Brandt used the last of his strength to shove away a support beam and duck under the arch. He stumbled into the crypt to find it relatively unscathed. The inner dome had fallen onto the thick marble screens and acted as a shelter from the destruction from above.
Rebecca rose behind the crypt, coughing, but alive.
He rushed forward, falling to one knee.
Rebecca watched Brandt go down.
No! They couldn't have survived so much to lose him now.
"What's wrong?" she asked almost afraid to hear the answer. What could be worse than being shot twice?
He pulled a little red box out of his jacket. Was he mad?
But then he opened the box to reveal a bright, shining diamond ring.
"Rebecca Sasha Monroe," he said, his voice only hitching with pain twice. "Will you marry me?"
Her lips trembled as tears streaked down her cheeks. This proposal was so wrong that it made it so very right.
"Yes," she said lowering to her knees as she cupped his hand. "I think I will."
Brandt slipped the ring onto her finger. The gilded band felt so light yet carried so much weight. As sirens wailed and shouts carried through the Taj Mahal, Brandt leaned in and kissed her.
While his lips tasted of salt from tears, iron from blood, and even a little fishy, Rebecca knew this was a kiss to last for the ages.
HAVOC.
UPON THE MOUNT.
Mount Sinai.
1480 BCE.
Yehoshua held his breath as the clouds roiled overhead. It had been long these forty days and nights upon the mount. He had nearly given up all hope of God fulfilling His promise.
Moshe, proving himself the prophet foretold, had somehow kept hope alive. He found berries where none should grow. A cool spring that should be dry. Brought forth heat where no flame burned. Without supplies or even a goat to milk, they had survived amongst the mountain peaks these long weeks. Moshe had said God would provide and He did, albeit in meager portions.
It was not for Yehoshua to question Moshe. The gray-haired prophet had delivered them from Egypt. Had subdued the Red Sea and had brought the Chosen People to the base of this mount. All upon God's word. Would Moshe's followers have his exquisite patience though?
Before Yehoshua could ponder Aaron and the camp's mood during their long absence, the sky set afire burning in reds and oranges. A column of flames shot down, dancing upon the barren plateau. Yehoshua shielded his face from the heat. The air itself felt on fire as it entered his chest.
Moshe however took a tentative step forward toward the column.
"No!" Yehoshua cried out, worried for his patriarch and his friend. God asked too much this time.
A noise so similar to the grinding of stone against stone to build a pyramid churned from the flames. Yet amongst the harsh groaning a wisp of a voice carried through. It sang. Promising them an eternity of faith if they just stepped forward. Who was Yehoshua to accept God's grace? That was Moshe's blessing.
And his curse, Yehoshua thought as he wept for a man he loved above every other except God as Moshe stepped closer to the flames. How was he not burned as the fire licked his thick wool tunic? The winds tossed his long white beard to and fro, playing with it as child might a doll's.
Then arms wide, praying, Moshe walked into the heart of the flames.
Yehoshua fell to his knees, tears streaking his dirt-smeared cheek.
Would faith be enough to survive God's trial by fire?
As the minutes then hours passed, Yehoshua rocked back and forth on his knees. His hands held up to the heavens in supplication. Had he anything to sacrifice, he would have, yet this journey through the mountains had left them nothing but the rags upon their backs.
The sky brewed black above them as red and oranges danced upon flames from on high. Was God angered? Had they mistaken God's intent? Had Moshe walked into fire only to be scorched to ash?
A loud whoosh sounded just before the flames climbed their way back to the sky. They rolled and jumped and leapt higher and higher until they were no more. When Yehoshua eyes finally looked down, there was his prophet, Moshe.
Yet he did not seem the man he knew and loved. Instead fire seemed to crackle in Moshe's eyes as his arms spread wide to carry two huge stone tablets. Yehoshua rushed over.
"Moshe!"
"His..." the prophet tried to say but faltered.
"Enough of this," Yehoshua demanded. "Sit down. There is an eternity to tell me of the wonders within the fire."
A slow smile spread across over Moshe's cracked lips. "I need not tell for you can read."
Yehoshua had not even noticed that the large thick slabs were chiseled deep into the stone. He passed his hand over the writing. What a wondrous tale it would make.
"How did you carve so deeply without a chisel or hammer?"
"I did not," Moshe stated. "It was God's finger that wrote upon the slab."
Yehoshua snatched his hand back. "God?"
Moshe seemed to have only strength for a shallow nod. Although the stones weighed heavily upon his friend, Yehoshua was no longer eager to take the burden.
"What sayth He?" Yehoshua asked breathlessly. He so desired to know God's heart yet did not feel his eyes were worthy of seeing God's actual words.
"He gaveth to me and to all the people the Asereth ha-D'bharim."
The Ten Laws.
Yehoshua began to weep. God loved man enough to govern him. The worry that God would abandon the chosen Chosen People faded from Yehoshua's heart.
"Do not shy away, Yehoshua," Moshe urged. "This was meant for all men."
Fearful his eyes would catch fire as soon as he glanced at the carvings, Yehoshua ever so slowly brought his gaze upon the stone. Once his eyes settled upon God's words they were loath to look anywhere else.
"I am the Lord thy God." A tremor shook through Yehoshua. The truth of these words settling into his bones. "Thou shalt have no other gods."
Who would wish to have any other God but the one and true God? There were more laws below, however Yehoushua's eyes were drawn to the second tablet. This slab had much smaller writing, filling the entire surface, and if Yehoshua was not mistaken, the words flowed to the other side.
"What is this?" Yehoushua asked, pointing to the flowing writing.
Moshe's eyes lost their spark and he seemed wholly a man made of flesh and blood. His long gray beard trailed down his chest and he lowered his head.
"They too are God's words."
"Then why not is that not joy in your voice?"
Moshe touched the second tablet, tracing the words. "Some of these will be hard for our people to hear. To understand."
"But if they are God's true words, they will listen, will they not?" Yehoshua asked.
Gathering his strength, Moses hugged the slabs closely.
"With all my prayers I hope," Moshe whispered, stepping away from the plateau to the path that led down the mountainside to the fields below. To their people.
CHAPTER 1.
20 km outside of Varazdin, Croatia.
2:00 p.m. GMT, Present Day.
Brandt's shoulder slammed into a tree trunk. The air rushed from his lungs and refused to go back in. No matter. Brandt pulled a knife from his boot sheath, pivoted the blade backward, and arced up with his arm, hard. A muffled cry answered the maneuver. He shoved his assailant back while still trying to catch his breath.
For a moment, his vision swam and all he could see was Rebecca's face. But she was safely stowed away in London doing research, and he was knee-deep in half-frozen pig slop. This lonesome corner of Croatia had seen better days. And he wouldn't live to see another if he didn't get his freaking head in the game.
Gulping a breath, he pushed off the tree and turned on his attacker. He blocked a punch, but the pain shot up his arm and settled into his shoulder. Damn it. Where the hell was Lopez? Or Talli? Or Brandt would even take that sorry excuse for a new point man, Harvish.
No one could replace Svengurd, of course, but seriously, this was the second ambush in two days that they'd walked into. And for a brief moment he even regretted not having Davidson up in some tree, then bile choked the back of his throat at the private's betrayal.
No, Brandt had to work with what he had. And at the moment all he had was his knife.
As he swung around for another swipe, a flash of gold caught his eye. His wedding band. It caught him by surprise each time he saw it.
Bam. A punch to the kidney.
Forget freaking matrimony. Brandt needed to just get out of this day alive.
His boot caught the top of an ice-encrusted rock and sent him sprawling forward, just in time for him to miss a bullet to the head. Even though he landed on his injured shoulder in a soggy, rotting, leaf-covered pool of pig excrement, Brandt thanked his luck.
Gaining momentum with his legs, he caught his attacker in a scissor kick, bringing him down to muddy ground. He scrambled up, bringing the knife down, nailing the guy in the chest.
"No!" Lopez screamed, but it was too late. The well-maintained knife had sliced through his attacker's rib cage and sunk in to the hilt.
The corporal sprinted up. "That's Amed!"
But it couldn't be. They were tracking his third in command, second at most. This couldn't be Amed. Looking down into the man's eyes, so dark they looked like the soot that smeared both of them, Brandt knew Lopez was right. He had just struck a mortal blow to the head of an al-Qaida splinter group.
Normally he would be ready to down a beer in victory, but this prick was the only one who knew the location of the biologicals that were stolen from the Russian armory. Had they been deployed? Were they safely contained or leaching into the groundwater near some metropolitan area? Only Amed knew.
Lopez tried to stanch the bleeding, but Brandt knew it was a done deal. That blade was in Amed's left ventricle or he wasn't as good as he thought.
"I think he's trying to say something," Lopez said as he knelt over the dying man.
Talli joined them, dropping his light frame to the ground. "Back away."
While all of them knew Farsi, Talli was half Pakistani and half Iranian. The soldier knew his way around the Arabic dialects. But even with those credentials, the man shook his head, unable to make sense of Amed's mumbling.
"Damn it," Brandt growled and grabbed the terrorist by the collar and jerked him up so that they were nose to nose. "I know you speak English, prick. If you want to talk, talk!"
Amed laughed, causing blood-red froth to coat his lips. "I go to paradise, brother."
What was the guy playing at? Brandt had read the man's extremely thick Interpol file. The Iraqi-born leader was a cold-blooded, send-children-to-their-fiery-death kind of extremist. Shouldn't he be cursing them and spitting in their eyes rather than calling him brother?
"The words are spoken. There will be no hiding."
Brandt looked at Talli. "Is that some kind of code he's talking about?" Off the darker man's shake of the head, he continued, "A parable?"
Talli shook his head forcefully. "I know not of what he speaks."
Amed gripped the knife's hilt, shoving even deeper into his chest. "The prophet speaks. Shalom."
The man fell back, dead. His eyes fixed upon a point over Brandt's shoulder, an eerie smile upon his face.
"Why would a hard-core Islamic extremist use a Jewish phrase like that?" Harvish asked, as he limped up to join them.
Lopez leaned back on his heels, wiping the dead man's blood from his hands. "I bet I know one doctor who might be well enough versed in Islam and Judaism to answer that question."
Rebecca, of course, had come to Brandt's mind as well.
Talli looked quizzically between them. "We are speaking about the paleoanthropologist Dr. Monroe, are we not?"
Lopez slapped Talli on the back as they all rose to their feet. "Oh yeah." He turned to Brandt. "But is she gonna be pissed!"
"Rebecca's a professional. She'll help even if she's sworn off religious controversy," Brandt corrected.
"Dude, not that she."