The Crypts of Eden

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When the choppers landed, they did so far enough away from anything remotely civilized. The rotors kicked up a swirling vortex of sand as a couple of shepherds stood on a small rise a distance away. After everyone had debarked, the helicopters lifted and banked to the west.

In the distance, one of the shepherds waved. Alyssa returned the action. The second shepherd stood idle. In his hand was a tether that held a grouping of twelve camels.

Obsidian Hall walked up to Alyssa, who was shrugging on her backpack. “Ms. Moore,” he said. “You don’t expect to get on one of those things, do you?”

“They’re called camels,” she told him. “We need them to cross the rough terrain in order to get to the site. But if you prefer to stay here, Mr. Hall, then be my guest.”

“Can’t we take a jeep or something?”

“A jeep wouldn’t make it across.” She walked away from him. While the others congregated with their packs, Alyssa climbed the small rise and greeted the shepherd with a small hug. “It’s good to see you again, Adskhan.”

The man was Lincolnesque in stature, his posture bowing with the onset of age. His beard and hair were striped with gray, and his face was fantastically seamed and weathered. “And it’s good to see you too, Ms. Moore.” His smile wilted to genuine sorrow. “Please allow me to offer my condolences regarding your father. He was a man of great honor who appreciated the history and antiquities of my country.”

She reached out and grabbed his hand. “I miss him, Adskhan. I really do.”

He cupped his hand over hers, patted it. “As you should,” he said.

“I see you have our transportation.”

He looked behind him. The shepherd holding the camels at bay was beginning to struggle with the tether. “It appears the camels are as anxious as you,” he told her. “So take them with my blessing. For what your father has done for the heritage my people, it is still not enough.”

“It’s plenty,” she said, smiling faintly.

“Then be careful.”

“I will.”

Adskhan waved to the second shepherd, who came forward with the caravan by tugging on the tether, guiding them forward. “For the most part they are docile creatures. They should not present a problem in your travels.”

When the second shepherd joined them, he and Adskhan spoke in Turkish with Alyssa piecing enough of the language together in order to understand the gist of their communication. Adskhan wanted him to hand her the tether, but the second shepherd insisted that he hand it off to someone with the strength to handle ten camels. In other words: a man. She took the initiative, however, by grabbing the line from the shepherd’s hand, startling him, and pulling the train towards her team.

When the shepherd tried to protest, Adskhan held him back, saying something about the foolishness of trying to battle the will of American women. The second shepherd cared little as he huffed away with his camel in tow, ready to leave.

Adskhan, however, called after Alyssa. “May your journey be a safe one!” he cried.

She waved back. “Thanks, Adskhan!” By the time she joined her group, both shepherds were gone.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hall said.

She looked at him hard. “Seriously, Hall? Are you really that prissy?” She tossed him the tether line of his camel and walked away.

Hall — who stared at the camel — considered the beast most foul. He turned quickly and called after Alyssa. “But I’ll get my pants dirty!”

She ignored him.

Everybody with the exception of Obsidian Hall, who maintained difficulty by staying squarely on the saddle by sliding from one side to the other, enjoyed the novelty of the camel ride over rocky terrain. The clouds remained overcast and the threat of rain became a concern to those who understood that flashfloods could kill instantly. So Alyssa led them by taking the highest available ground, with Noah bringing up the rear.

By nightfall the clouds abated, and Alyssa felt more at ease as they made camp for the evening. The sky was abundant with stars and constellations, the air cool and dry. Obsidian Hall’s team took by the fire, as always, claiming territoriality by the flames by chasing the others away, including Noah and the two senior archeologists, Eser and Harika, who gladly surrendered the area.

Alyssa, however, did not like their mocking banter against anyone who didn’t carry a weapon and brought her objection to Obsidian Hall, who sat away from the camp leaning against a large stone, looking skyward.

“Mr. Hall?”

He rolled his eyes. “What now, Ms. Moore?”

“I don’t think I like your children very much,” she said, standing in front of him with her hands on his hips.

“That’s makes two of us.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” she asked.

He shrugged. “They’re grown men. What do you want me to do?”

“I need you to get a handle on them,” she said furiously. “They do not own that fire. And they certainly don’t have the authority to tell my people to ‘piss off.’”

“Is that what they’re telling them to do? To piss off?”

“Yes.”

He smiled at that. Good. By the fire the commandos were hooting and hollering with the immaturity of teenagers. “Just listen to them,” she said.

“I try not to.”

Her body language became more infuriated, her stance becoming wider, the hands on her hips now balled fists. “Are you in charge or are they?”

He looked at her with features that betrayed zero emotion. “How much longer to Eden?” he asked, going off in a tangent.

But she wouldn’t allow him. “Are you in charge, Mr. Hall, or are they? I will not allow my team to be frightened by these people.”

“They’re wild boys, Ms. Moore. So believe me when I say that when the time comes for them to do the job you expect them to, there is no finer corps of people. Now, how much longer until we get to Eden?”

“Tomorrow,” she told him. And then she headed for the fire. “Apparently, Mr. Hall, you don’t have a pair. So I’ll deal within them myself.”

Hall leaned back against the stone and looked skyward. “Good luck,” he said.

“Well, what ‘ave we ‘ere?” said Aussie. The shadows along his face moved in macabre fashion as the flames burned and danced within its ring of stones. His downturned eye looked monstrous in the glow.

Alyssa stood her ground in the same way she confronted Obsidian Hall, with resentment. “Let’s get one thing straight,” she said. “You work for me—”

“Uh-uh,” corrected Butcher Boy. “We work for Hall.”

“Who happens to works for me.”

“Uh-uh,” he corrected again. “He funds your little project, missy. We know that.”

She took a step closer to the fire, the light reflecting ire in her eyes. “You will not treat my people with disrespect, you got that?”

“Or what?” Alyssa didn’t have an answer. And it was right here she realized for the first time that she truly had no power in the situation, none at all.

Aussie stood up. When the corner of his lip turned into a one-sided grin that appeared more like a lascivious leer, he rotated his hips in a sexually suggestive manner. “How ‘bout you come ‘ere and give ol’ Aussie a go, huh?”

“Mr. Aussie, or whatever the hell your real name is, if you so much as come near me, I swear to god, I’ll kick your nads up into your throat.”

His smile widened. “Even better,” he said. “That way you can give me a French kiss and a blowjob at the same time.” His team laughed, infuriating her. So Alyssa stormed off, feeling the sting of tears, and sat away from the camp, away from Obsidian Hall, but closer to John Savage’s location, which was sixty feet away. Apparently he’d seen the entire conflict, having a perfect vantage point but his face held no opinion of what had gone down.

So she challenged him. “What?”

He nodded. “Nothing,” he said.

“I suppose you have something to say about what just went on?” Her tone of frustration was quite apparent.

“Just one,” he said. “I applaud your bravery.”

Her shoulders eased a bit as her anger melted away. She then moved closer, seeing the somber look on the emissary’s face. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

“That’s because you’re frustrated,” he said calmly. “You have every reason to be.”

Without invitation, she took a seat next to him. He didn’t seem to mind that she sat so close he could smell a hint of her perfume. She brought her knees up into acute angles and folded her arms around them, drawing herself tight.

“I’m not used to being around such people,” she finally said.

He nodded. “I am.”

She looked at him, his profile silhouetted against the background, strong and angular in the darkness. “You are?”

Savage hesitated, appearing to be absorbing the nature of his surroundings. And then: “I used to be military,” he answered. “I used to be like them.”

She looked toward the fire, at the men surrounding the flames, then pointed in their direction. “You were like them?”

He nodded. “At one time I was, yes. I can tell they’re skilled soldiers.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do,” he said. “Should something go down, then those are the guys you’ll want on your side.” He fell quiet.

“Mr. Savage?”

“Yes.” He continued to stare forward into the darkness, at the shapes in the desert.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why are you so detached?”

He turned to her. And though it was dark, she could tell he was examining her carefully. “Is that the way you see me? Detached?”

She reached out and grabbed his hand. “I do.”

He let her hand stay as he turned away, considering whether or not to follow through with an answer. And then: “When I was in the military,” he said, “I lost a lot. I gained a lot. But I lost a lot.”

“So why are you so detached?”

“I never really saw myself that way,” he answered softly.

“But you are.”

He nodded, as if coming to terms with what he had become. “I was married,” he said, “to the girl I had been in love with since high school.”

“A childhood sweetheart,” she offered.

“You could say that, I guess. But while I was serving, I took her for granted by putting my service before her, by neglecting her pleas to stay home and be a family. So I chased her into the arms of another man.” When he hesitated, Alyssa didn’t press him. “I wasn’t right after that,” he continued. “I began to lose focus and started to make bad decisions — the type of decisions that get men killed. So when my term was up, I decided to leave with the urging of Special Teams Command.” He neglected to tell her that he was a major player in the Navy SEALs, he didn’t see the point.

“So how did you end up at the Vatican?”

“My line of work had a lot to do with data gathering, and then acting on the information received. The SIV were looking for skilled people since the escalation of volatility in the Middle East. So my organization acted as a conduit and I obtained a position within Vatican intelligence without the routine of military combat. But the truth is… I just wanted to run as far as I could from everything, especially from her.”

When she went to cup his hand within hers, he pulled his hand away. “I don’t need your sympathy,” he told her. What he didn’t want was to break away from that sense of detachment. He needed to be unfeeling and impenitent. He couldn’t afford the liability of emotion. It would only make his job much harder when it came time to kill her. “But I thank you for your concern,” he said listlessly.

She sighed and then she patted his thigh softly. “If you want to talk, Mr. Savage, there’ll be plenty of time.”

“Thank you,” he said. When she got up, she swatted the sand off her jeans. Savage turned upward, saw the beauty of her face, the lithe shape of her figure in the glow of the firelight. “Ms. Moore?’

“Yes.”

He wanted to thank her once more, wanting to tell her how much he truly appreciated her concern, and wanting to tell her that he wished he could open up further but couldn’t. “You have a good night,” he said.

After she walked away, he leaned back and watched the constellations in the sky. He then chastised himself, wishing he was more detached than he was. Killing her, he considered, wasn’t going to be easy.

He sighed.