The Five Greatest Warriors

by Matthew Reilly

  Jesus . . .

  Iolanthe pulled away slowly, looked him in the eye.

  “We needn’t be on different sides in all this, Jack. But even if we are, it shouldn’t mean we can’t enjoy each other. I’m going to my bunkroom now, where I’m going to slip out of these clothes and sleep naked for the first time in days. I’d very much like it if you joined me . . .”

  Then she kissed his ear and left the office.

  Jack sat face forward, frozen.

  Then he blinked out of it, exhaled, and looked at Horus. The falcon squawked.

  “Tell me about it,” he said, before resuming his work.

  He never went to her bunkroom.

  A FEW HOURS later, Lily awoke. Jack was still at his desk, making markings on a map of some sort.

  “Hey,” she said sleepily.

  “Hey, kiddo.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to find in one day what men have been seeking for centuries: the Tomb of Jesus Christ.”

  “Any luck?”

  Jack shrugged. “Maybe some.”

  He showed her the ancient map in front of him. It was a map of Asia Minor: Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey.

  “The twins did a lot of research on Jesus,” he said. “They canvassed all the myths about what happened to him after the crucifixion. The most persistent theory is that Jesus lived out his days at Masada, while others suggest he headed east, ending up in the Kashmir region of India.”

  “I can see a ‘but’ coming,” Lily said.

  “But they’re just theories. There’s no actual proof of either. What I need is a new angle,” Jack said. “Everybody who’s looked for the tomb of Jesus has tried to follow the trail of Jesus himself, which eventually peters out into myth and legend. I think we need to follow somebody else’s trail, someone who knew Jesus, and I think I just found out who.”

  “Who?”

  Jack pointed to another sheet on his desk, one Lily had seen before. “His brother, James.”

  Lily looked at the sheet:

  “This is the detailed description of James’s epic journey from Judea to the Fortress of Van that the twins found earlier,” Jack said. “It’s the journey James made with two of the Pillars in his possession.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Well, something about this list always bothered me. Something about it wasn’t right. Now I know.”

  “What was it?”

  “I found this old map of Asia Minor and I plotted James’s course on it. Take a look.”

  Jack turned the map so Lily could see it:

  “See it?” Jack asked.

  Lily did.

  James had not taken the most direct route from Jerusalem to Van. He’d made a gigantic detour to the south before heading northeast, going almost completely around the Dead Sea. As a list of town names, the detour wasn’t readily apparent, but once you plotted them on a map, it was glaringly obvious.

  Jack said, “James didn’t go straight from Jerusalem to the Fortress at Van. He took a big detour to the south, passing through Masada, some desert springs known as Ein Gedi and Ein Bokek—before he came to Mount Sodom and a spring near it, Ein Aradhim. Only then did he resume his trip northeast, going quickly and directly to Van.”

  “So what are you thinking?” Lily asked.

  “I’m thinking that before he ventured off into exile for the rest of his life, James visited his brother’s tomb first. But it wasn’t at Masada. James went well beyond Masada.” Jack pointed at the lowest point of James’s journey. “Lily, I think Jesus’ tomb is somewhere here, down at the southern tip of the Dead Sea, near the Ein Aradhim at the base of the Mount Sodom salt hills.”

  THE DEAD SEA

  ISRAEL-JORDANIAN BORDER,

  MARCH 19, 2008, 0700 HOURS

  THE DAY BEFORE THE FINAL DEADLINE

  THE DEAD Sea is the lowest point on Earth. It lies a full 400 meters below sea level. It is known mainly for it extreme salinity—a white crust of salt crystallizes at its edges. It is also shrinking, due to constant evaporation, losing approximately fifty meters of width every year. True to its name, the Dead Sea is indeed dying.

  At the extreme southern end of the sea one will find Mount Sodom, a collection of jagged snow-white spires made of pure salt, sodium chloride. Many ancient salt mines, long abandoned, delve into its base.

  “Salt was hugely important in ancient times,” Jack explained to Lily as the Halicarnassus rolled to a stop on an empty stretch of desert highway on the Jordanian side of the salt hills. “Roman soldiers were often paid in salt. Before refrigeration, it was used to preserve meat. The Romans mined it everywhere they ruled: from Germania to Judea.”

  They drove out of the hold of the Hali in a jeep they’d grabbed in the Emirates. Iolanthe went with them, apparently totally unconcerned that Jack had not taken her up on her offer the night before. Their two Spetsnaz guards—whom Lily had christened Ding and Dong—remained with Sky Monster at the Halicarnassus, correctly gauging that the plane was the only way Jack could escape from this place.

  Bizarre white hills rose before them, looking more like high snow mounds than desert hills. The Dead Sea stretched northward, low and flat, glinting in the dawn.

  “And salt mines make for excellent tombs,” Jack added, “because salt crystals seal doorways, keeping oxygen out and thus perfectly preserving anything inside.”

  Up the hill from the Halicarnassus, they came to a modest freshwater spring, the Ein Aradhim, the seemingly unnecessary stop James had made on his way to Van.

  It was little more than a small bubbling pool that ran in a pathetic tricklein the direction of the inland sea; the trickle was so weak, its water flow evaporated before it reached the Dead Sea.

  Cut into a salt mountain near the spring, however, was the entrance to a long-abandoned mine.

  The entrance was sealed with dried-out wooden planks and half a century’s worth of windblown sand. Rail tracks disappeared under the planks and a few iron mine cars stood rusted to the tracks. Smashed kerosene lamps lay strewn on the ground.

  Weathered signs in English, Hebrew, and Arabic warned: “DANGER: UNSTABLE/FALLING ROCKS,” “DO NOT ENTER” and “DANGER: FLAMMABLE GASES IN THIS MINE (METHANE): NO LIVE FLAMES.”

  “1930s-era mine. British,” Iolanthe said, looking at the build plates on the mine cars. “These mine cars were built in Sheffield in 1922.”

  “But it’s probably built on top of a much older mine started by the Romans,” Jack said. “I’d guess it was the modern miners who struck methane, since the Romans would’ve used live flames.”

  “Flammable gas leaks in mines are not pretty when they ignite,” Iolanthe warned.

  Jack nodded at a bulky blue canvas bag he’d put in the back of the jeep. “I’ve brought some breathing masks along, as well as an inflatable air seal, just in case it becomes necessary to seal off a nasty section of the mine.”

  “Is this the only entrance?” Lily asked.

  “I doubt it,” Jack said. “There could be miles of roadways inside this place. There are probably several entrances dotted along the mountain spur.”

  “So what do we do exactly?” Iolanthe asked.

  “We go in,” Jack said. “And see what we find.”

  Using a crowbar, Jack dislodged the old wooden planks sealing the entrance. Then, guided by the headlights of their little jeep, the three of them headed into the mine.

  It was like a fantasy world: the walls and ceilings were completely white, made entirely of salt. Crystalline and translucent, it looked like the inside of an ice castle. The crusty white roads were as slippery as hell.

  It was a world of white, and even though each tunnel was numbered, it was completely disorienting. The only trick Jack could think of to mark their route was the same one used by Theseus in the Minotaur’s labyrinth: he lay glowsticks along the way, so at least they’d be able to get back out.

  Jack drove carefully through the network of white-walled tunnels, ri
sing and falling, bending and twisting.

  As they descended further into the mine, they noticed an unusual progression: near the surface, the mine tunnels were wider and more sharply cut, with the major arteries featuring mine-car tracks and cabling for the electric lights; but as they went deeper, the trappings of modern mining gradually disappeared.

  The tunnels became rougher, rounder, and narrower; the wooden supports holding up the ceiling became thicker and more primitive. And the numbers above each tunnel were now carved as long-faded Roman numerals.

  Jack pulled the jeep to a halt.

  “We’re now in the original Roman salt mine.” He eyed the ancient timber supports warily. “Hope those beams hold up for a little while longer. Still, it’s too narrow for the jeep. We go on foot from here.”

  He grabbed the canvas bag from the back of the jeep and slung it over his shoulder.

  They walked for thirty minutes.

  “Captain,” Iolanthe said wearily, “do you have a plan here? Are we actually looking for something?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact . . .”

  They stepped out into a tunnel junction: three tunnels branched off it, but all three had been boarded up with loosely nailed wooden slats.

  The usual modern warnings had been painted in glaring red onto the slats but much older warnings had been etched into the salt-encrusted doorways themselves. They were only just readable.

  NOLI INTRARE. CANALIS INSTABILIS.

  “It’s Latin,” Lily said. “Do not enter. Mine tunnels unstable.”

  “Even the Romans had their limits,” Jack said. “This is what we’re looking for.”

  “And that is . . .?” Iolanthe asked.

  Jack turned. “Remember the James Letter, the one James sent to Mary Magdalene in France:

  He lies in peace,

  In a place where even the mighty Romans fear to tread.

  In a kingdom of white . . .

  “Scholars assumed James was describing someplace hostile to the Romans: Persia or northern Europe. But nobody thought of a place the Romans had barred off themselves. I was looking for this: for the point at which the Romans found this mine to be too dangerous, the point beyond which they feared to tread.”

  Jack stood before the triple junction, assessing each possible passageway. He stood deathly still.

  “What are you looking for—?”

  “Shhh,” he said. “Not looking, listening.”

  He stepped over to the left-hand tunnel, peered through its slats, listening intently.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “What?” Iolanthe asked.

  “Listen . . .”

  Iolanthe did so. And suddenly she heard it.

  Voices. Distant, echoing voices. Coming from somewhere down in the barred-off section of the mine.

  Quickly, quietly, and firmly, Jack started pulling the slats free.

  “Someone’s already here,” he whispered.

  Moving with extreme caution, Jack ventured down a steep slippery passageway on foot, followed by Lily and Iolanthe. The passageway appeared to end at a dark precipice up ahead.

  “We came in from the north. There must be another entrance from the south—”

  A flash of artificial light suddenly slashed across the end of their passageway.

  “Flashlights . . .” Jack breathed. “Stay low.”

  The three of them crept toward the end of the passageway.

  Jack stopped at the precipice—their passageway ended at a sharp brink overlooking a gallery from up near its ceiling.

  And there, down on the floor of the gallery, standing beside a large flat wheel-shaped device, Jack saw several figures carrying flashlights, looking down into a wide salt pit.

  Scimitar and Mao Gongli, flanked by four of Carnivore’s Russian Spetsnaz guards.

  “Son of a bitch,” Jack whispered. “We found it.”

  THE ROMAN SALT MINE

  GAZING DOWN on the scene from his high position, Jack realized the purpose of this gallery.

  It was a collection point: six twenty-foot-high mounds of salt stood in two rows of three, each one positioned directly underneath an elevated passageway like his. Salt gathered by slaves in the depths of the mine would be brought here for coordinated delivery to the surface.

  The horizontal wheel-like object near Scimitar and Mao, Jack saw, was a slave wheel that drove a conveyor belt that rose from the wide pit. The conveyor belt was attached to a high scaffold structure that stood in the pit— slaves manacled to the wheel would turn it, raising salt in buckets on the belt.

  But then as he gazed down at the wide gallery, Jack realized something else.

  Where was Vulture?

  Carnivore had tasked Mao, Scimitar, and Vulture with the job of finding the Sixth Pillar.

  Then Vulture appeared.

  He climbed up into view via the scaffold in the pit . . .

  . . . and he held in his hand a cloth-wrapped bundle the size of a football.

  Jack gasped.

  Vulture stepped up out of the hole and unwrapped the bundle, revealing a translucent diamond brick.

  The Sixth and last Pillar.

  The Jesus Pillar.

  Sound carried well in the cavern. They heard Vulture clearly when he addressed his Russian guards.

  “Your master’s prize,” the Saudi spat, handing it over to the guards.

  The commander of the guards looked pleased. “We will return to the surface and inform the general of your find.”

  Covered by their Russian guards, Vulture, Scimitar, and Mao then left the chamber through a doorway to the south.

  Lily made to stand. “Daddy, we have to do something. They’re getting away . . .”

  But Jack hadn’t moved.

  He was just staring down at the ancient scaffold rising up from the pit.

  Iolanthe watched him closely. “What is it?”

  Jack quoted:

  “His wisdom lies with him still,

  Protected by a twin who meets all thieves first.

  “A twin . . .” he said, still staring intently downward. “A twin who meets all thieves first . . .”

  Then it clicked.

  “It’s a fake,” he said softly.

  “A what?” Iolanthe spun.

  “What’s a fake?” Lily said.

  Jack swallowed. “The Pillar they just took. It’s designed to deceive anyone who comes here: to make them think they found the real Pillar. Mao, Vulture, and Scimitar just took a fake Pillar to Carnivore.”

  A Roman-era ladder led down from Jack’s perch to one of the salt piles on the floor of the abandoned gallery.

  Walking slowly and silently by the light of a couple of glowsticks, followed by Lily and Iolanthe, Jack passed between the high mounds of salt before coming to the edge of the wide rectangular pit at the far end.

  The slave wheel was a lot bigger up close, the size of a small car. Rusty manacles dangled from it.

  The pit itself dropped a full fifty feet to a floor that was covered in a layer of sickly milk-colored water.

  “Brine,” Jack said. “They must have struck groundwater and it mixed with the salt.”

  Some tied-together wooden planks formed a loose bridge across the brine lake, giving access to four slightly elevated square tunnels on the other side. Vulture had left some glowsticks in the far-right tunnel.

  “You, stay here,” Jack said to Iolanthe. “You”—to Lily—“come with me.”

  “Why can’t I come?” Iolanthe protested.

  “Because I still haven’t figured you out. I can’t tell when you’re going to kill me or save me, so it’s better just to keep you out of the equation. You keep watch up here.”

  Iolanthe rolled her eyes, completely unruffled. “Fine.”

  Jack climbed down the ladder into the pit. Lily followed.

  Then, equally slowly, almost with reverence, they walked across the loosely tied boards across the brine lake, before disappearing inside the right-hand tunnel.

/>   The white-walled tunnel wasn’t long, only about forty feet. It ended at a vertical salt-walled shaft that plunged further downward. An A-frame with a rope hanging from it dangled into the shaft, presumably left by Vulture.

  Jack shone his flashlight down the shaft.

  Ten feet down, a horizontal cross shaft bored into the salt wall. Its mouth was heavily salt-encrusted, as if a seal of some kind had been broken. More of Vulture’s glowsticks led into it.

  “Vulture was too hasty,” Jack said. “He took the first option, and found the twin who meets all thieves first.”

  “Daddy, what are you talking about?”

  Jack shone the beam of his flashlight further down the shaft, to a part of the salt wall below the cross shaft Vulture had broken into, to reveal . . .

  . . .a translucent section of wall.

  Lily caught her breath.

  The apparently solid wall of the shaft was not solid at all. There was another cross shaft down there, whose entrance had been covered over with a layer of—

  “Salt seals,” Jack said. “And that explains the middle part of the letter.

  “He lies in peace,

  In a place where even the mighty Romans fear to tread.

  In a kingdom of white

  He does not grow old.

  “He doesn’t grow old because the sealing of the salt protects his body from the corrosive effects of oxygen in the air. Archaeologists have found bodies in salt mines in Romania and Iran that date from over a thousand years before Christ and they still have skin, hair, and beards. Even their clothes retain their color because the salt has kept out the air.”

  Slinging his canvas bag over his shoulder, Jack grabbed the rope hanging from the A-frame and started to lower himself into the shaft.

  Lily was only just starting to grasp what he had just said.

  “Daddy, wait. Are you saying that lying in a sealed chamber down there, with the last Pillar buried with him, is the perfectly preserved body of Jesus Christ?”

  In answer Jack stopped what he was doing, looked Lily in the eye, and gave her a single silent nod.

  Then he continued his descent.