The two stood over Tara’s shoulders and stared at the screen that proclaimed a match had been found.
“I’m not sure what this means,” she said, clarifying her earlier statement. “The translation is either gibberish, incomplete, or is some kind of riddle.”
Sean peered at the lines and read them silently to himself.
“One to the north, into the belly of the beast. May it rest with him forever. One to the east, may it find safe harbor in the high tower of the seekers of light.”
A pall fell across the room. The only sound came from the exposed air ducts near the ceiling, twenty feet above, as cool air poured from the vents.
“One to the north and one to the east?” Alex asked. “What could that possibly mean? And what is the it it mentions?”
History wasn’t necessarily his strong point, nor was figuring out the meaning of ancient texts. In translation and technology, there were few better than he and Tara. Riddles, it seemed, weren’t his strong suit.
“Where was this tablet found?” Sean asked in response to the younger man’s question. He directed it at Tommy.
Tommy pulled out his phone and scrolled down the screen until he came to the email from Nehem. He read through some sentences and then said, “Looks like he was working an excavation of some important person’s tomb; in the valley just outside of Jerusalem.”
“Important person? Like a governor or a king?”
“No,” Tommy shook his head. “Seems that Nehem believes he discovered the tomb of a Hebrew high priest. The tablet in these images was found with the priest’s remains.”
“I don’t suppose he sent you any dating they might have done with the body.” Sean looked hopeful, but he was realistic. If Nehem had just discovered the grave, it was unlikely he’d had time to date it.
“No. But according to the email, Nehem believes it to be the tomb of a high priest named Tovar.”
Sean considered the new information while Tara sent the translation to a nearby printer. She stood up and walked over to it, grabbed the newly printed sheets, and brought them back to Sean and Tommy. “Just in case you need to take these with you.”
She smiled and sat back in her seat and continued to analyze the tablet’s translation.
“Tovar?” Sean wondered out loud.
“Already on it, Mr. Wyatt,” Alex said. His fingers flew across the keyboard faster than anyone Sean had seen. The kid was easily typing a hundred words per minute.
“Please, don’t call me that.”
His comment didn’t slow Alex at all. “Sorry, force of habit, Sean. It’s how I was raised.”
Sean smirked. Pushing forty years of age didn’t bother him, but he still had a few years of thirties left and was in no hurry to give that up for the title of Mr. Wyatt and a seat at a bar where 1980s music played all the time. Not yet anyway. Alex was a good kid. Sean cursed himself in his mind. The fact that he and Tommy referred to Alex and Tara as kids validated the fact that he was worthy of the title.
The computers hummed as the internals worked at the speed of light. Less than ten seconds later, Alex motioned for the other two guys to come over to his side of the table.
“I think this might be our high priest.”
He pointed at the screen covered in images of ancient scrolls. In the right-hand sidebar, the text translations were displayed in plain English. In several places, the name Tovar was highlighted in yellow.
“What are all these old scrolls and documents?” Sean asked.
“I’m not sure,” Alex confessed.
“I am.” Tommy leaned closer. “I’ve seen these scrolls before. They were found at the Hebrew monastery at Qumran.”
Sean frowned. “Dead Sea Scrolls?”
“Sort of,” Tommy shrugged. “These aren’t part of the collection of the actual Dead Sea Scrolls. These are something else. But I recognize the signs of aging and the way they’re written. The library that was discovered at Qumran was unique in many ways. It would surprise me if those scrolls weren’t part of that collection.”
“Bet me a Coke?” Sean grinned wryly.
“You’re on.”
Alex’s fingers pounded away at the keyboard once more. Tara glanced around the side of her monitor to see how the faux drama would play out. Alex hit the return key and waited for a second before he pointed to the screen. “I’m impressed, Tommy. These were some of the historical records discovered at the monastery. It seems they weren’t included in the Dead Sea Scrolls because they were considered mundane, due to the records having more to do with the day-to-day operations of the temple and the lineage of the priests.
Sean smiled over his shoulder at his friend. “I’ll hit up the vending machine on the way out.”
“Thanks, but I’m not thirsty right now,” Tommy joked. With the next breath, he returned his attention to the matter of the tablet translation. “So, we think we know who the man was that Nehem was researching. Great. That still doesn’t explain to us what the riddle means on the stone they found in his tomb.
He quoted the lines again, paraphrasing as he did so. “One to the east and one to the north. Belly of the beast? Seekers of light? Any of you have any thoughts as to who or what those might be?”
Sean found a chair nearby and rolled it close. He plopped down into it and crossed his arms, thinking deeply about the issue. “The problem with these pesky ancient puzzles is that people have been trying to solve them for thousands of years, without success.”
“Yeah,” Tara agreed, “but we can accelerate those thousands of years with the best software. It takes things we would have needed centuries to understand, and pieces them together.”
She tapped a few keys on her computer and then clicked the mouse. “Most of the references for beasts in the Bible are related to prophecy. This says the term beast is used most frequently in the books of Daniel and Revelation.”
Sean nodded. His knowledge of Jewish and Christian religions ran deep, way deeper than most people probably realized, with the exception being Tommy. “Yes. Both of those books talk a great deal about beasts that symbolize different countries.” Despite his extraordinary Biblical knowledge, Sean moved on to the other part of the riddle. “Did you search for the seekers of light term?”
She pecked away again, and in a few minutes the screen changed once more. Her face twisted noticeably. Tara didn’t try to hide her disappointment. “I’m finding a few different results, but not much. There isn’t a group that goes by that name. It might have been an ancient society of some kind, but it will require more research before I can tell you definitively.”
Sean looked over at his friend, and Tommy returned the questioning glance. “So,” Sean said, “what do you think?”
Tommy studied the screen for several more seconds before speaking. When he did, his tone was low and secretive. “Whatever it is that Nehem is looking for was important enough to someone that they tried to kill us and burn our houses down.”
“So we’re for sure operating from the theory that it was his research that got us in trouble?”
Sean wasn’t opposed to the idea, but it was a conclusion they were jumping to, and that wasn’t always a good thing.
“It’s the only theory that makes sense right now,” Tommy defended. “It can’t be a coincidence that I get an email from an archaeologist who disappears, and then a few days later someone is trying to kill us. No way that’s a coincidence.”
“I agree. So, what’s our next play?”
Tommy considered the question and then sent it back to Sean. “I know what I think we should do. What do you think?”
Sean’s mouth parted slightly in a narrow grin. “You know exactly what I’m thinking. We fly to Israel. Sooner or later, we have to find the people that tried to kill us before they hurt anyone else. And maybe along the way we can pay them back for destroying our houses.”