It was a recent picture of Alyssa at the site of Göbekli Tepe. She was busy taking notes at one of the carved bas-reliefs on a column.
“I believe that’s Alyssa Moore, yes?” asked Hall.
Montario stared at the photo for a long time before lifting his gaze toward Obsidian Hall. And then he lifted the photo, showing Obsidian the snapshot side. “And you’re showing me this why?”
“She visited you at the hospital, yes?”
Montario remained quiet.
“Your lack of response is becoming quite annoying, Mr. Montario. You will answer my questions, do you understand? Now, she visited you in the hospital, did she not?”
“She did.”
“Obviously she wanted to know what happened to her father and at Eden. Did she ask you the same questions I’m asking? Did you lie to her the same way you’re lying to me?”
When Montario failed to respond, Hall made a fleeting and dismissive wave of his hand, prompting the large man to close the gap between them and force Montario to his knees. The large man kept a vise-like grip on the back of his neck, threatening to snap his bones with a quick twist, if necessary. Montario grit his teeth against the pressure as he dropped the photo.
“Did you lie to her?”
“No.”
“So she knows the whereabouts of Eden?”
When he didn’t answer the large man squeezed Montario’s neck, causing pain.
“No!” he finally hollered. “Everything about Eden was kept in her father’s journal.”
Obsidian Hall leaned forward, as if caught by surprise. “His journal?”
Montario nodded. His face twisted in anguish as the man maintained his grip.
“He kept a journal of everything he did.”
With another nod from Hall, the man eased up on his grip. Hall got to his feet. “And where is this journal?”
“It’s in… my backpack.”
Hall nodded to the second ape who rummaged through the backpack, found the black book, and handed it to Hall, who leafed through the pages and discovered that it was entirely encrypted. He held the book up. “Is this a joke?” he asked, waving it.
More silence from Montario.
“Mr. Montario, if you wish to be obstinate—” Hall nodded to the large man who squeezed Montario’s neck to the point where Montario thought his life was about to be snuffed out with a single snap, right up until the time when the large man finally relaxed his grip. “Mr. Montario, what did he write in this encrypted journal of his?”
“Lots of things,” he said. “I can only assume he wrote about the crypts — about the Central Chamber.”
Obsidian Hall waited for him to expand on this. When he didn’t, he pressed him. “What about them?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Everything’s in cryptic passages. Professor Moore writes in ancient languages as a tool to keep others from misappropriating his findings. I can’t decipher them. Only Alyssa can. I can only remember what he told me.”
“And what was that?”
“That Eden is a cold, dark place. A place unlike what religious texts makes it out to be.”
Obsidian gained his feet and walked toward Montario until he stood over him, and then looked down. He held the book tight. “I must say, Mr. Montario, as intriguing as all this sounds about crypts and a Central Chamber, we all know that truth lies within facts. And the facts lie within those crypts.” He began to pace the floor of the apartment. And then speaking rhetorically, he said, “The question is: who are inside the crypts?” And then more directly to Montario: “What did the good professor tell you about them?”
“Not a thing.”
Hall gave other nod, prompting the huge man to squeeze hard enough for Montario’s face to flush.
“Every time you lie to me, Mr. Montario, my colleague here will squeeze your neck until he crushes a bone or two, which will make you a quadriplegic for the rest of your life. Now I want the truth. What did the professor tell you regarding the crypts?”
Through gritted teeth, he said, “I swear to you! He said nothing to me other than it’s not what religious texts make it out to be. All he said was that Alyssa may lose her faith, should she know the truth.”
Hall stopped and turned on the points of his feet. “That’s what he said? That Ms. Moore may lose her faith?”
Montario nodded as best he could.
“Funny,” Hall said, “that a woman of science sits upon the border of science and religion, accepting to believe in both when one clearly contradicts the other.”
“You don’t know her.”
“If you do not proffer me the coordinates, then here is my proposal to you: I will present this book to Ms. Moore and force her to interpret her father’s writings, assuming he wrote the coordinates down, which, in all probability, he did. Is that what you want, Mr. Montario? Do you want to put her in the position you now find yourself in?”
The large man allowed Montario to raise his head enough to view Obsidian Hall.
“Give me the coordinates,” Hall said simply. “Should you do that, then there would be no need for me to contact her.”
“If I don’t give you the location, will you kill her?”
“Kill her? No, Mr. Montario, I’ve never killed anyone in my life. In fact, it’s my belief that anyone can take a life at will. Some would even say that taking a life is true power since the action is a show of complete dominion over another. But I believe differently. I believe that true power comes by having someone kill for you. That way, I do not have complete dominion over one life, but two: The one I order to commit the action, and the one who the action is committed against. That, Mr. Montario, is power that is complete and absolute. And that’s the power I hold.”
Obsidian Hall moved toward the window. The sky was beginning to settle toward darkness. The street lamps were beginning to light up ten stories below.
“It’s your choice, Mr. Montario. Either you give me the coordinates… or I get them from Ms. Moore. I believe you know where Eden is. So if you give me the coordinates, then I could be at Eden’s doorstep this time tomorrow. Long before Ms. Moore begins her quest.”
Montario closed his eyes. He could vaguely remember something regarding its location and the flash of numbers on one of the professor’s documents prior to encrypting it. But he did not want to place Alyssa in jeopardy, either.
“Think carefully, Mr. Montario. But don’t take too long,” Hall said evenly. “There’s a play on Broadway I’ve been meaning to catch for some time now. I don’t want to be late”
The numbers appeared jumbled in his mind, almost dyslexic in their placement. And then he began to spell out the degrees and minutes of Eden’s location.
The second man booted up Montario’s computer and applied the data into the search engine. The area that came up was a place in southern Iraq, which was nearly a thousand miles away from the Turkish border.
“You’re lying to me, Mr. Montario.”
“You’re asking me to remember a series of coordinates under extreme conditions.”
“Extreme conditions? Mr. Montario, I am being quite pleasant,” he told him affably. “I’m allowing you to live, aren’t I?” There was a slight pause as Obsidian Hall stared out the window and at the pinprick lights that made up the constellations. To Montario, the quiet was very unnerving.
“The play is about to begin,” Hall said calmly. “And time for you is running out. So if I were you, Mr. Montario, I would come up with the correct series of coordinates. And understand me when I say this: There will be no third chance, no third opportunity.” There was a pause. And then: “The coordinates, Mr. Montario. Give them to me now. The clock is ticking.”
Montario closed his eyes. His heart and mind were racing. And the grip on the back of his neck was tightening, a reminder he was moments away from being paralyzed for the rest of his life.