Now it made sense why Tok and Petir always referred to the bones as their savior’s. Searching her memory, she realized they had never once uttered the word Christ. Even the passage on this bone.
“A Son of God.” Not the Son of God. Plus the omission of the crucifixion story on all the other bones. Of course they wouldn’t detail that afternoon on Golgotha. How could they without tipping their hand? No, until you found Judas himself, his identity was well hidden.
Shaking her head, Rebecca disagreed with herself. It couldn’t be Judas. Could it? Perhaps it was a hoax or a bait and switch. What if they had simply staged Judas’ body to seem like he died on the cross?
Turning back to the bones, she meant to refute all that she was beginning to believe, but all that she found reinforced that he initial deduction was correct. By the staining of the bone she confirmed that this body had been alive when crucified. The blood had seeped into the bones.
Judas had been crucified, and every line etched into his bones was only more and more confirmation that Judas was the man who had suffered upon the cross that day on Golgotha. There was no doubt. It was fact.
“Get ready to haul ass!” Brandt shouted from the front of the cave, yet Rebecca didn’t move.
A part of her refused to believe, but a quiet voice in the back of her mind told her to embrace the truth. Was the sacrifice any less because Judas lay here instead of Jesus? For Christianity to be born someone had to sacrifice themselves onto that cross. Instead of feeling betrayed or cheated, Rebecca realized it felt almost more noble for Judas to have given of himself. Jesus had been born and raised to such a task, but Judas was just a man who came to faith.
Rebecca found tears springing to her eyes. At first she had been physically repulsed by the remains, but now she found herself drawn to them. She touched Judas’ toes, feeling reverence for all his travels.
Her eyes were drawn to the pained tibia to find a passage that was able to encompass all that she suddenly felt.
“‘We blame not Jesus for balking, but praise Judas for not flinching.’”
But under it was the more urgent scrawling. Rebecca realized there were so many inscriptions because two separate people did the carving.
“‘The Knot may praise but do not honor. In time they remembered not his pain and wished to bury my uncle as a pauper. They called me the man without contempt, but it was I, Ameil, who grew contemptuous of their false devotion and carried Judas in my arms, as so often he had done with me as a child.’”
So the young boy, Ameil, from the painting under the Vatican, had grown into a man who greatly honored his uncle.
For some reason, Rebecca’s own faith in humanity brightened. If this man could rise to make such an enormous but silent sacrifice, couldn’t they all? And a nephew’s simple love for his uncle eclipsed anything the Knot had ever accomplished.
But even as her heart swelled with love for Judas and Ameil, she knew the world at large would not so quickly accept the truth of their lives. Perhaps the world never would. Just thinking of Brandt’s face if she told him the truth made her frown. He would be crushed along with millions of other Christians.
Wasn’t there enough religious strife in the world? Would she really want to usher in an entire new era of upheaval?
“Rebecca! Now!”
Picking up her pack, she felt devastated that Lochum had died, but in this moment, she was glad he wasn’t here. The professor would wish to shout this news from the rafters while she knew what her decision had to be.
Judas’ secret was safe with her.
She turned to join Brandt when a red light flashed on the back wall. Cautiously, Rebecca circled around the body to find a small LCD panel attached to the undersurface of the rock. It flashed a countdown.
Seven. Six. Five.
* * *
“Brandt, run!”
Oh, now that Rebecca was on the ball, the fucking archers turned their attention toward them. As two monks climbed over the rock from the other side, his head spun from blood loss.
“Get. Up. And. Run!”
“In a second. I’ve got to clear a path—”
But she grabbed him by the shoulder. Too weak to resist, Brandt was carried out of the cave as Rebecca yelled, “I said, run!”
Had she divined his plan? Or was she just crazed as they ran heedless of the arrows and bullets, all aimed toward them.
“Dive!”
Totally confused, Brandt tried to fire at the monks about to jump down on top of them when Rebecca jerked him off his feet, and they landed in a tangle beside the rock.
Sensing their advantage, the monks vaulted off the stone, but in midair, an explosion the size of God blew the attackers up and over them.
An inferno raged all around as fire shot from the cave. They were only spared by the stone at their backs, but even it was heating with each passing moment. The air became like the breath from an open-blast furnace, searing his lungs. He tried to shield Rebecca, but blood was coursing down his side. The last bit of his strength flowed out onto the dirt floor.
* * *
“I’m okay,” Rebecca murmured as she tried to get out from under Brandt’s protective embrace, but he wasn’t budging. The air had cooled, and the roar of flames had died down to a mere crackle, but the smell of burnt flesh still filled the cavern. A rumble shook the cavern, and the roof crumbled, dropping boulder-sized chunks. “Brandt?”
Was there some other threat she couldn’t see? But then she realized her back was sticky. Blood.
“Brandt?”
Rebecca found the sergeant unconscious.
“No. No. No,” she chanted as she checked his vitals. He was still breathing, far too fast and way too shallow. His pulse was weak and beating like a hummingbird’s. He’d lost too much blood.
Rebecca checked his dog tags. “A” negative. She was “B” positive. A deadly combination. The reaction would be worse than the anemia. She looked around. Everyone else was dead, and Brandt was going to join them if she didn’t find him some blood.
The rock shower continued as she noticed one of the bodies move. Rebecca couldn’t believe the man could be alive, as his back was burnt to a cinder with three arrows sticking out, but she rushed over just to be sure.
Pulling the charred form over, Rebecca found another person hidden under the dead body. Scrambling back, she realized it was Tok.
A moist cough told her that the Knot’s mastermind was still alive. Poking him like he might be a snake just waiting to strike, she found that his lower extremities were toasted, oozing serum from reddened and cracked skin. His mentor must have shielded him, but not enough.
She shook his frame. “What blood type are you?”
But the mute man shook his head, then mouthed, “Don’t save me.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.” Rebecca braced herself before she spoke the next words. “You’re dying, but Brandt needs your blood. What type are you?”
Tok searched her face, but she didn’t flinch. He was no longer the monster torturing her, but a feeble man, dying. His hand was weak as he raised it and signed a single letter, “O.” The universal donor.
Fueled by panic, Rebecca dragged Tok over to the sergeant. With shaking hands, she pulled out the tubing from Davidson’s med kit. Concentrating so hard on hitting Tok’s vein amongst the myriad of burns, Rebecca didn’t notice the ragged wound in his wrist. She glanced to the other wrist, another spike-sized wound and both ankles were splinted.
Rebecca was so used to inspecting age-old bones that it took a moment to realize what the wounds were on a living, breathing person.
The man had been crucified.
“Who are you people?” she asked.
* * *
We are a people who forgot whom we worshipped, Tok thought but had not the strength to sign. He was ashamed when the purifying explosion came, and he had faltered, scrambling under Petir. But the effort was for naught. His body was spent.
The doctor leaned over and prepared
to place the needle into his arm, draining his last blood. He had not respected this woman’s grit when he had her in his custody. She knew of sacrifice, but did she know enough?
“Secret,” he mouthed. “Keep.”
Monroe searched his face, a grim frown on her lips. “Not you. I won’t promise you anything… But Judas. I swear to never betray him.”
Relief came as a wave that sapped whatever tentative hold he had on life. “Hurry.”
* * *
A cringe was Tok’s only reaction as Rebecca put the needle into the vein. Bright red blood flowed from him into the sergeant’s arm.
As Brandt’s color became pinker, Tok’s became paler. When the sergeant’s respiratory rate slowed, the shorter man’s increased. It was as if life itself was flowing between the two men.
A sound came from behind, tensing her every muscle. Obviously it was an enemy, but which one? Grabbing the only object close enough, Rebecca swung the medical kit as hard as she could behind her.
But Davidson caught it midair, jarring her arm as he shoved his rifle against her belly. Looking up, she found the private’s face a molten ruin. He must have gotten caught in a blast of superheated air, because his skin wasn’t burnt. It had just melted. His left eyelid drooped down so far that he couldn’t see out of it, and his mouth looked like a candle’s wax dripping.
The private must have seen the horror in her face, because he shoved her back several steps as the cavern rattled again, bringing down another shower of boulders.
“Get away from him,” he sneered, any semblance of the rapport they once had only a memory. She had to face the fact that her guardian angel had come to kill her.
Davidson knelt next to his brother. “Tok, I’m getting you out of here.”
“No!” Rebecca yelled as Davidson aimed at her again. “He’s going to die. You know it. Look at the depth of the burns. He’ll never survive.”
The private’s finger trembled on the trigger. “So what, you were just going to use him as your own personal blood bank?”
“Without it, Brandt’s going to die.”
Davidson’s eyes flickered to his sergeant. He might have been betraying his team this whole time, but the look that crossed the young man’s face was true concern. “Still, you don’t have the right.”
* * *
Samuel knelt beside him. “I’m here. Don’t give up.”
The words were meaningless as Tok struggled to open his eyes, but his brother was worth hanging onto for even another moment. “Samuel.”
“Let me get this out of your arm,” his brother said, grabbing the tubing. For the first time, Tok noted the damage to Samuel’s face. He too was marked by this futile quest.
“Don’t,” he signed weakly. With the last of his strength, he gripped his brother’s hand. “Let me die. Here. It would be Judas’ wish.”
“No!” Davidson shouted. “Why did you destroy the cave? We could have taken him. Hidden him, together.”
How could Tok explain when he had so little time left?
“What did she do to you?” Samuel asked when he found the wounds on Tok’s wrists and ankles.
Shaking his head, Tok explained, “Not her. The Knot.”
“The Knot? They crucified you? How? When?”
Petir had the right of it. Samuel never would have been able to detonate the explosives. Despite being the same age as Tok, Samuel was still so young, not having been aged by the brutal task of guarding Judas’ secret through pain and intimidation. For that Tok was glad. His brother might live his life out from under the specter of the Knot. His naiveté would let him grow past this and one day bask in the glory of his savior’s love.
His brother still had his hand on the needle, ready to pull it out at any moment, but Tok refused.
“Please, let me save him,” Tok mouthed. “I must face Judas with this sacrifice.”
Releasing the needle, Samuel cupped Tok’s head in his hands. “I’ll stay with you, brother. I will stay.”
* * *
Quietly, as Davidson’s tears splashed down onto his brother’s cheek, Rebecca checked Brandt’s pulse. It was growing stronger, but not strong enough. He was going to need every last drop Tok had to give.
Seeing the two brothers’ devotion, she almost felt sorry for them.
Almost.
The cavern groaned. The ceiling was close to collapsing, but she dared not move Brandt until she was sure he had enough blood.
“Oh, God, no,” Davidson moaned as Tok’s head lolled to the side. The red river dried in the tube.
She pulled the needle from Brandt’s arm. “We’ve got to go.”
But the private just cradled his brother’s head, rocking it back and forth, repeating the Lord’s Prayer over and over again.
Another tremor and the stained glass door shattered into a thousand pieces. Even the wrought iron gate screeched as it bent in half. Somewhere to the left, an entire section of caves collapsed. They weren’t safe yet. She needed Davidson’s help to get Brandt out, so Rebecca urged the private up. “He’d want you to come with me.”
“What do you know?” Davidson suddenly seemed so young again.
Rebecca guided him up. “He willingly gave his life for Brandt.”
It started as a tiny trickle of dust, then became a tumble of rock. Laying herself over Brandt, she said, “Tok would want us all to live.”
“We’re sworn enemies,” the private said, wiping a tear from his damaged eye as the world caved in around them.
“Not anymore.”
* * *
Brandt awoke to the rhythmic sway of a car traveling at high speed. The last thing he remembered was the fire, then the private aiming at Rebecca.
“Davidson!” Brandt said as he jerked awake.
“Lie back,” Rebecca said, putting pressure on his wound. “Or you’re going to start bleeding again.”
“Yeah, boss,” Lopez said from the driver’s seat. “Just take it easy.”
“Where’s Davidson?” he asked still patching together how they got from the cave to the car.
Rebecca urged him down which wasn’t difficult since his head swam. “We lost him, Brandt. Just hold still.”
“We didn’t lose him. He—”
With expert skill, she prodded his wound, cutting off his words.
“He was killed in the cave-in, saving you, Brandt. He’s dead.”
But he knew that wasn’t true. He’d heard Davidson’s voice. Saw him aiming at Rebecca. There had been nothing he could do, but Brandt knew that he didn’t dream it. The private was alive.
Rebecca went to give him more painkiller, but he grabbed her wrist. “You know he’s alive, that fucking—”
She was way stronger than she looked and poked him deep in the thigh with the meds. “Just rest.” Then she whispered so that only he could hear, “I traded our lives for his freedom.” Louder, “Now go back to sleep.”
“You had no right,” Brandt growled, but she just smiled.
“Of course I did.” Then she kissed him on the forehead, then the nose, then on the lips. “You’re not a one-night stand kind of guy, remember? I had to make sure you lived up to your words.”
As their lips met, Brandt kissed her back.
For all his anger at Davidson, Rebecca was right.
Love was slightly more powerful than hate.
* * *
“He’s pretty messed up,” Lopez commented as he looked at them in the rearview mirror. “He’ll get his memory back once he’s patched up, right?”
“I’m sure he will,” she said, trying not to act too guilty. “How much longer?” Rebecca asked the corporal as she smoothed Brandt’s hair.
“Fifteen minutes to Naples, but I’m going to have to slow down as we approach the Navy yard, so make it twenty minutes.”
Lopez had done some first aid, but the bullet to the gut needed surgery. However, there was no way they could seek help in Rome. A guy coming in with knife wounds, burns, and a bullet in the belly
was sure to raise alarms, so they were headed to the nearest US base. Which should have taken them over ninety minutes, but Lopez swore they’d be there in forty, and Rebecca hadn’t doubted him. And by her watch, they were going to make it in thirty-eight. The guy really should race cars for a living.
“’Becca,” Brandt said. Whether he slurred her name or intentionally meant to use her nickname, it felt damn good. “Did you find Him?”
At first she was confused, but then she realized he was asking about Christ. “No. No, it wasn’t him.”
“Are you sure?”
The tremble in his voice nearly broke her heart. If she had any doubt to keep the Knot’s secret as her own, Rebecca now had none. “I’m sure.”
A wave of relief washed over his face, but then he frowned. “So it was all for nothing.”
“No, babe. No, it wasn’t,” she said as their fingers entwined.
It was for everything.
The Ending
Jerusalem
AD 42
The man who was once called Jesus stood upon the hill, sheltered by a cypress tree, wishing with all his heart that it was he who had the strength to take that long walk from Jerusalem to Golgotha.
Instead it was his dearest friend, Judas, the man whom the Twelve looked down upon, that was nailed to the cross.
Mary’s words that had rung so very true last night now sounded feeble in his mind. To let Judas walk in his stead might ensure his resurrection, but Jesus knew he had only quickened to those words because of the fear that ate at his innards.
It was he who was destined for the cross, not poor Judas, but there his brother, who was not his brother, hung. That Jesus could undo the last day. God might have blessed him with insight into all men, but the heavenly Father forgot to gift him a window into his own soul.
30 Pieces of Silver: An Extremely Controversial Historical Thriller Page 45