Keohane, G. - Solomon's Grave

“But the adversary is close, and its time for the treasure to leave this place.”

Elizabeth turned the flashlight onto the caretaker’s face. Vincent squinted and raised one hand to block the light. She said, “What exactly do you want with Nate? If you want to take this thing away somewhere, just take it.”

“Please take that light out of my face.” When she didn’t, he sighed and nodded in the direction of the altar. “I’ve already explained that only an ordained priest of God can transport the Ark.” He looked at Nate. “You know what I’m saying is the truth, Reverend.”

Nate rose up. One knee was caked in dust. Tarretti was somehow enchanting him, playing on his faith in order to manipulate him. She aimed the light back at the box. “This is getting ridiculous. What’s inside that thing? And don’t tell me the ten commandments or I’ll hit you with this flashlight.”

She walked up to the altar and reached out. Tarretti tackled her from the side, arms around her waist. She felt something else as well, but before she could think much about it she was in the dust with Tarretti on top of her and already struggling to his feet. The flashlight had rolled to the corner of the room.

“Don’t,” he said, almost pleading, trying to catch his breath and move away from her at the same time. “If you touch it, you’ll die!”

Chapter Fifty-Three

Nathan ran to Elizabeth and took her arm, helped her up. Tarretti’s sudden move had broken the reverential spell he had fallen into when he saw the Ark. It looked much smaller than he’d expected, but the shape, the detailed gilding along its face and lid, was very much like what he had envisioned. His mood had shifted decidedly at seeing Elizabeth attacked, however, and for the moment, he let himself forget everything else except his own anger.

He turned toward Tarretti’s rising form. “Keep your hands off her, Mr. Tarretti. Maybe what you’re saying is true, but if you do something like that again, so help me—”

Vincent raised his hands. “I apologize, but you know the Bible, Reverend. You know what happens to anyone who touches this vessel.”

Nathan did understand. There were incidents in the Old Testament of people reaching out for the Ark only to fall instantly dead. Many scholars theorized that perhaps the structure was built such that it was hyperconductive to electricity, a battery of sorts built before such a thing was ever conceived of. Nathan never bought into that idea. Batteries didn’t win wars.

But something in how Tarretti said it made Nathan think, for the first time that night, that the man was lying. In some way. He looked back at the gold-laden chest.

“Is that why you need me? I’m supposed to be the only one who can touch it, is that it?”

A dust-covered Elizabeth walked to the corner and retrieved the flashlight. When she returned, she moved it alternately between the Ark and Tarretti. “Maybe you should try Saint Malachy’s across town.”

“Elizabeth, please,” Nathan said, letting impatience slip into his tone. He pointed to the table. “Where do you think I’m supposed to take this? I have a ministry to support. People need me here, not hiding in some graveyard in Kansas or Missouri.”

Vincent brushed dust off his sleeve and said, almost sadly, “God will lead you to the best place. This is your ministry now, Reverend. He will take care of your old flock somehow.”

Nathan swallowed. The dust was beginning to make him choke. He couldn’t accept this; even now, he needed to be certain. “Like Elizabeth said, is what’s inside there the tablets of the ten commandments? The actual ones Moses brought down from the mountain?” He thought, perhaps hoped, saying this out loud would sound ludicrous. It didn’t, not to him, not at this moment. Perhaps God was putting this acceptance in his heart. Or maybe he was just tired of fighting. Time to just go mad himself and live out the delusion.

Tarretti moved toward the altar, but did not touch it. Elizabeth shined the light into the center of his jacket. “I thought I felt something when you landed on me. What’s in your front coat pocket, Tarretti?”

Vincent put a hand to the front of his windbreaker and sighed, like a man who’d just eaten something that did not agree with him. “It’s a gun, Miss O’Brien.”

Nathan and Elizabeth stiffened.

“Please,” he continued. “I’m not going to shoot you. I didn’t think you’d like the fact that I came here armed. Believe me, it is purely for our protection.” He turned toward Nathan. “Reverend, I feel strongly that our time is running out, and I need to tell you one more thing.”

A light thump behind them was followed by a man’s voice. “Please do not move, or I will be forced to shoot you.”

The words were spoken in a monotone, like a person learning lines in a play. The shock of the new arrival was so surprising no one moved, except to shift themselves on the dusty floor to look back toward the ladder.

Before Elizabeth’s flashlight beam landed across him, Nathan knew who that voice belonged to. Josh Everson stood at the base of the ladder, a small black gun in his hand. He held it with a steady assurance, though Nathan could not remember his friend ever holding one before.

Josh stared with sorrowful eyes, almost the look of a sleepwalker. He raised the gun toward Elizabeth. “Move the light away now, please.” His voice grew in urgency as he said this. Everyone in the room came to the same conclusion. He was preparing to shoot someone. Elizabeth lowered the flashlight to a spot on the floor between her and Nathan. Josh stood no more than five feet from him, but to Nathan, it seemed a hundred miles. This couldn’t be Josh. It was too much to accept that he was involved in this.

Then again, he hadn’t known about Josh and Elizabeth’s relationship either. He hadn’t known this... thing... was buried in his home town. No, his best friend was not about to shoot Elizabeth.

“Josh,” he said, almost sadly. Josh moved his head toward him in a jerking motion. Nathan continued, “Josh, what’s going on? It’s me, Nate. And Elizabeth.”

Josh’s head did a robot turn toward her. No recognition, in what expression could be seen in the dust covered light.

There was a sudden scrunch! from across the small room. Vincent had opened the front of his jacket and was reaching inside.

Josh aimed his gun at the caretaker’s chest and did not hesitate when he pulled the trigger. The room exploded with sound and one bright, blue-white flash. Nathan put his hands to his ears, feeling pain in his head from the shot’s reverberation. Elizabeth reached out and pulled him to the floor.

Josh did not fire the gun again.

Elizabeth whispered, “Vincent?” The fact that she used his first name, and in such a tentative way, filled Nathan with a terrible premonition. In the suddenness of what had just happened, the fact that Josh had shot the man hadn’t registered until now. He added his own, “Tarretti? Vince, you OK?” He wanted to ask Josh why he’d done it, but now he didn’t want to draw his friend’s attention their way.

Elizabeth shined the flashlight toward where the caretaker had been standing.

Vincent Tarretti slid along the wall, the jacket bunching up against his back. His hands were pressed against his stomach, just above the oversized pocket. Blood spilled though his fingers. He moaned once, landing in a spread-eagle sitting position.

Vincent blinked rapidly in the flashlight beam, looking more confused than anything, then whispered, “I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes and he fell sideways until his head tilted onto the dusty floor. He tried to reach out, managed to get his right arm raised, then it, too, fell to the floor. He did not move again.