Solomon's Grave

by Daniel G. Keohane

  Solomon’s Grave

  Daniel G. Keohane

  www.dragonmoonpress.com

  Solomon’s Grave

  Copyright © 2009 Daniel G. Keohane

  All rights reserved. Reproduction or utilization of this work in any form, by any means now known or hereinafter invented, including, but not limited to, xerography, photocopying and recording, and in any known storage and retrieval system, is forbidden without permission from the copyright holder.

  ISBN 13 978-1-897492-14-7 Ebook

  www.dragonmoonpress.com

  www.danielkeohane.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Solomon’s Grave

  Daniel G. Keohane

  Acknowledgments

  Most authors, if they want to be successful in this business, rarely work in seclusion. A number people contributed their time and talents in helping me bring Solomon’s Grave to publication, and I’m happy to have the chance to say thanks one more time (for anyone I might have forgotten, please forgive me, but thanks!).

  My wife Janet, for being the first to pour over the manuscript. For her patience and support as this book came to life during lunches, holidays and coupon days. Andrew, Amanda and Audrey for their bottomless enthusiasm for their Dad’s little obsession. Mom & Dad for a lifetime of love and encouragement, you know I can never say enough to show you how much I appreciate what you’ve done for all of us. Fran Bellerive, proofreader extraordinaire over the decades, for using your colored pens to decorate every page, and never—I mean, never—letting me get away with anything. I’m a better writer for it. Mark Lowell, proofreader extraordinaire number three, for never hesitating to ask the tough questions, and for picking this book apart and putting it back together in the right order. Reverend David Switzer of Trinity Church in Northborough, who took the time to sit down with a complete stranger and discuss the life and times of a pastor, so many details which eventually found their way into Nathan Dinneck’s life. Alton Gansky, for his willingness to mentor a struggling new novelist, and his support and bottomless knowledge of our little secret buried under Solomon’s grave. Mario Kivistik for his Estonian translations (yep, those cryptic lines late into the book are Estonian). My agents—Cristine Ranghetti who lovingly laid this book onto Dragon Moon’s desk after previously finding homes for it in Italy and Germany (you’ve made my life very interesting, to say the least)—and Sara Camilli for closing the deal. My editor at Dragon Moon Books, Gabrielle Harbowy, for going through the manuscript more than once, and making it even better (she probably wouldn’t approve of ‘even’ in that sentence, though), and of course publisher Gwen Gades, for saying ‘yes,’ and her constant enthusiasm for the project ever since.

  For Janet, my Elizabeth.

  “And God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

  You shall have no other gods before me.”

  Exodus 20:1-3 (NIV)

  “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord....”

  1 Kings 11:4-6 (NIV)

  Part One: Homecoming

  Prologue

  Constantinople, 1204 A.D.

  Bishop Georgios Palaiologos stumbled on a raised stone as he ran the length of the torch-lit corridor. The top strap of his sandal broke loose. There was no time for mending it. He curled the toes of his right foot to hold the sandal in place and continued on. Even in this little-known passage he could hear the sounds of Latin crusaders crashing through rooms and halls on the main floor. The Church of the Twelve Apostles, God’s most holy and majestic Byzantine cathedral, was overrun by those who claimed their animal violence in His name.

  The courier, a young boy of barely seven years, had given him the warning with terror etched on his small face. The message was from Georgios’ fellow bishop at Hagia Sophia. They are coming; the Latins are coming and you must leave with as many of the relics as you can carry. No one is being spared. No one.

  Then the boy’s face crumpled. Before Georgios could reach out to comfort him he’d escaped out a side door, desperate to return home. The bishop now offered another prayer for the boy’s safety as he opened a door hidden behind a tapestry at the end of the passage. He did so slowly, wary that perhaps he’d underestimated the preparedness of the knights storming up the church’s steps only fifteen minutes after the courier departed. It would take time to find their way down here, but Georgios maintained stealth as he ran down the winding flight of steps and entered the large, cross-shaped tomb below the church. It was empty. For now.

  No time to consider his plan. Still, when he saw the twelve caskets laid out in the chamber, relegated centuries before by Constantius to hold the most sacred relics of Christ’s original twelve apostles, the large man sagged to his knees.

  “Dear God,” he whispered, hands clasped together against his chest. “Please protect your church. Do not let these murderers destroy your temple. Guide my steps.” He wanted to remain there, fall prostrate to the cold floor and beseech the Lord to lay his hand over the perfect and irreplaceable objects which lay within the sarcophagi. The sounds above him became suddenly louder. They had found the entrance to this basilica. He had to go now, since what he sought made even these precious objects insignificant.

  Georgios was the caretaker, chosen by God. He mustn’t hesitate. There were some, perhaps many, among the invading hordes, dark-minded men no more faithful to Pope Innocent III’s holy Crusades than were the neighboring Turks. These hidden marauders, servants of the Dark One himself, were his true adversaries. He rose to his feet, curled the toes of his right foot into the broken sandal, and ran to the far corner of the chamber. He passed the Column of Flagellation, the very pillar to which the Lord Jesus was bound and whipped. He closed one eye, trying to pretend it was nothing more than a support column.

  Nothing more.

  Dear God, why does this have to happen?

  The door was flush with the wall, save three indented holes into which he clumsily put the fingers of his right hand. He pulled. The door gave, though it tried to resist his efforts. The bishop leaned back, adding his own weight to the action, and the door swung wide. As soon as he released his handhold, the heavy stone began sliding back into place. He reached out and liberated the closest of the torches lining the room. They were lighted always, maintained by the nuns of his own order. Those poor women... no, he must think of nothing else but his mission. The door buffeted him as he passed inside, knocking him against the wall. Sparks from the torch dusted across his face. His right sandal, at last, broke free. He did not stop to reclaim it, but kicked off the other within the inner hall and walked barefoot along the passage. He held the torch’s flame high to keep the heat and smoke out of his eyes.

  Before he turned the corner into the chamber, the bishop felt its power. No matter how often, how constantly drawn he was to this secret room, the barely restrained power of God—both glorious and deadly—filled him with awe. But he did not slow; he could not. His bare feet slapped against stones regularly cleaned and washed by his own hand.

  The relic before him seemed to suck the very light from his torch’s flame, filling itself and shining back a hundred fold. Georgios was certain it was not mere reflection across the ornate gold that caused this. He had many theories on why this
relic, as holy and historical as it obviously was, was so coveted by both God and Satan. Why he and thousands before him had devoted their lives to its secrecy and protection. Some day he would need to write his theories down. He cursed his procrastination. He may not live out the day to write any more in his journals.

  After inserting the torch into the nearest sconce, the large man climbed onto the platform. Voices now, behind him. How had the cursed knights found the apostles’ chamber so quickly? Sounds of breaking stone. Georgios stumbled, closed his eyes and wanted to weep at the thoughts of what might be happening beyond the sealed door.

  The sound of looting and destruction faded suddenly under an obscure hum. Music, surrounding him. Chanting. No, not chanting, singing, a million voices collapsing into one, then back again to millions. He dropped to one knee, knowing in his heart the sound was of angels, just beyond the very doorway into Heaven.

  No, he would consider such musings another time.

  He looked up. The vessel was too large to be moved by one man, especially himself. After the boy left him, Georgios understood he’d been caught sleeping. He prayed that God would send a force to help him move it, but there was simply not enough time for help to arrive. Only one option left to him, which he must do alone.

  Something crashed against stone at the end of the corridor. He heard voices, louder now, the grinding of the hidden stone door. It crashed closed. Even this most secret of places they had found with ease. It would not take long for them to realize how to handle the door and charge inside.

  Georgios opened the vessel’s lid, slid it sideways no more than a foot, and reached in with steady hands. He closed his fingers around them, the most sacred objects in existence. He lifted the bundle and held it close to his chest, feeling its power surge through him. This was the key. Without it, the door to Heaven would be locked against this violent, pathetic world.

  Perhaps forever.

  Chapter One

  The sky above the desert glowed deep red, almost maroon. Toward the horizon, it became brighter, lightening to a thin yellow where sand met sky. Nathan didn’t know which direction this was, whether he was seeing sunrise or sunset. He prayed he was facing east, for then the dancing colors would imply the sun would soon rise and with it, the comfort of day.

  Desert stretched around him as far as he could see, but he was not hot. No shimmering of heat danced over the ground. The sand under his sneaker felt real when he kicked it. When he looked up again, his stomach tightened—a thin, acidic fear creeping through his body, filling his arms and legs with lead.

  Where once there was only an eternal stretch of sand before him, a building now stood. Even from this distance, he could tell it was massive; two hundred feet high, maybe more. No definite delineation existed of floor or stories. It could have been a pyramid—its base wide, slowly tapering to a narrow girth at the top—or an Incan temple the likes of which he’d seen in old National Geographic magazines.

  He was dreaming, a realization as familiar as the dream itself. As before, with the introduction of the temple came the people marching past. They formed a long line on either side of him, hooded, cloaks bathed in red hues of the surreal sky above. They marched in the sand like penitent monks, toward the temple. Nathan did not want to follow. He wanted to run away, or wake up, or do whatever he could to escape. The sand pulled him forward like an undertow. He tried to maintain his footing. The sand did feel hot, piling over his socks and sneakers. He tried to lean back, pull against the force.

  Then he was in the air, flying without effort toward the temple. He passed over the hooded figures as they trudged along the landscape toward hundreds of steps leading up the building’s face toward a single, massive door. In the crowd that raced past below him, one face—just a quick glimpse—rang familiar before being lost in the ruddy shadows of its hood. The face eluded his memory, his thoughts occupied now on what lay ahead.

  The doors of the temple swung inward. What remained was only a black square waiting to swallow him. Nathan spun, looked behind him to search under the cowls to glean any features of a friendly face. Someone to beg help from.

  Nothing but lonesome darkness under each. If there had been someone he knew in the line of penitents, that person was lost forever. The twin formations faded into the distance. He was moving backwards, toward the open doors of the temple. Nathan ineffectually kicked his feet, tried to swim away in the hot, dry air. He remained caught in the undertow, sensing a heavy presence in the doorway behind him. He didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to go inside. He closed his eyes, curled himself into a tight ball, tried to scream, tried to wake up, but his voice was mute.

  “You are the sacrifice tonight,” said a voice. It was the voice one would imagine belonging to God, but turned inside out, dark and amused. From everywhere and nowhere a hundred arms grabbed him, squeezed his skin, pulled him inside.

  The desert faded to a square floating in darkness, growing smaller as he fell further inside the temple. Nathan thrashed in their grip. They pulled harder, hurting, drawing him down and ripping at his flesh. Another sensation now, an odor, something burning—

  “Hey! Hey, pal!”

  Nathan found his voice at that moment and screamed one long, desperate wail. He struck out, found his arms no longer pinned.

  A large, burly man leaned across the aisle and gripped his shoulder. Despite the man’s size, he seemed afraid to touch Nathan. “It’s OK, man. You awake yet or what?” He pulled his hand away and leaned back into his own seat.

  Nathan looked around. The steady vibration of the bus, rolling along the dark highway outside. The bus. He’d fallen asleep on the ride. Nathan checked his watch, pressing a small button to illuminate the dial. Two-thirty in the morning.

  He took in a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m OK. Sorry. Bad dream, I think. I didn’t hit you or anything, did I?”

  The other man’s body sagged with relief, and he nodded, moving his large frame back to the window seat where he’d apparently been sitting before coming across to pull Nathan from the nightmare. “It’s OK,” he mumbled, keeping a sideways glance trained on him. “Didn’t hurt. Sounded like a bad one. I couldn’t wake you up.” He made this last statement almost to himself.

  Nathan began to explain, but already the images and details were hard to remember, washed away in the real-life sensations of the bus’s dimly-lit interior. Besides, the guy probably didn’t want the details. He was being polite.

  “I don’t remember much of it, not really. Thanks, though.” Three other heads were looking over the backs of the seats from scattered locations in front of him. Another advantage of taking such a late-traveling bus—aside from getting to Massachusetts quicker and without traffic—there were far fewer passengers spooked by his outburst. Nathan wondered absently if he really had screamed, or if that had been part of the dream. He didn’t want to know, and didn’t ask.

  The man across the aisle extinguished the small overhead reading lamp, obviously trying to get back to sleep.

  Nathan’s left shoulder ached. The guy must have shaken him hard. Seeing nothing else to hold their interest, the observing heads moved out of sight behind the seats. Nathan was alone again.

  He looked at his dim reflection in the bus window, broken occasionally by a passing headlight or street lamp along the edge of Interstate 95. He tried to capture some details of the dream, hoping to retain more of it this time. It was his second nightmare this week. Some details felt familiar this time around, as if he’d experienced them before. Same dream, probably. The temple was most vivid, so alien to his consciousness. Maybe he’d seen it in a book, once, but couldn’t remember. Its setting had a biblical flavor. Nathan had already checked the three versions of the Bible he owned and didn’t see any illustration coming close.

  This time, there had been a familiar face in the dream, or at least he thought so. His father, maybe? Other details, the red sky, the desert-scape, but again he returned to the quick glimpse of Art Dinneck—if t
hat’s who it was—walking along, hooded, lost. Almost reverent. That part almost made sense. Homecoming jitters. In a few more hours, he’d arrive in Worcester. Then a cab ride to the small town of Hillcrest fifteen minutes north. Not to the house of his childhood, though he would pay a visit to his parents later.

  Tomorrow morning—this morning, he realized—Nathan Dinneck would step into Hillcrest First Baptist Church not as a parishioner returning to the fold, but as its new pastor. The prodigal son returning, as his mother enjoyed saying (and saying, and saying) since he’d first phoned with the news. Only the second minister to serve in the small church’s thirty-year history. His new job broke so many rules of a parish choosing a pastor, he half-expected a large “April Fool’s” sign taped to the door. Five months late for such a thing, granted, but a nagging uncertainty remained.

  Maybe if he were older, more experienced, then his new assignment wouldn’t seem so unlikely. But Jesus’ words—that a prophet is never welcomed in his home town—weighed on his thoughts. In fact, those words were often a standard by which church elders based many a decision. Until now, it seemed.

  But, Reverend Hayden himself had invited Nathan to interview. The old man had been looking forward to a long overdue retirement. His failing eyesight and chronic arthritis had finally won out. Being the head of the search committee, he’d made the initial call. Nathan was serving as associate pastor in a large parish just outside of Orlando, a far cry from Hillcrest’s smaller, more intimate congregation. Unlike the south, the Christian population in New England, especially Massachusetts, was predominately Catholic and Congregational. Many of his boyhood friends went to Saint Malachy’s in the center of town, if they attended church at all.

  Perhaps that would be an advantage. Running a small parish in such a sleepy town meant he could get his feet wet as pastor a bit more leisurely. From his own experience, nothing much exciting ever happened at home.