CS 01 The Grail Conspiracy

by Lynn Sholes

  She finally packed the box back in the bag, returned to her seat, and stowed it in the overhead.

  Arriving at JFK, Cotten quickly passed through Customs and Immigration. As she made her way into the crowded terminal, she stopped at an ATM for cash and then walked through the automatic doors onto the sidewalk. The bitter New York winter slapped her face. This time of year the northeast had no redeeming qualities, she thought. She was glad she had been away for the holidays, away from the snow and the painful end of her relationship with Thornton Graham. Cotten hailed a taxi and climbed into the rear of the cab, the carryall snug in her lap. She gave her midtown apartment building address to the driver before laying her head on the back of the seat.

  She kept recalling the disturbing dreams she'd had on the flight. She didn't seem to be able to shake them-dreams filled with the smell of the dank ancient chamber, the deafening blast of the gunshot, the still-warm Arab's blood, Archer's pallid skin and bluing lips, his last effort to raise his head, his breath on her ear as he whispered Geh el crip-you are the only one. It was impossible for him to have spoken to her using those words. Impossible. And yet he did.

  Through the car's dirty windows she watched the distorted skyline drift into view.

  As soon as she was in her apartment, she left a message on Ted Casselman's answering machine letting him know she had made it back safely. She had called him from Ankara and again from the U.K. But he still insisted on hearing from her the moment she arrived home. Father figure, mentor, friend-he was mad at her for taking such risk and would worry about her until she set foot on U.S. soil.

  Fresh from a steaming, thirty-minute shower, Cotten pushed down on the handles of the corkscrew, and the cork popped out of the bottle of chardonnay. She filled her glass. No Absolut tonight. Wine always made her sleepy, and sleep was what she needed most.

  Archer's box rested in the center of her kitchen table. She studied it while she sat in the dinette chair cradling the glass of wine between her palms. There were no marks, no joints, and no hinges. If there were seams, they were somehow concealed in the wood grain.

  She rubbed her neck. The muscles ached, but the shower had helped ease the tension. The hot water had been delicious, pulsing on her neck and back. Blessedly, the coconut scent of the shampoo helped wash away the odors that seemed to have collected and hung on somewhere in her nose and sinuses. Cotten sipped the chardonnay, then unclipped the barrette and let her damp hair tumble down the back of the chenille bathrobe.

  After a few minutes, she got up and wandered into the living room. The pile of accumulated mail lay on the desk where her landlord had left it. `Bills and junk mail,' she mumbled, about to rake it all in the desk drawer. There, partially hidden under some even older mail was a silver-framed picture of Thornton Graham. She had shoved it in the drawer the day before she left for Iraq. Becoming involved with him was a mistake. She brushed the envelopes aside and uncovered his face.

  Thornton Graham was the SNN news anchor seen across the country during the dinner hour. Handsome, confident, experienced -and married. When she got her first assignment with the network, he had been the one who took special notice of her. Between his charisma, handsome looks, and her admiration for him, she was completely overwhelmed.

  Cotten remembered the first time she met Thornton-it was during the Christmas holidays last year. She usually walked to work, but that day she'd taken a cab because she was bringing in office decorations. In order to avoid more than one trip to the taxi, she carried two boxes, slung her satchel over her arm, and gripped a Ziploc bag of Dutch chocolate that she wanted to put in a bowl on her desk. She made it through the front doors with the help of the office-building doorman, and all the way to the elevators. But stepping into the elevator, she bumped the door just enough to make her satchel strap slide down her arm. Someone behind her lifted the strap and put it back on her shoulder. She turned to say thanks, noticing that the hand lingered, and stared into the face of SNN's senior correspondent, Thornton Graham. She managed the thank you, but her voice caught on the word, you, coming out garbled. Thornton seemed flattered with her enchantment and flashed his famous smile. She turned, trying to appear nonchalant and not so obviously spellbound-she couldn't help but look at his reflection in the brass elevator doors. But when she did, she was embarrassed to find him watching her. The ride up seemed to take forever. When she got off the elevator, he did, too. Thornton took the boxes and walked her to her office. Before leaving he asked her to join him for lunch later. That was the beginning of what became an almost year-long fiery, physical relationship. Now it was over-over and done.

  The wine warmed Cotten as she drained the glass. Her neck muscles relaxed, and she felt the faint buzz of the alcohol. She pushed the stack of letters into the drawer, covering Thornton's face, and strolled back into the kitchen. Glancing at Archer's box she decided that, as a precaution, she needed to put it in a safe place until she figured out what to do with it.

  Cotten rinsed her glass. As she dried it, she tilted her head and looked at the teapot sitting on the stove. She had an idea and moved the pot onto the counter, then lifted the range lid.

  She took a quick look at the box, then at the space under the lid. Carefully, she placed the box between the heating elements then closed the range lid and heard it click into position. Good a place as any, she thought. She returned the teapot, turned out the lights, and went to bed.

  For the first time in years, she dreamed of being a child again, playing on her family's farm. But mostly, she dreamed of her twin sister.

  THE TAPE

  IN THE MORNING, COTTEN rummaged through her cosmetics drawer. No mascara. There were several bottles of foundation and an unused blush. Eye shadows, eyeliners, and lipsticks, but no mascara. She'd taken her only tube with her to Iraq and left it in the desert. She examined her face in the mirror. Her wheat-brown eyes appeared neglected. She swept back that maverick wisp of hair that always seemed to stray and gave a last look at her reflection. For an instant, she glimpsed her mother's face in her own. Her fingertips touched the skin beneath her eyes and around her mouth. Memories of the life she'd left behind in Kentucky unsettled her. She'd seen deep lines and dark circles in the faces of the women-women not much older than she was now. Twenty-seven was close to thirty, and thirty was not far from ...

  Her mother had called her fanciful, said she was a dreamer. It was true. And on the wings of those dreams she'd fled a life where women grew old too soon, gave up hope too soon ... and died too soon.

  "I'm sorry, Mamma," she whispered.

  Cotten dabbed perfume behind each ear and closed the cosmetics drawer. In the kitchen, she munched on a granola bar and downed a cup of instant coffee. While she ate, she gazed at the stove. It looked normal enough. Just for good measure she pulled a frying pan from the cabinet and placed it on the unit next to the teapot.

  Perfect.

  She headed along the ten blocks from her apartment to SNN headquarters. It was cold, but Cotten paid little attention. She was anxious to get the answer to some nagging questions. Suddenly, her cell phone vibrated.

  "Hello," she said, trying to dodge others on the crowded sidewalk.

  "Hey, baby. You're back!"

  "Nessi!" Cotten smiled, glad to hear her friend's voice.

  "How was it? Looks like things are really heating up over there."

  "You won't believe the shit I've been through the last couple of days." She began filling in her friend but deliberately left out the part where Archer had begged her to take the box, had gazed eerily at her as if he knew her, spoke to her in a language that didn't exist for anyone else on the planet but her. Nobody would understand. "Then I had to bribe my way across the Turkish border. I was jammed on a bus for a day with people who smelled like goats. And I think I illegally smuggled some kind of ancient artifact out of the Middle East into the U.S." She caught a glimpse of the New York Times headline as she passed a newsstand: MILITARY BUILDUP ACCELERATES. "Other than that, it was uneven
tful. You miss me?"

  "Always." Vanessa Perez said. "I was worried about you. Is your boss pissed?"

  "I think he had to double up on his blood pressure medication. I'm heading in to work now. Got a meeting with him at nine thirty, and my edit is at ten."

  "What about the Thorn in your side?"

  "Nessi, lighten up."

  "Is he going to be there?"

  "I guess. Maybe I'll luck out, and he'll be off on assignment somewhere."

  "You better start thinking about what you're going to say when you see him."

  "I'm over it."

  "Yeah, I've heard that before."

  Cotten's stomach sank. Nessi had heard that before-more than once. She'd always meant it, wanted to believe she was finished with him. But this time had to be different. He was a bad road to travel, painful, and a dead end. She had to convince herself that she had put Thornton behind her-packed that bag and shipped it off to her past.

  "You have a shoot today?" Cotten asked.

  "South Beach-it's for Hawaiian Tropic-you'll soon see me on billboards flashing a little TWA in a skimpy bikini."

  Cotten laughed. "Knock 'em dead."

  "I always do." There was an uneasy pause. Then Vanessa said, "Don't give in to him."

  "Give me a little credit." Cotten felt the blast of warm air as she passed through the revolving doors into SNN's headquarters.

  "Hey, that's what friends are for." Vanessa half sang the Burt Bacharach lyric. It was their personal mantra.

  "It's a good thing you're beautiful,' cause you sure can't sing;' Cotten said with a chuckle.

  "I love you, too," Vanessa said, and hung up.

  Cotten slipped the cell back in her overcoat pocket and stopped to watch the on-air monitor over the lobby security desk-sound bites from the President's State of the Union address.

  She signed in at the security desk and clipped on her identification badge.

  The network's studios, production, audio, duplication, satellite linking and transmission, and engineering took up the first seven floors. Cotten got off on the eighth where SNN had its video edit suites and archives.

  "Cotten."

  It was Thornton Graham.

  She forced a smile and a nod. Shit, why did she have to run into him first thing?

  "It's so good to ... you feeling okay?" he asked. "You don't look-"

  "I'm fine. I didn't have any mascara, that's all."

  He kissed her cheek, and she smelled his cologne, flooding her head with vivid memories.

  "Got a minute?" He motioned toward his office.

  "I'm really in a rush."

  "Your edit isn't for an hour-I checked."

  "I've got to do some research first."

  "I've missed you," he said in almost a whisper, touching her arm, moving closer.

  There was a heavy silence.

  "Thornton . . ." She shook her head, not wanting to look him in the eyes. "Please, it's over."

  "No, it's not," he said. "I love you."

  "It wasn't love," she whispered. "You know that."

  "Cotten, I do love you."

  "I've got to go." She headed down the corridor.

  "Cotten," he called after her, but she didn't turn around.

  She hadn't cried this time-that was a good sign. She'd made the right decision, she thought, and she was going to get through this. If she just didn't have to see him-touch him.

  Inside the video archives department, Cotten sat at a computer terminal, entered her security password, and initiated the search function. Then she typed Archer, Gabriel. Within seconds, the screen displayed two references. She selected both, chose the retrieve command, and turned to watch through the glass wall. One of the huge carousels filled with videocassettes revolved. A robotic arm zoomed around it, scanning bar codes, then grabbed a cassette, moved laterally to one of the players, and inserted the tape. A video window appeared on Cotten's terminal, and sound came from a small set of speakers mounted on each side of the screen. The images blurred past in high speed as the machine used the timecode on the tape to locate the correct segment. There was a short pause, and then the picture and sound came up.

  The first image was an electronic slate: Ark Search, Archer interview. A short piece followed from a TV magazine program mentioning Gabriel Archer, whom Cotten learned was a biblical archaeologist and part of the team searching for the remains of Noah's Ark. Nothing else of apparent significance. And nothing to give her a clue how he knew to speak to her in that language. After all, wasn't it just a made-up language-what her mother likened to twin talk?

  She stopped the tape and requested the second. This one was longer and featured Archer. The focus was an interview with him at his home in Oxford, England. Although the tape was only a few years old, Archer looked much younger, she thought ... heavier, healthier, and jubilant. He held a small, round golden plate he had recently discovered on a dig in Jerusalem. Symbols covered the plate, and he claimed it dated to the Crusades. "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field," Archer said. He quoted scripture many times during the interview. Caressing the plate like it was an infant, he said, "This will lead me to heaven's greatest treasure."

  Next came an interview with a staff archaeologist at the Museum of Natural History in New York. The man smiled patronizingly, calling Archer a devotee to his own theories. "Sometimes," he said, "enthusiasm gets the best of the doctor. He's had many extravagant notions." The archaeologist did go on to credit Archer with several noteworthy discoveries, including his work on the search for Noah's Ark, but said his eccentricities diminished his credibility.

  There were a few other interviews discussing Archer. One in particular caught Cotten's attention: Dr. John Tyler, a Catholic priest, biblical historian, and archaeologist, spoke kindly of Archer. Tyler had studied under Gabriel Archer and said the elderly archaeologist was dedicated to his work, mentioning that many of his discoveries had shed much needed light on biblical history.

  Tyler appeared to be in his mid-thirties, tall with dark hair, and had the rugged face of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. And he had great eyes, Cotten thought.

  She rewound the tape and played Tyler's portion again. He was soft-spoken, but his words were confident, authoritative.

  "He has many aspirations;" Tyler said of Archer. "I wish him well."

  Cotten scribbled down the name of the college where Tyler taught. He was right in New York and could be a good source of information. She thought about what Archer had whispered to her in the crypt and his notability to quote the Bible. Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twentyeight, Matthew. He had to be referring to a passage in the Bible. She glanced at her watch-about fifteen more minutes before her meeting with Ted Casselman.

  Ending the archives search, Cotten headed back down the hall, sticking her head in one of the edit rooms. "Anybody got a Bible?"

  "You get religion in the Middle East, Cotten?" the video editor said, looking at her over his shoulder.

  "Try the nightstand in a hotel room," an assistant added.

  She grinned. "Very funny. Come on, guys. Really, any idea where I can locate a Bible?"

  "The religion correspondent," the editor said, and returned to his monitors.

  "Right," she said, wondering why she hadn't thought of it. But then, religion was not something she spent a great deal of time thinking about. She checked her watch again as she headed to his office.

  "Which version?" the correspondent's secretary asked.

  "I don't know; isn't there a standard one?"

  The secretary pointed to the door behind her and got up. Cotten followed.

  Against one wall was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. The secretary pulled a King James Version off the shelf. "Just put it back when you're done," she said before leaving.

  "Thanks," Cotten said, not looking up. What had Archer said? Matthew? Matthew was in the New Testament, she knew that much. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That was as far as she'd gotten in Sunday school.

&
nbsp; "Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty eight," she said, flipping through the pages. Running her finger down each page, she stopped at the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 26, and read verses 27 and 28 aloud, "And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it. For this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

  "Jesus," she whispered, then realized the pun. Could all this have something to do with the cup from the Last Supper? Could that be what was in the box sitting under the hood of her Hotpoint stove? Archer said he was looking for heaven's greatest treasure. She blew out a breath at the thought that she could be on top of a huge story.

  Pulling the slip of paper from her pocket, she picked up the phone on the desk and called information. After getting the number for the college where Dr. Tyler taught, she dialed it.

  "Yes, I'm trying to locate a Reverend Dr. John Tyler. I understand he teaches there." She listened for a moment, and her face dropped. "Well, do you know where he's assigned now?" Another pause and she said, "Let me give you my number."

  Cotten hung up, grabbed her things, and rushed to the office of Ted Casselman, SNN's news director. She knocked.

  "Come in."

  Casselman sat at the head of the conference table, a handful of folders spread before him. Two chairs away from the news director sat Thornton Graham. Thornton smiled warmly as Cotten moved across the room.

  Ted Casselman looked up. He was a forty-two-year-old black man, medium build, manicured nails, with some early gray hair that flattered his deep skin tone.

  "Well, you're one lucky lady," Casselman said, standing to kiss her on the cheek. "Try pulling a stunt like that again and I'll see to it that the only job you can get is reporting the weather on the local cable channel in Beaver Falls." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "And you're late."