The Ark: A Novel (45 page)

Svetlana and the two guards were concealed behind a rock. Cutter crouched at Garrett's side, holding the VAL sniper rifle to his shoulder.

"How close do you need to get to take out those men?" Garrett asked.

"I could hit one of them from here," Cutter replied, "but the others are spread out. They'd be able to find cover before I could take them down."

"We need a diversion." Garrett lowered his voice so the others couldn't hear. "Your men are expendable."

Cutter nodded his agreement and whispered, "I'll have them circle around from the south. I'll tell them to surrender, and when Locke's men come out to get them, I'll have my opportunity. If I'm lucky, I can take all three of Locke's men down before they can react."

"Excellent. What about their communications gear?"

"I'll activate our broadband radio jammer right before we attack. Should we get into place now?"

"Not yet. We examined that cave from top to bottom. There's no switch like the one in Khor Virap. I don't think it's the real entrance, but if Tyler doesn't emerge in the next few minutes we'll have to assume he made it in somehow."

"It's risky to try to infiltrate through a choke point like that. I still think it's better to wait until they come out with the amulet and kill them all then."

"No," Garrett said firmly. "We have to follow them in. I don't want to take the chance that Tyler will destroy the amulet inside the cave. Once we know where the real entrance is, we make our move."

Cutter pointed. "There they are."

Locke, Grant Westfield, and Dilara Kenner stepped into the sunlight.

"See," Garrett said. "That cave isn't the way in."

He watched as Locke waved to his three men and began walking south.

* * *

"Keep your eyes out for an opening a lot smaller than that one," Locke said. "Probably just big enough for a man to get through."

He began counting paces again. When he got to 70, he slowed, looking at every nook in the rock face that might hide a cave. When he reached 93, he was even with a crevice that fit the bill. It was narrow, no more than two feet across and seven feet high. The only problem was that it was filled with dirt and rocks, as if the roof had caved in hundreds of years ago.

He walked farther on and got to 125 paces before he turned back, convinced that the crevice was what he was looking for.

"You think that's it?" Dilara said.

"If it is, it means we got here first. No way did Garrett get here and plug it up after he was gone. Why would he go to that trouble?"

"I feel some manual labor coming on," Grant said. He handed out two folding shovels and took a third for himself, shoving the blade into the crevice.

There was no telling how far back the cave-in went. They might have to dig for hours or days before getting through. Still, they didn't have much choice. They had to be the first to get into the Ark, and this was the entrance. Locke was sure of it.

It turned out that they only had to dig for two hours before Grant's shovel plunged through into air. They swept out the remaining dirt and shined flashlights down a passageway that ended farther than the light could reach.

Everyone had radio earpieces in. Locke told the mercenaries that at least five hostiles might make an attempt for the cave. The mercenaries were to stay outside and radio if anything out of the ordinary occurred. Locke would check in every 15 minutes.

The mercenaries took covered positions. Locke made sure the packs he and Grant carried fit through the opening. The three of them put on hardhats, and Locke looked at Dilara.

"Ladies first?" she said.

"Given that you're the one who started all this, I thought you deserved to be the first one to see the Ark."

She smiled. "Thank you. I'll remember this day for the rest of my life."

Dilara took a deep breath and entered the crevice. She was immediately swallowed by the darkness. Locke went in behind her, dragging his pack, and Grant took up the rear.

The going was slow. At several points, the passageway was so narrow that Locke wasn't sure Grant would be able to squeeze his bulging pecs through.

"You going to make it?" he said to Grant.

"It's a tad tight," Grant said between gasps. "If I get stuck, we'll radio the guys outside to send in a bucketful of warm butter."

Locke grinned at that. Grant was doing fine.

"You see anything ahead?" Locke said after they had gone about 50 feet.

"Yes," Dilara said. "I think I see it widen in 30 feet."

In another minute, the crevice opened and Locke was standing next to Dilara. The cave didn't have the dank odor of a limestone cavern. Instead, it had a dry, dusty aroma that reminded him of the time he had visited Tut's tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. The air had the same feeling of history, of ageless wonder.

Locke focused his flashlight on the wall to his left. He played the light up the wall to the 50-foot-high roof and then followed the wall away from him until the surface ended at a right angle to another wall. Judging by the dimness of the spot, he guessed the far wall was at least 70 feet away. To his right, the flashlight beam was soaked up by the gloom.

Grant emerged next to him and took a huge breath.

"Thank God were out of there. I'm not claustrophobic, but I might convert after that."

Grant's low voice echoed from distant surfaces, as if they were in a box canyon.

"This place sounds huge" he said.

"Let's find out how huge," Locke said. He removed a strobe light from his pack. It wouldn't be pleasant to operate by because of the flash, and the battery wouldn't last long, but its high-intensity power would give them a feel for the size of the cavern.

"Don't look directly at the strobe when I turn it on." He placed his hand on the switch. "Is everyone ready?"

"Let's do it," Grant said.

Dilara nodded eagerly. "Show us."

"Lady and gentleman, I give you Noah's Ark."

He flicked the switch and stepped back. He could hear the capacitor storing energy for its first flash, and then the strobe blasted its wide-beam outward every half-second. The persistence of the human visual system allowed the eye to view the scene almost as if it were a continuous light.

Dilara gasped. No one spoke. The image was too breathtaking. Stretching as far as the eye could see, a huge wooden structure three stories high ran down the left side of a cavern so vast that the other end was lost in the darkness. The building hadn't been just slapped together, but showed a degree of craftsmanship Locke wouldn't have believed an ancient civilization would be capable of. The pieces fit together as well as if he had designed it himself.

He couldn't imagine the amount of effort it would take to build such a thing miles from the sources of wood needed to assemble it. Even with modern equipment, building such a structure inside a cave, without sufficient lighting, would have been an enormous undertaking. Constructed thousands of years ago, with only human hands and beasts of burden to do the labor, it was truly astounding. Locke could barely grasp what he was witness to. He was looking at the oldest wooden building still in existence, a construction that rivaled the great pyramids for sheer majesty. A magnificent structure that Noah himself had designed and built.

"My God," Dilara finally said. "It's still intact. After all this time, it's still standing."

"The dry air," Locke said. "No water, no termites, no rot."

"Looks like we won't need all the spelunking gear we dragged along," Grant said. "Judging by the size of this, Noah and his family must have planned to settle in for the long haul."

"So are you still a skeptic?" Dilara asked Locke.

He shook his head slowly. "I'm proud to say I was wrong."

"This has to be the most incredible archaeological find in history."

"I'd go farther than that. I'd say it's a miracle."

After a few minutes, the strobe's battery was drained. Except for the flashlights and the faint light visible through the crevice, the cave was plunged back into darkness.

Using a laser rangefinder, Locke confirmed that the Ark cavern had the dimensions described in the Bible: 450 feet long by 75 feet wide by 45 feet high. Locke, Grant, and Dilara stood at the southern end of the 450-foot chamber, with the structure on the left and the bare cave wall on the right. The cave was surprisingly uniform, and Locke could only guess as to how it was formed. Maybe some kind of fantastically huge lava tube. It was an unlikely formation for this type of volcano; some might say miraculous. Except for the lack of water, it provided the perfect refuge.

The Ark itself was a three-level stepped construction that extended like the bench seats at a high school football stadium, with the front of each tier set back from the one below. All three levels abutted the left cave wall, which also served as the back wall of the structure, with rooms separated by interior walls along its 450-foot length. There were no doors or walls on the front side of each tier. Each room was open, as if they didn't want to haul more wood up the mountain just to add doors. Privacy must not have been paramount.

Locke examined the wood used to build the Ark. It was a strong hardwood, treated with pitch to prevent rot. He rapped on the wood in several places. Still solid after 6000 years. Over Dilara's objection, he dug the knife from his Leatherman into a beam. It didn't give. The construction should be stable enough to walk on and under.

The trappings of ancient life abounded, as if the inhabitants had left only minutes before. No effort had been made to take the wooden furniture or pottery that littered the cavern.

Every fifty feet, a ramp ran parallel to the structure and angled up to the next level like a switchback trail. At the front of each of the top two levels, there was an open 15-foot-wide promenade that ran the length of the structure and would allow anyone walking along it to peer down to the level below. All the rooms were accessible via the promenade. The cave floor served as the promenade and floor surface for the lowest level.

The largest rooms were on the bottom tier, and with the stepped-back construction, the rooms were not as deep on the second and third levels because they had to make room for the promenades. The rooms on the bottom level were 45 feet deep, 30 feet deep on the second level, and on the top level the rooms were just 15 feet deep. From the few rooms Locke could see with his flashlight, they ranged in width from 10 to 50 feet.

He made a quick mental calculation and guessed that there were over 50 rooms to search. It could take days unless they got a head start. Locke turned to Dilara.

"Any ideas for where to begin the search for the amulet?" he asked.

Dilara shook her head. "No one has ever seen anything like this. I'm just guessing, but the bottom rooms were probably used for storage, animal pens, and refuse collection. The second level might have been used for common rooms. The top level could be individual quarters. But this is all speculation. The amulet could be anywhere. I suggest we split up."

"I agree. Since we're alone in here for now, the danger should be minimal. But first, I have a few things that might help us in our search."

Locke unzipped his bag and removed the remote-controlled vehicle again. He also unfolded a laptop computer.

"How will that help?" Dilara asked. "It'll take longer using the camera on that thing."

"The camera is just one tool on the vehicle," Locke said. "This time we're going to use its laser mapping system."

"What will that do?"

"As I drive the RCV--the remote-controlled vehicle--all the way down the cave on each level, the laser will measure the distance to every surface it passes and beam the dimensions back to the laptop. In real time, the laptop will construct a three-dimensional image of the structure which I can then send to the memory chips in each of these."

Locke took his hardhat off to show it to Dilara. It looked like a standard miner's helmet, with a powerful light on the top. But on each side, it had articulated viewfinders that could be folded down to fit over the eye. It also had an infrared camera that could pick up the heat signature of a warm body from a huge distance and would have made spotting Garrett's group easy. Since they were alone, the infrared wouldn't be necessary.

"Gordian developed these to assist in underground mining disasters when visibility is poor. I had them shipped here from a Gordian job in Greece."

"You mean, this helmet will show me what the cave looks like?"

"Wherever you turn your head, it'll show you a graphical representation of what your looking at. When you shine your flashlight at anything, you'll see the visible image superimposed over the computer-generated image. It communicates with this emitter, which serves as the reference point." Locke placed the small transceiver out of the way at the base of the wall.

"How long will it take before we can use it?" Dilara asked.

"Just a few minutes to get the data. The RCV's top speed is 40 miles per hour. All I have to do is drive it straight to the end, and the laser and computer will do the rest. When it's at the other end, I'll drive it up to the second level and we'll do the same thing. Of course, it won't be able to see behind anything, but it'll give us a quick look at everything in here."

Locke plopped the RC on the floor, tapped on the computer's mouse pad, and when he confirmed that the data collection had begun, he pressed the trigger. The RC zoomed away, its own flashlight guiding the way. Within seconds, all they could see was the pale spot of light in front of it. Locke concentrated on the controller's LCD screen. In ten minutes, Locke had run the RCV down all three levels of the Ark and back to their current position.

"Nice driving, Andretti," Grant said.

"All those video games finally paid off," Locke said as he downloaded the data to the helmets. He put one on, turned down the eyepieces, and looked around.

He could see Dilara and Grant clearly through the lens, but the background was no longer black and formless. As Locke moved his head, the computer calculated its position and the distance to each hard surface. Then using wire-frames and texture-shading, it built a crude representation of everything in his field of view. Gradated textures were assigned to different depths so that items against a wall would stand out.