Ismael sat on his horse behind an outcropping of boulders and studied the monastery through his binoculars. His men had dismounted at the first engagement and returned fire from cover along the hill overlooking the valley. The Jews had opened up with a full assault even before they were in range, which could only mean that Rebecca and Caleb had arrived and expected them. They were sending a message. One of the men had managed to launch a grenade, but had been forced to retreat under heavy fire.
“Sir, we should flank them,” the captain said beside him. “They might try to escape out the back.”
Ismael lowered the glasses and pointed to the hills across the valley. “Put two men on that ridge and two men on the north ridge. Make sure they let the Jews know they are there.”
“Immediately.”
Captain Asid left and barked orders down the line. Four men scrambled back, mounted their horses, and galloped off under the cover of the hill.
The episode back in the canyon still haunted Ismael like a bad nightmare. The one they called Caleb had stripped him of his dignity with a few words, and Ismael still could not comprehend what had followed. He’d been overcome by sorrow. The world had become transparent for those few moments and the thought of pulling his trigger to send this robed man to his grave had felt obscene. Then he’d actually tried to kill him anyway, and his finger had refused to cooperate. The sorrow had taken over his mind then. It had become unbearable and he’d fallen. When the captain found him, he’d sworn the man to secrecy. He’d become ill, he insisted, and the men had no business knowing.
Ismael had heard of sorcery before, mystics who had their own way with evil. There was no sense of evil in the monk’s eyes, but Ismael knew he had to be such a mystic. In some ways he now wanted to kill Caleb as badly as he did the woman.
“We have them trapped,” he said to the returning captain. “There’s no escape. Tell the men to cease fire.”
Asid twisted his head. “Cease fire!”
“We have the high ground. They don’t have a chance.”
“We have the high ground, but they have the fortress,” Asid observed, looking down.
“And we have explosives.”
“The structure’s strong.”
“How much dynamite do we have?”
“A hundred sticks.”
Ismael smiled. “Then it’s not strong enough, is it? As long as we keep them penned in, we will have them. As soon as it’s dark, I want your best men to begin laying explosives around the backside. We will attack before dawn. A full frontal assault while they deal with the dynamite behind.”
“Use it all at once?” the captain asked, more of himself than Ismael. “And if we fail?”
“We won’t. But if we do, then the Syrian air force will provide an air strike.” He faced Asid. “One way or another we’ll stop these Jews. No one leaves alive.”
“The monks?”
“They’ve seen too much.”
Rebecca sprinted down the hall towards the study, her heart pounding like a sledge. The Arabs had encircled the monastery, fired off one last salvo, and then pulled back. They were waiting for darkness; she was sure of it. Clearly, Ismael’s high ground did him no good against a fortress built like the monastery, especially with Samuel’s M-14 parting their hair. But darkness would shift the advantage. They had four hours till nightfall.
Four hours to make a break for it before the Arabs closed in with whatever explosives they had. It would be safer to run and shoot now, when Ismael least expected it. She would take Caleb and his parents with her.
Unless, of course, there was something in Zakkai’s room.
She spun into the study’s doorway. “Well?”
Zakkai knelt over a three-foot hole they’d hacked into the floor. Leiah and Caleb peered over his shoulders. They looked up as one.
“We have a room,” Zakkai said.
Feet pounded down the hall, and Rebecca turned to see Jason running for the study, a flaming torch in one hand and a rope ladder in the other. He stepped past her into the room.
Rebecca walked over to the circle and peered into Zakkai’s room. Light fell into the subterranean darkness, graying a floor two-and-a-half meters below them. Beside her, Caleb stared down, stunned. This room had obviously existed without his knowing, even as a child. None of them was speaking. Rebecca’s pulse quickened.
“What’s inside?” she asked.
“We can’t see the whole room without getting light into the hole,” Zakkai said.
Rebecca knelt and lowered her head carefully through the opening. A musty odor laced with the smell of vanilla wax filled her nostrils. She blinked and let her eyes adjust to the darkness.
The room looked about two-and-a-half meters wide, carved from gray stone. It ran to her right, but she couldn’t see how far because the light faded to black. A drop of sweat fell from her forehead and made a dark splotch on a thick layer of dust that carpeted the floor. As far as she could see, the room was empty, but the light faded before it reached the back wall. If they had a flashlight, she would be able to see more, but she couldn’t hold a flame below her without getting burned.
Rebecca pulled up. “It looks empty.”
“Go in, Rebecca,” Zakkai said.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
She looked at the others who all stared at her. She nodded. Jason handed the torch to Zakkai and tossed one end of the rope ladder into the hole. It unrolled and landed with a dull slap.
Rebecca stepped down the ladder rungs, swaying with the rope. Her head was already into the opening before she reached up to Zakkai for the torch. With a last look into his bright eyes, she dropped to the floor.
Yellow light splashed on ancient stone walls. The musty smell was very strong now; dust filtered up from her landing. She held her breath and peered forward, towards the far end.
“Anything?” It was Zakkai above. He was already lowering himself into the room.
The far wall glared back at her and it took a moment for Rebecca to understand what she was seeing. She was looking at another stone wall.
“It’s empty.”
A peculiar warmth washed over her skull—a curious blend of comfort and disappointment. Perhaps in these last few minutes she had actually allowed herself to believe that they would find the Ark, buried in this lost cavern beneath the remote monastery hidden in the Ethiopian Abyssinia.
But the room was empty. The Arabs were digging in outside, David Ben Solomon was pacing back in Jerusalem, and the room was empty.
Zakkai took the torch from her hand. She turned to see Caleb lowering himself on the rope ladder behind her. So now she was left with only one responsibility: to save these people whose lives she and Zakkai had endangered in this search of theirs. She’d come to find the Ark and she had found Caleb—a madman who claimed that he was God’s Ark.
Caleb looked around. The others were coming down behind him. “It’s empty,” he said.
Rebecca turned back to Zakkai. The professor had moved over to one of the walls and was drawing his index finger through a thin layer of dust.
“The detonations that destroyed the monastery must have flooded this room with a film of dirt,” he said. “This room must be eight hundred years old, from when the monastery was built in the thirteenth century.”
“It’s empty, Professor,” Rebecca said gently. “Now we have to go.”
He ignored her and ran his hand over the stone, dislodging a thick layer of dust that rained down to his feet.
“So,” Leiah said by Rebecca’s side. “There never was an Ark in the monastery.”
Zakkai was rapping his knuckles on the stone. It sounded as thick as the earth.
“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said, turning to Leiah. “We are only Jews, you understand—trying to recover a spiritual identity that was lost a thousand years ago. Please, Professor, we’re running out of time.” She turned to climb the ladder.
“There’s a Templar cross here,” Zakkai said.
Rebecca spun back. The Templars?
Zakkai quickly cleared the stone with his palm revealing a faded cross etched into the wall. It ran about thirty centimeters high, and it was indeed the unique cross with flared ends used by the Knights Templar.
Zakkai shoved the torch out to Rebecca. “Hold this!”
She took it. He began to wipe the dust from the wall in wide swaths, using both hands. It fell to the ground in heaps and rose in a haze, choking them. But Zakkai didn’t stop. He wiped in a frenzy with his forearms until the dust was so thick none of them could breathe.
Coughing echoed through the room, and finally Zakkai stopped. Slowly, the dust settled. The Templar cross stood alone on a gray wall. The professor tapped it, but the stone behind was solid.
“The Templars put their mark on everything they built,” Zakkai said. “This must have been the foundation of the monastery, built by Templars in the thirteenth century. It would confirm theories that the Ethiopians had help carving the stone churches in this area.”
They looked at the cross silently.
“But it has no bearing on the Ark,” Rebecca said, wiping her mouth of dust. “Right?”
Zakkai seemed not to have heard. He leapt over to the far wall and attacked it as he had the other. Immediately Rebecca saw the marks, and her heart froze in her chest.
The Hebrew letters were unmistakable.
Zakkai went rigid. And then he cleared the wall, using his forearms like giant windshield wipers. The dust flew, once again smothering them. He stepped back from the cloud he’d created and faced the wall, panting, legs spread and planted. The torch crackled and the dust began to settle. There on the wall a Hebrew inscription materialized from the haze.
Zakkai’s high-pitched voice spoke, barely above a whisper. “The kingdom of God is within you.”
A chill ran up Rebecca’s spine. Caleb had said that to her in the desert! “That’s the heart of the monastery,” she said softly, as much to herself as to the others. “The presence of God is in the heart, not in the Ark. It’s what Father Matthew believed.”
“Jason, get me the pickax!” Zakkai snapped.
“What can you do—”
“Just get it. Hurry!”
Jason clambered up the ladder and dropped the pickax into the room. It landed with a metallic clang. Zakkai bounded over to it, snatched it up, and faced the wall again.
“Professor, there is no Ark. The heart is Father Matthew’s Ark; that’s what Hadane meant—”
“If this is stone, it won’t be hurt, Rebecca. The kingdom of God is here.
Within you.” He pointed at the wall. “Within this wall, not in man! Stand back!”
He lifted the pickax and swung at a spot a foot below the inscription.
A soft boom startled her, and Rebecca’s first thought was that someone had dropped a grenade into the room. She crouched. But it hadn’t been an explosion. Thick roils of billowing dust engulfed Professor Zakkai.
Then silence.
“Zakkai?”
“I’m all right!” His voice echoed around her. The sound of his voice had changed.
“What happened?”
He didn’t respond. The dust began to settle. On her left, Jason and Leiah had covered their noses with their shirt sleeves. On her right, Caleb stood with his mouth slightly agape. She thought that he was still reeling from the whole discovery of this room. In front of her, Zakkai’s form emerged from the settling dust.
Rebecca stepped forward, holding the wavering torch into the haze for a better view. A tiny glint caught her eye through the shadows and her legs seized, midstride.
Rubble littered the floor. The whole wall had fallen down with Zakkai’s blow! There was a cavern beyond. And this cavern was not empty—she knew that as if the knowledge had come to her riding a bolt of lightning.
Two small statues of angels, with wings swept towards each other, suddenly emerged from the settling dust. No, not statues; they were attached to a gold plate.
Could it be?
A large gold object began to emerge. A box that looked like it was rising out of a fog.
It had to be!
The Ark of the Covenant. It was.
I am.
Rebecca’s heart slammed in her chest, threatening to tear itself free. For a long moment they gaped at the golden chest, stunned into silence. And then beside her, Zakkai let out a single, loud sob. He dropped to his knees.
“Oh my dear God.” It was Leiah, behind Rebecca, muttering a prayer. “Oh my God.”
Dust roiled at their feet. The torch’s light flickered over a brilliant chest covered with a pure gold that looked as if it had been poured yesterday. Two golden angels—cherubim—knelt on the top, facing each other with wings extended over the Ark’s cover. The Mercy Seat. The gold carrying poles still ran through their hoops at the base of the Ark. A simple wooden table supported the chest.
She had seen a hundred renderings of the Ark, but now looking at it she was struck by its brilliance. Like a perfect block carved out of God’s throne and lowered here to earth.
Rebecca took a step forward on numb legs.
She knew the exact dimensions by heart—114.3 centimeters long, 68.58 centimeters wide, and 68.58 centimeters deep. Interlocking circles had been etched along the length of the lid—she’d never seen a rendering with them. Three inlaid panels ran the length, but the gold was not broken. The panels were made of the acacia wood beneath, then covered with molten gold.
Rebecca glanced at Zakkai. The archaeologist knelt, trembling, muttering prayers. Long wet streaks ran through the dust on his cheeks. His eyes looked like pools of sorrow. “Don’t touch it,” he rasped. “Nobody touch it.”
Caleb stood in the shadows behind Zakkai, arms limp at his sides. She couldn’t read his expression.
The room beyond the Ark was black in shadows. “This . . . this is it, isn’t it?” she said. It was a statement.
“We have found it. We have found the resting place of God,” Zakkai said. “Israel will be restored once again.”
The rectangular panels were capped with a decorative ridge that ran the perimeter of the cover. “There’s no dust on it,” Rebecca said.
Zakkai stood and walked haltingly into the room, to the right of the Ark. He reached a hand out to one of the carrying poles, but then withdrew it. Rebecca eased to the left. The walls were covered in a waxlike substance. Vanilla wax—it was the source of the odor. She carefully stepped through the narrow space between the poles and the wall. They were both breathing deliberately, like accompanying bellows in the small chamber.
Only when she had passed the chest did she see that the shadows at the rear of the room were not shadows at all, but an opening. A tunnel ran into the wall, disappearing to black.
“Professor . . . ,” she whispered.
“Of course! An escape route to take the Ark out! The Falasha Jews were no fools.”
“Is it possible . . .” She trailed off.
“That it comes out beyond the Arabs? It must. God is with us! We must take the Ark out immediately.” Zakkai’s face glistened in the torchlight, wet with sweat.
Rebecca looked at the Ark again. Her mind seemed to be crawling through molasses. She had come to find this relic, but she hadn’t actually expected to—that much she knew by the tremor in her bones.
“The Arabs will attack tonight—they’re waiting for dark,” she said. Preparing the Ark for transportation would take some time. But if this tunnel led where she thought it did, they might have a chance. The equation had changed now. The Ark had to be saved at all costs.
Rebecca stepped into the tunnel. It ran straight back into pitch-darkness.
“Wait here for a minute.”
She ducked and hurried down the passage, keeping the torch above her head so that it left a trail of soot along the arched rock ceiling. Her breathing chased her into a jog.
A hundred meters later she pulled up, panting. There was still no end in sight. She spun around and ran back. When she broke into the chamber, they were exactly where she’d left them, in the dark, wide-eyed and immobilized, like three children visiting prep school for the first time. Three, because the fourth, Caleb, still hung back in the shadows behind Jason and Leiah, and Rebecca still couldn’t read his expression in the shadows.
“How far?” Zakkai asked.
“I don’t know. Far enough, I think.” She faced Jason, catching her breath. “Do you have wood and nails for a crate?”
“Some. Yes, I think so.”
“Crate it, Professor. No one opens it. No one touches it.” She eased around the Ark. Her skin tingled as she passed, and she wasn’t sure if it was her own reaction or not.
“As soon as it’s dark, I’ll send two men out to scout and move one of the trucks to the leper colony. It’ll be risky, but I don’t think they’ll chase a single truck on horseback if they know the rest of us are still here. Those remaining will leave through this tunnel on foot and meet the others at the village.”
She reached the ladder and turned back. The world was about to change, she thought. The gold box sitting there would see to that.
“Be ready to leave as soon as I give the word.”