“I wouldn’t be so sure, Brandt. We had no idea how many of them know what they hold. The Knot’s pretty militarized. Nothing says the individual sects aren’t as well.”
He escorted her inside the stairwell. “Tell you what? A crazed monk comes at me with a machete, and I’ll think about shooting him.”
“What about if it’s just a small knife or switchblade?”
Brandt chuckled, then realized she was serious. “I’ll wing him.”
Distracted, Rebecca looked down the dark passageway. Brandt had seen that look in her eye before. The first time back in the jungles of South America. The next time when she left him in Paris. The third in the Hagia Sophia when she realized the tomb was beneath the Blue Mosque. And now.
Brandt turned sideways to avoid his shoulders scraping against the white stucco walls of the staircase. The streetlight was waning, but he dared not turn on his flashlight yet. They needed to be indoors before he risked giving away their position.
At the landing, they found a door, aged with cracked paint and a simple wooden crucifix. A small plaque announced the visiting hours, long since past. He got out his pick, but Rebecca twisted the knob.
It opened.
“They’ve taken a vow of poverty. They’re not expecting burglars.”
Still the ease of entry gave him pause. Now even he was beginning to believe this was the resting place of Christ. For no other reason than the pit in his stomach began churning again.
CHAPTER 35
Carpuchin Church
Rebecca shut her eyes as Brandt turned on his flashlight. Letting her eyes get accustomed to the increased illumination, she opened her lids. The simple, short entryway emptied into a long hallway. An arch above the hall was adorned with a beautiful scroll pattern that took on a life of its own. It was both delicate in its detail and bold in its scale.
At least it seemed beautiful until she realized the upward stroke was a rib. A human rib, and the dainty rosettes surrounding it were cervical vertebra. Even after everything she had seen, the sight soured her stomach. Who did this? Who took bodies apart, bone by bone, and rearranged them into decorations?
Turning, she could see that Brandt was equally repulsed. The sergeant’s nose curled up as he used the point of his rifle to check to see if they really were bones, but sure enough, they were.
Rebecca read the inscription below the gruesome artwork. “What you are now, we once were. What we are now, you will be.”
“Oh, hell, no,” Brandt scowled and urged her forward. “Let’s get this over with.”
They arrived at the first capella. The small whitewashed chamber was gated off by a low iron fence. They could have climbed over, but Rebecca had no inkling how, since each carved alcove had a napping monk. Only they weren’t asleep, they were dead. Mummified.
What this had to do with Christ’s love, Rebecca didn’t know.
Worse, the far wall was decorated, if you could call it that, by hundreds of skulls surrounding three monks who were mounted on the wall to simulate a pious standing position. Their hoods covered most of their desiccated faces, but in the dim light they exuded a ghoulish air. The ceiling wasn’t much better, with strange arrangements of finger, foot, and jawbones that swirled into a seashell pattern.
And people thought she was weird drawing blood from villagers and drilling bone cores.
“Do we go in?” Brandt asked, clearly not wanting an affirmative.
Rebecca was happy to oblige. “Let’s look at all five first.”
Moving on, they came to the second capella. How the place could get more macabre she wasn’t sure, but it just had. Besides the napping mummies and hanging monks, the opposite centerpiece was formed out of hundreds of scapula, blending into a cornucopia. What bountiful harvest might come out of such a horn of plenty, Rebecca did not want to know.
* * *
Brandt didn’t even ask if they should enter the bizarre shrine. He simply moved onto the third chamber. More of the same. Another few feet and they were at the fourth, which held nothing more than the bizarre bone art.
“Holy…” He stopped short as Rebecca stepped up alongside him at the fifth capella.
On the far wall hung a bony recreation of Jesus on the cross. But that wasn’t what made him curse. Hanging from the ceiling was a child-sized statue of death. With a scapula as his sickle, there was no more gruesome image. But this was clearly the chamber they needed to explore. They couldn’t ignore the crucifixion allusion.
In silent agreement, they climbed over the low gate. Brandt guarded the doorway as Rebecca inspected the body upon the cross, but he already knew that gruesome display wasn’t Jesus. Just like he had known that Christ wasn’t laid to rest in the Roman prison, reeking of despair, he knew his savior was not hanging on this wall.
“There’s no grooves on the ulna or radius. The ankles are intact as well,” she said. “In addition, the skeleton has been reassembled from a variety of donor bodies. This isn’t Jesus.”
Glad that she had made the same conclusion so quickly, Brandt nodded toward the hallway. “We should take a closer look in the other rooms before heading out.”
“Wait,” she said with the tone that made his stomach ache and made him wish for the hundredth time he had packed antacids. “What’s Death holding?”
“A grotesque sickle made out of shoulder bones.”
“No. In his other hand,” Rebecca said, tilting her head to get a better look at the object above them. “Give me a leg up.”
Lifting her high into the air, Brandt couldn’t help but breathe her scent. The musky aroma of frustrated arousal. He didn’t want to smell it, but his nostrils were filled with her.
A powerful reminder that his life, and certainly this night, didn’t turn out the way he planned.
* * *
Rebecca leaned her weight into the sergeant’s strong arms as she inspected the creepy death-child. In one hand was the sickle, but the other held a scale. The chain was made from tiny vertebra and the weighing pans were half pelvises. It had caught her eye because the scales were not balanced. The right was lower than the left. The strange statue really was weighing something.
“Can you raise me a little higher?”
She could feel the strain of his muscles as he lifted her. The same strain she felt earlier in the evening as he had laid her onto the bed. Shaking off the memory, Rebecca peeked over the edge of the left pan. It was empty. Knowing her instincts were correct, she looked into the right pan.
“There’s thirty silver coins in here,” she relayed to Brandt. “The minting is later than the original ones. Maybe twenty years later. Exactly the time frame for the fall of Jerusalem.”
His response was a muffled curse. The sergeant knew as she did that Christ was close. But where?
The right scale was lower. Did that indicate the right alcove with its prerequisite mummified monk? But that awful body couldn’t be Christ. Maybe the alcove hid a sliding panel or a false wall.
Reaching up, she went to remove the coins so that she could inspect them when Brandt barked, “Don’t!”
But it was too late. As her fingers lifted the silver from its pan, the floor gave out from under them. The sergeant tried to keep hold of her, but they tumbled through the darkness, banging against one wall then the other until they hit the bottom of the shaft. Actually Brandt hit the bottom, and she fell on top of him, her impact cushioned by his body.
Rebecca rolled off, but not quickly enough for the sergeant.
“Move!” Brandt yelled.
He hit the wall at a run, scrambling up the sheer face. She didn’t understand his urgency until the trapdoor slammed shut. Cursing, he fell back to the floor.
“New rule,” the sergeant said as he dusted himself off. “No touching, pulling, or lifting ancient artifacts until I get the fuck out of the way.”
Brandt sounded like the fall was twenty feet longer than it was, but then again he had been on the bottom of the pileup.
Rebecca a
pologized. “Sorry. I didn’t even think that could be a release latch, but I should have, I mean—”
Shaking it off, the sergeant offered her an outstretched hand. “I didn’t think of it either until the last second, but new rule number two. When traveling with you, we carry at least a couple dozen glow sticks.”
As he pulled her to her feet, they found their sole flashlight had cracked a lens, and Brandt had to squeeze the casing together to get any illumination out of it. But once he did, Rebecca wished they were still in darkness since the entire tunnel was covered in skeletons. At eye level were a row of skulls, their fleshless faces staring blankly into the darkness.
“Shall we?” Brandt asked pointing the flashlight down the only corridor open to them.
With a gulp, Rebecca followed the sergeant, who traveled exceptionally slowly. He took a single step at a time, testing the bony ground beneath his foot before walking forward, but she didn’t complain.
The crypt above had spooked her bad enough, but now that the trapdoor echoed the entrance to the tomb back at the Vatican, she was even more shaken. Clearly someone within the Order, at some time in its long history, had knowledge of the Knot and Christ’s resting place.
But as they crept along a floor made of ribs and spine, Rebecca feared that such forbidden knowledge had twisted the monks, triggering the bizarre bone art up above and now here deep in the earth. Instead of embracing life, the monks had become fascinated with death. Their own mortality gruesomely displayed for all to see.
Rebecca couldn’t help but wonder if they didn’t want to hurry hers along as well.
* * *
They reached a staircase which was, of course, made of bones.
These monks were plain fucked up.
Brandt didn’t want to touch the femur-lined railing but also didn’t want to trust the humerus steps. The lattice staircase had some give so that each footfall made it feel like the plank wasn’t going to hold, and he’d had just about enough falling for an entire lifetime. Cautious to the point of paranoia, the sergeant led Rebecca down the spiral stairs.
Gun up, Brandt check above and below him before descending another step. If this truly was the resting place of Christ or even if these freaked-out Capuchins just thought it was, they were in danger.
Finally they reached the landing, which was thankfully devoid of bones. Stamping his boot into the dirt, he made sure there wasn’t another surprise. Confident there was only earth beneath his feet, Brandt stepped onto the small clearing.
Panning the area, he found nothing amiss which made him even more concerned. The only thing differentiating this landing from the tunnel was a dull roar echoing off the low ceiling. Making sure to survey their periphery, Brandt moved them forward, but he checked and double-checked his corners as the sound became deafening.
Then they ran out of landing. The ground fell off at a sharp cliff with a raging river far below. They walked the length of the edge, but found no stairs. No way down.
“Okay. Rule number three. Always come equipped with mountain climbing gear,” Brandt rumbled, pissed that he didn’t have fifty feet of rope.
As he formulated a plan to shoot open the trapdoor, gather his team, then repel down the ledge, Rebecca asked, “What do we do now?”
“Help us find the tomb,” a voice suggested from behind.
* * *
Brandt was already firing by the time Rebecca recognized the voice as Petir’s. Answering bullets flew from the tunnel, trapping them against the cliff’s edge. They had nowhere to go. It would only be a matter of time before a stray bullet caught one of them.
The ledge crumbled under the sergeant’s boot, but somehow he caught his balance. “Get ready,” he said as the gunfire’s echo became louder than the river.
“For what?” Rebecca asked, but Brandt didn’t answer. He just tackled her, throwing them both over the edge of the cliff as an RPG sailed overhead, finally exploding on the far wall, showering debris.
They fell threw through the air, weightless, arms flailing until the sergeant grabbed her, stabilizing their fall. “Head down!”
Clinging to his back, legs wrapped around his waist, Rebecca tucked her head into his chest, but it still felt like her neck almost snapped when they hit the water. Then they were churned under and Brandt’s hand slipped from hers. It was like a washing machine. Not a wimpy Maytag, but a frigid, industrial-strength washing machine with bullets zinging past you for added agitation.
River froth in her mouth, Rebecca gasped for air as the water spit her up then sucked her under just as quickly. She had a brief glimpse of the sergeant, but he was pulled under before she could be sure he was still alive.
Rebecca could no longer tell up from down, right from left. Was she even kicking in the correct direction? Then Brandt caught the back of her shirt, hurling her up and out. She landed with a thud onto a sandy beach before the river dove deep into the earth.
Panting, Rebecca crawled over to the sergeant who was heaving mouthfuls of gritty water from his lungs. His lips were tinged purple, and blood coursed down the side of his face, another blow to the temple.
She was worried until Brandt commented, “Lopez is going to be pissed he missed that ride.”
Instinctually she pulled him into her arms and hugged him. Hugged him for saving them one more time.
* * *
Brandt returned the hug, not so much out of affection but to keep his balance. He felt queasy and dizzy, but he didn’t want Rebecca to worry. Her grip was like a vise, panic fueled.
They had been carried well past the plateau so Petir and his mute boss didn’t have a clear shot, but that didn’t mean the two weren’t correcting that problem. They needed to get up and away.
“Come on,” he encouraged. Rebecca was on her feet within seconds, but he stumbled to his knees as he tried to take a step.
“What’s wrong?”
The sergeant didn’t know until he felt a warm trickle down his leg.
“You’ve been shot!”
And the doctor wasn’t wrong. She pulled up his shirt to reveal a bullet wound oozing a steady stream of blood.
“Check for an exit wound,” Brandt urged.
Rebecca felt up and down his back. “Nothing.” From the look on her face, she knew as he did that this was a bad sign. A very bad sign.
Out of the icy cold water, the throbbing pounded behind his eyes, threatening to overwhelm his vision. But lying here wasn’t going to find the bullet or stop the bleeding.
Braced for the pain and his weakened left leg, Brandt rose.
“What do you think you’re doing? You’ve got a bullet bouncing around in your pelvis!”
“Got any better ideas?” he asked, tearing off a strip of his shirt to use as a bandage.
Rebecca mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, but nothing better came out.
“Then I guess we are moving out.”
* * *
At first Brandt had shrugged off her help, but now he leaned heavily into her as they followed the beach up a slight incline. As they crested the rise, Rebecca glanced over to find the sergeant already seeping through his crude bandage.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
She thought Brandt was referring to his wound until she looked up to find a wall, inscribed with Hebrew, Latin, Aramaic, and Greek. The languages of Christ. But that wasn’t the problem. The sergeant was cursing at the opening of a maze that lay before them.
“This is not good,” she added as she peered down the multiple entrances. None looking welcoming.
“No shit. Like all the rest wasn’t bad enough. Now a fucking labyrinth.”
“Actually, it’s a maze.”
Brandt leaned against the wall, checking his bandage, cringing when he found it bright red. The sergeant ripped another strip of shirt as he spoke, “And the difference would be?”
Rebecca peered into the darkened passage. There was no obvious threat, but the tangled path before them filled her with foreboding. But h
ow could she explain why?
“Actually the difference is important,” she said as she helped him wrap the cloth around his midsection. “A labyrinth, especially associated with Jewish mysticism, is supposed to be open. The pathway is meant to hone your focus. To bring your consciousness to a single point so that you might heal or find enlightenment. There are even finger labyrinths to help you achieve the same sense of serenity while sitting at your office desk.”
Flinching, the sergeant gritted his teeth as she cinched the tie. “Then what’s a maze?” he asked.
“A corruption of the ideal. The labyrinth is supposed to set you free. A maze is meant to confuse you. Trap you.”
Testing his balance, Brandt asked. “And reward you in the end?”
“That’s the problem,” she said, her tone lowering. “Just like they twisted the Jewish tradition of honoring their dead, these monks have perverted the path to enlightenment. To be honest, I’m worried.”
To her surprise, Brandt chuckled. “Really? Just now is the first time you’ve felt worried?”
“You know what I meant.”
“Yeah,” he said, with a pained smile on his face. “If you’re worried, then I’m pulling my gun.”
* * *
Brandt used the wall as support as he crept forward into the maze. Rebecca wasn’t exactly behind him, but neither was she at his side. Her expression made it clear she expected him to fall over at any moment. She should have known he was made of sterner stuff.
“There’s a Star of David,” Rebecca said, reaching out.
He blocked her hand. “What did I tell you about touching ancient artifacts?”
“I wasn’t going to handle it. I was going to point out that there’s a thin piece of metal attached to the back of it.”
30 Pieces of Silver: An Extremely Controversial Historical Thriller Page 42
