Powdered Gold: Templars and the American Ark of the Covenant (Templars in America Series Book 3)

by David S. Brody

  Willum nodded. “It’s getting dark, so I don’t think anything is going to happen tonight,” Willum said. “If they’re going to attack the compound they’ll need to get clearance from Washington. That’ll take time.”

  “That’s comforting,” Amanda said.

  Willum smiled wryly. “Can’t say I’m happy to be right, but we’ve sort of been expecting this.”

  “So what next?” Cam asked.

  “We just wait. Not very exciting, to be honest. The only thing we can really do is try to get public opinion on our side—I actually have a PR firm in Phoenix on retainer.” He shifted his weight. “I was really looking forward to going back up that mountain tomorrow to get a better look at the chest. I can’t leave, obviously, but nothing is stopping you guys from going as long as Cam feels up for it.”

  “Really?” Amanda said. “You think they’ll just let us walk out of here?”

  “Sure. They might not let you back in, assuming you would want to return, but getting out should be easy enough.”

  Cam turned to Amanda. Georgia wanted them to stay put, but there was no way he was going to kill time inside the compound with that mysterious golden chest sitting out there. “I can make it if we take it slow. We could carry Hazmat suits in our packs and both of us could rappel down to the cave. Willum left the camming devices attached to the rock—all we would need to do is tie off to them again.”

  “And then what? It’s not like we could carry the chest back up the cliff-face.”

  “True. But don’t you want to get a better look?”

  Willum interjected. “Look, not to be morbid, but I might be dead in a few days.” He smiled. “If I die not knowing what that chest is, I swear my ghost will haunt you from the grave.”

  Amanda slept fitfully, partly because it had been years since she slept in a room with dozens of other people, partly because she didn’t want to brush against Cam’s wound, and partly because at any moment she expected gunfire to erupt. How did people live in war zones, or even in places like Tel Aviv, where at any moment their nighttime rest might be shattered by bombs or missiles? Finally, at the first hint of daylight penetrating the dome, she nudged Cam awake.

  “Already? They just stopped singing a couple of hours ago.”

  Many of the residents had stayed up late, singing around the campfire. Things had finally broken up after they crooned “Go Down Moses” and Willum told them it was time for sleep.

  “Sorry, I want to get going. These people are starting to creep me out. You were right—this place feels like a cult.”

  Cam sat up. “Okay. Let’s wash up, get some breakfast and hit the road.”

  “Can we skip the breakfast and just get something on the highway?”

  “Sure.” He rolled to his side.

  “How’s your leg?”

  He pushed himself up, tried to put some weight on it, almost fell, regained his balance and smiled. “Good to go.”

  “No way, Cam. You can’t even walk.” She bent over to examine his calf. It had swelled to almost the size of his thigh, and it looked like some over-sugared kindergartner had used his leg as a coloring book—greens and purples and yellows swirled over the surface of his skin. “How are you going to climb a mountain?”

  “Once I put a compression sleeve on, it will feel better. And let’s be serious. We just found an ancient golden chest, which may actually be the Ark of the Covenant. And we’re going to just leave it there because I have a sore leg?”

  “You don’t have a sore leg. You have a rattlesnake bite that almost killed you.”

  “Like I said, we’ll just take it slow.” He slid a compression sleeve over his calf.

  She felt his forehead. “No fever, at least.”

  “Look, we can at least try. If I can’t make it, we just turn back.”

  Twenty minutes later they walked, Cam limping, toward the front gate. Willum met them in front of his saucer, his eyes red and his hair disheveled. “Morning.” He held out a pencil-sized white plastic stick with a red bulb on the end to Cam.

  Cam smiled. “Thanks for the lollipop, but my mother told me not to take candy from strangers.”

  “This is not just any candy. It’s an Actiq stick. Made with fentanyl. One hundred times more potent than morphine.” He smiled. “I’m only giving you one, so don’t get used to it.”

  “What, do I just suck it?”

  “No. Rub it onto the inside of your cheek so it absorbs into your bloodstream.” Willum sealed the lollipop in a plastic bag and handed it to Cam. “It works quick. I’m guessing your leg is going to be barking pretty loud at you today.”

  “No grape?”

  “Sorry, only cherry.”

  Cam shrugged. “Okay, thanks.”

  Willum shook their hands. “Good luck.”

  Cam and Amanda approached the front gate and nodded to the guard. “You leaving?” he asked.

  Cam nodded. “Can you open the gate?”

  Amanda retrieved the SUV; Cam sat in the back seat and kept his leg elevated and iced—Willum was right, the area around the bite was already throbbing. The guard opened the gate while two other armed guards positioned themselves to block entry from the outside. Amanda drove slowly between them.

  As the gate closed behind them, a sheriff’s deputy confronted them. “Names, please.”

  She gave them. Presumably Georgia had arranged for their exit.

  The deputy’s eyes registered recognition. But he wasn’t stupid—if he let them pass too easily, that might arouse suspicion. “Please come this way. I’m going to need to question you.”

  Ten minutes and a few standard questions later Cam and Amanda were back in their SUV driving south on Route 10. “I’ve been thinking,” Amanda said. “Why can’t we make a harness out of the climbing rope and lower the chest down instead of heaving it back up the cliff face?”

  Cam spoke from the back. “Good idea. And at that point we’d be almost halfway down.”

  “But after that we might need help from Georgia’s men to get it to the road,” Amanda said. “Especially with your injury.”

  “Well, I don’t want that Ellis guy anywhere near it. And even though I’m not as paranoid as Willum, I’m not sure I want the federal government involved. The Smithsonian’s been rumored to conveniently lose artifacts like this.”

  “Fair point.”

  “Besides, it really should be Willum’s call. He found it.”

  They stopped in Tucson to grab breakfast and buy hazmat suits at an industrial supply warehouse. “Canary yellow,” Amanda said. “Just my color.”

  “It’s going to be awful hot in these things,” Cam said, feeling the thick rubberized material. “Especially with the hoods on.” The suit covered the entire body, including feet and head; a window allowed the wearer to see out.

  “Hot is better than radiated.”

  “Well, for three hundred bucks each we’re going to wear them out dancing when we get home.”

  They continued south.

  “What do you think is going to happen back at the compound?” Amanda asked.

  “It’s one of those tough situations where both sides are in a box. The authorities have to investigate the murder, obviously. But Willum knows that once they take him in for questioning they’re not going to let him go even if he’s innocent.”

  “So is there a middle ground?”

  Cam shook his head. “I don’t see one. Maybe if whoever planted the bomb comes forward and confesses. But if not, at some point something has to give—either Willum surrenders or the feds storm the compound.”

  Clarisse pulled open the curtain in the corner of the communal dome they had converted to a kitchen area. “I’ll make the pancake batter,” she said to the two women already at work preparing breakfast for the residents. “Can you hang these posters?” Boonie had stayed up all night printing out color posters of a smiling, rifle-toting Willum with the caption, “Thanks for all you do for us!” Willum might not approve, but Clarisse would
explain to him that the residents had insisted on the gesture.

  She found an industrial-sized serving bowl and six boxes of pancake mix. This would make group meal number four. Almost universally, the residents seemed more focused, more aware, and best of all more committed to the welfare and future of the compound. There seemed to be a growing sense of pack mentality—the residents viewed the world less selfishly and more communally. It was as if everyone felt a mothering instinct for all the other compound residents. Included in this was the instinct to protect and nurture the pack’s alpha male, Willum.

  Which, the more Clarisse thought about it, made sense. Somewhere back in human history the need to act as a pack had been imprinted on human DNA as a survival necessity. Individuals perished, losing the battle for scarce resources to larger and stronger packs or tribes.

  The looming danger was causing the compound residents to tap back into their core wiring.

  They took it slow, with Cam keeping most of his weight divided between his uninjured right leg and his walking stick, but eventually they made it to the ridgeline.

  “How you doing?” Amanda asked. She was actually glad for the slow pace—her back and shoulders ached from yesterday’s descent, and today she had taken most of the supplies in her pack to unburden Cam.

  He nodded. “Hurts like hell, but I’ll live. Thank God for Willum’s lollipop. Other than my leg throbbing, I feel sort of giddy. I can see how this fentanyl stuff could get addictive.”

  They reached the ledge over the cave, tested the equipment and had a quick snack.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Ladies first.”

  Amanda descended the cliff face first. While they were still in the car Willum had texted that his expert translated the runic writing from the cave entrance to read, not surprisingly, ‘Hurech’s secret.’ Yet Amanda still had trouble accepting that the Ark of the Covenant, the world’s most precious lost artifact, might sit in the cave just beneath her. How did she end up here? Two weeks ago she had been shuttling Astarte to ski lessons and volunteering with her Girl Scout troop. Today she was Indiana Jones, but without the monkey and two-day stubble.

  The Geiger counter began to chirp periodically as she descended toward the cave opening. Her feet hit the ground. “Off belay,” she called. She checked the counter—a steady three clicks per second, same as last visit.

  She tied herself off to the cave wall, prepared in turn to belay Cam down the cliff face. “I’m ready.”

  “On belay.”

  “Belay on.”

  Cam dropped the last few feet to the ground, landing on his good leg. Amanda kissed him on the lips. “Welcome home, honey. How was your day?”

  He smiled. “Same old same old.”

  “Well, can you help me move an old chest?”

  They pulled the hazmat suits from their packs and helped each other seal all the openings. “You ready?” Cam asked, his voice echoing.

  “Yup. Trick or treat.”

  “Treat, I hope.” He carried a flashlight in one hand and a brush in the other; Amanda held the Geiger counter and a light of her own, along with a chamois cloth and some water.

  They walked to the dog leg and stopped so Amanda could take a reading. “Same as yesterday. Three.”

  Cam edged closer, Amanda on his hip. “Four, now five,” she said.

  “These suits are good up to fifty.”

  “I’d rather not risk it.”

  “Agreed.”

  Click, click. “Reading seven now.”

  “You stay back a bit.” He smiled. “We still need your ovaries.” He handed her the brush and took the counter. Four short steps brought him to a body length from the chest. A couple of piles of powdered bones rested near the chest. “I bet those are animals that got zapped by the chest, just like that old prospector.”

  “Well don’t get too close then.”

  Cam grabbed a handful of dirt from the cave floor and tossed it at the chest. Nothing. He opened his water bottle and flicked an ounce or two of water onto the chest, dancing back as he did so. Still nothing. “If it’s some kind of battery, I think it’s dead now.”

  “You think?”

  “The water should have reacted if it’s live. Plus I’m wearing rubber boots, so I’m not grounded.” He exhaled loudly. “Theoretically.”

  “Ah yes, science geek.”

  He crept closer. Her eyes drifted to the piles of animal bones. She hoped he was right about the rubber boots.

  “What’s it reading?” she asked.

  “Twelve.”

  Still safe. She approached, trying not to trudge up dust with her rubber boots. A tattered cloth, covered by a layer of fine gray ash, covered the chest. Cam handed her the counter, set his light down and reached slowly for the cloth. Extending a finger, he jabbed at the fabric and leapt away, staggering on his injured leg.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “No. Like I said, it must be dead.” He reached for the cloth with both hands.

  “Gentle with it,” she said. “We might want to carbon-date it. And it might be an important artifact.”

  He turned and smiled. “Like the Shroud of Turin?”

  “Not exactly, but sort of.”

  Spreading his arms, he took hold of the cloth at either end and gently lifted it and folded it back on itself. Gray dust danced in the beams of their lights. He waited a few seconds and folded the cloth back a second time, exposing most of the chest.

  Amanda grabbed Cam’s shoulder. “Oh my God. Those are angels.”

  He nodded. “And I think they’re gold-colored.”

  Holding the brush in a shaky hand and the chamois in the other, she brushed and wiped the chest clean of ash and bat dung and centuries of desert residue. Her mind wandered, back in time, perhaps 3500 years. Had this now-grimy chest carried the Ten Commandments, witnessed the Jews wandering in the desert, felled the enemies of Israel and eventually rested in the great Temple of Solomon? And later, had it become lost to history, spirited from Israel to Jordan to Africa to Europe, eventually finding a lonely home halfway around the world in this dusty, secluded mountain cave in the American southwest?

  She took a deep breath, forced herself to work more slowly, more carefully. “Gentle,” she whispered. Her work revealed an ornately-carved chest, the gold surface covered with flowing geometric patterns surrounding what looked like a holiday wreath. Inside the wreath, she brushed away the centuries to reveal a series of raised markings studded with emeralds and rubies. She applied water and rubbed more of the detritus away. Odd. It looked like writing. As she brushed and rubbed, her hood filled with warm air from her exertion; she forced herself to slow down. Two letters revealed themselves, then three more, then five, and finally six. Stunned, she dropped the brush. “Cam, look at this.”

  “What?”

  She pointed. “Read that. It’s Latin isn’t it?” But what would Latin be doing on an Old Testament artifact?

  It took Cam a second to get it. “Oh.” His voice dropped, matching her mood. “Yup, Latin.”

  She sat back, deflated. They both stared at the object for a few seconds. “I don’t suppose Moses and the ancient Israelites spoke Latin.”

  Cam shook his head and frowned. “No. And I don’t suppose the Templars would deface the sacred Ark by adding Latin to it.”

  “Not bloody likely.” She sighed. “So what does it say?”

  He peered closer. “In Hoc Signo Vinces.”

  She nodded. They both knew the Latin was an old Christian battle cry, going back to the time of Constantine in the fourth century AD. The Templars often used it. It meant, ‘Under this sign we are victorious.’ But, again, it did not date back to the time of the ancient Israelites.

  Cam pointed to another raised area above the wreath which Amanda had not uncovered yet. “I bet there’s a cross carved up here. The cross is the sign they fought under—they carried a huge banner with a cross on it into battle.”

  So the chest dated back to the T
emplars or even earlier, but it clearly wasn’t the original Ark the Jews carried through the desert. “This must be some kind of reproduction,” Amanda said.

  A thousand-year-old, gold-covered, jewel-encrusted, invaluable reproduction that would probably change American history. But a reproduction nonetheless.

  Cam and Amanda retreated to the front of the cave. It was getting hot in the suits, and they needed to talk about this fake Ark. “Any theories?” Cam asked, leaning against the wall. He rubbed the last of Willum’s lollipop along the inside of his cheek.

  She shook her hair loose of the hood. “As a matter of fact, yes. There’s no one to fool out here in the middle of the desert, so why make a fake Ark? The only reason to make a duplicate is because the original had some functional use. Otherwise why bother?”

  “Fair point.” He thought about it. “The original was used to carry the Ten Commandments. So you think the tablets are inside this chest?”

  She smiled. “That would be fun. And I suppose it’s a possibility. But I think it’s more likely that Willum’s theory is correct: They were using this fake Ark as some kind of capacitor.”

  “If so, we’d expect to find that white powder of gold inside, right?”

  She nodded. “That may be what’s setting off the Geiger counter.”

  Cam gulped some water and pulled his hood back on. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

  She reached out and touched his arm. “Are you sure we should just go in and … do this? Perhaps we ought to wait for the authorities?”

  Cam removed his hood. In some ways this was not the time for this conversation, and in others it was the only time. He took a deep breath. “When I was a kid, I was told I’d be lucky to live to forty—and if I did I’d be blind. That’s just the way it was with diabetes back then. So I used to spend a lot of time thinking about what would be written in my obituary.”

  “Heavy thoughts for a young lad.”

  Cam nodded. “Well, old habits are hard to break. I still think about that obituary.” He smiled. “Other than having my law license suspended, I don’t really have much so far.”