****
Scott figured that he had been out for just a minute or two, though it certainly felt longer. He was lying on his back in a field of grass and staring up into the cold starlit sky. Turning his head, he saw Cindy lying beside him. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t moving. Groaning, he moved over to her. “Hey,” he said, nudging her.
No response.
“Cindy.” Still nothing. He looked her over and saw a piece of shrewd metal sticking out of her back by her left shoulder blade.
“Is she okay?” came a voice from behind him. It was Mayhew.
Scott shook his head, still half convinced that he was dreaming. “I don’t think so.” It was too dark to see the extent of her injuries, but she was still alive. He just didn’t know for how much longer. “She needs help.”
Suddenly, there were people moving in the grass around them, their shadows stretching across the ground in the flickering light of flaming debris. Mayhew ducked down, and Scott held his breath.
“Stand up,” a voice commanded.
Scott and Mayhew could barely see each other, so there was no use in trying to communicate.
“Stand up, please,” the voice insisted.
With little choice, they obeyed, their reward a blinding light in the face.
“Don’t move.” The voice was calm but firm.
Blinded by the light, they couldn’t see the person patting them down, could only hear him utter something into a radio. Something in Hebrew.
The light dipped away from their faces and came to rest in the grass at their feet. That’s when Scott realized the flashlights were fastened to the underside of loaded assault rifles.
Two bright beams sliced through the darkness, and a black van pulled up beside the fiery wreckage sixty feet away from them.
“Come on,” a softer voice said. A ray of light from another man’s weapon passed over the one who had just spoken and revealed him to be wearing all black, flight gloves and all. He put a hand on Scott’s back, gently nudging him toward the van. “It’s okay.”
Scott looked back over his shoulder. “What about her?”
“She’s coming too.”
He watched as more men materialized out of the blank night and carefully picked Cindy up off the ground. They carried her to the van, and Scott and Mayhew followed.
As Scott waited for the men to secure Cindy’s broken body into the back of the van, he looked over to the SUVs. Because two of the vehicles were burning upside-down, he figured they’d been struck by rockets. The lead truck, the one that had crashed into the tree, would have been the one transporting the ring…
These people knew ahead of time the exact route the CIA would be traveling, where they were heading, and what their cargo was. This was one person’s elite playing chess against another’s. And Scott had become one of the pawns on the board. He stepped up into the van just as four of the mysterious men started going through the only vehicle they’d left intact. Their dancing flashlights revealed an urgent search for an artifact that the world was suddenly dying to get its hands on. If only he knew why.
The door slid shut and locked into place. The van was a long cargo model with windows only in the front and plenty of space in the back.
“You okay?” Mayhew asked.
Scott looked over at him and nodded. “Sure.”
The two front doors swung open, and the driver and another guy climbed in. It was hard to tell what they could be capable of, though the fact that they hadn’t already shot them seemed to offer a glimmer of hope. The driver looked back at them and spoke through his mask.
“Are either of you injured?”
They shook their heads, no.
So the driver put the van in drive and headed off into the night, leaving behind a half-dozen of his men to find the ring and cover their tracks.
Scott had a lot of questions, but the simple fact that these people could have easily killed them by blowing up the trucks they were riding in kept him silent. Their true allegiance belonged to whatever their mission was, and his well-being, along with Mayhew’s and Cindy’s, was far lower on their list of priorities. He didn’t want to utter the wrong question and accidentally find himself conflicting with their cause. For right now, they were safe.
As the van drove through the night, Cindy barely holding on to life in the back, Scott sat paralyzed by an internal struggle that had been years in the making. It was the guilt he felt about getting Cindy involved that was calling for reinforcements from an ocean of past sins. Sins that could never be forgiven. Sins that tempted thoughts of suicide. But he knew that suicide would only be a copout, that he deserved to feel this way. And so he wanted to feel it, needed to feel it. It was his punishment. And yet a strange voice within rebuked him for such thoughts, scolding the logic as being utterly foolish and circular. It responded by telling him that feeling guilty couldn’t possibly be any kind of payment for sin, just the evidence of its presence. That no matter how horrible he felt, feeling was no retribution. The guilt of having sinned didn’t cancel out the sin. But then, he argued back, he never wanted to cancel it out, just wanted to pay for it, to absolve his debt. And going through life with this burden made him feel like he was serving his time. The voice in his head, however, reminded him that it wasn’t a satisfactory punishment, that there was no redemptive quality to his suffering. Such guilt wasn’t a payment for his sins but merely a natural consequence of those sins. It was his cycle of insanity, and he wanted to stop thinking about it. There were more important things at hand. Like why the guy on the jet had called him Joshua Cavanaugh... his real name.
He wasn’t sure how they knew, but what he was sure of was that he was now back on the grid, and that was going to make his life much more interesting. They would be coming for him now whether the ring was in his possession or not. Sighing, he turned in his seat and looked back to Cindy. “How is she?” he asked the man working on her.
He looked up from her wound, about to put a bandage over it, and answered softly, “Not good. This is all I can do for her here.” His two brown eyes peered out from behind the mask. “I am sorry. We did not mean for this to happen.”
“Me neither,” Scott mumbled, trying to keep the images of Cindy smiling at him in the diner out of his mind.
24
They made a few stops and switched vehicles twice in order to ensure that no one was following them. So far there was no sign of any kind of pursuit.
The sun was rising above the skyscrapers ahead and shining in Scott’s eyes. It’s what woke him up. Rubbing his bruised and cut wrists, he turned to look in the back seat of their new minivan. Cindy was lying down, but the masked man who was watching over her had driven the cargo van away in the opposite direction after one of their stops. Cindy woke up only once for a few minutes and hadn’t spoken, but the fear and uncertainty in her eyes communicated more effectively anything that she could have said with words. Scott spent most of the time trying to fall asleep but only managed to do so in short increments. Mayhew woke up only when ordered to switch vehicles.
“What do you think?” Mayhew whispered, nodding toward Cindy.
But Scott just shook his head.
The man riding shotgun turned and looked back at them. There was a twinge of sympathy present in his eyes.
Mayhew sighed. “Well, I’m going to pray for her.”
Scott didn’t say anything. He just watched Mayhew bow his head in silence. Then he looked up and made eye contact with the guy looking back at them.
Pulling the ski mask off, the guy ran his hands through his curly black hair. The driver did the same.
“You understand that we could not take her to a hospital,” the driver said.
“I know,” Scott replied. Then he finally asked, “Who are you?” It sounded stupid coming out of his mouth.
The driver exchanged looks with his partner before answering. “We are almost there, and then you can ask your questions.”
Scott nodded.
T
hey were driving into a city that hadn’t been blown off the map last night, though which city it was, Scott couldn’t be sure. It didn’t look familiar to him. Surprisingly, there didn’t seem to be anyone around. No police or military, no traffic, no one walking the streets. The clock on the dashboard read 7:14. Surely, people should have been on their way to work by now. And while most might not have the stomach for work after the events of the previous night, Scott still expected to see some people walking around. Demonstrations, prayer vigils, protests, riots, breakfast, shopping… something.
The driver turned the minivan into an underground parking garage, taking it around a bend and up a ramp to the next level. Construction equipment was everywhere, cones, caution signs, and arrows all telling people that the level was closed. But the driver pulled onto it anyway. Instantly, four men dressed in orange construction gear appeared beside them and began clearing the equipment away so that they could pass through. Once a path was made, the minivan rolled deeper into the empty parking level while a flurry of bright orange replaced everything behind it.
They pulled up to the back of the garage, next to the elevator, and the driver put the van in park. “You can get out,” he said. And both men opened their doors.
As soon as Scott stepped onto the concrete floor, the elevator doors opened and two men raced into the garage, pushing a gurney. They went straight to the back of the van and carefully transported Cindy, wheeling her back onto the elevator and disappearing behind closing doors.
Scott could only watch in silence, hoping that Mayhew’s prayers would be answered.
“Come,” said the driver, and he began walking to the elevator. It was a few minutes before the doors opened again, but when they did, there were men with guns waiting for them.
Scott took a deep breath before stepping inside.
It opened on the fortieth floor, and they were ushered into a common office setting. Their escort walked them through a sea of cubicles, computers, phones, and piles of paper. A shell company. After passing through a few rooms, they came to a door that had a security pad above the handle. Someone stepped forward and swiped a keycard before punching a sequence of numbers into the keypad. A beep sounded, and the handle turned.
Entering another room, they found this one to be full of huge file cabinets. But a large wall safe in the back of the room caught Scott’s attention. Its steel door stood six feet high. A minute later, after a series of beeps and boops, it swung out toward them, away from the wall. But there was no money in it. No trays stacked with paper currency, no bars of gleaming gold, no piles of diamonds, no columns of little drawers with keyholes. All that was there was a hallway stretching back into darkness.
“You first,” said one of the armed men while looking straight at Scott.
So he stepped in, figuring he didn’t really have a choice. But after a few paces, the steel door began closing behind him. “Hey!” He turned to jump back out but couldn’t make it in time. The door closed and more electronic sounds signaled the vault’s lockdown. He was plunged into darkness. “Hey!” He banged on the steel door, but it accomplished nothing. Swearing, he turned to face the only path available and began walking, a cool breeze spreading goose bumps up his arms. He touched the walls beside him just to make sure they were still there. Ten steps later, light suddenly appeared at the end of the hallway, a man’s silhouette standing in its center and waiting for him.
“Please, come,” its voice said.
Scott quickened his pace, wondering what strange new turn things were about to take now. Stepping into the light, he found himself standing in a bright room, a single man reaching out to shake his hand. The man had dark hair and brown eyes, and Scott guessed that he was in his late fifties. His black slacks and white shirt were accented by a bright blue tie. Scott took his hand while quickly surveying his surroundings — two black touchtable desks, a table, some radios, and a map. There were a few books piled up on the table, and a few chairs facing the desk. There was another, smaller safe in the wall behind the desk. There were no windows in the room, and Scott was willing to bet that this room was known only to a handful of special people.
The man spoke as he waved Scott to a chair, shutting the steel door behind him. “I imagine you must have some questions.” His tone was rather cheery considering what was happening in the world.
Scott sat. “A couple.”
“You probably want to know who I am.”
“Are you a psychic?” he quipped.
The man walked around to the table and sat on its edge, facing Scott. He folded his arms and nodded. “Ask away then.”
A small smile tugged the corner of Scott’s mouth. “Okay. Where am I?”
“Columbus, Ohio.”
“Where is everyone?”
“They were told to stay indoors until further notice.”
“How bad is it?”
The man shrugged. “It’s still too early to be sure, but I imagine a few million people when the smoke clears.”
Scott almost fell out of the chair. “A few million?”
“Easy. The nuke itself…”
“A nuke?”
“I’m afraid so. In Texas.”
Scott sat frozen, the magnitude of the word not fully registering. Nuke. He lifted his eyes, “Who?”
The man raised his eyebrows. “Who are they saying?”
“Yeah.”
“No official word yet, but no doubt it will be blamed on Russia or Syria.”
Scott cursed. “What about all the other places?”
“You’re referring to the reports on the news… Thankfully, they were a bit exaggerated. Our intelligence indicates a couple of nuclear power plants, some explosions in Canada, but the nuke was the central act.” He sighed. “But like I said, it’s still too early to tell.”
It took an extreme amount of willpower to push the whole nuke thing out of his head and turn his attention to other matters. He took a deep breath. “Who captured us?”
“CIA.”
“How’d you find them?”
“We knew exactly where they were taking you, so we set up an ambush.”
“And where were they taking us?”
“A DARPA science and engineering laboratory in Blacksburg, Virginia.”
Scott shuddered, thankful that he missed that trip. “What’s your name?”
“You can call me Mr. Smith.” And then he laughed. “Or anything you want.”
“That’s fine.”
Another smile. “But do you prefer Matthew Scott... or Joshua Cavanaugh?”
Scott held his breath. “How do you know who I am?”
“I’m an agent for the Israeli Mossad, Matthew, and I know pretty much everything they have in their computers.” He waved behind him toward the glass touchtables that were displaying technical readouts across their faces.
“I’m in the database?”
“Oh, you could say that.” He got up and began walking around the room, his hands in his pockets. “I’m not sure how you managed to stay hidden all these years, but they’re coming for you now.”
Heart racing in his chest, he asked, “Do you know what I did?”
Mr. Smith’s eyes went soft for a moment. “I do. But many of us were ordered to do things that we did not quite understand, and questioning orders was not an option. Neither was disobeying them.”
Scott looked away, clenching his jaw. And then a door that he hadn’t noticed, one that blended perfectly into the white walls around him, suddenly clicked open.
A man wearing black fatigues walked into the room, presenting a glaring contrast to their surroundings.
Mr. Smith turned away from Scott and focused his attention on the visitor. “Do you have it?” he asked with urgency.
“Yes.” And then he reached forward and handed him a ring.
The ring.
Mesmerized, Mr. Smith studied the object in awe. Finally able to tear his gaze away from it, he looked up to the man who had delivered it. “Thank you.”
The man nodded before turning and walking back through the door, shutting it behind him.
Mr. Smith set the ring down on a touchtable and then slowly walked over to the door that just closed. He put his ear up to it and waited a few seconds. Then he took a small radio from off the desk, pushed the transmit button, and spoke into it. “Okay.”
The huge steel door opened again, and now another man stepped into the room. He walked past Scott, picked the ring up off the desk, and looked intensely at Mr. Smith.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked, still ignoring Scott.
Mr. Smith nodded. “Yes.” And then he added, “My prayers are with you.”
The man turned and walked back through the dark hallway, this time with the mysterious ring in his possession. As soon as the door shut, Mr. Smith sat down, closed his eyes, and mumbled a prayer.
“What was that about?” Scott asked.
Mr. Smith opened his eyes and folded his hands. “As I said, I work for Mossad.”
He only had a slight accent, like he had spent most of his life in North America. “So?”
“So I’m also an Orthodox Jew.”
“Congratulations.”
“Are you familiar with various Jewish beliefs — Orthodox, ultra-orthodox, conservative, progressive?”
Scott shook his head and spoke with a touch of venom on his tongue. “I’m familiar with Zionism.”
He sighed. It was clear from Scott’s tone that he was holding the movement somewhat responsible for the deteriorating condition of his own country. “Political, Christian, Religious… there are several forms of Zionism, Mr. Scott.”
“Which is the one that conspired with the Devil to set the stage for this hell? Which one is the one that was responsible for the USS Liberty, the Mossad agents dancing with joy after taping the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York? Which form of Zionism is that?”
Mr. Smith paused, nodded solemnly. “In both instances, the government was hoping that the end result would be an American war with Israel’s enemies.”
Scott looked at him blankly. “Thanks.”
A small grin. “I am not a Zionist, Mr. Scott. I am from the traditional Orthodox position that condemns Zionism, so I can understand your feelings toward my Land, and I can only apologize on her behalf.”
The Solomon Key Page 17