“Gotta renew your Netflix subscription?” Jayden asked, head propped up on his jacket as a pillow while staring out the open door at one of the guards walking by in the distance.
“Haven’t had a chance to check back with Maddy. I’m just going to call her. Pretty sure she’s still in Kyrgyzstan on a dig…” There was a pause for almost thirty seconds and then a female voice answered. Carter held a finger up to Jayden, since the phone was not in speaker mode and he couldn’t hear. “It’s her, keep watch!” Jayden nodded while Carter concentrated on the phone call. He wasn’t sure if this tribe would care about a satellite phone or not, but he couldn’t afford to find out in the negative.
“Maddy, it’s Carter. You get my message?” He spoke in the lowest possible voice without having to whisper.
“I did, but I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to hear it yet. Hey, so how was the Titanic? You dove it, right?”
“It went pretty well. I’ll have to tell you about it sometime. But listen, things have changed since I left you that message. Here’s an update: We came down the wrong side of Mt. Ararat into Iran, and are now being held in the desert by Kurdish nomads…” He went on to supply her with a few more details about how they had come to be here and how they had thus far been treated by their “hosts.”
Maddy’s voice was laden with concern when she replied. “Carter, listen to me. You have to get out of there.”
“Well we are, first thing in the morning…”
“No, I mean right now, as soon as you possibly can. Even if you have to cross the desert at night.”
“What, why? It’s not that, bad they—”
“Carter, I’ve done a lot of work in that part of the world. What they do is try to hold Westerners — or anyone who might be of value, like a fugitive — long enough until they come into contact with authorities.”
“How can they do that, we’re in the middle of nowhere?”
“A lot of them have sat-phones, Carter, or regular radios. Like one for the entire group, not each person, but that’s all they need. Even smoke signals are sometimes used.” Carter eyed the fire outside, with its thick column of black smoke issuing into the clear night sky. It must be visible for dozens of miles. He had wondered why they put on the extra logs to make it smoke, thinking perhaps it was to keep insects at bay.
“I’m actually in Kyrgyzstan now,” Maddy went on, “excavating an ancient Roman fort, of all things, found somewhere it’s not supposed to be. I’ll have to tell you about it sometime. Anyway, if I were closer I’d come help you, but I won’t be able to help with the Iranian government if they take you into custody, if it’s even on the books at all. These people will sell you to the highest bidder, Carter. To an Al-Qaida type radical group, to the Iranian government, whoever! They collect a cash reward for turning in illegal aliens who happen to be Westerners, and they’ll be on their merry way while your and Jayden’s experience will be most assuredly unpleasant.”
“Why would anyone want a couple of shmucks like us? We’re not wanted in this part of the world.”
“Carter, you and Jayden are Americans. That makes you useful as political bartering chips. If you don’t want to end up in one of those videos reciting some prepared statement with a weird flag in the background and some masked guy holding a machete to your throat, I’d get the heck out of there right away!”
The fear that crept into her voice disturbed Carter. Then he felt kind of silly, what with his military experience, and here a civilian had to tell him what was going on. But that was just it — outside of the actual war zone, he felt safe, too safe, and he had let his guard down.
He felt Jayden’s fist rapping on his arm. He looked up and saw him pointing outside the tent, where one of the guards approached the opening to their shelter. Carter quickly made sure the light of the phone screen faced away from the opening. “Hold on, Maddy,” he said into the phone while he watched the guard to make certain he wasn’t going to interrupt. He did stop outside and look into the shelter, but didn’t linger, and before long was on his way again making slow rounds around the camp.
“Okay, Maddy, so listen. I don’t want you to worry if I can’t get back to you, so here’s our plan…” He told her how they intended to make their way back into Turkey and from there catch a flight to Ethiopia in order to follow clues as to the whereabouts of Noah’s Ark.
“Wait a minute, did you say, Axum, Ethiopia?”
“Yeah, Axum. Why, been there?” It was definitely not a normal place for anyone to have been, but as a professional archaeologist, Maddy had travelled the globe to out of the way spots on various digs.
“Never been to Ethiopia at all, but the town of Axum is well known as an ark hotspot.”
“Really, that’s funny, because—”
“Not Noah’s Ark, though, Carter. The Ark of the Covenant.”
Her words made their way through the lobes of his brain as he processed them while the sounds of camp life outside — the crackling fire, the guards’ footsteps- faded to nothing. Not Noah’s Ark… The Ark of the Covenant.
“Carter? You still there?” Maddy’s voice brought him back to the moment.
“Yeah I’m here.” But he had nothing to add, he was still in shock at something that was beginning to gel in his mind. Noah’s Ark, The Ark of the Covenant…
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. Listen, Maddy, you say Axum is a hotspot for Ark of the Covenant hunters?”
“That’s right, definitely. Just like Mount Ararat is for Noah’s Ark seekers, that’s Axum for the Covenant. There’s a church in Axum that’s famous for claiming to have the real Ark — that’s the gilded, wooden box from the Bible in which Moses placed the stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments — thou shalt not kill, and all that—”
“Or lust,” he couldn’t help but add.
“Or lust,” she said, with a coyness to her voice that even thousands of miles worth of distance and a signal bounced around multiple satellites before reaching Carter’s ears couldn’t hide. “There’s a church that supposedly takes it upon itself to guard the original ark.”
Jayden leaned over and spoke to Carter. “Hey, I’m glad you two lovebirds are having a nice chat, but really, we’re pushing it here. They might be able to hear you, and the one guy is about to walk in front of us and probably peek in here again.”
Carter, realizing that in addition to what Jayden said, the phone’s remaining battery power was also a concern, nodded and returned to the call. “Maddy, we’ve got some things going on here. I’m going to have to end this call. Thanks for all your help.”
“You’ll get out of there tonight, right? Because believe me, Carter, however hard you think it’ll be to escape the nomad camp, it’ll be a hundred times harder from prison or an insurgent labor camp.”
Carter glanced out the door to the lean-to, where two guards conferred with each other. He saw both of them look into the lean-to for a second, before walking off in opposite directions. Into the phone, he said in a quiet voice, “Understood Maddy. Thanks again for all your help. See you soon.”
He disconnected the call and powered down the sat-phone.
“What, no ‘I love you’?” Jayden asked.