“We have survived so long by running silent. Hidden from the world’s scrutiny,” Nannan insisted. Like Nannan had actually done anything to protect the Disciples’ secret. Yet he was a Watcher of the Word. She could not ignore him completely. At least not yet.
“True,” she said, “however, we have no idea how much Osip told them. We cannot wait and possibly lose them.”
Nannan frowned, crinkling the edge of his eyes. “I still do not believe that Osip would betray the Disciples so. Betray the master.”
“You were not there,” Aunush stated. Thank God. In His infinite wisdom, no one was left alive to contradict Aunush’s version of Osip’s death. That of a weak old man spilling secrets on the way to his grave. “Had he lived another second he would have rung a bell that could never be unrung.”
As the sniper scanned the crowd with his rifle, Nannan finally sighed. “Osip had fallen from grace. Living as he was. Exiled from the Disciples. Bitterness does strange thing to even the most devout.”
Aunush only nodded, letting Nannan build the story of the great man’s fall for himself. God truly did work in mysterious ways. What had been seen as a grave error in Pushchino, killing Osip while he held a knife to the enemy, could now become a great asset. The master knew how dangerous Osip had been, otherwise the man would not have been in that stale apartment in Pushchino. Aunush and the sniper had done what the master could not.
She eyed Nannan with a more appreciative eye. A few moments ago Aunush had wondered why she even let him live. After dispatching her team, she had felt a weight lift from her. To think she could begin anew. The last tendril of that failed mission had been Nannan. With him gone she truly could write history over again.
But if he was to be so obliging as to write the narrative even more gloriously than she could, perhaps he had a role after all.
“This is the righteous path then.” Nannan straightened his back. “How long until the blasphemers meet their God?”
Aunush looked through the binoculars. Bright reds, yellows, and oranges shone within the church. It should only take a few minutes for those flames to consume the structure.
While she answered the Watcher, Aunush’s eyes found the sniper, sharing this little moment with him.
“It shouldn’t be long now.”
* * *
“It’s pretty damn hot out there,” Harvish informed them with the palm of his hand against the door.
Great. More pressure. Just what she needed. Rebecca had tried everything she could think of to open the bottom of the tomb. They knew there was an exit there, one to get them out of this tinderbox, she just couldn’t figure out how to get the damned thing open.
“Move back,” Brandt urged.
Both she and Bunny took a step away from tomb.
The sergeant raised his weapon and used the butt of his gun to smash into the wood next to St. Basil. The plank splintered.
“Why are you destroying it?” Bunny asked, her voice going up an octave.
“Because it’s wood and I could.” Brandt slammed the butt of his gun again, breaking through the wood.
“We’ll never get through that small a—”
Rebecca laid a hand on Bunny’s arm. The one thing she’d learned about Brandt in the year they’d known one another was that if Brandt put his mind to something, he wouldn’t just get it done, he’d rock the hell out of it.
One more smash and Brandt slung his weapon back over his shoulder, leaning down, shoving his hand into the hole, fishing around.
“There’s got to be a release mechanism—” Brandt didn’t bother finishing his sentence as a loud metal thunk filled the room. The sergeant pulled the bottom of the tomb up, revealing a stone staircase leading out of sight.
“Harvish, you are on point,” Brandt ordered as he backed away from the tomb and took up Harvish’s position at the door. “Rebecca next, Bunny follow directly after.” The sergeant grabbed the robe from the scale and tossed it to the bishop. “Then clothed, you go down, Bishop Tolst. I will bring up the rear.”
The older man shook his head at the sergeant.
“I’m not taking no for an answer,” Brandt said as Harvish climbed up on the tomb’s edge. Rebecca watched as the point man shone his light down the staircase, taking each step one at a time. She glanced beyond him. The steps looked like they went down. Way down.
“My faith radiates from within,” the bishop stated. “I have no desire to read forbidden words.”
“Look, I don’t care—”
The bishop cut Brandt off. “One of us must stay behind.”
“Why?” Rebecca asked as Bunny headed down the stairs after Harvish.
The older man, seeming far more lucid than a guy standing stark naked should, nodded to the lid of the tomb. “The seal must be reset. From the outside, otherwise the fire could follow.”
“We’ll take that chance,” Brandt stated, shoving the robe to the bishop.
Tolst found the sergeant’s gaze, apparently able to withstand Brandt’s patented do-what-I-say-or-I-will-kick-your-ass stare. “If I do not seal it, they will know of your presence. They will follow in your tracks.”
Rebecca watched as Brandt’s jaw worked up and down.
Would he really allow the bishop to sacrifice himself?
* * *
Damn if the bishop wasn’t correct. But damn it if Brandt was going to let the guy die by fire.
“Again, we will just have to take that chance,” Brandt said, urging the naked man toward the staircase.
Yet the bishop held firm. “Will you hog-tie me? Will you take away my right to choose my death?”
Time ticked like Big Ben in Brandt’s head. They really didn’t have time to argue this crap. He turned to Rebecca. “Get down there.”
“But—”
“Now!” Brandt commanded. He could only tolerate one civilian mutinying at a time. After she complied, he turned to the bishop. “It won’t be pretty, Tolst. You are going to burn to death. Do you understand that?”
“A common way for martyrs to die,” the bishop said with a shrug.
If it were just Brandt’s life, he’d say screw it and throw the old guy over his shoulder, going commando and all. Only it wasn’t. It wasn’t just Harvish’s life, who had chosen a life filled with the risks of the job. Or Bunny, who was at the wrong place for the second wrong time. Or even Rebecca. To think of what the Russians would do to her if she was captured.
No, it was about the scores of dead that would line the streets the world over if the Rinderpest was let loose. Honestly, though that scenario was too abstract for Brandt’s mind. Rebecca’s face was the one the he couldn’t picture dead.
“Are you sure?” Brandt asked the bishop.
“I shall go to God as He brought me forth.”
Brandt didn’t even bother trying to give the bishop his robe. Instead, he jerked down on the incense holder, breaking the chain. Brandt broke off a sharp metal piece and handed it to Tolst. “In case it gets too much to bear.”
The older man accepted the item. “I am not Joan of Arc after all.”
Brandt wanted to blame the smoke leaking under the door for his choking up, but he knew it would be a lie. “Thank you.”
“Go,” Tolst insisted. “Bring to the world God’s word…no matter what it is.”
Rebecca paused on the staircase, her eyes level with his. Tears shone brightly under the candlelight. Perhaps he was being selfish, but Brandt thought them not just for the bishop but for the man who was forced to leave the bishop behind.
“Patarapis!” Tolst announced as the outer door buckled, ready to explode inward. Hurry.
Brandt hopped up onto the side of the tomb. If they had any hope of the bishop lasting long enough to seal the tomb, they needed to get it closed like now. They couldn’t risk the fresh rush of oxygen from deeper down the staircase to add to the conflagration.
Rebecca rushed down the steps to make room for him. Brandt pulled the wooden bottom of the tomb down as he d
escended the stairs. Looking up through the small hole he had created, Brandt watched the bishop lower the stone cover. For a moment there was the tiniest edge of light leaking through, but even that disappeared as Tolst tightened the seal.
He knew he should follow the staircase and join the rest of the team, but Brandt found it hard to move his feet. Then a hand reached out of the dark and touched his arm. There was nothing romantic about the gesture, which made it even harder to bear.
“He’s made his choice,” Rebecca whispered into the dark.
Brandt had been taught that as a married man he shouldn’t take comfort from anyone but his wife. Somehow though as he heard the roar of fire through the stone, Brandt thought God would forgive him.
* * *
Rebecca let her hand fall away as Brandt’s flashlight bloomed to light. She turned away before he could say anything. There was nothing more either of them could say, was there?
Instead, she concentrated on the cool steps beneath her feet. They were well worn, almost slick. Clearly Ivan had made this journey numerous times. Soot climbed the rock. He must have used a torch to make the trek.
Harvish and Bunny scooted over so she could join them on the small landing. Brandt was close behind her.
“I can’t see around the corner, so I thought I’d wait until we assembled,” Harvish explained. Off Brandt’s nod, the point man took the corner. “There’s another staircase.”
Another one? The one they’d just come down was long and steep. How far underground were they? And exactly how much farther would they need to go?
“Move out,” Brandt ordered, although his voice sounded thicker than a few minutes ago.
The second set of stairs was even steeper. Rebecca had to put a hand on the rough rock wall to steady herself. These steps were set in a spiral, diving deep into the Russian ground. Finally they reached an even narrower landing. This place had been meant for one man and one man only.
Ivan the Terrible.
Harvish peeked around the corner and then came back to report. “Looks like there’s a short passage that ends in an altar of some sort.”
Rebecca had a hard time taking a breath. Could a man such as Ivan really possess the Ten Commandments? Could they really be just a few feet away? Bunny’s eyes shone with as much excitement at the discovery as sorrow for her mentor.
“Let’s get this over with,” Brandt grunted.
Harvish moved out quickly. Rebecca was only a half step behind him. The passage indeed was short. Just a few meters really. The walls in front of them rounded into a small chamber. A tall stone pedestal occupied the exact center of the room.
“Oh my God,” Bunny exhaled as she approached the pedestal. “There’s…there’s the outline of two tablets.”
The younger woman wasn’t wrong. Etched into the pedestal’s surface was the perimeter of what looked to be two large tablets. Only the tablets themselves weren’t there. Only small chunks of the stone were left. However, these had been tenderly placed, like pieces of a religious puzzle, into slots where they might have fit the original tablets. There weren’t many there. Only half a dozen or so.
“Are they real?” Harvish asked breathlessly.
“That question would take days if not weeks in the lab to answer. There would be carbon dating the stone itself, then cross-referencing the passages with every known biblical tome on the planet,” Rebecca answered. “The question becomes do they seem authentic?”
“How about trying again without the scientific dodging?” Brandt suggested.
A smile flickered on Rebecca’s lips. “We can’t tell for sure if they are real, but we sure as heck can see if they are a cheap fake.”
Rebecca walked around the pedestal, examining the chunks from every different angle. They did not hold up to any of the Hollywood versions of the tablets. Those usually had five commandments on one tablet and five on the other. No, these were much more similar to what the Bible described. The biblical tablets were said to have writing of all sorts across the stone. As these fragments demonstrated. Some of the passages were large script, dug deeply into the stone, while others looked like a college student’s scribbled in a notebook. There was so much more information on the surface of these tablets than just the Ten Commandments. And even beyond their surface. Writing continued on the sides of the slabs and even on the backside. Just as the Bible described. That didn’t mean though that they weren’t a clever forgery.
She studied the inscriptions, however she was a tad rusty on ancient Hebrew. She could fire up her laptop, but strangely that felt weird. Besides, they had an expert with them.
“Bunny,” Rebecca said, “you are more fluent in the language. Would you mind translating?”
The younger woman looked up, almost startled. “I don’t…I…”
“You can do it,” Rebecca encouraged. In truth Rebecca didn’t trust herself to do it. To translate the literal word of God? Yeah, she’d let the younger generation take a swing at that one.
Bunny started with a thin sliver near the edge of the tablet outline. “Trust in only the one truth. Be not blinded by… That is where it ends.”
Rebecca pointed to a larger passage near the center of the first tablet. “And this one?”
The younger woman’s lips moved without sound as she read the inscription in its native Hebrew. Then she flew back from the pedestal.
“What is it?” Rebecca asked.
Bunny shook her head, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“What did it say?” Brandt pressed, but the young woman only shrank farther into herself.
Rebecca knew that look. She’d probably worn it many a time. It was one thing to seek out the singular truth and quite another to stumble upon it. Knowing time was precious by the set of Brandt’s jaw, Rebecca scanned the passage trying to dredge up her archaic Hebrew.
She read slowly and carefully. “For ye were afraid…or scared or…ill?” Rebecca hesitated. Like she said, ancient Hebrew was a bitch. The language was primarily oral back in biblical times. The speaker’s inflection and tone helped define the words. The written language was a bit loosey-goosey. She picked up where she left off. “Because of the fire…or flame…or brightness…and…” Rebecca stopped the translation, stepping back from the pedestal as well.
“Will one of you tell me what is so damned scary about that passage?” Brandt insisted.
Gulping, Rebecca finished the passage, “And went not up into the mount, seeking instead to huddle…or cower…or hold tightly to its base…”
“Um,” Harvish said, “I still don’t get it. I may be seriously lapsed, but that’s not any part of the Ten Commandments I have ever heard of.”
“Exactly,” Brandt agreed.
The sergeant might be well versed in his Catholic traditions, but he was a bit sketchy on his Jewish ones.
Rebecca found her voice. “That is because you are both used to the King James Version. It is like the Reader’s Digest version of the Bible, stripped down, easier to read and digest.”
Brandt frowned. “And your point?”
She knew that under any other circumstance Brandt would have gone toe-to-toe after she dissed the King James Version, but these weren’t any other circumstances, were they? They were down in a secret vault while a man above offered his life so they might obtain this information.
Rebecca skipped the history lesson. “The closest mainstream Torah translation of the Ten Commandments is considered the Mechon-Mamre. It reads, ‘For ye were afraid because of the fire, and went not up into the mount.’”
“So someone just etched in those words,” Brandt suggested. “Anyone familiar with that translation, right?”
She shook her head. “Except for those last words, ‘seeking instead to huddle at its base.’ Those words aren’t found in any accepted Torah translation of Deuteronomy.”
Brandt’s frown deepened. “Spit it out.”
“An archeological dig did find an ancient scroll in Jerusalem that included those ad
ded words.”
“Alright, so someone just copied it from that,” Brandt tried to reason.
Rebecca had to make him understand. “That scroll wasn’t found until the 1970s. If anything that scroll copied down the words of this slab.”
“And that scroll,” Bunny added, “was dated back to around 1000 BCE.”
Brandt’s eyes searched Rebecca’s face. She knew he wanted her to somehow disagree or prove the younger woman wrong. That he wanted Rebecca to tell him that no way, no how were these small stone fragments the remains of the actual Ten Commandments.
The only problem? She couldn’t.
“So we can’t say for sure that these are truly the slabs of stone Moses brought down the mount,” Rebecca said, splitting the difference. “But what we can say, with quite a bit of certainty, is that these fragments are contemporaneous to biblical times.”
That was the best she could do, and even that did not seem to be enough for Brandt.
“But—”
A loud boom and then a scream interrupted Brandt. Everyone in the room knew what it meant. The door had blown open and the tomb was engulfed in flames along with Tolst. Rebecca pulled Bunny close as the scream abruptly stopped.
They all stared down the dark tunnel, waiting for any sight of light. Any sign the fire had made its way down here. But the seal must have held. Only the sounds of crackling flame filled the stairwell.
“I don’t want that sacrifice to be in vain,” Brandt stated.
None of them did.
“Screw traditional or accepted or whatever translations,” Brandt said more heatedly. “We need a location where the rest of the tablets might have been buried so they can lead us to Amed’s payload.”
Rebecca nodded. He was right. They needed to honor Tolst the best way they could. She turned to read more of the fragment’s passages when a not just ear-splitting, but soul-wrenching crack sounded all around them.
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