01 Babylon Rising (28 page)

Cries of horror and pain suddenly cut through the air as several ropes attached to the statue’s huge torso snapped, and dozens of workers were flung to the ground in the vicious recoil. The figure seemed to hesitate; then, as Nebuchadnezzar willed it forward through clenched teeth, it seemed to regain its momentum and with one last mighty effort its great feet thudded into place, sending up a huge cloud of yellow dust
.

Nebuchadnezzar didn’t hear the sounds of thousands of men crying out either from the pain of torn muscles and snapped tendons or simply relief that their torment was over. All he could hear was the frenzied beating of his heart and the rasping of his breath as he clutched the wall and gulped great lungfuls of air. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the dust enveloping the statue began to disperse on the wind and his vision gradually shimmered into life before him
.

As if someone had touched aflame to a cauldron of oil in a night-dark room, the sun suddenly caught the broad expanse of forehead and at once the great head burst into golden light. Shielding his eyes from the dazzling visage, Nebuchadnezzar heaved great sobs of exaltation as the rest of the statue revealed itself. First the chest and arms of silver, then the belly and thighs of bronze, and finally the legs of iron straddling the heaps of broken scaffolding and bloodied corpses
.

Standing fully ninety cubits high, its muscular frame etched in hard, metallic lines, the statue loomed over Babylon like a great, cruel god
.

As the king’s eyes adjusted to the glare, he could at last make out the features of the golden face. The broad lips were curved downward in a vengeful sneer, the empty eyes blazing with ferocity
.

With a roar of laughter that rang out over the plain, he recognized the face as his own
.

ISIS TOOK
A last look at the tail of the Serpent, its bronze scales shimmering under the halogen lights, and dropped it into a nylon bag. She took a card key from around her neck and inserted it into a heavy steel door that swung open with a soft hiss. Inside, the gray metal shelving was mostly empty. Just a strongbox she knew contained a priceless necklace from the site of Troy, and two steel tubes stuffed with papyri from the recently excavated tomb of an Egyptian princess of the Third Dynasty. She placed the bag between the tubes and pushed the door firmly shut.

“This place is like Fort Knox,” she said. “I can’t imagine how anyone unauthorized could get down here. And if they did get past the alarms and the security guards and what have you, they’d have to get through here.” She rapped the door with her knuckles. “Let’s just say I sometimes have nightmares
about being shut in here by mistake. When they finally opened the door, they’d just find a dried-up old mummy,” she said with a shudder.

“I guess that’d be poetic justice, wouldn’t it?” said Murphy.

“I’m sorry?”

“You know, to be turned into an ancient artifact.”

She sniffed. “If I were an archaeologist, maybe. I think you’re the one who needs to be careful.” She winced and put her hand to her forehead. “Look, I’m sorry….”

Murphy put a hand on her arm. “Let’s get something straight. You don’t need to walk on eggshells. You don’t need to worry you’re going to accidentally mention death and I’ll go to pieces. You can even talk about Laura if you want.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. I’d like to. Talk about Laura, I mean.”

She walked to a door in the floor-to-ceiling wire-cage wall and opened it with her card key. As it shut automatically behind them, Murphy glanced at the metal plaque, which read:

SECURE STORAGE AREA—NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT. He saw Isis disappear around a corner and hurried to keep up. He realized that he would never be able to find his way through this subterranean labyrinth on his own.

“Was this place designed by the same guy who built Annacherib’s pyramid?”

“The one with all the dead ends and false corridors? What do they call it—the Maze of Forgetting?” She laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

At last she led him up a staircase to a door that, to Murphy’s surprise, opened directly onto the employee parking lot. Isis noticed Murphy was looking at the security
booth off to one side. “There’s one at each entrance,” she said. “The security guards are in radio contact with the central security station in the main building. That’s where all the electronic surveillance systems are monitored.”

He seemed satisfied. “Okay, where are we going?”

“I’m no expert on local restaurants, I’m afraid. I don’t eat out an awful lot. Usually I just have a pizza at my desk.”

“What about in the evening?”

She looked embarrassed. “Same thing.”

“And always pizza?”

“Why not? Pure carbohydrate. Minimal nutrition. It could be the Scottish national dish.”

“Pizza it is, then.”

She pursed her lips. “I think we can do better than that. How about Scotland’s second favorite national dish: curry?”

“Anything hot sounds good.”

“You may come to regret that,” she said, taking his arm.

A cab took them down the 12th Street Expressway, one of several tunnels that cut through the Mall, the three-mile-long expanse of greenery, monuments, and government buildings at the heart of the city. They emerged onto E Street and were soon headed for Chinatown.

The Star of India, nestled improbably between Yip’s Noodle House and the Jade Palace, was dark and virtually empty. Over tea and popadums, they scanned the menu while the latest Hindi show tunes played in the background, Isis settling for a shrimp vindaloo while Murphy acknowledged defeat before the contest had even begun by ordering a chicken bhuna.

“So, tell me about the inscription.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she said, clearing a space on
the table. She pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her bag and smoothed out the edges. “It took forever. Really quite the trickiest bit of Chaldean I’ve come across. But after your call, I think I finally cracked it—at least the important bits. I think your theory is right, that the high priest Dakkuri wrote this puzzle with two minds. He wanted the reader to understand how to find the rest of the Serpent, but on the other hand, he’s keen that the wrong people not get their hands on it. So he wraps it all up in metaphorical language that’s quite tough to penetrate. Like a sort of shell around his message.”

“Who are the wrong people?”

“Hard to say. We know that Dakkuri was told by Nebuchadnezzar to get rid of the Serpent, along with all the other idols. Presumably, if someone loyal to the king found where Dakkuri had hidden it, he’d destroy it—and Dakkuri himself wouldn’t fare much better.”

“That makes sense. So who are the
right
people? Who does Dakkuri want to find the Serpent?”

“Good question.” Her finger ran down the lines until she found what she wanted. “Here. There’s a formal incantation. It’s quite common. You see it on all sorts of inscriptions. Something like ‘only the pure of heart shall find what they seek.’”

“Sounds like the good guys.”

“I said it was
something like
that. In fact, he substitutes another word for ‘pure.’ It doesn’t quite make sense, but the nearest I can get is ‘only the dark of heart’ or ‘only those with darkness in their hearts.’” She smiled. “So I’m afraid that rather scuppers your chances, doesn’t it?”

“You’d be surprised,” Murphy said. “There’s quite a lot of darkness in my heart right now.” She looked at him and bit
her lip. He nodded at the paper. “Go on. What else does the man say?”

“Well, there are some more incantations to a few of the lesser-known Babylonian gods—and then we get down to it.” She pointed to a paragraph.
“The pieces of the sacred snake are scattered far, yet still are joined. He who is wise enough
—actually ‘wily’ is probably a better word—
to find the first already holds the second in his hand. Find the third, and the mystery shall return.’
That last bit really had me stumped for a while. I’m still not sure I’ve got it right. But ‘mystery’ is the only way I can see of translating it.”

“Mystery,” Murphy repeated. “Okay. What he’s saying is that each piece of the Serpent has an inscription telling you where to find the next one.”

“I think so.”

He smiled. “So … where’s the second piece?”

She turned the paper over. “Right at the end. I suppose he assumed that if you’d made it this far, you were definitely his sort of person. Here we are.
‘Look to the desert and Erigal’s master will take your left hand….’”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, Erigal is a very minor Babylonian demon. Some experts don’t even include him in the textbooks. But my father was a bit more thorough than most,” she said proudly. “I looked him up in one of his old notebooks. Anyway, Erigal’s function was doing odd jobs for Shamash, the chief Babylonian god. Like Zeus or Odin. Chief male one, anyway. I couldn’t figure out what Dakkuri was on about until I realized Shamash was originally a sun god.”

“So?”

“So, Erigal’s master—Shamash—taking your hand could mean the sun rising.”

“And if he takes your left hand, you’d be facing south.”

“Exactly.”

“And if you stood near Babylon and looked south, you’d be looking toward … Saudi Arabia.”

“The desert.”

Isis snatched the piece of paper off the table as a waiter in a dazzling white shirt and black bow tie put their plates in front of them. Breathing in the aromatic fumes, Murphy suddenly realized how hungry he was. But he couldn’t eat until he had the answer.

“That’s a big desert,” he said. “Easy to lose an army in there, let alone a foot-long piece of bronze.”

“He is a little more specific than that,” she said testily, as if Murphy were criticizing her personally. “He goes on to say that
‘twenty days hence, the seeker shall slake his thirst. And beneath his feet it shall be found.’”

Murphy looked at her blankly.

“Don’t you see? He must be talking about an oasis. Twenty days south of Babylon.” She folded her arms in triumph.

Murphy grinned. “Does this place have a name?”

“Ah,” she said, her face falling. “That’s the problem. It has a name, all right. And a population of about a million people. If the second piece of the Serpent is under Tar-Qasir, you’re going to have to dig through an entire modern city to find it.”

“
LOOK, I’M GRATEFUL
for everything you’ve done.” Murphy was sitting in Isis’s disaster-area-passing-as-an-office and feeling quite at home. “I wish there were some way I could repay you. But there’s no way you’re coming to Tar-Qasir. I’m going to leave the Serpent’s tail here at the foundation for the time being for safekeeping, then I’m going to arrange for a trip to the Mideast to find the the rest of it. By myself.”

“But what if you do find the second piece in Tar-Qasir?” Isis insisted. “You’ll need me to translate whatever’s inscribed on it. I’m the only one who can do it.” She was aware that her voice was becoming more shrill as her anger flared, but she didn’t care.

“You’ve walked me through the inscription on the tail. I think I’ve got a feel for it now. I’ll call you if I get stuck.”

She snorted in derision. “Hah! You wouldn’t know where
to start. I don’t think you’d know this kind of cuneiform from a hole in the ground—which, considering that
you’re
an archaeologist and
I’m
a philologist, makes a certain amount of sense, don’t you think?”

He sighed. “Look, I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal out of this. It’s not like you’re a field researcher.”

Actually, she didn’t really understand either. Up until a few days ago, the closest she came to field research was trying to unearth some books or papers from the dusty piles in her office. Now she was volunteering to travel halfway around the world on a bizarre quest for an artifact that, if not actually cursed, certainly seemed to have a distinctly unpleasant aura around it.

She took a deep breath and tried to get a fix on the mix of emotions swirling around inside her. “I’m sure you’re trying to be chivalrous and all that nonsense, but I wish you would just admit that if you’re serious about finding all the pieces, you’re going to need me.”

Murphy stayed tight-lipped.

“I know you think I’m just some weak-kneed woman who’s spent her life with her head stuck in old books.” She caught the beginnings of a smile on Murphy’s face. “And maybe you’re right. But maybe I’ve decided it’s time to blow away the cobwebs a little. Maybe I’ve decided it’s time to show the world my father wasn’t the only Dr. McDonald who was willing to take a few risks to get what he wanted.”

Murphy stopped himself from saying
And look what happened to him
. “You’re a very stubborn woman, you know that?”

“Yes. Stubborn—and resourceful. I took the liberty of
talking with our PFF chairman yesterday. He has agreed that the Parchments of Freedom Foundation will provide their plane and support funding for your expedition—for
our
expedition—in return for being able to exhibit the Serpent here at the PFF Museum. That is, assuming there is a body and head to this Serpent, and we find them, and we can bring them home.”

“Isis, you know you were way out of line going for the funding before I agreed you were going.” Murphy gave a long sigh. “But thank you, because I don’t think I would be getting to Tar-Qasir without the generosity of the foundation.”

Isis watched him with nervous anticipation. “All right.” Murphy smiled.
“We
go to Tar-Qasir. But if things get out of hand, and I say so, you’re on the first plane back. Deal?”

ON THE AFTERNOON
of the day Isis McDonald and Michael Murphy flew to the Mideast, the guard in the security booth of the PFF entrance did not notice the pair of peregrines emerging from the roof of a black van in the parking lot. But his job required him to concentrate for long periods with little in the way of stimulation, and it’s possible that as dusk fell at the end of a long day, he was beginning to glaze over from the stultifying routine of watching the monitors and checking the hourly logs.