The Genesis Plague (2010)

draw attention.’
    ‘And how do you suppose what’s in the cave could be released without a doorway?’
    Rolling his eyes, Roselli didn’t have an answer.
    ‘Let me remind you that it was a missile , Frank. A missile that accidentally veered off course. Sorry, but we didn’t plan for that.’ Stokes got up again. ‘Let’s not have someone overhearing this conversation,’ he said conspiratorially. He waved for Roselli to follow, led the way to the open door in the rear of the office.
    Huffing, Roselli got up and went over to him, hesitated at the entry threshold to assess the keypad on the doorframe. His head tilted to calibrate the thickness of the door - five, maybe six, inches. Then he peeked inside. ‘What is this place?’
    ‘My private gallery. We can talk more freely in here.’ Stokes offered a composed smile, placed a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder and urged him inside.
    The spacious, windowless gallery housed an impressive collection of ancient artifacts in sturdy display cases - mostly Middle Eastern, as far as Roselli could tell. No surprise since Stokes was obsessed with anything remotely linked to Mesopotamia or Persia, both past and present. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls; dozens of compact clay tablets were neatly laid out behind thick glass doors. He could also make out jewellery, pottery and Bronze Age tools and weapons stored there too.
    But the room’s centre featured the relics Roselli knew intimately.
    Mounted atop a wide granite plinth was an enormous limestone slab; maybe six feet high, four feet wide, he guessed. On the monolith’s face were intricate relief etchings of two winged beasts, spirits facing one another in profile, as if courting for a dance - each half human, half lion. The stone seal they’d removed from the cave entrance and replaced with a heavy-duty metal door.
    In the display cases beside the seal, Roselli spotted some of the cursed artifacts they’d recovered from deep within the labyrinth: an assortment of clay tablets stamped with ancient wedge-shaped symbols and pictograms; a beautiful necklace of glossy shells; a clay jar painted in symbols and whose bizarre contents remained locked within rock-hard resin. But the most prominent display case was covered with a veil. The thought of what might be inside it made him shudder. ‘You must be insane … keeping all these things here.’
    ‘Do you really think anyone would know where these treasures came from? I’m a mere collector, Frank. Stop being paranoid,’ Stokes suggested delicately.
    ‘ Paranoid? Do you know what will happen if anyone finds what we left behind in that cave?’ Then he turned pale when he thought of the most serious consequences. ‘My God … what if those American contractors go inside … what if they all die?’
    With hands behind his back, Stokes paced over to the stone slab and admired it for a long moment. ‘When God expelled Adam and Eve from Eden, the cherubim were posted outside the entrance so that the humans could never return to paradise. The sacred guardians …’
    ‘Now is not the time for Bible-thumping,’ Roselli fumed. ‘We need to focus on the cave. What are we going to do ?’
    Stokes shrugged and contemplated the situation for five seconds before responding. ‘The cave being discovered like this … well, it can only be considered divinely inspired, wouldn’t you agree?’
    ‘Bullshit.’
    ‘I understand you’re upset,’ Stokes said.
    ‘Damn right I’m upset.’
    ‘Let me get us drinks. Then we’ll talk about this, figure things out. Scotch?’ Another of Roselli’s Achilles heels.
    In Pavlovian fashion, Roselli licked his lips. Then he sighed and ran his fingers through the divot. ‘That’d be good.’
    ‘Neat?’
    Looking wounded, Roselli nodded.
    ‘All right.’ Stokes patted him on the back. ‘It’ll be okay. I promise. Be back in a minute.’
    Stokes pivoted on his good foot and made his way outside.
    Roselli turned back to the centre of the room and stared at the veiled display case. The loose ends of the silky cover billowed against air pumping in from overhead vents. Or maybe something beneath it was stirring. Curiosity got the best of him and he stepped cautiously towards it. Cringing, he reached out and began to lift the cover. But the sudden sound of the door closing made him jump in fright. His eyes snapped to the door.
    ‘Stokes?’
    The door’s locking mechanism turned over with a clunk .
    ‘Stokes!’
    On the