Tartarus: Kingdom Wars II

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Authors: Jack Cavanaugh
into the parking lot where Choni stood beside his car and waved at us.
    “Take us to Mt. Olivet,” Sue ordered.
    The sharpness of the command wiped the smile off Choni’s face. As Sue bundled into the backseat and I climbed in front, Choni slipped behind the driver’s wheel.
    Putting the car in gear, he said, “It would be better to sightsee another day. My father is expecting—”
    “Mt. Olivet,” Sue repeated without explaining herself.
    She looked out the back window. Jana was standing in the middle of the parking lot watching us.
    Had it been me giving the orders, Choni would have argued with me. But women have a certain tone men and children have learned not to argue with. Sue used that tone. She used it well. I doubted it was the first time she’d used it.
    “It is important you get to Olivet?” Choni asked.
    Sue and I exchanged glances. “Has anything changed?” she asked me.
    I looked eastward at the clouds. “Unchanged,” I replied.
    “End-of-the-world important,” Sue said to Choni.
    “And that woman?” he asked, motioning to Jana.
    A small car screeched to a halt beside her. The cameraman, carrying his camera, emerged from the hotel at a dead run.
    “She’s of no consequence,” Sue said, “but if you lose her, it wouldn’t break my heart.”
    Choni smiled. “A chase scene. I’ve always wanted to do an American chase scene.”
    Exiting the hotel parking lot he sped down the access road and onto the main thoroughfare. Then he turned hard left into a housing district.
    “A shortcut,” he explained. “I used to date a girl who lived here. I thought it was serious, like she was the one, you know? She broke it off because her dog didn’t like me. It’s not like I wanted to marry her poodle.”
    Jana’s car followed us in.
    The housing district was a maze, every few hundred feet a turn. The cloud of angels swung from my side of the car to the front, to the driver’s side, to the back, to my side again, and finally to the front as we exited onto the main road.
    I stuck my head out the window to get a better view. Sue rolled down her window and did the same.
    “I’ve never seen anyone so fascinated with a thunderstorm,” Choni said. “I must visit San Diego and see this city that has no weather.”
    We exited the maze. Sue watched the exit for Jana for as long as she could see it. Jana’s car never came out. Sue faced forward with a satisfied grin.
    The road we were on skirted the southern edge of the Temple Mount running parallel to ancient walls. At the southeast corner the road turned north.
    “We’re entering the Kidron Valley,” Choni said. “Mt. Olivet is on the right.”
    At the base of the slope was a huge graveyard that stretched farther than we could see.
    The car slowed.
    “Why are we stopping?” Sue asked.
    Choni motioned to the road ahead. A tour bus had stopped and was blocking the road. The panel to its engine was raised.
    Tourists buzzed around the bus doing what tourists do. They wandered mindlessly in search of suitable backgrounds to take pictures of their spouses and friends. Several of them were standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the middle of the road, smiling and saying, “Cheese,” with the ancient city at their backs.
    Sue climbed out of the car.
    Choni and I exchanged puzzled looks. “I can get around them,” he said of the tourists.
    “Sue?” I climbed out of the car.
    She was standing on the shoulder of the road, taking in the surrounding area.
    “The Golden Gate.” She pointed to a double-tiered archway that was embedded in the wall. “Also called the Gate of Mercy and the Beautiful Gate.”
    Maybe at one time it had been a gate, but the archway had been filled in. Now it was just part of the wall with graves scattered in front of it.
    “Jesus and his disciples walked through that gate to go to the Temple,” Sue said. “It was through that gate that Jesus rode a donkey while the crowd waved palm branches.”
    I nodded. I could see it. The gate

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