Treasure of Babylon, page 5
part #2 of Avalon Adventure Series
“Heave!” Decker yelled.
They pulled together and the door lifted a few inches before slamming back down in a cloud of dust.
Decker turned to Danny. “Danny, when we lift the door again, I want you to wedge it open with a rock or something. Then we can crow-bar it out of the way.”
Danny followed his instructions and the next time they heaved the door open an inch or so, he wedged the handle of a shovel beneath it. They released the rope and the door dropped back down again, but this time the handle ensured a small gap remained.
“Crow-bar,” Decker said.
Shira handed him one, and after wedging it down inside the gap he told the others to pull on the door one more time. Working together, they were able to pull the trap door fully open and then right over on its back, where it crashed into the floor with a heavy, mournful thud. When the dust had settled, the small team gathered around the door and peered down inside the new hole they had created.
“Oh my,” Selena said with a gasp. “This is unbelievable.”
7
“Flashlight,” Herzog said, snapping his fingers at Danny who passed him one immediately. The Israeli professor shone the beam down into the darkness and they all saw a deep cavern stretching out beneath them. The floor was littered with chests, boxes and statues and on the second pass of the beam, Herzog’s flashlight illuminated a pile of what could only be some kind of precious stones.
“Diamonds?”
“Perhaps.”
“We need to get in there!”
“We’re too high up to drop down inside,” Decker said. “A fall from this height would be fatal.”
“We need a longer ladder!” Herzog yelled. “Get me a ladder – at least six meters.”
Danny ran from the chamber in search of a full-length ladder, but Decker had another idea. “Give me the loose end of the chain. It’s heavy enough to take my weight.”
“Take your weight?” Selena said. “Are you insane?”
Herzog was confused. “What is he talking about?”
“I can use the chain to shimmy down inside the chamber while we wait for the ladder.”
“But I must be the first to enter,” Herzog said, obviously offended by the mere suggestion. “I have spent my life searching for this.”
Decker shrugged his shoulders, picked up the loose end of the chain and dropped it down inside the chamber. When it had reached its full length it snapped to a stop a few feet above the cavern’s floor. The door it was secured to didn’t move an inch. Decker gestured inside the hole. “Professor?”
Herzog gripped the sides of the hole with his hands and peered down inside the gloom. When he returned to face Decker and Selena, his face had paled slightly. “All right, perhaps you go first while we wait for Danny to return with the ladder.”
Decker went first, gripping the chain with his hands and hooking it around his feet as he lowered himself slowly into the chamber. It took just a few seconds before his boots were touching down on the dusty floor, and then he tugged the chain and called up.
“That’s one small step for a man, but one giant leap for this team.”
Riley laughed and climbed down the chain. “I’m right behind you, big guy.”
Charlie was next and then Selena at the rear. When she hit the bottom of the chamber she gasped with amazement. “This place is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,” she said, tracing her hands over the smooth edges of a golden statue.
Centuries of uninterrupted dust and cobwebs covered the surface of every treasure chest. The solemn faces of the Greek statues stared back at them with impassive, blank eyes of cold marble. A sound – something scuttling away in one of the darkest corners, and the smell of damp neglect grew heavier as they moved further into the chamber.
“I cannot believe we are actually beneath the Holy Sepulchre!” Herzog said as he touched down in the chamber. His voice was hoarse, trembling with anticipation and uncertainty. Tears welled in his eyes, but he blinked them away. “This is the greatest moment of my entire life.”
“Not just of your life, Professor Herzog,” Selena said. “This place could very well turn out to be the most important archaeological study in Western culture.”
They started their search for the Angel of God. The description in the manuscript was sparse, chronicling it as made of gold, and small enough for one man to carry.
“So, we’re looking for something with wings, right?” Riley called out from a far corner.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Selena said. “Angels aren’t usually described as having wings in the Bible. Mostly they’re described as appearing as normal human beings, but both cherubim and seraphim have wings and they’re described as being angels, so…”
“So, maybe – maybe not,” Charlie said with a laugh.
“What about this?” Decker said, pulling a small statue of a woman praying from a chest. He blew the dust off it and saw it was made of ceramic and not gold. “Nope.”
“This?” Charlie said, holding up a golden statue of Christ.
“Think about it, Charlie,” Selena said. “Christ was born thousands of years after the Ark went missing.”
“Gotcha.”
The search went on, with Herzog and Charlie working one side of the room, and Selena and Riley on the other. Decker was working alone on the northern edge of the chamber when he stumbled over something that made his hairs stand on end. “Over here! I think I have it!”
The others joined him and both Selena and Herzog knew at once they had it as the American carefully lifted a golden statue of a seraphim from a pile of dusty rubble in the corner. He gently brushed centuries of dust away to reveal a perfect, golden work of religious art.
“The Angel of God!” Selena said.
Herzog muttered, “Undoubtedly.”
“Smaller than I thought,” Charlie said.
“Is that what your last girlfriend said, mate – or are you describing the statue?”
“Funny.”
Selena couldn’t take her eyes off the statue as Decker handed it to her. It wasn’t as heavy as she had anticipated, and while this surprised her at first, she quickly worked out why, and her heart quickened even more with another wave of excitement. If a golden statue of this size weighed as little as this then it couldn’t be solid, and that meant only one thing.
Decker pushed his hat an inch up his forehead and scratched his forehead with a bemused look on his face. “So, that’s the real thing, huh?”
Selena looked at him and sighed. With the statue still cradled in her arms like a baby, she stood on her tiptoes and leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek.
“What was that for?” he asked, fighting the blush away.
“For everything,” she said. “For saving my life so many times, for flying out to save my father and for helping me find this. Thanks, Mitch.”
Decker furrowed his brow and scratched an imaginary itch behind his ear. “No problem, I guess. You’re welcome, or something like that.”
She rolled her eyes. Men.
Returning her gaze to the golden statue in her arms, she was once again struck by the object’s intense, mesmerizing beauty. Smooth lines sloped down from the heavenly creature’s narrow shoulders, and the serene indifference on its face was beyond description.
“It’s undoubtedly a seraph,” she said. The word was an ancient Hebrew name for the burning one, a reference to the light which emanated from them when they descended from heaven.
“Forgive my ignorance,” Charlie said, “but just what is a seraph, exactly?”
“It’s a celestial being in the traditions of both Christianity and Judaism and there are several mentions of them in the Old Testament.”
“It is pretty amazing,” Riley said. “And the wings are awesome.”
“As winged creatures, tradition holds that they’re supposed to fly above the Throne of God in the Seventh Heaven. They’re closely associated with legends about apotheosis, too.”
Charlie sighed. “In English, if you please.”
“Apotheosis is a Greek word referring to the process of becoming divine, it’s usually used to describe when a mortal has been elevated to godlike status.”
She felt a desperate wave of regret rush over her as she thought about her father. Old Atticus lived for this sort of thing, and it was only thanks to his research that they were even here in the first place, and yet he wasn’t here to enjoy the moment with them. Worse, he was missing, presumed kidnapped by an unknown agency that had snatched him from a foreign hotel room. He could be anywhere, she thought bleakly.
Kurz had denied taking him, but could she believe a man like Stefan Kurz? There was something about him that had left her with a very bad feeling after their impromptu meeting in the elevator earlier today, and she didn’t like it.
Then again, if he had snatched Atticus to gain some leverage over her, he hadn’t seemed in much of a hurry to use it, and that made her think that maybe someone else was behind the disappearance after all.
Visions of her father tied and gagged in some hellhole rose up like shadows at the foot of her bed, and she fought to shake them from her mind. The darkest thought of all was the possibility that he might be dead. She couldn’t even go there, and instantly dismissed the thought from her mind.
He couldn’t be dead, could he? The hotel room was trashed but he was missing. If it had been a robbery that had gone wrong, they would have found his body in the room. The fact he was missing was a good thing, and no one would have taken him just to kill him in another location. No, whoever had taken him had done it for a reason, and that must mean they needed him. She felt in her heart that he was still alive.
She was rudely shaken from the thoughts of her father by a deep explosion that rocked the ground they were standing on.
“What the hell was that?” Herzog yelled out, covering his head instinctively with his arms.
“Sounded like a thermite grenade,” Decker said.
“A thermite grenade?” Selena yelled. “And what the hell is one of those?”
“It’s trouble… big trouble.”
Now they heard the sounds of people screaming and then Danny’s voice as he called out to warn them of the threat, but then they heard the chatter of submachine guns. No one heard Danny’s voice again.
“Danny!” Shira called out.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Decker said.
8
“We’re under attack?” Herzog said. “This is unthinkable! There are police everywhere. This is the a holy site!”
“It’s not unthinkable,” Decker said calmly. “It’s happening right now, professor.”
“Who is it?”
“We were approached earlier today by a group calling itself the Church of the Sacred Light. They wanted to hire us to work for them, but we declined their offer. I don’t believe in the kind of coincidence it would take for this attack on us to be by a second group – not in the space of a few hours, anyway. If you ask me, the smart money’s on this being the handiwork of the Kurz and the Church.”
“But who are they?” Herzog said.
“We’re not sure,” Selena said. “Quick research pointed to them being a kind of ultra religious sect, a cult almost, on the fringes of Christianity.”
“But I have my doubts about that,” Decker said.
The sound of more gunfire and yells echoed down the tunnel from the entrance up on the surface. “Sounds like they’re getting closer,” Herzog said. “They must be massacring our police!”
Selena’s mind raced as she heard the sound of men screaming high above them up in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It sounded like a bloodbath, and she had no doubt that Kurz must be involved in some way – who else even knew about what they were doing here? “All they want is the Angel of God,” Selena said. “We can’t let them have it. Is there another way out of here?”
Then she saw a familiar face standing over them up in the chamber above the tomb and she knew at once Decker had been right to doubt Stefan Kurz’s sincerity. The Austrian was looking down at her with a grin in his face, but the smart suit had been replaced by a black roll-neck and combat fatigues and instead of the Bible his two hands now gripped a chunky submachine gun.
“So the Bible was just a prop after all?” she called up.
“Ah, Professor Moore,” Kurz called down. “I see you are like the proverbial rat in a trap, down in this dark little hole.”
“What do you want, Kurz?” Decker called up, stalling for time. Herzog was still rummaging around in the back of the cavern desperately searching for a way out.
“You know what I want, Captain. The Angel of God.”
“And what makes you think we found it?” Selena called up.
Kurz laughed and barked some orders in German. “I’m sure a woman of your abilities could not fail to find such a glorious relic in a place such as this – especially with the famous David Herzog to help her.” He grinned and stared into her eyes. “You think I didn’t know Professor Herzog was down in your little rat trap with you?”
“I don’t know what you mean…”
“Step into the light with your hands up, Herzog, or the girl’s dead.”
Decker felt his hands tightening into two fists as he watched Kurz’s men drag Shira into view. Several meters above them now, and partially obscured by the side of the trap door hole, he saw it was definitely her and she looked scared for her life. “You bastard, Kurz.”
“Now, Professor Herzog, and bring the Angel of God with you. You have until the count of three… Drei…”
Decker lowered his gaze and after exchanging a look of helplessness with Selena, the two of them watched David Herzog as he stepped calmly out of the shadows in the far corner of the cavern. He was still gripping the golden Angel of God, but gave a defeatist shrug as he drew closer to them. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I think perhaps there is another way out over there, behind those statues.”
Zwei…
“I’m right here!” Herzog yelled out, and stepped into the glare of their flashlights. “Don’t harm her, please.”
Kurz roughly pushed the girl out of sight again and smiled broadly as his eyes fixed on the statue in Herzog’s embrace. “Mein Gott, you really did find it!”
“What now?”
“Tie it to the end of the chain and I will bring it to the surface. When I have it in my hands, I will lower the girl down and you can wait in here until the authorities find you, by which time my men and I will be long gone.”
Decker lowered his voice so only Selena and the Israeli could hear. “Yeah right… if we give him the statue there’s nothing to stop him dropping one of those thermite grenades down here and burning all of us to death.”
Herzog turned to him with two plaintive eyes. “But what else can we do? He has Shira and we know he’s happy to murder anyone who gets in his way – think about Danny!”
“I don’t kill,” Kurz called down. “If I must make a sacrifice, then so be it, but it’s not as mindless as murder.”
“You tell yourself that, Kurz!” Decker called up. “Anything to help you sleep at night, right?”
A shadow of contempt colored the Austrian’s face. “Don’t judge me, Captain Decker, I will submit to judgement by God alone! Now, tie the Angel of God to the end of the chain before I am forced to sacrifice yet another in the name of my cause!”
“You can drop the religious act, Kurz!” Decker said.
“I don’t know what you mean. The statue, now!”
Herzog desperately scanned the tomb for another escape route and then turned his face up to the light high above. “If you want it, come and get it!”
Kurz laughed. “Surely you can’t believe I am stupid enough to lower myself down there and ask you for the Angel? You would kill me before I even reached the floor of the tomb.”
“That’s your problem!” yelled Herzog.
“I will kill her, Professor!” Kurz shouted.
“Let’s switch this around,” Herzog called up. “If you hurt her, I will never tell you which one is the Angel! Not ever! You need me!”
Kurz’s smug grin turned to a scowl. “Then please allow me to me make a suggestion.” He turned to one of his men and spoke in rapid German. The man pulled a metal canister from his belt and handed it to him. Kurz waved it casually in the air and his smile returned. “This is a very powerful thermite grenade, identical to the one that just shook this very church to its foundations. That was when we used one to clear the police and security out of our way at the main entrance.”
“I don’t like where this is heading,” Decker said.
“You don’t?” Charlie said. “I only just got this tan – I can’t die now!”
“I am going to count to ten, and in that time one of you will tie the Angel to the chain and allow me to pull it out of the tomb. If you don’t comply, I will pull the pin on this incendiary, wait until the timer is down to two seconds and then drop it into the tomb. You, and everything else down there will be blown into dust.”
“It’s a very tempting offer,” Decker said. “But I think you’re bluffing.”
“Can you be so sure?”
“If you blow the Angel to dust, then you’re search is over before it’s even started.”
“Oh, really?”
“Sure,” Decker said calmly. “I recognise that thermite grenade, Kurz. That thing’s going to burn at close to four thousand degrees, and yet the melting point of the gold in the Angel statue is only one thousand degrees. You drop that thing down here and you can kiss your statue goodbye and whatever the hell you want that’s inside it.”
Kurz laughed, louder this time and almost sincere. “You are indeed a worthy adversary.” He cocked his gun and pointed it into the hole. Ordering his men to do the same, Decker and the others were soon looking into a firing squad of half a dozen men, each armed with a cutting-edge submachine gun. With nowhere to hide in the tomb, it would be as simple an execution as ever there was. “My new plan is to cut you to shreds with these bullets. Have you, by any chance, a smart answer to this plan?”
