House of the Dead Page 2
She strode the last two yards to the security turnstile, colliding awkwardly with the barrier. He could see that he had riled her, but he wasn’t finished, not quite.
‘That’s not what I mean. And you know it. You go further because you enjoy it and that sucks.’
As he spoke he swiped his pass card over the sensor, opening the barrier. She pushed through, glaring back at him over her shoulder, her face flushed.
‘Well, if you care so much,’ again she scanned his badge, ‘Mr Edgar Johnson, get a new job, become a fucking social worker!’
Edgar registered the strength of the venom and immediately regretted his boldness. She was a hard bitch and a senior figure. She would be sure to lodge a complaint about him. And he was right about that, she would have, were it not for subsequent events.
Chapter 3
Baghdad, Iraq, May 2003
Robert Grainger leant over the large table which was strewn with newly-printed, full colour, j-peg images depicting the bronze panels of the great Balawat Gates. As he moved he felt the damp stick in his armpits under his shirt; it was impossible to stay cool in this climate, he reflected. What would it be like in high summer? Dressed in two-tone desert fatigues, the young British Army captain was about five foot ten tall, with a well-built, somewhat thick-set frame, his forearms burnished deep brown by the Iraqi sun. A head of short, light-brown hair surmounted a youngish-looking face that meant he might be asked for proof of age in a pub. In fact he was twenty five. Today the heat had caused his fringe to stick awkwardly to his high forehead and his brow was furrowed with concentration.
Robert had been in Basra a month back when, like the rest of the world, he watched on television the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. Fifteen thousand items had been pillaged in less than a week in April. Then, two weeks later, his Afghan reputation for an interest in things ancient had caught up with him, and he had been redeployed to Baghdad as part of a new Coalition task force charged with protecting the Iraqi cultural heritage. Thrown in at the deep end, he was undergoing a crash course on the history and archaeology of the Fertile Crescent. It was a tall order but he had top drawer support. The legendary Donny George, the Museum’s Director, acted as his mentor by day and his wife Sarah, who had a degree in oriental studies and now worked in the British Museum, was his online tutor in the evenings.
The images had arrived yesterday by e-mail. His fingers passed repeatedly over the rim between the white border of the picture he was holding and the edge of the coloured image. The high quality printed paper fascinated him; it was perfectly smooth. American technology, he thought, always the very best.
Looking at the photographs, Robert was transported back to the day when, a grammar school boy of fourteen, he had stood in front of the very same gates. It had been on a school trip to the British Museum and he recalled the enormous gates, built from planks of rich, reddish cedar wood, towering above him to the height of four men. The wood, his school master had said, was modern but not so the great hammered strips of bronze that held the gates together. The panels, mounted separately on the walls of the gallery, were also the real thing, large bluish-coloured panels, lovingly restored to their primary role of telling their stories to the visitors to city of Imgur-Enlil, as Balawat was known to the ancient Assyrians. He glanced down at Sarah’s accompanying e-mail.
The Balawat Gates were made in the reign of Ashurnasirpal II, 883 to 859 BC. There were two pairs of gates, one discovered in 1878 and now in the British Museum. The second set, found in 1956 was restored by the British Museum and returned to Iraq where they are displayed in the Mosul Museum.
His gaze strayed again over the embossed bronze strips. The liveliness of their detail was astonishing. Palm trees swayed in the breeze, dogs on leads barked assertively, a lioness riven by arrows stumbled, roaring eternal defiance. Most extraordinary of all were the men, whose plaited hair and beards reminded Robert of the dreadlocks of Rastafarians you could see any day in Brixton. Before his eyes, battles sprang to life as men charged with horse-driven chariots, and fought with swords, spears and bows and arrows. The victims were there too, the subject peoples, graphically depicted being dismembered or impaled on stakes. Could these images really be 2800 years old? They seemed so fresh, so evocative. But then, he noted, they were on the doors to the Temple of Mamu, the God of dreams. Some dreams, he reflected.
The voice of Hakim, called Robert out of his reverie.
‘According to this report from Mosul Museum, thirty-two panels were ripped off the doors. From the marks left in the wood some damage must have been done to the missing panels. Have a look here! You can see it was a determined assault. You know, Robert, what chills me is the degree of calculation. These thieves walked straight past a lot of valuable material and targeted exactly what they were looking for. Only one credible explanation, I tell you, the panels were earmarked for exporting abroad. That means an international connection, Robert. There is no internal market whatsoever in Iraq for this sort of thing, never has been! Still, they were interrupted, because fifty four other panels, some half torn away, remain...’
But Robert wasn’t listening any more. His attention had drifted back to Sarah’s e-mail.
These latter panels especially are younger, dating from the reign of Shalmaneser III (859-824 BC). They are especially significant as, in addition to scenes of sacrifice and warfare, they include the first portrayals of natural features, such as landscape and trees in Assyrian art.
He looked again at the image of the palm tree. He could almost feel the wind rippling through its fronds, just as he felt now a slight breeze, seeping in through the slatted window blinds, raise the hairs on his forearm. For a moment time seemed suspended; it was the same land, could it be the same breeze recycled across the centuries? He chuckled. It was strange how old things could trigger fanciful thoughts. And it was a sensation he recalled from his first encounters with antiquities in Afghanistan. This stuff could fire the imagination.
His reverie was truncated by Hakim tugging at his arm.
‘Captain, are you listening? We have got to do something! This is my country’s heritage! Can we approach the European auction houses?’
Hakim’s agitation was palpable and Robert identified with his emotion. These relics were irreplaceable and belonged for that matter to all of humanity. The people who had damaged them deserved stringing up, as much as Saddam’s henchmen. They respected neither their country’s heritage nor the shared legacy of mankind. These thoughts filling his mind, he felt his indignation turn to cold resolve. What happened had happened. But he could make a difference now, just as he had done in Afghanistan. His own small battle campaign perhaps, but well worth fighting none the less. He was glad, for the first time, that he had been dragged away from Basra. With the help of Donny, Hakim and the others in the team, he would do his damnedest to stop these bastards and bring them to justice.
Chapter 4
Skellig Islands, Ireland, July 823
Lorcan was roused by sounds reaching him on the wind. Half opening his eyes, a blur of yellow and red filled his vision. Focusing, he saw that the coloured spheres were the fruit ripening on the shrub next to him. Apples of Cain, or strawberries as the Spanish monks preferred to call them.
The small valley where he lay was an oasis of lush vegetation. It nestled aloft, four hundred feet above the Atlantic foam, sandwiched between two great inclined slabs of sandstone that formed the ribs of the island and rose to present jagged pinnacles to the sky. Many of his brother monks, confronted with the inevitability of death, chose it as their point of departure from this world. Its name Leaba Dia, or God’s Bed, captured its character: a thin place where, by stretching out the fingers of your soul, you could actually touch the other world. In Celtic legend the Skelligs were the Islands of the Blessed, where the spirits of the dead gathered to enter the Otherworld and tradition had it that St Michael, the Great Archangel, supervised the coming together.
Expiring here was a
summer option only because in winter the vicious seas crashing upon the steep cliffs made landfall impossible. Even this July morning, they had been obliged by the strong swell to drag their currach up off the rocks into a hollow, to make sure it didn’t get dashed to pieces.
They had set out early from Skellig Michael. The life force was ebbing from Fintan, and Lorcan and his companion, Patrick, had moved fast to bring him to Leaba Dia for his last hours. Fintan had tutored Lorcan as a young boy in the monastery of Monerstaboice, almost at the other end of Ireland. He had shown him the hand of the Maker in all that surrounds mankind: the darting fish of the silver streams; the dappled light of the woodland glade; the crazy chasing of the hares and - that involuntary burst of praise to the Creator - the morning chorus of the birds. One day Fintan’s finger had pointed out the small bird that lay carved beneath the feet of the crucified Christ on Muiredach’s High Cross.
‘Look,’ he whispered. ‘That bird is the soul of the Lord ready to rise from death. Think of that every time you hear a songbird sing and let it gladden your heart.’
Lorcan smiled at the recollection. He owed so much to Fintan including his induction into the Celtic old mysteries. But now times were different. Fintan lay dying, old assurances were melting like hoar frost under the morning sun and about them dark clouds of unpredictable change were gathering. His lips thinned at the thought.
The decision to set out at the first light of dawn had proved a good one. On reaching the smaller island, it had taken time and effort to drag their ailing friend, strapped to his litter, up the steep path to the Leaba to meet his Lord. By mid-morning Fintan was settled on a makeshift bed of branches and blankets underneath the strawberry tree where it grew, next to a holly bush, in a green blanket of ferns, saxifrages and mosses. Lorcan boiled a concoction of the strawberry fruits, long associated with the Otherworld. When it had cooled sufficiently, he gave it to the dying man to drink so that its narcotic effect would ease his anxious mind.
Together the two monks had prayed for some hours, calling on Saint Michael, the Great Archangel, and his band of angels to come and take Fintan’s soul and carry it up to his Maker. Lorcan felt all sense of time ebb away and God become immanent, not just in his heart, but externally in the warmth of the sun as it climbed in the sky, and in the whisperings of the breeze. Finally, with the Saint’s name on his lips, one arm outstretched upwards in rapture and the other firmly clasping the sacred artefact, Fintan had departed this world. Lorcan celebrated Mass for the soul of his departed friend, as the scorching orb rose up towards its zenith.
Then he and Patrick carefully refolded the ancient object in its cloths and returned it to its wooden treasure chest. Afterwards they lunched on a little cheese and bread along with a draught of wine; for they would need their strength for the return journey. Perhaps drinking the wine was not the wisest move, for soon the two men fell asleep in the heat of the day.
So it was that, hours later, other sensations reached Lorcan, rousing him from his sleepy reflections. They came in on an eddy of summer breeze: a smell of burning and the sound of kittiwakes and gannets crying. Then, more sharply, a long single prolonged cry reached his ears. For a moment he could swear he recognised the voice! Sensing danger, Lorcan’s brain crashed back into full consciousness. Shooting bolt upright he turned and, scrambling up the sloping rock face that had been his support in slumber, he peered out through a gap in the rocks towards Skellig Michael. The initial tranquillity of the image was deceptive. But the lazy curling trace of smoke, rising up from the stone-built, beehive shaped dwellings of the monastery on the nearby island, brought out a clammy perspiration. More cries wafting in on the breeze confirmed his worst fears. These were no gull’s caws, rather the cries of men put to the sword! Casting his eyes down, Lorcan saw the outlines of three ships, each with a great headed prow, tossing in the swell at the foot of Skellig Michael. The Danes had caught up with them!
Chapter 5
Boston, US, March 2014
The descending numbers on the electronic display recorded the elevator ride down from the 26th floor of the Prudential Building, at 111 Huntingdon Avenue, where the executive suite of her employer, Bradley Raven Associates, was located. Tara sensed the subtle deceleration as the lift readied to stop, but it wasn’t enough to arrest her plummeting mood. The display couldn’t register it, but level minus seven and descending rapidly about summed it up.
Tara was aware that by leaving the meeting she was exiting her career and six years of her life. Walking away was not the sort of thing she normally did. Her whole being was attuned to winning, to outsmarting others, to beating them at the game and that was how she had handled the accusations of the last three weeks. Successive meetings with Bradley Raven Associates had been excruciating, each one subjecting her to fresh humiliations. First, arriving back from the Reno visit, she got a text message telling her that Porter Shultz was dead. He had hanged himself with his belt in a prison cell less than two hours after she had left him. This was not good; she was meant to expose fraud, not kill off the employees, however crooked they were.
Then, arriving at 111, she had been called aside by Security and questioned about Newton’s whereabouts. Within half an hour she had been suspended from her post and denied access to her office. The fall from grace was immediate and total. As she was escorted from the premises she had tried to talk to colleagues but they froze her out. She knew the form; she had doled it out often enough to others without a second thought in the past, but she had never expected to end up in their shoes. She and her partner, Newton, were part of the gilded set, the young executives groomed for great things - at least they had been until he had decided to abscond with the best part of $7m. That wasn’t part of the script, but it was the start of Tara’s nightmare.
Initially Raven Associates had cast her as a knowing accomplice, but when this proved difficult to make stick they changed tack and made her out as stupid and gullible. That hurt even more because it was in part true. So she responded how she always did: she fought back and fought dirty. It was only when Taylor Jones, her lawyer, had shouted at her during a recess that the reality had finally sunk in. They looked at each other in surprise. Tara had never before heard Taylor raise his voice.
‘Listen up, Tara, you’ve got to realise what is going on here. The bottom line is they want you out and out now. You going all aggro makes for a big face-off, but is getting us nowhere. You can’t beat corporate power. You, of all people, should know that. Yes, we can litigate and you might win but it would take years and means going public on the whole fuck-up. You don’t need that. WRKO and the Globe will have you butt naked. I am telling you, just leave now and let me do my job! I will screw them for every dollar I can get but a deal has to be done, and done now!’
Tara said nothing, just stood by the window, looking down. The pedestrians far below on the plaza were winding their way like rivers of ants; maybe they were just that, she thought distractedly. Beyond, the waterfront was busy with boats and ships going about their business. Another day, aspects of the rapidly-shifting scene would have engaged her interest. Today she felt detached. No, more than that, estranged from it, alienated by it. None of it seemed to matter or have anything to do with her. She thought of the other night, when she had returned briefly to the condo to pick up her passport. The sight of one of Newton’s sweatshirts on a chair had caused her to lose it. Anger pumping in her veins, she had rounded up any visible sign of him: the garment, a book, an empty whisky tumbler that he had drunk from. Picking up the glass she hurled it at the wall, smashing it to pieces. Why should she clear up after him? Her fury solidifying into cold resolve, she had taken any photos with him in them that she could find and torn them into pieces, burning the remnants in a bowl.
But that was then. Taylor’s words today changed everything. Her resolve melted away and she knew, with a rising sense of panic, that her normal compass points had abandoned her, and she had to get out of there. Just get away there and then!
As she crossed the Plaza, the cold air enveloping her, Tara felt momentarily relieved, sucking in deep breaths of the cold March breeze. She reached the shore front, and looking out over the dark, choppy sea, her accumulating sense of disorientation hardened into something new: a two-faced creature, one part disconnected, unable to relate to anything and the other part plain void - a chilling emptiness. They jostled within her and she realised that she didn’t know who she was any more or what was real. The restless grey-blue waves emulated her agitation and she breathed in deeply again. Sea air filled her lungs and the salty taste was instantly familiar. In a flash she knew what to do. She wasn’t sure if she was running to or from something but it didn’t matter. Her time in Boston was finished, her life here snuffed out. She would go home.
Chapter 6
Baghdad, Iraq, December 2003
At Donny’s instigation, Robert had started to log reports of pillaging at archaeological sites over the last decade, recording each one onto a database and plotting the locations on a map of Iraq. Soon a pattern began to emerge. There were over one hundred and fifty major Sumerian cities and towns in Iraq and numerous later cities of Biblical renown, such as Nineveh and Ur, and of course Babylon, of hanging gardens fame. All told, thousands of sites of significant archaeological value. Under Saddam Hussein the sites had been guarded and looting carried the death penalty. But then, a decade back, the UN had imposed sanctions on Iraq and no-fly zones. As Saddam lost control in the south, where most of the sites lay, a black trade in antiquities soon took root and flourished. Some of the earliest reports, Robert noted, dated from then and many more had piled up since.