“What we’re doing is very similar to combat, John. In the army … whenever I was far from home and locked in a life-and-death struggle with a formidable enemy, nothing else mattered but the job of survival. It’s like I became another person, and thoughts of home and everyday life seemed like a distant memory.” Alon reached out and clasped John on the shoulder. “I’ve been watching you, John. You’re a brave and smart man. You’ll do fine.”
John looked at Alon and wondered what it took to mold a man like him. A lethal force to those who stood in his way … and fiercely protective of his family and friends, he was also kind and almost overly sentimental at times. Even though John had never been a soldier, he realized that Alon was right. Their present life and death struggle with a terrifying enemy was just like war, and the camaraderie they shared and the bonds that were being formed were just as strong.
At the end of the tent, Leo and Lev were engaged in quiet discussion and it was clear that the two leaders were already formulating a strategy for reentering the cavern. When both stood, everyone knew that a decision had been made and a plan was about to be revealed.
Lev looked around at the Bible Code Team before facing the rest of the staff and quietly calling for everyone’s attention. “In a few hours from now, a team led by Father Leo will reenter the cavern. He will be joined by John, Alon, Ariella, and myself. The five of us will be supported by a second team in the helicopter led by Moshe. This team will include Daniel, a paramedic, and our two helicopter pilots, Nava and Gabriella. The two teams of five will be the only one’s allowed in the vicinity. We’ve decided that it’s just too dangerous for the rest of you to remain in the area. Because time is a factor, we will leave the camp in place and evacuate the entire staff back to the villa in the next few hours. Moshe will be in charge of the evacuation and making sure that everyone is out of the area except for the two teams that will remain.”
A murmur went up under the tent. A young man stood and shouted from the back of the tent. “We’re not leaving you, Professor!”
A few tables away, a young woman stood up. “Yes, we’re not afraid. God has called us all here together in the desert. We’re not leaving you alone.”
“Thank you, everyone,” Lev said. He pushed his glasses up into his mass of curly gray hair. “By now we all know that we’ve been called to this place by God, but only five of us were chosen to enter the cavern tonight. The five names of those who will go were specifically found encoded in the Bible, and I firmly believe that this is God’s way of telling us what he wants us to do.”
Leo leaned forward and placed his hands on the table. “Some of you have heard rumors about what occurred in the cavern this morning. I will tell you now that we face an evil entity that grows stronger by the minute and that there may be more than one of them down there now. They are endowed with terrible powers and can play tricks on the mind.”
“We believe an entire British convoy encountered the entity out there over sixty years ago,” Lev added. “Thirty heavily armed soldiers were no match for it. Every one of those men died a horrific death. Those who will be on the first team tonight were chosen by God for a reason, and we believe He has given us His blessing and divine protection in this mission. The second team will only be supporting the first team from a distance. If they don’t hear from the team down in the cavern after midnight, they have strict orders to leave the area at once. The first team will have no backup from the second team after that time period. We will be left in God’s hands at that point.”
Both men looked around at the silent faces staring back at them. The mess tent had taken on the aura of a church, and it seemed an appropriate time for Father Leo to ask everyone gathered together, Christian and Jew alike, to join him in a prayer. After everyone bowed their heads, the priest clasped his hands together and closed his eyes.
“Father, we beseech you. Grant us your protection in the hours ahead. We face your avowed enemy, Lucifer, and his dark angels here on earth. We call upon you to give us strength as we do battle against him in your name. We call also on Michael the Archangel to come to our aid with his most holy army of bright angels in this fight against an unspeakable evil, and we humbly ask you to bless us as we strive to be worthy of your everlasting grace. Grant us your peace in the days ahead, and protect those of us who enter that dark world below tonight. Give us your holy armor against the demons we face in your name, and throw down your mighty sword against them. If any of us shall perish, please forgive us our sins and welcome us into heaven this very day. Amen.”
Father Leo raised his head and scanned the room. Everyone remained with their heads bowed, lost in his words.
Then one of the Jewish staff members asked to say a prayer for the safety of the Christians. “Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam. Blessed are you, Adonai, our God, ruler of the world. Protect our Christian friends in their fight against the evil that lies beyond in the desert and give them the strength of Almighty God, for they are our brothers and we are theirs. Amen.”
Leo broke the silence that followed. “I want to thank all of you who will be leaving camp for your service to this expedition and your willingness to stay in the face of great danger. Those who are evacuating back to the villa, please grab only your personal belongings and find a place in one of the trucks or other vehicles. We want everyone out of the area within the hour.”
The camp sprang into accelerated activity as the two teams of five prepared for this last ditch effort to find the unknown object hidden by Satan in the desert. Alon assisted Nava while she flushed the sand from the air intakes and went through a complete preflight check of the helicopter. She didn’t want any mechanical problems tonight. Gabriella, meaning God is my strength in Hebrew, was performing preventive maintenance on the rescue hoist they would use to lower the first team down into the cavern.
Out at the excavation site, everything around the cavern had been loaded onto trucks and transported back to camp. The crushed backhoe had been winched up out of the cavern with the help of two large truck-mounted steel cables and a large bulldozer that had just arrived from Jerusalem. Now, only a large, bare hole remained in the desert floor.
Since the camp was being abandoned in place, there was no equipment to be packed away, and soon, those leaving were ready to go. Within minutes, a small convoy began to roll out of the desert toward Jerusalem. From the rear window of the mobile kitchen, the little brown dog began to bark at the ten team members who were remaining behind. They all stood alongside the path of the departing vehicles and waved until the convoy faded into the distance.
Lev turned away and motioned for Leo to accompany him to his tent. When they were inside, Lev invited the priest to sit while he poured each of them a small glass of wine. He sat and gazed out of the open tent, watching the orange globe of the sun sink past the horizon.
“I’ve been thinking since this morning, Leo, that, if we were able to identify the entity down in the cave, we might have the upper hand when we go down there tonight.”
“I’ve thought a great deal about that,” Leo said, “and I think I already know what it is we’re dealing with. Right before I took out my cross, the demon was changing shape. He appeared briefly to look like some sort of winged beast. It probably already knew I was a priest, but when it realized what I was about to do, it focused its full attention on me just long enough for me to recognize it. I believe we’re dealing with none other than Agaliarept himself, the grand general of hell. He was known among the Assyrians and Babylonians as one of the most malevolent forces in the Middle East and has long been considered by the Church as one of the most terrible of all demonic entities. In the Old Testament, he was described as one who conceals himself in black robes and dwells in the vast desert wastelands. He is represented as a strange jackal-like creature with wings and is known to be a messenger of the Beast. He is the most ruthlessly destructive demon of them all. He possesses the power to discover all secrets and represents the destruction of human life itself.”