The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) (53 page)

“Tom—”

He turned to look into Annie’s face. She was beaming. Not a trace of fear, only beatific joy and wonder. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

Tom drew in a breath, and all his courage, and staggered forward, the message to his legs as scattered and erratic as the impressions on his mind. He felt the gate close behind him, heard the thump as its weight settled into place. But he didn’t turn around. There was too much in front of him.

As soon as he stepped through the gate, he heard the song.

Not words, so much. Though the song was real, and the singers were real, and they were singing something. But not words that Tom knew or understood. Except for the Great Hallel—a hallelujah chorus that shook the foundations of the garden—that every so often rang out like exploding flames on the surface of the sun.

The song lived throughout the garden. The garden.

Impossible, but here in the bowels of the earth, a thousand feet removed from the sun, the garden was alive. Trees, bushes, shrubs, abundant grass-filled meadows, forested hills, stands of pine soaring high … Tom could see it all from where he stood. The green of the garden was intense and expansive, as if he had walked into a home where everything—walls, floors, furniture, curtains, everything—was deep, vibrant, pulsing green. Except the sky.

Whereas the wall and the gates disappeared up into a twilight haze in the higher reaches of the cavern, inside the garden, a bristling blue sky stretched beyond his sight, so pure it dazzled his senses—as if the sun were shining through the pristine prism of Caribbean cerulean. A breeze, strong but soft, comforting yet refreshing, invited the leaves and bushes, the blades of grass, to dance to the song.

Across the vast reaches of the garden, all living things moved. Trees remained bound by their roots but not by their molecules. It wasn’t as if the garden were suffering through an earthquake, everything swaying at the mercy of the shifting earth. No, this was a choreographed expression of joy, the explosion of ecstasy in response to creation. All things were swept up in the song and its luxurious rhythm.

Tom felt himself swaying, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, unable to control the movement of his body in response to the invitation of the dance. The blood pulsed in his veins, keeping perfect time with the pulse of life that washed like a tide against his skin.

The light lived, a heartbeat that encompassed all. In the background of the song, the light thrummed an accompaniment, in unity of motion with the dance, in unity of spirit with the song. Dizzying, electrifying, exhilarating—the song and the ballet and the light gave glory to God and his Creation.

In the middle of it all stood the trees.

Tom couldn’t tell if the trees were the source of the song, the rhythmic movement, and the light. But the trees shimmered, they pulsed, they beat like a great, cosmic heart pumping life into the far reaches of the garden.

There was no telling how long he stood there, just inside the gate, absorbing the magnificent celebration unfolding before his eyes. Content, he probably could have remained in place for a long time. A lifetime? But suddenly he felt the urgency to move forward.

Tom shifted his weight to the left, began lifting one foot—and was airborne.

Not flying. He wasn’t off the ground far enough to call it flying. Skimming.

Not levitating—that signified floating in place. No, this was skimming, moving like a breeze just above the blades of grass, his feet not touching the ground, his mind dictating his direction. Slowly, languidly he drifted, drawn toward the trees.

Two of them stood in a small glade, framed by a few low, green hills. Healthy, vibrant, large-limbed trees, profuse with glossy-surfaced leaves. As Bohannon was beckoned nearer, they appeared identical. Their pulse was a symphony, sung in duet. He was at peace, all sense of dread suspended at the gate.

He settled to the grass like mist in the morning, a caress on the ground, about twenty feet away from the trees. This close, he could hear the hum and see the vibration in the trees’ bark at the same time, like a giant bow string loosed. Bohannon studied the two trees, looking for the staff, looking for some way to differentiate between the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. When he saw the fruit.

Apple was not an apt description. They were round and red, yes. But, oh, so much more. Supple, luscious, crimson, dew running over their sides, heavy droplets imploding in the soft earth. The luminescence of the skin glowed like a holiday lantern. And the smell—his grandmother’s apple pie just from the oven, the juice still bubbling up its side.

Tom tasted the aroma, feasted on the beauty. His mouth began salivating.

He heard a whisper on the inside of his ear. “Not for you, son of man.”

A brisk breeze wafted across his eyes. Bohannon blinked, and when he looked again, the tree with the fruit had split down its middle. In the midst of the rent trunk, held fast by its host, stood the crook of a shepherd’s staff. The life coming forth from the staff was abundant. It sprouted branches, and flowers budded and bloomed from every branch.

Bohannon tried to will his body to skim once more over the grass, but it wouldn’t move. Every element of his consciousness fell like gravity upon that staff of wood. He was euphoric in response to the song and the dance, apprehensive in the enormity of his location, but fascinated and drawn to the reality of Aaron’s staff, not twenty feet away. And he couldn’t move.

Reluctant to touch anything in the wrong way, he wondered how he was to get the staff.

You receive it.

Tom felt his right arm—painless now—rise from his side until it was parallel with the ground. The fingers of his right hand opened, his palm held out before him. He stood as if beckoning to the trees, to the staff.

A shaft of brilliant sunlight fell on the staff, blinding Bohannon for an eye-blink as a thud hit his right palm and drove him back a few steps. His sight clearing, Bohannon stared at Aaron’s staff, now as firmly planted in his hand as it had a heartbeat before been planted in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The staff felt warm, a fading sizzle withdrawing into its supple bark. As he watched spellbound, the budding and blooming branches of Aaron’s staff withered and receded, some fell to the ground. And the staff died in his hand.

He turned it over, as if there might be some other result on the opposite side, but the staff had not only fallen dormant, it was dead. Not only withered, but also dried, cracked, a knot hole opening just below the crook, a fissure opening a third of the way down the bark and running half its length. It felt, and looked, thousands of years old—heavy, yet brittle. More like stone than wood.

Bohannon brought the staff to his chest and held it securely, both hands cradling its length and supporting its weight.

He looked up to the trees, and realized the song had ended. The light was fading. The pulse of the dance slowed to a stop. As he watched, the staff tight in his grasp, the garden of God became vapor before his eyes. The hills evaporated. The meadows floated away in a swirling mist. Alone, twilight closing around them, the trees began to eject their leaves in great explosions of green.

They waited outside the gate and, every so often, touched the invisible barrier that barred their way to the garden. Annie stood quietly, her hands resting against the barrier, her eyes closed, praying for her husband’s safety, while Joe prowled a tight circle, anxiety showing in every step.

“How can you be so calm?” Joe said as he passed Annie on one of his circuits.

Annie glanced over her shoulder at his passing. “Because Tom is in God’s hands—more now than ever before in his life. If I can’t trust God to keep my husband safe now, when can I? Where can I?”

Joe stopped with a jolt. His head down, he ran a hand across his face, then he turned to Annie. “But how can you be sure? I mean … I believe there’s a God.” He waved his hand. “How could I ever doubt what the Bible says now? But disasters happen. People get sick and die. There’s evil in the world. I believe there’s a God, but how can I be sure enough to trust him all of the time?”

“That’s one of the gifts of prayer, Joe. Peace. A peace that surpasses circumstances. I was really anxious when we came up to the gate, too. I’ve been anxious and frightened for months. But now? Now I’m peaceful. As long as I’m praying, I’m peaceful. It doesn’t—

“Ooohhh.” Annie glanced up as the light in the cavern began to fade, as if someone was using a master dimmer switch—even affecting Joe’s flashlight. Twilight was descending rapidly, promising imminent darkness.

“Oh, this is not good,” said Rizzo.

Before he could blink, utter darkness engulfed him. Tom stood rooted to the spot. He didn’t know what to do next. It was as if he had lost his sight in some cataclysmic accident, the blindness was so complete. How could he take a step? Which direction could he go?

“Annie, can you see anything?”

Joe’s voice—close.

“Where are you?”

Annie’s voice!

“Annie?”

If it hadn’t been for the voices, when the hand touched his shoulder he probably would have suffered a heart attack from fright. Holding fast to the staff, Tom swept out with his left hand toward Annie’s voice and almost immediately felt his fingers against her cheek.

Their words jumbled over each other as they came together in a knot, hugging each other tightly.

“How did you get here?”

“Where is here?”

“Did you find it?”

“Did God give you a free pass to heaven? I might need it.”

“I’ve got it.”

“I can feel it,” said Annie.

“Where’s the flashlight?”

“Kaput.”

“Well, the staff is kaput, too. It was alive in the tree. But now it’s dead and dried—like it’s been petrified.” He could feel Rodriguez’s hand on his shoulder. “Now what?”

“Now would be a good time for the marines,” said Rizzo. “Except they couldn’t find us. Hey, Tom, maybe you could part the darkness with that magic stick of yours.”

“I’m not waving this at anything or anybody, I don’t care how dead it looks. Listen, does anybody have any matches?”

“Oh, man. What a doofus,” said Rizzo. “Wait a minute. I’ve got a lighter in my pocket, if it’s still there. Low tech. You’re a genius.”

The shaft of flame seared Bohannon’s eyes as Rizzo held up the cheap lighter. “Left over from a U2 concert,” said Rizzo. “They were pretty good, so I’ve got no clue how much fuel is left. Can anybody see anything?”

“Can you see anything?”

Michael Papa, standing on the Land Rover’s hood, scanned the darkness with his night-vision binoculars. “Nothing. There’s nothing moving over there.”

It had been too long. Whalen knew that. After he and Atkins, double-timing on foot, made it back to the rally point on the far side of the gaping square that was once the Tower of Babel’s foundation, he wrestled with what to do next. He and his men were exposed, sitting next to this hole in the ground. The crew had converged on the rally point and decided to wait, and hope, for some kind of contact with Bohannon and the others. Time was running out.