The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) (54 page)

“Somebody is going to wander down this way sooner or later,” said Papa.

Whalen walked over to the verge of the huge, square hole that fell away into the depths of the desert and sat on an earthen mound that rimmed the foundation. They still had a couple of hours before the sun came up, but he wanted to be long gone from here by then. He didn’t want to be anywhere in the open when it got light.

Sal Molluzzo, the mechanic, drifted over next to Whalen, planted his boot on the dirt rim, and leaned against his thigh. “One of the Rovers has a puncture in the gas tank. I’ve plugged it for now.”

“Okay … thanks. Everything else in shape?”

“For a bunch of beat-up old beasts, these vehicles are—Hey! What’s that?”

Molluzzo was looking past Whalen’s shoulder, down into the hole of the foundation. Whalen swung his legs around to the other side of the mound and followed Molluzzo’s gaze into the black below them.

“Do you see it?” asked Molluzzo.

Far below, a speck in the dark void, but a visible speck—a wavering light breaking the darkness. “That’s a flame. Sal, get the sealed beam.”

“Here, Sammy. Let me hold it up higher,” said Rodriguez. He took the lighter and held it high over his head. “It doesn’t throw much light. I can’t see anything except my feet.”

“Those boats—who could miss them? I think …”

“Do you think it’s them?”

Atkins was hovering over the hole with the rest of the team at his side. “Could be the bad guys.”

“Gotta take the chance,” said Whalen. “Who else would be deep under Babylon in the middle of the night? Sal, do you have the hood secure on that beam?”

Molluzzo was lying flat on the ground, his arms extended into the open foundation. The sealed-beam light was held at arm’s length and had a fiberboard hood around it—like blinders on a racehorse. The light would shine down, but very little of it would be visible above the hole … or a half-mile away in Babylon. “Set to go.”

“Hit it.”

He snapped on the high-beam spotlight that the
National Geographic
crew often used on night shoots and directed the beam into the famous tower’s foundation, toward where they had seen the flickering light.

A bright bolt of light from above split the darkness and covered them with a shimmering twilight. Joe looked up, waiting for judgment.

Whalen strained his eyes to see something, strained his ears to hear anything.

“Flash the light, Fred. Two long, three short.”

“That’s them! That’s Whalen.” Annie squeezed Bohannon’s arm. “It’s a night signal we used to use on shoots. It means ‘good to go.’ Joe, three long, two short to respond.”

“Bingo. That’s them. Grant, do we still have that block-and-tackle gear?”

“Yeah. It’s stowed in my Rover.”

“Get it. Quick. We need to move.”

The spotlight was now shining into the foundation, reflecting off the walls and providing a diffused, gray twilight where Bohannon and his team waited at the bottom of the deep hole.

“How did we get here?” asked Rodriguez. “I mean, it doesn’t really matter, does it? But still. We didn’t move after the lights went out. And we sure weren’t standing under that opening. But without moving, here we are?”

Bohannon looked up at the rim of the opening, so far above. “I’m more concerned about how they’re going to get us out of here. That’s a long way.”

“Maybe we’ll just take the elevator,” said Rizzo. “They can beam me up, feet first, for all I care. As long as I don’t have to ride the rapids again.”

Bohannon kept his eyes on the opening, mumbling to himself. “Elevator. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Whalen finished printing his instructions, rolled up the paper, fastened it with some twine, and then tied it to the bosun’s seat swinging from the end of the rope that was threaded through the assembled block-and-tackle. Normally, this rig was used for dropping a photographer over a cliff, or off a wall—somewhere you couldn’t get to by walking or climbing. The other end stretched back to the nearest Rover and passed through a pair of pulleys, Bowman and Vordenberg ready to lower and hoist as needed.

“What are you telling them?” asked James Leonard.

“One at a time, sit in the middle of the seat, don’t move around a lot, and Annie should come out first. Something else?”

“Yeah,” said the Brit. “Don’t dawdle.”

Annie and Joe got up without a hitch and Rizzo was singing an aria as he was pulled up through the foundation. Bohannon was checking out his body, trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t.

He imagined he looked like Bruce Willis near the end of a
Die Hard
movie. Both his knees ached from his collision with the cave wall as he was washed along the underground river. His head hurt from hitting something, his wrists were sore, and his right shoulder was a mess—worse after Joe had pushed down with his 220 pounds, trying to free Rizzo. Before she was lifted out, Annie fashioned a rudimentary sling from some strips of cloth, and Tom tried to keep his right forearm against his chest to minimize the pain. Joe had offered to carry the staff when he was pulled up to the surface, but Tom already felt a strong attachment to this stick and wasn’t about to let it out of his sight. He had crossed his left arm over his right, cradling his right elbow in his left hand, the staff resting in a left-to-right angle between his two arms.