The Genesis Secret

11

The day after Franz's supper party Rob rang his ex-wife's home. His daughter Lizzie picked up. She still didn't really know how to use a phone. Rob called into it, 'Darling, use the other end.'

'Hello, Daddy. Hello.'

'Dar…'

Just hearing Lizzie talk gave Rob a stabbing sense of guilt. And also a sheer basic pleasure that he had a daughter. And an angry desire to protect her. And then an extra guilt that he wasn't there, in England, protecting her.

But protecting her from what? She was safe in suburban London. She was fine.

When Lizzie had worked out the right end of the phone, they talked for an hour and Rob promised to send her jpegs of where he was. Then he reluctantly put the phone down and decided it was time to get to work. Hearing his daughter often did this: it was like an instinct, something genetic. The reminder of his family duties energized his work reflex-go and earn some money to feed the offspring. It was time to write his article.

But Rob had a dilemma. Moving the phone from his hotel bed to the floor he lay back and thought. Hard. The story was so much more complex than he had envisaged. Complex and interesting. First there was the politics: the Kurdish/Turkish rivalry. Then the atmosphere at the dig, and amongst the locals: their resentment-and that death prayer…And what about Franz's clandestine late-night digging? What was all that about?

Rob got up and walked to his window. He was on the top floor of the hotel. He opened the window and listened to the sound of a muezzin calling from a mosque somewhere nearby. The song was harsh, barbarous even-yet somehow hypnotic. The inimitable sound of the Middle East. More voices joined the rising carol. The call for prayer echoed across the city.

So what was he going to write for the paper? A part of him strongly wanted to stay and investigate further. Get to the bottom of the story. But what was the point in that, really? Wasn't that just indulging himself? He didn't have forever. And if he included all this odd and perplexing stuff it altered and maybe even ruined his article. At the very least it complicated the narrative-and therefore compromised it. The reader would be left confused, and arguably unsatisfied.

So what should he write? The answer was obvious. If he just stuck to the simple and fairly astonishing historical stuff he would be fine. Man Discovers the World's Oldest Temple. Mysteriously buried two thousand years later…

That was enough. It was a cracking story. And with some striking pictures of the stones and the carvings and an angry Kurd and Franz in his spectacles and Christine in her elegant khakis it would look good, too.

Christine. Rob wondered if his barely suppressed desire to stay and investigate the story further was actually because of her. His barely suppressed desire for her. He wondered if she could tell what he felt. Probably. Women could always tell. Yet Rob never had a clue. Did she even like him? There was that hug…And the way she put her arm through his last night…

Enough. Picking up his rucksack and chucking in pens, notebooks and sunglasses, Rob left his hotel room. He wanted to visit the dig one last time, ask a few more questions, and then he'd have sufficient material. He'd already been here five days. Time to move on.

Outside the hotel Radevan was leaning against his taxi arguing about football or politics with the other cabbies, as ever. He looked up when Rob stepped out into the sunshine, and smiled. Rob nodded. They had a little rigmarole going now.

'I want to go to the bad place.'

Radevan laughed:

'The bad place? Yes, Mr Rob.'

Radevan did his chauffeur thing with the car door and Rob jumped in feeling energetic and determined. He'd made the right choice. Do the piece, invoice for exes-then head back to England and insist on some proper time with his daughter.

The drive to Gobekli was uneventful. Radevan picked his nose and complained loudly about the Turks. Rob stared out across the wastes, towards the Euphrates, the blue Taurus Mountains beyond. He'd come to like this desert, even if it unnerved him. So old, so weary, so malevolent, so stark. The desert of the wind demons. What else was hiding under its shallow hills? A weird thought. Rob stared across the wilderness.

They got there quickly. With a squeal of bald tyres, Radevan parked. He leaned out of the window as Rob walked to the dig. 'Three hours, Mr Rob?'

Rob laughed. 'Yep.'

The dig was frenetic today, busier than Rob had seen it. New trenches were being laid. Deep new gouges into the hills, showing ever more stones. Rob understood that the digging season was coming to an end and Franz was keen to crack on. The digging season was remarkably short-the site was simply too hot in high summer, and too exposed in winter. And anyway the scientists apparently needed nine months of exegesis and laboratory work to process what they had found in the three months of actual digging. That was the archaeological year: three months of spadework, nine months of thinking. Quite relaxed, really.

Franz and Christine and the paleobotanist-Ivan-were having a debate in the tented area. They greeted Rob with a wave and he sat down and more tea was served. Rob liked the endless production line of Turkish tea, the ritual tinkling of spoons and tulip-shaped glasses, the taste of the sweet dark cay. And hot black tea was oddly refreshing in the dry desert sun.

Over his first glass of tea Rob told them his news. That he was finishing up, that this was his last visit. He checked Christine's face as he said this. Did he see a flicker of regret? Maybe. His mood sashayed a little. But then he remembered his job. He had to ask some more questions, his very last queries. That was why he was here. Nothing else.

His journalistic need was to put the dig in context. He'd been reading some more history books-prehistory books-and he wanted to place Gobekli Tepe somewhere within that history. See how it fitted in, how it gleamed in the mosaic of wider human history-the evolution of man and civilization.

Franz was happy to oblige. 'This area,' he waved his arm at the yellow hills beyond the open-sided tents, 'is where it all began. Human civilization. The first written language is cuneiform, that started not far away. Copper smelting is originally Mesopotamian. And the first true towns were built in Turkey. Isobel Previn could tell you all about that.'

Rob was mystified. Then he remembered the name-Christine's tutor at Cambridge. Isobel Previn. Rob had also read the name in various history books-Previn had worked with the great James Mellaert, the English archaeologist who excavated Catalhoyuk. Rob had enjoyed reading about Catalhoyuk-not least because they dug it up so quickly. Three years of lusty shovelling and it was nearly all revealed. That was the heroic, Hollywood age of archaeology. Nowadays, as far as Rob could tell, things had slowed down. Now there were so many experts in different fields-archaeometallurgists, zooarchaeologists, ethnohistorians, geomorphologists-it had all got very intricate. A complex site could take decades to unravel.

Gobekli Tepe was such a site. Franz had been digging in Gobekli since 1994; Christine had implied that he would spend the rest of his working life here. A whole working life on one site! But then again, it was the most amazing archaeological site in the world. Which was probably why Franz looked so chuffed most of the time. He was smiling right now-explaining to Rob about the early history of pottery and agriculture, both of which came after Gobekli Tepe was built. Both of which also started nearby.

'The first ever signs of farming can be found in Syria. Gordon Childe called it the Neolithic Revolution and it happened not far to the south. Abu Hureyra, Tell Aswad, places like that. So you see this really is the cradle. Metalwork, pottery, farming, smelting, writing all began near Gobekli. Ja?'

Christine added, 'Yes, though actually there is some evidence of rice farming in Korea in 13,000 BC, but it is enigmatic.'

Ivan, who had been silent until now, also joined in: 'And there is some strange evidence that pottery may have started and then stopped before that, in Siberia.'

Rob turned. 'Sorry?' Franz looked slightly irritated by his colleague's interruption, but Rob was intrigued. 'Go on?'

Ivan blushed. 'Erm…we have evidence from eastern Siberia, maybe Japan, of an even earlier civilization. A northern people. Possibly they died out, because the evidence disappears. We do not know. We have no idea where they went.'

Franz looked nettled. 'Ja, ja, ja, Ivan. But still! This area is where it really happened. The Near East! Here.' He slapped his hand on the table for emphasis, making the teaspoons rattle. 'All of it. All of it started here. The first kilns for making pots. That was in Syria, and Iraq. The Hittites made the first iron. In Anatolia. The first domestic pigs were in Cayonu, the first villages were in Anatolia, and…and of course the first temple…'

'Gobekli Tepe!'

Everyone laughed. Peace had been restored, and the conversation evolved. Rob spent a diligent ten minutes copying out his notes, while the archaeologists chatted amongst themselves about domestication of early animals and the distribution of 'microliths'. The discussion was technical and obscure; Rob didn't mind. He had the final pieces to the jigsaw. It wasn't the whole picture-the mysteries remained-but it was a good picture and a compelling picture and it would have to do. Besides, he was a journalist, not a historian. He wasn't here to get everything right, he was here to get a vivid impression, quickly. What did they call journalism? 'The first draft of history'. That was all he was doing and all he was meant to do: he was writing the first rough draft.

He looked up. He'd been annotating for half an hour now. The scientists had left him to it; they had dispersed around the dig to do whatever it was they actually did when they weren't arguing. Examining dust and sieving old rocks. Sitting in their cabins having more arguments. Rob stood up, rubbed his stiff neck and decided to go for a wander about the place before making his exit. So he hoisted his rucksack and walked out around the nearest hillock, skirting the enclosures and the stones.

Beyond the main area of the dig was a vast bare field, scattered with flints. Christine had showed him this place on his previous visit. Rob had been amazed at the time to see so many twelve-thousand-year-old pieces of flint, knapped by Stone Age man, just lying around. Literally thousands of them. You could just kneel down and after a short search pick up an ancient axe, arrowhead or cutting tool.

Rob decided to do just that: he fancied a souvenir. The sun was hot on his back as he knelt in the dust. Within a few minutes he got lucky. He examined his find, turning it carefully between his fingers. It was an arrowhead, skilfully, even exquisitely knapped. Rob imagined the man who had made it twelve thousand years ago. Working away in the sun, in a loincloth. With a bow slung across his muscled back. A primitive man. Yet someone who had built a great temple, carved with serious artistry. It was a paradox. The cavemen who built a cathedral! It was also a good introduction to Rob's article. A nice vivid image.

He stood up and slipped the arrowhead into a zipped side pocket of his rucksack. He was probably breaking a hundred Turkish laws, stealing ancient artefacts, but it wasn't as if Gobekli Tepe was going to run short of Stone Age flint-pieces any time soon. Slinging the rucksack over his back, Rob took one last look at the undulating and treeless plains, burnt by the relentless sun. He thought of Iraq, somewhere out there. Not so far away. If he got in the car and told Radevan to drive he could be at the Iraqi border in a few hours.

And then an image of Baghdad flashed across his mind. The bomber's face. Rob swallowed dryly. Not a good feeling. He turned and headed back, and as he did he heard it. The most horrible scream.

It sounded like an animal being tortured. Like a monkey being knifed open. Hideous.

He quickened his pace. He heard more shouting. What was going on? Then someone yelled again. Rob ran, the rucksack banging on his back.

He'd come further than he realized. Where was the main part of the dig? The hills all looked the same. Voices carried a long way in the clear desert air. And not just voices: shouts and cries. Christ. Something really was happening. Rob turned left then right and ran over the crest of a hill. And there was the dig. A crowd of people had gathered around one of the enclosures: the new trench. Workers were jostling each other.

His desert boots slipping in the dust and scree, Rob scrambled his way down to the side of the crowd and he pushed his way through, smelling sweat and fear. Rudely shunting the last man aside, he got to the edge of the trench and stared down. Everyone was staring down.

At the end of the trench was a new steel spike, one of the lethal-looking poles they used to hold up the tarpaulins. Franz Breitner was skewered, face down, on the pole. Skewered straight through his upper left chest. Blood was guttering from his wound. Christine was standing next to him talking to him. Ivan was behind them frantically calling on his mobile phone. Two workers were desperately trying to prise the steel pole from the earth.

Rob stared at Franz. He seemed to be alive, but the wound was savage, maybe right through the lungs. A desperate impaling. Rob had seen a lot of wounds in Iraq. He'd seen wounds just like this-blasts that sent girders and poles flying into people, spearing into their chests and heads; piercing them cruelly.

Rob knew Franz wasn't going to make it. An ambulance would take a good hour to get here. There probably weren't any medical helicopters between here and Ankara. Franz Breitner was going to die, here, in a trench. Surrounded by the silent stones of Gobekli Tepe.