“Yes, yes, enough about the entertainment culture in ancient Constantinople,” Lochum said as he motioned them forward.
Svengurd seemed intrigued, though. “How big was it?”
“By the few markers left to measure, it was about the size of two football fields.”
“Really?” Brandt asked.
Not so much that he cared about the answer, but Brandt wanted to see Rebecca’s eyes light up again as she answered. “Really. From historical documents we know the Hippodrome sat more than a hundred thousand people and housed not only the chariot races but plays and political debates. It was perfectly positioned.” She nodded toward Svengurd. “As you mentioned, the Hippodrome sat across from the Hagia Sophia, but before the Mosque was built, a massive Roman Palace sat on these grounds. The arena’s center stage abutted the Palace wall.”
“Tarry not!” the professor said as he tried to hurry past the muscular corporal, but Svengurd simply blocked him with his frame.
It looked like Lochum might actually try to challenge him.
“Remember our talk about protocol,” Brandt growled.
“You don’t understand. The call to prayer is soon.”
Brandt looked at his watch. “Care to give me an actual time?”
Clearly as exasperated with Brandt as Brandt was with him, Lochum stormed past them. “I do not have time to fill the holes in your education.”
He was about to retort when Rebecca pulled him toward the Mosque. “He’s an ass, but he’s right. Prayers are not set by the clock but are based on the sun’s position. And it’s dipping quickly.”
Sunset was almost upon them as they headed toward the high archway that led to the Mosque’s whitewashed courtyard. Hanging from the top of the arch was a thick chain that connected to two other chains secured to the wall. Svengurd nearly had to duck to get under them.
An odd adornment for a place of worship.
Rebecca must have followed his gaze. “The chains kept invading horsemen from riding into the Mosque. Those Sultans knew what they were doing, didn’t they?”
Brandt had to agree. The ancient builders had captured the essence of military strategy. Make it simple but highly effective.
As they crossed the enormous courtyard, they found very few worshippers, and those were concentrated in the center of the white-stoned space, near a central fountain. There they cleansed their hands and faces.
“The purification fountain,” Rebecca explained. “All of the Great Mosques have one.”
Continuing toward the main structure, Brandt was struck by how similar the mosque and the Hagia Sophia were. Both were sprawling complexes punctuated by huge domes. Only the mosque had more semi-domes than the church, and six minarets flanked the periphery of the Mosque.
If Davidson were doing his job, the private had already moved to one of them. Lopez, as well, should be realigning their extraction plan.
So intent on running through his team’s tasks, Brandt was unprepared when he stepped into the Mosque proper.
It wasn’t until that moment that Brandt realized he had never been inside an Islamic house of worship before. They weren’t the most American military-friendly places in the world. But this sanctuary seemed inviting to one and all. He wasn’t sure what he had ever expected, perhaps a den of terrorist plotters, but the Mosque eclipsed even the Hagia Sophia in its sheer beauty.
The dome rose high above them, seeming to defy the laws of physics. Delicate blue tiles lined the ceiling in a swirling pattern that seemed to represent heaven better than even the Hagia Sophia. And unlike the church with its single row of windows, this Mosque’s walls were punctuated by hundreds of stained glass windows. More in number and beauty than any he had seen in cathedrals. The interior of the mosque was infused with a light that truly did appear otherworldly.
“Brandt?” Rebecca tugged on his arm.
“Sorry. What did I miss?”
The doctor pointed to his shoes as she removed her own. “We can only enter in stockinged feet.”
Brandt realized everyone else had already complied. Hurrying to catch up, the sergeant shook off his amazement. While he might be acting like a tourist, in truth, he wasn’t one. He had only one job, and that was to keep the doctor and her very annoying professor alive.
Entering the sanctuary, they found only a few Muslims praying toward Mecca. He didn’t know much about Islam, but he knew that.
“Where to now?”
“I’m not sure,” Rebecca answered.
Svengurd was on point, but Lochum took a sharp right and disappeared from view. “What the—”
He looked at Rebecca, but she shrugged, apparently unaware of Lochum’s latest walkabout.
“Catch up with him,” Brandt hissed to the corporal.
Only through Svengurd’s expert tracking skills did they follow the professor to a narrow side hallway far off from the main prayer hall.
Rebecca caught up with Lochum. “Where are you going?”
The professor ignored her, opening a nondescript door.
Svengurd grabbed the professor’s arm. “Keep dreaming.”
Checking down the long hallway, Brandt made sure there were no civilians before he pulled his weapon.
“This is ludicrous,” Lochum grumbled, but he noticed that the professor placed himself squarely between Svengurd and Brandt.
The corporal’s flashlight was the only illumination in the small room. It took a few seconds for the sergeant’s eyes to adjust to the dark. But even then he had a hard time believing what was crammed into the tiny room.
Roll upon roll of carpets were stacked so tightly there didn’t seem to be room for even furniture.
“What the hell?” Brandt said for all of them.
Lochum was too busy searching his transcription pages, so Rebecca spoke up. “Mosque carpets are always donated by the congregation. In a mosque of this importance, if a rug has a single loop of thread damaged, it is immediately replaced, hence all the backup stock.”
“Okay,” the sergeant replied, “but why are we here?”
Ignoring him, Lochum began moving the large rolls of carpets toward the edge of the room.
Rebecca seemed equally quizzical of his strange behavior. “Archibald?”
“Child, either help me or get out of the way.”
To Brandt’s surprise, Rebecca obeyed. “What are you doing?”
The professor tsked-tsked loudly. “For all your computational faculties, ‘Becca, you so readily forget your history.”
The sergeant could see the woman’s back arch at the insult, but she was obviously intrigued. “Why don’t you remind me, then?”
Svengurd followed the two doctors with his flashlight, making Lochum’s face glow as if he were a mad scientist.
“Current events are always built upon past ones, my dear. Do not so easily forget the lessons of Budapest… This Blue Mosque did not spring from nothing, now did it?” Lochum paused, but when Rebecca didn’t answer, he continued, “What did we pass on the way in?”
Brandt could see Rebecca’s brow furrow in thought. It was not her best look, but it usually got the job done.
“The Hippodrome.” Her words came out faster, more sure. “This was the site of the Emperor Septimius Severus’ Great Palace. The racetrack is the only visible ruin of the Roman seat of power. But… by the time Sultan Ahmet Camii built the mosque the Palace was nothing but a shell of its former glory. It was basically a teardown. He demolished it to build the mosque.”
“Undergraduate work, my dear. I expect more of you.” Lochum turned to Brandt. “I believe physical labor is your strong suit, isn’t it, young man?”
There were a thousand and one retorts on Brandt’s tongue, but he gave voice to none of them. Instead he lent his back to help Rebecca move an especially stubborn roll, but the doctor didn’t seem to notice him. Instead her brain focused on forging a link between the Roman Palace and the moving of dozens of carpets around a small back room of the mosque.
Her tone was hesitant. “There have been some excavations down at the inlet to uncover the lower levels of the Palace’s harbor and dock.”
Lochum snorted. “Please. For three years I was eating the Yugoslavian equivalent of macaroni and cheese, and I am better informed than you. Did you forget to pay your subscription to Archaeology Today?”
The tips of Rebecca’s ears flamed red as only the professor could make them. She tried to play off her flushed cheeks on the strain of moving the rolls, but Brandt knew better.
“They have recently discovered a tavern and an old church half-buried in the silt near the coast,” she added timidly.
Lochum shook his head violently. “What do we care for a place of ill repute and a non-descript church when the answer lies here? You said it yourself. The mosque is the answer.”
Rebecca looked as frustrated as Brandt felt. “Just tell me, Lochum.”
“What is the one subterranean room a Roman palace just can’t do without?” the professor asked without looking up.
Rebecca looked puzzled then nodded. “A dungeon.”
“Just such a place where Jesus was scourged before the crucifixion. Is it not fitting?”
Brandt’s leg ached where the knife had gone in. So far this had been a whole lot of work for a whole lot of nothing, and they hadn’t even cleared the center of the room yet. “You’re trying to tell me there’s a dungeon under this room?”
“Of course.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Rebecca announced as she paced. “Even if we believe there was a dungeon under the palace, this mosque is huge! We can’t just start digging and hope to find it.”
“Seriously, did you miss issue seven-ninety seven? Walker will be most upset you dismiss his work so readily.”
Something must have sparked Rebecca’s memory, for she turned to Brandt. “Do you have GPS on you?”
He held out his wristwatch and hit the button that brought up their coordinates. “41.029924, latitude. 28.988711, longitude. Why?”
Rebecca’s face paled, making nearly translucent the wan light.
“What’s wrong?”
The doctor had to gulp before answering. “Dr. Walker Elfium cited these coordinates as where he believed the centurion post was located.” She looked up at Brandt with renewed wonder in her eyes. “Where the entrance to the dungeon would be.”
Lochum’s chest expanded with such pride. “He has been repeatedly denied access to explore under the mosque.”
“But why bother with permits when you can just dig it up under the cover of afternoon prayers, right?” Brandt said sarcastically but the criticism seemed to sail right over the professor’s head.
“Exactly! Elfium just didn’t have the guts for it.”
Svengurd frowned. “How are we going to cover the sound of the explosives?”
Lochum pointed to the rolls of carpet around the room. “My dear man, have you ever heard a full prayer service in a mosque this large? Trust me, with the carpeting as sound proofing, we can easily make our way into the subterranean chamber below.” The professor tugged at one exceptionally heavy roll. “Help me.”
With every joint aching, Brandt heaved and moved the roll, revealing a very large hole blown into the floor. A makeshift rope ladder dropped into the opening farther than the corporal’s tiny flashlight could penetrate.
“Guess Elfium had the balls for it after all,” Brandt noted.
* * *
Rebecca found herself staying within an arm’s length of the sergeant as they crept down the dank hallway. Mud sloshed underfoot as algae-laden water dripped from the ceiling. The crush of earth above them made her feel frail. Given the echoing groans and ever-melting walls, the entire tunnel felt like it could crash down at any moment. The halls might have survived several millennia, but they seemed near their end. Clearly Walker and his team had thrown together some bracings, but the thin wood seemed to just sink deeper into the mud walls rather than support them.
Svengurd pulled to a stop at a cross-tunnel. To the right the hallway lowered, barely propped up by carpet rolls. Walker must have used whatever was at hand since it would have been a little difficult to explain to the imam why they needed construction equipment to pray.
To the left, Rebecca doubted you could call it a hallway at all. Between huge sections of mudslides were brackish pools of water.
With a nod, Brandt sent them down the right tunnel, but everyone froze as the ceiling moaned, breaking one of the wooden braces.
“It’s our body heat,” Lochum whispered. “The warmth is liquefying the loosely packed mud.”
The sergeant looked at her, and she confirmed the danger.
“I would suggest expedience, or we will see exactly how long you can hold your breath this time,” the professor added.
The mud become more fetid as they entered the main section of the dungeon. On either side were long rows of cells. Not even iron could survive the onslaught of time. Many of the bars were bent or broken altogether, and most of the cells’ contents were lost to cave-ins.
“Oh, God,” Rebecca said despite herself.
Several ragged skeletons littered the cell, but Lochum acted as if they had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. “We must examine them.”
Rebecca tried to block his path. “Lochum, I don’t think these are—”
“Any skeleton this ancient is worth our time.”
She turned to Brandt, but his expression was unreadable. With a nod, the stoic officer ordered Svengurd to open the cell. The door creaked loudly, complaining of centuries of rust but finally lurched open. Wooden slats creaked as mud slid down the wall, quickly burying the bones in muck.
“No!” Lochum yelled as he dropped to his knees and dug in the mud.
Rebecca tried to tug him up. “Archibald, these bodies…” She indicated the long- incarcerated remains. “They’re just long-forgotten prisoners. There is nothing sacred here.”
* * *
Rebecca couldn’t be more right, in Brandt’s opinion. The place reeked of evil. A palpable, tangible evil. Christ wasn’t here, but it took a set of red eyes glaring out of the rib cage to convince the professor. The rat defiantly protected his calcified home.
Rebecca helped the older man to his feet as the wall melted, sloshing mud up to their knees. “Let’s go.”
To Brandt’s relief, Lochum’s protests died as they proceeded down the doomed hallway. At the end of the cells, a light rose until it became bright enough for Svengurd to turn off his flashlight.
There was definite movement up ahead.
“You two stay put,” he whispered to the doctors.
Slowly he and Svengurd crept toward the lit room. A huge torture rack stood in the center, stained by years of blood. The walls were no better. Thumbscrews, whips, and crocodile shears, which were used to emasculate men in the most painful way, were only a few.
Acting as if nothing were wrong, a dozen or so students milled around, cataloguing the antique collection. How could they be so casual? This place shouldn’t be studied. It should be destroyed.
But the United States military didn’t pay him for his opinion, so Brandt got back to work. As he signaled for Svengurd to circle to the other side of the room before they announced their presence, Lochum burst past.
“Walker! You old dog! I didn’t think you had it in you!”
The only other white-haired man amongst a sea of coeds turned, looking quite shocked. Whether it was just at the noisy intrusion or seeing his old colleague, Brandt couldn’t tell.
Since their cover was blown, he sent Svengurd to check the periphery of the room, but kept the corporal within his eyeline. Turning, Brandt found Rebecca watching him as he watched Svengurd.
“What’s wrong?”
The less she knew of his concerns, the better. “Nothing.”
Before she could retort, Walker finally found his voice. “Lochum? Archibald Hamilton Lochum!” the archaeologist exclaimed as he hugged the professor. “I don’t care if y
ou’ve risen from the grave. You’re not getting any credit for this find!”
“For a dungeon? Trust me, what I seek will make you weep!”
Svengurd circled back around as the old men caught up. “There’s only a narrow staircase leading east. Do you want me to check it out?”
With a curt shake of his head, Brandt indicated the corporal should stay put. The corporal raised an eyebrow but voiced no objection. He felt hobbled being unable to utilize Svengurd to his full potential, but that damn tangle in his gut wouldn’t let up. The whole dungeon stank of death and dying.
The PhDs might be having a congenial reunion, but Brandt knew the place was damned.
* * *
Walker clapped Rebecca’s back. “I thought you were in Ecuador?”
“Long story,” she replied, sounding more tired than she realized.
“Aren’t they all when Archibald is involved?” He turned to Lochum. “What wild-goose chase are you dragging the poor girl on this time?”
Lochum didn’t respond with his usual disdain. Instead he opened his palm to reveal the small shard of James’ bone.
The archaeologist inspected the fragment before commenting. “Have you dated it yet?”
“First century AD.”
Walker chuckled. “What else should I have expected?” He scrutinized the surface. “Are those predatory markings on the shaft?”
When Lochum’s eyebrow went up, the archaeologist held out his hand and one of Elfium’s grad students put a magnifying glass into his palm.
He scanned the markings, then took in a sharp breath. “You are not suggesting that these bones are… are His?”
“Sadly, no. But they are his brother’s. James.”
Walker shook his head almost absently as he backed away a few steps, speechless. The tall Napoleon Dynamite-type kid filled the void. “How did you find them?”
As Lochum sketched out their recent travels, Rebecca watched Walker. The archaeologist didn’t necessarily seem in shock. If anything, Elfium looked nervous, glancing over his shoulder, backing away from the group.
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