As the soldier joined them, Rhun unclipped the grenade from his belt.
“That won’t work,” the man said. “I was just explaining—”
“Trust me.” Rhun waded through the pool of sand back to the boulder and dug down near the corner, where the rock met the wall. He dug swiftly, but the sand fought him, filling as fast as he could scoop it out.
He couldn’t do this alone.
“Help me.”
The others flanked him.
“Dig to the floor,” he ordered.
They worked together until the sand was clear along the bottom edge, exposing a small curved gap between the stone disk and tunnel floor. Rhun reached down and jammed the grenade deep into that crack, wedging it under the disk’s edge.
He then placed a finger in the pin’s ring and spoke over his shoulder. “Get back as far up the tunnel as you can reach.”
“What about you?” the soldier asked.
With no one digging, sand poured back into the hole, burying his wrist, then his forearm. “I will follow you.”
The soldier hesitated, but he finally nodded and pulled the woman with him.
Erin called to him, “How do you know it will work?”
Rhun didn’t. He had to trust in God—and in a certain line from the Bible, one concerning boulders sealing tombs.
Mark 15:46.
He whispered it now, both as answer and as prayer.
“And Joseph bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulcher which was hewn out of a rock—and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulcher.”
With those words, he yanked the pin on the grenade, pulled his arm free, and fought against the cataract of flowing sand.
He made it in just three steps.
The grenade coughed behind him, a giant, barking wheeze that blew a dusty fireball across his back. His head clipped the edge of a wall as he fell to the floor.
Dazed, vision swimming, he flopped over to his back.
Feet pounded down the steps toward him.
He lay flat, unmoving.
The air tasted of sand and smoke—then a breeze suffused the passageway. A sweet, clean waft of desert air.
“I’ve got him.” The soldier hooked Rhun under the armpits and dragged him across the sand-strewn floor.
The woman ran ahead. “Look! The force of the grenade blast rolled the stone two feet to the side. Why didn’t I think of that? They’d sealed this place just like Christ’s tomb.”
“… rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulcher,” he mumbled, fading in and out.
Of course she recognized what he’d done.
He felt himself dragged past the blackened stone and out into the open air. He looked up. The stars were bright, razor-sharp, eternal. Those stars had watched Masada being built, and now they bore witness to its destruction.
A great crescendo of grating stone and booming rock sounded as the mountain collapsed, utterly.
Then at long last, silence.
Still, Erin and Jordan continued to haul the priest far out into the desert, not taking any chances. But finally they stopped.
A warm hand squeezed Rhun’s shoulder. He caught a glimpse of amber eyes. “Thank you, Father, for saving our lives.”
Such simple words. Words he rarely heard. As a soldier of God, he often went for days without speaking to another soul. That earlier ache—as he watched the pair embrace on the stairs—returned, only slicing deeper now, almost too painful to bear. He stared into those eyes.
Would I feel this way if she weren’t so lovely?
As darkness drowned him, she leaned closer. “Father Korza, what book were you looking for here?”
She and the soldier had fought, killed, and had friends die because of the book. Had they not earned an answer? For that reason alone, he told her.
“It is the Gospel. Written in the blood of its maker.”
Behind her, stars framed her face. “What do you mean? Are you talking about some lost apocryphal text?”
He heard the hunger in her voice, the desire for knowledge, but she did not seem to understand. He turned his heavy head to meet her eyes directly. She had to see his sincerity.
“It is the Gospel,” he repeated as darkness took away the world. “Written by Christ’s own hand. In his own blood.”
PART II
Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.
—John 20:30
13
October 26, 6:48 P.M., IST
Airborne over Masada, Israel
The Eurocopter spiraled over the smoking caldera that was Masada. The pilot fought thermals rising from the desert as the dark sands slowly released the sun’s heat. The blades churned the rock dust, engines whining as they sucked the fouled air.
The helicopter suddenly bumped and banked hard left, coming close to throwing Bathory out the open bay door. She held tight to a railing and stared below. A fire still raged atop the blasted summit. She could feel the heat on her face, as if she were staring into the sun. She closed her eyes, and for a moment imagined a youthful summer day at her country estate along the Drava River in her rural Hungary, sitting in the garden, watching her younger brother, Istvan, play, chasing butterflies with his tiny net.
A groan drew her attention back into the cabin, the interruption piquing her irritation. She turned to the young corporal lying on the floor, whose pale face and pinprick pupils spoke of his deep shock.
Tarek knelt on his shoulders while his brother, Rafik, carved into the man’s chest with the point of a dagger, idly, as if bored. Afterward, he absently licked the blade, as if wetting the tip of a pen, ready to continue his writing.
“Don’t,” she warned.
Tarek glanced hard at her, one corner of his lip curling in anger, showing teeth. Rafik lowered his dagger. His ferret eyes darted between his brother and Bathory, his face lighting with the delight of what might happen.
“I have one last question for him,” she said, staring Tarek down.
She met the animal’s gaze. To her, that was all Tarek and Rafik were—animals.
Tarek finally backed down and waved his brother away.
She took Rafik’s place. She placed a palm on the soldier’s cheek. He looked so much like Istvan. It was why she forbade them from marring his face. He stared up at her, piteous, nearly blind with pain, barely in this world.
“I made you a promise,” she said, leaning close as if to kiss his lips. “One last question and you’ll be free.”
His eyes met hers.
“Erin Granger, the archaeologist.”
She let that name sink through his stupor. He’d already talked, spilling forth most everything he knew as they escaped the crumbling, fiery summit of Masada. She would have left him there to die with his brothers-in-arm, but she needed to squeeze everything she could out of this man, no matter the cruelty. She had learned long ago the practicality of cruelty.