“Only Bahir knows we’re down here.”
She heard him moving, scraping for something. “What are you doing? Paul, where are you?”
“Here.” A flame flickered from his hand. “I don’t know why I put that old Zippo lighter in my pocket, but I’m glad I did.”
Alicia exhaled deeply, eyes wide, watching the flame dance. “Let’s try the torch on the wall. Maybe it’ll light.”
Marcus stood, stepped over rocks to the torch mounted on the wall and removed it. He sniffed the head of the torch. “I can smell oil and something like tar. Maybe, even after a century, they’re preserved because this place is naturally climate-controlled and has no sunlight.” He touched the lighter to the top of the torch and a flame rose, slowly, and then it grew brighter.
Alicia smiled. “Let there be light….” She pointed to the end of the tunnel. “Look, that last aftershock created a small opening.”
Marcus stepped up to the opening, which was barely the width of his shoulders. He reached through the gap with the torch. “Hold this. Looks like a door to a room. I’ll crawl in, and you can come after me.”
Alicia held the torch while Marcus wormed his way though the cavity. “Give me the light,” he said, reaching back though the hole. He took the torch so that Alicia could follow him. Inside the room, they both stood, astonished, the light from the flames bouncing shadows across ancient religious artifacts.
“I’m speechless,” Alicia said, her eyes taking in the stateliness.
“I think we’re arrived in the place they called the Holy of Holies.”
The room was finished in white marble, inlaid with gold. A table, carved from snow-white marble, was positioned in the center of the room. The table held three gold candelabras, gold goblets and a single place setting with a gold plate. Vases sculpted from white onyx and mother-of-pearl stood on each side of the table. The rear section of the room was hidden behind a ripped veil draped from ceiling to floor.
Alicia said, “That curtain must be at least sixty feet high. Look at the cherubim embroidered on it. It’s beautiful. What’s behind it? Let’s take off our shoes.”
He held the torch and used one hand to pull back the heavy covering. In their stocking feet, Marcus and Alicia stepped through the veil.
Marcus moved the torch, looking from corner to corner. “It appears to be a perfect cube…ten cubits by ten cubits.”
“That is spectacular.
Alicia touched her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Paul, is it what I think it is?”
“It’s the Ark of the Covenant.” Marcus felt his heart pounding, his eyes moistening.
The Ark, elevated on a slab of pure white onyx, was the size of a footlocker, finished in ornate gold. Two golden angels were perched on either side of the crest. They were kneeling, facing each other, the tips of the wings almost touching. A gold ring was fastened to each of the four corners at the top of the Ark.
“Hold this a second.” Marcus handed the torch to Alicia. He used his right arm, the tip of his finger to his elbow, to measure the Ark. “It’s one and a half cubits wide and high, and two and a half cubits long. It conforms perfectly to the golden ratio.”
“Paul, look at that.” She pointed to a vase, less than two feet in length, positioned to the right side of the Ark.
He knelt down beside it. “Give me a little more light.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure. The top is sealed to the vase in something like candle wax.” Marcus pulled the head of the spear from his pocket. He positioned the tip of the blade at the edge of the wax on the perimeter of the sealed opening.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m opening it.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t.”
“Maybe we should. Maybe that’s why we’re here.” Marcus carefully worked the blade into the old wax, moving around the entire edge. He set the spear on the floor and used both hands to work the cover from the body of the vase. “Bring the light a little closer.” Marcus looked in the aged vase, reached inside and pulled out a rolled up paper scroll. He unrolled it on the floor of the room and used the light from the Zippo to read the words. He said nothing for half a minute, the torch casting shadows across the white room. Then he used his mobile phone to snap a picture.
“Marcus, what is it. What’s on that old paper?”
“It’s written in Hebrew.” With care, Marcus placed the scroll back into the vase. He used his lighter to reseal the wax.
“Marcus, can you read it? What is it…and who wrote it?”
“It may have been written by Daniel…but I think it was dictated by…by someone else. It’s the events of the end of days.”
The room began to quiver, the gold goblets rattling on the table. The tips of the angel’s wings trembled. Marcus grabbed the torch and picked up the spear. “C’mon! Let’s get out of here!” They ran to the opening, Marcus holding the torch while Alicia slipped through the hole. He followed.
The earth shuddered. Sand, pebbles, and larger stones fell like a hard hailstorm on top of them. Marcus grabbed Alicia by the hand and ran through the dark tunnel. A wall of rock and earth crashed down behind them resealing the opening to the Holy Place.
EIGHTY-SEVEN
A half hour later, they made it back to the grotto, the ladder still where they’d left it. Marcus climbed the ladder, knocking on the trapdoor. He waited a few seconds and knocked again.
“Maybe you can push it up,” Alicia said.
Marcus braced the palms of both hands under the trapdoor and started to push just as it opened, the smiling face of Bahir looking down at him. “Thank God you two made it safely.” Marcus stepped back down the ladder, took the torch from Alicia and let her exit. He extinguished the torch on the floor and climbed up the ladder. Bahir closed and locked the trapdoor, pulling the rug back over it. “I believe the aftershocks are gone. Did you make it to your destination?”
Alicia said nothing, looking at Marcus. He said, “Yes.”
“And, was what you hoped…was it there?”
“Bahir, you had the map. You knew which tunnel to take. Did you ever go there? Did you ever make it to that sacred room?”
“I went as far as I could go. It was not meant to be for the British explorers a century ago. And it was not meant to be for me. But for you two, the time is now. What did you find?”
“What Newton tried to find. Is my laptop under the counter?”
“Yes.” Bahir led them back out to the coffee shop. He reached below the counter and retrieved the computer.
Marcus turned it on and uploaded the picture he’d taken of the old document. He pulled the last coding he’d broken from Newton’s papers, his fingers jabbing the keys, his eyes staring hard at the coding. A few seconds later, Marcus read the Hebrew words that materialized across his screen. His hand was trembling as he stuck a flash drive in the side of the computer and transferred the information. Then he deleted it from his computer.
“What is it, Paul?” Alicia asked.
“I think Bahir knows.” He looked at the old man.
Bahir closed his eyes for a moment. “It is not what you now know, Paul. It is what you choose to do about it. I believe, at this point, you no longer look at life in a linear fashion.”
“What the hell can I do?”
“Whatever you believe you can do.”
“Where is He?”
“Where is who, Paul?”
“Is all this, the second coming? Is this when the world ends! Tell me, Bahir. You know, don’t you?”