Operation Syria

— 16 —

Maggie accepted another smoke from Wiggins after the captain left the room, satisfied nothing else was coming through the hole. She sat with Kim, perusing as well as they could the photos she’d managed to take in the chamber on the other side. Some were slightly blurred and out of focus and the small flash on the camera hadn’t helped matters but she’d got enough clear images to show a good range of the painted carvings and more than enough to get Kim excited.

“Definitely Babylonian,” Kim said. “And if I’m reading it right, they’re all of the same period, from the reign of Hammurabi, which puts the work at 18th century BC, around when he conquered this area as part of his empire building. This is major league, Maggie, fortune and glory stuff. It’s definitely the earliest find on this site and something no one has ever seen before. We could live for years off the research needed on this new room alone.”

Maggie nodded in agreement.

“You should see it, Kim. The photos don’t do it justice. It’s vibrant and dazzling, like it was painted yesterday.”

“We can only hope that fire didn’t do permanent damage. It would be criminal negligence on our part if we found it only to fuck it up an hour later.”

Wiggins spoke from the door.

“The fire was all outside in another area beyond and a wee bit around the doorway. There’ll be a bit of smoke and maybe some ash, nothing that can’t be wiped off with a damp cloth. Your paintings and carvings are all okay, or were when I got my last look.”

“I hope so,” Maggie said. “For I swear on my mother’s grave, I’ll be back someday, to make sure they’re preserved properly.” She echoed Wiggins’ words of earlier back to him. “This is who I am. This is what I do.”

As soon as she said it, she knew it for truth. Despite, or maybe even because of, what she’d seen and experienced here, she had resolved not to let it scare her off what was her duty, her reason for being here in the first place.

“And I’ll be with you,” Kim said, surprising her. The other woman had got over her earlier funk; Maggie guessed it was a combination of passing time, seeing the efficiency with which the soldiers had seen off any threat to them so far, and now a rising excitement at the implications of this new find.

“I mean it,” Kim continued. “This is important, historically so. We can’t walk away. I know I couldn’t.”

“Aye, well good luck with that, girls,” Wiggins said at the door. “This place is a war zone and will be for years yet. I know you got in this time but after this clusterfuck here, I don’t see anybody getting permission for a while. Besides, with these spiders about, it’s probably safer to fuck off and nuke the site from orbit.”

“It’s the only way to be sure,” Maggie said, smiling thinly to show she got the reference. “But I have the photos. When I show them to top people in the field, they’ll be able to put the pressure on for the sending of a real relief team.”

“As I said, good luck with that,” Wiggins replied. “But if you ask for backup, make sure I’m on holiday at the time. I bloody hate spiders.”

“Look,” Kim said, looking up from the phone. “They’re in groups, 10 rows of 6 to each. It’s definitely early Babylonian. They did all their counting in sixties; it’s why we’ve got 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour.”

“A wee connection from them to us,” Maggie said, looking over to Wiggins. “It’s another part of why I do what I do; history isn’t something that happens and gets forgotten. We connect to it, in wee ways, ways we’d only notice if they were gone.” She motioned at the gap in the wall. “And that through there is a big bloody connection. We can’t let it be lost.”

“Hey, it’s not me you’ve got to sell it to, lass. I’m only a lowly squaddie who goes where he’s telt to go. And don’t bother bugging the cap with it either. I can tell you now he’ll sympathize but he can do fuck all once the brass have made up their minds. Our job here is to get you home. So that’s what I’m going to do; I can at least make sure you get yon photies in front of somebody who might actually give a shit.”

Maggie spent a few minutes taking more photos, of the mosaic in the dig this time, making sure she catalogued it fully. It was while she was taking a close up of the depiction of the cave on the hillside that another thought struck her.

“The tunnels you mentioned earlier weren’t as old as this new find, were they?” she asked Kim.

“No. The ones I was talking about were built during the siege, when the Persians were trying to tunnel in and the Romans were trying to hold them at bay. The last big dig here, in 2009, found 20 dead men in one near the north wall and there was bitumen and sulfur coating the bodies. There’s another connection to the present, for that was a chemical warfare attack, with the Persians pumping gas into tunnels and suffocating the defending forces. The latest theory is that’s how the siege was broken”

Wiggins stopped her and spoke to Maggie.

“Go tell that to the cap,” he said. “I think he’ll be interested.”

“This tar and sulfur,” Banks said five minutes later after she’d relayed the info. “Do you know where it is? Have you seen any deposits?”

“No to both questions,” Maggie replied. “But Kim said it’s by the North Gate.”

“So it might as well be on the moon, for all the good it is to us here,” Banks replied. “But all intel is good intel, so thanks for that.”

They stood at the main doorway and Maggie was glad that Banks blocked her view to where the rucksack sat against the wall outside. She saw that the shadows had lengthened considerably since her last look out, now covering the whole of the courtyard save for a small triangular patch in one corner. Up on the roofs, the rounded humps of the spider’s backs showed on the skyline.

Banks saw her looking.

“They’ve lost interest. There’s been no movement for an hour or more. It’s a Mexican standoff, for now. But it’ll be dusk soon enough and I’m going to have to break the deadlock without getting us all killed if we want to get out of here.”

Maggie looked to where thick webbing covered the alleyways that were their exits from the courtyard. She saw the problem.

“Even if you burned the mass of web there, the spiders could drop on us from above.”

“Aye. And there’s no guarantee that there’s not a shitload more web beyond that. We’d be caught in a tight funnel, under pressure of numbers, with too little ammo for a prolonged firefight. That’s one of my problems. I’ve been considering a sneak getaway through the tunnels beyond your new find. But we already know that’s also spider territory and again it’ll probably be a tight space. I’m not sure which option gives us the best chance of getting away free.”

“If I get a vote, I say try the tunnels,” she replied. “I never liked finding a spider in my hair.”