The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies)

by Terry Brennan

  The pistol resting gently in his hands, he wasn’t sure if the movement was real or imagined. Either way, he would investigate. High up, along the top edge of a damaged wall. He only saw … sensed? … the movement out of the corner of his eye. But his senses were reliable.

  Crouching in a dark corner of a ruined house, Achmed withdrew his multiband, handheld radio. “Come east. Twenty meters. Watch along the tops of the walls.”

  Hanging from the top of the wall, Rodriguez dropped back into the alley. He motioned to Tom.

  “Once you get on top of the wall there’s a short drop to the top level of seating on the other side. We’ll get you up first, then Annie. After we hand up the packs, Sammy will come up and you can drop one of the pack straps down to give me a hand. Listen”—Rodriguez looked at them all—“get off the top of the wall as soon as you can. It’s pretty visible.”

  Babylon turned into freakish, swimming green goo when Whalen powered up his night-vision goggles. He was lying flat on a low rooftop, scanning the streets, alleys, and walls he could see. Solid walls appeared to waver as he moved his head. But nothing else moved. He looked down and gave Atkins a thumbs-down signal, then turned his goggles back to Procession Street. Looking west he noticed the green goo move. A body scrambled on top of, and over, a ragged wall in the distance.

  He dropped silently to the ground. “Forty yards west. Looked like Rizzo.”

  “How do you know it’s him?” Rizzo whispered.

  They stood close together in the space between the two sections of amphitheater seats, Procession Street to their backs. The alcove between the seats was a little less than three feet wide and about four feet deep … about half the depth of the amphitheater. Rizzo pressed close to gaze up at the carved image. The face was a silhouette, looking to the right, carved into a square section of stone placed within the clay bricks of the wall between the seating sections. The cameo itself was fashioned within a concave circle inside the square. Rizzo stretched to run his fingers over the stone, similar to the stone of the Lion of Babylon. This image was meant to last. “This could be like Babylonian graffiti. They didn’t have any spray paint back then.”

  “Give it a rest, Rizzo.”

  “No, really. We don’t know what’s in the rest of these stadia along Procession Street.” He moved out of the way so Annie, then Tom, could get a closer look at the image. “Maybe they’ve got these cameo appearances all along the way, like a walk of fame. Unless we’re sure we traveled the right distance since the Ishtar Gate, how can we be sure whose mug it is looking back at us? Could be Daniel. Could be Mo Linskey for all we know.”

  “We’re directly across the street from the palace,” said Annie. “Makes sense a tribute to Daniel would be here. Let’s follow the directions and see what happens.” She stepped up to the wall and placed her hands on the square of stone cut into the bricks. “What did it say? ‘Embrace the face of Daniel’?” As gently as cleaning a baby’s cheek Annie began caressing the inanimate stone, running her fingers over the hair, the eyes, the chin of the carved image. Nothing happened.

  The amphitheater opening wide to Procession Street, Rodriguez felt exposed, which made him nervous. He left the group in the space between the seats and climbed up two levels flanking the street. Crouching down, only his head rose above the top edge. He cupped his hands around his eyes and squinted down the street, into the distance.

  “Something is moving out there,” he said with muffled voice. “Looks like a vehicle … and it’s coming this way.”

  Tom stepped up behind his wife. “You’ve got to hurry,” he whispered.

  Sliding from shadow to shadow, Achmed moved from room to alley, toward where he saw the movement. He clicked off the safety and fingered the trigger.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Annie turned to Tom with a frantic look.

  “Here … let me try.”

  Tom moved closer to the carved face. He placed his hands, one on each side, against the circular bas-relief that held the image. Lord, please help us. We’re just trying to be obedient. Show us what to do next. Tom felt the anxiety of those waiting behind him. In the urgency of his prayer, he leaned against the carving. “Please, Lord … help us.”

  Embrace the face of Daniel. Turn his face toward you.

  “What?” Tom glanced over his shoulder but was only met with questioning looks. He turned back to the carving. Bohannon took his left hand and placed it upon the ear on the left and took his right hand and wedged it into the indentation that was carved away to create the profile. His fingers searched the edges of the face, looking for something against which he could exert some pressure. Just under the eyebrow, above the bridge of the nose, he felt a very small hole. He tried his index finger, but it was too thick. He hooked his little finger into the depression and pushed it in to get as much leverage as possible. Something clicked.

  Immediately, Tom felt slackness in the medallion, a weakening of the resistance. He exerted more pressure on the left of the carving and pulled with his finger. The image budged, but didn’t release. His finger objecting to the strain, Tom pushed even harder with his left hand.

  Joe loped down the steps and came to his side. “We’ve got to move!”

  Achmed heard the voices. Just on the other side of this wall. The alley was narrow. He pushed the automatic beneath his belt at the small of his back, wedged his boot into the wall on the right, pressed his hands against the walls on each side, and lifted himself halfway to the top of the wall.

  With a stone-on-stone scraping sound, the medallion broke loose, turned on a pivot, and Tom found himself staring into the face of Daniel. The medallion was carved on both sides and Daniel’s eyes stared, unseeing, into Tom’s. Bohannon placed his hands on both of Daniel’s cheeks and examined the rough surface. The slight pressure moved the medallion back, deeper into the wall. Bohannon continued the pressure and the medallion slid all the way into the wall. As it disappeared …

  Crack!

  The loud Crack! brought Whalen and Atkins to an abrupt halt at an intersection with an alley. Whalen tried to orient himself to the sound when Fred Atkins tapped him on the shoulder and pointed west along the narrow alley. Thirty yards away, Whalen could see a large, body-shaped shadow lifting itself toward the top of the alley wall. Atkins laid his semiautomatic rifle on the ground, slipped a knife out of the sheath on his belt and took quick, purposeful steps.

  The shop-owner’s son heard the scraping, then the crack. It must be the Americans. Achmed dug his boots into the wall, steadied himself with his left hand against the bricks, and reached behind him for the automatic.

  It took a moment for the hand upon his wrist, its grip like a clamp, to register. In that moment, he lost. An excruciating pain erupted in the small of his back where he reached for his gun. In the same moment, the hand upon his wrist violently shoved his right arm up and under his shoulder blades. He came off the wall and slammed into the dusty ground, face first.

  The breath was knocked out of his lungs, but already life was pouring out of his body.

  They all flinched. Tom stumbled against the retreating medallion as part of the brick wall to his left dislodged and shifted slightly ajar from the rest. Tom peeked into the cavity. Inside the opening was a small chamber, an ancient wooden door, set in an arched, brick portal, on the far side.

  They heard sounds from Procession Street—a car … a door closed.

  Tom pulled on his pack and was through the opening in a flash, Joe on his heels.

  As Annie and Rizzo pressed into the small alcove, Tom grasped the metal ring in the wooden door with his left hand, but Joe was at his shoulder. “Let me.”

  Joe pulled on the ring with all his weight. Nothing. He planted his boot against the wall beside the door and pulled. Tom thought the world could hear the creaking and cracking as the door inched open. The air escaping from the black void behind the door was cold, and carried the decay of ages.

  “We’re going in there?” Rizzo peered into the b
lackness. “Maybe this is something you should pray about.”

  “Quick … before they see us.”

  Pulling a flashlight from a side pocket of her pack, Annie stepped through the door, followed by a more reluctant Rizzo. Bohannon and Rodriguez left the alcove and moved just inside the door. They turned in the tight space and found another iron ring on the inside of the door. They pulled on the ring until their backs ached. Slowly the door yielded and inched back into place, sealing the entrance. But not before Bohannon noticed the brick wall of the amphitheater close over the outer opening.

  “Watch your back.” Tom could hear Annie behind him. “There are steps just inside the door.”

  Annie swung the beam of her flashlight and Tom could see the stairs, leading down, just a few feet inside the wooden door. “Is that the only light we have?”

  “I’ve got a small, battery-powered lantern in my pack and this MagLite,” said Rizzo, pulling the short, thin, but dazzling light from the pocket of his photographer’s vest. “Here”—he handed it to Tom—“you can get the beam higher.”

  “Cut the lights.” With a whispered urgency, Joe kept his ear pressed against the seam where the door opened. “Quiet.”

  31

  7:50 p.m., Babylon

  Whalen and Atkins slipped into the amphitheater like a soft breeze on a lace curtain—barely noticeable—and immediately saw it was empty.

  “Where did they go?”

  Noticing footprints on the sandy floor, Whalen stepped over to the medallion. “This carving got their attention. There are some footprints there, and more over here.”

  Getting down on his hands and knees, Whalen scraped his knife along the base of the brick wall. “See the sand pushed back?” He laid his hand on the wall, leaned down to where the wall and floor met and raised his voice a few notches above a whisper. “Tom! Annie! It’s Mike … it’s safe. Open up.”

  They listened, Whalen getting on his stomach to press his ear against the crease at the bottom of the wall.

  “Nothing?”

  Whalen looked up. “Looks like they found their gate.”

  “Now what?”

  Whalen got up and brushed off the sand. “We wait. As long as we can. C’mon. Let’s get to the rally point before the moon comes up.”

  Tom inched to Joe’s side. “Can you hear them?”

  “No, not really.” Joe glanced back at Bohannon. “Just some scraping sounds. We must have left our tracks in the sand.”

  “Can they get in?”

  “Don’t think so,” said Rodriguez, turning away from the door. “Don’t think the wall has budged. But maybe we better get out of here.”

  “Where is here?” asked Rizzo.

  They stood in a tight knot at the top of the stairs, Rizzo holding Annie’s flashlight straight down, near the floor, so they had some light to see each other but, Tom hoped, not enough to seep under out the door.

  “Look,” said Annie, “it doesn’t matter where we are, in a sense. What’s important is that we found Daniel’s face and it got us in here, at the top of these steps. This is it. It’s where we’re supposed to be. Down there”—she pointed down the steps—“is either nothing, and we’ve all been scammed, or it’s the garden of Eden, and we’ve been led here by a power that is way beyond us.”

  “Or we could find the creature from the Black Lagoon,” said Rizzo, looking down the steps. “But I don’t think so. I think what’s down there is something way more scary than anything I’ve ever imagined. So … what are we waiting for?”

  Rizzo started to spin around in the direction of the stairs, but Joe put a hand on his shoulder. “Hold on, Sammy. Let’s think about this first. Do we have any food, any water?”

  “I’ve got a full water bottle,” said Tom. “Annie has one, too.”

  “And I’ve got some granola bars,” she said.

  “Okay,” said Joe, “we’ve got some rope, a compass, but no weapons …”

  “Hands of steel … hatcha!” Rizzo swiped the air.

  “No weapons,” Joe emphasized. “Whalen and his crew know we were headed this direction, but really nobody knows where we are. We don’t know how much oxygen is down there, or what danger, and we don’t have any first aid. There are a lot of reasons our primary focus should be on trying to get out of here, rather than trying to get farther inside. What if we get lost?”

  Tom put a hand on Joe’s arm. “Joe—you? You’re afraid of getting lost?”

  “I’m just saying. Somebody’s got to give voice to the obvious. I don’t know if my faith stretches as far as yours, Tom.”

  What did Joe just say? “Your faith is as strong as you want it to be,” said Tom.

  “Well, I don’t know if it’s strong enough yet, to go walking down those steps.” Joe took a step back, away from the group. “I’ve been deep underground twice in the last three months, wandering around in the dark and the cold, wondering whether I’d ever see the light of day again. To tell you the truth, I was hoping to never experience it again. I don’t like it. Makes me feel closed in … jumpy. If we didn’t have to go down those stairs, I’d be more than happy. But … there’s no other way to find out what’s down there without going down ourselves.” Joe stepped back into the circle. “And it’s what we came here for. So Sammy, what are we waiting for?”

  “That’s better. I thought I was going to have to beat you into submission. C’mon, let’s get moving.”

  Annie moved forward and took the flashlight from Rizzo. “Okay, I’ll go first with the flashlight. We’ll—”

  “No … I’ll go first,” said Tom. He came to Annie’s side and held out his hand. “We get back on the photo shoot, you can be in charge again. But down here”—Tom looked down at the blackness below—“no disrespect, sweetie, but I’m going down those stairs first. Then Sammy with the MagLite—keep it pointed down so we can all see the stairs—and then you and Joe behind you, okay? We’ll save Sammy’s lantern for later, if we need it. And don’t bunch too close together. I don’t want to fall into a pit if these stairs stop all of a sudden.”

  They lined up behind Tom like three blind mice. “Let’s get down there and back up while we still have these lights.” He took the first step.

  The steps were rough, cut out of the same hard clay that made up the walls, and had an indentation in the middle worn down by the feet of the past and a sheen of condensation that made footing tricky. They extended down at a forty-five-degree angle and seemed to keep going. The tunnel was narrow, about three feet wide, and the ceiling—after being vaulted near the door—was low, so that both Joe and Tom were forced to lean over at the waist, throwing off their balance. Tom had the flashlight in one hand, the other pressed against a wall, in case he needed to suddenly put on the brakes.

  They descended cautiously, but not slowly. Bohannon felt more and more vulnerable with each passing step.

  Joe was right. We’re coming down here with nothing. We’re just asking for trouble.

  After an eternity—about ten minutes—the stairs stopped. The tunnel leveled out, but only so the stairs could switch back. A hairpin turn. The stairs continued down, farther into the darkness.

  “I feel like I’m wearing this tunnel. If it gets any closer, my left and my right will be on the same side.”

  Rizzo was right. The farther they descended, the closer the walls became, the closer the ceiling became. The more claustrophobic the feeling became. If it weren’t for the roughly hewn steps, clearly man-made, Bohannon would have thought himself in some crack in the earth’s crust. The cool, dry air at the top of the shaft had long ago been traded for the damp, rapidly warming air of the tunnel. It, too, was closing in around them.

  Tom came to a short, flat space where the steps ceased. No hairpin turn. Nothing.

  Tom held the flashlight above him, scanning the walls.

  “It doesn’t go anywhere.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Joe. “It’s got to go somewhere.”

  Tom swept the flo
or with his yellow beam, looking for any crack, anything that looked different. “There’s no way out. The stairs stop; there is a short, flat floor. And then nothing.”

  Rodriguez edged into the tight space, Rizzo and Annie remaining on the steps. The walls were uneven, scraped or dug out of the clay, the ceiling arched. But even in the apex of the arch, both Rodriguez and Bohannon were stooped over at the shoulders.

  “No one’s going to build stairs down to here and not have a way out,” said Joe. “Look for something that’s not obvious.”

  Rizzo, on the final step before the landing, turned his shoulders sideways. “Great. Look for something you don’t see.”

  Tom swept his light around toward Rizzo, and stopped. “Sammy, you are right again. Look under your feet.”

  Rizzo bent at his waist and looked between his legs. “What am I looking for?”

  “Come down off the steps and turn around,” said Bohannon. He angled his flashlight to illuminate the ground at Rizzo’s feet. “Look at the face of the last step.”

  Rizzo turned to face the steps.

  “There’s something different about that step … see the section in the middle.” Unlike the other steps, which were solid, the bottom step appeared to be in three sections—two larger sections on each side and a smaller section, like the end of a brick, in the middle. “Joe, move back,” said Bohannon. “Annie, come down off the steps. Let’s all stand on the floor.”

  The four of them squeezed into the small space.

  “Annie, can you push against that section in the middle?”

  Bracing herself with her hands out to the side walls, Annie placed the sole of her right boot against the three-inch-square space in the middle of the stair. The hard clay face of the section gave way and was pushed farther under the stair as Annie pressed harder with the front of her boot. They heard a soft, sliding sound as the lower seven steps slid back under the other steps and opened up a passageway.