The Caleb Collection Read online

  “No.” Zakkai wagged his finger. “I’m saying that maybe he doesn’t know he’s the key. Knowing it would place an undue burden on him. But if the Ark came into danger of being discovered, then something would tip Caleb off. Show him the key.”

  “What? That doesn’t make any sense,” Jason said. “Why would Caleb need to know—”

  “So that he could protect it, of course.” Zakkai looked around, suddenly excited.

  “We haven’t found anything that looks like a clue meant to tip Caleb off,” Leiah said.

  “Exactly. But perhaps because Father Matthew didn’t want Caleb to find it unless there was a significant threat.” He paused and turned around, thinking. “The question is, what would Father Matthew consider a threat? If someone were to find Caleb’s room and search these books for clues to the Ark, would that pose a threat? No! We’re going about this wrong.”

  “What do you suggest?” Leiah asked. “That we tear into the walls?”

  Zakkai spun to her, wide-eyed. It made perfect sense.

  “You can’t be serious,” she said.

  “Why not? If the Ark is hidden, then an excavation would pose a threat to its uncovering. Something would have to be exposed to tip Caleb off as to the Ark’s true location.” Zakkai strode to the wall and felt it with his palm. “Something only Caleb could understand.”

  “But why here? It could be anywhere?”

  “Because this is where any archaeologist would begin. This, Leiah, is the heart of the monastery, as far as I’m concerned. Caleb holds the key; these are Caleb’s quarters.” Zakkai felt a faint chill snake down his spine. He hurried to the table, snatched up his hammer, and approached the wall.

  “Please, Professor. Let’s at least talk this through before you begin to beat on the walls.”

  He tapped the stone lightly. They hadn’t even tested the walls. Jason suddenly grabbed one of the torches and disappeared into the bedroom.

  “Jason?” Leiah called after him. “Are we just going to let him smash these walls?”

  Jason didn’t reply.

  “I have no intention of smashing your walls,” Zakkai said. “I’m not even scratching them. But if you are right about Caleb not knowing, and I am right about why Father Matthew wouldn’t want him to know, then we have no choice but to at least look.”

  “You’re not looking at the wall. You’re hitting it with a hammer.”

  The stone was thick along the wall Zakkai tested. He moved to his right a meter or so and tapped again, from the top of the wall down to the floor. He could be wrong, of course. The whole line of reasoning he’d followed had been based on the vague presumption that Father Matthew wanted to protect Caleb from . . .

  “Professor!” Jason’s voice echoed through the chamber.

  Zakkai turned to the call.

  “Uhh, you might want to see this.”

  Zakkai brushed past Leiah and spun into the room.

  Jason stood on the bed with the picture of Christ in his hands. But Jason wasn’t looking at the frame in his hands, he was staring at the wall behind it.

  A thin crack angled across the surface. Jason knocked on it with his knuckles. Hollow.

  Leiah pushed past Zakkai and immediately saw what they saw. The archaeologist in Zakkai was speaking now. Telling him that they should slow down because they had made a discovery and all discoveries should be handled with the utmost care. He stood there, unmoving. Yes, it was time they slowed down and applied the meticulous standards he’d committed his life to. Never mind that this was an illegal military mission with guns and soldiers. They had just found something that screamed of value and they could not just . . .

  Leiah suddenly took the hammer from his hands and jumped onto the bed. She tapped the stone before Zakkai could stop her.

  But it wasn’t stone. It was plaster and it crumbled to the wool bedspread.

  “Easy! Easy. Don’t damage anything!” Zakkai took the hammer, brushed past her, and examined the plaster. Jason and Leiah stood back and allowed him to work carefully around the hole, tapping with just enough force to dislodge the material in small amounts.

  He worked in silence for five full minutes. No one spoke.

  A slab of white plaster suddenly broke free and Leiah gasped. A nook gaped at them—a dark hole behind the wall, roughly a third of a meter in diameter.

  “It’s empty,” Leiah said.

  It did look empty. But Zakkai already saw the single sheet of paper which hugged the bottom. He reached in and slowly extracted it.

  The paper was in good shape, clearly of modern manufacture despite its textured stock, nothing like the ancient letter the blind priest had given them.

  “A letter?” Jason asked.

  Zakkai carried the sheet into the main room and laid it on the table. Together they crowded around and studied the words under the flickering flames.

  Caleb,

  You alone know the secrets of this majestic rock we shared for a home. It was a gift from God. My dear sweet one, you will know. Where the brine mixes with the oil, there you will find God. Only you will know.

  I am flying now, Caleb. We will fly together again. I cherish you more than life.

  Matthew

  Heat rose through Zakkai’s neck. He reread the letter three times, feeling his heart tighten with each reading. He lifted his chin and took a deep breath. Leiah sat down in one of the chairs and lowered her face into her hands.

  “So then maybe you’re right,” Jason said quietly.

  “We are right,” Zakkai said. His voice wavered with emotion. They might have just as well uncovered a placard with the wordsWithin these walls lies the Ark of the Covenant.

  14

  The tribe consisted of thirty-three souls. Twelve women, seven children— eight if you counted the one with child—and fourteen monks. Only seven of the monks had taken the vow of celibacy, but they had all made simple vows unique to the tribe that no less committed them than any vow taken anywhere by any monk. In fifty years they had never been less than fifteen and never more than thirty-four. The harsh reality of the desert played more than a small role in their numbers.

  Like most people who depended on the desert for survival, they were a nomadic tribe, rarely staying more than two weeks in any camp. But the Oasis of the Towers was one such camp, and they had stayed a long three weeks before the Father had suggested it was time to move on.

  The oasis wasn’t much more than a brown puddle to the east of the towers. The rock formation shielded the hole and the camp from the afternoon sun. There were only three commonly known springs in the Danakil, eight if you really knew, and twelve if you knew how to wring water from a rock. Fortunately the tribe had a few “rock-wringers.” But only the spring at the Tower Oasis remained wet year around. Not wet enough to support more than two spiny trees and not wet enough to wash down your camels, but wet. Enough to filter the soupy, brown water for drinking, at least.

  The tents were already loaded and the water jars filled. They would leave at sunset as always. Within the half-hour.

  Three of the children ran circles around Mustaf, the oldest and, without argument, the most ornery of their fifteen camels. Mustaf objected loudly and bared his lips, turning clumsily and spitting at the children, which only perpetuated the game. As was to be expected, Daniel led the charge, skipping like a jackal, edging the old camel close to its limits.

  Two of the women were sweeping the salt, clearing marks of their stay as a courtesy more to themselves than to any other visitor. In all likelihood the next visitor would in fact be the tribe, three months from now. Excepting Mustaf, the last of the camels were already strung together in a long train for the journey.

  It was then, just after Brother Elijah had told Daniel to leave the camel alone, that Miriam’s cry cut through the air and stopped them all in their tracks.

  “Brother Elijah! Brother Elijah, come quickly!”

  After a momentary pause, a dozen of the tribe ran towards her. She waved to them ur
gently. “Hurry!”

  “What is it?” Elijah demanded. Little Daniel was on his heels with the other children, and behind them Brother Isaac and two of the women.

  Without answering, Miriam spun and walked around the tower.

  Brother Elijah drew abreast. “What is it?”

  “A man.”

  “A man? You haven’t seen a man before?”

  “Please, Elijah. This isn’t the time to play around.” The rest had caught up and trailed her, some snickering at the exchange. The tribe wasn’t easily excitable, but they were easily amused.

  “When you see, you won’t be laughing,” Miriam said. She turned and ran through a group of boulders to the west side of the tower.

  The man lay on his face, unmoved from where Miriam had stumbled upon him. She slowed and walked around the body. A hush enveloped the others. They formed a rough circle around the body.

  “Who is he?” Daniel asked.

  No one answered. The man was dressed in western clothes—khaki slacks and a white shirt, the latter stained by sweat, the former by blood. His sandals were embedded in blistered feet. Flies buzzed around the glistening flesh, feeding on the blood. None of this was so uncommon in the desert.

  The color of the man’s skin was. It was tan, not black. This man wasn’t from the desert.

  “He’s a white man,” Daniel said, undeterred by the silence.

  “Hush, Daniel,” his older sister, Ruth, said.

  “I was doing a sweep for garbage and found him here,” Miriam said. The man’s back rose and fell in gentle undulations. Dark hair concealed his face, which was planted in the sand.

  They stood looking down at the strange sight together. It seemed to have frozen them into inaction. And then suddenly they were all moving. Brother Isaac knelt by the feet and began to pull up the man’s pant legs.

  “Give me water,” Elijah said, taking a bottle from one of the women. Miriam dropped to her knees and pulled matted hair from the man’s face. “We have to turn him over onto his back.”

  The children crowded for a better look, and Ruth shooed them back. “Give them room. This isn’t a painting to gawk at. This is a man who is dying.”

  “It’s okay, Ruth,” Isaac said gently, placing his hands under the man’s legs. “Let them look. It won’t harm them.”

  Together, Isaac, Elijah, and Miriam eased the body over onto its back. If the man felt any pain, he didn’t show it. He was unconscious.

  Miriam placed her hand under the man’s shirt. “His body temperature’s too high.” She ripped the shirt open, and Elijah poured his water on the chest. They worked as a team familiar with the task set before them. They had to reduce the body temperature as quickly as possible.

  “Water,” Miriam said, blindly reaching her hand to the others like a surgeon asking for a scalpel. A bottle filled it. She uncorked it with her teeth and spilled a thin trail onto the man’s cracked lips. Then onto his forehead and cheeks. She emptied it over his neck and hair. Beneath the blisters the skin was smooth; he was a handsome man with a finely shaped face.

  Miriam took another bottle of water, gently pried his lips apart, and dribbled the cool liquid into his mouth. The water seeped past white teeth.

  Isaac had removed the man’s sandals. “It’s not as bad as it looks, but we have to get some salve on these blisters.”

  “We can’t move him until he responds,” Miriam said.

  “Yes. Daniel, fetch the stretcher, please. Ruth, please tell the Father that we have a guest. He will know what to do.”

  They ran off, Ruth chiding her younger brother for always having to be the man of the hour.

  The stranger first responded ten minutes later—a gentle swallow—and a satisfied murmur swept through the onlookers. Within minutes the man was moaning, and his temperature had fallen to reasonable levels. Brother Isaac had covered his feet in a thick layer of salve, then wrapped them in white linens.

  The Father had instructed Ruth to take binoculars and climb the highest rock to look out to the west. She was clambering up the boulders now, proudly announcing her mission to the rest.

  “We are taking him with us? Or are we staying?” Miriam asked Brother Isaac. It was not their way to leave a man in need.

  “I should think we will stay,” he said. “But that will be up to the Father. Either way this man isn’t going to walk around on his own tonight. Help me put him—”

  “There’s more!” Ruth suddenly yelled down from her perch. “There are more coming!”

  Miriam jumped up and gazed out at the red sunset. “More? You mean more travelers?” She could see nothing but flat salt.

  “Yes, more! Two on camels, I think. No wait . . . three! Another further behind!” She spun down towards them. “Three!”

  “What did the Father say?” Isaac demanded.

  “That if there were more coming we should leave immediately!” Ruth was already scrambling down from the rocks.

  Isaac grabbed the stretcher and rolled it out next to the man. “Well, now we know. Let’s go.”

  Isaac and Elijah lifted the limp man onto the stretcher, grabbed the poles on either end, and hurried for the caravan. If the Father had insisted they leave, it could only mean that the approaching travelers posed a threat. Obviously the Father knew something they did not.

  Miriam insisted that she be the one to stay by the man until he recovered. Brother Isaac raised a brow, but no one objected. The process of attaching the makeshift bed to her camel took no more than five minutes. The stretcher angled to the earth and would slide like a sled. If the ground wasn’t so even, the ride might be rough, but the desert was as flat as marble here.

  With a final sweep of the camp the caravan left the Tower Oasis, dragging their newest member behind. They left a trail, of course—two lines in the sand left by the stretcher, leading due north.

  Ismael first caught sight of the two camels one hour before sunset, and the sight had him off the horse immediately. He brought the glasses up and peered at the distant animals edging away. They were headed for the tall rocks on the horizon.

  Ordinarily he might have used the speed of his mount to flank them and take a position in the rocks before them. A horse could outrun a camel any day.

  Unless the horse was an old dehydrated mare, wheezing with each step. Ismael wasn’t sure the horse would make the rocks at a walk, much less at a gallop. A camel was the wiser mount in this cursed heat.

  And there was another small fact that held Ismael back. The simple reality that if he could see them with his glasses, they could also see him with theirs.

  They might not expect that they were followed, but he couldn’t take that chance. He remounted, eased his horse off their trail, and angled south. It was less likely that they would check their flanks than their rear. Unfortunately the maneuver would add a couple of hours to his ride, but the sun would soon be down. Even if the horse gave out, he could walk to the rocks in the night.

  Like him, the Jew was following tracks—without a moon she would have to stop for the night or risk losing them.

  Ismael smiled for the first time that day. The distant camels had neither increased their pace nor altered their course. Soon it would be dark and he would come up on them unexpected, not from their rear, but from their flank, on his belly. Even if they had spotted him, they wouldn’t see him in the dark.

  He would pick them off like two rats in a cage. And if he was lucky, the monk they pursued would be with them.

  Three rats in a cage.

  Rebecca had scanned their rear with a scope every half-hour, but saw nothing. She had no reason to believe the sniper would follow them in the first place, but if by chance he had, he still wasn’t in sight.

  Caleb’s trail was unquestionable. He’d left drops of blood in the sand that a blind man with a bag over his head could follow.

  The largest rock had looked like a shaft of red light in the setting sunset. Now it loomed over them, an ominous monolith in the dark.

&
nbsp; They pulled up their mounts a hundred meters from the rocks and listened. Nothing. Rebecca slid off her camel and Michael followed suit. They walked for the tower, staying on the protected side of the animals, pausing and listening every dozen paces.

  Still nothing.

  It took them another twenty minutes to reach the rocks. Nothing but silence met them. They had no reason to believe Caleb would be violent, so their search went quickly. He was gone.

  “So . . .” Rebecca said, staring at the twin lines in the sand. She knelt and traced one of them with her index finger.

  “So, indeed. We won’t be able to follow these easily without a moon.”

  “No. What do you make of them?”

  “Something was obviously here. Travelers. Maybe a caravan.”

  She stood and brushed off her hand. “They took him with them. I don’t see any more blood. He has help now. It’s hard to believe he got this far on foot.”

  Whoever this Caleb was, he wasn’t proving to be the easy pickup she’d imagined. They were already a full day from the monastery, and he was taking them further.

  “What now?” Michael asked.

  “We get a few hours rest and head north. The going will be slow, but we can’t afford for him to gain another eight hours.” She looked at the mud-hole. “At least we have water.”

  “You call that water?”

  “We can strain it.”

  “Where’s the air force when you need them?” Michael asked wryly.

  “The air force is picking off stone-throwers. We’re saving Israel.”

  “And here I thought we were riding camels through hell.” He smiled.

  “Funny.”

  “Have you considered the possibility that these travelers he’s hitched a ride with might be armed?”

  “It’s a possibility,” she said. “A single soldier held off a battalion of tanks in the Sinai in ’73. There’s two of us. What are a few camel jockeys?”

  “And I’m the funny one? I might prefer ten tanks over fighters who have the backbone to live in this godforsaken desert.”

  “You have a point. Get some rest and dream of Jerusalem. It will clear your head.”