The Jerusalem Creed: A Sean Wyatt Thriller (12 page)

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Before the sun had even reached the treetops, a heavy humidity swamped the region around Yogyakarta. To Tommy and Sean, it almost felt like being back home in the Southeast. It reminded them of Charleston, South Carolina.

“This is just like the weather down on Kiawah Island,” Sean commented as they got in the small rental car they’d picked up at the airport.

Renting a car in Yogyakarta wasn’t recommended by many people. With so many rickshaws, cabs, bicycles, motorcycles, and mopeds on the streets, getting around in a car could prove nearly impossible at times. Still, once they were out of the city, having their own mode of transportation would be vital.

The Americans had landed late the previous evening. The meal aboard the plane had satiated their need for food in the interim, but upon arriving, a quick snack of rice and vegetables from a street vendor filled their empty stomachs before bed.

Sean usually preferred not to eat late at night, but he knew they might have to rush breakfast the next day. His foresight proved correct, as they were only able to procure a handful of nuts and dried fruit during their rushed attempt to beat the early morning traffic.

Their hotel was one of the less fancy places either of the Americans had stayed in for quite a long time. It stood three stories tall and was clearly in the decline. Pinkish paint on the exterior walls noticeably flaked away in numerous places. The lobby was little more than a foyer with a counter, two potted plants on either side of the main desk, and a set of stairs that went up to the higher levels. No elevators were in sight.

For all it lacked in amenities, the hotel’s rooms were, at the very least, clean. The pillows, though flimsy and beaten, were placed neatly at the head of the beds atop fresh linens. The interior walls resembled those outside the tiny slit of a window, the paint peeling away in various spots.

Sleep had come easily for the men in spite of the noises from the street below. They’d been so tired, both from their travels and the stress of fight or flight, that once their heads hit the pillows, they were out cold until their phone alarms woke them up the next morning.

In the car, it took forty minutes just to get to the outskirts of the city’s artificial walled canyons. Once they did, however, the traffic thinned to a trickle. Eventually, they found themselves driving along a roughly paved road and away from the sprawling Indonesian town.

Palm trees sprouted into the sky in random spots along the road. Others lined the rice fields and farms, waving intermittently when the breeze picked up. Farms popped up between the rolling hills of the countryside, the scenery a variety of green grasses and heavy forests of leafy trees.

Their speed on the main road was faster than in the city, though occasionally Sean was forced to slow down. The side of the road carried almost as much traffic as the asphalt. Farmers with ox-drawn carts, beasts of burden laden with full baskets, and pedestrians made driving too fast a potentially dangerous proposition. In spite of the stop-and-start driving, the journey to the temple only took another twenty minutes after leaving the city.

The massive fortress-like facility rose up from the flats like a massive ziggurat, its dark façade set against a backdrop of shadowy, mist-covered mountains in the distance. Hardwood trees, thick with dark leaves, surrounded the immediate area of the temple’s periphery. As the two men drew closer, more of the building’s details revealed themselves.

A conical stupa towered over the site, its shape like an enormous bell sitting atop the temple’s highest point. Dozens more smaller stupas came into view. The dome-shaped stone formations were originally built into the temple’s surface to pay tribute to the stars in the heavens, a sort of celestial representation on Earth. The charcoal-gray and deep-maroon colors of the temple stones were arranged in a specific pattern, keeping the balance between dark and light, yin and yang.

Sean turned the car into a parking lot three hundred yards away from the base of the temple complex. He found a spot under a shady tree with huge, leafy branches. Tommy started to get out of the car, but Sean stopped him, grabbing Tommy’s shoulder as he switched off the ignition.

“Hold up,” he said. He double checked the Springfield compact strapped to his ankle and then pulled the cuff of the pants back down to his shoe tops.

Tommy shook his head. “I really hope we don’t need those,” he said wistfully.

“Me too, but better to have them and not need them than the other way around.”

“I know.” Tommy jerked up a pant leg, showing off his own weapon. He tugged the pistol from its holster and gave it a quick check, sliding the magazine out, making sure it was fully stocked with rounds, jamming it back into the base of the gun, and then pulling the slide back to chamber one of the hollow points.

“Judge not,” Sean said smugly after he’d buckled the weapon back in its place.

The two got out of the car and shut the doors. They both instinctively surveyed their surroundings, their eyes keen to the possibility of trouble. Neither had noticed a tail on the way out of the city, though spotting one would have proved difficult. Even with traffic thinning considerably outside the city limits, there were still quite a few travelers on the road, and someone following them could have easily blended in with the seemingly endless array of old vehicles.

For the time being, all they could see were curious tourists milling about the grounds. A young Indonesian couple sat underneath a nearby tree, using its gigantic trunk as a backrest. Dozens more people with cameras, backpacks, fanny packs, and day bags moved aimlessly around the area. Some stared at a few of the hundreds of reliefs carved into the building’s stonework. Others climbed staircases, searching little alcoves and nooks for secrets previous visitors may have missed.

There was one secret Sean and Tommy hoped everyone had missed.

Sean opened the rear door and reached into the backseat. He grabbed his rucksack and slung it over his shoulder. He unzipped the bag halfway and did a quick inventory of the tools inside: a yellow nail claw, a wooden hammer, an old paintbrush, and a few other miscellaneous items were all there. Some of the objects had been at Tommy’s request. The nail claw had been a particular point of interest for Sean.

“You never know if you’re going to need to pry something loose,” Tommy had explained.

Sean had simply shaken his head in derision and loaded the bag with the odds and ends his friend requested. He’d been on enough digs with Tommy to know that his friend knew what he was talking about. If Tommy thought they needed a nail claw, then there must be a reason.

“Looks like a lot of steps to get to that tower on the top,” Tommy pointed at the central stupa. He squinted into the sun despite the aviator sunglasses covering his eyes.

Sean followed his stare up to the temple’s pinnacle. “Yep. Might as well get it over with.”

The two made their way through the first outcropping of trees and onto the giant pad where the temple’s foundation was built. They walked past a group of people who were speaking German, led by a local. Their guided tour had just ended, and they were descending the last of the steps as Sean and Tommy began their ascent. On the first mezzanine, a relief stretched across nearly the entire face of the lower wall. The engravings depicted one of the lives of Siddhartha. As they climbed the stairs, they saw more reliefs similar to the ones below, and along some of them, concavities featuring important points in the Buddha’s life before he reached Buddha status. There were seventy-two stupas in total, each one laid out in a mandala pattern, rising upward amid the carvings, statues, and walls.

“Where’d you find that hotel?” Sean asked Tommy as his breath came in short, quick bursts from the climb.

“You didn’t like it?”

Sean rolled his shoulders. “Wasn’t the nicest I’ve been in. Of course, I’ve been spoiled for the last decade or so. I’m assuming you had a reason behind booking that joint.”

“We needed to lie low, right?” Tommy said between gasps. They were only halfway to the top, and already he was breathing hard. The early morning heat and humidity were doing nothing to ease those symptoms. “There are several much nicer hotels in the city. In fact, there are some really nice ones only a few miles from here.” He jammed his finger off in a random direction. “After our recent exploits, I figured a little low key would be better.”

Sean had to admit his friend was probably right. But if someone were following them, it wouldn’t make a difference where they spent the night. Whoever was after them was desperate enough to set their homes on fire and send a pair of mediocre hit men to take them out. He couldn’t help but wonder what the next play might be.

The two Americans crested the high point and took a second to catch their breath. On the drive up, the temple had seemed like it was a huge piece of construction. Standing at its base, it seemed much smaller. After the climb, however, Sean and Tommy had reverted to their original opinions on the matter.

The view from atop the temple’s high platform was much more spectacular than either had anticipated. The vast multicolored countryside stretched out in all directions. Yogyakarta stood in the distance, a tribute to the metropolitan growth of the Indonesian people. In the other direction, the mountains loomed beyond the haze of the humid plains and rolling hills carpeted with lush green trees.

“Not a bad sight from up here,” Sean commented. “Whoever built this place sure picked a good spot.”

Tommy put his hands on his hips, still catching his breath. “Yep. They really did.”

Sean frowned at him, mocking disdain filling his eyes. “You okay? That was like a four-minute climb. It wasn’t that bad.”

“It’s…the…humidity,” Tommy answered. “You know what? Just…shut up, and look at the clue again. It said something about the high tower.”

“It rests in the high tower with the seekers of light,” Sean quoted the riddle. “And I’m assuming that stupa over there is the one they meant.”

“Right.”

The progression of the temple’s reliefs, sculptures, alcoves, and stupas were all representative of the Buddha’s life leading up to his enlightenment. The largest and tallest of the stupas represented him achieving Nirvana. An interesting piece of history, to be sure, and an interesting choice as a hiding place for a Jewish holy relic.

The two Americans walked over to the structure. Sean ran his hand along the smooth stones. “This dates back to the time of the Babylonian Empire,” Sean said, a hint of reverence filling his voice. “While they were constructing this, far off to the west, Nebuchadnezzar was tearing Jerusalem apart.”

“It’s always strange to me to think about the things that went on during the same points in history, but in different places. These people probably had no idea what was happening over there.”

“Other than the high priest’s apprentice showing up here with a priceless relic.”

“Well, obviously. At least, we hope.”

“Right.” Sean continued to circle the enormous stupa until he found the entrance. It was barricaded by a metal door and locked with a padlock.

They’d done their research before arriving in Indonesia. Only a Buddhist priest of high standing was permitted into the main stupa. Because of the strict rules about entry, there was little to no information to be found about what the inside looked like or what was there.

Sean reached into his rucksack and looked around before producing a small black tool with multiple attachments. It looked like a Swiss Army knife on steroids. He’d been picking locks since his early days with Axis, but he was nowhere as good as Adriana. Moments like this he wished she were with him. Although, if he was honest, he wished she was around for most moments.

“Keep a lookout,” he said to Tommy as he ducked into the archway, shaded from the bright morning sun.

“Yeah. Probably don’t want to get busted breaking into a Buddhist holy site.” Tommy muttered the words as he turned his back to the entrance and watched the area.

Sean grabbed the padlock that hung from the latch. The iron door looked to be over a hundred years old, but that was just a guess based on the corrosion of the metal. The lock was a blackened hunk of metal that had seen better days. Little speckles of rust dotted the loop and lock housing. He spied the opening in the lock’s base, analyzing which component of his lock-picking tool he should use. The decision made, he flipped out a thin blade no larger than the prong of a fork and pulled out a removable metal pick from the other end.

Holding the lock carefully with two fingers, Sean inserted the pick and the blade. It took three tries before he finally heard the mechanism click. He twisted the tools to the left, and the lock slackened. He unhooked the padlock, set it on the floor next to the wall, and grasped the iron latch. When he turned it, it squeaked alarmingly. Sean winced and glanced back at Tommy, who had heard the noise but kept surveying the immediate area for any witnesses.

A click came from inside the heavy door, telling Sean it was free. He leaned into it with his shoulder and cautiously pushed. Surprisingly, the door swung open easily and didn’t creak nearly as loudly as the latch had. A wall of cool, musty air greeted him when he stepped inside. He took a quick inventory of his surroundings.

The walls curved inward until they formed a dome at the top. Each stone was placed perfectly in line with the ones above and below it, creating a flush, smooth surface. A shrine to the Buddha sat in the center. A stone sculpture of the smiling man with arms hovering over crossed legs sat amid an array of burning candles, flowers, and bronze vases. The sculpture sat atop a stone box that had been carved from a separate piece of rock.