The Demas Revelation Read online

  THE DEMAS REVELATION

  Published by David C Cook

  4050 Lee Vance View

  Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

  David C Cook Distribution Canada

  55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5

  David C Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications

  Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England

  The graphic circle C logo is a registered trademark of David C Cook.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

  no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

  without written permission from the publisher.

  This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s

  imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible, ©

  Copyright 1960, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

  LCCN 2007921093

  ISBN 978-1-58919-090-0

  eISBN 978-1-4347-6558-1

  © 2007 Shane Johnson

  Published in association with the Steve Laube Agency,

  5501 N. 7th Ave., #502, Phoenix, AZ 85013.

  First Printing, 2007

  Cover photo of woman by Angelo Cavalli/Getty

  Cover design by studiogearbox.com

  Interior design by Lisa A. Barnes

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Author’s Interview

  This book is dedicated in loving memory to Zola Levitt

  For decades an untiring soldier for Christ,

  he did much to light the path for Jew and Gentile alike

  and set many on the course for home.

  Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

  And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”

  He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

  Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

  And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”

  —Matthew 16:13–17

  Prologue

  A glint of silver.

  With that, a veiling of centuries would come to a sudden end, there in a deliberate darkness, hidden away, lost to the world.

  The moment had come.

  The air became thick and still. Three pairs of young, wind-dried eyes opened wider as the passage narrowed, the light-drenched world falling behind. A handful of other caves explored that morning led them on forays that had proved all too brief, the caves’ depth and promise less than had been hoped for. But now, more than a dozen feet of gently sloping rock had already been conquered, with more lying before them, shrouded in mystery, taunting the meager beams of their flashlights.

  The trio, two boys and a girl, slowly continued their search, their lights sweeping ahead as their classroom chairs, many miles away, sat noticeably empty. Words spoken just the day before, as the children sat transfixed and listening, had not been lost on them—words embodying the kind of adventure that had long been the substance of their dreams.

  A minor earthquake lasting less than a minute had shaken the area a decade before. Loosened rock had fallen away from the cavern’s entrance, allowing access, but for ten years afterward, no one had noticed the exposed crevice. The youths’ choice of that particular opening in the tawny rock had been random, or so it had seemed. The cavern was just another of many, one of thousands cut by millennia of natural forces into a vast, mountainous land. While hundreds of such caves had, over the decades, given up whatever secrets they held, there were simply too many for any significant number to have been cataloged. Too many to have been explored and mapped and known.

  Treasure, the children were sure, was there for the taking. Perhaps not the kind of plunder they had seen in the movies—glittering booty wrested from lords and ladies by loutish, laughing pirates, who held it aloft before scattering and hiding it away—but treasure nonetheless.

  The wisdom of the ages, recorded by hands long ago turned to dust.

  Twenty-five, then fifty, then a hundred feet into the mountainside the children ventured, sometimes crouching, making their way where no one had been for a very long time. Or maybe never, they feared. Breathing was a labor, the air cramped and oppressive and thick like the stone all around them—their lungs, as if drowning, fought against taking another breath. The earthy scent soaked into them, pervading their clothes, coating their tongues, crawling into every pore. Their clothes were dusty, their faces smudged.

  Every few feet the smallest and youngest of their number complained to his brother, a fear of the heavy darkness tearing at him as it so often did, rising as the sunlight dwindled and finally vanished behind them. Each protest, however, brought only the promise of “Just a little farther.”

  Then, in the distance, from within the cool, palpable solitude of a chamber not altogether naturally formed, something shone in their searching beams.

  Silver.

  Excitement propelling them forward, the three emerged from the tunnel into a roughly circular chamber, its higher ceiling allowing them to stand. The boy in the lead rushed quickly toward the glint he had seen, his fingers sweeping away the shallow layer of sand that still partly concealed the object. His heart leaped. He knew the object for what it was—or thought he did. He had seen pictures in a storybook.

  He turned with his find and showed the others, straining under its weight as he held it out for all to see. It was as long as he was tall. Their cheers echoed loudly off the chamber walls. Uncounted generations had been born and had passed into history since a glimmer of light had last found the polished contours of the ancient treasure. Wars, rumors of wars, and rare sprinklings of peace had flared and fled away. Nations had risen and fallen. All the while, there in the darkness, it had waited, untouched but never forgotten.

  And now, finally, its wait was over.

  The three took a quick glance around. Then their small hands burrowed into the smaller, loose chips of flat stone that covered much of the chamber floor. They found nothing else, though the broken shards—seemingly deliberately placed—whispered of more treasure, perhaps just beneath the surface.

  But they had no tools. They had been hoping to find clay jars, like those once famously and accidentally discovered by a shepherd boy elsewhere among those same hills. Instead, they had stumbled upon something very different, with no way to dig, to understand, to properly explore their find.

  But they knew someone who could.

  A veil of mystery, concealing an artifact forgotten by the world, hidden and left undisturbed for centuries, with his help, would be lifted. They would be famous, and the find would hold eternal ramifications for them all.

  Much to the relief of the youngest, they crawled, crouched, and ran from the cavern, their eyes narrowing in protest as they rushed back into the morning light. Excitement tightening their chests
, shouts of triumph burst from their dusty throats. Marveling at the way the ornate metal caught the sun, the eldest hefted the artifact into a canvas bag he had tied to the handlebars of his bike. He knew his fingers were the first to grasp the object in ages, warming its shaft where they wrapped around it. With the bag tied tight, he paused, looking at his hands, wondering who had last held the prize—perhaps, he marveled, someone whose name he had read in the Torah.

  Their trusty steeds of metal and rubber now beneath them, the children kicked off and pedaled hard, dust flying in their wake as they descended the slope. The town lay miles away.

  In that town was one who had to be told, had to be shown—if he was still there.

  Dr. Sam Meridian sat beneath the shade of a table umbrella at Kibbutz Almog, sipping a cup of tea as he went over his notes. His early morning meeting with a representative of the Israeli government had borne no fruit, yielding no extension of permission to excavate further at the temple mount in Jerusalem. The dig had ended abruptly, stopped by the political protests and threatened violence of a number of Palestinian activists, for whom any validation of the site’s Jewish history was anathema.

  It’s got to be there somewhere …

  Persistent belief among rabbinical scholars placed the long-vanished ark of the covenant in a deep chamber directly beneath the ancient Holy of Holies of the fallen temple, where King Josiah, who had feared the impending Babylonian conquest, had ordered it hidden. No one had seen the ark since—even in the time of Christ, its proper and sanctified place behind the temple veil had remained agonizingly empty.

  As empty as the mount itself—in the eyes of the Jews—now was.

  Meridian hadn’t even gotten close. Less than ten feet of side tunnel had been excavated when officials ordered the dig to a halt. Sixty-three feet more, by Meridian’s calculation, would have been necessary.

  Might as well have been a thousand.

  It was morning, but already the air was warm. Meridian unfastened the top button of his short-sleeved khaki twill shirt and fanned his chest with the loosened material. The arid climate was something Meridian never seemed to adjust to, no matter how often he came to the region. He fished around in a pocket of his cargo vest, seeking a throat lozenge as he looked out over the diminutive vacation retreat, its brilliant colors alive in the light of the climbing sun. Beneath a cloudless sky, roofing tiles of warm sienna topped walls of soft desert orange. Palms swayed in the gentle, salty breezes, their music further seasoning the air. The mountains beyond the rooftops formed a purple crown, and at their base, unseen from that vantage point, spread a Dead Sea as still as its name implied.

  Meridian thought back over his life’s work, his mind splashed with images of other more successful expeditions. He had led the group that had unearthed the tomb of Kharthunan—a previously unknown son of Merenptah—in the Valley of the Kings. He had also supervised the dig that found the first extrabiblical proof of the apostle John’s imprisonment on the island of Patmos. He and his staff, using ground-scanning radar, had even discovered and excavated a forgotten wine cellar beneath the chapel of the world’s most famous Spanish mission—the Alamo in Texas.

  But the big one, he felt, had gotten away.

  Perhaps, he mused, it just isn’t time yet.

  The thought provided little consolation, but it would have to be enough, at least for now.

  Anna, he smiled, his mind turning to his wife of but three years. She had been the brightest part of his life, a treasure greater than any he had discovered hidden in the soil. While earning a doctorate in ancient history, she had also discovered a love for archaeology through her relationship with Meridian, prompting her to add a second degree to her résumé and to adopt his field as her own.

  His smile widened as he remembered the first time she accompanied him on a dig, the expedition into Egypt. As he and his students dug down through the windblown sands, bringing to light the portal of Kharthunan’s tomb, she had begun to speak of the king and his time as if she had been there. Hers was an exquisite, disciplined imagination, which, when fueled by known facts, could paint an uncanny and emotional portrayal of ancient days. While far from scientific, her musings had brought a new understanding to Meridian’s work, making the past live again in a way he had never known.

  This unique woman had brought color and meaning into a life once as dry and parched as desert earth.

  I’m so glad you’re here, baby.

  His thoughts drifted to a dig in Mexico where he and his team—including Anna—had been victimized. As they slept following a long day inside the tomb of Pactalacata, their backs weary and their muscles aching, others had entered the site. Quietly, so quietly, the intruders had stolen a priceless stone calendar unearthed only that day, a beautifully chiseled circular artifact some three feet in diameter—a prize of the Aztecs.

  In the years since, Meridian had kept a watchful eye on the black market and the Internet, following whatever tenuous lead presented itself.

  And now, finally, he knew who had robbed him—and the world.

  Meridian arranged the evidence before him—a handful of photos and scrawled notes—into a neat stack and placed them into a heavy protective envelope.

  I’ve got you now!

  Authorities across the globe in Mexico City were already awaiting the information, and soon it would be delivered. As he slid the envelope into a leather satchel and closed the clasp, a sound caught his ear. Running feet, rapidly approaching.

  “Professor!”

  The word was shouted, the pronunciation flawed. Meridian turned to see three excited youths rounding the corner of the gated courtyard. In the hand of one of the boys—Ronen, he recalled—was a long canvas bag.

  “We hoped you would still be here,” panted the boy in Hebrew. “After you spoke to our science class yesterday, we went searching for scrolls. Instead, we found this.”

  He handed the bag to Meridian, who loosened the string tie and peeled away the fabric, exposing glinting metal.

  How?

  The object was now free and in his hands. His throat suddenly tightened, swollen with awe. He recognized the artifact at once.

  A shovel.

  No—the shovel.

  It was ornate and ceremonial in design, its engraved contours splotched with far less tarnish than there should have been, given its age and the sulfurous pools that dotted the area. Its handle was almost five feet in length, its deep scoop wider than two spread hands.

  It was an implement of the second temple, a vital part of the sacrificial process. The priests of ancient Israel had used it to carry ashes from the top of the mizbeach ha’-ola, the sacred altar of the burnt offering.

  His mind ablaze, Meridian looked up and stared in the direction of a modern re-creation of the wilderness tabernacle, which stood nearby at the foot of the Judean Hills. Many times he had visited the site and had appreciated the carefully crafted replicas of the implements temple priests had used.

  But this, he knew, was no mere reproduction. He could feel the ages in its metal, the antiquity in every contour.

  “Where did you find this?” Meridian asked in the same language, amazement punctuating his words.

  “There,” the girl said, pointing toward the mountains. “In the caves.”

  Qumran!

  “Which cave, Daphna?” the man asked, excitement tensing his throat. “Can you find it again?”

  “Yes,” she replied, smiling. “Easily.”

  “Is there more? Anything else in the cave?”

  “There may be,” Ronen said. “The ground was strange, as if the stones had been put there.”

  Meridian pulled a cell phone from his vest, fumbled with it for a moment, then punched in a number.

  “Anna, it’s me. There’s been a find. A big one. Pack everything and meet me at the Qumran turn
off in half an hour.”

  “Qumran?” she asked, puzzled. “Why there? What did you find?”

  “We may have been looking in the wrong place. You and Joe just meet me, and I’ll explain when I see you. I have to go.”

  “All right,” she said with a measure of audible frustration. “See you there. Love you.”

  “Love you, too,” he returned softly. “So much.”

  He closed the phone, slipped it back into a vest pocket, and turned back to the boy.

  “Show me.” Meridian rose, grabbing his gear.

  Running from the courtyard, they headed for the parking lot and the rough-terrain vehicle waiting there.

  But their departure didn’t go unnoticed.

  “Scooter, turn that down!”

  The volume of the television slowly dropped as the frowning boy punched a button on the remote and cast a cutting glance toward his nanny. The seven-year-old, his brown eyes sparkling pools of liquid mischief, lay on his stomach on the king-size bed, his chin propped against his other hand.

  “But I like this cartoon,” he whined.

  “You’ll still like it if it isn’t rattling the windows, dear.”

  “Not as well.”

  The room was modest but comfortable, one of the family rooms of Kibbutz Almog. The holiday hotel, nestled within an oasis at the northern end of the Dead Sea, was surrounded by deserts unchanged since the time of the exodus. A popular spot for local vacationers, researching historians, and those embarked upon globe-crossing pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

  Anna Meridian emerged from the bathroom in a pastel green T-shirt and khaki shorts, still putting up her hair. With practiced precision, her fingers manipulated her chestnut tresses into an updo suited for the work she knew must lay ahead. A subtle smile played upon her full lips, crafted by the curiosity swirling behind it.

  “We’re supposed to meet Sam in fifteen minutes, Ruth,” she told the nanny. “How’s Joe coming?”

  “He was almost ready to go,” Ruth said, grabbing the remote and muting the television for a moment.