7

by Van R. Mayhall Jr.

  “Here,” he said, sweeping everything off the rough table.

  Cloe opened the bag and withdrew the laptop. She booted it up and went to the section of the journal that had confounded them. The cuneiform text came up on the monitor.

  For once the loquacious German was speechless. He approached the monitor and traced the strange shapes with his fingers.

  “Yes,” was all he said.

  “Do you know it?” asked the monsignor.

  “I know of it,” said Reverend Klein. “It’s very close to some of the ancient texts we have uncovered here. Close but not quite the same. It may actually be even older than anything we have discovered.”

  “Can you translate it?” asked Cloe.

  “Perhaps,” said the German. “I will have to study it.”

  “Reverend, I hate to tell you, but we have no time for study,” exclaimed J.E. “Unless I’m mistaken, that sound is the sound of helicopters in the distance. We need your best guess, and we need it now.”

  Reverend Tommy Klein looked around and then made to listen. The sound of the rotors was unmistakable. The Iraqis were back.

  “You must go,” said the reverend. “This time they will land, and they will search everything. If you are here, they will imprison you, and they will kill us. Please, go!”

  “Reverend, we may all die, but we cannot go without some idea as to what this says,” yelled Cloe. “The fate of the world may depend on it.”

  As the noise of the distant helicopters came ever closer, the reverend peered at the computer screen. He doodled a bit on the wooden table.

  Finally, he looked up and said, “Seven! It’s repeated several times in the passage. Seven!”

  “Seven?” said Cloe in the gathering stridency of the oncoming helicopters. “What can it mean?”

  “I can’t say, but if you want ‘quick and dirty’ as you Americans say, the word is seven,” said the Reverend. “Seven—and the word seal or seals. I don’t know which without spending more time. Sounds like something from Revelation. There is more, but that is all I can get from the translation now.”

  The war birds sounded like they were circling the dig now, looking for the best place to land. Cloe shut down the computer and threw it in her bag.

  “Reverend, we hope to see you again soon,” she said as they gathered near the rear of the tent. “Thanks so much. Be safe.”

  “Not so much as I hope to see you and your journal again,” rejoined the German, smiling. “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot.”

  “Thanks, Rev,” shouted J.E., as he and the others ducked under the back flap of the tent and ran for the shade of the great wall.

  They huddled in the late morning shadow as the two helicopters came in for a landing. The rotor blades stirred sand and dust as they settled in. As the turbines slowed, a group of soldiers from each bird jumped out. One formed up around an officer while another deployed to protect their position.

  The officer and his detachment headed toward the main tent. The other group began a casual search of the surrounding area.

  “We have to go,” whispered J.E. “Mom, you, Father Curator, and the monsignor run for the place where we left the Swiss and the motorbikes. Captain Jacob and I will cover you, if necessary.”

  Cloe looked at her son and said, “J.E., I love you.”

  She jumped up and ran for the hillside across the open riverbed. Cloe could feel her calves burning as she dug into the loose sand. The monsignor was beside her, and the curator was only a step or two behind.

  A shot rang out, and the curator went down. Soldiers began to yell, and more gunfire erupted. Bullets were hitting all around them as Cloe and the monsignor turned and backtracked to the curator. As they grabbed him under his arms, one on each side, Cloe heard J.E. and the Israeli open up with their sidearms. A couple of the Iraqis went down, and the rest scattered, looking for cover.

  “Run, Mom!” cried J.E. “Run!”

  Cloe and the monsignor sprinted across the open area as if the old priest they half-carried weighed nothing. The officer and his detachment had now focused on J.E. and Captain Jacob. They were caught in a crossfire with only their handguns against rifles and machine guns.

  “J.E.!” Cloe screamed.

  She heard and felt the telltale whoosh as a rocket-propelled grenade roared over their heads. She flashed back to Masada where she, J.E., and the monsignor had been bludgeoned by RPGs fired by the Karik’s forces. It hit the nearest helicopter, and it erupted like a Roman candle, destroying the men who were in it and those who had taken cover behind it when the shooting started.

  In the confusion, J.E. and the Israeli ran for their lives. More RPGs arched down from the Swiss, who had stayed behind to guard the motorbikes and their heavy weapons, destroying the second helicopter. Targeted sniper fire soon took out the remaining Iraqis and their leaders.

  Cloe and the others collapsed into the camp the Swiss had set up. The Swiss, J.E., and the Israeli ran back to the German camp to make sure all the Iraqis had been incapacitated and to see if the Germans wanted to be evacuated. Cloe rolled over, grabbed a pair of binoculars, and watched the events in the camp.

  Later, J.E. reported that the reverend had looked down and simply said, “J.E., you go. We’ll be fine. We can’t leave our dig. Whatever comes, this is our life’s work. The locals survive on our cash. But they will be after you.”

  “But there’s ISIS as well. Your money may make no difference,” J.E. warned.

  “We’ll be okay,” said Miles Welch, with a great smile on his face. “But would you please take Boogie with you? I think he’s had his fill of the desert.”

  J.E. hesitated and thought about arguing with them. He wondered at the man who would stay in harm’s way but wanted his dog evacuated. He took their resolute expressions into account, then walked over and shook hands with the reverend and his colleagues. He picked up Boogie, tucked him under his arm, and then, as he and the Israeli ran for the riverbank, J.E. looked back over his shoulder and hollered, “Good luck and God bless, Rev!”

  CHAPTER

  53

  By the time they got back to the airplane, it was early afternoon. They had rushed back and had stopped for nothing. The fast-run, lightning strategy had worked since they did not encounter any further trouble. The curator was wounded only slightly, with a bullet slicing the bottom of his right calf. A pressure bandage and some antibiotic salve had taken care of that. The worst of it was he had taken a hard fall when he hit the dirt as the gunfire zeroed in on them. Cloe thought he was suffering from the effects of a mild concussion.

  Of course, Boogie was a big hit and had readily adapted to the circumstances. Cloe wasn’t generally a dog person, but the pug quickly grew on her and everyone else.

  At the Osprey, they dismantled and stored the bikes that had served them so well. Everyone was anxious to return to Tel Aviv, but J.E., the captain, and the flight crew said it would be safer to leave after sunset. As they rested in the shadows of the sand dunes, they heard helicopters in the distance. Once, three of the birds flew almost directly over them, but the camo netting hid their position.

  Cloe heard J.E. yelling from a distance and struggled to understand what was happening. She opened her eyes and realized she had fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep. She must have been exhausted. Boogie was curled up with the curator across from her. The sun had nearly set, and the noises she had heard were the soldiers dismantling the campsite as J.E. supervised the gathering up of the camouflage nets.

  “Hey, Mom,” said J.E., laughing. “We are about ready to go if you and the pug have had your beauty sleep.”

  As everyone boarded and strapped in, the big rotors flared out into the vertical position. The engines ramped up, and dust and sand erupted from all around the plane. The noise and tumult grew to a deafening level as the big-as-a-house piece of flying metal tried to lea
ve the ground. Boogie howled in fear, but the old priest hugged him tightly. The Osprey shook, and just when Cloe thought it might come apart, it lifted free of terra firma. It was not a leap into space as with a jet taking off; rather, it was a slow but steady ascendency. Soon, the plane had enough altitude to begin tilting the rotors horizontally.

  Once again they flew close to the earth, trying to avoid being discovered and tracked.

  “J.E., why do you think we can now avoid that Russian look-down radar that located us going in?” asked Cloe.

  “We are flying further south and then west to avoid as much Iraqi and Syrian territory as possible,” responded J.E. “We believe the radar that found us is generally confined to Syria and parts of Iraq. As we get closer to Israel, we’ll get a fighter escort home.”

  A short time later, Cloe noticed the monsignor and the curator, along with a number of the Swiss, were huddled up in a discussion. Boogie was paying close attention. They were listening to a portable radio. She moved toward them.

  “Cloe,” said the Monsignor, a stricken look in his eyes. “This is the BBC, about the only reliable news source still out there. The pope is under attack at Castel Gandolfo.”

  “Oh my God!” she cried. “What’s happening?”

  “We’re not sure,” said the curator, fingering the massive rosary strung around his waist. “Apparently, about two hours ago, a mob attacked the pope’s quarters at Gandolfo. There has been terrible fighting. The Swiss will defend the pope to the last breath of the last man.”

  “Tony!” cried Cloe, with concern.

  “We should be there,” said the monsignor in anguish.

  “Albert, have you tried Tony on the satellite phone?” she asked.

  “Yes. There’s interference. I can’t get through.”

  “Keep trying!” Cloe shouted over the noise of the engines.

  “Dear God,” said the monsignor, listening to the broadcast. “The Swiss have been overrun, and the mob is in the building.”

  Cloe looked at the ashen faces of the religious. In the background of the BBC news alert, a huge explosion could be heard. Then static crackled, and a commercial came on. Something terrible had happened.

  “What was it?” asked Cloe.

  “I don’t know,” replied the monsignor, beginning to pray.

  A few minutes later, the BBC announcer came back on and said that Castel Gandolfo had been completely destroyed by an enormous explosion of unknown origin. The man choked back tears and said that no one could have survived.

  The monsignor rose unsteadily and walked toward the rear of the plane, head down and shoulders slumped.

  Cloe had never seen her friend, the monsignor, in such pain and defeat.

  “His Holiness … gone?” asked the monsignor. “It’s not possible.”

  The enormity of the announcement overwhelmed her. How could the pope be gone? What would become of them all?

  “We don’t know for sure,” said J.E. “Perhaps he escaped somehow.”

  They listened to the broadcast until they arrived in Tel Aviv, but there was no word on survivors. They had been to the ruins of a five-thousand-year-old city and had come away with two words: “seven” and “seal.” These were important clues, but the events in Rome had crushed them, and they could no longer focus.

  Captain Jacob’s people met the plane and made arrangements for the soldiers. Cloe and the others were taken to a conference room at the airport. A solemn group of high-ranking Israeli officials greeted them there.

  “Dr. Lejeune,” said the leader of the group. “Our intelligence indicates a heavily armed body of men attacked Castel Gandolfo. It was not just a mob as reported by the media.”

  “What?” asked the monsignor.

  “There was a mob,” said the officer. “But the destruction of Castel Gandolfo was caused by highly organized terrorists using heavy weapons and explosives. The mob was just the cover. The Swiss could have easily disbursed the crowd, but they were overrun and annihilated by the armed thugs.”

  “What of His Holiness?” asked the curator.

  “Sir, I have the terrible duty to inform you that the pope is dead,” said the officer reluctantly.

  “Impossible!” cried the monsignor. “I cannot accept this. We need him. God would not take him now in our hour of desperation.”

  “Albert,” said Cloe, taking his hands. “We must get hold of ourselves. Will you surrender to this evil?”

  “Cloe, this amazing man has almost singlehandedly held together Christianity in the face of this unprecedented onslaught,” said the monsignor, looking away, blinking back tears. “He can’t be gone. What will we do?”

  “Albert, we will do what Francis would have wanted us to do,” said the curator. “We will carry on,”

  Shaking him, Cloe said, “Will you let him down?”

  The monsignor looked back at her, his tear-filled eyes now hard and cold. “No.”

  CHAPTER

  54

  They had the Vatican jet and were tempted to fly to Rome. But if the pope had been assassinated, what would they do there? The Israelis had told them the conference center was theirs as long as they needed it. They also had made arrangements for sleeping quarters until Cloe and her friends figured out what to do.

  Now they were back together again, having cleaned up and slept for a few hours. Cloe poured coffee and surveyed her colleagues seated around the table. They had been through a lot together, but for the first time they were really stumped about their next move. God, I wish Serge were here, thought Cloe. His big brain would find something.

  The Lejeune stubbornness in her, however, would not let her admit defeat.

  “All right, what do we know?” she challenged.

  The monsignor looked up from his thoughts and said, “Well, we know the world’s on fire due to the rise of evil. The pope said as much. He said it is the one-thousand-year anniversary of the casting of the devil into the abyss. The evil one will be free unless we can put him back in his prison.”

  “We know that famine, disease, and war are galloping across the globe,” said the curator. “The four horsemen have been loosed.”

  “My God, is that Revelation?” asked J.E. “Is that what you’re saying, that this is all happening now?”

  “Revelation tells one version of the end of times, although many scholars believe it was specific to the Roman Empire,” said the monsignor. “Still, others argue the words of the book of Revelation have a broader, more universal meaning.”

  “This all ties in with the passage in the journal,” said Cloe. “I believe that St. John and Jesus are telling us specifically about how to deal with the rise of evil.”

  “Right, and what we know from Uruk is that it has something to do with seven and seal,” said J.E. “This is what we have to solve.”

  “In the early parts of Revelation, St. John talks about the seven seals, and in his vision they play a vivid role,” said the curator.

  “Right. The opening of each of the seals portends some new apocalypse visited on mankind,” said the monsignor. “The seals are opened by the Lamb, the only person deemed worthy to view the contents of the sacred scrolls to which the seals are affixed.”

  “Wow, what can all that mean?” asked J.E., amazed.

  “No one knows for sure, but it’s an apocalyptic vision where evil arises and somehow the Lamb, Jesus Christ, rallies mankind, and evil is squashed in the end,” said the monsignor. “But we know that the beast will always try again. He is not finished, only banished.”

  “If this is the right track, this means the beast is here. Could he be this Icar?” speculated Cloe. “The beast represented the devil, but he had a henchman … what was his name?”

  “He is sometimes called the second beast or more often the dragon,” said the curator. “He was an operative for the beast, Satan, who bore
the number of the beast.”

  “Ah, the mark, which is the name of the beast, or the number of his name,” said the monsignor. “Curious phrase. But the followers of Satan are marked with the number 666.”

  “Well, if the seven seals opened the scrolls in Revelation that visited all kinds of disasters on mankind, what we need now is someone who can seal everything back up and throw Satan into the abyss for another thousand years,” said J.E.

  “Even though it’s not clear that everything in the scrolls was bad, your point is well taken,” responded the monsignor. “How to undo what has been done?”

  “Christ must be telling us how in the journal and it has to do with seven and seal,” said Cloe. “But that only seems to get us back to the beginning.”

  “Yes, the beginning is the alpha and the end is the omega,” said the curator. “But Christ is the Alpha and the Omega. Is that a clue?”

  “It gets back to J.E.’s thought—that this may the journal of Jesus Christ himself,” responded Cloe.

  “Imagine, the very words written by Christ himself telescoping two thousand years into the future, telling us what to do. We have only to understand the message,” said the monsignor.

  As they pondered the mystery, the monsignor’s satellite phone rang. Cloe saw him look at the others. The phone had been silent since they had departed Castel Gandolfo. Cloe saw Albert’s hand tremble slightly as he reached for the phone.

  “What could it be?” asked the father curator.

  “God only knows, but right now almost any news would be good news,” said the monsignor.

  He punched a button and said, “Hello.”

  CHAPTER

  55

  “My faithful servant, I’m well pleased with your actions and more specifically the results,” said Icar, standing in the window and staring into the darkness. “You have rid me of a petty annoyance that has been a distraction. The weak rallied around him, but now he is gone. They will be lost.”