Carpathian: An Event Group Thriller (Event Group Thrillers)

by David L. Golemon

  “I don’t mean to be the material one here, but just out of curiosity, there is gold and jewels all over this chamber, so where is the rest of it?” Will Mendenhall asked as his fingers slid lightly over a diamond the size of a dove’s egg that had been expertly embedded into the wall.

  Anya finally laughed out loud and only Carl smiled with her.

  “This is the treasure of the Exodus, Lieutenant. All the spoils of Egypt.”

  Carl laughed as did Niles and Alice. Charlie looked from face to face and joined in the laughter simply because he was amused to see them all actually lose it. Only Mendenhall looked distressed.

  “The real spoils of war were farming tools, animals; mundane things that we think were everyday items but that they thought of as riches. Grain, water, food—all of the things of normal life were the real spoils—the reward for hundreds of years of near servitude. These small things were all that there was of any avarice from the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt.”

  “I suspect the real treasure and the need for secrecy is right there, isn’t it?” Alice said as she placed a hand on the first ancient wooden box and ran her fingers along its worn top.

  “My grandmother told me the story of your meeting, Mrs. Hamilton; she said she believed you to be the rare woman to understand what the Jeddah were about, and all from that one brief meeting in Hong Kong.”

  “Your grandmother wasn’t only beautiful, but perceptive, young lady,” Alice said in appreciation.

  Anya smiled in return and then allowed Everett to assist her to her feet. She locked eyes with Alice and then hugged her. “Now you will know why the world and especially our own people in Israel can never know about this place,” she whispered into Alice’s ear.

  Mendenhall, Charlie, Niles, and even Everett jumped when Anya suddenly and unexpectedly slid the top of the box off until it crashed to the floor. Without looking inside Anya walked away into the shadows cast by the flickering torches.

  Alice watched the young woman leave and then her eyes went to the contents of the box and then she gasped. She had expected to see something of immense religious value, perhaps even the lost Ark of the Covenant, but what she saw amazed and frightened her. It was a mummified corpse. The wrappings were rotted and most had peeled away thousands of years before, exposing leathery remains that had petrified due to the conditions inside the buried temple.

  As the others stepped up to view the mummy inside, Anya turned suddenly and walked to the left-side box and pushed that cover away until it hit the stone flooring. Then she repeated it with the third box and then, looking tired, Anya went toward the far wall and waited for the questions that would follow.

  Alice looked toward the high ceiling of ornate wood and stone and went deep into thought.

  “What is it, Alice?” Niles asked but it was Charlie who smiled and knew what she was going to say.

  “Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There God showed him the whole land and said unto Moses, ‘This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, “I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with your eyes, Moses, but you will not cross over into it.” And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab.’”

  “The Book of Moses?” Niles asked, lacking a little in his Bible studies of late.

  “Deuteronomy,” Alice said as she stared into the center-most wooden box. “It also says in the Bible that Moses was buried by the Lord and the place of his burial was kept secret from all men. After the death of Moses, his body became the focus of a battle between Michael the Archangel and the devil but that’s all mired in controversy, isn’t it, Anya?”

  “Yes, the legend states that at some point Moses was resurrected by the Lord of Hosts and brought to heaven. That was what all of Israel was told by Joshua. His divinity was intact even after death. It was the first of many—”

  “Cover-ups,” Alice finished for her.

  “I understand you Americans are uncommonly attached to that word, but maybe fudging the truth is a better phrase.”

  “Wait, I’m not getting this. If there’s no treasure, why build all of this?” Will Mendenhall asked.

  “To house the body of the greatest Hebrew of all time, and also a man that served the court of Ramesses II,” Alice said as her eyes went to the center-most mummy with the simple cloth blanket of reds and blacks lying across the bulk of it. “Anya, he’s your direct ancestor, would you explain to Lieutenant Mendenhall who this is?”

  Anya walked up to Will and then smiled at his naïveté.

  “The Egyptian name of this man was Munius, which the Torah translates into Hebrew as Moshe. But he was also known by no fewer than ten other names in his time of power, both Egyptian might and Hebrew might. He could be called Yered, Avigdor, Chever, and seven other names that are as equally unpronounceable.”

  Alice smiled and then put an arm around Mendenhall.

  “Hard to take it all in isn’t it, Will?” she asked.

  “You mean to say that this is—”

  Anya cut him off by standing and talking as she stood by the second wooden box.

  “And this is the body of Joseph, the man responsible for Israel’s bondage into Egypt.” She walked past the second box to the third. “This is Joshua, whose body my ancestor Kale stole from the people not long after his death to be hidden with his brother and mentor.”

  Will Mendenhall just realized what it was they were saying to him as he looked back into the box with the small five-foot mummy lying inside. Alice chuckled and looked at the stunned lieutenant.

  “Say hello to the Prophet Moses, Will.”

  Crazy Charlie Ellenshaw placed the U.C. Berkeley 1969 stamp of approval on the discovery.

  “Now that is far out!”

  * * *

  Colonel Ben-Nevin watched as the men completed the sweep of the village and he saw that not one of the locals had been found. This was a little unnerving as he would have thought to catch them unawares at this time of night. He gestured angrily for the men to move toward the gate and the mountain that sat waiting for them to rape it. He was about to move when a pair of headlights crossed the path of his men. He squinted into the bright lights made far eerier because of the sideways rain that pelted them. He cursed when he saw it was a black Mercedes SUV and then the man that was being assisted out of the backseat became recognizable. The man was wearing a full-length wool overcoat and was dressed in a black tuxedo. The cigar was blazing as Zallas stepped into the raging storm. Ben-Nevin angrily approached.

  “I thought we had agreed to allow me to recover the treasure. You were not to be here.”

  Zallas removed the cigar from his mouth and saw that the rain had killed it cold and then angrily tossed it into the flowing water that was quickly becoming a lake.

  “Yes, plans change. I was content to sit it out and wait for my reward, but that luxury changed when ten of my men were slaughtered down at the castle while trying to detain the not so innocent Americans. It was a god-awful mess and an insult to me personally and I’m here to see that the people responsible for it pay dearly, NATO be damned.” Zallas flinched and ducked when a close strike of lightning sent a small tingle of electricity through their shoes.

  Ben-Nevin saw that it would be no use in arguing with the idiot so instead he turned and made for the hidden passage to the City of Moses and its treasure rooms.

  19

  PATINAS PASS

  The first gunshots echoed off the stone walls of the large staircase. The first few rounds were fired blindly at the fleeing villagers as they scrambled down the stairs in a mad flight to escape the unknown attackers. Two of the 82nd Airborne sergeants and three of the locals took up station at the first large bend in the staircase.

  The two Uzis in the hands of the engineers would be useless in just twelve shots apiece. Besides, combat engineers were excellent shots with a regular M-16 or 14, but an Uzi? They fully expected to be wiped out in a m
atter of seconds. The sergeants both looked at the ancient long doubled-barreled nine-gauge shotguns held by the three bearded Gypsy farmers and then they looked away, not very confident of their rearguard action to protect the villagers. The Americans figured since they didn’t know who was who in this case they would stick with the families that had fed and sheltered them. Besides they actually liked the Gypsy clan for no other reason than they treated them as family. Yes, when in doubt just be a good guy.

  The first man to breach the wide corner was startled to see the bearded men along with two uniformed men waiting for them. His eyes widened in startled wakefulness as the first Gypsy standing over one over the sergeants fired not just one, but both barrels into the man’s chest sending him flying backward into the stone wall where blood and gore splattered in a wide arch.

  The Gypsy cackled as he broke the nine-gauge open and tossed the still smoking shells onto the floor and then easily pushed in two more.

  “I think you enjoyed that too much, cowboy,” the sergeant said as another blast of the shotgun silenced him.

  One more man went down as the second Gypsy in line had opened up on the intruders.

  The second sergeant fired the Uzi and bullets sprayed everywhere but where he had aimed.

  “Damn it!” the man shouted at his poor accuracy.

  The third Gypsy farmer said something loudly as he stepped around the sergeant, obviously cursing his poor aim, and fired his shotgun. The pellets struck another of Ben-Nevin’s men, spinning him backward. Then the old man suddenly grabbed his face and went down. The bullet hole was clean and precisely in the center of his head.

  The first sheep man checked his friend and then angrily stood and discharged both barrels into the stairwell. Then he yelled something Romanian and turned to the Americans.

  “We run now,” he said and then took off. The Americans exchanged startled looks and then followed suit, running as fast as their feet could carry them down the long flight of stairs.

  * * *

  Jack heard the gunfire coming from somewhere ahead. In the darkness of the trench that had been dug by the Golia he could barely discern the walls much less the end of the excavation. The walls had closed in so tight he had been forced to extinguish the torch, as it was in danger of choking them all to death.

  “Uh, oh, it sounds like someone may have company,” Ryan said from his position at the rear of the line.

  “Damn it, Jack, Alice and Niles are in there!” Sarah said as she inadvertently tried to push Jack faster than was able to go.

  “Hey, hey, if you push any more we’re going to get ourselves wedged in here,” Collins said as he tried to move faster

  Suddenly he broke into an open space and he saw a light in the distance. As he stepped forward in the darkness he just hoped he wasn’t heading for a precipice he couldn’t see.

  “Colonel, I don’t think we’re alone in here,” said Pete Golding as he too stepped into the open space.

  “Yeah, well let’s not wait around until we get surprised by something else that comes straight from a nightmare,” Jack said as he grabbed Sarah’s hand and moved down the passage toward the light.

  As Jack neared the light he saw that it was just a round hole and it looked recently dug. He smelled the ripe richness of the dirt and knew that the Golia had been hard at work in the temple. Collins eased his head out and saw that he was in a large room with three boxes and golden depictions of Egyptian or some other deities in relief on the walls. Jack eased out of the hole and then helped Sarah. Outside the enclosure the gunfire continued, sporadically at first and then a thunderous exchange. Collins released Sarah’s hand and then pulled the stolen nine-millimeter from his wet and muddy pants. He waited for Ryan and Pete to do the same.

  “You have the extra weapons we took off those wonderful people?” he asked as he handed one of the Glocks to Sarah, who charged the weapon and then looked at the colonel.

  Ryan took the lead as was fast becoming his custom under Jack’s training. The gunfire started again and then the sound of men shouting in Romanian and then in another unknown language. Ryan peeked out of the column doorway just as several women and children broke from a large empty stairwell toward a city the likes of which Ryan had never imagined was possible to build. As they all watched the small group was covered from a location they couldn’t see from their vantage point. The group of villagers made it to cover as one last running circle of men broke from the high stairwell and headed down a ramp toward the strange city below. Ryan and Jack saw three other men break into the open and they were firing down at the running men before them.

  Jack looked to the right at whoever had been covering the women and children, but whoever that was was not covering this group. Perhaps they were out of ammunition.

  “Cover fire, Mr. Ryan,” he said calmly as he trained the front sight of his nine-millimeter on the second group and fired. Ryan opened up at the same time. Bullets struck the three men almost simultaneously and they went down, one even sliding on the ramp so far that he went right off the edge two hundred feet down to the stone floor. The first three men made it to the bottom of the ramp and then broke through the opening and into the city, running for the far cover where the others had vanished.

  “Let’s go,” Jack said as he headed to the right taking cover as far as he could along the columned temple. He made it to the end and then saw the huddled masses of the villagers and then he saw Niles, Mendenhall, Everett, and Charlie Ellenshaw as they hunkered low along the trim lines of the smallest of the three pyramids. It looked as though they had empty weapons lying beside them and were now holding the most ancient shotguns he had ever seen. He shook his head and broke cover.

  Collins didn’t make it three steps with the others close behind when the entire upper gallery above them came alive with gunfire. Bullets struck every inch of the city as close to 120 automatic weapons opened up at once. Jack waited and then pushed the others ahead of them until they had cover behind the first pyramid.

  “That was close,” Jason said as he ejected the clip of his Glock and made sure there were still rounds inside before slipping it back in. “But I have to admit to not minding shooting those bastards for what they did to Gina.”

  “Yeah, I reckon they have some killing coming their way for that,” Jack said as he straightened and looked around as the gunfire eased off to nothing. He then sprinted to the next pyramid and then finally to the third where he slid in next to Captain Everett. Ryan and Pete hurried and took up position next to Will and Charlie Ellenshaw.

  “Have a good time at the resort?” Carl asked Jack as he broke open an ancient-looking cardboard box of shotgun shells and spread them on the ground for easy access.

  Collins shook his head. “You bet, we were just in the mud spa as you can see,” Jack said as he tossed Everett one of the extra Glocks.

  “Liar, I know for a fact that you were locked up inside a rather nice hotel room with hot food and a wet bar. What was that room, the Dr. Frankenstein Suite?”

  “I think you’re going have to explain to me how you pulled that one off, Captain,” Jack said as the truth of what they saw at the hotel was just confirmed by Everett himself.

  “Nah, it’s a SEAL thing, Jack,” Carl said and then raised the Glock to take aim at the men who were again starting to filter out onto the gallery ledge.

  Charlie Ellenshaw was sitting and making sure the assailants weren’t getting ready to charge the city when he turned away from his view of the gallery long enough to look at Pete Golding.

  “So you’re all done partying at the resort and thought you would finally go to work?” he asked in a nonjoking manner.

  “If you knew what we have been through, Charles, you would not be looking so smug. Do you know there are werewolves out there?”

  “Really, just wait until you see what’s in here, I fairly think that you will shit yourself, Dr. Golding.”

  * * *

  Stanus was the last of the Golia to leave the t
emple. The young were all safe and secure five miles from the pass and well out of harm’s way. Stanus had even snarled and bit until every adult was safe and well away from the temple on this night of nights. The long-laid plans of the Jeddah and Golia were now coming to fruition and although the great animal could not connect the intricacies of the scheme, it knew that Madam Korvesky’s plan was the only hope for the wolf-kind. Now remained only Mikla, the younger sibling of Stanus, who was the last to enter the cave system that the Golia had discovered many centuries before and kept the location secret even from the Gypsy queen.

  Mikla was on all fours as it would have been considered a challenge if Mikla confronted Stanus on two legs. Mikla was paying his brother the respect due, but he was refusing to join the other Golia in hiding inside the caves. Mikla whined and then took a tentative step toward Stanus, who held his ground but made no aggressive move to stop the now fully healed and rested Mikla. Soon the two giant wolves were nose-to-nose and it was Stanus who moved his yellow eyes to his brother and then for the first time in both the Golia’s long lives they connected as leaders of the pack. Stanus was letting Mikla know that he respected the way Mikla had traveled with the old one, and for saving the life of the young princess. Stanus snorted and then dipped his head and playfully slapped its near twin along the jawline. Mikla jumped up and then brought both paws down onto the back of Stanus and then the two wolves rolled on the floor as other Golia watched the strange exhibition between the brothers from the safety of the cave.

  Stanus stopped playing in the mud and rain and then the large alpha slowly untwined himself from his younger brother. With one last look back at the caves where the clan of Golia was now hidden, Stanus and Mikla broke away at full speed toward the temple shaking the ground as their eight-hundred-pound bodies came into contact with the earth.