Babylon Rising, Chapter 66

Happy Halloween!

Next month celebrates the one year anniversary of Heathen Critique, so we are actually right on schedule, so that glorious month can bring forth the beginning of the critique of Soon.

But for now, fittingly for Satan’s Birthday, we shall see what horrors Chapter 66…um, 6…brings us in Babylon Rising.

I will say right away that the next chapter brings true horror to our favorite character (after the falcons, of course), so let’s celebrate Isis McDonald while we can…

“The Hanging Gardens of Babylon,” Isis said dreamily, stirring her iced tea.  “I can’t think of five more mysterious and seductive words.”

Preach it, Isis!

Seductive?  I seriously think that Dinallo is just toying with LaHaye now, while he still can. 

Jassim and Murphy speculate on where the gigantic golden head might be at a site that has apparently been explored (and looted) quite a bit.

“So that is where the temple of Marduk is located?  In the Hanging Gardens?” [Jassim asked]

“Or above them.  We won’t really know until we get there,” Murphy said.

“You make it sound so simple.  Surely it is not possible to turn up at the site and just start digging.  So many of Iraq’s antiquities have already been looted.”

Yeah, and it’s time for some more looting, Mr. I Have To Call In Every Favor I’m Owed To Get Anywhere In This Book Michael Murphy!

“That’s the point, Jassim.  The best place for Iraq’s ancient treasures right now is a museum someplace far away.  When law and order have been restored, and Iraq’s own museums are up and running again, then everything can be returned and the Iraqi people can appreciate their ancient heritage without worrying that soome hoodlum is going to take it and put it on the open market.”

Or, you know, stash them at the Parchments of Freedom Foundation or your university so that you can give talks about them at your church.  Whatever it takes to let you sleep at night, I guess, Murph.  Tell me again about how legal and above-board your little jaunt into Iraq is, Professor.

To top off the superiority complex, Murphy opines that Dakkuri (the fictional high priest who carved the messages on the pieces of the Serpent in the first place) “managed to hide a Biblical artifact so no one would find it until…the time was right.”

Yeah, God was working with this evil high priest so that for thousands of years, no one would find any pieces of the Serpent.  They were just waiting for the right time, when the Great Michael Murphy would come along to steal them so that a fifth-rate supervillain could steal them right back. 

So then Jassim tries to bow out of the treasure hunt, because he’s a scaredy-cat.  Murph says he doesn’t think they’ll see Talon again, because Talon didn’t get to see the pictures of the Serpent, and thus doesn’t know where the Golden Head is.  Oh, and also, Murphy has called in the UNITED STATES MARINES to secure the entire site.  Yeah, because the Marines surely have nothing better to do in Iraq in 2003 than to secure Murphy’s vaguely-almost-sorta legal Biblical archeology two-person expedition, to find something that they don’t really know where it is.

With the promise of the Marines to shoot any suspicious falcons on sight, Jassim is back on the expedition.  So it’s a three-person semi-legal Biblical archeology expedition.