Contract With God (18 page)

‘The Jordanian government has given us a fake licence for one month for the mining of phosphates. Imagine if I imposed a slower pace? We might finish gathering data from the canyon in the third week and then not have enough time to dig up the Ark in the fourth. Would that seem fair?’

Andrea lowered her head in embarrassment. She really hated the man, no question about it.

‘Would anyone else care to join Ms Otero’s union?’ Forrester added, scrutinising the faces of those present. ‘No? Good. From now on, you’re not doctors or priests or drill operators or cooks. You’re my beasts of burden. Enjoy yourselves.’

AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN

 

 

Andrea Otero had never made a list of the three worst experiences of her life. First, because Andrea hated lists; second, because despite her intelligence she had little capacity for introspection, and third, because whenever problems did happen to hit her in the face, her invariable response was to rush off and do something else. If she had spent five minutes the night before thinking about her worst experiences, the top of the list would undoubtedly have been the incident with the beans.

It had been the last day of school, and she was marching through her teenage years with a firm and determined step. She had left the class with only one idea in mind: to attend the opening of the new swimming pool in the housing complex where her family lived. That’s why she’d bolted down her food, aiming to get into her bathing costume ahead of everyone else. Still chewing her last mouthful, she had got up from the table. That’s when her mother had dropped the bomb.

‘Whose turn is it to do the dishes?’

Andrea didn’t even hesitate because it was her oldest brother Miguel Angel’s turn. But her three other brothers weren’t willing to wait for their leader on such a special day, so they answered in unison: ‘Andrea’s!’

‘Like hell it is. Are you out of your minds? It was my turn the day before yesterday.’

‘Sweetheart, please don’t make me have to wash your mouth out with soap.’

‘Go ahead, Mama. She deserves it,’ one of her brothers said.

‘But, Mama, it’s not my turn,’ Andrea whined, stamping her foot on the floor.

‘Well, you’ll do them anyway, and offer it up to God as penance for your sins. You’re going through a very difficult age,’ said her mother.

Miguel Angel suppressed a smile and his brothers elbowed each other triumphantly.

An hour later, Andrea, who had never been good at holding back, would think of five good replies to this injustice. But at that moment she could think of only one.

‘Mamaaaaaa!’

‘Mama nothing! Do the dishes and let your brothers go ahead to the pool.’

Suddenly Andrea understood everything: her mother knew it wasn’t her turn.

It would be hard to understand what she did next unless you were the youngest of five children and the only girl, growing up in a traditional Catholic home where you’re guilty before you’ve even sinned; the daughter of a military man of the old school, who made it clear that his sons came first. Andrea had been stepped on, spat at, mistreated and shunted aside merely for being a female - even though she possessed many qualities of a boy, and certainly had the same sensibilities.

That day she said
enough is enough.

Andrea returned to the table and lifted the lid off the pot of the bean and tomato stew they had just finished eating. It was half full and still warm. Without thinking twice, she poured the remainder over Miguel Angel’s head and left the pot sitting there like a hat.

‘You do the dishes, you bastard.’

The consequences were dire. Not only did Andrea have to do the dishes, but her father came up with a more interesting punishment. He didn’t forbid her to go swimming all summer. That would have been too easy. He ordered her to sit down at the kitchen table, from which she had a perfect view of the swimming pool, and placed upon it seven pounds of dried beans.

‘Count them. When you tell me how many there are, you can go down to the pool.’

Andrea spread the beans on the table and one by one began counting them, putting them into a pot. When she reached twelve hundred and eighty-three, she got up to go to the bathroom.

When she returned the pot was empty. Someone had put the beans back on the table.

Dad, your hair will turn grey before you hear me cry
, she thought.

Of course she did cry. Over the next five days, no matter the reason for leaving the table, each time she came back she had to start counting the beans all over again, forty-three different times.

 

The night before, Andrea would have considered the incident of the beans to have been one of the worst experiences of her life, even worse than the brutal beating she’d received in Rome the year before. Now, however, the experience with the magnetometer had risen to the top of the list.

The day had started at five on the dot, three-quarters of an hour before sunrise, with a series of blasts from a horn. Andrea had to sleep in the infirmary with Dr Harel and Kyra Larsen, the two sexes segregated because of Forrester’s sanctimonious rules. Dekker’s detail was in another tent, the service staff in another, and Forrester’s four male assistants and Father Fowler in the remaining one. The professor preferred to sleep alone in a small tent that cost eighty dollars and went with him on all his expeditions. But he didn’t sleep much. By five in the morning he was out there among the tents, blasting his air horn until he received a couple of death threats from a crowd of people who were already frazzled.

Andrea got up, cursing in the dark, looking for her towel and her toiletries bag, which she had left next to the inflatable mattress and sleeping bag that served as her bed. She was heading for the door when Harel called her. In spite of the early hour, she was already dressed.

‘You’re not thinking of showering, are you?’

‘Of course.’

‘You could find out the hard way, but I should remind you that the showers work using individual codes and each of us is allowed only thirty seconds of water per day. If you waste your share now, you’ll be begging us just to spit on you tonight. ’

Andrea slumped back on her mattress, defeated.

‘Thank you for screwing up my day.’

‘True, but I’ve saved your night.’

‘I look terrible,’ Andrea said, pulling her hair into a ponytail, something she hadn’t done since college.

‘Worse than terrible.’

‘Fuck, Doc, you’re supposed to say: “Not as bad as me” or “No, you look great”. You know, female solidarity.’

‘Well, I’ve never been a conventional woman,’ Harel said, looking directly into Andrea’s eyes.

What the hell did you mean by that, Doc?
Andrea asked herself as she pulled on her shorts and laced up her boots.
Are you what I think you are? And more importantly . . . should I make the first move?

 

Stowe Erling had escorted Andrea to her assigned area and helped her to put on her harness. So there she was, in the middle of a piece of ground fifty foot square, marked off with string attached at each corner to eight-inch spikes.

Suffering.

First there was the weight. Thirty-five pounds didn’t seem like much at first, especially when it hung from a harness. But by the second hour, Andrea’s shoulders were killing her.

Then there was the heat. By noon, the ground wasn’t sand - it was a grill. And her water ran out half an hour into the shift. The rest periods between each shift lasted quarter of an hour, but eight of those minutes were taken up leaving and returning to the quadrants and getting bottles of cold water, and another two reapplying sunscreen. That left roughly three minutes, which consisted of Forrester continuously clearing his throat and looking at his watch.

On top of that, it was the same routine over and over. That stupid step, wait, whistle, step.

‘Good morning. It’s kind of hot, isn’t it?’ said a voice.

‘Go to hell, Father.’

‘Have some water,’ Fowler said, offering her a bottle.

He was dressed in serge trousers and his usual short-sleeved black shirt and clerical collar. He stepped back out of her quadrant and sat on the ground, watching her with amusement.

‘Can you explain who you bribed so you don’t have to wear this thing?’ asked Andrea, thirstily emptying the bottle.

‘Professor Forrester has a great deal of respect for my religious duties. He’s also a man of God, in his own way.’

‘An egotistical maniac, more like.’

‘That too. And what about you?’

‘Well, at least promoting slavery is not one of my faults.’

‘I’m talking about religion.’

‘Are you trying to save my soul with half a bottle of water?’

‘Would that be enough?’

‘I’d need at least a full one.’

Fowler smiled and handed her another bottle.

‘If you take small sips it quenches your thirst better.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re not going to answer my question?’

‘Religion is too deep for me. I prefer riding a bike.’

The priest laughed and took a sip from his own bottle. He seemed tired.

‘Come on, Ms Otero; don’t be angry with me for not having to do the donkey work now. You don’t think that all these squares showed up by magic, do you?’

The quadrants began two hundred feet from the tents. The other members of the expedition were spread out over the surface of the canyon, each one with his own step, wait, whistle, step. Andrea had reached the end of her section and took a step to the right, turned 180 degrees, and then began walking again, her back to the priest.

‘And there I was, trying to find the two of you . . . So this is what you and the doc were up to all night.’

‘There were other people there too, so you needn’t worry.’

‘What do you mean by that, Father?’

Fowler didn’t say anything. For a long while there was only the rhythm of step, wait, whistle, step.

‘How did you know?’ said Andrea anxiously.

‘I suspected it. Now I know.’

‘Fuck.’

‘I’m sorry for having invaded your privacy, Ms Otero.’

‘The hell you are,’ Andrea said and bit her fist. ‘I’d kill for a smoke.’

‘What’s stopping you?’

‘Professor Forrester told me that it interferes with the instruments.’

‘You know something, Ms Otero? For someone who acts like she’s on top of everything you’re pretty naïve. Tobacco smoke doesn’t affect the magnetic field of the Earth. At least, not according to my sources.’

‘The old bastard.’

Andrea dug around in her pockets then lit a cigarette.

‘Are you going to tell Doc, Father?’

‘Harel is intelligent, much more so than I am. And she’s Jewish. She doesn’t need advice from an old priest.’

‘Do I?’

‘Well, you’re Catholic, right?’

‘I lost confidence in your outfit fourteen years ago, Father.’

‘Which one? Military or clerical?’

‘Both. My parents really screwed me up.’

‘All parents do that. Isn’t that how life begins?’

Andrea turned her head and managed to see him out of the corner of her eye.

‘So we have something in common.’

‘You can’t imagine. Why were you searching for us last night, Andrea?’

The reporter looked around before answering. The nearest human being was David Pappas, locked into his harness a hundred feet away. A blast of hot wind gusted from the entrance to the canyon, forming beautiful whirlpools of sand at Andrea’s feet.

‘Yesterday, when we were at the entrance to the canyon, I climbed up that enormous dune on foot. At the top I began taking shots with my telephoto lens and I saw a man.’

‘Where?’ Fowler blurted out.

‘On top of the cliff behind you. I only saw him for a second. He was wearing light brown clothes. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t know if it had something to do with the person who tried to kill me on the
Behemoth.’

Fowler squinted and ran his hand over his bald head, taking a deep breath. His face looked troubled.

‘Ms Otero, this expedition is extremely dangerous and its success depends on secrecy. If anyone knew the truth about why we’re here . . ..’

‘They’d throw us out?’

‘They’d kill us all.’

‘Oh.’

Andrea lifted her gaze, acutely aware of how isolated the place was and how trapped they would be if someone broke through Dekker’s thin line of sentries.

‘I need to speak to Albert immediately,’ Fowler said.

‘I thought you said you couldn’t use your satellite telephone here? That Dekker had a frequency scanner?’

The priest simply looked at her.

‘Oh, shit. Not again,’ Andrea said.

‘We’ll do it tonight.’

AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN

 

 

The tall man was named O and he was crying. He had to get away from the other men. He didn’t want them to see him showing his feelings, much less talk about it. And it would have been very dangerous to reveal why he was crying.

It was really because of the girl. She had reminded him too much of his own daughter. He had hated having to kill her. Killing Tahir had been simple, a relief, in fact. He had to admit that he’d even enjoyed playing with him - giving him a preview of hell, but here on earth.