“Somebody packed our stuff?” Keith started grinning again.
“Well … we packed some stuff …” Eva said with a smile and a wink. “Climb aboard.”
She drove down a narrow, packed dirt road into the woods and kept going. The golf cart’s headlights didn’t show much of what was ahead except more trees. Keith and Talia snuggled in the back of the cart and waited.
The cart broke out of the trees about two miles from the main building and Keith and Talia climbed out, open-mouthed. Near the edge of a clearing where a lake stretched away into the darkness stood a small log cabin. A canoe was tied to the dock. The Tesla sat beside the cabin.
“You stay here for at least a week. Longer if you like,” Eva said. “We’ve stocked it with everything we could imagine you might need. Food, videos, music we were told you liked – there are prepared meals and scratch ingredients, because I know the missus likes to bake. Your choice, what you do and don’t do, but come morning, I think you’ll see you have some options. Besides … You know … the obvious wedding night stuff.” She smirked and handed over a set of keys.
Talia hugged her. “Thank you so much!”
“Why are you thanking me?” Eva said, starting to cry. “When I found my husband dead in our back yard, I slit my wrists so I could die too. If your aunt and uncle’s colleagues hadn’t been stopping in on their way to the states from the Olmec dig, I would have gone to meet God with suicide and hatred on my soul. This place is my peace. And you two are our future.”
Keith listened in stunned silence. He had to make himself grab the bags and follow Talia to the cabin as the golf cart drove away. They stood on the tiny porch as Talia fumbled to unlock the door.
“Everybody here has a story, I guess,” Keith said, setting the bags inside the door. “What’s Mrs. Sanchez’s?”
Talia hugged herself and started to tremble. “They ran a mission in their hometown of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. It’s a city near El Paso, but in Mexico. They tried to offer alternatives to illegals who thought they had no choice but to smuggle drugs or pay coyotes – people who claimed they could get them into America.”
“They started the work after finding dead and dying people in their yard or near their house almost every day. Some had drugs inside their bodies in packets that had burst. Some had been cut open to get the drugs. Some, both males and females, had been raped and beaten and didn’t even have clothes on. Eva and Raul worked for fifteen years taking people in or giving them decent burials, trying to notify relatives, and sharing Scripture and hope with those who could still hear. Her husband was killed by a Mexican drug cartel.”
Keith took Talia in his arms and felt her shaking subside. “I love how she said, ‘This place is my peace,’” he said. “So many people have found peace here. Peace, perfect peace. I think I heard your uncle say that a few times. C’mon, Mrs. Bradley.” He shifted and picked her up, carrying her inside the cabin.
Talia opened one of the suitcases when they were safely locked in. “Oh!” she exclaimed.
“What?” Keith asked. “Something wrong?” He looked over her shoulder into the bag and grinned. “That must be your bag,” he said, admiring the lacy white object at the top.
Chapter Fifty-three – Rescue by Cab
Talia adjusted her head covering after they had collected their luggage at the international airport in Faisalabad. They waited for more than an hour before Naddy started pacing the floor.
Sophie whispered, “I’m sure our contact told us to wait here. I hope there hasn’t been any trouble.”
“Hello, and welcome to Pakistan,” said a woman in muted robes, approaching them carrying a basket. “Traffic was terrible. I brought you some pipal figs,” she added.
“How kind of you,” Sophie said. “We have brought precious treasure.” Naddy showed the woman small packages Keith knew contained copies of the Scriptures in Urdu, Pakistan’s main language. Everyone relaxed after the exchange of passwords.
“Please follow me. We have a taxi waiting.”
To their surprise, the woman got into the front seat with the driver after he helped put their bags in the back of the ancient minivan.
“This is my brother,” the woman explained. “We have been told that it’s best not to exchange names. Your team arrived a few hours ago, and are getting set up at Harappa for us to start tomorrow. I am amazed at how quickly you were able to get permits.”
“I am well-acquainted with the antiquities minister,” Naddy said. “We have met numerous times in Monte Carlo.”
“You have more connections in Monte Carlo than … than anybody has anyplace,” Keith said.
“Connections are what we need as believers,” Naddy replied. “After the conversation with your father about purifying my heart, I wanted to swear off gambling. I know the dangers, and the questions that arise about its sinful nature or simply its ruinous possibilities, but now I cannot help seeing it as a harvest field. God did not say stay at the banquet table, even to serve. He said go out. Monte Carlo represents my highways and my hedges as well as my means of funding our work. The Pakistani Minister of Antiquities and I have had many talks. Sometimes people raised in Islam never openly confess that they have accepted the truth. So it is with my friend. But the seed roots itself in his stubborn heart, and he is a gracious host to my archaeological colleagues whenever we have work here.”
The taxi threaded its way among buses and tiny cars, as well as donkeys, camels, and wagons. Though the hotel was only a few miles away, it took more than an hour to reach it. The driver and his sister both helped with the baggage, discreetly leaving the packages of Urdu Scriptures in the trunk under a blanket.
“I see what you mean about the traffic,” Talia said. She balanced the basket of figs carefully on top of her Doomsday Duffel bag. “Thank you so much for your trouble.”
“This is how we live,” the taxi driver said. “I will come back to take you to your camp site in two hours, or as soon as I can make my way.” He flashed a broad smile.
“Welcome to the International Hotel,” a clerk said as they approached the desk.
“This looks like something out of Casablanca,” Keith murmured to Talia.
“The lobby is beautiful,” Talia said. “Let’s hope the rooms are as nice.”
“Yes, yes, we can stay at the dig site if you wish,” Naddy said. They had gone into their rooms and Sophie and Talia had come straight back out into the hallway. “All of us. I thought I would ease Keith into the archaeologist life. The hotel should have been better than living in tents.”
“Well, this one isn’t,” Sophie said, crossing her arms. She stared at the peeling paint and wallpaper through the doorway and shuddered as insects of various kinds scuttled freely up and down the walls. “We should have gotten some recommendations.”
“Enough,” Naddy grumbled. “It has been years since we worked in Pakistan. Back then this was an excellent hotel. I will try to get our money back but I am sure they will just want to exchange for other rooms that are equally …” He looked up and down the dark, moldering hallway. “I am sure we will not stay here,” he said in response to the looks on his wife and niece’s faces.
“I’m sorry this happened on my account,” Keith said after they had escaped from the clerk and the managers’ endless stream of excuses and had piled their bags on the curb to wait for their cab. “I would have been happy to stay in a tent at the dig site in the first place.”
“It was strange, how insistent the manager was that we must stay,” Sophie said with a grimace. “As if cleaning the room again would make up for rotting floorboards and moldy walls and rusted fixtures. The first time you lay down on that bed, my husband, you would have been into the room below, and in need of a tetanus shot for bedspring punctures.”
“It will probably be hours before the cab driver shows up,” Talia sighed. “At least these figs are good.” She popped one in her mouth.
“They are good,” Keith said, taking a handful. “I fee
l like I’m eating Bible History – Figs are in the Bible a lot, aren’t they?”
“Indeed,” Naddy replied. “The fig tree teaches of God’s blessings of peace and provision. In fact, Habakkuk uses the fig tree to reinforce the lesson that God is the source of joy and rejoicing even when we don’t see evidence of physical provision.”
All of them jumped as the unmistakable sound of gunfire erupted inside the hotel. Talia grabbed a small case from inside her duffel bag and pushed Keith and Sophie behind a palm tree. She worked frantically to open the case and her gun popped into her hand.
“How did you get that past the airport security?” Keith gasped as Talia pushed Naddy behind the tree as well. It wasn’t that big of a tree but they crouched behind the bedraggled hedges as Talia peeked toward the hotel entrance.
“Weapons can go on a plane. They just have to be in checked baggage and safely packaged,” Talia said as she loaded the gun. “I asked our trucker friends, Mike and Mary, about their secure box and got one made like it that’s portable.”
Screams and crashes issued through the front entrance and people began to pour out in various stages of interrupted activity. Kitchen workers, housekeepers, and even guests in various stages of dress ran in every direction.
Look at those windows shattering,” Sophie whispered. “That was our floor.”
“I’m guessing it was our rooms,” Keith said. “Somebody planned on killing us, and maybe bribed the hotel to keep us there? That must be why they kept trying to make us change our minds.”
“They should have paid them more, and sooner, to make the rooms habitable.” Naddy put a hand on Talia’s shoulder. “We have to get away from here.”
“Where can we go?” Talia asked. “They’ll either know about the dig site and be waiting for us there, or they’ll follow us there and kill everybody.”
“Who are they?” Sophie asked. “Who would cause all this destruction just to get at us?”
“Jenny Kaine would, in a heartbeat, I bet,” Keith replied.
“But before they were just trying to find out what we knew, or steal our artifacts,” Talia argued. “Killing us won’t get them closer to stopping the work of the Guardians.”
“Perhaps they are just venting their anger that we are not there,” Sophie said.
They all risked turning around as tires screeched behind them. The old minivan cab pulled up to the curb and their contact opened the front door.
“Get in! Get in!” The brother and sister crouched and shielded themselves as best they could while helping the travelers grab their belongings. The driver tore away as hooded men emerged from the hotel brandishing weapons.
“I can’t believe nobody saw us with that pile of stuff right outside the hotel,” Keith exclaimed.
“Thank you so much for coming back for us!” Talia said. “How did you know we needed help?”
“We heard on the radio about shooting at the hotel,” the woman replied. “We wondered about you going there in the first place, and almost suggested we take you elsewhere. I wish we had. It’s a notorious place for tourists to be lured to and taken advantage of.”
“Should we take you to your dig site?” her brother asked.
“No,” his sister replied before anyone could speak. “The gunmen might follow us. We need to make sure no one can figure out where we take them.”
“Then we should take them home,” the driver said with a smile.
“Of course!” The woman clapped her hands. “Yes! You shall be our guests tonight.”
“We can’t endanger you,” Naddy protested.
“When you see where we live, you’ll understand why you’ll be perfectly safe there,” the woman assured him. “We live in the Caves of Gondrani.”
“Impossible!” Naddy exclaimed.
Chapter Fifty-four – the Caves of Gondrani
“You live in a cave?” Keith asked after the stunned silence stretched on too long. The minivan labored out of Faisalabad.
“No one lives in the Caves of Gondrani,” Naddy scoffed. “It is an archaeological site.”
“No one has worked the part of the site where we live for years,” the cab driver replied. “Many poor people in Pakistan have taken up residence in the old cave dwellings. And so have many who don’t wish to be spied upon and threatened.”
“So these caves are … what?” Keith began. “Real caves? In the mountains?”
“They are manmade caves,” the woman replied. “No one knows exactly how or when. Some say Buddhist monks carved them out for seclusion. That is convenient for those who do not want to consider the legends of other makers.”
“We are not looking for legends,” Sophie said. “We need evidence. But … Are you referring to the tale of Badiul Jamal?”
“The story of Badiul Jumal hints at a deeper truth, perhaps,” the woman replied. “A princess haunted by demons, freed by Prince Saif-ul-Muluk, who killed them. This supposedly happened in the time of Solomon. Arabic legends speak of increased demonic activity during Solomon’s reign. The djin or genies are very much like demons, or possibly even angelic beings. The stories say Solomon found a way to imprison the evil djin.”
“That sounds like the Arabian Knights – putting them in bottles or lamps or something, right?” Keith ventured. This conversation was starting to remind him of his research into Britomart. He had thought that was just a crazy myth until he had seen what the ax could do.
“May I ask why you would come all the way to Faisalabad if you live in the caves of Gondrani?” Talia asked. “It’s more than a two-hour drive.”
“People don’t need taxis there. They need them in Faisalabad,” the driver said. “I go up once a month or so and stay a week – however long it takes until I earn enough to meet our needs and help some of the others who cannot get work or travel.”
“You have perhaps heard about the other story of the caves,” the woman said. “The Gondrani people were all tormented by demons that ate their flesh, so the tale goes. A holy woman of great age named Mai freed the people. Some versions say she sacrificed herself. Some say she exorcized the demons and lived out her life in the town. You can visit the shrine to Mai, where she is supposed to be buried, while we are there, if you wish.”
Keith could see Talia, Sophie, and Naddy exchanging uncertain looks. Finally Sophie spoke up. Changing the subject seemed like the best thing to lower the discomfort level Keith could feel growing in the taxi.
“How can we let our people at Harappa know we are safe?” Sophie asked. “If you heard about the gunfire at the hotel, they will hear of it also. We don’t want anyone to come there looking for us.”
“We should be far enough from Faisalabad now that you can try to use your phones without being tracked, if you have signal,” the driver replied.
“I cannot get a call through,” Naddy complained.
“Yes, but I can text,” Talia said, applying her fingers rapidly to the task. “That takes less signal than talk. Okay, there. I got through to Cindee.”
Glad 2 know UR OK, the text said when she showed the phone screen around. Jiggly was about 2 launch a rescue. He’s sure gotten a lot braver since he got religion.
Everyone laughed.
“How far will we be from Harappa at this cave place?” Keith asked.
“Harappa is much closer to Faisalabad,” the woman replied. “I’m sorry we had to take you such a long distance out of your route, but we will definitely confuse and throw off any pursuers. It’s actually good that things worked out this way. Some of the more important discoveries I have to show you are at Gondrani.”
Keith felt Talia tense up beside him. He casually put an arm around her and pulled her close. They sat in the third set of seats, behind Naddy and Sophie. The minivan made a lot of noise and the roads were bumpy, so he risked a whisper in her ear.
“Do you think they’re kidnapping us?” he asked. “Maybe working with the crazies at the hotel? They sure showed up at just the right time.”
; Talia hesitated but finally shook her head. “We are going in the right direction for Gondrani,” she replied softly. “I checked my phone GPS.”
“If your artifacts are in Gondrani, why did you tell us to set up for a dig at Harappa?” Sophie asked.
“Misdirection for those who might overhear,” the woman replied. “And not all the artifacts are at Gondrani. After you see what I have, you will want to confirm and verify that these artifacts are consistent with findings at Harappa.”
“So it is your contention that the cave dwellings at Gondrani are much older than the Buddhist theory?” Naddy asked.
“Some of them clearly are. Yes, indeed,” the woman replied. “But I want you to draw your own conclusions.”
“Aren’t the caves dangerous? Crumbling from erosion?” Talia asked.
“Some are, of course,” the woman said. “But we have found those to be mostly the later-period ones. Some cells were made by Buddhist monks, of course. It’s not that people are lying, exactly. It is another case of misdirection. I’m sorry. I’m trying so hard not to influence you. Doctor Ramin –” She nodded her head at Sophie “–said you need evidence, and not legends. So I only ask you to look at the evidence and see what you conclude.”
Just the flight schedule to get to Pakistan had worn Keith out. The terror when the shots rang out at the hotel and the long drive in the taxi left him too bleary-eyed to pay attention to the accommodations. He awoke the next morning with Talia in his arms and an arch of sandy-colored stone over his head.
“Where are we?”
Talia laughed. “Gondrani,” she said.
“Oh, the cave city.” He jumped up and smacked his head on the ceiling. “Ow! Were the people who made this midgets?”
Talia stood up and raised a hand, brushing the cave roof with her fingers. “No,” she said. “They seem to have been more my size.” She slid under his arm. “You said you liked my size.”
The Great Thirst Boxed Set Page 32