Reckoning (3 page)

FIVE

With a trembling hand, Professor Malachi Halder shut the massive and unyielding oaken portal and methodically rearmed his alarm system.

The code activated a security circuit that cloaked exterior entrances and carefully selected interior rooms with a sensitive combination of ultrasonic and microwave frequencies, providing a defensive field that could detect the slightest intrusion or
movement of life.

In truth, the system meant little to the professor, for he placed no confidence in his own feeble abilities to preserve his life; he had long ago reckoned himself a dead man. But the alarm had been purchased with the Manhattan townhouse, and he had used it steadily, possessing no desire to make it easier for his enemies to destroy him.

And, yes, he knew fear, as any man doomed to a violent death would know fear. So he finished the code that initiated the alarm and wearily set his heavily laden briefcase on the lapis lazuli floor.

Disheartened by the chilled sweat that soaked his
shirt; the professor removed his overcoat and stood for a moment in the entrance, lost in dark thoughts. Then, remembering, he held his breath and turned to look behind him into the brightly lit entrance.

He exhaled slowly.

Yes, he was alone.

Across the expansive hall was his study. The professor's gaze rested on the distant wall, passing over the carefully catalogued books that lined his library; hundreds, thousands of works, many of the volumes lost to the world but for these few and ancient
remaining editions. They reminded him of the long forgotten secrets that he had resurrected and studied for half a century. Yes, exploring the age-old mysteries hidden within those dusty tomes had consumed his life and awarded him far-reaching acclaim.

Over fifty years ago, as a young archeologist for Harvard
University, Malachi discovered the lost tombs of the kings of Ur. Then, in swift succession, he had uncovered cuneiform tablets that documented the biblical journey of Abraham. He had verified the story of Joseph through Egyptian pictographs, fixed the date of the Exodus to 1220 B.C., in the reign of the cruel Egyptian ruler Merneptah. And in 1965 he had worked with the British Museum to uncover two clay tablets from the ruins of Shuruppak, tablets writ-ten in 1646-1626 B.C. which testified to a phenomenal flood that had inundated the Mesopotamia long ago.

In his long life Malachi had excavated the underground desert civilizations of Be'er Matar. And he had, with his own hands, un-covered the bone and stone and temples that revealed the secrets of Solomon and David and those less revered, searching out over 4,000 years of history between the Hebrew God and the people of Israel.

It was his life's work, and he had done it well.

Remembering, Malachi could not suppress the coldness that embraced him, even within the sanctity of his home. They had long threatened to avenge his interference with their plans. For, in truth, once he fully understood their continuing existence, it had become his life's work to defy them. He hoped to ultimately reduce their measure of influence in the modern world by destroying the validity of their beliefs.

As an adjunct professor in Harvard's School of Archeology and Ancient Languages, a distinguished scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary, or in his current post at Saint Matthew's Hall of Theology and Philosophy in New York, he had forever challenged those who claimed moral sovereignty by natural superiority, supernatural right, or intellectual might. Yes, he had challenged them all, scholar and student alike, upon their own ground, the high ground of critical reason, and he had never been defeated.

For years he had listened respectfully, patiently, to their
arguments, allowing the metaphysicists, nihilists, existentialists, and anarchists to build an aggressive defense. And then, when their arrogance was complete, Malachi would begin to speak, comprehensively and authoritatively, minutely dissecting their ideas as a physician might dissect a rotting corpse, by clinically folding back the surface to reveal the rotting logic concealed within.

And when he was done, and no reply could be found in his listeners, Malachi would begin to speak again. He would speak of mysteries that even he did not comprehend, true mysteries that had eluded the mind of man since the beginning of time. And then he would leave them to ponder foundational questions of truth that their shallow philosophies could not begin to fathom.

And though he had won every argument, Malachi knew that he had failed. As he was doomed to fail, from the beginning. For he discovered that they weren't searching for anything so humbling as truth. No, it was power they had sought, and they had finally found it, in the end. Fears for his own life faded into nothing when Malachi remembered that, in all the long centuries, those evil masters of ancient Mesopotamia had never stood closer to uniting the kingdoms of the Earth than they stood in this hour.

Malachi's tired eyes continued to study the wall, and then his gaze rested upon the cherished plaque displayed prominently behind his desk:

Presented to Malachi Josiah Halder, Ph.D., Th.D.

Professor of Archeology and Ancient Languages

Saint Matthew's Theological Seminary

From Sarah

Sarah, his beloved child.

Wearily, feeling the frailty of his 72 years, Malachi turned and beheld once more the reassuring presence of the massive door. He placed a trembling hand against the rough-hewn timbers,
comforted by its solidity, noticing once again how deeply the iron bolts were set into the frame, appreciating the unbending bars that held the stout beams in place.

And as his weakness sometimes prompted him in times of personal suffering, his mind returned to centuries long past for com-forting thoughts. He remembered the noble history of the door, this very door that now stood between him and his enemies. Ironically, in 1656 this portal stood between a small force of persecuted Italian Christians and a merciless, mercenary army.

Though it cost Malachi a small fortune to have the door restored and transported from the long abandoned sanctuary of Saint Constantine, it was worth the sacrifice because it never ceased to remind him of that lost and noble age, an age of heroes.

The portal's history had begun on April 25,
1655, in the village of Rora, a tiny community once located high in the Italian Alps, where the Marquis de Pianessa had issued a proclamation forcing all Protestant believers to swear allegiance to the Church of Rome or suffer execution. Throughout the villages and provinces surrounding the township, thousands of Protestant men, women, and children who refused to submit were beheaded in an orgy of wholesale murder, survivors fleeing into the mountains. In the end, only Rora remained, besieged as the last surviving Protestant stronghold.

An army of 500 experienced soldiers attacked in the early morning. But the impoverished villagers of Rora, inspired by a Protestant captain named Joshua Gianavel, organized and fought
with their families to their backs, defiantly holding the Catholic army at bay for six months. Until, in frustration, the Marquis de Pianessa, dark commander of the expedition, hired mercenary forces that increased his army to almost 8,000 men.

Enraged to insanity and vowing to see indomitable Rora razed to the ground, the Marquis ordered the entire Militia of Piedmont to the field beside his mercenary troops, and with a combined force of 15,000 men launched a three-front attack. In the long and
savage end, Rora's defenders died holding their positions or were captured and burned at the stake, father and son holding each other upon the pyre.

Some, however, including Gianavel, slashed a path through the mercenary troops and escaped into the mountains where, in time, they reorganized to launch merciless and cunning counterattacks against the Marquis's army. Until the winter of August, 1656, when the diminutive force was cornered in the monastery of St. Constantine.

And it was there that the final, bloody battle ensued.

Lost to a past that he knew as well as the present, Malachi ran his hand across the scarred wooden timbers of
the door, wondering at what savage conflict had passed this portal in that doomed and defiant last stand.

"Yes
... an age of heroes," he whispered softly, his fingers touching a smooth, deeply carved cleft that was once slashed into the wood by ax or sword.

Slowly, the memory moving him, Malachi lowered his hand and ascended the staircase that led to his bedchamber. But he knew that he would not sleep tonight. Indeed, with the sad news that he had received in recent days, he was uncertain that he would ever sleep again. For Simon, wasting away beneath that malignant illness which physicians could still not fully diagnose, had returned to the Vatican, presumably to die.

Malachi knew that this malady was not the bane of nature; it was the hand of man. And he suspected that soon he, too, would fall to this mysterious and unseen foe. For he had stood beside Simon deep within that ancient grave in the Negeb, had seen what was unearthed, and witnessed the testament that stretched forth from the tomb in that skeletal hand ...

Feeling anew the initial sensation of the unexpected discovery, Professor Malachi
Halder, revered Harvard archeologist and man of science, saw once more in his mind the spectral scene: the sight of the long-dead messenger, still armored in rusted iron, locked in a mortal embrace with his slayer.

Long buried within the subterranean corridor beneath ancient Horvat Beter skeletal arms intertwined, the dead men had lain for
two millennium, each the victim of the other. Each warrior still held the iron blade of the era buried deeply through the petrified ribs of his foe. Malachi could only imagine what hideous drama had unfolded in the tunnel during that distant, desperate hour. But he believed that he knew. Even as he had retrieved, shoulder to shoulder with Simon, the all but obliterated parchment from the armored hand and initiated the thrilling translation, he had begun to understand.

As Malachi reached the top of the stairs, walking heavily towards his bedchambers, he cursed that unexpected discovery and swore sorrowfully that the crumbling manuscript had not been buried deeply enough.

"No," he whispered, and he felt the plague of the abomination darken him within, "it could never be buried deeply enough."

Rome itself, the Citie del Vaticano, had financed the
archeological dig on the ruins of Horvat Beter, just as the Vatican had financed many of Malachi's expeditions over the years. And faithful Father Simon, longtime friend of Malachi and himself a respected archeological scholar within the Catholic hierarchy, had accompanied Malachi on the excavation, just as he had accompanied the professor on a hundred similar expeditions over the last half-century.

As always, Malachi was grateful for the wise company. For he had long ago found a valuable and faithful friendship with old Simon. Mutually beneficial, Malachi provided the higher under-standing of science, the more technical reference of knowledge, while Simon personified the more sensitive spiritual acumen, and also commanded the power and protection of Rome.

More than once, to Malachi's astonishment, Simon's quiet, humble voice, with his fearful evocation of the Roman Catholic Church, had preserved both their excavations and lives in countries as diverse as Iran, Syria, and Egypt. Though, for the most part, they executed their last expedition in the Negeb of Israel without incident until that day of remarkable discovery, when the horror was unearthed, and the terror began.

Fulfilling his solemn responsibility, even as his duties required, Simon immediately sent a dispatch to Rome, alerting Pope
Clement. Then Malachi and Simon began an immediate translation.

Malachi remembered how they had worked ceaselessly through the next 48 hours, carefully completing a Latin translation of the ancient book that was long ago sealed with the emblem of Titus Flavius Vespasian, Emperor of Rome. By the time they finished the translation, the scorching desert air had almost obliterated the original writing, leaving only isolated lettering and the faintest
swirling on the crumbling parchment. But by that solemn hour, both he and Simon had realized, with the most profound regret, what they had truly discovered. And, as reluctant brothers in a horrible crime, they planned to burn the parchment.

It was an act that went against everything Malachi knew and believed, for his was a life dedicated to the discovery and
preservation of lost artifacts and texts and civilizations. But the manuscript was not part of history, he told himself. No. It was part of death itself, and had no place in the world of men. Before the dark deed could be completed, however, an official emissary from Rome arrived, demanding the manuscript under the authority of Clement. Always loyal, old Simon reluctantly surrendered the parchment.

Malachi never saw it again.

Awakened from his memory, the professor found himself in his bedchamber. He touched the lamp upon his desk, and the room was instantly bright. But he sensed a presence beside him in the chamber, and his heart skipped a beat as he turned, gasping and livid, towards the still form sitting in the chair at his bed.

Malachi froze, unable to run, unable to shout, and struggled to meet death as he had always intended, with dignity, his faith defiant to whatever painful end was forced upon him. Yet the stranger did not move, did not speak, and the professor squinted, peering, to discern the form.