Free The Cross of Sins by Geoffrey Knight Page A

into the storm just as suddenly as he appeared.
    The boy rushed to the tent as the storm began to die down. "Doctor, quickly, quickly!" he shouted in Turkish, his voice filled with what sounded like excitement. Or perhaps it was fear. "They've found something!"
    Instinctively, Hadley grabbed his brush and chisel and raced out of the tent, following the boy who was already halfway to the excavation. The wind was settling quickly now, blowing the sand in harmless swirls. The sun was beginning to set. Darkness came swiftly in the desert, but as Doctor Hadley hurried as fast as he could down the path leading to the excavation, he saw a pool of yellow light deep within the dig site. It was the light from a dozen or so flaming torches, held by men in hooded robes, illuminating a well that some of Hadley's men had been excavating.
    "What is it?" Hadley panted excitedly, his eyes focused on the well and the torches throwing light into it. "What have you found?"
    It was only when he received no response from his men that he turned his back on the well and saw that of all the faces surrounding him—grinning at him menacingly from under their hoods—he did not recognize a single one.
    Except for the boy whom he had followed here.
    The one who now put his hands out greedily as three or four silver coins were thrown to him. He caught one of them and scrambled to gather the others from the sand. In a moment that Doctor Hadley hoped the boy would learn from and regret for the rest of his life, the brown-eyed child looked up and said, "I'm sorry."
    And with that, he ran off, leaving Hadley surrounded by a dozen men in long robes and hoods and flaming torches in their hands, all of them standing over the well which was at least fifteen feet deep. This morning, before the storm, there had been an old wooden ladder leading down into that well. Hadley saw it now lying on the ground some distance away.
    He swallowed hard, petrified yet trying his best not to show it. "Who are you?"
    Three men stepped forward, two in black robes, the one in the middle in a crimson robe, all of their faces concealed beneath their hoods. The black-robed man to the left of the crimson leader wore a white sash around his neck; the black-robed man on the right was missing his left arm.
    In a thick, Mediterranean accent, the man in the crimson robe said, "We are your fate. We are the messengers of your destiny. And we have but one question for you." Beneath the hood, Hadley made out a sneer as the crimson-robed man edged closer to him, forcing him to take a backward step. A step closer to the edge of the deep well. "Where is the stone tablet?"
    Hadley stammered, "S-s-stone? What stone?"
    The crimson-robed man gave Hadley a shove, and the archeologist stumbled backward a little further. "I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation. Perhaps, soon you will. I'll ask you once more, where is the stone?"
    "I told you, I don't know what you're talking about?"
    "There was a man on a horse."
    "What man?"
    "Your faithful young boy told us. There was a man on a horse who came and took the stone. You can either tell us where he took it—or you can die here tonight. A frightened old man. Another fossil. Another life that was never worth living."
    Hadley trembled, but the words that came out of his mouth were very possibly the most courageous he had ever spoken in his life. "History will be the judge of that."
    The crimson-robed man laughed. Then, with one hard vicious shove, he pushed Doctor Hadley backward.
    For a moment, the old man teetered on the brink of the well, his heels slipping out from under him, sending a small avalanche of stones and dirt cascading into the well. Then, with his arms flailing wildly, he began to tumble backward.
    The hooded man stepped forward to watch, laughing.
    Hadley's body reeled backward, falling into thin air. But his hands reached forward, and before he fell, his fingers brushed the hooded man's cloak, desperately trying to