The Illumination (15 page)

“Well, we'll find out soon enough.” Ashton scratched his ear. “The Babylonians were indeed fond of lapis. Imported great quantities of it from mines in Afghanistan—and not only for their jewels and amulets, mind you. Did you know, Mr. D'Amato, that the kings of Ur prized lapis for sharpening their swords, believing that the lapis made the weapons invulnerable?”

“Maybe some of that invulnerability rubbed off on us,” D'Amato answered ruefully. “Since we managed to make it this far.” He moved forward, resting his broad fingertips on the
desk. “Let me point you to something else we found, Geoffrey. Look again at the pouch—this time turn it inside out.”

Ashton obeyed, blinking as he leaned in closer to better examine the writing on the suede side of the leather.

“It does appear to be Aramaic,” he announced. “Which would make me correct about a link to Babylon.”

“What does it say?” Natalie inched her chair forward to study it as well. “Can you translate it, Geoffrey?”

“Doubtful. I might recognize a few letters, but I'm not conversant in the language.” The room was silent as he studied the characters for another long moment. Outside, the Italian night was creeping toward daybreak. Soon, Natalie knew, the cafés would be crammed with impatient patrons vying for the attention of clerks doling out the customers' prepaid pastries and espressos. A sense of unreality floated over her in those few brief seconds while Geoffrey bent over the pouch. Was it only yesterday morning she'd buried her sister?

“This first line . . . I believe it might say Balshazzar.” The surprise in Geoffrey's voice drew her back to his lamp-lit office in the Accademia Britannica. “Good Lord, could this possibly be from the court of Nebuchadnezzar's grandson Balshazzar?” he mused. Then he shook his head and frowned. “No, sorry, I jumped the gun. My knowledge of Aramaic is pitiful, as you know,” he murmured. “I was close, but the letters seem to spell something else. Not Balshazzar. It looks like . . . Belteshazzar.”

“Is that a name, a place—what?” D'Amato glanced from Natalie to Ashton.

“Definitely a name,” Ashton responded. “I can see now that it's been pressed into this leather with a seal. If you look closely, you'll notice that some of the edges appear slightly blurred, as if the engraving surface was overinked before it was applied.”

Natalie turned to D'Amato to elaborate. “Cylindrical seals made of carved stone were Mesopotamia's equivalent of signet rings. Each small seal was uniquely carved with figures, animals, objects, sometimes characters. People wore their seals like jewelry—on a chain around their necks—readily accessible to roll over wet clay when they needed to impress their signature.”

“Mainly for legal purposes—on a proof of receipt, or to sign
property transactions in ink.” Geoffrey looked up from the pouch. “The seals were also commonly used for marking clay tablets and building blocks.”

“The Iraq National Museum lost numerous collections of invaluable ancient seals during the looting in 2003,” Natalie added.

“Mesopotamia. Babylonia.” D'Amato weighed the two interchangeable names with his hands. “The bottom line is, we're talking about modern-day Iraq here. And that's exactly where your sister got the pendant.”

Ashton returned the pouch to Natalie. “I'm afraid I can't make out the second set of letters except for a
tzadi
and a
resh
. The ink is too faded.”

“
Tzadi
and
resh
—that's all I was able to pick out, too.”

“We'll need some enhancements to decipher the rest—perhaps infrared will do it,” Ashton mused. “But I'm thinking that second line of characters was hand-written, since their edges seem quite precise. You'll need an expert in Aramaic, really, to verify what it says.”

Natalie was buoyed by a surge of hope. “The ion-beam testing, Geoffrey—can it all be done tonight? Can we get started now?”

“How long until we get definitive results?” D'Amato added.

Ashton smiled indulgently at him. “Oh, we can analyze this fairly quickly. Believe it or not, we have chaps dropping by here regularly with family heirlooms, hoping they've uncovered a treasure. They're always relieved to discover they don't have to entrust their finds to our care for any extended period. Of course, more often than not, they're mistaken about the nature and value of their ‘treasure,' but in this case”—he held the pendant up to the light—“I'm convinced you've brought me something very special. These two items are unlike anything I've ever encountered before.”

“Please.” Natalie stood up and turned toward the door. “Let's get started.”

They followed Ashton to the Ion Beam laboratory in the basement of the building. It was a large, brightly lit room with an epoxy-coated floor that had been polished until it shone like glass. The lab was filled with microscopes and complicated
equipment attached to myriad cables, meters, and computer screens.

Shivering a bit despite her leather jacket, Natalie perched on a stool beside a huge cylindrical contraption that resembled an elongated CT scan machine, and watched the pendant slide inside its white-enameled tunnel.

“Sorry about the chill,” Ashton said. “The lab needs to be kept at a cool temperature. We never turn the instruments off, and they generate a lot of heat.”

In the fifteen minutes since he'd closed the lab's white metal door behind them, Ashton had already photographed and measured the pendant, carefully counting each of the gemstones and measuring their sizes. He had filled a long page of a leather notebook with his notations, and a number of descriptions written in his tight script radiated out from the rough sketch he'd drawn of the pendant.

“It will take about three, perhaps four hours to complete all the tests,” he told them. “Then I should be able to give you some answers.”

 

Gate 53

Detroit Metropolitan Airport

 

Barnabas's cell phone rang as he swallowed the final chunk of his Cinnabon dinner, his huge frame jammed into one of the uncomfortable bucket seats bolted in tight rows throughout the boarding area. Juggling a tall Starbucks cup and the pastry's sticky waxed paper, he glanced at the phone's screen.

The Sentinel.

Hurriedly, he licked the melted icing and cinnamon from his thumb and fingers and flipped the phone open with his chin. Beside him, a woman was rocking a thumb-sucking toddler on her lap while passing out triangles of pita bread to two small boys who'd been playing tag and tripping over his size-thirteen feet for the past half hour.

“Yes, I'm here at the gate, sir,” he told the Sentinel. “And we're still on time. I'll be boarding in the next ten minutes.”

“I have additional information for you. I've just deposited another thousand dollars into your account. And I now have names for the seventeen other passengers booked on the LaGuardia-London-Rome flights Natalie Landau took. Eight women, nine men—and Jim D'Amato's name is among them. Still, it's possible they've split up, and she may have passed the Light to him. That's only a guess, but we need to consider the possibility.”

“Is Derrek going after D'Amato then?”

“I'll decide once I get a bead on D'Amato's location. Right now, just concentrate on Landau. Call me as soon as you touch down in Rome. I may have discovered her hotel by then.”

“Is the reverend upset with me?” Barnabas closed his eyes, bracing himself for the answer.

“His faith in you remains unshaken. Mine, however,” the Sentinel said coolly, “is beginning to waver. I expect results within twelve hours of your arrival.”

The connection went dead.

Barnabas swallowed past the lump in his throat. He'd never tasted failure before. His strength and his faith had always propelled him to victory, but the Landau woman was becoming a thorn in his side—a painful one.

But the Savior had endured an entire crown of thorns, he reminded himself. Certainly, he could manage
one
.

By now the Light was in Rome, and he was only a half day behind it. His plane would touch down in the Eternal City early tomorrow morning. He'd sleep during the flight, and with God's help, he'd find the Landau woman—and the Light—before another sun could set on Rome. Before the Sentinel lost faith.

He didn't notice the dark-haired man sitting in the bucket seat two rows behind him. He didn't feel the hot blue eyes burning into the back of his head. Nor had he noticed the same man lounging near the Cinnabon stand.

But the man had seen him.

Hasan Sabouri had seen him come out of the airport restroom a half hour earlier and wondered where he'd seen the towering blond American before. And then, as Hasan took his seat at Gate 53, waiting for the flight to Rome, he noticed the brawny young man again—waiting for the same flight and realized he was the
same man who'd sauntered out of Natalie Landau's Brooklyn apartment building last night, shortly before Hasan blew up the green sedan parked opposite it.

So,
he thought, eyeing the pink-cheeked American with a facade of disinterest,
it is no accident that we are both headed for the same destination. Just as it is no accident that Allah has blessed me with this knowledge.

Siddiq Aziz fortunately had returned to Rome from the council meeting in Paris by the time Hasan learned Natalie Landau was en route there. Hasan would have to count on Siddiq to track her until he himself touched down on Italian soil.

My path is clear. My enemies have been put within my sights. And soon, the Eye of Dawn will fall into my hands.

 

 

When Geoffrey Ashton looked up from the computer screen and the trace element spectrum he'd generated, he peered first at Natalie, then at D'Amato.

“I can tell you with absolute certainty that the lapis used on this pendant contains the same types of pyrite inclusions found in lapis mined in ancient Afghanistan.”

Natalie caught her breath. She wasn't sure if the buzzing in her ears was due to the continuous whir of the machinery or the impact of Ashton's fingerprinting findings.

“And,” he said, his aristocratic face breaking into a broad smile, “the carnelian and jasper are also consistent with specimens known to have come from early Babylonia.”

“And the evil eye belief was prevalent in ancient Babylonia, isn't that right?” D'Amato asked.

“Very much so.” Natalie's mind was whirling. “Mesopotamia is one of the earliest places where the concept's been documented. The very oldest references to the evil eye appear in cuneiform—and not only the Babylonians, but the Assyrians and Sumerians feared the evil eye as well.”

She and D'Amato leaned over Ashton's shoulders as he printed comparisons and pointed out areas of similarity between the gems on the pendant and the previously authenticated ancient samples.

“Somehow, Natalie, your sister seems to have gotten her hands on a piece dating back to the cradle of civilization. It's absolutely astonishing. This pendant could well be three thousand years old.”

“Pin this down for me, Geoffrey.” D'Amato raked a hand through his dark hair. “Would its age alone make it worth killing for? What's the value of something this rare? Millions?”

“Historically, it's invaluable. Any museum or collector would dearly love to possess something this exceptional.”

“And there are plenty of unscrupulous private collectors who'd stab their firstborn through the heart to snag something far less remarkable,” Natalie said grimly. “If this was stolen from one of them . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Ashton raised a finger. “Let's go back to what you suggested earlier, Natalie. That there might be something even more to this piece than meets the eye, you should forgive the pun.” He moved to a simple balance scale and placed the pendant on a sheet of white paper.

“One more test. A simple one, which may tell us if your theory about something sealed within the pendant holds any water.”

D'Amato paced the gleaming floor as Ashton weighed the pendant and punched some data into his computer.

“We know enough about the makeup of gold used in Babylonian times to calculate approximately how much the gold used in this piece should weigh. We know the standard thickness in jewelry back then, the types of impurities they contain, and so forth. Taking all that into consideration, along with the aggregate weight of these gems . . .”

The professor looked up and met Natalie's eyes. She'd been watching him in silence, her arms folded tightly across her stomach. “This piece weighs in fifty percent heavier than one would expect,” he said triumphantly.

“So there
is
something inside.” Natalie exhaled, feeling a surge of excitement as her suspicions were vindicated. “But what?”

“All I can say with certainty is that whatever's locked in here must have been sealed inside when the pendant was crafted nearly three thousand years ago.”

D'Amato gave a low whistle. “You're sure about that?”

“Oh, I'm quite positive. Even the solder is consistent with the type jewelers used in ancient Mesopotamia. Look here.”

Ashton traced the tip of a pencil around the pendant as if following an imaginary seam. “The solder line is barely visible, and well polished. This was clearly fashioned in two pieces—like the twin halves of a walnut—and then joined together.”

“I don't suppose there's a chance you'd be willing to cut it open.” D'Amato spoke without much optimism.

Natalie looked horrified. “Are you crazy? We uncover and preserve the past; we study ancient objects with a minimal amount of tampering.” She shook her head at him. “Tell me, would you take a chisel to the Rosetta Stone?”