by David Wood
“No, please.” Schrader took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll tell you.” He swallowed hard, fighting against the bile rising in his throat. Was he condemning Maddock to death? He couldn’t say for sure, but he was definitely issuing a death sentence upon his own daughter if he didn’t tell this man what he wanted to know.
“They’ve gone to Engaruka.”
Chapter 41
The remnants of Engaruka spread out across the hilly terrain. First recorded by explorers in the late nineteenth century, the system of ruins was regarded as one of the region’s most important archaeological sites. Though explorers had compared the features to castle ruins, and had remarked on its stone circles and impressive structures, its significance was due to its irrigation and cultivation structures. Even knowing this, the site was hardly what Maddock had expected. Rather than impressive feats of masonry, what remained of the ancient city amounted to little more than terraces and the foundations of buildings. In some places, only a few piles of stone remained.
“Doesn’t look like much, does it?” Bones mopped his brow and squinted against the midday glare.
“Who cares what it looks like as long as we find what we’re searching for?” The heat and their fruitless search were clearly getting to Dima. She rounded on Maddock, hands on hips. “Tell us again what Schrader said about this place.”
“Like I said, he was getting less and less coherent. The first thing he said was, ‘They came up from the ground.’ He didn’t say who ‘they’ were, but given the context, I can only assume he meant Noah and his family, and maybe the animals.”
“But he also mentioned the Mountain of God,” Bones said, turning his eyes toward Ol Doinyo Lengai looming on the horizon. “It makes it sound like Noah didn’t come down the side of the mountain, but instead he came out through an underground passageway.”
“Volcanic tubes,” Maddock agreed. “We know from experience that’s a possibility.”
“Yeah, but that’s an active volcano up there.” Bones nodded toward the peak. “Even if we find the passageway, do you really want to go inside?”
“Tell you what, when we find it, Dima and I will go in and you can stand guard out here. How does that sound?”
“Screw you, Maddock. What else did he say?”
“He said, ‘Remember the sacrifice.’ I seem to recall Noah made sacrifices to God after the flood waters subsided.”
“Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it,” Dima recited.
“So we’re looking for an altar?” Bones asked.
“Makes sense to me,” Maddock said. “I’ve kept my eyes open but haven’t seen anything.” He turned to Dima. “Any suggestions?”
“Engaruka isn’t nearly old enough to have been here during the time of Noah, but if it, or an older settlement, grew up in the wake of Noah’s arrival, it would make sense that the altar might have been central to their culture.” She glanced at a map she had found online and then took a look around. “I think the middle of town, so to speak, would be that way.” She pointed to the northeast. “Just over that hill.”
Twenty minutes later they found themselves in the midst of a cluster of low walls and stone circles. Maddock turned slowly around, taking it all in. Nothing leaped out at him. What if they were wrong and this was another false trail?
“Are either of your stones reacting at all?” Dima asked with no trace of hopefulness in her voice.
“As cold as my sex life,” Bones said.
Dima smirked. “Maybe things will turn around for you once we find the ark.” She gave him a wink.
“You hear that, Maddock? Leave no stone unturned! Andale!”
Maddock froze. “What did you say?”
“You already forgot your high school Spanish? Speedy Gonzales. Arriba! Andale! Get your big white butt in gear.”
Dima giggled and gave Bones a playful shove.
“No. Before that,” Maddock said.
“Leave no stone unturned?”
“Exactly.” Maddock turned toward what he estimated to be the very center of town. There stood the remnants of a large building. Only the foundation remained, but its former size and grandeur was clearly evident. He imagined it had once dominated this stretch of the landscape. “Look at the outline of the walls. What does it remind you of?”
Dima saw it immediately. “Six points! The Star of David!”
“What do you say we take a look underneath that big pile of rubble in the middle?”
Bones didn’t have to be told twice. He vaulted the wall, climbed up onto the pile of rocks, and began moving stones with surprising vigor considering the amount of time they’d already spent walking in the heat of the day. Maddock and Dima joined in and they fell into a rhythm, working the stones loose and tossing them aside. Little by little, they reduced the heap of stone to a small mound, but they turned up nothing of note.
Maddock was just beginning to wonder if he’d steered them onto the wrong track when Bones whooped. “Jackpot! Take a look at this.”
The sun shone down onto a smooth, black stone, so unlike the native rock of the region. They attacked the pile with a renewed sense of purpose. An hour later, they’d cleared a space around a massive, rectangular slab of black stone the size of an ox. Maddock began brushing the surface of the stone, clearing away the dust and dirt to reveal a crude, six-pointed star carved in its surface.
“I think this is it.” Reverence reduced Dima’s voice to a whisper. “What now?”
Maddock remembered the next thing Schrader had said. “Blood is the key.” He slid his belt knife free of its sheath, pricked his thumb with the tip of the blade, and let a few drops of blood dribble onto the stone right at the center of the six-pointed star.
They waited.
Nothing.
“I think you need more blood,” Bones said. “Or maybe it has to be an animal sacrifice.”
“Maybe, but…”
The ground shifted beneath Maddock’s feet and he sprang back. The altar slid to the side, revealing a gaping hole.
Bones clapped Maddock on the back. “Nice job, Maddock. I keep forgetting you aren’t as dumb as you are ugly.”
“The feeling’s mutual.” He took a deep breath, sheathed his knife, and took out his Maglite. “What do you say we find Noah’s Ark?”
Chapter 42
Maddock shone his light down the broad, gently sloping stone ramp that descended into the depths of the earth. Once again he felt the familiar thrill of excitement that came on the precipice of discovery. Despite whatever perils might lie ahead, and the very real dangers that followed behind them, he was now focused on the prize. Were they about to discover the source of perhaps the greatest legend in history? He moved forward, scanning every inch of the space ahead, watching for potential pitfalls, either natural or wrought by human hands. Their footsteps echoed in the hollow stone passage, every breath they took sounded like a thunderclap in the quiet of this domain that hadn’t felt the tread of feet in perhaps thousands of years.
“Maddock?” Bones said.
“Yes?”
“I’m sick of lava tubes. Too much sameness.” Bones reached out and rapped the wall, making a hollow thump that echoed in the wide passage.
“I think you’ve said that before.”
“I know. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t forgotten. Next time we head off on one of your… adventures, let’s keep it above ground if we can.”
Maddock stopped cold. “My adventures? It was your family’s lost stone that got this started, you know.”
“Will you two cut it out?” Dima said. “There’s something up ahead.”
Maddock turned to look. Ten paces in front of them, the passageway divided.
“Decision time,” Bones said. “Let’s check it out.”
When they reached the spot where the passage split they stopped short. Here, the floor was strewn with bones and trinkets.
“What the…” Bones began.
“I think it’s a place of sacrifice,” Dima said. “Think about it. All the years people lived here, they must have figured out how to make the altar open up.”
“If they were using it for sacrifice, it would have opened every time they spilled blood on it,” Maddock said. “Unless it requires human blood.” He didn’t pursue that line of thinking any further.
Dima nodded, chin cupped in her hand, eyes taking in the scene. “I’ll wager this is as far as they dared go, so they left offerings here to appease, I don’t know, the god of the mountain?”
“That would make sense,” Maddock agreed. “In some ways, religion is a byproduct of humankind trying to control the uncontrollable. You make a sacrifice and pray for rain for your crops, or for safety from an erupting volcano.” He glanced up as if he could still see the steaming peak of Ol Doinyo Lengai.
“Or escape from your mortality,” Bones added.
“Let’s not get too deep into theology,” Dima said. “We need to decide our next move. Did Schrader offer any hints?”
“I think he finally lost it. He just kept muttering, ‘They came two-by-two.’ Nothing else.” Maddock picked his way across the bone-strewed floor and examined the entrances to the passageways one at a time, shining his light as far down each tunnel as he could He saw nothing amiss with any of them. “What am I missing?” he whispered. He shone his light on the space above the tunnel where he stood. His eyes caught a faint irregularity in the stone.
“Bones, take a look at this.”
“Let me guess, you need a boost.”
“No, just take a look tell me what you see.”
Bones moved to Maddock’s side, rose up on his tiptoes, and squinted. “There’s something scratched here. Looks like two animals. Doves, I think.”
“Two by two,” Dima said. “And the dove is a powerful symbol, connected with water and the spirit. Plus, Noah sent a dove out to see if the flood waters had subsided. This must be it.” She took a step forward but Bones held her back.
“Hold on, chick. There’s always a catch. First, we see if there’s an image above the other passageway.”
Dima frowned, her eyes flinty, but she didn’t argue.
Bones moved to the second passageway and inspected the rock directly above it. “Two pigs. Mmm, bacon.”
“I still say we go with the doves,” Dima said. “In the Old Testament, the pig is an unclean animal.”
“You’re right,” Maddock said. “And that’s why we should avoid the doves.”
Dima and Bones turned twin looks of bemusement his way.
“Come again?” Bones said.
“Schrader said they came two-by-two, but not all animals came onto the ark in two’s, did they?”
Dima smacked herself in the forehead. “I’m an idiot.”
Bones frowned. “If you are, then I’m even worse because I still don’t get it.”
“Noah needed animals for sacrifice,” she began, “but he could only use so-called ‘clean’ animals. Remember that bit from the Book of Noah? ‘Two by two and seven by seven.’ Obviously, if he brought only two clean animals and sacrificed one…”
“A miniature extinction event,” Bones said.
“Exactly. So while Noah brought two of every animal considered unworthy of sacrifice, he brought seven of every clean animal so he could make sacrifices without eliminating his breeding stock.”
“So,” Maddock said, “the doves didn’t come two-by-two, but the pigs did.” He moved to the tunnel where Bones stood, the one marked by the unclean animals, and took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.” Taking one last, long look inside, he took a step.
The ceiling didn’t fall, the floor didn’t collapse, and nothing shot out of the walls to impale him. I’ve watched too many Indiana Jones movies. He took another step, and then another. When he’d taken a dozen, he felt safe enough to tell Bones and Dima the way was safe. They entered as slowly as he had, Dima clutching Bones’ arm.
“You might have saved my life, you know,” she said to Bones. “If you hadn’t stopped me from walking into that tunnel, who knows what might have happened?”
“Yeah, saving hot chicks is sort of my thing. You can thank me later.”
Shaking his head, Maddock moved on into the darkness.
Chapter 43
“Tyson! I’ve found something.” Ahmed stood in the center of a crumbled building at the center of Engaruka, waving like an idiot. The cloth he’d wrapped around his head had come loose and now dangled off his shoulder like a woman’s scarf, yet he seemed oblivious to how he appeared to the men.
Between the heat and the dire nature of their circumstances, Tyson was quickly losing patience with his colleague. If this were a false alarm, Tyson might have to punch him. He strode through the fallen stones and crumbled walls that passed for an ancient city, making his way to where his Ahmed waited. A dozen men circled around him, mercenaries hired to help them finish the job. He’d have preferred Trident regulars, but Shawa would never permit it. It was up to Tyson to earn his way back into the man’s good books, and he felt he was on the precipice of doing just that.
“What is it?”
“A ramp leading underground.” Ahmed beamed. “Right here. There was a giant black stone covering it, but it’s been moved aside.”
That was interesting. Tyson clambered over the loose stones until he reached Ahmed’s side.
It was just as Ahmed had described—a strange, dark stone had been moved, displacing the rubble around it. Down below was a stone ramp leading down to a passageway of some sort. “Well done,” Tyson said.
“I found three sets of boot prints. One set was large enough to be the Indian’s, and another small enough to be Zafrini’s.”
“I’d say that seals it. Let’s get them.” Knowing it was important to instill confidence in the mercenaries, who could be a fearful and superstitious lot, Tyson went first. Finger on the trigger guard of his pistol, he stalked down into the tunnel, shone his light around until he was certain the way was safe, and then called up to his men. “It’s clear. Come on down.”
One by one, the mercenaries made the drop, with Ahmed last. When they were all together, Tyson gave brief instructions.
“No talking. No flashlights or headlamps unless I give the order. We don’t want to warn them of our approach.”
The men nodded, recognizing reason and good sense when they heard it.
“Rifles at the ready and safeties on until I give the word. One stray bullet can do a world of damage should we find ourselves in tight quarters.”
As he turned and moved forward into the darkness, he allowed himself a smile. He had Maddock and crew cornered, and his men outnumbered theirs nearly five to one. This time he would not fail.
He moved as quickly as he could without making unnecessary noise. He wasn’t worried about booby traps. If there were any, Maddock and the others would have exposed them on their way in. Hopefully this would allow him and his men to make up for lost time.
When they came to a place where the passageway split into two, an unsettling place where old bones covered the floor, he barely hesitated. He chose two mercenaries and sent each down a tunnel with instructions to scout ahead fifty meters and report back. The two men nodded, seemingly happy to get away from the great heap of bones, and rushed ahead.
Ten seconds later, a loud crash and a cry of pain rang out from the passageway on the left. Tyson turned on his flashlight and moved to the mouth of the tunnel. Twenty paces in, a solid block of stone had fallen, crushing the mercenary.
“Rock fall in the tunnel,” he called over his shoulder. No need to alarm the mercenaries, who didn’t seem to have considered there might be dangers beyond that which their quarry presented. “Hopefully the other tunnel is solid.”
While they waited for the other scout to report back, Tyson made a quick inspection of the chamber in which they stood. He immediately noticed primitive carvings above each: doves above the
booby-trapped tunnel and pigs over the other. He wasn’t sure what significance, if any, the images held, but he filed them away for future reference.
Moments later, the scout returned, declaring the way ahead clear. Emboldened, Tyson once again took the lead. He would catch Maddock.
“I don’t see any symbols here.” Bones stood gazing at the blank wall where the tunnel they followed had come to an abrupt end. “Could we have missed a turn somewhere?”
“Not if our theory about clean and unclean animals is correct,” Maddock said. They’d encountered numerous places where the tunnel split or intersected other passageways. Every time, only a single passageway was marked by the unclean animals. He was convinced it was more than good fortune that had brought them this far. They had to be in the right place. “Check everything,” he said. “Walls, floor, ceiling. There’s got to be something to show us the way.”
He dropped to one knee, inspecting the floor, while Dima searched the walls and Bones scanned the ceiling. Maddock saw nothing but rough, gray stone.
“This place is weird-looking,” Bones said. “Instead of the usual stalactites and stalagmites, there’s all these lumpy, twisty rocks all around. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s a product of the carbonatite magma,” Dima said. “It was mentioned in an article about Ol Doinyo Lengai. Because of the magma’s low temperature and unusual composition, it doesn’t flow like normal lava. It’s thick and slow-moving, and thus can harden in unusual shapes. There’s no other place like it in the world.”
This gave Maddock an idea. He ran the beam of his light down the cavern wall, inspecting the odd shapes that had formed in spots along the walls. One immediately caught his attention. “Maybe I’m just missing Key West, but that looks an awful lot like a lobster to me.”
He knelt beside the figure that had caught his attention. Up close, there was no doubt. Someone had worked on this formation, perhaps selecting one that vaguely resembled the sea creature, and carved out claws and a tail to enhance the resemblance.