Perhaps the seal had never been set in place. Or more likely: the seal had been removed. It stood to reason that the contents had also been looted.
That got Hazo thinking about what might have been stored inside the niche.
The implied width of a seal that would seat into the rim also downplayed the idea that the niche was intended for repeat usage. That meant the contents were intended to be locked away or protected long term, maybe indefinitely. Anything placed deep inside the niche would require someone to squirm on his belly to reach it. Therefore, the design was best suited for something long and narrow that could be slid inside.
As he thought about the cave’s known mythology, the realization hit him like a wrecking ball.
‘A body,’ he whispered.
The niche’s dimensions could accommodate perfectly a prostrate corpse, he was certain of it. With some help, he himself could slide into it and still have room to spare.
Scrutinizing the base of the niche under the light, he noticed stains and dried material on the porous rock, which also supported the hypothesis. It appeared as if decomposed flesh had left discolorations in the rock.
He concluded that this niche had been designed to be a tomb — a most legendary tomb, despite its modest appearance.
Lilith’s tomb.
70
On final approach to the camp, the Blackhawk glided low and came to a hover over the roadway precisely where Jason’s unit had initiated its ambush only nine hours earlier. To Jason it seemed as if he’d fired that first kill shot a lifetime ago in another dimension where certain truths and rational motives still existed — where his true enemy was an outsider.
‘Jesus,’ Candyman said as he surveyed the ravaged camp. ‘What a mess.’ On the southern perimeter, five Humvees had been rendered smouldering heaps of twisted metal. The two elongated tents at the camp’s centre had fared no better — each burned bare to the ribs. Laid neatly beside the roadway, he counted fifteen body bags ready for airlift.
‘I’m still not seeing any backup down there,’ Meat said, disgusted by the inability of the unwieldy military machine to mobilize on-the-fly. ‘What does it take to get these guys motivated?’
‘They’ll be here,’ Candyman said decisively. ‘I’d give it another forty-five minutes or so. When they radioed the camp, Crawford told them that everything was fine … that the camp was secure. So they were heading back to Camp Eagle’s Nest. I had to convince them to turn around again.’
‘Fucking Crawford,’ Meat seethed. Quickly scanning the area, he couldn’t locate the colonel. ‘I’m gonna snap that fucker’s neck when I find him.’
Candyman set the Blackhawk down on the roadway and said, ‘Good luck, fellas. I’ve got orders to keep moving.’
‘Thanks for everything, Candyman,’ Jason said.
Before the Blackhawk had even lifted in the air, Jason was halfway up the slope with Meat scrambling to keep up with him.
The marines posted outside the cave weren’t sure how to respond to Jason’s urgency. They immediately began arguing in hushed tones about how to handle the situation. When Jason reached the top of the slope, they took position in front of the cave to block his entry and gripped their M-16s threateningly. But he could see defeat in their eyes, the telltale sign of demoralization.
Jason stopped and raised his hand to Meat’s chest to stop him from bowling through them.
‘We don’t have time for this shit,’ Meat grumbled.
‘Crawford’s in there?’ Jason asked.
‘Yeah,’ the soldier in the middle said, trying to decipher his motive.
‘How about my interpreter?’
The soldier nodded. ‘Hazo’s in there too.’
‘All right. Here’s the situation,’ Jason said in a calm voice, making eye contact with each of them in turn. ‘Al-Zahrani’s dead.’ He watched them exchange glances. ‘And the biological contagion that killed him is contained in this cave.’
The news hit them like a slap in the face.
‘Contagion?’ the soldier said. He shifted his feet and looked warily over his shoulder into the cave.
‘That’s right.’
‘Didn’t I tell you!’ the one on the right said. ‘Shit!’
‘Calm down,’ Jason said, holding his hands out. ‘You’ll be fine. From what we know, the disease is only lethal to the local population.’
They all looked at him with puzzled expressions.
‘It’s … complicated,’ Jason said. ‘But our intelligence operatives in the States have apprehended a suspect who has been communicating with Crawford ever since your unit arrived here. Seems we stumbled upon some kind of weapons stash … in there.’ He pointed to the cave. ‘And Crawford is doing everything he can to salvage it. We suspect he’s going to somehow release a highly lethal biochemical weapon. If he succeeds … if we let him succeed … countless innocent lives will suffer the same fate as Al-Zahrani.’ He let them contemplate the stakes for five seconds. Then he laid it on the line for them: ‘I need your help. We need to get in there and stop him. Before it’s too late.’
‘And if we don’t?’ the soldier in the middle asked.
‘That’s not an option,’ Jason replied gravely.
‘I mean why do I care if Iraqis die? Better them than us …’
Jason had to press his hand harder against Meat’s chest to keep him from pouncing on the guy. At this juncture, the last thing he needed was a squabble with Crawford’s unit. These marines had been through plenty, and straining their allegiances could prove unwise. He pointed to the body bags heaped along the road and made one last attempt at diplomacy. ‘You can thank Crawford for what happened here today. This could’ve been avoided. All it would have taken is one call. Crawford has gone rogue and you know it.’
‘We’re wasting time,’ Meat said, clenching his fists.
‘And if you’re wrong?’ the soldier asked.
‘I’m not. And the proof is inside this mountain. Come with us and see for yourself.’
The marines exchanged glances.
The sensible marine on the right was the first to break. ‘He’s right. What Crawford’s been doing … it’s crazy. Don’t make no sense. I mean he had us clearing rocks away ‘fore we could even help our own guys. Who does that?’
Jason took his hand off Meat’s chest and the ringleader took a step back. ‘What’s it gonna be?’
71
LAS VEGAS
While Agent Flaherty was busy making phone calls to arrange for Stokes to be taken safely into custody, Brooke decided to have a closer look at the artifacts in the vault. The objects Stokes had pillaged from Iraq were pristine specimens that would surely prove to be among the most impressive ever recovered from the region — and to intimately experience them was a temptation she couldn’t pass up.
First, she approached the case containing a sizable clay jar, just to the left of the case that accommodated Lilith’s macabre severed head. Before commencing her analysis, she gave the head a sideways glance, certain that the demon’s dead eyes were evaluating her every move.
‘I’m just going to have a quick look,’ she explained to the head. ‘Nothing to worry about.’ Best to play nice with the evil temptress, she thought … just in case.
The clay vessel was roughly a a third of a metre wide at its bulbous base, and stood about half a metre tall. Posted behind it was an enlarged photo board containing various pictures documenting its careful extraction from somewhere deep inside the cave.
The first photo showed one of the bas-reliefs Brooke had herself studied in the entryway. It depicted Lilith carrying this very same jar — the magical vessel the ancients believed had enabled her to destroy every man and boy she’d come in contact with; the cursed jar she’d brought out from the forbidden realm to unleash evil into the world. Pandora’s misnamed ‘box’.
The cuneiform beneath the relief was barely legible in the image. But with all the time she’d spent transcribing the writings, Brooke could practi
cally recite the story from memory, word for word. The account told how Lilith protected the jar until the very end, and warned that it was the source of her evil. The passage also described how the villagers had entombed the jar with her beheaded corpse in hopes of neutralizing its destructive powers.
She was surprised that the vessel hadn’t been destroyed immediately following Lilith’s execution. After all, the ancients believed that the ritual breaking of clay dispelled magical spells.
The second and third photographs showed Lilith’s tomb in two stages: first covered by an ornately carved seal with two protective spirits (she glanced at the real-life version standing on the plinth only a little way away); second with the seal removed to show the in situ contents. The tomb was simple enough: a deep, arched niche carved into a rock wall. The prone skeleton’s rib cage and arm bones were barely visible behind a squat clay pot positioned at the front of the niche. The top of the jar could be seen poking up from behind the pot.
The thrill of discovery sent tingles down her spine. I wish I could have been there, she couldn’t help but think. Though she herself would certainly not participate in such an act if she were privy to the dig’s sinister purpose, she could only imagine how exciting it must have been for the archaeologist who’d had the dubious honour of exhuming the relics. She wondered briefly if that same scientist might also have crossed paths with one of Stokes’s hitmen, but with less favourable results than her own.
Now she focused on the pot’s construction. Since pottery styles and techniques evolved over the centuries — generally becoming more refined except during times of great famine — vessels such as this were critical to dating and deciphering archaeological sites, even though truly reliable methods for chemically dating pottery were still being devised.
The vessel’s irregular form clearly showed that this jar had been handmade without the aide of a pottery wheel. Strange, since pottery wheels had been in use centuries before 4000 BC. And the jar’s neatly painted lines and decorative slashed incisions all resembled similar relics she’d studied from Hassuna and Samarra — sites that dated to 5500 BC.
Another display case contained a reconstructed necklace, also recovered from Lilith’s tomb. The necklace’s beads were of two varieties: glossy obsidian, a black volcanic glass found in eastern Turkey, and smooth cowry shells, which in antiquity would have been found along the ancient shores of the Persian Gulf. Brooke had seen similar pieces from Arpachiyah and Chager Bazar, all dating to the Ubaid period, around 5500 BC.
How could Lilith have acquired a jar and jewellery from fifteen centuries earlier? she wondered.
Tantalizing possibilities streamed through her mind.
Then she had a shocking realization. The stout clay pot shown in the photo had been cut precisely in half, probably with a laser, so as to free the hardened core that encased Lilith’s head. The halves had been put back together and were on display to the right of the case holding the head. Similar razor-sharp lines ran down both sides of the jar, suggesting that it had also been cut in two to study the contents.
Could the original contents still be inside the jar? Or was this just the reassembled vessel? Brooke’s heart began racing at the thought of it.
She studied the glass case containing the jar. It had a hinged top with a slim release arm running down to the base. And on the base was a small keypad, similar to the case from which Stokes had removed the clay map. She’d seen the numbers Stokes had pecked to access the map. Odds were the code was the same for this box. Wouldn’t hurt to try.
Brooke glanced over at Lilith’s head again. The witch was still glaring at her, as if transcending space, time and death to start a cat fight. But Brooke’s excitement easily trumped the perceived threat. ‘Screw you, lady,’ she said in a haughty tone. ‘If I can open this box, I’m having a look at your goody bag. I almost died because of you. So as I see it, you owe me one.’
Brooke looked back over her shoulder towards the open door. She could see Flaherty with his phone to his ear, standing over Stokes. Stokes was still face down on the floor, not moving, with his hands cuffed behind his back.
‘Here goes nothing,’ she said, turning back to the case. She punched in the code …
The keypad changed from asterisks to plus signs, flashed three times. Then the top’s locking mechanism snapped open.
Grinning, Brooke unhinged the top. She held her breath, reached into the case and pulled the cover off Lilith’s clay jar.
72
IRAQ
The container’s hi-tech interior baffled Corporal Shuster. Overhead, the fluorescent tubes looked like the ultraviolet lights one would find in a plant nursery — something used to mimic nourishing sunlight. The oxygen-rich air was redolent with an ammonia-like scent.
Mounted like cubbyholes along the side walls were seven levels of adjoined Plexiglas cells. Each cell was the size of a foot-locker and had a clear hinged front panel that was vented with a dense grid of tiny air holes.
Cages? wondered Schuster.
All the front panels were tilted wide open by a mechanized piston so that whatever had inhabited the cages seemed to have been set free. When was anyone’s guess. Inspecting one of the cages, he saw a thick wire mesh bottom with a tray liner that angled towards a slot on the side wall. Perforated tubes looping around the tray’s edges were likely intended to flush away waste.
But there was plenty of waste on the floor. Liquid and grape-sized pellets — black against the purple light — oozed between the grated floor panels as he stepped over them. He crouched down for a better look, but recoiled from the acrid stench. Coating almost every surface were short black hairs, as straight as pins. Millions of them.
Along the back side of each cage, a dozen short metal tubes with rolling ball ends protruded from the wall like nipples. He used his index finger to push in on one of the tips. Milky fluid streamed out over his fingertips. He held his fingers to his nose. Oddly, it smelled like wheat beer. A feeding system, he guessed. Probably linked into the PVC supply lines he’d seen running up to the ceiling.
Air pumped in from above. Food pumped in from above, he pondered.
By all appearances, it seemed as if the whole operation was automated from the outside.
Ramirez brushed aside the plastic flaps and made his way inside. He came to a stop after two steps. ‘What kind of freaky shit is this?’ He buried his nose in his sleeve.
‘Breeding kennels, I think,’ Shuster said.
Ramirez wasn’t buying it. ‘For what?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Maybe Al-Qaeda’s selling puppies on the black market to fund the jihad.’
‘Funny.’
Shuster tried to figure how many creatures one cage might have accommodated, but without knowing the size of one of them, it was tough to crunch the numbers. If the other six containers were of the same design, he guessed that the mystery brood could conservatively number in the thousands.
‘Who could have built this?’ Ramirez asked.
Shuster shook his head. ‘Got me.’
‘Creepy,’ Ramirez muttered. He sidestepped the corporal and paced slowly along the aisle, trying to make sense of it all.
Standing outside the container, Private Holt swept his disbelieving gaze over the sophisticated installation that had been constructed inside the cave. Definitely no small operation. Just how deep beneath the mountain was he standing, anyway?
He peered through the container’s door and could see Ramirez and Shuster pacing back and forth along the centre walkway. Then he turned to see what the Kurd was up to. Not far from where they’d entered the cave, Hazo was using a flashlight to inspect what looked like a hole in the wall. The surrounding blackness made it appear that the interpreter was floating in space.
‘Everything all right over there, Hazo?’ he called out, his voice echoing through the cave.
Hazo signalled that he was okay.
Then the ventilation system’s motor turned off with a loud thunk
, startling Holt.
‘Hey,’ he called into the container. ‘Did you guys switch the air off?’
‘No,’ Shuster called back. ‘It’s probably on a timer. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Right,’ Holt said, calming himself. But when the fan whirred to a stop, other sounds masked by the humming motor suddenly came to the foreground. It took a moment for his ears to adjust, but the sounds were definitely there — subtle scratching noises. The vast space made it difficult to discern where they were coming from, but they seemed loudest towards the rear of the cave. ‘Guys, I hear something weird out here.’
No answer.
‘Guys?’ He peered into the container and could see Ramirez talking to Shuster, bitching loudly. The sounds persisted. Scratching. Shifting and shuffling. Holt aimed his M-16 towards the disturbance, moved the light slowly from right to left through the soupy darkness, but saw nothing.
The more he listened to the sounds, the more he tried to convince himself they were nothing at all. Probably some other piece of machinery buried deeper in the cave that was in need of a little grease.
Holt moved stealthily down the excavated path, pausing outside the door of each container and glancing into its interior. There was no movement inside any of them. What exactly were these things? he wondered.
As he cornered the final container, the noises grew louder. Much louder. He deliberated on whether to investigate or turn back. Then his light settled on a wide opening in the cave’s rear wall.
He stood perfectly still and angled his right ear for a better listen.
Now he was certain that the noises were coming from inside the burrow. What if the terrorists were holed up in there waiting to make a move?
He looked back and saw Ramirez coming out from the first container, Shuster right behind him. When Ramirez didn’t see Holt, he got nervous and began hunting the darkness with his light. ‘Holt! Where’d you go?’
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