The Angel of Eden (34 page)

Yersan and Alaz led me back through the underground hallway to the house. I followed in a daze of shock mixed with an overwhelming despondency.

Nick and Bennet, along with their guard, were waiting for me in the front room.

Yersan touched my arm. “I tried in every way I could to turn you back from knowledge of this place. By the threats in America,
in Turkey, in the salt cave … and then by subterfuge. It seemed only to encourage you. Like your father, you are persistent no matter what the consequences. We have lost a dear friend, the man you shot. We wish to mourn him now and the other who has been gravely injured. We have nothing to fear from you and I want no more death. You are free to go.” Yersan ordered Nick's and Bennet's bonds removed.

Bennet threw her arms around me and I buried my face in her curls. “I never thought I'd see you again,” she murmured.

Nick rubbed his red and swollen wrists. “Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Madison. Let's get the hell out of here.”

I gently released myself from Bennet's embrace but kept my arm around her. I eyed Yersan. “One thing. I'd like the artifacts I found in the salt caves back. I went through pure torture to get them.”

“They belong to the Iranian people.”

“And you're going to give them up to the government? I doubt that.”

“For God's sake, Madison,” Nick interjected.

Yersan smiled. Neither he nor Alaz seemed bothered. “They'll be kept in the temple. Still on Iranian soil. And if you speak of what you have seen here, no one will believe you. You have no evidence. You were in no condition to remember where you emerged from the caves and we've blocked that opening now. All traces of it have been erased. I do have a parting gift for you, though. Something we don't wish to keep. It doesn't belong here.” He rummaged in the drawer of a little table and then held out Trithemius's
Steganographia
.

I turned to Alaz. “I thought you said your father burned this.”

He shrugged. “I wanted to discourage you from seeking it and go home. My father was given a fake. My sister Yeva cleverly hid the real book at the root of an ancient cypress tree when she fled
the country with you.” His eyes softened a little. “Please tell Yeva how glad we are to have news of her.”

His words touched me. He didn't need to return the book—I'd believed his story about his father burning it—but he did anyway. I chose to think that in a corner of his heart, Alaz, my uncle, had some sympathy for me and still cared about Evelyn.

I took the book in my hands. Inside its faded, badly scarred brown leather covers the pages were held together with lead clips. “Thank you.”

“You are free to go.” Yersan held up his hand to indicate he had more to say. “Under good conditions, from here, it will take you eight hours to reach the Turkish border. That is all the time you have before we report the murder of my friend to the Iranian police. I wish you good speed.”

Fifty-One

March 17, 2005

Turkey

N
ick was in no shape to drive, so I took the wheel. After we hit the highway leading back to Turkey, I asked what had happened in the salt cave.

“We heard the crash of the salt shelf breaking off and I was pretty sure I heard you yell,” Nick said. “We knew something bad had happened. I got the second length of rope to rappel down, and while Bennet and I tried to fix it around the anchor Alaz pulled a gun on us. He couldn't have planned the accident but he sure as hell took advantage of it. He marched us back to the entrance where Yersan and some other men were waiting. I almost got free after they'd taken us to the house where you found us. But there were too many of them. They beat the shit outta me.”

“What I don't understand is why they didn't kill you right there.”

“I don't know either, except it was you they really wanted to get rid of. And until they were sure you were dead, they didn't want to take any chances with us.”

We stopped at a village to get cleaned up and change clothes before we reached the border. By the time we pulled up to the checkpoint Nick had rested up enough to take the wheel. I still had the medallion and the bowl and was sweating bricks. But Nick laid on the charm and finessed it again. We sailed through.

“Where do you want to go, my friends?” Nick asked.

“Straight to the Van airport,” Bennet said wearily. “I want to get out of this godforsaken place as fast as possible.”

Nick shook his head. “Still can't believe they let us go. I wouldn't have if the shoe was on the other foot.”

“Maybe Alaz had trouble with the idea of killing his own nephew,” I said.

Nick and Bennet gaped at me.

“I found out that Evelyn is my mother and Helmstetter was my father.”

“Oh my God! Who told you that?” Bennet's voice quaked.

“Alaz. Evelyn had to flee Kandovan because she became pregnant by Helmstetter. Even if he'd been free to wed, marrying a man from outside the community would have been forbidden and having a baby out of wedlock, a grievous sin.”

They listened quietly as I related the story about Helmstetter's grim fate and my experiences in the garden.

It was late afternoon by the time Nick dropped us off at the airport.

“You'll get in touch when you're back in the States?” I asked him. “I owe you a lot. I'll do whatever I can to help you get set up over there.”

“Count on it.” He grinned. “Always suspected you were a bad seed. That's how come we make such a good team.” He gave me a pretend punch on the arm and Bennet, a quick kiss on the cheek. Then he climbed back in the Jeep and roared off.

Bennet and I headed to the booking desks to arrange our flights. We'd recovered Strauss's rare book and made an incredible archaeological find in the process. Her article would be a sensation. Yet despite all that, she seemed in uncharacteristically dark spirits.

“I've changed my mind,” she said at the ticket counter. “I'm not going back to the U.S. right now. I can stay with a friend in London. After all, who knows how long it'll be before I get to see Europe again?” I heard the false note in her voice. She wouldn't look me in the eye. She'd been through a grueling experience. Maybe she just needed some time to herself, to let the bad memories fade.

“Hey, Bennet. Everything okay?”

She nodded absentmindedly. “It will be when I get to the U.K.” She scored her flight to London with a quick transfer in Istanbul. I'd have to stay in Istanbul overnight before flying back to America. She slept most of the way on the plane from Van to Istanbul. I shook her awake about twenty minutes before we landed.

Bennet was quiet as we collected our baggage and walked to the gate for her connecting flight. When we reached it, she twisted off the fake wedding band and tossed it in a refuse container. “No more need for that,” she said, a tinge of bitterness in her voice. “I've decided not to write the article after all. I just want to forget all this happened. There was nothing good about it. I'll email you the draft I started and all my notes and pictures. You can do whatever you want with them.”

I put my arm around her. “Maybe you should give it a little more time. Leave it for a few weeks and see whether you still feel that way.”

She almost cringed from my touch and backed away. “No. I won't change my mind.”

“What about Strauss's advance?”

“I'll send him whatever money I have left. If he wants the rest he can sue me.” There was an edge to her laugh.

“When you say you just want to forget it all, you're not referring to us, are you?”

She looked away, not willing to meet my eyes. “Yes, I do mean that. We're not a good match, John. You're a dangerous man in more ways than one. We should say our goodbyes now. Let's not prolong the inevitable.”

A pang of hurt contracted my chest. I felt stunned. It must have showed.

“Take care of yourself, John.” Bennet grabbed her bag and started to walk off. Then she stopped and turned, aware of how brusque her words must have seemed. “I didn't know it would turn out this way. Remember that.”

I started after her but she waved me away.

Soon after Bennet's plane left the ground, I got a text message from Diane Chen. Loki was missing. She'd run through the entrance in the dog park and across the street, heavy with traffic, before Diane could stop her. Two days ago.

Fifty-Two

March 18, 2005

New York

I
came home to a sad, empty apartment and stared defeat in the eye. My place felt like a tomb without Bennet and Loki. Diane had left me a long note explaining which animal rescue centers she'd canvassed but I tried them all over again. You never know. I didn't have the guts to speak to Dr. Jefferson in person, figuring he'd tear my head off for carelessly losing the dog. I sent him an email instead and got a terse reply back that no one had brought her in or contacted them. Loki, it seemed, was gone for good. I prayed she hadn't been hit by another car.

And I hoped Bennet would change her mind about me. Despite the short time she spent here, she'd filled the place with life. I missed her more than I'd thought possible.

Detective Shea sent a formal note saying I could pick up the contents of my treasure chest from FBI headquarters. I was glad for that at least.

I jumped in the shower and let hot water run over me for a long while. Then, after I'd changed into something comfortable, I poured myself a stiff bourbon. I stretched out on the couch, swirled the amber liquid around in my glass, and took a healthy swallow. Pain started to hammer at my knee again.

The mission had succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. At least Strauss would be a happy man. Yet learning the truth about my birth had plunged me into the blackest of moods. Evelyn's attempt to hide the truth had sheltered me from that dark story, and I found myself wanting those phantom, died-in-an-earthquake Turkish parents back. But it was too late for that. The price we pay for knowledge.

By rights I should go to see Evelyn right away. I told myself she'd be tired, that it was after dinner already. In truth I needed to think more carefully about how to broach the subject. I knew the news would upset her.

My night terrors had all but disappeared since entering the salt caves. I wondered if it might be the result of physical exhaustion. Whatever the reason, I hoped they were finished for good. Time would tell.

My mind went back to the first time I'd seen Strauss's artifacts, the ones taken by Helmstetter from the cart I found in the salt caves. Tricia Ross claimed they dated back 5500 years to preliterate times. It seemed to confirm that the travelers—clearly Sumerian, judging by their dress and the pottery found with them—had indeed migrated from their founding settlements in the mountains of Iran. Signs that a flourishing trade was already well established between the young Sumerian city-states in southern Iraq and their original home in Eden.

I got out the bowl I'd found in the caves and turned it in my hand. Simple geometric shapes superimposed on a grayish green
background. As Rohl had pointed out, this type of pottery first appeared in northwestern Iran and Anatolia. It showed up later in the early Mesopotamian cities of southern Iraq. More evidence that the Sumerians may have originated in the mountains near Lakes Urmia and Van.