Re: timber sample analysis
Positive results obtained. Wood commensurate from tree species likely to be genus Acacia. Specimen dated via peer-reviewed radiocarbon techniques to be 5,000 years old, +/- 250 years.
A rare smile manifested on Daedalus’ lips. 5,000 years old, and Noah’s Ark was built around 5,000 years ago! He thought of the lake high up on Mount Ararat, and the rest of the timbers that still lay in its depths, still in the shape of a boat that closely matched the recorded dimensions of Noah’s Ark. He threw his head back and laughed. He had done it! Noah’s Ark was his! Treasure, Inc. was about to be the irrefutable gold standard for the recovery of priceless antiquities, artifacts and relics. Perhaps this find would be the one that finally catapulted him to his personal dream of becoming a billionaire. Yes, by most people’s standards, the tens of millions of dollars he’d already amassed as part of his personal fortune — much of it made from illicit international trade in antiquities- made him exceedingly wealthy. But he wouldn’t feel like he had “made it” until he joined the B-club. Control of Noah’s Ark would be the kind of asset that could put him over the top.
Glancing at his smartphone, he saw that a second email message had come in, and this one was from the cartography expert he’d entrusted with (and paid a handsome retainer) to analyze the map in order to determine what other information, if any, it might contain. Daedalus almost didn’t bother opening this message. The map had obviously worked, after all. It had led him straight to the ark, so who cares what else there was to know about it, especially since he didn’t even have it anymore, thanks to that meddling Carter Hunt. But on second thought, Daedalus had paid his consultant an awfully large amount of money for a single task, as he always did in order to ensure confidentiality. Besides, let’s just see how good this guy really is, Daedalus thought. He doesn’t yet know that we found the ark, since the timber analysis work was with a different consultant. Daedalus always compartmentalized his project work like this so as to keep any one person from being able to put too much together. What if he tries to tell me the ark is somewhere other than the Ararat lake? That would mean I can’t really trust either him, or the quality of his work. So he clicked open the message and read what he expected to be a mere confirmation of what he already knew.
And part of it was. In his analysis, his cartographer said essentially that it appears the X-marks-the-spot indicator on the map appears to point to a small lake on the northwestern slope of Mt. Ararat. “Yes,” Daedalus said aloud to himself as he read it, “it sure does!” He skimmed over the technical explanation of how the researcher had verified this, something about proprietary satellite imagery and Mercator projection overlays and blahblahblah… But what’s this?
Daedalus noted with interest a second section of results. An entire second section? This ought to be good, he thought. And then, as he started to read it, he felt himself relax. It didn’t seem to be important. Something about Ethiopia, about how this was the only other region on the map with significantly rendered detail — about the same level of detail as imbued to the Mt. Ararat region. Well so what, he thought. Maybe they started to make the whole map with more detail and decided not to, who knows? It led to the ark already and that’s all that matters.
He started to tap out an acknowledgement of receipt when his phone’s blinking light reminded him that he still had an unopened voicemail. He eyeballed the number, hoping it was something he could put off. But he squinted as he looked at it, not because he couldn’t see it clearly, but because it made him think, I better listen to that.
Daedalus had learned long ago that it paid to have local eyes and ears on his side, even if that meant outlaying capital for something that most of the time would pay no dividends. But when it did, it tended to be huge. And Turkey was a country he’d done business in before, so it was a relatively simple matter of touching base with an old contact and getting her to reactivate the old human network. Eyes and ears on the street. Hotel maids, store clerks, cab drivers — these people were easy to buy. Tell us if you see two American adult males travelling together — when, where, for a bonus, what they were talking about. That sort of thing. But airport employees, police officers, military personnel, customs officials — those types of positions were considerably more difficult to buy. And yet over the years Daedalus and his Treasure, Inc. inner circle had managed to pocket one or two of that category in the country of Turkey. The richer in archaeological sites a nation was, the more contacts Treasure, Inc. strove to amass. And Turkey was a country known for a rich and varied archaeological history.
Daedalus let the voicemail play. Yes, he’d heard already that Carter and Jayden had made it off the mountain and back into Dogu town with a trekker van. His brother, he of questionable talent, as Daedalus thought of him, had told him that much. After that, though, their trail had gone cold. They could still be in Dogu, perhaps laying low in some off-the-beaten-track hostel. Or they could have left the country, probably back to America with their tails between their legs.
But according to this new message, an airport employee — this was high-level intel for Treasure, Inc., representing an annual expenditure that no doubt registered as a blip on the radar of their chief accountant — reported that the irksome duo had purchased tickets to Addis Ababa International, Ethiopia. Daedalus listened to the message again, to make sure he wasn’t hearing anything incorrectly, but he had understood correctly it the first time. Ethiopia, but why? And especially, why directly from Turkey? It troubled him that they had the map, and that is where they chose to go. He didn’t know why, but he was aware of Ethiopia being a place steeped in legend and lore — King Solomon, Queen Sheba… It was the kind of place that Treasure, Inc. did well to have on its radar.
Something else bothered him as well. He opened the notes from his cartographer again and re-read them. Yes, there it is: the only enhanced detail on the entire map, besides the Mt. Ararat region, was that of Ethiopia. Daedalus found that to be troubling.
He picked up his satellite-phone to call Phillipo, still on the mountain. It was time to set the full-scale salvage operation into motion, to retrieve the rest of Noah’s Ark. And then there was the matter of the Omega Team buffoons travelling around with the original map that he now knew for certain led to Noah’s Ark. He set the phone back down. He didn’t want confirmation of their success to go to their heads and make them complacent. Daedalus relaxed and leaned back in his chair as he sipped his tea.
Let Phillipo stay on the mountain and handle the ark extraction process, Daedalus thought. The old saw popped into his head: When you want something done right…
He picked his phone up again, but used it to dial his private charter jet service. Another extravagant recurring expenditure he committed to in order to be ready for world travel at a moment’s notice. Although long periods might elapse during which it was not really needed (though still fun), it had already justified itself many times over. After this trip, Daedalus surmised, the private jet charters on standby would seem routine. No, after this, he mused, he’d be able to afford his own space program, never mind private jets. He cleared his throat in preparation to speak to his air charter outfit.