The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection

by Carolyn McCray

  She stopped abruptly and pulled her hand from the water. “I think…”

  Lochum felt like shaking the answer from her, but instead he carefully put his arm into the water, then he, too, retracted his hand.

  “I think,” Rebecca finally found her voice, “it’s the ossuary box. The box.”

  The professor felt his head nod up and down far too vigorously. He really should stop, but he could not.

  She looked like a little girl. “The fish. They are protecting him.”

  His mouth watered at the thought.

  “It’s going to take both of us,” she said, and again all he could do was bob his head.

  Together they leaned over and felt along the edges until they found purchase under the box.

  “Ready?” she asked and off his incessant nod, Rebecca heaved. His back complained, but he did not stop lifting until the small stone box was above the water’s surface.

  Carefully they set the sacred relic on the smooth ground. They both sat back on their heels and studied the lid.

  “The dearest brother,” she read breathlessly.

  He felt all the air in his lungs escape at once. Even now he did not believe it possible. Not until she said those precious words. It could be none other than James.

  “It’s heavy, but I think we can carry it out of here intact.”

  His head bobbed on its own. He could not talk. It might not be Jesus, but it was his brother. His brother.

  Sounds drifted down from the long stairwell.

  “We’d better hurry,” Rebecca said trying to lift her end, but could not.

  Lochum assisted, but found it far heavier than before. And was the pond not as bright? The more they tried to lift the box, the heavier it seemed. Rebecca tried dragging it, but even that would be too slow.

  With a concerned look, she pulled out a Swiss Army knife. He had taught her well. The tool was a paleoarchaeologist’s best friend.

  “I’m going to open it, right?”

  As the sounds from above grew louder, Lochum nodded, but felt that there should be a thousand photographers to document this moment. Instead there were just some fish and a dimming pond to mark the event.

  It did not take long for her to break the seal, but she looked hesitant to open the lid. He leaned forward and lifted the stone lid.

  There they were.

  James’ skeleton and a single silver coin.

  He touched one of the bones as the light from the pond softened to barely a glow. Lochum could feel the tiny inscriptions in the bone.

  Instructions to find Jesus.

  A loud crash indicated their pursuers had broken through to the stairwell.

  “We’d better take off,” Rebecca said as she gathered the bones and tried to awkwardly fit them into her laptop satchel.

  “No,” Lochum said as he pulled out a pillowcase he had taken from the bed upstairs. “After last time, I think I should carry them.”

  As the light fully extinguished, Lochum followed his student into a steeply graded tunnel with James’ bones on his back.

  James’ bones.

  He was just one clue away from Christ.

  CHAPTER 17

  ══════════════════

  Dohany Street Synagogue, Budapest

  Tok walked solemnly through the history museum wing of the Great Synagogue. The stark pictures of human suffering reminded him of the days when Rome crucified hundreds of Jews a day trying to quell the Jerusalem uprising. Power always sought to snuff out religion for faith was beyond the state’s control. Christians in China. Muslims in Bosnia.

  He shook his head. Such suffering.

  “They have found them,” Petir said from behind.

  “Where?”

  His mentor led him out the back, past the Weeping Willow Memorial, and into the alley. So many noises greeted him at once. The sounds of life. Someone was singing, very off-key, down the street. Another couple was arguing over dinner. Had he wronged her, or vice versa? Then from a window, a child laughed. Not just laughed but belly guffawed. Snorting and giggling. Was there any finer sound in the entire world?

  The first time he heard it, Tok had not known how to react. Was laughter a signal of aggression? But then he saw a group of children rolling onto their sides in glee. Then he understood. Understood how vital his mission was to the world. He had always known the parameters of his work. He had known the how and the what of it all, but until that moment he had not known the why. But now he did.

  As the sounds of the evening filled the alley, Petir guided him through a set of iron gates. They entered the Gozsdu section of Pest. Suddenly Tok worried that his implants were not functioning correctly. The symphony from the alley diminished to barely a whisper. Tilting his head, Tok put pressure just under his right ear and opened his jaw, testing the connection of the microfilaments.

  “It is not you, Master.”

  Tok certainly heard Petir just fine.

  His mentor finished, “It is this place. It is simply devoid of noise.”

  No, that was not true. The slightest rustle of wind swayed curtains in the windows. This courtyard was completely devoid of life.

  He did not like this place, but Tok followed Petir into one of the houses. Quickly they passed through the water closet’s false wall.

  Bright floodlights had been hastily installed to illuminate the staircase. They traveled the steps quickly, which ended in one of the area’s many caves. Petir indicated a pond.

  “We believe the ossuary was located in the center.”

  Tok looked down to see the rectangular deficit in the pool’s bottom.

  Petir went on to describe the search efforts underway, but Tok turned away from him and looked around the periphery of the cave.

  There were five other staircases, all leading down from the houses above. The captured Jews could have escaped at any time. They did not have to live their life of squalor in the Ghetto. Those battered and broken could have fled into the tunnels and never been found, but they had not.

  In that moment, Tok realized that those Jews must have been descendants of James’ sect. Broken off from the Knot more than a millennium ago, they operated independently. As much as John’s sect had known that his remains were in danger from the renovation of the Eiffel Tower, they sought to destroy them rather than let them fall into heathens’ hands. James’ sect must have stayed in the Ghetto, suffering the whole while. Otherwise, the Nazis would have found their escape route, discovering this pond and the bones within.

  Tok felt such a welling of love for these people, his spiritual cousins. They had endured starvation, pestilence, torture, and worse to protect James. These Jews knew exactly what a man like Hitler could have done with such a precious artifact.

  And Lochum had stolen the bones as if they were but a token in a child’s game. The professor not only disrespected the Jews’ sacrifice, but negated it. They had suffered and ultimately died for nothing.

  Love brewed into anger at Lochum’s arrogance. Tok never took delight in killing, not like others in the Knot. Those who sought to replace him kept tallies and told sordid tales of their “victories,” but he never participated. Death was necessary. Sacrifice was necessary just as the crucifixion had been, but the taking of God’s gift of life brought sorrow for him, not joy. At least not until this day.

  Tok turned abruptly to Petir, interrupting him. “Where are they?”

  “As I was saying, they could not be more than a kilometer ahead. But of course we are also tracking their American guards in the tunnels as well.”

  “All that matters is to find and kill Lochum.”

  Petir cocked his head. “I do not understand. The professor could—”

  Tok caught Petir’s gaze and made sure his old mentor knew he was every bit serious. “I want Lochum’s blasphemy ended.”

  There was only a moment’s hesitation before his mentor nodded again. “It shall be done.”

  He waited until everyone left b
efore he knelt beside the small pond and put his hands together in prayer.

  Christ forgive him, but a smile spread across his face as he thought of Lochum’s eyes dim and his jaw slack with death.

  * * *

  Rebecca tripped over another stalagmite as they ran down the black tunnel. Lochum was faring no better as he cursed under his breath behind her. They were lost and exhausted. Not a good combination.

  They had James, but for how long? The shouts from behind seemed to get closer and closer. Occasionally the tunnel would brighten with the beam of a flashlight. The men who chased them would eventually catch up.

  It wasn’t fair. To have come so close only to be…

  There was a greenish light up ahead. Was she imagining it, or was there light? Their pursuers couldn’t have circled in front this quickly, could they?

  Then the light bloomed, illuminating the distant tunnel in a green warbling color. Were there people coming toward them? And were they in costume? The gladiator out front looked especially familiar.

  “Brandt!” she cried.

  It was he!

  He was alive! In a leather skirt, but alive.

  And there were Lopez and Davidson supporting Svengurd.

  They were all alive!

  “Brandt!” she yelled again.

  “Run!” he responded, red in the face.

  She was running right toward him. Tears streaked her vision. By whatever miracle, they were alive.

  “Brandt,” she said as they met, but he kept running, catching her by the waist, carrying her along, his glow stick bouncing off her forehead.

  “Run!”

  “But they’re coming after us!” she yelled as their pursuers fired from behind her.

  “Left! Go left!” the sergeant yelled over an enormous roar.

  “What’s—”

  As everyone rounded the corner, Rebecca realized Brandt’s urgency. A wall of water rushed down the tunnel, surging right toward them. Lochum barely made it around the curve when the flood hit. The water arched along the wall, creating a tube that seemed to defy gravity until it crashed down.

  They might have avoided the brunt of the flood, but the water poured into their smaller tunnel as the current swelled. As quickly as the group was reunited, they were scattered. It was only Brandt’s arm around her waist that kept them together.

  “Grab hold!” he yelled, but she did not understand why until the wave hit, lifting her up and off her feet.

  Brandt’s other arm lashed out, anchoring them on a protruding stalactite. With a feat of upper body strength, the sergeant pulled her from the tide. She latched onto the slippery stalactite with both hands, gripping tightly as the water tried to tug her downstream.

  Lopez went by, bodysurfing the wave. “Wahooooooo!” he yelled before bouncing off the wall as he was carried out of sight.

  Rebecca arched around, trying to find the others as the water level rose sharply, pushing them closer and closer to the ceiling.

  “Lochum!” she screamed as he washed past them.

  Catching him by the sleeve, Brandt tried to reel Lochum in, but the professor refused to release the pillowcase clutched to his chest. Biting her lip, Rebecca reached with her left hand and grabbed his shoulder. The motion must have jarred him, for the skeletal remains slipped from his grasp. The tide tossed the material in its wake, scattering the bones upon the water’s surface.

  “No!” the professor shouted, flailing against their hold. She clung to his jacket, but he seemed possessed. “Let me go!”

  “Hold the fuck still!” Brandt shouted, but to no avail.

  Pulling his arm from his sleeve, Lochum cast himself into the current.

  “No!” Rebecca cried, almost losing her own hold as she groped for the professor. Just as her fingers were about to slip, Brandt was there, holding her.

  “Hyperventilate,” he said, trying to yell over the growing roar.

  “What?” she asked. Why did he always make the least sense when it mattered most?

  “We’re about—” The sergeant took a spray of water right in the mouth.

  Only then did she realize the new danger. The tunnel was rapidly filling. The water level had brought them nearly horizontal. Within seconds they would be trapped underwater.

  * * *

  When Rebecca turned to Brandt, her face was full of panic.

  “Hyperventilate!” Brandt yelled again. They needed to clear their bloodstreams of carbon dioxide to quell their bodies’ desire to breathe.

  This time she obeyed.

  As the water swirled, the sergeant shouted, “Now hold!”

  He too gulped down a lungful of air before the water cascaded over their heads. Brandt had to blink several times to get his eyes used to being under the bracing water. When his vision cleared he found Rebecca staring at him through the green cast by his glow stick, her eyes wide open. Her lips pursed as if she was going to say something, but, of course, she could not.

  However, Brandt knew her question. What in the hell happened?

  Well, it turned out he wasn’t quite the genius he thought he was. It had sounded like a great idea to hook up a fuse-delayed stash of C-4 in the tunnels and bring down the roof on their adversaries, eliminating both search parties in one fell swoop. only he had not counted on all the water.

  If they had broken through into the Danube River, they were screwed. If, however, they had just burst a water main, there was a slim chance that someone, somewhere, would notice the dropping pressure and turn off a main valve.

  That was one too many fucking “ifs” for Brandt.

  And Rebecca was now in true distress. The doctor obviously had not had the rigorous survival training his team had. Her face blotched red as her cheeks puffed out, with a small trail of bubbles escaping her lips.

  Brandt felt her body spasm. It wanted air. It needed air, and her body was about to override her brain, causing her to gasp. She did not have long. He put a hand to her cheek. At this point it would be useless to give her some of his air. It would be full of carbon dioxide like her own stale breath, but he couldn’t just let her die.

  Brandt pulled her close, bringing them mouth-to-mouth, but she struggled against him. Looking into his eyes, she calmly shook her head, “no,” then let out all the air in her lungs. He felt his diaphragm contract.

  Then the stone cracked above them, sheering off. They tumbled with the current, head over heel.

  * * *

  Rebecca clung to the leather straps across Brandt’s chest as the water tossed them against the wall, then a stalagmite, then the wall again. Her lungs screamed for air, but she kept her lips clenched shut. Just another few moments. Just a few.

  Then it was as if someone had shut off a spicket. With the pressure released, they tumbled, limbs entangled, to the floor as the water swirled out of the tunnel. Rebecca sucked in air as her body shook with the cold.

  “Are you all right?” Brandt asked, but she could not answer. Her brain was still screaming for oxygen. The sergeant became more frantic as he searched over her for wounds. “Hit me if it hurts.”

  As water trickled down her face, Rebecca looked into his eyes. “You’re alive.”

  Brandt smoothed the drowned locks from her face. “In what world would I have ever gotten on that flight to London?”

  Without thinking she leaned in and pressed her lips against his. It felt so natural and right… only he didn’t kiss back.

  * * *

  As her lips caused a wave of heat that his leather skirt wouldn’t be able to hide if he didn’t break contact, Brandt gently pushed her away.

  “I can’t, Rebecca. I just—”

  Looking embarrassed, the doctor squirmed from his grasp. “Yeah. No. I get… Okay.”

  “Damn it, no, I mean—”

  “Wa-fucking-hoo!” a shout came from behind them. “Did you see that! Cave surfing! I just fucking invented cave surfing!”

  Brandt turned back to Rebecca, but she was already climbing to her feet, ac
ting as if nothing had happened.

  “Have you seen Lochum?” she asked.

  Lopez indicated down the tunnel behind him. “He’s holed up in a side passage mumbling over a piece of bone… Like usual.”

  Brandt rose as well. “We’ve got to start a grid search for Davidson and Svengurd.”

  “Don’t bother,” a voice called from behind him. The private and Svengurd propped each other up as they made their way down the tunnel.

  The corporal had a gash over his eye that was not there two minutes ago and a bullet wound to the calf that had been there since their latest firefight. Davidson looked half-dazed and his right shoulder slumped to his side limp, dislocated again. They looked like shit, but they were on their feet.

  All in all, after the last twenty-four hours, he would take it.

  “All right, we’ve got to evac pronto. We have to assume some of them survived the torrent.” Brandt looked at Rebecca. “We’re going to obtain a car and drive to the nearest American base.”

  “That would be Stuttgart, Germany,” Davidson added.

  Lopez jumped in. “Yes, the Autobahn!”

  As Davidson groaned, Brandt finished. “We’re coming in from the cold.” He arched an eyebrow at Rebecca. “Any objections?”

  She was in the middle of shaking her very soggy head when Lochum charged into the tunnel. “No! ‘Becca, you must read this.”

  “Professor, do not start,” Brandt growled, but the doctor took the proffered bone.

  * * *

  Rebecca scanned the markings on James’ ulna. Most of the text she couldn’t make out, except for a single word that was held apart from the rest.

  “Byzantium,” she mumbled.

  “Exactly.” Lochum cradled her hands in his. “All is not lost. We know where Jesus is laid to rest!”

  “Where’s Byzantium?” Davidson asked.

  Without looking at the private, Rebecca answered. “After the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, Byzantium was was renamed Constantinople.”

  “Istanbul,” Brandt grunted, frowning deeply. “Turkey.”

  She studied the professor, who looked like a drowned rat. The single piece of skeleton that had survived the mini-tsunami gave an intriguing clue, but Rebecca had hit the wall. Both physically and metaphysically. She just did not have anything left.