Wayward Son (14 page)

Overwhelmed by this catastrophic realization, he could barely drag himself through the tunnel to the inside of the ark. Collapsing behind a large support post, Cain hyperventilated for several moments before spinning into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER 14

En Route to Naples, Italy: Present Day

THE LONG-RANGE BUSINESS JET had taken off from Van Nuys airfield near Los Angeles promptly at noon on Saturday. Luc Renard instructed the pilot to file a flight plan taking them directly to Naples, where a chartered helicopter would ferry him and his passengers to Ercolano. Since the Bombardier Global Express XRS had no need to refuel en route, Luc anticipated a midday arrival on Sunday. They would be in plenty of time for the transfer of the land title and Monday afternoon’s dramatic press conference.

The fifty-foot-long flight cabin had been laid out for eight passengers, but even so it was only half full. At the front of the cabin reclined Giovanni Genoa, hitching a ride back to his native country and evidently fast asleep. In the row behind Genoa sat Luc Renard, idly flipping through a stack of his company’s glossy magazine
Tattletale
. On the other side of the aisle, within hailing distance of Renard should he be needed, was Rudolph Schmidt, Esq., a powerful Beverly Hills attorney who had been brought along to assist with title transfer papers and other legal matters during the trip. Schmidt, a seasoned litigator and passionate jazz fan, was immersed in his iPod.

At the rear of the cabin was Dr. Archibald Walker of the Getty Villa. He had deliberately chosen his seat, both to flirt with the voluptuous flight attendant and to consume more than his fair share of the cocktails that she was winsomely dispensing.

“Another Bombay Sapphire and tonic, Dr. Walker?” the attendant inquired.

“Why not?” Walker asked with a rhetorical grin as he pressed the young woman’s hand. “But mum’s the word, my dear!” he cautioned. “What did you say your name was?”

“Sharon,” she answered with a broad smile.

“Ah yes, as lovely as a rose of Sharon in high summer,” Walker purred. Then he giggled at his own fatuous analogy as the attendant glided away to fetch his drink.

***

Two hours before the plane was due to land in Naples, Walker awoke from his boozy slumber. After tucking in to a scrumptious breakfast of crabmeat Benedict on croissants, he glanced at his watch. Then he used the XRS’s sophisticated communications system to place a call to Silvio Sforza.

Walker dispensed with elaborate salutations. “Silvio? It’s Archibald. I have a surprise for you. We’re arriving a day early. Mr. Renard wishes to inspect the site this afternoon. I expect we’ll be in Naples Airport by eleven o’clock.”

Silvio cleared his throat as he walked alongside Juan Carlos. “Well, Archibald, that is a surprise. Ah, I look forward to seeing you, and meeting Mr. Renard. Is there anything you need?”

“Thank you, but Mr. Renard has us well taken care of. Is everything arranged for the press conference tomorrow afternoon?”

Silvio hesitated while he thought of Amanda, inside the chamber and possibly trapped.

“Yes. The podium and sound system will be set up this evening, and I’ve reconfirmed all the attendees from the media.”

“Delightful! Of course, I’ll want you on the podium with me in front of the television cameras when the donation to the Getty is announced.” Walker made a mental note to have someone get him fresh hair gel for his appearance. “Now, the cameras will focus on me slipping into the crack just before I open the doors to the chamber, correct?”

Silvio shook his head. Archibald sure hadn’t changed. “Absolutely. We’ll have several handheld cameras in addition to the fixed locations near the podium.”

“Perfect. Now, what about Amanda’s progress in evaluating the doorway?”

With Walker’s arrival imminent, Silvio had no option besides candor. “We’re at the dig now. Amanda succeeded in breaking the door code much faster than we anticipated. She’s actually inside the chamber as we speak…just to take a brief look around.”

Walker irritably complained, “But we agreed that no one would…”

“I know, I know. But now we have a problem. She must have triggered some mechanism inadvertently, because the doors have closed again. She’s been in the chamber for over two hours, and we can’t get through to her wireless.”

“
What
?” Walker forced down a spasm of acid reflux. “We specifically agreed that I would be the first person to enter the chamber, Silvio! How dare you let this happen! Amanda is a junior colleague. A
very
junior colleague, I may remind you!”

“I understand. But we had to get a head start, and the main thing is that she successfully solved the combination lock.”

Walker sniffed. “I’m sure that, had I been there in person, I would have cracked the code as well. But listen to me. Renard has chartered a helicopter. We’ll be at the site by noon, or a little afterward. You had better figure out how to extricate her from the chamber—or she can figure it out herself, if she’s that clever. But she must be out by noon, and
no one
at the press conference needs to know she was in there first!”

“We’ll do our best, Archibald. See you later today. Have a safe flight.” Silvio ended the call before Walker could say anything else and turned to Juan Carlos.

“I need to make another quick call. Could you please go find Carmelo and tell him to come see me?”

As Juan Carlos departed, Silvio dialed a telephone number in Rome.

***

Aboard Renard’s jet, Dr. Walker clicked off the connection and rose from his seat. He found Luc Renard deeply engrossed in his laptop. From all appearances, Giovanni Genoa, sprawled in the row ahead, was still fast asleep.

“Excuse me, Mr. Renard. I hate to interrupt you,” said Walker, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the sleeping painter, “but I think there is something you should know.”

Luc gazed up from his work and then motioned Walker into the adjacent seat.

“What do I need to know?”

Dr. Walker rubbed his hands nervously on the legs of his slacks. “I was just on the phone with Silvio Sforza. He’s at the excavation site. Amanda James succeeded in cracking the language code on the door.”

“That’s great news! Good for her. It certainly simplifies our task.”

“But there’s one more thing. Amanda explicitly violated my understanding with Sforza. He allowed her to enter the chamber. Then the doors closed, for whatever reason. She’s trapped inside.”

Luc’s eyes narrowed. “How long has she been in there?”

“More than two hours.”

The icy stare that greeted Walker made him wish he’d brought a fresh cocktail along for this conversation.

“Dr. Walker,” Luc intoned sternly. “We’ve known each other for, what, six or seven years?”

“I…uh, yes, I believe so.”

“I would think by now you would have learned from me how to keep subordinates under control!”

Expecting no response, Luc looked at his watch and then waved Walker away.

“Well, don’t be concerned, Doctor. We’ll be arriving there shortly. Then we’ll sort things out.”

CHAPTER 15

The Ark

CAIN AWOKE SEVERAL HOURS later, greeted by waves of pain from the deep gash in his bleeding shoulder. As his consciousness returned, so did a torrent of the horrific images he had just witnessed. Attempting to suppress them, but with only limited success, he rose slowly to begin exploring what he now realized was his lifeboat.

Yet it was a boat full of danger as well. Noah and his sons were unknown quantities. They could be zealots, or even fanatics. Still in shock from what he had seen, Cain felt intensely vulnerable. He was now nothing more than a stowaway. He had no way of telling if the ark’s makers were armed, or what action they might take if he were discovered. Cain had only his small knife to defend himself, as his larger weapons were torn off his body by the rogue wave that deposited him in the tunnel.

He had no idea how long he had been unconscious, but he noted that the deafening sound of the downpour outside had subsided, and the motion of the ark was more languid. He wasn’t certain, but he guessed he was on the bottom deck of the ark. Peering around the support post, Cain stared down a long aisle of cages and stalls. At the end of this aisle, he saw a tall haystack and noted it as a promising hiding place. As he walked by, he gathered a handful of fresh straw and dressed his bloody shoulder as best he could. Gazing down the row of cages, he saw hundreds—no, thousands—of birds. In the dim light that filtered down the stairwells from the vessel’s upper decks, they clucked, chirped, and twittered. Species after species stood in pairs, like the large animals he had seen on the ramp before the ark’s door closed. Cain wondered if their annoying din would go on and on, but it soon trailed off. After a while, only an occasional screech could be heard.

Still apprehensive about being discovered, Cain inadvertently mumbled in a low voice that Noah’s sons might “throw me overboard if they find me.” With a start, he heard an echo: “Throw me overboard!” When he looked for the source of the echo, he spotted a large green bird with a red streak on its belly, perched on a wooden bar nearby. He was stunned to hear the bird repeat the phrase. A talking
bird
? Was this the master of spirits tormenting him, or God?

“Who are you?” demanded Cain, but the bird simply continued to scratch its molting plumage.

He was tempted to retreat back behind the post, lest the bird draw attention to his whereabouts. But with no sign of human activity, Cain pushed onward. Inside, the ark seemed far larger than outside. Walking down the aisle from the stern to the bow, Cain reckoned the length at many times the height of Enoch’s inner wall. He realized that a ship on this scale was an exceptional feat of engineering and construction. He admired how the impossibly thick timbers were expertly milled and joined, forming a robust interior frame from bow to stern and side to side.

It seemed likely that the ark could accommodate tens of thousands of animals. But how would they be fed and watered? And what would be done with the tons of waste they would produce each day?

Cain carefully examined a stall holding sheep and goats. Water was dripping from a channel that ran up to the slatted ceiling and then, presumably, to a tank on the middle or upper deck. Feed had been placed in baskets around the stall. Like the ceiling, the floor of the stall was slatted and angled at a slight slope. Thus the animals’ excrement would either be trampled into a pit below the cage or would roll into a gutter that ran outside the cages all the way from the bow to the stern. Investigating further, Cain realized he was wise to have extricated himself from the chute at the stern. For the tunnel that had afforded him entry to the ark was, in fact, one of the ship’s main sewage outlets.

Amidship in the lower level of the ark, in a pool of bilge water, Cain saw what looked to be a large, vertical metal tube with several projecting bars. The dangling chains at the end of the spokes were fitted around the neck of several beasts walking in a circle to power the mechanism. The sound of water rushing through pipes at the top of the device gave away its use: a giant water pump. For even a ship as expertly crafted as the ark leaked water and needed to be pumped dry to stay afloat.

Glancing upward, Cain noticed several ramps and ladders leading to an upper level. He wanted to explore further, but he had no way of knowing the whereabouts of Noah and his family, nor what they might do if he were discovered. Might there be others on the ark like himself—stowaways who had sneaked aboard at the last minute? But back in Enoch, the traveler Tarn had said that no one in the region took Noah’s flood prophecy seriously. Cain thought it likely that he was the only extra passenger.

As he stood indecisively by the ramp, Cain’s mind buzzed with further questions. Even if he could stay hidden, how would he feed himself? Killing an animal was out of the question; the risk of detection was simply too great. A better choice would be to eat the animals’ food. After all, with apparently ample provisions for thousands of beasts, one more stomach to feed would hardly deplete the supply.

Where were they headed, he wondered, and how long would the voyage last? Any flood that could destroy cities and mountains could take many months to subside—not that there was anything for Cain to go back to outside the ark. The world as he knew it was gone, and Cain understood that if and when the journey ended, he would be starting over.

The whole world would be starting over.

Shaking his head, Cain banished such thoughts. He would live as he always had, with survival as his chief goal. Within a single day, his fortunes had brought him from a position of royalty to that of a penniless stowaway. Yet he had not drowned but lived. His confidence rekindled, Cain gingerly mounted the ladder.

On the next level, Cain found a setup that very much resembled the arrangements on the bottom deck. Whereas birds, reptiles, and small mammals had predominated below, here there were larger creatures, including cattle, donkeys, pigs, monkeys, great apes, and many kinds of horses. To Cain’s surprise, several species of the big cats, including lions and leopards, were lodged very close to the cattle, whom they eyed with interest.

Also on this level were several types of large mammals. Cain had heard his father’s description of elephants, although he had never seen one himself. He stared in fascination at the huge beasts, lazily flapping their ears and exploring the feed baskets with their trunks. On the other side of the ark, he was equally intrigued by pairs of large, powerful looking beasts with thick skin, enormous snouts, and either one or two protruding horns. He did not have a name for them, but he knew he would not enjoy being the target of such an animal’s charge. The elephants looked decidedly better tempered.

Just as on the bottom deck, ramps and ladders stretched upward from points about halfway down each of the main aisles. Standing at the foot of the starboard stairway, Cain hesitated to climb further, for he heard the sound of human voices. For the moment, at least, he could probably learn more by eavesdropping than by exploring.