The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (34 page)

As much as he wanted to argue, Brandt found the words sticking in his throat. He had never thought of the crucifixion in such a way. Who would? It was Jesus’ final sacrifice that mattered to the faithful, not esoteric concerns like timelines and tonics.

“Do not forget the wound to the ribs,” Lochum pointed out. Almost sounding gleeful that Brandt’s beliefs were being unwoven.

Rebecca shrugged sympathetically. “If he were truly dead when the centurion stabbed his ribs, he would not have bled freely. As a soldier, you know that.”

Something deep in Brandt’s chest hurt. Why had he never considered that aspect of the suffering? If truly dead, Jesus’ blood would have coagulated almost immediately and come out thick and clotted.

“So there you have it. Jesus was a fraud,” Lochum said, quite satisfied with himself.

Brandt was on his feet, his fist rising on its own. The bastard had gone too far, when Rebecca touched his arm.

“Not even he believes that,” she said as she gently lowered his fist. “We’re not saying Jesus did not suffer, or that he survived the cross for his own benefit, but he did all this so that he could be certain to fulfill the prophecies that he would resurrect.”

The professor shrugged. “Yeah, or what she said.”

* * *

Rebecca almost punched Lochum herself. The old man was just being cruel now. Obviously Brandt was struggling to digest all that he had been told, which kind of freaked her out. The sergeant hadn’t been shaken when he charged through the native-infested jungle, or when they were drowning in the caves—not even when they were almost shot out of the sky.

To see him so wounded hurt her.

Brandt recovered quickly, though. “Fine. For now we will consider your theory as a hard fact. What does that have to do with the bones from Paris and Budapest?”

How she wished she had her laptop. This discussion would be much quicker with visual aids.

“Obviously those who attended the crucifixion had to be familiar with the plot. Mary, his brother Jude, his sister Ruth, and his acolyte John,” the professor said as if discussing the Kennedy assassination.

The sergeant’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Lochum seriously needed to learn some decorum.

Rebecca cut in before he could insult Brandt any further. “We always suspected that the Jews had secreted the crucified bodies away and moved them far from Jerusalem about the time it fell to the Romans—AD 60.”

“But now you think it was even more organized than that?” Brandt asked, still with pain in his voice.

She went to open her laptop, but again it was gone. Life was a hell of a lot harder without a keyboard. “From the silver coins and the writings on John’s bones, we think a very tight group of those intimate with Jesus, those we now know are called the Knot, cared for his remains and systematically took steps to hide the bones. In particular, ‘the man without contempt’ carried Christ’s bones to Turkey.”

Brandt leaned back in his chair. “And each one has obscure clues to the entire mystery?”

Lochum could not take it any longer. “There were thirty conspirators. Thirty coins. And we are shy of just three. We have a 33 percent chance that Jesus lies in Istanbul. If not there, whoever is found will lead us to his remains.”

Brandt looked at Rebecca. “You said that if I gave you a few hours you could pinpoint our search.”

“Well, I didn’t say exactly—”

His frown silenced her excuses. Pulling out the papers she and Lochum had been working on, Rebecca put them together like a puzzle.

“Unfortunately, this is a relatively small bone and much of the writings regard James’ life…”

“But you found something?” It wasn’t so much a question as an edict.

The professor was faster than she. “Besides the fact for some reason unknown to anyone at the time, Emperor Constantine decided to move the capital of Rome to an obscure city to the east? If that doesn’t prove Istanbul is our destination, what will?”

Ignoring his outburst, Rebecca pointed to the center page. “Remember this translation is by hand without my software to perfect the syntax and…” She stalled again as Brandt raised an eyebrow. “Anyway, the most pertinent passage reads ‘He who loved Him best.’ Rebecca looked up. “We think he is the same as the ‘man without contempt.”… ‘Dreamed a dream where a beautiful woman whispered to him that a fish shall show you, and a boar will lead the way.’”

“A reference to an ancient myth regarding the establishment of Istanbul,” Lochum interjected.

The sergeant looked at her again, so Rebecca continued. “But this is where it gets tricky, and I’m not at all certain I have broken down the syntax properly… ‘He cried to the Heavens as his back broke. The bones had become heavier and heavier as if they wished to go no further. He prayed for forgiveness as he slumped to the ground, in his task, failed. The villagers tried to comfort him, but understood none of his language.”

Lochum’s head bobbed rapidly. “Again, proof that he was far from Jerusalem.”

Rebecca pointed to a section that was red inked. “Then there’s a line we can’t make out, but it picks back up at, ‘With care they buried both the bones that had become such a burden and those of their bearer with the blessing of the goddess.”

Brandt interrupted Lochum. “Goddess equals Istanbul, got it.”

“Finally,” the professor snorted.

The two men had a short-lived staring contest, then Rebecca cleared her throat as she read the rest of the passage. “Then years later and with a prayer on his lips, he who had spent his life in search, found the most sacred bones and tied them in a satchel of silk and took them to the holy man who spoke of God, his son, and he that followed. It was decided the favored one would be laid within the most sacred sanctuary, and so it was.”

First Brandt studied her face, then turned the page around and read the words silently. “Um, is it just me or do the two passages not jive?”

Sighing, she looked at Lochum. That was exactly what the two of them had been fighting over for the past hour. The man was like a pit bull with a steak bone. He refused to let go of a theory even after everything that had happened. Rebecca felt that they could not hone in on any one conclusion until they took in all the information and pieced it together, but Lochum had distinctly different thoughts.

“No matter. We know where we must start, the Hagia Sophia, the seat of Constantine’s holy power, and that is enough.”

With that said, the professor grabbed all the pages up and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

“Why do you put up with all his crap?” Brandt asked point-blank.

“Well, for all his bluster he truly is an expert in—”

“No, I mean you couldn’t care less about proving this supposed Passover plot to save Christ from the cross.” He held her gaze. “So, I will rephrase my question, why are
you
going to Istanbul?”

As hard as she tried to speak, her lips only opened and closed like a guppy’s. Since the kiss it seemed that she had lost the ability to form complete sentences around Brandt that were not in ancient verse.

“You’re using him to achieve your own goal, correct?”

God, how she wished Lochum would come back in.

“I wouldn’t call it—” Rebecca bit her lip trying to regroup her thoughts. “I mean we act synergistically and, but, then—”

Brandt had the oddest smile on his face. Did he know her desire to find the “smart gene” in Jesus’ genome, or was he just trolling? If he knew her true intent, would he think her more noble, or worse than Lochum?

“Yeah, boss, you might want to look out the right window,” their pilot said over the intercom.

By now Rebecca was well versed in Lopez’s many tones, and this one indicated they were in deep shit.

* * *

There it was, fuel spewing from the wing. They must have taken some shrapnel during the missile attack. Worse, tiny sparks flew from a fried casing. It was a recipe for a midair explosion. He jerked the conference door open and charged to the cockpit.

“Land us!”

Groggy, but waking quickly, Davidson was already in the copilot’s seat. “That’s the problem, Sarge. A high-speed, low-altitude landing is dangerous under normal circumstances and—”

The wing caught fire, washing the cockpit in bright yellows and oranges.

“No more dangerous than flying while on fire, I suppose,” Brandt growled, but he could see that Lopez was already scouting an area up ahead.

“That’s Pleven ahead, with a nice stretch of highway.”

Brandt had to squint to see the road. Sure enough there was a nice and empty Bulgarian four-lane road right in front of them. They were lucky it was the middle of the night, or traffic would have made it impossible to land. Their only problem now was that they were rapidly approaching Pleven’s urban center. City lights twinkled closer and closer.

“Do it.”

“Buckle up,” Lopez responded. Brandt went to argue, but the corporal faced him. “I’m serious.”

Okay, when Lopez was that worried, Brandt buckled up. Getting back to the cabin, he found Svengurd, Lochum, and Rebecca already strapped in.

“Hang on!”

* * *

They hit the ground, bouncing off the pavement so hard that Rebecca’s stomach flared with pain as the seat belt cut into her midriff. The second touchdown wasn’t much better. The wheels squealed as they fishtailed across the highway. Then it seemed they straightened and slowed. She let out a sigh of relief, but it was premature.

“Oh, crap! We’re cartwheeling!”

Rebecca did not have time to ask what that meant as the nose hit the ground, causing the body of the plane to tumble nose over tail. The thin strap on her belt was nowhere near strong enough to hold her. She tried to cling to the broken material, but it slipped from her grasp as she landed hard against the ceiling, then fell the floor, then crashed into the ceiling as the conference room and back half of the plane broke off.

Smoke and fire filled the cabin as the emergency oxygen masks tumbled from the ceiling, and still they cartwheeled.

Her leg hit someone, but she could not be sure whom. Finally the plane’s body came to rest. The metal creaked all around her as thick smoke billowed out of the open end of the plane. Rebecca had to check her limbs to be sure they were all still intact.

“Everyone out!” she heard Brandt yell from behind her.

Choking, she scrambled out of the cabin as fire licked at her heels. Stumbling forward, Rebecca was thrown to the pavement as the plane exploded into a fireball.

Grime streaked her face as she found Lochum, his head in his hands. He held only a tiny fragment of shattered ulna between his fingers. Svengurd was already helping Davidson put his dislocated shoulder back in. She searched the surrounding pavement aflame with debris. Where was Brandt? Lopez?

“Damn it!”

That was Brandt. She turned to find him going through the wreckage, pulling out completely demolished weapons. He threw down a mangled assault rifle, looking so despondent that Rebecca burst into tears.

Lopez came around the debris. “What’s everyone so bummed about?” He pointed just off the freeway to a structure flooded with streetlights that glowed even more brightly than their crackling plane.

“There’s an Audi dealership right there.”

CHAPTER 20

══════════════════

Island in the Sea of Marmara

Tok sipped at his hibiscus tea. Dressed in a monk’s robe, he appreciated the coarse cloth against his scraped and bruised skin. The wild, watery ride through Budapest’s cave system had left them all marked. It would be weeks before the tender skin over his scarred hand healed. His left cochlear implant occasionally squealed unprovoked. Once debriefed, he would have the medical team assess the damage.

Blowing to cool the hot liquid, Tok looked out over the Marmara Sea. The waters were tranquil this morning, unlike his heart. True, they had recovered most of James’ remains, but Lochum had eluded his grasp. The professor’s group had executed an escape worthy of respect, but it galled Tok to think the blasphemer lived after all that Lochum had desecrated. So much had been lost in Budapest that Tok’s heart ached.

But his pain amounted to little consequence. After the Knot’s scholars deciphered the bones, it would be only a matter of hours until they determined Lochum’s next move and intercepted him, one last time. There would be time to grieve later.

Petir entered the terrace, his footsteps quick against the granite floor. Tok enjoyed one last sip of the syrupy tea before he turned to his mentor. By the set to his shoulder, the older man clearly had a destination in mind. Tok did not welcome a long plane ride that would cramp his already-taxed muscles, but he would gladly accept the discomfort if it brought him closer to Lochum.

He stood in greeting, but Petir shook his head. “I would remain seated, Master.”

Tok looked into his mentor’s winnowed face. It was not like Petir to be overly dramatic. “Out with it.”

“They are here,” his mentor said, slowly. Carefully.

“Here?”

The old man nodded repeatedly. “In Istanbul. Right across the sea.”

Tok could not imagine what Petir meant. “Who is here?”

“Lochum. His team. They drive in from the north.”

Tok felt his legs shake of their own accord. “But, why? James’ bones speak of the Eternal City, Rome. Why would they come here?”

Petir shrugged. “I do not bear such knowledge, but I do know your older brother lives.”

This news made Tok gain his feet. “Are you certain?”

“It was he who signaled their location.”

Tok gripped the table to keep himself steady. Each time he fired upon Lochum’s team he risked killing the man who had become a brother.

For Tok was not the only orphan found that fateful year. Whereas he had been plucked from the marketplace in Cairo, his brother had been found in the slums of Chicago. The two were raised under Petir’s watchful eye, but they had been separated as teens. Tok to learn the craft of stealth and torture, his brother to join the American Armed Forces in order to infiltrate Special Ops. With the Knot’s connections, it had not been a roll of the dice that sent Brandt’s team to Ecuador.