7

by Van R. Mayhall Jr.

  “Tony, what is it? Who was that?” Cloe asked.

  “It was Father Emilio,” he said. “They have an answer.”

  “What is it?” blurted J.E.

  “It’s just one word—that’s all,” responded Father Anton. “Uruk.”

  CHAPTER

  42

  Several days had passed since the dust up at the Morning Call, but everyone had followed Zack’s advice and stayed put. The old house on Esplanade was large enough that everyone was comfortable, but now cabin fever was setting in. The status quo could be maintained for only so long. Zack entered the large living room and found Mr. Leneau puffing on his pipe, reading the paper.

  “Hi, Zack,” said the older man. “How’s the team?”

  “Very restless,” he replied. “No offense, Mr. Leneau, but we gotta get out of here. Everybody means well, but we’ve all been cooped up way too long. We have done all we can to figure out what’s going on, but we don’t have the answer. All we can do is wait, but the waiting for something to happen is getting to us.”

  “No offense taken,” said Mr. Leneau. “Why don’t you go down to the Port of Call for lunch? It’s just down the street. It should be safe in the daytime.”

  “Hmmm, that’s interesting. We could break up into twos and threes and not attract any attention,” said Zack.

  “Yes—and a burger and a beer might do you all some good,” added Mr. Leneau.

  By that time, the others were drifting in, and Zack proposed the outing to the nearby restaurant.

  “All right,” Mel said. “But I don’t have anything to wear.”

  Mrs. Leneau had gone shopping for all of them because, after the near disaster with the dirty boys, none of them could go back to their hotels for their stuff. She had bought toiletries and jeans, sweatshirts, polos, and blouses of various types and sizes.

  “Mel, the Port of Call may have the best burger in New Orleans, but it’s not fancy,” observed Mr. Leneau. “You’ll be fine.”

  Thirty minutes later, the group assembled in the parlor, this time freshly showered and dressed as nicely as possible. Zack thought Mel looked extremely cute in her jeans and pink polo shirt.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” said Zack, refocusing his attention. “We need to break up the group for the walk over to the POC in case anyone is watching for a group of seven.”

  “Well, technically, we are nine including Robby’s mother and Bully,” said Zoe.

  “Hey!” said Doris, looking up from her laptop. “What am I? Chopped liver?”

  “Point taken,” said Mel. “We need a table for ten.”

  “I got that,” said Zack, “but a group of ten looks like a tour group and attracts attention. We want some couples and a single or two.”

  “Zoe and I will go together, if she’s willing,” said Rey with a smile. “After all, we live in the same general neighborhood.”

  “I go by myself,” said Louie.

  “Well, Mel, Anna, and I can go together, but that leaves Robby and his mother,” observed Zack.

  “And Bully,” said Robby.

  “All right,” said Zack. “Louie, you follow behind them and keep your eyes open.”

  “Hey, college boy! Who made you king?” snarled Louie. “I ain’t used to taking orders from nobody.”

  “Louie,” said Mel. “You used to any of this? Zack’s done a good job, and I’m for listening to his plan.”

  “Louie, it’s not an order,” said Zack. “It just makes sense. Somebody’s got to keep an eye on them. You come walk with Mel and Anna, and I’ll do it.”

  “Nah, I’m good,” said Louie, looking directly at him. “And I’m hungry. We can talk later, college boy. Let’s go.”

  “I’ll go with Louie,” said Doris. “We’ll watch for Robby.”

  They decided to leave at ten-minute intervals, with Rey and Zoe going first to reconnoiter the restaurant and get a table out of the way. Thirty-five minutes later, they were all seated in a dark corner of the Port of Call. Nobody seemed to mind a hundred-pound bulldog.

  Mr. Leneau had told Zack that the Port of Call had been around for fifty years or so. As Zack looked up, he saw nets on the ceiling and other memorabilia that confirmed its age.

  “Gosh, this is fantastic,” said Mel. “I want a burger and a beer.”

  That was pretty much the sentiment across the board, except Robby had a foot long, plain. Bully wolfed down a burger patty.

  As the noon hour came and went, the crowd grew. At its height, the bar was jammed and the wait staff challenged, yet everything had somehow come to them in a timely manner and was wonderful.

  “Zack, this is great,” said Rey. “We’ve got to get out more.”

  “Well, there’s a great library just a couple of blocks from here,” said Zack. “Mr. Leneau told me all about it.”

  “Maybe, das would be a baby step we could make and still be safe,” said Anna.

  “Sounds good,” said Zack. “It’s not open to the public, but Mr. Leneau said he thought he could get us in.”

  “I like the idea,” said Zoe. “Could we go tomorrow?”

  “Maybe. I’ll check with Mr. Leneau when we get back,” said Zack.

  “What’s the name of this joint?” asked Louie.

  “It’s the library at the old Ursuline Convent,” said Zack. “It has an amazing history, and the order of nuns that founded it were incredible women. There’s also an interesting biblical research project going on there.”

  CHAPTER

  43

  “Uruk? What does that mean?” said Cloe. “I know of the ancient site, but what does it mean here?”

  “It seems to be the place where the monks in the Opts Center think the cuneiform originated, “replied Father Anton.

  “Well, that would fit,” said the curator.

  “Why? What are you saying?” asked Cloe.

  “Uruk was a city in Mesopotamia four thousand years before the birth of Christ,” said the curator. “It was one of the first large urban centers. Records suggest there may have been as many as eighty thousand people living in Uruk at its zenith. The legendary leader, Gilgamesh, supposedly ruled Uruk twenty-seven centuries before the birth of our Lord.”

  “My, my. That’s a mighty old place,” said J.E.

  “Yes, but along with the other innovations that Uruk was known for, it had one of the earliest discovered forms of cuneiform as its basic written language. Tablets have been excavated containing this form of writing, including one listing all its kings and others thought to be legal documents,” added the curator. “I thought this might be the source of our cuneiform but I was not sure.”

  “Does Uruk still exist?” asked J.E. “Where is it located?”

  “It’s in the southern part of modern Iraq, about one hundred plus miles south of Baghdad, but it no longer exists as Uruk,” said the old priest.

  “You know, I remember reading something on this a while back,” said the monsignor. “A museum in London had an exhibit on Uruk. The city went into decline because the bed of the Euphrates River changed course, and it was abandoned over a thousand years ago. Didn’t the Germans do a lot of exploration there?”

  “Quite right, Albert,” said the curator. “Many archeologists have worked there, but the Germans have distinguished themselves with their efforts. Indeed, German scholars have been at the center of the translation of the early writings of Uruk.”

  “Okay, I think I’ve got this,” said J.E. “We need to get a translation of the cuneiform passage in a two-thousand-year-old journal conversation to figure out how to save the world. To do that, we will need to go to an ancient city in Iraq, one of the most hostile places on earth, and find a German archeologist who understands a six-thousand-year-old language. Is that about it?”

  In spite of the circumstances, Cloe laughed. Soon, everyone was howling
with laughter.

  “J.E.,” cried Cloe, coughing and trying to catch her breath, “I think you have it.”

  After they wiped tears from their eyes, the curator, who had been silent, spoke. “Well, that’s not quite correct. We’ll be looking for a German epigraphist.”

  “Oh my God!” Cloe exclaimed, and she and the others collapsed once again into rejuvenating laughter.

  “If anyone can translate the passage in the journal, it’s possible we can find him or her there,” said J.E. as the laughter died out. “Right, Mom?”

  “Right. We are going to Uruk,” said Cloe.

  PART

  II

  Evil

  If the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him,

  He has created him in his own image and likeness.

  —The Brothers Karamazov, V, 4

  CHAPTER

  44

  The Burnt Man watched Icar mount the stage that had been hastily assembled in Cairo. There were no musicians, although the atmosphere was one that would have surrounded the most celebrated rock star. The crowd stretched as far as the eye could see. Certainly, there are over a million people out there and maybe more, he thought. The crowd was young. Many had camped in front of the stage complex for days. The filth and dirt disgusted him, but Icar seemed to relish it. There seemed to be no level of depravity that would insult his boss.

  Today was a big day for Icar.

  The crowd was a living thing, rippling back and forth like a beating heart, as Icar strode to the center of the plain black stage. The night was warm, but a breeze cooled the air. While the stage itself was completely unremarkable except for its immense size, the lighting and pyrotechnic effects were world-class Hollywood. Yet there was no crew running the show. There were just the groupies who assembled the stage and then disassembled it once the event was over. In between, it was only Icar and the Burnt Man.

  There was no script, and Icar used no notes. When he ascended the stage, the spotlights followed him. Usually, as tonight, he initially said nothing. The Burnt Man watched as his master walked across the nearly half-block-long stage. It was a measured walk, and it always made him look bigger somehow. He paused center stage, and the crowd undulated expectantly in a reptilian manner. He looked out, and the sea of people arose in anticipation, their murmurs lifting to the level of a buzz.

  Icar absorbed the crowd’s energy. Now the roar of the assembly climbed toward the sound level of a jet engine.

  The Burnt Man shook his head. The boss had not even opened his mouth, yet it was always the same. The adoration was cosmic.

  Icar let the exaltation wash over him while its volume increased to the intensity of a physical force. Then he bent slightly forward and hunched his shoulders in a supplicant-like position. It was almost a bow. At this, the audience went crazy, and the Burnt Man thought they might rush the stage before the man even said a word.

  Just as the scene seemed it could not contain any more emotion, Icar threw his head back and straightened ramrod-tall as pyrotechnics erupted from all areas of the stage as well as from the metal superstructure overhead. Eyes were blinded by the brightness, and ears rang with the concussion of the explosions.

  Then all became dark, and the crowd stopped as if it had been smacked. A thick quiet descended like a heavy veil tinged with razor-edged expectation. A single pencil-thin but impossibly bright spotlight blinked on, centering Icar in its beam. His voice rang out like thunder, and everyone could hear him as if he were standing a foot away even though there were no amps, mics, or other such devices. The Burnt Man had no idea how Icar did this.

  He spoke of the world and the terrible conditions, including the plagues that had broken out. He told the youth that this was their time and they were being cheated out of it. They should have jobs, families, and above all, they should have the things they had always wanted. The only thing that kept them from all this was money. The wealthy people had stolen what was theirs. On and on the man went, leveling this charge of greed and theft by the powerful. The people there were the victims of this greed. They had been robbed of what was rightfully theirs. They were not powerless, however; they were strong in their numbers and could recover what had been lost.

  At each inflection and point of emphasis in the man’s oratory, the living pulse, the voice, of the crowd surged forward, but when he lamented the lost, stolen opportunity of the young people, an eerie undercurrent of white-hot anger manifested.

  “Are you not in and of this world?” thundered Icar. “Have you and your families not suffered? Yet still you have been denied! Denied your rightful portion! Others have what is yours!”

  The crowd was being branded with the fiery iron of insatiable anger toward the older, richer power structure. Such anger could only be satisfied by total destruction of the current order. It must all be pulled down, burned, destroyed. It would be.

  His homily complete, Icar walked toward the Burnt Man as screams, howls, and applause rolled over him. When the adulation reached its zenith, Icar turned back to the assembly. He walked to the front edge of the stage. The crowd surged toward him. Screams erupted from those in front now being crushed by the tide of humanity pressing toward the stage.

  As he had at so many such gatherings, he threw both arms upward and straight over his head, soaking in the energy of the people. Then he drew one hand across his throat in a cutting gesture and pointed toward the Cairo business district.

  The mob roared off in the direction Icar pointed, to begin executing its newly learned lessons. Icar turned back, headed offstage, and motioned to the Burnt Man.

  “I have a job for you that will suit your special needs,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  45

  They had spent several hours in the library-conference room studying the tactical problems of the mission. Uruk, at least what was left of it, was not located in the most accessible area of the world. In fact, it was extremely difficult to get to, even in the best of times. They would have Vatican diplomatic credentials, but those were no longer worth much in a world of chaos. If they were to be successful, they would need help.

  “The best way is to sneak in with a relatively small group and to try to avoid anyone’s attention,” said J.E. “We can’t hope to do that with more than six to eight people. Anything larger than that will be immediately noticed. I have spoken to our friends in Israel, and they will help us.”

  “I think J.E. is correct in this,” said Father Anton. “That area of Iraq is very hostile and does not answer to any government. It’s a mixture of Sunnis, Shia, and Al-Qaeda along with local tribal chieftains. To top that off, the Islamic State, or ISIS, continues to make inroads there, having taken Baghdad and now moving south.”

  “According to the monks in the Opts Center, the Germans are still working the dig, largely because they provide cash and supplies to the locals,” said the monsignor. “They are tolerated, but the situation is fluid.”

  “Interestingly, the person we seek is actually a German cleric, a Reverend Josef Klein,” said the curator. “According to the monks, he is the principal epigraphist among the scientists. While he is the world’s foremost expert on pictographs and cuneiform, he is a Calvinist—probably not too much disposed to help the Vatican.”

  Cloe looked at the old priest, took a deep breath, and said, “This might be a good time for all of us to put aside our doctrinal issues, long held though they may be, and join in the task of figuring out how to defeat the evil that has brought us to where we are. What do you think, Father?”

  “Of course, you are correct,” said the curator, after a moment’s reflection. “All religions must join together if we are to prevail against our godless adversaries. I pray the Reverend Klein will subscribe to that notion.”

  ***

  A few hours later, Cloe dozed in her seat on a papal jet flying to the southeast.

  The plane
rocked in a patch of rough air, and she came fully awake. The pilot came on and advised everyone to buckle up due to turbulence. Cloe briefly panicked, thinking about the flight to Tunisia in search of the cave of jars a few years earlier, which ended in a crash that left them fighting for their lives.

  “J.E.?” she called, looking around.

  “Here, Mom,” said J.E., sliding into the seat next to her. “You okay?”

  “I’m all right,” she replied.

  J.E. gave his mother a hug and said, “We’re not too far out from our destination. Another hour maybe.”

  “J.E., I’ve been thinking about what we’re doing,” she said. “We, a bunch of Catholics, are headed for Israel to get help from the Jews to clandestinely enter a mostly Muslim country. Is there some irony here, or is it just me?”

  “The Jews are the only people in this part of the world who are able and motivated to try to help us,” said J.E. “Survival is part of their national culture. We are all in survival mode right now.”

  The monsignor unbuckled his belt and approached, hearing part of the conversation. He fell into the aisle seat just opposite J.E. and Cloe.

  “The young sir is correct. Some say the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Others say my friend’s enemy is my enemy. There are other variations, but, whatever, we share a lot with the Jews, and I’m glad for their help.”

  As they spoke, Cloe felt the jet’s telltale roll and descent. Nothing she had accomplished before could compare with what she had been tasked to do now. The pope needed answers. Events had worsened, and to help the pope on that end, the decision was made to keep Father Anton with the pope. Somehow, Cloe and the rest of her team had to find the answers.

  Forty minutes later, the executive jet sat outside the general aviation depot at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. As the door to the plane opened, Cloe could hear the big Rolls engines shutting down. She looked out, and a complete squad of fully armed soldiers greeted them.