“Pierre…” Kismet sighed, shaking his head in frustration. “If you had been up front about this, I probably would never have even started looking. A magic Staff? We don’t belong here, Pierre. It’s time to go home.”
Chiron opened his mouth as if to continue protesting, but Kismet did not linger. He rose and headed across the ruin to where Hussein was laboring, pausing only long enough to switch the computer off. The brightly colored display abruptly winked into nothingness; a fitting metaphor for Chiron’s quest and its abrupt end.
From a window on the fourth story of Saddam Hussein’s Babylonian palace, the woman calling herself Dr. Rebecca Gault watched the distant figures from the GHC expedition through a pair of 7 X 50 binoculars. The magnification was not good enough to allow her to pick out facial features at this distance, but it was easy enough to determine the identity of each person.
Rebecca, along with her team, had trailed Kismet and the others from Baghdad, finding overnight lodging in Al Hillah to avoid discovery, and ended their travels in the early hours of morning. They had taken a station in the palace complex, content for now, at least, to simply observe. She had little doubt that the search upon which Kismet had embarked would not be quickly resolved. That was why she found the scene unfolding in the circular view-field of the binoculars so disturbing.
After only a few hours of dragging the ruins, the expedition appeared to be packing up and leaving. When there could not longer be any doubt as to their intent, she lowered the glasses. This was one eventuality they had not anticipated. On an impulse she took out her phone, but paused without entering a numeric sequence.
It wasn’t her place to determine their next course of action. Her controller was even more dedicated to the success of their expedition than she. He would know what to do and he would call with the next move. For now, she and her team needed only to stay out of sight. Putting the phone away, she resumed her surveillance.
Nine
Although centuries had passed since her fall, the ancient city of Babylon continued to suffer from what seemed like a divinely sent plague: mosquitoes. The marshy banks of the Euphrates teemed with enormous blood-sucking insects, and as the evening shadows began to cool the bricks of the palace, a great buzzing cloud settled in as well. Because looters had smashed every window in the massive edifice, there remained no overall defense against the swarm. The Marines not actively engaged in their duties sought refuge inside tents, which they had pitched in the interior rooms, or in the closed environs of their vehicles. Insect repellant compounds were effective, but in the face of such a constant attack, it made more sense to simply limit exposure.
Kismet however found the small sacrifice of blood preferable to the company of his associates. Since his decision to suspend the survey of the Esagila, Chiron had been alternately contemptuous and desperate, insisting that the truth was there to be found, while Hussein seemed torn between his respect for the old man and the unarguable certainty that Kismet had made the right decision. Marie merely acted irritated that they had endured so much difficulty for no apparent reason, but she at least had not burdened him with reproachful stares. In any case, he was enjoying the seclusion of the open third floor terrace, and as the sky darkened, a slight breeze fluttered across the balcony, driving even the mosquitoes away. Stretching out on the bare marble floor, Kismet closed his eyes and enjoyed the rare moment of peace.
“You made the right decision.”
The voice intruding on his solitude belonged to Marie, and while he did not open his eyes or rise to greet her, he could tell by the sound of footsteps that she was alone. “I know,” was his simple reply.
Her steps grew louder with her approach and when she stopped, it wasn’t difficult to conclude that she had lowered herself to sit beside him. “I have a confession to make. I was eavesdropping this afternoon.”
Kismet slowly opened his eyes. For some reason, his heart had begun beating faster.
“There’s obviously a great deal more to you then I had first believed, Nick Kismet.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he replied, guardedly. “But there are a few things I prefer to keep private.”
“Forgive me. I did not mean to intrude. In fact, I only came here to assure you that I am in full agreement with your decision. I heard what Pierre said…what he’s looking for. It’s crazy. He’s put us all in grave danger for the sake of…of a Bible story.”
“Pierre is a complicated man. I may not agree with what he’s done, but I understand it.” He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to defend the old man, but the words poured forth unbidden.
“Perhaps. But the Staff of Moses? It’s ridiculous.”
“Probably.”
“Don’t tell me you believed him?”
Kismet finally sat up and looked at her. “I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t believe anyone else does either. But a whole lot of people in the world believe that Moses was a real person, looked a lot like Charlton Heston, and used his stick to part the Red Sea. Who am I to say it didn’t happen that way?”
“You know that’s not what Pierre was saying.”
He thought her argument strange. She wasn’t refuting the basic story, but rather Chiron’s elaborate interpretation. “No, Pierre believes in a slightly different version of events but either way, his belief that the Staff might be hidden here somewhere is not without merit.”
She fixed him with a deliberate stare. “So you do think it’s here? Or that it was?”
“I didn’t say that either. I don’t know.”
“I don’t understand. If you thought it might yet be found, why did you turn away?”
He frowned, and then jumped to his feet. The pleasant solitude was gone, and suddenly the idea of sitting still was anathema. He paced over to the balustrade and gazed out over the dark river. Directly below was an elaborately tiled courtyard with a large square swimming pool, partially drained since the occupation and overgrown with dark moss so that it now resembled a deliberately built mosquito fen. Kismet worked loose a piece of mortar from between the tiles and flicked it out toward the pool as he answered. “Because it was all wrong. I don’t know, maybe I was just mad at Pierre for dragging me out here under false pretenses. I’m no treasure hunter.”
She joined him at the railing, standing close enough that their elbows were touching. “But that’s not what you said out there. You said that if it had been there, it was almost certainly gone…Wait a minute. I remember now. You said something about a cult of Prometheus? Who are they?”
“Just one more unanswered question. And one of those things I mentioned that I prefer to keep to myself.”
“But Pierre knows about it.” Her tone was insistent. Her curiosity, now aroused, would not be satisfied with a brush-off. “He used it to get you out here. What’s the connection?”
“I don’t know. To be perfectly honest, all I know is what you probably overheard. There may or may not be a group of people out there with a particular interest in artifacts with religious significance. I’d like to find them, and there’s reason to believe that they may have already discovered what we were looking for.” Despite the deepening twilight, Kismet found that he could see the ruins of the temple in the distance off to his left. “Only we couldn’t prove it today.”
“So if it can’t be proved, what does it mean? That this treasure vault doesn’t really exist? Or that is was never really discovered?”
“Well, no. All we really determined was that there has been no significant change in the soil around the temple mound to a depth of thirty meters. If the vault exists there, it must be deeper than that. And if Saddam’s engineers found it, they must have gone in by a different route—” His fingers abruptly tightened on the railing. “Damn!”