The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (30 page)

“Lochum, help me here,” she whispered, sure of her instincts.

He seemed eager for a new tactic as he helped her tug at the wood around the toilet. “We’re making too much noise. They’ll hear us.”

“Just pull harder.”

Lochum stopped until she indicated the Star of David above his head. In the center of the Jewish symbol was etched the tiniest fish, the icon that proto-Christians used to identify themselves. Not only was it a symbol that identified secret meeting places that predated the cross by a millennium, but it was also mentioned in the Torah’s passage. Strength seemed to find its way to his limbs. They worked together, but the damn thing would not budge.

Then she remembered the gate. “Lift it.”

“What?” he asked. Then, with very little effort, Rebecca lifted the china basin, and the entire floor gave way to a darkened stairwell.

They both just stood there, stunned that her ploy had actually worked.

“I think… I think we need to go down there,” she said, not quite sure she wanted to follow the steps.

“Yes,” Lochum answered with little enthusiasm, then found his passion again. “Yes, we must.”

With no more hesitation they headed beneath.

* * *

A bullet whizzed past his ear.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The enemy must have circled around. Until now his team had managed to avoid any dead ends, but this place was a fucking maze.

As his men returned fire, Brandt grabbed Svengurd’s arm. “We need a new fucking plan.”

The tall man yelled over the gunfire. “I say we go deeper.”

Up until this point they had avoided passages that slanted downward. They needed to get to the surface, pronto. However, the tunnels that sloped toward the surface ended up meandering and circling back, but now it wasn’t about getting out of here so much as staying alive.

“Do it.”

As Lopez and Davidson laid down suppression fire, Brandt and Svengurd made for the next downward passage, but bullets came from that direction as well.

He didn’t even bother to cuss. They were screwed. Pinned between two superior forces. Why the fuckers hadn’t just lobbed some grenades at them and end this quickly, Brandt didn’t know.

Or maybe he did. Their enemy must have a sense of self-preservation. Even a small fragmentation grenade could cause enough damage to destabilize the tunnel. And a percussion grenade? Forget it. An entire section of caves could collapse.

Wait a minute.

Brandt turned to Svengurd. “You still have that C-4?”

“Yeah, why?”

A savage smile crossed his face. He might not have the book smarts like Lochum, but he could be an evil genius when he needed to be.

* * *

Lochum followed Rebecca down the steep stone stairs. The steps were cut from the walls themselves. His hands trembled in anticipation. How glad he was that he had brought her along. For all her flaws, she had a brilliant, deductive mind. He never could have cross-referenced all the new information so quickly to find this path.

As they exited the stairwell, the temperature dropped a good fifteen degrees, but the goose bumps on his arms were not from the cold. He could see a dim light in the distance. It was more a glow. Rebecca looked anxiously at him, but there was no turning back.

He led the way down the slick slope to find the source of the light. A pool of water glowed in the dark cave. Water dripped from the ceiling and walls, but none of that liquid shone like the pool. A pure, white light washed over them.

Surprisingly, it was Rebecca who put a finger into the water. She swirled her digit around the edge of the pool. “It’s bioluminescent bacteria. But this deep in a cave?”

His student was right. With the exception of the New Zealand glow worm, most light- producing species were confined to the twilight zone of any given cave system. Bioluminescence was a costly biological product, which took enormous energy input. Bacteria this far down simply should not be able to produce light.

“Are you seeing this? The fish aren’t albino. Shouldn’t they be albino?” she asked, her voice full of both disbelief and wonder.

Not only were the darting fish not white, they were a rainbow of colors—yellow, red, orange, and turquoise—far more brilliant than even marine creatures. They looked almost painted. If they found nothing else, this pond alone would be the biological find of the year.

But he noticed a rectangular object far deeper in the water. “Is there something at the bottom?”

Rebecca plunged her arm into the water. “I think… Yeah, yeah, my fingers are touching something flat and smooth with—”

She stopped abruptly and pulled her hand from the water. “I think…”

Lochum felt like shaking the answer from her, but instead he carefully put his arm into the water, then he, too, retracted his hand.

“I think,” Rebecca finally found her voice, “it’s the ossuary box.
The
box.”

The professor felt his head nod up and down far too vigorously. He really should stop, but he could not.

She looked like a little girl. “The fish. They are protecting him.”

His mouth watered at the thought.

“It’s going to take both of us,” she said, and again all he could do was bob his head.

Together they leaned over and felt along the edges until they found purchase under the box.

“Ready?” she asked and off his incessant nod, Rebecca heaved. His back complained, but he did not stop lifting until the small stone box was above the water’s surface.

Carefully they set the sacred relic on the smooth ground. They both sat back on their heels and studied the lid.

“The dearest brother,” she read breathlessly.

He felt all the air in his lungs escape at once. Even now he did not believe it possible. Not until she said those precious words. It could be none other than James.

“It’s heavy, but I think we can carry it out of here intact.”

His head bobbed on its own. He could not talk. It might not be Jesus, but it was his brother. His brother.

Sounds drifted down from the long stairwell.

“We’d better hurry,” Rebecca said trying to lift her end, but could not.

Lochum assisted, but found it far heavier than before. And was the pond not as bright? The more they tried to lift the box, the heavier it seemed. Rebecca tried dragging it, but even that would be too slow.

With a concerned look, she pulled out a Swiss Army knife. He had taught her well. The tool was a paleoarchaeologist’s best friend.

“I’m going to open it, right?”

As the sounds from above grew louder, Lochum nodded, but felt that there should be a thousand photographers to document this moment. Instead there were just some fish and a dimming pond to mark the event.

It did not take long for her to break the seal, but she looked hesitant to open the lid. He leaned forward and lifted the stone lid.

There they were.

James’ skeleton and a single silver coin.

He touched one of the bones as the light from the pond softened to barely a glow. Lochum could feel the tiny inscriptions in the bone.

Instructions to find Jesus.

A loud crash indicated their pursuers had broken through to the stairwell.

“We’d better take off,” Rebecca said as she gathered the bones and tried to awkwardly fit them into her laptop satchel.

“No,” Lochum said as he pulled out a pillowcase he had taken from the bed upstairs. “After last time, I think I should carry them.”

As the light fully extinguished, Lochum followed his student into a steeply graded tunnel with James’ bones on his back.

James’
bones.

He was just one clue away from Christ.

CHAPTER 17

══════════════════

Dohany Street Synagogue, Budapest

Tok walked solemnly through the history museum wing of the Great Synagogue. The stark pictures of human suffering reminded him of the days when Rome crucified hundreds of Jews a day trying to quell the Jerusalem uprising. Power always sought to snuff out religion for faith was beyond the state’s control. Christians in China. Muslims in Bosnia.

He shook his head. Such suffering.

“They have found them,” Petir said from behind.

“Where?”

His mentor led him out the back, past the Weeping Willow Memorial, and into the alley. So many noises greeted him at once. The sounds of life. Someone was singing, very off-key, down the street. Another couple was arguing over dinner. Had he wronged her, or vice versa? Then from a window, a child laughed. Not just laughed but belly guffawed. Snorting and giggling. Was there any finer sound in the entire world?

The first time he heard it, Tok had not known how to react. Was laughter a signal of aggression? But then he saw a group of children rolling onto their sides in glee. Then he understood. Understood how vital his mission was to the world. He had always known the parameters of his work. He had known the how and the what of it all, but until that moment he had not known the why. But now he did.

As the sounds of the evening filled the alley, Petir guided him through a set of iron gates. They entered the Gozsdu section of Pest. Suddenly Tok worried that his implants were not functioning correctly. The symphony from the alley diminished to barely a whisper. Tilting his head, Tok put pressure just under his right ear and opened his jaw, testing the connection of the microfilaments.

“It is not you, Master.”

Tok certainly heard Petir just fine.

His mentor finished, “It is this place. It is simply devoid of noise.”

No, that was not true. The slightest rustle of wind swayed curtains in the windows. This courtyard was completely devoid of life.

He did not like this place, but Tok followed Petir into one of the houses. Quickly they passed through the water closet’s false wall.

Bright floodlights had been hastily installed to illuminate the staircase. They traveled the steps quickly, which ended in one of the area’s many caves. Petir indicated a pond.

“We believe the ossuary was located in the center.”

Tok looked down to see the rectangular deficit in the pool’s bottom.

Petir went on to describe the search efforts underway, but Tok turned away from him and looked around the periphery of the cave.

There were five other staircases, all leading down from the houses above. The captured Jews could have escaped at any time. They did not have to live their life of squalor in the Ghetto. Those battered and broken could have fled into the tunnels and never been found, but they had not.

In that moment, Tok realized that those Jews must have been descendants of James’ sect. Broken off from the Knot more than a millennium ago, they operated independently. As much as John’s sect had known that his remains were in danger from the renovation of the Eiffel Tower, they sought to destroy them rather than let them fall into heathens’ hands. James’ sect must have stayed in the Ghetto, suffering the whole while. Otherwise, the Nazis would have found their escape route, discovering this pond and the bones within.

Tok felt such a welling of love for these people, his spiritual cousins. They had endured starvation, pestilence, torture, and worse to protect James. These Jews knew exactly what a man like Hitler could have done with such a precious artifact.

And Lochum had stolen the bones as if they were but a token in a child’s game. The professor not only disrespected the Jews’ sacrifice, but negated it. They had suffered and ultimately died for nothing.

Love brewed into anger at Lochum’s arrogance. Tok never took delight in killing, not like others in the Knot. Those who sought to replace him kept tallies and told sordid tales of their “victories,” but he never participated. Death was necessary. Sacrifice was necessary just as the crucifixion had been, but the taking of God’s gift of life brought sorrow for him, not joy. At least not until this day.

Tok turned abruptly to Petir, interrupting him. “Where are they?”

“As I was saying, they could not be more than a kilometer ahead. But of course we are also tracking their American guards in the tunnels as well.”

“All that matters is to find and kill Lochum.”

Petir cocked his head. “I do not understand. The professor could—”

Tok caught Petir’s gaze and made sure his old mentor knew he was every bit serious. “I want Lochum’s blasphemy ended.”

There was only a moment’s hesitation before his mentor nodded again. “It shall be done.”

He waited until everyone left before he knelt beside the small pond and put his hands together in prayer.

Christ forgive him, but a smile spread across his face as he thought of Lochum’s eyes dim and his jaw slack with death.

* * *

Rebecca tripped over another stalagmite as they ran down the black tunnel. Lochum was faring no better as he cursed under his breath behind her. They were lost and exhausted. Not a good combination.

They had James, but for how long? The shouts from behind seemed to get closer and closer. Occasionally the tunnel would brighten with the beam of a flashlight. The men who chased them would eventually catch up.

It wasn’t fair. To have come so close only to be…

There was a greenish light up ahead. Was she imagining it, or was there light? Their pursuers couldn’t have circled in front this quickly, could they?

Then the light bloomed, illuminating the distant tunnel in a green warbling color. Were there people coming toward them? And were they in costume? The gladiator out front looked especially familiar.

“Brandt!” she cried.

It was he!

He was alive! In a leather skirt, but alive.

And there were Lopez and Davidson supporting Svengurd.

They were all alive!

“Brandt!” she yelled again.

“Run!” he responded, red in the face.

She was running right toward him. Tears streaked her vision. By whatever miracle, they were alive.

“Brandt,” she said as they met, but he kept running, catching her by the waist, carrying her along, his glow stick bouncing off her forehead.

“Run!”

“But they’re coming after us!” she yelled as their pursuers fired from behind her.

“Left! Go left!” the sergeant yelled over an enormous roar.