The Sphinx

CHAPTER 9

“What’s the status of the Springfield?” Duncan asked. She felt a depressing sense of déjà vu. She had been here before, in exactly this same place, prepared to watch almost exactly the same thing occur. She was a firm believer in the adage that doing the same thing would produce the same results. Unfortunately, she had found over the years, working within the government bureaucracy, that few others thought the same way. The President had asked her to be present for the latest attempt to penetrate the shield around Easter Island at the conclusion of the conference call. His concern had been not so much the actual attempt but rather for her to gauge the mood of the military on blockade duty, to see how close they were to violating orders and attacking the island.

Her conference call with the National Security Council had yielded little. There was even disagreement that the threat from Stratzyda was real, despite the example set by Lexina through Warfighter. The only agreement was that word of Stratzyda not be leaked. Even the cause of the explosion of Atlantis was being kept under wraps, with a cover story of a one-in-a-million catastrophic lightning strike during rollout being fed to the media.

The President had been in contact with the Russian president, who had vehemently denied that Stratzyda was what Yakov claimed. He stuck to the old cover story of its being an experimental platform for Mir.

Lies fighting lies, Duncan thought to herself. She was beginning to understand how easy it had been for the alien groups to manipulate mankind when truth was such an ephemeral ideal.

Admiral Poldan, the commander of the task force, was seated in a black leather chair that was elevated so that he could oversee all that was happening in the combat control center, deep inside the island bridge of the USS Washington. He turned slightly in his chair to look at Duncan, and his gaze was not kind. Since arriving on board the aircraft carrier via bouncer flight from Area 51, Duncan had received a chilly reception from the military personnel who manned the ship.

She had also found that to be the norm. Anyone not in uniform among a large group of others who did wear one, was bound to be looked at strangely. The Navy found it convenient to blame her for the loss of the Pasadena, destroyed by the foo fighters, and the entrapment of the Springfield. Even more than that, they were angry over having their hands tied, unable to strike back with all the numerous weapons at their command.

The Washington was one of the most modern ships in the Navy, a Nimitz-class carrier that cost over three billion dollars to build, the most expensive weapons system in the world. It was the core of Task Force 78, surrounded by two guided missile cruisers, three destroyers, two frigates, and two supply ships.

The Washington carried the task force’s most powerful punch in the form of its flight wing: one squadron (12) of Grumman F-14 Tomcats, three squadrons (36) of McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornets, four Grumman EA-2C Hawkeye surveillance aircraft, ten Lockheed S-3B Vikings, six Sikorsky SH-60B Seahawk helicopters, and six EA-6B Prowlers.

And all that power had been doing for the past few days was steaming in a circle twenty miles away from Easter Island.

“She’s on the bottom, not moving,” Poldan said gruffly. “No change there. No change here. We’re just wasting time.”

“What change would you like to see?” Duncan asked.

“I say we hit the island with everything we have.”

“Including nuclear weapons?”

“Including nukes,” Poldan confirmed. “The Secretary of Defense agreed with me just this morning.”

“And he was assassinated on his way to tell the President that,” Duncan noted.

“All the more reason to blast this rock out of the ocean.”

“You received the imagery from China. Firing a nuclear weapon at Qian-Ling didn’t do much.”

“Nuking the foo fighter base worked,” Poldan countered.

“Did it?” Duncan asked. “Then where did the foo fighters that are covering the Springfield come from? And the foo fighter base probably didn’t have a guardian computer and shield.” She wondered how he would react if he knew the threat from Stratzyda.

Poldan ignored her, turning his attention to the operations center, and gave orders, preparing the carrier to launch the latest attempt to see beyond the shield.

Duncan stepped closer to his chair and lowered her voice so only he could hear. “Admiral, do you think this is smart?”

A muscle in the admiral’s jaw quivered. “Lady, you have the clearance to be here and you have presidential authority, but I have approval from the National Security Council, which the President also heads.”

“I’m not ordering you to stop,” Duncan said. “I’m just asking you to think about it. What makes you think this will be any more successful than your attempt under the water with Sea Eye?”

“Global Hawk is unmanned,” Poldan said. “It fails, we lose nothing but a piece of equipment.”

“Admiral, I think that… ”

“I allowed you to try to contact Kelly Reynolds,” Poldan countered. “You’ve received no response. Now we try it my way.” Poldan turned to an officer seated at a console in the front of the operations center. “Do we have a link with Global Hawk?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Assume control.”

Global Hawk had been developed by Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical and Raytheon E-Systems to fit a very specific requirement proposed by the Department of Defense. The need was for what was called in military procurement jargon a HAE UAV: high altitude endurance, unmanned aerial vehicle.

It was shaped like the famous U-2 spy plane, except slightly smaller and having no need for the cockpit since it was flown remotely by a pilot or computer on the ground. Long black wings stretched almost 120 feet, with a thin body, all painted flat black. A pod in the bottom held the imaging gear, controlled by a central computer. A jet engine gave the aircraft power.

Global Hawk was currently at sixty thousand feet and descending rapidly. Speed was relatively slow, about 120 knots. The long, wide wings gave the aircraft plenty of lift and the small jet engine had to put out little thrust to keep the vehicle moving. It had been launched from Edwards Air Force Base in California the previous day and had been controlled via satellite link from Edwards, directed to fly toward Easter Island.

As it got closer to Easter Island, the satellite link with Edwards was cut and it entered a glide path that had been determined by the computer. The jet engine cut off and it swooped down, heading for the dark gray clouds below and the island hidden underneath them.

“See those four lines that center up?” The officer who had answered Poldan inclined his head at the screen. “That’s the glide path.”

As far as Duncan could tell, the lines did little good, as the entire screen was filled with gray cloud. The pilot was sitting in a padded chair, surrounded by flight instrumentation and computer screens. Directly in front of him, a joystick, such as Duncan remembered her son using for computer games, rested on a small platform. The pilot’s right hand was wrapped around the stick.

“I’m ready to fly it by keeping the small red figure that represents Global Hawk centered on those lines, which are projected by the computer using a satellite uplink to a global positioning satellite.” He reached forward and flipped a switch with his free hand. The gray was gone. A black bubble on a blue field filled the screen. “We’re looking forward now from the Global Hawk using a thermal imager. That’s the shield surrounding the island. The blue is the ocean surface outside of the shield.”

The image shuddered. “Turbulence,” the pilot explained, his hand hovering over the controls. “Four minutes to shield.”

He hit a red button on his console. “Exit program is loaded and ready to run.” He hit the button again. “Computer is off and timer is set. I have complete control by radio link.”

The black bubble got closer. The guardian had made the shield opaque after the last failed conventional attack by Admiral Poldan’s fleet. Up to that point, it had been invisible. The best guess UNAOC scientists had been able to come up with was that the field that comprised the shield was similar to the electromagnetic one used by the bouncers. The fact that in all the years Majestic had worked on the electromagnetic drives of those craft not a single clue as to how they actually worked had been discovered told Duncan that the key to the shield would not suddenly reveal itself.

The pilot flipped four switches one right after the other. “I’m powering down nonessential systems,” he explained. “There are only two things still on… the forward heat imager, which we’re watching, and my radio link.

“One minute out,” the pilot said. “Going off-line completely.” He hit the red button one last time. Then he let go of the controls. “Global Hawk is on a glide path that will take it through the shield. Prior to takeoff from Edwards, the central computer was shielded and a special program loaded. When I cut all links to the UAV, the central computer will go to sleep, which should allow it to pass through the shield, as the Airlia automated equipment seems to respond only to electric signals. It will wake up once inside, take the needed images, then shut down once more on the way out.”

“We hope that’s the way it works,” Duncan said.

The pilot shrugged. “It’s the best plan we have, given what we know about Airlia technology.”

Duncan wasn’t too sure. The foo fighters had been taken out that way, using “dumb” weapons that gave off no EM signal, but she had a feeling the guardian was learning and adapting. Admiral Poldan had used “dumb” bombs to strike at the island during the last attack, and the shield had destroyed every one of them, unlike their success against the foo fighters. The hope of the UNAOC scientists was that the guardian… if it picked up Global Hawk… would see that the unmanned plane carried no weapons and therefore would not consider it a threat.

The pilot checked the time. “Entering shield.”

The microbug was no bigger than a hornet. The microrobots, directed by the guardian, had built it from parts cannibalized from one of the FM radios left by the UNAOC scientists.

The microbug flitted through the tunnel the humans had drilled from the surface into the guardian chamber. It was shaped like an elongated teardrop, with a tiny electromagnetic gravity drive, no bigger than the flat end of a thumbtack, giving it power and the ability to fly.

The microbug sped into the sky, toward the object that had just been allowed through the shield. It easily caught up to the Global Hawk and raced alongside. Global Hawk was fifteen hundred feet over Easter Island, moving at eighty knots.

The microbug slid in through an air duct in the front of the aircraft. It immediately noted the imagers now taking pictures and readings. It flew down a wiring conduit straight to the aircraft’s master computer.

A miniature door on the side of the microbug slid open and a wire, no thicker than the finest of threads, punched directly into the computer’s main processor.

The Global Hawk banked and headed for a landing on the main airstrip on Easter Island. Like a group of ants awaiting a picnic basket, a small army of microrobots was at the edge of the runway.

Lisa Duncan looked pointedly at the clock.

The pilot slumped back in his seat. “We’re past due,” he admitted. “But it went in, we know that.”

Admiral Poldan pointed forward. “We need to nuke that damn place. Nothing but a bunch of old statues anyway.”

“And Kelly Reynolds,” Duncan noted.

“Hell, she’s a traitor,” Poldan snarled.

“A lot of people think differently,” Duncan said.

“Who gives a damn what a lot of people think?” Poldan asked.

“That’s supposedly what democracy is all about,” Duncan dryly noted. “Kelly helped uncover the secret of Area 51, Admiral. We owe her.”

Poldan stabbed a finger toward Easter Island. “Tell it to that thing.”

Lisa Duncan checked the clock once more. Forty hours before Lexina’s deadline was up. She left the communications shack.

“What is it?” Lago asked.

It had taken the two of them several hours to completely clear the sides of the stone. It was ten feet long by four wide. The edges were exact, the surfaces perfectly smooth except where there was high rune writing. Mualama doubted that any modern stonemason could do such a good job, even using lasers to cut the markings.

Mualama stepped back, wiping a hand across his sweaty brow, not caring that it left a streak of mud. “You were the student,” he said. “The first thing you must consider at a dig is how old you think the site is.”

Lago frowned. “It’s very strange. From the depth, given the data you gave me on this area, it should be several thousand years old. But… ”

“Several thousand?” Mualama interrupted him. “That is much too broad an estimation. Narrow it down.”

Lago picked up a notepad from the side of the pit. He thumbed through, searching for the notes he had taken when he’d been briefed by Mualama. Then he took a ruler and measured the stone’s depth.

“I’d say this had been buried here somewhere between two and three thousand years.” He looked up. “But that can’t be, Uncle. It must have been buried recently and… ”

“Why do you say that?”

“The other geological time indicators we found on top. They indicate that this site has been disturbed sometime after it was originally established. Do they not?” Lago asked.

Mualama nodded.

“But… ” Lago pointed at the stone. “How can that be? If it was so hard for you to find it, who else could have?”

Mualama knelt next to the red stone. “What do you think this is?” Lago shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You must tell me,” Mualama said. “Your head professor will not be pleased if I do not test you.”

“I graduated two years ago,” Lago noted. “I no longer have a head professor.”

“What do you think it is?” Mualama repeated.

“A marker?”

“Yes,” Mualama said. “But what kind?”

“Of a special site?”

Mualama smiled. “I do not know, so I cannot say if you are right or wrong. Yes, I do believe this is a special site. But I have my own guess what kind of marker this is.”

“Yes?”

“I think it is a grave marker.”

Mualama smiled. “Bring me the end of the cable from the Rover’s winch.”

Once his nephew brought him the cable, Mualama formed a large loop, which he laid next to one end of the stone. “Come,” he called to Lago. “We need to dig around so we can get this under.”

After an hour of work they had the cable around the end of the stone, four inches in. Mualama ordered his nephew back to the winch. He gave Lago a thumbs-up, indicating for him to start the winch attached to the front bumper of the Land Rover. He then grabbed the end of the metal pipe he had taken off the roof of the Rover.

The cable was taut, the winch whining, but there was no movement.

“Hold!” Mualama yelled.

Lago hit the lever, and the winch halted. Mualama dropped to his knees and used the trowel to dig a hole under the edge of the stone. He excavated as far as his arm could reach. Then Mualama slid the pipe into the hole.

“Again!”

The winch powered up. Mualama put all his weight on the pipe, his feet coming off the ground. With a loud sucking noise, the stone lifted ever so slightly. “Hold!”

The tension went out of the cable and the stone dropped back down. Mualama repositioned the cable, making sure it was secure.

“Once more,” Mualama yelled.

The winch pulled, and this time the stone lifted four inches, then froze. Mualama was afraid of breaking it. He had taken photos of the surface from every angle, but he knew the stone intact was a magnificent find regardless of what else they found.

“You must lift with the winch,” he instructed Lago, “then I will move it to the left.”

“How are you… ”

“Just lift when I tell you,” Mualama said. “Now!”

The winch pulled once more, and the stone came up. Mualama gripped the pipe in his large hands, waiting as the end near him went up six inches. Then a foot. When it was two feet up, he slid his leg under it and pushed the pipe as far as it would go to the right.

“What are you doing?” Lago yelled in alarm.

“Keep the winch going!” Mualama put more of his body under the stone. He slid the pipe around to the right side of the stone. Then he pressed against the pipe.

The stone moved very slightly to the left; only the part that was up moved. The edge was now three feet up. Mualama’s feet slipped on the dirt underneath. He desperately kept his grip on the pipe. He slid it farther down the right side. The stone was now angled.

Mualama looked… the far left edge was just over the lip of the pit. He strained, putting every ounce of strength he had into pushing the pipe along the right edge. A foot of the far left was now over the lip.

The close edge suddenly came free and the stone dangled precariously, held by the cable but free of the pipe. Mualama placed his back against the bottom of the stone, his body bent double as he tried to push it sideways.

“Are you all right?” Lago’s voice seemed to come from far away.

“Keep”… Mualama had to pause to take a deep breath between each word… “the… winch… going!”

Mualama shifted his feet, slowly moving to the left, most of the weight of the stone taken by the winch. He felt the scarred skin on his back against the hard rock, the inner surface rough, unlike the smooth top, and tearing into his back.

The cable around the stone shifted and the stone dropped six inches, knocking Mualama flat. He was lying on the earth underneath the marker.

“Uncle!” Lago screamed.

Mualama twisted on his side, trying to see, just a little daylight coming in the part of the opening that was now clear… not enough for him to climb out of. He was trapped. The cable was more toward the middle of the stone now. The stone was resting on the lip.

“Is the cable holding it?” Mualama yelled.

“What?”

“Is there any slack in the cable?”

“Yes.”

“Pull up to the edge of the pit.” Mualama spoke slowly and carefully so that Lago would understand. “Then extend the metal brace on the front of the Rover. Run the cable over the wheel on the edge of the metal brace. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Are you okay?”

“Just do it, please.”

Mualama waited. He heard the wheels of the Rover move, then metal clanking. Mualama used the time to maneuver the cable to the exact center of the stone. “I’m ready,” Lago finally yelled.

“Pull!” Mualama yelled. He heard the whine of the winch, and the stone lifted, quickly now, straight up. Mualama kept his hands on it to make sure it didn’t slip either way. It was clear of the edge on all sides.

“All right! Stop the winch!”

The stone stopped moving.

“Now,” Mualama said, “back up the Rover until the stone clears.”

“All right.”

“Slowly!”

Mualama kept his attention focused on keeping the stone steady as Lago backed the Rover up. He was so close, the last thing he needed now was to have it slide on top of him.

After a minute of very slow maneuvering, the stone was clear of the pit.

“Stop!” Mualama yelled. “Lower it,” he ordered as Lago got out of the Rover and came to the front. Slowly, the heavy marker went down until it lay on the ground next to the hole they had dug.

“What now?” Lago was staring at the marker.

Mualama picked up the shovels, tossing one to Lago. “We dig some more. The stone was a marker for something that lies underneath.” Mualama shoved the tip of the spade into the dirt. Reluctantly, Lago joined him.

Less than ten minutes after they began, Lago’s shovel hit something solid. They hurried to uncover the object. When they were done, they both climbed out of the hole and stared down.

“What the hell is that?” Lago murmured as they could now see the entire object.

A black metal pod, seven and a half feet long by three in diameter, lay in the dirt, the surface still shiny after thousands of years in the ground and unmarked where the shovels had struck it.

“A coffin,” Mualama said.

“But for who?”

“Let us find out,” Mualama said.

Repeating same process, they managed to lift the coffin out of the pit, placing it on the ground next to the marker.

Mualama was running his hands along the side of the black tube, feeling the seam.

“How did you know it was here?” Lago asked. “You told me how you found this site, but how did you know there was a site to begin with?”

Mualama sat down on the tube, resting before finishing the excavation. “I didn’t know it was here.” He tapped the tube. “I learned… as Burton did… that something was here, but I wasn’t sure what I would find.

“I… as Burton did… believe that there is a link between many legends in this part of the world. That things that seem unconnected are connected. The presence of the Airlia on this planet gives more credence to that belief.”

“A conspiracy?” Lago asked.

Mualama shrugged. “I am not a big believer in coincidence. I believe in cause and effect. I believe that there is a purpose to things. But first, let me test your knowledge.”

Lago rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything.

“Look at the earth we removed to get to the stone. Compare it to the strata on the side of the hole. Then the dirt we removed to get to the coffin and the depth. Do you think the stone marker was placed on the coffin when it was buried?”

Lago compared the two. “No. They’re different.”

“Good. You dated the hole as being between two and three thousand years old, based on what we removed from on top, but the strata on the side leading to the depth of the coffin is different, as you’ve noted. How long do you think this coffin has lain in the ground?”

Lago checked his notes. “This can’t be.”

“Trust the evidence in front of your eyes, not your flawed knowledge base.”

“According to the data, the coffin was buried around ten thousand years.”

“Why do you say that cannot be?”

“Because civilization…” Lago paused. “It’s an Airlia artifact.”

“It certainly appears so. You did your research on this part of the world in graduate school, right?”

Lago nodded.

“Africa is too often left out of the annals of history, especially in America. Yet it is most likely the birthplace of the human race.” Mualama saw that Lago was about to say something, and he raised a hand. “As you know, it has a legitimate claim to the oldest fossils of Homo genus. For example, America can claim humans only thirty thousand years ago! Not long at all when we talk in terms of hundreds of thousand of years.

“Of course,” Mualama continued, “we know so little because we’ve found so little. Pieces of a skeleton here, fragments of an artifact there. We base our entire theory of the development of man on depressingly little factual evidence, yet we call it science and we call it truth. How many times in the past century has the current accepted ‘theory’ been radically altered by a new discovery?”

“The textbook we used at university was published not long ago,” Lago said, “and it had several errors in it.”

“Not errors,” Mualama corrected, “but outdated ‘facts.’” He tapped his foot on the top of the tube. “I wonder what facts this find is going to change.”

“But it’s an Airlia object,” Lago protested. “Not human.”

“Consider,” Mualama said, “how many things have been discovered that could not be explained. What if someone had found this site before the news of what was in Area 51 and the existence of the Airlia came to light?”

Lago bit his lip as he considered the question. “I suppose this would have been the thing that proved we had been visited by aliens.”

Mualama emphatically shook his head. “No! You are young and naive. View our society as a deep river, running between stone banks. Do you know what it takes to change the course of that river? To change people’s perceptions?

“Even now, with a mile-long alien spacecraft circling our planet, there are many who would close their eyes and say it isn’t there. If a mile-long mothership that anyone with a toy store telescope can see clearly doesn’t change those people, you think something like this”… he tapped the tube… “would?”

“Burton saw something that changed his perception on everything around him. And he was told something… I believe he was told about the aliens having been here on Earth. He dedicated his life to tracking down the truth.”

“Did he find it?”

“I think he found out part of it, but not the entire story. And it is the entire story we need.” Mualama leaned forward, a thin sheen of sweat on his brow. “Let me tell you some things. I have kept my eyes and my ears and, most important, my mind open for many years. And my mouth shut.

“There have been things found that do not fit. There is a dig in Australia where archaeologists found evidence of Homo erectus, Neanderthal, and Homo sapiens all in the same era. Stages in the development of man that are supposed to be hundreds of thousands of years apart, yet lying in the same time strata.

“There are two places where Homo skeletal remains were found at a layer below that of Neanderthals. How can that be? There have been numerous strange finds like this. Have you read of any of them?”

Lago shook his head no.

“Of course not,” Mualama said. “Because anyone who published such so-called idiocy would be labeled a crackpot. But because of what he had experienced, Burton questioned the status quo. And there have been others. Professor Nabinger was a man who questioned what he saw, who looked where others were too afraid to look. His investigation in the Great Pyramid was based on his discovery of an after-action report hidden in the Royal Museum Archives of Hammond’s 1976 expedition that discovered residual radiation in the Great Pyramid. Of course, Hammond didn’t publish that report for fear of ridicule and because he couldn’t explain his findings. But now we know the reason he found that radiation… the Airlia had left an atomic weapon in the lowest chamber. And I think that Nabinger was not able to do all he wanted at Giza. There is more to the Plateau than meets the eye, and… ” Mualama stopped himself, as if suddenly realizing where he was and who was with him.

“But…” Lago hesitated.

“Go ahead,” Mualama prompted.

“But, like you just said, that radiation was due to the Airlia. That thing you’re sitting on is also Airlia, based on the high rune writing on the marker. But the fossil remains… what do they have to do with the Airlia?”

“Good question,” Mualama said. “It is one I have been asking myself often. And I don’t have an answer. Yet. But I believe they are connected. Perhaps our past is not what we think in more ways than we could begin to conceive.” Mualama abruptly changed the subject. “Do you know of the kingdom of Axum?”

“One of the earliest empires in the world,” Lago recited. “It was founded around the first or second century before the birth of Christ. The empire covered most of what was now Ethiopia and Kenya. It traded with Greece and Rome during its heyday, while at the same time making contact to the east to India and even China.”

“Very good,” Mualama said. “You get a B. It is an empire few people know of. Mostly because it was here in Africa and because it was an empire of dark-skinned people, not the most popular or delved-into subject around the world’s history courses. But at its height, Axum rivaled any of the kingdoms it traded with… Rome, China, India.

“One subject I have been very interested in is the various legends of Axum.” He pointed a long black finger at Lago. “We archaeologists are like detectives. We must investigate the past, and in order to do so, we must gather as much information as possible. I have found the best way to do that is to research the myths and legends of an area. Because there is often much more truth to legend than people realize.

“Many years ago, when I was a student like you, my professor at the University of Dar es Salaam sent me north to Ethiopia. My dissertation was on Axum, and he told me that to do a proper job I must go there, to the land that was the center of Axum’s power.

“So I went. I traveled around the country, to many places where scholars have never been.

“At Lake Tana, in northwest Ethiopia, there are many old monasteries. These places have changed little in hundreds, thousands of years. Christianity came early to Ethiopia… to Axum. It was one of the earliest Christian countries in the world.

“Lake Tana, like this crater, is over a mile above sea level in the northwest part of Ethiopia. From the lake’s southern end, the Blue Nile cascades down a magnificent waterfall to start its seventeen-hundred-kilometer journey to Khartoum in Sudan, where it merges with the White Nile.

“The lake itself is seventy-five kilometers long and sixty kilometers wide. It is dotted with some thirty-seven islands, many with ancient monasteries and churches that contain valuable religious icons and manuscripts. I visited every single one of those enclaves and learned much. They have not only documents and items that relate to their own faith, but some that are much, much older.

“Christianity first spread to the area around the lake in the fifth century A.D. and is now the dominant religion, but there are also communities of Muslims, Jews, and Animists. Many of the people around the lake and on the islands make a living from fishing, still using papyrus reed boats very similar to those depicted in the pharaohs’ tombs of ancient Egypt.

“But even before Christianity, Islam, and Judaism came to this part of the world, there were other faiths. Like many early peoples, the ancient people of Axum worshiped a sun god. Even long after Christianity came to Axum, the Queen of Sheba was reported to be a sun god worshiper. Although she is known now only as the Queen of Sheba and her visit with King Solomon is well recorded, her original title was Queen of Sheba and Axum.”

Lago sat on the bumper of the Land Rover, mesmerized by this information as Mualama continued.

“The people of Axum also worshiped other, older gods. In places, there is a strange mixture of these ancient worships and the Christian church. I also learned that someone else had visited all these places before me over a hundred years ago. It took me a while, but I finally learned the identity of this strange white man… Sir Richard Francis Burton. Yet there was no record of these travels in his official biographies. I realized that Burton had led a secret life, and I wanted to know why. I wanted to know what he was searching for in the same places I was traveling to.”

“Which was?” Lago asked.

“I think he was looking for a key.”

“A key to what?”

“You know, of course, about the Ark of the Covenant?” Mualama suddenly asked in turn.

Lago nodded. “There are rumors, unsubstantiated, that the Ark… if it exists… is in Ethiopia.”

Mualama laughed. “See how even now you still guard what you say? ‘If it exists’?”

“Does it?” Lago challenged him.

Mualama shrugged. “I don’t know. But I suspect something that people have called the Ark does exist.

“The Kebre Negest… The Glory of Kings… is the document that was written during the realm of King Menelik I, the offspring of Sheba and Solomon. It states that when Menelik was a young adult he traveled to Jerusalem and visited his father, Solomon. He returned home to Axum accompanied by Azarias, the son of the high priest Zadok, and brought with them the Ark of the Covenant and placed it in St. Mary of Zion Church in Axum.”

“I’ve heard that, but no one has ever taken a picture of the Ark,” Lago said. “It seems like if it was there, it would be one of the greatest archaeological and theological discoveries of all time and people would want to publicize it.”

Mualama chuckled. “You are thinking like a westerner. Have you ever been to St. Mary of Zion Church?”

“No.”

“Do you know anyone who has ever actually been there?”

“No.”

“So these rumors were not enough to make you travel to check them out and you want to be an archaeologist?” Mualama did not wait for an answer. “Thus it is so with many things. There are rumors. Someone says: ‘Someone should do something! Someone should check this out!’ And they think someone else has, but the truth be known, no one does.

“I have been to St. Mary of Zion Church,” Mualama said. “As Burton went in 1877. His biographies said he went to Africa to search for gold, as his finances were desperate, but that is not what he was looking for. Money was not important to him. The search for the truth was.

“At the church there is one monk, each generation, who is given the responsibility to care for the inner sacristy of the church. No one but that monk ever goes into the sacristy.”

“That’s a nice technique to keep the mystery alive,” Lago said, stung by the old man’s comments.

Mualama tapped the object he was sitting on. “This mystery… the Airlia… lasted for a very long time while people laughed at things like UFOs. Meanwhile, the Americans were test-flying those craft, the bouncers, at their Area 51 for decades.” He wagged a finger. “Do not be so quick to deride things you know little about. I have been to the church, and I spoke with the monk. You have not.”

“Do you think the Ark is in it?” Lago asked.

“I spent two weeks there.” Mualama seemed not to have heard the question. “The monk told me there were very few visitors. Maybe half a dozen each year. Amazing, isn’t that? There are rumors of what even you call a great discovery and only a half-dozen people travel there each year. And no one who had stayed as long as I.

“I’m afraid I was a little obnoxious. I pestered the poor old man every day with my questions. I wanted to know every legend, every story, everything he could tell me. And he did talk to me, finally.”

Mualama’s eyes were unfocused as he remembered. “One night we sat in the church’s courtyard, under a very old tree, and he spoke until the sun rose in the east. He told me strange things and hinted at others, some that he was afraid to speak openly about. Then he had to go to his meditations.”

Mualama snapped to, smiling at Lago. “No, I don’t think the Ark is in the church, because the monk told me it wasn’t. Not directly, but in so many words, he let me know that the Ark had once been in the church. But only for a short while. I think the Ark has traveled to many places.”

Lago leaned forward. “Where is it now?”

“Ah, he would not tell me that. But I knew from what he said that it had been moved and that the church was now a blind, designed to confuse the trail. He also gave me clues, places to look for more information. Not directly, but I listened carefully, sorting through all he said, connecting his words with other rumors, legends, I have learned about. I went to England and searched through the source material on Sir Burton. And I found more clues, leading me places.

“And that is what I have been doing for the past twenty years. Looking here and there. Taking a small piece of information from one place and adding it to another. Like bread crumbs from the past, I have followed Sir Richard Francis Burton around the world. I think the manuscript we have, written in a long-dead tongue, tells of Burton’s journeys and what he learned. I think I can combine it with what I learned following his trail to have a most interesting tale. We will have to get it translated.

“I, too, went to Lake Tana and visited all of the monasteries. On the island of Dega Estefanos, I went to a very small monastery, cut in the side of a cliff, over three hundred meters above the surface of the lake. You can get up there only if the monks inside lower you a rope. I had to wait four days before they allowed me up.”

Mualama paused.

“And?” Lago pressed.

“That is where I found the parchment that told me this site existed. The legends I have studied say the Ark is hidden inside a place called the Hall of Records and that a key is needed to get inside the Hall.” Mualama stood. “And now that we have rested, let us see what we have found.” He ran his hands along the seam while Lago watched over his shoulder. Mualama staggered back as the lid suddenly swung open, two hydraulic arms smoothly laying the top back.

“Oh my God,” Lago whispered.

The skeleton was at least seven feet tall, with disproportionally long arms and legs. The facial bones were different than a human’s, elongated, with deep eye sockets. The figure was dressed in a black robe that had withstood the years better than the body. A golden crown… just a band of gold with a large black gem set in the very center… had fallen off the skull. In the right hand was a slender rod, a foot long, two inches thick. On the end of the rod was the head of a lion with ruby-red eyes.

“What is that?” Lago was pointing at the rod.

Mualama reached down and carefully removed the rod from the dead hand. It was surprisingly heavy. He turned it in the light, the setting sun glinting off the rubies and precious metal.

“I believe this is the key.”