The Secret Chapel (god's lions)

by John Lyman

  The Secret Chapel

  ( God's lions )

  John Lyman

  John Lyman

  The Secret Chapel

  FACT:

  In mathematical research, a “p-value” of one in twenty usually indicates that something is “true”. In 1989, a senior cryptologic mathematician with the Department of Defense-working in the offices of the National Security Agency-made a startling discovery. He was awaiting word from his wife on the solution to a nineteen-day-long calculation running on his home computer. As a skeptic, he had set out to disprove the claim that a team of Israeli scientists had found a code in the Torah-a code that would prove to the world that the Bible was divinely inspired by God. When his wife called, he was astonished to hear that the “p-value” was one in sixty-two-thousand five hundred, meaning that there was a 99.998 percent certainty that the code was real. Mathematicians around the world have yet to disprove this finding.

  PROLOGUE

  Israel-The Negev Desert

  May 15, 1948

  On the last day of their lives, the British troops were breaking camp. For the past year, the soldiers had been living in an isolated region of the desert-one that appeared devoid of any visible life, making the men’s daily patrols seem pointless. Their only contact with the outside world had been the monthly visits from the army supply trucks and a few brief encounters with the Bedouin tribes who passed through the area.

  Faced with the prospect of fighting and dying in a land far from home, the time spent in monotonous anticipation of combat that never came had taken its toll on the weary band of men who had been consigned to a bleak existence for way too long. On this day, however, the somber mood in camp had changed. The men were celebrating the news that their tour of duty was finally coming to an end, and that soon, they would all be home with their families in England.

  High overhead, the relentless thermal presence of the midmorning sun reflected off the desert sand, creating a shimmering effect over the heated landscape as a tall, thin sergeant drove his open jeep through the camp. Peering through the dusty orange haze, he spotted a group of tanned soldiers loading the last of their equipment into a line of waiting trucks. He pulled up beside them and stopped.

  “Let’s keep moving, lads. The captain wants us out of here before noon.”

  A shirtless private grabbed an empty water container and turned toward the jeep with a grin. “Not to worry, Sergeant. Every minute we spend here is one minute less we’ll have at the bar tonight.”

  They all laughed as the sergeant threw the jeep into gear and headed for the last tent that remained standing. His blue eyes gazed out across the desert at the blurred images of desolate gray mountains and saffron colored cliffs surrounding their position. He smiled to himself with the knowledge that, after today, these images would be nothing more than a distant memory.

  Sliding to a stop in a cloud of dust, the sergeant jumped from the jeep and ducked into the captain’s tent. In the relative darkness, he saw the young, blond captain sitting quietly on a folding wooden chair, his once-cheerful face masked by a look of quiet resolution. He was holding a letter from his wife, a letter that he had read at least twice a day for the past month. Enclosed with the letter was a picture of a dark-haired young woman holding an infant-a girl barely six months old. The child had never laid eyes on her father, but that would change, the captain had promised himself, as soon as they were out of this hellish place.

  “What time is it, Sergeant?”

  “It’s almost ten o’clock, sir. We’re ready to move out.”

  “Just throw everything in the back of my jeep. I’d like to be out of here before the sun gets any higher.”

  Reaching into the pocket of his faded khaki shorts, the sergeant produced a handkerchief and ran it over his forehead and through his hair. “Yes, sir, most of our gear is already loaded in the trucks. This is the last tent standing. These Arabs can have this bloody desert. I never want to see sand again unless it’s at the beach.”

  A rare smile brightened the captain’s features as he tenderly folded the letter and placed it in the pocket of his sweat-stained shirt. “I have to admit, lying on the sand under the sun doesn’t have quite the appeal it used to.”

  Flicking a small brown scorpion from his boot, the sergeant motioned for two privates standing outside the tent to enter. The soldiers moved quickly, and within minutes, the captain’s home for the past twelve months was nothing more than a rumpled mound of canvas lying on the sand.

  The soldiers tossed it into the back of one of the large sand-colored military trucks, while a British flag flying from a makeshift pole was lowered for the last time, becoming the final thing to be packed away before the convoy set out for Jerusalem.

  Climbing into the passenger side of the lead jeep, the captain turned to make a final visual inspection of the deserted campsite. The men had done a good job. It appeared as though no one had ever been there. No one ever should have been. He glanced over his shoulder at the line of vehicles behind him and motioned for the column of trucks and jeeps to begin their final patrol out of the desert.

  Straining motors and grinding gears echoed off of the encircling mountains as the sergeant squinted ahead from under the brow of his cap and worked the steering wheel to avoid the occasional large rock or deep rut that lay in their path. Puzzled by the absence of wildlife, the captain adjusted his sunglasses and gazed out over the barren landscape. “Tonight I’ll be having a scotch on the rocks in the bar at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.”

  “That sounds like a bit of heaven, sir. Some of the men will be downtown hoisting a pint or two themselves this evening. Have you heard anything from headquarters?”

  “About what, Sergeant?”

  “Did they say when our ship would be leaving for England, sir?”

  “I imagine that will be in a few days from now, after the government formally announces our intention to pull out of Palestine. I was saving it as a surprise, but you and the men have earned a well-deserved leave. Headquarters is rewarding all of you with some long overdue rest on the coast in Haifa before we board the ship for home.”

  “A dip in the Mediterranean sounds mighty good right now. You could use a nice cool swim yourself, Captain.”

  “I plan to.”

  “Any ideas about what will happen to this country after we leave, sir?”

  “Unfortunately, I’m afraid the Jews and Arabs will have a go at each other like cats and dogs after we’re gone. Britain is through policing these people, and I for one am glad.”

  “Yes, sir. No more patrols out in the desert with the sun boiling our brains and nothing green to look at.”

  “At least the patrols at night were cooler. My only regret is that we never found the source of that odd red glow out there by the canyon… or that awful howling that came from the same area. Every time one of our patrols got close to that light, it just faded away. I thought it was interesting, but the look on the general’s face when I mentioned it made it obvious my discussion on the subject would be a bad career move.”

  “Kind of like looking for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, eh, Captain?”

  “We never found a single track in the area, human or animal. It’s a real mystery. The blokes at headquarters even flew a bomber over the area and took pictures. Nothing. Not a bloody thing on the film. All of the pictures came out as black as night when they were developed. I stopped logging it in my daily reports before they started to think we’d all gone loony out here.”

  As the jeep rumbled across the hard-packed sand, the men watched the wavering mirages rising from the heated ground in the distance. Looking ahead, the sergeant thought he saw something appear on the horizon
, then disappear just as quickly. He continued to stare over the steering wheel until a blurred image reappeared and stabilized into a definite shape. “Well, would you look at that, sir?”

  The captain cupped his hands over his sunglasses and peered through the dusty windshield. Alone in the flat expanse before them, an old woman was standing directly in the path of the convoy. She was covered from head to toe in black, the only opening a thin slit at the level of her eyes.

  “There’s no one around here for fifty miles. What the bloody hell is she doing way out here all alone?”

  “Must be one of them Bedouins, sir. Maybe she’s lost or hurt.”

  “She’s not lost, Sergeant. These people know this desert better than you know your own living room back home. Pull over so we can give her a look … and give the medic a shout on the radio just in case.”

  The jeep stopped twenty feet away from the solitary figure-a lone sentinel standing in the middle of the desert with no one else in sight. Except for the crackle of the radios in the trucks, the eerie silence of the scene was unnerving. The two men exchanged glances and paused to look back over their shoulders at the line of trucks behind them before walking slowly toward what was obviously a lone Bedouin woman.

  “Say there, Miss,” the sergeant called out.

  Nothing. The figure remained silent.

  “I say, Miss … are you alright?”

  Nothing. Even with the slight breeze, the long robes never moved. The captain and sergeant traded looks once again just as a faint whiff of rotting flesh passed through their nostrils, prompting the two men to stop as the hair on the back of their necks stood straight out.

  The captain held his hand over his face. “What’s that smell?”

  “It smells like something dead, sir!” The sergeant’s pulse was beginning to rise.

  The men took a few hesitant steps toward the woman, getting to within a few feet of her, when suddenly they stopped and began to back away, almost stumbling over each other in their haste to retreat.

  The thing seemed to flicker for a moment.

  “What the hell is that?” the sergeant shouted.

  The figure began to change shape. It wavered like a broken hologram, dimming and then becoming brighter. Inside the slit in the black robes, where the men should have seen a pair of human eyes staring back at them, only a dull red glow burned within. The two men turned and began running toward the jeep, frantically waving at the troops to get back into their trucks.

  Terror replaced the look of confidence on the face of the captain. “The eyes… it’s just … there’s just red light coming out of them!”

  The two men reached the perceived safety of their jeep just as a strong wind began to blow over the convoy. High overhead, dark tornado-like clouds were forming-blotting out the sun and turning day into night. An unearthly scream, like the garbled howl of a primeval beast from another dimension, shot from within the black-robed creature standing frozen before them.

  Behind the figure, an endless swarm of strange and hideous-looking red insects materialized from the base of the dark clouds and headed for the men. The soldiers looked on in horror before diving to the ground clutching their rifles in their hands. They lay there with their faces inches from the dirt, breathing in the dust of the parched soil. They had trained and equipped themselves to do combat with other men, but nothing had prepared them for this.

  The tiny winged creatures drew closer and circled the trucks in a solid mass before spreading out and tearing through the troops, shredding their clothing and going for their exposed flesh. The insects seemed particularly interested in the eyes of the men, blinding the soldiers who were now screaming in agony, blood running from hundreds of bites on their bodies.

  Firing their weapons aimlessly into the air and out into the desert, the men inadvertently struck many of their own in the ensuing panic, but their weapons were useless. The repulsive insects practically devoured the outer layer of their skin before flying away as suddenly as they had appeared.

  The menacing black clouds continued to descend until they reached ground level and blanketed the entire convoy, while a demonic wind began to rage, gaining strength and swirling in a circular motion as it blew sand into the men’s now sightless eyes. The smell of sulfur infused the air before a searing heat blasted from out of nowhere, building in intensity until everything was ablaze, as if the sun had touched the earth at that very spot. Fire roared about the soldiers in the last moments of their earthly lives before their blackened bodies fell to the ground. Then silence.

  Order began to replace chaos. The black clouds and swirling wind vanished, along with the black-robed figure that had stood in the path of the approaching convoy. Shining from above, the sun now revealed the newly scorched landscape. The only sound that could be heard, if someone had been alive to hear it, was the crackle of the flames as they slowly burned themselves out within the hulks of the vehicles and the bodies of the men. The acrid smell of sulfur slowly evaporated into the atmosphere, and thick, black smoke from the burning tires rose high above the grisly sight, the only sign to the rest of the world of what had just occurred in the middle of a barren desert far from prying eyes.

  On the smoldering ground, the young captain’s body was curled next to the burning jeep. A few feet away, beyond the reach of his outstretched, blackened hand, lay a singed picture of a young mother holding a baby girl. The hot desert wind began to blow ever so slightly again, stirring the landscape and slowly covering the picture in the sand, where it would remain for years to come.

  Chapter 1

  Present Day

  The taxi swerved into a space between two others in front of the international terminal at New York’s JFK Airport. A tall, dark-suited figure emerged and hurried into the building, clutching a small carry-on bag and brown leather briefcase. Embossed in gold on the briefcase were the words “Leopold Amodeo, S.J.” To the casual passerby who noticed the Roman collar, he was just another Catholic priest one sees in all busy international airports. To the initiated who noted the letters S.J. after his name, he was a Jesuit, a member of the Society of Jesus. In times past, they were known as the soldiers of the church, a genus of sanctified commandos.

  Hearing the last call for his flight to Rome, he jogged up a curved ramp that led to the departure gates. Darkness enveloped the windows outside the empty waiting area as he noticed the solo gate agent glance up at him from behind a small counter at the entrance to the Jetway. “You’d better hurry, Father. They’re getting ready to close the cabin door.”

  The priest quickened his pace. “Thank you. I’ve got to make this flight.”

  The agent grabbed the boarding pass and watched as the priest ran down the worn blue carpet of the Jetway. “Have a nice trip. It’s beautiful this time of year in Rome.”

  The priest waved over his head without looking back before stepping into the plane and brushing past a young flight attendant who was already swinging the heavy aircraft door shut. “You just made it, Father.” She glanced at his ticket and motioned him toward the front of the big jet.

  The Alitalia 747 smelled strongly of coffee and jet fuel as a senior member of the flight crew caught his attention and ushered the breathless priest forward. He surveyed the plush surroundings. “Are you sure this is where I’m supposed to sit?”

  “Yes, Father. You have a first-class ticket. Can I help you with your bags?”

  “No … thank you. I can manage.” He sighed as he double-checked the seat number on the ticket and hefted the small carry-on bag into the overhead compartment. Clasping his worn leather briefcase tightly in one hand, he slid across the empty aisle seat into the one next to the window.

  The plane appeared half empty as he looked around the cabin at all the well-dressed people seated nearby, engrossed in their books and cell phone conversations. It seemed to him that fewer people were flying to Europe now since the global economy had taken a nosedive.

  Through his window, he watched the baggage handler
s below in the glare of the terminal lights, wiping the sweat from their brows while tossing an endless parade of bags onto a moving conveyer belt. He felt self-conscious sitting in this section of the aircraft and was mystified at why the Vatican had paid for the extravagant luxury of a first-class ticket.

  “Can I get you anything?” the flight attendant asked in fluent Italian, testing his knowledge of the language.

  “Yes, a small glass of wine. Red please,” he replied, also in fluent Italian.

  She smiled back at him. “I’ll bring it to you as soon as we’re in the air.” She turned and walked back down the aisle, stirring memories within the priest of a time before he had become one.

  Settling into the cushioned leather, he fastened his seatbelt and listened to the engines begin to whine, one after another, until the quiet pulse of power had transformed the aircraft into a living thing.

  For the past twenty years, Father Leopold, or Father Leo as he was affectionately known to his friends and students, had been a professor of history at Boston College. He had arrived in New York the week before to give a series of lectures at Columbia University on ancient Christian doctrine and its effect on modern life. Seven hours earlier, the priest had returned to his hotel to find a bored-looking courier standing outside his room holding a sealed folder along with an airline ticket and a letter from the Vatican ordering him to Rome.

  The sudden urgent request for him to leave New York on the midnight flight had caught the priest by surprise. Along with the letter, the courier had also handed Father Leo a puzzling note telling him not to open the folder until he was on the plane. Exhausted from a long day at the university, Leo had been left with little time to collect his thoughts or wonder about the contents of the folder before catching a few hours sleep and rushing to the airport.

  The takeoff was quick and uneventful, and soon he had his glass of wine before him. He adjusted his reading glasses and opened the well-worn briefcase, removing a burgundy-colored folder with a dark red ribbon tied around it. His eyes scarcely blinked as he untied the ribbon and began to read the document inside.