When he reached the top, a flash of movement caught his eye, and before he could react, something struck him hard above his right ear. He crashed to the ground, landing hard on his back, the staff slipping from his grasp. He reached out in desperation, but only succeeded in brushing it with his fingertips before it rolled out of his reach and disappeared over the edge of the pit.
He didn’t have time to even think about what had happened, because something was hurtling directly at him. Bones and the others had not reached the top, but the faint light cast by their flashlights shone on Issachar, his face now little more than a mass of bleeding boils. With a bellow of inhuman rage he hurled himself at Dane. Dane drew his knees to his chest and caught Issachar’s stomach on the balls of his feet, and grabbed his shoulders. Using his attacker’s momentum to his advantage, he kicked up, somersaulting Issachar into the pit.
He rolled over, snatched up his flashlight, and shone it down into the depths of the pit below. He saw nothing but dark, angry water.
“It’s gone,” he said in disbelief as the others arrived at his side. “I just lost the staff of Moses.”
“Brother, at the rate we’re going, there won’t be any biblical treasures left in a few years.” Bones clapped Dane on the shoulder. “Next week let’s blow up Noah’s Ark.”
Faint lines of pink brushed the velvet sky on the edge of the horizon when the weary party found their way back to the top of Angel’s Landing. They replaced the cover stone and heaped mounds of loose rock over it. No one before them had found it, and likely no one would again, at least not for a long time. There had been no more sign of the Dominion or the chupacabras though they did find a Kalashnikov lying in a sticky pool in one of the chambers and had taken it with them just to be safe.
Now they stood together letting the first rays of the morning sun wash away the memories of their hellish night underground. Jade leaned against Dane’s shoulder and he slipped his arm around her waist.
“None of it seems real now,” she whispered. “My life’s ambition realized and lost again in one night. And what do I have to show for it?”
“You’re alive,” Dane said. “And hey, you’ve got me.”
“So it’s kind of a wash,” Bones said. “Life with Maddock can be an absolute pain.”
“So the Ark of the Covenant was radioactive?” Amanda asked after a long silence. They had all been too focused on getting out alive to discuss what had happened.
“I think the plates on which the Ten Commandments were carved were highly radioactive. Unbelievably so considering the half-life it must have for it to still be radioactive today.”
“How did you guess?” Now that they were back in the real world, Amanda was regaining some of her reporter’s instincts.
“I kept wondering what could be a greater treasure than what we saw in the cathedral chamber. What is associated with Moses besides the staff? Then I remembered what Bones said about Jimmy’s corrected translation: The ten is impure. The Ten Commandments! I thought of the Ark of the Covenant, and how the Bible said that if someone touched it, they died. And then it all fell into place: the glowing veins of minerals in the stone, the fact that every cavern seemed to get warmer and brighter as we moved closer to the final chamber, the chupacabras, which are probably descendants of population of native animal, maybe a mountain lion that has mutated for generation after generation. Their lair smelled of wild cat. Justin’s grandmother told me that her family has lived in that spot for generations. They’ve probably been drinking contaminated groundwater.”
“Why wouldn’t it affect the park?” Jade asked.
“I don’t know. It would probably take years of drinking it to have any effect. Besides, think about how far we traveled down there. The chambers are miles from here.”
“I get it!” Bones said. “The Ark of the Covenant is gold-plated, which acted as an imperfect shield. You could get close, but not too close.”
“How could Moses have carried the Ten Commandments down from Sinai if they were so highly radioactive?” Jade asked.
“The same way he parted the sea, caused the plagues, all that good stuff,” Bones said. “No matter how much science you throw into the mix, you can never quite factor God out of the equation, can you Maddock?”
“I guess not,” Dane said. He and God had not been on good terms since Melissa’s death. The experiences of the past year, though, had made the universe a much bigger and more complicated place than he had ever imagined. It was certainly beyond his small capacity to comprehend. He looked at Jade, thinking of how he had every reason not to trust her, yet he trusted her. More than that, despite the hurt she had caused him, he wanted to give it a go with her. Maybe that was a small taste of what faith was like.
“Does it bother any of you,” Amanda remained in reporter mode, “knowing that Moses was, in actuality Akhenaten?”
“I don’t know.” Bones looked out across the beauty of the landscape. “Does it bother you to know that Akhenaten was really Moses? It doesn’t change what Moses did, or why he was so important. Heck, I think it’s cool. Things like that sort of bring us all a little closer together. Shared history and all that. I don’t know. It’s not as bad as if we found out Elvis was really Tiny Tim.”
“You can ask Elvis next time we see him,” Dane said. He noticed that Amanda had turned away from the rest of the group and was staring up into the sky. “Are you all right?”
“I was just thinking that I just helped uncover the story to end all stories, and I can’t tell anyone. It’s got Pulitzer written all over it, but even if there is anything left down there, would it be a good idea for the world to know? Look at what the staff could do. What other powers might some of those treasures have? Imagine them in the hands of the crazies of this world.”
“The Elder indicated that no one is left in the Dominion who knows anything about any of this,” Dane said. “That leaves Jimmy and the four of us. Personally, I think Fray Marcos was right. It’s too terrible a secret to share with the world. Someday, if it’s meant to be, the right person at the right time will find it.”
“So we weren’t meant to find it?” Amanda asked, returning to Bones’ side.
“I’m not a philosopher,” Dane said. “But I think maybe we were meant to stop the Elder from finding it. I know that’s not much, but at least you know you were part of something important.”
“Man! I thought I was being cheesy,” Bones said. “But I think you’re right.”
“It’s all right,” Amanda said. “I think that with just a little digging I can come up with a major story on a respected bank president and community leader who was secretly the head of an underground paramilitary organization. I might even be able to blow the lid off of Central Utah University as well.” She looked at Jade, concern in her eyes. “But what are you going to do? I mean, you can’t go back, can you? Not with the university’s connections to the Dominion. And finding out the truth of the Seven Cities was your life’s ambition, and now you can’t even take any credit. Oh Jade, I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” Jade said. “But I did find out the truth, and that’s what matters. I guess I need a new life’s ambition. As for where I’ll be working,” she turned to look into Dane’s eyes, “I’m a pretty fair diver. Know anyone who’s hiring?”
“I just might at that,” Dane said. “Bones and I have been talking about expanding our operation.”
Now Bones turned to Amanda. “That leaves you,” he said. “What are your plans?”
“My plan is for you to buy me a meal and give me the back rub of my life. Long term? When my story comes out, I’ll be a girl in demand. Maybe I’ll find my way down to Florida and blow the lid off some scandal or other. Think you’ll be free?”