Carpathian (72 page)

“Let’s get to Patinas and get everyone the hell off this mountain.”

They all followed Jack as he squeezed past the opening between the exposed anchor pin and the side of the mountain. Now it was a long clear run to the pass.

As they ran the mountain shook beneath them as the anchor pin in another area slid further away from its support. The mountain was now dying from a knife wound through its heart.

PATINAS PASS

Sergeant Jimmy Forester watched the line of vehicles approaching and was wondering what fools would brave that horrible dirt track at night and in the middle of the storm of the century. He leaned forward and pushed open the wooden shutters of Madam Korvesky’s house. As he watched the line of cars approach the village he was wondering where the Army officer was. For whatever reason the engineer felt better when the officer was giving orders. And that was hard to admit for an Airborne soldier such as himself. But still, this mountain was not conducive to positive thinking.

Suddenly bells were heard clanging from every corner of Patinas. Lights were coming on in every home as doors flew open and men, women, and children started streaming forth in various stages of undress. Men were carrying shotguns and the women their children. They were running toward the gate and the mountain beyond. The sergeant ran to the door and opened it just as one of the Patinas village elders stepped onto the small porch.

“We must go to the temple, immediately, bring what weapons you have and that shotgun over the mantel. I believe the queen has shells in her kitchen,” the white-bearded man said as he pulled on the camouflage jacket of the American. “Bring your people, now!” the man said in very bad English as he turned and ran.

“Jeez, I don’t know about you, Sarge, but when the local populace starts heading for the hills and until we know who these assholes are it might be wise to do the same. From the frightened looks on the faces of those men and women I would bet they’re not very welcome here, whoever they are.”

The sergeant knew his man was right. He looked down at the two nearly empty Uzis and knew they had not much firepower to make a stand there.

“Right, let’s boogie,” the sergeant said as the sixteen men of the 82nd gathered up their equipment. The lone shotgun and its shells was packed and even a large meat cleaver and butcher knife from the old Gypsy’s kitchen. The men retreated from the shelter of the small cottage and joined the exodus out of Patinas just as the first cars made the village.

*   *   *

Colonel Ally Ben-Nevin stepped from the large Toyota four-by-four and examined the small village of Patinas. He watched as his men fanned out around the town. The men were each heavily armed with a brand-new AK-47 supplied by Zallas and his people in Bucharest where the men were hired.

“Check every house. Bring along whoever you find. They may make our task easier if we have them.”

He looked up at the swirling night sky and the almost constant streaks of lightning that crisscrossed the heavens. He was feeling better than he had at any time in the past few years. The storm was so bad not even the great General Shamni could get a relief force in here. He knew he would have the run of the mountain for the next few critical hours until he gathered the proof his superiors needed for their fundamentalist movement. No, there would be no cavalry riding over the hill to save the day. Not this time.

FLIGHT 262, HEAVY COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT, SQUAWKING FRIENDLY OVER ROMANIAN AIRSPACE

“That’s it, Major, we’ve been made,” the pilot said as he struggled with the yoke as the Hercules jumped a hundred feet into the roiling storm.

“What’s up?” Major Donny Mendohlson asked as he came forward.

“We have two F-16s out of the Ploesti region and they are heading right for us. They’re not buying the navigation screwup any longer. We have to exit out of Romanian airspace ASAP before they get a visual on us. They won’t take too kindly at seeing an Israeli air force Hercules instead of the Airbus they were expecting.”

“Yeah, I can see where that would be kind of bad.”

The major turned and went to the communication shack just aft of the cockpit. He nodded at the operator as he gestured down to his men by waving his right hand in a circular motion. The silent team of professionals went about finalizing their jump preparations. The radio operator, who also served as their jump master, handed Mendohlson a pair of earphones.

“The signal is secure through our satellite,” the operator said as the major nodded.

“Seti, this is Broadsword, do you read? Over.”

“Broadsword, this is Seti the Great, read you five by five,” came the clear and encrypted voice of General Shamni.

“Seti, it is time to play or get out of the park, some rather nasty-looking local bullies have arrived by air,” the major said as he told Shamni that the Romanian air force had decided to pay them a visit. He spoke cryptically out of habit and he knew the general would do the same. Nothing is ever secure enough for the elite forces of the state.

The general knew that no matter what occurred down in Patinas he had to have eyes on the ground and a decision had to be made whether to jump. To him that was the simplest thing in the world and an order he wanted to give since learning about this nightmare as a child.

“Understood, Broadsword, you are clear to commence Operation Ramesses, I repeat, you are clear to launch operation Ramesses. Over.”

Mendohlson swallowed and then without turning from the radio raised his right arm into the air and his thumb went high. The men below moved like lightning as the go order was now official.

“Roger, Seti the Great, Broadsword confirms, Operation Ramesses is a go.”

“Good luck, Broadsword, end this thing,” came the weary voice of General Shamni.

Sounding through the cavernous aircraft was a loud warning bell and the lights inside switched to dull red in preparation of the ramp being opened to the harsh elements outside. Each man had a full face mask and supply of oxygen. Each was also equipped with 190 pounds of extra gear, but mostly killing tools of the trade. They never jumped into a situation they felt they had no hope of escaping, it may be delusional but psychologically it was helpful.

In exactly two minutes the sovereign state of Romania, America’s newest NATO partner, was about to be invaded by a friendly nation and they were coming to kill a legend.

The ancient City of Moses had an hour to live.

PATINAS PASS

The giant room that was illuminated with a thousand oil lamps was brightly inlaid with gold leaf on the walls instead of the normal paint used on most of the statuary. The ancient story the hieroglyphs told was related in stark gold relief and the highlights trimmed in emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. The depictions of the Exodus were there.

The treasure room was just that. It was what Alice Hamilton always envisioned. With one altering factor—there was no treasure. The room was completely empty with the only exception being three wooden boxes the size of coffins that sat on carved stone pedestals.

Niles looked at Alice, who had a look of confusion on her face. She looked at Anya, who was whispering something to Carl Everett.

“Anya said she is ashamed and embarrassed. She knew you would be disappointed,” Carl said for the woman who had wandered away and sat next to the center stone. She took a deep breath and waited for the laughter at what a foolish people she lived among.

“Disappointed?” Alice asked. She separated herself from Niles and walked up to Anya and stood before her. “My dear, what in the world do you think we came to see? We’re here because of the mystery of your people and a story that must be documented, but written so the truth of your kind can be placed beside those of the rest of civilization. Not for any treasure.”

“I don’t mean to be the material one here, but just out of curiosity, there is gold and jewels all over this chamber, so where is the rest of it?” Will Mendenhall asked as his fingers slid lightly over a diamond the size of a dove’s egg that had been expertly embedded into the wall.

Anya finally laughed out loud and only Carl smiled with her.

“This
is
the treasure of the Exodus, Lieutenant. All the spoils of Egypt.”

Carl laughed as did Niles and Alice. Charlie looked from face to face and joined in the laughter simply because he was amused to see them all actually lose it. Only Mendenhall looked distressed.

“The real spoils of war were farming tools, animals; mundane things that we think were everyday items but that they thought of as riches. Grain, water, food—all of the things of normal life were the real spoils—the reward for hundreds of years of near servitude. These small things were all that there was of any avarice from the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt.”

“I suspect the real treasure and the need for secrecy is right there, isn’t it?” Alice said as she placed a hand on the first ancient wooden box and ran her fingers along its worn top.

“My grandmother told me the story of your meeting, Mrs. Hamilton; she said she believed you to be the rare woman to understand what the Jeddah were about, and all from that one brief meeting in Hong Kong.”

“Your grandmother wasn’t only beautiful, but perceptive, young lady,” Alice said in appreciation.

Anya smiled in return and then allowed Everett to assist her to her feet. She locked eyes with Alice and then hugged her. “Now you will know why the world and especially our own people in Israel can never know about this place,” she whispered into Alice’s ear.

Mendenhall, Charlie, Niles, and even Everett jumped when Anya suddenly and unexpectedly slid the top of the box off until it crashed to the floor. Without looking inside Anya walked away into the shadows cast by the flickering torches.

Alice watched the young woman leave and then her eyes went to the contents of the box and then she gasped. She had expected to see something of immense religious value, perhaps even the lost Ark of the Covenant, but what she saw amazed and frightened her. It was a mummified corpse. The wrappings were rotted and most had peeled away thousands of years before, exposing leathery remains that had petrified due to the conditions inside the buried temple.

As the others stepped up to view the mummy inside, Anya turned suddenly and walked to the left-side box and pushed that cover away until it hit the stone flooring. Then she repeated it with the third box and then, looking tired, Anya went toward the far wall and waited for the questions that would follow.

Alice looked toward the high ceiling of ornate wood and stone and went deep into thought.

“What is it, Alice?” Niles asked but it was Charlie who smiled and knew what she was going to say.

“Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There God showed him the whole land and said unto Moses, ‘This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, “I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with your eyes, Moses, but you will not cross over into it.” And Moses the servant of the L
ORD
died there in Moab.’”

“The Book of Moses?” Niles asked, lacking a little in his Bible studies of late.

“Deuteronomy,” Alice said as she stared into the center-most wooden box. “It also says in the Bible that Moses was buried by the Lord and the place of his burial was kept secret from all men. After the death of Moses, his body became the focus of a battle between Michael the Archangel and the devil but that’s all mired in controversy, isn’t it, Anya?”

“Yes, the legend states that at some point Moses was resurrected by the Lord of Hosts and brought to heaven. That was what all of Israel was told by Joshua. His divinity was intact even after death. It was the first of many—”

“Cover-ups,” Alice finished for her.

“I understand you Americans are uncommonly attached to that word, but maybe fudging the truth is a better phrase.”

“Wait, I’m not getting this. If there’s no treasure, why build all of this?” Will Mendenhall asked.

“To house the body of the greatest Hebrew of all time, and also a man that served the court of Ramesses II,” Alice said as her eyes went to the center-most mummy with the simple cloth blanket of reds and blacks lying across the bulk of it. “Anya, he’s your direct ancestor, would you explain to Lieutenant Mendenhall who this is?”

Anya walked up to Will and then smiled at his naïveté.

“The Egyptian name of this man was Munius, which the Torah translates into Hebrew as Moshe. But he was also known by no fewer than ten other names in his time of power, both Egyptian might and Hebrew might. He could be called Yered, Avigdor, Chever, and seven other names that are as equally unpronounceable.”

Alice smiled and then put an arm around Mendenhall.

“Hard to take it all in isn’t it, Will?” she asked.

“You mean to say that this is—”

Anya cut him off by standing and talking as she stood by the second wooden box.

“And this is the body of Joseph, the man responsible for Israel’s bondage into Egypt.” She walked past the second box to the third. “This is Joshua, whose body my ancestor Kale stole from the people not long after his death to be hidden with his brother and mentor.”

Will Mendenhall just realized what it was they were saying to him as he looked back into the box with the small five-foot mummy lying inside. Alice chuckled and looked at the stunned lieutenant.

“Say hello to the Prophet Moses, Will.”

Crazy Charlie Ellenshaw placed the U.C. Berkeley 1969 stamp of approval on the discovery.

“Now
that
is far out!”

*   *   *

Colonel Ben-Nevin watched as the men completed the sweep of the village and he saw that not one of the locals had been found. This was a little unnerving as he would have thought to catch them unawares at this time of night. He gestured angrily for the men to move toward the gate and the mountain that sat waiting for them to rape it. He was about to move when a pair of headlights crossed the path of his men. He squinted into the bright lights made far eerier because of the sideways rain that pelted them. He cursed when he saw it was a black Mercedes SUV and then the man that was being assisted out of the backseat became recognizable. The man was wearing a full-length wool overcoat and was dressed in a black tuxedo. The cigar was blazing as Zallas stepped into the raging storm. Ben-Nevin angrily approached.