God's Lions: The Secret Chapel (34 page)

In the wake of the colossal news story from the United States dominating the airwaves, the crash of a private jet in the Mediterranean was never mentioned by the media. The search for the missing pilots would continue into the night and on through the next day, even though the searchers were convinced that the two brave men were now resting in God’s arms at the bottom of the sea.

Light from inside the villa cast yellow boxes of color across the brick walkways outside the windows as the sun dipped below the horizon. Upstairs in his room, Leo awoke from a brief nap, unable to sleep any longer. He wandered down to the poolside bar where he found John sitting quietly by himself with the backpack at his side. Leo poured two glasses of wine as they looked at one another with unspoken relief at being alive. They sipped their wine in silence before deciding to walk out and sit on the beach. In the gathering darkness, the sound of the surf pounding against the shore provided a rhythmic backdrop to their discussion.

Leo was deep in thought as he gazed out into the total blackness covering the sea and held the wineglass to his nose, inhaling the multilayered aroma. “I think we should have paid more attention to what the code was trying to tell us before we rushed off with the book today.”

“I know, Father. That crash was no accident. Something was with us on that plane. It’s like some form of enveloping energy follows the book wherever it goes. If I hadn’t spotted this backpack when I did, it would have washed back up on shore and then someone or something would have recovered it. No doubt it would have found its way back into that desert or another hiding place somewhere in the world.”

“We’ve got to get that book to Rome somehow,” Leo said, “but I don’t want to risk trying to fly with it again.”

“How about traveling over land?”

“Too risky. We would have to cross Lebanon and Syria before we reached Turkey.”

“Yeah, those are fun countries.”

“Exactly. That’s why I think our best bet is to go by boat.”

“Couldn’t the same force that destroyed the jet do the same to a boat? I mean, don’t you think one rescue at sea is enough for a while, Father?”

“True, but I’m not sure if the force we’re facing is coming directly from the book itself or from farther away. Something is trying to keep the book from leaving the Holy Land, John, and it’s capable of reaching out and bringing down an airplane.”

Leo twisted the base of his glass in the sand. “When we rushed to get on the plane, we failed to take any precautions, and we were almost killed. This time, we’ve got to be more vigilant. I’ve really got to think this one through, because time is running out.”

“Well then, Father, I guess we need to find an unsinkable boat that can take us to Italy.”

Leo laughed out loud as he finished his wine. “I think we both know who we need to talk to. Let’s go find him and see what he’s probably already worked out for us.”

They rose and wandered through the dunes to the silent villa before finding Lev sitting quietly in his upstairs library under a single lamp, absorbed in a book. Lev noticed the two enter the room and pushed his reading glasses up on his forehead, his wrinkled brow furrowing over his bushy eyebrows as Leo and John took seats across from him in matching green wingchairs.

“Ah, what a day, my friends,” Lev said. “I don’t know whether to feel sorrow or happiness. The attack in Houston has brought great sadness to the world. But on the other hand, God has given me back my Ariella. It’s like a giant hand reached down and snatched all of you from a certain death. I had to come up here to read for a while. It helps to clear my head.”

“What are you reading?” Leo asked.

“Revelation. I thought it was appropriate at a time like this.”

“You’ll have to pardon me, sir,” John said, “but I don’t think reading Revelation would clear anyone’s head.”

“No, you’re probably right, my young friend, but I was trying to find some insight into the events of the past few days. I only wish we could have found a warning about the attack on Houston, but sadly, predictions about the future only happen by chance. It’s all part of God’s plan after all. We can never be in complete control or have knowledge of everything. After the attack this morning, we entered the words “Houston” and “nuclear bomb” into the code program, and immediately, the computer found an encoded reference to the event, including the exact hour the bomb would explode. Unless you know specifically what you’re looking for, the only way to find predictions is to accidentally stumble across them like they did with the encoded message of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. After he was killed, the researchers went back and found the name of the assassin, but his name wouldn’t have meant anything to them beforehand. The Bible code keeps giving us snippets of information, like God whispering in our ears.”

“What’s on your mind, Lev?” Leo asked, sensing that something else was troubling him.

“I’ve just finished talking with Daniel. He’s begun to translate the Devil’s Bible.”

John literally jumped up from his chair. “You’re kidding. That’s great!”

“I don’t know if
great
is the word I would use, John. I may have an inquisitive mind, but reading the words of Lucifer is not a task any Christian should take lightly.”

“Has he been able to learn anything so far?”

Lev put his copy of the New Testament aside and leaned forward. “You were very wise to have the book copied for future study in case anything happens to it, Leo. The information we’ve found so far is invaluable. When Daniel’s computer program started translating from the back of the book forward, it became clear why the dark angel is so anxious to have his book back. It appears that Lucifer has his own version of Revelation, and it’s already started.”

“I must have missed something,” Leo said, his emotions sliding from excitement to dread. “Did you say that a different version of Revelation has already started?”

“Yes. The book itself is like an unholy relic. Some of our own holy Christian relics are able to perform miracles in God’s name. The Devil’s relic, if that’s what we can call it, has the power to cause great evil in the world. That’s the most likely reason it was hidden here on earth. Apparently, Satan’s timetable and God’s timetable for the end of days don’t agree.”

Leo stood and began pacing the room. “Then if that’s true, why were we sent to bring something like that out into the world?”

Lev stirred in his seat. “According to what Daniel has been able to decipher so far, the Devil’s Bible has made an appearance in the world once before and was sealed back up to await the end of days. It has the power to jumpstart the reign of the Antichrist before the rapture, causing millions of Christians to remain here on earth to suffer before God can gather them up.”

“That’s impossible,” Leo practically shouted. “God would never allow it.”

“That’s why we were sent to retrieve the book and take it to the chapel under the Vatican. God wants it destroyed, Leo. We are to be His instruments in preventing Satan from rushing the biblical timetable. God is sending us to protect those who have given their lives over to Christ ... we’re soldiers in a celestial war now ... and there are going to be casualties, Father.”

Leo’s mind was reeling. “You say the book has made an appearance once before?”

“Father Morelli told me of an old archaeologist priest who worked alone out in the Negev Desert back in the late 1930s. He was one hundred years old when he died last year. He was Morelli’s mentor and taught him about the area under the Vatican. His name escapes me, but there were stories from some Bedouins in the area that he found something out there and then suddenly left the country.”

“Gilberto Bianchi,” John said. “That was his name. Father Morelli was his successor.”

“GB,” Leo shouted, startling both Lev and John. They looked at him, waiting for some kind of explanation. “GB ... the initials carved into the wall of the cavern where we found the Devil’s Bible!”

“Wow ... you’re right.” John said. “That’s who must have tunneled down there before us and then covered up that section of the cavern where the backhoe fell in. Remember those old timbers and that lantern we found next to the tunnel entrance?”

Leo looked puzzled. “There’s only one problem. How would he have known where to look? Even if he knew about the code, he lacked a computer to unravel it.”

“He could have been counting sequenced letters in the Bible by hand and accidentally stumbled across the coordinates of the cavern,” Lev said. “A few people who believed in the code before computers tried to find it using that method, but it was painstakingly difficult, and it took years to find even one or two words spelled out, so most researchers gave up. It’s my guess that he didn’t even know what he was looking for. He might have simply found a set of coordinates in the Bible and followed the lead like any good archaeologist would do.”

“Still, there’s no way he could have gone down there all alone,” Leo said. “And even if he did, the book was encased under six feet of solid rock and guarded by demons.”

Lev ran his hand through his gray beard and looked up at Leo. “I think he was allowed to take it, Father. It probably wasn’t encased under the stone when he found it.”

Leo’s mind was racing. “But why take it and then return it?”

Lev faced a wall of shelves that were filled with books ... books that had become like friends to him over the years. “I’ve been sitting here thinking about that. It was the same time the earth was being ravaged by World War II. That was when the Holocaust occurred. At least fifty million people around the world died. We’ll never know the true number. It was the single darkest hour in mankind’s history. The first nuclear bombs were used then, and for the first time in history, we had been given the means to destroy ourselves.”

Leo stood in front of the room’s only window and looked out into the darkness. “So you’re saying that Satan had a hand in allowing the book to leave the cavern?”

“Exactly, Father. Like I said before, it’s my theory that Bianchi was allowed to bring the book out into the world once he discovered it. Then later, sometime during the war, he realized what it was and connected it to the events that were happening. He must have been horrified by the book’s power to unleash so much misery around the world.”

“That’s a good hypothesis, Lev, but how could he have returned it to the cavern and carve out a warning to ‘leave it in place’ without the demons stopping him?”

“I think God probably had a hand in protecting Bianchi when he returned the book to the desert. The priest was an unwitting participant in Satan’s attempt to show God his power. Lucifer continues to deny that God is more powerful than he is. He probably couldn’t resist showing off a little and used a priest to do it.”

“This is unreal,” John said. “The Devil’s Bible has been lying out there ever since, waiting for someone of Satan’s choosing to remove it so it could make an appearance in the world again sometime before the end of days ... only we beat him to it.”

Leo looked uncomfortable. Too many things just weren’t adding up. Father Morelli had been very close to Bianchi, but Morelli obviously knew nothing about the book. Leo could only guess at whom Bianchi might have confided in. Surely, he must have told someone at the Vatican about something so monstrous and evil after he discovered what the book was capable of. Maybe that’s why there was so much interest in them from the Vatican security people, if that’s who they really were.

“We also received the lab results from the sample of the book we took,” Lev added. “The DNA shows that the cover is made from the skin of a jackal. We’re still not clear on the symbolism involved, but we do know that the Antichrist will be born of a jackal, so that’s not too surprising. What bothers me the most is the evil that seems to flow from it. I’m convinced now more than ever that it must be destroyed, and that God alone will have to do it. It’s up to those chosen by God to keep the Devil’s book from falling into the wrong hands and deliver it to the chapel. Without Satan’s Bible, those who would change the biblical timetable laid out in the Book of Revelation will be rendered powerless.”

Leo’s face turned pale. The darkness outside seemed even darker. “They’re going to pull out all the stops to prevent us from reaching the chapel now. This is an extremely dangerous time, not only for us, but for the whole world if we fail.”

“How come God doesn’t just zap the book into oblivion?” John asked, peering at the backpack lying on the floor beside him. “Why does He need our help to destroy it?”

Leo turned away from the window and smiled. “God works in mysterious ways. Surely you remember that old saying, John. God has always involved man in the war between good and evil. We have to be participants in our own salvation. That’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it will always be.”

Lev clapped his hands together and stood. “We have to leave right away. I’ll make some calls and have my crew prepare the yacht while you two gather anything you may need for the trip.

“You were right, Father,” John said, grinning. “We didn’t even have to ask about the boat. The man already had a plan.”

Lev picked up the phone and called Moshe and Alon before heading for the door. He stopped and looked back at his two American friends. “This time we all go together.” He reached for the door and paused again. “And, John, don’t forget the book.” He winked before turning to race down to the command center.

Lev burst through the command center doors and saw Daniel sitting alone in front of his computer.

“Hi, Professor.” Daniel looked up at him with bloodshot eyes.

“Grab your laptop, son,” Lev said. “We’re leaving.”

Alon and Moshe entered the center and headed straight for the weapons room. They grabbed several radios and a multitude of weapons from the racks on the walls, including automatic rifles, pistols, grenades, and explosives.

Upstairs, lights were coming on all over the villa as John and Leo ran to their rooms and threw some clothes into their backpacks. With a backpack full of clothes on one shoulder and the backpack containing the Devil’s Bible on the other, John sprinted down a long hallway to Ariella’s room and knocked on the door. She opened it and stood there for a moment before she grabbed him around the neck, pulling him into the room and kissing him deeply. John responded, forgetting for a moment why he was there.