THE LAST ARK

CHAPTER 8: PROPHETS PILLOW

St. George Monastery, West Bank Five Days Before Temple Ceremony

It takes the abbot over an hour to translate the printed images of the faded parchment while writing notes in Greek. At last, Abbot Cirillo sits back to raise his hands in prayer, joined by Mordechai. Derek keeps his silence, waiting. T h e old cleric explains. “Th ese letters confi rm our oral tradition. In the fi rst letter, Sabas tells John I that he was on a pilgrimage to the ruins by the Dead Sea following days of heavy rain. At a large rock north of the ruins, he discovered a small sinkhole where the glimmer of metal caught his eye. Sabas found a brittle copper scroll written in ancient Hebrew, along with other Jewish temple treasures. Warned by God in a dream, Sabas carved an exact copy of the scroll onto a small plank of wood, then replaced the original scroll and covered over the hole. Unable to read Hebrew, Sabas sought the help of an old rabbi still living in Jericho. Aft er his visit with the rabbi, Sabas wrote to John I.” Abbot Cirillo explains with such excitement he sounds like a giddy schoolboy. “I’m still confused,” Derek confesses. “Sabas wrote to the pope over a scroll?” T he abbot takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly before he lifts his eyes. “According to Sabas, the prophet Jeremiah wrote the copper scroll before the Babylonian invasion. It speaks of the first copper scroll and treasure from Solomon’s temple and the greatest treasure of all.” Mordechai’s eyes widen. While a treasure map from a prophet may interest a scholar or religious teacher, Derek finds nothing that will help his search for the SLVIA code. “Are there any clues about what happened to the panel?” he asks, chronically curious. Cirillo nods with a grin. “When the pope did not respond, the second letter told the pontiff that Sabas buried the wooden panel under the prophet’s pillow of stone.” Mordechai inhales sharply, lowering his head to mumble a prayer. Derek shrugs. “Of course, first place I would’ve looked,” he jokes out of habit. No numbers, names, dates or anything that could help find SLVIA. A dead end. “No, my son, Sabas was very specific,” Cirillo grins. “Come, let me show y ou.” Mordechai and Derek help the old cleric into the blinding sunlight to open a locked gate that leads to stone steps carved into the cliff toward a cave guarded by another iron gate. “Our tradition holds that the prophet Elijah used the cave above Mar Jaris when he fled the wrath of King Ahab and his wife Jezebel,” Mordechai explains while the abbot wheezes. At an iron gate hammered into the stone, Abbot Cirillo unlocks a heavy padlock that leads into a small cave, now decorated with marble tile floors, a red marble pillar, a two-part white marble altar with bronze candlesticks, rugs, tapestries, and Orthodox paintings. “If the plank was here once, it must be long gone,” Derek says, judging from all the human activity in the cave for the past thousand years. He pulls up his phone to snap several photos, in case he can see something later that his eyes gloss over now. Cirillo bends a one-sided mischievous grin. “Yes, yes, many changes.” Then he steps over to a single small stone in the corner with a smooth indentation on the top covered by flowers. “Except for the stone where Elijah laid his head.” After an awkward pause, Derek points at the stone. “Aren’t you curious to see if Sabas’s panel is really there?” Cirillo shakes his head with a frown of indignation. “You’re talking sacrilege, my son.” Derek nods, unwilling to argue with sacrilege. Besides, if the abbot hasn’t seen it, then SLVIA hasn’t seen it. The dead end confirmed. Time to go home. Jenn is grieving. “Abbot Cirillo, thank you for the enlightening tour.” Derek steps toward the cave gate for a second before he spins back inside. “Oops, left my phone on the a l t ar.” In the same instant that he pivots, the sharp crack of a high-powered rifle echoes through the canyon. The bullet whizzes hot past Derek’s shoulder to strike Cirillo in the chest, jolting him backward to the cave floor. A pool of blood flows from under the body. A second crack ricochets through the iron gate near Derek’s head. “Quick, pull him in,” Derek orders, grabbing a shoulder to drag the bleeding cleric across the marble inside the cave. “Who’s shooting at us?” questions Mordechai, trembling over a pallid face. Screams from the courtyard below send several men clamoring up the stone steps until two more cracks echo in the canyon to bring more screams. Derek can only imagine that others fell to their death. “I wish I knew,” he responds. But he should know. He needs to know. Mordechai lifts the abbot’s head into his lap. The old monk still breathes, blood drooling from his lips, pointing a weak finger for Derek to draw close. “Find Loir Sasson. Translate panel.” With those words, Cirillo breathes out his last breath. The wise eyes stare blankly, lifeless. Mordechai instantly sobs for his beloved mentor, stroking his bald head. A chill runs down Derek’s spine, shuddering his shoulders. He just received the dying wish of a holy man. Not exactly how he expected this day to end. The day isn’t over yet; it could get worse. Derek lays a hand on the shoulder of the weeping monk. “Help me move that stone.” Mordechai hesitates, then gently lays the abbot’s head on the cold marble. Not exceptionally large, earlier monks had simply laid the marble flooring and rugs around the stone rather than lift the stone from its place. With a grunt, they gently lift and roll the stone onto the marble tile floor. “Quick, grab those candlesticks. We need to see if Abbot Cirillo was right,” Derek says. Mordechai grabs two bronze sticks, handing one to Derek. With frantic energy, they dig around a foot deep when they hear the dull clunk of wood. “Careful, use your hands. We don’t want to scratch it,” Derek says. After a few minutes, Derek lifts a plain wooden box from the soil. Inside, he f inds a linen cloth covering a darkened wood panel roughly ten inches by four, with small writing on both sides. After blowing off the excess dirt, he places the panel in his backpack. “How long before the police arrive?” he questions. “To a monastery in the West Bank? Hours, if ever,” Mordechai bemoans. “The killer must have known that you came for the panel of Sabas.” Derek thinks of the murder at Tomar, the Vatican, and now here. “Then explain to me how he could know before I knew?” Derek risks a quick peek to see if they can run down the steep steps toward the abbot’s office when another sharp crack sends a hot bullet whipping past to splinter the wall. “Crap, this guy is good,” he says. “I hate guns, I really, really hate guns.” Mordechai leaps behind the pillar toward the altar, dodging a bullet that follows behind him, striking the wall. “Back here, quick.” Mordechai pushes the front of the marble altar. “What are you doing?” Derek asks. Without stopping, the boy explains. “In the monastery hangs an eleventh century drawing of Elijah’s cave that shows a dark niche on this side of the cave. Abbot Cirillo taught us legends of monks digging tunnels into the caves to escape marauders. The altar has two parts. We need to move the front part to see if there’s a tunnel.” “I’m in,” Derek agrees, leaping behind the pillar as another missed shot nicks the wall behind him. He puts his boots against the marble and pushes. After several loud grunts between them, the altar facade moves to the side, scraping the marble base to reveal a narrow, low tunnel. “Dude, you’re my hero,” Derek says, patting the muscular monk on the shoulder. Mordechai peeks toward the dead mentor with saddened eyes. “Antio agpaite daskale, either oi aggeloi nha sas dektoun therma sto bacil the patera.” Derek doesn’t ask for a translation, but already knows the essence of the prayer: rest in peace, old friend. Mordechai slinks down behind the altar with a heavy sigh and peers into the black void. “We need those altar candles.” “Got it.” Derek reaches up for the candles and a nearby matchbox, giving one to Mordechai. “I’m not gonna say that I’m claustrophobic. Let’s just say I sure hope this tunnel ends quickly at a Hyatt with a full-service spa.” Derek refuses to vocalize his fear that the tunnel collapsed generations ago and they are crawling into a one-way death trap. If he lives, he needs to find a man named Loir Sasson – if he lives.