for what happened at the World Trade Center. Jason’s brother had been an insurance broker for Marsh USA. Went to work early that morning … to his office on the ninety-fifth floor of the North Tower. They never found the body. So indirectly, one could say that Al-Zahrani, or at least what he stands for, was also responsible for killing Jason’s brother,’ he explained.
She nodded.
‘Jason must be freaking out.’
‘I bet he is.’
‘I hope he doesn’t do something drastic.’
‘What, like kill him?’
Flaherty nodded. ‘Not that anyone would shed a tear for Al-Zahrani. But Jason could get himself in a lot of trouble.’
‘I doubt he’d be anything but a hero,’ she disagreed.
‘I suppose. God, imagine when people find out about this. It’s amazing.’
‘So let’s see those pictures,’ she said, anxiously eyeing the BlackBerry.
‘Sure, let’s have a look.’ Flaherty read aloud the name Jason had assigned the first attachment, ‘Mass Grave’. He exchanged an uneasy glance with Brooke, then opened the file. When he saw it, he cringed. ‘Yikes. Take a look at this.’ He handed the BlackBerry to her.
The picture clearly showed a dense pile of human bones. Brooke wasn’t sure how to react. ‘This is what Frank’s team had been studying?’
‘Seems so. There are a few other pictures here,’ he said, showing her how to open the remaining files.
There were two more shots of heaped bones showing wider angles that Jason obviously had taken to emphasize the magnitude of what he’d found. The continuous death pile seemed to circle the cave. In the images, Brooke could make out the rocky walls and ceiling.
‘It’s pretty spacious in there,’ Flaherty noted as he looked on.
‘And it’s packed full of bones,’ she muttered. ‘God, look at all that … There’s got to be hundreds, maybe thousands …’
‘I’d go with thousands.’
The next picture Brooke brought up hit her like a sledgehammer. ‘Look at this,’ she said, turning the display to Flaherty.
He squinted to make out the details. ‘What are those?’
‘Mandibles.’
‘Mandibles?’
‘Jawbones,’ she said, grabbing her own chin.
‘I know what a mandible is. It’s just that …’ Still looking confused, his eyes went back to the picture. He pointed to his own mouth and said, ‘There aren’t any—’
‘Teeth!’ she exclaimed. ‘Of course!
‘All right, smarty. I would have figured that out. Still don’t understand this bizarre fascination with teeth.’
‘Me neither,’ she admitted.
Three more pictures remained.
The next image took Brooke’s breath away.
‘What is that?’ Flaherty said, tipping his head to see the image. It wasn’t at all what he might have expected. ‘Hubba hubba. Who’s that?’
At first, Brooke didn’t respond. She was absorbed in the image - a wall etching that depicted a voluptuous, naked woman in full-frontal. Flaring out from beneath her raised arms were bird-like wings and she wore an elaborate conical headdress. In her left hand, she held a serpent. Perched on her right hand was some kind of bird. And beneath her feet was a pile of human skeletons.
Flaherty tried to be more specific: ‘This supposed to be the same woman whose head got lopped off?’
‘Looks that way.’
‘Why would they behead an angel?’
Without taking her troubled gaze off the image, Brooke sharply shook her head. ‘No. Not an angel. Protective spirits … the
‘Okay. So what does that mean?’
Brooke took a deep breath and looked up at him. ‘It implies that she is a demon.’
46
‘A
‘That’s right,’ Brooke said.
‘Hmm. Too bad,’ he said in jest.
She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m sure it’s a real tragedy that such a nice pair of boobs went to waste,’ she grumbled, grabbing the BlackBerry from him.
He held up his hands as if to declare his innocence. ‘What?’
She held the picture close to her eyes and squinted.
‘I can show you how to zoom in on it,’ Flaherty offered. ‘What are you trying to see?’
‘Not her boobs,’ Brooke said, to torture him a bit more. ‘There’s a symbol on her wrist …’
‘Here, let me help you.’ He wrapped his hand around hers and pulled the BlackBerry closer. Then he tapped on the display to enlarge the area she was interested in.
‘See this rosette on her wrist?’ Brooke said. ‘It’s an ancient symbol of divinity. This conical headdress she’s wearing is also a symbol of godliness.’
‘Okay. So she’s a
She panned across the image to the wide-eyed bird perched on the goddess’s right hand. ‘It’s an owl.’
‘Who-o-o?’ Flaherty joked.
She ignored him. Zooming out to view the full image again, she shook her head and said, ‘God, how did I not think of this? Jason’s right. Of course this is Lilith. The serpent, the owl, the wings …’
‘And who, pray tell, is Lilith?’
‘In the pantheon of ancient Mesopotamian deities, she was the goddess of storms and pestilence. One of the demons the ancients called
Just then, the jet hit a rough patch of air and jostled the cabin hard enough for Brooke to grip her armrests. Within seconds the turbulence smoothed away.
‘Careful … Lilith hears you,’ Flaherty whispered.
Brooke took a calming breath before continuing. ‘Lilith was even said to be the first woman God created alongside Adam. But because she was seductive and mischievous, God banished her from paradise. In exile, she found a new lover to satisfy her carnal desires - one of God’s fallen archangels named Samael. Better known as the Angel of Death or the Grim Reaper.’
‘You don’t say,’ Flaherty said.
‘By copulating with Samael, Lilith became immortal and acquired supernatural powers. Ancient apocryphal texts say that she morphed into a serpent and slithered back into Eden on a mission of vengeance against Adam and Eve. Using her powers of seduction, she persuaded the couple to disobey God so that they, too, lost favour with Him and were banished from Eden. It’s a common mythological theme,’ she explained. ‘Curiosity and forbidden knowledge leading to humankind’s downfall. Usually at the hand of a woman.’
‘Just like Pandora’s Box.’
She grinned tightly. ‘Funny you say that, because in the original Greek myth of Pandora, the vessel containing all the world’s evils is described as a
‘So maybe Pandora was inspired by Lilith too,’ Flaherty said.
‘Maybe. And interestingly enough, Persian mythology separately developed Ishtar as the goddess of love, sex
