Meryam cocked an eyebrow. “That’s the issue you have with me wanting her gone?”
“You thought it was team loyalty?” he replied. “I’m here to do a job. Kim seems competent enough, but I hardly know her. The cadaver down in that coffin is intriguing and more than a little disturbing. I don’t want to have to sit on my hands while the UN finds a replacement. And you said yourself there’s a storm in the forecast and you want to get the cadaver packed for transport before it hits.”
A shout rang out, echoing around inside the ark. Meryam froze, on edge until she heard a shouted reply, followed by a bark of laughter. She exhaled, and saw Walker do the same. He’d only been in the ark for hours and already felt the tension of the place. It wasn’t just the mountain or the creaking of the timber as the weather shifted.
“You all right?” Walker asked. “You jumped a little.”
Meryam smiled. “There’s not been much laughter these past weeks. Just surprised me a bit. There’s a weight to this work that Adam and I haven’t encountered on other projects.”
Walker’s expression softened. “That’s an understatement. No matter what you discover up here, no matter what conclusions are drawn, you’re going to make a lot of people very angry.”
“Better to pretend we were never here? Blow it up like Professor Olivieri wants?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Glad to hear it,” Meryam said. “Because, honestly, it doesn’t much matter what the UN says or does. Their approval is a condition for you being here, not for our project to continue. So while you’re welcome to participate, my intention is to remove the cadaver from the box this afternoon so Patil can do a full examination and take samples before the body is prepped for transport.”
“So we’ve got hours. This isn’t just about a storm. What’s your hurry?”
Meryam leaned against the wall and thrust her hands into her pockets. The chill she felt inside her and the unpleasant queasiness in her stomach were not new. They had been there all along and had been getting worse.
“You saw it, Dr. Walker—”
“Just—”
“Doctor Walker. You saw it. I waited for your team as a courtesy to your government. Now I just want that thing out of here.”
He seemed about to argue with her, but apparently thought better of it, perhaps remembering that he and his team were guests, after all. This was the Karga-Holzer Ark Project, not something his National Science Foundation had put together.
“Who’s this Patil? Have I met her?” Walker asked.
“Him,” she corrected. “Dev Patil is our paleopathologist, recruited from Cambridge University by Professor Marshall—”
“You’re not going to whip out their diplomas, are you? I have a few degrees of my own.”
Meryam shook her head. “I’m not here to measure your manhood or to check your credentials. I’ve done the latter already or I’d have put my foot down about you even being here.”
Walker nodded slowly. “It’s your show. But I’d like to ask one favor. Hold off moving the cadaver long enough for Father Cornelius to study the writings engraved in the casing. Both what you’ve broken away and what’s still there, as well as what’s inscribed on the lid. Enough of it’s already been destroyed. I know you’ve got photographs, but he’d prefer to look at the remainder in situ.”
A suspicion rose in her, almost amusing… except that she wasn’t amused.
“Please don’t tell me you’re worried Kim’s episode was the result of proximity to the box,” she said. “I’ve got enough superstition brewing in some of my own crew—Turks, Kurds, Americans—without you giving them the idea you believe in ancient curses.”
Walker sniffed. “I’m more concerned about ancient diseases than ancient curses.”
Meryam studied his face, searching his eyes.
She wasn’t certain she believed him.
Adam stood with Calliope at the edge of the cave, looking out over the mountain range. The beauty and silence were breathtaking. It was as if the rest of the world had vanished and all that remained of civilization were the people gathered in the ruins of the ark. He wore his knit cap pulled down tight over his ears and the hood of his jacket snugged down over it. The wind slid in along his neck and slithered down his back, always finding a way in, snaking through flesh and right down to bone.
“God, it’s stunning,” Calliope said, camera in hand.
With her focused only on the view through the camera, he felt free to observe her. Of all the members of the dig, including the team that had arrived with Ben Walker, Calliope alone seemed at ease. Even the cold did not seem to trouble her as much. Her hair fell about her face, framing her even as she framed a shot of the wintry gray horizon with her camera. In his work, and as a young American male in London, he met plenty of attractive women, but pretty as she was, it was the easiness about her that made Calliope beautiful.
He loved Meryam. Intended to marry Meryam. Nothing would change that. But being around Calliope lightened his heart, and he needed that right now.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she said without taking her eye from the camera.
“Just admiring the view.” Shit. He’d meant it innocently enough and hoped she didn’t take it the wrong way.
“A bit scary, though.”
“What is?”
Finally she stopped filming and lowered the camera to glance at him. “Being up here. Storm on the way. Left to our own devices if anything goes wrong.”
“You don’t seem scared.”
Calliope grinned. “I have hidden depths.”
She went back to filming, focusing on the roiling clouds in the distance. The real storm wasn’t meant to blast in for a while yet, but the sky already seemed ominous enough, pregnant with the uncaring threat of nature’s power.
“She’ll be all right, you know,” Calliope said.
“Sorry?”
Perhaps very purposefully now, she kept filming. “Meryam. There’s a lot of pressure on her. I know the project is jointly yours and hers, the books and our film, all of that. But we all know she holds the reins. If something goes wrong, she’s going to feel the weight of it the most. Blame herself.”
Adam could barely breathe. Either Calliope had keen intuition or he and Meryam were just about the most transparent people who’d ever lived.
“True enough,” he agreed. “So what makes you think she’ll be all right?”
A smile, and she lowered the camera again, looking at him in that way women had of letting a man know with a single glance that his idiocy was almost adorable, but only almost.
“You’re a good guy, Adam. If Meryam falls apart, you’ll put her back together again.” Calliope took a deep breath. The wind had scoured her cheeks to a bright red. “She’ll be all right because she’s got you to look after her if anything goes wrong.”
I hope you’re right, he was about to say. Opened his mouth and got the first word out before he heard footsteps scuffing across the rock behind him and someone called his name. He turned to see Feyiz approaching with the younger of the two Turkish government monitors, Mr. Zeybekci.
“What now?” Adam whispered to himself, sure Calliope’s camera would have caught it but not caring.
Zeybekci smoothed his jacket in a way that made him seem even younger, like a high school student about to give a presentation in front of the class. The holstered gun on his hip seemed more like a toy, but Adam knew it was very real. He and Meryam had initially balked at the idea of Zeybekci and his older counterpart being armed, but the government had insisted. If they’d been under any illusions that Zeybekci and Mr. Avci were ordinary government functionaries, the guns—and the pretense that there was nothing strange about these men carrying them—would have erased those illusions. They were monitors, certainly, but though they might report back to the government, they were doubtless Turkish army officers.