The Brotherhood Conspiracy (49 page)

As Rodriguez looked at the opening of each shaft, he felt a growing unease and an escalating urgency to finish this search and get back above ground. A sense of, what? Danger? Fear? Or reverence, as if he were sneaking into church
and God was watching him. He looked at the sensor—switched it off, then back on again. Nothing. Joe put his flashlight on the floor and slipped the carbon sensor from his shoulders, lowering it with a reluctance that mirrored the turmoil in his spirit.

Not going to get any closer standing here.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out the same shekel, and flipped it.
Tails
. Joe peered into the darkness of the left shaft, took a deep breath, reached down for his flashlight, and took one halting step, then another.

Israeli patrols in heavily armed Jeeps entered the desert wadi at both ends—three from the south; three from the north—units peeling off at the entrances to several caves.

“Lieutenant, can you get us any closer?” His headset linked to the High Altitude Reconnaissance Center, the patrol leader motioned his vehicles to a halt. “There are too many caves here.”

“He’s one hundred meters south of you,” Stern replied. “That was our last signal, just a few minutes ago.”

“But which way is in?” The patrol leader flipped the switch that illuminated the spotlights welded to the roll bar of the Jeep. The sandstone cliffs turned gray, the cave mouths a mocking black. He looked up and down the dry defile, as far as he could see in the beams of light. “I can see six . . . eight . . . ten cave openings from right here.”

“I don’t know how to tell you to go,” said Stern’s voice. “I can only tell you where we believe he is. How you get there? I’m afraid that’s up to you.”

The patrol leader knew he didn’t have the luxury of time. “One man to a hole . . . constant contact . . . engage your GPS beacons.” The men in the first Jeep were already on the ground, running, before the leader’s last words left his mouth.

He was back in the small, circular chamber. The tunnel to his left just led him to a dead end.

So much for flipping a coin. As he turned to look down the shaft to his right, his eyes fell upon the ground-penetrating radar, left abandoned on the
chamber’s floor.
Why not?
He stooped over the stainless steel box and flipped the power switch—just to know that he had tried. The display lit up, the cursors hard and true to the right tunnel.

“Hallelujah!”

“We’ve got him!” Lieutenant Stern dialed in the crosshairs and overlaid the patrol leader’s GPS coordinates. “Micah, lay down a track of the previous transmissions.”

Stern toggled a switch to his left. “We have contact,” he told the patrol leader. “He’s almost directly below you, but he didn’t enter near your location. He entered . . . Micah?” The soldier to his right passed Stern a topographical map with coordinates written on it and a large X over a cut in the cleft.

“Fifty-four meters to your south . . . western wall. His path, as far as we have it, switched back twice and had several turns. Recall the rest of your men and I’ll guide you through the best I can. But he’s there . . . right below you.”

Once again the metal box hung from his shoulders, against his chest. But he didn’t need to touch the dials. He was dead on. And he was getting very close.

The lower the shaft dropped, the heavier the air became . . . a whisper of weight, a constraint against his skin. His lungs struggled for breath and, with each step, his legs got heavier, the effort to move more demanding. He was being pulled forward and held back at the same time. But he kept moving—downward.

The shaft ahead of him took another hard turn to the right. And the magic box went to sleep once more.

Something was around that corner.

“You’re breaking up on me,” said the patrol leader. “We’re in a small chamber. There are two shafts. Which one do we take? The one on the right, or the one on the left? Stern?”

Rodriguez set the box on the floor and edged up to the corner. There was no one there. He felt like a kid at the Saturday matinee, waiting for a slasher to jump out of a closet in some awful B movie that would give him nightmares for a week.

I’ve got to get out of this line of work.

The beam of the flashlight bounced to the beat of his shaking hands. He stepped out, into the corridor, and looked down its length.

“Stern?” His whispered question hung in the stale air.

The patrol leader pushed on the radio’s earpiece with his right hand, as if that would improve the reception, and the flashlight in his left hand fell to his side. That’s when he saw the four fluorescent yellow dots at the bottom of the left tunnel. Pointing rapidly at his team and the shaft in succession, he sent his patrol down the tunnel on the left.

Fifty feet in front of Rodriguez, the cavern shaft came to an abrupt end—not the end of the tunnel, but a wall. A man-made end. The wall filled the tunnel completely, huge limestone blocks at its base, smaller ones reaching to the ceiling, mortar filling in every ridge and groove up to the curving roof. But in the middle, near the base, was a low door—or, what looked like a door—a heavy wooden lintel, with stones now sealing the opening shut. Joe stepped up to the wall, extended his hand, and massaged the stones.
You’ve been here, haven’t you?