Belloq's interests, it was therefore valid. If not,

  he didn't care.

  "The other parties will be taken care of if they should surface," Eidel was saying. "They should be of no concern to you."

  "Then that is how I'll treat them," Dietrich said.

  Eidel picked up the cable and glanced at it. "What we have talked about is not to go beyond these four walls, Colonel. I don't have to say that, do I?"

  "You don't have to say it," Dietrich repeated, irri­tated.

  Eidel went back to his seat and stared at the other man across the mountain of folders. He was silent for a moment. And then he feigned surprise at finding Dietrich seated opposite him. "Are you still here, Colo­nel?"

  Dietrich clutched his attache case and rose. It was hard not tofeel hatred toward these black-uniformed clowns. They acted as if they owned the world.

  "I was about to leave," Dietrich said.

  "Heil Hitler," Eidel said, raising his hand, his arm rigid.

  At the door Dietrich answered in the same words.

  3: Connecticut

  Indiana Jones sat in his office at Marshall College.

  He had just finished his first lecture of the year for Archaeology 101, and it had gone well. It always went well. He loved teaching and he knew he was able to convey his passion for the subject matter to his stu­dents. But now he was restless and his restlessness dis­turbed him. Because he knew exactly what it was he wanted to do.

  Indy put his feet up on the desk, deliberately knocked a couple of books over, then rose and paced around the office-seeing it not as the intimate place it usually was, his retreat, his hideaway, but as the cell of some remote stranger.

  Jones, he told himself.

  Indiana Jones, wise up.

  The objects around him seemed to shed their mean­ing for a time. The huge wall map of South America became a surreal blur, an artist's dadaist conception. The clay replica of the idol looked suddenly silly, ugly. He picked it up and he thought: For something like this you laid your life on the line? You must have an essential screw loose. A bolt out of place.

  He held the replica of the idol, gazing at it absently.

  This mad love of antiquity struck him all at once as unholy, unnatural. An insane infatuation with the sense of history-more than the sense, the need to reach out and touch it, hold it, understand it through its relics and artifacts, finding yourself haunted by the faces of long-dead artisans and craftsmen and artists, spooked by the notion of hands creating these objects, fingers that had long since turned to skeleton, to dust. But never forgotten, never quite forgotten, not so long as you existed with your irrational passion.

  For a moment the old feelings came back to him, assailed him, the first excitement he'd ever felt as a student. When? Fifteen years ago? sixteen? twenty? It didn't matter: time meant something different to him than it did to most people. Time was a thing you dis­covered through the secrets it had buried-in temples, in ruins, under rocks and dust and sand. Time ex­panded, became elastic, creating that amazing sense of everything that had ever lived being linked to everything that existed in the now; and death was fun­damentally meaningless because of what you left be­hind.

  Meaningless.

  He thought of Champollion laboring over the Rosetta stone, the astonishment at finally deciphering ancient hieroglyphics. He thought of Schliemann finding the site of Troy. Flinders Petrie excavating the pre-dynastic cemetery at Nagada. Woolley discovering the royal cemetery at Ur in Iraq. Carter and Lord Carnarvon stumbling over the tomb of Tutankhamon.

  That was where it had all begun. In that conscious­ness of discovery, which was like the eye of an intel­lectual hurricane. And you were swept along, carried away, transported backward in the kind of time ma­chine the writers of fantasy couldn't comprehend: your personal time machine, your private line to the vital past.

  He balanced the replica of the idol in the center of his hand and stared at it as if it were a personal enemy. No, he thought: you're your own worst enemy, Jones. You got carried away because you had access to half of a map among Forrestal's papers-and because you desperately wanted to trust two thugs who had the other half.

  Moron, he thought.

  And Belloq. Belloq was probably the smart one. Belloq had a razor-blade eye for the quick chance. Belloq always had had that quality-like the snakes you have a phobia about. Coming out unseen from under a rock, the slithering predator, always grasping for the thing he hasn't hunted for himself.

  All that formed in the center of his mind now was an image of Belloq-that slender, handsome face, the dark of the eye, the smile that concealed the cunning.

  He remembered other encounters with the French­man. He remembered graduate school, when Belloq had chiseled his way to the Archaeological Society Prize by presenting a paper on stratigraphy-the basis of which Indy recognized as being his own work. And in some way Belloq had plagiarized it, in some way he had found access to it. Indy couldn't prove any­thing because it would have been a case of sour grapes, a rash of envy.

  1934. Remember the summer of that year, he thought.

  1934. Black summer. He had spent months plan­ning a dig in the Rub al Khali Desert of Saudi Arabia. Months of labor and preparation and scrounging for funds, putting the pieces together, arguing that his instincts about the dig were correct, that there were the remains of a nomadic culture to be found in that arid place, a culture pre-dating Christ. And then what?

  He closed his eyes.

  Even now the memory filled him with bitterness.

  Bello
qhad been there before him.

  Belloqhad excavated the place.

  It was true the Frenchman had found little of his­toric significance in the excavations, but that wasn't the point.

  The point was that Belloq had stolen from him again. And again he wasn't sure how he could prove the theft.

  And now the idol.

  Indy looked up, startled out of his reverie, as the door of his office opened slowly.

  Marcus Brody appeared, an expression of caution on his face, a caution that was in part concern. Indy considered Marcus, curator of the National Museum, his closest friend.

  "Indiana," he said and his voice was soft.

  He held the replica of the idol out, as if he were offering it to the other man, then he dropped it abruptly in the trash can on the floor.

  "I had the real thing in my hand, Marcus. The real thing." Indy sat back, eyes shut, fingers vigorously massaging his eyelids.

  "You told me, Indiana. You already told me," Brody said. "As soon as you came back. Remember?"

  "I can get it back, Marcus. I can get it back. I fig­ured it out. Belloq has to sell it, right? So where's he going to sell it? Huh?" - Brody looked tolerantly at him. "Where, Indiana?"

  "Marrakesh. Marrakesh, that's where." Indy got up, indicating various figures that were on the desk. These were the items he'd taken from the Temple, the bits and pieces he'd swept up quickly. "Look. They've got to be worth something, Marcus. They've got to be worth enough money to get me to, Marrakesh, right?"

  Brody barely glanced at the items. Instead, he put out his hand and laid it on Indy's shoulder, a touch of friendship and concern. "The museum will buy them, as usual. No questions asked. But we'll talk about the idol later. Right now I want you to meet some people. They've come a long way to see you, Indiana."

  "What people?"

  Brody said, "They've come from Washington, In­diana. Just to see you."

  "Who are they?" Indy asked wanly.

  "Army Intelligence."

  "Army what?Am I in some kind of trouble?"

  "No. Quite the opposite, it would seem. They ap­pear to need your help,"

  "The only help I'm interested in is getting the cash together for Marrakesh, Marcus. These things have to be worth something."

  "Later, Indiana. Later. First I want you to see these people."

  Indy paused by the wall map of South America. "Yeah," he said. "I'll see them. I'll see them, if it means so much to you."

  "They're waiting in the lecture hall."

  They moved into the corridor.

  A pretty young girl appeared in front of Indy. She was carrying a bundle of books and was pretending to look studious, efficient. Indy brightened when he saw her.

  "Professor Jones," she was saying.

  "Uh-"

  "I was hoping we could have a conference," she said shyly, glancing at Marcus Brody.

  "Yeah, sure, sure, Susan, I know I said we'd talk."

  Marcus Brody said, "Not now. Not now, Indiana." And he turned to the girl. "Professor Jones has an important conference to attend, my dear. Why don't you call him later?"

  "Yeah," Indy mumbled. "I'll be back at noon."

  The girl smiled in a disappointed way, then drifted off along the corridor. Indy watched her go, admiring her legs, the roundness of the calves, the slender an­kles. He felt Brody tug at his sleeve.

  "Pretty. Up to your usual standards, Indiana. But later. Okay?"

  "Later," Indy said, looking reluctantly away from the girl.

  Brody pushed open the door of the lecture hall. Seated near the podium were two uniformed Army officers. They turned their faces in unison as the door opened.

  "If this is the draft board, I've already served," Indy said.

  Marcus Brody ushered Indy to a chair on the po­dium. "Indiana, I'd like to introduce you to Colonel Musgrove and Major Eaton. These are the people who've come from Washington to see you."

  Eaton said, "Good to meet you. We've heard a lot about you, Professor Jones. Doctor of Archaeology, expert on the occult, obtainer of rare antiquities."

  "That's one way to put it," Indy said.

  "The 'obtainer of rare antiquities' sounds intrigu­ing," the major said.

  Indy glanced at Brody, who said, "I'm sure every­thing Professor Jones does for our museum here con­firms strictly to the guidelines of the International Treaty for the Protection of Antiquities."

  "Oh, I'm sure," Major Eaton said.

  Musgrove said, "You're a man of many talents, Professor."

  Indy made a dismissive gesture, waving a hand. What did these guys want?

  Major Eaton said, "I understand you studied under Professor Ravenwood at the University of Chicago?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you any idea of his present whereabouts?"

  Ravenwood. The name threw memories back with a kind of violence Indy didn't like. "Rumors, nothing more. I heard he was in Asia, I guess. I don't know."

  "We understood you were pretty close to him," Musgrove said.

  "Yeah." Indy rubbed his chin. "We were friends . . . We haven't spoken in years, though. I'm afraid we had what you might call a falling out." A falling out, he thought. There was a polite way to put it. A falling out-it was more like a total collapse. And then he was thinking of Marion, an unwanted mem­ory, something he had yet to excavate from the deeper strata of his mind. Marion Ravenwood, the girl with the wonderful eyes.

  Now the officers were whispering together, deciding something. Then Eaton turned and looked solemn and said, "What we're going to tell you has to remain confidential."

  "Sure," Indy said. Ravenwood-where did the old man fit in all this fragile conundrum? And when was somebody going to get to the point?

  Musgrove said, "Yesterday, one of our European stations intercepted a German communique sent from Cairo to Berlin. The news in it was obviously exciting to the German agents in Egypt." Musgrove looked at Eaton, waiting for him to continue the narrative, as if each was capable of delivering only a certain amount of information at any one time.

  Eaton said, "I'm not sure if I'm telling you some­thing you already know, Professor Jones, when I men­tion the fact that the Nazis have had teams of archaeologists running around the world for the last two years-"

  "It hasn't escaped my attention."

  "Sure. They appear to be on a frantic search for any kind of religious artifact they can get. Hitler, ac­cording to our intelligence reports, is obsessed with the occult. We understand he even has a personal sooth­sayer, if that's the word. And right now it seems that some kind of archaeological dig-highly secretive- is going on in the desert outside Cairo."

  Indy nodded. This was sending him to sleep. He knew of Hitler's seemingly endless concern with divin­ing the future, making gold out of lead, hunting the elixir, whatever. You name it, he thought, and if it's weird enough, then the crazy little man with the mus­tache is sure to be interested in it.

  Indy watched Musgrove take a sheet from his brief­case. He held it a moment, then he said, "This com­munique contains some information concerning the activity in the desert, but we don't know what to make of it. We thought it might mean something to you." And he passed the sheet to Indy. The message said:

  TANIS DEVELOPMENT PROCEEDING.

  ACQUIRE HEADPIECE, STAFF OF RA, ABNER

  RAVENWOOD, US.

  He read the words again, his mind suddenly clear, suddenly sharp. He stood up, looked at Brody and said, incredulously, "The Nazis have discovered Tanis."

  Brody's face was grim and pale.

  Eaton said, "Sorry. You've just lost me. What does Tanis mean to you?"

  Indy walked from the podium to the window, his mind racing now. He pushed the window open and breathed in the crisp morning air, feeling it pleas­ingly cold in his lungs. Tanis. The Staff of Ra. Raven­wood. It flooded back to him now, the old legends, the fables, the stories. He was struck by a barrage of knowledge, information he'd stored in his brain for years-so much that he wanted to get it out quick
ly, speed through it. Take it slow, he thought. Tell it to them slowly so they'll understand. He turned to the officers and said, "A lot of this is going to be hard for you to understand. Maybe. I don't know. It's going to depend on your personal beliefs, I can tell you that much from the outset. Okay?" He paused, looking at their blank faces. "The city of Tanis is one of the possible resting places of the lost Ark."

  Musgrove interrupted: "Ark? As in Noah?"

  Indy shook his head, "Not Noah. I'm talking about the Ark of the Covenant. I'm talking about the chest the Israelites used to carry around the Ten Command­ments."

  Eaton said, "Back up. You mean the Ten Com­mandments?"

  "I mean the actual stone tablets, the original ones Moses brought down from Mount Horeb. The ones he's said to have smashed when he saw the deca­dence of the Jews. While he was up in the mountain communing with God and being shown the law, the rest of his people are having orgies and building idols. So he's pretty angry and he breaks the tablets, right?"

  The faces of the military men were impassive. Indy wished he could imbue them with the kind of enthu­siasm he was beginning to feel himself.

  "Then the Israelites put the broken pieces in the Ark and they carried it with them everywhere they went. When they settled in Canaan, the Ark was placed in the Temple of Solomon. It stayed there for years ... then it was gone."

  "Where?" Musgrove asked.

  "Nobody knows who took it or when."

  Brody, speaking more patiently than Indy, said, "An Egyptian pharaoh invaded Jerusalem around 926 B.C. Shishak by name. He may have taken it back to the city of Tanis-"

  Indy cut in: "Where he may have hidden it in a secret chamber they called the Well of the Souls."

  There was a silence in the hall.

  Then Indy said, "Anyway, that's the myth. But bad things always seemed to happen to outsiders who med­dled with the Ark. Soon after Shishak returned to Egypt, the city of Tanis was consumed by the desert in a sandstorm that lasted a year."

  "The obligatory curse," Eaton said.

  Indy was annoyed by the man's skepticism. "If you like," he said, trying to be patient. "But during the Battle of Jericho, Hebrew priests carried the Ark around the city for seven days before the walls col­lapsed. And when the Philistines supposedly captured the Ark, they brought the whole shooting works down on themselves-including plagues of boils and plagues of mice."