Kathlyn Trent, Marcus Burton 01 - Valley of the Shadow (21 page)

"I want to publicly congratulate Dr. Trent on her remarkable find in Israel," he said. "Without her help, none of this would have been realized. She has, in fact, outdone herself. She has reached the top of her career and there is no where to go from here."

It was a strange statement. Kathlyn wasn't sure what to say. Lynn looked around curiously. "What find?" he asked.

Dougray's smile faded. "Why, of course she told you, didn't she? Or perhaps Dr. Maurer did?"

Lynn shook his head. "Nobody told me anything. What find?"

Kathlyn and Juliana looked at each other in shock as Dougray began to speak. "Why, the ark, of course. Dr. Trent located the ark,” he replied.

Lynn's eyes grew wide. Marcus came down from the raised sarcophagus to stand next to his wife. "You found the ark?" he asked her.

Leave it to Marcus to play dumb, knowing Kathlyn wasn't supposed to have told him.  Kathlyn looked at Dougray as if he had lost his mind.

"Mr. Dougray, we were sworn to silence on this,” she said.” You just violated that promise."

Dougray waved her off. "I've done nothing more than tell two reputable archaeologists about a remarkable find. I'm sorry we cannot tell the world but at least we can tell Dr. Davis and Dr. Burton. They can appreciate the significance of such a find."

Since he put it that way, Kathlyn couldn't really argue. Besides, she had violated that promise herself. "I suppose so," she looked at Marcus. "But you really can't tell anyone. The Israeli government was quite clear about it."

"You found it?" Lynn repeated. "Where was it? What did it look like?"

Juliana was standing next to him and answered. "We found it where we thought it was, beneath the Calvary Escarpment. It was wedged back into a tiny little cave, covered with sheepskin. It's not very big, you know. Only about two and a half feet by one and a half feet. It was covered in gold foil which, unfortunately, had mostly peeled away. Underneath was a solid cypress frame."

Lynn was amazed. "So why can't you tell everyone? I think that's incredible!"

Dougray cut in. "Because the ark is not yet meant to be known to man,” he replied. “Do you realize how it would change the world's perception of religion and life in general if it were known that the Ark of the Covenant really exists?"

Kathlyn looked at him, a strange sense of foreboding building in her chest.  She couldn't quite put a finger on it.

"Mr. Dougray,” she ventured hesitantly. “I've done a dozen programs for your company dealing with those same issues. I thought we agreed that the time for such discoveries is now at hand. That has been the basis for everything I've done over the past ten years."

"The time is right for some things, but not others," Dougray countered. "You've done programs on the Shroud of Turin, the Holy Grail, the Sword of Goliath, Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, and most recently Noah's Ark. But the sad truth is, Dr. Trent, that even if you manage to actually locate and prove such things, the world is so oversaturated with legends and theories about these holy items that they'll never truly believe you one hundred percent.  To true Christians, you are a danger and to Jews, you represent everything that could destroy their beliefs."

Marcus didn't like what Dougray was saying, but he didn't say anything. This was Kathlyn's arena.

"It is my desire to educate people," she said evenly. "I have a gift and a true desire to explore our past. If that destroys the archaic beliefs of an antiquated religion, I can't help that. Maybe it's time they come out of the dark ages and stop believing in the same religion created by men who believed that comets were bad omens and that lightning was the finger of God."

Abrahams stepped in. "Kathlyn, since you started at SCU, I've tried to direct you in the right path to discover the past without totally changing Man's perception of our foundation of beliefs,” he said pointedly. “What I never counted on was how good you really were and how determined you would be. You're absolutely amazing. But this young, talented woman I remember from ten years ago has become headstrong, stubborn, and uncontrollable."

"Wait a minute," Marcus could no longer stand back while they attacked Kathlyn. "You just got finished announcing the greatest archaeological find ever and congratulating her for it. Now you're tearing her apart. She's the best at what she does and we're goddamn lucky to have her."

"No one is disputing that, Dr. Burton," Abrahams said. "She is a product of my university and I am extremely proud to be associated with her. But I must be forthright when I say I have created something of a Frankenstein."

"What in the hell does that mean?" Marcus snapped.

"It means she doesn't listen anymore,” Abrahams replied with some passion in his actions. “It means that she does not do as she is instructed- this dig is a good example. She was supposed to help locate your tomb for cordial university relations and move on to her assignment in Israel. Instead, she wanted to stay.  When I tried to force her to go to Israel, she quit." Abrahams was looking at Burton when he spoke. "She is by far the most visible and intelligent archaeologist it the world today. She delves into areas that most people hide from. She knows no fear and she produces results. That was a great quality when she did as she was told, but now she's too big for anyone to handle and that makes her an extreme danger."

Marcus was about to snap the man's neck. "You're talking about my wife," he rumbled. "If you consider brilliance and drive a danger, it’s because your mind is too small to understand it. Thank God she doesn't work for you anymore, Abrahams. You don't deserve her."

"But she works for me," Dougray interrupted. "And I know I cannot control her, either. It is regrettable that she has come as far as she has, which will make doing what is necessary that much more difficult."

Kathlyn was in the middle of this, hurt at their words, comforted by Marcus' defense. She looked at Abrahams as a wounded child would glare at a father.

"So what are you going to do?” she demanded. “Shoot me like a mad dog?"

Marcus grasped her by the arm, his fingers biting into her flesh. She turned to see several of the workers standing in the door way of the sarcophagus chamber. One of the, the man in the middle, had removed the turban from around his head. It took her a half a second to recognize Schmin Baras.

And he had a gun.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Kathlyn didn't know what to say.

She just stared at Baras, holding the porcelain Glock 9mm handgun that was aimed right for her. She found herself trying to move away from Marcus and the others, trying to draw the hazard away from them, but Marcus moved with her and in fact even put himself in front of her.  She couldn't escape him and he was determined to protect her. She wasn't scared as much as she was simply confused.

"Dr. Abrahams, what in the hell is going on?" she demanded quietly.

Abrahams seemed truly remorseful, more so that Dougray did. He just stood there impassively.

"I'm sorry, Kathlyn," Abrahams said sincerely. "If you only had... you weren't even supposed to stay in Egypt. Your behavior over the past few months has been unstable and frightening. I'm so sorry to say that I don't trust you any longer and can no longer vouch for your loyalties."

Kathlyn had no idea what he was talking about, but she realized that this was only about her. The others didn't have to be involved.

"Let Marcus and the others go,” she implored. “If this problem is with me, I'll deal with it. I don't want to risk them."

"The problem is with all of you now, I'm afraid," Abrahams said. "We cannot let them go now that they know."

"Know what, for Heaven's sake?"

"Ronald," Dougray flicked a hand at him to quiet him. "You're not making any sense. Perhaps we should start from the beginning."

Marcus was so tense he was white. This was all like a bad dream and he prayed he'd wake up to realize it had been a figment of his overactive imagination.

"Please do," he growled. "I'd like to know why I'm going to be forced to kill in self defense. And what the hell is Baras doing here? I thought he left."

"Baras is none of your concern."

"If he's on my goddamn dig, I make him my concern."

Dougray looked at Abrahams and silent words passed between them. "Ronald," Dougray said quietly. "Perhaps we should. It's for the best, you know. He'll make good on his threat if he gets the chance."

Ronald nodded his head reluctantly and looked to Baras, who immediately pointed the gun at Marcus. Kathlyn could see what was coming and she threw herself in front of him.

"No!" she screamed. "Don't touch him. If it's me you want, shoot me, but don't hurt him. What in the hell is going on here?"

Marcus was trying to move her out of harm’s way and Lynn took the opportunity to throw himself at Baras. Had he been any faster, the situation would have been quite different. But Baras caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye and the gun went off. Lynn went down.

"No!"

Juliana and Kathlyn screamed in protest, but Juliana was closest to Lynn. She dropped to her knees beside him where he wallowed on the ground, spilling bright red blood onto the ancient rock.

  "It's not bad," Lynn grunted. "It's not bad."

Juliana took a look; blood oozed from a wound in his right bicep near the joint where the arm rotated.  She got her hands all sticky with his blood feeling around on his arm.

"It passed through," she said, glaring up at Abrahams. "Lucky for you, it passed through. What in the hell is your problem, Abrahams? What's happening here?"

Abrahams was growing paler by the moment. He didn't like how things were progressing.

"No more heroics, please," he implored. "Time is growing short."

"You don't think those Marines heard that gunshot?" Marcus said, although it probably wasn't true. They were deep in the rock that had most likely absorbed the sound. "They'll be down here in a heartbeat."

Abrahams and Dougray exchanged glances. They moved towards Baras as if seeking protection from him.

"Then I'll make this brief," Dougray said. "I'm truly sorry it has to be like this, but Dr. Trent has ceased to become an instrument for us and now has become a lethal weapon against us."

"Us?" Kathlyn was still in front of Marcus in case they changed their minds about him. He was still trying to remove her. "Who is us?"

Dougray eased his harsh stance. "Dr. Abrahams and I are members of an elite Hebrew organization that has been in existence for approximately fifteen hundred years.,” he said quietly. “It was first originated by a disciple of St. Paul, a man named Pythias, who waned from the concept of Christianity and formed an following that was devoted to preserving the true religion of Judaism. It is called the Order of Qodesh haq-qodeshim."

"The Order of the Most Holy," Kathlyn translated softly.

"Exactly," Dougray replied. "Abrahams, as you know, is a Hebrew name. My mother was a Polish Jew and her father was a member of this society, which is how I became indoctrinated. You must realize, Dr. Trent, that your work is very lethal to Jews and the objective of our organization, as it has been since the beginning, is to preserve that purity no matter what."

She didn't understand in the least. "What are you talking about?"

"Just this," Dougray continued. "You first came to our attention twelve years ago when you were under the supervision of Dr. David Ross at SCU. Do you recall that he was killed in a violent car accident?"

"I remember."

"And Dr. Abrahams came into his position immediately thereafter."

"I remember that, too," an odd gleam came to her eye. "What are you telling me? That Dr. Ross was murdered to make way for Abrahams?"

Dougray nodded as if not at all proud of what had happened. "It was necessary," he said quietly. "You had such potential that it was necessary to keep an eye on you. So Abrahams let you go about your business, always keeping a watchful account of what you were doing. You went to Mexico for Xochiltmatcl, to Takla Makan for the mummies, and so forth. But in between, you searched for the grail and Noah's Ark. You came up with some remarkable theses and pictures, which we made sure were released to the world in very digestible increments. Even though we knew you had indeed located what you set out to find, it was at our discretion how much information was actually released."

Kathlyn began to sense that sick feeling so often associated with the tomb, an odd prickling sensation that spread throughout her body.

"I know," she said. "You were very careful about what went public and I understood that. I never had an issue with that."

"Because you had faith in us and we in you," he said, more quietly now. "You were a good employee, always doing as you were told. Abrahams made the contacts so you could start writing for World Geography. It was quite convenient, actually- I could keep an eye on you, too. The cable programs, everything, were wonderful. You performed beautifully, like a well-trained monkey."

Kathlyn was beginning to understand what was coming. The sickening feeling was growing stronger.

"You used me to find biblical relics," she said softly. "Why, if you didn't want the world to know about them, did you support me in these ventures?"

"Because we needed to know where they were in order to properly dispose of them."

"Dispose?"

Abrahams spoke. "Kathlyn, our religion doesn't believe in the basic Christian doctrine, which is the very basic premise that Jesus Christ was the son of God. To find the grail at the very least would destroy that theory in part. As keepers of the Faith, we simply can not allow that to happen."

She was shocked. "What about the grail? It's in the Roslin Chapel in Scotland, I determined that. I x-rayed the pillar and took magnetometer readings on it." The expressions on their faces made her blood run cold. "You've done something to it, haven't you?"

"We removed it," Abrahams said quietly. "Replaced the Prentise Pillar with an exact replica. Lord Roslin was very pleased with the sizable donation he received via a Swiss bank account."

Her sickening feeling was growing worse. She could feel Marcus' arms go around her, holding her supportively from behind. "And Noah's Ark?" she was afraid to ask but forced herself.

"Simple, really,” Abrahams replied casually. “A well paid Russian fighter fired a surface to air missile straight into a snow wall directly above the Ahora Gorge. The peasants around the mountain thought it was thunder; several million tons of snow ought to keep the Ark hidden for centuries."

"I heard about that right before I came to Egypt. The news said it was an avalanche."

"That is what the world will believe."

Kathlyn couldn't even mourn the loss; she simply stood there, dumbfounded. "But the Ark had no real significance to your stupid sect."

"It validates a story in the Bible, just as the grail does. If those stories are true, who is to say that the story of Jesus Christ as the son of God isn't true as well?"

"And now the ark," Marcus growled. The nightmare he had hoped to wake up from was growing worse. "Why were you so damn insistent that she find it?"

"Because we knew it was there," Dougray said. "There are a few from our Faith that share seats in the diplomatic community of Israel, like Dr. Baras here, but not all. We had been pushing for years to gain permission to dig at the Calvary Escarpment. When the permits finally came though, we had to move on them immediately or the opportunity would be lost. Baras came here to try to convince Dr. Trent to go with tantalizing pictures of the ark, but she was unimpressed. She suddenly decided she wanted to remain in Egypt, with you, throwing an unforeseen problem into our plans. When she resigned from SCU, I was only too happy to sponsor her so as not to lose complete control of her."

"And send her to Israel anyway," Marcus finished for him. "Christ, you guys had it all worked out.”

"Not all of it," Abrahams said. "We never anticipated you, or the impact of this Egyptian dig. Had she simply done as she has always done in the past, her classic hit and run, we would have never had a problem. But Dr. Trent has unfortunately shown nothing but stubbornness and rebellion since she set foot on this dig, and it is too dangerous to have her run amuck like that. She knows too much. I regret completely that her usefulness has outlived itself."

Instead of being terrified, Kathlyn was angry. The sickening feeling only compounded it.

"Why?” she demanded. “Because I could tell the world about your idiotic faction and all of the treasures you intend to destroy because you're afraid of what it will do to the Jewish religion? My God, you're as bad as the radical Muslims killing in the name of a God who does not, in fact, condone killing at all. It's fanaticism at its very worst."

Abrahams lifted an eyebrow. "That may be, Dr. Trent, but it is our ultimate goal to preserve our faith. You were an instrument to help us achieve that but now you are no longer an asset. I'm truly sorry."

Kathlyn could see their road coming to an end and she tried frantically to think of a way out.

"Then whatever you're going to do to me, so be it,” she tried to move away from Marcus again. “But Marcus and the others have absolutely nothing to do with this."

Dougray snorted ironically. "They most certainly do. Hell, Kathlyn, you aren't even supposed to be here. You were supposed to find this damn tomb and leave weeks ago. If they're all pulled into this it's because you didn't do what you were supposed to do."

"Which was follow your secret agenda."

"If you want to call it that."

The conversation was coming to a close. Marcus knew he couldn't let anything happen to his wife, or any of them, without a fight. He tried to move Kathlyn behind him so they couldn’t get a clean shot at her but she wouldn't budge.

"I can't believe you consider this stuff grounds for murder," he said. "So what if Kathlyn is becoming uncontrollable. I think the same thing but it's not worth killing her over. Think about how high-profile she is. Don't you think she'll be missed?"

The workers, or more precisely the people who were paid by Baras, backed out of the doorway, allowing Abrahams and Dougray to stand in the archway.

"No one will think twice when it is announced that a cave-in at the tomb of Ay took her life and the lives of three fellow archaeologists, including her husband,” Dougray said, lifting his shoulders. “Call it the hazards of the job.”

Marcus was venturing into all levels of fury by this point. “So you've got it all worked out."

Dougray lifted an eyebrow at the enormous archaeologist. "Don't think that attack on the camp was a coincidence,” he said rather smugly. “It gave the Marines something to chase while we complete our task. It was now or never."

Lynn was standing up by now, holding onto his arm while Juliana wrapped it with the shirt she’d had tied around her waist. Kathlyn suddenly moved away from Marcus before he could grab her, walking towards Dougray and Abrahams.

"You made me what I am," she said to Abrahams, a distinct measure of hurt in her tone. "Why would you do this to me when all I've ever done is what you've asked of me?"

Abrahams wasn't as hard about this as Dougray was. He genuinely liked Kathlyn. "I know you don't understand this,” he said quietly, as if hoping she would forgive him. “It's bigger than you, or I, or even the entire world. We're talking about God and religion, the building blocks of man's society. We're such a small part of that, Kathlyn. But we must do what needs to be done in order to protect our future."