The chartered flight provided by the Order of Thaddeus had taken Silas and Celeste from Newark Liberty International to Munich for a quick refueling stop before landing at Ben Gurion International in Tel Aviv. It was just before lunch when they arrived, so the two ate at a tapas bar before the hour drive to Jerusalem.
The day was bright and pleasant, reminding Silas of when he had first come to Jerusalem during a period of leave while serving in the military. It was after he had his conversion experience at an on-base Christian meeting, having come back to the faith after he had lapsed as a Catholic. The experience was a powerful one.
The chaplain had been reading from Saint Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter three, when he described how he used to put his confidence in his “flesh,” as he put it—his childhood faith, his adult religious zeal, his good works. But then he considered all of that a loss compared to intimately knowing God in a personal relationship. “I want to know Christ,” Paul had written, “and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”
Silas had wanted that too.
When the chaplain was describing the change that God works in the heart through faith in Christ, Silas felt his heart “strangely warmed,” as the old English minister John Wesley had described. It was then, at that meeting on a base in southern Iraq, that Silas felt he did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation. When he did, an assurance was given him that God had taken away all of his personal baggage, his sins and hurts and habits, he had been carrying around.
So he did the only thing he thought to do under the circumstances: he went on a religious pilgrimage, touring the well-known Christian sites of veneration, beginning with Israel. Five years later, after his commitment to the military was up, he left the Rangers and returned to join his professor on that fated archaeological dig at Tell-es Sultan. Where he had found historical proof of its biblical destruction and the Ark of the Covenant—right before the good professor took credit for his incredible find.
“What are you thinking about?” Celeste asked Silas as he drove through the Israeli countryside.
“What?” Silas said, startled from enjoying his personal memory.
“You’ve been silent since we left the airport. Lost in that head of yours. Wondered if anything was wrong.”
Silas smiled. “Just enjoying a memory.”
“Hope it’s a pleasant one.”
He looked at her. “Sweet and sour.”
“Do tell.”
“I was just thinking about the first time I was here. After I came back to the Church and gave my life to Christ, I had a window of leave from Iraq and went on a pilgrimage, touring the Christian religious sites, beginning with Jerusalem.” He turned to her. “That was the sweet part. You can probably guess the sour part.”
“Lucas Pryce.”
He nodded.
“What happened with that anyway?”
“Just what I told you before. I had come to help him with the Jericho dig, and then I found the jars with the scrolls. Then he took credit.”
Celeste shook her head. “And you haven’t heard anything else from him about the parchments or the Ark since?”
“Nada. Until now I thought he thought the whole thing was nonsense. I guess I was wrong.”
“I imagine we’re about to discover a whole lot more in the coming day about Pryce and the Ark.”
“Indeed.”
After arriving, Silas and Celeste ditched their car in an overnight parking lot to the north of the Old City, opting to carry their overnight bags to a hostel inside the ancient city itself.
Four large tourist buses were dropping off their load as they approached the Damascus Gate. The tourist contingent seemed to be unusually high for this time of year. Most of the groups were obviously Christian, sporting brightly-colored t-shirts with Christian crosses and church names or tour-agency names like Maranatha Tours. Silas spotted a large group of men with the unmistakable long side locks and beard with the Shtreimel felt hat, Hasidic Jews come to pray at the Western Wall, he imagined.
“Check out the increased security,” Celeste said, pointing toward the gate as they joined the queue waiting to enter the Holy City. Heavily armed Israeli Defense Force units wearing gray fatigues and stern-looking faces were checking bags and purses at the entrance.
“Guessing it has something to do with the impending Ark discoveries,” Silas said. “Knowing how volatile the issue is for all three Abrahamic faiths, it makes sense to up the military presence to ward off any potential riots—or worse.”
The two made it through security without incident, then made their way down Bey HaBad Street. Off to the right lay the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The memories were still fresh from that experience earlier in the year when he had helped SEPIO battle the forces of Nous. Neither of them spoke about it as they passed the street leading to the church’s side entrance where they stole inside under cover of darkness.
The smell of kabobs wafting from street vendors made Silas's stomach rumble in protest as they waded through the thick crowds. The two pushed past them, taking Chain Street to the rooms they booked at the Chain Gate Hostel. Sitting just 150 feet from the Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall, and the Holy Sepulcher, it was the perfect staging ground for their investigation into Pryce's archaeological project.
Constructed out of entirely Jerusalem stone, the hostel felt as old as the Temple itself. Bright, orange mandarins greeted them in a stone bowl at the entrance, as well as an assortment of leftover pieces of bread and cheeses from the morning continental breakfast. Silas took one of each. They weren't kabobs, but he knew he should eat since he didn't know when they might get a chance next. He tossed Celeste an orange as he walked up to the check-in counter. She smiled as she caught it, then immediately pealed it. Apparently, the kabobs had tempted her, too.
“Shalom, sir, madam,” offered a short, pinched-faced woman wearing a wilting floral dress.
Silas replied, “Shalom. We’ve got two rooms booked under Grey.”
She typed on a ‘90s-era desktop PC, then scowled and pulled out a single key.
“I sorry, but we have one room for you.”
“There has to be a mistake,” he said nervously, looking to Celeste and blushing before returning back to the hostess. “We specifically asked for two rooms. The Vatican arranged it.”
“The Vatican?” the woman said in disbelief, eyeing him as she held tightly to the one key Silas wouldn’t take. “We have one room for you. Not two. Very busy with the activity down below. You lucky you have one.”
He sighed, then looked at Celeste again with a mixture of apology and resignation.
She shrugged her shoulders, then nodded toward the woman.
He held out his hand. “Thanks. We’ll take it.”
Working their way through a dimly-lit, narrow hallway on the top floor, they found their room. It was as spartan as he expected, although the bunk beds would work well for their needs.
Silas threw his bag up on the top bunk. “I call tops.”
“Not fair! I’ve always fancied the top.”
He smiled. “Better luck next time.”
She huffed playfully, then threw her bag underneath the bottom bed. “Why don’t we pay a visit to your old mate, Professor Pryce. Lots to learn about his dig and the Ark, and time is of the essence.”
He sighed. “Do we have to?”
“Come on. It’ll be fun.”
Silas opened the door. He went to step into the hallway when he caught sight of someone darting away down the hall.
“What the—”
The figure was medium height and build, wearing loose, light-colored clothing meant to blend in. And running away from their room, as if Silas had interrupted him in progress.
“Hey!” he called after the mystery person.
“What’s wrong?” Celeste asked, stepping into the hallway and looking in Silas’s direction.
“Stay here,” he commanded as he turned away in pursuit. “Go back inside and lock the door!”
He ran fast through the narrow, dimly-lit hallway, catching sight of the person a few yards down.
The man dodged around a small set of table and chairs, toppling them as a diversion to cover his escape.
Silas darted around the upturned table, but couldn’t avoid a chair. His leg slid into the arm, and he tripped over it, twisting his ankle and sending him to the floor.
He cried out and cursed loudly, but got up quickly. His ankle screamed in pain, but he hopped it off and kept at his pursuit, running into a small, open-air courtyard. He heard hard footfalls up ahead, but he had to slow because of his ankle.
Silas continued forward back into the main lobby of the hostel, catching sight of the figure. He ran near a small beverage refrigerator, then pulled it out and toppled it over as he had the table and chairs to stave off any further pursuit. The man kept running and shoved through tall, green, wooden doors that led into the hostel, and out into the crowded, Old City streets.
Silas hobbled to the front desk, where the older woman was speaking in rapid Hebrew into a handset.
“Excuse me,” he said breathing hard. “Did you get a look at the man?”
“I no see! I no see!” she said in broken English before returning to her phone conversation.
He turned back toward the door and mumbled a curse.
Have we been made?