Savage was right. But did she dare make a union with the man who was sent to kill her? “How do I know I can trust you?”
“Do you have a choice?” In frustration, she rubbed her eyes. “Ms. Moore, my judgment has been clouded for many years since I left the SEALs. I know that. But I lost my way. Before I came here, I spoke to a man named Leviticus, a soldier. And he told me one thing. He said: Loyalty above all else, except honor.”
She was held rapt. She could see the genuine conviction of truth within his eyes and hear it in the way he spoke. “Loyalty above all else,” he repeated once again, “except honor.” And then: “Do you know what that means?”
She nodded. “To prove your devotion, but only if the principle of the action is not a corrupt one.”
Savage nodded. “Excellent,” he said. “That’s exactly it.” He leaned his head against the wall, sighed, and went on. “Leviticus refused to assume the role which I now find myself with,” he said, “as your assassin. He refused, saying that you were an innocent. And sometimes those within power do not always see with clear vision, but with selfish eyes. Whatever the secret this place holds — whatever is inside this temple — has the pontiff terrified.” He faced her. His eyes sparkled. “I was wrong for trying to follow through with my mission without seeing that you, Noah, Eser and Harika, are good people who didn’t ask for any of this.”
“And when were you planning to—” She flexed her fingers to emphasize quotation marks, “—follow through?”
“When I first arrived,” he told her evenly. “When we were inside your tent.”
“But Noah interrupted.”
“Thank God.”
She looked him in the eyes and saw true contrition. “Confession is good for the soul.”
“For a long time I didn’t feel like I had one,” he said. “But now I realize that I do and I want to keep it.”
“So what are we going to do? They have the weapons. And we can’t wade our way through those creatures without them.” He agreed. But he also believed that there was a solution to everything. “John?”
“I’m thinking.” But as much as he thought, nothing came to him, which caused Alyssa to worry. And when he saw this, his heart became painfully weighted. “So help me,” he told her. “I will get you through this.”
She just stared, not sure if she was more frightened of Hall and his team, or by aligning herself with the man who was sent to kill her. It was certainly an unlikely alliance born of necessity rather than mutual trust. “I want to trust you, John Savage. I want to believe in you.”
He said nothing. He just turned away and stared at the domed ceiling, his mind working. There was a solution to everything, he thought. He just had to find it.
By the time Red died, his face looked like something right out of a horror film. His skin tone was chalk white and the circles around his eyes as black as the silica plinth he lay on. His wound was mottled with indescribable colors, the gnash marks oozing pus that smelled like rot. And his eyes had begun to film over with the milky sheen of death.
Carroll sat Indian style before the plinth, looking on with numbed fascination at seeing his brother lying dead. Two lamps, one at his head, the other at his feet, were posted. “He died about six hours ago,” he said dryly. He knew someone was standing behind him, he just didn’t know who.
Butcher Boy hunkered down beside him and laid a hand on his teammate’s shoulder. “Carroll, just so you know, Red was one of the best I ever worked with.”
“Magnum,” he stated with indifference. “I keep telling you people that I want to be called Magnum. Not Carroll.”
“Magnum it is, then.” He patted Carroll on the shoulder, stood, and walked away, feeling a sense of great loss.
“Is he going to be fine?” Hall asked apathetically. “We need him to be right in the mind.”
Not liking Hall’s tone, Butcher Boy grabbed him by the collar and yanked him close. He then spoke to Hall in a voice so low he was practically mouthing the words. “If you ever cry out like that again or so much as question the mettle of my team when one of my men lies dead after trying to do the job you hired him for — money or no money, Mr. Hall, I will kill you. Clear?”
Hall looked genuinely frightened as Butcher Boy’s grip tightened, the expensive material of Hall’s shirt bleeding through the gaps of Butcher Boy’s fingers. “Did you not hear me?” he asked steadily. “When I say clear, then you say…”
“Clear,” Hall mumbled. “Now release me… I won’t tell you again.”
Butcher Boy let him go and gave him his best alpha-male stare. As Hall fell back, trying to brush the wrinkles free from his shirt, he matched Butcher Boy with a terrible impression of bravado before hastening off. The exchange, however, did not go unnoticed.
“Looks like trouble in paradise,” said Savage. “Tensions are rising.”
Alyssa didn’t reply. She was standing before the wall, examining the wedge-shaped cuneiform characters her father mentioned in his journal. Though the text was so ancient and alien to him, he had at least understood enough of the symbols to interpret that a Burial Chamber lay below, perhaps containing someone of royalty.
“What?” he asked.
She traced her fingers over the secret code. “This,” she said. “My father thought this to be pre-Sumerian writing, the oldest known text in the world.”
Savage moved directly beside her but didn’t touch the wall. He was amazed how this woman continued to be so enthralled with her surroundings when she knew that her life was timing out.
She looked on with wide-eyed wonder. “My father was right,” she said with awe. “I can see the similarities between this text to Sumerian and other related texts. It all originated from here — from this temple. This is truly the cradle of mankind.” She continued to trace her fingers over the ancient passages.
Like the others in the chamber, Savage was getting edgy and didn’t care.
“Ms. Moore!”
Because she was entirely taken in by the wall, she didn’t turn to meet Obsidian’s call.
“Ms. Moore!” This time he out called out so loudly that her attention was ripped away from the cuneiform text, their eyes meeting.
“Ready up,” he told her. “We’re leaving in ten. I assume you know the way according to that wall you’re reading?”
“It tells us the way to the center of this level — presumably to the way down.” And to the Burial Chamber below.
“Very good.” He turned and walked toward his gear.
She moved away from the wall and away from Savage, who was left standing alone.
“Yo, Padre.” Aussie came from the shadows with his assault weapon straddled in front of him. “We need you to say a few words about Red before we leave.”
“I told you, I’m not a priest.”
“Maybe not. But you’re the closest thing to one. So let’s go.” He tilted his head at the direction of the body, which lie on the plinth beneath the lifted foreleg of the bull. His body was situated in a manner of gentle repose, his arms crossed over his chest, his legs together, with his face looking ceilingward towards the Heavenly gateway.
Others gathered around with Eser, Harika and Alyssa standing back — not too close but not too far, either. Hall stood behind them, watching over their shoulders. To them this was not about Red at all, but a measure of respect for Death who surely seemed to follow in their wake.
“Go ahead, Padre.”
Savage didn’t know what to say. All he knew about the man was that he made a living as an assassin killing for blood money.
“Let’s go, Padre.”