The Genesis Plague - Michael Byrnes [83]
‘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 pithos - not a box, but a large clay jar, just like the one Lilith brought into that village.’
‘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 and war - the embodiment of vengeance. An image very similar to this winged figure here,’ she said, ‘is how Ishtar was depicted by the Babylonians. Anyway, I’ve given you an earful I …’ she said apologetically. ‘It’s just that this is all so incredible.’
‘You don’t believe all that hocus-pocus stuff, do you? Demons?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘I believe evil has always been around and in the absence of science, ancient people attributed everything bad to the wrath of gods and demons. All mythology is crammed with superstition.’
‘Let’s have a look at the other pictures Jason sent,’ he suggested, reaching out to help her open the remaining file. When it came up, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. ‘Any idea what this is?’ He turned the BlackBerry back to her.
Brooke’s eyes went wide and she snatched the BlackBerry back from him. ‘Writing,’ she said, excited. ‘The same kind of text I deciphered in the cave’s entry tunnel.’
‘I still don’t see how that is writing?’ The shadowy edges of the tightly packed, wedged-shaped symbols appeared more ‘design’ than text.
‘The oldest writing ever recorded,’ she reminded him. She noticed Lilith’s feet and the bone pile images had been cut off along the top edge of the picture. ‘Looks like Jason found this below the etching of Lilith.’
‘What does it say?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m sure I can decipher it … looks clear enough.’ Luckily, Jason had used plenty of light to pull the shadows out from the characters. ‘But I’ll need to enlarge it.’
Flaherty glanced out the window and was surprised to see that the jet was already gliding in low over the runway at Las Vegas International. ‘No problem. I’ll transfer the file to my laptop,’ he said, patting his carry-on bag. ‘The screen is plenty big. You can read it in the car.’
‘Awesome,’ she said, beaming. ‘Tommy, we might just get Lilith’s story after all. Do you know what that means?’
She looked like a kid who’d just been told she’d have to wait to open her birthday presents. ‘Not really, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.’
47
IRAQ
Lance Corporal Jeremy Levin estimated that fifteen minutes had elapsed since Crawford’s marines hung an American flag from the cross bar directly behind his patient’s head. They’d also set up a tripod-mounted digital camcorder to record the colonel’s systematic interrogation.
This was no ordinary patient.
As Colonel Crawford fired away his probing questions - mainly queries as to where the convoy had been heading and the rumour that Al-Zahrani was plotting to detonate a suitcase nuke in New York on the anniversary of 9/11 - the subdued Kurdish translator used a marker to scrawl the queries on to a notepad in both Arabic and English.
The patient was highly uncooperative; though not by choice, Levin was certain. He could tell by Al-Zahrani’s withdrawn and hazy gaze - unresponsive when the Kurd held the notepad in direct view - that his condition was deteriorating at an alarming rate. Only five minutes ago, Al-Zahrani had begun coughing. Now that cough was persistent and accompanied by heaving lungs that wheezed and gurgled. Coupled with Al-Zahrani’s fever, malaise and runny nose, Levin suspected that the prisoner had come down with the flu. In a civilian setting where containment was a simple matter of bed rest, influenza wasn’t critical, per se. But in the battlefield, the flu could be as deadly as a roadside bomb - which was why Levin