Elisha's Bones Part 7

My chest seizes, and my breath comes in ragged gasps, as if I'm sucking oxygen through a clogged filter. The darkness surrounding me is now a physical thing-an insidious creature running cold hands over my naked skin. It is only two meters to the bottom but I cling to the ladder, even as the coa.r.s.e rope burns my hands. I can't move.

I hear something above me that I recognize as a voice but I can't make sense of the words. There's a pounding in my ears that sounds like roaring surf beating against rocks. That louder sound, blocking out all else, is fear speaking to me, and I've never before heard its full voice.

It seems like hours that I hang there, my mind caught in a dark place, before I can will a rational thought to find any purchase. I know I need to regulate my breathing so I can organize my thoughts. I try breathing through my mouth, exhaling slowly. I repeat the process several times until a portion of the oppressive darkness lifts and I can make out the vague shape of the smooth rock surface before me.

I'm beginning to feel intense pain in my hands and it forces me to move down the ladder. In just a few seconds I reach solid ground and I fumble to pull out and turn on the flashlight. The beam that spills out over the corridor walls is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I release a small sob of grat.i.tude even as I wonder what just happened to me.

Esperanza is soon by my side, up close and pulling me away from the rope ladder that has started to dance as one of the others begins to descend.

"What was that?" she asks me in a harsh whisper.

"What do you mean?"

"You hung there for almost a minute, and you wouldn't answer me." She grabs my arm and leans closer, but with the flashlight trained down the tunnel she can't see my face. "Are you all right?"

Did she say I hung there for only a minute? It seemed much longer-as if half my life had pa.s.sed by.

"I'm fine," I answer, hoping my voice sounds steady. "It's just been a long time since I've climbed down a rope ladder. My knee's acting up."

She probably would have said more, but now the others are behind us and it's getting crowded in here.

"Let's go," I say. I start down the pa.s.sage, the light revealing nothing but bare stone. I'm embarra.s.sed by whatever it was that happened to me back there. At least it wasn't as obvious as it could have been. Claustrophobia comes to mind, because whatever it was only took hold of me once I'd entered the hole. Yet I've never experienced something like that, and I've spent a good portion of my adult life in cramped places beneath the earth. Of course, it's been five years. I start to feel the cold fingers of fear touching my elbow and I push those thoughts away.

We've reached the end of the pa.s.sage, and a narrow set of stairs follows the wall line to the left before turning and angling back toward the pyramid's center. I turn and review the crew, who are huddled close together, drawn by the light. I realize I'm not up to my pre-professorship form because I'm the only one with a light. Had I been thinking clearly, I would have outfitted everyone with lights, rope, and water. I console myself that I could find my way out of here in complete darkness. There is, after all, only one path you can take.

"Everyone all right back there?" I ask.

Heads nod all around, except Antonio who crosses himself again.

"Esta bien, Antonio. Es como bajar a tu sotano para cambiar un fusible." It's all right, Antonio. Just like going down into your bas.e.m.e.nt to change a fuse. It's all right, Antonio. Just like going down into your bas.e.m.e.nt to change a fuse.

This gets nervous laughter from the others. I turn and start down the stairs-which are even narrower than the corridor- with the light aimed near my feet so I don't miss a step. The others will have to keep their hands on the walls and feel their way down. In six steps we're moving to the left and descending at a steeper angle. At the bottom, I see the entrance into the burial chamber and I'm thrilled that we didn't reseal it after leaving last time.

As we enter the large room, there's a bit of ambient lighting that comes through small gaps between the stones. It's not enough to see by but it supplements the illumination from the flashlight. The mold is worse than it was when we first broke through all those years ago. Then, we were meticulous in clearing it away, mindful of what might exist beneath it. And we'd been rewarded with strange carvings in the limestone as well as etchings in the lintel above the entrance.

I pull a pair of gloves from the pack hanging at my waist and I start to wipe the mold away. It takes a few minutes before I've cleared off a small center portion of a carving-the image of an antlered animal. There are three circles above its hindquarters, with two straight lines beneath its primitive hooves. There's no resemblance to what would become the Mayan written language. Neither is there anything that marks it as a precursor to the Epi-Olmec script that might have taken root in this region.

"I've never seen anything like it," Esperanza says.

That's not what I want to hear. She's my subject-matter expert. If anyone can help me make sense of these things, it will be her.

"We'll have to clear away the rest of the mold before we do anything else." With one last look around, I start back up toward the open air, trying to keep my mood from souring.

We've been working for two days, and the guys need a break.

When we pull into town, it's seven-thirty at night and Rubio is winding down from work and settling into the serious business of relaxation. I debate a few places in my head but choose to stay with a known quant.i.ty. That way, if the crew wanders off, they stand a better chance of finding their way back to the trucks. I pull up to The Sleeping Bear, the other SUV following suit, and all but Esperanza and I are out of the trucks and dispersing before I can say anything to them about when to meet back here.

It's busier inside than it was when we first arrived in town, and I get a nicer greeting from the bartender. His lip curls into something resembling a smile, rather than fixing me with that blank look that leaves you wondering if he's going to serve you or eat you.

Espy and I select a table, and a young woman in a white ruffled skirt takes our order. There's music playing from a jukebox in the corner, and several people are already dancing even though the night is young. I watch Esperanza as her eyes move over the crowd and I can see that she's enjoying herself. While she pays homage to books and academic research, she would never look askance on the dynamic social qualities of her people. She can dance with the best of them.

By the time our food arrives, I'm feeling more relaxed, the stress leached away. I even nod to Henry, whom I see up at the bar. It's not until I am several bites into my meal that my dinner date says a word, and it's not at all what I'm expecting. She utters a curse as she looks over my shoulder.

I hear scuffling near the door and I turn just in time to see three men in green uniforms push their way into the busy tavern. One of them delivers a shove to an inebriated patron and it sends the man sprawling over a chair. After a quick canva.s.s of the room, all three sets of eyes train on me.

Two of them are armed with AK-47s, which they raise as the men approach our table. I take exception to the fact that both are pointed at me and that Esperanza is presumed innocent.

"You are conducting an illegal operation in the government-protected ruins," a man with the stripes of a colonel says.

There is an army base to the west of Rubio just a few miles away. When we were here last time, we would often see off-duty soldiers frequenting the businesses here. They didn't bother us, and they seemed to get along well with the townsfolk. Rubio is almost an army town; their commerce depends on the soldiers.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding, Colonel," I say, leaving my hands in plain sight on the table. It's not that I think the young men in the uniforms are trigger-happy, but misunderstandings are best avoided. "I'm authorized to work in the area. I have the necessary papers from Central University of Venezuela's School of Anthropology."

The colonel frowns. He had obviously not been prepared for a reb.u.t.tal.

"If you were cleared to work here, why wasn't I informed?" the man snaps. "Where are your papers?"

"Let me get them." I raise my left hand from the table and, while maintaining eye contact with the colonel, slip it into my pack. I pull out my pa.s.sport, a dated authorization form from the university, and an addendum extending the duration of the dig from the dates on the original form. That last is a nice touch, and I'd complimented Romero. It keeps things from looking too clean. Something like an addendum adds legitimacy to the enterprise.

The colonel takes these from me and looks them over with a sharp eye, but everything is in order. The people Romero works with are the best at what they do. In fact, the first time I met Romero, when Espy introduced us, it was to have him forge doc.u.ments to allow me to take antiquities out of the country. He's only gotten better at his craft.

"I still wasn't notified that you would be here, Dr. Hawthorne," the man says.

The other two, sensing the change in circ.u.mstances, and acting on Espy's smile, lower their weapons. And now they're paying more attention to the lovely woman at the table than they are to me.

"I'm sorry no one told you, Colonel. I would have stopped by and introduced myself but, as you can see, we're not authorized for an extended stay and I'd like to get as much done as I can."

This appeases him, although he still seems troubled about being kept in the dark.

"Colonel, how about I buy you and your men a drink? That way your trip into town won't be wasted." It's as these words escape my lips that I see a ghost. Beyond the colonel, in a seat near the door, is a man in jeans and an off-white shirt. He wears a hat, pulled down low so as to almost cover his eyes. Before I can get a better look, or jump out of my chair, the colonel leans in, obstructing my view.

"That's very generous of you, Dr. Hawthorne," he says. And by the time he leans back, the other man is gone, the door swinging shut behind him.

Later, after I've put a few drinks for the colonel and his men on my card and have resumed eating my dinner, Esperanza says, "You know he's going to call Caracas when he gets back to the base, right?"

"I wouldn't think much of him if he didn't."

She raises an eyebrow. "That doesn't worry you?"

"Have a little trust in your big brother."

Back at the university, there's a form corresponding to the one I have in my pack. A clerk will pull the file and confirm for the colonel that one Dr. Jack Hawthorne is approved to conduct an academic exercise in the area of Rubio.

Still, the confrontation has me unsettled. Obviously someone told him that we were here. It might have been Henry. He's nursed his grudge for years, and my recent recompense may not have satisfied him. What bothers me more, though, is the possibility that my mind is playing tricks on me. Can it really be true that the man I just saw is the Australian who visited Jim at KV65? His is the face I've attached to the whole event-the person who vanished like smoke just minutes before the ground swallowed my brother. A clinical part of my brain understands-has understood since that day-that I'm reaching, that a malevolent look does not make someone a killer, or mean that something insidious is behind what happened. Add to this, however, that there was a rush to close the investigation, that no one would even consider the notion that it wasn't an accident. Or that even Jim seemed reluctant to pursue the matter, despite that the man I thought I knew would not have backed down from anyone.

I have no choice but to push these thoughts aside. It's farfetched, because it would mean that whatever took place in Egypt is somehow linked to my current job, and that is improbable. The more likely explanation is that the man at the door bore a resemblance to the Australian. The colonel's visit is a more immediate concern, and a warning that we shouldn't overstay our welcome. Romero, thankfully, has bought us some time, so I determine to enjoy myself. The steak is good, the music upbeat, and my date is the loveliest woman in the room. For the time being, I content myself with these simpler things.

Esperanza runs her hands along the wall carvings, moving from one to the other. There are a total of eleven distinct images or scenes. Among the odder things about them are their stylistic differences. When my team first uncovered the images, it was as if we'd discovered a repository of pictorial samples from several civilizations, and with no similarities save for a single symbol that gives them a thematic link. In each of the eleven carvings, never in the same spot, there's an oblong disc inset with a squiggle resembling an S S, each instance deftly worked into the larger image. I'd thought at the time that if we could identify that piece, everything else would fall into place.

The picture from the book, the crest for Fraternidad de la Tierra, is the first in the line, or the last, depending upon which end one starts. She is at that one now, and she's smiling as her fingers trace the image. I know what she's feeling, because I've been there. She's at that point where academic knowledge becomes empirical. Something has jumped off the page and she can touch it, experience it.

What I'm feeling, though, is a sense of futility. I'd been hoping that seeing them would trigger something. Pieces would fall into place and I would be able to make a connection between them-something that would lead us to some course of action.

"Do you recognize any of them?" I ask her.

Esperanza steps away from the wall until she can see all three carvings on it. She spends several seconds focusing on each before turning to the next wall, then the next. After reviewing the last one, the only wall with two images rather than three, she says, "That one there, the one with the deer, it looks familiar. I'm not sure where I've seen it, but it rings a bell. And maybe that one." She points at a circle on the opposite wall-insets that make it look almost like a smiley face, with the ever-present oblong disc serving as an eye.

"That's all?"

She nods, then starts snapping pictures. Esperanza is the quintessential researcher. Even though she can't decipher them at the moment, once she gets back to her books and her computer, she stands a better chance of cracking whatever code exists here than anyone on the planet. Still, it doesn't help me right now and I know the fault is mine. I'm the one who is unequipped to make sense of the meaning behind the carvings. There is something important here, I'm sure of it. And it's likely tied to the small symbol found in each of the carvings.

"What do we do now?" Espy asks once she's finished taking pictures.

"Great question. I'm open to suggestions."

She is silent as we both regard the limestone puzzles. Then I see her eyes travel down the wall, to the floor of the burial chamber.

"Is Mayan architecture always above ground?"

"Almost always."

She taps the stone with the heel of her boot. "But this is pre-Mayan, right? Not everything here fits the schematic?"

I don't answer her right away, because what she's proposing would do irreversible damage to the pyramid. And there is little chance that she's right. Still, what other choice is there? Right now the only alternative is to return to Caracas, which would be tantamount to throwing in the towel. I'm not prepared to do that. At least Espy's plan will keep us here for a while, plus give me some time to think. The problem is that time is becoming a scarce commodity, especially with the specter of military intervention hanging over our heads. Beyond that, soon I'll have to make a decision regarding my future as an academic, and I've jumbled things up sufficiently that the decision is no longer as clear as it once was.

We all have masks on, purchased from a hardware store in Rubio, and I still feel as if I have dust coating my insides. I know my team feels the same way because they're all taking more frequent breaks, navigating the winding stairs and the free-swinging ladder to the open air above. But what we've found keeps me pressing on, despite the fact that our lack of protocol means I'm likely destroying valuable material, that there will be things lost to science. There's a second floor beneath the first, of the same period, one produced on top of the other. It's unprecedented in Mayan architecture and, while I keep telling myself that this isn't a true Mayan structure, the reminder holds little weight. I'm feverish with excitement, my mind parsing the possibilities. This is a level, a sophistication, of temple development that doesn't match the antiquity of the structure, as if they borrowed the idea from somewhere else.

The real payoff is that we've found etchings-just the barest hint of them, a few dark lines peeking out from beneath the last row of stones we pulled up. Once we get the next row removed, I'll have a better idea what we're dealing with. We're working in the western corner of the structure, which is a bit surprising because carving out that point of the compa.s.s for special significance is a quintessentially Egyptian characteristic. Even so, there's much here that doesn't match the accepted South American schematic, so I won't put any undue emphasis on this inconsistency.

Several minutes pa.s.s as we raise the last of the stones. Antonio and another man from the crew are levering a chipped three-by-three paver off to the side. I'm right there, not waiting for the dust to clear before I'm on my knees with a brush, moving dirt that's been undisturbed for longer than most people can fathom. I ignore the tickle in my throat, my burning eyes. The two men find a place for the stone and let it fall, and the sound reverberates through the chamber. The silence that follows is full of something. I feel it, and apparently so does Espy, who has appeared at my side. Even the men feel it; they're hovering just behind, anxious to see what their labor has unearthed.

It seems to take forever before the dust settles and I can start to make out more of the markings on the subfloor as they resolve themselves into . . . I'm not aware of having dropped the brush, yet it's no longer in my hand. It takes me a while to wrap my brain around what I see, during which I'm unable to speak. Espy places a hand on my shoulder. She sees it too, even if she may not fully understand the significance.

"It's impossible," I breathe.

"This is Egyptian, isn't it?" she says.

"Coptic. It's a form of demotic Egyptian rendered from the Greek alphabet. It was in use from the first century through the seventeenth." I'm talking fast, trying to make sense of this singular find. It shakes the foundation of everything I thought I knew about South and Central American cultural development-not the least of which is that no record of any kind indicates contact between the Americas and peoples from the other side of the ocean at the time this temple was built.

Espy digests the information and, since she knows more about the timeline for this part of the world than I could ever hope to, she now understands the importance of this find. "We shouldn't see something like this for at least another thousand years."

While she's coming to grips with that, I'm wrestling with another possibility: that my original dating for the construction of this temple was off by more than five hundred years. Coptic did not exist as a written language until the first century. If people from North Africa somehow migrated here during that period, it would place the construction of the temple during the late pre-Mayan period-with places like Palenque already well developed. Yet it lacks much of the refinement displayed there, and in Tikal, and at other locations.

Espy's mind is traveling the same path. "If people from Egypt arrived here in the first century, what do you think their reaction would have been to this side of the world's equivalent of the pyramids?"

"They would have recognized the similarities, a kinship."

"And they might have learned how to build one?"

I don't answer, but I lift my eyes away from the text and take in the whole of the chamber. Espy's right; it's the only thing that makes sense. Egyptians were not just here during the construction of Quetzl-Quezo, they were its builders.

I focus on the writing. The letters are not quite right. In the first part of the text, there are places in which the curves are too wide, where one character or another is not fully formed. It indicates that this is early Coptic, scribed at a time when the language was still absent of defined boundaries. I read it twice to make sure I've got it right. What's strange is that the latter text is obviously from a later time period and not just because of the use of a more advanced alphabet.

"What does it say?" Espy prompts.

"The first part reads, 'Come from the four winds and breathe into these that they may live.' " I look up and meet Esperanza's hopeful gaze, and I offer a smile. It's too close to be chance, yet it's not spot-on. "It's from Ezekiel: the Valley of the Dry Bones. Metaphorically speaking, it's a related text, but it's far removed from anything to do with Elisha."

Espy's not buying it. She knows the odds. There is a look on her face that I've shared on more than one occasion, when the things I've read about have taken form. She has a first-timer's glow and, despite myself, it's one that I share.

"You said the 'first part.' Well, what does the rest of it say?"

"It says I shouldn't be so hard on myself for having such a difficult time dating this place."

Actually, the rest of the inscription translates to a single word: Lalibela Lalibela. And, to me, it's a much more exciting find than the biblical text it accompanies. Because I can catch a plane in Caracas and be walking the streets of Lalibela by tomorrow. It's the ancient equivalent of a Post-it Note-an arrow pointing back across the ocean. The thing that makes it especially intriguing is that the city didn't get its name until the eleventh century. And while I've been playing fast and loose with the dating, I would stake my dusty credentials on the fact that these two sections of text were recorded at least a millennium apart.

I sense the substantial weight of a long-lived conspiracy threatening to rest on my shoulders. For the first time since starting this project, I'm approaching the place where I'm willing to believe there's something here, and that it spans a vast timeline. And the thing that tells me that five years of teaching has changed me is that I'm almost frightened by the prospect.

I resist the urge to allow this foreboding to mar the pleasure I feel at having discovered a Mayan-style temple, built by Egyptians, sporting a road map to Ethiopia, and hidden in a South American jungle. The disparate parts, by themselves, would keep me writing papers for the rest of my life-if I were still doing that sort of thing.

I'm about to tell Espy what the last part says when something wraps its burly arms around my mental faculties. All of a sudden, what we've found-the Egyptian connection, the Ethiopian city name, something-is coaxing a related item up through the clutter of other things begging for my attention. When it finally surfaces, I react with a start-one violent enough to send the rest of my team jumping back. It's the knowledge that there now exists a connection between this project and KV65, and a dramatic improvement in the odds that the man at the bar was in fact the vanishing Australian. Unbidden, the glimpse of text I saw scrawled on the inner coffin in 65 comes to me: bones of the holy man bones of the holy man. It hits me like a medicine ball in the stomach, this translation of an intangible phrase into something with prophetic weight. It was the only phrase I saw before the SCA closed the dig. And here it was sitting in front of me the whole time, only I lacked the necessary background to see it.

Before I can say anything to Espy, I hear the sounds of someone coming through the pa.s.sage from the surface. A quick count reveals that my entire crew is present with me, that the magical moment has them all foregoing the dust-free air topside. But I don't allow the ramifications of this puzzle to manifest until I see a stranger enter the chamber, the fluorescent lighting revealing a man in clothing unsuited to the environs. I recognize him; he's the man who introduced me to Gordon Reese.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Hawthorne," Gregory Hardy says, brushing the dust from his clothes, wearing a smile that is not quite a smile.

CHAPTER 10

I'm thinking about my cactus, trying to remember when I watered it last. Was it two days before I left for Venezuela, or two weeks? It might seem like a small thing but I'd hate to get home and find it dead.

The road pa.s.ses beneath us as I guide the SUV through the mountains. Antonio has the other truck on my b.u.mper. I'm going too slowly for him, but he'll have to live with it. I'm not as adventurous in my driving as he is.