The Sacred Cipher Read online

  Bohannon could see the anticipation in Johnson’s eyes as he was about to get his first look at the scroll container and the complete scroll. Bohannon felt like a presenter at the Academy Awards, about to disclose the Oscar winner. Resting the mezuzah on the table, atop the protective covers, Bohannon grasped the metal rod in his left hand and, maintaining a gentle pressure, began unrolling the scroll from the container. Within moments, the entire scroll rested before them. Quickly, they laid upon the scroll the enlarged copies they had made of the Dorabella Cipher. Like a medical team entering into a challenging surgery, the four men approached the table and began scanning scroll and cipher, cipher and scroll, looking for any sign of connection.

  Eight hours later, all four of them were on the floor, their backs leaning against the walls of the office, their eyes dulled, their enthusiasm dampened. They had applied alphabetic sequences, musical scales, mathematical formulas, even chaos theory, but nothing had resulted in a better understanding of the scroll. Their hope, however, had not faded. The Dorabella Cipher, when turned on its side to make the lines vertical, made for fascinating comparison to the Spurgeon scroll. The most obvious comparison was that the lines were nearly identical in length when the symbols or characters were enlarged to approximately the same size. Unfortunately, it was hard to tell if the number of individual characters in each line was the same. Elgar’s cipher was frustrating on many levels, but one was that it appeared to be impossible to determine if each combination of miniature arches was an individual character or, as in many languages or codes, some characters were connected or linked together to become one character.

  “I know it’s there,” Dr. Johnson said almost to himself, rubbing a hand over his weary eyes. “I know it’s there. What are we missing?”

  “You know,” Bohannon said, thinking back on all the times he had lost his keys, or his wallet, or his watch (it was a common occurrence), “the answer is probably very simple. We’re the ones who are making it difficult. What would be a simple way for Elgar to connect his cipher to the scroll? What could link this ancient Egyptian language to Elgar’s little squiggle-pictures? The answer is probably so obvious as to be ludicrous.”

  “Or so bloody obvious that I should kick myself!”

  Johnson jumped to his feet and crossed to the computer. Pounding on the keyboard, Johnson continued his soliloquy, mumbling to himself, “How could you be so stupid? What a dolt. What are you waiting for: somebody to smack you over the head with the obvious? Some scholar . . . some scientist.” Shaking his head back and forth, Johnson finally pulled up what he was looking for, and the printer cranked up to speed. He turned around with a chagrined look upon his face. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said, reaching down for the printed page. “So stupid. I can’t believe I’m so stupid!”

  He crossed to the table, put down the sheet of paper, and stared silently for a long moment.

  “There it is,” said Johnson, the sound of resignation in his voice. “There it is.”

  Johnson turned away from the table, leaned against the wall in his custom-tailored suit, and stretched his lean body, releasing a long sigh.

  With a wary eye on the doc, Bohannon crossed to the table and looked down at the scroll. Sitting between the Dorabella Cipher and several columns of the scroll was a much enlarged photograph showing lines of symbols. Rizzo crawled onto a chair beside Bohannon; Rodriguez pulled up behind them. “What is this?” asked Bohannon. “It doesn’t look like anything we have here.”

  Detaching himself from the wall, Johnson returned to the table. “Come on, now, think of all the history lessons you’ve received in the past week or so. What is this?”

  Each man looked at the photo, searching for clues. But they barely had time to register what they were seeing.

  “It’s the Rosetta Stone,” said Rizzo, becoming more agitated with each word. “That’s the Egyptian hieroglyph next to the Greek. I can’t tell what part of the stone it’s from, but this is the Rosetta Stone. I’d bet my BBs on it.”

  Everybody started talking at once, asking questions, seeking answers. Johnson raised his hand for quiet.

  “Tom, you provided the final clue when you mentioned comparing the Egyptian language to Elgar’s scribbles. I should have thought of it a long time ago. There was only one way for Spurgeon and Elgar to discern the message on this scroll. First, they had to identify the Demotic language. Then, they had to identify that the message was not to be found in the Demotic language, but in a code using Demotic symbols. The only source of Demotic available to Spurgeon and Elgar would have been the Rosetta Stone, in the British Museum. This is how they deciphered the scroll . . . Greek, hieroglyphs, and Demotic. The Rosetta Stone gave them the solution to the code. They compared Greek to hieroglyphs to Demotic in this scroll, and it revealed the pattern in which the scroll had been written, the structure of the cipher. That structure, when compared to the Rosetta Stone, would have given them the scroll’s message in Greek, and with the Greek, they would have been able to decipher the scroll. Then Elgar used the scroll’s same structure to construct his famous Dorabella Cipher. Granted, none of us are Elgar. But all we need to do now is find the pattern. And that shouldn’t be too difficult since Elgar has already completed all the hard work.”

  They were immediately back around the table, continuing with the surgery, confident in their ability to save the patient.

  15

  Bohannon had never appreciated ethnic comments about the Irish and drinking, but he liked his beer. Beer ran as plentiful as water in his home. From his late teens onward, that first long, cold drink was something he always savored.

  Even while attending Penn State, when money was tighter than a warped door, Bohannon had been sure to pinch as many pennies as necessary just so that he could visit the My-Oh-My on College Avenue. At the My, the hot dogs were cooked in beer, the sauerkraut was cooked in sherry, and the hot dog buns were individually steamed for each order. They were so hot, soft, and tasty that the dogs were often done in three bites, leaving a desire for more.

  The best part of the My, at least in 1973, was that with the dogs at twenty-five cents and the one dollar drafts, you could leave with a full stomach and a nice buzz for less than five dollars.

  Tonight, the Guinness never tasted so good, and the waitress had been dispatched for four more pints as soon as she put down the first round.

  They had finally left the mission around 9:00 PM and grabbed a cab to the Old Town Bar on 18th Street, just uptown from Union Square. The Old Town, in continuous operation since 1902, hadn’t changed since the day it opened. A favorite haunt of the young and upwardly mobile, it got crowded and loud in the evening, particularly on a Friday night. But Bohannon steered his quartet up the steep stairs just inside the door to the much quieter and less-packed dining room. Tucked into a booth by the front windows, the team was weary, wary, and thirsty. First, it was Guinness all around, then the Old Town’s famous cheeseburgers (sautéed onions and coleslaw on the side, of course) and crispy spuds. They inhaled the burgers as the fixins dripped through their fingers, and poured creamy black Guinness Stout down their throats.

  When they finally came up for a breath, Rizzo, twirling a spud in a mound of ketchup, asked the question each of them wanted answered. “Well, do you think it’s true?”

  No one said a word.

  Bohannon drew the sheet of paper out of his shirt pocket, opened it up, spread it in front of him. It had taken a couple of hours to get the entire scroll decoded, the process moving more quickly the more they got used to the cadence of the code. First they decoded each symbol literally. Once through the entire scroll, they went back through the decoded text, filling in gaps in the language so that it read smoothly in English.

  The scroll was, in fact, a message. More precisely, it was a letter from Abiathar, the Gaon and leader of the Jewish community in Jerusalem, to Meborak, the Ha’Nagid of Egypt . . . the only remaining, legitimate Jewish authority in the East and the leader of t
he Jewish community in Alexandria. The message was a simple one—simply astounding and simply impossible.

  Abiathar, Gaon of Jerusalem, son of Elijah, son of Solomon, to Meborak, Ha’Nagid of Cairo, most excellent of rulers—greetings, and may the God of heaven and earth, the God of our fathers, the most exalted God of Abraham, Moses, and David bless your house, guide your ways, and give you wisdom in abundance.

  Grief overcomes me and fear attempts to destroy my faith. It is with broken heart that I must inform you of the imminent fall of Jerusalem into the hands of the Christian invaders. These Europeans have swept aside what feeble resistance the Fatimids mounted and are at this moment assaulting the walls of Jerusalem. They will, no doubt, enter the Holy City tomorrow.

  Tonight, I will attempt to lead as many of our community as possible through the tunnels to the Kidron Valley, around the far side of the Mount of Olives to bypass the Christian camps, in the hope that some remnant of us may reach safety. We pray for the Lord’s blessings.

  But another, more urgent, matter I reveal to you, my most esteemed Meborak.

  Thirty-seven years ago, my beloved father, Elijah, came to a realization that changed his life and the lives of all Jews to come. Recognizing the impossibility of building the Third Temple of God on the heights of the Temple Mount—because Islam had stolen the sacred place to erect the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque—my father decided if we could not build a temple on the Temple Mount, he would lead the construction of the Third Temple under the Temple Mount.

  For nine years, Elijah and a small band of workmen secretly carved out a great cavern in the limestone under the Temple Mount and began making preparations for constructing a replica of Zerubbabel’s Temple. The unexpected invasion of the Seljuk Turks in 1071 forced my father and the Jewish community to seek exile in Tyre. Before they escaped, the cavern was sealed and the tunnel entrance to the cavern was collapsed.

  Elijah died during the eighteen years we survived in Tyre, but he had instilled in me both a passion for righteous governance and a determination to see the temple completed. Once the Fatimids drove the Turks from Jerusalem, our community returned and soon set about the work of secretly constructing the Temple of God under the Temple Mount.

  Our work was completed not long ago. Then the Christians came.

  Jehovah God has kept our secret thus far, but to keep the infidel from desecrating the Holy of Holies, we have once again sealed the temple and blocked all entrances. Most excellent Meborak, you have proven yourself a steadfast brother in the past. Guard this scroll with your life, and treasure it until the day when the cavern can be reopened, ritual sacrifice will be possible in the Temple of God, and our Messiah shall come. Look to the Prophets for your direction.

  May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make His countenance shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the Lord turn His face toward you, and give you peace.

  Shalom,

  Gaon Abiathar, Jerusalem

  The four men around the table looked at each other with a mixture of disbelief and uncertainty, the same way they had responded just a few hours earlier when they first deciphered the scroll’s secret. None of them knew where to start.

  “Can this really be possible?” Rizzo asked again. “Is it possible? What do you think, Doc?”

  Johnson pushed back his shoulders, bending his head first left, then right, trying to stretch out the tension of the last few hours and weeks. Opening his eyes, he threw a cold towel over any simmering sparks of hope.

  “I don’t see how there is any possible way for this claim of a secret Third Temple to be true,” Johnson said slowly. “Look at it realistically. First of all, how could anybody excavate a cavern, a cavern big enough to hold the massive size of the Jewish temple, under the Temple Mount and keep it a secret? What did they do with all the debris from digging the cavern? How did they get regular or daily access to the area under the Mount? How, in God’s name, could they have assembled all the granite, marble, cedar, gold and silver, and everything else that was required, and get it under the Mount and into the cavern without anyone finding out? Where did all the workers come from, the artisans, the skilled craftsmen? What did their families know? What did their families think when they didn’t return? And no one breathed a word of it for a thousand years? How can that be possible?

  “But even if that was possible, are you going to tell me that there has been a huge, secret cavern under the Temple Mount, containing a completely rebuilt Jewish temple, for over a thousand years and, in one of the most archaeological active areas in the world, this huge cavern has never been found? That would be ludicrous.”

  As Johnson finished his assessment, coffee and apple pie arrived, briefly blunting the conversation.

  “So, what is this thing?” Rodriguez asked. “If you’re right, Doc, and I’m in the same boat with you, I don’t see how it can be true . . . but if you’re right, then what is this scroll, this code, this message? Why was Spurgeon so fearful? Why did someone go to such incredible lengths to create a scroll like this, dig up an extinct language to write it in, develop an amazingly intricate code to protect its contents, and then send it off to the only legitimate Jewish leader in the East for its safekeeping? Why go to all that trouble if it’s all a lie? That doesn’t make any sense, either.”

  “You’re right, Joe, it doesn’t make sense,” said Bohannon. “And you’re right, Doc, if a temple was under the Temple Mount, it doesn’t make any sense that it hasn’t been found. So, we have two opposing theories, neither of which makes sense. And yet, there has to be an answer.”

  Bohannon shook his head. “You know, I read a lot of Sherlock Holmes books as a kid and one of the things that Holmes always said was, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ I think the next thing we have to do is to eliminate the impossible, and then try to grasp the truth, even if it is improbable.”

  Bohannon looked up at the other three.

  “Can you repeat that again, this time in English?” Rizzo deadpanned.

  “No, Tom’s right,” said Rodriguez. “Either this is a crazy scam, or it’s true. It’s much less likely that it’s something in between. Remember Kallie’s e-mail? She told us that Abiathar had written one scroll, a Megillah, to Meborak already. Why couldn’t he have written another? I don’t know about you guys, but not only am I fascinated by this crazy scroll, but after all the time and effort we’ve already invested in it, I’m not inclined to stop now just because it doesn’t seem to make any sense. As our first task, we need to figure out whether it’s even possible for a temple to be down there. Let’s see if we can get an answer to that question, and that will tell us the next place to go.”

  “I know the next place I’m going,” said Bohannon. “I’m going to bed, and I’m going now. You’ve got the check, right, Doc?”

  Bohannon was bone weary and wanted to get home, so he was first out of the Old Town Bar. He turned west on 18th Street, bound for the 6 train station at Union Square. Normally, crossing 18th Street meant looking to the right to check for oncoming traffic, but for some reason, when he was halfway across, Bohannon also glanced to his left. That’s when he saw the man.

  He was dressed in dark clothes—jeans, a rough jacket—a black, knit watch cap pulled down on his head in spite of the mild spring evening. Bohannon thought he saw a hooked nose, mustache, and Middle Eastern features. He couldn’t be sure. But his heart began to race. His New York pace quickened.

  Left on Broadway, Bohannon had only one short block to cover before crossing 17th Street, where he would enter Union Square. Another sixty yards, and he would reach the subway entrance.

  Broadway was still bustling with pedestrians. Feeling foolish, Bohannon peeked over his left shoulder as he reached 17th Street. His breath froze. The man was close behind. He seemed to be staring directly at Bohannon.

  Tom was anxious to get across the street, but he self-consciously held himself back from the ed
ge of the curb. Even before the light fully changed, Bohannon hustled across the street and quickstepped through the crowded asphalt area of Union Square, home to the weekly farmer’s market, hoping to leave the man in his wake.

  Suddenly, Bohannon stopped at the top of the stairs to the Union Square station. He stepped aside, halted by indecision. Should he go into the station or stay on the street? What was safer?

  A quick glance to his right, and Bohannon saw the man moving toward him. Only two pedestrians and a few yards separated them. The man, clearly Middle Eastern, was looking daggers through Bohannon’s skull.

  Tom turned on his heel and walked quickly past the subway entrance. Union Square Park beckoned on his left, but it was dark, the pathways twisting. Too isolated.

  Quickening his pace, reviewing his mental map, Bohannon hurried south on Union Square West, crossed 14th Street, and continued down Broadway, that long, diagonal slash that cuts across Manhattan from Houston Street on the south to 106th Street in Harlem. Then he remembered the substation that NYPD staffs 24/7 inside the Union Square Station. A couple of turns, and I’ll double back.

  At the corner of 13th Street and Broadway, in front of the Union Square movie theater, Bohannon hazarded a look behind him. The man was there, closing fast, his eyes on Bohannon—and his arm raised. Bohannon stifled a scream, pushed himself back against the wall of the theater, and raised his fists. The man smiled.

  “Aliah,” he said, waving his arm.

  The man brushed past Bohannon, walked up to a woman with a scarf over her head, gave her a polite hug, and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry I’m late.” Holding the woman’s hand, the man turned around, leading her past Bohannon and into the door of the movie theater.

  Bohannon’s shirt was soaked, his breathing ragged and shallow. His fists, still held in front of him, began to shake. People were looking at him, but avoiding eye contact. Nobody in New York City messed with crazy street people.