by P. W. Child
“What are you doing here, by the way?” he asked Medley. “Come to punch me in the gonads?”
“Oh,” she chuckled, “don't flatter yourself, Dave. As a matter of fact, I’m of the opinion that those gonads you so lovingly refer to are a myth in themselves. But I shall leave those expeditions to the more desperate variety of my gender.”
He smiled. “Now, who is flattering herself?”
“Rita! Rita!” a man called from the ridge behind Prof. Medley. Purdue cleaned his glasses to better observe the short, red-faced man yelling at the professor as he trotted hastily towards them. “What did I tell you about leaving your goddamn tools lying around?” He was limping, one hand holding one shoe while the bloody bare foot burned on the Ethiopian stove plate beneath him. Briskly he skipped to where she was standing with Purdue. The tall, crane-like frame of the billionaire hunched a little to better enjoy the scene about to unfold. Purdue winced at the sight of the man's cut foot on the hot, desert-like terrain.
“Oh yes,” he remarked quietly to Rita, “I can see you pick the big gonads. Indeed.”
She elbowed him. “Shut up, Purdue.”
“Boyfriend?” he teased.
She looked at Purdue with a weary and painful expression, conceding. “Husband.”
“Ouch!” he empathized. “Where did you get him? The set of The Sopranos?”
“Shut up, Purdue!” she snapped again.
“Look! Look at this!” he barked at his wife, holding his fancy Italian shoe out to her. “Fucking €700 for these shoes, Rita!”
Embarrassed, she approached him under the ruse of aid, but actually with the intent of shutting him up. “Guido, I'm sorry, my love. So sorry. I didn’t realize you’d be wearing those here at this dusty site. Where are the Asolos I bought you for this trip?”
His beady black eyes ripped through hers at the question he’d construed as beyond absurd. She recognized it as the same look Purdue had dealt her a few minutes before when she’d suggested tomb pillaging should be a selective practice. “Are you out of your mind?” he asked in a subdued voice brimming with fury. “Do you think I would wear...” he pulled a terrible face at the very idea, “...hiking boots? Really? Sporty, lace-up rubbish?”
“My love, that was ₤100 rubbish that I bought you. In other places such gestures would be greatly appreciated by men, especially coming from their wives' own pockets,” she reminded him with no small measure of vexation.
“Men in other places?” he retorted. “What, like him?” He directed a supine knife hand in Purdue's direction, evoking an insulted scowl from the Scottish billionaire.
Apologetically, Rita looked back at Purdue. “Um, yes. Look, he’s wearing the same style of shoes as the ones I bought you. They’re specifically for this terrain. I bought them for you because I didn’t want the rough tract to damage your feet.”
Her husband's scornful look jabbed at Rita. It was a glare of pure hatred, one he often had when he didn’t get his way. “Then why don't you give those shitty track shoes to him?”
Rita swallowed hard as her eyes threatened to fill with tears. She could feel Purdue's eyes on her, probably reveling in her misery. To her surprise, she felt his hand on her shoulder. “You know how to pick 'em, Medley,” he teased in an attempt to raise her spirits. “What a consummate nyaff that man is. I’ll tell you what. If you stay off my back about my excavations, I'll brew you a special potion just for him.”
Purdue winked at her as she turned to him, her eyes still leaning towards a moist pink.
She almost smiled. “I can't.”
“Because you love him?” he asked.
“I can't let you defile the ground for the Ark of the bloody Covenant, you dobber,” she sniffed. “I'll get back to you about Guido, though.” And then she walked away into the village of tents.
The afternoon matured around the site where Purdue's latest venture had just failed. He was, however, still very curious as to Prof. Rita Medley's presence there. Even more so, Purdue was positively itching to know where she’d picked up the Italian poof with the mafioso attitude. The two of them had disappeared into their tent where Purdue could still hear the muffled sounds of an argument. While Rita was otherwise occupied, Purdue thought to do some investigation into her endeavors.
Perspiring from the onslaught of the North African sun, the tall explorer did what he did second best: he trailed one of the men he reckoned worked for Rita. The man led him directly into the mountain's red face, between two large crevices that reached several meters upward. Purdue crept into the dark interior, careful to keep a good distance behind the worker. A ways off he could hear a group of men in a heated discussion, but they were speaking in the native language, making it impossible for Purdue to figure out what was going on. The man he was following soon joined them in a glow of flashlights where they were congregated in the middle of a massive circle.
Purdue removed his glasses when he saw the object in the center of the circle.
“It can’t be,” he whispered. “The Ark of the Covenant?”
Chapter 3
“What are you doing here?” a loud voice with a heavy African accent asked behind Purdue. It startled him, but it was too late to react. A cold blade pressed against his throat, just under his jawline, and the man's large body weighed hard against Purdue's back. “Move.”
Purdue obeyed. He stumbled forward into plain sight, feeling the blade edge dangerously grazing his skin as he moved. Two of the men in the circle recognized him and jumped up. Another wild exchange of words ensued, now about the tall, white-haired stranger. Purdue assumed the two men who knew him were trying to relay to the others who he was, but he could not be sure. All stared at him with suspicion directed through bloodshot eyes. Raising his hands in surrender, Purdue waited for their verdict, but his only interest was in the wooden box on the floor.
He frowned. The detail on the box was carved in something he’d never seen before, yet what he discerned next shook him beyond comprehension. Symbols in antique languages had been carved into the side of the large wooden box. He recognized Sumerian, Babylonian, and Aramaic, among others. But right at the center of the motif, a Swastika ran his blood cold.
“Impossible,” he mentioned to himself.
“What?” the man behind him shouted, eliciting a chorus of subdued warnings from the others. From their body language and tone of voice, Purdue figured they were reprimanding the man for raising his voice due to the frail geological composition of the mountain over them. He pushed Purdue and breathed hard into his ear. “What is it, Intruder?”
“Nothing. Nothing, really,” Purdue answered as mildly as he could while he used his sharp brain's freakish ability to record information to memorize everything he observed on the trunk. The wooden box was about the size of a coffee table, but fashioned from crude wood. It was fixed together by what looked like tin or pewter clasps.
No. Could it really be that simply constructed? he wondered. If the Ark holds the power it is reputed to, there’s no way it could be contained by mere locks and hinges like those. Either this is a decoy, a sham, or the Power of God leaves much to be desired.
“Come, sit down, Effendi,” one of the two familiar men said to Purdue. He ordered the man behind Purdue to put away his weapon. Carefully, Purdue evaded the still static blade and joined the circle, taking his place beside one of the Egyptians he recognized—a man he’d hired to remove the so-called Holy Box from the now caved in chapel.
“They know you, but they do not trust you,” the man informed Purdue. “Also, they do not speak English, so I will have to translate for you.”
Purdue nodded gratefully, his light blue eyes following the knife wielding Ethiopian until the man sat down opposite him. With bloodshot eyes the big African leered at him, reminding Purdue much of the Somalian pirates he and his party had encountered while salvaging the DKM Geheimnis a few years back along the eastern coastline of Africa towards Egypt. The whites of the man's eyes accentuated the blackness
of his irises and his teeth gleamed in the faint light, especially when his lips curled back in a victorious sneer. It gave Purdue chills to be surrounded by such barbaric men, but he had to remind himself that he was the intruder here. It was he who had entered their land and thus he had to obey their orders and traditions. Here, his money held practically no sway, apart from those few men who were on his payroll.
“Effendi, the men feel that the box must remain away from the Europeans,” his translator said. “You cannot have it. The men here,” he hesitated, but was egged on by his colleagues, “think that they would sooner skin you and feed your bones to the wild dogs than to allow you the Holy Box.”
Purdue's stomach knotted itself into a tiny ball at the thought, but he nodded sincerely to exhibit his concurrence in the matter. It pained him that he might have the legendary Ark of the Covenant right here in front of him, but he was not going to risk ending up on their plates for it. He would rather steal it than openly protest and meet a gruesome fate. The translator reaffirmed Purdue's agreement to the small council of locals, and after some debate and some truly frightening, prison-flavored stares, Purdue was allowed to stay without restraint.
“Effendi, I just have to remind you,” the Egyptian translator whispered to Purdue, “this is a secret council you are attending and nothing said in here is to be repeated outside.”
Purdue looked surprised. “What the hell am I going to do once I get outside? Tell everyone what I saw?”
The man shrugged. “You’re here, after all, to take our treasures away. Are you not? It is only by my intervention, Effendi, that you are still alive.”
“Noted,” Purdue whispered back to the man. “I won't tell a soul, I swear. It’s not worth my life.”
“That is the smart answer, Effendi,” the Egyptian smiled and went back to listening to the rest of the discussion.
“You, white man!” a speaker addressed Purdue suddenly. “I know some English from your television. Are you taking the Holy Box when you go? Are you telling your thieving friends?”
“They are not thieves,” Purdue tried to explain, but immediately realized that he was lying through his teeth. It was the second time today that this had happened and he hated it. He stopped and looked down for a moment. He tried to respond in a more truthful tone, although he had to admit that he wanted their Holy Box with all his heart. He cleared his throat. “They are thieves.”
A resounding chorus of approval rose up among those present.
“But I will not steal this...Holy Box...from you,” Purdue promised. “It is yours. Besides,” he laughed to himself, “what exactly are we going to do with the Power of God?”
“Destroy cultures for power and dominion over the world,” the man shouted.
Others agreed. Another leaned forward to look at Purdue. “The only white man you can trust is a corpse!” Once more the cheers sounded, and Purdue nervously looked to his only allies, the Egyptians. To his horror, they only shrugged at the truth spoken by the other men.
“Of all the times and places to confront one's errors...” Purdue muttered, but his Egyptian workman reassured him, “They value honesty over everything else, Effendi. Don't worry. They hate you. They do not trust you. But because you speak the truth, they might not kill you.”
“M-m-might?” Purdue gasped. “Wait, they might not kill me?”
“Hush, or they will think we are conspiring,” the Egyptian commanded.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” Purdue mumbled as the men continued their discussion. While their attention was off of him, he took the time to scrutinize the interesting box. It didn’t resemble the popular etchings and depictions he’d seen of the Ark, but it was in every other way an exact counterfeit of what centuries of texts had reported. The wood was of acacia, as far as his knowledge of wood served him, yet there were no gold inlays and no gilded adornments. Purdue did notice, however, the cherubim mentioned in the scriptures. How could this be? Was the Ark just another embellished image of God's glory meant to entice the faithful towards a glittery redemption, or was its rawness a testament to the true modesty of a relic that held immeasurable power?
Still, the signs that appeared in the wood—those that did not make it into the historical and Biblical texts—befuddled Purdue. Nina would know what this is, he thought. Nina would be able to tell me why that unholy sigil is part of the motif. If only she could see it.
As the discussion Purdue had no understanding of continued, he considered the possibilities of the box being a fraud. Perhaps the Nazis had claimed it, eventually losing it to another secret and baleful organization, before creating something similar to fool the people. No, that is too ludicrous.
The fact remained that Purdue was trapped among men who would not care to see him dead in a place where nobody would know to look for him. Of all the times he’d been imprisoned, kidnapped, and held up, this was the most threatening of all. After all, his only power was money and some technical wisdom. Neither of those appealed to these local people who only wanted to keep what was theirs. They could not be bought or convinced, nor could they be appeased or flattered. All he could do was hope that his Egyptian advocates would keep him from getting his throat slit in a godforsaken cave on the Dark Continent.
“You know, so you have to die,” one of the Ethiopians declared, looking straight at Purdue.
“What?” Purdue gasped, grasping the arm of one of the other Egyptians in panic. “No, let's talk about this. Look, I don't want your box.”
“You keep saying that, but you paid these men money to help you dig up the church where it had been resting. Now you’ve destroyed the church too. If we hadn’t kept the Holy Box in this cave from a long time back, so many of your kind would have stolen it already!” the Ethiopian shouted in broken phrases.
Purdue reached out his open hands in surrender to ease the excitement among them, but the Egyptian pushed his hands down rapidly. Through barely parted lips he advised, “Effendi, do not do that. Hold very still. Say nothing.”
One by one they started pulling out their weapons, all waiting for some sort of command to kill Purdue. His skin was still covered with sand, as pale as the rocks around them. Wide blue eyes darted between the men as Purdue readied himself for confrontation.
They might kill me today, but by God I will take a few of them with me before I go, he thought, his heart thundering in his ears. Purdue drew in a deep breath, vowing that, should he get out of this deadly predicament, he would arm himself with a long distance weapon in future. But for now he was unarmed and scared to death in a cave in Africa, outnumbered by a territorial band of men with no moral code.
“Purdue Effendi,” the Egyptian man whispered as the mob grew louder, “when I say, you run to the left as fast as you can.”
“Straight into the wall then?” Purdue asked, panting in terror. His white hair was drenched in sweat as he looked toward the dense wall of the cavern. “Are you daft?”
“Just do it. Run into the wall,” the Egyptian said.
“Why should I trust you?” Purdue wheezed nervously, as the last man drew his ivory dagger.
“My partners and me; we built this structure into the mountain. It is we who designed this place to trap any would-be thieves of the Holy Box, Effendi,” he explained in a steady tone so as not to arouse suspicion. “Ever heard of the terrible traps set in ancient pyramids to seal the fate of thieves?”
“Of course,” Purdue nodded.
“Who built those architectural traps?” he asked the terrified billionaire.
Purdue smiled, “Egyptians.”
Chapter 4
Nina watched as her new lackey crept toward the bald man. His friends had no idea what his venture was about, but they looked on while reluctantly continuing their training to make sure the man did not notice that anything was amiss. But Colin was young and dumb, leaving his subterfuge wanting. He started up a conversation with the abrupt man, who sounded like a World War II radio broadcast. Nina listened to his meticulous eloqu
ence and for a moment she imagined he would suddenly start reporting on D-Day or announce an evening curfew.
Suddenly the bald man sighed, “Listen laddie, unless you’re going to spot me or tell me that the manager wants to see me, you should leave me alone, alright? I’m not here to socialize or to check out the ass value here, alright? Now get.”
Nina was disappointed. It turned out that her target was not forthcoming towards the younger generation, not even those who asked for training advice. Colin came back from his shunning. If he had a tail, it would have been tucked between his thighs. His droopy eyes attested to his failure and he hardly had the guts to look at Nina.
“What the hell was that all about, Cols? Are you tacky in the head or something?” one of his pals asked.
“Nope,” the other sighed as he motioned to Nina with his head, “just whipped, I’d say.”
“Jesus, are you crazy? Do you know who that is?” a trainer asked as he joined the cluster of boys at the leg press machine. Nina looked at him as the others shrugged.
“I am sort of curious, actually,” she told the floor trainer. “Who is that?”
The trainer looked spooked by her forward manner, even retreating a step before forcing out an answer to the nosy and dominant beauty in the black tights. “W-well, he is sort of...an enigma around here,” he revealed. “Ex-SAS, they say. Loner who moved here recently after he came out of Wakefield a few months back. Bought a house in Edinburgh and now works out at our gym.”
“Why are you so interested in him?” Colin asked Nina.