The Jewels of Jezebel (The Reluctant Hero Series Book 2) Page 9

  The part that went around the eyes and nose was red and looked like 3-D glasses. The frame was metallic silver and stretched back behind her head, but didn’t connect for easy removal.

  The headset was connected to two thick wires. Each came out from the back and connected into what appeared to be a computer monitor and a really fancy neon box with colorful flashing lights. The box was about the size of a shoe box.

  The monitor was off, but she could see that she was connected to an EKG machine and several other machines to monitor just about everything.

  The room was huge with the walls painted white. She noticed that the lights were dimmed, but there was just enough light to see her surroundings.

  There was no call button for a nurse, so she assumed it was some kind of a private facility. Before she went and alerted the locals, she had to find out more about where she was and who was responsible. With everything she had been through, she didn’t know if the people who were monitoring were the good guys or the bad guys.

  She carefully disconnected the wires leading to the machines, but kept her IVs in, just in case she needed the liquid they provided.

  There were no alarms or anything but zero readings when she disconnected the EKG. She waited patiently as her heart raced to see if a squadron of nurses and doctors would swarm her room and scold her for what she did.

  Nothing.

  She waited a few more moments.

  Still nothing.

  There were no clocks in the room, but the time was shown on one of the machines. She had waited a full 15 minutes and still no response. She decided she wouldn’t wait anymore. No date was visible.

  Magena saw that she was in a flowered flannel nightgown. It definitely was not public hospital issue.

  She didn’t see a closet or a bathroom, but did notice that there was a bed pan underneath her. “Ewww. Really?”

  Her muscles ached, as she sat up and dangled her feet over the side of the bed. She became incredibly dizzy and had to put both hands on the edge of the bed to stabilize herself.

  She wondered if she had been in some sort of accident. If she was, that would explain the soreness and the hospital room. There were several of those round sticky pads on her neck, as far up the back of her head as possible without reaching her skull. She almost cried out, when she ran her hand over the back of her head and noticed that they had cut her hair. Severely cut her hair.

  She had a boy’s cut. Then she wondered if she had brain damage as well. She shook her head, let out a sigh, and inched herself off of the bed to place her feet on the tiled floor.

  She had no shoes or socks on, obviously. She knew to expect the coldness of the floor under her feet. She prepared for it.

  She held her breath as her feet made contact. She then smiled in relief. The floor was heated.

  With that new fact, she had to rule out a private hospital as well. She must have been in some kind of high tech laboratory.

  That meant high tech security and probably an amazing surveillance system. She looked around the room and decided to wave to every corner. Just in case.

  She had kept one hand on the bed to steady herself, but she slowly released her grip on the edge of the bed and barely supported herself on her feet. That told her that she must have been in that bed for a while, because her leg muscles obviously hadn’t been used recently.

  She felt like a child just learning to walk for the first time. She silently thanked God for the IV pole to hang onto. It took her another few moments to get one hand wrapped around the pole. Thankfully, there was just one pole with both bags of whatever.

  If the people that ran that place were good guys, she was going to give a piece of her mind to them for having two IVs in the same arm. She was no nurse, but that had malpractice written all over it.

  She was finally able to get herself stabilized enough to take a few steps forward. She would look up every few seconds for fear that someone would come running in and either shoot her or be mad at her for getting up.

  There was a solid metal door that was closed. That was her target.

  She groaned with each step forward. She was starting to gain feeling in her feet and legs again as she walked. She smiled through the fog she was under.

  The wheels on the pole made no noise. Another thing to be thankful for.

  When she finally reached the door, she let out a sigh of relief. Another goal accomplished. She reached out with her right hand and grabbed the doorknob. She fully expected it to be locked, so surprise came when it wasn’t.

  She let the door swing inward all the way as she glared out into the hallway. It didn’t look like a hospital hallway. It looked more like a warehouse. The room was obviously newer than the rest of the building, or at least the parts she saw. To her left, the hallway went about another 20-30 feet and then turned to the right. To her right, the hallway ended about 20 feet away. There was a wooden door and two large pane windows. One on either side of the door.

  She had a new target and that was it.

  The hallway was just a little brighter than her room, but not by much.

  She found that she was moving a bit faster, but would stumble every once in a while. She was just happy she hadn’t fallen yet. Yet.

  She moved with a purpose down the hall to the wooden door. When she arrived, she had to take in a breath. When she caught her bearings, she pushed the pole as far to one side of the door as possible, so no one on the other side could see it. She then slowly crouched down in front of the door and placed her ear against it.

  She heard muffled conversation from the other side of the door. From the sound of it, whoever was talking could have been a good distance away from the door.

  Magena took in another deep breath and let it out slowly. She had to make sure that she didn’t make any noise whatsoever as she reached for the doorknob.

  The door was unlocked. She assumed that either the people there didn’t think anyone would be roaming the halls or they might have been just too trusting.

  She went with the first thought.

  As she turned the knob, she was careful to hear for the click that would mean the door was ready to be swung open.

  Once she had the door knob completely turned and the click didn’t draw any unwanted attention, she carefully peered into one of the windows to see if her way was clear.

  She could see a large room. It looked like some kind of waiting room in a doctor’s office. That definitely fit with the fact that they tried to make parts of the building resemble a hospital.

  The waiting room was very dark, but she could see what appeared to be an office with more pane windows and a closed door. Another one.

  First things first. Magena slowly pulled the door she was close to open. Once she bypassed any squeaking from the hinges, she kept in her crouched position and brought the pole with her to cross the carpeted room.

  She made sure the door closed carefully behind her to avoid attracting attention.

  She let out soft grunts, because of how uncomfortable her stance was. The door to the following office was big enough that she could slink up to it without being seen, unless someone either came out or in from the other direction. She tried not to think about that.

  She smiled, shook her head, and let out another sigh, when she reached the second door. She looked back at the door she just came through and all was silent. She questioned the lack of security, but again, was grateful for it.

  The voices were even louder, as she realized just how loud they would have had to have been for her to hear them from the first door. She would analyze that later as well.

  She cupped her hand and placed her ear to the door to hear better. With only a slight muffle, she could hear them as loud and plain as day.

  “I don’t care what you say, we have to keep going,” one male voice said. That voice sounded familiar. “He’s almost to the real jewels that Jezebel was buried with. Once he finds them, then we can take both of them with us, while we confiscate the historical j
ewels.”

  Magena dug her pinky finger in one ear, then the other, to try to open them up so she could hear more of what was being said. She had no idea what that man was talking about. But she sensed it was more than she had expected.

  “We did a good job camouflaging the fake shroud. Ha ha,” the male voice continued.

  “I know,” another man said. “It’s a good thing we have the real Shroud of Turin in our possession. That has been a Godsend. So to speak. Ha ha!”

  They both laughed.

  Magena’s eyes widened and her heart sank. She couldn’t believe who it was she had just heard. There was no mistaking that voice. He had been a friend to her, or so she thought. She bit her lower lip, as a single tear rolled down her cheek. She felt betrayed.

  The second man was definitely Alan Cranston.

  She listened, as he spoke again.

  “I still can’t believe that we had access to this amazing computer program. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life and I’ve seen a lot of amazing things!” Cranston chuckled.

  “My resources are immense,” the first man said with pride. “It was only a matter of time before we found someone who could create a virtual world to this degree. But we did it.”

  “Virtual world?” she thought, as her whole world came crashing down. Her thoughts whirled. She and Daniel had been played. The people on this journey were not real. Just holograms. It was all futile.

  The first man continued talking. “I needed to do this. I do so tired of having to pick up the pieces of his ignorance. What he doesn’t realize is he has perfect recall, but for some reason has a problem retrieving the information. His subconscious has all of the information that we need to find the Jewels of Jezebel. What he doesn’t realize is that he had actually been to where the jewels are many years ago.”

  Magena sat on the floor on the other side of the door stunned. The shroud! The jewels! They had been tricked by none other than Daniel’s father. They will not get away with it.

  He said, “Now that we have access to that information, what’s next?”

  “It will be a piece of cake,” Cranston added. He grinned and asked, “You don’t have any regrets?”

  “Why should I? My son Daniel has been a thorn in my side since as long as I can remember. It’s about time he did something to pay me back for all of my headaches he has caused. Now let’s check his progress in this amazing video game. Shall we?”

  To be continued in:

  The Sons of Destiny

  The Reluctant Hero Series #3

  Coming soon!

  Also available:

  The Staff of Moses

  The Guardians Adventures #1

  by Summer Lee

  (read on for a sample)

  Prologue

  Masada, Israel,

  Winter 1963

  AVIELA SAT in her dusty army unit jeep near the foot of Masada. She was the only woman on the excavation site on that Saturday morning. As a Jew, she was not supposed to be working on the Sabbath. However, it was urgent that she find the famous archaeologist, Eldad Ben-Tzion. She had been told that his life was in danger. Because of her ties to the sacred, she had been hired by the government to find him and escort him safely to Jerusalem. That was their plan. Aviela had her own plans for Eldad Ben-Tzion.

  She sat quietly in the vehicle, pretending to look at a map. She finally spotted Ben-Tzion at the foot of Masada with two other men. One carried himself with authority, as if he were the head of the project. She wasn’t worried about him. The other man was a researcher who looked familiar in a way that raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

  As the trio walked together, Aviela recognized the young researcher as a Canaanite from her past. He was a deceiver, an evil family member of the Canaanites whom Israel had displaced some four thousand years ago.

  Because the Canaanite potentially presented a threat to both men, she stayed in her vehicle and watched carefully as she revised her approach strategy.

  Aviela knew she needed to rescue Eldad Ben-Tzion before the Canaanite cursed him.

  Or killed him.

  Or both.

  Chapter the First

  PROFESSOR ELDAD BEN-TZION believed that Masada, a butte fortress near the city of Jerusalem, hid an ancient mystery. He was determined to discover it and keep the glorious secret to himself.

  The isolated diamond-shaped rock plateau overlooking the Dead Sea was teeming with human activity for the first time in two thousand years.

  Tents were pitched all over the plateau. Archaeological dig teams worked the soil that was marked off in grids. They left no stone unturned in hopes of discovering biblical history artifacts.

  Any finds would likely date between the lifetime of Moses and the period when Herod had used Masada for his vacation home. Anticipation was in the air. Everyone wanted to be the one who discovered a significant historical treasure.

  The lead archaeologist, Dr. Yigael Yadin, was in the main tent, engrossed in a conversation in Hebrew with Dr. Eldad Ben-Tzion. Yadin was in the middle of a sentence when one of his researchers, a young Jewish studies professor on loan from Oxford, entered the tent and blurted in English, “Dr. Yadin, we have found it!”

  Yadin scowled. He replied in English, “Do you not knock before entering a tent?”

  “I was so excited that I forgot. Please, forgive my intrusion, but we have found it! It!”

  “It?”

  “Yes!”

  Yadin lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “What exactly have you found?” He winked.

  The researcher breathed a sigh of relief. “We have found a shul!”

  “A shul!” Yadin stood. “I want to see it. Now!”

  Ben-Tzion’s voice broke in with a hint of dismay. “Are you sure you are not mistaken that it is a holy place of worship?”

  Yadin looked at his partner in surprise. “There is only one way to find out.” He turned to the young man. “Take us to the spot so we may be able to announce that Masada now has a Hebrew temple!”

  As Yadin rushed from the tent, Ben-Tzion lagged behind, his belly roiling in anger. This had been Ben-Tzion’s one chance to become famous, but he had just lost it to another researcher, due to his own concern that they were working the dig on the Sabbath. His conversation about that with Yadin, instead of doing field work, had likely cost him the find. It was irony at its most brutal.

  Yadin called out behind him, “Let’s go! What is the delay?”

  “No delay,” said Ben-Tzion. He thought, I just wanted to be the one to find something first. He could not show his disappointment, so he said to the researcher, “Take us to the shul!”

  The young man guided them to a dig site where archaeologists chatted excitedly. Guards surrounded the hole that was staked off for Yadin and Ben-Tzion—the barriers were meant to keep out any foreign diggers.

  Yadin donned his latex gloves and removed a magnifying glass from his pocket. He carefully descended the ladder into the four-foot hole where some pottery sherds were now exposed. A stone seat and a few small pillars had been unearthed as well.

  He carefully picked up one of the pottery sherds and smiled at the men nearby who had been carefully brushing away soil from the find. Moving the mud around, he picked up a near-perfect clay vase. Amazed that the two were a perfect fit, his mouth flew open. Yadin painstakingly examined the clayware and a tear rolled down his cheek. “Ben-Tzion, you must come and see this. It is incredible!”

  Excited, Ben-Tzion put on his latex gloves as well and descended into the hole. Yadin handed the piece of pottery and the vase to him, so he could examine it closely. Turning it in his hands, Ben-Tzion was careful not to drop it. “Look! It is inscribed—”

  “Yes!” interrupted Yadin. “It reads, ‘Me’aser Cohen.’ This is a tithing pot from the time of Moses!”

  “Wow! That is wonderful,” Ben-Tzion mumbled. He had just been about to identify it aloud, but Yadin took the words right out of his mouth. He tried to show happines
s for his colleague, but Ben-Tzion felt disappointed not to be the one who had discovered such a great treasure.

  While Yadin searched for more artifacts, Ben-Tzion admired the still-visible colors on the piece in his hands. He realized what a find of this magnitude would mean to Yadin. He tried to be happy for him, but could not, as he handed the two pieces to a nearby researcher to be carefully packed and moved to Yadin’s tent.

  Tormented by his own inner turmoil, Ben-Tzion climbed the ladder and caught a whiff of perfume.

  He turned his head just as a young Jewish woman walked up to him and looked him in the eye. She was both firm and curvy, with long black hair and dark lavender eyes. Staring intently at him, she motioned with a toss of her head and then turned away. Obviously, she wanted him to follow her. In the middle of an archaeological discovery, he wasn’t about to follow some woman he didn’t know who hadn’t even spoken a word to him. And what was a woman doing out here anyway?

  The researcher wrapped the two pieces in a mantle and started back toward the main tent.

  Ben-Tzion looked after the woman, watching her disappear into the bright sunshine.

  His colleague made another excited sound.

  His attention flashed back to Yadin, who had climbed out of the hole. Yadin rushed by, holding something covered in the blanket. His eyes were beaming, yet furtive, and he said nothing as he hurried past Ben-Tzion.

  Curiosity got the better of Ben-Tzion, so he followed Yadin instead of the beautiful woman.

  At that moment, someone grabbed his arm. The strength in his grip was incredible. Ben-Tzion turned to see a tall man dressed in a long robe with a hood, his face half-hidden but with eyes that strangely glowed, like a jackal’s in the night. Ben-Tzion did not recognize him and sensed he was not someone from the dig. He stared deeply into the eyes, seeing something diabolical there.

  “Your treasure is not here,” the hooded man said.

  Hair stood up on the back of Ben-Tzion’s neck. “What?”