portable.”
“If there’s anything suspicious, Dr. Locke,” Perez said, “we’ll find it. Don’t worry.” The tone was condescending, as if the FBI agent were soothing a doting mother sending her child off to kindergarten. Locke didn’t like being talked down to, and despite what Perez had said, Locke didn’t think he really was taking the threat seriously.
“That’s good to hear, Agent Perez,” Locke said, “because if you don’t, someone’s going to get on that ship with a device that will kill every single person on board.”
THIRTY-THREE
Locke walked into the office he’d set a aside for Dilara to find her surrounded by books that overflowed the desk she sat at.
“A little light reading?” he asked.
“Your company was kind enough to retrieve my father’s notes and research that I put in storage. They arrived by FedEx this morning. After I heard the news that he was missing, I looked through them for clues, but I didn’t find anything useful, so they’ve just moldered since then. I thought this would be a good time to go back through them.”
“His research on Noah’s Ark?”
Dilara nodded. “It was his obsession. He believed in the historical relevance of the Bible, that there was a basis in fact for the Flood story. If he could find Noah’s Ark, it would show that the Flood had actually occurred.”
“It might also piss off a lot of people if it showed it didn’t happen exactly as the Bible told.”
“My father didn’t care about that. He cared about truth. He was curious. He loved the thrill of discovery, no matter what the discovery contradicted. And he didn’t believe that the Bible was an infallible document delivered directly from God’s mouth. He thought that the Bible was fallible precisely because humans had manipulated it throughout the centuries.”
“You mean the translations?”
“Exactly. The Bible has been translated from the original Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. He knew it was possible that, along the way, errors were introduced in the text. The multiple English translations alone show that it can be interpreted in different ways.”
She pulled out a sheaf of notes.
“These are his handwritten transcriptions from the Douay-Rheims version of the Bible, which most scholars view as the most accurate English translation. Specifically, Genesis seven through ten. Look at this line here.”
Now the line read,
“Doesn’t seem that different to me,” Locke said. “Is there anything else?”
Dilara pointed to the next line.
“Still seems like splitting hairs,” Locke said.
“I agree. But there’s one more that’s even stranger.”
On the next page, he saw,
“‘And the ark rested in the seventh month,’” Locke read, “‘the seven and twentieth day of the month, within the mountains of Armenia.’ What’s the significance?”
“Armenia is generally interpreted to mean Ararat. But why he would change that ‘upon’ to ‘within,’ I’m not sure. There are two peaks of Ararat: Mt. Ararat and Little Ararat. Perhaps he thought the ark rested between the summits.”
Locke looked through the pages and found one more line underlined several times.
Destroy all flesh. Exactly what happened on Hayden’s airplane. Locke shuddered at the coincidence.
“God’s covenant with Noah after the flood,” Dilara said, and then began reciting from memory. “‘And the bow shall be in the clouds, and I shall see it, and shall remember the everlasting covenant, that was made between God and every living soul of all flesh which is upon the earth.’”
“What do you think all these notes mean?” Locke asked.
“He told me his pet theory a number of times, but he never had the historical data to back it up, so I dismissed it. Now I feel so stupid.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. For decades, the best scientists in the world discounted Wegener’s theory of continental drift. Now any geologist who disputed it would be considered a crackpot. What was his pet theory?”
“That a mysterious scroll called the Book of the Cave of Treasures was the key to finding Noah’s Ark. It contained a secret so explosive that no one would believe it unless the actual Ark was found.”
“Let me guess. He never told you the secret.”
Dilara shook her head. “He said he was very close to finding it. In the days before he went missing, he had a breakthrough. The last time I spoke with him, he told me it was only a matter of weeks before he would stun the world with his pronouncement, and that I would be able to hold my head up and be proud of him. I thought it was another of his wild goose chases until Sam Watson came along and turned my world upside down.”
Dilara leaned back and ran her fingers through her hair. The silver locket on her neck reflected the desk lamp and caught Locke’s eye. The locket that Dilara’s father had sent her just before going missing…
“So you think the breakthrough was finding the Book of the Cave of Treasures?” he asked.
“That’s as good a guess as any, but I’ve looked through all of these files. There’s nothing like that here.”
“He would have wanted you to find it, right? In case he couldn’t complete his quest?”
“I suppose so. But he never told me where the scroll was.”
“Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe whoever killed him would have taken it if they had known about it.”
“Then where is it?”
“You said that your father never took that locket off, that you were surprised to receive it. May I see it?”
She unclasped the necklace and handed it to Locke. He opened it and saw the picture of her mother.
“Sam said my father wanted me to have it because he thought he might be killed.”
“Do you know why he sent it to you?”
“He said it was a birthday present.”
Locke looked at the photo again. In the quick look he’d gotten at the oil platform after the helicopter crash, he hadn’t noticed that it had suffered water damage from Dilara’s time in the ocean. The photo was bowed out, as if something had expanded behind it. He took out his Leatherman and unfolded the knife.
“Do you mind? I won’t harm the photo.”
Dilara looked confused, but she nodded her assent. Locke pried at the photo until the plastic covering came loose. The covering and photo fell to the table, along with a tiny piece of paper.
Dilara looked stunned.
“I think there was another reason he wanted you to have this,” Locke said. He carefully unfolded the paper
