The mummy case (23 page)

By my judgment, the landslide is directly over Liz.

And I am moving myself, clawing my way over the loose rocks. Mount Ararat, at least this lower section, is comprised almost entirely of loose shale, which made footing treacherous. At the moment, I could give a damn about my footing. I use my hands to help claw my way forward. I slide and fall often, slashing my knees and palms on the sharp-edged rocks. Whole sections of shale slip out from under me as if they were banana peels. I fall hard, painfully and often, but still I continue.

The mountain shakes harder. From behind me, emerging from his tent, I can hear my Kurdish guide shouting at me, warning me to stay away.

To hell with that. The churning wall of rock has now picked up considerable steam. Anything could have set this rock slide in motion. We are just below the snow line, and so there are some pastures above and around us. A wandering sheep, shepherded by local Turks, could have set off this raging, churning mass of earth. The mountain is called
Angri Dagh
for a reason. The Mountain of Pain.

I continue my mad scrabble forward. My knees are badly cut, pouring blood into my boots. My palms are torn and slick with the stuff.

The outcropping of boulders is just ahead. Thirty feet. I can hear my own breathing rattling in my head and lungs, my desperate gasps mixed with the ominous rumblings around and above me.

Errant loose pebbles shower down on me. I am at the fringes of the coming rockslide. Now larger rocks pelt me, cracking my jaw and skull.

Still, I keep moving forward. Falling, crying out to her.

And there she is. Appearing from around the corner, hastily pulling at her loose drawstrings. She stops and looks up. I do, too. A wall of rock, a tidal wave of earthen fury, rears above her like a living nightmare.

“
Sam!” There is fear in her voice. We have traveled through the world’s most dangerous places, we have endured tyrants and terrorists, and this is the first time I hear such fear.

And it will be the last.

I move forward, faster, falling hard. A churning cloud of dirt and debris fills the air. Liz lunges forward, moving as fast as she can—

Just as a speeding wall of rocks
slams
into her, hurling her fifty yards into the air. She disappears in a hail of merciless churning debris that continues down the mountainside.

She was there one moment and gone the next. I am left standing in shock, gasping and weeping and bleeding.

It would take me three days to find her mangled body.

And when I do, true to mountain climbing tradition, I bury my sweet girl high on the desolate slopes of Mount Ararat, deep in a secluded mountain cave....

* * *

Now, with the distant rumblings of a thunderstorm approaching, I sit up in bed, gasping, hearing her calling my name over and over again, as if she were just outside my window. The cracking thunder sounds ominously similar--too similar—to the devastating rockslide.

My fumbling hand finds my lighter and a pack of cigarettes on the nightstand. I light up a smoke and sit at my window and stare down at the empty street. The first drops of rain splatter against my window and I exhale a plume of smoke, squinting, and discover that tears from my dream had dried on my cheeks.

I sit like that until morning, smoking and weeping silently.

* * *

Or not. I think, perhaps, I must have fallen asleep, because Liz is suddenly standing just outside my two-story window, which overlooks a battered industrial street. Liz has no business standing out there in the middle of the night, in the rain. Besides, she has been dead for three years.

I dash out my cigarette, mashing it against the woodframe of the window. Liz is standing there on the curb in her cargo pants with its too-many pockets, pockets she always stuffed with her essentials. Liz hates purses. Even from here, through the slanting rain and darkness, through the window and my tears, I could see her pant pockets bulging with everything from basic cosmetics to snack food. Once, I had even seen her place an injured lizard into such a pocket.

“
Come out of the rain,” I say. As I speak, I try desperately to open the bedroom window, but it won’t budge. Strange, it has never been stuck before. I frantically work at the lock, growing increasingly desperate and furious. I am nearly ready to drive an elbow through the glass, to get to Liz, when she speaks to me from the street. Her voice rising up through wind and rain and a closed window supernaturally easily.

“
It’s okay, Sam,” she says hauntingly, her voice sweet and raspy. “Leave the window be. I don’t mind standing out in the rain. I like the rain, remember?”

“
Yes, I remember,” I say frantically, thrilled that I am talking to her again, but still frustrated to no end by the stubborn window. “But if I can get this window open you can come inside and stay dry and I can protect you and keep you warm.”

“
Forget the window, Sam.”

I try the lock again.

“
I said forget the window. You can be so stubborn. Please, Sam. We need to talk.”

At her insistence, I let the window issue drop and settle for pressing my hot forehead against the cold glass.

“
Were you just smoking, Sam?”

“
Yes.”

“
When did you start smoking?”

“
When you died.”

“
You’ve been drinking, too,” she says.

“
Yes.”

“
Too much, I think,” she says.

“
Yes, probably. I miss you. I can’t help it. I miss you so much. The drinking...it helps a little. I’m sorry.”

She lets the issue go. “So what are you doing with yourself these days, Sam?”

I shrug, suddenly ashamed. “Not much, really. I run a small bar here in town, and lead the occasional expedition. I’m a certified Ararat guide.”

The rain continues down. The image of my fiancé wavers briefly behind the glass. Lightning flashes directly overhead, illuminating the street. And when it does, she briefly disappears. But now she is back, to my great relief.

“
Why are you still in this godforsaken place, Sam?” she asks.

“
Because I don’t want to leave you, Liz. Don’t you see? I can’t leave you. You are buried all alone up on that fucking mountain, and I’m the only one who knows where you are buried, and I visit you as often as I can.”

“
It’s been three years, Sam. You can leave me now. It’s okay.
I’m
okay. I’ve moved on. You should, too.”

“
But you’re still here,” I say, speaking into the glass at the figure standing on the dark street below. Her pants flutter in the wind, and her raven-colored hair lifts and falls. I could see her eyes sparkling with tears even from here. “I can see you, and you’re still here.”

“
No,” she said. “I’m not.”

And then my heart breaks all over again, because now I can distinctly see
through
her. Now amorphous, she shimmers like a ghost.

“
Please,” I say, real desperation in my voice. I press my face hard against the glass, fingernails clawing. “Please don’t go. You’ve only just returned. You’re the only girl I’ve ever loved, the only girl who’s ever loved me. I can’t live alone, not anymore.”

“
Go home, Sam. It’s time for you to go home.”

“
I love you,” I say.

“
I know you do,” she says.

And then she disappears, and the wind and rain blows across the empty street, and I hang my head....and when I awoke this morning, this was the position I found myself in.

Chapter Two

Dogubayazit, Turkey

Present Day

Faye Roberts was sitting across from me on a rare blustery day here in Eastern Turkey, telling me that she’d heard I was the best guide in Dogubayazit.

I tried to look humble.

We were sitting in my upstairs office with the rain beating down on the big window behind my desk. In the bar below, rock music thumped up through the floorboards. American rock music. None of that Turkish folk crap. Mostly, I was doing my best to forget the heartbreaking dreams of the night before, but failing miserably. I was also wondering if it was a coincidence that an American girl had miraculously appeared in my bar, seeking my help.

I didn’t know, but the word
spooky
, came to mind.

I tried to focus on the girl in front of me. Faye Roberts could not have looked more out of place. In the bar below was a room full of desert nomads and shepherds, drinking fine Turkish beer and wine, smelling of goats and dirt and sweat, and here in my office was this woman who was, well, all woman. And an American woman at that.

“
And you say you traveled alone?” I asked again, incredulous.

“
You sound incredulous.”

“
Which is why I asked incredulously.”

“
Do you always make jokes?” she asked.

“
Do you always travel unescorted through potentially volatile Middle Eastern countries?”

“
I didn’t realize Turkey was volatile.”

“
Which is why I said potentially.”

Faye Roberts was a confident woman. Perhaps too confident. She seemed smart and didn’t have a problem letting you know it. Perhaps that’s how she had survived this far alone, at the far end of a place called nothing. There she sat in a fold-out chair opposite me, looking me square in the eye, daring me to challenge her.
She was wearing a USC sweatshirt and blue jeans, both presently stained with beer. Her right hand was bandaged with a strip of semi-clean cloth (it was all we had lying around the bar).
Her attire screamed American. Her brown hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail that looked painful, and her opaline green eyes were big and round. She wore little make-up.

“
Camilla Constantine suggested that I see you,” she said.

Camilla Constantine owned the hotel next to my bar. She was Dogubayazit’s wealthiest resident and biggest drunk—and I should know.

“
Apparently, Camilla suggested you see me just in time,” I said.

Faye Roberts glanced down at her bandaged hand. “You think he will be okay?”

“
The
yuruk
? Oh, sure. He’ll be back to his goats in no time.”

She nodded, clearly relieved.

“
How can I help you, Miss Roberts?”

“
Please call me Faye.”

“
Sure,” I said. “How can I help you, Miss Faye.”

She wasn’t amused. She paused and seemed uncertain how to begin. She tapped her finger on her slender thigh. Her nails were short and unpainted. She sucked in some air and finally said, “I need to get to Mount Ararat.”

I sat back. Behind me the rain
pinged
against the glass. Cool air escaped through the shoddy cocking around the window. Laughter suddenly erupted from the bar below. Somewhere nearby a goat bleated. I hated goats.

“
Did Camilla mention that the mountain is closed to all visitors?”

“
Yes, but I’m willing to pay triple your asking price, including a bonus if we find what I’m looking for.”

“
I assume you’re talking about Noah’s Ark,” I said.

She shook her head emphatically. “No, Mr. Ward. A month ago my father set out to climb Mount Ararat and he’s never returned.” She leveled her stare at me. “And I want you to help me find him.”

I removed a crumpled pack of cigarettes from my flannel shirt, opened the lid and glanced inside. There were three cigarettes left, and one of them was broken. I put an unbroken one in my mouth, and held the box out to Faye Roberts. She leaned forward and looked inside.

“
Do you always offer your clients broken cigarettes?” she asked.

I pulled the last good cigarette out, which had been hiding behind the broken one.

“
Not this one,” I said. “And you’re not my client.”

I kept holding the cigarette and she kept looking at it, with the look of a hungry bear eyeing something warm and meaty.

“
So, do you want it or not?”

She shook her head after a moment of indecision, eyes lingering on the cigarette.

“
I’d better not. I’ve been clean for two months.”

I shrugged and lit a match and touched a yellow flame to the tip of the cigarette.

“
I quit fourteen years ago. Luckily, I have a very loose definition of
quit
.” I exhaled a steady stream of blue-gray smoke. “So, who’s your father?”

She was watching me exhale with obvious interest, green eyes round and envious. “Professor Caesar Roberts.”

I knew the name. “Biblical archaeologist from California Christian College. Noted author, and ark researcher. Somewhere in my apartment I have one of his books.”

“
The one and only,” she said, face reddening suddenly. “Don’t tell me you actually read that dreadful thing.”