The Moses Riddle (Thomas McAllister 'Treasure Hunter' Adventure Book 1) (17 page)

DJ was stunned. “Are you accusing me of pulling a switch, sir?”
“You’ve been on this case long enough to have had a double made. You retire soon. Your pension is good, DJ, but not that good. It wouldn’t be the first time an agent went for the big payday before retirement.”
DJ was shocked. He had a perfect record. Unblemished. Highly decorated. And now his whole career was being questioned? He was on trial and the only way to get off the hook was to produce the real Ark. The problem was he had no idea where the real Ark was.
He was so furious he couldn’t speak. He stomped over to the imitation Ark. In an animalistic rage, he grabbed hold of the lid and ripped it off, throwing it across the room.
“Careful, that’s evidence!” Hargrove raged.
All eyes were on DJ as he peered down into the box. They waited as he reached down and closed his hand around something. He brought his hand up and held it high over the box and then sand began running through his fingers.
“Sand,” DJ said. “Fucking Mexican sand.”
When the sand had passed through his fingers there remained, to his complete surprise, a small piece of paper resting in his palm.
“What’s this?” he said, startled, looking at the paper. The room was quiet.
The paper was the same size as those found in fortune cookies.
“Well, what does it say?” Hargrove asked.
“It’s an Internet address.”
“Which one?”
DJ shook his head. He knew instantly what it meant. He’d been had. DJ shook his head and read it: “www dot Yahoo dot chat dot biblical archeology dot com.”
He looked up. “Thomas McAlister masterminded this entire hoax.”

Hargrove looked over at DJ. He was gazing into space, stoically, hard faced and stone jawed. DJ had never visited the President before and Hargrove hoped he would act appropriately. The Oval Office was not a place for emotions or maverick-like tantrums, and DJ was capable of both.

The President was fifteen minutes late for their briefing. Hargrove could tell from the look on his face that he was coming from a bad meeting. His stomach clenched and he felt bile stinging his esophagus. He and DJ stood.

“Mr. President, thank you for meeting with us. I’ve brought Agent DJ Warrant with me. DJ, I’d like to introduce you to the President. Mr. President, DJ Warrant, the agent assigned to the Ten Commandments case.”

“Gentleman, you have my full attention for fifteen minutes. I’m running late. I apologize. I hope you have good news for me.”
Hargrove felt dizzy and disoriented, but he started right in, eager to get the briefing over with. “Actually, sir, we have a serious complication. We feel it’s only temporary and, in a matter of days, possibly weeks, we will have the situation rectified. It was something that no one could have possibly predicted. DJ is our most experienced field agent and with him involved you can—”
“Hargrove, stop right there!” the President snapped. Hargrove stopped and stared blankly at the President.
“I don’t have time for the approach you’re taking, Hargrove. Give me the facts. Am I to understand you don’t have the Commandments?”
Without waiting for Hargrove to collect himself DJ spoke up. He sensed his direct style was exactly what the President needed right now. “Sir, the archeologist, Thomas McAlister, outwitted us.” He clenched his jaw and his teeth ground together. It had hurt his whole person to admit that.
“He must have gone in the night before the scheduled extraction and replaced the original Ark with a fake. We didn’t think he could or would do it at night, in the dark, so our surveillance was down. The next day, when he pulled the treasure out of the ground, he pulled out the fake. And that’s what our team went in and confiscated. A fake. Well-made. Wellplanted.”
The President had a blank look on his face. It was almost comical, DJ thought, but he snapped back to the present when the President said, “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re supposed to be our best agent. You follow this guy for months. You go down to Mexico with a highly trained Special Forces team that it cost me
ten million dollars
to train, and an Apache assault helicopter, and you get hood-winked by some goddamn
academic
? Some f’ing
professor
?”
“He’s no normal professor sir, he’s very wily, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he had been in the mili—“
“I don’t care if he’s the goddamn roadrunner and you’re wily coyote!

I want those Commandments. Now, you get them. Where is McAlister?” Hargrove had recovered and decided to give DJ a break, “He disap
peared after we took the Ark, sir, but—”
“The
fake
Ark. Let’s not forget that small difference, Hargrove.” “Yes, sir. The fake Ark. We left with the fake and McAlister melted
into the desert. We didn’t think we had reason to continue surveillance.” “Great,” the President said sarcastically.
“We have a lead. Inside the fake Ark there was a web address. It’s the
address to an internet chat room. We feel he’ll show up there soon.” “Your plan is to find him in an Internet
chat room
?” “Yes, sir. That’s the plan.”
“I don’t want to know anymore.” The President said. “Hargrove, I
don’t have time to get involved and do your job for you. I
cannot
micromanage this! I’ll remind you of all the technology and resources you have
at your disposal. Use them. These are resources the archeologist doesn’t
have. We’ve got an election year coming up and the three things I will not
allow are a down-tick in any of the key economic indicators, an up-tick
in crime, or anything that creates more tension than already exists in the
Middle East. That’s what makes this project so important. That’s why I
had hoped and prayed for a positive briefing here today. Jesus, one man
is causing all of this? Hard to believe. Maybe we should hire him and plant
him in Iraq.” The President relaxed a little. Hargrove could tell the worst
was over.
He spoke up, “Actually, sir, the archeologist McAlister is something
we wanted to discuss with you.”
“Yes?”
“As DJ said, McAlister has proven quite a challenge. He’s very shrewd,
an immaculate planner. DJ and I have talked this over at length, and
with McAlister around we may continue to have these complications.
There may be a need to . . . remove him . . . permanently. You know, in
order to guarantee that we get the Commandments. We think we can
use the woman we seized at the dig site as . . . bait.”
DJ stared intently at the President. This was a key moment. He’d
always wondered how the decision was made to assassinate someone. “Do whatever you need to do to get the Commandments. I consider
this a threat to national security. Whatever it takes.” He looked sternly
at Hargrove. “Are we clear?”
Hargrove nodded. His request to kill McAlister had been understood, and granted. The President would now distance himself. “Clear, sir.”
“This briefing will now be removed from my official calendar. There
will be no record that the three of us ever met today and no notes of our
conversation. You are both to remove this meeting from any record you
keep of your activities. DJ?”
“Yes, sir. Clear, sir.”
“Have a good day, Gentlemen. Next time I’ll expect a more positive
briefing.”
So that’s how wet work is ordered, DJ thought. Be vague, but use key
phrases like “whatever it takes” to convey meaning, then distance yourself by removing the meeting from the official record in case there is ever
an inquiry. Jesus, DJ thought, I could never be a politician.

Schooled in Krav-Maga, an aggressive hybrid martial art developed by the Israeli military, he normally would have swept DJ’s feet out from under him, rolled and struck him while he was bewildered. He hadn’t retaliated, because he wanted Ann back, but also for a more obvious reason. Thomas had known that as that helicopter took off, it was taking DJ to the most embarrassing, most humiliating moment of his entire career. When the lid was removed from the Ark and it was found to be a fake, it would be worse than any blow Thomas could’ve bodily inflicted.

Arturo’s wife, Maria, had left the white Christmas lights strung over their patio turned on, and in a move full of understanding, she’d moved a small table close, so he could reach his iced tea without getting up. Also sitting on the table, in his aquarium, was Howard, Thomas’s pet scarab beetle, that he’d given to Arturo’s children. Last time he left Arizona he’d had a feeling that he wouldn’t be returning anytime soon.

As it turned out, the Ark the Moses Riddle had led them to was indeed the second Ark that God had ordered Moses to make, as described in the tenth chapter of Deuteronomy. He’d thought it would be. The gold one had probably been melted down centuries ago. Because of the warnings in the Bible, he and Arturo had been equally nervous about opening the crate that held the Ark. But once they had removed the crate, and taken off part of the ancient clay casing, they were thrilled to see the simple wooden box, darkened with age, but wonderfully preserved. The lid had lifted readily off, and inside was the most incredible thing Thomas had ever seen: two very rough-cut stone tablets, deeply engraved with ancient Hebrew. Holding one and then the other, he had read the script to Arturo. Thomas was the first person to handle the tablets since Moses had placed them in the Ark over 3000 years ago.

They were, almost word for word, the rules outlined in Exodus 34. One: you shall have no other gods before ME. Two: you shall make for yourself no molten gods. Three: you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Four: you shall work for six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest. Five: you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. Six: three times a year you shall bring all your male children before the Lord God. Seven: you shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread. Eight: the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover is not to be left over until morning. Nine: you shall bring the very first of the first fruits of your soil into the house of the Lord your God. Ten: you shall not boil a kid in its mothers milk.

After replacing them, Thomas was again struck by the power the tablets possessed. Their ability to create worldwide pandemonium. If made public, their unearthing would be the media event of the century. Their image would be plastered on the front pages of every newspaper and magazine in the world. Moses would be Time Magazine, Man of the Year. The fact that the four strictest Commandments were not included would create public uproar. The potential moral shift that resulted would fall squarely on Thomas’s shoulders. As would any economic deterioration or escalation of tension in the Middle East.

Yet he would become rich and famous. And any shadow that hung over his career as a result of the firing would be gone. The dilemma was simple. Should he place personal comfort and professional success first and risk unknown economic and religious stability? Or let the world rest, and sacrifice his financial and professional future?
At least Thomas was still in a position to be able to ask such questions. He had outsmarted his pursuers for a second time. It had required an immense amount of planning, but the execution of the plan had not been difficult. It had actually gone better than expected.

When he had returned to the states with Ann, to procure the necessary provisions to extract the Ark, he’d had a fake Ark custom made and shipped to Arturo. At the time, he hadn’t known which version of the real Ark would be in the pyramid. So, he had instructed his artist to make it look like the first one that God asked Moses to make. The popular golden one.

Then, the night before the planned excavation, he and Arturo had gone out to the site, used the winch on the Discovery to move the pyramid stone, unearthed the genuine Ark, and replaced it with the fake. It had taken them all night. He had barely pulled the blanket over himself before Ann woke up, totally unaware that he had left. That day, in full daylight, they had unearthed the fake. Which was stolen from them the minute it was out of the ground.

Thomas tried to remember when he had decided to substitute a fake for the real thing. He couldn’t remember exactly when he’d conceived the idea. Maybe never. Maybe he’d always just assumed that he would, starting back when Dr. Sinistar was overly curious. It was the only way to ensure the real one wasn’t taken from him. Caution, planning, and deciding outcomes had always been hallmarks of his life and work. He was an excellent chess player. He would have been a good courtroom lawyer.

Thomas swung out of the hammock and stood at the edge of the patio, gazing up at the sky
. Where in the world was Ann? Who had her? What was she doing that very minute?
Thomas had become so accustomed to her presence that he often subconsciously assumed she was in the next room. Sometimes, during the past few days, he even thought he heard her voice, but a split second later the painful realization that she was gone would return. But she was not simply gone. She’d been taken. He was angry with himself for not protecting her. But there was also a tinge of guilt.

He should have told her about the switch. Arturo had questioned him about her exclusion from their plans. His reason had been simple. They didn’t need her help, so why bother including her? Why trouble her with the knowledge? But they both knew it was something else. He’d always had a deep inability to fully trust even those closest to him. He was aware of it, and planned to work on becoming more trusting. But not yet. Although he loved Ann, he hadn’t been able to make her privy to everything. Like Arturo.

During this entire campaign Thomas had only left one thing to chance. It was when he had left Arturo alone, to guard the Ark, while he went back to the states to get supplies. Arturo could have called friends, removed the Ark, and disappeared a rich man. But he hadn’t. Now Thomas would trust Arturo with his life. Why hadn’t he given Ann the same break? What quirky, dysfunctional quality made him so damn distrusting? He swore he would change. When he got her back, he would make himself trust her! He would test
himself
. . . not her.

The one benefit now was that Ann was unable to tell her kidnappers where the real Ark was located. As it turned out, the location of the real Ark was Thomas’s only bargaining chip, his only way to get Ann back. That was why he’d left them the Internet address, so he could communicate . . . and bargain. He had the advantage. And it wasn’t his only advantage. Thomas knew a lot more.

He knew who had stolen the Ark, because he knew where it had been taken. Thomas and Arturo had placed a GPS tracking device, the kind sold at Radio Shack, into a small compartment in the body of the crate that held the fake Ark. They had tracked it directly from Mexico to Virginia for the night and then to Washington D.C. It had been in Washington all day at a location that matched the address of the National Museum of Art. Thomas knew the director there, George Valmer, and he now knew that the United States Government had tried to steal the Ark from him.

Since the Ark had not moved from the Museum all day, he figured they had probably opened it by now. Thomas smiled. Valmer had probably called in that old-school buffoon Mark Nelson, to examine the Ark and its contents. With Nelson on the case, there was a good chance they would not have discovered it was a fake yet. Nelson was probably still amazed the tablets had turned to sand. He was probably trying to tell Valmer the fact that Moses put an e-mail address in the Ark was a futuristic prophesy. Thomas finished his drink and reached for his laptop. Time to check the biblical archeology chat room.

He set the IBM Thinkpad in his lap. After plugging it in to his cellular phone, he logged on, went to Bookmarks in his browser, scrolled down the list of sites and clicked on the Biblical Archeology chat room. The screen’s pop-up box asked him to type his user name, then he proceeded to the chat room. He typed in
Moses
and clicked the ENTER button.

The colorful chat room Home Page bounced up on screen. Thomas surveyed the people already in the room:
jasper, mary, sexpert, jade, redtrouble, texastwat, divadreversed, hal,
and other similarly innocuous names. Thomas figured the government would make direct contact using a name he’d recognize, but also probably indirectly through someone who would act as though they were unrelated to the discussion about the Ark.

Blackjack 10:02 p.m.
Moses, nice to meet you. I’m African, but not Egyptian. Same continent, different country.

Blackjack 10:03 p.m.
Moses, you ever been to Africa, or Egypt?
Moses 10:04 p.m.
Yes, I have, both. Tell me what country in Africa are you from?
Blackjack 10:05 p.m.
I grew up in Ethiopia. Ever been there? Did you like Africa? What state are you from?

Moses 10:06 p.m.
Blackjack, I never said I was from the States. Yes, I liked Africa. It is a beautiful continent. What city in Ethiopia?

Blackjack 10:07 p.m.
I just figured you were from the US, most people here are. I’m from Adis Abeda.

Then, suddenly, someone named GOD entered the room. Thomas knew this was his contact. It was confirmed when a private message appeared on his screen.

Private Message
GOD 10:08 p.m.
Hello, Moses. Good to see you again. Wish you were here.

Moses 10:09 p.m.
Hello, God. Glad I’m not. How are you this fine evening?
GOD 10:10 p.m.
I’m not doing well, thanks to you. Something that belongs to me is lost.

Moses 10:10 p.m.
Interesting. I thought you were omniscient. But then, if you were, you could find what you don’t have. Ironically, I’ve lost something, too. Go to the private room RUSE. We can talk it over.

Private Room Ruse
Moses 10:12 p.m.
I don’t like the way you’ve handled this, God. You’re sloppy. Hitting me was a mistake. You’ve tried to steal what is not yours and you’ve taken Ann. If you’ve hurt her, in any way, we’re through.

GOD 10:14 p.m.
YOU don’t like the way this has been handled? I’ve got a pine box, spray painted gold, full of fucking beach sand!

Moses 10:14 p.m.
Good. It’s all you deserve. I did the research, solved the riddle, found the treasure . . not you. You’re lucky to get sand. Have you hurt her?

GOD 10:15 p.m.
The Angel has not been hurt. So far. Only slightly scuffed. Currently, she is very comfortable. But that can change, quickly. You tell us where you are. We’ll bring her to you. You don’t have to tell us where the Ark is, until you see her.

Moses 10:16 p.m.
You’d better be telling the truth. And, you aren’t in a position to dictate!
GOD 10:17 p.m.
We will make a trade. The angel for the Ark. You’ll tell us where you are. We’ll bring her. You don’t have to tell us where the Ark is until you see her.

Moses 10:18 p.m.
Feeling a little powerful, aren’t we God, considering I’ve got what you want.
GOD 10:19 p.m.
NO! I’ve got what YOU want! If you want to see her again, you’ll tell me where you are right now, without any more games! We’ll bring her with us. You have my word.

Thomas knew the government had a dirty past, and had probably killed many innocent people, but he didn’t think they would kill Ann over this. Not as long as he had possession of the Ten Commandments.

Moses 10:20 p.m.
Your word means nothing to me. I’ll agree to exchange the Ark for her, but it will be on my terms. If you kill or hurt her, you’ll get nothing. I’ve got the Ark, witnesses, and access to the press. If we don’t do it my way, I’ll release it to the press. The country will be screwed. Best of all, you’ll be screwed.

GOD 10:21 p.m.
It will be on my terms, it has to be, or it won’t work. Now tell me your location!!!

Moses 10:22 p.m.
God, you’ve gotten too pushy for me. We do it my way. Since you’re not ready to accept that right now, I’m leaving. See you here tomorrow, same time. And don’t bother trying to trace this call, I have a cellular modem. Bye.

Thomas turned off his computer. It was time for one of Maria’s fabulous dinners.
In Washington D.C., in the basement of the Pentagon, DJ slammed his fist against the wooden table. “
Damn-son-of-a-bitch
!”
He sat next to Elmo, who had been typing for him, playing GOD. DJ glared at a man working at an electronics board on the far side of the room. The man was listening. Waiting. He was a government call-tracing expert. Currently, he was on the phone with the administrator of the Yahoo chat room, waiting to get the URL of the person who had dialed in using the name Moses.
Finally the man took off his headset.
“Well, what’d you get? Where the fuck is he?
The man shrugged. “Untraceable. He used a cellular modem.”