rest of their lives. Coming from the center of the excavation was a brilliant red glow emanating from the newly formed hole in the ground. It lit up the sky above them. A sound resembling the cries of a wounded prehistoric beast filled the air as everyone edged toward the camp’s perimeter to witness the surreal sight before them.
“I think we’ve awakened something,” Lev said.
No one would sleep tonight.
Chapter 20
The Negev Desert-Day 3
Over the camp, dawn was approaching. Small groups huddled together around campfires as they watched the red glow fade away with the arrival of the sun. The site was eerily quiet now and they could see nothing moving in the distance.
The camp’s leaders were sitting in the mess tent, drinking coffee, and trying to decide if they should even consider going back to the excavation site. The bizarre reddish light and eerie sounds that emanated from the vicinity were enough to call a halt to the operation right then and there before anyone else was hurt, or worse.
John poured his second cup of coffee while Camp lay curled up at his side. “I think we need to notify the government, or army.”
“And tell them what?” Alon said. “That we’ve been led out into the desert by a code in the Bible? That a giant hole appeared in the desert and we saw strange lights and heard weird noises coming out of it? Some of our friends in the army already know we’re out here, and they’re available if we need them.”
Lev asked one of the cooks to make him some eggs and returned to his place at the table with the others. “Last night, I decided that we needed a geological survey of the area before we go back there. A professor friend of mine teaches geology at the university. He used to work with the oil man I bought the mobile kitchen from. Nava flew him in this morning. He’s out at the site now, doing a survey.”
“I just talked to him on the radio,” Moshe said. “He told me he had to gather some more data about the substructure around the hole before we go anywhere near it. He wants to use one of the choppers to take a second set of ground-radar images from the air and then set off some small explosions around the perimeter for a seismic profile of the area.”
“No. Absolutely no explosives,” Lev said from across the table. He was holding his head in his hands, not even bothering to look up. “We have to go down into that hole as soon as possible. I just want his best guess.”
“That’s lunacy,” Alon barked. “It’s too dangerous. I’ve set up a security perimeter around it, and no one goes anywhere near that hole until it’s been declared safe.”
Lev raised his head and looked around the room. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. He seemed exhausted to the point of disorientation.
“It will be much more dangerous the longer we wait. I sense we’ve awakened a dormant force, one that is now gaining strength as we speak. This is the evil force the code warned us about. This force is protecting something down below us and the longer we wait, the stronger it becomes. Our chances of finding whatever it’s protecting diminishes by the hour.”
Moshe frowned. He was alarmed at Lev’s state of exhaustion. “How do you know what’s down there without a survey?”
Leo became uncharacteristically defensive. “If Lev says something is down there, then we have to believe that it’s down there. We don’t need a survey.”
Moshe wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure, Lev? I mean, you look terrible. When’s the last time you slept?”
“I sleep as much as I need to. Time is running out. Trust me on this, Moshe.”
At the opposite end of the tent, John, Ariella, and Daniel sat together with a diagram of the excavation site, furiously scribbling notes and engaged in an animated discussion. When they were finished, Daniel grabbed the diagram and placed it on the table in front of the leaders. “We believe that the cave-in was simply the result of the backhoe breaking through a thin part of the earth’s crust that covered a large underground cavern.”
Ariella pointed to the diagram. “According to the ground-radar studies already done, this anomaly in the substructure beneath the desert floor was really the top of a dome covering a cavern below. The weight of the backhoe was just enough to break through into a large chamber. The walls of the cavern are solid rock, so there’s no longer any danger of another cave-in. All we have to do is anchor ourselves from above and rappel down into the chamber below.”
“How extensive is this subterranean cavern?” Leo asked.
“The radar images we’ve taken show that it’s gigantic. We’re on top of it right here where we stand. John says it’s comparable to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.”
“She’s right,” John said. “I’ve reviewed the data. This thing is composed of multiple passageways and chambers, both above and below each other. It’s a gigantic three-dimensional maze.”
Alon pulled the map closer to study it. “What about that strange red glow and all those weird sounds we heard?”
“That’s the part that bothers me,” Ariella said. “I’m not so much worried about a cave-in as I am about that odd reddish light. I spoke to the geologist about it before he went out to the site this morning, and he said that, theoretically, we could have released some trapped gas that looked red in our halogen floodlights. I definitely smelled the odor of sulfur when I was out there. As far as the noise is concerned, who knows? We could have disturbed a pack of wolves or something in the area.”
“I think we disturbed a lot more than just wolves,” John said. “I’ve never heard wolves that sounded like that before. It was otherworldly.”
Lev looked up from the diagram. “There are no wolves in the Negev Desert. What we’re facing is much worse. I think it’s time to put it to a vote. All those in favor of returning to the site and seeing what’s down there, raise your hands. If there aren’t enough votes to go, we pack up our stuff and leave today.”
Everyone in the room was focused on Lev. No one flinched or raised an opposing view. Leo was the first to raise his hand, followed by Lev, Ariella, Daniel, and John. Soon hands began to rise all around the tent, until everyone present had their hand in the air.
“Good,” Lev said. “Grab your stuff and let’s get to work. I’m sending a team down into the cavern.”
Chapter 21
The gaping crevice stood silent before them. Alon, John, Ariella, and Leo had been tagged as team one, the team chosen to descend into the first chamber of the cavern. Team two was composed of Lev, Daniel, and Moshe, along with the two helicopter pilots and a paramedic from the staff. This team was the designated rescue team if something happened to team one. Long metal spikes were being driven into the ground to secure the ropes that team one would use in their descent to the floor of the cave. Their preparations had taken longer than anticipated, and the sun was now high overhead. It beat down on the camp with waves of choking heat that mixed with the dust of the desert.
Nava and Gabriella maneuvered their helicopter next to the site as team one tested the headlamps of their helmets and strapped into special climbers’ harnesses. They threaded long color-coded nylon ropes through carabiners, slipped on heavy leather gloves, and connected the earpieces in their helmets to radios attached to their belts. Alon went first, slowly backing his way over the edge. He fed the rope through the metal carabiners and descended along the rock face, passing the twisted wreckage of the backhoe, until he had reached a solid rock floor forty feet below the rim.
Once the team settled on the floor of the cavern, they saw that they were encircled by a sheer wall of rock that made the surface seem even farther away. The backhoe was wedged precariously above them between two large outcroppings of rock. It was obvious to them that the slightest movement could shift its balance, causing the whole machine to come crashing down on top of them.
