The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) (42 page)

The shop-owner’s son heard the scraping, then the crack.
It must be the Americans.
Achmed dug his boots into the wall, steadied himself with his left hand against the bricks, and reached behind him for the automatic.

It took a moment for the hand upon his wrist, its grip like a clamp, to register. In that moment, he lost. An excruciating pain erupted in the small of his back where he reached for his gun. In the same moment, the hand upon his wrist violently shoved his right arm up and under his shoulder blades. He came off the wall and slammed into the dusty ground, face first.

The breath was knocked out of his lungs, but already life was pouring out of his body.

They all flinched. Tom stumbled against the retreating medallion as part of the brick wall to his left dislodged and shifted slightly ajar from the rest. Tom peeked into the cavity. Inside the opening was a small chamber, an ancient wooden door, set in an arched, brick portal, on the far side.

They heard sounds from Procession Street—a car … a door closed.

Tom pulled on his pack and was through the opening in a flash, Joe on his heels.

As Annie and Rizzo pressed into the small alcove, Tom grasped the metal ring in the wooden door with his left hand, but Joe was at his shoulder. “Let me.”

Joe pulled on the ring with all his weight. Nothing. He planted his boot against the wall beside the door and pulled. Tom thought the world could hear the creaking and cracking as the door inched open. The air escaping from the black void behind the door was cold, and carried the decay of ages.

“We’re going in there?” Rizzo peered into the blackness. “Maybe this is something you should pray about.”

“Quick … before they see us.”

Pulling a flashlight from a side pocket of her pack, Annie stepped through the door, followed by a more reluctant Rizzo. Bohannon and Rodriguez left the alcove and moved just inside the door. They turned in the tight space and found another iron ring on the inside of the door. They pulled on the ring until their backs ached. Slowly the door yielded and inched back into place, sealing the entrance. But not before Bohannon noticed the brick wall of the amphitheater close over the outer opening.

“Watch your back.” Tom could hear Annie behind him. “There are steps just inside the door.”

Annie swung the beam of her flashlight and Tom could see the stairs, leading down, just a few feet inside the wooden door. “Is that the only light we have?”

“I’ve got a small, battery-powered lantern in my pack and this MagLite,” said Rizzo, pulling the short, thin, but dazzling light from the pocket of his photographer’s vest. “Here”—he handed it to Tom—“you can get the beam higher.”

“Cut the lights.” With a whispered urgency, Joe kept his ear pressed against the seam where the door opened. “Quiet.”

7:50 p.m., Babylon

Whalen and Atkins slipped into the amphitheater like a soft breeze on a lace curtain—barely noticeable—and immediately saw it was empty.

“Where did they go?”

Noticing footprints on the sandy floor, Whalen stepped over to the medallion. “This carving got their attention. There are some footprints there, and more over here.”

Getting down on his hands and knees, Whalen scraped his knife along the base of the brick wall. “See the sand pushed back?” He laid his hand on the wall, leaned down to where the wall and floor met and raised his voice a few notches above a whisper. “Tom! Annie! It’s Mike … it’s safe. Open up.”

They listened, Whalen getting on his stomach to press his ear against the crease at the bottom of the wall.

“Nothing?”

Whalen looked up. “Looks like they found their gate.”

“Now what?”

Whalen got up and brushed off the sand. “We wait. As long as we can. C’mon. Let’s get to the rally point before the moon comes up.”

Tom inched to Joe’s side. “Can you hear them?”

“No, not really.” Joe glanced back at Bohannon. “Just some scraping sounds. We must have left our tracks in the sand.”

“Can they get in?”

“Don’t think so,” said Rodriguez, turning away from the door. “Don’t think the wall has budged. But maybe we better get out of here.”

“Where is here?” asked Rizzo.

They stood in a tight knot at the top of the stairs, Rizzo holding Annie’s flashlight straight down, near the floor, so they had some light to see each other but, Tom hoped, not enough to seep under out the door.

“Look,” said Annie, “it doesn’t matter where we are, in a sense. What’s important is that we found Daniel’s face and it got us in here, at the top of these steps. This is it. It’s where we’re supposed to be. Down there”—she pointed down the steps—“is either nothing, and we’ve all been scammed, or it’s the garden of Eden, and we’ve been led here by a power that is way beyond us.”

“Or we could find the creature from the Black Lagoon,” said Rizzo, looking down the steps. “But I don’t think so. I think what’s down there is something way more scary than anything I’ve ever imagined. So … what are we waiting for?”

Rizzo started to spin around in the direction of the stairs, but Joe put a hand on his shoulder. “Hold on, Sammy. Let’s think about this first. Do we have any food, any water?”

“I’ve got a full water bottle,” said Tom. “Annie has one, too.”

“And I’ve got some granola bars,” she said.

“Okay,” said Joe, “we’ve got some rope, a compass, but no weapons …”

“Hands of steel …
hatcha!
” Rizzo swiped the air.

“No weapons,” Joe emphasized. “Whalen and his crew know we were headed this direction, but really nobody knows where we are. We don’t know how much oxygen is down there, or what danger, and we don’t have any first aid. There are a lot of reasons our primary focus should be on trying to get out of here, rather than trying to get farther inside. What if we get lost?”

Tom put a hand on Joe’s arm. “Joe—you? You’re afraid of getting lost?”

“I’m just saying. Somebody’s got to give voice to the obvious. I don’t know if my faith stretches as far as yours, Tom.”

What did Joe just say?
“Your faith is as strong as you want it to be,” said Tom.

“Well, I don’t know if it’s strong enough yet, to go walking down those steps.” Joe took a step back, away from the group. “I’ve been deep underground twice in the last three months, wandering around in the dark and the cold, wondering whether I’d ever see the light of day again. To tell you the truth, I was hoping to never experience it again. I don’t like it. Makes me feel closed in … jumpy. If we didn’t have to go down those stairs, I’d be more than happy. But … there’s no other way to find out what’s down there without going down ourselves.” Joe stepped back into the circle. “And it’s what we came here for. So Sammy, what
are
we waiting for?”

“That’s better. I thought I was going to have to beat you into submission. C’mon, let’s get moving.”

Annie moved forward and took the flashlight from Rizzo. “Okay, I’ll go first with the flashlight. We’ll—”

“No … I’ll go first,” said Tom. He came to Annie’s side and held out his hand. “We get back on the photo shoot, you can be in charge again. But down here”—Tom looked down at the blackness below—“no disrespect, sweetie, but I’m going down those stairs first. Then Sammy with the MagLite—keep it pointed down so we can all see the stairs—and then you and Joe behind you, okay? We’ll save Sammy’s lantern for later, if we need it. And don’t bunch too close together. I don’t want to fall into a pit if these stairs stop all of a sudden.”

They lined up behind Tom like three blind mice. “Let’s get down there and back up while we still have these lights.” He took the first step.

The steps were rough, cut out of the same hard clay that made up the walls, and had an indentation in the middle worn down by the feet of the past and a sheen of condensation that made footing tricky. They extended down at a forty-five-degree angle and seemed to keep going. The tunnel was narrow, about three feet wide, and the ceiling—after being vaulted near the door—was low, so that both Joe and Tom were forced to lean over at the waist, throwing off their balance. Tom had the flashlight in one hand, the other pressed against a wall, in case he needed to suddenly put on the brakes.

They descended cautiously, but not slowly. Bohannon felt more and more vulnerable with each passing step.

Joe was right. We’re coming down here with nothing. We’re just asking for trouble.

After an eternity—about ten minutes—the stairs stopped. The tunnel leveled out, but only so the stairs could switch back. A hairpin turn. The stairs continued down, farther into the darkness.

“I feel like I’m wearing this tunnel. If it gets any closer, my left and my right will be on the same side.”

Rizzo was right. The farther they descended, the closer the walls became, the closer the ceiling became. The more claustrophobic the feeling became. If it weren’t for the roughly hewn steps, clearly man-made, Bohannon would have thought himself in some crack in the earth’s crust. The cool, dry air at the top of the shaft had long ago been traded for the damp, rapidly warming air of the tunnel. It, too, was closing in around them.

Tom came to a short, flat space where the steps ceased. No hairpin turn. Nothing.