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Alexandra Illyria Bathenbrook, age 22—Died in a balloon crash due to an inability to stage a sit-up with a cracked spine incurred when a giant German woman crushed her while bodysurfing.
SUCH AN EPITAPH WAS utterly unacceptable. Alexandra screamed out to Kimball. He released his grasp around one of her ankles and reached a hand over the lip. If the burners weren’t fired soon, they were finished.
This needed to be the one.
Alexandra reversed the knife in her grip. Rocking to gather momentum, she grunted and thrust herself upward. With fierce might, she slammed the knife into the basket.
It stuck like a grappling piton and allowed her to remain upright long enough to lock a hand across Kimball’s wrist. He rolled forward and yanked her aboard. Alexandra crashed atop of him in a rather unseemly position: her face flush into his crotch, and dear God, vice versa. At least the recent distractions had deflated him. She briefly sat on his face upon rising to fire the burners. The balloon was now in free flight and captive to the wind. Tel Megiddo fell out of view.
They drifted across the valley and away from any gunplay.
Alexandra rested her hands on her knees, trying to recover. “Well done, Liam. At least Commander Dyott is not here to witness this.”
Kimball frantically lit a cigarette. “Who precisely is this man?”
Alexandra said, “He will soon take me into deepest Amazonia in a bid to rescue Percy Fawcett.”
It left Kimball gobsmacked. He stood to fire the burners. “It will be less painful and quicker if you jump and die here.”
“Yes.” She collapsed to the floor. “But such is not my destiny.”
“Now we need to fly this thing. Any thoughts?”
She started laughing. “I have faith you’ll sort it out. Yet, despite your yeoman efforts, I fear we’ll end up shattered to pieces. Our deaths, however horrific and painful, must not be in vain.” Alexandra sprang up, retrieved her camera, and took a photograph of him. To his look of annoyance, she explained, “So they can identify our disfigured remains. Now you take one of me.”
“Not too many balloon deaths are scheduled for today. They’ll figure it out.” They were drifting inland, which ruled out crashing into the Mediterranean. “Look down. Nazareth, where Jesus lived.”
“It is a lovely way to see a country.” Alexandra spent the last of her film on panoramas. A vast lake spread itself not far ahead.
A mad idea filled her head. “I need your suspenders.”
“Pardon?”
“My films must survive the crash.”
Kimball did not argue. He slid off his jacket, snapped them off, and handed them over. While he tried to determine the best altitude at which to keep the balloon, he watched with curiosity as Alexandra cut open a burlap sandbag and emptied it over the rim. She removed her aviator’s cap and deposited into it her film cylinders. She padded the burlap bag with her jacket. Into this nest, she placed her cap and camera. Using the knife, she carved four slits into the bag, finagled two buttons into the gashes to one side, then tossed the suspenders over the burner rail to secure its final two buttons into the bag’s opposite side. Her makeshift suspension device dangled the air, bouncing to each shake of the basket.
It was brilliant, but not waterproof. Kimball said, “I plan to crash us into the Sea of Galilee.”
“Absolutely not! The balloon must land ashore.”
He bargained that he’d need to find an opportune time over the water to toss her overboard.
The lake where Jesus had performed many of his miracles came into clearer view. They were on course to pass over its southern shoreline and now in the hands of greater forces, descending at a steady rate. To the far shore rose barren highlands that offered little room for landing. The last tank of fuel was at vapors.
Kimball fired the burners a final time to give them a fighting chance of closing the gap. He threw overboard the remaining sandbag and a fuel tank to lighten the load. He tossed his jacket and holster to the floor—wallet, badge, and cigarettes soon added.
Alexandra started disrobing. “If we don’t crash soon, they may find us naked. What a scandal that would stir.” They passed over the western bank. He had gauged it all to a tee.
She said, “You go first.”
Kimball reminded, “Chivalry dictates ladies first.”
Alexandra calculated they had ten seconds to decide. They were under a hundred feet in altitude. The balloon would not reach the opposite shore. She pulled the burner cord. Enough fuel was left to pop them higher. Kimball shouted, “What are you thinking?”
“We’ll take our chances and jump closer to shore.” The balloon again drifted down. She took his hand, and they waited. It was going to be dreadfully close. Two hundred feet was a death wish. One hundred, downright frightful. Fifty would have to do.
“Tally-ho!”
Alexandra crashed awkwardly into the water. She pushed to the surface and searched if the balloon would make it. It had risen in the loss of their weight, and she rejoiced in witnessing it crash along the scrub-filled shore. The lake was warm and the oddest thing—her back seemed to have popped into normal alignment.
Kimball surfaced nearby. “I’ll come to you!”
“If you truly wish to impress me, Liam, walk over.” She pointed to a small fishing boat already making its way over to scoop them out. “I’ll meet you aboard!”
In all the excitement, Alexandra had forgotten about her need to pee. She waded, lost in total harmony, thinking what relief Mister Limburger must have felt upon landing outside Paris.
—‡—
IT WAS THE WEAK CHIN. Alexandra did not fancy being alone in remote places with weak-chinned men. Newspaper photographs of serial murderer H. H. Holmes had illustrated he had such a chin. He had used that placid chin to lure countless women into his Chicago murder castle, never to be seen again! It was often a tricky proposition to weed through what type of chin a man had when alone with them in remote places. So many camouflaged them under beards, goatees, chinstraps, and the ever-fiendish chin curtain. The only weak-chinned man that Alexandra would trust was her dentist. He had operated out of an office in downtown Helena, but if his chair had been deep in a forest, she would still have been at ease as he sported mutton chops, which all but promised, “I offer no deceit to conceal my weak chin. I celebrate it. You, therefore, can trust me.” She did not prefer men with jutting lantern jaws or chin clefts so large one might confuse it for misplaced buttocks, but she had found no hard reasoning to distrust those who featured them.
Archibald Leach had the perfect chin, and she would find comfort in his dimpled presence anywhere.
Sigmund Coyle, however, was of the ghastliest sort—a “heavy stubbler.” Heavy stubblers all but mocked, “Yes, I have a weak chin. I place menial effort to conceal it, so you will ultimately be uncomfortable whilst alone with me in remote places.”
“Why do you keep looking at me? It’s quite distracting!”
“It’s nothing.” Alexandra offered Coyle a shallow smile and looked back out her window.
The car rumbled over poorly groomed roads twenty miles west of Jerusalem. Despite Coyle’s report that the dig site in the Sorek Valley remained undisturbed, Ord-Guy wanted photographs. As she was developing her film and sightseeing, Alexandra’s marching orders were to pay it a visit. It seemed the least she could do after ruining his balloon.
Her time in Jerusalem had exposed the devastation incurred by the Jericho earthquake. Crumpled houses littered the arid landscape, with even landmarks such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre having sustained damage. She had hoped to entice Kimball into driving her, but he was wrapping up his last days with the Jerusalem bureau on a hashish smuggling investigation, so it was Coyle who had collected her to conduct the day trip. She was having difficulty understanding why they were backtracking the same roads he had traversed days prior. The valley was desolate, hosting small Arab settlements, patchy olive trees, and an occasional shepherd overlooking his flock. What on paper appeared a quick trip was taking hours.
“Would you pass me the map in the glove box?” asked Coyle.
A flyer written in Hebrew fell out with the map. Alexandra could not read the words but knew what the red hammer and sickle symbol stood for. “Mister Coyle, are you a communist?”
“They leave leaflets everywhere. Ah, here we are.” He steered the car down a rocky pathway and stopped next to a hill strewn with rubble. They exited the car and walked up the slope. It was midday and boiling. Coyle removed his pith helmet to wipe his sun-scorched neck and forehead with a handkerchief. His curly hair was matted in sweat and his sunburnt arms shined lobster red.
Alexandra scouted the tel’s perimeter. “Are you sure this is the correct place? It appears undisturbed.”
“I recalled it but a short distance from Tel Batash.”
Alexandra felt she was getting the brush-off and reached into her satchel. She lifted out a map of the valley. Compass in hand, she looked over the landscape, and then pointed. “There! On my map, the ruins should be a half-mile southwest along that ridgeline.”
Coyle barked, “What map? Who gave you a map?”
“No one.” She stepped forward to show him. “The professor listed the site’s location over the phone using Tel Batash as the benchmark. I just didn’t know we had passed it.”
“I’m to walk a half-mile on account of your slapdash scribblings?”
Alexandra took offense at his critique of her map. “You’re rather slothful for a field man.”
“I am of the intelligentsia,” Coyle clarified. “Hard labor is the toil of the lumpenproletariat.”
She chided, “Then wait here. I know exactly where I’m going.”
Coyle’s upper lip started twitching. “We shall go together.”
As they made their way, Coyle humored her request to discuss his previous work here. The valley had once been a borderland between the kingdoms of Philistia and Judea. Its proximity to Elah—the plain where David had slain Goliath—left it plausible that the giant’s remains were somewhere nearby. Ord-Guy had run out of financing before getting much accomplished.
Alexandra adjusted the rope coiling her shoulder. She was laden down with her satchel, camera case, and a carbide lamp. Perspiration stained her shirt in unflattering abundance. Coyle lugged a shovel and mounted surveying transit.
She resented that he could drop buttons on his shirt and wear shorts. “You speak in a rather dour tone about your vocation.”
“Megiddo holds historical significance. Any search for biblical relics is fruitless,” Coyle asserted. “One cannot find what never existed. There is no God. It is bunkum for the masses.”
Alexandra doused a cotton towel to clean the dust off her face. She passed her canteen to him, as he had mentioned misplacing his. She said, “You must have taken umbrage at the outcome of the Scopes monkey fiasco. What say you on the verdict?”
“Umbrage? On the contrary.” The 1925 trial—the first broadcast live on the radio—had ended with the controversial conviction of John Scopes for teaching theories on evolution over Divine creation. Coyle concluded, “It’s a step in freeing humanity from the yoke of religion.”
Coyle certainly spoke like a communist. Alexandra reclaimed her canteen and pushed on. “Why is Tel Batash significant?”
“It may veil Timnah. The town of Samson’s Philistine wife.”
“The dreamy guy with the long hair? Does the professor believe he was one of these Nephilim?”
“No. They weren’t all giants,” Coyle informed. “For her beauty and cunning, he proposed Delilah was.”
They ascended to the top of the mound.
To one side stood an area of high pillars, broken walls, and the stone-arched facade of a crumpled structure. Byzantine ruins were ubiquitous from the Black Sea to the Aegean. Archaeological interest resided in what might lie beneath them.
Coyle set down his tools and took a seat.
Alexandra climbed over toppled debris as if a child relishing a playground. She landed at the entrance to the large structure. She passed under a cracked archway and entered the ashlar-constructed edifice. Its interior was exposed to the sunlight. Wisps of white hair entwined in vines and a firepit lent evidence that it served as a place of shelter for shepherds. A black snake sunned itself nearby.
A large crack cut across a sunken area of the stone floor. Near its center was a narrow cavity. Alexandra peered down, but all that greeted her was darkness. She unloaded her rope and used a bowline knot to tie one end around the base of a fig tree. Once the carbide lamp was tied to the opposite end, its flint was struck, and she lowered it into the gloom. An antechamber had indeed been exposed. The fissure opened into a wider arena.
Alexandra left to summon Coyle. “Sigmund! Come! Be aware there are mole vipers.”
His reply he’d be over shortly sounded like carte blanche for to her proceed without him. Alexandra returned to her worksite. She wiped her hands free of moisture, gripped the rope, and began her descent. She landed upon debris piled along the floor.
The illuminated walls were constructed of rough stone and not leveled brick. She paused upon spotting another mole viper. While she had encountered more deadly snakes in Papua, this one shared a tight space. The serpent led her to a collapsed wall and vanished into a crack. Alexandra cast the lamp into a gap in the stones.
An earthen pit spread before her. It was rectangular and the width of eight cars parked side by side. After wiggling herself through the gap, she hopped down into the dark chamber. What she looked upon was of momentous historical consequence.
Partially encased in the dry clay were skeletal remains laid out in rows. Fragments of burial urns littered the area. She kneeled to pick up a sherd from a broken juglet. Upon cleaning off the encrusted residue, she could see an engraving of a sea merman on the prow of a boat. Alexandra realized she had fallen into an archaeological treasure trove. She wrapped the sherd in a cloth and secured it in her satchel.
The skeletal remains were of people roughly five feet in height, which she surmised to be average in ancient times. It helped her to scale the final remains that she came across.
What she gazed upon were the bones of a giant!
The man must have been twice-sized his burial mates. She took inventory of what she could detect: cracked ribs, pelvic bones, and an exposed femur. No skull was attached. She recalled David had taken Goliath’s severed head back to Jerusalem.
Fortunately, Alexandra had packed well for the occasion. She lifted a Webley & Scott one-shot flare pistol from her satchel. Once calculating a good firing angle, she shielded her eyes and pulled the trigger. The illumination shell ricocheted several times before settling into the clay. The explosion of light nearly burned through her eyelids and hands. Between recovering her vision and allowing for smoke to clear, she only had ten seconds to take photographs. She’d need to get lanterns to attain better images.
Filled with excitement, she backtracked to the fissure. Her palms were raw from rope burns. She hoped to climb out, as Coyle could not pull her up. Where was a jutting lantern-jawed man when you needed one? her mind chimed with indignation.
It failed to matter. The rope was gone.
Alexandra called out for Coyle and then spotted the canteen. It rested upon the floor just beyond the smidgen of sun beaming down into the fissure. It had an engraved monogram: SIC. He had been here and had attempted to steer her clear.
“Mister Coyle! What are you up to?”
Coyle’s head blotted out the lone beam of sunlight. “I’m afraid my comrades are insisting you die down there.”
“Who are these comrades? I do not care for them whatsoever!” Alexandra shuddered at the thought of being buried alive. She could hear him talking with others. “I demand you end this tomfoolery!”
A man swathed in black Arab garb peered down the hole and laughed. Coyle knelt alongside the fissure. “I tried to keep you free of this. It’s nothing personal.”
“It is to me.” Alexandra sensed little sand was left in her hourglass. For the first time in a long time, it troubled her.