The last item in the journal mentioned the country of Nepal, the prospect of another dig. Nepal, Indy thought:" the Himalayas, the roughest terrain on earth. And a long way from whatever the Germans were doing in Egypt. Maybe Ravenwood had stumbled onto something else back then, a fresh clue to the Ark. Maybe all the old stuff about Tanis was incorrect. Just maybe.
Nepal. It was a place in which to start
It was a beginning.
He fingered the journal a moment longer, then he set it down, wishing he knew how Abner Ravenwood would react to him.
And how Marion would respond.
4: Berchtesgaden, Germany
Dietrich was uneasy in the company of Rene Belloq. It wasn't so much the lack of trust he felt in the Frenchman, the feeling he had that Belloq treated almost everything with equal cynicism; it was, rather, the strange charisma of Belloq that worried Dietrich, the idea that somehow you wanted to like him, that he was drawing you in despite yourself.
They were seated together in an anteroom at Berchtesgaden, the Fuhrer's mountain retreat, a place Dietrich had never visited before and which filled him with some awe. But he noticed that Belloq, lounging casually, his long legs outstretched, gave no sign of any similar feeling. Quite the opposite- Belloq might have been sitting sprawled in a cheap French cafe, in fact in the kind of place where Dietrich had found him in Marseilles. No respect, Dietrich thought. No sense of the importance of things. He was irritated by the archaeologist's attitude.
He listened to a clock tick, the delicate sounds of chimes. Belloq sighed, shifted his legs around and looked at his wristwatch.
"What are we waiting for, Dietrich?" he asked.
Dietrich couldn't help talking in a low voice. "The Fuhrer will see us when he's ready, Belloq. You must think he has nothing better to do than spend his time speaking to you about some museum piece."
"A museum piece." Belloq spoke with obvious contempt, staring across the room at the German. How little they know, he thought. How little they understand of history. They put their faith in all the wrong things: they build their monumental arches and parade their strutting armies-failing to realize you cannot deliberately create the awe of history. It is something that already exists, something you cannot aspire to fabricate with the trappings of grandeur. The Ark: the very thought or the possibility of discovering the Ark made him impatient. Why did he have to speak with this miserable little German house painter, anyhow? Why was he obliged to sit through a meeting with the man when the dig had already begun in Egypt? What, after all, could he learn from Hitler? Nothing, he thought. Absolutely nothing. Some pompous lecture, perhaps. A diatribe of some kind. Something about the greatness of the Reich. About how, if the Ark existed, it belonged in Germany.
What did any of them know? he wondered.
The Ark didn't belong anywhere. If it had secrets, if it contained the kind of power it was said to, then he wanted to be the first to discover it-it wasn't something to be lightly entrusted to the maniac who sat, even now, in some other room of this mountain lodge and kept him waiting.
He sighed impatiently, shifting in his chair.
And then he got up, walked to the window and looked out across the mountains, not really seeing them, noticing them only in an absent way. He was thinking of the moment of opening the box, looking inside and seeing the relics of the stone tablets Moses had brought down from Mount Horeb. It was easy to imagine his hand raising the lid, the sound of his own voice-then the moment of revelation.
The moment of a lifetime: there was no prize greater than the Ark of the Covenant.
When he turned from the window, Dietrich was watching him. The German noticed the odd look in Belloq's eyes, the faint smile on the mouth that seemed to be directed inward, as if he were enjoying an immensely private joke, some deep and amusing thought. He realized then how far his own lack of trust went- but this was the Fuhrer's affair, it was the Fuhrer who had asked for the best, the Fuhrer who had asked for Rene Belloq.
Dietrich heard the clock chime the quarter hour. From a corridor somewhere inside the building, he heard the sound of footsteps. Belloq turned expectantly toward the door. But the footsteps faded and Belloq cursed quietly in French.
"How much longer are we supposed to wait?" the Frenchman asked.
Dietrich shrugged.
"Don't tell me," Belloq said. "The Fuhrer lives his life by a clock to which we ordinary men have no access, correct? Perhaps he has visions of his own private time, no? Perhaps he thinks he has some profound knowledge of the nature of time?" Belloq made a gesture of despair with one hand, then he smiled.
Dietrich moved uncomfortably, beset by the notion that the room was wired, that Hitler was listening to this insane talk. He said, "Does nothing awe you, Belloq?"
"1 might answer you, Dietrich, except I doubt you would understand what I was talking about."
They were silent now. Belloq returned to the window. Every moment stuck here is a moment less to spend in Egypt, he thought. And he realized that time was important, that news of the dig would spread, that it couldn't be kept secret forever. He only hoped that German security was good.
He looked at the German again and said, "You haven't fully explained to me, as a matter of interest, how the headpiece is to be obtained. I need to know."
"It is being taken care of," Dietrich said. "People have been sent-"
"What kind of people, Dietrich? Is there an archaeologist among them?"
"Why, no-"
"Thugs, Dietrich? Some of your bullies?"
"Professionals."
"Ah, but not professional archaeologists. How are they to know if they discover the headpiece? How are they supposed to know it isn't a forgery?"
Dietrich smiled. "The secret lies in knowing where to look, Belloq. It doesn't entirely depend on knowing what you're looking for."
"A man like Ravenwood is not easily coerced," Belloq said.
"Did I mention coercion?"
"You didn't have to," Belloq said. "I appreciate the need for it, which is enough. In certain areas, I think you'll find that I am not a squeamish man. In fact, if I say so myself, quite the opposite."
Dietrich nodded. Again there were footsteps outside the door. He waited. The door was opened. A uniformed aide, dressed in that black tunic Dietrich so disliked, stepped inside. He said nothing, merely indicated with a backward nod of his head that they were to follow him.
Belloq moved toward the door. The inner shrine, he thought. The sanctum of the little house painter who has dreams of being the spirit of history but who fails to realize the truth. The only history in which Belloq was interested, the only history that made any sense, lay buried in the deserts of Egypt. With luck, Belloq thought. With any luck.
He saw Dietrich move ahead. A nervous man, his face as pale as that of someone stepping, with as much dignity as he can muster, to his own execution.
The thought amused Belloq.
5: Nepal
The DC-3 cruised over the white slopes of the mountains, skimming now and then through walls of mist, banks of dense cloud. The peaks of the range were mostly invisible, hidden in the frosty clouds, clouds that seemed motionless and solid, as if no wintry wind could ever disperse them.