Indisputable Proof (8 page)

CHAPTER 13

September 11. Tuesday – 4:39 a.m. Cambridge, Massachusetts

Tolen, Jade, and Diaz returned to the plane at Taylor Hughes Airport by taxi. They had been unable to locate the young driver, Jason Weedly. It appeared that Richard Mox had killed him and stashed the body in order to steal the vehicle.

Tolen had an uneasy feeling regarding Mox’s actions. Frankly, it made no sense. It had been a weak attack, a desperate plan to try to kill them. Nothing on the man or in the vehicle suggested affiliation with the “True Sons of Light.” The fact that Mox worked alone was equally puzzling.

Tolen talked briefly to Bar on the cab ride back from Harvard. He asked her to check on the dead driver and to engage the local Cambridge police regarding the incident, the corpse in the university courtyard, and the missing young man. There was no time for them to get caught up in a police investigation, and Bar would justify Tolen and company leaving the crime scene due to a domestic terrorism threat identified by the CIA. They could do so without giving specific details, and it would appease the local authorities.

Jade had remained contemplative, studying the small parchment during the cab ride. Now, on board the plane, she laid it gently on a side stand, took a napkin doused with water and rubbed the blood from her leg. As she did, she looked hard at Tolen.

He knew the question was coming. Diaz had spilled the secret.

“What about the Sudarium? It’s been stolen, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Tolen admitted. He had decided telling Jade the truth would not jeopardize their mission. In fact, it might enhance their efforts. He could deal with the repercussions from Vakind. “It has to be returned to the Cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo, Spain, before 9:00 a.m. this Friday for the start of the Feast of the Cross. If not, all hell’s going to break loose.”

Jade nodded. She did not appear angry. In fact, her expression was pained, as if she were hurt at not being included in the circle of information. “This is
exactly
why we must reach the treasure of Jesus’ artifacts before this radical group does.”

“Why? We have the only clue: the parchment. Surely, the location of your treasure is secure now,” Diaz said.

Tolen smiled.

Jade cocked her head. “What?”

“By finding this first clue, we’ve elevated our stature,” Tolen began. “We’re not only the group’s target, we’re now their number one priority. We will continue the search and allow the ‘True Sons of Light’ to come for us. This is how we’ll find Boyd Ramsey.”

“That’s a comforting thought,” Jade said. “Who is Boyd Ramsey?”

“He’s the CIA analyst I mentioned before,” Tolen took a few minutes to explain, including the murder of Diaz’s brother, Javier, at the Cathedral of San Salvador.

Shortly after takeoff, Tolen’s cell phone dinged and he answered.

“Well, your Mr. Mox was a very unremarkable man,” Bar started immediately upon hearing Tolen’s voice. “Seventy-two-year-old widower, retired from the public sector in archaeology six years ago, working for the State of California. No criminal arrests, but he had run up some gambling debts and was headed for bankruptcy. You may find it interesting that in 1986, before he worked for California, Mox participated in the excavation of a first-century fishing boat at the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel. The boat is considered to be the same type Jesus and his disciples used.”

“I recall the discovery,” Tolen remarked. “Anything else?”

“We have a team going through Mox’s house, but nothing so far. I’ll keep digging to see what I can uncover. Oh by the way, police and university officials weren’t thrilled with what you did to the campus courtyard, not to mention the damage to the stone sphere, building wall, and the corpse you left behind. They did find Jason Weedly alive, though. He was tied up and gagged in some nearby bushes. Did you find what you were looking for there?”

“Yes, please advise Director Vakind we’re on our way to Costa Rica.”

Tolen concluded the call and shared the information with Diaz and Jade.

“What was the
discovery
Bar mentioned to you?” Jade asked.

“Mox was part of an archaeological excavation of an early-Christian-era fishing boat in the Sea of Galilee in the 80s. Curiously, though, there’s nothing in his background to suggest terrorist activity. In fact, the man appeared quite grounded,” Tolen paused momentarily. “Let’s focus on the Hebrew writing.” He motioned toward the parchment.

Jade lifted it carefully and held it in her lap as Diaz looked on.

Tolen removed a laptop from underneath his seat where it had been secured. Two were kept on board at all times. The second was in the cockpit with Reba Zee.

He pulled up a text document program and had Jade translate the Hebrew once again so he could document it in English. He typed as she read it:

Search for the three stone jars. They will be found when you look for what was offered on the first day. The first jar is at my tomb. Travel from the south. My tomb is through the three-sided rock doorway at the sea.

“Quite a riddle,” Diaz remarked.

“What are your thoughts?” Tolen looked to Jade.

“Well,” she exhaled, “the first line of text seems straightforward. We have to find three stone receptacles. I have no idea what ‘
look for what was offered on the first day
’ means. It’s too vague.”

“Interesting that the message specifies
three stone jars
,” Tolen said. “The number three is often used in reference to Jesus: he preached three years, on the third day he arose from the dead, Peter denied him three times, three men were executed on the cross—Jesus and the two thieves—he was thirty-three at the time of his crucifixion, three entities in the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

Jade stared at Tolen curiously. “Is biblical ideology a hobby? You seem to have more than just a passing knowledge on the subject.”

Tolen responded with a mere smile. “The next three lines reference the location of Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. ‘
The first jar is at my tomb. Travel from the south. My tomb is through the three-sided rock doorway at the sea
.’ ”

“It’s vague,” Diaz said.

“ ‘
Travel from the south
,’ suggests south is the point of origin and implies the tomb is to the north. Keep in mind the stone sphere was originally in or near Palmar Sur, Costa Rica, so it’s somewhere north of there.”

“Well, now, that narrows it down,” Diaz said, arching his eyebrows to emphasize his sarcasm.

“Not really,” Tolen conceded, “but the final line does: ‘
My tomb is through the three-sided rock doorway at the sea
.’ Coincidentally, it’s another reference to the number three.”

“You know what is meant by a
three-sided rock doorway
?” Jade asked, leaning forward. There was a sparkle in her eye that had been there since they first found the tiny roll of parchment.

“No, but
at the sea
implies the shoreline.” He brought up an Internet search engine and conducted a search using the terms, “three-sided,” “rock,” “doorway,” “Costa Rica.” While it returned thousands of hits, nothing appeared to be a landmark at the coastline. He tried again using ‘three-sided,’ ‘opening,’ ‘Caribbean Sea,’ ‘Costa Rica.’ He tried a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth time using a combination of the terms. Still nothing promising returned.

Tolen sat back and shrugged. “Nothing from word searches. I’ll go to satellite imagery and use Palmar Sur as a starting point and move north up the coastline of Costa Rica to search for something which fits the description.”

“CIA technology?” Diaz asked.

“Google Earth.”

Tolen accessed the Internet using a Comsat connection. He launched Google Earth and zoomed in on Palmar Sur. Then he shifted on a horizontal plane to the east where Costa Rica met the Caribbean Sea. He would begin his search there. His hope was that this three-sided rock doorway was the entrance to a cave and was notable enough to have been photographed. He looked across the aisle at the weary faces. “Why don’t you two get some sleep? I’ll wake you if I find anything.”

Each nodded, grabbed a pillow, and closed their eyes. Tolen flipped an overhead switch, and the cabin went dark. Within minutes, Diaz was snoring. Jade continued to shift in her seat with her eyes closed as if unable to get comfortable. Tolen suspected the excitement of the archaeological hunt was making it difficult for her to relax.

Tolen spent the next 25 minutes examining amateur pictures that people had posted online of scenes along the eastern seaboard of Costa Rica. He continued his search up the shoreline until he came to Nicaragua. His vision began to blur as he reached Honduras, and he took a moment to look away from the laptop to give his eyes a rest.

He looked across at Jade. Her smooth skin and delicate facial features were accentuated in the radiant moonlight streaming in through the windows. She finally appeared to be resting peacefully. Still clad in her white tank top and khaki hiking shorts, she had curled her firm legs up on the seat and was in a tuck position with her head on the pillow, propped on her knees. Even in the shadows, there was no denying her femininity. Stunning looks and a mind; a rare and tricky combination, Tolen thought.

To her side, Diaz was snoring like a bear.

He was teamed with quite a pair: a beautiful English archaeologist and a revenge-minded Spanish police inspector. He could not remember working with a more odd combination of partners.

Just then, the image of his father lying dormant in the hospital bed in Jacksonville popped into his head. It came suddenly and without warning, as if someone had used a remote to change the channel of his thoughts. With absolute clarity, he could see the man’s dark, withered face, and his sunken eye sockets draped with rubbery eyelids. His emaciated arms stretched down at his side. He envisioned the white sheet permanently pulled to the top of his chest, rising and falling with his slow, shallow breathing as the machine hissed and pumped on the wall behind.

Tolen shook the thought away and looked at his watch: 5:56 a.m. local time, 11:56 a.m. in Spain; 69 hours before the Sudarium was to go on display in Oviedo. He rubbed his eyes, fending off fatigue; it was time to get back to work.

Tolen had exhausted the eastern seaboard of Central America, at least the range he considered to be within reason, and now moved to the western shoreline. He was feeling far less optimistic about finding a “
three-sided rock doorway at the sea
” on the Pacific side, since he assumed the cross-oceanic journey Joseph of Arimathea made to reach the area would have been via the Caribbean Sea. Nevertheless, Tolen resumed his search, diligently examining every posted picture along the western coast, north of Palmar Sur.

He followed the coastline almost to Nicaragua to a peninsula jutting out at the northwest end of Costa Rica when he pulled up a picture titled, “Formacion Descartes Santa Elena.” He studied the image for only a few seconds.

Minutes later, both Jade and Diaz were wiping sleep from their eyes as Tolen explained what he found. “ ‘Formacion Descartes Santa Elena’ is a natural recess in the coastal land wall. It’s framed in a triangular outcropping of rock with the apex reaching about 20 feet high and leaning slightly to the right.” He turned the laptop around to show them the image on the screen: a “
three-sided rock doorway at the sea
.”

A sleepy smile blossomed on Jade’s lips. Diaz seemed unaffected.

“How do we get to it?” Jade asked.

“The entire coastline in that area is mountainous, and where the land meets the water, there’s a sheer cliff face. It’s only accessible by water. I’ve already contacted Bar and asked her to secure us a boat from a nearby fishing village. It’ll be an eleven-mile boat ride.”

“If this is a known land formation, why hasn’t the tomb already been found?” Diaz asked.

“We won’t know the answer to that question until we get there. We’ll land in Costa Rica by 1 p.m. Until then, we better all get some rest.”

In truth, Tolen realized with some consternation that Diaz’s question was valid. The tomb might have already been found in antiquity and plundered. The more troubling possibility, though, was that the tomb was never there.

The certainty was they would know before nightfall.

****

At 8:40 a.m. Eastern Time, Tolen unbuckled his seat belt and rose from his chair. Jade and Diaz were both fast asleep in the dark cabin. He looked out the nearest window. The droning engines were pushing the plane through the morning skies far above the silky surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Tolen quietly walked to the rear and grabbed two bottles and three shot glasses from the galley bar. He carried them back up the aisle to the cockpit door. He knocked lightly and entered. Reba Zee turned in her seat. She was flying by autopilot and had been reading. Upon seeing Tolen, she silently laid her book to the side.

She had been expecting him.

Without a word, he handed her one of the shot glasses. Then he popped the cork on the non-alcoholic champagne and filled her tiny glass. He filled the other two shot glasses from the contents of the second bottle: a 25-year-old Chivas Regal Scotch. He held onto one glass and placed the other one on a side stand.

“Who’s that one for?” Reba Zee asked.

“Frank.”

Reba Zee gave an appreciative nod.

By odd coincidence, this was their fourth time working together on the infamous anniversary, and this would be their fourth time sharing a traditional moment of remembrance.

“How’s my girl, Tiffany, doing?” Reba Zee asked, passing the minutes until it was time.

Tolen grinned. “She’s coming along. I forgot to mention earlier, she said to tell you hello.”

“I haven’t seen the child in over a month. I hope to get to DC soon and stop in for a visit.”

Tiffany Bar had formed an unusual relationship with the elder pilot, bordering on a mother/daughter kinship. Bar’s mother and father had divorced when she was eight years old. Her mother had turned to alcohol, and their relationship had been strained ever since. Reba Zee had lost her husband, Frank, to a terrorist attack when his plane exploded just after takeoff from Belfast two years ago. Yet Reba Zee swore that she spoke to Frank every day. After Tolen introduced the two last year, Reba Zee had taken Bar under her wing. They had even vacationed together in Mexico. The stout, gray-haired pilot with the brusque mannerisms who spoke English with a pronounced Texas drawl, and the diminutive, blonde-haired girl who spoke Spanish better than the inhabitants of Cancun made quite the pair.