The Solomon Key (40 page)

Scott stumbled out of the hidden bunker and collapsed to the ground, barely taking note of the dead NAU soldiers sprawled out in the snow around him. Malachi’s men must have been there to mow them down as they scrambled to the surface.

When the grenade exploded, the impact of the blast slammed against the closed door behind him. He pulled himself up to his knees and vomited what little he could. Then he continued to dry-heave, the knowledge of his wife’s fate overloading his emotional state and spilling into the physical.

Finally, he rolled onto his back and stared up into the darkness, conscious of snowflakes melting on his face. He wasn’t able to move, his mind short-circuited.

But a sudden sound of static erupted through the still air beside him. It crackled, and then a voice filled the night.

“
Fifteen minutes.”

Laying there, Scott found himself wondering about the transmission, where it came from, what it meant. It was illusive though, like a dream.

“
Fourteen minutes.”

And he suddenly understood. Forcing himself to his feet, he put the night-vision goggles back on and found the radio one of the Mossad agents must’ve dropped. He began running, trying to find his bearings and figure out where he was in relation to the camp. Once he figured it out, he sprinted to the two story building that housed the prisoners.

“Get up!” he yelled as he ran past the beds. “Come on, wake up!” He kept going down the room, urging the women to get up. “Get out of here!” But they just sat there, staring blankly into the darkness.

“Come on! Get out of here!” Then he ran upstairs and tried waking the men, but they just gave him the same dumbfounded expression. “Get out of here!”

“Who are you?” someone asked.

“Just get out of here! Run! I’m rescuing you!”

“Rescuing?” the voice came back. There was no comprehension in the voice.

“
Ten minutes.”

Scott looked up and down the rows of beds, the room spinning around him. No one was moving, and he realized that they were probably sedated. He swore and made his way back downstairs.

“
Nine minutes.”

There was no more time. He looked through the night-vision at all the innocent women, their confused faces. There was nothing he could do. “Get out of here!” he yelled. “Or I’ll shoot you!” He pulled the pistol out, removed the silencer, and shot a round into the ceiling. But the blast had the opposite effect he was hoping for. Instead of creating a panic that emptied the building, the prisoners only recoiled into the corners of their beds.

“Please,” Scott begged, more tears filling his eyes. He couldn’t save them.

“
Six minutes.”

“I’m so sorry.” The words tumbled off quivering lips as he turned back into the snow.

He passed through the hole in the fence and continued on toward the woods, completely unaware of his bleeding arm or his bruising back, his body as numb as his mind.

The ground beneath his feet shook, the underground facility exploding and fracturing the earth above it. But he didn’t turn to see it.

Walking unsteadily through the woods, back toward the commune, Scott pulled out the phone and found the number the NSA guy had programmed into it. After only one ring, a voice answered. To which he responded, “I have the ring. Now where do I meet you?”

38

I
t had been an agonizing journey through the coldest night of his life. He had no idea how many hours it had taken him, only that the sky wasn’t so dark now. Five miles of moving one foot in front of the other, but he could hardly remember a second of it, his mind light years away from northwest Pennsylvania. Instead, it had been occupied by an invisible court held in the metaphysical, God’s instruction to Israel through the prophet Isaiah — “Come, let us reason together” — the invitation that had summoned him. Only he found that God wasn’t there, that there was no
reason
at all, all his accusations against God fading into silent emptiness, forever unanswered. And Scott hated Him for it.

By the time he stumbled out of the woods, his mental state was nearly fractured beyond repair, his body stiff and sore. The breeze was sweeping across the top layer of the clearing, swirling clouds of powdery snow into little tornados. He could barely see the commune. It was only a hundred yards away, set against the dawn, but exhaustion mocked his hope of ever reaching it.

Before he knew it, he was staggering down the empty street. Everything was still, silent. He headed to the huge tent Malachi’s men had occupied the day before.

As he approached it, he saw that lights were on, silhouettes walking back and forth, whispers drifting through the freezing air. He climbed the steps and stood there motionless, allowing his eyes to adjust. Some men were asleep on cots, others were having their injuries looked after. Malachi was sitting on a table with his back toward him. Scott ordered his legs to start moving again and they reluctantly obeyed, the ground rocking unevenly beneath them. As he reached out and grabbed Malachi’s right shoulder, Malachi turned his head. Scott had a clear shot at his face with his right fist, and Malachi went crashing to the floor. But Scott hadn’t had the presence of mind to consider the consequence of his actions until fireworks were already popping in his head, his right shoulder an erupting volcano spewing pain up and down his arm. His vision faded, and he fell forward onto the table, rolled off, and landed on the floor.

When he finally opened his eyes, he found the sun hiding behind some dark clouds.

“Are you awake?”

He recognized Malachi’s voice and moved his eyes to find him. He was standing over him, the right side of his face black and blue.

“You will be sore for a while, but you will be okay. You should take it easy until you regain your strength.”

Scott rolled his eyes off Malachi and focused again on the clouds moving through the gray sky. There was nothing to say.

“I am sorry that I lied to you. We needed you with us.”

Scott sat up, shocked at how sore his back was, like he’d been hit with a sledge hammer. He tested his arm and found that it worked okay. He saw that he was in a sleeping bag near the edge of the tent. “Why?”

“Because we know what happened to Isaiah. And since you survived, we presumed they offered you a deal. When you mentioned your wife, I knew that was probably the leverage they were using. I needed to keep my eye on you.”

Scott shook his head. “They know about this place. They know you’re here with the ring.” And then he whispered, “All these people will be dead before tomorrow morning.” And then his eyes turned to ice. “You killed all those people…”

“Some might consider what happened to them an act of mercy. Besides, would you have the transhumanist agenda continue?”

He was silent, and Malachi walked away.

“Whatever they offered you, you’d be a fool to trust them. Even if you could get the ring away from us.”

“I was a fool to trust
you
,” Scott shot back.

“And yet, you’re still alive.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot.” He got to his feet, rising shakily, and noticed that there was nothing beneath his jacket but gauze and tape, which explained why he was so cold. He pulled the jacket closed and flipped up the collar, beginning to walk unsteadily through the commune. He could smell breakfast being made, and once again, bacon brought the memory of Jennifer back to mind. A single tear squeezed its way out and down his cheek.

“Hi.”

The voice came from behind him, and he turned to see someone holding a plate of eggs.

“Hungry?” Dan Ralston asked, holding out the food.

He nodded, reaching for it. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Here, come with me. You can sit.” Ralston started walking toward a table that was set up outside one of the smaller cabins.

Scott sat down and started eating while Ralston watched. “You’re the leader here?” He didn’t know what else to say.

“More or less.”

“You don’t seem the type.”

“What do you mean?” Ralston asked.

“The profile of a cult leader.”

He laughed. “You think we’re some kind of Doomsday cult?”

Scott shrugged, more concerned with his eggs. “You do adhere to the New World Order conspiracy theory, don’t you? Where were you on the first of January, 2000?”

Ralston’s lips spread in an amused smile. “The FBI’s,
Project Megiddo
…” Scratching an itch over his eye, he said, “I’m pretty sure the cat’s out of the bag by now, their ‘strategic assessment’ a bit off.”

The Project had stamped anyone who believed in the second coming of Christ and His millennial Kingdom, the antichrist and the New World Order, as potentially dangerous conspiracy theorists.

“You sure you’re not one of those neo-Nazi groups?”

Again, Ralston laughed. “Look around, you won’t find a single weapon.”

“Well that’s just stupid,” he answered with a mouthful of egg. He was about to say something else when a shadow fell across the table and a small
thud
sounded between them.

Malachi was standing over them. “I think these belong to you,” he said, pointing to the books he just dropped on the table. And then he walked away.

With a casual glance, Scott recognized the two books belonging to the priest and the one Isaiah had written. He continued eating, not saying anything.

But Ralston was curious. “Diaries?” he asked.

Scott shook his head, no. He motioned toward them with his fork, indicating that Ralston was free to have a look. Which he did. As Scott finished his breakfast, Ralston flipped through the pages to one of Father Baer’s books. One that Scott hadn’t seen yet.

“Are you serious?” Ralston asked once Scott finished clearing his plate.

“What?”

He pointed to the book that was open on the table before him. “Is this for real?”

Scott shrugged. “Who knows?”

Ralston flipped through a few more pages. “This is incredible.”

Sighing, Scott leaned forward. “What is?” Though he didn’t care.

“The Ark of the Covenant.”

“What about it?”

But Ralston didn’t seem to hear him, just kept turning pages. “I’ve heard of this before. Where did this come from?”

“A Catholic priest.”

“Interesting.” Then he spun the book around so that Scott could see it. “Look at this.”

Scott forced his eyes open and saw a two dimensional diagram sketched across both pages — some kind of underground contraption.

“This is supposed to be beneath the Temple,” Ralston said. “
Jachin
and
Boaz.
” He tapped the drawing, indicating what looked to be two pillars rising up from the ground. Then he moved his finger to the left a little, into another area of the Temple. “The Holy Place.” And finally he touched it down in the small room all the way to the left of the page, to some kind of protrusion drawn on the floor. “The Holy of Holies.”

“Solomon’s Temple?”

He nodded. “
Jachin
and
Boaz
are the two pillars in front of the Temple.”

“What’s all this other stuff?” Scott was now pointing his own finger at the strange subterranean mechanism scribbled inside a long cave positioned below the Temple.

“Some sort of reverse lever system that was operated by sand hydraulics.” He was smiling.

“For what purpose?” He faintly recalled all that stuff about demons building the Temple, and he knew offhand that Freemasonry took credit for its construction too.

“Okay, look here. See this?” Down under the diagram was a list of verses and their references. “First Kings 7:16.” He pulled a small Bible out from inside his coat pocket, flipped through it until he came to the appropriate spot. “Listen. ‘And he made two chapiters of molten brass, to set upon the tops of the pillars: the height of the one chapiter was five cubits, and the height of the other chapiter was five cubits: and nets of checker work, and wreaths of chain work, for the chapiters which were upon the top of the pillars; seven for the one chapiter, and seven for the other chapiter…’”

“Hold on,” Scott interrupted. “How long is this gonna take?”

Ralston forced a smile. “Okay, just note that when the pillars were built, they had five cubit capitals of brass on top of them.”

Scott’s face was blank.

Ralston continued anyway. “Well, according to Second Kings 25:17,” he pointed to another reference on the page, “when Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem some five hundred years later, the height of the capitals was recorded as only being
three
cubits.”

“So the Bible’s wrong. I already knew that.”

A gentle patience stroked Ralston’s eyes. “Jeremiah records that the Babylonians tore the pillars down and carried the brass back to Babylon. And the brass capitals they brought back were measured at
five
cubits.”

Scott dropped his bored gaze back down to the diagram of the lever system and re-evaluated the two pillars. There were rods extending down out of their bottoms and connecting to the short side of the lever.

Ralston said, “The Ark was kept here, in the Holy of Holies.”

The lever stretched from beneath the pillars all the way to underneath the area Ralston just indicated, under the Holy of Holies. There was some type of protruding base that the lever rested on, closer to the pillars, giving it the appearance of an off-centered see-saw. Only connected to the right end there were rods or poles going up into the pillars, and on the left was some kind of underground compartment or elevator.

“Second Maccabees says that Jeremiah and the priests were warned in a dream how to hide the Ark from the invading Babylonians, and the theory is that a secret escape passage was built beneath the Temple, leading out beyond the walls of the city. That’s what this is.” There were steps leading away from the underground box below the Holy of Holies. “There were supposedly four key stones within the Holy of Holies that the priests of Levi would stand on to unlock the elevator.”

“Elevator?” Scott raised his eyebrows in mock amusement.