“Not if we leave it alone. But nitro is touchy stuff. The bottom of the crate is full of it. A good nudge could set it off. The explosion could bring the entire roof down.”
“Let’s walk on the other side,” Grant said.
Skirting to the opposite side, they moved to the back of the cave, where it ended at a crack-covered wall that spanned the entire width. Locke examined it closely and noticed that one of the cracks was contiguous and framed a rough square eight feet on each side. He knelt and ran his hands over the floor. His fingers dug into a soft spot of sand that had been used to fill in a groove in the floor. He excavated the groove and found that it formed an arc away from the right side of the crack border.
“This is a door,” he said. “It was constructed to tight tolerances for those days, but that border is manmade. This channel must be used to guide it. I’d love to know how they built it.”
“I’d love to know how we open it,” Dilara said.
“We can’t. At least, not from here.”
“Why not? Is there another secret button?”
“No. My guess is that it can only be opened from the inside. That’s what your father meant when he said Garrett can’t get in. He only gave Garrett this entrance, but he knew it was a one-way door, probably as a security feature for the Ark. Once the construction was completed and the animals were inside, they could push this closed from out here and use the window to get in. It would be smaller and more easily defended. To open something this big, you’d have to push it from the inside.” Locke couldn’t hide his admiration for the accomplishment. “Noah must have been a hell of an engineer.”
“Then the Ark is behind this rock?” Dilara’s voice was suffused with hushed awe.
Locke ran his hand over the door to Noah’s Ark.
“Let’s hope Garrett isn’t waiting for us on the other side.”
SIXTY-FOUR
Sebastian Garrett looked through his binoculars at the three men huddled near the cave entrance 400 yards below him. The morning sun was directly in front of him, so he had to be careful not to shine a reflection in their direction. The men at the cave were scattered in what cover they could find around the entrance, and Garrett could see the heads of only two of them.
Locke had come, just as Garrett knew he would. When Garrett saw Locke and the others emerge from the church at Khor Virap, the priest gesticulating wildly, it was obvious they had found the chamber. Destroying the chamber would no longer be productive. It might even be detrimental, alerting Locke to Garrett’s presence.
As soon as he saw them leave, Garrett had taken his group back across the border into Turkey, lavishly bribing the border guards to get across. Then, using the GPS coordinates Cutter had established from their previous visit to the Ark’s location, Garrett led them up the mountain in the darkness. All of them were equipped with generation-three night vision goggles that amplified the faintest starlight to make the terrain look as detailed as it was in the day, making the hike relatively easy when they could drive no more because of the terrain. With the help of stimulants, they remained awake and arrived just in time to watch Locke’s helicopter swoop in.
Svetlana and the two guards were concealed behind a rock. Cutter crouched at Garrett’s side, holding the VAL sniper rifle to his shoulder.
“How close do you need to get to take out those men?” Garrett asked.
“I could hit one of them from here,” Cutter replied, “but the others are spread out. They’d be able to find cover before I could take them down.”
“We need a diversion.” Garrett lowered his voice so the others couldn’t hear. “Your men are expendable.”
Cutter nodded his agreement and whispered, “I’ll have them circle around from the south. I’ll tell them to surrender, and when Locke’s men come out to get them, I’ll have my opportunity. If I’m lucky, I can take all three of Locke’s men down before they can react.”
“Excellent. What about their communications gear?”
“I’ll activate our broadband radio jammer right before we attack. Should we get into place now?”
“Not yet. We examined that cave from top to bottom. There’s no switch like the one in Khor Virap. I don’t think it’s the real entrance, but if Tyler doesn’t emerge in the next few minutes we’ll have to assume he made it in somehow.”
“It’s risky to try to infiltrate through a choke point like that. I still think it’s better to wait until they come out with the amulet and kill them all then.”
“No,” Garrett said firmly. “We have to follow them in. I don’t want to take the chance that Tyler will destroy the amulet inside the cave. Once we know where the real entrance is, we make our move.”
Cutter pointed. “There they are.”
Locke, Grant Westfield, and Dilara Kenner stepped into the sunlight.
“See,” Garrett said. “That cave isn’t the way in.”
He watched as Locke waved to his three men and began walking south.
“Keep your eyes out for an opening a lot smaller than that one,” Locke said. “Probably just big enough for a man to get through.”
He began counting paces again. When he got to 70, he slowed, looking at every nook in the rock face that might hide a cave. When he reached 93, he was even with a crevice that fit the bill. It was narrow, no more than two feet across and seven feet high. The only problem was that it was filled with dirt and rocks, as if the roof had caved in hundreds of years ago.
He walked farther on and got to 125 paces before he turned back, convinced that the crevice was what he was looking for.
“You think that’s it?” Dilara said.
“If it is, it means we got here first. No way did Garrett get here and plug it up after he was gone. Why would he go to that trouble?”
“I feel some manual labor coming on,” Grant said. He handed out two folding shovels and took a third for himself, shoving the blade into the crevice.
There was no telling how far back the cave-in went. They might have to dig for hours or days before getting through. Still, they didn’t have much choice. They had to be the first to get into the Ark, and this was the entrance. Locke was sure of it.
It turned out that they only had to dig for two hours before Grant’s shovel plunged through into air. They swept out the remaining dirt and shined flashlights down a passageway that ended farther than the light could reach.
Everyone had radio earpieces in. Locke told the mercenaries that at least five hostiles might make an attempt for the cave. The mercenaries were to stay outside and radio if anything out of the ordinary occurred. Locke would check in every 15 minutes.
The mercenaries took covered positions. Locke made sure the packs he and Grant carried fit through the opening. The three of them put on hardhats, and Locke looked at Dilara.
“Ladies first?” she said.
“Given that you’re the one who started all this, I thought you deserved to be the first one to see the Ark.”
She smiled. “Thank you. I’ll remember this day for the rest of my life.”
Dilara took a deep breath and entered the crevice. She was immediately swallowed by the darkness. Locke went in behind her, dragging his pack, and Grant took up the rear.
The going was slow. At several points, the passageway was so narrow that Locke wasn’t sure Grant would be able to squeeze his bulging pecs through.
“You going to make it?” he said to Grant.
“It’s a tad tight,” Grant said between gasps. “If I get stuck, we’ll radio the guys outside to send in a bucketful of warm butter.”
