When we come to the street that runs perpendicular to the Via Dolorosa — Al-Wad Street — James hooks a quick left, ducking inside a small chapel that, according to the wood plaque mounted above the entrance, marks the station of the cross where Jesus fell for the first time. As luck would have it, the place is empty.
“We ditched those bastards,” Magda says. Then, catching the cross mounted to the stone wall above an altar, she adds. “Dear God, pardon my profanity.” She follows with the sign of the cross.
“Didn’t take you for the religious type even if you are a biblical scholar,” I say. “Not to mention the daughter of a Jew and a Palestinian.”
“Oh, I’m a believer all right and did I happen to mention my mother is a Jew for Jesus? As for me, I’m just not much of a church-goer. I like to sleep in on Sundays. But I believe, all the same, Chase. Maybe you should too.”
“Who says I don’t?” I say.
“If you two are done kibitzing,” James says, “we still gotta figure a way out of this marketplace. We didn’t ditch those creeps, I guarantee it. Not by a long shot. They are the Soldiers of the Expected One, and they are not the type to give up easily. They’re merely regrouping.”
“Ideas?” I say.
James runs his hand over his face while he thinks it through.
“In a matter of a minute or less, that Christian group is gonna float by this station to say prayers. When they do, we blend in with them, follow them up the remainder of the Via Dolorosa until we come to a gate that leads to a tunnel that will take us the hell out of the Old City.”
“What gate?” I say.
“You’ll see,” he says. Then, ducking his head out of the chapel opening, he says, “Here they come.”
Stepping outside, he digs into his pocket, pulls out a few shekels, hands them to a vendor working there. He comes back in with three, long black shawls, one of which he hands to Magda and the other myself. The third he wraps around his hat, Arab style. Taking his cue, I wrap my shawl around my head and shoulders while Magda does the same.
He glances outside once more.
“On my cue,” he says. Then, while the group of Christians approach the opening to the chapel, “Now.”
As they attempt to pile into the chapel, like the fate of their souls depends on it, the three of us squeeze back out onto the street.
“Stay close,” James says while we use the crowd of worshippers for cover, crossing over Al-Wad Street and reconnecting with the Via Dolorosa. The street is shaded almost entirely with canvas and plastic tarps tied off on the many stone arches that connect to the exterior walls on both sides of the street. The sun-shaded road grows narrow once more as it takes on elevation and what was once a stone street becomes a long, gradually ascending staircase.
We move slowly but deliberately, keeping close to James. That’s when I feel it again. The cold, if not frigid, sensation running up and down my backbone. Peering over my shoulder into the crowd, I spot her again. The small woman with the black robes wrapped around her head and shoulders, strands of her blonde, almost white, hair sticking out from under the shawl, her blue eyes piercing, her face chalky pale.
Vanessa is following me.
She is staring me down silently, but the silence is like a scream it is so powerful. Behind her, I spot two more bandits and someone else. Mahdi.
“We got company, James,” I say. “Whatever you’re looking for, find it quick.”
“Working on it, Baker,” he says. Then, after covering maybe a dozen more feet, he stops, shoots us a look. “Here. Right here.”
Magda and I make our way forward through the throngs of people until we’re standing only inches from James and an old rusted gate that leads down into a dark passage.
“This is it,” he says.
Reaching out, I grab hold of the padlock that secures an old rusted chain.
“We’ve got maybe two minutes to unlock this gate, or we’re done,” I say. Cocking my head over my shoulder. “They’re right behind us.”
Magda and James both look over my shoulder.
“I see them,” he says.
“My God,” Magda says, “Mahdi is with them.”
“Stand back,” James says.
Unwrapping the shawl from his head, he pulls out his .45, wraps it around the barrel. There are so many people coming and going from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher located maybe two hundred feet up in the near distance that no one seems to notice.
Pressing the shawl covered barrel against the lock, he fires. The shawl suppresses the noise of the exploding round. Not entirely, but enough that no one seems to be alarmed by the abrupt gunshot. The old lock shatters. James pulls it off, releases the chain, opens the gate.
“Go,” he says.
Magda and I step inside. He follows, closing the gate behind him, replacing the chain onto what’s left of the shattered lock. Maybe no one will give it a second look.
“Stay close,” he says, as he disappears into the dark opening.
What choice do we have?
CHAPTER 28
The opening leads to a chamber that smells of mold and cat piss.
It’s also very dark.
“Chase,” James says from up ahead, his voice echoing inside the stone tunnel, “you seem the prepared type. You wouldn’t happen to have a lamp on you?”
I dig into my left-hand pocket, pull out my old black mini Maglite.
Chase the always prepared. Or maybe just Chase the pretty damn lucky.
Depressing the latex-covered trigger, I light the joint up in a circular beam of white halogen lamplight. What I reveal is a tunnel made of old brick and stone that looks as ancient as the Gospels themselves.
“What the hell is this place, James?” Magda asks. Like James and me, she’s walking in a crouched position, or risk banging her head against the arched ceiling.
James doesn’t bother stopping to offer up a history lesson. Instead, he keeps moving at a decent gait while talking over his shoulder.
“After the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 637 AD, they took control of the mount and declared the area Palestine. They built their homes all over the land that surrounded the temple mount. Thing is, they built directly on top of the Roman settlements that were already here. That meant building supports underneath their foundations. The tunnels were used as a means of accessing the underworld, which includes cisterns and wells for precious clean water. This tunnel we’re walking in dates back to the seventh century. There're dozens, if not hundreds, more down here just like this one.”
The tunnel takes a thirty-degree turn to the right, and I begin to make out the sound of water dripping from the ceiling and the walls.
“You hear that drip?” James says. “We’re directly under the Temple Mount right now. That’s water seeping down from recent rains. It collects here and runs into the cisterns.”
“Won’t the bad guys follow us into this place?” Magda says. “Not to be the bearer of bad news, but if they kill us down here, no one will ever find our bodies.”
“Comforting thought, Magda,” I say.
James says, “The bad guys you speak of — Mahdi and his Soldiers of the Expected One — They were far enough behind us not to see what we were up to. They didn’t even hear the shot when I busted open the lock. The streets above are just too congested.”
“You’re quite the optimist, James,” I say.
“Is there any other way, Chase?”
“I suppose not.”
We walk in relative silence for a few moments more, until we come to another iron-barred gate. Lighting fixtures illuminate the space behind it. I turn off the Maglite, stuff it back into my pocket.
“Oh my God,” Magda says, “we’re locked in.”
“Have faith,” James says.
He pushes on the gate, and it opens, the hinges squeaking painfully. That’s when a man the size of the Temple Mount appears from out of nowhere.
“James, my friend!” he shouts. “What are you doing unde
r the Temple Mount?”
CHAPTER 29
The big man’s name is Abba, which means father in Aramaic. He’s maybe six feet tall, barrel-chested, his round face covered in stubble, tanned scalp supporting only a short stand of hair. He’s wearing a work shirt over loose trousers and sandals for footwear.
James introduces us as his friends who were looking to tour the underworld of the Temple Mount, but I’m not sure Abba is buying the explanation. According to James, Abba is one of the project managers of the new tunnels being excavated under the site of the old temple directly beside the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall. Employed by the Israeli Antiquities Authority, he knows the place like the pattern of blue veins on the backs of his hands.
“Excuse me for saying so,” Abba says, “but the collective expression on your faces is not that of excitement and wonder at witnessing the Mount underworld. The look is more of fear and stress. Like you are being chased.” The big man follows up with a grin like he’s snagged us and he knows it.
“It’s okay, James,” I say, “you can come clean with Abba. As a member of the IAA, he might even be able to help us.”
“Please,” Abba says, “come to my workstation. It is a safe place, and I will make us coffee.”
Minutes later, we’re sitting in an office constructed of prefabricated walls and a ceiling that supports bright overhead lighting. There is an air conditioner and a desk that contains all sorts of relics and pottery shards that must have been uncovered in the many digs going on underneath the old Palestinian civilization that existed up against the old Western Wall all those centuries ago.
Pinned to the wall is a detailed map of the excavations in progress. At the far end of the rectangular, trailer-like office are several stacked boxes. Each one of them printed with a warning in big red block letters: DANGER: TNT!
We’ve just finished explaining our situation to Abba, beginning with my quest to find the seven codices for my employer in New York City and continuing with running into a stumbling block in the form of the Mahdi and his merry band of Soldiers of the Expected One who not only possess the codices, but whom we suspect of wanting to use them to destroy the world as we know it. Now, we sit in foldout chairs that surround the desk, our freshly pressed coffees in hand.
“Let me get this straight,” Abba says while setting his coffee down on his desk and taking a seat in the swivel chair behind it. “Mahdi and his soldiers are on a mission to usher in Armageddon along with the help of the codices, the seventh one in particular. So your mission has gone from one of retrieving a series of archaeological relics of significant Biblical importance to one of saving the world and its inhabitants. Am I clear on this?” He raises his coffee and, for such a big man, gently, almost daintily, blows on it before sipping it with his thick lips.
“That’s sort of where we’re at,” I say. I could tell him about my spotting Vanessa the Blonde Peril several times in Jerusalem, but I can’t be sure it’s not my imagination messing with me and why complicate matters at this point?
He sets the coffee down, picks up the brass mouthpiece on the hookah pipe beside his chair, and places it into the corner of his mouth. He inhales, making the water in the hookah bubble and boil while blue smoke oozes from between his lips.
“And how can I be of service?” he says.
James leans forward. “Abba, my friend, you have already done us a great service by coming to our aid when we arrived at the gate. You don’t need further involvement in this train wreck.”
Magda sets her hand on James’ thigh.
“James,” she says, “I’ve known you all my life, and I am sorry I pulled you into this. You were nearly shot, just like Moshe.”
“And who is Moshe?” Abba inquires.
I tell him.
He nods, locks his fingers together, resting his elbows on the desk.
“Mahdi will stop at nothing to see you all dead,” he says. “That much I can assure you. He and his men are not holy or spiritual people. They are murderers who believe God is on their side.”
“Something happened out there behind the bookshop, Abba,” I say. “Something out of this world.”
Magda recreates the scene of the Soldiers of the Expected One down reverently on their knees on prayer rugs in a circle while the call to prayer sounded over the minaret loudspeakers. She details how Mahdi stood in the middle of the circle, the seventh sealed codice in his hands raised to the heavens, the skies over that part of the old city suddenly becoming obscured with thick, black storm clouds while a bolt of lightning-like electric light shot from the clouds and struck the ancient sealed book.
“It was as if Mahdi was summoning God,” James adds. “And doing a pretty decent job if it.”
“Was the seal broken?”
“No, thank God,” Magda says. “We interrupted their ceremony before that happened.”
“If they are conducting such ceremonies,” Abba says, “it is more than likely because they know that it is only a matter of time until an overwhelming force comes for the codices. A force that cannot be stopped. One wonders if they are now hurrying their timetable for the breaking of the seal.”
“If they break the seal,” I say, “I’m told we only have thirty minutes to reseal it, or the skies open up to a very cranky God.”
Abba nods once more. Then, drinks more coffee carefully and thoughtfully.
“Or something else,” he says.
“Like what?” I ask.
“The converse of God is, of course, Satan,” Abba explains, more smoke exiting his nostrils and the corners of his mouth. “And it only makes sense that the only entity that might want to see the world come to an end more than Mahdi and his soldiers is—”
“Satan,” I say, feeling a pit in my stomach.
Magda shoots me a look.
“Satan,” she repeats. “Mahdi wasn’t trying to summon God in the back of his bookstore, but instead trying to summon the power of Satan in order to break the seventh seal.”
“I don’t see God giving him much help,” I add. “Even if the seal is broken, it doesn’t make much sense to me that God would interrupt his own timetable just to suit Mahdi and his band of black-clad assholes.”
“Satan ain’t no pushover when it comes to power,” James says. “And regardless of whether good or evil breaks that seal, chances are the world goes boom anyway.”
“So what are we to do?” Magda questions, finishing her coffee and setting the cup down on Abba’s desk. “We need to get at those seven books.”
“We’ve got to get back to the store,” I insist. “We break into the safe, take the damn books.”
“Just like that,” says James, the sarcasm in his voice present and accounted for.
“Just like that and with a little help from our friends,” I note.
“What friends?” Magda says.
Raising my right hand, I point it at the boxes stuffed in the corner.
“Our three friends, T . . . N . . . T,” I say.
CHAPTER 30
My initial fears revolved around Abba giving me a hard time about my commandeering some of his explosives. I assumed he’d be dead set against it. They don’t even belong to him, technically speaking, but, instead, the Israeli Antiquities Authority. But, Abba surprises me when he grows a smile that seems to stretch from ear to ear. He inhales a generous portion of smoke and exhales it.
“I like the way you think, Mr. Baker,” he says. “What is it you have in mind?”
I tell him. To be honest, it’s not much of a plan. But, now that we have Abba on our side, I figure we can attack the store from two different angles at the same time. Front and back. We wait until nightfall and use the dark of night to conceal us. Assuming the store will either be empty or sparsely populated at that hour, we use the advantage of surprise to get inside quick, neutralize whoever is guarding the place, blow the safe, grab the books and get the hell out.
“With any luck,” I say, “we’ll be back on the plane for New York by early m
orning.” Turning to Magda and James. “So, what do you think?”
James nods. “Crazy, and simple enough that it just might work.” Locking eyes on the still smoking Abba. “You have mobile detonators for that TNT?”
“Good old fashioned fuses,” he says, “and one of these.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a red Bic lighter.
Magda stands. “We’re going old school.” She looks at her watch. “It’s five o’clock. It will be dark in two hours. How long shall we wait?”
“We go in three,” I say. “In the meantime, I suggest we all rest up. Could be a long night.”
“I’ve got just the place,” Abba says, setting down the hookah tube, standing. “Follow me.”
We follow him back out into the underground excavation area to a tunnel that’s supported by heavy beams and steel trusses. On the opposite side of the tunnel is a square opening that surrounds an old stone well. Beyond it is another trailer-like building constructed of prefabricated walls. Abba unlocks the door, steps inside. We follow. The place is a sleeping quarters with half a dozen bunk beds set up side by side.
“There’s a bathroom on the opposite end through those swinging doors,” he adds. “Also a kitchenette stocked with food and drink. Take whatever your heart desires. I’ll come back in three hours to wake you up.”
With that, he bids us a temporary farewell, closing the door behind him. I approach the closest rack and jump up onto the top bunk. Staring up at the plain, eggshell colored ceiling, I bid everyone a goodnight.
“I’m going to raid the fridge,” James says, tossing me a distinct wink of the eye while holding up his smartphone. “Maybe catch up on my Kindle reading.”
“I’m going to get some sleep,” Magda says, taking the bunk below me.
As James leaves the sleeping quarters and disappears into the kitchen area, I have the distinct feeling we won’t be seeing him again until it’s time to raid the bookshop.
Chase Baker and the Seventh Seal (A Chase Baker Thriller Book 9) Page 10