The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (41 page)

“What do you mean?” Lochum asked.

“That’s pure silver, right?”

Walker nodded emphatically. “The highest grade.”

“And how deep are we?” the sergeant asked.

It was Svengurd who answered. “About thirty-two feet.”

Brandt looked at the two professors. “Do you have any idea how many pounds per square inch of pressure that generates? Or the tensile strength of silver? Without a doorframe, that panel would need to be at least eight feet thick.”

The archaeologist went to argue, but Lochum nodded. “I had feared as much. It seems to be more of an insert than an actual door.”

“C-4 is sounding pretty damn good,” Svengurd said as he readjusted his gun. They had been down there for over an hour with no progress. Everyone was feeling antsy.

“I will not allow you to blow up such an important artifact,” Walker stated emphatically.

Lochum and she exchanged a look. After the past two days they had seen a thousand times more important relics demolished. This silver panel just didn’t warrant any more delay. The professor nodded.

Rebecca turned to Brandt. “Talk to me how you would do it.”

“You can’t be serious!” the archaeologist shouted.

“Walker, come speak with me,” Lochum said soothingly as he urged his colleague away from the panel.

Once they were out of earshot, Brandt indicated toward Svengurd. “I’m thinking we let the corporal show off his expertise.”

“I can place the charges directed both back and inward. If I get it right I will pop this panel off like a bottle cap.”

“And if you don’t get it right?” Rebecca asked.

“Got your life insurance paid up?”

Pretty much what she had figured. “If you somehow avoid killing us, how much damage will it do to the panel?”

Svengurd shrugged. “It isn’t going to be this pretty ever again, but the artwork should be readable.”

Rebecca looked over her shoulder at Lochum. He read her decision perfectly and turned to Elfium. “You know we’ve only got this afternoon, Walker. After that, who knows? We must wager boldly, old friend.”

The archaeologist looked from Lochum to Rebecca. Finding no ally in her, he turned back to the professor. His voice sounded small and hurt. “This is my first legitimate find since Masada.”

Lochum grasped Walker’s arm in a hearty handshake. “And we shall coauthor it all, together. But we must act now.”

After a few harsh breaths, the archaeologist returned the shake.

“Finally,” Svengurd said and quickly went to set the charges. Within seconds, the corporal wiped the dirt from his hands. “I’d suggest we retreat to the steps.”

“Why?” the archaeologist asked, oblivious to their previous discussion.

Svengurd stated matter-of-factly, “Because I can’t guarantee the ceiling isn’t going to collapse, crushing us under five tons of mud.”

“I thought you said it was safe?” Walker squeaked, sounding frayed.

Obviously the archaeologist hadn’t had the crash course on how exactly relative the word “safe” was. But how to explain that to someone who hadn’t just survived cave surfing and plane cartwheels?

“You want safe, I’d suggest you get the hell out of Istanbul. Make that Europe,” Brandt said, making Rebecca’s point for her.

The challenge seemed to steady the older man. “I’m staying.”

“Then I suggest you get inside that stairwell.”

* * *

Brandt gave the signal, and Svengurd hit the detonator. There was a delay, long enough that he glanced to his corporal. Had he screwed up, or worse, intentionally sabotaged the explosives? But then a deafening
boom
shook the stairwell. The blast wave was strong enough to throw them all to their knees, then the recoil hit, sucking them forward.

Chunks of dirt larger around than a fist rained down upon them as the walls to the stairwell warped, then collapsed.

“Everyone forward!” Brandt commanded, but it was redundant. They had nowhere to go but forward as the staircase flowed out from under their feet as they all rushed headlong to the landing.

The archaeologist tripped over the charred silver door. “What have you done?” Walker knelt beside it, distraught. “What have we done?”

“Um…” Brandt wanted to reassure the archaeologist, but couldn’t find the words to describe the room behind the door.

Unlike the dirt dungeon, this chamber was all marble and artistry. Shafts of light bathed the interior from the waning day above. Like the mosque, the room’s ceiling was tiled in bright blue ceramic. The walls alternated mosaics from Jewish and Christian origins to panels painted with Islamic scripture. But in the center of the room was a large marble table, which had upon it a single skeleton wrapped in blue silk. From the glint near its head, a silver coin seemed to rest there.

“How could you have done this?” the archaeologist wailed, trying to pick off the burnt edges of the panel.

“Walker, look up.”

“I don’t care what is—” The archaeologist stopped mid-sentence as looked into the chamber. “Dear Lord.”

“That’s exactly right,” Lochum said as he squeezed through the hole.

* * *

Rebecca unstuck her feet from the knee-high muck and climbed over the short retaining wall onto the creamy marble-floored chamber. Unlike Lochum, she didn’t immediately rush to the skeleton. It was too much to take in. The chamber. The writings upon the wall. The implication of it all. She just couldn’t approach the skeleton yet. She needed to gather her wits first.

This day was never supposed to come. It was if something you wished upon a falling star suddenly transpired. The scene felt unreal. Dreamlike. But every injury she had endured over the past few days ached, reminding her that in fact, this was very real.

She looked up toward the shafts of light. Small tunnels came in at steep angles from above. Tilting her head, Rebecca could swear she heard the call to prayers. In her mind she reconstructed their path downward. Spinning on her heel she realized where they were. They must be under the Blue Mosque’s courtyard. The skeleton was directly beneath the purification fountain.

Now this, this place with its buttery marble and ageless art, felt like the resting place of Christ.

Lochum and Walker were already studying the bones. “They have inscriptions as well! ‘Becca, look!”

Rebecca noticed that Brandt had hung back too, but unlike her, he paced, circling the bones as if assessing if they could be true.

Well, it was time for her to see if they were.

Slowly she made her way to the carved table. This close she could see that the pedestal was carved with the Last Supper, although not as she had seen it in the past. What was off about it?

“Walker, we must remove the cloth!”

Their argument interrupted her study of the relief. “Wait!” Rebecca said, but it was too late. Lochum pulled the silk from the remains to reveal the entire skeleton. She had borrowed a digital camera from one of the grad students, and she’d wanted to document the body before it was disturbed.

“Think! We still have James’ bone. We can DNA-test to see if they are a genetic match.”

Rebecca was too overwhelmed to think of such things or even her own project. Right now she reverted to her student days and began taking picture after picture of the skeleton. As Rebecca continued her photographic survey, she could not help but read small snatches of the carved scripture. It spoke of all the major players. Not surprisingly, there was much about the Last Supper and the days leading up to the Crucifixion.

As she made her way down the body, Rebecca noticed something wrong. Wasn’t the pelvis too wide to be a man? She glanced back to the skull. Didn’t the mandible seem too small? The humerus also seemed far too thin and short for a fully grown man.

“Listen, ‘Becca! ‘And they came and sat together as the twelve and the one. Many others brought food and she who was loved best of all poured the wine.’” The professor’s eyes were glazed over with excitement. “A firsthand account of the Last Supper!”

How she hated to disappoint him. But what could she do? At some point he would come off his high and realize that there was no way this skeleton could be Christ.

“Lochum, you better look at this pelvis.”

“Yes, yes. Soon, child. This clavicle is a wealth of information.”

Walker, however, was intrigued and came over. He studied the bone for a moment, then met her gaze. The archaeologist knew as well.

“Archibald, Rebecca is right. You need to see this.”

“Oh, all right. But then we must begin the…”

It took only a second for the truth to register with Lochum. The smile fell off his face so hard that you could almost hear it hit the floor. He stumbled back a step.

For the first time, Brandt came near the skeleton. “What’s happened?”

Rebecca did not realize how disappointed she was until she tried to speak, but couldn’t.

It was Walker who answered. “These bones are from a fully grown woman.”

“Not Christ, then?” Brandt asked, sounding relieved.

The archaeologist just sadly shook his head.

“Then who is it?” Svengurd asked from the back of the room.

That was a good question. Of course they were deflated because it wasn’t Jesus, but obviously this skeleton was of enormous historical value. Moving up to the clavicle bone, Rebecca began reading the passage the professor had started. A renewed grin spread across her face.

“All’s not lost, Lochum.”

He turned to her, but with little hope in his eyes. His life’s work seemed crushed under fate’s cruel heel.

Well, maybe she could change that.

“It goes on to say… ‘His mother held the chalice after the beloved and kissed the handle before giving the wine to her son.’ “ Rebecca met her old mentor’s eyes. “You’ve found Mary, mother of Jesus.”

The implication of this find reverberated through them almost as deeply as if they had found Christ.

Brandt’s brow furrowed. “That can’t be. Mary’s Assumption…”

Like all Catholics, the sergeant obviously believed that the Virgin Mother had been taken up to heaven, body and soul, so that her flesh never tasted corruption. But here the skeleton lay before them. Marked at the others had been. Clearly a female. This was Mary.

Rebecca was glad to relieve the wounded look on Lochum’s face, but she could barely stand the look of hurt on Brandt’s face. Scholarly pursuit seldom saw the result of their findings and how it affected people. The truth was supposed to set everyone free, but sometimes it just caused pain.

“I’m sorry, Brandt, but this is the Virgin Mary.”

“It is a Mary, but not the Virgin,” a new voice announced from the back of the room. “That is the sacred Mary Magdalene.”

* * *

Brandt swung around, raising his gun, but he already knew who spoke.

“Dr. Lochum, you look surprised that we found you so quickly. You are not the only one who reads
Archaeology
Today
. Once I realized the significance of these coordinates, a certain dead-end tunnel from the Hagia Sophia made sense.”

His finger tightened around the trigger as Tok came into view, but Brandt stopped short of pulling it. Petir held a gun to Svengurd’s head.

“I would urge restraint, Sergeant. Not only do we hold your man, but we are wearing enough explosives to bring this chamber down upon us.”

Still Brandt kept his finger against the trigger. These men were a walking wave of destruction. They had downed an entire plane full of innocent passengers. Even if what Tok was saying was true, Brandt could at the least take out Petir. Even if he had a dead man’s switch, Svengurd could surely catch it before it hit the ground. If the corporal wasn’t, in fact, one of them. Svengurd seemed to strain against the older man’s grip, but how much of that was for show.

Anger filled Brandt’s vision. Not so much at Svengurd but at himself. He should have checked the perimeter himself, but he had been too concerned with the body. Too worried that they had found Christ.

But that wasn’t an excuse to trust such a task to a man that he clearly no longer trusted. With secret chambers buried under secret tunnels, he should have expected another secret door with Tok behind it.

His finger tightened against the trigger.

With a quick glance, he made sure that Rebecca, Lochum, and Walker were behind him. Whether or not Svengurd was compromised, Brandt knew it might come down to sacrificing his corporal to save the others. Svengurd knew this when he signed on. Civilians came first and foremost.

He looked into the corporal’s eyes. With his neck craned to the side he couldn’t nod, but Svengurd’s response was clear. He was ready for whatever decision Brandt made. Emboldened, the sergeant refined his aim at the tall man’s forehead.

Tok must have read the shift in his position, for he said, “Rest assured, we are both armed with the most sophisticated biometric sensors. If I take too deep a breath and drop my heart rate, it will trigger the explosives.”

Hissing out a harsh breath, Brandt released the trigger but kept the gun aimed. He should have known it wasn’t going to be so easy. “Haven’t you blown up enough people today?”

Tok chuckled, or at least that’s what it looked like, except no sound came from the man’s mouth, and Petir did not crack a smile. “Quite contrary to your conclusions, I seek peace, not destruction, but you have forced my hand. Over and again, I must mention.”

The air became stale as Brandt growled, “Then let us walk out of here and prove it.”

This time Petir’s lips curled up as he related Tok’s words. “That you know I cannot do. But if you relinquish Magdalene’s bones, and the doctors Monroe and Lochum, I will allow the rest of you safe passage from Istanbul.”

Brandt gritted his teeth, trying to stall long enough to figure out a goddamn extraction plan that didn’t involve them all dying in a raging ball of flame. “And you know I can’t do that.”

“Tok was afraid you would feel obligated to uphold your duty,” the man said, for the first time sounding as if those were his own words.

Once said, the spokesman dug the muzzle of the gun into Svengurd’s temple, clearly moments from pulling the trigger.

Brandt stiffened his arm, ready for the recoil from his own gun when Rebecca burst between them.