The Sacred Cipher (58 page)

“Limited,” said Bohannon. “The camera tip can rotate slightly, but it’s not independent
of the tube holding it. I can extend it about another inch, then run it through a
three-sixty arc after that, but I don’t know how much more we’re going to see. Joe,
you got the video running?”

“Yeah, it’s been on since you entered the hole.”

“Okay, I’m going to bring it out . . . “

“What, what do you mean?” Johnson was blustering in Bohannon’s ear.

Bohannon stopped, turned away from the LCD screen, frustrated with Johnson’s interruptions.

“Doc, you, more than any of us, should know what we’ve got to do. Right now, what
we’ve got is an isolated image. With today’s technology able to create just about
anything, we’d be mocked and ignored. We’ve got to validate what we’ve found. We’re
going to start over, set the stage and start over. We need to make sure this proof
is unassailable. Get the satellite phone powered up and both GPS units operating while
I pull the unit out.”

Bohannon went back to the LCD screen and the controller. Only the rustling behind
him confirmed that Johnson and Rodriguez had heeded his instructions. With the camera
now pointed to the rear, bringing the unit out seemed easier, and faster, than the
inbound trip. Grasping the tank tracks, Bohannon extricated the unit and turned it
to face Johnson and Rodriguez.

“Turn on the audio, Joe. Doc, call Sam Reynolds at the State Department. Let me know
when you have him on the line. We should all sit against the far wall.”

Bohannon set the mounted platform on top of the stone shelf above the entry shaft,
then inched himself to the far wall, beside his two partners. With the controller,
he swiveled the camera so he had a good, clear picture of the three of them. Johnson
was to his left, Rodriguez to his right.

“Mr. Reynolds, this is Dr. Johnson. I know . . . I know. Can you just hang on for
a moment?” Doc looked at Bohannon. “Now what?”

“Everything rolling?” Bohannon asked.

“All set to go,” said Joe.

“This is Tom Bohannon. Sitting next to me are Dr. Richard Johnson Sr. and Joseph Rodriguez.
We are under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Outside of the Hall of the Sanhedrin,
we’ve found a shaft that led us to this point. The mobile camera that is filming us
sits on a stone shelf on the far wall of the shaft, only a few feet from where we
sit. Doc, hold up one of the GPS units that shows our location. I’m going to turn
down the illumination just a bit.”

Bohannon turned to Doc.

“You can see from the GPS screen two important pieces of information. First is the
date and time, set automatically by a link to Greenwich Mean—June nineteenth, 6:43
AM
local time. The second piece of information is our GPS location. Doc, begin to decrease
the zoom, take us farther out.” The image on the screen blurred, then cleared. “There,
you can see the Temple Mount.” Blurred again, and then cleared again. “There, you
can see the Old City of Jerusalem.

“Okay, Doc, get the other GPS, but start with an entire view of Israel. Okay, good.
So, there you see the same time and date as the first GPS. Okay, Doc, begin zooming
in closer, bring it in on Jerusalem. Have the GPS home in on its own location, do
it automatically.”

There was silence as Johnson fiddled with the controls.

“There, it’s marked its own location . . . 31°47' north; 35°10' east. Doc, hold up
the other GPS. What are the coordinates?”

Johnson held the two units up, side-by-side, so the camera had a clear view. “They
are identical.”

“Okay,” said Bohannon. “On a secure satellite phone, we are talking with Sam Reynolds,
an official from the United States State Department. Sam, are you still there?”

“I’m here, but you guys better listen to me. The entire—”

“Yeah, I know,” said Bohannon, “but that’s not what we need right now, Sam. Tell me,
what is today’s date? What is today’s time, there, in Washington?”

“Tom, you men are crazy. Get out of there.”

“Date and time, please, Mr. Reynolds. We need to make sure there is no question about
what we’re about to record.”

“Tom, don’t be a fool.” There was no answer. “Ahhh . . . it’s Thursday, June 18. It’s
11:46
PM
here in Washington. And I can verify the coordinates of the satellite phone. We can
track that kind of stuff from here. They are where they claim to be, either on top
of, or underneath, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.”

“Great, Sam, thanks. That really helps. Can you hold on for a few more moments?”

“Sure, I’ll be here. You at least deserve a warning, if you’ll ever listen to it.”

“Okay, Sam, okay, but in a minute.” Bohannon turned back to the camera. “I’m going
to get up now and grab hold of the assembly on which this camera is mounted. I’m going
to pick it off the rock shelf, turn it around 180 degrees, and insert it into a smaller
shaft that appears to be naturally occurring. It looks like it’s been formed over
years by the passage of water. There . . . there is the opening of the shaft. I am
going to place the mounted platform into the shaft.

“About one hundred fifty yards into the shaft, I will stop the camera and rotate it
ninety degrees to the left, where it will face a small hole. I will move the camera
toward the hole and then insert a small, medical catheter, with a camera on its tip,
into the hole. Here is a view of the catheter. The catheter will move through the
hole for approximately seventy-five feet. It will then enter a large cavern, where
we will turn the illumination to full power.

“We did this same exercise some fifteen minutes ago. Inside the cavern we found the
Third Temple of God, erected in the eleventh century by the leaders of the Jewish
community in Jerusalem, Elijah and his son, Abiathar, Gaons of Jerusalem. With the
conquest of the crusaders, the cavern where this Temple was built was sealed. It has
remained hidden until today.”

Bohannon stopped his lecture and cast a glace at his two companions. Both nodded silently.

“We’re going to leave the audio on,” said Bohannon. “Here we go.”

Bohannon continued his narration as first the camera assembly, then the catheter,
retraced their progress to the cavern of the Temple. Turning up the illumination,
this time Bohannon extended the camera tip as far as it would go, then began the three-sixty
rotation. Although the difference in the camera’s distance from the catheter was not
great from their first visit to the second, the rotation still gave the three explorers
a significantly expanded view of the Temple. The hole in the limestone emerged opposite
what appeared to be the front, right corner, or the southeast corner of the Temple,
fairly high along the cavern wall. Rotating the camera angle showed not only more
of the front and the side of the Temple’s construction, but the top of its arc revealed
a remarkable view of the Temple’s roof area and what appeared to be an opening in
the roof.

“That opening,” said Johnson, once again hanging over Bohannon’s shoulder, “is likely
situated over the Holy of Holies. I’ve seen renderings that had the Holy of Holies
open to the sky above.”

“The Temple construction appears to be cut limestone,” said Bohannon. “The columns
in the front also appear to be limestone, but the capitals are covered with gold,
as is the decorative detail at the roofline.” Bohannon rotated the camera as far to
the left as he could. He could clearly see the large courtyard, the Outer Courts,
at the front of the Temple. But from their vantage point, the actual front of the
building was obscured for the most part by the front columns. Still, there appeared
to be a wall and a great entrance doorway behind the columns. “We apparently can’t
get a clear look at the front of the Temple, but there appears to be a doorway, a
huge doorway extending more than two-thirds of the way up the front wall. From this
angle, it looks like the building is not built square, but more as a trapezoid, wider
at the base and more narrow at the roof. The doorway also, though it’s hard to tell,
seems to be angled to be more narrow at the top.”

A quiet, but insistent beeping accompanied a vibration in Bohannon’s hand and a blinking
battery signal in the LCD screen.

“We’re running out of power. Looks like time to bring the baby home,” said Bohannon.
“I’d leave it where it is and just let the power run out, but I want to bring all
the equipment home, if we can, just in case there are any questions. Sam Reynolds,
for verification, can you tell us again the date and the time?”

“Sure, it’s time to call your lawyer.” Bohannon could hear the frustration and rising
anger in Reynolds’s voice. “Are you telling me you actually found a Jewish temple
built under the Temple Mount, hidden for a thousand years? You’re telling me you’ve
actually got that on videotape?”

“Mr. Reynolds,” said Johnson, “I can understand you might have some skepticism when
an investigative journalist claims to have made some historic discovery that’s been
hidden for generations. But I assure you, if I have any reputation left, I wouldn’t
squander it by foisting what would be a monumentally stupid attempt at deceit. Yes,
sir, the Temple is there. I haven’t touched it, but I’ve seen it twice. It’s there,
Mr. Reynolds. There is no doubt, it’s there.”

“God help us,” Reynolds whispered. “It’s now Friday, June nineteenth, and it is 12:18
AM
in Washington, DC. And I can verify that not only have I heard everything that Tom
has been saying, but I have also been recording it and will be able to verify any
recording he has made. What you’ve been seeing, well, that will be for someone else
to corroborate.”

“Thanks, Sam. One thing? Is there any way you can keep this to yourself? At least
for the next several hours? We’re going to need every break we can get to get out
of here in one piece.”

“Tom, I can’t do that. You don’t have any idea what you’re asking. The president knows
you’re in there, and the cabinet. And we’ve all been ordered to share with the Israelis
any information we discover. I don’t have a choice, Tom. And even if I did have a
choice, I would never be able to keep this information to myself because I’m not the
only one who has this information.”

The three men in the cave looked at each other.

“What do you mean, Sam?” said Bohannon.

“Tom, the Israelis have the same technology that we have. If I could locate you guys,
they can locate you guys. And, if they intercept the signal and if they can crack
the code . . .”

“Can they do that?”

“Yeah, oh, yeah, they can do that,” said Reynolds. “I’d have to put my money on the
Israelis. They probably already have you located and have soldiers trying to get to
you right now. Even on the off chance the Israelis haven’t intercepted this communication,
when I hang up with you, I will immediately call the secretary of state and fill him
in on everything I’ve said and everything I’ve heard. And he will call the Israeli
prime minister and hand them the GPS coordinates. I don’t know how you figure to get
out of there but, whatever your plan, you’d better move on it right now. You are out
of options. Good luck.”

The satellite phone went dead. They had found the Temple. They had gotten it on video.
They had gotten the evidence. Now, would anyone ever see it?

“What do we do now?” asked Johnson.

“Just what we did before,” said Rodriguez. “Tom, your faith and your willingness to
listen to God got us here. I believe they can also get us out of here. Ask him to
show you the way.” And he grabbed a hand in each of his.

Orhlon was proud of his team. It had taken much less time than he would have expected
for them to break the encrypted communications, primarily because they were U.S. military
codes the Israelis had stolen a year ago. Understanding how these men got U.S. military
codes, that was tomorrow’s problem. Now, he waited for the screen to clear. “There,
quick, mark that location.” He picked up the radio. “Gefen?”

“Yes, sir?”

“North of you about three hundred fifty meters, west about seventy-five meters. They
appear to be above you, higher than your location. They said something about the Hall
of the Sanhedrin and the entrance tunnel of the Huldah Gates. Then we lost the transmission.
I’ve had the Office of Antiquities on the phone. They believe there must be some way
for you to move northwest, some tunnel or opening. The entrance tunnel to the Huldah
Gates would be to your northwest, in the vicinity of their last location. See if you
can find a way for your men to move northwest. Try to reach the entrance tunnel. There
would have to be stairs. After that, you’ll just have to search wherever you can.
They are in there somewhere. Whatever they are trying to do, they’ve got to be close
to getting it done. Move, Gefen, move quickly. Or I fear the Temple Mount may come
crashing down upon all our heads.”

Orhlon replaced the radio.

“General, we cannot trace the recipient of the satellite transmission,” said Major
Mordechai. “We don’t know who they were calling.”

“It doesn’t matter who they were calling,” said Orhlon. “They were transmitting coordinates.
They’ve got a specific location. If they’ve found it, we cannot allow them to escape.
I don’t care how ballistic the Arabs get, call in the reserve units. Surround the
Temple Mount from every direction. I want that entire area buttoned down, enough men
to have a soldier stationed every ten meters.”