Bennett was almost out of ammo.
There was more in his backpack, but just as he considered racing to the back chambers to get it, the gunman emerged from the shadows.
“Look out,” Erin yelled, but the man’s gun went off.
Bennett ducked back just in time. Erin wasn’t so lucky. Her scream almost paralyzed him with fear. He looked across the hall and saw the woman he loved holding her leg, blood all over her hands. Then he heard the sound of coins scattering in the main antechamber. The man was on the move, heading for the exit.
Bennett pivoted hard, found his target, and pulled the trigger, unleashing every last round he had. The man dropped to the floor, writhing in pain, screaming at the top of his lungs. Everything in Bennett wanted to attend to his wife, but he dared not let this monster loose. He raced across the room, dove on top of him, and lunged for the killer’s throat.
69
Bennett’s grip tightened around the man’s neck.
“Erin, I’ve got him,” he shouted, but there was no response from the next room, and the man suddenly slammed his knee into Bennett’s groin, sending him reeling.
The assassin scrambled out of the anteroom, heading back into the tunnels. Bennett was in excruciating pain, but with the pain came a torrent of fresh adrenaline. He dragged himself over to Erin as quickly as he could. The buckshot had ripped up her right leg, and she was bleeding profusely. He pulled out his handkerchief, made a tourniquet, and wrapped it tightly around the wound, trying to make her as comfortable as possible. She begged him to go after the injured gunman.
“I’m not leaving you,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close to his chest.
“No, Jon, he’s getting away. You’ve got to go after him — for Natasha,” she insisted. “For Mordechai.”
Erin’s voice was weak, but she wasn’t kidding. She handed him her Beretta.
“Just be careful,” she added. “You’ve only got two shots left.”
Viggo Mariano waited for Bennett in the shadows.
He had no weapon, no ropes, no way to climb out of these underground cisterns. Escape wasn’t an option. But murder was. He had the element of surprise, and that might just be enough.
Bennett couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Erin.
What if he didn’t make it back? Who would even know that she and Natasha were down here, in desperate need of help? But Erin was insistent. How could he let this guy escape after all the evil he’d done? Besides, she reminded him, he’d have to go at some point to get medical help.
He had no choice. He turned on his flashlight and headed out into the tunnels, trying to readjust to the overwhelming darkness. A moment later, as he turned a corner, he came across the body of one of the men they’d killed earlier. He would take no chances. He reached down to check the man’s pulse.
Out of nowhere the assassin struck, smashing Bennett over the head with a rock.
Bennett collapsed to the ground, dropping the gun and the flashlight, both of which went skittering across the floor. His head was bleeding. He was conscious but woozy. It all happened so fast. He was on his hands and knees, frantically searching for Erin’s gun, but the killer found it first. Before he knew what had happened, Bennett was staring down the barrel of Erin’s Beretta.
“Almost, Mr. Bennett,” the man said, short of breath and wiping away the blood trickling from his mouth. “You almost made history.”
“Who are you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Are you Farouk?”
The man laughed. “I am Viggo Mariano. Farouk’s dead. My team killed him in Jordan yesterday.”
“A coup?”
“Hardly,” Mariano sniffed. “Farouk was never the leader.”
“And you were?”
“Let’s just say I was the contractor.”
“So who was the client?”
“You can ask the devil when you see him.” Mariano raised the gun.
Bennett covered his face.
A burst of gunfire exploded through the tunnel.
But it was Mariano, not Bennett, who slumped to the floor.
Bennett opened his eyes.
Mariano lay in a pool of blood. Twenty yards behind him was Dmitri Galishnikov and a squad of Israeli commandos. Bennett was too stunned to speak.
“You guys were taking so long,” Galishnikov said. “I got worried. And when I took another pass over the city, I saw Arik’s and Roni’s bodies lying there, and I knew something had gone wrong. I called Katya. She said to turn you guys in, in exchange for special forces. So I did.”
Bennett’s head pounded. His hands were full of blood. But he was grateful to be alive, and he asked the commandos to go help Erin and Natasha. The medics moved swiftly while the others secured the tunnels and set up portable lights. Galishnikov, meanwhile, helped Bennett to his feet, and together they went to find Erin.
“God bless you, Dmitri.”
“I think He has, my boy. I think He has.”
“You’re not going to believe what we found.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
But suddenly they heard a medic shouting.
“Mr. Bennett, she’s not here.”
Bennett raced inside to the chamber where Erin had been lying. “What are you talking about?” he yelled. “You’ve got to be kidding me. She was here just a minute ago.”
But they were right. Erin was gone. There was blood where she had been lying but no trail leading anywhere else.
The lead medic grabbed his radio. “All units, be advised, there may be another hostile in the tunnels. I repeat, there may be another hostile in the tunnels.” He turned to Bennett and Dmitri and ordered them to stay put until they could figure out what was going on. Then he drew his sidearm and cautiously moved back into the hallway with the others.
But there was no way Bennett was going to stay put. He didn’t work for them. He didn’t have to take their orders. He wanted his wife.
Just then he noticed a few drops of blood on the floor. He grabbed a torch and slowly began making his way to the back of the chamber, past the bowls and the censers and the acacia-wood tables piled up around him. What he hadn’t realized the first time was how far the room went back. In his excitement, he’d snapped his pictures and moved on. But now he saw there was more. And there, in the back of the room, behind one of the tables stacked with treasures, was an archway, leading into another antechamber. It was there he found his wife.
Bennett set down his torch and rushed to Erin’s side. He threw his arms around her, grateful beyond words to have her back. But she didn’t move.
She was alive. She was breathing. But she refused to return his embrace. Instead she just stood there, motionless. And then he realized why. For there, not three feet away, stood the Ark of the Covenant.
Bennett froze, awestruck and trembling. He half expected to be incinerated, along with his wife, just for being in the room with the holy relic. In ancient times, only the high priest could approach the Ark as he atoned for his own sins and the sins of all Israel. Anyone else could die just for looking at the seat of God’s glory or touching it improperly. So Bennett waited for death to come.
But it did not come. Why? How was that possible?
Bennett searched his mind as he had searched the Scriptures since this journey first began, and then it all became clear.