The Sword of Moses Read online

  She ignored the comment and turned back to Hunter. “My task is to spearhead reassembling the museum’s decimated collections. It’s going to take decades. We’re finding looted artefacts as far away as Peru.”

  Hunter’s expression changed. For a split second she thought she saw a flash of remorse, then it was gone. “We dropped the ball on that one, Dr Curzon. We know that now. The chain of command just didn’t appreciate how important the museum was.”

  “Yes, you did,” she replied, anger flaring briefly. “You just had other priorities.” Her eyes flicked to the screen showing the real-time oil price.

  She knew that for weeks before the hostilities began, the coalition’s assault armies had been begged by diplomatic channels to protect the museum and its unique holdings. She knew because she had been tasked with coordinating a briefing paper for the military high command. In it, she had painstakingly explained that the collection was priceless, unique, and irreplaceable—as important to cataloguing human history as the holdings of the British Museum, the Vatican, or the Louvre.

  But in April 2003, as the street-by-street artillery battle raged furiously in Baghdad’s al-Karkh district around the museum complex and the neighbouring Special Republican Guard base, the pleas for the museum’s security were ignored. Unguarded and vulnerable, tens of thousands of its priceless artefacts disappeared into the dark Iraqi night. Some went into pockets and underneath flapping dishdashas, while others were strapped onto borrowed and stolen flatbed trucks.

  International newspapers quickly began to talk of the unprecedented rape of the world’s heritage. They reported that over one hundred and seventy thousand of humanity’s earliest records of writing, literature, maths, science, sculpture, and art were all gone—stolen, destroyed, or lost.

  Ten years on, it still made her furious. It had been a completely preventable catastrophe. But for whatever reason, the coalition military staff had taken the operational decision to sacrifice the museum.

  She had no words to describe how angry it made her.

  Ferguson interrupted her thoughts. “You were telling us about your experience?”

  She nodded, pulling herself back to the present. “My published work deals mainly with the countries of this region’s fertile crescent. My specialism is the Bronze Age.” She smiled. “To most people that means I do the archaeology of the Old Testament period of the Bible.”

  Ferguson looked up from the file, making direct eye contact with her this time. “It says here you had trouble fitting in at school.”

  Ava wondered if she had heard correctly.

  What sort of a question was that?

  She had assumed she was there to help, not to be insulted.

  She looked at the files the three of them were leafing through.

  Were they personnel files?

  On her?

  She stared back at him.

  Was this some kind of test?

  He continued. “And that aged sixteen, you broke out of your boarding school in England. You found an African tourist company on the Earls Court Road in London, and impressed them so much with your knowledge of east African languages that you talked your way into a job as a tour guide on a Blue Nile Sudan cruise from Sannar. Once they’d flown you there and you’d completed the job, you made your own way cross-country into Ethiopia, back to your family home in Addis Ababa, where your father had been on the British embassy’s staff for many years.” He glanced up at her. “That’s very impressive. Are you sure you’re not wasted as an academic?”

  Ava could feel her blood rising.

  Was he purposefully trying to provoke her?

  Hunter intervened with a slight smile. “Dr Curzon, let me assure you, you’re among friends here.” He tapped the DIA file. “We know you followed in your father’s footsteps, and that after graduating you worked for a number of years with the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.”

  Ava could feel the tension in the room mounting.

  Was that what this was about?

  “I’m not allowed to talk about it,” she replied. Despite the unwanted memories, her voice stayed calm. “And I don’t particularly want to, either.”

  There was an uneasy silence.

  “You were top of your intake.” It was Ferguson again. “I see you were the first ever female MI6 officer to work in theatre on an operation with the Increment. That’s also very impressive.” There was a look of genuine curiosity on his face. “Why did you leave?”

  She shook her head. “I said I can’t talk about it. Let’s just say I’d had enough.” It was more than she wanted to say, but it was the truth.

  “So you returned to your first love,” he continued. “Archaeology?”

  She nodded.

  The woman to Hunter’s left cleared her throat. Looking over at her, Ava realized for the first time how tall she was, even sitting down.

  “Dr Curzon, my name is Anna Prince,” the woman began. “I’m with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in DC. We’d like you to have a look at this.” Her accent was east coast—calm and precise.

  The lighting above them dimmed, and the squat projector in the middle of the table hummed into life, throwing a dusty tunnel of light onto the far wall.

  The projected image was of a golden box, about the size of a packing trunk.

  Ava looked at it with professional interest, but it only took her a few milliseconds to recognize it.

  “It’s a model of the Ark of the Covenant,” she said, feeling a bit absurd. She had not been flown to the largest American military base in the world outside the U.S. just to tell them that. Most of the GIs within its razor-wired perimeter could have said as much.

  “What can you tell us about it?” Prince asked.

  Ava looked at the picture more closely. “It’s a photograph of a model—an artist’s impression of what the Ark of the Covenant might have looked like.”

  “Why just an impression?” Hunter asked, frowning. “What does the real one look like?”

  Ava shook her head. “No one knows. There are no carvings, sculptures, or paintings. All recreations are just informed guesswork based on a brief description in the Bible.”

  “What can you tell us about this particular model?” Prince asked. “Is there anything that jumps out?”

  Ava looked back at the image glowing on the wall. “It’s hard to judge the scale, but it looks perhaps a bit larger than normal. More unusual, too. Most of today’s models are broadly similar, but I haven’t seen one quite like this before.” She picked up the laser pointer on the table. “May I?”

  Hunter nodded.

  Ava aimed the pinprick of light at the two winged statues dominating the Ark’s golden lid.

  “From an artistic point of view, this model has some unique features. For instance, the angels on the lid, called cherubim, are atypical. It’s a poor quality photograph, and I can’t see them clearly because their wings are in the way, but it looks like there’s a hint of something Egyptian there.”

  “Egyptian?” Prince asked, frowning. “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” Ava replied, “the artist is a clear thinker, and not someone who sheepishly follows the crowd. Most people depict the cherubim as Christian angels—like on greetings cards and in church windows. But, of course, according to the legend, the Hebrews built the Ark in the desert on their return from a hundred years of slavery in Egypt. So it would be logical for the Ark to have Egyptian influences—especially because, many experts believe, the ancient Hebrews didn’t have their own artistic style.”

  Ava put the laser pointer down, not really sure what they wanted her to say.

  “Legend?” Prince asked. Unless Ava was misreading it, there was a note of surprise in her voice. “You said the Exodus, when the Hebrews wandered in the desert and built the Ark, was a legend?”

  Ava nodded. She knew this was a sensitive topic for many people. “The truth is,” she answered, “no one knows for sure. The vast majority of events in the Bi
ble are uncorroborated by independent texts or archaeological evidence. Scholars are divided on whether the adventures of the ancient Hebrews chronicled in the Bible ever really happened—whether figures like Abraham, Moses, David, or Solomon ever existed in the way they’re described, or at all. Even King Solomon’s Temple isn’t universally accepted, as no evidence of it has ever been found.”

  “The Bible stories never happened?” Hunter asked, unable to mask his curiosity.

  “Not necessarily,” Ava replied. “For instance, each story may contain an embedded trace element of an ancient historical event, but over time it has been so interwoven and embroidered with the heroic and the supernatural that it’s no longer recognizable. It’s not an uncommon process. You see the same with the Norse myths, the adventures of Greek and Roman heroes and demigods, the Indian Mahabharata, and even folk stories like the tales of King Arthur and his knights of the round table.”

  Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Well, Dr Curzon, you don’t disappoint. You clearly call it as you see it.” He eyed her carefully. “I like that.”

  “But surely the Ark of the Covenant existed?” Prince pressed her.

  Ava hesitated. There was a knack to finding the right balance with every audience. In her experience, discussing the Bible in the context of scholarship and science often proved a flammable mix.

  “For those who believe in the Bible—” she began, but was cut short by Hunter.

  “It’s okay,” he interrupted, “just give it to us straight.”

  Ava nodded. “The Ark is attested many times in the Bible. In my view it, or something very like it, almost certainly existed. But we cannot be confident how, when, or where it was created, or what its purpose was.”

  All of the people around the table were listening intently. Prince was making detailed notes.

  “What did it do?” Hunter asked, tapping his fingers thoughtfully on the table. “I mean, what was it for?”

  “Again, we only have the Bible for guidance,” Ava answered. “The Book of Exodus says the Hebrews used the Ark as a strongbox to carry the stones engraved with the Ten Commandments. They also put in it a pot of manna, the miraculous food that fell from the heavens as they crossed the desert. Another part of the Bible says that it also contained the ceremonial staff of Moses’s brother, Aaron, the first high priest.” Ava paused. “It was essentially their tribal treasure chest, a coffer containing key symbols of their cultural identity.”

  “That’s it?” Ferguson asked. “Then why was it was so sacred, if it was just a decorated carrying case?”

  Ava nodded. “There’s more. The lid was called the Mercy Seat. Yahweh, the Hebrews’ God, told them he would meet with them there, above the lid, between the wings of the cherubim, in order to give them instructions. That’s why it was thought to possess divine power, and why the Hebrews carried it into battle with them,” Ava paused. “As a divine object, access to it was strictly controlled. According to the Bible, on one occasion Yahweh killed fifty thousand and seventy people just for looking at it.”

  Prince shifted in her seat.

  “And it was kept in King Solomon’s Temple, right?” Hunter asked after a pause.

  “Later,” Ava nodded. “If the Bible is correct, it was built around 1290 BC. At first, the wandering Hebrews kept it in a tent called the Tabernacle, which they pitched whenever they stayed anywhere for a period. But once King David had conquered Jerusalem and the Hebrews ceased to be a nomadic tribe, his son Solomon completed the first solid Temple around 957 BC, and placed the Ark in it as its most sacred treasure.”

  “What happened?” Prince asked. “What became of it?”

  Ava took a sip of the water Hunter passed her. “The Ark disappeared from history’s pages in 597 BC, when the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon razed Jerusalem to the ground in one of the most cataclysmic events ever to befall the Hebrews.”

  “Babylon?” Prince frowned. “Wasn’t that in Mesopotamia or somewhere near there?”

  “Mesopotamia is modern Iraq,” Ava confirmed. “Babylon is about fifty miles south of Baghdad.”

  A silence fell across the table.

  Ava had no idea what she had just said, or why the three of them were staring at her.

  Hunter spoke next, this time slowly and deliberately, wrinkling his brow as he directed the question at her carefully.

  “So, Dr Curzon, you’re telling us that a long time ago an Iraqi warlord sacked Jerusalem and took away the Hebrews’ most sacred religious object—their God’s throne?”

  Ava was beginning to feel the strain of not knowing what this was about. “The Bible says Nebuchadnezzar razed Jerusalem and carried off all but the poorest people from the southern kingdom of Judah. He took them to Babylon, where they lived undisturbed, but in exile. Before leaving, he torched the Jerusalem Temple and melted down its great pillars and other bronze objects, and carried off all the booty to Babylon. There’s no specific record of what happened to the Ark, but Nebuchadnezzar looted everything of monetary or propaganda value—and the Ark must have been top of his list.”

  She took another sip of the water. “But there are other legends, too. Contradictory ones. Like the Ark being kept in the Jerusalem Temple on a mechanical apparatus for lowering to safety into a subterranean tunnel system if ever danger loomed.”

  There was another long pause.

  Too long.

  Ava was keenly aware the atmosphere in the room was becoming increasingly charged by the moment.

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” she turned to Hunter. “Why are you so interested in the Ark’s history and this model?”

  Hunter pursed his lips, interlacing his fingers. Fixing her with his grey eyes, he took a deep breath and sat forward in his chair. “Let’s just say this is now a military priority, and something we all need to learn about real quick.”

  Ava could feel her palms growing moist.

  Had she heard right?

  She bunched her hands into fists under the table, and dug her nails into the flesh of her palms. She was barely aware of asking the next question.

  She heard her voice, as if from a distance. “Where did this model come from?”

  Hunter looked over at Prince. After a pause, the tall woman nodded slowly.

  He turned back to Ava, placing his huge hands flat onto the table in front of him. “Dr Curzon, this is not a model in a museum. It’s a photograph, taken this morning by a hostile party in a warehouse in Kazakhstan. It comes to us with an assurance that it’s the real Ark of the Covenant, and with certain very serious political demands.”

  Ava heard his words, but had trouble processing them. It was as if he was talking in slow motion.

  Her mind whirred.

  Was this some kind of elaborate hoax?

  When she spoke, her voice was hoarse and cracked. She addressed the question to the whole table. “Are you telling me you believe this might really be the genuine Ark of the Covenant?”

  Hunter fixed her with a hard stare and exhaled deeply. When he spoke, it was in a low and quiet voice. “That, Dr Curzon, is precisely what you’re going to tell us. The hostile party has said we can send an independent expert to verify the artefact. You just got the job. Major Ferguson here will go with you as your technical assistant.”

  Ava’s head spun.

  “Your plane leaves for Kazakhstan in forty minutes.” Hunter got up to leave. “Ms Prince will see you are provided with everything you need for your trip.”

  A thousand questions flooded Ava’s mind.

  “General, I’ll need lab conditions to examine the artefact—special lighting, tools and chemicals, photographic equipment—”

  Hunter waved his hand dismissively as he opened the door for her. “I’m afraid none of that will be possible. You’ll be fully briefed on arrival in Astana. I believe you already know Peter DeVere. He’ll be joining you there, and he’ll fill you in.”

  Despite the reassuring tone in Hunter’s voice, the effect the name had on Ava w
as anything but comforting. As she heard the words, she felt as if she had just been punched hard in the stomach.

  ——————— ◆ ———————

  3

  US Central Command (USCENTCOM)

  Camp as-Sayliyah

  The State of Qatar

  The Arabian Gulf

  Prince had shown Ava to the visitors’ facilities so she could freshen up and take a hot shower.

  Once the tall American had left, Ava headed for the ablutions area. It was basic—a heavily air-conditioned section of the large prefabricated hangar, indistinguishable from the rest of Camp as-Sayliyah.

  Her head was buzzing as she stepped under the steaming jets of water.

  Despite the outside temperature, she could feel her shoulders dropping as the hot water began to work out the tension that had been building ever since the escort of marines had arrived at her Baghdad office that morning.

  With the steam rising around her, she tried to make sense of the bombshells General Hunter had dropped on her in the briefing room, and to calm the maelstrom they had set swirling inside her head.

  She had been completely unprepared for the news that the American and British governments believed the historical Ark of the Covenant might be sitting at that moment in a Kazakh warehouse.

  And she had been knocked sideways to learn that she had been chosen by them to go and evaluate it. The Ark was one of those objects that all archaeologists dreamed of, but none ever expected to see. She was still having difficulty digesting the information fully.

  But the Ark aside, she had been equally overwhelmed to find out that an organization she had wanted nothing to do with for the last eight years now seemed to be back in her life. General Hunter had mentioned Peter DeVere, and if DeVere really was waiting for her in Kazakhstan, then it could only mean that MI6 was closely involved.

  Her stomach tightened.

  She had known DeVere for as long as she could remember. Throughout her childhood, he had been her father's most trusted friend in the Firm. He had become a frequent visitor to their home, and practically an adopted member of the family.