by Ken Hansen
“Sorry about that. You said you wanted this quickly.”
“So I did,” Huxley said. “Don’t worry. I’m sure I will still find time to write that raise request. You get me a contact at Camp Rabin? I need to find out about those techie corporals.”
Kira replied, “Still working on it. Got a call into DOD to see if we can find someone who can bypass official channels for you.”
“Great. Call me as soon as you have it. And get some sleep.”
Chapter 5
Professor Jonathan Stirling’s brow wrinkled just above his hand, which bisected his forehead to block the sun from his face. His eyes and nose crinkled beneath the hand, though his wire-rimmed glasses covered most of the crows’ feet at the edge of his eyes. Beads of sweat already covered his sunbaked skin as he kneeled in a half-buried stairwell rising directly toward the east. With a small metallic tool in hand, Stirling was looking up the stairs at Huxley, who appeared like a two-dimensional shadow with the mid-morning sun at his back.
The professor remained still, staring at Huxley for a full five count. “What would an investigator from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security be doing on an old hilltop in Israel? I know you boys worry about evil terrorists from this part of the globe, but this is taking the Armageddon myth a bit far, don’t you think?”
Huxley didn’t skip a beat. “You never know if someone might take Revelation a bit too seriously, Professor. You guys don’t have any weapons of world destruction buried under this hill, do you?”
The professor smiled. “You never know until you get to the bottom of things.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
The professor grinned and stood up, whisked past Huxley up the steps, grumbled something in Hebrew to an assistant, and then turned back to Huxley. “Mr. Huxley, let’s walk the site. I’ll give you a little tour while we see if I can be of any assistance to you.”
The two men began traversing the ancient city on a hill. To the uninitiated, it consisted merely of various piles of rocks, stairs, walls and platforms, all interspersed with a few palm trees; to an archaeologist, it was a vivid, historic painting. Stirling walked Huxley through two ancient stables that could hold nearly 500 horses in their hey day. The two inspected the hewn stone walls with basalt foundation standing at the foot of the wide Canaanite Gate, constructed to allow chariots into the city during the Bronze Age before the Jewish resettlement.
Nearing the end of the tour, Huxley said, “I’d like to show you a picture, if I could.” Huxley pulled out his phone, tapped a couple of times and handed the phone to the professor. “Are you familiar with this instrument?”
“Ah, you found it. Seems like a long ways to travel to investigate the petty theft of a memento, though.”
“A memento?”
“Yes. I was given this pick by my Department Chair on the occasion of my 25th year of service at the College.”
“When did you last see it?” Huxley asked.
“A few weeks ago. I figured it had just gone missing in that wreck of a trailer I keep in the parking lot. But what does this have to do with Homeland Security?”
Huxley studied the professor’s face as he answered, “This tool was found a week ago in the possession of a terrorist killed while trying to infiltrate an Israeli base.”
The professor’s eyes widened slightly beneath the rims. He took a deep breath, turned and coughed. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Huxley. What was the terrorist’s name?”
Huxley could see that the news had shaken the professor, even though he must have known Huxley was coming this morning. “I was hoping you might have some ideas on that.”
“I see. Well, I don’t see how I can help you. I don’t know who took it. I wasn’t even sure it was missing.”
“So you did believe it was missing? Did you file a police report?”
“No, no. As I said, I did not know whether I had just misplaced it. In any case, I doubt that thing is worth much to anyone but me.”
“It seems an odd thing to steal, don’t you think?” Huxley asked.
“Precisely.”
“Was anything else missing from your trailer?”
“Not that I have noticed. Have you peered within my trailer?”
A five-inch long black millipede crawled from underneath a rock by Huxley’s foot, and Huxley’s stomach turned a few notches as he drew his foot back. Creepy-crawling things. Still, they were far better than the rats crawling in the dark corners of an improvised detention cellar.
The professor took advantage of the pause in the questioning and returned to his narration. “This is one of the oldest areas of Megiddo that we have uncovered—about 6000 BCE, well before the end of the Stone Age. This site is incredibly resilient and kept being destroyed and rebuilt over thousands of years. We have found evidence of civilizations in different layers here from the Stone Age through the beginning of the Babylonian exile of Jews from this region. That would be around 587 BCE, when—”
The professor quickly pivoted and shouted in Hebrew to an assistant down the hill and began pointing toward a tour group that seemed to be getting a little too close to a rock wall on the Western end of the site. A little while later a tourist scampered out of the pit between Huxley and the tour group. “We have to live with these tourists trampling on our site, you know,” said the professor. “The guides are supposed to keep them in line and off of our dig, but, as always, some guides are better than others. Unfortunately, it’s how we get paid. Not much money in archaeology research these days. Government funds keep drying up. Now, where were we?”
“Who would have known that you had the memento?” Huxley asked.
“The memento. Yes, well, quite a few people, I suppose, since I occasionally employ it, or rather did employ it, on the site.”
“You used a 25th anniversary memento in your everyday work?”
“No, not every day, mind you.” The professor shrugged. “It is just one of those things I use to break up the tedium. While this job is unbelievably fascinating, just look around you, Mr. Huxley, you know that sometimes we can go for extended periods without any discoveries worth even a paltry cocktail party mention. I deploy the pick when I’m a bit in the dumps and need a reminder to stay the course. A new wonder often rewards the patient, Mr. Huxley.”
“Have you had any members of your crew leave recently?”
“Oh, the workers come and go, particularly the locals. I wouldn’t read much into that.”
“Still, has anyone left recently?” Huxley asked.
“I would check with Professor Katzir. This is an operation of the Tel Aviv University, after all. I’m just here as a temporary associate director of this particular dig. Ask Katzir. I’d say we would have two or three local helpers who have left in the last month or so. This is a pretty good-sized dig.”
“This tool, this memento, would it be useful for digging a tunnel?”
“Not much, I wouldn’t think. No weight to it, is there? Delightful if you are finely picking away at debris surrounding delicate items—pottery and the like. But a tunnel? It would be a bit like a prisoner digging his way to freedom with a spoon. I suppose it could be done given a long enough time, but if he had a shovel and a heavy pick, it would be terribly more efficient.”
The two were standing on the north end of the site. Huxley noticed a post with a vertical sign at the edge of the site, reading, “Let peace prevail” in both English and Hebrew. Huxley smiled at the irony: this was Armageddon. Huxley looked away from the dig and was struck by the gorgeous view. Tel Megiddo stood high above the wide plain to the north, the beautiful Jezreel Valley, formerly known as the “Plain of Megiddo” in Hebrew and the “Plain of Armageddon” in Greek. The sun gleamed off of enormous rectangular patches of yellow, brown and green fields interrupted here and there by small villages sporting squat houses on the vast plain. In the distance, the hills pushed upward, trying to reveal their magnificence through the haze of the day, while larger cities nestled comfortably at
their feet. On a clear day, you could even see—
Huxley tilted his head slightly and then looked back at the professor. “Tell me, Professor, does anyone ever do any star gazing from here? It feels like a natural observatory.”
“Oh yes. We had a big telescope out here a few months ago when Encke’s Comet was shooting by. They had it set up just about here.”
“Who brought the telescope out?”
“That would be Dante Tocelli. He was a bright one and seemed to have some kind of background in astronomy. Double major or something like that.”
“Was a bright one?” Huxley asked.
The professor cocked his head and let out some air. “Well, I don’t mean he’s dead or anything. He returned to his university in Rome—Sapienza, I believe. He was just here on an internship.”
“When did he leave?”
“About two weeks ago. But you need not worry yourself about him. He’s a bright one. Not the type. I think he’s a Catholic. I certainly don’t think he’s Arab. He has darker skin, but more of the northern Mediterranean type. And, of course, he possesses an Italian surname.”
“You are probably right about that. Does the dig perform security background checks on interns?”
“Not that I’d know. You would have to consult with Katzir.”
“Of course. Thanks for your help, Professor. I’ll let you get back to your work.”
“Certainly. And, uh, Mr. Huxley, since you have a picture of it, do you suppose you could manage to return that little memento to me?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Huxley turned back to the north and stared at the vast expanse of flat land lying to the north and east of Megiddo before Mount Caramel rising up some 8 miles away. About seven miles below, slightly to the east of north, the Ramat David Airbase seemed peacefully at rest.
The tour group clamored up the hill nearby. The tour guide droned on, “Before you lies the Jezreel Valley. It is peaceful now, but it has been the site of many important battles. Though this Tel was built over many thousands of years by many civilizations, one fact remained throughout—it was a critical juncture along a narrow pass and trade route connecting Egypt in the West with Assyria to the East. As such, the valley has seen great bloodshed. You may know it better as the ‘Plain of Armageddon.’ Napoleon once called it ‘the most natural battleground of the whole Earth.’”
The tourist who had been chased out of the pit by the Professor spoke up, “I have heard there were many battles described in the Old Testament here. What are they and where can we find them?” With his sunglasses now propped on his head, the tourist was carrying a Bible and madly thumbing through it.
The tour leader smiled, enjoying the interaction of her group and the opportunity to demonstrate her preparation. “You are correct, sir. Deborah & Barak fought Sisera as recorded in Judges 5. Saul fought the Philistines here as stated in the first book of Samuel. Even the great Solomon battled an Egyptian Pharaoh here. Second Chronicles refers to that battle. And two of Judah’s kings, Ahaziah and Josiah, died on this plain nearly two and a half centuries apart. Both can be found in 2 Kings.”
Huxley’s mouth opened slightly. He whispered to himself, “2 Kings. 2 Kings.” He switched his iPhone to the downloaded terrorist’s contacts list and stared at it. Something he hadn’t noticed before. That note now made sense:
2K927 Kings Ridge Dr.
Arden, DE 22329
Notes
A Th. Meet
Why Delaware? Why A Th. Meet? And why had he not seen this before? DE was not Delaware and there was no Thursday meeting. “2 Kings … DE A Th. Meet” was a message. 2 Kings meet death near this ridge. 2 Kings also referred to the book of the Old Testament that chronicled their deaths. The house number now made sense. He tapped Safari on his phone and fired up an Internet search. After a few moments, he found the passage right where he expected, at 2 Kings 9:27:
Seeing what was happening, Ahaziah, king of Judah, fled toward Beth-haggan. Jehu pursued him, shouting, “Him too!” They struck him as he rode through the pass of Gur near Ibleam, but he continued his flight as far as Megiddo and died there.
Bingo. Megiddo is the answer. How about the zip code? He used it to punch in 2 Kings 23:29, confirming his suspicion:
In his time Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, went up toward the Euphrates River against the king of Assyria. King Josiah set out to meet him, but was slain at Megiddo at the first encounter.
Huxley smiled broadly as that warm sensation returned to his gut at last. He felt eyes upon him and glanced up furtively. He saw the eyes of the wayward tourist with the Bible dart down and begin searching again through the Bible.
A little tail from my new friends at Aman? Undoubtedly, someone was here on their behalf, trailing and deciphering his moves, but this guy didn’t look quite right. He certainly was not Jewish.
Huxley had seen the somewhat darker skin and slight fold of the eyelids before, in Afghanistan. One of the bigger tribes, the Hazara, shared some of their ancestors with Mongolians, such as Genghis Kahn. Something like one-third had the special star-cluster Y-chromosome marker tied to the great conqueror—probably the result of the exodus from Persia of Mongolian soldiers as their empire began to crumble behind them in the fourteenth century. Many of the Hazara obviously shared similar genes for eye shape as well. While most Hazara today were Twelver Shiites, a small minority were Sunnis.
Huxley wiped the sweat off his forehead. Hard to figure how Aman managed to turn an Afghan into their contractor, but they must have their ways. Huxley took a step toward the bible-carrying man. “Excuse me sir, but I found the references you were searching for in 2 Kings. They are 9:27 and 23:29. Great numbers, don’t you think?”
The man gleamed back a smile. “Thank you sir. 2 Kings is a big book to search page by page.”
Huxley returned the smile. That accent was Hazaran all right, but there was no fear in his eyes. Maybe he was not aware of the contacts entry. “You are welcome. Are you here on vacation?” Huxley asked, though he did not speak the words in English. He had used Dari Persian—probably the wrong dialect, but close enough.
The man’s head jerked back, and for just an instant a micro-expression of fear appeared in the narrowing of his pupils and furrowing of his brow. Less than a second later, he smiled. In Dari Persian, he responded, “You speak my language. How delightful. Yes, I am here on vacation from my sad, war-torn nation.”
“With a Christian Bible?”
“I cherish history, sir, and knew this was an area full of it, especially of the Old Testament sort. I must admit, though, I borrowed the book from that nice American lady in the group over there when I realized it would assist my understanding.”
“You can read English?” Huxley asked. “How worldly of you.”
“A symptom of learning to read orders from your military, I’m afraid.” He switched back to English. “But I must go now sir. The group is leaving.”
“Could I trouble you to take a picture of me in front of this valley? It is beautiful, and I loathe selfies so.”
“Yes, of course.”
Huxley pulled up his phone in front of his face, the main camera lens pointing toward the tourist, and touched a few buttons. “Let me see here, I have to get this camera off of selfie mode.” He fumbled around for a few seconds. “There we go. Here now, just touch this button and I’ll give you a big smile.”
After the picture, they nodded to each other and parted. As the man hurried back to his tour group, Huxley switched his phone to view pictures and slid his own picture to the right. It was quickly replaced by a close-up headshot of the Afghan man with a pinched expression. Rather clumsy of an operative to allow me to take his picture. He sent off a message with the picture to Kira.
Abdul Saboor Anwari sat in his rented white Volvo, which idled and poured AC onto his sweat-dripped face. Anwari stared ahead at nothing in particular, thinking. How would he explain his encounter with Christian Huxley to his controller? He wa
s supposed to tail him, observe him, assist as necessary, and report back. There was nothing about contact, which meant, of course, contact was forbidden. But contact had been made. He had pushed a little too close, not realizing Huxley was so keenly observant. He had been warned about that, but the guy had been in a deep conversation with the professor. The professor had noticed him when he tried to get a little closer to hear their conversation, and that tipped Huxley’s mind toward him. Now all might be lost. Huxley had made him, even speaking to him in his native language. He looked at me like he knew me, like he trusted me, and I somehow almost felt like I could trust him. He is very good at this game.
The flip phone’s speaker started blaring a simple ring tone. He looked at the screen, but it could only be one person. He glanced at the side and ensured the encryption/decryption device was turned on. Although it didn’t look like much, the chip stopped the NSA and other spy agencies from capturing key words in their massive supercomputers. Nevertheless, you couldn’t be too careful. “Hello,” he said in English, since Arabic would just attract more attention.
A deep, resonant voice spoke in English with an Arabic accent, “What is the status?”
“He gets Tel Megiddo.”
“Good. Where is he now.”
“He’s at the site. He’ll be leaving soon, I imagine.” Anwari took a deep breath. “There is something else. He spoke to me in Persian.”
“You made contact?”
“No, he did. He’s pretty quick. I was just trying to be helpful.”
“That wasn’t the plan, was it? Contact is dangerous with him.” The voice on the other end let out a deep sigh of disgust, followed by a short pause. “Did he ID you?”
“I don’t think so,” said Anwari, “but I was forced to admit to some of my background. I am a tourist. I think it will just stay there.”