by Rob Preece
If they were lucky, all of that camouflage would give them a little time.
"But just running from the CIA and their Foundation bosses isn't going to do the job,” Zack continued. “We need a real plan, some firm objectives."
"The Priestess told me what we need to do. We've got to go to Byzantium and then to Venice."
"And do what? If we bring the Cross into Istanbul, one of two things is going to happen. Most likely, the police will spot us and decide, like the monks, that we're stealing archeological artifacts. Even if they don't recognize this as the True Cross, they'll see that it's old and think we've looted it from an ancient Church. If that doesn't happen, some local religious leader will send a mob after us for defiling Moslem land with our Christian idols."
Ivy set her jaw stubbornly. “Turkey is supposed to be a secular state."
"Yeah, and America is too. But walk into a restaurant and announce that Mohammed, peace be upon him, could take on Jesus with one hand behind his back and chances are that you'd get pounded."
"The Priestess said we could find the secrets and we've got to do it.” Ivy was talking to him like he was a stubborn child who refused to see what was perfectly obvious.
He sighed. “I'm not arguing against the objective. We do need to find out the Cross's secrets. We need to learn why the Foundation wants this thing, what they're intending to do with it, and how we can keep it from falling into their hands. But objectives aren't plans. We need tactics and strategy to get us there."
"Sounds brilliant, general. The only problem is, we don't know enough to make plans. We don't know the enemy, don't know the territory, and we don't know the consequences of our actions."
He considered, then nodded. “We should have pumped the Priest for information about the Cross when we had him."
Ivy brightened. “Okay, so that's our first step. We know we're supposed to go to Byzantium. So, when we get there, we find a priest and ask him what's so important about the Cross. Besides its historical significance and the fact that it can heal wounds and bring people back from the dead."
"That isn't enough? Think how easy it would be to justify wars if we could just use the Cross to heal up anyone who got hurt or killed. Those Foundation people could get away with attacking anyone who didn't agree with them—so long as no Americans came home in wooden boxes. Isn't that why most Americans oppose war? The deaths and injuries to our own people?"
Ivy pedaled slowly up a slight rise. “I think there's more than that. From what I got from the Foundation papers I read before the Predator blew them up, I don't think they cared about healing powers. They called it the key. They seemed to mean to do something that would make the whole world take notice."
Unfortunately, those papers were lost so they couldn't figure out what that meant. “So our plan is, we disguise the Cross, and then we talk to a priest about what makes it tick and what a group of nutcases could do with it.” It didn't sound like much of a plan to him.
"Not just any nutcases. Nutcases able to give orders to the U.S. military and to the CIA,” Ivy reminded him.
"Yeah, those are the ones."
* * * *
They were hungry and tired and the sun was setting by the time they rolled toward Simak, about sixty miles from the mountain monastery
Still deep in the heart of Kurdish Turkey, Zack wasn't surprised to see a couple of Turkish Army jeeps and an Armored Fighting Vehicle in the town.
That was better, Zack supposed, than Kurdish pesh merga who were completely controlled by the CIA. Not much better, though.
"Doesn't look like a tourist destination,” Ivy said.
Zack looked down at the town from the low rise they'd spent the past ten minutes pushing their bikes up.
About all you could say for Simak was it was a town on a crossroad.
The town's center consisted largely of one-story stone buildings with a couple of multi-story commercial buildings rising up like skyscrapers. Further from the town's center, old stone structures blended with newer wooden buildings.
Ivy gestured at a deteriorating barn. “What do you say we hide the bikes and Cross here and head into town to see if we can get some food and maybe buy a truck?"
As plans went, it wasn't much. But according to their map, Simak was the biggest town within a hundred miles of the monastery. Presumably the locals would recognize the distinctive three-wheeled bicycles from the monastery and be suspicious of a couple of foreigners who showed up riding them. And while Zack hadn't thought the Cross sections looked like much, it hadn't taken long for Father Stefan to recognize them as something significant and historical—although even he hadn't guessed that they were the original True Cross. Hiding them made sense.
The only problem was, once they stopped moving, the CIA would spot them. They couldn't just hide it in a barn, they needed to hide it someplace with religious camouflage.
He explained that to Ivy.
"Yeah, got it."
She closed her eyes and exhaled, her face casting around as if she were using some sense on the outside of her eyelids. “I'm going to see if I can hunt up a safe place."
"Oh, great. Magic.” He did not believe in magic. Still, that didn't mean Ivy couldn't find an old holy site. After all, this part of Anatolia had been civilized since the Hittites, at least. Had, in fact, been the center of the discovery of iron and the launch of the modern age. The chances that there were old temples, ruined churches, or even abandoned mosques around were very high indeed. Any of those could send signals that apparently baffled whatever the CIA used to track the Cross.
"You don't have to believe in it, just follow it. This way.” Ivy gestured to a dirt trail that led off what passed as the main highway—a road that hadn't seen fresh asphalt for a couple of decades at least.
The path was rutted with old wagon tracks and, after a few minutes of struggle, he gave up on pedaling and got off to push his bicycle along it.
* * * *
Ivy closed her eyes again. Her proximity to the Cross, or maybe her bizarre resurrection through the Cross had awakened a sense she hadn't guessed any human could have. She could feel the Cross's power, red and strong. Power pulsed from it like blood being pumped from a huge heart. Other influences, like the monastery they'd visited the previous night or the ancient cave-temple sent out their own emanations. The Monastery had been red. The Temple-cave a peaceful dusky blue. The CIA must have tools that detected the same waves of power although Ivy doubted they used the same color-coding that her brain did to label what she sensed.
Clearly the power from the mosque in Mosul had been enough to hide and disguise the characteristic emanations from the Cross for the centuries it had been buried there. Now, besides the pulsing red glow of the Cross, she felt yellow vibrations of something old and uncomfortable nearby.
Behind her, Zack trudged quietly. His doubts were a pale green haze over him. Despite all he'd seen, despite his Catholic faith, he didn't really believe in their Cross or in the powers she was discovering. He thought of the True Cross as simply another relic to be venerated in church in America—objects with no special power of their own but with some holy significance that somehow connected them to the power of God.
But that was wrong. Whether the Priestesses story of the wood from the Cross having been a part of the tree of life itself was true, or whether it had gained powers through the death and resurrection of Jesus, its powers were real and frightening. She'd proven it held the power to heal. In her heart, she feared its power could be used for things more dangerous than simply healing. And the Cross wasn't alone in holding power. Mosques, the Orthodox monastery where they'd spent the previous night, the temple to the Goddess, and whatever they were approaching all held their own peculiar, but powerful energies.
With her eyes open, she couldn't see the glows. When she tried to navigate using her new ability to sense power, her eyes shut, she tripped all over the ground. So she stopped frequently, reoriented herself on the yellow glow that she hoped co
uld disguise the Cross, and continued on.
After a few minutes, the ugly yellow glow was so close she felt that she should be able to touch it. But, with her eyes open, she could see nothing but the fallow land of a hayfield.
She closed her eyes one more time and oriented herself on the dark yellow surge of power, then opened them and walked straight forward.
Nothing.
That was odd. She closed her eyes and the glow had moved. Or maybe she had changed direction without meaning to.
"There's nothing here,” Zack protested.
"That's where you're wrong, Captain. I don't know what it is, but there's definitely something here."
She tried again, this time, keeping her eyes closed. At least she didn't veer. Instead, she bounced off the yellow glow as if she'd hit a glassy-sided wall.
"Something is keeping us out,” she confessed.
"Out of what?” He waved his hand across the apparently empty landscape. “There's nothing here but hayfields."
A sheep butted its head against Ivy's bicycle but must have decided it was inedible because it wandered off.
"And sheep,” he added.
She noticed that the sheep avoided the flow of yellow power.
It would have been handy if Zack could see what she saw. But if it took killing and resurrection to open his eyes, she didn't want to take the risk. What if the Cross only healed some of the people who died on it? What if she'd used up its last shot?
She waved him to silence. “Let me think."
He nodded, then leaned against his bike. It had been a long day and he had to be at least as tired as she was.
She closed her eyes again, studying the jaundiced glow to see if she could spot any breaks in the smooth dome-like construct.
At first, she saw nothing. But as she looked more closely, she saw a faint discoloration where the Cross was closest to the yellow.
That gave her an idea. Maybe the Foundation document that had referred to the Cross as the key had been literal.
"Pick up the cross,” she commanded.
Zack obeyed, humoring her although the green haze of his doubt intensified around him.
"Trust me on this, Zack. Just close your eyes and walk straight forward."
He tried to follow her directions, but veered to his right, sweat glistening on his face.
"Are your eyes really closed? Ten degrees left, Captain. And put the Cross out in front of you."
His muscles shook as if he were struggling with an impossible weight and beads of sweat ran down his face, but he made the turn.
The end of the Cross penetrated the yellow glow—and vanished into an orange hole.
"Open your eyes."
He stared. “That's impossible. It's like something swallowed half the cross."
"I'm pretty sure the Cross is intact.” Wouldn't that be a kick in the rear, though? Suppose, after all they'd been through, she managed to stick the Cross into some sort of satanic meatgrinder and ended up with sawdust?
He set his end of the cross down and wiped the sweat from his eyes. “This would be a perfect hiding place."
She nodded. “Unless someone has a douser, they'd never find it."
"There's only one problem,” Zack said.
"Yeah?"
"If we hide the Cross in there, how are we ever going to be able to get in to retrieve it?"
Chapter 6
Ivy took Zack's hand in her right hand and brushed her left hand against the Cross.
She closed her eyes and stepped forward.
The malignant yellow glow resisted, but she pushed harder. It yielded slowly, like a mountain of Jello, as the Cross lent its power to her own strength.
"Wow! I can't believe this.” A boyish excitement pushed all fatigue from Zack's voice.
She opened her eyes to a completely transformed landscape.
Where moments before there had been nothing but a hayfield and rocky outcrops, now a perfectly preserved structure rose above a stone courtyard.
A gargoyle-like statue leaned out over the wooden doorway, the head that of a bird and the body that of a man. The statue reminded Ivy of an Egyptian exhibit she'd once seen in a museum, but the bird's expression was colder and crueler than anything she remembered.
"It's got to be an ancient temple,” Zack breathed. “Do you have any idea how archeologically important this could be? A perfectly preserved temple that's thousands of years old."
"Compared to what?” she asked. “I mean, if you're talking about historical importance, I think the True Cross is a pretty hard act to follow."
He grinned. “Can't argue with that. But this is pretty cool too."
The black stones of the temple were intricately carved with a frieze that started at the bottom and continued all the way to the top of the ten-foot-high structure.
"Maybe not so cool. This stuff is nasty,” Zack reported from where he had bent to examine the sculptures more closely.
Ivy didn't know what she was expecting—maybe kamasutra-like sexual instructions. Instead, the temple wall was carved with hundreds of miniature statues of humans being slaughtered—and eaten by animal-headed gods.
"People have believed in some pretty sickening things,” she observed.
Although the temple was intact, there was no evidence that anyone had been inside the temple for ages.
A thick layer of dust lay on the temple steps but there were no spiderwebs. Maybe the ugly yellow barrier kept out even insects.
Inside the temple, another sculpted depiction of the god with a human torso and a hawk head stood, his muscular arms holding a basin that drained into his open mouth. A long flint knife lay on his basin. And it was definitely a him. The god's enormous erection made that clear.
Richly colored paintings on the wall depicted naked priests using that knife, or one just like it, to butcher a series of children.
The god was turned on by drinking human blood. Very nasty.
"Lots of old religions centered on human sacrifice,” Zack said.
She'd almost forgotten about him and Zack's voice startled her.
"So maybe it's a good thing this place is sealed away."
"People don't worship gods like this any more,” Zack reminded her. “Even by the time Homer wrote, almost three thousand years ago, human sacrifice was seen as perverse.” He paused for a moment, “in this part of the world anyway. This place must be really ancient. More than three thousand years old, for sure. Maybe lots older. I don't see any signs of metal at all. Neolithic."
"It may be old, but the power is still here,” Ivy reminded him.
The hairs on her arm stood abruptly as a chilling idea crossed her mind.
"What do you figure the odds are that we just happened to stumble on the only hidden place like this?"
Zack didn't even pause to consider. “About zero. There have to be thousands of places like this. Although you do have to remember that we're in a particularly ancient part of the world. In other countries, there might be fewer things like this."
"And the Cross is the key to opening them all.” She sagged against a wall, then recoiled as the hideous yellow power clawed at her. “If someone could unlock the power that is keeping this place hidden, they could do almost anything."
Zack nodded slowly. “The ultimate weapons of mass destruction. Maybe Colin Powell and those guys weren't lying after all about what was hidden in Iraq. Not completely."
"Maybe."
The air inside the temple seemed suddenly stale to her and Ivy stepped outside, back to the stone courtyard surrounding the temple.
"Okay,” she said. “We'll bring in the bicycles and the longer Cross section. We'll leave the cross-piece hanging out a few inches so we can get back in. I know it's taking a chance, but we'll have to hope nobody can spot it. I think this place's power glow will shield it from any CIA sensors. That's what the orange color was all about."
He gave her a funny look and she had to remind herself that Zack couldn't see the power. It was
frighteningly real to her.
"What if you're wrong?"
"If I'm wrong, we're dead, Zack. Is that what you want me to say? Because it's true. But if we just wander into town and walk up to the Turkish Army with pieces of the True Cross and a couple of bicycles we stole from a monastery, we'll be just as dead. We don't have a lot of choices here. One way we're taking a chance, the other way there's no chance at all."
"I'm not arguing. I just don't like it."
She didn't feel great about it, either. She hoped there wasn't any leakage of the temple's power. Letting that sick yellow glow out would probably hit this part of Turkey like a plague.
"Let's head into town and see what we can get, then,” she said. “I'm ready to take a bath and discard these bloody clothes."
"We should leave the Kalashnikovs here,” Zack reminded her. “I don't think the Turkish Army would be any happier than the Dallas Police seeing someone walking around with a machine gun."
She hoped he couldn't see her flush in the twilight. She'd completely forgotten her weapon and had been ready to leave it strapped on her back.
"Right.” She stripped off the assault rifle and leaned it against her bicycle, careful not to let it come in contact with the temple itself. “Are we ready now? Because this temple is giving me a headache you wouldn't believe."
* * * *
Simak wasn't much, but its coffee shop had a single room for rent, and it served a sort of falafel sandwich that was the best thing Zack had ever eaten.
He had to claim that he and Ivy were married before the coffee shop proprietor agreed to rent them that room—and didn't miss the doubt and lust in the man's eyes as he stared at Ivy. Considering that she was still blood-soaked and filthy from days of wandering through the mountains, Zack could only conclude that they didn't get many blondes in this part of the world.
At least no one would mistake them for soldiers. With his three day beard and Ivy's uncombed short hair, they looked more like hippies in search of the perfect drug deal than they did like members of the world's greatest fighting force. Even the ratty remains of their uniforms, mixed with the few pieces they'd saved from the insurgent gear they'd stolen, added to the stoned-loser look.