The Blood Gospel (Page 27)

“I would not use such words.” Father Korza folded gloved hands in front of him. “I am but a priest, a humble servant of God. But to serve the Holy See, I and certain other brethren of the cloth have been trained to fight this plague, yes.”

Erin had a thousand questions she wanted to ask, but she had a most pressing one, one that had troubled her since the priest stepped into the tomb and said his first words.

The Church has prior claim to what lies within this crypt.

Suddenly glad to have a soldier between them, Erin watched the bloody figure over Jordan’s shoulder. “Earlier, you asked about a book that might be hidden here. Is that why we were attacked? Why we’re trapped down here?”

The priest’s face closed. He craned his neck toward the brick roof as if seeking guidance from above. “The mountain is still moving.”

“What—” A great groaning of stone, accompanied by explosive booms of crushed rock, interrupted Jordan’s question. The ground shook—at first mildly, then more violently.

Erin stumbled into Jordan’s back before finding her footing. “Another aftershock?”

“Or the concussive charges weakened the mountain’s infrastructure.” Jordan looked at the ceiling. “Either way, it’s coming down. And soon.”

“We must first find the way out,” Father Korza said. “Before we discuss other matters.”

Jordan moved toward the collapsed entrance.

“We will gain no passage that way.” Father Korza slowly turned in a full circle. “But it is said that those who came to hide the book during the fall of Masada used a path known only to a few. A path they sealed behind them as they left.”

Jordan scanned the solid walls. “Where?”

The priest’s eyes were vacant. “That secret was lost.”

“You’re not holding out on us, are you?” Jordan asked.

Father Korza fingered rosary beads on his belt. “The path is beyond the knowledge of the Church. No one knows it.”

“Not true.” Erin ran both hands along the wall closest to her, digging a nail into the mortar between two stones.

All eyes turned to her.

She smiled. “I know the way out.”

5:25 P.M.

Jordan hoped that Erin knew what she was talking about. “Show me.”

She hurried to the rear of the chamber, dancing her fingertips along rough stone as if reading a book written in Braille.

He followed, patting the stone with one hand, the other still on his submachine gun. He didn’t trust Korza. If the priest had warned them from the start, Jordan’s men might still be alive. Jordan wasn’t going to turn his back on him anytime soon.

“Feel how clean the masonry is along this wall?” Erin asked. “The blocks fit so perfectly that little mortar was even needed. I suspect they only cemented it as an extra measure to secure the vault against quakes.”

“So it’s probably the only reason we’re still alive,” he said. “Let’s hear it for overbuilding.”

A distracted smile played across her lips. He hoped to see that smile again out in the sunlight, somewhere safe.

At the back wall, she dropped to a knee beside the impaled bodies. Her shoulders tensed, and her eyes fixed on the wall, averted from the dead. But she kept going. He admired that. She placed a palm against the ancient bricks and stroked it downward.

“I noticed this earlier.” The ground jolted, and her next words rushed out. “Before the attack. When we were examining the girl.” She took his hand and placed it beside hers on the stones. “Feel the ridges of mortar pushing out between the bricks.”

He touched the cold unyielding stone.

“This section is unlike the other walls,” she rattled on eagerly. “Skilled masons, such as those who built this vault, would skim the excess mortar away, to create a clean look and to protect the mortar from being knocked out if anyone brushed against the wall.”

“Are you saying that they got sloppy here?”

“Far from it. Whoever built this section of wall was working from the other side. That’s why the mortar is bulging out toward us here.”

“A sealed doorway.” He whistled. “Nice going, Doc.”

He studied it. The mortared section formed a rough archway. She might be right. He pounded the wall with the flat of his fist. It didn’t give. “Feels damned solid to me.”

To dig this out would take hours, maybe days. And he suspected they had only minutes. Erin had done a good job, but it wouldn’t be enough to save them.

A section of roof near the entrance broke away and fell with a deafening crash. Erin flinched, and he moved toward her protectively. They’d end up buried down here with the corpses of monsters and men.

His men, with Cooper and McKay.

“McKay,” he said aloud.

The holy man frowned, but Erin glanced at McKay’s twisted body. Her eyes brightened with hope and understanding.

“Do you have enough time?” she asked.

“When I’m this motivated? Damned straight.”

He headed across the rubble and knelt beside McKay’s body.

I’m sorry, buddy.

He gently rolled his lifeless body to the side. He kept his eyes off the ruin of his friend’s throat, resting a hand on his shoulder. He held back memories of his friend’s barking laugh, his habit of peeling labels off of beer bottles, his hangdog look when confronted by a beautiful woman.

All gone.

But never forgotten, my friend.

He freed the backpack and returned to the wall where Erin waited. He didn’t want her to be alone with the priest. He didn’t know what the man might do. The holy man was full of secrets, secrets that had cost his men their lives. What would Korza do to keep those secrets if they escaped this prison?

No matter what was planned, the mountain would probably crush them first. Jordan hurriedly unzipped the backpack. As the team’s demolitions expert, McKay carried explosives, originally brought along to blow up canisters and neutralize any residual threat. Back when they thought they were dealing with something simple, like terrorists.

He worked fast, fingers inserting blasting caps into blocks of C-4. McKay could have done this faster, but Jordan shied away from that well of pain, unable to face the loss. That would come later. If there was a later.

He shaped and wired charges, doing fast calculations in his head while keeping an eye on Erin as she talked to the priest.

“The girl,” she said, waving an arm toward the child on the wall. “You’re telling me that she was two thousand years old when she died?”