He touched the cold unyielding stone.
“This section is unlike the other walls,” she rattled on eagerly. “Skilled masons, such as those who built this vault, would skim the excess mortar away, to create a clean look and to protect the mortar from being knocked out if anyone brushed against the wall.”
“Are you saying that they got sloppy here?”
“Far from it. Whoever built this section of wall was working from the other side. That’s why the mortar is bulging out toward us here.”
“A sealed doorway.” He whistled. “Nice going, Doc.”
He studied it. The mortared section formed a rough archway. She might be right. He pounded the wall with the flat of his fist. It didn’t give. “Feels damned solid to me.”
To dig this out would take hours, maybe days. And he suspected they had only minutes. Erin had done a good job, but it wouldn’t be enough to save them.
A section of roof near the entrance broke away and fell with a deafening crash. Erin flinched, and he moved toward her protectively. They’d end up buried down here with the corpses of monsters and men.
His men, with Cooper and McKay.
“McKay,” he said aloud.
The holy man frowned, but Erin glanced at McKay’s twisted body. Her eyes brightened with hope and understanding.
“Do you have enough time?” she asked.
“When I’m this motivated? Damned straight.”
He headed across the rubble and knelt beside McKay’s body.
I’m sorry, buddy.
He gently rolled his lifeless body to the side. He kept his eyes off the ruin of his friend’s throat, resting a hand on his shoulder. He held back memories of his friend’s barking laugh, his habit of peeling labels off of beer bottles, his hangdog look when confronted by a beautiful woman.
All gone.
But never forgotten, my friend.
He freed the backpack and returned to the wall where Erin waited. He didn’t want her to be alone with the priest. He didn’t know what the man might do. The holy man was full of secrets, secrets that had cost his men their lives. What would Korza do to keep those secrets if they escaped this prison?
No matter what was planned, the mountain would probably crush them first. Jordan hurriedly unzipped the backpack. As the team’s demolitions expert, McKay carried explosives, originally brought along to blow up canisters and neutralize any residual threat. Back when they thought they were dealing with something simple, like terrorists.
He worked fast, fingers inserting blasting caps into blocks of C-4. McKay could have done this faster, but Jordan shied away from that well of pain, unable to face the loss. That would come later. If there was a later.
He shaped and wired charges, doing fast calculations in his head while keeping an eye on Erin as she talked to the priest.
“The girl,” she said, waving an arm toward the child on the wall. “You’re telling me that she was two thousand years old when she died?”
Korza’s voice was so low that Jordan had to strain to hear his answer. “She was strigoi. Sealed in here to protect the book. A mission she performed until those silver bolts ended her life.”
As he worked, Jordan pictured those grisly events unfolding: the Nazis opened the sarcophagus, found the little girl still alive in the damn coffin, then staked her to the wall with a hail of silver crossbow bolts. He remembered the crushed gas mask spotted near the tomb’s entrance. The Nazis must have known what they would find here. They had come expecting both the girl and that toxic gas.
Erin pressed, clearly seeking some way to understand all of this, to insert it into a scientific equation that made sense. “So the Church used this poor girl. Forced her to be its guard dog for two thousand years?”
“She was no girl, and she was asleep, preserved in the holy wine that bathed her.” Korza’s words fell to a pained whisper. “Still, you are correct. Not all agreed with such a cruel decision. Nor even the choice of this accursed place. It is said the apostle Peter picked this mountain, that tragic time, to bind the blood sacrifice of the Jewish martyrs to this tomb, to use that black pall to protect the treasure.”
“Wait,” Erin scoffed. “The apostle Peter … Saint Peter? Are you saying he ordered someone to bring the book here during the siege of Masada?”
“No. Peter carried the book here himself.” The priest’s hands fiddled with his rosary. “Accompanied only by those he trusted best.”
Jordan suspected he wasn’t supposed to be telling them any of this.
“That can’t be,” Erin argued. “They crucified Peter during the reign of Nero. Roughly three years before Masada fell.”
Korza turned away, his voice quiet. “History is not always recorded with precision.”
On that cryptic note, Jordan finished his preparations. He stood and lifted the wireless detonator. Erin looked a question at him.
He wished he had more comforting words.
“Either this will work … or I’m going to kill us all.”
11
October 26, 6:01 P.M., IST
Undisclosed location, Israel
Sitting in his hospital bed, Tommy fingered the IV port sticking out of his chest. He did this numbly, not out of curiosity. He knew why the nurse had inserted it there. He’d had one before. After so many blood draws, they were afraid of collapsing a vein.
His doctor—a thin woman with sharp cheekbones, olive-green scrubs, and a grim expression—had not bothered to tell him her name, which was weird. Usually doctors kept introducing themselves and expected you to remember them. This one acted as if she wanted to be forgotten.
He hiked up the thin flannel blanket and looked around. It seemed like any other hospital room: motorized bed, intravenous lines pumping who knew what into his blood, a table with an olive-green plastic pitcher and cup.
He did miss that there was no television stuck up on the wall, not that he would have understood anything on the Israeli channels. But after his months in the hospital before, he knew there was comfort in the familiar movement on the flickering screen.
With nothing else to do, he got out of bed and pulled his IV pole along with him toward the window, the linoleum tiles cold against his bare feet. The view outside was only moonlit desert, an endless expanse of rocks and shrubs. Beyond the parking lot, not a man-made light could be seen. The Israelis had dragged him out to the middle of nowhere.
Why?
Hospitals were in cities, places with people, lights, and cars. But he had seen none of those things when the helicopter landed in that parking lot, just a cluster of mostly dark buildings.
In the chopper, he had been strapped in the middle seat, between two Israeli commandos. Both had leaned as far away from him as they could, as if they were scared to touch him. He could guess why. Earlier, he had overheard one of the American soldiers mention that he had chemical breakdown elements of that toxic gas still on his clothes and hair. No one dared touch him until he was decontaminated.
Back at Masada, he had been stripped naked inside the contamination tent, his clothes taken. And once he got here, they forced him into a series of chemical showers, seeming to scrub every dead cell off of his skin. Even that dirty water had been collected into sealed tubs.
He bet that was why he was here in the middle of nowhere: to be a guinea pig so they could figure out why he had survived that gas when everyone else died.
After all of that, he was glad he never mentioned anything about the melanoma lesion vanishing from his wrist. One finger absently rubbed that spot, still trying to fathom what that meant. His secret was an easy one to keep. Hardly anyone spoke to him—they spoke around him, about him, but seldom to him.
Only one person looked him in the eye.
Father Korza.
He remembered that dark gaze framed in a gentle face. His words had been kind, asking as much about his mother and father as about the horrors of the day. Tommy wasn’t Catholic, but he still appreciated the Father’s kindness.
As he thought again of his parents, tears threatened—but he put them in the box. He’d invented the box to deal with his cancer treatments. When things hurt too much, he boxed them up for later. With his declining health and terminal diagnosis, he’d never imagined he would live long enough to ever have to open it.
He stared down at his bare wrist.
Now, it seemed, he would.
12
October 26, 6:03 P.M., IST
Masada, Israel
Erin crouched behind the sarcophagus, her hands clamped over her ears. She flinched as Jordan triggered the C-4 planted against the wall. The blast hit her gut like a blow. Rock dust rolled across the chamber. Sand sifted down from the roof, brushing her exposed skin like the whispery crawl of a thousand spiders.
Then Jordan yanked her up, hard. “Move it!”
She didn’t understand his urgency—until the echo of the blast in her ears continued to grow louder. She stared up as the ground jostled under her.
Another aftershock.
The priest took her other arm and pulled her toward the smoking wall. A small hole had been knocked out of it. But it was too small.
“Help me!” Jordan called out.
Working together, the three of them yanked out loosened bricks along the edges. Beyond the hole loomed a dark passageway, chiseled out of the rock. Long ago, men had dug it to take them somewhere—and right now anywhere was better than here.
The quaking grew worse. The treacherous ground shifted under her and slammed her into the wall.
“No more time!” Jordan hollered and yanked out one last brick, creating a tight squeeze. “Everybody out!”
Before they could act, a resounding boom threw them all to the floor.
Overhead, a crack split the arched roof.
Jordan jumped up, grabbed Erin, and shoved her into the stone opening. Skin ripped off her elbows as she scrambled through. She regained her feet in the passageway and shone her light back at Jordan.
“You next, padre,” Jordan called. “You’re smaller than me.”
With a nod, the priest dove headlong through the narrow hole and rolled into a ready crouch beside Erin. He took a quick look around the passageway. What did he expect to see?
Erin turned back to Jordan. He gave her a quick grin. Behind his back, the entire roof dropped in one large piece, crushing the sarcophagus.
Jordan leaped at the opening. He got one shoulder through the hole, then stuck fast. His face reddened with effort. The tomb continued to collapse behind him, imploding under the mountain’s weight. His blue eyes met hers. She read his expression. He wouldn’t make it. He motioned his head toward the dark passageway, indicating that she should leave him.
Then Father Korza was there. Impossibly strong fingers snagged Jordan’s free arm and yanked with such force that bricks broke away as his body popped free. Jordan fell atop the priest, gasping, his face contorted between agony and relief.
Father Korza lifted and helped him up.
“Thanks, padre.” Jordan cradled his arm. “Good thing I don’t need that shoulder.”
The priest gestured down the dark passageway. It dropped steeply, carved with crude stairs. As the entire mountain shook, it was clear they were not yet out of danger.
“Go!” he said.
Erin wasn’t about to argue.
She fled down the tunnel, leaping steps, her tiny flashlight all she had to lead the way. The path zigzagged. The mountain shifted. She lost track of right and left. Up and down. Only forward mattered.
A misstep twisted her right ankle. Before she could fall, the priest scooped her up and hauled her in a fireman’s carry. The arm locked around her was iron; his muscular movement as he ran reminded her of the flow of molten rock.
After a precarious flight down a steep section of the passageway, he abruptly stopped and set her down.
She caught her breath and tried her ankle. Sore but not bad. She swept her tiny beam ahead. Light splashed against a wall of limestone that blocked their way.
Jordan groaned as he joined them. “Dead end.”
6:33 P.M.
Rhun ran his hands across the flat wall of rock that blocked their way, examining its surface for any clues. A flicker of warmth spread to his hand. Though night had fallen, the stone still held some of the sun’s heat.
He closed his eyes, picturing a massive stone, pushed into place to seal the outer entrance to the tunnel. He’d already felt the gaps along the bottom corner.
Next, he laid his ear against the rough surface, listening, concentrating on the world beyond the stone. As he strained, he heard life outside: the soft pad of paws on sand, the faint heartbeat of a jackal—
“Do we go back, padre?” Jordan asked, his voice boomingly loud. “Look for another passage?”
But the American knew there was no other passage.
“We are nearly free,” Rhun declared, straightening and turning. “This is the last obstacle.”
But time was running short, flowing like sand through an hourglass.
In this case, literally.
Overhead, the mountain continued to shake. Sand now poured down the passageway’s steep steps, sifting through fissures and cracks far above and accumulating in this lowest section of the tunnel. It would not take long to completely fill the tiny space.
Jordan joined Rhun and placed a palm on the rock. “So then we push?”
There was no other choice.
Erin joined them, tucking soft blond hair behind her ears.
Rhun threw his weight against the stone next to theirs. He recognized the futility after the first attempt, but he labored with them until their heartbeats betrayed their exhaustion, and he smelled blood on their palms where rock had torn their skin. The shared efforts had not been nearly enough.
All the while Masada shook.
Sand had climbed midway to his calves.
Side by side, the other two rested their backs against the immovable rock.
“How about that grenade on your belt?” The woman pointed. “Could it blow through the stone?”
The soldier sagged. “It’s not enough to destroy it. And the blast would deflect right back at us. Even if I hadn’t used up the C-4 in McKay’s demolition pack, I doubt we could blow that rock without turning us into hamburger.”
A strong jolt rocked the mountain. The woman’s face whitened. The soldier stared at the rock as if he were vowing to move it by sheer force of will. Desperation etched his features, the raw desire to live another hour, another day.
The soldier slipped an arm around the woman and pulled her close. She softened against him, burying her face in his shoulder. The man gently kissed the top of her head, possibly so softly she never felt it. How effortlessly they had moved into an embrace. The priest stared at the simple comfort of contact, of touch, the solace found only in companionship.
An ache cut into him, a longing to be like them.
But that was not his role. He turned and faced the boulder, determined to serve them.
Sand rained on his brow and lashes. With his face still upturned, he closed his eyes in prayer.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Bits of scripture flowed through his head, both a search for answers and a focus for his mind. He opened himself to God’s will, letting go.
As sand slowly climbed his legs, he waited—but no answer came.
So be it.
He would find his end here.
As he touched his cross, a line of scripture suddenly glowed gold before his mind’s eye: And Joseph bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulcher which was hewn out of a rock …
Of course.
His eyes flew open, and he studied the immutable stone. He touched its flat surface, picturing an equally flat surface on the other side. He remembered the gaps along the bottom, how he had found that the stone’s edges had been curved. He imagined that curve extending fully around the stone, fo
rming a circle.
In his mind, he saw it.
A flat disk of rock.
His lips moved in a silent prayer of thanks, then he crossed to the others.
The woman stood up to meet him. “What is it?”
She must have noticed something in his face. That alone illustrated Rhun’s own desperation, that another could read him so easily. Hope flared in her eyes.
As the soldier joined them, Rhun unclipped the grenade from his belt.
“That won’t work,” the man said. “I was just explaining—”
“Trust me.” Rhun waded through the pool of sand back to the boulder and dug down near the corner, where the rock met the wall. He dug swiftly, but the sand fought him, filling as fast as he could scoop it out.
He couldn’t do this alone.
“Help me.”
The others flanked him.
“Dig to the floor,” he ordered.
They worked together until the sand was clear along the bottom edge, exposing a small curved gap between the stone disk and tunnel floor. Rhun reached down and jammed the grenade deep into that crack, wedging it under the disk’s edge.
He then placed a finger in the pin’s ring and spoke over his shoulder. “Get back as far up the tunnel as you can reach.”
“What about you?” the soldier asked.
With no one digging, sand poured back into the hole, burying his wrist, then his forearm. “I will follow you.”
The soldier hesitated, but he finally nodded and pulled the woman with him.
Erin called to him, “How do you know it will work?”
Rhun didn’t. He had to trust in God—and in a certain line from the Bible, one concerning boulders sealing tombs.
Mark 15:46.
He whispered it now, both as answer and as prayer.
“And Joseph bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulcher which was hewn out of a rock—and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulcher.”
With those words, he yanked the pin on the grenade, pulled his arm free, and fought against the cataract of flowing sand.
The Blood Gospel Page 11