The Sacred Cipher (60 page)

Sergeant Gefen procrastinated for a few, long minutes. There was no explanation. Yet,
there had to be an explanation.

Just as the Arabs were doing when they arrived, Gefen and his squad scoured this huge
hall, looking for an escape route. The Americans had been here. He was sure of it.
The coordinates matched what he was given. The dust of centuries was noticeably disturbed,
not just by Arab sandals, but also by men in hiking boots. The Americans had been
here. But Gefen had no idea where they had gone.

They were an unsightly and comical trio, trying to perfect an impossible balancing
act. Bohannon and Rodriguez each grasped one of Johnson’s arms. They were trying to
guide him around the endless, wildly strewn, massive stones that littered the tunnel’s
descent to the Huldah Gates. The well-intentioned support only made Johnson’s task
that much more difficult, because it was near impossible to keep control of his backpack,
now bouncing wildly side-to-side since he had no control of his outstretched arms.
Each time one of his rescuers tugged at one of his arms, his balance would be abruptly
destroyed and the backpack would go flying in the opposite direction as Johnson was
shunted around another obstacle.

In the midst of this game of human Ping-Pong, flinging the flailing body of Doc Johnson
down the tunnel ahead of them, Johnson nearly crushed a man in pale blue overalls.

Less than forty minutes after they disappeared from view, the missing Krupp workers
appeared again at the far southern edge of the southern wall. But this time, there
were five workers, all of them in pale blue Krupp overalls, all of them carrying bulging
tool bags. All five men had their heads down, straining against the weight in their
bags. But all five were also listening for any shout of alarm. No warning shout came.
No one noticed that two men had gone in, and five had come out.

Quickly, silently, the five melted into the rest of the Krupp team, which was now
tightening the tension on the steel cables that kept the crisscrossed steel bracing
in place while others gathered up the tools and leftover material and began returning
them to the trucks.

In less than an hour, Krupp’s engineers and crews stabilized the remaining sections
of the southern wall, gathered up their tools and materials, and were on their way
. . . this time with three extra workers on the trucks. The convoy returned to the
airport where a Krupp A-70 cargo jet was still unloading steel to be used in the chemical
refinery, the team’s original mission. While most of the overall-clad workers commenced
loading the steel beams onto the trucks, three walked up the ramp into the gaping
maw of the super-hauler, the jet’s only cargo on its return trip to Germany.

Strapped into a rudimentary jump seat, Bohannon looked out a small window at the rapidly
receding countryside of Israel. He should be happy to be out of those caves alive.
He should be ecstatic with the discovery they had made and the evidence he carried.
He should feel vindicated that there would be many perplexed looks and frustrated
conversations in the offices of Shin Bet and the Northern Islamic Front, demanding
to know what happened to the three Americans who were so recently trapped under the
Temple Mount and the tunnels that snaked under its surface.

But those were not the thoughts that filled Bohannon’s mind as the plane disappeared
into a cloud bank. He thought of Sammy and Kallie Nolan and wondered if they were
safe. He thought of Winthrop Larsen and his critically important help. He thought
gratefully of Uncle Ethan and Sam Reynolds at the State Department, and wondered if
they would be caught in the middle of what the general expected would be “a spittin’
storm.” Not for the first time, he thought of Annie and their children, of Deirdre,
and wondered if Rory O’Neill had been able to keep them safe. And he attached a prayer
to each of his thoughts.

He was still thinking of others when his body finally shut down, and in spite of the
incredibly uncomfortable chair and the spiderweb of straps holding him in place, he
collapsed into a fitful, manic sleep.

Bohannon could see the sunshine, feel its warmth, before he opened his eyes. Its power
penetrated through his eyelids, calling him to wakefulness. He was wrapped in a soft,
safe cocoon and was unwilling to leave its embrace. Slowly, his consciousness was
coaxed to meet the morning. Or was it morning? It could be any time during the day.
Bohannon had lost all conception of time over the previous five days. It was a bed.
Crisp, clean, white sheets and comforter, soft down pillow.
I think I’ll just roll over for a moment
.

The sun was setting when his eyes opened once again. This time, the growling in his
stomach and the inevitable “call of the wild” required Bohannon to reluctantly get
back on his feet. His room was really a suite in a castle, with every modern amenity.
He used the most basic. Clean clothes were waiting for him when he came out of the
shower in his private bathroom. Piles of food were waiting for him when he finally
ventured down the great stairs and was directed into the conservatory by the respectful
and attentive staff. Krupp and his wife, Maria, were sitting in wicker chairs in a
corner, reading, waiting for their guests to appear.

The stars were out, the team reunited, and their bellies were full. Now, with the
equipment assembled, Alex and Maria Krupp were the only audience for their world premier.
Using their maps, supported by their GPS units, the three men unraveled their tale
from the first discovery at the Bowery Mission, their adventures in trying to discern
the scroll’s message, the threats against their lives and Winthrop’s murder, through
to the harrowing two days racing around Jerusalem and the sometimes frightening three
days under the Temple Mount. As the story unfolded, Bohannon was stunned to realize
that he had been gone from New York City for a week. It felt like seven years, not
seven days. Bohannon was drawn from his reverie when Rodriguez, who talked the Krupps
through the Hall of the Sanhedrin and the crushing crevice, looked his way, expecting
his brother-in-law to pick up the story.

The utter unreality of the situation nearly caused Bohannon to laugh out loud. Here
he was, a guy who managed a homeless ministry in Manhattan, in what was essentially
an ancient castle in the depths of Bavaria, sitting across from one of the richest
and most powerful men in the world, asking him to believe that what he was about to
see was a one-thousand-year-old secret that could change the course of history.

If Bohannon watched this on television, he never would believe it possible. How could
he expect anyone as savvy as Krupp to believe this unbelievable story?

“Go on, Tom,” Krupp said, apparently guessing what Bohannon was thinking. “Don’t leave
us breathlessly on the cliff.”

Dressed in somebody else’s clothes, Bohannon felt like a disembodied voice-over providing
the commentary for a documentary, for a story that wasn’t even his.

“We didn’t know what to do . . .”

“So we prayed,” Joe said suddenly, then looked sheepishly at his brother-in-law.

“Yeah, so we prayed,” said Tom, running his hand through his hair. “And I got this
sense that we needed to climb up. I could see, in my mind, a shaft, above us, and
we needed to get to that shaft. Then there was a hole in the wall of the shaft. I
don’t know, it was as if I had a road map in my mind. Anyway, this is what we saw
when we sent the camera through the hole.”

Bohannon pushed the Play button on the recorder. All five of them were sitting on
the edges of their seats, Krupp and his wife holding hands. Bohannon held his breath
as the picture brightened. His chest constricted with sudden fear.
Was it really there?

“Oh!” Maria Krupp’s hand was covering her mouth, her eyes wide and staring, transfixed
to the image pulsating on their plasma. Bohannon turned from Maria’s shock. Krupp
had risen from his chair, hands on his hips, concentrating on every line and shape
in the pictures. He had the presence of a predator, the pointed focused concentration
of an eagle preparing to pierce its victim. Krupp kept leaning in from his waist,
closer and closer each moment, until it appeared he was going to launch himself through
the screen.

“How do I know,” Krupp started, pointing to the television. He turned to Bohannon,
the elegance of his casual clothes trumped by the wild uncertainty on his face. “How
do I know . . .”

“That it’s real?” Bohannon finished. “Watch, listen.”

They watched the second series of video, the one with the GPS coordinates and time
recorded by the camera, the one with Sam Reynolds verifying date and time, the one
that forced Krupp into an unusual position, sitting cross-legged on the floor, transfixed
by this most unorthodox of shows.

The image on the screen faded from an underground Temple to gray fuzz, a rude intruder
into the somber silence of Krupp’s study. No one was interested in the Black Forest
oak that lined the walls, or with the sealed, softly lit, glass-encased resting place
of the Guttenberg Bible. All eyes remained on the empty screen as if they were expecting
something magical to materialize.

Krupp broke the spell, turning while still sitting on the floor. “I’m sorry, Tom.”

He got up and stepped over to his wife, held her hands, got down on one knee, and
whispered in her ear, leaving Bohannon to wonder what Krupp was apologizing for. When
Maria got up and, without a word, left the room, Bohannon had more to wonder about.
He didn’t have long to wait.

“I believed everything you told me,” said Krupp, pulling his chair closer to theirs,
“but I didn’t believe that you actually found a hidden temple. I kept thinking”—he
clasped his hands behind his head and stretched his neck—“that you found something,
but once I got you back here to reality and out of that insane situation under the
Temple Mount, we would discover that it was perhaps some other, ancient, forgotten
building, or some strange illusion. Anything. But the Temple of God? No, that would
be impossible.”