The Atlantis revelation

55

It was already hot at ten a.m. on Easter Sunday when Reka Bressler, a grad student from Hebrew University's Orion Center for the Study of Dead Sea Scrolls, led her American tour group past a stone marker that said sea level to the rocks of the Dead Sea over four hundred yards below.

The desolate area was the lowest point on earth, an otherworldly landscape of sheer cliffs, caves, and rocks around the waters. It was believed to be the site of several biblical cities, including Sodom and Gomorrah, or rather, what was left of them. Indeed, it looked like the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, and the smell of sulfur didn't help.

But the water of the Dead Sea was supposed to possess therapeutic powers. Already a couple from her group had jumped in to test the salty sea's legendary buoyancy. One American, settling comfortably in the water, looked like he was reclining on an invisible lawn chair as he scanned the Jerusalem Post.

That was when Reka saw the body of a fully clothed man washed up on the beach. He was clearly no tourist. She cursed and ran down the shore to him and turned him over.

His face was caked with blood. His head must have struck a rock somewhere. She bent down, placed two fingers on his neck, and felt a faint pulse. She pressed on his stomach, and he spat up water. She was about to give him mouth-to-mouth when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"That's okay, I've got him."

Reka rose and saw a woman in torn clothes with a scorched medallion on her chest. There was something familiar and ethereal about her. But the footprints behind her proved that she was just as flesh-and-blood as her companion. "But you look worse than he does," Reka said.

The woman smiled. "I'll be sure to tell him. He'll like that. You may want to get back to your group. I think there's a man under that hand waving a newspaper above the surface of the water."

"Harah," Reka muttered, and started running down the beach.

Serena held Conrad's head in her arms as he coughed, blinked his eyes open, and looked at her and then at the seemingly godforsaken place around them.

"This can't be hell, because you're here," he said.

She saw him staring at the scorched medallion hanging from her neck. Her Shekel of Tyre had been sheared in half by the bullet it had deflected, searing her chest with a cauterized flesh wound in the shape of a crescent moon. "River of Life, Conrad."

He sat up and wrapped his arms around her. "Thank you, God."

She wiped the tears from her eyes, and then she removed the medallion from her neck. "Well, I'm not returning to Rome."

Conrad looked at her. "Where are you going?"

"Wherever you go, Conrad."

"You sure you want to do this?"

"I do."

"And then?"

"We can love God, serve others, be fruitful, and multiply."

"Well, let's not be disobedient, then," he said, and kissed her under the beating sun.