Chase Baker and the Seventh Seal (A Chase Baker Thriller Book 9) (18 page)

“Front door. Now,” I say.

Together, we drag Mahdi out the back room, through the main area of the bookshop and out the front door into the street. It’s not crowded, but it’s dark enough.

“Which direction?” I say to James.

“We can’t cross over Via Dolorosa,” he says, “so we’ll go out through the Western Gate.”

“We’ll never get past security,” Magda says. She’s got a hell of a point.

“I know of a tunnel,” Abba says. “It’s not far.”

“Great, more tunnels,” I say. “Lead the way big man.”

Abba walks out ahead of us, and we follow close on his tail.

CHAPTER 33

Only three minutes at most pass before we come to a falafel shop. Abba turns and enters into it.

“He’s thinking of his stomach now?” James says.

“Trust him,” one of the Orthodox girls interjects. “No one knows the underworld of the Old City like Abba.”

The big man speaks to a young, Arabic looking kid working the counter. Although we can’t hear what’s being said, the kid suddenly turns to us, looks us up and down. Rather, looks Mahdi up and down, and nods. Abba reaches into his pocket, pulls out several shekels, hands them over to the kid. Then, turning to us, he waves us on.

“Come on,” Abba says. “This way.”

We enter the restaurant and follow Abba all the way to the back to a metal spiral staircase that leads down into a basement area that contains more dining room tables and bright, wall-mounted lighting. Judging by the aroma of cooking meats, the main kitchen is also located down here.

Abba hooks an immediate left in the opposite direction towards a corridor that apparently houses the toilets, at least judging from a sign mounted to the wall that reads, WC.

“Anybody’s gotta go,” I say, “never been a better time. That doesn’t include you, Mahdi.”

“No time for bathroom breaks,” Abba says, entering through a door marked, ‘Employees Only’ in English and Hebrew. “We keep moving. Agreed?”

“I’m like a camel,” I say, entering through the open door behind James and Magda, “I can hold my water.”

“One of your many talents,” Magda jokes. But no one laughs.

We move across a storeroom filled with assorted cleaning equipment, boxes, tables, and chairs stacked one atop the other until we come to a place in the far wall that’s covered with an access panel. The panel is sheet metal painted white, and it must measure four feet by four feet.

Abba takes a knee before it.

“Who’s got a screwdriver?” he queries.

I pull out a Leatherman Gerber multi-tool instrument from the nylon holster attached to my belt under my bush jacket, extend the Phillips head screwdriver option.

“This do?” I ask.

Abba smiles.

“What else you got inside that jacket?” he says.

James laughs, “Better than having a Boy Scout around, ain’t he?”

“Trust me,” Magda chimes in, “Chase is no Boy Scout.”

“TMI, Mag,” James offers making a sour face. “I watched you grow up, remember? I still see a little girl when I look at you.”

That’s funny,
I whisper to myself,
weren’t you the one who left us alone on purpose back in that trailer?

“That little girl is now a big girl, James,” she says. She reaches out, gives my right hand a squeeze.

It only takes Abba a couple of minutes to unscrew the panel and set it aside. My gut reaction is that this is not the first time he’s accessed the underground of the Old City this way. God willing, it won’t be his last.

He stands.

“Bit of a tight fit for the first handful of meters,” he says. “But after that, you’ll be able to stand.”

“Get down on all fours, Mahdi,” I command. “We’re going spelunking.”

I pull out my mini Maglite and agree to take the lead while Abba, James, and Magda follow in that order. Behind her is one of the Orthodox girls, then Mahdi, and then the second girl, her Uzi no doubt poking and prodding Mahdi along as if he were an old cow on his way to slaughter inside the Old Temple’s Holy of Holies.

Like Abba pointed out, the tunnel is cramped, and dark, and damp. It doesn’t look at all natural to me but carved out of the rock centuries or even millennia ago. For what reason, I have no idea. The Maglite clamped between my teeth, I crawl on all fours along a tunnel that seems endless until, just like that, it opens up inside a space that has also been hewn out of the rock. That’s when I begin to understand the significance of the hand-chiseled tunnel.

The room is maybe fifteen by fifteen feet wide with what looks like the kind of arched cathedral ceiling you might find in a church. Which is exactly how I put it to Abba.

“That’s because it is,” he says, brushing the loose gravel off his trousers. He cocks his head in the direction of the far wall, which has been chiseled to resemble a table or, in this case, an altar. “This place was carved out of the solid rock in the late fourth century by persecuted Christians. It was only recently discovered by the restaurant owner when he felt a draft coming through the plaster wall in his store room. It’s yet to be examined and excavated entirely by archaeologists. Who knows what secrets it holds?”

I shine the light above the altar and make out a fish and a cross. Both early Christian symbols. I shine the light all around the room. Something is in the air that doesn’t feel right. Something other than the fact that we’re on the run with seven of the most important books ever to be created in the history of man and that we’ve also taken one of the most evil men presently living on earth hostage until we figure out what the hell to do with him.

Something doesn’t smell right, either. Like a piece of meat long past the “purchase before” date.

Shining the Maglite onto the ceiling, I begin to get a queasy feeling in my gut.

“Abba,” I whisper, “why the hell is the ceiling moving like that?”

He snatches the Maglite from my hand, shines it upwards. Taking a few steps forward, he aims the Maglite beam directly up at the ceiling, the surface of which appears to boiling or bubbling.

That’s when the body drops. 

Correction. Not a human body. But the carcass of what was a cat, or a dog, or a large rat. It’s hard to tell. Magda screams and the Orthodox girls remains cautiously silent. The carcass hangs from a white string or strand, maybe one foot off the stone floor and it’s wrapped in something. A silk sheath or shroud.

“Chase,” James says from behind me. “Step back.” Then, “Abba, get out of there.”

At first, I take the noise to be the breaking of branches or dry twigs. But then I realize there’s something moving around overhead. My heart shoots up into my throat when that something drops down from the ceiling by means of a thick, white cable constructed of silk.

It’s a spider.

But this is no ordinary spider. It’s a tarantula and its leg span has got to be at least three feet long.

Abba shrieks as the black spider stops its descent directly in front of his face.

“Abba, don’t move!” James says.

Magda is absolutely catatonic, both her hands pressed against her face. The Orthodox girls aim their Uzis, but James raises his hand as if to signal,
Stop
.

“Don’t shoot,” he says quietly. “That spider is poised to bury its fangs into Abba’s neck. Stay still.”

I can’t imagine what Mahdi is thinking, but it must be something along the lines of,
“Serves the bastards right.”

“What the hell is it, James?” I say. “I know it’s a spider. But that’s something from another world.”

“In all honesty, Chase,” he says, “that spider is perfectly normal for Northern Africa. It’s just rarely, if ever, seen by humans. It’s called the J’ba Fofi, and it’s a massive arachnid believed to have originated in the Congo.”

“So, what the hell is it doing all the way up here?” I say, watching the massive, hairy black spider balancing itself on its cable of silken web, its pair of four-inch fangs appearing to be primed for the sting.

“Deforestation in the Congo has forced many species to move north. Including a J’ba Fofi which depends on large prey for its daily bread.”

“That include humans?”

“Pygmies and natives to the Congo region and other parts of deepest Africa swear that dogs, hyenas, gazelle, and, yes, even people have been identified as having fallen prey to the spider.”   

Abba is trembling, his tan face having turned pale white, the sweat dripping from his forehead, running in streaks down his face. 

“We gotta get Abba the hell away from it,” I say, my feet firmly planted on the stone floor. My instinct is telling me to draw my .45, blow a hole through the spider’s fat abdomen.

“We must remain still,” James whispers. “One shot won’t kill that thing. Eventually, the spider will get bored and return to its web.”

But that’s when something crashes to the floor. The sound is metal against stone and it reverberates throughout the stone spaces. We all turn towards the source of the noise. It’s the sheet metal covering to the tunnel. Then come the voices.

“It’s the Israeli army,” I say.

We turn once more to face Abba. But in the time it took us to turn our attention back to the tunnel, something horrible has happened. The spider has stabbed its fangs into his chest and is now quietly, almost silently, wrapping the paralyzed Abba in a sheath of white, silken web.

Magda screams once more. But I place my hand over her mouth.

“We’ve got to move, James,” I urge.

The look on the old explorer’s face is most definitely one of horror. But it quickly becomes all too apparent that he knows Abba’s cause is a lost one. Pulling the semi-automatic from his holster, he aims the barrel at Abba and fires. The spider lifts the big body off the floor with ease, like it weighs as much as a common house fly, and carts it back up into its nest.

“Let’s move,” James says, his face pale and sickened over having to put his friend out of his misery. His eyes planted on the opposite wall, he adds, “There’s an opening.”

I shine the Maglite at the wall and spot the exit.

“Let’s go, Magda.”

We run like hell.

CHAPTER 34

The narrow tunnel doesn’t require us to drop onto all fours, but we are forced to squat. Although no one is saying even a word, I’m feeling the tension as if it were spilling out of our pores like blood. Coming from behind us are the shouts and screams of the Israeli army who have no doubt come upon the giant spider web, and maybe even the spider.

Good luck with that . . .

We move on through the dark tunnel for a time that seems forever. Until, finally, I spot a faint light. Man-made electric light.

“Keep moving,” I whisper. “We’re almost home.”

“Where’s home?” Magda says.

I let the rhetorical question go unanswered.

I’m the first to come up against the grate which measures maybe two feet by four feet. When I push on it, it merely slips out of the wall and drops to the ground. We’ve accessed a pit or ditch of some kind. Shining the light onto the contents of the ditch I see that it’s filled mostly with garbage. From empty beer bottles, to discarded newspapers, to rotting leftovers.

“Jesus, this place stinks,” James says.

I shine the Maglite upwards and feel the relief wash over me when I see that the sides of the pit are angled at a gentle slope, meaning we can simply walk out of it without having to figure out a way to access the top without a rope.

“Let’s get out of here before one of us pukes,” I say, climbing up the angled side to the top.

The crew follows, the Orthodox girls yanking and pulling on Mahdi the entire way. The dark sky is filled with bright stars and a full moon that shines down on what looks to me like an archaeological dig.

James taps my shoulder.

“We’re outside the Old City walls now.” He points up toward a large gate that’s been filled in with stone blocks. “That’s the entry Jesus and his Disciples took on their way into Jerusalem for the last Passover. Just inside the gate, Jesus saw that the Temple was being used as a marketplace for vendors and money changers. That’s when He went ballistic, tipping over their tables, spilling money everywhere. That’s why the entry is now referred to as the Golden Gate.” He shifts his focus to the field before us. “These ruins you see here belong to an ancient Greek settlement. The dig has been going on for months. We’ve stumbled upon the archaeologist’s garbage pit.”