No matter her assertions that Walker didn't belong to a dark conspiracy, their weapons were at the ready as they followed the student down the dirt steps. Already with so little traffic, the steps crumbled underfoot. Whoever built this staircase had done so quickly and with little regard to craftsmanship.
This dank dungeon didn't feel like the other finds. The mass grave under the Eiffel Tower and even James' watery coffin were carefully built with the specific purpose to house the holy bones.
A shout caused everyone to rush to the bottom of the stairs.
"I laid claim first!" Walker yelled.
After nearly slipping down the steps that had been crushed into a slick ramp, Rebecca could see what all the commotion was about. The archaeologist stood before a large silver door, waving a small pistol.
"I won't let you steal this find like you did in Jerusalem."
Lochum seemed unaffected by Walker's bizarre behavior. "Oh, please. Everyone knew that the Jews didn't first settle the holy city. The original structure was a massive Canaanite fortress. It only took uncovering the aqueducts to prove it."
"Aqueducts, I found. Just like I discovered this."
"Walker, this is the culmination of my life's work. You just happened to stumble upon a tiny piece of the puzzle."
While the older archaeologist's arms gesticulated wildly, Walker's eyes narrowed with cool logic. "Tell me, Archibald, could you have found the dungeons without my article in Archaeology Today? Or would you still be groping about up in the mosque hoping to catch a glimpse of Christ?"
Before Lochum could argue, Brandt stepped between them. "I have no idea what issues you two have, but neither one of you is getting credit."
This turned both men's attention to the sergeant as he continued. "Seriously, do you think the US Government would send in a Black-Ops team to assist an archaeologist the world assumes to be dead to find a set of bones under a mosque in the only Muslim country that serves as our ally, and then make it public?" Brandt held out his hand for Walker's tiny gun. "Get real. Whatever we find will be shipped directly to the Pentagon, then somebody way over my pay grade will figure it out from there."
Walker tried to shake his head, but his hand shook more as Brandt finished. "And my corporal can take out your shoulder, so how about you hand that gun over and step away from the door?"
Rebecca tensed, but it seemed to be Svengurd, cocking his gun quite loudly, that swayed the older man. Like a child caught in the cookie jar, Walker held out the gun. Faster than the eye could see, Brandt snatched the weapon and jerked the archaeologist away from the doorway.
Rebecca gasped. Behind Walker stood a towering silver door whose beauty could not be articulated. In the center of the burnished metal were three finely etched symbols. The first represented the Star of David. The next detailed an elaborate cross, while the third was the crescent moon and star of Islam. Rebecca's mind hearkened back to a passage from John's bones that involved the trinity. Only now she realized the passage wasn't talking about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, but the three religions.
Lochum must have realized the same thing as his fingers traced the symbols. "He's here," the professor said with such reverence it almost broke her heart. But as he tried to find a latch or lock, Walker laughed.
"That's the quandary, my man. There's no way in."
CHAPTER 24.
Beneath the Blue Mosque Lochum felt over the smooth edge of the door. It did, in fact, seem to be a part of the wall. He looked at the surface but found only the three religious icons. No other inscriptions or flowers or arrows to point the way.
Rebecca repeated the same maneuvers with the same poor luck.
"We've still got a little C-4 left," Svengurd interjected.
Walker howled his disapproval with his pack of students as backup.
"Enough!" Brandt yelled over the commotion. "Time to clear the gallery." He pointed to Walker. "You stay, but the rest..." The sergeant pointed to the tall grad student who seemed to hold sway over the rest. "Take everyone back to your hotel. Hole up there until we come for you."
"We're not going anywhere," the redhead stated, standing defiantly. "And if you try to make us, we'll just tell the authorities about you."
Lochum actually enjoyed watching Brandt stride over to the young man and stand nose-to-nose with him. "Please do, because my feeling is the Turkish government doesn't take kindly to people digging under their mosques, so I hope you are ready for some serious incarceration." The sergeant looked the boy up and down. "Where I doubt you'd make it five minutes before some Mohammed made you his bitch." Brandt backed away a step. "But, hey, if you want to get the full Istanbul salad tossing experience, go right ahead."
The freckled student blanched as he turned to Walker. But if he thought the archaeologist would help, the boy was sorely mistaken. The archaeologist was like himself. Married to his work. These students were nothing but strong backs and quick minds to further his very personal quest. If they were gone, there would be far less people to share the credit.
"Do as he says. We'll be up before nightfall," Walker said, seeming to regain his old authority.
The boy looked ready to argue, but one of the attractive female students urged him back toward the tunnel. "You heard him. He's going to want all the data correlated before we move on to the next room, anyway."
How like Rebecca she sounded. Practical, pragmatic, and very much in love with her academic advisor. For the briefest moment, Lochum became nostalgic for those days. Then he remembered Bunny. Poor, sweet Bunny. This girl was lucky she did not suffer the same fate.
As the students filed out, Brandt turned to Lochum. "Do you have any ETA on getting through the door?"
"Patience, dear lieutenant, patience."
Brandt bristled. "It's sergeant."
Lochum patted the man's broad shoulder. "After today? After this find? Trust me. You will have your bars."
Rebecca took several steps back. Close-up scrutiny of the silver door wasn't helping. She noticed Brandt glance at his watch for the fifteenth time. And just like before, his eyes darted to Svengurd, who seemed oblivious to his sergeant's scrutiny.
She went over to Brandt. "Have any thoughts?"
"Besides the fact that the C-4 idea was the best idea we've had yet, no, not really."
"I wouldn't say that too loudly," she said, eyeing the two older men. Walker and Lochum had put aside their professional differences and were working together to check the silver edges for signs of hidden latches.
But Brandt didn't lower his voice. If anything, he raised the volume. "We need to get our heads around the fact that that isn't a door."
"What do you mean?" Lochum asked.
"That's pure silver, right?"
Walker nodded emphatically. "The highest grade."
"And how deep are we?" the sergeant asked.
It was Svengurd who answered. "About thirty-two feet."
Brandt looked at the two professors. "Do you have any idea how many pounds per square inch of pressure that generates? Or the tensile strength of silver? Without a doorframe, that panel would need to be at least eight feet thick."
The archaeologist went to argue, but Lochum nodded. "I had feared as much. It seems to be more of an insert than an actual door."
"C-4 is sounding pretty damn good," Svengurd said as he readjusted his gun. They had been down there for over an hour with no progress. Everyone was feeling antsy.
"I will not allow you to blow up such an important artifact," Walker stated emphatically.
Lochum and she exchanged a look. After the past two days they had seen a thousand times more important relics demolished. This silver panel just didn't warrant any more delay. The professor nodded.
Rebecca turned to Brandt. "Talk to me how you would do it."
"You can't be serious!" the archaeologist shouted.
"Walker, come speak with me," Lochum said soothingly as he urged his colleague away from the panel.
Once they were out of earshot, Brandt indicated toward Svengurd. "I'm thinking we let the corporal show off his expertise."
"I can place the charges directed both back and inward. If I get it right I will pop this panel off like a bottle cap."
"And if you don't get it right?" Rebecca asked.
"Got your life insurance paid up?"
Pretty much what she had figured. "If you somehow avoid killing us, how much damage will it do to the panel?"
Svengurd shrugged. "It isn't going to be this pretty ever again, but the artwork should be readable."
Rebecca looked over her shoulder at Lochum. He read her decision perfectly and turned to Elfium. "You know we've only got this afternoon, Walker. After that, who knows? We must wager boldly, old friend."
The archaeologist looked from Lochum to Rebecca. Finding no ally in her, he turned back to the professor. His voice sounded small and hurt. "This is my first legitimate find since Masada."
Lochum grasped Walker's arm in a hearty handshake. "And we shall coauthor it all, together. But we must act now."
After a few harsh breaths, the archaeologist returned the shake.
"Finally," Svengurd said and quickly went to set the charges. Within seconds, the corporal wiped the dirt from his hands. "I'd suggest we retreat to the steps."
"Why?" the archaeologist asked, oblivious to their previous discussion.
Svengurd stated matter-of-factly, "Because I can't guarantee the ceiling isn't going to collapse, crushing us under five tons of mud."
"I thought you said it was safe?" Walker squeaked, sounding frayed.
Obviously the archaeologist hadn't had the crash course on how exactly relative the word "safe" was. But how to explain that to someone who hadn't just survived cave surfing and plane cartwheels?
"You want safe, I'd suggest you get the hell out of Istanbul. Make that Europe," Brandt said, making Rebecca's point for her.
The challenge seemed to steady the older man. "I'm staying."
"Then I suggest you get inside that stairwell."
Brandt gave the signal, and Svengurd hit the detonator. There was a delay, long enough that he glanced to his corporal. Had he screwed up, or worse, intentionally sabotaged the explosives? But then a deafening boom shook the stairwell. The blast wave was strong enough to throw them all to their knees, then the recoil hit, sucking them forward.
Chunks of dirt larger around than a fist rained down upon them as the walls to the stairwell warped, then collapsed.
"Everyone forward!" Brandt commanded, but it was redundant. They had nowhere to go but forward as the staircase flowed out from under their feet as they all rushed headlong to the landing.
The archaeologist tripped over the charred silver door. "What have you done?" Walker knelt beside it, distraught. "What have we done?"
"Um..." Brandt wanted to reassure the archaeologist, but couldn't find the words to describe the room behind the door.
Unlike the dirt dungeon, this chamber was all marble and artistry. Shafts of light bathed the interior from the waning day above. Like the mosque, the room's ceiling was tiled in bright blue ceramic. The walls alternated mosaics from Jewish and Christian origins to panels painted with Islamic scripture. But in the center of the room was a large marble table, which had upon it a single skeleton wrapped in blue silk. From the glint near its head, a silver coin seemed to rest there.
"How could you have done this?" the archaeologist wailed, trying to pick off the burnt edges of the panel.
"Walker, look up."
"I don't care what is-" The archaeologist stopped mid-sentence as looked into the chamber. "Dear Lord."
"That's exactly right," Lochum said as he squeezed through the hole.
Rebecca unstuck her feet from the knee-high muck and climbed over the short retaining wall onto the creamy marble-floored chamber. Unlike Lochum, she didn't immediately rush to the skeleton. It was too much to take in. The chamber. The writings upon the wall. The implication of it all. She just couldn't approach the skeleton yet. She needed to gather her wits first.
This day was never supposed to come. It was if something you wished upon a falling star suddenly transpired. The scene felt unreal. Dreamlike. But every injury she had endured over the past few days ached, reminding her that in fact, this was very real.
She looked up toward the shafts of light. Small tunnels came in at steep angles from above. Tilting her head, Rebecca could swear she heard the call to prayers. In her mind she reconstructed their path downward. Spinning on her heel she realized where they were. They must be under the Blue Mosque's courtyard. The skeleton was directly beneath the purification fountain.
Now this, this place with its buttery marble and ageless art, felt like the resting place of Christ.
Lochum and Walker were already studying the bones. "They have inscriptions as well! 'Becca, look!"
Rebecca noticed that Brandt had hung back too, but unlike her, he paced, circling the bones as if assessing if they could be true.
Well, it was time for her to see if they were.
Slowly she made her way to the carved table. This close she could see that the pedestal was carved with the Last Supper, although not as she had seen it in the past. What was off about it?
"Walker, we must remove the cloth!"
Their argument interrupted her study of the relief. "Wait!" Rebecca said, but it was too late. Lochum pulled the silk from the remains to reveal the entire skeleton. She had borrowed a digital camera from one of the grad students, and she'd wanted to document the body before it was disturbed.
"Think! We still have James' bone. We can DNA-test to see if they are a genetic match."
Rebecca was too overwhelmed to think of such things or even her own project. Right now she reverted to her student days and began taking picture after picture of the skeleton. As Rebecca continued her photographic survey, she could not help but read small snatches of the carved scripture. It spoke of all the major players. Not surprisingly, there was much about the Last Supper and the days leading up to the Crucifixion.
As she made her way down the body, Rebecca noticed something wrong. Wasn't the pelvis too wide to be a man? She glanced back to the skull. Didn't the mandible seem too small? The humerus also seemed far too thin and short for a fully grown man.
"Listen, 'Becca! 'And they came and sat together as the twelve and the one. Many others brought food and she who was loved best of all poured the wine.'" The professor's eyes were glazed over with excitement. "A firsthand account of the Last Supper!"