Authors: Shawn Hopkins
The Ark of the Covenant was used to carry the tablets containing the Ten Commandments after they were revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. The Ark of the Covenant disappeared after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 597 BC. Until that time, it was kept within the Holy of Holies, the most sacred area of the Temple, accessible only to the High Priest on Yom Kippur.
The Ark is described as being very powerful. It went before the Israelites in the wilderness journeys to “find
them
a place of rest (Ex. 40:20).” It was instrumental in the crossing of the Jordan (Josh. 3) and in the capture of Jericho (4:7-11). Joshua prayed before the Ark after the defeat at Ai (Josh. 7:6) and after the victory at Mount Ebal (Josh. 8:33). Eli’s sons took the Ark into battle against the Philistines, and it was captured. It was then said that “the glory has departed from Israel (1 Sam 4:3-22)
.
”
The Philistines gave the Ark back after a plague tormented them.
The whereabouts of the Ark are not mentioned again after the Temple’s destruction. Many historians believe that it was probably destroyed, but some traditions report that it was removed or hidden before the Babylonians invaded. One account credits the Jews for this possibility, while another credits the Ethiopian Emperor Menelik I, the alleged son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
The book of Hebrews (9:4) says that the Ark contained a gold jar of manna, Aaron’s budded staff, and the stone tablets of the covenant.
The fate of the Ark of the Covenant will likely remain a mystery for the foreseeable future.
When he turned the page, he found two loose pieces of paper sitting there covering the odd numbered page. Taking the one on top, he unfolded it. Small writing covered both sides.
During King Solomon’s reign, and just several years after the Ark was placed within the newly built Temple, the Queen of Sheba came to visit him. Ethiopian history declares that the Queen married King Solomon and that together they had a son. The Ethiopian Royal Chronicles recorded their son as actually being Prince Menelik I of Ethiopia. While living in Jerusalem and being educated by the priests of the Temple, Menelik is believed to have become a strong believer in the God of Israel. In 1935, National Geographic interviewed priests from different parts of Ethiopia, and all of them had only one story to tell: that the Queen of Sheba had a son with King Solomon (Menelik I), who was educated by Solomon until he was 19. Their story goes on to say that the boy later returned to Ethiopia with a large group of Jews and with the true Ark of the Covenant. Many of these people believe that the Ark is now in some church along the northern boundary of present day Ethiopia, near Aduwa or Aksum. The Encyclopedia Britannica also tried to confirm this tradition…
Menelik I was the founder of the longest-lived monarchy in history, and former Emperor Haile Selassie actually claimed direct descent from the line of Solomon. In 1974, the Emperor was imprisoned during a Communist Coup and died mysteriously a year later in jail. Some of his family, however, managed to escape. One of his family members, living in Toronto, was said to have confirmed that the Church of Zion of Mary, in Aksum, was reported to be the storehouse of the Ark of the Covenant. Glory of the Kings, the official Ethiopian national epic, tells a story of how the Ark was transported out of Jerusalem. Along with this story were a couple of Ethiopian murals depicting Prince Menelik I taking the Ark to Ethiopia for safekeeping. According to the story, Solomon, after the Queen of Sheba had died and Menelik I was preparing to leave for his own kingship in Ethiopia, had made a replica of the Ark to send with him, knowing that his son’s long journey would prevent him from ever worshiping in Jerusalem again. But Menelik had been greatly concerned with Israel’s state of affairs, with his father’s idolatry and his allowance of pagan idols to be placed within the Temple. So after Solomon gave a banquet for his son and the priests were all drunk, Menelik and his loyal followers switched the replica ark with the real one, taking it all the way to Ethiopia with them. A group of priests, with representatives from each of the tribes of Israel, went with him, taking the Ark for safekeeping until Israel turned from her idol worship and came back to worshipping the one, true, and living God. However, Israel never wholly returned to worshipping God, and thus the Ark had never been returned.
The descendants of Menelik I and his followers from the various tribes of Israel called themselves, Beta-Israel — today called Falasha Jews... But other theories took the Ark even beyond Ethiopia. In 1935, a Jewish magazine stated that the Ark of the Covenant had been removed from Ethiopia and taken to the mountain strongholds of Abyssinia for safekeeping because of the impending Italian invasion. There was also a 1981 report by the Toronto Star that told of a 1936 attempt to get the Ark insured against war damage...
Scott slowly folded the paper up, stared at the wall. He couldn’t help but again wonder how he had gotten involved in all this, why he had been selected to play a part.
Blinking the bottomless question away, he opened to the second page. A portion of Matthew chapter six was written out in the same hand.
Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
His eyes growing weary, he closed the encyclopedia on the loose pages and set it back on the nightstand. He turned over on his back and stared up at the ceiling, Jesus’ words picking at his brain, bringing up his past.
Just before his eyes fell shut, he noticed a picture hanging on the wall across from him. It was a picture of Jerusalem, words from a Bible verse written across it.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people. The sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. Isaiah 66:19.
Scott wondered if that verse would ever be realized.
****
There were men standing around his bed. Blinking, Scott tried to convince himself that it was a dream, but when the ski masks and automatic weapons failed to disappear, he knew that he was awake.
An unmasked face came into his view, peering down at him. “Hello, Josh.”
He yawned and did his best to look confused. The last time someone addressed him with that name, things hadn’t turned out so great. “Who?”
And then one of the masked men reached down and grabbed him, dragging him out of the bed and tossing him on the floor.
Now sitting on the floor and surrounded by guns aimed at his head, there weren’t many options available to him.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” the guy said. “I know you were CIA, but they’re Delta.”
“What do you want?” he asked, wincing as plastic wire ties were zipped into pre-existing wounds.
“Stand up,” he responded.
He thought about making a grab for one of their guns, but the guy across the room was aiming some new kind of shotgun that Scott had never seen before right at his head.
“I’d salute, but my hands are tied behind my back.”
“We have a job for you.”
Scott almost laughed.
“You’re going to get the ring back from your Mossad friends and give it to us.”
“I am?”
He nodded patiently. “Yes, Josh, you are.”
“But I don’t know where they went.”
Then the guy walked over to the bed and pulled the tiny phone Malachi had given him out from behind the pillow. “But you know how to get in touch with them.”
Just how he knew that, Scott had no idea.
“We’re willing to erase you from our records for good, forget what it was you helped us do. We’ll even set you up in Canada with a new life. All you have to do is get us the ring.”
“I have a better idea,” he answered. “Why don’t you and all your little boyfriends here go to hell instead?”
A patient smirk. “You’d rather die than help us, is that it?”
“Sounds about right.”
“Even if we use a rusty saw blade?”
Chills ran up his spine.
“Here.” The guy handed him a manila folder.
“Cute,” Scott said, his hands still tied behind his back.
He smiled. “Sorry.” He opened it up and spilled its contents onto the bed so Scott could see them.
At first Scott didn’t know what it was he was looking at, and then he realized it was someone’s personal file.
His heart froze in his chest. He couldn’t breathe. His muscles bulged and his face grew red, veins surfacing in his neck.
There was a picture with the printout.
Jennifer May Cavanaugh.
His wife.
In order to keep her safe from the possibility of anyone using her as leverage to find him, he’d gotten rid of any and all pictures of her. This was the first time in over ten years that he was actually seeing an image of her. She looked older than he remembered, naturally, but she had aged considerably well. She was beautiful.
Lifting his eyes from the only person he ever really cared about, or that had cared about him, he stared at the man before him, daring him to even mention her name.
“I guess you recognize her,” he said, crossing his arms.
Scott didn’t respond.
“She’s in a camp. Picked up yesterday after Martial Law was declared in her city.” He looked at him sardonically. “That would be Buffalo, New York. I’m guessing not far from where you were hiding. She moved in with her sister when you never came home. She thinks you’re dead.”
He still said nothing.
“Don’t worry, we took the liberty of informing her of your wellbeing. Though, I think she may have gotten the wrong impression… about why you left her, I mean. She’s a very attractive woman, and I’m sure she’ll be making all kinds of new friends.” He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed.
Scott’s evaluation of the situation changed. They weren’t here to kill him. They needed him to get the ring back. And that meant the guy with the shotgun wasn’t really a threat after all.
The unmasked man said, “Have your friends come pick you up, and just snatch the ring when you get a chance. You’re wife will be let go. You can have a happy reunion and spend the rest of your lives together out in a log cabin somewhere.”
It would be tempting if it were true.
“What do you say?”
And before he could stop himself, Scott was lifting his leg and planting his foot right in the guy’s chest. The guy, probably NSA judging from his CIA comment, flew backwards and tumbled off the other side of the bed.
And then Scott was suddenly on the ground again, his face being pressed into the floor.
Rubbing his chest and wincing from a cracked rib, the guy walked over to Scott and kicked him in the face, spitting on him afterwards. “Your friends told you to toss the phone once you contacted them. Don’t. Keep it and call us when you have the ring. You have three days. By then your wife will be of no value to us.” He turned toward the door. “If you waste the time trying to look for her, I’ll see that whatever you do find will be in really small pieces.” Then he left the room, the soldiers following after him.
Scott got to his feet and ran after them, reaching the stairs just as the last of the soldiers was walking out the front door. It slammed shut, and the house plunged into an eerie silence.
“Isaiah!” Scott called out, running down the stairs with his hands still bound behind his back. “Mayhew!”
No answers.
He continued to call out for them as he went into the kitchen and retrieved a steak knife from a drawer by the sink. After cutting through his bonds, he took off through the house, searching for Isaiah and Mayhew.
Isaiah was still in his bed, the pillow and surrounding area soaked with blood. As he approached the bed, he saw that Isaiah’s throat had been slit. Scott closed his eyes as a whirlwind of emotion erupted inside him. And then he left the room in search of Mayhew, sure he’d find him in the same condition.
But there was no sign of him anywhere.
He collapsed on a couch, his mind tripping over itself, questions reeling in his head. How did they find him? How did they know about the Mossad and the phone they’d given him? How did they know about his wife?
And then it clicked. He knew exactly how. He just couldn’t believe it.
Going back upstairs, he pulled on the rest of his clothes and grabbed Isaiah’s book. Oddly enough, the priest’s two books were missing.
He got the phone and activated the preset number with a trembling hand.
PART IV
ORDER OF SECRETS
It is therefore our duty to surround them with its [the Illuminati’s] members, so that the profane may have no access to them. Thus we are able most powerfully to promote its interests. If any person is more disposed to listen to Princes than to the Order, he is not fit for it, and must rise no higher. We must do our utmost to procure the advancement of Illuminati into all important civil offices. By this plan we shall direct all mankind. In this manner, and by the simplest means, we shall set all in motion and in flames. The occupations must be so allotted and contrived, that we may, in secret, influence all political transactions.