Wednesday, 19 July 2006. 11:34 a.m.

Hanging from the ceiling in a harness twenty-five feet above the ground in the same place where four people had lost their lives the day before, Andrea couldn't help feeling more alive than she ever had in her life. She couldn't deny that the imminent possibility of death excited her and in a strange way it obliged her to waken from a dream she had been stuck in for the last ten years.

Suddenly questions about who you hate more, your father for being a h.o.m.ophobic bigot or your mother for being the stingiest person in the world, begin to fade before questions like, 'Is this rope going to hold my weight?'

Andrea, who had never learned to abseil, asked that she be lowered to the bottom of the cave slowly, partly through fear and partly because she wanted to try out different camera angles for her shots.

'C'mon, guys. Slow down. I have a good one,' she yelled, leaning back her head and looking up at Brian Hanley and Tommy Eichberg, who were lowering her with the aid of a hoist.

The rope stopped moving.

Below her lay the wreck of the excavator, like a toy smashed by an angry child. Part of the arm stuck out at a strange angle and there was still dried blood on the shattered windscreen. Andrea pointed her camera away from the scene.

I hate blood, hate it.

Even her lack of professional ethics had limits. She focused on the bottom of the cave, but just as she was about to push the shutter she began to spin on the rope.

'Can you make it stop? I can't focus.'

'Miss, you're not made of feathers, you know?' Brian Hanley shouted down to her.

'I think it's better that we keep lowering you,' Tommy added.

'What's the matter? I only weigh eight and a half stone - can't you deal with that? You seem a lot stronger,' Andrea said, always knowing how to manipulate men.

'She weighs a lot more than eight stone,' complained Hanley in a low voice.

'I heard that,' said Andrea, pretending to be insulted.

She was so excited by the experience that it was impossible for her to be angry with Hanley. The electrician had done such a great job in lighting the cave that she didn't even need to use the flash on her camera. Opening up the lens more allowed her to get great shots of the final stage of the dig.

I can't believe it. We're a step away from the greatest discovery of all time, and the photo that'll appear on every front page will be mine!

The reporter observed the inside of the cave closely for the first time. David Pappas had calculated that they needed to build a diagonal tunnel down towards the presumed location of the Ark, but the route - in the most abrupt manner possible - had come across a natural chasm in the earth that bordered the canyon wall.

'Imagine the walls of the canyon thirty million years ago,' Pappas had explained the day before, drawing a small sketch in his notebook. Back then there was water in this area, which is what created the canyon. When the climate changed, the rock walls began to wear away, producing this terrain of compacted earth and rocks that surrounds the canyon walls like a giant coating, sealing off the type of cave that we hit on by chance. Unfortunately, my mistake cost several lives. If I'd checked to make sure the ground was solid on the floor of the tunnel . . .'

'I wish I could say I know how you feel, David, but I have no idea. I can only offer you my help, and to h.e.l.l with the rest of it.'

'Thank you, Ms Otero. That means a lot to me. Especially since some members of the expedition are still blaming me for Stowe's death just because we argued all the time.'

'Call me Andrea, OK?'

'Sure.' The archaeologist pushed his gla.s.ses back shyly.

Andrea noticed that David was almost exploding with the stress of it all. She thought of giving him a hug, but there was something about him that made her increasingly uneasy. It was like seeing a painting you'd been staring at suddenly illuminated, revealing a completely different picture.

'Tell me, David, do you think that the people who buried the Ark knew about these caves?'

'I don't know. It's possible there's an entrance in the canyon that we haven't discovered yet because it's covered with rocks or dirt - somewhere they used when they first put the Ark down there. We'd probably have found it by now if this d.a.m.ned expedition wasn't being run in such a crazy way, making things up as we go along. Instead, we've done what no archaeologist should ever do. Maybe a treasure-hunter, yes, but it's certainly not how I was taught.'

Andrea had been taught how to take photos and that's exactly what she was doing. Still contending with the spinning rope, she reached her left arm overhead and grabbed a piece of rock that was jutting out, while her right hand aimed the camera towards the back of the cave: a high but narrow s.p.a.ce with an even smaller opening at the far end. Brian Hanley had installed a generator and powerful lights that now cast the large shadows of Professor Forrester and David Pappas against the rough rock wall. Each time one of them moved, fine grains of sand fell from the rock and floated down through the air. The cave smelled dry and acrid, like a clay ashtray left in the kiln too long. The professor kept coughing, even though he was wearing a dust mask.

Andrea took a few more shots before Hanley and Tommy grew tired of waiting.

'Let go of the rock. We're going to lower you down.'

Andrea did as she was told and a minute later she was standing on solid ground. She undid her harness, and the rope went back up. It was now Brian Hanley's turn.

Andrea approached David Pappas, who was trying to help the professor to sit down. The old man was shaking and his forehead was drenched in sweat.

'Drink some of my water, Professor,' David said, offering him his canteen.

'Idiot! You drink it. You're the one who has to go into the cave,' the professor said. The words brought on another bout of coughing. He ripped off his mask and spat a huge glob of blood on the ground. Even though his voice had been damaged by his illness, the professor could still hurl a sharp insult.

David put the canteen back on his belt and went over to Andrea.

'Thank you for coming to help us. After the accident, the professor and I are the only ones left . . . and he's not much help in his state,' he added, lowering his voice.

'My cat's s.h.i.t looks better.'

'He's going to . . . well, you know. The only way he could delay the inevitable would be to get on the first plane to Switzerland for treatment.'

'That's what I meant.'

'With the dust inside that cave-'

'I may not be able to breathe, but my hearing is perfect,' said the professor, although each word ended in a wheeze. 'Stop talking about me and get to work. I'm not going to die until you get the Ark out of there, you useless idiot.'

David looked furious. For a moment Andrea thought he was going to answer back, but the words seemed to die on his lips.

You're totally screwed, aren't you? You hate his guts but you can't confront him . . . He hasn't just cut off your nuts, he made you fry them for breakfast, thought Andrea, feeling some pity for the a.s.sistant.

'Well, David, tell me what I have to do.'

'Follow me.'

About ten feet into the cave the surface of the wall changed a little. Were it not for the thousands of watts lighting up the s.p.a.ce Andrea probably wouldn't have noticed it. Instead of bare solid rock, there was an area that seemed to be formed of bits of rock piled up on top of one another.

Whatever it was, it was manmade.

'My G.o.d, David.'

'What I don't understand is how they managed to make such a solid wall without using any mortar and without being able to work on the other side.'

'Maybe there's an exit on the other side of the chamber. You said that there had to be one.'

'You could be right, but I don't think so. I've taken new readings with the magnetometer. Behind this block of stones is the unstable area we identified with our initial readings. In fact, the Copper Scroll was found in a hole just like this one.'

'Coincidence?'

'I doubt it.'

David knelt and touched the wall gently with his fingertips. When he found the slightest crack between the stones he tried pulling with all his might.

'There's no way,' he went on. 'This hole in the cave has been sealed on purpose; and for some reason, the stones have become even more tightly compacted than when they were first put there. It could be that in two thousand years there's been downward pressure on the wall. Almost as if . . .'

'As if what?'

'As if G.o.d himself had sealed the entrance. Don't laugh.'

I'm not laughing, Andrea thought. None of this is funny.

'Can't we pull away the stones one at a time?'

'Not without knowing how thick the wall is and what's behind it.'

'And how are you going to do that?'

'By looking inside.'

Four hours later, with Brian Hanley and Tommy Eichberg helping him, David Pappas had managed to drill a small hole through the wall. They'd had to take apart the motor of the large rock drill - which they hadn't used as yet, since they'd only had to dig through earth and sand - and lower it part by part into the tunnel. Hanley put together a strange-looking contraption from the pieces of the wrecked mini-excavator at the entrance to the cave.

'Now that's recycling!' Hanley said, pleased with his creation.

The result, besides being ugly, was not very practical. It took all four of them to hold it in place, pushing with all their strength. To make matters worse, only the smallest drill bits could be used, to avoid subjecting the wall to excessive vibration. 'Seven feet,' Hanley yelled, above the clanking sound of the motor.

David pushed a fibre-optic camera connected to a small view-finder through the hole, but the cable attached to the camera was too stiff and short and the ground on the other side was full of obstacles.

's.h.i.t! I won't be able to see anything like this.'

Feeling something graze her, Andrea brought her hand up to the back of her neck. Someone was throwing small stones at her. She turned around.

Forrester was trying to get her attention, unable to make himself heard above the din of the motor. Pappas went over and leaned his ear towards the old man.

'That's it,' David yelled, both agitated and overjoyed. 'That's what we'll do, Professor. Brian, do you think you can make the hole a little bigger? Say about three-quarters of an inch by an inch and a quarter?'

'Don't even joke about it,' Hanley said, scratching his head. 'We don't have any small drill bits left.'

Wearing thick gloves he was removing the last of the smoking drill bits, which had bent out of shape. Andrea remembered when she'd tried to hang a beautiful framed photo of the Manhattan skyline in her apartment on a weight-bearing wall. Her drill bit had been about as useful as a pretzel stick.

'Frick would probably have known what to do,' said Brian sadly, looking at the corner where his friend had died. 'He had a lot more experience of this kind of thing than I do.'

Pappas didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. The others could almost hear him thinking.

'What if I let you use the medium-sized drill bits?' he finally said.

'Then there wouldn't be a problem. I could have it done in two hours. But the vibration is going to be that much greater. The area is clearly unstable . . . it's a big risk. You're aware of that?'

David laughed, without a drop of humour.

'You're asking me if I'm aware that four thousand tons of rocks might come crashing down, pulverising the greatest object in the history of the world? That it would destroy many years of work and an investment of millions of dollars? That it would render pointless the sacrifice of five people?'

f.u.c.k! He's completely different today. He's as . . . contaminated by the whole thing as the professor, Andrea thought.

'Yes, I'm aware, Brian,' David added. 'And I'm going to take that risk.'

66.

THE EXCAVATION.

AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN.

Wednesday, 19 July 2006. 7:01 p.m.

Andrea took another photo of Pappas kneeling in front of the stone wall. His face was in shadow, but the device he was using to look through the hole was clearly visible.

Much better, David . . . not that you're exactly a great beauty, Andrea observed wryly to herself. In a few hours she would regret having that thought, but at that moment there was nothing closer to the truth. That machine was amazing.