[Betrayed 01.0] 30 Pieces of Silver

by Carolyn McCray

  Curled up inside the well of the backseat, Rebecca cringed, trying to block out the sound of gunfire and return gunfire, but it was all around. Above her, in front of her, and worst of all, behind her. Her world had descended into a hail of bullets. And from the quickening of the volleys, she could only assume they were losing ground.

  “Damn it! Can’t you go any faster?” Brandt asked of Lopez, even though Rebecca didn’t think anyone would even bother.

  Davidson emptied another clip and crouched down beside her to reload, shouting at the corporal. “I told you we should have used a truck!” Then he grumbled under his breath, “The only way they caught up was to go off-road.” Yelling again as he rose to fire, “Which we could have done if we used a truck!”

  “Yeah, well,” Lopez started, and then had to swerve.

  Brandt grabbed her by the back of the shirt. “Get ready to jump out.”

  They must be close, so Rebecca peeked over the edge of the convertible and found a quaint dock. Everything was pristine, except there was no boat. She looked at Brandt, who seemed equally concerned, but Lopez was all smiles as he revved the engine to levels only a dog could hear.

  “If we had a truck, could we fucking do this?” he said as the car shot off the pier.

  In midair the tires tucked into the wheel well, and somehow they hit the water as a boat.

  “Show-off,” Davidson mumbled as he fired at the truck that had skidded to a stop at the surf’s edge.

  * * *

  Brandt saw the car convert into a boat, yet he didn’t believe his eyes. Here they were, cruising over the Marmara Sea. It was something out of a movie only the sergeant could feel the leather seat under his butt, and the windshield wipers were working overtime as Lopez hit the waves headfirst.

  “I don’t…” Rebecca said as she looked over the side at the passing water. “Huh?”

  Lopez yelled his answer. “You are looking at the Gibbs Aquada! The first mass-produced amphibious car! Road to water in under ten seconds! Tell me that doesn’t rock!”

  “All right, it rocks,” Davidson admitted.

  Recovering from the shock, Brandt realized he really didn’t want any more surprises of this magnitude. “How about you guys lay out exactly how we are getting home?”

  “Sorry,” Rebecca said in a small voice, but with enough regret that she captured his attention.

  “Sorry because you bled on me, or sorry because we can’t go home?”

  She attempted a smile, but failed rather spectacularly. “Both.”

  “Then I’m sorry, because no bones are so important that—”

  With a hand on his arm, Rebecca sounded completely sincere. “It’s not about tracking down the skeletons. I’m pretty sure I know where Christ is. But that’s the problem. They’re never going to let me live with that knowledge.”

  “Then let the Knot find Him,” Brandt growled. “They want to keep them secret? Then let them have the body. Once your information is no longer time sensitive, you’re in the clear.”

  “Even if that were to happen any time soon, which I question given their loss of—” Her voice cracked. “Loss of so many experts in the chamber, you have no idea everything that I saw down there. I’ve seen their archives. Given enough time I could track them down. And they know it.”

  Brandt searched her eyes, trying to think of something to say. Anything to say that didn’t confirm the fact that she was a marked woman. But, unfortunately, Rebecca was right. The only way she would ever be safe would be to find Jesus’ body, then hunt down the Knot and root them out.

  “Hey, just take her out of the hot zone, and we can go dig up the bones,” Davidson suggested, but the sergeant shook his head.

  Rebecca might think she knew where the bones were, but he had seen how tentative the term “pretty sure” became once you were in the field.

  Well, he couldn’t leave her a fugitive. “Where to, then?”

  “Rome.”

  Brandt didn’t bother to ask why… he just turned to Lopez. “Have any suggestions on how we get there?”

  “Now that you mention it,” his corporal said as he brought their boat perilously close to another island. “I was figuring this wasn’t the last leg on our journey so I arranged something with a little more power than this tub.”

  How quickly the Gibbs Aquada became obsolete.

  * * *

  Of course Lopez came into the pier way too fast, forcing Rebecca to grab hold of the headrest to keep from falling overboard as he made a ninety-degree turn. On the other side of the small dock was a huge object draped in camouflage. She could only guess it was their next ride.

  Bumping hard into the dock, their car-boat shuddered, then the passenger door’s seal cracked. They began taking on water, lots and lots of water.

  “Pop the trunk!” Davidson yelled.

  As Rebecca scrambled out of the car, Svengurd helped the private grab several packs from the trunk until the leak exploded into a full geyser.

  “Everybody out!” Brandt yelled.

  Lopez was already over at the other boat, removing the cover, but Davidson scrambled deeper into the trunk, clearly fishing for something, but the car tipped on end, sinking rapidly. Only Svengurd’s quick arm snatched the private to safety before he sank as well.

  “I’m still giving the orders, right?” Brandt asked Davidson as the kid dripped onto the wood planks.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that was our ammo I was trying to get.”

  The sergeant’s face went from anger to concern. “All of it?”

  Rebecca felt her stomach contract as the private nodded. When did her life become dependent on how many bullets she had available?

  “Seriously, you guys, we’re not going to need ammo in this thing!” Lopez announced and everyone turned toward him.

  Svengurd whistled at the sight. Low to the water and its nose brought in at a sharp point, this vessel was built for speed.

  “I told you guys the boat show was worth the price of admission!”

  Davidson hopped in, quickly stowing their limited gear. Brandt steadied her as she climbed in since they were still feeling the effects of Lopez’s entrance to the bay. Almost slipping on the slick deck, the corporal caught Rebecca’s arm.

  “And there are sleeping quarters below deck for the lady,” Lopez said as guided her to a seat then raised his voice. “Actually there’s room for three down there so start picking straws!”

  “Svengurd, get the moorings,” Brandt ordered as he jumped in.

  Lopez turned on the engine, and it sounded like a Harley-Davidson with a broken muffler. Pure, raw, undiluted power. The deck rumbled under her feet as the blond corporal tossed the lines into the boat. He went to hop in when Brandt pulled his gun.

  “Sorry, but you’re staying here.”

  “Sarge, what—” Svengurd stopped as Brandt cocked his gun.

  Rebecca went rigid in her seat as the other men turned to see what the commotion was. She had known something was wrong between the men, but this wrong? Bad enough for Brandt to aim at one of his team?

  “Go to ground. Stay low until the heat is off, then get yourself to an American base, and we’ll sort it out from there.”

  Davidson looked like he wanted to step between the two men, but then looked at Brandt’s stern face and decided against it. Instead he intervened verbally. “Boss, what’s up?”

  “Svengurd has become a possible liability, so he’s staying.”

  This time the private inched in front of Brandt as he spoke. “Yeah, that poison plus the antidote could produce some pretty severe paranoid tendencies, so why don’t we put down the—”

  “We were ambushed in Belgium after he was on point, lost in the jungle for minutes at a time in Ecuador. Ambushed again in Paris after he was the only one alone getting the car at the airstrip.”

  Rebecca could feel the shift in the mood as Davidson and Lopez digested their sergeant’s words. Svengurd must have felt it as well.

  “Guys, c
ome on. Didn’t I just torch their headquarters? How many men have I dropped on this mission alone?”

  The sergeant’s jaw clenched. “Exactly as a deep cover mole would. You would act completely normally to keep your cover until you were instructed to act against the team, then it would be us that was dropped.”

  “I was just poisoned, for Christ’s sake.” The corporal’s hand flexed over his weapon, but the action didn’t seem aggressive to Rebecca. Instead it seemed as if he didn’t know any other response when challenged than to go for his gun.

  Lopez inched the boat away from the dock. “Sorry, man. See you back at the States.”

  “Wait!” Davidson cried out. “Come on, Sarge. We’ve been tight together for a day, and we’re still getting our asses kicked. What about that?”

  Brandt’s eyes flashed to his private, then to Svengurd. “Show them your watchband.”

  For the first time, Rebecca saw fear in the corporal’s face. He even stammered, “We don’t have time for this.”

  The sergeant leveled his gun, taking aim. “Show them.”

  Slowly Svengurd unlatched his watch and displayed it in front of him. It looked like all the rest.

  “The back,” Brandt demanded.

  As if his hand resisted obeying his brain, the corporal slowly turned the watch over. “I know it’s against regs to alter any issue gear, but…”

  Rebecca couldn’t tell what was wrong, then the light struck the surface, and she realized there was a pattern embossed on the back.

  “Shit! That’s the Knot’s symbol!” Lopez announced, revving the engine.

  Yes, it did look similar, but Rebecca wasn’t so sure. She had seen the outline before, but couldn’t place it.

  “Worse, that could be a passive wire loop,” Davidson said, then continued sadly, “at rest you can’t tell it is there, but in contact with certain energy sources it can give off a pulsed signal. Morse code.”

  Brandt nodded. “I saw a glint of it when you were retching in the car, but now I’m sure.” He leaned forward. “So step back.”

  Svengurd sounded panicked. “It’s not! It’s just… It’s just a symbol of my devotion to…”

  Would a double agent really sound this wounded? Rebecca wondered.

  Finally the corporal bent his head. “My boyfriend.”

  The boat rocked violently. Rebecca wasn’t sure if it was the rough seas or the reaction of the men that caused it.

  “Nice try, Svengurd. Like playing the gay card is going to cloud the issue.”

  “It’s true!” the corporal protested.

  That’s when Rebecca realized where she had seen the symbol before. It wasn’t the Knot. It was a Buddhist Love Knot, an ancient Tibetan symbol of commitment. When secret lovers couldn’t marry, they would wear such a marking to honor their commitment.

  Rebecca yelled out, “He might not be lying!”

  “She’s right,” Svengurd said, rushing forward when a shot rang out and blood splattered over her face. The corporal grabbed his neck as blood poured through his fingers.

  Clearly Brandt hadn’t been the one to fire, since he climbed up onto the boat’s railing, “Grab my hand!”

  But the corporal teetered on the edge of the pier, his life gushing from the exit wound. “Go,” he said as he took another shot to the back.

  “Fuck!” Lopez yelled as he hit the throttle, speeding the boat away.

  “Turn around!” the sergeant ordered, but Lopez ignored him as Svengurd pitched face first into the water and simply floated there, turning the water crimson.

  Dead.

  He was innocent, and now he was dead.

  CHAPTER 28

  Sea of Marmara

  It wasn’t supposed to go down like this, was all Brandt could think as his corporal’s body did the dead man’s float, his head banging off the dock. Svengurd was supposed to be nice and safe, holed up in some hot Turkish girl’s apartment until he could come in and sort this mess out.

  “He’s gone, Sarge,” Davidson said as he pulled him back from the edge of the boat. “We’ve got to—”

  More gunfire pelted them in their wake. Lopez was giving it everything he had to get them out of range.

  Picking up his weapon, Brandt fired into the night. He fired long after they had pulled away from the island. Long after he had any chance of actually hitting anyone.

  Brandt let Rebecca drag him down into the seat next to her. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said curling her fingers around his.

  But how could it not have been? He had condemned his corporal based on what? A little opportunity and a glint of wire under his watch. He had felt so sure, at least up to the moment Svengurd took a bullet to the throat. The corporal had trusted him, but Brandt had sacrificed him.

  His stomach churned knowing that Svengurd had taken a bullet meant for him. If the corporal hadn’t surged forward in that final second, the wound would have been Brandt’s. It would be Rebecca clinging to his lifeless body rather than the sea caressing Svengurd’s.

  “I’m heading into the Aegean, but I’m going to need a little more direction after that,” Lopez said, not sounding like his usual cocky self.

  Who would after witnessing something like that? They had, in effect, abandoned a comrade. They would never shake the stench.

  “We’ve got to get to an airport,” Rebecca announced.

  Davidson spread Lopez’s torn tourist map in front of Brandt, but the sergeant couldn’t really focus on the page. “Greece looks like the best bet.”

  “No way, no how,” Lopez said. “Why do you think I stole this baby? Planes have not been our friends. We’re boating there.”

  “Boat there?” the sergeant found himself asking.

  “Yeah,” Davidson agreed. “It’s gotta be over a thousand miles.”

  Lopez patted the dashboard. “And this baby can do over two hundred miles per hour, which means we’d be there by sunrise.”

  He was about to interrupt yet another of the two men’s completely un-Special Forces-like argument when Brandt felt Rebecca squeeze his hand.

  “Let them go at it,” she whispered. “It’s their way of dealing.”

  The sergeant looked at Davidson and Lopez who were, in quite an animated fashion, disagreeing over everything from the engine’s stroke volume to Greek airport security. It didn’t take a double doctorate to see that Rebecca was right. They were just shouting to shout.

  How then did he handle it? Brandt had lost men in combat before but never did he want to change places with the dead man.

  “Where exactly in Rome are we heading?” Davidson asked, startling the sergeant out of his reverie.

  Rebecca frowned as she asked, “Is there any way to get more ammo?”

  The sergeant’s lips turned downward, too. “Why?”

  “Well, you see the silver coins are the most unifying artifacts of the finds. In addition, they were minted circa AD 42 under the auspices of the Senate, which strangely changed after Constantine making one wonder—”

  The sergeant put a hand on her knee. He knew this was how she dealt with things, getting all scientific on him, but he just wasn’t in any shape for a history lesson right now. “Where?”

  She bit her lip before answering. “Well, um…” Then her voice strengthened. “Beneath the pope’s private quarters.”

  “Of course it is!” Davidson said as he threw his hands up into the air.

  Brandt rubbed his temple. Her words had brought a pounding to his skull. Despite the Vatican’s open courtyard and spacious museums, it was one of the most tightly guarded complexes in the world. In this day and age of religious extremism and after several attempts on the pope’s life, the Swiss Guard had been transformed from a primarily ceremonial attachment to one hundred and forty-seven of the best-trained soldiers on the planet. They were experts in hand-to-hand combat, marksmanship, and even automatic weaponry. At first glance, it seemed to be impossible to get inside the pope’s quarters.

  “Sorry, Rebecca,
but I’m going to need a little more convincing.”

  * * *

  Relieved to hear Brandt ask for more information, Rebecca took in a deep breath. History was like a balm to any wound. Through habit, Rebecca went to open her laptop, but of course, she hadn’t had that for ages now. She was going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.

  “All right, but don’t complain because I have to go back to the beginning.”

  There was a communal groan, but no one voiced an objection.

  “The few bones that were recovered of Magdalene’s only provided passages regarding her personal life, nothing to do with her association with the Knot.”

  “Oh, crap!” Brandt said which seemed odd, but then again this was a very odd day. She went to continue when he unzipped his vest. “No, wait. Walker gave me this.”

  The sergeant pulled out a fairly large chunk of a pelvic bone. Magdalene’s pelvis to be exact.

  Carefully she took the fragment and began searching its surface for clues, but the inscriptions detailed events she already knew. Magdalene and Christ’s chaste bond. The Twelve’s disdain for her. The failed first attempt at Jesus’ ministry, which brought her into his life. Even Judas’ renowned leg injury, but nothing of what followed.

  Eyes aching from focusing in such dim light, Rebecca was about to give up when she caught the word, “Quaestor,” the Roman equivalent of the secretary of the treasury—the person who supervised the mint.

  Backtracking, she read the entire passage. “For he who sacrificed all, it was decided would be borne to the city without name to a place without name. The man without contempt who left and was late to return said unto us these thirty coins will seal our bond and the man of their making, the Quaestor, would hold close the sacred bed.”

  Looking up, Rebecca found all three men watching her in anticipation. Even Lopez, who was driving the boat at over two hundred miles per hour.

  “The scripture confirms my suspicion.”

  “If we’re talking about assaulting the Vatican, would you mind elaborating?”

  Rebecca’s mind was trying to catch up with her mouth. “As you know, each of the bones has clues, usually vague, sometimes more specific, to the location of the next set of remains.” After unanimous nods, she continued. “But beyond that there were the thirty coins. Each one designating a member of the conspiracy. It is the only other unifying factor beyond their allegiance to Christ.”