“Well if it wasn’t for that, I’d be ready to go all night,” Jayden joked. And that was the other thing, Carter said. “We need to rest, so we might as well pick a decent spot for it, get a good night’s sleep and be on the trail before daybreak.”
“Yeah, okay, I guess I can go along with that,” Jayden said, persisting with the humor as he shrugged off the backpack and shone a flashlight around the campsite, checking it out. “Might even be enough dry wood around here to start a fire, if we get lucky. How about you set up the tent and I’ll see if I can get a fire going.”
“Sure, but we’re going to have to make do with no ground cover since we put it to good use already.”
“Yeah, it’s probably been blown halfway to Istanbul by now. ‘Put it go good use’ is an understatement if there ever was one, though. Thing saved our life!”
They set about the work of establishing a workable campsite, with Carter putting up the tent beneath the overhang, which would keep most of the direct wind off of it as well as any precipitation, while Jayden gathered rocks for a firepit outside the overhang, including a couple of small boulders suitable for sitting on. With most of his extra clothing lost with his pack in the snow tunnel, Jayden did his utmost to get a fire going, gathering wood, using his Swiss Army Knife to shave off bark to use for kindling, and his hand to shield his lighter from the wind. After multiple failed attempts, he let out a whoop of joy as a lick of orange sprang from the bottom of the pit.
“Fire!” he fake-roared in a low voice, since he knew a full-voice yell could carry a long way from their elevated, shielded position. Since he didn’t know where the Treasure, Inc. team was, he didn’t want to take any chances on giving them a clue as to their position.
“Good work. Got the tent set up.” Carter exited the small shelter and brought the mess kit over to the fire. “Hungry?”
“Yeah, what’s on the menu tonight, maybe a rack of lamb with a side of potatoes and some red wine to wash it down?”
Carter laughed. “Unless you see a mountain goat and you’re a pretty good shot with that pistol, we’re looking at freeze-dried beef stew and water.”
Jayden gave a slow nod as he watched his budding cook fire. “You know me, I never met an MRE I didn’t like.” Carter recalled that it was true. While most enlisted men had their favorites, Jayden had been known for being willing to eat any of them, and would even trade the more popular ones for two or more of the least popular so as to build up a stockpile of extra rations.
“I figured it would. Let’s not get complacent. There’s still a little daylight left. You act as lookout while I prepare the food, so we don’t have any surprises from uninvited guests.”
Jayden agreed and walked to the edge of their cleared area, which afforded an excellent view of an extensive, brown, sandy desert in the distance. Scanning the area from left to right, up and down, then back again right to left, he spotted no threats.
It wasn’t long before Carter called out that it was chow time, and the two ate their no-frills dinner over the fire as night blanketed Mount Ararat. After they had eaten, Carter rummaged through his pack. He produced a small bottle of liquor. “Got it in the airport in Ankara. I was saving it as a souvenir gift for someone back home, but I think we could use our spirits lifted.”
“I wholeheartedly agree. What is it, not that it matters?”
“Raki.” The brandy-like liquor was a Turkish staple made from grapes.
“Ah, the after-dinner liqueur to complement our meal,” Jayden said while Carter uncapped the bottle. He poured some into his canteen cup and passed the bottle to Jayden.
Talk soon turned to the map. “Does this mean we’re going to Africa?” Jayden asked. “Seems like we’re going to Africa.”
Carter took out the map from his backpack and smoothed it out in his lap. Holding it up to the fire, he found he could easily see the hidden lines that ran from the Mr. Ararat lake to a location in east Africa. “Africa’s a big place. We’ve got to know where to go.”
Jayden took a swig from his cup. “What part of east Africa is it? Does it have countries labelled?”
Carter shook his head. “It has outlines of what look like countries, but no names. But this map was made before the Titanic sank, so …”
“African countries change names more often than a stripper changes outfits.”
“Right. But if I had to guess—”
“And you do!”
Carter nodded. “And I do, indeed-I’d say it’s about where modern day Ethiopia is, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the name of it way back when.”
“Ethiopia, huh? Never been.”
“Me neither. It’s not exactly a tourist hotspot, I don’t think. Hold on. I downloaded a modern day map of Africa to my phone when we were at the Internet café in Dogu.” Carter retrieved his smartphone from his pack and powered it on. He brought up the modern political map image of the African continent and showed it to Jayden. “That’s Ethiopia.”
“Ethiopia, huh? Never been. There must be some cool stuff there,” Jayden said, savoring the raki while eyeballing the map on the screen.
“There must be. But what? If Noah’s Ark is here on Mount Ararat, then why would the map want us to consider Africa? Why draw those invisible lines that can only be seen under certain backlit conditions, that connect the Ararat lake site to a vague destination in east Africa?”
“Maybe there were really two Noah’s Arks?” Jayden ventured. He looked up at the brilliant display of night stars. There was no moon in the sky which made them stand out all the more.
“Two arks?”
Jayden shrugged. “Yeah, like maybe Noah realized after the first ark was full, ‘Hey, no way are we going to fit all these animals. We’re gonna need a bigger boat!’ But instead of building the first ark bigger, they built a whole second ark.”
“I guess that’s testable. If we found timbers in the Ethiopian location — wherever that may be — and they did happen to be of the exact same stock as the ones here…”
“Two arks!” Jayden beamed.
Carter raised his eyebrows while shifting his gaze from the electronic map to the paper document. “There has to be something to these lines.”
“Well they point to Ethiopia. Which part? Is there a town?”
Carter shook his head. “Not on the old map, but let’s see if the modern one has one where the lines end up.” He held the phone with the map on the screen up over the paper map, next to the Ethiopia region. “Yeah, town of Axum.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Me neither. But I have a feeling we’re going to get to know it a whole lot better.”
Jayden took a deep breath. “What, we’re going to go to this town and wander around looking for a second Noah’s Ark? That doesn’t seem a little weird to you? Kind of wild goose chase-y?”
Carter didn’t answer but stared down at the map some more, before handing the phone over to Jayden. Then he held the map up over the fire light and stared at the “invisible” lines again.
“I agree with you that we need something more specific. There’s also something else I don’t understand.”
“What’s that?”
“Why are there three lines that all converge on the single point in the town of Axum?”
Jayden looked over at the paper map. “Let me see. Okay, so there’s three lines but only two of them actually end up in Axum, isn’t that right? One goes from the Ararat lake to….Israel?”