Caleb . . .”
“Yes, Dada?”
C “If you peel back the skin of this world, what will you find?”
“I will find an oven.”
“No. You will find the kingdom of God. A kingdom where the meek inherit the earth and mountains are moved with words.”
“No, Dada. I will find a white hot oven called the desert . . .”
The voice faded and Caleb faced a black world. He blinked and slowly opened his eyes. The sky was blue and a round ball of fire hung above his head. The sun.
He jerked up and pain spread through his skull. He slumped back to the hard earth and groaned. But in that moment he saw that he really was in the desert. The previous night’s events crashed through his mind.
He was in the Danakil Desert. The monastery had been taken by bandits. He was looking for help. He had to find help!
Caleb pushed himself up to his elbow and fought to focus his vision. The white salt flats ran to the horizon, like a huge marble slab. A very thin film covered the ground. He lifted his hand and touched the tiny grains to his tongue. Salt.
He eased back down, rolled to his side, and began licking the white salt. I’m licking the salt like an animal, he thought. I’ve become like an animal. But he kept licking because nothing seemed as appropriate at the moment. He had to go—that much he knew—but first he had to lick because his body craved salt.
Then the taste grew bitter and he stopped.
It occurred to him that while he was here nuzzling the ground, his parents were held at gunpoint. He struggled to his feet. The heat felt like it had weight. Hot enough to dry the tongue if you happened to open your mouth. He ran his tongue along the rough edges of his lips without managing to wet them.
Caleb wavered on his feet for a few long seconds, unsure which direction to walk. He looked back towards the hills and considered trying to make his way to the monastery. The spring he’d stopped at last night was back there.
But Father Joseph Hadane was not.
He looked out to the featureless desert thinking that it was mad to wander aimlessly in this white oven. But he had to, didn’t he? Still he couldn’t. His muscles refused to walk. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff and knowing that you had to step off. Just because you knew you had to didn’t make taking that first step easy. Every corner of his mind recoiled at the thought. He stood there weaving in the sun, unable to move.
Going back might not be such a crazy thing—I’ll drink and find my energy and then plan something logical. Father Hadane isn’t the only man who can help; there’ve got to be others. The lepers—why didn’t I just go to the lepers? I could have taken their horse . . .
Why hadn’t he thought of that last night? But now it was a full day back and then another day to help . . . at least.
On impulse he took a small step forward with his right foot. And then he brought his left foot up to join the right.
Without really knowing why doing so made any sense, he began to take small wobbly steps forward, like a penguin teetering across the ice.
Only this wasn’t ice. It was blistering salt. And he wasn’t a penguin. He was a madman. An ant wandering into a furnace. Already after only ten steps his sandals felt like they might be melting. At least he was wearing khaki slacks and a long-sleeved cotton shirt—they would keep his skin from melting. For a while.
Caleb swallowed hard against a lump gathering in his throat. Tears of frustration blurred his vision. He could hardly see, but it didn’t matter—he didn’t know where he was going anyway.
Professor Daniel Zakkai crouched alone in the monastery’s root cellar, outlined by the torch’s amber flames, and began tapping the floor with a small ball-peen hammer.
The first day of exhaustive search had ended in a few hours of sleep during which it had become clear to him that, absent Caleb, he could still carry on, albeit in a very limited fashion. Maybe even dig a little. And if he was to actually dig, there was no part of the site that begged to be further examined more than the root cellar. He’d awoken and asked them to move the racks of potatoes from one end of the six-by-six-meter room to the other.
He tapped lightly on the hard stonelike surface, listening to the tone of the echo. The urgency for discovery had evaporated after the night search. Clearly they were stuck without Caleb. But this fact did less to dampen his enthusiasm than to settle him into a more cautious pace. He often told his students that the greatest finds were exposed by the last hair on the brush in an inadvertent sweep. An exaggeration, obviously, but one filled with truth nonetheless.
Zakkai tapped slowly, judging the depth of the concrete with a discerning ear. Most of the floors he’d tested produced a deep, dull thunk consistent with earth or rock. The walls gave off a higher toned report, and in several places the root cellar’s floor gave off a similar sound. But it was the hollow ring that his ears begged for. As of yet the sound had alluded him.
He worked on his knees, down to the east wall, and then he began a diagonal crossing pattern to the corner. The cool air smelled musty, like earth—an odor he’d grown to love over the years, like a soldier might love the smell of gunpowder.
If they found the Ark . . .
Zakkai stopped himself and looked blankly at the wall. If they found the Ark . . . The phrase had an absurd ring to it. His mind drifted back to the day David Ben Solomon had first stepped into the doorframe of his office. He knew Solomon from the news, of course. The rogue Knesset member who spoke boldly about the Temple’s restoration. It had always surprised Zakkai that the man continued to win his seat in the government. And then Solomon walked into his office and wooed him with words that made Zakkai wonder why he hadn’t become prime minister yet.
“There was a time when God dwelled with Israel,” Solomon had said. “Without God, Israel always has been and will once again become like the dust of the desert. And even knowing this we refuse to build his house?”
Somehow those words had led to the imperative that Zakkai take an extended sabbatical and join Solomon in a new plan of his. This plan to find the Ark of the Covenant. It was as if Moses had walked into his office and given new orders. Watch thou Raiders of the Lost Ark and do thou likewise.
Of course, his methodical search was nothing like Indiana Jones’s, not nearly so romantic or adventurous. Until now. Now he was tapping—Zakkai resumed his tapping on the floor—alone in a subterranean cellar thinking thoughts like if I find the Ark. Absurd.
And yet, one thought of the Templar’s letter and the . . .
A hollow thud echoed in the room and Zakkai froze, his hammer cocked forty centimeters above the floor. He tapped the floor once and blinked.
He hit it again, harder this time.
It was like hitting a drum.
Zakkai’s heart crashed into his chest. He slid his hand closer to the wall, noting that it held a tremble. He struck again.
The sound swallowed him—the sweet, sweet tune of emptiness.
Zakkai scrambled to his feet. “Rebecca!” Rebecca was gone. He spun for the door. “Samuel!”
The radio! The radio, you idiot. He snatched up the hand-held and pressed the toggle. “Samuel, I think I may have found a room.”
There was a pause before Samuel’s voice rasped over the box. “Come again.”
“I need a couple men down here right now. I think I may have found something.”
“You have found the Ark?” a stunned voice asked.
“No! A room.”
“I can’t spare any men, Professor. We have a perimeter to watch.”
“And I have a relic to find!” He paused, his head spinning. “Send Jason down.”
“Without a guard?”
“We are in the root cellar . . . put a man at the front tunnel if you want. But I need some help. And make sure he brings a pick.”
Samuel didn’t respond.
Zakkai dropped to his knees and began tapping quickly, marking the rough outlines of the soundings with white chalk. The chamber below crowded the cellar’s wall, behind the racks which had held the potatoes. Now a square, roughly one meter by two meters, marked the black floor.
“Now you’re going to start tearing things apart?” Jason demanded, ducking through the small wood door.
“Jason! It was behind the racks. I knew there had to be a cavity here somewhere.” Zakkai had decided yesterday that he liked the man, despite the natural tension drawn by the circumstances.
Jason dropped a large pick to the ground and stared at the markings. “What does that prove? A hollow spot in the cement.”
“But you wouldn’t have built over an opening this large! Don’t you see?” Zakkai grabbed the hammer and struck the floor. It echoed satisfactorily. “You built on a floor, but we’re hearing a chamber under that floor.”
“And?”
“And? Don’t be daft, man!” He was perhaps too expressive in his exuberance. “We have found an entrance into Caleb’s childhood chambers.”
Jason stared at the chalk marks and finally nodded. “Maybe. I guess that’s something.”
“It’s more than something, my fine friend.” Zakkai grabbed the pick.
“So now you’re going to ruin our root cellar?”
“Please, Jason. I personally will pay to have your precious cellar restored to its moldy old self. We are talking history here!”
“If you find the Ark.”
“Worth it, don’t you think?”
Jason eyed him. “You swear to fix it. Either way.”
“Yes.”
With a glint in his eye, Jason stepped forward and took the pick. “So what are you waiting for? Not sure how to handle a pick?”
He swung the tool with the ease of a man who’d dug too many holes without the advantage of a backhoe. The sharp point buried itself in the rock.