by Adam Hiatt
The sedan came into view, but didn’t turn. It continued straight up the avenue. Feeling calm again, Reddic pressed down on the accelerator and moved out into the roadway, propelling the car forward. Within two city blocks the street ended and turned into a T. Without hesitation he swung the steering wheel left onto a meandering lane. Had it not been for the width of the road it could be mistaken for a recreational trail passing through a city park. It followed the path of a small brook running down the declining topography amidst a formidable cover of thick groves of Aspen and Maple trees. Not one man-made structure was visible through the dense foliage.
Less than a quarter of a mile later it opened up again into an urban setting. Cookie-cutter single-family residences built upon undersized and overpriced city lots seemed to encircle one mammoth edifice. Reddic directed the vehicle into the parking area and pulled into one of the few vacant spaces designated with yellow paint. Through the glass he noticed a placard identifying the building as an LDS meetinghouse. There was certainly no shortage of these buildings in Utah.
Reddic killed the ignition and unfastened his safety belt. “Well, what did you think of Hall’s lecture?” he asked.
Jaxon pulled his left leg up and partially squared his shoulders toward the driver’s side. “His sources were outstanding and the background information he delivered was substantial. Much of what he stated sounded familiar. I must’ve come across it while reading through other secondary sources. The piece about the zohar was very original to me though.” He paused for a moment, looking like he was trying to recall something. “Did you find it strange that his mood suddenly changed when you suggested the possibility that the stone could be found?”
“Of course it did. That’s why we need to take a little field trip,” said Reddic, pushing open the car door and placing one foot on the asphalt surface.
The door slammed shut, enclosing Jaxon in the vehicle. Through the windshield he watched Reddic throw his backpack over his shoulder and purposefully amble through the parking lot away from the Mercedes. Where could he be going now?
Jaxon impulsively decided to act the part of stubborn brother... If he stayed behind in the vehicle, surely Reddic would come back to elaborate on the latest scheme and implore him to tag along. But Reddic was showing no sign of slowing down. He charged forward unimpeded.
Grudgingly, Jaxon’s arm reached for the door’s grip and started to pull on it. He couldn’t lag behind. Statistics showed that a companionship was more likely to deter criminal activity than a lone pedestrian. Salt Lake City was not known for high incidents of crime, but they still occurred, and he didn’t want to be one of those statistics.
Grabbing the keys from the ignition, Jaxon set off to catch up with Reddic. The Mercedes chirped when he pressed the lock button on the keyless entry remote. The parking lot was nearly filled with an assortment of vehicles, ranging from sedans to minivans to SUVs.
“Hey, wait up,” he shouted.
“What took you so long?” Reddic asked with Jaxon at his side.
“I allowed my puerile obduracy to overcome me for a moment.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Reddic asked.
“You know, childlike stubbornness,” Jaxon replied.
“Then why didn’t you just say that?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m here now. Where are we going?”
“Back to the college. I don’t trust that guy. There’s something that he’s hiding. I can’t put my finger on it, but I know he’s withholding information.”
“I agree,” Jaxon added. “I felt that he knew more than he wanted us to believe. His eyes gave him away. Dr. Langford always told me to pay close attention to a person’s eyes during an interview. They often revealed detail that may be missing or purposely omitted in the words.”
The eyes did speak volumes, Reddic concurred silently. He had also been trained to scrutinize every ocular movement, as he had done on several occasions. The mere fact that Jaxon not only practiced the tradecraft, but recently utilized it to identify the same inconsistency with the professor was a surprise. Intelligent and perceptive; the traits must run in the family.
“Qualitative methodology requires the use of interviews to produce publishable results,” Jaxon explained after several steps of silence.
“I assumed as much,” Reddic deadpanned. “There was something else that caught my attention. When I read from his book I spotted a note in the margin that may have gone unnoticed had it not been an obsessive compulsion of mine to look at that type of stuff. It was written in black ink in small letters. E.S. Does that mean anything to you?”
“E.S? Not a clue. It could be almost anything, you know; initials, shorthand, a reference, a random reminder. Do you think it is pertinent?”
“I should be asking you that. It’s worth looking into at any rate.” They took a few more steps before anyone spoke. “Very little has been written about this thing, yet people actually covet it to the point of killing. We are missing a huge piece of the puzzle.”
“I know. We’re a ways behind. We have a lot of catching up to do in a hurry.”
They walked one city block and found themselves standing on Westminster soil again. They quickly made their way over to the incongruous yellow brick building where they met the professor only moments earlier. They entered from the front this time. The doors were unlocked, prompting Reddic to wonder if the prevaricating doctor of philosophy was still inside. That was a risk they had to take.
The corridor on the third floor looked vacant. More importantly, Hall’s door was closed. Standing in front of the entry, Reddic softly knocked three times while pressing his ear against the door. There was no sound from within. He cupped the knob with his palm and gently turned it.
Locked.
From his backpack Reddic removed the slender instruments and picked the lock, nudging the door open with his foot. It swung open freely as they walked inside. Reddic closed the door and relocked it. He reached to the top of the bookshelf and found the small device resting where he had left it. Pulling it down, he looked at it for a moment before Jaxon noticed the object in his hand.
“What did you find?” he asked.
“It’s a recorder that I placed there before we left. Let’s see what our man had to say when we were gone.” Thumbing over the buttons on the digital recorder, Reddic found the beginning of the audio segment and activated it.
They heard their own voices clearly through the tiny speaker located near the top of the device, followed by the closing of the door. In his mind Reddic envisioned the sequence of events. He and Jaxon had just left the office and were about to descend the steps at this point. A period of silence ensued before a clicking sound became discernable. It sounded like someone punching on a keyboard. Reddic soon realized that he guessed wrong as Raymond Hall’s voice boomed through the miniscule amplifier.
“It’s me. They just left.”
“They came as you anticipated.”
“It’s debatable how much they know. They asked about the pyrophilus and I gave them some context, but that’s it.”
“They told me Matt Langford sent them.”
“I needed to see for myself before calling.”
“I didn’t ask where they were staying. I was told that they came here exclusively to see me.”
“They didn’t seem like liars, but I’ve been fooled before.”
“Why do they concern you? They know nothing and I didn’t share with them any sensitive information about your project.”
“You’re in town too?”
“Yes, we can meet.”
“Here?”
“Okay, give me a half hour. I want to run down the street for some coffee.”
Reddic stopped the recording and fixed his eyes on the display screen showing the numerical readout of the audio runtime. It indicated that the recording commenced at 9:45 AM, the exact time they left the office. Ten minutes of runtime had elapsed. Reddic checked the time, see
ing that it was five passed ten.
“We have about fifteen minutes to look around and get out of here before he comes back. I don’t want to be in here when and if this meeting takes place,” Reddic said.
“Who do you think he was talking to?” Jaxon asked. “Why did he call us liars?” He looked visibly troubled.
“I don’t know, but we will put ourselves in a position to find out.” Reddic reached for the top drawer of the filing cabinet to the left of the scholar’s desk and pulled it open. “Go scour those files over there while I look through these.”
With a compliant nod Jaxon moved to his right and jerked open the drawer closest to the floor. He shuffled through the folder dividers, seeing nothing of particular relevance. He opened the two middle drawers, but again found nothing of immediate importance. There was one document, however, that seemed to stand out. It was a replica of a handwritten letter by Napoleon III to the British Prime Minister, Viscount Palmerston, urging an imminent invasion of the United States in 1861. An avid aficionado of Civil War history, Jaxon began to read the eloquently written supplication. But only a few sentences into it, he put it back, realizing that there was no time for such academic indulgence.
He pulled on the top filing compartment handle, hoping that there would be something of significance inside. Fumbling through the folders at a more hurried pace, Jaxon suddenly came across a single word inscribed on a tab that halted his search.
Utnapishtim.
This word was familiar. It belonged to the deluge documents found at Nippur by archeologists from the University of Pennsylvania in the first half of the twentieth century. Raymond Hall, some forty years later, produced an English translation of the documents that far surpassed anything previously published. It essentially launched his career. Utnapishtim, he learned, was another ancient name used for the biblical Noah. Jaxon extracted the folder and placed it on the desk.
Inside it he found scans of the original manuscripts. A feeling of excitement passed through his bones. He had never seen these before, only translations. Thumbing through the sheets, Jaxon curiously noted that certain words in the text were underlined or highlighted. Lines and arrows leading from the selected words to the margins pointed at additional notes and references written by another person, presumably Hall.
The hair on Jaxon’s neck stood erect as he perused the notes. He experienced the same feeling every time he felt like he was on the verge of an important academic discovery. According to these annotations, an archaic class of boat, referred to as a magur-boat, existed long before the great deluge occurred. It resembled a crescent-shaped moon, if viewed from the side.
A distinguishing feature of the magur-boat, or deluge boat, was the roof or deck. In the Nippur documents, Utnapishtim received special instructions concerning its construction on his boat. These types of vessels were supposed to be hermetic, so as to allow them to be submerged in water if necessary. The shape of the vessel was to permit it to be driven by the wind without the use of sails. According to the manuscript, the Ark was built after the manner of these magur-boats.
“Reddic, take a look at this,” Jaxon uttered enthusiastically.
“What is it?” Reddic asked, leaning over the documents.
“They’re scans of the oldest written account of the biblical flood story.”
“What language is this?”
“It’s Sumerian. Have a gander at the notes written in the side margins.”
Reddic skimmed the notes swiftly. “This is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with anything?” he asked pointedly.
Jaxon laid another scan on the desktop and pointed to the bottom of the page. “This says that Noah’s boat was a moon-boat, not only because it was crescent-shaped and allegedly floated through an aquatic space for twelve months, but also because it received illumination from two miraculous, light giving stones. Look down here,” he pressed, pointing to the bottom, left-hand corner. “The pyrophilus or nappashi that Hall spoke of was dependent upon the sun for it to glow, right? Just like barite and other rocks that are exposed to the sun’s rays. Here it states that the shining stones in the Ark also contained no light-giving power within themselves, but instead, they received it from a higher source, higher even than the sun. But, more important to us, look at the parentheses in the bottom right corner.”
“E.S.,” Reddic mumbled.
“Exactly. There it is again. It can’t be coincidental. If we find what or who E.S. is, we find a breakthrough.”
Reddic’s head whipped around to face the door. He heard a scuffling sound from somewhere outside in the hallway. He motioned for Jaxon to keep quiet and stand on the other side of the bookshelf closest to the door.
Shuffling over to the doorframe, Reddic waited silently next to the hinges. The sound of a key being inserted into the door put him on edge. The door opened halfway as the scholar walked through wearing a Harris Tweed over his faded polo. He held a coffee mug in his hand and a newspaper in the other. Reddic kicked the door closed and locked it just as he passed through.
Hall spun around at the unexpected intrusion. The look of fright and foreboding that covered his face quickly faded into surprise.
“You!” he shouted. “What are you doing here?”
“You lied to us, Raymond,” Reddic said calmly. “Why?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
Reddic held up the digital recorder. “Do you know what this is? I have every word that you spoke after we left your office on this device. Who were you talking to?”
“What aren’t you telling us, Dr. Hall?” Jaxon cut in, moving out of the shadows.
The scholar’s face turned cold. “You’re playing a game in which you cannot win,” he ominously said. “For thousands of years people have spent their entire lives in this quest and have come up short.”
“For a stone?” Reddic interjected.
“The stone is only a means, you fool!” the professor exclaimed. “Did you really think that you could just cavalierly enter the race and take the lead?” he mocked.
Suddenly, the glass in the window exploded. Reddic ducked to his knee. “Get down!” he shouted. Jaxon fell down to his belly and rolled to the wall, covering his head with his arms. Reddic looked up at the scholar. His face looked distressed, almost contorted. He swayed forward, like a falling tree in the forest, and crashed down to the floor.
Reddic crawled to his side and saw that he had been hit in the center of the spine in between his shoulder blades. Where did the bullet come from? Reddic slowly lifted his head to peek out the window.
There!
Maybe only eighty yards away on the top level of the parking garage the blue sedan sat. Instinctively, Reddic jerked his head to the side just as another bullet zoomed by and lodged into the back wall. He slid on his stomach to the fallen professor and rolled him over. He was breathing heavily as blood trickled out of the side of his mouth. He only had a few more seconds to live.
“What is E.S?” Reddic demanded. There was no response. Hall’s eyes were starting to glaze over.
Reddic slapped his face, trying to keep him conscious. “In your bible, why did you write it?”
Hall’s head fell to the side. Reddic was about to lift it back up when he realized what he was doing. The professor was trying to spit out blood.
“Found…” The sound was gurgled and distorted. The man’s own vital fluids were drowning him. “Shun…”
The breathing stopped.
Raymond Hall was dead.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Inching his way over to the desk on his hands and knees, Reddic cursed at himself inwardly for not trusting his original instinct. He had seen the blue sedan pull out of the parking garage and follow his Mercedes, but he chose not to act on the premonition. He gave it the benefit of the doubt, assuming that it was en route to another destination in the neighborhood. It was naive on his part.
He wondered how many killers awaited them
outside of the office. Obviously there was at least one with a high-powered, noise suppressed sniper rifle patiently waiting for the smallest of targets. At a distance of less than eighty yards a professional could put a bullet in the door’s keyhole. There had to be a way to see his enemy without putting himself in danger. He surveyed the walls of the suddenly confined office.
Hanging loosely from a nail embedded in the sheetrock wall was an oval-shaped mirror. Reddic wiggled his way across the floor until he sat directly beneath it. The mirror hung about four feet above his head. He had to dislodge it without putting himself in the sniper’s sights.
Digging his heels into the carpet, he pressed backward with his legs. He angled his back to allow his shirt to slide up the wall. His quadriceps burned with each passing second. He reached above his head and grabbed hold of the mirror, sliding back down the wall to the floor.
Sitting in front of the desk now, he slowly raised it up and angled it toward the parking structure. After some adjustment he managed to see the blue car through the reflection. The rear window appeared to be down. He couldn't determine if the sniper was in the back seat. The distance was too great.
The mirror suddenly flew out of his hand. A bullet had struck it at a high velocity, propelling it out of his grip. He stared at the shattered pieces of glass on the floor for a moment. Something troubled him about the blue sedan. He closed his eyes and thought back to when he had first encountered the tail. He remembered purposely slowing down at the first traffic signal in an effort to catch a glimpse of the suspected pursuer.
His eyes shot open—there were two of them in the car. But where was the other? Was he in the building, closing in on the office at this very moment? That was a plausible scenario. If it were so, then they only had a few more minutes, at best, before they were found.
But the accomplice wouldn’t come crashing into the room. That would be bad strategy. He would wait in the hall or in the stairwell for the shooter to push the prey to him. Yet at this moment it seemed impossible to get out of the office. The entire door could be seen from the assassin’s vantage point. Any attempt to leave would surely end as a bloody one.