The older man was busily tapping on the touch screen of his phone, attempting to send a text message to Will. Will Hastings had been his most trusted and loyal agent. The fact that Lindsey hadn’t heard from him since they’d left Cairo was troubling. Based on their last conversation, Will had followed Wyatt and his companions onto a train bound for Luxor. He’d said the problem would be taken care of. If that were the case, Lindsey would have heard from him. But he hadn’t. And in the old man’s mind, that was disconcerting. He’d called a few times and sent a text message, all with no reply.
He slipped the phone back into one of his pockets and let out a deep sigh as he peered out the tinted window.
“Problems?” DeGard asked cynically.
Lindsey decided to ignore his question and ask one of his own. “You’re entirely certain that this is the place we are looking for?” Lindsey interrupted DeGard’s thoughts, pointing at a map on an iPad.
The Frenchman turned his head slowly and glanced at the image then nodded. “Oui, that is the place.” His voice was low and he turned back to staring out the window after his short reply.
“It’s just that, well, it doesn’t look like there is much in that entire region save for an old monastery that was built nearby.” He scrolled around the area on the map with his finger, zooming in occasionally to examine a new point of interest.
“You don’t pay me a ridiculous amount of money to be wrong, Monsieur. You asked me if that was the place described on your little rock. It is the only one on the planet that makes sense. If you wish to continue on without me, pay me my money and I will be gone. I will bid you adieu and good luck.” He never stopped looking out the window while he spoke.
Lindsey caught his irritation, but offered no apology. Instead, he just shut off the iPad and stowed it in the seat back in front of him.
Outside the car, the sun baked landscape whirred by. Everything had a light tan color to it, the color of sand. There were a few occasional trees, but most of them were over near the riverbanks along the Nile. The only sound in the cabin for several minutes was the clacking of the tires when they’d hit a piece of road that had been patched with tar. Otherwise, it was the monotonous whine of the engine.
“Why do you seek immortality?” DeGard’s snide voice cut the silence and he looked over at Lindsey with accusatory eyes.
Lindsey raised an eyebrow at the unexpected query. “My reasons are my own,” he responded in an ominous tone. “But unlike those who came before and failed in their quest for eternal life, my purpose goes beyond the mere desire to live forever. It is my purpose. It is my destiny to shape the world into a better place, void of wickedness and wrongdoing. With immortality, comes time. And with unlimited time, I will someday be able to create a better world.”
DeGard frowned at the answer. It sounded like the ravings of a madman, but he dare not say that. Instead, he decided to be subtler.
“There have been great leaders throughout history who sought various sources of immortality and spoke of a better world. Along the way they murdered millions of people they thought would not fit in with the plan of the future. Do you have such intensions, Monsieur Lindsey? Will you kill millions to make the world what you believe to be better?”
“I will do what is necessary!” the older man snapped. “I do the work of God. There can be no questioning His orders. I am his ambassador to a dying planet full of thieves, rapists, murderers, whores, and filth. I will do whatever it takes to make the Earth new again.” His voice continued to heighten until he finished the last few words. His wrinkled, ashen face had flushed red and a vein popped out on his forehead. DeGard gazed at him, beyond words at what he’d just witnessed.
He calmed himself down before he spoke again. “In the book of Revelation, it talks about a new earth that God will bring. My mission is to create that new earth.” Lindsey turned his head and glanced out the window as they passed a small train of camels. “To you, I’m sure it must sound insane. You probably believe me to be a mad man, power hungry and hell bent on a pointless venture. I assure you, I am quite sane. And I will see my mission through to the end. It was for a great purpose The Order of Golden Dawn was created.”
“Golden Dawn? That group has been gone for nearly a century,” DeGard snorted.
Lindsey shook his head slowly. “No. It was merely sleeping. And like the sleeping church in Revelation, it has been awakened to perform a great task: the cleansing of this world.”
“Cleansing?”
“Yes,” the older man nodded. “We will purge the world of the wicked and begin it anew. The Order of Golden Dawn will establish the true one world government.”
DeGard scowled. “As long as you pay me my money, I do not care what you do with your little group. Just see to it that I get what I was promised.”
“You will. And more, I assure you. Check your account if you wish. I have already made sure the order has made a significant deposit into the bank you specified before.” Lindsey handed the tablet to the archaeologist who took it with some hesitation.
DeGard glanced cautiously at his employer then pulled up his bank account on the device. After entering in his security information, he was greeted with an astounding number at the top of the page. His eyes grew wide.
“And there is more where that came from, my dear professor. Imagine all the carnal pleasures you could buy.” DeGard ignored the last comment.
“I wondered why we didn’t take some of the treasure from the chamber. It would have been worth millions,” his voice trembled.
“As you can see, money is not an issue for us, Monsieur,” Lindsey turned his head again and looked off into the distance. A few jagged hills rose up from the desert, brightly illuminated by the mid-day sun. “There is plenty more where that came from, I assure you.” He took the iPad back from DeGard whose face still seemed shocked.
“Now,” Lindsey changed gears, “Tell me about this Valley of the Eight.”
DeGard rolled his eyebrows and shrugged. “There is not much to know. Obviously, the area is the alleged resting place of the ark of Noah from the Bible’s Old Testament. The story claims that after the great flood, it came to rest high on the mountain. No one has ever been able to confirm it, though. With the severe weather patterns the mountain surely experiences, an object made from wood could not have lasted very long. If there is anything left, it would be buried.”
“I would think that satellite photos would reveal something of such an enormous scale,” Lindsey commented thoughtfully.
“Precisely. If there were anything to be found, it would have been seen by satellites, planes, something. Despite centuries of decay and erosion, there should be substantial evidence of something that size.”
“Evidence? What kind of evidence?” Lindsey leaned closer across the back seat.
“We would at least see an outline of the wreckage. Imagine you are walking on the beach and the ocean waters wash up to your bare feet. When the water withdraws, your foot has sunken into the sand a little. If this happens several times, your foot will be a few inches deep in the sand.” He demonstrated with his hands as he explained the process. “When you remove your foot, the outline of it remains in the sand until the water returns and washes it away.”
Lindsey’s eyebrows knit together, trying to comprehend what the Frenchman was saying. “Just what is your point?”
“The point, Monsieur, is that on the top of that mountain, there was no other source of water. If the flood story were true, the waters would have receded and left a major indention in the soil, soil that eventually would have petrified into stone or rock formations outlining the shape of a large boat.”