Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (50 page)

*

“
General Shields, look at
this. I think this is them,” said the SWARM analyst.

“
This overly happy couple
looks like Becca and Josh. They went through Eliat on January 7, as
Canadian citizens. Look how they’re constantly smiling. It’s a
trick to defeat the facial recognition. They’ve also taken steps to
disguise themselves and mask the shape of their faces. I used
Nucleus’ deep learning facial recognition
API,
and it came up with
a positive
match. It’s got a 98% degree of confidence.

“
Given that they
penetrated Israel, the most logical places for their next
destination were Jerusalem, Haifa, or Tel Aviv. So, I’ve been
crunching video surveillance from those cities. This bus came to
the Wailing Wall four days later, on January 11.

“
I’ve spliced together the
feeds around the Temple Mount. Watch. After loitering around the
Wailing Wall plaza, this couple doesn’t ever go in. They try to get
lost
in
the crowd. Minutes later, they walked down this street. I
think they’re the same couple from Eliat. I zoomed in on the girl’s
hair. The blonde coloring is the same. Then, I reviewed the
satellite imagery over that
area;
there’s always a bird with eyes
on that site. I didn’t see anything directly
on, or around,
the Temple
Mount.

“
But, look here,” said the
analyst, pointing
at
Jared Adler’s property on a map. It’s the only
place in which significant construction has occurred in the last
month.
A crew
works the site, seven days a week. Friday is the only day in
which their pattern is different. There’s heavy equipment,
scaffolding, power generators—stuff like that.”

General Shields replied,
“One of the most likely sites of the Ark is
under
the Temple Mount.
Maybe they’re trying to tunnel from the residence? That would be
one long
tube
. But this is our best lead.
Good
work. Lin, let’s get the last
batch of Swarmbots deployed to this location.”

*

The Professor sprinted to
Josh and Becca. He held a dusty clay jar in his hand. “The
probe’s
sonar
just discovered this at an entrance to an ancient tunnel
system,” he said. It was the most upbeat Becca had seen the
Professor in weeks. “I want to open it in front of you two
love-birds.”

McMillan took the top off
the
long cylindrical
jar. It
contained
a metallic scroll.
“I’m
gobsmacked
. This looks
just like the copper Dead Sea Scroll. The
Israelites engraved the metal to make sure the
writin
g didn’t disintegrate
over
time, as
it does with parchment.”

McMillan unfurled the thin
metal sheet and
meticulously
examined it.

“
It’s written in Hebrew
script. It says: ‘The words of
Baruch,
the son of Neriah, written upon
instruction of Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah.’ Baruch was the Prophet
Jeremiah’s amanuensis. Jeremiah authored two books in the Hebrew
Bible. He plays a prominent role in many theories about the
Ark.”

The Professor continued
his translation. He stumbled over some of the words because ancient
Hebrew did not have
vowels. The
same group of consonants could be interpreted as different words.
It all depended on context.

“‘
The LORD God has
fashioned you, as a potter molds clay. God has ordained you to
redeem the Ark of the Covenant. Babylon has laid siege to
Jerusalem. In coming days, they will finally breach
the city
walls
. King Jehoiakim has brought this
punishment upon Judah, by playing the
harlot
. He has prostituted the
land through
a wicked
alliance with Egypt.’”

The Professor exegeted the
text. “So…this letter is from the time of the first siege of
Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, sometime before 597
BC. The King of Judah,
Jehoiakim
, acted contrary to
Jeremiah’s
advice. Rather than trusting God, the King made an alliance
with Egypt to protect Judah from Babylon.”

McMillan returned to
reading the scroll. “‘The LORD directed Jeremiah to re-veil the
Ark, utilizing wise King Solomon’s tunnels, beneath the House of
the LORD.’
Cor Blimey
!
This scroll proves
that we’re
underneath
the original location of the
Temple. ‘House of the LORD’ is an alternative name for the Temple.”
After bear-hugging Becca and Josh, it took some time for the
Professor to temper his elation and return to his
translation.

“‘
As your eyes gaze upon
the Ark, know that perilous times dawn. All the earth shall quake.
The stars shall fall from the sky. The moon shall drip with blood.
The sun shall
be draped
in sackcloth and ashes. Be at peace, our LORD is
God of gods and LORD of lords. With your last breath, grasp the
light.’

“
Hmm, that last sentence
is odd. I’m not sure I translated it correctly. It’s written
in
Aramaic. All the other text is
in Hebrew.
It’s like someone added it
later?”

The
archeology
professor
absorbed the moment. Then, McMillan fell to his knees in awe. “This
is older than any of the Dead Sea
Scrolls,
by at least 200 years.
This scroll may be the
greatest
archeological
find—
ever
.

“
Not only do we know the
Ark is close, but we’re
directly
under
the site of the first and second
Temple. We’re
beneath
the very place where the Jew’s believed God’s
presence dwelt on
earth
. And, we’re standing underneath
the site of the Temple where Jesus taught.

“
Josephus’ description was
right all along. How could we not have believed the only eyewitness
God preserved? While he saw the destruction of the second Temple to
the Romans, about 600 years before the destruction of the first
Temple
by
the Babylonians, the Temples were situated in the same place.
Due to the complete destruction of the second Temple by the Romans,
we’ve just
forgotten
the Temple’s original location.

“
Most of all, how could we
not have
believed
the words of Jesus’ prophecy. He warned that not
one stone would remain of the Temple. Thousands of Herod’s stones
comprise the
Wailing
Wall. Josh, all your AI did is read Josephus and
interpret his writing at face value.”

“
Does that mean the Temple
Mount housed the Roman fort instead?” asked Becca.

The Professor replied,
“Yes, it must’ve been the site of the Fortress Antonia. Over the
past six months, I’ve
carefully
reexamined the works of
Josephus. He states that the Fortress Antonia housed the entire
Roman Tenth Legion. A Roman
legion
was 6,000 soldiers. That number
doesn’t include support personnel.

“
I studied the commonly
accepted models of the Temple Mount. Almost all of them
are based
on
the
scale model created
by Avi-Yonah in 1973. That model of the
city of Jerusalem and the Second Temple resides
in the Israel Museum. If you
look Yonah’s portrayal of t
he Fortress,
there’s no way it could have quartered a Roman legion. It’s
too
bloody
tiny.
Josephus says that the Fort was 35 acres—the exact dimensions of
the Temple Mount.

“
The Temple and its
surrounding courts were a hotbed of insurrection.
Herod the Great and Caesar
would’ve wanted
to use
overwhelming
force to put down any
rebellion
. They wouldn’t have
built a
minuscule
fort. So it makes sense that the platform that
now houses the
Al-Aqsa
Mosque
and the
Dome of the
Rock,
contained the Fortress Antonia—not the
Temple.

“
The
geopolitical
implications of
this discovery are earth shaking. Not only does it look like we’re
near the Ark, but this copper scroll proves that the conventional
wisdom about the site of the Temple is wrong. Jews could
rebuild their T
emple today. The Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque can
stay right where they are.
Becca
and Josh, you young
lads
have changed the course of
history.
”

10:25 p.m., Wednesday, February 17,
2021 – Jerusalem, Israel

City of David

“
It looks like the
probes
sense
an opening about 15 feet ahead,” said Professor
McMillan.

A little over two weeks
ago, the Professor found the copper scroll and the outlines of
the
ancient
tunnel system. Over 2500 years, the passageways had collapsed
in many places. But the robots and the probes could follow the
contours of Solomon’s original
limestone channels
.

As hoped,
t
he existing tunnels
allowed the team to excavate much more quickly.
They were now within 20 yards of the geo-marker assigned by Josh’s
AI.

Josh’s smiled broadly. His dimples lit
up the tunnel. “Amazing. The AI was right all along.”

*

“
General Shields, what do
you want to do?” asked the SWARM analyst. “It’
s difficult to hear
over
the excavation drones and air
hammer, but it’s clear they think they’re close.”

“
Before I finally tip off
the Shin Bet, let’s get a
positive
identification
of the Ark,” replied the
General. “When I make that call, it’s all going to hit the
fan.”

After discovering Becca
and Josh’s duplicity, General Shields was able to deploy 12 of the
most up-to-date Swarmbots to Adler’s Jerusalem property. The
Swarmbots snuck into the residence with the remodeling crew. They
watched until they spied the
hidden
entry in the
bathroom.

Shields contacted Chris Fischer. As
Swarmbot’s Chief Engineer of Robotics, Fischer offered his
recommendations for Swarmbot communications in a mine-like setting.
He advised the General to send one Swarmbot down the shaft and test
the comms.

Fischer hypothesized that
while the guinea pig Swarmbot would lose satellite connectivity
once underground, it could still communicate with the other
Swarmbots. It could
make
use
of its peer-to-peer communications
protocol called, Swarmlink. Power from
Flashcharge
could also be
wirelessly transferred using Swarmlink.

During the dirt removal
process, one Swarmbot clandestinely moved onto the scissor lift
platform. Once below, the Swarmbot got eyes
on
the tunnel. Although the
signal was weak, Swarmlink worked as Fisher hoped.

As Shields got
more comfortable, he deployed additional Swarmbots
underground.
One Swarmbot was positioned
halfway down the shaft, between the scissor lifts. It served as a
relay between the five Swarmbots up top and the six subterranean
Swarmbots. Owing to the sensitive nature of the operation, the
SWARM Op Center manually controlled the
Swarmbots
, not Gamers.

*

Before she went to bed,
Becca sent
a secure
email to Jared Adler and her father. The note was
succinct: ‘WE ARE CLOSE!’

Early the next morning,
after working through the night, the team dug out a large,
hewn-stone entrance. The rectangular door was 10 feet tall,
by
six feet
wide. Both walls, to the right and left of the stone
door,
were covered
in gold. The more the team dug, the more the
walls’
outlines
became evident. They
were slightly rounded.
The rock
door had
thick handles
carved
into
its top end. It stood at a
65-degree
angle.

“
It’s like a
mini-drawbridge,” said Becca. Josh
leaped
up and grabbed the
handles,
but
nothing happened. He dropped back to the ground.