Passage Graves (20 page)

Chapter 51

THURSDAY, 11:58 p.m.

Islet of Arkii, Greece

His eyes were dry and heavy, his eyelids
swollen shut with crusty, grainy paste. He had no idea where he was. The world was dark. He knew that much. But there was no sense of time. Water was not lapping against the sides of a boat. In fact, there was no boat, no roar of waves, no ocean at all. The only thing he could hear was his own strained breathing. He was lying on his side, a dirt floor beneath him. The ground was cool to the touch and moist. There was a rock wall behind him.

Something wet dripped over
his legs. He reached for it, but stopped, suddenly aware of the sharp pain in his wrists. He was bound with prickly metal. Somehow he had forgotten that.

Water droplets spilled over his face, stinging his eyes. H
e opened his mouth to drink.

The object was placed into his hands.

“Keep it on your eyes,” a gruff voice echoed off the walls, displacing the source.

Too parched to speak, David studied the
texture with his fingers. It was a sponge of some sort, squishy and misshapen, oblong and saturated with fresh water. He lifted the sponge over his eyes and let water run down his face into his mouth. The cool moisture permeated his sandpaper eyes. He worked them open, and a blurry world came into view.

They were
in a cave. Pervading darkness was kept at bay by a few flickering candle stubs set into fissures within the rocks. The ceiling and walls were stained with soot. The grime blotted out most of the gold-plated artwork that decorated the cave. Each image of piety had worn away over the centuries, leaving only a hint of the frescoes of Christ and His martyred saints that had once extended across the length of the wall.

David rubbed
at his eyes.

“Leave them alone and they will get better.”
Across the room, his captor sat cross-legged, concealed by a long black robe. The small visible portion of his face was hideous. Skin bubbled across his cheeks. His beard was reduced to stubble. Beneath the melted abstraction was a familiar prominent nose.

“Vanderkam
?” The dryness of David’s throat made him choke.

The man
refilled the sponge and pressed the water to David’s lips.

“Are you
David?” Vanderkam sounded as though his larynx was partially paralyzed. His German accent was ravaged.

David nodded. Pain coursed through his head, and he immed
iately regretted moving. He resorted to speaking but could only manage a few words.

The man examined David’s face. “Does anyone know you are in Greece?”

David cleared his throat. The water was helping. “No.”

Vanderkam trembl
ed as he clutched the sponge.

“How is Brenton?”

“Dead.”

“
Gottes willen
…” Vanderkam turned away. “And the seal?”

“Huh
?”

Vanderkam
looked confused. “He didn’t send you to get it?”

David tried to sit up. The bindings cut into his
flesh.  He lifted the twine around his arms in complaint.

“A precaution.” Vanderkam pulled a knife from his belt.

“Where am I?” David managed to speak more than one word.

“The Islet of Arkii. An abandoned island
, unpopulated. It’s a safe place.”

David flinched as Vanderkam worked through the bindings. The rope slowly unraveled.

Vanderkam sat back and stared at him grimly. “Do you know of Abaddon?”

“The yacht?”

Vanderkam exhaled in annoyance. “The Book of Revelations. Apocalyptic prophecies were placed into seven casements and locked with seven seals. This was thousands of years ago, inside a cave eight miles south of us.”

“Patmos.”
David knew the location. Brenton had studied these places obsessively. Most of David’s childhood had been spent in the waste places of biblical lands.

“Abaddon protects these writings and
seals.” He collapsed the knife and clipped it to his belt. “Well, they were
supposed
to protect the seals. The faith of our fathers has long been corrupted. The purpose of the seals and their eternal stones were forgotten until Brenton’s discovery.”

David had no idea what Vanderkam was talking about.

“Your father found the lost ending to the War Rule.”

“T
he Dead Sea Scroll fragment?” It was almost laughable, if he wasn’t in such pain. “That was discovered decades ago, and not by him.” David’s voice was hoarse.

“The original War Rule is a torn fragment
. The ending to the scroll was torn away and lost for centuries. Your father found the missing ending—the lost words of the
Beb’ne Hoshekh
.”

David
flinched. Whatever had been wrapped around his arms and legs had carved out a good chunk of his flesh. “Brenton would’ve announced that to the world.”

“There is a reason he was silent,” Vanderkam’s voice wavered. “Christianity as we know it is
wrong. We’ve all been mistaken.”

“You’re crazier than h
e was.”

“Over the last two thousand years the Bible has been corrupted. Essential truths were removed. The ending
was changed. The Christian faith, as we know it, is the greatest sham in the history of the world. The faith of the masses gave evil men power, and with this power, priests and kings twisted the word of God to their liking. But the War Rule remained untouched. It has never been changed.”

“It’
s apocryphal.” The scrolls themselves were of uncertain origin. No archeologist in his right mind would take them as fact.

“I was there when he found it in the caves of Kumran.” He paused. “It is truth.”

David clenched his jaw. He was too tired to talk. There was too much pain to argue.

“God isn’t sending four angels
to open the seals of Apocalypse.” Vanderkam’s eyes came alive. “
Any
man can possess the power of the seals.
Any
man can become Horseman.
Any
man can end the world.”

“Brenton would’ve
said anything to protect his ridiculous theories.”

“What we found hidden
in the
Beb’ne Hoshekh
was
not
his theory.” Vanderkam stood. He began pacing. “I’ve seen it. I handled the text myself. I confirmed the interpretation.”

His
breathing was strained. He stared intently at David. “The Abaddon has crumbled. Each man is pursuing the first seal for himself.”

“W
hy would anyone want to end the world?” It was a reasonable question.

“B
ecoming Horseman is the only way to survive the Apocalypse.”

Anyone s
tupid enough to follow Brenton was questionable at best. David held his throbbing head with his hands. “Did he put you up to this?”

“He was supposed to find you. He was supposed to
take you to the canyons of Wadi Musa. Only you can remove the first seal from its grave.”

Vanderkam fe
ll into a coughing fit. His body writhed under the strain. “Whoever places the key into the lock will be Horseman.”

David couldn’t believe it. “If these Abaddon people know where the seal is,
why don’t they already have it?”

Vanderkam smiled.
“Only the Firstborn of the Chosen lineage can remove the seal from its grave.”

“
Brenton was murdered to hide this bullshit?”

“
Brenton was murdered because he knew the identity of the Chosen One—he knew it was you.”

A sharp noise whizzed past David’s ear, striking
Vanderkam in the chest.

T
he scientist stumbled into the wall. Another bullet ricocheted off the wall between them.

David scrambled into the corner, pulling Vanderkam behind a cavity
of the rock. Both men slid to the ground, Vanderkam in David’s lap.

David
frantically searched the room. It was too dark. His eyes were still swollen. He could barely see his own hands. The shooter could be a foot away and there was nothing he could do about it.

His ears rang as he listened for breathing or
for footsteps.

Indecision kept David
pinned against the rock. He could feel Vanderkam’s blood pooling on the ground.

He count
ed the seconds. The drops of blood synchronized with his count.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The seconds turned into minutes, and minutes into hours.

By the time the swelling in his fa
ce lessened to the point where he could see, the candles had expired. The cave was pitch black. He let go of Vanderkam’s body. David couldn’t remember exactly when he died, but the man had stopped breathing.

****

Lang unscrewed the silencer from the chrome barrel of his gun. He placed the noise queller into his coat pocket, returned the handgun to his holster, and moved quietly out of the cave, twisting and turning along the passage until he met the starry night. Climbing down the side of the cliff to the shoreline, he stopped at the base of the hill for a second and looked back at the cave’s entrance.

Of course, there was regr
et—the unexpected pang of guilt. But this was business.

There was a higher purpose. One that David would never understand.

Lang untied his powerboat from the shore and left Vanderkam’s boat for David.

He would need something to get back to Patmos.

Chapter 52

FRIDAY 12:00 a.m.

Stenness Basecamp

Orkney Island, Scotland

The computer’s mechanized voice echoed through Stenness Basecamp, “Standby, countdown of T minus nine… eight… seven…”

Everyone watched the five innocuous-looking passage graves on the screens covering the helm’s wall. Thatcher focused on Maeshowe. Positioned in the middle screen, the megalith’s familiar contours looked far from formidable—just a docile dead monument.

“Six…five…four…”

She stood behind Marek and Donovon. The men sat at their computer stations ready to manually fire the Sonja configurations and match the passage graves’ output. Her arms were firmly crossed over her chest in an unconscious display of self-preservation. She glanced around the room. Lee stood beside Hummer near the back of the helm, waiting for Operation Standing Wave’s moment of triumph.

“Three…two…one…”

Everyone held their breath.

Thatcher imagined a sound wave growing inside each grave, exploding from the mouth of each prehi
storic beast.

She bit her lip.

The graves stayed quiet.

“What’s going on?
” She touched Marek’s shoulder.

“I don’t know,” he s
aid. “I’m generating our acoustic waves.” His computer screen registered their acoustic weapons building in power.

“Nothing
from the graves?” Thatcher shouted.

“
Nothing. Do we disengage?” Marek looked to Thatcher and then Hummer. His finger was poised over the discharge button.

“
Your countdown must be wrong!” Lee turned on Marek.

“It isn’t!” Marek fired back.

“Then why aren’t the graves going off?” Thatcher looked back at Hummer, unsure of what to do.

Hummer stared up at the graves. He calmly eyed
their bellicose opponents.

“Do I
disengage, sir?” Marek asked again.

Humm
er was silent.

Marek looke
d to Thatcher. If Hummer wasn’t responding, it was her call.

“Disengage,” she said.

Marek turned back to his keyboard.

D
ust spewed from Tara’s entranceway.

There was an immeasurable release o
f noise. The front of the soundwave shook Tara’s video cameras, warping the images as it passed by.

Newgrange
joined in the explosion with deadly distortion, terrorizing the abandoned Irish countryside.

Basecamp
rumbled as Scotland’s graves initiated their offensive strike. First, Cuween Hill, then Isbister.

Maeshowe’s muffled noise vibrated deep below the earth’s surface.

Hummer stirred awake as well. “Marek!”

“Matching the acoustic power of each ruin and firing!” Marek’s
computer registered each soundwave’s intensity. Red bars quickly rose to the top of the scale, peaking over 250 dB in low-frequency sound. The measurement of Sonja’s blue bars matched the output of the passage graves’.

“Here we go!” Marek fired off the Sonja configurations. “Th
ey will collide in three…two…one.”

Opposing soundwaves crashed together.
The acoustic output of the Sonja configurations abolished the passage grave noise. The graphs of red and blue bars rested at 0 dB.

For
a moment, the world was still. Everyone was afraid to move.

Thatcher’s mo
uth tipped upward into a smile.

Marek looked up at her i
n disbelief. He shook his head. “It worked.”

On screen, blast waves surged outward from four of the five graves. Aural reprisals passed
beyond each Sonja weapon, crushing the manmade armaments and rendering them useless. Dissonant shock waves flattened every farmhouse and barn. The video feed of Newgrange cut to static. Tara’s camera deadened, then Isbister and Cuween Hill.

Everyone looked up at Maesh
owe, the only surviving image.

The basecamp lights flickered. Sparks showered overhead as subsonic vibra
tions splintered bulb filament. Thatcher grabbed her head. There was a violent pop and a crackle. The clamor resounded inside her ears. The pain was unspeakable. Her eardrums tried to adjust to the pressure, but the low reverberation clawed with tympanic anarchy.

The passage grave screamed with blistering retaliatio
n. A roar exploded from the ruin’s belly. Its blast rippled along the earth’s crust, noise coursing towards basecamp through the integument of rock.

Maeshowe would have her revenge.

Thatcher dropped to the floor.

Marek d
ove from his chair and shielded her as the room shook apart. Equipment toppled off the shelves. The flat panel displays shattered. Reinforced cement crumbled off the ceiling. The wave rippled through basecamp. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the hellish symphony ended in silence.

The world was still again.

Thatcher was pinned under Marek’s weight. He freed her, rolling off. From the dim light of the monitors, she could see him staring down at his leg in shock. His left thigh was pumping blood.

She tore off her jacket and
tied it around his leg. She fought to catch her breath. Her ears were ringing. Her throat was raw. Marek’s mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear his voice. She could barely hear her own.

Inches away
from them, the helm wall had completely collapsed. The floor was covered with rubble.

Dazed
, Marek nodded at her. He was more concerned if she was okay. An egg-sized bump was forming on her forehead, she could feel the swelling. There were a few cuts on her face and chin, but she could move around without pain.

The t
innitus was mind-numbing. Her eardrums generated a high-pitched squeal. It felt as if she had fallen from the atmosphere and couldn’t adjust to the pressure change. She couldn’t concentrate. She could only focus on one thing at a time.

Marek.

The bleeding out of his leg slowed. He was lucky it wasn’t an artery. They were both lucky.

Using the support of
the desk, she stood and surveyed the damage. Most of the lab was entirely lost under debris. Everything was dark except a few blinking computer systems and static monitor screens. She found a flashlight in Marek’s desk and clicked it on.

The helm was
choked with dust. A gray haze clouded the air. It was so thick, she couldn’t see more than a few feet away. She realized her lungs were burning. There was no ventilation. Toxic cinders floated like lazy snow throughout the room.

Hummer called
from across the room. “Brynne?”

“I’m oka
y!” She wiped blood from her forehead. “Marek’s leg looks pretty bad.”

“Lee?” Hummer shouted
into the darkness.

Thatcher could vaguely see Lee’s shadow
staggering in the conference room doorway. “I’m fine!” he yelled back.

“Donovon?” Hummer called out.

There was no response.

“Donovon?”
Thatcher searched the room with the flashlight. The beam revealed the west wall. It had entirely caved in over Donovon’s desk. His computer was flattened by blocks of cement. His chair was obliterated under rubble. A few of the Irishman’s fingers poked out from under the wreckage.