Indisputable Proof

by Gary Williams

  Without hesitation, Tolen walked off the ledge. Diaz followed, and Jade forced herself to move quickly in order to catch up with the men. A shark swirled by Tolen but made no attempt to challenge him. Diaz backed into Tolen, and Jade huddled against their two backs as the threesome slid off the underwater ramp.

  “Let’s move,” Tolen said as he led them outward.

  A second later, Jade felt the smooth stone footing disappear, and the water grew colder as she submerged up to her neck. The three swam in place momentarily, concentrating to maintain their positions, backs touching as they faced outward. The dim light made it difficult to keep track of the creatures in the murky water, which set her nerves on edge. The configuration of bodies also meant they were constantly touching each other as they swam. The first few times she felt Diaz’s arm skim against her side or Tolen’s leg kick into hers, she mistook them for a shark and her heart nearly stopped.

  “Move slowly,” Tolen instructed.

  Like a three-sided creature, the tiny cluster of humanity stirred themselves through the water upon Tolen’s directions, with the agent on point. Diaz and Jade were primarily facing backward. The progress was agonizingly slow as they kept their eyes vigilantly on the roiling water around them. The sharks seemed curious but so far had not displayed any aggression.

  Jade could feel the tight tourniquet biting into her forearm. The sense of feeling was quickly evaporating from her hand as she paddled, sticking to Tolen and Diaz like a magnet. Tolen kept them moving to ensure they remained in a tight pack. She noticed the sharks seemed to give them a wide berth, at least from her vantage point at the rear, and Jade felt minimally encouraged.

  The fishy-smelling brine in the air remained thick. The only sound was their gasping breaths and the occasional surface disruption from the sharks patrolling around them. Jade’s muscles protested vehemently to the perpetual strain of remaining afloat.

  Briefly turning her head to the side, Jade estimated they were more than halfway to the wall. Just as her hopes of survival were rising, a large figure rose up and broke the surface a dozen feet away, its black eye turning toward Jade. She felt a jolt of panic. She forced herself to swim using minimal movement, praying not to draw the creature’s attention. The shark remained on the surface, pivoted right, then spun left with a furious swish of its tail.

  In the next instant, it ripped through the water toward Jade, head cocked to the side, jaws breaking the surface with protracted razor-sharp teeth.

  Survival was instinctual. She targeted the lone black eye which was visible. With a shriek, she reached out her hand and drove a finger into the beast’s eye just as its jaws were about to clamp down on her torso. The creature broke off the attack as if it had been struck by lightning. It made a pronounced turn, erratically sideswiping Jade, sending a wave washing over her head. Reflexively, she flung back into the two men, nudging all three of them several feet through the water. Completely unnerved, she struggled for air on the verge of hyperventilating.

  “Mierda santa!” Diaz exclaimed, his voice laced with horror at what he had just witnessed.

  “What happened?” Tolen shouted from behind.

  Jade’s mouth had gone dry. She was in mortal fear the creature would attack again at any moment. She strained her vocal chords until she could force the words to come out. “I was attacked…I’m…okay!”

  “We’re almost there, Jade. Hold on,” Tolen urged. He moved them faster now, and Jade concentrated on staying with the pack, eyeing the water, mouthing prayer after prayer she would make it out alive and the menacing creature would not return.

  The surface of the water continued to boil with the ominous activity several feet away. Her pulse was racing so fast she feared a heart attack was imminent. She had to fight the urge to turn and swim as fast as she could to shore.

  “We’re at the ledge,” Tolen said after what seemed like forever. Before Jade could react, she felt a hand spin her around. It was Tolen. Both men pushed her up, and she scurried onto the ledge. The tide was still rising, but the water had only just reached the elevated flat stone surface. In unison, Tolen and Diaz raised themselves up to it and cleared the water.

  “Thank God,” Diaz said, bending over with his hands on his knees, breathing hard.

  Jade moved to the wall, turned, and leaned against it, exhausted.

  Tolen untied Jade’s tourniquet and dropped it at their feet. She rubbed the spot, trying to work the soreness out as her arm tingled with pinpricks and feeling returned. She felt the cool air in the cavern on her mid-section where her skin was now exposed.

  For a moment, all three stood gazing at the shark-infested lagoon as water ran off their clothes.

  The tiny island in the middle no longer existed. There was no evidence it ever had.

  CHAPTER 23

  September 11. Tuesday – 7:26 p.m. Northwest Coast of Costa Rica

  The wind had died down, yet the ocean surface remained a choppy blue. The sun was setting at their back. Tolen guided the boat back toward the docks along the northern shore of Costa Rica.

  Gordon Nunnery’s jet ski had come in handy. Tolen used it to ferry Jade, then Diaz, back to the dinghy to avoid any more shark encounters.

  Diaz was sequestered below deck, a self-imposed confinement after succumbing to another bout of seasickness. After what they had been through—being shot at, nearly drowning, and swimming through a school of sharks—it seemed nonsensical that it was the pitching of the boat in rough seas that once again incapacitated the Spanish law officer.

  Standing beside Tolen at the helm, Jade removed the small jar from the plastic bag. For the first time, they would be able to examine the five-inch-long relic in detail. The bulbous cap was fashioned into a tiny human head. The base of the jar was in the shape of a drinking glass. It flared out at the top where the cap was seated. The face on the head had curly short hair, a beard and mustache, but was not familiar to either Jade or Tolen.

  “Do you think it’s him?” Jade had asked.

  “Joseph of Arimathea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everything else Joseph has left for us has to do with Jesus.”

  Jade stared at the small bust atop the jar with fascination. “It’s staggering to consider we could be looking into the face of Jesus. This in itself may be a priceless relic,” she remarked.

  “Shall we see what’s inside?” Tolen asked.

  Jade stared down at it in her fingers. She chewed briefly on her bottom lip, making no effort to open it.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She looked up at him with trepidation. “What if it’s empty? What if we almost died for nothing except to placate my crazy obsession?”

  “And what if this jar contains information that will lead you to the single greatest archaeological discovery in mankind’s history?”

  Jade looked down. “I’m sickened that the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea was destroyed. If we left any clues behind, our efforts will turn out to be for naught.”

  “You’re holding exactly what we needed to find,” Tolen said reassuringly.

  She looked down at the small container again. Jade drew a lingering breath and released it. Taking the jar in her left hand, she gently grabbed the small bust and pulled. For a moment, it stuck. Then it slowly worked loose. The cap separated from the main body of the jar with a scrape. With some hesitancy, she looked inside.

  Tolen watched her intently.

  Jade dipped two fingers into the opening, tilted the jar, and very carefully pulled out a tiny parchment roll. A wide smile sprouted upon her face and her eyes twinkled. “This is spectacular!”

  He could see the exhilaration in her eyes, and it became infectious.

  She looked back down at the roll, then again inside the jar. “There’s something else inside.” She handed T
olen the roll, then she tipped the jar and a tiny cloth bag spilled into her hand. It was bound with a thin string. Jade lowered it below the level of the boat console to fend off the wind. She gently untied the bag, spread the collar, and they looked inside.

  Tolen recognized the natural, crushed material. “It’s myrrh.”

  Her expression turned to awe. “Do you think this is the myrrh Jesus received as a baby?”

  For several long seconds the two stared at the myrrh in silence. Then a stiff, swirling breeze threatened to blow the substance into the ocean and Jade retied it, placing the tiny cloth bag back inside the jar. She returned the stone jar and lid to the larger plastic bag, wound it in rags to protect it from breaking, and deposited it in a storage compartment in the center console.

  Jade paused and took a deep breath, seemingly to calm herself. Tolen couldn’t blame her. His own sense of wonderment had ballooned.

  “May I?” she finally asked, motioning to the object in Tolen’s hand. He handed her the miniscule roll, and she delicately unwound the ancient paper. She looked up. “It’s Hebrew again,” she said, her eyes alive with the revelation this was the next clue. She translated aloud:

  Travel from the west. The path to the 64th goes through the petra in banishment. There you will find the second jar.

  “Once again, not exactly an easy message to decipher,” Jade remarked.

  Tolen momentarily digested the sentences. “Petra is Greek for ‘stone.’ ”

  “Petra is also an ancient site in the Jordanian governorate of Ma’an. It’s an area with extensive biblical significance,” Jade added. “The Bible mentions it as the place where Moses struck his staff on a rock and water sprang forth. It’s also where Moses’ brother, Aaron, is said to be buried on Mount Hor, known today as Jabal Haroun. The rock-carved, red city of Petra is concealed behind rugged mountains and is difficult to reach, and even if this is what the clue is referring to, we have no way to know where to start looking.” A look of disappointment streaked over Jade’s face but vanished as her gaze narrowed and sharpened. “You still haven’t told me how you know so much about the history related to Jesus of Nazareth. In the underground caverns, you knew the exact name of the trees from which frankincense and myrrh are extracted. That’s not exactly common knowledge.”

  Tolen chose to focus ahead and not look Jade in the eyes. “As I mentioned before, I have a degree in world history. At one time, you might say I was a student of being a student. I retain most of what I read.”

  “I see.”

  He knew she didn’t. “Travel from the west. The path to the 64th goes through the petra in banishment. There you will find the second jar,” he repeated the translation hoping to return their focus to the clue. “Any idea what is meant by ‘the 64th’?”

  Jade shook her head.

  “What about the term ‘banishment’?”

  Again, Jade shook her head.

  Tolen pulled his cell phone from the storage compartment, careful not to disturb the stone jar. “Excuse me a moment.”

  Jade nodded, still staring at the tiny parchment.

  “Bar, I need some information,” Tolen said once he heard her pick up. “Tell me what you can find on a man named Gordon Nunnery.”

  “Another guy who tried to kill you?” She asked whimsically. “Let me guess. Mr. Nunnery is no longer with us.”

  “He had a Saskatchewan driver’s license,” Tolen pulled the identification from his pocket and read the numbers on the license to her.

  There was a moment of silence before Bar spoke. “Gordon Nunnery. Fifty-eight-year-old Canadian by birth, born in Quebec. Physicist involved with particle research. Also a proponent of the String Theory. His most recent stint was four years working at TRIUMF in Vancouver. TRIUMF is one of the world’s leading subatomic physics laboratories, in case you didn’t know. Divorced with two grown sons. Clean record. No arrests; a few parking citations. Definitely not a bad guy. Well, except for trying to kill you.”

  Nunnery was similar to the man who had attacked them at Harvard: Richard Mox. Neither man fit the profile of a member of an anti-religious sect such as the “True Sons of Light.”

  “I found a receipt in his wallet to a dry-cleaning business in Switzerland. I’ll text the information. It’s in German. See what you can find out, okay?”

  “How do you know it’s a dry cleaner if it’s written in Germ—,” she cut herself off. “That’s one of the eight languages you know, isn’t it? I used to think I was worldly because I knew Spanish,” she chuckled.

  “Yes, but you’ve mastered Spanish for every local dialect in Mexico, South America, and Spain. Don’t sell yourself short, Bar,” he paused. “Did you uncover any dirt on Mox?”

  “We found nothing at his house in California to implicate him as a member of an overly zealous group, and nothing to tie him to Boyd Ramsey,” Bar paused briefly. “Tolen, you know we have less than 56 hours to locate the Sudarium, right? Vakind’s getting chewed out every few hours now by Spanish officials and every hour by the president. I know the director gives you autonomy, but have you got anything to go on?”

  Tolen did not respond to her question. Instead, he said, “I’ll be in touch, Ms. Bar.” He hung up, considering her question. Time was running out, and the leads had been few. He had hoped to encounter more of the “True Sons of Light” so that they might lead him to Ramsey or the Sudarium or both. So far, though, they had struck out. Their only choice now was to follow through on this maddeningly slow hunt and hope more people affiliated with the “True Sons of Light” came after them. His gut told him they would. Unless they could decode this last clue, however, their chase would come to a screeching halt.

  Tolen considered the circumstances of both attacks on them. They had been feeble attempts, and in each case, the men had acted alone. Their weapons of choice had been most unusual. Mox had tried to run them over with a car. Nunnery had fired at them with a .22-calibre hunting rifle; not exactly a killer’s weapon. The rifle was more effective in hunting small game. The fact that one was an ex-archaeologist and the other a physicist was equally baffling, as was Gordon Nunnery’s ability to find them inside the cathedral cave when Tolen was sure they had not been followed.

  One other aspect was even more troubling: neither of the attempts appeared to emulate apostle-style deaths. Why had the radical group suddenly altered their modus operandi?

  CHAPTER 24

  September 11. Tuesday – 9:28 p.m. Murciélago, Costa Rica

  Tolen, Jade, and Diaz sat at a small round table in a motel room in Murciélago eating dinner. Reba Zee had the plane parked at an airport three miles away. Tolen had put her on alert to be ready to take off at a moment’s notice.

  Unfortunately, they were still baffled by the stone jar text. And with the weight of the ticking clock bearing down on them, Diaz became more agitated and obstinate. While Jade did not state it aloud, she had conceded to herself the possibility that they might never solve the obscure message on the tiny roll of parchment.

  Jade took several bites of gallo pinto, dabbed a piece of rice from her lips, and stood. She began to pace the room. “64…64…64,” she repeated to herself, as she toyed with her newly bandaged forearm.

  “What of 64?” Diaz said, keeping his face down to the plate as he ate.

  “It says, ‘The path to the 64th goes through the petra in banishment.’ ” She sat down on the bed, flipped her laptop open and began typing frantically. She searched for the file she and Dr. Cherrigan had worked on. It contained an imaged copy of the Copper Scroll and the English translation. When she found it, she clicked it open. “That’s it!” she exulted.

  She looked at Tolen. He put his fork down, walked over to the bed, and sat down beside her. Diaz continued to shovel food into his mouth.

  “Unlike the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls,”
she continued, “which were written on parchment or papyrus in the 2nd century BCE, experts say the Copper Scroll dates between 50 and 100 AD. This places it squarely in the lifetime of Joseph of Arimathea, which makes sense if you consider he was a metals dealer with ready access and familiarity to copper. Also, the style of writing on the Copper Scroll is unusual. It’s similar to Mishnaic Hebrew, with an unusual orthography; quite different than the other Dead Sea Scrolls’ texts. Actually, about the only similarity of the Copper Scroll to the Dead Sea Scrolls is that they were found in the same area, in caves in the cliffs overlooking the Dead Sea in Israel. It’s the only reason they’re linked at all.

  “The Copper Scroll also has other characteristics which make it unique. While the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls contain most of the books of the Old Testament and other non-biblical text such as community rules, the Copper Scroll is a listing of sixty-three underground hiding places said to contain hordes of gold, silver, and aromatics. Although people have searched the deserts of Israel, not a single one of the 63 treasures have been found. Curiously, the sixty-fourth, and last, description is said to lead to a more detailed duplicate of the Copper Scroll. The scroll’s last line gives the location and begins as follows: ‘In a dry well that is at the north of Kohlit…’ Unfortunately, no one knows the location of Kohlit.

  “Another unique facet of the Copper Scroll is that scholars don’t know what every word in the text means. This vagueness, combined with the high probability that the landmarks mentioned in the text no longer exist, is the primary reason most people believe the treasures will never be located. Some scholars believe the Copper Scroll is a work of fiction, since there’s never been agreement on who authored it or who supposedly hid the treasures.”