“Be silent,” she whispered in his ear. “Show me the Ark. Now.”
It didn’t matter that he probably didn’t understand her words for there was only one thing in here worth fighting for. She pushed the knife slightly into his neck, drawing a little blood that trickled down onto his robes and he said something in Amharic, gibbering in his attempts to pacify her. She held him tightly as she stepped over the railing and walked him slowly towards the inner shrine.
Suddenly he pushed against her, flinging his head back to try and catch her face with his heavy skull as he escaped from her hold. Natasha sensed his move, this idiot priest with no real fighting skills, and his attempt was all the excuse she needed. Blood lust rose within her, the overwhelming instinct to kill. As he turned, she bent her knees and used the weight of her body to drive the knife into his side. His heavy robes blocked the blow and he swung at her with his fists, shouting for help as he struggled. His cry sounded a warning over the quiet day. Dogs erupted into barking outside and she heard shouts, but she knew Isac would keep them at bay and she didn’t even turn her head to the door.
The man came at her again and she waited until the last second, calculating her move. Then she slashed at the only part of his body that wasn’t covered by his robes, his neck. The knife connected with flesh and he clutched at his throat, his cries cut off by the gurgling of blood from the gaping wound. He fell to his knees. Natasha stepped behind him and pulled his head back, then used the knife to slit the man’s throat through the wound she had already opened, blood pumping out, darkening his faded robe to deep purple.
“To die protecting what you believe is the seat of God on earth is a great honor,” she whispered as his eyes glazed over. He would be with his God soon. She was panting as she wiped her hands on the monk’s robe. The exertion hadn’t been great and yet she was finding it harder than usual because of the pregnancy. She was glad that Isac wasn’t there to watch because he would know there was something up. El-Beherys didn’t make mistakes, her father had always said, they only made choices. She wiped the knife on the monk’s robes and slid it back into its sheath. Now for the holy of holies, the inner sanctuary.
Natasha walked to the back of the shrine and pushed aside the curtain that the monk had been guarding. Behind it was an altar upon which was a casket covered by embroidered cloth. In the dim light she could see images of people dancing in front of the Ark as angels swooped overhead praising God. There were also paintings on the walls, black men carrying the Ark from Jerusalem to Ethiopia as kings bowed down before it.
She pulled the cloth aside to reveal a dark wooden chest, simply made with no carvings or markings on it. There were metal rings for carrying poles, but they were the only thing she could see that linked this with the fabled Ark. Natasha drew her fingers along the top of the chest. It had been polished smooth, but there was no hint of anything supernatural, and she felt faintly disappointed. From the notebook she knew that this was known as the ‘tabot’, and there were all kinds of tabots throughout Ethiopia. They were all replicas of the box that supposedly held the tablets on which the Law was written, but she had expected this one to look different, if indeed it was the original tabot.
Natasha shook her head. Why had she believed it could be here? Some of the nonsense her father had read about must have rubbed off on her. In Gamal’s notes, he had mentioned wanting to look inside the Ark in order to check for the sacred objects that were within it - the rod of Aaron, the pot of manna. The likelihood of these being here was slight but Natasha intended to look inside anyway.
She lifted the lid and it creaked slightly, clearly opened regularly as part of the rituals when the Ark was exhibited. Inside was a gold cloth wrapped into a bundle, covered with embroidered swirls and geometric shapes. Puzzled, Natasha reached in and picked it up. A jolt of energy ran through her, a noise like a rushing waterfall resounded in the room, and she felt a sense of vertigo. She gasped, dropped the bundle and the noise immediately stopped.
Shaking her head to clear it, she pulled her knife back out and used it to prise the folds of material away from what lay within. It was a shriveled piece of wood, as big as a man’s hand, with a patterning of gold leaf speckled on its surface. Natasha was confused. Could this be a piece of the original Ark? What was the noise and the strange energy it released? This wasn’t anything she had been led to expect from the notebooks or from her own study. Could the Ark really have been broken into pieces? This relic wasn’t the symbol that would unite a nation, but if there was some latent power still remaining in the pieces, she needed to find the rest of them and get them to Jerusalem in time for the deadline.
She used the knife tip to push the cloth around the shrunken wood again and then pulled off the altar cloth to use as another barrier. She wound the material around the gold and lifted the package from the altar casket. Turning back into the shrine, she stepped over the body of the monk and left the Treasury.
A howl went up from the monks when they saw what she was carrying out of the Sanctuary. Isac and his men had their weapons trained on them but they still surged forward. The old man she had greeted earlier fell to his knees.
“God will strike you down for touching the holy relic,” he shouted. “You cannot take it from this place for He has given it to us for safekeeping.”
Natasha stalked over to him, all pretense of piety gone. She shook the bundle in his face and spat her words at him.
“This is your precious Ark? This scrap of wood, this pathetic sliver of timber?”
He fell backwards as she stood over him. The other monks reached out to grab the bundle from her but were pushed back by Isac and his men as shots were fired into the air. Natasha bent close to the monk.
“Where’s the rest of it? Tell me or I will burn this, right here in the courtyard and you won’t see your sacred relic again.” The monk’s eyes were fixed on the bundle. He was shrinking away from Natasha’s vehemence but she could see that he still wanted to take it from her. Keeping an eye on him, she half turned and called,
“Isac. Bring one of them.” Isac grabbed a monk from the throng and pushed him down next to her. Natasha stood and pulled her gun. Holding it against the monk’s temple, she asked again. “Where’s the rest of the Ark?”
The monk at gunpoint began to pray, shaking his head at the man on the ground. Natasha pulled the trigger and the monk slumped to the ground, blood running from the wound in his head, soaking the earth of the sanctuary.
“You are from the Devil,” the old monk whispered, shaking now. “God would not ask this of us.”
Isac pushed another monk down next to him so that his body would fall onto the old man cowering on the floor.
“How many of your brothers will you give up for the sake of this fragment?” Natasha asked.
This man wasn’t as strong as his friend. He begged the old monk to save him, to let him live.
“Too long.” Natasha fired into the back of his head and his body slumped down over the old man. Blood and brains spattered his face and neck and he scrambled to wipe it off, gore staining his hands, but it was enough to tip him over the edge. He babbled words in Amharic, pointing south away from the sanctuary. As Isac reached for another monk to be sacrificed, he spoke clearly in English, raising his hands in surrender.
“No more. Please. You must go to the Lemba.”
Natasha looked at Isac and raised an eyebrow. He nodded. They had been reading in Gamal’s notebooks about the Lemba tribe of Zimbabwe, who also claimed an ancient link to the Jews and the Ark of the Covenant. It seemed that the curator’s research had been heading in the right direction, although he hadn’t foreseen the Ark being broken into pieces.
The sun was high now. If they hurried, they could make Zimbabwe by nightfall. Natasha stepped away from the old man and he was immediately surrounded by other monks, supporting him and dragging him out from under the bodies of the slaughtered men.
As Isac pulled his men back, they kept their weapons trained on the group, expecting a last minute resistance, but nothing came. Natasha set off across the enclosure, her steps sure and firm, flanked by the soldiers as they double timed it back to the waiting Range Rover. A great wail went up as Natasha stepped outside the boundary wall of Mary of Zion, as if their grief at losing the Ark could no longer be contained.
The driver was shaking as they got back in. He crossed himself and edged away from Natasha as she sat in the front next to him, blood still wet on her clothes. She leaned close to him.
“Drive,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his, the threat apparent. Clouds of dust rose as they drove back towards the airport while Isac made the arrangements on his smartphone for them to head deeper into Africa.
Al Jazeera News Broadcast, 10.41am
Jerusalem’s holiest site erupted into running battles today. Tensions have been escalating following the release of images showing an Arab man murdered on a replica Ark of the Covenant, inciting extremist rhetoric on all sides of the debate.
Fighting broke out as Palestinian worshippers exited the Al-Aqsa mosque after prayers, a place also sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount. The unrest was sparked by two Ultra Orthodox Jews who managed to bypass soldiers and run into the sanctuary to pray. Since late 2011, non-Muslims have been banned from ascending into the Sanctuary in order to prevent such conflict, and non-Muslim prayers are forbidden. Israeli police are permanently stationed at the Temple Mount, mainly to prevent Jews from accessing the sacred area which was left under Muslim control, despite the city being under Israeli occupation.
“It seems that freedom of religion in Israel is only for Muslims and not for Jews or Christians,” Moshe Aridor, deputy speaker of the Knesset, told reporters. “We cannot even pray in freedom within our own city.”
Israeli police tried to pull the Jewish protestors back in order to prevent them from being injured but they also had to fight Palestinians who threw stones at the group. Crowds on both sides were drawn to the scene and other splinter groups from the Jewish side tried to storm the mosque. Israeli military used stun grenades and tear gas canisters to dispel the crowds. Tensions have been running high recently since rumors surfaced about far-right Israeli activists planning to enter the shrine in a mass demonstration. Officials have called for calm.
Security has been tightened in advance of the latest Peace Summit, chaired by the US President, due to arrive in Tel Aviv on Sunday. He released a statement today indicating that skirmishes and rumors would not stop him from pursuing this most important of objectives, a settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Serabit el Khadem, Sinai, Egypt. 3.48pm
Morgan’s phone buzzed. It was a text message from ARKANE Director Marietti.
“Violence has already begun to escalate in Israel,” she said to Khal as she scanned the news from Al-Jazeera. Her frown deepened as she realized the location of the clashes, the most symbolic site in the Holy City, and she could see just how close the city was to all-out conflict.
Despite the long drive from Cairo, Morgan was feeling alert as they drove further into the wilderness of the Sinai desert. After the shootout at the Museum, Julius had taken responsibility for sorting out the mess and encouraged Khal to join Morgan. They were now following the trail east into the Sinai, even as they knew Natasha would be heading south into Ethiopia. ARKANE couldn’t bring in another agent in the short time frame and Khal accepted the risks of getting involved. Besides, the two of them could stay below the radar this way, pretending to be just another holiday couple on the Egyptian tourist route.
She glanced over at Khal. He was focused on the badly pitted road that stretched ahead of them but with his careful handling, the car zipped over the kilometers. He had gone home to collect a few things and she had grabbed a few hours sleep, but they had left Cairo at 4am, the quietest and coolest part of the day. It was a crazy city and Morgan was glad to escape it.
“Not long now,” Khal said, a bump in the road causing him to swerve slightly. “I’ve only been to this place once before, a long time ago as part of my first degree. It’s stunning.”
“So, what’s its significance?” Morgan asked.
“It was one of the locations of the extensive mining activities in the Sinai. The Pharaohs and ancient Egyptians used turquoise and copper for jewelry, and pigments for painting and decoration, so mining was important. There’s a vast temple complex here that dates back to 2600BC, although the Brits stole everything valuable, as usual.”
There was a smile in his voice but equally Morgan knew it was true. The early archaeologists had an attitude of removal, not plundering as such, but attempting to save relics from what they considered a threat to the artifacts. Nowadays, of course, things were different politically, but that didn’t mean that anything would be returned. Khal continued.