The Genesis Plague - Michael Byrnes [105]
Then a coughing fit struck Stokes. He snatched the pocket handkerchief and held it over his mouth. When he was done, he stared at the bloodied linen and struggled to catch his breath. Shaken, he shook his head and laughed.
‘Are you all right?’ Flaherty couldn’t help but ask, trying to avoid looking at the bloodstained handkerchief.
‘Actually I’m not okay, Agent Flaherty,’ Stokes said, mopping his chin, then chucking the vulgar handkerchief in the waste-basket beneath his desk. ‘Which makes this your lucky day.’
‘How so?’ Flaherty asked.
‘You see, I’m not just a smart man. By tomorrow, I’ll be a dead man. Which means I have no reason to hide anything from you. So you’ll get your answers. All of them. You’ll hear things you’ll wish you never heard. But first I’ll need to show you a few things to help you sew your thread.’ He rose to his feet, came around the desk and hesitated. ‘And you’re wrong about one thing.’
‘What might that be?’
‘The cave is the common thread.’
59
Randall Stokes ushered the two guests across the office to an ordinary-looking door centred between two floor-to-ceiling bookcases. He punched a pass code into a keypad mounted on the doorframe to disengage the vault’s pneumatic locking system. He clasped the door handle, paused, and turned to Brooke and Flaherty. ‘Few have ever been in this room. This is where I keep my personal collection,’ he confided in a whisper.
When Stokes pulled the door open, a motion sensor activated the lights in the space beyond.
‘Come and see,’ Stokes said, leading the way inside.
The tantalizing possibilities had Brooke’s heart beating triple-time. She could tell Flaherty’s curiosity was equally piqued.
‘After you,’ Flaherty said to Brooke. As she slipped past him, he paused at the threshold and gave the formidable security door closer consideration. He noted the deadbolt on the door’s inside face. Giving the spacious vault a cursory once-over, he detected no other doors or windows. The air in here was thin. One word came to mind: asphyxiation.
As she moved deeper into the vault, Brooke was rendered speechless by the incredible assortment of Mesopotamian relics Stokes had amassed. Display cases and shelves filled with jaw-dropping specimens: dozens of cuneiform tablets inscribed with the same characters she’d deciphered in the cave; ancient tools from the early Bronze Age, including an axe, chisels, hammers and knives. ‘Are these reproductions?’ she asked Stokes.
‘All originals,’ he said like a proud father. He looked back to the door. ‘Will you be joining us, Agent Flaherty?’
‘Just taking it all in,’ Flaherty said, and made his way over in small steps. The smooth soles of his loafers caught the slick surface of a wide swath of carpet in the room’s centre. A trace of chemicals wafted up into his nostrils. Cleaning solution. The area had been scrubbed very recently. Flaherty had a sneaking suspicion as to why.
‘Oh wow,’ Brooke muttered. She stared in wonderment at the huge monolith carved in bas-relief with two winged Mesopotamian protective spirits, or apkallu, facing one another in profile, as if courting for a dance - each half human, half lion. Raised broad wings and intricate rosettes adorning ceremonial dress depicted their divinity. ‘Is this from Babylon?’
‘No. That was the