Paradox. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ how we met. After he went through he consented to become a volunteer instructor. Leif was quite a bit older than our usual students, actually—he’d served as a Navy SEAL and then built his own security firm into quite a successful operation.”

      “Security?” Annja asked.

      “Private security contracting, Ms. Creed,” Baron said. “I own China Grove Consultants.”

      “Oh. Mercenaries,” Annja said, nodding.

      He smiled humorlessly. “That’s not a term we’re particularly fond of. In fact we’ve devoted a substantial amount of money to lobbying the UN to closely regulate the international private security and private defense contracting business. We’d like to see the UN move away from their conventional Blue Helmet peacekeepers, who tend to be brave but ineffectual, to contracting with private agencies to conduct peacekeeping operations.”

      “And you’d be the contractor, I’m guessing?” Annja asked.

      He shrugged his massive shoulders. “We’d be there bidding along with the others. And we do a good job. At a lower cost to our principals than conventional military forces.”

      “Leif’s taken a leave of absence in order to help with our expedition,” Bostitch said. “He’s our organizer and expediter. He’ll run the show on the expedition. And Larry, here, went through the academy. He was a star pupil and I decided to take him under my wing, once he got his law degree.”

      Larry grinned and bobbed his head. “It’s a real honor,” his said, “getting to work with such great men and great Christians as Mr. Bostitch and Mr. Baron.”

      Annja couldn’t help but like the enthusiastic young man.

      “And Rabbi Leibowitz is a rising star at the Israeli Archaeological Institute,” Bostitch added. The man in question looked up, blinked, grinned shyly and promptly went back to his reading. Annja had known some compulsive readers in her life—she came close at times—but the rabbi definitely took best in show.

      Their waiter arrived and asked her for her order first.

      “How rare is your prime rib?” she asked.

      “Almost bleeding, ma’am.”

      “Great. I’ll take the sixteen-ounce cut with the rice pilaf and steamed broccoli. Tossed salad with vinaigrette, no croutons. And iced tea and ice water, please.” She thought about ordering wine to see if it put her hosts off balance. But she was no wine connoisseur, any more than she was a consistent drinker of any sort.

      Nor did she want to risk diminishing her capacity even a little bit. It was definitely a temptation to a person of her scientific background to dismiss them all as religion-addled halfwits, especially Bostitch with his slathered-on hick accent and goofy good-old-boy manner. But Bostitch was an extremely successful businessman.

      And although she had known some Navy SEALs who, while good-natured and in certain ways frighteningly competent, were not too bright, she didn’t have Baron sized up that way, either. While a lot of fairly random and even wacky types had prospered in the general rain of soup that had fallen on the defense and security industries after 9/11, she knew the mercenary business, whatever euphemism it operated under, was literally a cutthroat business. She’d heard of China Grove, as it happened; their reputation wasn’t too savory. If anything, they tended to be a bit too good at what they did. Leif Baron was not a man to be taken lightly.

      “I guess you don’t worry about your weight much, Ms. Creed,” Baron said as the waiter left, having taken all the food orders.

      “Constantly,” she said. “I really have to work to keep it up enough that I don’t start burning muscle mass.”

      He sat back. She got a flat shark stare from those gray eyes. Then Charlie Bostitch guffawed and slapped his thigh with a beefy hand. “Good one!” he said. “Our Ms. Creed’s a woman with spirit.”

      She wondered if there was more to this group than she was being told. Despite Charlie’s boisterous good nature Annja was starting to fear working with them would be a mistake. The way Baron joined in the laughter a beat late didn’t greatly reassure her.

      Their food arrived. It was excellent and excellently prepared; Bostitch had decent taste in restaurants. Annja’s prime rib was rare, as advertised, which made her happy. It could be hard getting a really rare piece of meat these days.

      As they ate Bostitch gave her his pitch, with occasional comments from Baron. They were brief and to the point, Annja had to admit. The former SEAL might not be likable and might be a touch too tightly wired. But he seemed to know his stuff.

      “The Ararat Anomaly,” Bostitch said, “was first spotted by an American recon flight along the Turkish-Soviet border in 1949. Since then it’s been photographed on several occasions both by surveillance aircraft and satellites.”

      “Most recently by the space shuttle, in 1994,” Taitt said.

      “But no one’s been allowed to examine it firsthand,” Annja said.

      Bostitch looked to Baron. “Not allowed to, no,” the shaven-headed man said. “But last year an expedition did manage to reach the Anomaly. Briefly.”

      “And you had something to do with this?” Annja asked.

      Again the unpleasant smile. “Not directly. At the time I was deployed to Kirkuk with my boys.” Annja knew he was referring to northern Iraq—the part claimed by the Kurds, as it happened.

      “Let’s just say I had a hand in expediting the process,” he said.

      “So what did they find?”

      Under the table Charlie evidently had his hand in his coat pocket. “This,” he said, producing a plastic bag with a showman’s flourish. It contained an irregular dark brown object about five inches long and maybe an inch wide.

      “What’s this?” Annja asked. He passed the bag to her. She turned it over in her hands. “It looks like a piece of old wood.”

      “Very old wood,” Bostitch said. “It’s been carbon dated as just under 3,500 years old.”

      “We believe the Flood happened in 1447 BC,” Taitt said.

      “Interesting,” she said in a neutral tone. She passed the bag back to Bostitch. Taitt handed her several sealed plastic bags containing shards of pottery he’d taken from an attaché case.

      “And here,” Bostitch said, shoving a thick manila folder toward her, “we’ve got the documentation on the artifacts. All done up proper.”

      Except for the little detail about lack of official permission, she thought. Ah, well, stones and glass houses, as it would gratify Roux way too much to remind her.

      She flipped through the papers inside the folder. “All right,” she admitted. “Whoever did this appropriately documented the discovery and extraction of the artifacts, and didn’t record the use of any kind of destructive practices. But these artifacts were basically found lying around in the snow. There’s nothing about the structure itself. If any.”

      “Oh, it’s there, all right,” Bostitch said. His eyes shone with fervor. “The expedition members saw it plain СКАЧАТЬ