by Rob Jones
Gathered around the newly blasted entrance into the hillside, Hunter spoke first. “Nice hole.”
“Glad you approve,” Amy said with a smile. “Shall we?”
Hunter straightened his hat and adjusted the bag over his shoulder. He could see a flight of stone steps descending into darkness. “I’m game if you are.”
“Lead the way.”
He placed his foot on the first step and checked it was strong enough to take his weight. After so many years, the subsidence beneath its foundations could have played havoc with it, but it was good and now he made his way down into the earth. When his head was at ground level, he stopped and turned to face them.
“Problems?” Amy said.
He reached into his bag with a stupid grin. “Need a torch.”
“Flashlight.”
“Torch.”
“Whatever you want to call it,” Blanco said. “We need to hurry things along. I hear the Humvees’ engines in the distance. Sounds like they’re climbing the hill to the south.”
“Which means fireworks any second now,” Jodie said.
Hunter switched on the flashlight and swept the beam in front of him, angling it down so it lit up the steps as they receded into the darkness below him. “That’s much better. Now, if we can stop standing around yapping we might make some progress.”
The steps led them down into the hill’s interior along a narrow passageway carved out of the bedrock thousands of years ago. The rocky walls were whitewashed with lime and reflected the flashlight beams brightly as they made their way along the tunnel.
At the rear of the line, Quinn and Lewis were reading GPS signals off her mini laptop, but they grew weaker by the step and then died out completely. The young goth sighed and put the computer away; now it was back to basics as they made their way along the tunnel. Without technology, it felt to Quinn Mosley like they were operating on a wing and prayer.
They reached the base of the stone steps and found themselves standing in a large natural cave whose stalactite-spiked ceiling disappeared into a darkness their flashlights were too weak to light. Spying another gaping mouth of a tunnel on the opposite wall, they weaved around waist-high stalagmites and crossed the cave floor.
Inside the new passageway, the terrain was harder with fist-sized rocks littering the dusty ground and roughly-hewn tunnel walls full of jagged razor-sharp rocks. Hunter saw this section had given its carvers a much harder time than the tunnel leading up to the surface.
Then, the blood-curdling sound of gunfire echoing down the entrance passageway.
“Delta Ops are engaging with the Brotherhood,” he said grimly.
“We must be almost there,” Amy said.
“There’s nothing we can do except keep going,” said Blanco.
Jodie, who was standing close by him, nodded. “They’ll be okay. They’re tough men.”
Lewis had wandered off into the black void ahead of them through the same sort of stone slab doorway they had encountered back on Patmos. Now, he called out, startling them. “I think I found it. Get over here.”
“What have you got, Ben?”
“It’s a split in the rock, like back in Patmos. I think they did the same thing in both locations and used natural cave formations as part of the architecture of their sanctuaries.”
“He’s right, damn it,” Jodie said. “This is the entrance to the sanctuary.”
“Adytum,” Hunter said.
“What’s the difference again?”
Hunter pointed to the space they had just walked through. “This the sanctuary and that is the adytum.” He turned and pointed at the split in the rock. “It’s the innermost and most sacred part of any temple, even more so than the sanctuary.”
“I’m so glad you’re on the team,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said. “And I’m… and you’re taking the piss out of me, aren’t you?”
“It’s true what they say,” she said. “You’re as sharp as a razor blade.”
Blanco pushed past them. “Are we going in there, or not?”
“After you,” Hunter said.
But Blanco was already gone, vanishing into the shadows of the tunnel.
CHAPTER FORTY
When they reached the end of the tunnel, there was no doubt they had found what they were looking for. A vast, natural cave appeared before them, formed from the region’s basalts and andesites. Punctuated by boulders and scree and stalagmites, a series of alcoves ran along the far wall. These were manmade and one of them, in the middle, contained a carved stone altar. Even from back in the entrance, they could all see the small, dust-covered box resting on top of it.
Hunter reached it first, carefully picking it up from the high altar and blowing the dust off the top of it. The fine powder had accumulated over centuries, and now it scattered in Blanco’s flashlight beam. Behind him, Amy set up a small LED camping lantern for more light.
When Ben Lewis walked over to Hunter he felt like he was in a dream. The cocky English archaeologist was holding in his hands a carved wooden tabernacle box. On its lid, a beautifully carved Lamb of God stared out at him with reproach in the darkness of the adytum.
Don’t open me, it whispered out to him. Don’t look inside.
But I have to.
He looked at Hunter and took the final step, walking through the flashlight-illuminated dust motes until he was almost face to face with his teammate. “Mind if I take it from here?”
“Not in any way at all.” Hunter handed him the locked box with a cautious look and raised his hands, palms out. “I’ve seen the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. This baby is all yours.”
“That’s very good of you, Max,” Amy said. “Not many archaeologists would turn down the chance of making such a discovery. I’m glad you’re in HARPA.”
“Technically, I’m still with UNESCO,” he said. “I could be planning on taking this for myself and giving them all the glory.”
Jodie shook her head and sighed. “No, that wouldn’t work at all, Hunter.”
“Oh yeah?” he said. “Why not?”
“Because I’d shoot your balls off for being a traitor.”
Hunter considered the comment. “I was just joking, of course. I’m completely on this team now.”
Jodie raised an eyebrow as the corner of her mouth turned up. “That’s just what I thought.”
“Good,” Amy said. “This is a HARPA mission, not a UNESCO one.”
Hunter gave a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am. Besides, I already tried the lid and it wouldn’t come off.”
Quinn laughed. “That is so you, Max.”
“Wouldn’t come off?” Amy said. “What are we talking about here, some sort of puzzle?”
“Exactly,” Lewis said. He had been fiddling carefully with the lid while the others were talking. Now, he pulled out a Swiss army knife and used the rim of the box as a fulcrum point to try and prise the lid off. “It reminds me of a Sri Lankan puzzle box, but with some important differences. But I think I can…” The lid popped off in his hands. “Open it.”
Amy broke the silence. “What’s inside, Ben?”
He peered inside and gasped. “Another roll of discolored papyrus! It’s Revelation 23.”
“Then we found it,” Amy said, almost in a whisper. “We actually did it.”
The team gathered around Lewis, flashlights at their sides, except for Blanco’s, which he was angling down inside the box. A small, tightly rolled scroll of papyrus sat innocently inside. Lewis reached down and pulled it out. “If we’re right – this book of the Bible has been missing from history since the day John wrote it.” He unrolled it and frowned.
“What’s up, Ben?” Amy asked.
“Can’t read it, sorry. It’s in another language altogether.”
“Damn it all…” said Blanco. “Was this guy trying to make this hard or what?”
“But look – another scroll!” Lewis said. “It’s the Tabula Dei… the Map of God.”
He set
down the box and unfurled the map. Struggling with the Greek for a few moments, his eyes finally lit up. “It says this map will us to the location of the Ark. He’s says the Revelation relic is inside the Ark.”
“As in Noah’s Ark?”
“It doesn’t specify.”
“I don’t understand,” Blanco said. “Is he saying there’s another relic?”
“Yeah,” Jodie said. “I thought Revelation 23 was what we were searching for.”
“Apparently not,” Hunter said.
“And he says this ‘Revelation relic’ is inside it?” asked Amy.
Lewis nodded.
Blanco leaned in and pointed at the map. “What’s that mountain, Ben?”
“Mount Ararat.”
“Which is a highly significant biblical location, right?” asked Quinn.
“Of course,” Amy said. “It’s where Noah’s Ark landed after the Great Flood. Even I know that! And yet the Tabula Dei says this Revelation relic isn’t on Mount Ararat but over to the southeast of it in these other mountains. What gives?”
Lewis smiled. “You’re not exactly right about the Ark’s location, Amy.”
“But I also thought the Bible says the Ark landed somewhere on Mount Ararat,” Hunter said.
“No, it really doesn’t,” said Lewis. “The Bible doesn’t mention Mount Ararat specifically, but instead refers to Urartu, which was an ancient kingdom covering a large area of eastern Turkey and part of modern day Armenia. People didn’t start associating the Ark with Mount Ararat itself until much later in the tenth century. The Tabula Dei isn’t wrong. The fact it’s pointing us to somewhere other than Mount Ararat is a good thing. The location marked on John’s Map of God is where we’ll find the Ark, and whatever John says is inside it.”
Quinn reached forward and pulled the map from Lewis’s hands. “Let me see that map again.”
“Hey, be careful with that thing!”
Quinn opened her laptop and started typing. A few seconds later, she spun it around so the rest of the team could see it. “Guys, you’re not going to like this.”
Amy looked at the screen and frowned. A jumble of concrete buildings and what looked like an airport stared back up at her from the flickering laptop. “What am I seeing here, Quinn?”
“You’re looking at a Google Earth image of the place marked on the Tabula Dei as the location of the Ark and the mysterious Revelation relic.”
“So what are all these buildings?” Amy said.
Blanco was also staring at the image. “Yeah, what are we looking at, Quinn?”
“Kandarian Kargo HQ.”
There was no time to respond to the shocking discovery. They heard movement behind them – the coarse, crunching sound of men’s boots on the rocky ground. Blanco spun around, sweeping his flashlight up into the split in the rock they had used as an entrance to the adytum. What he saw horrified them all.
Two tattooed Brothers were dragging a badly beaten Milton into the light. Walking behind them was Alexios Kandarian and Belisarius.
“I’m sorry, Special Agent Fox,” Milton called out. “We did our best but there were more than we thought. Another two Humvees were already in the town waiting for the Brotherhood. Sixteen of them against the five of us. I’m the only survivor.”
“Shut up!” Belisarius snarled. “No one wants to hear your sad story of failure.”
“How the hell did you get in here?” Amy asked.
“Silence!” Kandarian shouted. “Drop your weapons and raise your hands or I will kill the only surviving member of your protection team.”
“Don’t do as he says!” Milton called out.
Belisarius thrust the stock of his Steyr into the American’s back and sent him crumpling to the ground with a grunt of pain.
Amy stared at the beaten, swollen face of Milton and knew she had no choice but to comply and obey their instructions. She was no killer and letting him execute a teammate for not doing as he said was, to her, the same thing as pulling the trigger herself.
“All right, Kandarian,” she called out in the cold gloom. “You win. We’ll stand down and come away from the adytum.”
She saw Hunter bristle with anger, but he did as she told him and dropped his gun, bag and flashlight into the dirt. Blanco, Lewis, Jodie and Quinn all followed him and then they stepped back from the adytum’s stone entrance archway.
“Good,” Kandarian said. “Now walk toward my men.”
Hunter lowered his voice. “They’ll kill us in here in a heartbeat, you realize that?”
“I’m no fool, Max,” she whispered. “But what choice do I have? They already murdered Franko, Schiff, Vranos and Pozniak! I won’t let them kill anyone else on my team.”
“They’re still going to kill Milton, Amy, and now us too.”
“I made the call. That’s what being the boss…” she paused here and glared at him, “is all about it. If you don’t like it you can submit a written report to Director Gates when…”
“When I get us out of his mess?’ he interrupted. “Sure.”
“Enough!” Kandarian yelled, and turned to Belisarius. “And kill the protection.”
Belisarius fired into Milton’s chest without a second thought and Amy watched him crash down dead into the rocky cave floor. The bullet had burst through his chest like a canon and felled him like a tree. When the big man hit the ground, everyone felt it shake.
“My God!” Amy said. “You just murdered him in cold blood!”
“Silence!” Kandarian’s face was stone. Cold, hard and emotionless. There was zero emotion or reaction to what he had just ordered and witnessed. “Or you will be next. Now you are a handful of unarmed amateurs against many more highly trained armed professional mercenaries. I strongly suggest you stay out of our way and let us work and take what we want or you will die down here just like your foolhardy friends.”
“You’re just a bunch of insane cultists,” Hunter said. “How could anyone believe anything you say?”
Kandarian was walking past the prisoners on his way to the adytum, but now he hesitated and turned to face the Englishman. “Insane cultists? I think you are misinformed, Dr Hunter. I am the enlightened Leader of the Brotherhood of the Falling Star and Keeper of the Revelation Relic.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Hunter and Amy caught each other’s eye and shared a knowing glance. The English archaeologist tried hard to look unfazed, and shoved his hands into his pockets as casually as he could. “Is that supposed to impress me?”
Kandarian drew up closer to him now, pulling his pistol from the holster on his hip and pushing the muzzle into his cheek. “Tell me, Dr Hunter. Why would an enlightened man of religion need to impress a common little soldier and bone-digger such as yourself?”
“Because deep down you know nobody loves you and all you really want is a good friend?”
Kandarian curled his lip and pushed the gun harder into his cheek. “A good part of me wants to blow your head off right now.”
Aware the eyes of his teammates were on him, Hunter never flinched. “Then put your money where your mouth is and do it.”
“No, because the better part of me wants you to die in a much more unpleasant and painful way. This will happen soon enough.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
Kandarian pulled the gun away and thrust it back into the holster. Turning to one of the Brotherhood, he said, “See to it that their hands are bound behind their backs and keep them out here while I take the Tabula Dei into the adytum and meditate for a moment. Soon, our world will be returned to its original state as it was in the Garden of Eden. No more sinners.”
“Yes, Eminence.”
Tense, anxious minutes passed, then Kandarian returned with Revelation 23 and the Tabula Dei in his hands. He looked calm and peaceful.
Belisarius looked at the papyrus scroll. “Why are you taking these manuscripts from the High Altar, Eminence? You have always taught that these sacred works must remain where they
belong.”
“Yes, but our plans have changed, my loyal follower. Special Agent Fox and her team of amateur adventurers have slowed us down for the last time. They are to die here, now. Have the men lash them to these stalagmites and then set explosives.”
“Explosives, Eminence?” Belisarius was aghast. “In this most sacred of sites?”
“Are you questioning me?”
“No.” He looked down at his boots. “Of course not, Eminence.”
“Good. My will is the will of God, Belisarius. It is a divine will.”
Belisarius bowed to his master and then, in his strange language, ordered his men to work. At his side, Kandarian now turned to his prisoners. “You have fought valiantly for your cause, but because that cause was evil, you have failed. You will die here in this place and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.”
Amy looked at Hunter and recognised the look she saw in his eyes.
It’s now or never.
Turning, she saw Blanco and the others were thinking the same thing.
Blanco moved first. Closest to Kandarian, he lunged forward and attacked him, powering a right hook into his jaw and knocking him off his feet. He cried out for help from Belisarius and the giant spun around and headed toward them.
Hunter made the distance in seconds, responding instantly to the threat posed to his teammate by the Armenian giant. Belisarius saw the ex-soldier charging him down and spun around to face him, bringing his compact machine pistol up into the aim and curling his finger around the trigger.
It was too late. Hunter was already on him and swung a haymaker into his face.
Nothing.
The giant grinned, swept his arm in a wide arc and knocked Hunter out of his path as if he weighed nothing at all. The Englishman crashed onto the rocky cave floor and rolled over and over with the force of the blow until coming to a stop in front of Quinn and Jodie.
“Hello.”
