by Jon Steele
Batya smiled. “Chana told me you were wise,” she said.
Harper ran his timeline, but couldn’t see a frame where the sisters might have communicated.
“When?”
“When we were teenagers. She dreamed she would meet you one day and together you would save this city in the name of the sacred light.”
Harper looked at the things laid out on the Anointing Stone. He stood silently for a long time. Outside, the thunder of war drew closer. Batya watched him.
“Do you not wish to read the scroll?” she said.
He looked at her. “Why don’t you just tell me what is in it?”
“You know what is in it.”
“Tell me.”
“An eyewitness account of what happened during the crucifixion of Yeshua ben Yosef. It tells how the man of signs and wonders returned ben Yosef’s soul to the stars and died in his place to spare him great suffering.”
“You’ve read it.”
“No, nor Chana.”
“Then how do you know that’s what happened?”
“Stories handed down in the family, remember? We were never told the details of how the switch was done. All we were told was the seventh scroll records everything, including the final sayings pronounced from the cross, and that the scroll was to be kept hidden until the man of signs and wonders returned. We were told he would know what to do with it next.”
Harper thought about it. He had no bloody idea of what to do. The final words pronounced from the cross. It took him three and a half seconds to scan the New Testament.
“The Gospels record seven sayings from the cross,” he said.
“Ken.”
“Are those sayings recorded in this scroll?”
“Only one, the last one. The rest are legends.”
“Do you know the true sayings from the cross?”
She shook her head. Intersecting lines of causality raced through Harper’s eyes. He looked down on the seventh scroll, his mind working the intel.
“Whatever the words were, whether they were said or not doesn’t matter. It’s what the words mean. They make up a message, don’t they? After all, ‘says’ and ‘means’ are two different things, yeah? Odds are you were told it’s a message for the third child conceived of light, born into the world to lift mankind to the stars.”
“So goes the story,” Batya said.
Harper looked at the gloved palms of his hands. Two and a half million years of hiding in the forms of men comes down to this: standing in a land of sacred light where heaven and earth collide. The shortest distance between the Creator and mankind; that’s what Chana said. Harper bent down, wrapped the scroll in calfskin, and lifted it from the Anointing Stone. He limped around to Batya, handed over the scroll.
“Take it,” Harper said.
“Why?”
“I’ve spent a long time bouncing from myth to legend looking for answers to who I am and where I am from. I have yet to find an answer that makes sense. Maybe that’s the way it is for someone whose existence is defined by the grace of human imagination. The wonder is we’re both trying to get to the same place. Locals call it salvation, my kind call it the point of knowing. Chana brought me as close to my point of knowing as I’ll ever get, and it’s close enough. Just now I have a job to do with no idea of what that job is. That’s why you have to take the scroll. Put it back in the grave where it will be safe. If the world rights itself, someone like me will come looking for it. Give the scroll to them. Everything I’m supposed to know in this scroll will come to me in flashes when I need it. That’s the way it works with my kind.”
“But the message for the third child born of light?”
“Actually, we call him the child of the prophecy. Whatever he’s called, he’s too young to read just now, and I’m utter crap at storytelling. It’s best left to someone else.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s supposed to be you.”
Batya glanced at the things on the Anointing Stone. “You will keep the things of Christ?”
Harper gave the things a quick look. An ancient sextant, a broken cup, four carpenter nails. The sextant to find our way through the stars, the cup to give us drink when we thirst, the nails to kill.
“I’ll keep those for now. I’ve been told I might need them. I’ll see they get back to you.”
“To be returned to ben Yosef’s grave with the scroll?”
“Yes.”
“It will be done, noble lord.”
Harper stared at her a moment. “Did you and your sister ever take a holiday in the south of France? Say, somewhere near Montségur?”
Batya smiled. “When we were teenagers. It was there Chana dreamed about you. After visiting the ruins atop the pluton.”
“It’s a small world.”
“It is.”
Batya left Harper at the Anointing Stone. She walked toward the Palestinian wolf who already had the great doors open to the night. The sounds and smells of battle seeped in.
“Sorry. One more thing,” Harper called.
Batya turned to him.
“Your sister said Jesus was crucified somewhere within the walls of this church.”
“Ken.”
“Do you know where?” Harper said.
She looked about the place. “All this was deep in a mountain of black rock in the time of ben Yosef. It was leveled to make way for a Roman Temple when they expanded the city.” She pointed to a set of stone steps near the entrance. “Those stairs lead to a Chapel of the Crucifixion atop a high point of the rock. The priests say it was there. Archaeologists say the site was closer to the Aedicule, perhaps very close to it. At the Place of Mourning, perhaps, from where the priests say the followers of ben Yosef watched the crucifixion.”
“Sorry?”
“The shrine in the rotunda under the great dome. It is through the arch and down the passageway to the Place of Mourning. From there it opens to the rotunda. However, the priests insist the shrine is where ben Yosef rose from the dead. Other Christian sects say the site of the crucifixion was farther from the Old City, in a place now behind the bus depot on Sultan Suleiman Street. There is a hillside there with small black caves. When you look at the hill, it looks like a skull.”
Harper smiled, almost relieved. “So no one knows the truth.”
He watched Batya look up into the tower, then down to him.
“The truth is, Jay Harper, at this very moment you are standing as close to the place of the crucifixion as anyone can get.”
Harper pointed to the Anointing Stone. “Here?” he said.
She pointed up. “Where the roof meets the tower, to be exact.”
It was her turn to watch him look up into the tower then down to the stone slab.
“You are thinking of something?” she said.
He looked at her. “Did you talk to your sister in the last seventy-two hours?”
“My sister was involved in a mission. She would never communicate with me in those times.”
“Then how do you know my name?”
Five seconds.
“Good question,” she said.
She stepped outside and the wolf followed her, but he did not close the door. The war in the streets gave no sign of easing; fire and cordite smells drifted into the church and mixed with the scents of incense and candle wax. Harper saw a pool of light move over the outer floor stones, then three silhouettes appeared in the courtyard. They took form, crossed the threshold of the church, and walked toward Harper. The largest silhouette kicked closed the doors behind him.
Klaboom, klaboom, klaboom.
They marched over the floor stones, took form and their faces came into the light. Krinkle the roadie with a duffel bag balanced across his shoulders; Astruc the defrocked priest pulling a black metal suitcase on wheels; an ex-hooker named Katherine Taylor. Closer to Harper, she pulled Marc Rochat’s lantern from the folds of her black cloak.
“Hey, brother,” Krinkle said. “T
old you we’d be here if this was the real deal.”
ii
“What the hell is this?” Harper said.
Krinkle lowered the duffel bag to the floor. “Nice to see you, too,” he said. He pulled the zipper and opened the bag. Inside were killing knives, SIG Sauer pistols, ammo magazines, injectors, and explosives. He handed Harper two SIGs. “Here.”
“How did you get into the Holy Land?”
“Would you take the friggin’ guns?”
Harper grabbed the SIGs. The roadie tossed him a few magazines of ammo.
“Here, these too—we’re using spark rounds.”
Harper looked at the top round in the magazine. Brass casing, but the bullet was a transparent acrylic and it contained an iridescent liquid.
“What’s in it?”
“Fuck if I know. Liquid light or some shit. They told me we’re going up against killers who date all the way back to the fifth cohort of Rome’s Tenth Legion. They’re immune to lead, they just heal up in seconds. Spark rounds are the only thing that will bring them down. Fries them from the inside out.”
Harper slammed a magazine into one of his SIGs. “How many and when?”
“Unknown. Intel says Komarovsky will arrive once the fifth cohort secures the ground. They say he’ll be bringing Max with him. First wave will materialize in seventy-five minutes, at twenty-three hundred hours. They’re up against the same clock we are—we’re all counting down to the midnight hour.”
“Does the enemy know I’m here?”
The roadie shrugged. “That video on Temple Mount pretty much let that friggin’ cat out of the bag, don’t you think? They don’t know you have backup, though.”
Harper looked at Astruc. The priest was on his knees and his black metal suitcase was open. Inside was a laptop, a small satellite uplink, and connecting cables.
“You appear rather fit for someone who was using a walking cane the last time we met, Padre.”
“Yes. Remarkable what medics can do when they put their minds to it.”
He lifted a small JBL speaker and clamped it to a block battery. He switched it on, pulled a long black antenna. He stood and faced Harper.
“Besides, I’m only insane and not the one suffering from an undefined metaphysical condition, am I?”
True, Harper thought.
“So what’s the speaker for?”
“To receive comms, hopefully,” Astruc said.
“Comms. From whom?”
The priest did not answer. He hurried to an alcove in the ambulatory, hid the speaker between two pillars. He came back and closed the case. He fitted a monocle to his right eye, grabbed the sextant, and headed down the colonnade.
“I’m going to the roof to connect with the satellite.”
“What satellite?” Harper said.
The priest called back as he disappeared into the shadows. “The one we moved into geosynchronous orbit twenty-three thousand miles over Jerusalem, ten minutes ago.”
Harper turned to Katherine Taylor. She was looking at him with a familiar half smile. He flashed seeing it in beforetimes at LP’s Bar, a lifetime ago it seemed.
“Madame Taylor, why are you here?”
She rested the lantern on the stone slab. It cast warm light over the things of Christ. She grabbed two SIG Sauers from the duffel bag and slammed mags in the handles. She stuffed the guns in her belt, grabbed extra mags, and stuffed them in the pockets of her cloak. “What’s it look like? I’m here to get my son back.”
Harper limped around the Anointing Stone, stood in front of her.
“You can’t stay.”
“Overruled.”
“By whom?”
The roadie got to his feet. “Inspector Gobet, brother.”
“He’s in Jerusalem?”
“We all slipped just after the time warp crashed near Temple Mount. The cop is at the Amini house in the German Colony now. He stayed with Chana’s daughters while Batya came here.”
“What the hell is he doing anywhere near Chana’s daughters?”
“Last I saw he was pulling imaginary blue bunnies out of thin air,” Katherine said.
“Sorry?”
“They’re children, Harper, and they had a lousy fucking day. The cop is comforting them, helping them understand the nature of death.”
Harper felt a sharp jab to the back of his neck. “Bloody hell.” He spun around and saw Krinkle with an injector in his hands.
“A little something to help you with that undefined metaphysical thing,” the roadie said.
Harper rubbed the back of his neck. In quick seconds the pain in his leg was gone, but the madness around him was no clearer.
“How about a simple explanation instead?”
“Simple, no. Quick, yes. Brother Astruc finally came around and laid out the whole story. Us, the bad guys, and the locals are all chasing down the same legend.”
“I got that intel from Chana.”
“And he got it from the written histories her family kept from the days of the Magi and before. Gobet’s been at them since we found them in Astruc’s hideout during the Paris job. It’s been slow going because they were written as sacred hymns. That made them both easier to hand down through generations, aurally, and incredibly difficult to crack unless you speak Zend, the language of Zoroaster. Hasn’t been used as a written or spoken language for four thousand years, except between the descendants of the Amini family and, weirdly enough, Brother Astruc. Bottom line: We’ve been players in the salvation game since way before the time of Christ. A black ops job all the way back to 1350 BC, when the concept of One God first took shape in Egypt. Gobet didn’t know about the mission, no one at HQ knew about the mission. But according to the hymns, the sons of darkness knew, and they cast a two-thousand-year spell over the world to hide the truth from the sons of the light. The Amini family has been handing down the secret, waiting to be contacted by the man of signs and wonders.”
Harper thought about it. “Sons of light and darkness, a man of signs and wonders. Those names are in the lost scrolls from Qumran.”
The roadie nodded. “I know. Gave me friggin’ goose bumps just hearing about it. Dig it. I ran tactical, infils and exfils. Astruc was the keeper of the sextant and chief comet man tracking the birth of the three children conceived of light. You were the guardian of their souls, you made sure they didn’t end up forever dead.”
“You sure? Zoroaster was murdered as he prayed, Christ was crucified, Max was . . .”
He looked at Katherine. He had forgotten she was there. She filled in the silence.
“Max was kidnapped by the sons of darkness. They need to slaughter him on the same coordinates where Jesus was crucified, and they need to do it before the midnight hour ends. Then the goons erect a temple to their One True God and fuck up the world for good.”
Harper flipped his eyes to Krinkle. “Solid intel?”
The roadie nodded. “The SX geeks cracked the enemy codes while you and I were heading to Mount Nebo. They were screaming with glee on the dark side of the Internet.”
Harper stepped closer to him. “Did you know what would happen in Jerusalem today while we were on our way to Mount Nebo?”
“I knew something would happen, not what,” the roadie said.
“And you didn’t bother giving me a heads-up?”
“Orders.”
“What orders?”
“When Sergeant Gauer got back from the recon, we ran Chana Amini through the SX grid. She came up listed.”
“You knew she would die?”
“Would, yes. How or when, no. But you know how it is, brother. We are forbidden to interfere with the time or manner of a local’s death, full friggin’ stop.”
Jerusalem’s war echoed through the church. Harper seethed.
“Innocent people died today. Innocent people are dying in this city tonight.”
“Yeah, and we smuggled in a few hundred comforters with us. They’re in the streets right now trying to cope. But get
this, brother: Locals are dying all across the Middle East, and it’s getting worse. A renegade Iranian Army group moved Scud missile launchers into eastern Iraq. Twenty minutes ago they put themselves on the Internet loading chem-weap warheads and fueling the missiles. Israel saw that and scrambled her jets—they’re in the air and circling above the Med Sea right now. If we don’t stop this shit pronto, a third of the world will go down in flames and take a few billion more locals with it. So, Brother Harper, do you want to get with friggin’ Plan B or not?”
Silence. Katherine moved close to Harper, spoke softly.
“Inspector Gobet told Batya everything about your kind, me, Max, and why you came to the Holy Land. He even told her he knew Chana had been listed to die. He said he was forbidden to stop it, but he made sure you would be with her. He said that was the best chance for Chana’s soul to be returned to the stars according to their belief. He said that’s what you were doing when you knelt next to her on Temple Mount. That’s why Batya went to collect the seventh scroll and bring it here.”
Harper looked at her. Her eyes scanned as pure truth.
“And as you’re scanning my eyes, Harper, there’s one more thing you should know as truth. Before we left the house, Chana’s twin girls asked me if I would come back with the man who helped their mother’s soul get back to the stars. They’d like to thank you in person.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them I was very sure you’d accept their invitation with genuine pleasure.”
Harper had a strange sensation, as if he had heard those words before. They were comforting words, but he could not find them on his timeline. He blinked, looked at the roadie. “What’s the plan.”
“One: Get you into Jerusalem and chase down the scrolls, see if this was the real deal. If so, get you in position to head the enemy off at the pass.”
“Done,” Harper said.
“Two: Spread the first fire of creation across the world.”