Not Even In Her Top Ten Disappointments

There are many situations in life where a husband should bravely volunteer to crawl into a dark hole beneath an abandoned chapel.

This was not one of them.

The three of us stood where the altar used to be, staring down at a narrow opening in the floor, and after several minutes of squinting, crouching, and achieving absolutely nothing, we collectively determined that the hole was barely wider than a human ribcage.

My best friend folded his arms and looked down at it with determination. Unfortunately, no amount of determination could solve the fact that his shoulders looked wider than the opening itself.

With Vince eliminated, that left me. A disturbing realization.

Zainab had once described me as a sentient toothpick; a phrase I found unnecessarily cruel but could not, in good faith, argue against. Even so, being physically capable of fitting into a mysterious underground hole and being emotionally willing to do so were two entirely different matters.

In short, I, Dexter, was far too much of a coward. Naturally, I declined. Which left Zainab.

Unlike me, Zainab was brave (alarmingly so), petite, and slender enough to fit without difficulty.

She stood at the edge and peered down, calm as ever, while Vince and I remained a respectable distance behind her, demonstrating what I like to call survival instincts.

The wind tugged at her enormous afro. I'd always liked it (the afro, not the wind). Because a man who gets lost as often as I do needs a wife who doubles as a landmark (though she'd kill me if I said that).

Zainab sighed. Marrying me had exposed her to many disappointments, but I suspected this wasn't even in the top ten.

She crouched, picked up a loose pebble from the floor, and flicked it into the opening.

One second. Two. After roughly three seconds, a faint clack echoed back up from below.

“Good,” Zainab said. Apparently three seconds of falling was enough information for her. Personally, I would have preferred a full engineering report.

Before either Vince or I could raise any further objections (not like we were going to), she took our only rope, checked the knot around her waist, and gave it a firm tug.

Satisfied, she sat at the edge of the opening and lowered herself inside.

“Zain.”

She paused and looked back up at me. For a second I forgot whatever clever thing I had been planning to say.

“Just... be careful.”

A faint smile appeared on her face.

“I know.”

Then she nodded once and continued her descent.

I held the rope. Vince stood behind me as backup, or moral support, or a witness for the police investigation. It was difficult to tell.

The beam from Zainab's flashlight shrank as she descended, her large afro disappearing into the darkness until only the top of it remained visible.

Then that vanished too.

For a moment all I could hear was the wind moving through the abandoned chapel. Waiting gave me entirely too much time to think about why we were here.

Fifty years ago, the UN had led an operation on a remote island to secure what official records simply called “resources.”

According to every public document, it had been a complete non-event. No inhabitants, resistance, nor negotiations. Clean, bloodless, and so boring that most historians barely gave it a paragraph.

Then, years later, I discovered a journal.

Unfortunately it wasn't the memoir of a general or a whistleblower. It was just the personal journal of a low ranking UN field soldier who had apparently spent most of his time writing. 

About carrying equipment that was always the wrong equipment, about the lieutenant's mustache, about some locals managing just fine minus an eye, about the food being indistinguishable from dirt. Honestly, after forty pages of this, I started skipping ahead.

Normally most would consider that the least reliable person imaginable, but I considered him the opposite.

A general writes to justify his decisions. A whistleblower writes to justify his conscience. But a man complaining about food? That man has no agenda beyond the fact that his dinner was cold. He had no reason to invent a genocide.

Yes, a genocide.

The operation had not been peaceful. The resources had been taken by force. And the official claim that nobody lived there was a lie used to hide a mass killing.

Somewhere on that island, people had lived. Somewhere on that island, people had died. And if there was any surviving evidence, records, photographs, census data, witnesses, anything at all, then I intended to find it.

The journal pointed to one location repeatedly: An archive hidden beneath a chapel.

Officially, the chapel had served religious and humanitarian functions during the operation. Unofficially, it had been built by the UN as cover for an underground records facility.

Years later the archive was decommissioned, the chapel abandoned, and forgotten. At least by everyone except three obsessive researchers with questionable hobbies.

The journal mentioned two specific documents stored there: Alpha Red. Omega Blue.

...I still couldn't get over those names.

For an organization responsible for international diplomacy and global security, they had apparently named their most important secret files like Pokéman games.

Part of me expected to discover a third document called Gamma Yellow.

I was still considering that possibility when the rope suddenly twitched in my hands.

“Pull,” I said.

We pulled.

The rope tightened, and a moment later the top of Zainab's afro appeared from the darkness.

I felt a ridiculous amount of relief.

A few seconds later her face emerged, then her shoulders, and together Vince and I hauled her the rest of the way out onto the chapel floor.

Zainab sat there for a moment, catching her breath. I crouched beside her.

“Well?”

She brushed dirt from her sleeves, then from her skirt, looking mildly annoyed by the entire experience.

“The archive is gone.”

Vince frowned. “Gone?”

“It was burned.”

Zainab stood and dusted off the rest of herself.

“The room below. There was a fire. A long time ago, judging by the damage. Most of the facility has collapsed. The records are destroyed, and whatever wasn't burned was likely taken.”

My shoulders slumped. “So everything's gone...?”

Zainab reached into her skirt pocket. “Not entirely.”

She pulled out a folded document and handed it to me. “This was the only thing I found.”

I took it carefully.

The paper looked ancient. Most of it had been blackened by fire. The edges were charred, brittle, and uneven. Large sections had been burned away completely.

Vince stepped closer. Zainab leaned in next to me. I turned the paper over.

“lpha Re” was written at the top in bold, black print.

The remaining text was little more than scattered fragments and half-finished sentences that meant absolutely nothing.

Then I noticed a sequence written near the center of the surviving page. Numbers. A very specific string of numbers: 25.0000° N, 71.0000° W

For several seconds none of us spoke.

I looked at Zainab. Then at Vince. Both of them were already thinking the same thing I was.

One of those moments where nobody wanted to say it first because saying it out loud made it real.

Unfortunately, I was the narrator, which meant the responsibility usually fell to me.

I looked back down at the page.

“These might be the coordinates to the island.”

***