Then he laughed at her audacity. “So, now you’re selectively daft? You’re a hypocrite now too?”
“Bigot,” she admitted.
“Spot on, dear,” he remarked as he shook his right leg to liberate it from the flaccid harness. “The Orthodox church proclaimed that the Ark of the Covenant was housed here in Aksum. All we have to do is extend the permits and try again. The megalith…”
“Monolith, Purdue,” she sighed.
“Whatever, Medley. It marked the location of the clandestine chapel reputed to hold the Ark,” he insisted, keeping his voice low. After all, if Medley was there, chances were that the vultures had begun to circle.
“Then why don't they corroborate their claims?” she asked.
“Because they will never relinquish it,” he replied. “But just to know that it is there…”
She turned to him with an alarm that only showed in her eyes; her voice remained steady.
“Listen, Purdue. What would happen if the Ark were discovered? What would happen if any of these powerful relics were to live up to their reputation?” she asked urgently.
Purdue stepped closer to Medley and smiled. “I know for a fact that most of them do live up to their hype, my dear Rita. First hand. And I know this because I was tenacious enough to relentlessly pursue these items at all costs.”
She shook her head with a wry smile. He had proven himself to be just as greedy as she’d reckoned before. “And tell me, Purdue… were all your losses financial?”
The question slammed into him, but he refused to show it. “Losses were recovered, even though it took some time to remedy. All losses are recoverable if you have wealth.”
Prof. Medley stared in silence at her old adversary. “I think,” she said softly, “not even you believe what you just said.”
She was correct. Purdue did not mean what he said and his ploy to brush off the hurt of almost killing his beloved Dr. Nina Gould just cost him again. Medley was right. There were penalties far higher than that which could be sated by money or reputation, and he had certainly lost his fair share of both. However, losing his reputation as a carefree man-about-town was of little matter to him. Although he had gradually lost his credibility as a serious scientist and inventor along with many of his friends and colleagues from his inner sanctum, Purdue felt more fulfilled by chasing after dangerous artifacts and paying the price for his success than he ever did as a philanthropic bachelor at fund raisers and university board parties.
“What are you doing here, by the way?” he asked Medley. “Come to punch me in the gonads?”
“Oh,” she chuckled, “don't flatter yourself, Dave. As a matter of fact, I’m of the opinion that those gonads you so lovingly refer to are a myth in themselves. But I shall leave those expeditions to the more desperate variety of my gender.”
He smiled. “Now, who is flattering herself?”
“Rita! Rita!” a man called from the ridge behind Prof. Medley. Purdue cleaned his glasses to better observe the short, red-faced man yelling at the professor as he trotted hastily towards them. “What did I tell you about leaving your goddamn tools lying around?” He was limping, one hand holding one shoe while the bloody bare foot burned on the Ethiopian stove plate beneath him. Briskly he skipped to where she was standing with Purdue. The tall, crane-like frame of the billionaire hunched a little to better enjoy the scene about to unfold. Purdue winced at the sight of the man's cut foot on the hot, desert-like terrain.
“Oh yes,” he remarked quietly to Rita, “I can see you pick the big gonads. Indeed.”
She elbowed him. “Shut up, Purdue.”
“Boyfriend?” he teased.
She looked at Purdue with a weary and painful expression, conceding. “Husband.”
“Ouch!” he empathized. “Where did you get him? The set of The Sopranos?”
“Shut up, Purdue!” she snapped again.
“Look! Look at this!” he barked at his wife, holding his fancy Italian shoe out to her. “Fucking €700 for these shoes, Rita!”
Embarrassed, she approached him under the ruse of aid, but actually with the intent of shutting him up. “Guido, I'm sorry, my love. So sorry. I didn’t realize you’d be wearing those here at this dusty site. Where are the Asolos I bought you for this trip?”
His beady black eyes ripped through hers at the question he’d construed as beyond absurd. She recognized it as the same look Purdue had dealt her a few minutes before when she’d suggested tomb pillaging should be a selective practice. “Are you out of your mind?” he asked in a subdued voice brimming with fury. “Do you think I would wear…” he pulled a terrible face at the very idea, “… hiking boots? Really? Sporty, lace-up rubbish?”
“My love, that was ₤100 rubbish that I bought you. In other places such gestures would be greatly appreciated by men, especially coming from their wives' own pockets,” she reminded him with no small measure of vexation.
“Men in other places?” he retorted. “What, like him?” He directed a supine knife hand in Purdue's direction, evoking an insulted scowl from the Scottish billionaire.
Apologetically, Rita looked back at Purdue. “Um, yes. Look, he’s wearing the same style of shoes as the ones I bought you. They’re specifically for this terrain. I bought them for you because I didn’t want the rough tract to damage your feet.”
Her husband's scornful look jabbed at Rita. It was a glare of pure hatred, one he often had when he didn’t get his way. “Then why don't you give those shitty track shoes to him?”
Rita swallowed hard as her eyes threatened to fill with tears. She could feel Purdue's eyes on her, probably reveling in her misery. To her surprise, she felt his hand on her shoulder. “You know how to pick 'em, Medley,” he teased in an attempt to raise her spirits. “What a consummate nyaff that man is. I’ll tell you what. If you stay off my back about my excavations, I'll brew you a special potion just for him.”
Purdue winked at her as she turned to him, her eyes still leaning towards a moist pink.
She almost smiled. “I can't.”
“Because you love him?” he asked.
“I can't let you defile the ground for the Ark of the bloody Covenant, you dobber,” she sniffed. “I'll get back to you about Guido, though.” And then she walked away into the village of tents.
The afternoon matured around the site where Purdue's latest venture had just failed. He was, however, still very curious as to Prof. Rita Medley's presence there. Even more so, Purdue was positively itching to know where she’d picked up the Italian poof with the mafioso attitude. The two of them had disappeared into their tent where Purdue could still hear the muffled sounds of an argument. While Rita was otherwise occupied, Purdue thought to do some investigation into her endeavors.
Perspiring from the onslaught of the North African sun, the tall explorer did what he did second best: he trailed one of the men he reckoned worked for Rita. The man led him directly into the mountain's red face, between two large crevices that reached several meters upward. Purdue crept into the dark interior, careful to keep a good distance behind the worker. A ways off he could hear a group of men in a heated discussion, but they were speaking in the native language, making it impossible for Purdue to figure out what was going on. The man he was following soon joined them in a glow of flashlights where they were congregated in the middle of a massive circle.
Purdue removed his glasses when he saw the object in the center of the circle.
“It can’t be,” he whispered. “The Ark of the Covenant?”
Chapter 3