The Jerusalem Creed: A Sean Wyatt Thriller (14 page)

Yogyakarta

Tommy ran into the darkness at a cautious pace with Sean close behind. The light from their LED flashlights kept them from running into a wall, but there was no telling what the tunnel held in store. If they didn’t pay attention, it would be easy to fall into another hole or roll an ankle on something. Right now, any kind of injury would be devastating if the men they were running from had ventured into the passageway.

Sean imagined they’d broken through his makeshift barricade by now and were circling around the statue of Buddha, discovering the cavity in the floor. The two Americans had been running for the last three minutes, giving them a significant head start. Three minutes might be an eternity but could be lost quickly if they weren’t careful.

The corridor shot straight ahead for the first hundred feet, then it made an abrupt left for another twenty feet then shot right again. Sean and Tommy felt like they were being herded through a labyrinth with no way of knowing exactly where they were going. They reached the end of the flat passage and found a set of stairs that descended to a lower level. Tommy only hesitated for a second, knowing it was their only option. Going back wasn't a possibility.

He bounded down the stairs and reached the next floor. Eight steps later, they reached another right turn that presented a huge problem. The tunnel came to a T, shooting off to the right and left.

“Which way do you think?” Sean asked quietly, shining his light down one corridor and then the next. Even at a whisper, his voice sounded like the sounds of a roaring river bouncing off the stone walls.

“Was going to ask you the same thing.”

Tommy tried to regain his bearings. “Our car should be out that way,” he pointed left. Sean nodded. He’d been thinking the same thing.

“Fastest way between two points.”

They took off again, padding along on the balls of their feet so as not to make as much noise. The two reached another turn in the tunnel. Tommy sped around it without thinking and ran face-first into a tangled mass of cobwebs. He grasped at his face and hair, panicking, nearly dropping his flashlight in the process. Fortunately, he didn’t make a noise other than spitting the cobwebs out of his mouth.

Sean stepped by him, putting his hand out in front and pulling the remaining webs out of the way. “Come on,” he whispered.

“I don’t have one on me, do I?” Tommy asked. He swiped his hands around in panic-stricken paranoia.

“Dude, there are no spiders down here anymore. We have to move.”

Tommy followed, though he still swiped at his neck and hair occasionally just to make sure Sean wasn’t lying.

The tunnel stretched out another fifty yards in front of them and ended at another set of stairs. They flew down the steps, taking them two at a time until they reached the next landing. Yet another tunnel awaited.

“This thing goes on forever,” Tommy said, gasping for air.

“We should be close.”

Sean pressed on, going straight then following the passage to the right, keeping his hand out in front of his face to protect against more cobwebs. Tommy hurried after him, trying to keep up.

The two reached another fork in the corridor. This time, Tommy recommended they go right, suggesting that now the car was in that direction.

Sean nodded and kept moving. After making the right and then going around another corner that bent back to the left, they found themselves in a long stretch of tunnel that looked more than a few hundred yards long. The floor sloped downward at a slight angle, disappearing into the darkness beyond the end of their lights’ reach.

Tommy frowned. “What’s the matter? Keep going?”

“The floor goes down. We should already be at ground level. And from the length of it, this passage is longer than the length of the temple. It must extend beyond the exterior walls and end up somewhere on the grounds around the perimeter.”

“Perimeter, parking lot, doesn’t matter to me. So long as it gets us out of here alive, I’m good.”

Tommy took off at a gallop. Sean scurried after him. Twenty seconds later, they realized that the floor was rising again. They picked up their pace and started to see a pale glow from the other end of the tunnel. It was a thin sliver at first, but as the two Americans drew closer, they saw that it was a narrow opening, about twenty inches wide and five feet tall.

They made it to the opening, and Sean took a quick look out. Thick stands of trees and emerald-green grass surrounded the exit. It was probably why the opening had gone unnoticed; at least he assumed it had largely gone unnoticed.

Sean went through first, easily slipping through the narrow space. Tommy, on the other hand, had a little more trouble, but he made it through right behind him, though his size didn’t do him any favors.

“Remind me to drop a few pounds when we get back to the States,” he said, trying to suck in his waistline as he squeezed through.

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Once on the other side, the two crept through the thicket of skinny, pale tree trunks.

Tommy couldn’t let it go. “The fact that you weren’t going to say something means you were thinking about saying something.” His words came through clenched teeth as he tried to keep his voice down.

“Seriously? Right now we’re having this conversation?”

“We weren’t going to until you said you weren’t going to say anything.”

Sean stopped and stood up straight. He turned around and faced his friend. “We’re not married. So please, let it go. If you want to get in shape, I encourage that.”

He spun back around and started walking toward a clearing at the edge of the trees.

“You encourage that?” Tommy hissed, catching up. “Really? That’s exactly what a husband would say. So now I’m the wife?”

“You’re certainly not doing yourself any favors asking these kinds of questions. Now can you please just focus? We need to get out of here. In case you forgot, there are men, probably armed, trying to kill us.”

The conversation ended abruptly as Tommy realized he was being overly dramatic.

The clearing was nothing more than a beaten-down, leaf-covered path that appeared to circle back around to the park surrounding the temple. Sean led the way, moving at a jog until they reached the edge of the tree line where a stretch of meadow ended in the parking area. They could see their car a few hundred yards away. Sean took a quick survey of the area to see if anyone stayed behind to watch their vehicle in case they were able to get past the siege outside the central stupa.

From what he could tell, there wasn’t anyone suspicious, just unsuspecting tourists who were completely oblivious to the deadly game of cat and mouse that was going on right under their noses.

“Looks like the coast is clear,” Sean said. “But they’ll have guys up top keeping an eye on things. Going to be a race to get to the car before they do.”

“You go first; I’ll bring up the rear.”

Tommy’s offer had more to do with his being the slower of the two, but Sean declined.

“We go together. You ready?”

The journey through the tunnel had been a welcome respite from the heat and humidity of the Indonesian summer. Now they were back in the sun, and the damp air made their lungs heavy.

“Sure. No time like the present. Hopefully, anyone following us into the tunnel took a wrong turn.”

Sean nodded then stared ahead across the meadow. “Go.”

The two took off at a dead sprint. Fifty yards across the field, Tommy slowed noticeably, so Sean pulled back his pace a percentage to stay with his friend. His eyes shot over to the temple roof where there were two men in sunglasses standing at the edge. One had a phone to his ear. The second he noticed the two Americans running across the grassy span, he pointed. The other man with him disappeared, presumably heading for the steps leading back to ground level.

With a hundred yards to go, Tommy was struggling, taking in oxygen in huge, desperate gulps. But he didn’t stop, though his pace was diminishing closer to a jog with every step.

“Not much farther, buddy,” Sean encouraged him.

“You…get the…car…and meet me,” Tommy managed to blurt out amid heaves.

“Not happening. Keep moving,” he barked.

Sean looked to his left and saw the man who’d been at the top of the temple now running down the stairs. He’d already reached the second landing and would soon be on the ground and heading their way.

With twenty yards to go, Sean urged his friend to pick it up. “Here they come,” he said, pointing at the guy descending the last set of stairs. Tommy found his second wind and pumped his legs harder.

Sean fished the keys out of his pocket and hit the unlock button on the keyless entry. The locks clicked as he reached the door. In two seconds, the door was open, and he was inside, shoving the keys in the ignition. Tommy skidded around the gravel and to the passenger side. He opened the door and slid in at the same time Sean revved the car to life.

Through the windshield, they could see the man from the rooftop sprinting their way with a black handgun held outstretched, pointed straight at them. As soon as the first shot was fired, Sean kicked the car into reverse and backed up, spinning the front tires and sending gravel flying into the grass. A second after the gunman squeezed the trigger, panic struck the tourists on the grounds. People screamed and started running for cover. The gunman fired again, now only thirty yards away but still too far to be accurate. His shots were out of desperation more than anything.

Sean spun the wheel, shifted the gears, and punched the accelerator. Before turning the car out of the parking lot, he saw two other men running at them from the woods they’d left moments ago.

The little car whipped out onto the cracked pavement and sped away, leaving the attackers to chase on foot.

Tommy was gasping for air in the passenger seat. Sean removed his rucksack and tossed it in the backseat before checking on his friend. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I really have to get on a workout regimen when we get back.”

Sean diverted the conversation back to the issue at hand. “That’s three times in three separate countries that someone has come after us. We need to know who they are, what they want, and why they’re trying to kill us.”

“Once we find out the answers to the first two questions, I’m pretty sure the third will answer itself.”

“Good point,” Sean nodded, shooting a quick glance out of the corner of his eye.

“The other questions I want answers to is where that relic went. Why was the box in the temple empty? And what did those engravings say?”

“I’m sure the kids will have an answer for us soon enough on the latter. But you’re right. Why would someone go to all the trouble to hide something of extraordinary value in a highly secretive place just to put it somewhere else?”

The car hit one of the many potholes, but Sean kept it on course.

“You think it might be a decoy?” Tommy asked. His breathing had begun to slow. He looked nervously out the window into the rearview mirror.

“Maybe. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through to set up a decoy, though.”

Sean swerved to miss another pothole, this time putting the right-side tires onto the edge of the lane. The rubber kicked up some debris, but a second later he was back in the middle again.

Tommy’s phone beeped at the same time Sean felt his vibrate in his pants pocket. Tommy checked the screen. “It’s from Tara.” After tapping the device twice, he looked over at Sean and grinned. “We were right. It’s Sudanese. And apparently, the message carved into that stone box says that we will find what we seek in the halls of the Tiger’s Nest.”

“Tiger’s Nest?” Sean’s eyes narrowed. He kept them facing forward, though, as he weaved around a slower-moving car.

“That’s what she says.” The phones beeped and vibrated again, signaling another message had arrived. “Now she says that there’s a Buddhist monastery high up in the mountains of Bhutan called the
Tiger’s Nest
. She thinks that might be our best bet.”

Sean considered the information for a moment before speaking. “That would make sense, I suppose.”

“Of course it would.” Tommy spoke with renewed excitement, the exhaustion from the long sprint a distant memory. “With the proliferation of Islam in Indonesia, the Buddhist monks who were entrusted with the Hebrew relic must have known it would be in grave danger. According to the history of Borobudur, the monks abandoned it. They wouldn’t have left something so precious behind.”

“They would have thought to take it somewhere safe,” Sean finished the thought.

“Exactly.”

“Bhutan is a pretty mountainous country. If it’s one of those monasteries that’s up on a cliff, it would be about as safe a place as any to hide something like that.” He spoke with confidence, but in his mind a twinge of nausea crept in. Sean had always been terrified of heights. On a trip to Machu Picchu, he’d barely been able to force himself up from a crawling position as he ascended some of the precipitous steps. The memory blurred his vision for a second, but he snapped himself back to the present. No sense in worrying about something until there was something to worry about. Maybe this
Tiger’s Nest
wouldn’t be as precariously placed on a mountain as the ancient Incan village.