The Jerusalem Creed: A Sean Wyatt Thriller (23 page)

“We follow him.” Sean answered, pointing at Muhammad.

“Sorry for the unwelcome reception you had in there. Old customs, you know.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said.

He smiled and bowed. “Thank you for understanding. Now, since time is of the essence, I suggest we hurry.”

Muhammad took off at a brisk pace, crossing the street without looking and floating down the sidewalk as if he was on a rapid people mover. The others rushed after him, heading toward the center of town. Rising above the apartments and businesses, a white, spiraling cone stood out in the cloudless blue sky: the shrine sitting atop the tomb of Daniel.

Susa

The entrance to the tunnels wasn’t exactly well hidden. It was, however, well protected. An iron gate covered the arched portal and was locked with a heavy, rusted padlock. A shallow stream of murky water trickled out and into a concrete duct leading away from the tunnel, disappearing into another, smaller hole in a wall thirty feet away.

Muhammad had acquired a key, though Sean and the others decided it would be best not to ask why. They locked the gate once they were inside and hurried through the passage.

“This doesn’t seem like such a secret,” Tommy commented as he pointed his flashlight around. The beam danced on the curved walls and stretched out ahead of the group as they progressed.

“Most people think it’s a sewage drain,” Muhammad explained. “That keeps many curious eyes away. Only a few people come down here, usually engineers or city planners, and those are few and far between. No one has any reason to try to find this secret entrance.” He made a sharp right and continued down the damp corridor. A rat scurried away, keeping close to the wall as it retreated from the intruders.

“Was it difficult to get dig permits for this?” Tommy asked. He slipped on a wet patch of concrete and nearly fell but caught his balance with an elbow against the wall.

Muhammad laughed. “Permit? This city has so many other things going on, I seriously doubt anyone in the local government would even know where to begin with giving out an excavation permit.”

Sean raised an eyebrow and glanced over at his friend. “So how are you keeping the site secure?”

The group rounded a corner and arrived at another intersection where the paths came to a T. Warning signs hung on the wall to the left. They surrounded a plastic drop cloth hanging from the wall. Some of the signs read in Arabic, Farsi, and English,
Danger, keep out
; others warned of lethal chemicals, and still more had skulls and crossbones.

Sean nodded, seeing the answer to his question.

“Not exactly subtle,” Adriana said, admiring the handiwork.

“But effective.” Muhammad grinned over his shoulder and pulled back the plastic.

He pointed his flashlight inside the cavity. The light revealed a small generator, floodlights, shovels, picks, brushes, sifting trays, baskets, and several other tools of the archaeological trade.

“Okay,” Tommy said, “I’m impressed.”

They followed their guide into the dig site and closed the drop cloth behind. Muhammad led the way over to the far wall. The visitors’ eyes came to rest upon an incredible find. Aramaic characters were carved into the ancient rock in neat lines from right to left and stretched four feet across in the wall’s center. In the corners above the far edges of the script was a sequence of characters separated by an inch or two of space and barely noticeable seams. As Sean drew closer, he noticed thin lines surrounding the words. Each one was a separate piece of stone cut into the wall.

“They are names,” Muhammad said, answering the unasked question. “Names of Hebrew leaders, priests, prophets, and kings. There are twenty-eight names on those squares.”

“Why are they there?” Tommy asked.

“I assume because Daniel wanted to honor those who had gone before him.” 

“How did you find this?” Sean asked, turning to face their guide.

Muhammad shrugged. “I’ve always wondered what was underneath the tomb. Outside the shrine, visitors can stop to pray or pay their respects to the great prophet, but no one is allowed inside. As far as I know, no one has ever seen the actual remains. It would be difficult to determine if it is actually Daniel or not, and I have no intention of doing such research. I simply wanted to know what else was down here and why it was so secretive.”

“Curiosity can be dangerous,” Sean said as he ran his fingers across the letters carved into the smooth stone.

Their guide smiled and lowered his head a moment. He raised it again and said, “I do not believe I have made many enemies in this world.”

“It’s not your enemies you should be worried about. It’s the enemies of your friends you need to be aware of.”

“Speaking of enemies,” Tommy interrupted, “could we hurry this along? Ours could be arriving at any moment.”

“Right,” Sean nodded.

He continued moving his finger across the stone until he felt the thinnest of gaps. He worked his fingernail into it and slid it up and down, confirming what he thought. “We’re going to have to wedge this thing out, which means the wall will be damaged.” He turned to Muhammad. “You okay with that?”

The Iranian took a step back and grabbed a sledgehammer and a metal wedge. He flipped on the generator and hit the start button. The floodlights flickered to life and cast a bright glow throughout the entire area. “I’ve been waiting long enough to see what’s behind this door.”

The other three picked up some crowbars that were leaning against the wall and went to work. They shimmied the sharp edges into the narrow space between the center stone and the wall around it. The work was painstaking and difficult. Every time it seemed they had made progress and the rectangular stone started to slide out a little, it slipped back into place. After twenty minutes of hard effort, the heat and humidity of the space started to take its toll. Beads of sweat rolled down the sides of every face.

Sean took a step back, breathing hard. “Take a break for a second.”

Tommy was the first to obey, grateful for a breather. He slogged over to his gear bag, unzipped it, and pulled out a bottle of cool water. Half of the contents were gone in a matter of seconds as he poured the liquid down his throat.

Adriana leaned her tool against the wall and stared at the engravings.

“It’s an account of the Babylonian captivity the Hebrews endured,” Muhammad informed her. He stood nearby and gazed upon the wall.

Sean eyed the peculiar corners with the names cut into individual squares. He lowered his gaze to the floor and took to a knee near the wall. His fingertips ran across the smooth stone. It was similar to the way the walls had been cut, hewn smooth with a laser-like precision. Something stood out about the floor. Actually, it wasn’t what stood out. It was what was missing.

“This door wasn’t meant to come out this way,” he blurted.

Tommy finished the last drops of his water and tossed the bottle back into the gear bag. “What do you mean? You saying we should push it?”

Sean shook his head. “No. This would have been put here just a shade over two thousand years ago.” He jerked his thumb at the wall. “If whoever put it here slid it into place, we would see signs of scraping on the floor. There might even be some big gouges.”

“Maybe they didn’t slide it across the stone. They could have used mats or some kind of buffer.”

“I don’t think so,” Sean disagreed. “Look at how perfectly flush these seams are. If this is a door, it was cut from the wall itself.”

Muhammad listened to the conversation and jumped in. “How do you think it works then?”

Sean turned to Tommy. “Do you remember studying the layout of the ancient temple in Jerusalem?”

Tommy blinked and rolled his shoulders, nodding. “Yeah. Which part in particular?”

“History suggests that the designers of Solomon’s temple built in safety measures to protect the Ark of the Covenant from falling into the wrong hands.”

The light went on in Tommy’s eyes. “Right. The widely held belief is that there were two pillars standing next to the entrance to the most holy place, a location which only the high priest was allowed to visit once a year.”

“Exactly. From what I remember, those two columns would sink into the ground in the event that the city came under attack. It worked with counterweights and sand.”

“Yeah, but how does that apply to this situation?”

Sean stood and stepped close to the wall once more. He reached up and ran a fingernail under the edge of one of the squares with a name on it. His Aramaic was rusty. He thought he knew what the name was, but he motioned for Adriana to take a look at it. Tommy moved closer as well.

“What does this name say?”

“Isaiah,” she answered.

“Most likely the great prophet of Israel,” Muhammad added.

“And this one?” Sean pointed at the next name in line.

“Samuel,” Tommy answered quickly. He clearly didn’t want to be outdone.

“Aaron. David. Solomon. Shadrach. Josiah.” Adriana called out the next five.

Before she could say the next name, Sean stopped her. “Wait. The one before Josiah. Did you say Shadrach?”

“Yes,” she answered, confused by the question. “Why?”

He pressed his finger to the center of the square in question. “Keep going.”

She called out several more names. When she said, “Meshach,” he stopped her again.

“Tommy, put your finger on that one.”

His friend smiled and obeyed, realizing the method to Sean’s madness. “It’s the names of Daniel’s friends.”

“Looks that way. Adriana, see if the name of Abednego is over there on the other side.” She grinned and stepped over to the other corner.

She traced a line across the first row and into the second row before she found the one she was looking for. “Got it,” she said, putting her finger on the square.

“I’m sorry,” Muhammad asked, “but I don’t understand what is going on.”

“These names,” Sean tapped the square with renewed excitement, “don’t fit with all the others. Priests, kings, prophets—Daniel’s friends weren’t any of those. They were just students who were taken to Babylon to study the ways of the empire.”

“Okay,” Tommy spoke up. “Thanks for the refresher. But what exactly are we doing here?”

Sean picked up the crowbar he’d set aside and stepped over to where Adriana was keeping her finger pressed firmly against the stone square. He flipped the tool around to use the shorter end. “You can move your finger,” he said to her with a smile. She raised an eyebrow and stepped back.

He worked the tool’s point into the tiny seam between the squares. When he was satisfied with the depth, he took a deep breath and leveraged the bar forward. The square came out easier than he expected, extending out of the wall by three inches. Everyone in the room stared at the object in disbelief. It was a cubical rod. Sean grabbed onto the end, careful not to break it off, and tugged on it gently, sliding the rod out of the wall until it came free. The long, cubed shaft was about two feet long.

“Amazing,” Muhammad said, breaking the near silence.

“Wait,” Sean held up his hand, stopping their guide from saying anything else. Everyone in the room listened but heard nothing.

“What are we listening for?” Tommy asked.

Sean shrugged off the question and set the rod to the side. “Quick. Do the same with the other two.”

Tommy did as instructed and reached down to grab his own crowbar. He replicated the process while Sean found the remaining cube and went to work. Tommy’s came free fairly easily, only taking a minute or two of careful effort. The third rod was somewhat more temperamental, but Sean was able to shimmy it free. With the three rods for each of Daniel’s friends lying against the wall, the four explorers listened again. Once more, the only sound they could discern was the faint trickle of water coming from the drainage tunnels.

They stared at the wall with heightened anticipation, but nothing happened. Sean scratched his head. His mouth was agape, and he couldn’t help but feel a little frustrated.

“Shouldn’t something be moving now?” Tommy asked sincerely.

Sean nodded. “Yeah.”

“This place is very old,” Muhammad offered. “Maybe the contraption doesn’t work anymore.”

Adriana shook her head. “That would be true if they used ropes or any type of component that decays quickly. Whoever designed this knew that it could be a long time before anyone found it. Like they said,” she motioned at Sean, “the temple’s anti-theft system could have endured thousands of years.”

Muhammad seemed satisfied with the explanation, but that still didn’t answer the question as to why the contraption wasn’t moving. Sean inched closer to the stone wall.

“We’re missing something,” Tommy said, taking a step back. He scanned the squares until he found an anomaly. “These columns all have the names of Daniel’s friends on the surface.”

Sean nodded his agreement.

“So maybe there’s a friend we missed.” Tommy moved forward again, this time slowly running his index finger across the squares, examining each name with the greatest of care.

He completed one side of the wall and sidestepped over to the other corner. He repeated the process, checking each square before moving on to the next. Suddenly, he stopped on one unusually long name.

“What?” Sean asked, almost begging it out of him.

Tommy tapped on the stone. “This name doesn’t fit. He wasn’t a king of Judah, a priest, or even Hebrew.”

Sean raised an eyebrow as the answer came to him. “Of course. The king of Babylon befriended Daniel and after that, the king of the Medes, Darius became his friend as well. According to the biblical account, Darius reluctantly threw Daniel into a pit of lions, which the prophet miraculously survived. After that occurrence, Daniel became one of the most trusted advisers to the new Persian rulers. But it was Nebuchadnezzar who set Daniel up in the government before everything went down.”