Ark Found

Chapter 30

Carter and Jayden deplaned the much smaller prop plane they had transferred to in Addis Ababa after a two-hour flight onto a scorching hot tarmac at Yohannes IV Airport. Carter had learned during the plane ride that the hottest temperatures on Earth had been recorded in Dalol, Ethiopia, a location only about one hundred miles to the east. Situated near Ethiopia’s northern border, the town of Axum was home to a population of about 58,000, and lay at an elevation of 7,000 feet. Neighboring countries included Eritrea to the north and east, Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the distant south, far south of Addis Ababa.

The airport was about four miles outside the actual town of Axum, and with ground transportation yet to be arranged, the treasure seeking pair shuffled across the baking tarmac along with their couple of dozen fellow passengers and entered the small terminal. The sign reading “Yohannes IV International Airport” above the entrance was written in both English and Amharic, Ethiopia’s official language that used symbols as opposed to any sort of alphabet that would be familiar to westerners. Carter had the feeling that he and Jayden were only two more in a long and storied line of enraptured visitors who had sought the truth about some of humanity’s most revered artifacts in this very place, the home of Queen Sheba, the rumored resting place of the Ark of the Covenant.

As they walked through the moderately crowded terminal, Carter couldn’t help but keep his eyes peeled for anyone who looked like they might be tailing them. They were using their genuine IDs to travel under, and he knew that Daedalus would likely know what those were because of the fact they were both in the same business. With no luggage to collect, they breezed through and out onto the sidewalk fronting the airport without having noticed anything suspicious. While not as ubiquitous as at a major airport, taxi cabs were not hard to come by, and it wasn’t long before Carter and Jayden occupied the back seat of one driven by an Ethiopian septuagenarian.

The man spoke English, and when he asked where they’d like to go, Carter asked him, “What’s the most popular church nearby?”

The man nodded as though the request was not unusual whatsoever. “That would be Axum Tsion Saint Mary.” He pronounced “Tsion” with a silent T. “I will take you there, only a few minutes.”

As they rode through the town, Jayden wanted to know why they didn’t start with the church that was famous for supposedly housing the Ark of the Covenant, St. Mary’s of Zion Church, also in Axum.

“Let’s see what an ordinary church looks like first. Pretty much every church in Ethiopia has a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, so let’s see what those look like. Also…” Carter nodded to the cab driver, who had turned on the radio to a music station playing reggae. “It’s probably best not to let anyone know where we’re going if we can help it.”

At this Jayden laughed before turning to look Carter dead in the eye. “Are you serious? We came all the way to Ethiopia to go to some tourist trap that the whole world knows about?”

Carter shrugged. “I’ve been researching this town and its history. As you’ve no doubt already seen, this place is associated with the Queen of Sheba.”

“I picked up on that,” Jayden said, pointing out the window to a billboard reading, Queen of Sheba Authentic Ethiopian Restaurant. “Was she even real, though?”

“Debatable. She’s in the Bible. Anyway, the Queen of Sheba Palace that’s here in town is, according to Ethiopians, where Sheba left from to go to Jerusalem.”

“And that’s where she hooked up with King Solomon, right?” Jayden gazed out the window at a mural of the Ethiopian flag — the bright green, yellow and red bars with an insignia in the middle, a star and rays.

“Right. They hit it off and she had a son with him, that’s Menelik, who was born in Ethiopia. He became a king here, and sometime later went to Jerusalem to visit his Dad. He brought the Ark of the Covenant back with him to Ethiopia.”

Jayden unwrapped a candy bar and started eating it.

“You’re supposed to save those in case we end up out in the field somewhere with no food.”

Jayden shot him a sheepish grin. “Gotta be honest. Not sure if my stomach is gonna be down with Ethiopian cuisine.”

Carter sighed as the driver pulled up to a complicated-looking intersection to wait his turn to cross. “You were okay with Iranian nomad cuisine, but you’re worried about Ethiopia? Anyway…”

“So Sheba’s son, the king, brought the ark back here. To this Church of Zion?”

Carter shrugged. “Well this particular chapel didn’t exist way back then, of course. But supposedly that’s where it ended up.”

“So we’re just going to waltz in there and ask to see it?”

Before Carter could answer, the cabbie pulled over to the side of the road and informed them that they had arrived at Axum Tsion Saint Mary. Carter paid the driver in local currency, including a decent though not memorable tip, and they exited the cab onto the sidewalk. In front of them lay the church, a large single-story building with a high ceiling. They walked up a short flight of steps and entered the place of worship.

Inside was grandly decorated, with lots of space around the pews. It was quiet, with no conversation taking place or music being played. At the front was a large multi-level stage area, including a music stage with an organ and harp, and a pulpit. Only a few people occupied the pews here and there, maybe a dozen altogether. Carter and Jayden were able to walk freely up to the stage and climb the steps to the top level and highlight of the church, a full-scale replica of the Ark of the Covenant.

“So this is it,” Jayden said, unimpressed. “A gold box. A lot bigger than I imagined, though.”

“This is one of the many replicas,” Carter said, while they stared at the model ark. It was no small container, measuring approximately ten feet by six by six. Two poles were run through two rings on each side of the ark, making it possible to be carried by several men. Two cherubs knelt on top of the rectangular container, their wings touching at the very peak of the piece. The entire work, including the poles, was covered in what was meant to look like gold, but which was plain to see was in fact gold paint, chipping and peeling in some spots to reveal the plaster of Paris and wooden scaffolding beneath.

“So inside it would be the Ten Commandments, right?” Jayden clarified.

“On the two stone tablets, correct.”

“You think they’re in there?” Jayden raised his eyebrows while gawking at the fake yet nevertheless impressive ark.

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. This is just a replica. Let’s go to the other church now.”

Jayden turned and looked out on the rows of pews. “Sure you don’t want to stop and pray first?”

Daedalus sat at the coffee table on the balcony of his hotel suite overlooking the capital city’s hustle and bustle. He was hoping for a relaxing late morning with time to think and plan, but already the messages and voicemails flooded in — and to his priority phone and email address, not his regular avenues that everyone had. It was an address and smartphone number he only gave out to certain key associates. He had just picked up his cup of black tea when his smartphone chimed to inform him a new email had been received. He set down the tea and picked up his device. Upon seeing that the email was from his lab technician whom he had put in charge of testing the timber samples from the lake, Daedalus eagerly opened the email. Finally, the lab results!

A rare smile manifested on Daedalus’ lips. 5,000 years old, and Noah’s Ark was built around 5,000 years ago! He thought of the lake high up on Mount Ararat, and the rest of the timbers that still lay in its depths, still in the shape of a boat that closely matched the recorded dimensions of Noah’s Ark. He threw his head back and laughed. He had done it! Noah’s Ark was his! Treasure, Inc. was about to be the irrefutable gold standard for the recovery of priceless antiquities, artifacts and relics. Perhaps this find would be the one that finally catapulted him to his personal dream of becoming a billionaire. Yes, by most people’s standards, the tens of millions of dollars he’d already amassed as part of his personal fortune — much of it made from illicit international trade in antiquities- made him exceedingly wealthy. But he wouldn’t feel like he had “made it” until he joined the B-club. Control of Noah’s Ark would be the kind of asset that could put him over the top.

Glancing at his smartphone, he saw that a second email message had come in, and this one was from the cartography expert he’d entrusted with (and paid a handsome retainer) to analyze the map in order to determine what other information, if any, it might contain. Daedalus almost didn’t bother opening this message. The map had obviously worked, after all. It had led him straight to the ark, so who cares what else there was to know about it, especially since he didn’t even have it anymore, thanks to that meddling Carter Hunt. But on second thought, Daedalus had paid his consultant an awfully large amount of money for a single task, as he always did in order to ensure confidentiality. Besides, let’s just see how good this guy really is, Daedalus thought. He doesn’t yet know that we found the ark, since the timber analysis work was with a different consultant. Daedalus always compartmentalized his project work like this so as to keep any one person from being able to put too much together. What if he tries to tell me the ark is somewhere other than the Ararat lake? That would mean I can’t really trust either him, or the quality of his work. So he clicked open the message and read what he expected to be a mere confirmation of what he already knew.

And part of it was. In his analysis, his cartographer said essentially that it appears the X-marks-the-spot indicator on the map appears to point to a small lake on the northwestern slope of Mt. Ararat. “Yes,” Daedalus said aloud to himself as he read it, “it sure does!” He skimmed over the technical explanation of how the researcher had verified this, something about proprietary satellite imagery and Mercator projection overlays and blahblahblah… But what’s this?

Daedalus noted with interest a second section of results. An entire second section? This ought to be good, he thought. And then, as he started to read it, he felt himself relax. It didn’t seem to be important. Something about Ethiopia, about how this was the only other region on the map with significantly rendered detail — about the same level of detail as imbued to the Mt. Ararat region. Well so what, he thought. Maybe they started to make the whole map with more detail and decided not to, who knows? It led to the ark already and that’s all that matters.

He started to tap out an acknowledgement of receipt when his phone’s blinking light reminded him that he still had an unopened voicemail. He eyeballed the number, hoping it was something he could put off. But he squinted as he looked at it, not because he couldn’t see it clearly, but because it made him think, I better listen to that.

Daedalus had learned long ago that it paid to have local eyes and ears on his side, even if that meant outlaying capital for something that most of the time would pay no dividends. But when it did, it tended to be huge. And Turkey was a country he’d done business in before, so it was a relatively simple matter of touching base with an old contact and getting her to reactivate the old human network. Eyes and ears on the street. Hotel maids, store clerks, cab drivers — these people were easy to buy. Tell us if you see two American adult males travelling together — when, where, for a bonus, what they were talking about. That sort of thing. But airport employees, police officers, military personnel, customs officials — those types of positions were considerably more difficult to buy. And yet over the years Daedalus and his Treasure, Inc. inner circle had managed to pocket one or two of that category in the country of Turkey. The richer in archaeological sites a nation was, the more contacts Treasure, Inc. strove to amass. And Turkey was a country known for a rich and varied archaeological history.

Daedalus let the voicemail play. Yes, he’d heard already that Carter and Jayden had made it off the mountain and back into Dogu town with a trekker van. His brother, he of questionable talent, as Daedalus thought of him, had told him that much. After that, though, their trail had gone cold. They could still be in Dogu, perhaps laying low in some off-the-beaten-track hostel. Or they could have left the country, probably back to America with their tails between their legs.

But according to this new message, an airport employee — this was high-level intel for Treasure, Inc., representing an annual expenditure that no doubt registered as a blip on the radar of their chief accountant — reported that the irksome duo had purchased tickets to Addis Ababa International, Ethiopia. Daedalus listened to the message again, to make sure he wasn’t hearing anything incorrectly, but he had understood correctly it the first time. Ethiopia, but why? And especially, why directly from Turkey? It troubled him that they had the map, and that is where they chose to go. He didn’t know why, but he was aware of Ethiopia being a place steeped in legend and lore — King Solomon, Queen Sheba… It was the kind of place that Treasure, Inc. did well to have on its radar.

Something else bothered him as well. He opened the notes from his cartographer again and re-read them. Yes, there it is: the only enhanced detail on the entire map, besides the Mt. Ararat region, was that of Ethiopia. Daedalus found that to be troubling.

He picked up his satellite-phone to call Phillipo, still on the mountain. It was time to set the full-scale salvage operation into motion, to retrieve the rest of Noah’s Ark. And then there was the matter of the Omega Team buffoons travelling around with the original map that he now knew for certain led to Noah’s Ark. He set the phone back down. He didn’t want confirmation of their success to go to their heads and make them complacent. Daedalus relaxed and leaned back in his chair as he sipped his tea.

Let Phillipo stay on the mountain and handle the ark extraction process, Daedalus thought. The old saw popped into his head: When you want something done right…

He picked his phone up again, but used it to dial his private charter jet service. Another extravagant recurring expenditure he committed to in order to be ready for world travel at a moment’s notice. Although long periods might elapse during which it was not really needed (though still fun), it had already justified itself many times over. After this trip, Daedalus surmised, the private jet charters on standby would seem routine. No, after this, he mused, he’d be able to afford his own space program, never mind private jets. He cleared his throat in preparation to speak to his air charter outfit.

I’m going to Ethiopia.