Rakitaki: A Jonas Quartermain Adventure Read online

  Rakitaki

  A Jonas Quartermain Adventure

  Lee Alexander

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Epilogue 1

  Epilogue 2

  Epilogue 3

  Bloopers

  Notes

  End of Book 1

  Untitled

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Eren for all his input and dealing with my endless questions while I tried to get this story right. Thanks to Miles for being the sounding board for all my terrible ideas.

  Prologue

  Cairo, Egypt

  June 12, 1981

  Cairo International Airport was as busy as ever, despite the Egyptian custom of working during the significantly cooler evening and night. An unending tide of people flowed through the doors of the baggage claim. Cars, primarily taxis, jostled for position to pick up passengers. Locals called from shanty-like stalls, attempting to sell trinkets and knickknacks to tourists and businessmen as they hurried to waiting vehicles. The stalls extended the whole of the approach to the airport, hopeful men eking a living out of selling worthless garbage to foreigners as they arrived and departed. Kids roamed in packs, tugging on pockets, hands, anything they could reach. They were notorious little thieves, always distracting with calls of ‘bashish’ and big eyes while their friends emptied pockets.

  Toran Tufekci wiped his brow. The brutal midday heat was beating down on him, worsened by the sand-laden wind. His clothes hung loosely from his skinny frame; they were flowy, allowing the hot wind to occasionally wick away sweat. Sun-darkened skin saved him from burns. His black hair trapped heat, which is why he tended to shave it off. He stood at the stand he had built with his own hands, a lit cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth. He smiled widely, showing off his tobacco-stained teeth.

  “Come, friends! Look upon my wares! You will never see papyrus of this quality elsewhere! It is genuine ancient Egyptian papyrus!” He gestured at the array of trinkets on the shaky counter. Rolls of papyrus that had been recently made and aged with tea sat next to small models of the Sphinx and Pyramids made from pewter. Hand carved wooden reliefs of Pharaohs were painted with cheap gold spray-paint. Everything was significantly marked up. His heavily accented English was clear enough that most could understand him. A man of many talents, he spoke Turkish in his home, English at the stand, and enough Arabic to get himself into trouble at the bar after work.

  He looked around desperately, hoping to see a tourist willing to spend their American dollars, English pounds, or even German marks on trinkets. The airport was a hot selling location, both figuratively and literally. The concrete was baking under the intense hundred-twenty-degree sun. His ears rang with the tinny music pumping out of the airport speakers, the hundred boomboxes around blaring a hundred different songs from all around the world.

  “You, sir, you look important!” Toran pointed to a tall man, weather-beaten and graying around the temples. His face was worn and wrinkled from significant time in the sun. He was dressed in a ruffled suit and carried a beaten leather briefcase. His attitude and clothes marked him out as an American with some money to Toran’s trained eye. The man looked at him and the stand, then shook his head and continued on his way.

  He raised a hand and made a desperate guess. He had to make a sale or he would lose his spot the next day. “I have something you might like. A rare artifact, one of a kind. It is genuine, sir. A hieroglyph tablet.”

  At the last word, the man turned back and stared daggers into Toran.

  “A tablet?” He asked as he closed the distance. His interest was clearly piqued.

  “Yes sir, that is what I said. A tablet. Genuine. Found just this week, and brought to me by my cousins from a dig outside the city.”

  “Let me see it,” the man said gruffly. He glanced again at the cluttered counter and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe he was listening to the salesman.

  Toran looked around at the surrounding stalls, then brought a simple wooden box out. He placed it on the rickety wooden surface, and opened the cover. Inside was a cloth-wrapped rectangular bundle. The man opened the linen carefully to peek at the contents. Inside was an ancient stone tablet covered in hieroglyphs. He ran his hand down the carvings and felt the weight of ages. He inhaled sharply, then snapped the lid closed.

  “How much for the item?”

  “Cal, let’s go,” said a hulking man. The crowd unconsciously gave him a wide berth, often bumping into others in order to give him space. Toran looked him up and down, surprised such a large man had gone unnoticed. He was also clearly an American based on his accent and clothing. He was dark, even for Egypt, with skin the deepest black. His muscles were evident even through his suit. Somehow, the man wasn’t sweating in the heat.

  “Fine, fine, let me get this first. I think it’s related,” Cal replied with a dismissive wave.

  Toran, eager to make the sale, said “yes, mister Cal, I am sure we can come to an agreement.”

  “If you know what’s good for you, you never heard that name,” Cal said. Behind him, the larger American cracked his knuckles with a demonic grin on his face.

  “I think, to sell something so valuable to someone I have never seen in my life,” Toran said with a pause. “I would need two-thousand American”. He pressed his hands together and bowed at the waist. He felt it necessary. The white man growled deep in his throat before responding.

  “Five hundred.”

  Without looking up, Toran spoke up again. “I am sorry sir, that is not quite enough, especially to forget you and your friend.”

  The black man reached a hand out to the white man’s shoulder. “Come on, Cal. He’s not going to sell it to you.”

  “A thousand,” the white man said as he shrugged the larger man’s hand free.

  “With the deepest regrets, that is still not enough. You see, one of my cousins, not the one who brought it, but the one who retrieved it from the dig, he passed away recently. I must pay for his funeral. I could perhaps let it go for one-thousand and seven hundred.”

  “Cal, let’s go,” the large man said with building impatience. Toran kept his head
down. The white man did something, and the large man sighed, then his clothing rustled. The white man began to count under his breath.

  “Twelve-hundred, and not a penny more,” he said tiredly.

  “I must also care for his children, and wives.”

  The white man grunted in displeasure, then retrieved something from another pocket. He counted again, then placed a pile of cash on the counter.

  “Twelve-fifty. That’s everything I have on hand.”

  Without looking up, Toran swept the cash into his hand and tucked it into a pocket. The white man took the cloth-wrapped tablet from the box and placed it in his briefcase. Then he was gone, into the ever-flowing traffic of the airport.

  Toran stood straight, a satisfied smile on his face. He pulled the box off the top of the stand and stashed it in the pile of similar detritus behind him. He tapped the long ash at the end of his cigarette as he turned to the crowd, calling out once more.

  “Come, friends! Look at this ancient papyrus of the finest quality! Ethically sourced from a real archeological dig!”

  1

  Akron, Ohio

  June 12, 1981

  Jonas walked out of the air-conditioned theater into the summer heat. Sweat broke out on his brow as the eighty-degree sun washed over him. Akron wasn't much to speak of, but it had a good theater with several screens, and he had just seen what he thought was the best film of all time, Raiders of the Lost Ark. He was waving his hands wildly in excitement.

  "Oh man! When he told Marion to close her eyes, it's like he knew. Archeology is so freaking cool!"

  "Yeah, I don't think archeology is actually like that," responded his friend, Elliott.

  Johnathan, Jonas as he had just decided he wanted to be called, was a six-foot-tall young man intent on enjoying the summer between high school and college. He had broad shoulders, fair skin, a soft gut and a carefully coiffed mop of sandy blond hair. He had an easy air about him, a sign of the carefree approach to life he had carried before the movie. He never studied for school, breezing by on quick wits and charm.

  Elliott was much shorter at 5’4”, but just as broad, looking rather like a brick wall. His hair was dark brown with a hint of red, and his skin was tanned from working outside. He had a much more serious demeanor, reflected in the semi-permanent scowl he seemed to always wear. The pair were an unlikely match made in elementary school.

  "I'm telling you, that's the life. Running all over the globe, finding artifacts and saving babes from Nazis. That's going to be my major!" Jonas pointed at an imaginary course list in emphasis.

  "I think it's a bit early to declare your major. We don't even go to college for another two months." As always, Elliott Burke was attempting to be the voice of reason. And as always, Jonas had no intention of listening.

  "What are you going to study?"

  "Dude, I just told you it's too early to declare. I'm going to get my basic stuff out of the way early. I'll declare sophomore or junior year." Elliott shook his head at his best friend’s antics.

  Jonas playfully shoved his friend as they walked. "Oh, come on, you've got to have some idea."

  "Fine. Since I know you won't stop bugging me about it until I answer, I'm thinking something to do with math. A degree in physics, or maybe material science. I've heard there's some pretty cool stuff being done with computers these days. There's this little outfit in Seattle called Micro-Soft." Elliott shoved back, chuckling.

  Jonas stumbled, then righted himself. "Yeah right. Computers aren't going anywhere. They've already hit the ceiling. I'm going to work in a field that's interesting and pays well."

  Elliott looked at his friend askance. "You know Indiana Jones isn't real, right?"

  "You're just envious I've got my career planned out already," Jonas shot back.

  “I think you should do more research before declaring your major. Especially since you just decided this after watching a movie.”

  They continued to walk along the sidewalk. Jonas’ stomach rumbled, cutting the conversation short.

  “Oh man, I’m so hungry I could eat a horse,” he said as he rubbed his stomach.

  Elliott hooked a thumb over his shoulder, “I think I saw a few back that way. Want to stop there?”

  “Shut up, you know what I mean,” he said with a laugh. “I would kill for some ‘za.”

  “Good news on that front, bud.” Elliot came to a stop outside of a restaurant. The smell of pizza wafted out, enticing both. He was more relieved that the topic of majors had been dropped. Jonas could be a bulldog, latched onto a mindset well past the point of logic.

  “Oh, no,” Jonas said. He looked sheepish. “You know I don’t have money for that. Besides, you already bought the movie tickets.”

  “Yeah, and I’m regretting that,” Elliott said with a comical shake of his head.

  “Whatever, dude. Let’s go,” he said back, perhaps a bit sourly.

  Elliott opened the door, letting the cool air scented with fresh pizza wash over him. “Your loss. I was thinking of getting a massive pizza with everything on it. Biggest one they’ve got. Guess I’ll have to eat it by myself.”

  He stopped mid-step and his shoulders slumped. Then he turned around and followed his best friend into the restaurant. They ordered the largest pie available and sat to eat. They laughed and joked for half an hour, devouring the pizza along the way.

  Suddenly, Jonas stuck a finger in the air like he’d had a revelation. “Oh, and you’ve got to call me Jonas now. That’s the name of a proper archeologist.”

  “In your freaking dreams,” Elliott responded with an eye roll. Jonas cajoled his friend for another hour before they were politely asked to leave the restaurant. They walked through the gathering gloom back to the neighborhood Elliott had grown up in. His house was expansive, well appointed, and in a desirable neighborhood. It had far too many rooms for the small three-member family. Jonas had spent many nights over.

  Jonas had grown up outside the city, but attended the same school since kindergarten. His family owned and operated a ranch on a shoestring budget. As such, he had no allowance like Elliott. He had helped his family for years until the demands of high school had taken priority. He had started partying, drinking, and smoking pot. His body had softened even as Elliott had started to bulk out and grow stronger.

  The two saw ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ two more times that summer. It was not by choice for Elliott, instead at Jonas’ constant needling to see the cinematic masterpiece again. And again. And again. Elliott secretly grew to love the movie, but never let on for fear Jonas would make them see it daily.

  The summer ended and school began; the conversation was forgotten, but the effects would echo in the coming years. The two young men entered college. Jonas had seen Raiders four more times, increasingly enamored with the idea of being an archeologist. True to his word, he only signed up for archeological courses, eschewing other electives in favor of fast-tracking his degree. Elliott, true to his word, took only general study courses.

  Jonas sat toward the front of the lecture hall for his first Archeological class. He had arrived ten minutes early, beating every other student and even the professor. When a grizzled older man in his 50’s walked in, Jonas felt a surge of excitement. The man looked the spitting image of an older Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones.

  "This is the only time I'm going to take attendance. Just let me know if you are here," said the professor. The professor began to call out names alphabetically.

  “Danielle Bailey,” he said.

  “Mnh,” someone in the rear of the class grunted. He made a checkmark on the clipboard and moved on.

  “Alex Collins.”

  “Here,” came the sleepy reply. Jonas looked around, noticing not a single student sat in the front row with him.

  “Sydney Cooper.”

  “Here.”

  Jonas twisted around in his seat to find the source of the shy voice. She was barely audible, even in the quiet classroom. He spied her a row ba
ck, near the edge of the room. She was small, with long brunette hair that covered her face. She wore a sweatshirt with the school logo on it. When she spotted him looking, her pale face blushed and she hid behind her textbook.

  Calhoun continued down the list, naming nearly three dozen people. Only a few stood out.

  “Simon Fleming.”

  “Yeah, what’s up brah?” Answered a beefy man that barely fit into his seat. He was bald as a baby and had a cherubic face to match. His arms were the size of trees and his t-shirt was in considerable distress. The surfer-like tone and attitude were ill-matched for the bodybuilder physique.

  “A simple here will do,” Calhoun said in a bored tone.

  “Oh, uh, here,” Simon said as he rubbed the back of his bald head.

  A few names later, someone else stuck out.

  “Jodie Miller.”

  “I am present, sir.” Jonas looked back at the new, energetic speaker. A gorgeous blonde woman sat with a ramrod straight back, looking intently at the professor. Her eyebrows matched, dispelling any notion her hair might have been from a bottle. Calhoun nodded and made the requisite check-mark.