Davidson checked the sergeant's pulse as he answered. "You mean besides basing this entire mission on a sketchy declaration by Walker, who really can't be asked to clarify? But other than that, we're green-lit."
"What about extraction?" Svengurd asked as he sat back up.
Lopez skid the car to a stop at the plateau. "Leave that to me. Now, if you guys can look through these."
Stomach still roiling, Brandt accepted the binoculars, but his hands shook as he put them up to his eyes. Across the way, the monastery was perched upon another peak, nestled in a grove of trees.
"Looks quiet."
"Now walk your way down the slope. About sixty degrees."
Brandt followed the slope away from the monastery several hundred yards where he found a leak of light from the grassy hillside. "Where's the illumination coming from?"
Lopez took the binoculars and fidgeted with them as he answered. "Not sure, but it turns out that light is the biggest pro of all."
"Why?"
The corporal handed back the binoculars. "Look now."
Not knowing what to expect, Brandt was surprised at how little the view had changed. "I don't get it." The light was still there, only it shimmered slightly, almost shifting wavelengths.
"That, my man, is cold cathode lighting."
Then the sergeant got it. "Like the lab back in Paris."
Davidson nodded much more gravely than before. "Somebody in there is inspecting ancient bones."
Feeling a fierce sense of determination, Brandt asked, "You two have an attack plan?"
The private and corporal both smirked.
"Remember that naval base we told you about?" Off the sergeant's nod, Lopez continued, "Guess what they just happen to have lying around?"
Lochum watched as Petir entered with a small bone sitting atop a velvet pillow. Ever so carefully, the man set it down on the steel table.
"You withheld, Tok," the professor growled.
Obviously the deaf man had some way to hear, but Tok ignored his rebuke. "Read the inscription upon the lateral edge."
Not wanting to admit that he struggled more than the far younger and quick-eyed Rebecca, Lochum allowed her to begin the translation.
"Unto all is all. For what is Caesar's is Caesar's and God's is God's, but in this Caesar will hold God close to his bosom for all children are sacred, most of all Him."
His student looked up. "Yeah, but the Caesars got around. This doesn't help delineate a search area."
Carefully, Petir turned the bone over. "Examine the sagital plane."
Having to contort her neck, Rebecca began reading. "The Eternal City is both first and last but hated and despised." Once she stood back up she looked to Tok. "Why did you act surprised when I mentioned Rome? Haven't you already looked there?"
"You don't think we tried?" Petir relayed for Tok, a frown deeply embedded in the man's face. Lochum could see decades of failure and discouragement in those lines. Lines like those on his own face.
"But it made no sense that they would lay his body there. Rome was the enemy. The city that killed Peter. The army that sacked Jerusalem."
Lochum shook his head. "True, but Mary was not so worried about the Romans finding her son. Why would they bother? To them he was dead. No longer a threat. They had far more weighty concerns, such as quelling the dangerous Jewish uprising. The Virgin, I believe, was more concerned with her contemporaries and, given the convoluted political struggle, her fellow Jews were her adversaries. Who amongst them would venture to the heart of the Roman Empire to unearth the Knot's secret?"
Instead of being impressed with Lochum's sterling logic, Tok searched Rebecca's face for confirmation. Why did people keep doing that? Had he not just explained quite eloquently the entire scenario?
"Speak, Monroe," Petir demanded.
"I just..."
Lochum glared at his student. Even here. Even now, for all her moralizing, Rebecca was still going to outshine him. If he were not as interested in her words as Tok, the professor would have slapped her.
Rebecca cleared her throat. "I agree with everything Lochum said, but I think we are missing something."
"Such as?" Tok inquired through his man.
"Yes, Mary would have wanted to get the bones somewhere no one would think to look, but each time they hid a body, they had help-someone from the region to select the exact location. I doubt if they would have just sent a guy into Rome and have him bury Christ just anywhere. It would have needed to be somewhere of significance."
Damn, how he hated her, Lochum thought as he brought her into a hug. "Beautifully put, child."
Tok did not seem satisfied. "And you have some idea where that is?"
Picking up one of the small silver coins, Rebecca looked at Petir, then Tok, then finally at Lochum. He nodded to encourage her. There was no point in holding back. Who was left to rescue them?
She was about to utter the most important words spoken in more than two millennia when the entire room shook.
Rebecca stumbled to one knee at the second shock wave. Was it an earthquake? Turkey was known for its geological fault lines. But she should have known better, as a wrecking ball smashed through the stone ceiling.
Everyone scattered under the pelting debris. Pocketing the silver coin, she made for the far wall. It might be right under the demolition, but that's where Brandt would be.
"Lochum! Come on!" Rebecca yelled as a bulldozer's shovel widened the hole in the rock.
But the professor had taken refuge under one of the worktables. Petir yelled up the stairwell, but Tok was down, splayed on the ground, a bloody gash across his forehead. This was their chance.
Ignoring the sacrilegious implications, Rebecca scrambled onto Mary's casket, getting as close to the newly created exit as possible. Ducking as gunfire spat from the opening, she yelled, "I'm here! It's me!"
A head popped from the edge. Brandt. "Rebecca?"
"Yes!" she cried, never so happy to see a man in her life.
The sergeant held out his arm. "Grab hold!"
"Wait!" she yelled and turned back to the professor. "Archibald, hurry!"
However, Lochum pulled himself deeper under the table.
As cover fire exploded overhead, Rebecca pled, "Just run!"
With no apology, the professor shook his head, and then covered it with his arms. Rebecca couldn't believe it. For so many hours she had made herself believe that Lochum had just been faking as she had been faking. Or, at the least, the professor felt so deserted and desperate enough that he threw his lot in with the Knot. But now? Rescue was just inches away.
"Rebecca!" Brandt yelled as guards burst into the room, firing wildly.
Not needing encouragement, Rebecca crouched down, then with all the might in her legs, leapt toward Brandt's open hands. He caught her by the wrists, nearly tearing her arms from their sockets, but caught her nonetheless.
In another feat of upper body strength he pulled her through their stony escape hatch. They tumbled backward onto the soft grassy slope as bullets whizzed past, narrowly missing them both.
Brandt pulled her close. "Are you hurt?"
Tears streaking her face, she shook her head. "No. I'm okay, really."
Despite her assertions, his hands coursed up and down her back, arms, and legs checking for bullet wounds. "You're sure?"
Looking into his stormy green-gray eyes, Rebecca was sure.
CHAPTER 27.
Prince Islands, Turkey As Rebecca reassured Brandt that she was fine, a grenade arced high over the edge of the hole. As it fell back to earth, it was coming straight for them. Brandt smothered her body trying to protect her, but he knew when that grenade exploded, there wouldn't be any protecting.
"Yeah, right!" Lopez yelled as he swung the bulldozer's shovel over them, catching the explosive, then lifting the detonation far over their heads. "Hey! I just invented grenade lacrosse!"
Grabbing Rebecca's arm, Brandt pulled her up as Svengurd prepared to go into the hornet's nest after the professor. "We've got to get Lochum then bug out, pronto."
But Rebecca yelled, "Don't!" She turned to him. "He's not coming."
"What do you mean? Is he injured?" The sergeant indicated for Lopez to come down from the bulldozer, but she stopped him.
"He's fine. He's..." Tears sprung to life. "He's working with them."
"Excuse me?" Brandt growled.
"More are coming," Svengurd announced. "I don't know how much longer we can hold them!"
Rebecca tugged him away from the hole. "Lochum's not coming with us. He's helping the Knot."
He's fucking helping the Knot? Brandt wanted to ask, but knew it wouldn't help things. They had bigger problems. Like how they were going to escape. "An integral part of our extraction was to bring this place down on their heads."
Rebecca blanched. "But we can't just..."
The set of Brandt's jaw must have told her that they could, in fact, dust Lochum, right here and right now, because Rebecca couldn't hold back the tears any longer.
"We can't..." Rebecca sobbed, but knew her words were futile. Even she knew they couldn't just run. They had found the Knot's headquarters. It had to be destroyed, but how could she authorize Lochum's death?
Luckily, Brandt took the decision out of her hands. His face hardened. "He made his choice." Turning to Lopez, he gave the signal. "Phase two!"
While Svengurd provided cover, Davidson threw sacks of what looked like spices into the bulldozer's bucket. What exactly was their plan?
"Back away!" Lopez yelled over the automatic gunfire as he began dumping the contents into the chamber below.
The sergeant looked at Svengurd. "You want the honors?"
"Abso-fucking-lutely." The tall corporal lit a match off the side of his boot, flicking it into the plume of dust churned up by the tumbling packets. A sparkling fire bloomed from the cloud. At first it looked just like tiny sparkler, but then it became a roaring ball of flame cascading into the hole.
Brandt pulled her close as screams carried from the chamber. Explosion after explosion rocked the ground beneath them. But maybe, just maybe, if someone had been smart enough to head to the stairwell, they could have survived the inferno. Then Lopez jammed the bulldozer into gear as he leaped from the cab.
"Wahoo!"
The bucket fell into the hole, dragging with it the rest of the bulldozer's bulk. The heavy equipment plugged the hole perfectly, so that the next explosion had nowhere to vent, causing the entire hillside to shudder.
The monastery that sat high above them on the mountainside, quaked. The building's foundation must have been connected to the chamber because the ancient walls shook, and then the entire structure imploded.
"Come on!" Brandt shouted as the ground quaked again.
Within seconds, the entire monastery collapsed to rubble.
What had she done?
Brandt knew that Rebecca was in shock, but they needed to haul ass.
"The car is just around the bend," he reassured her, but nothing seemed to penetrate those unblinking eyes.
Not even a bullet whizzing past them brought speed to Rebecca's feet. They had fallen behind, and already the Knot was well on its way to mounting an offensive. They only had another twenty yards to the crest of the knoll, but the sergeant feared they wouldn't make it. Counting on bad aim wasn't his usual exit strategy.
A spat of gunfire chewed the ground at their heels.
The enemy was catching up. Soon they would be within a scope's range, which was as good as having a bull's-eye on your back.
A muffled cry from Rebecca told him she was hit. Staying on her feet told him it wasn't too bad, but it made her all the slower. The shots were getting closer and closer as they struggled up the last few yards, when Brandt heard an engine's scream of protest. He knew the sound well.
"Get down!" the sergeant shoved Rebecca to the ground as Lopez gunned the convertible up the ridge, jumping the car over them. After bouncing the landing, he executed a perfect one-eighty, putting the body of the convertible between them and the shooters.
"Hop in!" the corporal shouted as he revved the engine again.