FIFTY-NINE
The blast tore through the Tabernacle like a hurricane. Fiona had been crouched low behind the golden table, where she had taken shelter with Gallo and Carter when the shooting started. They had no clue what was happening outside, who was shooting at whom, but they knew it couldn’t be good. Then, with no warning, she was buried under a heavy, shapeless mass of fabric.
Yet, through the mental haze induced by the concussion, she knew what had happened.
Someone, maybe with a stray bullet, had destroyed one of the shekinah creatures. Light, even the cool light contained in the body of the shekinahs, was composed of high-energy particles, and in the confines of the underground chamber, the sudden release of so much densely packed energy was like a bomb going off…in a room full of bombs.
The weight of the collapsed tent made it almost impossible to breathe, which in turn triggered a panic-fueled feedback loop. Frantic, she tore at the fabric, trying to squirm out from under it, but it was too heavy and she was too disoriented, with no sense of which direction to go. If it had been a landslide or a cave-in, she would have created a golem to dig her out, but…
But what?
If you sing to the river…
She had sung to the river, and to the pool under Arkaim, and it had listened to her. If she had learned anything in the years since being awakened to her ability, it was that intention was just as important—maybe more important—than the actual words.
And then there was the Ark.
The Israelite war-leader Yeshua ben Nun, who by all accounts was neither a priest nor a Baal’Shem, had unleashed the power of the Ark on his enemies, and even activated the Black Knight—something he surely didn’t even know about—to make the sun stand still in the sky.
Perfect knowledge of the Mother Tongue didn’t matter. All that mattered was focused intention. The mere act of speaking the words was enough to make things happen. The Ark responded to intention like a psychic amplifier.
It was practically within reach. She could feel it, resonating in the memory metal orb she carried in her pocket.
“Evaporate,” she whispered.
The heavy fabric of the Tabernacle rose into the air, as light as gossamer, and then broke apart like smoke in a stiff breeze.
Her eyes roved the chamber, surveying the damage, yet she did not merely see.
She knew.
She saw Carter and Gallo, who had been trapped under the collapsed Tabernacle with her. They were already stirring. She knew they would be fine. Pierce and Lazarus and the two Ethiopians weren’t moving, but she knew they were all still alive. Fallon, too. All were stunned but not injured. They had all sought cover when the shooting began, putting enough distance between themselves and the shekinah creatures to survive the multiple detonations.
She did not see the four mercenaries, and knew they were all gone, vaporized by the flash, along with the unknown attackers.
The shekinahs were gone, too, but that wouldn’t last. As long as the Black Knight was active, it would continue collecting energy from the sun, transmitting it to the Ark, to create more and more of the creatures until the cavern filled up with them.
Another blast was inevitable.
The first explosion had nearly brought down the entire cavern. Jagged cracks ran up the walls and crisscrossed the floor. The air was thick with dust, and piles of rubble showed where the ceiling was starting to give way.
The next detonation would entomb them all.
There’s not going to be a next one, she thought. It’s time to shut this thing down.
“Bring back the sun,” she said, speaking in a clear voice. “Turn off the Black Knight.”
Nothing changed. The light continued to shine, growing brighter and brighter with each passing second, and she knew it had not worked. The Black Knight was still absorbing some of the sun’s power, transferring it to the Ark, while diverting the rest of it away into the cold of space.
What did I do wrong?
She tried again, imagining a gigantic mirror, spread out like a planet-sized umbrella above the Earth, and then visualized it disappearing and returning everything to normal, but even as she repeated the command, she knew that this second attempt had also failed.
Maybe I need to get closer. She started toward the Ark.
The coverings were gone, blown away along with everything else, revealing the ancient relic in all its glory. It looked a lot like the various representations she had seen, except for the size—it was much larger than in the movies, because the prop makers hadn’t known about the length of the Sacred Cubit. The cherubs on the lid, the Mercy Seat, were different. Multi-winged, multi-headed, and multi-eyed, they were mythological creatures instead of the traditional depiction of men with wings.
It occurred to Fiona that she was one of only a handful of people, living or dead, to have ever seen it.
Even fewer had done what she was about to do now.
Gallo’s voice reached out through the gloom from behind her. “Fi, don’t touch it.”
But she did.
Visions of the past slammed through her. Moses, an ancient warrior king, the cow-batteries, and the true origins of the Black Knight, the Ark, and the orbs, and how they all worked together. Fiona stumbled backward, the memory dump hitting her like a physical blow, but she managed to stay on her feet. “It’s real,” she whispered to herself.
“Fi!” Gallo cried out again. “Talk to me.”
“I’m okay,” she said, turning, searching the chamber again.
There you are.
She hurried across the rubble strewn floor to the spot where Pierce and Lazarus lay. The latter was already stirring, shaking off the effects of the shekinah detonation faster than the others. He stared up at her. “Fiona? Are you okay?”
There was no time to explain. She pushed past him and knelt beside the crumped form of the Abba Tesfa. He was unconscious, but what Fiona needed did not require rousing him. She slipped the turban off his head, and then reached under the breastplate, rooting around until she found the two objects concealed beneath.
Urim and Thummin, Pierce had called them. Revelation and Truth.
She knew intuitively which was which. The memory metal was Urim—Revelation.
She already had the piece of memory metal from Arkaim though. What she needed was the other one, the clear crystal sphere.
The Thummim.
Truth.
The oracular Eye of the blind seer Tiresias, which the castaway king—remembered in legend as Odysseus—had brought back from the Underworld and given to Moses on the slopes of Mount Sinai. Odysseus had washed up there after his ship was destroyed, not by literal sea monsters named Scylla and Charybdis, but by the tsunami wave generated after the sudden explosive eruption of Thera in the Mediterranean. He had landed on the island of Helios, an occurrence she now understood wasn’t simply chance. She would use the Eye now to find the hidden word that would unseal the Ark.
The true name of God.
She held the crystal up to her own eye and looked down at the golden plate affixed to the front of the priestly turban.
The transparent sphere flipped and distorted the image, causing the strange script to wriggle and squirm. She tried to hold the crystal steady but the word kept shifting form, morphing into different words, which despite being written in a forgotten language, she was able to read.
Wilderness…
Mountain…
Lightning…
Destroyer…
Creator…
Womb…
Almighty!
I am the sun and the moon…the lightning and the river and the wilderness.
The name was all those things, and many more.
The letters became fixed, a single word written in the Mother Tongue, but nevertheless revealed to her. She turned to the Ark again, formed the image in her mind, and spoke the word.
The energy reverses, flowing back to the damaged collector, which orbits high above the world, and th
en it seeks out the damaged, malfunctioning fragment.
Six thousand miles away, the Roswell fragment ceases to exist, along with the antenna array, most of the HAARP facility, and a troubled man named Ishiro Tanaka.
And daylight returns to the world.
SIXTY
The explosion had rung Pierce’s bell a little, and even though he had looked away and covered his eyes when the shooting started, he now saw everything through a murky green haze. Nevertheless, he could tell that something had changed. The persistent electrical hum… The light, rising and falling… The shekinahs…
Gone.
All of it.
“It’s over,” he whispered. He blinked in a futile attempt to bring the world into focus, and saw Fiona. “You did it.”
He thought he saw a weak smile on her face. “Yeah.”
Then he noticed the Ark—or rather, the lack of an Ark.
It was missing.
His eyes widened.
Did we destroy the Ark of the Covenant?
“No!” Fallon scrambled to his feet and rushed toward her.
“Fallon!” Pierce’s shout went unheeded.
The billionaire’s reaction caught even Lazarus off guard. Fiona retreated a step, but Fallon wasn’t interested in her.
He dropped to his knees where the Ark had been.
“No,” Fallon repeated, dragging his fingers over the floor, as though trying to find some trace of the artifact’s essence. “No. No.”
He rounded on Fiona. “What did you do?”
Lazarus sprang to his feet and started toward them, and Pierce wasn’t far behind. Fiona, however, stood her ground.
“I hit the self-destruct button. The Black Knight is toast.”
“No!” Fallon raged again, and before Lazarus or Pierce could reach them, he drew the unfired pistol from his belt and thrust the muzzle into Fiona’s face. “Bring it back.”
“It’s not coming back,” she said, holding up her hands, displaying the memory metal ball from Arkaim and the crystal sphere from Tesfa’s breast plate. She squeezed them in her fists, and the relics crumbled like pieces of Styrofoam. “Ever.”
“No.” Fallon said again, grinding his teeth together. His finger tightened on the trigger.
Fiona’s lips moved again, but before she could say anything, a section of the cavern ceiling, loosened by the explosion, broke free and came down right on top of Fallon, squashing him like an open hand slapping a fly on a tabletop.
Pierce skidded to a stop a few steps away and stared across the top of the rubble pile at the girl. Fiona had not moved an inch. The falling rocks had come within a hair’s breadth of hitting her, but she had not even flinched.
Lazarus knelt and checked Fallon for a pulse. “Still alive.”
It was almost as if she had known what was about to happen, and that she would be safe. And the falling rocks had looked a lot like a giant hand.
She nodded to him. “Now it’s over.”
EPILOGUE
Cerberus Headquarters, Rome, Italy
George Pierce stared at the Ark of the Covenant for a long time. Then, with a wistful sigh, he thumbed the button to put the tablet computer in stand-by mode. The picture, which he had taken on his cell before things went to hell, was all that remained of the Ark.
Gallo patted his arm. “Maybe you’ll find it again,” she said.
What he had noticed and Fallon had missed before being knocked unconscious, was that the Ark hadn’t been destroyed. It had vanished. For all they knew it could be in another dimension, resting in that same spot, or somewhere else on the planet. Fiona had given a brief account of her final vision, that had revealed how to use the Ark. She debunked Pierce’s Originators theory. While they had existed, it was still unclear where they had come from. Theories now included an advanced human civilization, like Atlanteans, or even the Nephilim, the race of giants first mentioned in the Bible—a book Pierce was no longer so quick to dismiss—and appearing in the myths of most ancient cultures around the world. The only thing he knew for sure was that they would never understand how the Ark worked.
But Pierce felt certain it was out there, waiting to be discovered again. He smiled at the thought. The Ark was one mystery he was glad couldn’t be solved. Like Alexander the Great, who wept when he saw that there were no more worlds left to conquer, claiming and understanding the Ark would have dulled the spell history held over him. Though he would have preferred a few more solid answers. Perhaps a vision of his own. He wasn’t sure Fiona had seen what she thought she saw, or perhaps she had not fully understood it. The idea of God was somehow still stranger to him than aliens, but most of the team had accepted Fiona’s story and the Ark’s origin at face value.
His smile widened at the realization that, if true, the vision meant the Cerberus Group had been prophesized about, and perhaps even ordained by a supreme being.
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, he told himself. Not yet, at least.
Two days after coming closer to the apocalypse than anyone realized, the world was already moving on. A few—those given to a belief in secret conspiracies—had been quick to point out the coincidence of the timing of the solar event and a mysterious fire that had destroyed the HAARP array in Alaska. But most had been eager to accept the general scientific consensus that the event had been caused by an as-yet-unidentified electromagnetic anomaly. It was an undetected cosmic ray storm or a highly-charged iron dust cloud passing through the solar system, which had eclipsed the sun over Western Europe and the Atlantic ocean. The explanation had the ring of truth, and most people had other, more immediate concerns, like burying the victims and cleaning up the damage from the earthquakes. In a month or two, it would be old news, the fickle public already distracted by some new tragedy or scandal.
A ping from his tablet signaled the arrival of another text message. “Cintia’s found something.”
Gallo walked with him, hand-in-hand, to Dourado’s office. Fiona was already there, standing behind the computer expert. She looked up as they entered. “Cintia found him.”
“Found who?”
Fiona stepped aside, revealing a photo that required no further explanation.
With a shaking hand, Pierce dug his phone from his pocket. He scrolled through his contacts, tapped a four-letter name, and held the phone to his ear, biting his lip.
Then he said, “Jack, it’s George. We need to meet.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jeremy Robinson is the international bestselling author of sixty novels and novellas, including Apocalypse Machine, Island 731, and SecondWorld, as well as the Jack Sigler thriller series and Project Nemesis, the highest selling, original (non-licensed) kaiju novel of all time. He’s known for mixing elements of science, history and mythology, which has earned him the #1 spot in Science Fiction and Action-Adventure, and secured him as the top creature feature author. Many of his novels have been adapted into comic books, optioned for film and TV, and translated into thirteen languages. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children. Visit him at www.bewareofmonsters.com.
Sean Ellis has authored and co-authored more than two dozen action-adventure novels, including the Nick Kismet adventures, the Jack Sigler/Chess Team series with Jeremy Robinson, and the Jade Ihara adventures with David Wood. He served with the Army National Guard in Afghanistan, and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Resources Policy from Oregon State University. Sean is also a member of the International Thriller Writers organization. He currently resides in Arizona, where he divides his time between writing, adventure sports, and trying to figure out how to save the world.
Visit him on the web at: seanellisauthor.com
ALSO by JEREMY ROBINSON
Standalone Novels
The Didymus Contingency
Raising The Past
Beneath
Antarktos Rising
Kronos
Xom-B
Flood Rising
MirrorWorld
Apocalypse Machine
Unity
The Distance
Infinite
Nemesis Saga Novels
Island 731
Project Nemesis
Project Maigo
Project 731
Project Hyperion
Project Legion
SecondWorld Novels
SecondWorld
Nazi Hunter: Atlantis
(aka: I Am Cowboy)
The Antarktos Saga
The Last Hunter – Descent
The Last Hunter – Pursuit
The Last Hunter – Ascent
The Last Hunter – Lament
The Last Hunter – Onslaught
The Last Hunter – Collected Edition
The Last Valkyrie
The Jack Sigler/Chess Team Thrillers
Prime
Pulse
Instinct
Threshold
Ragnarok
Omega
Savage
Cannibal
Empire
Jack Sigler Continuum Novels
Guardian
Patriot
Centurion
Cerberus Group Novels
Herculean
Helios
Chesspocalypse Novellas
Callsign: King
Callsign: Queen
Callsign: Rook
Callsign: King 2 – Underworld
Callsign: Bishop
Callsign: Knight
Callsign: Deep Blue
Callsign: King 3 – Blackout
Chesspocalypse Novella Collected Editions
Callsign: King – The Brainstorm Trilogy
Callsign – Tripleshot
Callsign – Doubleshot
Horror Novels
(written as Jeremy Bishop)
Torment
The Sentinel
Helios (Cerberus Group Book 2) Page 33