The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (31 page)

“What’s—”

As everyone rounded the corner, Rebecca realized Brandt’s urgency. A wall of water rushed down the tunnel, surging right toward them. Lochum barely made it around the curve when the flood hit. The water arched along the wall, creating a tube that seemed to defy gravity until it crashed down.

They might have avoided the brunt of the flood, but the water poured into their smaller tunnel as the current swelled. As quickly as the group was reunited, they were scattered. It was only Brandt’s arm around her waist that kept them together.

“Grab hold!” he yelled, but she did not understand why until the wave hit, lifting her up and off her feet.

Brandt’s other arm lashed out, anchoring them on a protruding stalactite. With a feat of upper body strength, the sergeant pulled her from the tide. She latched onto the slippery stalactite with both hands, gripping tightly as the water tried to tug her downstream.

Lopez went by, bodysurfing the wave. “Wahooooooo!” he yelled before bouncing off the wall as he was carried out of sight.

Rebecca arched around, trying to find the others as the water level rose sharply, pushing them closer and closer to the ceiling.

“Lochum!” she screamed as he washed past them.

Catching him by the sleeve, Brandt tried to reel Lochum in, but the professor refused to release the pillowcase clutched to his chest. Biting her lip, Rebecca reached with her left hand and grabbed his shoulder. The motion must have jarred him, for the skeletal remains slipped from his grasp. The tide tossed the material in its wake, scattering the bones upon the water’s surface.

“No!” the professor shouted, flailing against their hold. She clung to his jacket, but he seemed possessed. “Let me go!”

“Hold the fuck still!” Brandt shouted, but to no avail.

Pulling his arm from his sleeve, Lochum cast himself into the current.

“No!” Rebecca cried, almost losing her own hold as she groped for the professor. Just as her fingers were about to slip, Brandt was there, holding her.

“Hyperventilate,” he said, trying to yell over the growing roar.

“What?” she asked. Why did he always make the least sense when it mattered most?

“We’re about—” The sergeant took a spray of water right in the mouth.

Only then did she realize the new danger. The tunnel was rapidly filling. The water level had brought them nearly horizontal. Within seconds they would be trapped underwater.

* * *

When Rebecca turned to Brandt, her face was full of panic.

“Hyperventilate!” Brandt yelled again. They needed to clear their bloodstreams of carbon dioxide to quell their bodies’ desire to breathe.

This time she obeyed.

As the water swirled, the sergeant shouted, “Now hold!”

He too gulped down a lungful of air before the water cascaded over their heads. Brandt had to blink several times to get his eyes used to being under the bracing water. When his vision cleared he found Rebecca staring at him through the green cast by his glow stick, her eyes wide open. Her lips pursed as if she was going to say something, but, of course, she could not.

However, Brandt knew her question. What in the hell happened?

Well, it turned out he wasn’t quite the genius he thought he was. It had sounded like a great idea to hook up a fuse-delayed stash of C-4 in the tunnels and bring down the roof on their adversaries, eliminating both search parties in one fell swoop. only he had not counted on all the water.

If they had broken through into the Danube River, they were screwed. If, however, they had just burst a water main, there was a slim chance that someone, somewhere, would notice the dropping pressure and turn off a main valve.

That was one too many fucking “ifs” for Brandt.

And Rebecca was now in true distress. The doctor obviously had not had the rigorous survival training his team had. Her face blotched red as her cheeks puffed out, with a small trail of bubbles escaping her lips.

Brandt felt her body spasm. It wanted air. It needed air, and her body was about to override her brain, causing her to gasp. She did not have long. He put a hand to her cheek. At this point it would be useless to give her some of his air. It would be full of carbon dioxide like her own stale breath, but he couldn’t just let her die.

Brandt pulled her close, bringing them mouth-to-mouth, but she struggled against him. Looking into his eyes, she calmly shook her head, “no,” then let out all the air in her lungs. He felt his diaphragm contract.

Then the stone cracked above them, sheering off. They tumbled with the current, head over heel.

* * *

Rebecca clung to the leather straps across Brandt’s chest as the water tossed them against the wall, then a stalagmite, then the wall again. Her lungs screamed for air, but she kept her lips clenched shut. Just another few moments. Just a few.

Then it was as if someone had shut off a spicket. With the pressure released, they tumbled, limbs entangled, to the floor as the water swirled out of the tunnel. Rebecca sucked in air as her body shook with the cold.

“Are you all right?” Brandt asked, but she could not answer. Her brain was still screaming for oxygen. The sergeant became more frantic as he searched over her for wounds. “Hit me if it hurts.”

As water trickled down her face, Rebecca looked into his eyes. “You’re alive.”

Brandt smoothed the drowned locks from her face. “In what world would I have ever gotten on that flight to London?”

Without thinking she leaned in and pressed her lips against his. It felt so natural and right… only he didn’t kiss back.

* * *

As her lips caused a wave of heat that his leather skirt wouldn’t be able to hide if he didn’t break contact, Brandt gently pushed her away.

“I can’t, Rebecca. I just—”

Looking embarrassed, the doctor squirmed from his grasp. “Yeah. No. I get… Okay.”

“Damn it, no, I mean—”

“Wa-fucking-hoo!” a shout came from behind them. “Did you see that! Cave surfing! I just fucking invented cave surfing!”

Brandt turned back to Rebecca, but she was already climbing to her feet, acting as if nothing had happened.

“Have you seen Lochum?” she asked.

Lopez indicated down the tunnel behind him. “He’s holed up in a side passage mumbling over a piece of bone… Like usual.”

Brandt rose as well. “We’ve got to start a grid search for Davidson and Svengurd.”

“Don’t bother,” a voice called from behind him. The private and Svengurd propped each other up as they made their way down the tunnel.

The corporal had a gash over his eye that was not there two minutes ago and a bullet wound to the calf that had been there since their latest firefight. Davidson looked half-dazed and his right shoulder slumped to his side limp, dislocated again. They looked like shit, but they were on their feet.

All in all, after the last twenty-four hours, he would take it.

“All right, we’ve got to evac pronto. We have to assume some of them survived the torrent.” Brandt looked at Rebecca. “We’re going to obtain a car and drive to the nearest American base.”

“That would be Stuttgart, Germany,” Davidson added.

Lopez jumped in. “Yes, the Autobahn!”

As Davidson groaned, Brandt finished. “We’re coming in from the cold.” He arched an eyebrow at Rebecca. “Any objections?”

She was in the middle of shaking her very soggy head when Lochum charged into the tunnel. “No! ‘Becca, you must read this.”

“Professor, do
not
start,” Brandt growled, but the doctor took the proffered bone.

* * *

Rebecca scanned the markings on James’ ulna. Most of the text she couldn’t make out, except for a single word that was held apart from the rest.

“Byzantium,” she mumbled.

“Exactly.” Lochum cradled her hands in his. “All is not lost. We know where Jesus is laid to rest!”

“Where’s Byzantium?” Davidson asked.

Without looking at the private, Rebecca answered. “After the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, Byzantium was was renamed Constantinople.”

“Istanbul,” Brandt grunted, frowning deeply. “Turkey.”

She studied the professor, who looked like a drowned rat. The single piece of skeleton that had survived the mini-tsunami gave an intriguing clue, but Rebecca had hit the wall. Both physically and metaphysically. She just did not have anything left.

“Archibald, I can’t. I need some food and a probably a hospital at this point and—”

“Look more closely,” he urged, pointing to the small notch in the bone where the humerus normally articulated.

Rebecca squinted to make out the lettering, but as always they were run together, no spacing between the words or sentences. “I’ll have to run this through my—”

She patted her shoulders. Where was her laptop? Rebecca spun around, searching the tunnel. When had she lost it? Where had she lost it?

“Forget about your damned machine! Just read it from the tip of the articulating cartilage to the physical suture.”

But she couldn’t concentrate. Her whole life had just been washed away. Everything. Her research. Her Christmas card list. Granted it was short, but it was gone.

“Rebecca Sophia Monroe!” Lochum’s tone brooked no argument. “Use the good sense God gave you!”

With more focus she looked at the lettering, utilizing the natural, almost microscopic, architecture of the bone, she read the text.

“For he who died upon the cross was loved… or maybe they mean coveted, or wanted…”

“Go on, go on.”

Rebecca pushed past the word in question. “So greatly none within us could reach a consensus, so he who was without contempt stood up and spoke, ‘I shall follow the rising sun to the east where God smiled upon the land and the sea. I shall tell you where he lies only after I have buried him.’ Mary cried greatly that he was her burden, or chore, or responsibility… And would never leave his side. Though the man without contempt took her in his embrace and kissed her forehead and promised to wait, he left that night with the most holy corpse and did not return, so Mary left Judea with John, seeking the long-lost body, weeping as she had at the cross.”

She had to admit that it was pretty clear that Jesus’ remains were heading to Turkey, a holy land that was rivaled only by Judea in ancient times.

“Think of it. Does it not make the most sense? The Virgin’s home is in Ephesus. She traveled there with St. John. Paul and Thomas were in and out of that region their entire ministries. Why else but to be near their Lord?”

Shaking her head, Rebecca tried to keep some perspective. “But you and I, hell, everyone, has been over that region with a fine-tooth comb.”

He cocked his head. “As they had in Budapest?”

Brandt stepped between them. “You know what? All this debate is moot. There will be no more sightseeing. We are going to Germany.”

But even the sergeant didn’t sound too sure of his words.

Lochum must have sensed it as well, for he presented the relic to Brandt. “These just a few sentences we have been able to decode. Give us a few hours and imagine what we might discover.”

Rebecca looked at the sergeant, but was unable to meet his eye. Had she really tried to kiss him? She shoved the thought from her mind. This was bigger than some sophomoric romantic attempt. Istanbul called to them. Her own interest piqued.

“Isn’t there an Air Force base in Turkey?” she asked.

Brandt frowned. “Yes, but it’s much farther south than Istanbul.”

How Rebecca wished she had her laptop. Instead, she conjured a map of Europe in her mind. “True, but aren’t we equidistant from Turkey and Germany?”

The sergeant looked to Lopez who reluctantly answered. “Yeah, but there’s no Autobahn.” She frowned, so he retorted, “I’m not joking. It significantly affects travel time. I could shave at least an hour off by—”

Rebecca put a hand up to stop his prolonged explanation. “I wasn’t suggesting we drive.”

Brandt’s growled. “You saw what happened when we tried to fly.”

“I’m talking about a private plane.” She looked over at Lopez. “You could hot-wire one, right?”

“Try and stop me,” the Latino said with pride.

* * *

Brandt glared at Lopez. He did not need anyone encouraging her.

“Even if I agreed to not be a hassle.” Rebecca tilted her head toward Lochum. “He’s certainly going to try and get away every chance he gets.”

“Not if he’s unconscious.”

But the doctor shot him the same “don’t bother threatening something if you would never do it” look that she had given him back in the Ecuadorian jungle when he threatened the women and children.

“We are not under arrest, are we?” the professor asked. “You are supposed to be protecting us, I would guess, not stripping us of our civil liberty to travel freely of our own accord.”

Goddamned civilians. Perhaps he could shift the debate.

“Our first priority is to get the hell out of these caves, secure new clothing, and—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” the professor said, this time with a deeper tone of authority. “Without your word we will travel next to Istanbul.”

Seriously, civilians really needed to learn to take orders better, but clearly the brass wanted Lochum safe. Not for his charming personality, Brandt was sure, but for his single-minded mission of finding Jesus. His team had been first been involved in this fiasco to bring Monroe to help the professor. If he hog-tied Lochum and brought him back to the US, but the Knot found Christ because of it…

Let’s just say that his and all of his men’s careers would be over.

“Fine.” Brandt turned to his men as Lochum snorted in victory, then headed down the tunnel. “Lopez, secure a vehicle to get us to the private airstrip. Davidson and Svengurd, you’re on garment appropriation. I want out of this skirt, like now.”

As his men headed off, Brandt turned to talk with Rebecca privately, but she trotted to catch up with the professor. “Lochum!”

* * *

Not so much wanting to talk with the professor as desperately not wanting Brandt to remind her of how inappropriate she had been earlier, Rebecca trotted next to Lochum.

“We should split the text up so we can each be working on a section.”