Chapter One

It was a hot day in Baalbek, Lebanon. The sun blazed down from the heavens, irradiating the landscape below with its unforgiving heat. A small group of people milled about, moving with careful precision amongst the newly discovered ruins. A sense of excitement and anticipation clung to the air.

April Fulton was among them. She’d been called in to assist in verifying the site for the Israeli Antiquities Authority. She’d recently rejoined them after finishing her mundane stint in hotel management. Now she was doing what she loved again, even after knowing that there were multiple risks and dangers associated with the job. She’d nearly lost her life more than once, but she’d learned that this was where she wanted to be most. Outdoors, identifying lost historical relics, and learning more about the cataclysmic course of humanity in the process.

“April! There you are!”

She heard the voice of her colleague Cohen Yehiel from among the group. He was one of the lead archaeologists on the scene. He’d been directing a handful of excavators to pinpoint their search and quickly stood up in greeting as she approached. They briefly shook hands.

“I heard you made one heck of a find,” she told him with a congratulatory smile.

“Oh no, not me,” he said bashfully. “Actually, that guy over there was the one that discovered it.” He pointed twenty feet away to a distinct figure who looked half buried in sand as he hunched over in a freshly dug pit, using a collapsible shovel to inspect something in the ground. His stark-white, wide-brimmed hat really stuck out in the sun. April recognized him as one of the esteemed history professors from Beirut University. Lately, he’d been getting a lot of fanfare with his string of controversial finds.

“Come on over and I’ll introduce you,” Cohen said.

“I don’t know. He looks pretty busy,” April mused, watching the extreme care it took to pull off an excavation this size. She followed Cohen, being extra careful to stay clear of the team of excavators and not to invade their survey areas. She knew she’d be especially annoyed if anyone traipsed their way through her delicate work process. It was almost like tiptoeing around a crime scene.

They reached the pit where the archaeologist was just digging up a new find. He dusted off the edges with a tiny brush and held it up in the sweltering sunlight. Then he looked up at the two new shadows cast over him. “What do you think this is?”

Cohen raised an eyebrow and glanced to April in inquiry. She didn’t expect that to be the first question, but she answered nevertheless. “Looks like an incense bowl from the Babylonian Empire. Or what’s left of it,” she corrected herself.

The professor nodded in agreement. “Precisely.” He handed it to April to hold so that he could use both hands to climb out of the pit. Once he was on solid ground, he dusted himself off in habitual fashion and used a handkerchief to mop the sweat off his brow.

“What can I do for you two?” he asked, looking fatigued. His tone was pleasant but also carried a hint of impatience.

Cohen started off the introductions. “Mr. Howard Clarke, this is April—”

“April Fulton,” the professor finished. “I’ve heard of her…and her exploits.”

“And I you,” April mentioned, not knowing if Howard was using his academic scorn to look down on her any less. She could tell right off the bat that he was the type that wanted to take credit for everything and didn’t like any outside agencies; even one as prestigious as hers, to interfere or discredit his find.

“She’s here to verify the find,” Cohen reminded him.

“I know.” Howard’s rugged face was shadowed beneath the brim of his hat. “Before we go any further, I’d like your assurances that my department in Beirut will get the necessary recognition for this discovery…and that Israel won’t seize any artifacts on this site to claim as their own.”

April smiled despite herself. “You’re not the first person I’ve met to bring up those same reservations. Don’t worry, I’m merely following standard protocol for the Antiquities Authority to authenticate your find—if it’s indeed as spectacular as you imply—and after that, I will be on my way. We fully trust that you will share your discovery with the world in one way or another.”

After a moment of consideration, Howard finally inclined his head. In April’s time, she’d come across numerous archaeologists who were overprotective of their prized possessions, refusing to entrust it to anybody else. It was perfectly normal. They just needed reassurances now and then.

“Very well,” Howard said, apparently satisfied. “It’s just this way.”

Cohen and April followed him across the sandy ground, leaving the main hub of activity. There were loose boulders strewn everywhere, a product of the flash floods that had happened recently around the cave system in the area. Positioned away in a secluded area of the excavation site, sought out for its exclusive shade beneath olive trees, was a large blue-roofed canopy. Four Lebanese soldiers guarded the entrance. Unmoving, rigid as statues, they watched the new arrivals with stern interest.

April noticed that they were well armed. But at least the assault rifles weren’t being pointed at them; instead hanging down by their sides in a non-threatening manner.

Howard gave the soldiers a formal nod, causing them to relax slightly. Then he opened the tent flap and ushered his two guests inside. April was surprised to feel a cool rush of air greet her. A generator in the back supplied a source of power for the A/C fans in the canopy to work. The temperature felt at least twenty degrees cooler than outside, and it was a welcome relief.

April glanced around at all the foldout tables displaying artifacts that had been meticulously cataloged by hand. A slow process that must have taken hours, if not days. Most were broken shards, remnants of pottery vases, and false idols carved of stone. She spotted several that looked similar to the incense bowl she’d seen earlier. Then, amongst the assortment of items, she came across the most prized of them all. The reason she’d been sent out here in the first place.

Howard caught her staring at the table in the back. “Yes, that’s them,” he said with a great deal of pleasure and pride. “One of the finest collections ever pieced together. Please, go take a look.”

April was shocked to see such a collection of fifty or more copper scrolls that appeared to be intact. In awe, she slowly moved, as if stuck in a dream state and was able to make her way to the far table. She gazed with wonder upon all the scrolls, which were more like index-card sized booklets. A strange, tiny script was meticulously inscribed upon each page, filling it from top to bottom.

“I knew you would like them,” Cohen told her as they both stopped to examine them. Using a pair of linen gloves she’d brought with her, April leaned over and picked one up as if it were an eggshell worth millions of dollars. She closely examined the weight of the copper and was drawn to the strange style of script and religious symbols—such as the menorah—that was displayed prominently on the front of the scroll.

“One of those was found in an underground cave at this site by a local Bedouin boy. He didn’t know what to make of it, but he knew it was something special. So he called in the experts,” Howard started to say, implying himself as the first expert to arrive. “My team excavated this cave further, and we found this storehouse of scrolls, perfectly preserved over the centuries.”

April continued to painstakingly scrutinize them, one piece at a time, in further detail.

“So, what are your impressions of them?” Howard asked with a bright gleam in his eye.

“Definitely made from copper…” She turned one over, inspecting it. “Very old. Perhaps from two to three thousand years ago. But until we do radiocarbon testing, we won’t know for sure. The writing is the most interesting. Very archaic. Some sort of Paleo-Hebrew.”

“Could you just imagine what knowledge and secrets this could hold for the biblical community,” Cohen explained, his voice ringing with reverence. “These codices could be on par with the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

“I don’t know if we need to jump that far,” April cautioned him. “These are nice…but further tests do need to be done.”

For a moment Howard looked crestfallen. “You’re not implying that these could be…forgeries, are you?”

“I’m not implying anything at the moment,” April sagely remarked. She took a moment to break away from studying one of the scrolls to address him. “It’ll take time to authenticate each piece. But it wouldn’t be the first time a forgery was uncovered. Civilizations have been making them since the dawn of time.”

All of a sudden, there was a commotion outside. The sound of rumbling engines and the protest of voices grew louder and louder. Before any of them could move, one of the Lebanese soldiers—a lieutenant—who had been standing guard out front, entered the tent.

“We’ve got a problem,” he told Howard. His face had grown even more serious than before.

“What is it, Hasan?” the professor asked warily, not liking this unexpected change of events.

The guard’s grip tightened on his assault rifle. “We’ve got company. I recommend everyone stay inside here for now. I’ll handle this.” He turned and left without providing any more details.

April started to get a bad feeling about this whole thing. She’d learned to trust her instincts long ago, and they were warning her now. She looked over at Cohen and then to Howard who appeared just as puzzled.

“I’ll see what the hell is going on,” the professor said with a shake of his head, already angling for the exit.

“Wait!” April started to say to no avail. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

Suddenly there was the unmistakable sound of rapid gunfire, followed by a series of bloodcurdling screams. It sounded like it was just outside. April knew the Lebanese guards had either initiated it or been on the wrong end. Then it had stopped, just as soon as it began.

There was no place to hide in this tent. Even under the table, someone could easily be exposed. Despite April’s past tragic experiences in circumstances like these, she dropped to the ground and remained fully rooted in place. A strange calmness had overtaken her.

She glanced over at Cohen who was huddling in a nearby corner. He was frantically saying, “This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.” He looked around in fleeting panic. “What do we do?”

Before April could answer, one of the Lebanese guards appeared at the entrance. It was Lieutenant Hasan again. He was pointing his rifle in her direction this time, a cruel, unsettling look plastered on his face. She wondered what happened to the other three soldiers. Then her answer came when half a dozen armed men barged in, all wearing ragtag clothing, dragging three dead bodies with them. No sign of Professor Howard though.

Maybe he had escaped, she thought.

They tossed the corpses aside like heaps of trash and then swung their AKs from side to side like a tactical unit sweeping the room.

“It’s clear,” Hasan reported to them. “Except for those two,” he pointed in April and Cohen’s direction with a grin that could only be called chilling.

April finally stood up.

She knew there was no use in trying to hide from these monsters. She noticed that the new arrivals were wearing scarves beneath their eyes to shield their identities. The scarves were the trademark bright yellow with green Arabic script—the flag of a terrorist group known as Hezbollah. They’d waged a brutal thirty-day war with Israel back in 2006, resulting in a stalemate. Although they were deemed a terrorist group by just about every civilized country in the world, they still controlled over two-thirds of Lebanon’s parliament. Much like Hamas in the Gaza Strip, they’d been voted in by their own people.

It didn’t take long for April to realize that Hasan had infiltrated the army and was nothing but a traitor working for them.

She instantly regretted coming here. It had been dangerous; she knew that going in. So was the rest of the Middle East. But she had severely underestimated just how bad things had deteriorated in eastern Lebanon. Syria was only ten miles to the east of them, and Hezbollah frequently traveled back and forth across the border to assist Assad’s brutal regime in wiping out any rebel resistance.

The Hezbollah soldiers scoured the room while Hasan approached April with his gun in hand. She tried to look around for something nearby that she could use as a weapon—a sharp piece of pottery would suffice—but it would be impossible to grab without being seen.

“Just get it over with,” April told him defiantly.

Hasan looked severely disappointed. Slowly, almost regrettably so, he lowered the rifle. “No. This is your lucky day. We’ve already got what we came for.”

April found herself experiencing a whirlwind of emotions, with shock being the biggest. Then it dawned on her as she watched Hasan nudge his chin toward the table with all the copper scrolls. The Hezbollah soldiers were already making haste and scooping them up into burlap sacks. Given her circumstance, April was sickened to see such rare artifacts go into the wrong hands. She thought about trying to stop them, no matter the odds, and then realized how futile and reckless it would be.

“What are you planning on doing with those?” she asked, deep down already knowing the answer.

Hasan shrugged innocuously. “Sell them to the highest bidder. What else?”

April just shook her head. It never ceased to amaze her how these terrorists operated. “You’ll never get away with it. You know that, right?”

Hasan looked impervious, almost gloating. “We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” Then he clocked her over the head, rendering her unconscious. But before she blacked out, a part of her smiled deep down inside because she knew that a visitor of hers would be showing up soon. Very soon.