Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (36 page)

The monorail took them to
a peninsula in the middle of the Mississippi River, overlooking
downtown Memphis. The two then walked to the Riverwalk on Mud
Island. The Riverwalk was an exact scale model of the Mississippi
River,
the most vital river in the
US.

Becca recognized the
Professor from a picture Elisha showed to her last night. He was
standing in the Gulf of Mexico. “
Hiya
,” said a tall man, with
a thick
British
accent and tanned skin. He looked to be in his mid-to-late forties.
He bore a
resemblance
to a young Sean Connery.

“
Did you leave all your
electronics at home?” asked Becca.

“
Yup
, I listened to your father’s directions very carefully. I’m
pretty sure that no one followed me from the car park. I changed
direction
many
t
imes before boarding the monorail. You
know, that’s how Indiana Jones would’ve done it.”

They grabbed a bench overlooking the
Riverwalk.

“
So what’s a Brit like you
doing in Memphis, Tennessee?” asked Josh.

“
Well
mate
,
that’s very
straightforward.
” The Professor
smiled
in
reflection. “Years ago, my daughter wanted to be a country
music
star. We left our manor on
the Island.
I couldn’t find an
archeology
job
in Nashville—so here I am in Memphis.” Everybody
chuckled.

“
Becca, I trust your
father greatly. He’s brilliant. I consider him among my closest
friends,” said the Professor. “He told me that you guys believe
that you’ve found something
very
significant,
and I might be able to
help.”

Josh looked around to see
if anyone was listening. His countenance turned
solemn
. “Professor McMillan,
the minute that I tell you what we hope we’ve found, and where
we
believe
it is; your life is in jeopardy. Are you sure you want to
know?”

McMillan’s eyes darted over the
Memphis skyline, and then rested on the robustly flowing
river.

“
God is my protection. If
it’s my time to go, I win. If I stay, I win. I can’t lose either
way. God is
truth
.
Truth
is like water. And I’m very
thirsty.”

“
Alright. We believe that
we’ve discovered the Ark of the Covenant’s location,” said
Josh.

Professor McMillan sat
still. Astonished. After a long
pause,
he said, “
Crikey
, so my Indiana Jones
comment was more appropriate than I thought. Where is it?” Josh
pulled out
the crinkled A-Map. He
reviewed t
he location. Then the coupled
filled McMillan in on their history with the NSA.

The Professor
seemed
excited,
but dubious. “I’m not aware of anyone ever
looking
in
that spot for Ark. Very near that area, closer to the Temple
Mount, there is an excavation
in
the City of David. It’s only within
the last 100 years that we’ve come to refer to this area as David’s
city.

“
We used to place David’s
city much further away. Just a few yards north, right outside of
the Temple Mount is another archeological site—
the
Ophel
. I
guess I’m
finding it hard to believe
that a computer
program, a
neural network as you call
it, can
predict the location
of an artifact that’s been missing for thousands of
years.”

Josh said he understood
the Professor’s feelings. He described some of the correct
predictions the AI was rendering, including detailing the success
of the trading platform. While he couldn’t tell the Professor how
the computer came to its conclusions, he could
tell him that
the works of
Josephus seemed to
be inordinately
weighted
in importance.

“
Professor, I don’t need
you to believe the AI. I need you to help us dig to this
geo-marker. My only archeology experience comes from playing
Minecraft
. We don’t know
the first thing about
excavation.
We
need your expertise.”

After briefly pondering
the situation, the Professor said, “I might be
barmy
, but count me in.”

Josh told McMillan that
all expenses would
be
paid
. They ran through the specifics of
the plan, including the excavation details and the help
from
El
Jefe.
The
Professor especially liked the
inclusion
of the
archeological
robots, fitted
with sonar probes.

“
I’ve never had to
excavate in secret, so this will be a new experience. And this is a
non-standard dig. We’re in a big hurry. H
opefully,
as we tunnel, it’ll
become clear what we’re
looking
for
. If we come across any
notable
artifacts along the way, we’ll catalog them.

“
I’ve been to Israel,
Egypt, and Jordan before. It shouldn’t be a problem getting into
the country. I’ll sneak to the
site after it’s prepared
.”
If
the FBI or
Shin Bet arrested Josh or Becca
before
joining the Professor, Josh made
McMillan promise to proceed with the dig. Becca also showed the
Professor the list of equipment they’d already procured. She noted
other items he requested.

“
Professor, I’m making a
lot of money for my dad with this AI. And he’s backing this. We’ll
get you whatever you
need.
”

After some further
details, McMillan said, “What I see here are two
very bright
people that are willing to sacrifice their freedom for
something they
believe
in
. That’s something I respect. As we’ve
been talking, I’ve been thinking about the works of
Josephus.

“
He wrote two
primary
works,
the
Wars of the Jews
and the
Antiquities of the
Jews
. There’ve been some theories that
make extensive use of Josephus. They place the first and second
Temple at about the spot your AI pinpoints. The
ideas
are considered fringe
by the majority of
archaeologists
.

“
A lot of scholars don’t
consider Josephus to be a reliable eyewitness. They say he was
prone to exaggeration. They also argue that he was too beholden to
Rome to write an accurate history—Rome paid him.

“
Dr. Ernest Martin was a
scholar who wrote a book in the year 2000 that best lays out the
theory. From the outset, you should know that it’s almost
sacrilegious to
sa
y that the Temple
was located
in any other
place than on the Temple Mount.
The
Wailing Wall is the most sacred
site in Judaism. So, a l
ot of
people savagely attacked Martin.

“
His theory was that the
Western Wall—‘Kotel’ in Hebrew—was not the retaining wall for the
ancient Temple. Rather, it’s the remnants of the Fortress Antonia.
Martin places the Temple, on the Acra, south of Fortress
Antonia—around the spot of your geo-marker.

“
At the same time, it
could just mean that the Ark was moved to that location and buried.
I mean, it might not say anything about the
site
of the Temple.
Hopefully, we’ll get some guidance during the
excavation.

“
In any case, your
geo-marker is located in a historically
significant
place. Not only did
David first seize the city from the Jebusites near that marker, but
300 years later, King Hezekiah dug a tunnel to protect the water
supply from a
siege
by the Assyrian King, Sennacherib. That tunnel
was 1800 feet. We’ll continue in the long line of people that have
made use
of that limestone
to accomplish great things.

“
I just
want
to make it
clear that there are ramifications beyond finding the Ark. If we
find any indication that the Temple
resided
on
this
spot,
it could change the world. Your boss, the
General, was
simply
worried about the Ark’s discovery. Redefining the
location of the Temple impacts the entire world. I can’t say how
it’ll turn out. I can tell you, just like the Bible predicted the
restoration of the nation of Israel—which happened in 1948; the
Bible says that in the Last Days, a third Temple is
coming.”

1:30 a.m., Tuesday, November 3, 2020 -
Aleppo, Syria

Commandeered House in
Syrian Controlled Neighborhood of Aleppo

The Immortals’ base of
operations was a group of homes in a quiet neighborhood of Aleppo.
On average, there were five Immortals per house. An entire
residence
was dedicated
to the Immersive Media Team.

A gigantic
steel barn, the size of a small airplane hangar,
stored the Immortals’ numerous tactical
vehi
cles. The Immortals’ support
and logistics team lodged in two other
homes
. They took care of
provisioning, communications equipment, and vehicle
maintenance.

Rahmati’s
two-story
residence was the largest in the cluster. All the bedrooms in
the dwelling were upstairs. The Commander’s
home
contained sophisticated
communications
equipment
that turned
the
downstairs living room into the Immortals’ comms hub. It was
capable of receiving tactical information from radio, satellite,
and the
Internet
. Comms was short for
communications.

Rahmati could have used
any number of Syrian bases near
Aleppo,
but he liked to keep the
Immortals separate from the other forces. He felt the comradery
lent itself to
successful
military
operations.

At little after
8:00
p.m., a
courier entered Rahmati’s house and handed him an envelope. The
Quds Force in Syria and the Revolutionary Guards leadership in
Iran, communicated exclusively by trusted couriers. It was the only
way to evade the West’s electronic espionage.

Rahmati opened the sturdy envelope. He
was surprised to see two letters. The first was from General Javan,
Rahmati’s boss. It was short. It read in Persian, ‘THUNDERCLAP
progressing as planned.’ Rahmati exhaled in relief.

The second dispatch was
from Hamid Gilani. Hamid was the CEO of Abdullah Rahmati’s
high-tech,
holding company. Hamid wrote that tests of AVICENNA were
complete. AVICENNA was performing beyond everyone’s wildest
expectations. Rahmati clinched his fist.
He looked like a soccer forward scoring the game-winning
goal to win the World Cup.
He then torched
both
documents
in the flame of a candle.

After watching some
European football with his housemates; Rahmati, Hadi Hadari,
and
three
other Immortals finished evening prayers. They knelt and
buried their foreheads into prayer mats facing the Kaaba in
Mecca.

The Commander had been
sleeping soundly for two hours. In an
instant,
he sat straight up in
bed. Across the
room,
Deputy Commander Hadari was snoring, loudly.
Rahmati quickly dressed and attached his body armor. He turned on
the armor’s embedded cameras and shook Hadari. “Wake up Hadi. I
believe we’re going to have company soon. Get ready for
battle.”

A woozy Hadari rubbed his
eyes and followed orders. Rahmati proceeded to rouse the other
Immortals in the house. During all of Rahmati’s tour in Syria, the
Immortals had never been attacked at their Aleppo base. Over the
years, Russian heavy armaments and air support, aided by
a number of
Iranian and Hezbollah soldiers; stabilized Aleppo, Homs, and
Damascus for forces loyal to the Syrian government.

Rahmati went to the comms
room and pressed a button to alert the other nearby Immortals. The
comms room contained radio communications
equipment
and
many
laptops. He sat
down
at
the comms
deck
and initiated his laptop’s video camera. Then,
the Commander browsed to Nucleus Corporation’s live streaming video
app, A-Scope.