The driver examined the watch with a begrudging look before snatching it from Jayden’s hand and closing the bus door. “Welcome aboard!”
Carter and Jayden took seats in the middle of the bus and hunkered down, Carter at the window seat where he scoped out the passing vehicles, looking for signs of the silver sedan. “I think it worked.”
“Let’s hope so, because my wrist feels awfully naked.”
“Sorry. I’ll make it up to you. Let’s focus right now on getting out of here.” Before long they saw signs for St. John’s International and entered a curving roadway with a sign warning, AIRPORT ONLY — DEPARTURES / ARRIVALS. They were glad to see the bus take the fork leading to departures, with each stop representing a different collection of airlines.
“Let’s just get off at the first one,” Carter suggested, “since we don’t know which one we need yet.”
With no arguments from Jayden, the pair of treasure hunters walked to the back door of the bus in anticipation of the stop. Jayden pressed the button to request a stop while Carter eyed the scene outside the door windows. He saw no signs of any pursuers or tails, so when the door opened the two stepped out onto the sidewalk bordering the air terminal.
“Let’s get inside,” Carter said, still worried their adversaries might know to troll the airport looking for them. With each only carrying a small backpack, they were able to thread their way quickly through the crowds without attracting much attention. “Turkey, Turkey, Turkey…” Carter said under his breath as they scanned the departure boards.
“Is that Europe or what?” Jayden wondered.
“A small part of it is in Europe, but most of it is in Asia. This way, come on.” They fast-walked until they reached an Air Canada terminal with service to the Turkish capital of Ankara.
Staring at the departure times, they saw that the next flight left in just under two hours. “Let’s see if we can get on.” Carter stepped up to the ticket counter, eyeing the flag with red and white sickle and star with both trepidation and hope.
Chapter 15
Carter and Jayden stood in the middle of a crowded, dirt street lined on both sides with ramshackle vendors and simple storefronts of all sorts, fruit stands, cell-phones, curios and trinkets, rugs, incense, candles, spices, fresh fish and clothing. Musicians played doumbek hand drums, sitars, and flutes, their middle-eastern rhythms permeating the air and mingling with pungent hookah smoke. After travelling for nearly twenty-four straight hours, Carter and Jayden were exhausted, having slept only on the plane and then on the long bus ride from the airport in Ankara to the country’s eastern border with Iran. The town of Doğubayazıt was the jumping-off point for expeditions to climb the mighty Mt. Ararat, which loomed in the distance like an otherworldly symbol of mystery and enchantment. The mountain was actually comprised of two distinct peaks, known as Greater and Lesser Ararat, with the Lesser having an elevation 12,782 feet, and Greater thrusting 16,854 feet into the heavens.
Despite the extraordinary view of a snow-capped volcano rising over three miles into the air only a few miles away, the place had an air of poverty about it characteristic of undeveloped nations. To Carter, it contrasted sharply with the majesty he associated with the region due to its rich and almost mythological history. Noah’s Ark was thought to be buried somewhere in this land.
It was cold, too, with a light snow falling, and dirty, sooty snow lining the ground. He and Jayden had picked up parkas, knit caps and wool pants at an outfitter store catering to mountaineers, so they weren’t uncomfortable, but the low temperatures only added to the austerity of the town.
“Think about how cold it is up there!” Jayden said, pointing to the snow covered peak in the distance.
“I’d rather think about finding out where Daedalus went. What do you say we do some leg work?”
Jayden nodded. They’d told everyone they’d encountered so far, on the day-long bus ride here, at the backpacker’s hostel where they booked a room, and to the shopkeeps where they purchased mountaineering gear, that they were tourists from America here to climb Mt. Ararat, as many thousands do each year. It wasn’t known for being a particularly difficult or technical climb, and was not high enough to require bottled oxygen for most people. Anyone capable of a strenuous hike a high altitudes for several days in a row could do it, like backpacking the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, or parts of the Rockies in Colorado. The upper portion was mired in snow 365 days a year, which made it cold, however, but so was any mountain over 10,000 feet.
“Seeing as the sit-on-our-butts work didn’t pan out, looks like we’ve got no choice.” Jayden was referring to their time the day before in the bustling, modern capital city of Ankara, where they’d sat in an Internet café for a couple of hours, searching for signs of archaeological permitting activity that might be associated with Daedalus. Naturally, they found none.
“It’s not like we were expecting Treasure, Inc. to file for a permit, but it can’t hurt to see if anyone has. It might draw Daedalus to them like flies to a jar of spilled honey.” But no recently applied for archaeological digs had turned up, and none of the ongoing operations were noted as having activity right now. Mt. Ararat — for the moment, at least — was free from diggers and those who would plunder its past.
But Carter was under no illusions that locating Noah’s Ark could be as simple as wandering up a single mountain — snow-covered or not — and digging it up. If it was, it would have been found by now. And there are those, he was aware, who claimed that it already has been. One of the more well-known cases occurred in 1959, when a private individual discovered an object that was roughly boat-shaped, with dimensions that could fit those of Noah’s Ark. The Turkish government at that time prevented his work from continuing and mounted their own investigation. It wasn’t until 1987 that Turkey officially recognized the discovery, and at that time credited the individual with the find. Still, it was not definitive and many historians claimed that that the fossilized timbers located could have come from numerous other sources besides Noah’s Ark, if in fact the ark was something other than a fictional creation in the first place.
Also, in 1978, an earthquake exposed rib timbers that were 515 feet in length, or 300 royal Egyptian cubits. The measurement units were a significant point, since the Egyptian cubit, rather than feet or meters, was used in the ancient world. Using these units made the timbers the approximate dimensions of the ark. Could they be from a petrified ship? But again, the world was not convinced. Still, Carter thought it a good bet that perhaps the map led to either this discovery or the previous one upheld by the Turkish government. He had made up his mind that, in the absence of more concrete leads, to head for these two sites first and see if anyone else might be hanging around.
It occurred to Carter that any time after the Bible was written, anyone could have built an ark of their own to recreate the story, and that, if found in modern times, could easily be confused with the “real” thing. He wasn’t sure what it would take, exactly, to convince the world that the authentic, biblical Ark of Noah had been found, but a wooden boat dated to the proper age and of the proper dimensions would be a start. And he knew of a map that supposedly led right to it.
Daedalus … He felt the anger begin to seethe inside him and willed himself to redirect it by concentrating on the immediate task in front of him — hooking up with a local guide outfit that could inform him about recent expeditionary activity. He knew full well that Daedalus or anyone working on his behalf would skirt the established legal permitting channels for acceptable archaeological work. They would be posing as backpackers, like Carter himself was, and would attempt to follow the map to wherever it led under that guise.