He walked right up to the ark and after staring at it closely, slowly shook his head. He could see paint peeling slightly in spots, revealing the plywood beneath. He placed a hand on it and felt the dull, non-metallic surface, definitely not gold gilt.
“It’s just another replica.”
Jayden looked up from having just trussed up the terrified monk and gagging him with a cloth in case he tried to scream. The old man calmed down somewhat when Jayden told him they were not going to hurt him, and that they would untie him before they left.
Jayden told the guardian, “Excuse me,” and walked over to stand next to Carter, who had a sheepish look on his face.
“Why am I not surprised?” Jayden asked.
Carter shook his head. “I’m really sorry. We should have just stayed in Turkey.”
“It’s cool, bro. Hey, I was wondering how far they take this charade out anyway, you know — like, do they go so far as to have replicas of the stone tablets inside the thing, too? I wanted to find out in the other churches, but somehow I thought it might piss people off to pry the thing open.”
Carter shrugged. “Since we’ve gone to this much trouble, before we leave we might as well find out.”
“I’ll find something to stand on.” The ark was on a raised pedestal that prevented them from being able to reach the top to open it, or see if it even opened.
“It’s probably just sealed shut on top, would be my guess,” Carter said while Jayden brought a chair back he’d taken from a corner. Standing on that, he was able to get a look at the top of the construction.
“Huh.”
“Huh, what?”
“It does look like it has an actual seam that goes all the way around. Let me see if I can lift—” A grating noise was heard as Jayden lifted the lid and slid it a short distance to see whether nor not it was fixed in place. “I’m sure it’d be a lot heavier if this whole thing was really gold plated,” he said, pushing it a little farther off center. “Hey Carter, go around the other side and get ready to catch this thing if it slides all the way off, okay? I don’t want to make a lot of noise, or break it. Hear that, Guardian — we’re being as careful as we can over here. Just a quick look, and we’re out of here.”
Behind his gag, the monk made vigorous protestations suggesting that he was not at all happy with this turn of events.
Carter trotted around to the opposite side of the replica ark and said that he was ready. Jayden slid the lid, complete with wooden carved cherubic fixtures, further across the top of the container until the edge closest to him dipped into the box. He shoved it further until it started to slide over the far side. “Here it comes!”
“Got it.” Carter eased the lid, still heavy even though it was made mostly of plywood, down to the floor. He lay it down flat so as not to damage the intricate carving work on its top, and then called up to Jayden. “So are there fake tablets in there or what?”
Jayden did not reply. Carter looked up to see him staring down into the ark. He saw him aim his small flashlight down into it.
“Jayden?”
“Oh there’s something in it, all right, but not stone tablets. You’re not going to believe this. Get up here!”
The bound guardian continued to vocalize unintelligibly behind his gag while Carter found another chair and set it next to the one Jayden was using to look into the model ark. Carter stepped up onto the chair, put a hand on the edge of the open ark to steady himself, and then, following the beam of Jayden’s flashlight, gazed down into the structure.
Jayden was certainly right. No tablets occupied the inside of the ark. In fact, there was no inside of the ark, not really. The outside, including the stand that the ark rested on, was merely a shell to conceal the floor below. Although it appeared from the outside like the ark was supported by the dais, or stand, in fact the two were part of the same deceptive construction, forming a hollow barrier around this particular section of floor.
“Looks like a combination safe embedded into the floor,” Jayden said, shining his flashlight on it.
“Let’s check it out.” Carter climbed up and over the ark façade, gripping the open edge and then allowing himself to drop straight down for about six feet until he landed on the floor inside the frontage. The bound priest was moaning louder than ever now, and Jayden tried to placate him, saying that they’d be right back, before he, too, dropped into the deceptive “ark.”
The floor here was the same as that surrounding the fake ark, except for the combination lock set into it, along with a metal handle. Carter produced his own flashlight and immediately began scanning it, aware that if anyone else were to enter the chapel right now, they would be in very serious trouble. He focused on at first what the lock was set into. It appeared to be part of a cutaway square section of flooring that was two feet on a side.
“It’s big for a safe,” Carter said, kneeling down to take a closer look at the locking mechanism. “At least this thing is easy enough to understand.”
Four dials, each set to zero. The numerals “1” and “2” also visible on the dials. “I assume they’re zero through nine,” Carter said. Jayden nodded his agreement.
“Four number combo. Let’s try pulling the handle. We’d feel pretty stupid if it was already open, right?”
Carter tried pulling the handle, but predictably, it had no effect. “Thing’s tight, doesn’t budge a millimeter,” Carter said. “We need to know that combination.” He shone the flashlight around the inside of the fake ark some more, as if it would be scrawled on the wood somewhere, but there were no obvious clues.
“I know who would know what it is.” Jayden’s eyes widened as he looked up out of the shielded floor safe, toward the monk.
Carter took a deep breath. “We can ask him. But we can’t hurt him.”
“I don’t think there’s any point in even asking him. I can’t threaten an old priest, anyway. Besides, what do churches keep in their safes? Maybe the donations they collected at the public house of worship next door? C’mon, we’re not bank robbers, we’re treasure hunters.”
But Carter appeared not to even be listening, as he shrugged off his backpack and extracted from it the original map from the Titanic. “Do me a favor and hold your flashlight under this, will you?”
Jayden moved his light into position. “I thought we already went through this,” he said. “The three invisible lines?”
“Yeah, but I’ve had more time to think about it with our travelling, and there’s something I want to try. Hold on, we might need this.” He reached into his pack once again and this time pulled out the Holy Bible he’d taken from their hotel room. “Hold this, too, will you?”
“Sure, I’m not allergic, I don’t think.” Jayden took the Bible with a smile. “Just don’t make me swear on it with my right hand, I’ve had enough of that already in my life.”
“I’ll bet. Now hold the light steady, right there…” Carter positioned the map precisely over the light until he could make out the three invisible ink lines.
“One thing about these lines. They’re not drawn straight from point A to point B, but curve way out of the way to accomplish the same thing. Why is that?”
Jayden shrugged. “Map maker was no good at drawing straight lines? They didn’t have rulers back in those days?”
“Try again.”
Jayden stared at the map. “Artistic license? It just looks better that way?”
“Now that could be, but I hope not. Plus, they were done in invisible ink, so aesthetics probably weren’t a consideration. Let’s look at where these lines go and what they connect.”