The Ark: A Novel (42 page)

In the time it took Chirnian to relate the story of St. Gregory, they had arrived in Artashat. The October afternoon sun bathed the flat plain with a golden hue. Vast rows of vineyards and farms stretched toward the foothills of Mt. Ararat, which climbed into the few wisps of clouds that decorated the blue sky.

The ancient monastery of Khor Virap was perched on the southern end of a crusty mound that lacked any vegetation. The Land Cruiser wound up the monastery's hillside road until it passed through the main gates. The site's reputation as one of Armenia's biggest tourist attractions was well-founded. Even though it was close to closing time, a dozen cars were parked in the lot. They got out and walked through an arch formed in the thick stone exterior walls and up a set of stairs.

They emerged into a central courtyard that held a full-sized church, which Chirnian said was often used for weddings. There were no nuptials going on, but men and women, some in western clothes, others in the native Armenian garb, snapped photos of the church and the mountain that was so famous as the Ark's resting place. Even though it was a monastery, the monks had left long ago, and it was now administered by priests of the Armenian Orthodox Church.

"We need to see the priest in charge," Locke told the interpreter.

Chirnian nodded and went to find him. A few minutes later, a priest with a friendly face emerged from the church. He didn't speak English, but through Chirnian, he introduced himself, shaking Locke's hand.

"I am Father Yezik Tatilian. How can I help you?"

"Father Tatilian," Locke said, "my name is Tyler Locke. I'm an engineer from America. Thank you for meeting with us."

"Are you interested in the architectural history of our monastery?"

"In a way. Have you ever met an archaeologist named Hasad Arvadi?"

Dilara didn't realize she was holding her breath, hoping that this was the final key to finding her father, until the priest shook his head.

"We have many scientists and historians who come to study the monastery," he said, "so it's not surprising I don't remember him."

Locke pointed at Dilara, who couldn't hide her disappointment. "Dr. Kenner is his daughter. We have reason to believe he was here."

"I'm sorry," the priest said. "His name isn't familiar."

Locke took Dilara's digital camera and, using the LCD screen, showed the priest an old photo of Arvadi from his days as a college professor.

Father Tatilian shrugged. Locke showed him two more photos, one of Garrett from Forbes magazine and the other of Cutter from the TEC security camera.

The priest didn't recognize either of them. "Perhaps if you tell me why you are looking for them, it may help my memory."

Locke looked at Dilara, who nodded. They had to tell him at some point if they were going to get his cooperation.

"We have reason to believe that your monastery holds a secret chamber, one that even you may not be aware of."

The priest laughed. "This monastery has been here for thousands of years. I'm sure I would know if there was such a chamber. And I assure you there isn't."

Locke showed him a picture of the scroll. "This is an ancient document Hasad Arvadi found in northern Iraq. Dr. Kenner has translated it, and it tells of a map to Noah's Ark located somewhere in Khor Virap."

The interpreter, Chirnian, paused, not sure if he had heard correctly. When he saw that Locke was serious, he translated. Father Tatilian smiled.

"We often have treasure hunters come through here, searching for the blessed remains of Noah's Ark, but no one has asked for a map before."

"Dr. Kenner's father went missing three years ago. We think he was murdered."

That wiped the smile from the priest's face. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Father Tatilian," Locke said, "did anything unusual happen here three years ago?"

"Yes," the priest said warily. "Very unusual. Two novitiates had made a pilgrimage at that time and were staying at the monastery. One of them was killed, and the other went missing. He was never found."

"How was the novitiate killed?"

"Shot. The police investigated, but no one was ever arrested. The case remains unsolved."

"Any motives?"

"Robbery, most likely. I entered Khor Virap one morning and found the body."

"It had to be Garrett," Grant said.

"You know who might be behind this?" the priest said.

"Possibly," Locke said. "Can you tell me exactly what happened?"

"There isn't much to tell. It occurred at night when the monastery was closed. Brother Dipigian was found with two shots to the head. We never saw Brother Kalanian again. We assumed he had been kidnapped. For what reason, we couldn't fathom, and we never received a ransom demand. Not that we could pay much. We take honoraria for weddings and other parties held here, but most of it goes to the monastery's upkeep."

"Where was the body found?"

"That was the oddest thing. It was in the pit."

"The one that held St. Gregory captive?" Dilara said.

"Yes. But if it was a robbery, it was a strange place to take him. As a holy shrine, the pit of St. Gregory is unsurpassed, but there is nothing of value in there. A few candles in an alcove, that's all."

Dilara gasped. "An alcove?" The scroll mentioned a cove. The Hebrew could be translated many different ways, including alcove.

"It's where pilgrims can pay tribute."

"The fifth and seventh stone from the cove reveals," Dilara said to Locke, who immediately saw what she meant.

"Father," he said, "please show us to the pit of St. Gregory."

* * *

At the top of the hill overlooking the courtyard of Khor Virap, Garrett focused binoculars on the figures two hundred yards away. He saw Locke, Westfield, and Kenner with someone who appeared to be an interpreter talking to the priest. He lay next to Svetlana Petrova and Dan Cutter, who cradled a Russian VAL silenced sniper rifle that fired subsonic 9mm rounds. Cutter had acquired the hard-to-get rifle in Armenia along with their other weapons.

"Do you want me to take them out?" Cutter asked.

Garrett had already been to the Ark's location, and if he'd been able to get inside it, he'd already be long gone with the second amulet. But when he had arrived at the site of the Ark, he realized Hasad Arvadi had tricked him. The old man had been crafty, leaving out key information that would have made the Ark accessible.

When Garrett couldn't get into the Ark, the next step had been to return to Khor Virap. There must have been additional information about how to get into the Ark that Arvadi had concealed from Garrett. The plan was to photograph every square inch of the map to make sure they missed nothing, and Garrett would find another translator to tell him what the map really said. Finding a qualified translator might take time, so to ensure no one followed in his footsteps, he would obliterate the map.

Garrett and Cutter had been lying in wait to make their move on the monastery, just like they'd done three years before. Then to Garrett's surprise, Locke and the others had appeared.

Although their arrival had jolted him, he quickly reassessed the situation and realized it might be to his advantage.

"Hold your fire," Garrett said to Cutter. "Maybe we can get Tyler Locke and Dilara Kenner to do our work for us."

If Dilara was as skilled an archaeologist as her father, she would be able to decipher the map's text and uncover what her father had not divulged to Garrett. Garrett would know as soon as they emerged from the pit if they had seen the map and determined the Ark's location. Then it would just be a matter of following them to the Ark and killing them all once they had shown him the way inside.

The priest led them away from the church in the central courtyard to the small St. Gevorg chapel. It was after 5:30 at this point, and the monastery was closed, so the tourists had been escorted out. They had the chapel to themselves.

To the right of the altar Locke saw a hole with steep aluminum stairs leading down. Father Tatilian climbed down backwards, and the rest followed.

The pit was a cistern, vaguely round, with rough gray stone walls. Even with five of them, there was plenty of room, although it would get stuffy quickly with just the hole above to circulate air. The space was larger than what Locke had imagined when he had heard it was a prison cell, but then again, he couldn't imagine being confined within it for 13 years. It was a miracle that Grigor didn't go insane during that time. Maybe that was one of the miracles that qualified him for sainthood.

A standing candelabra had been set up across from the bottom of the stairs. On the right was the alcove Father Tatilian had mentioned. It was six feet tall, with an arched roof, two feet wide and three feet deep. It seemed to have a stone seat inside it, and a stone shelf set back about four feet high.

Locke stepped up on the semicircular dais in front of the alcove and examined it. The stones were crudely mortared, and he couldn't see any noticeable seams where mortar had been removed. To all appearances, the entire cistern was as solid as the rock it was made from.

"Where was the murder victim found?" Locke asked.

The priest pointed to the floor on the other side of the cistern.

"He was shot in the head twice."

"And you didn't notice anything else unusual down here?"

"The police asked me that as well. Not that I could tell, although it was hard to concentrate on anything but the pool of blood that we cleaned up."

Locke didn't bother asking about forensic evidence. Even if the killers were sloppy enough to leave fibers or prints, which he seriously doubted, he didn't think the local police would have had the resources to do any sophisticated analyses.

The novitiate was brought down for a reason, and the reference in the scroll to a cove had to be meaningful.

He counted out the stones from the left of the alcove, starting with corner stone.
The fifth and the eighth stones from the cove reveal.
The stones that made up the wall ranged from a few inches to a foot across. They had cut the stones to fit what was needed for each space.

He assumed that the key stones would be at eye level, which to people at that time was about five feet. Locke saw that the fifth and eighth stones were both about the same size, large enough to press his palm against. When he examined them more closely, he found a half-inch notch carved into each one in exactly the same place. These had to be the ones.

If the builders had constructed a secret passage, the key to unlocking it would be fairly simple because the engineering and construction methods of that age were rudimentary. On the other hand, the mechanism couldn't be activated by accident, or it would be discovered too easily.

Two stones. There was a reason for two of them, and Locke thought he knew what it was. He tried to position himself to push both stones simultaneously, but they were so far apart that he couldn't get leverage with either one.

"Grant, give me a hand here. On my count of three, I want you to push hard on the eighth stone. At the same time, I'll push the fifth stone."

Grant got himself in position.

"What are you doing?" the priest asked.

"I think I'm going to show you something about your monastery that you didn't even know existed," Locke said.

"I'm ready," Grant said.

"One. Two. Three."

They pushed with all their strength. At first, nothing happened. Then Locke sensed the slightest movement of his stone.

"Did you feel that?" Grant said.

"Yes. I think we need to push with equal force. Let up on your side a little. Again. One. Two. Three."

This time, he could feel the stone begin to move immediately. It slid slowly backward, and so did Grant's. At the same time, the fourth and seventh stones slid slowly forward. The stones stopped moving when they were pressed into the wall six inches.

Locke glanced at Dilara and saw the same excitement that he felt at their discovery. Father Tatilian, on the other hand, was apoplectic and blurted something in Armenian.

"What's the matter?" Locke asked the interpreter.

"The priest is very upset," Chirnian said. "He asks what you have done."

"I think we've just unlocked a door."

Locke inspected the stones projecting from the wall. Except for the small notches, they were carved to be extremely smooth on all sides and fit into the spaces precisely. The edges on the outside were filed down and covered with a half-inch of mortar to give the illusion that the stones were unmovable parts of the structure.

Locke went to the alcove and saw that the side wall had moved, but just barely. He put his shoulder into it, and the corner of the alcove swung stiffly on a central pivot, revealing an opening on the left. Locke shined his flashlight into the darkness. Stairs led down. A musty smell of decay filled his nose. To the left, he could see the mechanism that sealed the door.

As he thought, it was a simple stone pivot. A wooden one would have disintegrated long ago. The two stones they had pushed were connected to each other, and because of the leverage, pushing either one of them alone would merely cause stress on the pivot, not allowing them to move. But together, the stress was balanced, and the pivot not only pushed the other stones out, but also moved another piece of stone from the door that normally kept it from opening.

To reseal the entry, you would just push the door closed and then push the fourth and seventh stones back into place. Locke marveled at the primitive cleverness of it.

"What do you see?" Dilara asked.

Locke remembered why they were there.

"It's a stairway. We've found the chamber."

Grant and Dilara broke out their flashlights as well, and Chirnian and Father Tatilian took candles from the cistern.

Locke went down ten steps, and then turned to the right to see twenty more steps. It must have taken a year to dig this out of the sandstone.

He got to the bottom and found himself in another round room, twice the size of the pit. He stopped when he saw what was on the wall opposite him. A map. He played the flashlight over it and could see a carefully drawn outline of Mt. Ararat. Several points of black dotted the map. Next to the map were lines of text similar to those on the scrolls Dilara's father had discovered.