In the midst of all this animation, his eyes were invariably calm, the eye in a storm of intellectual and physical action. They were mild eyes, blue and watery. Sort of middling OK. I've seen s.e.xier eyes. Jason has s.e.xier eyes.

But not as interesting. Quite a lot of the time you had to guess what was going on behind them. Quite a lot of the time you guessed wrong.

Raelsen was here in Dogubayazit looking for the Ark. Oddly enough he wasn't looking for it on Ararat. He was looking for it on the slopes of Mahser Dagi, a mountain seventeen kilometres to the south.

When I asked him what was wrong with Ararat he just pointed across the room full of still-arguing people to a small man wearing a cream safari suit, and said loudly, 'That rock ain't big enough for the both of us.'

I did a double take on the cream suit. For a moment I thought it was the Doctor come back to haunt me. But it wasn't. I breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment there I was beginning to think a girl's attempt to get away from it all was doomed with a vengeance.

But no. The man Raelsen was pointing to was definitely human. His features - like those of all humans no matter what their age - looked younger than the Doctor. He was about ten years younger than Raelsen.

He was fitter and had a more I suppose you'd call it official air about him.

He looked up at Raelsen's words and smiled.

Bill introduced us. 'Bernice Summerfield, James Edward. Jimbo to his mates, right Jimbo?

The smile widened. 'Jim's fine. Bernice? Charmed.'

He held out a hand. I let him wait and then took it. Best to these sorts of silly pleasantries over and done with as fast sable, I find.

'Benny's fine.'

That was all it took. He didn't shut up for an hour. Raelsen couldn't stop him. I couldn't stop him. Fortunately it was all interesting stuff. He was: Thirty-nine. Ex-military. Air-force. Test pilot. Ex-astronaut. Walked on Moon. Established first lunar colony. Met wife there. Geologist. Proposed in Sea of Tranquillity. Married by Earthlight. Made fortune salvaging lunar sc.r.a.p from last century. Auctioned off same to NASA buffs. Moved to Illinois. Invested money. Local church. Modestly admit to being pillar of community. Marriage excellent. Kids. Three. Two girls. Wife died recently.

Miss her terribly. Belief in G.o.d helps.

He actually talked like that. More clipped than a barber with trim-fever.

Conjunctions and participles simply didn't seem to be part of his vocabulary. I don't think I ever heard him say 'and' or 'the' once. At first I was amused to think of him as little more than a walking military cliche. I later found out his speech pattern was due to a neurological dysfunction.

When you got past the dysfunction the man himself was immensely interesting. At least, I believe he would have been immensely interesting, if he'd lived long enough to form friendship with. .'

Something else to blame Jason for.

What was Allen doing in Dogubayazit? You guessed it. Looking for the Ark.

Whereas Raelsen had forsaken all religious references in favour of a muddy aerial snapshot taken by a mis-targeted spy satellite, and had chosen to search Mahser Dagi for the most important cultural icon in history, Allen was looking exactly where the Bible told him to: on Ararat. It was a source of constant, at first amusing and then annoying, conflict between them.

I decided a little small talk was in order. 'Little young to quit the s.p.a.ce service aren't you?'

He gave a small, precise shake of the head. 'Sorry. Not with you. n.o.body flies over forty. Forty-five tops.'

I panicked, tried like mad to cover it up by telling the exact truth. 'Of course, how silly of me. It's 2003, not 2103 isn't it? Still using chemical boosters aren't you? I always forget what year it is when the company is so much fun. One of my little faults I'm afraid.' I hit him with a smile as big as the, Moon and watched him forget everything I'd said for the last half a minute.

'So tell me, how come you're in here drinking warm mixers when you could be out on your respective mountainsides braving the elements, the soldiers and the sheep to discover which of you is right about the location of the Ark?'

It was a simple question and I got a simple answer.

It was about the only time I ever heard Raelsen or Allen agree on anything before they died.

'Result. of border war. Both mountains in disputed territory. Turkish Government refuses permission to travel. Military escort too expensive.'

'What they mean is they can't be bothered. The idiots have got the whole area staked out like children playing cowboys and indians.'

'New terrorist activity on Turkish border. Government fear repercussions if people injured when expeditions go ahead.'

It was the old Iran-Iraq thing again. Seemed it blew up for a while every few years. Boring.

I shrugged. 'So what? Where there's a will there's a way, surely? Can't you bribe the President? Steal a couple of jeeps? I don't know - just sneak out there one night when everyone's asleep? How hard can it be?' - Raelsen frowned. I think he was trying to work out whether I was taking the mick or not. He nodded towards the huge :packing crate open by the pool table, and the various bits of electronic hoc.u.m scattered around it. 'Do you have any idea how much a side-scanning geological radar array weighs?'

'Of course I do. I've got one in my handbag somewhere -' At that the fat guy with the pool cue pointed at me, braying laughter like a donkey. I stared him down.

When I looked back Raelsen was smiling. 'I don't think you understand how complicated the situation is.'

If you only knew how many wars I've been in and how many fundamental archaeological discoveries I've made.'

'Sure. With the geological radar you keep in your purse, right?' It was the fat guy with the pool cue. Later he would become a good mate but for then he was an irritant to rate alongside household bleach.

I bit my tongue.

Comments were coming thick and fast now. There's nothing so fashionable as taking the p.i.s.s.

'And the chemical a.n.a.lysis plant in your suitcase?'

'Nah - that's in her powder compact. The jeep's in her suitcase.'

'She could take us there in her s.p.a.ceship.' You know the crack.

I was on the point of cracking heads or walking out when the perfect solution presented itself. A man wearing the uniform of a Turkish major and the fifteen soldiers who ' accompanied him crammed themselves into the already overcrowded bar.

I stared at the ring of sarcastic faces.

After a while the comments petered out.

I continued staring for a few minutes then got up and crossed to the major.

I introduced myself. He ignored me. I smiled. He ignored me. I showed him the AmEx Platinum Card the Doctor had given me for a wedding present and told him how much money was in the account.

Two minutes later we were deep in conversation.

The conversation turned to haggling.

Money changed hands.

The major left the room.

Soldiers and scientists stared at each other in befuddlement.

Half an hour later the major came back into the room. He signalled to me and grinned. I had the attention of all eyes. I leant casually back in the deckchair, careful to avoid ripping the torn fabric any further.

'Ladies and gentlemen, this gentleman is Major Raykal of the Turkish Army and he has some presents for us. So quit hacking and start packing. The expeditions are on.'

There was a moment of silence. Then laughter. Lots of laughter.

I let them laugh.

Then I showed them the travel permits the major had given me. They were still warm from the fax machine.

They shut up.

'When all else fails return to Plan A: bribe the President.'

While they were reeling from that one I got my side-scanning geological radar array out of my handbag (contrary to popular thought it's really far too big to fit in a purse), walked over to the fat guy with the pool cue and the ponytail and shoved it under his nose.

'Buster - you owe me one. I think you know what I'm drinking.'

Chapter 2.

She can't do this. It isn't fair. It just isn't. She's making it sound like it's all my fault.

Look. I know I've got problems, all right? It's not my fault Dad did ... things to me, and anyway, what difference does it make? That was a long time ago and I don't think about it any more. I certainly don't have a problem with it.

No. The problem I have is with Bernice b.l.o.o.d.y Summerfield. She doesn't understand me. n.o.body understands me. So they blame me.

Well I'm not standing still for it this time. This time it's not down to me.

The Doctor told me it would help to tell everything. You know, write it all down in a book. To get my thoughts and feelings straight. He said it always worked for him.

I'm not sure I agree with him. There are things I don't want to share with anyone. But I can't let Bernice tell the whole story. I owe myself more self-respect than that. Don't I?

After Major Raykal gave us permission to begin the expeditions, things happened quickly. A dozen people began packing boxes and bags and loading them on to half a dozen Land Rovers, in preparation for the next day's journey.

Bernice didn't come back to our hotel room for hours. When she did her breath stank of whisky. And in the morning she took her bag and loaded it into Raelsen's jeep.

She was going with him to Mahser Dagi. Well, that was it.

She thought she was something special did she?

I talked to Allen. I had to promise to hump boxes and cook but he let me accompany his expedition to Ararat.

Both expeditions began at dawn the next day with a breakfast of cornflakes with goat's milk and two gallons of industrial-strength coffee. Spirits were high. Raelsen was obviously suffering from the excess of alcohol drunk the previous evening with my wife. As for Bernice - well as she says: she's at her best when hung over.

The village children turned out to see us off and steal things. When we totted it up later on we found they'd managed to get away with seven blank notebooks, two pocket calculators, a box of biros, Allen's Filofax, and the mirrors for a small solar power unit. They swiped so much gear, with such skill and imagination, I wondered whether we'd have been better off with them as an escort rather than the real military.

Breakfast over, two convoys of Land Rovers, together with minor military escort and huge - temporary - child escort, rumbled out of the village on to the dusty mountain roads.

Then Bernice's crew turned west and mine turned east and the next time we met nearly everyone we set off with was dead.

We drove east along the road connecting the Turkish provincial capital of Agri with Tabriz, the provincial capital of Iran. The road was a mess, mostly because it was used frequently by heavy commercial traffic: ten-and twenty-ton trucks, hauling cigarettes or expensive clothes or luxury foodstuffs or weapons. If Bernice was here she'd probably say the trucks all looked as if they should have Burt Reynolds or Kris Kristofferson or Dennis Hopper chewing cigars behind the wheel and spitting the cud at bear.

This was in addition to the military traffic. Halftracks. Personnel carriers.

Desert vehicles painted to resemble the local terrain. The odd tank waddling along like the proverbial ugly duckling, searching for a mother and a line of lethal infants to follow.

Allen's expedition consisted of seven people, three Land Rovers and about two hundred kilos of equipment and food. Though religious in nature, the expedition members were diverse in their scientific skills. Allen, a physicist, electronics engineer and mathematician, had picked his team with care, balancing diverse scientific skills with philosophical and religious experience.

As well as Allen there were five other expedition members. Major Raykal and two soldiers rode in a military jeep and two Turkish farmers hired by Allen as guides drove a clattering taxi to lead the way.

Riding with Allen were Samantha Denton and Jules Noorbergen. Both were geologists. Noorbergen was a geophysicist and Denton was a chemist.

They weren't married but I saw the way she looked at him sometimes and it was obvious they were carrying on together. I wasn't jealous. I certainly didn't wish Bernice would look at me that way sometimes. It didn't help that, with her punky haircut, pierced eyebrows and tongue and sprayed-on leather jeans, Denton was about the h.o.r.n.i.e.s.t bit of stuff I had laid eyes on since Paris. Not that I'd tell Benny that; she'd only be hurt. In his Levi's and loafers and effecting an irritating young-middle-aged optimism, Noorbergen seemed almost too normal for Denton's affections. Then again I've met people who looked like bank clerks who had the most perverse fantasies.

With some people, you just never know what the surface hides.

Travelling together in the second of the three Land Rovers were Janice Tanner and G.o.ddard Schofield. Tanner, a fairly nondescript woman in her mid-thirties, was the expedition archaeologist. She was divorced with a kid.

He was about five, too young to bring on the expedition. I pitied the poor little sod stuck at home in Nowheresville, USA, being looked after by some relative or - a much more horrible possibility - the father. Schofield, a skinny, tweedsuited, pipe-smoking figure in his early fifties, was a Bible scholar and historian. I wasn't quite sure why he was here, not being a religious person myself. I suppose it was to check any findings and compare them to what the Bible had to say. In other words a job any small computer could do. Perhaps that was why I never saw him smile. Tanner seemed to be the only person who could talk to him without having her head snapped off.

Riding up ahead of the convoy in a battered taxi were the two Turkish farmers, Kuresh and Ahadi, along ostensibly as guides. They claimed to have a letter dating back to the First World War written on behalf of four Turkish soldiers who claimed to have seen a formation they called The Ark of Ages whilst marching home across the mountainside. I knew a blag when I heard one, but Allen and most of the others seemed to have bought the story wholesale.

The only exception was the expedition archivist, Candy DuFries. We travelled together in the last vehicle in the convoy. Just as well, since she drove like a maniac. Candy was in her mid-sixties. Her hair was wispy and grey and held in place with a set of Walkman headphones. Her one tape seemed to be a mixture of the two most irritating forms of music ever invented: hardcore industrial techno and opera. She had been to almost every country I could name, spoke eleven languages fluently, invariably travelled with a battered leather satchel full of watercolours, and lost no time developing the really annoying habit of mothering me.

I looked around as we drove. To either side of the road, the terrain was rough. The ground was dry, the low hills strewn with rocks, their dusty grey-ochre slopes coloured only by tough-looking gra.s.ses and scrub. 'Horrible-looking place, isn't it?'

'What do you expect when the lowest land is five thousand feet above sea level?' Candy slammed the Land Rover across the rocks and pits in the road with a cheerful grin. 'Anyway - beauty is where you find it.'

'Is that right?'

'Of course it is. I'm an artist. The most beautiful thing I ever saw was a microscope picture of light reflecting from a housefly's eye.'

'Sounds horrible.'

'Look at a rainbow. It's just a matter of scale.'

The hills curled upward into distant mountains. The only trees I saw were cl.u.s.tered together on the mountainsides, where melt.w.a.ter was regular.

There was a harshness to the countryside. But not only that. There was something else. Something almost frightening. I gazed out of the Land Rover and felt that something wild and dangerous was staring back.

Candy must have sensed my mood. 'I once heard someone say that Turkey was created by G.o.d to test the faithful. It does that all right, and then some. It's got a history of famine, earthquakes and almost constant war. You can see it in the rocks; the colour and texture of the land itself.'