James Rollins - The Blood Gospel

Two of his men huddled under the meager shelter.

One stood near the computer, sucking hard on a canteen. The other sat in front of the monitor, fiddling with joysticks that guided the team’s remote-operated vehicle. The little robot had been lowered by its tether into the crevasse an hour ago.

As he led her into camp, both men turned. Each gave him a brief nod but took a far longer look at the attractive blond doctor.

Jordan introduced her, emphasizing her title.

The freckled young man returned his attention to his joysticks.

Jordan gestured at him. “Dr. Granger, that’s our computer jockey, Corporal Sanderson, and the man over there drinking all our water is Specialist Cooper.”

The husky black man snapped on a pair of latex gloves. A dozen bloodstained pairs filled the nearby garbage can.

“I’d stay and chat, but I gotta get back to cleanup duty.” Cooper looked to Jordan. “Where you hiding the extra batteries? McKay’s camera is almost dead, and we have to get everyone photographed before we bag ’em.”

Erin winced. She went pale again. Being in-country for so long, Jordan realized how easy it was to forget the sheer horror of what surrounded him every day.

Not much he could do for her right now. Or the bodies outside. “Blue pack, right pocket.”

Cooper dug a lithium ion battery from the zipper compartment.

“Damn it!” Sanderson swore, drawing their attention.

“What’s wrong?” Jordan asked.

“The rover is stuck again.”

Cooper rolled his eyes and left the tent.

The corporal frowned at the image on the color monitor like it was a video game he was about to lose.

Erin leaned over his shoulder and stared at the four monitors, each displaying footage from one of the ROV’s cameras. “Is that from inside the crevasse?”

“Yeah, but the robot’s jammed up tight.”

The screen displayed the reason for Sanderson’s frustration. The rover had wedged into a crack. Fallen grit and pebbles obscured two cameras. Sanderson pressed the sticks and the tank treads spun ineffectively, kicking up more debris. “Army piece of crap!”

The equipment wasn’t the problem. The ROV was state-of-the-art, packed with enough sensing and radar instruments to detect a mouse farting in a warehouse. The problem was that Sanderson hadn’t yet mastered the art of manipulating the dual joysticks. Jordan couldn’t run them either.

Erin glanced at him, eyes curious. “Is that an ST-20? I’ve logged hundreds of hours on one. Could I give it a shot?”

Might as well give her something to do. Sanderson didn’t look like he’d get the robot out. Plus Jordan respected anyone who was willing to jump in and help. “Sure.”

Sanderson lifted his hands in obvious disgust and rolled his chair out of the way. “Be my guest. The only thing I haven’t tried doing is crawling down that hole and kicking it.”

Erin stood where Sanderson’s chair had just been and took both joysticks like she knew what she was doing. She alternated between the front and rear controls, inching the ROV forward and backward much like she was trying to parallel-park.

“I tried that,” Sanderson said. “It’s not going to—”

The ROV abruptly pulled out of the crack. Jordan saw Erin smother a quick smile of victory, and respected her all the more for trying to spare Sanderson’s feelings.

Sanderson stood and put his hands on his hips. “Dude! You’re making me look bad in front of my CO.”

Then he smiled and pushed his chair behind her like it was a throne. Once she got settled, she looked up at Jordan. “What are we looking for?”

“Our team’s been commissioned to find the source of the gas.”

“Let me guess,” she said with a true smile. “I’m here to assure the Israeli government that you don’t destroy any millennia-old artifacts in the process?”

Jordan matched her smile. “Something along those lines.”

He didn’t take it any further than that, but her presence here was at the request of Israeli intelligence, not the antiquities department. He wasn’t sure why yet. And he hated unsolved mysteries.

All eyes were on the monitors as she steered the ROV over a pile of rocks.

“What are you doing in Israel anyway?” Sanderson asked her.

“I have a team digging in Caesarea,” she said. “Routine stuff.”

Jordan suspected by the tone of her voice that it wasn’t routine. Interesting.

The rover slid down a rocky outcropping, then entered what appeared to be a straight passageway.

“Look at the walls.” She rotated the rover’s cameras. “Sharp-edged chipping.”

“So?” Jordan prompted.

“This tunnel is man-made. Dug out by hand and chisel.”

“Way down there? At the heart of the mountain?” He stepped closer to her. “Who do you think dug it out? The Jewish rebels who died here?”

“Maybe.” She leaned away from him. Personal space issues. He moved back a fraction. “Or the Byzantine monks who lived on the mountain centuries later. Without more evidence, it’s impossible to say. I’m guessing this little guy might be the first one down this passage in a very long time.”

The ROV climbed over a pile of rubble, halogen headlamps painting the pitch-black crevasse sickly white.

“Damn,” Erin said.

“What is it?” Jordan asked.

She turned the rover fully to the right to show a pile of broken stones.

“And?” To Jordan, it didn’t look that different from any other pile of rocks.

“Look at the top.” She traced the image on the monitor with her finger. “That was a tunnel, but it’s collapsed.”

“So has a lot of stuff,” Sanderson put in. “Why is that a big deal?”

“Look at the sides,” she said. “Those are fairly modern drill marks.”

Jordan leaned forward excitedly. “Which means?”

“It means that someone cut their way into this tunnel sometime in the last hundred years or so.” Erin sighed. “And probably stole anything of value.”

“Maybe they left the gas.” Jordan wasn’t sure why he felt relieved that it might be a modern nerve gas and not an ancient one, but he did.

She turned the rover forward again, and it rolled down the path, eventually reaching an open area.

“Stop there,” Jordan said. “What’s this place?”

“Looks like an underground storage chamber.” Erin turned the rover around to get a look at the empty room. No broken canisters yet.

Focusing on his corporal, Jordan asked, “How are the readings?”

Sanderson hunched over a neighboring monitor. He might have trouble piloting the ROV, but the kid knew his instrumentation. “Plenty of secondary breakdown products. No active agent. Still, these are by far the hottest spikes I’ve seen here. I’d say that chamber is the source of the gas.”

A camera angled up to display an arched ceiling.

“That looks like a church,” Sanderson said.

Erin shook her head. “More likely a subterranean temple or tomb. The building style is ancient.” She touched the screen, as if that would help her feel the stone.

“What is that box?” Jordan asked.

“I think it’s a sarcophagus, but I can’t be certain until I get closer. The light doesn’t go that far.”

She sent the ROV forward, but it stopped. She pushed on both joysticks, then let go with an impatient sigh.

“Stuck again?” Jordan asked. They were so close.

“End of the line,” she said. “Literally. That’s as far as the ROV’s tether can reach.”

She left the camera pointed at the sarcophagus. “Definitely appears to be a burial container. If so, somebody important must be interred there.”

“Important enough to booby-trap the chamber?” That might explain it.