God's Lions: The Secret Chapel (31 page)

Their morning fishing expedition over, the two headed across the weathered boardwalk toward the villa and joined the others at the poolside bar.

“Nice fish, John,” Daniel said.

“I probably should have thrown it back.” He cast a glance at Ariella. “Now she’s going to force me to eat it.”

“That’s right,” Ariella said. “That’s the rule around here. If you keep it, you eat it.”

“Maybe Camp would like it,” Nava said, winking at Alon.

On cue, Camp’s new crab friend pinched him on the nose. The little dog yelped and raced through the dunes to the safety of his human friends. “I think he’s had enough seafood for today,” John said.

Everyone was talking and teasing John about his miniature fish while an American news channel provided background noise. The newscasters were going on about the discovery of a large oil field in Israel when the red banner of a news bulletin flashed across the screen. With the events of the night before still fresh in their minds, everyone wondered if something else had occurred in the desert and turned their attention to the flat screen TV over the bar.

One of the television journalists held his hand to his earpiece and turned to his stunned-looking female co-anchor. His face took on a pale, vacant look. He paused for a moment; he seemed to be having trouble collecting himself before he looked directly into the camera and took a deep breath before speaking. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have just received news of an unbelievable nature. If this bulletin can be confirmed, our worst national nightmare has been realized. We’re hearing just now that a nuclear explosion has occurred in an American city, totally vaporizing an area within a mile of the blast and devastating an area for five miles around that. The city is Houston, Texas.”

Everyone by the pool stopped what they were doing and stared at the TV screen in total disbelief. It was one of those moments when, years later, people would recall exactly where they were when they heard the news. The television journalists were silent for a moment, not knowing what to say next or if professional decorum had rules for their emotions at a moment like this.

The female newswoman tried to compose herself before continuing. “We’ve just learned that apparently, sometime around 1:00
AM
Central Standard Time, a small fishing boat entered the Houston ship channel from the Gulf of Mexico. Shortly thereafter, those onboard detonated what is believed to be a nuclear bomb in the center of one of the largest petrochemical industrial areas in the world. The scene was captured on tape by security cameras just before the blast. Authorities say it is an obvious attempt to knock out some of the country’s largest refineries and cripple the economy, with the added benefit of taking the lives of as many Americans as possible in the process.”

Daniel slammed his orange juice down on the bar. “It’s 9/11 all over again.”

“No, it’s much worse,” Nava said. “Now the bastards have nuclear weapons.”

Ariella leaned close to John as tears began to flow, mixing with the drying saltwater of the sea on her tanned face. Her mother had been an American, and she had distant relatives who lived in Texas. Returning from their walk through the fields, Leo and Lev joined the others in front of the TV just in time to see the first pictures from Houston spring to life on the screen. Before their eyes was a scene of unbelievable horror.

News of the attack spread throughout the villa prompting Moshe to put the compound on the highest alert. The Israelis had played out this scenario in their hearts and minds many times over the years since the attacks of September 11. They had hypothesized that, if one city was attacked anywhere in the Christian or Jewish world, it could be the beginning of a coordinated series of detonations in other cities around the globe.

Some of the brightest minds in think tanks on both sides of the Atlantic had run the numbers, and the laws of probability and supply and demand won every time. Since the old USSR had collapsed, several nuclear weapons had gone missing, and people with a lot of money could buy anything. The laws of probability, plus the laws of supply and demand, equaled nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists.

Tel Aviv was less than twenty miles from the villa and was a highly prized target of terrorists. Jerusalem was officially considered off the list for now, since the Dome of the Rock and the El-Aqsa Mosque, two of the most holy sites in Islam, were located on the Haram esh-Sharif in the old section of the city. But times were strange and getting stranger, and even though many believed the holy city was probably safe from attack, the radicals were seized by a fervor resembling mental illness, and therefore, theoretically, everything was on the table.

The staff switched the channel to CNN, where they were already interviewing government officials. Security consultants were blaming the explosion on radical Islamic terrorists, or RITs, the acronym used by many in the intelligence community to identify this newest enemy to world peace.

“No surprise there,” Alon said when he heard the latest bit of news.

The TV networks were pulling out all the stops and using every resource available. Unnamed sources within the CIA and NSA were quoted as saying that they had already gathered enough evidence to begin building a case against those who had attacked America.

Everyone at the villa watched the reaction from around the world as the global community joined in the rising tide of sorrow and fear beginning to circle the world. Leo was struck by the timing. When God brought forth his bounty, such as the oil and water now washing over the desert, Satan seemed to strike back with yet another depraved assault against humanity.
Was the painting of a nuclear explosion on the seal they had found outside the ancient chapel a warning after all?

While everyone sat frozen in front of TV screens throughout the villa, Daniel was about to make a discovery that would remove any doubt from their minds.

Daniel liked to work alone. Possessed with a brilliant mind, he was totally absorbed in his work on the Bible code. He was one of those people who could solve a Rubik’s Cube in less than a minute. When not busy working on codes, he loved cooking French food and collecting fine bottles of wine from vineyards around the world. Despite his service in the higher echelons of the Israeli military, those who knew him well considered him a Renaissance man. No one would have been surprised that he had retreated to his computer in the command center to work on the code in the face of the tragedy in Houston. He needed the time alone to reflect on man’s inhumanity to man, and working on the code allowed him to think.

The glow from the computer screen highlighted his intellectual features. His tussled brown hair and beard, along with his round horn-rimmed glasses, gave him the look of a perpetual student. He scrolled through endless permutations in the code for the hundredth time in an effort to find some clue to the meaning of the chapel under the Vatican. Ever since he had found the first mention of the chapel in the code months earlier, its significance had eluded him.

In 1993, American astronomers Shoemaker and Levy had discovered a comet streaking toward Jupiter, and after measuring its speed and trajectory, they estimated that it would hit the gigantic planet on July 16, 1994. Several years later, after the collision had occurred as predicted on that date, when Daniel had been a mathematics student at the Hebrew University, Professor Lev Wasserman was trying out a new skip sequence in the code when he discovered something that shocked him to his core. Encoded in the book of Isaiah was the mention of a collision of a comet with Jupiter on the exact same date ... July 16, 1994.

The precise date of the comet’s impact with the planet had been encoded in the Bible three thousand years before the actual event had occurred. The day Lev shared this discovery with Daniel was the day Daniel Meir became convinced that the code was proof of a higher power at work.

He was just about to turn off the screen when he noticed some words highlighted in red. Right in front of him was the phrase ...
under the Vatican
. He stopped and scanned the page up and down, looking for something, anything. There! To the left of the phrase, the words
holy chapel
jumped out at him.

Perspiration formed across Daniel’s brow and trickled down his temples while he continued to scan the page for other hidden words. He didn’t have to scan for long. Across the bottom of the page was the longest phrase in the code he had seen to date ...
God will send his chosen guardians to take the book to the holy chapel.
That was it! That was the chapel’s secret. It had been constructed to receive the book. Daniel thought back to the passage that said
they will give it to God.
The answer to how they would give the book to God was right in front of him.

Then, something else caught his attention ... two more phrases.
Satan will bring fire to the world
and
his forces will come for the book
. Running up horizontally from the bottom, he saw another phrase pop up on the screen ...
the evil one will strike back.
The encoded messages were coming at an exponentially faster rate. He sat transfixed as the computer continued to reveal more hidden phrases ...
The book holds Satan’s plan
and
Tribulation until God takes the book
.

Daniel ran his fingers through his beard and stared at the screen. For some reason, God wanted Satan’s book taken to the chapel ... and He was using His chosen ones to do it.
But for what reason?
He read two of the phrases over again;
the evil one will strike back
and
his forces will come for the book.
Was the attack on Houston Satan striking back? What next? Chills ran up Daniel’s spine as he realized the danger they were all in.

He had to tell the others. He hit the print button and ran off a copy before running upstairs and outside to the poolside bar where everyone was transfixed in front of the TV. No one moved or spoke as they watched the images of the devastation in Houston scroll across the screen. Daniel grabbed Leo by the arm and shoved the printout into his hand.

Father Leo’s face drained of color before he turned to John. “John, where’s the Devil’s Bible?”

“Alon and I decided to lock it up in the weapons room until we leave for Rome.”

“From now on, John, we can’t let it out of our sight. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner. The book must always be in the possession of one of us ... one of the chosen.”

“That room is made of solid concrete, Leo. It’s got a thick steel door like those used in bank vaults. Besides, no one could possibly get into that room with all the security they have around here.”

“We can’t underestimate the power of the book or those who may want to take it. We’re dealing with supernatural forces that dwell in an entirely different realm from us, and no amount of concrete or steel will keep them out. The book needs to be kept in the possession of one of the five who took it ... one of the chosen. I just pray that we’re not too late.”

The tragic news of Houston was pushed into the background as everyone jumped from their chairs and raced through the villa and down the stairs to the command center. No one spoke. They all stood looking at the locked steel door as Alon began punching the combination. A series of clicks, and then, slowly, the heavy door began to swing open. The group stood by and held their collective breath while Alon and Leo stood at the entrance and waited.

As soon as the door was halfway open, Alon reached in and switched on the lights. John’s backpack was still lying on the floor where he had left it. Everyone rushed forward, trying all at once to crowd through the doorway. Leo knelt down by the backpack and peered inside. He exhaled a sigh of relief and reluctantly pulled the nightmarish object out into the open.

The Devil’s Bible was obviously a very ancient book. It was thick with a red covering made from some unknown type of material. The front of the book was covered in raised black symbols ... unknown symbols from a dark world. Excluding the mysterious symbols, no other markings were present.

Leo hesitated before opening the cover and leafing through the thick parchment-like pages. There was no doubt in the priest’s mind that this book was a real instrument belonging to Satan, and he felt a panicky need to drop the book to the floor. The mere touch of it sent shivers up his spine. He sensed a malevolent force beginning to permeate the very air they were breathing, and he knew the power within was strong.

Without warning, something flashed in the periphery of Leo’s vision just as a warm breeze touched their faces. He stepped back with the realization that there was something in the room with them. He grabbed a flask of holy water from his shirt pocket and quickly doused the book with the liquid. A loud thump shook the building. It was followed by a low snarl that was heard by everyone as the smell of something dead and rotting began to fill the air.

Everyone began to cough and gag in an attempt to rid themselves of the noxious odor, while several broke and ran from the room in an effort to get as far away from the odor and intense feeling of fear they felt in the book’s presence.

“I think that smell is coming from the Devil’s Bible,” Ariella shouted.

Lev leaned closer before stepping back and holding his hand over his nose. “It is!”

Leo quickly doused it once again and prayed. Slowly, the odor started to subside, along with the evil presence they had all felt was so close just moments before. It was as if the book was a living entity, dying in the absence of its master.

Could it be decaying?
Had the book been somehow protected from disintegrating under the sands of the desert, encased inside Satan’s cathedral? Leo examined the unknown writing on the cover before realizing that he needed Daniel’s talent with computers. “Daniel, could you come here for a moment?”

A look of horror crossed Daniel’s face as he approached the book as if it were alive. “What do you want, Father?” He felt like his heart was going to stop. The thing repulsed him, and he wanted nothing to do with it.