The Sacred Cipher Page 20

  “And maybe there’s war,” O’Neill interrupted, frustrated by his own indecision. “Why you? Why do you have to go? Why don’t I lock you up in witness protection, tell the State Department everything you’ve told me, and let the government take care of it?”

  Bohannon looked O’Neill dead in the eye.

  “I don’t know why, Rory, except that I’m confident this is not a coincidence. I’m not here by accident.”

  “You’re going to get spiritual on me, aren’t you?” said O’Neill.

  Bohannon shot him a crooked smile.

  “Rory, you’ve been around us long enough. You know what we believe.” Bohannon sounded earnest. “We believe in a personal God. It’s a simple theology, but terribly difficult to live. Probably got something to do with my dad being so distant when I was a kid, but I’ve always had a hard time believing that God was interested in me. Taking care of everyone else? Sure. But me?” Bohannon shook his head. “I don’t know. I know what I’m like, what I think, how I act. Why would God want to know a guy like me?

  “But that’s the Christian faith, that’s what I’m trying to live. I used to think that if Annie knew the guy I really was, she’d dump me. But she got to know the real me, and she loves me anyway.

  “I kinda think that’s what God is like. He knows all about us and still loves us. Is still interested in us.” Bohannon fell silent.

  O’Neill wasn’t sure that Bohannon had answered his question. Doubts peppered his thoughts, interfered with his natural ability to evaluate and act quickly.

  “I don’t know why me, Rory, but I’ve got to do this. This is my assignment, my responsibility. I have to go to Jerusalem. Doc, Joe, Sammy . . . I believe they have their own reasons, but they also believe this is something they have to do. For me, there is no other choice. I don’t understand it, but I believe this is something God is asking of me. I need to go to Jerusalem. And I’m asking you to let me do that.”

  O’Neill scowled as he got up from his chair and turned to the precinct captain who had accompanied him.

  “I want two uniforms on each of these guys, day and night, no excuses. In their homes, with them at work, with them in the bathroom. And I want an unmarked at each of their homes, their offices, and plainclothes like glue on every member of their families. The suspects in this bombing have made other attempts on their lives and will probably try again. I’ll give the sergeant a full description of the suspects at the precinct. This case gets the highest priority and the highest net of confidentiality. The explosion was a ruptured gas line. Three-sentence press release. Everything else gets a lid on it. Bill, it’s absolutely critical that you keep your men in line. I want no leaks. There’s no margin of error on this—got it? Okay. I’ll be sending in two teams from Special Ops. One here tonight to clean up the mess. The second one to the station house tomorrow. They will work directly with your detectives, shadow them at every step. But they will be under my command. Are you okay with that?”

  “Yes sir,” said Captain Reilly. “No intention to pry, sir, since it’s clear this case has more to it than I’m aware of. But is there any more you can tell me, sir, anything that I can share with my detectives that will help them in protecting these four or in apprehending the killers?”

  “I’ll give you everything I can Bill, you and your detectives, back at the station. But I can tell you this is very serious stuff. If we’re going to keep these four guys alive, there is absolutely no margin for mistakes of any kind. Choose your best men, Bill, and your most trustworthy. I’ll see you back at the house.”

  O’Neill pulled out his cell phone and alerted the two Special Ops squads, one of which was “wheels moving” in less than two minutes. Then he turned back to Bohannon and walked him over to the table where Rodriguez, Rizzo, and Johnson still sat silently, vacantly, looking out the ragged hole that used to be a window. “Captain Reilly will be providing each of you with a ride home. The unmarked car will remain outside your homes, and the uniformed officers who accompany you will remain with you for your protection. This is not a request. Before you return to your homes, all four of you will come to the precinct station house, and we will try to pin down the descriptions of the men with the lightning bolt necklace and look at some mug shots from Interpol. Then you’ll be free to go for the time being. Okay?”

  There were nods, but that was all. O’Neill, still trailed by his two bodyguards, turned to leave the room. Passing his captain, he lowered his voice. “Bill, get a doc in here—and a psych. These guys may be in shock.”

  26

  They had accompanied Larsen’s body back to Rhode Island and were swallowed up by the countless masses who turned out to honor one of their leading citizens. Then they went back to Manhattan and tried the best they could to insulate themselves from the horror of recent events, the uniformed officers escorting each of them home. Four days had passed. There had been no arrests, no more attempts on their lives, nothing but the numbing knowledge that a good man who had quickly become a good friend, a companion in a quest, had been brutally murdered by these predatory phantoms with the lightning bolt amulet.

  Bohannon had arranged for a leave of absence from the Bowery Mission in anticipation of the trip to Jerusalem, but with the delay, he was unwilling to sit at home with his thoughts, doubts, and growing anxiety, so he sat in his office with his thoughts, doubts, and growing anxiety, filling his time with some mindless filing. He was kneeling on the floor in his jeans and chamois shirt, stuffing manila files into hanging folders, when he glimpsed a pair of impossibly spit-shined shoes followed by the bottom edges of two trench coats. The commissioner had come to visit. “Hi, Rory,” Bohannon said before he stood up and turned around.

  There was no hint of a smile on O’Neill’s face. “C’mon,” he said, “we need to talk.” O’Neill closed the door behind Bohannon, leaving his two menacing companions flanking the portal. O’Neill turned the two leather office chairs so they were facing each other, rather than allow Bohannon to retreat behind his desk. An alarm was going off in Bohannon’s brain.

  “Tom, after the explosion, we went back to the morgue, pulled out the corpse of that truck driver, and gave him a much more thorough work over,” said O’Neill. “After that crash, we had no reason to think it was anything more than a terrible accident. For us, he was just a ‘John Doe’ we were still trying to identify. This time, we really put forensics to work. The dead guy was an Egyptian, Sayeed Farouk, and he was in this country illegally. He showed up on INS files about a month ago, entering on a cargo ship from Cairo. His passport and entry visa were forgeries.”

  O’Neill shifted in his seat, and Bohannon tried hard, but fruitlessly, to remain calm.

  “You know we have teams of officers and detectives stationed around the world, working with Interpol and other governments to try and stay ahead of terrorists.” O’Neill leaned forward, hands folded between his knees, forearms resting on his legs, eyes full of knowledge and warning. Bohannon could barely breathe. “Through our contacts in the Middle East, we tracked down this guy Farouk and, just this morning, got a report from Egypt, through the State Department. Farouk is an Egyptian nonentity, a stonemason from the city of Suez with no record, no apparent connection to any terrorist organization, no political flags at all. Apparently, just a hardworking family man. So our guys in Egypt are wondering why this ‘everyman’ from Suez was driving a truck in New York City that was ticketed to take you out.

  “Our guys dug deeper . . . talked to his coworkers, his neighbors. All they could find out about Farouk, other than that he was a talented mason, was that he had an interest in ancient Egyptian history, spent a lot of time in the library, and belonged to a historical society in Suez.”

  Bohannon’s mind raced around pyramids and pharaohs until he was suddenly brought up short by O’Neill’s silence. “So, that’s it?” Bohannon asked.

  O’Neill reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulled out his hand, and held it, palm up, in front of Bohannon. “Ever se
e anything like this before?”

  Resting in O’Neill’s hand was an amulet, a Coptic cross with a lightning bolt slashing through it on the diagonal. Bohannon’s insides began to churn, a taste of bile rising in his throat.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen it twice, within minutes of each other,” said Bohannon, shifting uneasily in his chair. “Once on the subway, I thought the guy was trying to pick my pocket. And then, again, on the driver who crashed his truck into the magazine store at Spring and Lafayette, nearly killing me. And Doc Johnson also saw one on a guy who tried to push him in front of a subway train and ended up dead instead.” He looked up at the commissioner. “What is it, Rory? What does it mean?”

  O’Neill’s fingers traveled up, down, and around the amulet, as if his senses could glean some clue from the burnished metal.

  “We don’t know much about these guys. Nobody does, because they’ve got no history. Up to this point, they’ve simply been a bunch of Egyptians interested in ancient documents. Suddenly they show up here in New York trying to take out a team of guys who are headed for Jerusalem to search for a hidden temple. Didn’t you tell me the other day that the scroll you found had been sent to Egypt for safekeeping and had remained there for nearly eight hundred years?”

  “Yeah,” said Bohannon, perking up, “the letter indicates that it was to be delivered to Cairo, but Doc believes it may have ended up somewhere else in Egypt because there is absolutely no record of it in any of Cairo’s ancient libraries and, because of its unusual composition, it certainly would have drawn some notice.”

  “Could it have ended up in Suez?” O’Neill asked. Bohannon didn’t answer, and O’Neill did not wait for a reply.

  “I told you our contacts in Egypt tried to track down Farouk and interviewed a lot of people in Suez. They came across something they didn’t understand, but which they passed along as part of the report. Farouk was a member of what appeared to be a group of historians whose name, in Arabic, would be translated The Prophet’s Guard. The group apparently was formed about 1100 A.D. Records are sketchy, but it appears for approximately the first 750 years of its existence, the group was called the Temple Guard and it was composed of Coptic Christians.”

  O’Neill had been sitting back comfortably as he shared this information. But he suddenly pulled himself closer to Bohannon. “Tom, did you know that Egypt was a mainly Christian country for more than a thousand years? I never knew that,” he continued, not waiting for an answer. “Mark, the guy who wrote the gospel of Mark in the Bible, he preached in Alexandria, died there, and started the Christian church in Egypt—the Coptics. Even though the Muslims conquered Egypt in six-something, Egypt didn’t become a Muslim country until the twelfth century. And there is still a strong Christian church in Egypt.

  “Well, for many years, the Christian protectors of the scroll, the Temple Guard, held their meetings in a building now called the Bibliotheca Historique de L’Egypte in Suez, which has some of the rarest documents from the ancient Middle East. They met at the library in a room that was completely off-limits to anyone who was not a member of the group, a room that was removed from every other part of the library and was locked down tight when the group wasn’t there. The Temple Guard appears to have been all but unknown outside of that library. Then, around a hundred fifty to two hundred years ago, everything changed.

  “The library’s records show there was some radical turnover in the group. It suddenly became controlled by Muslims, and the name was changed from the Temple Guard in Coptic to the Prophet’s Guard in Arabic. Oddly,” said O’Neill, “not long after the name was changed, the Prophet’s Guard abandoned the room and never returned to the library. When the staff looked in the room, it contained a table and an open chest sitting on top of the table. That was it. There was nothing else in that room.

  “And here’s the pièce de résistance—It was called the Scroll Room.”

  Bohannon sat, dumbfounded. If Larsen hadn’t been killed, none of this would have come to light.

  “Tom, my gut tells me these Coptic Christians had the scroll and were either hiding it or protecting it until a little more than 150 years ago. From what you’ve told me, the Temple Guard probably knew where the scroll came from. They may have known what some of the message contained—there’s got to be some reason why they protected it so faithfully for 750 years. But then the Muslims got control of it, probably not a friendly takeover, either. And not long after that, it disappeared . . . and so did the Prophet’s Guard. For the last 150 years, I think the Prophet’s Guard has been searching for this scroll, trying to get it back, trying to keep it out of the wrong hands. And right now, you guys are the wrong hands.

  “I don’t know how they found you or found out that you possessed the scroll,” said O’Neill, fingering the amulet once more. “It really doesn’t matter because now they’ve got you dead in their sites, and clearly, they are not going to stop until they’ve recovered the scroll, all of you are dead, or both.”

  O’Neill looked once more at the amulet, then casually tossed it to Bohannon. “Do you know the meaning of that symbol?”

  Bohannon shook his head.

  “It’s meant to represent ‘Death to Christians.’”

  O’Neill allowed Bohannon time to process that bit of information.

  “Tom, you were wondering if I would prevent you and your team from leaving for Jerusalem. The way I see it, you don’t have a choice. If you stay here, you will still be a target and so will your family. They probably are already, yours and Rodriguez’s. It won’t matter how much police protection we provide for you. If these guys really want to get to you, and it’s pretty obvious that they do, we won’t be able to stop them forever.”

  Reaching across to put his hand on Bohannon’s arm, O’Neill’s voice softened. “Tom, the best way to get these madmen to take their eyes off your family is for you and the other three characters to get out of the country, quickly. While you’re doing that, we’ll get your families out of their homes as a precaution and keep them safe until you get back. But there’s one more thing I want you to do.”

  Fearful that his family could be harmed, enraged that his friend was dead, and determined to carry on with what appeared to be God’s plan, Bohannon tried to shake off his warring emotions and focus on the commissioner’s words.

  With a voice more somber than he had expected, Bohannon responded to the commissioner. “What do you need, Rory?”

  “Here,” said O’Neill, handing Bohannon another of his business cards. “I want you to call this guy at the State Department, Sam Reynolds. His dad and I joined the department when we were discharged from the Marines. I’ve known Sam all his life; he’s a good man. And he can help you, where you’re going. Talk to him today, before you leave. Give him some idea of what you’re planning. He could be an asset when you need it. You said Larsen had gotten you a satellite phone? Well, use it to stay in touch with Reynolds. He’ll keep me updated.”

  O’Neill got out of the chair and put on his coat. “Use your head, Tom. Find a way to get in and get out quickly.” O’Neill extended his hand. “Come home alive, Tom. Make sure you come home.”

  PART TWO

  CITY OF GOD

  27

  JERUSALEM

  Bohannon stepped out of the plane, into the Jetway, and immediately thought of that line from Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues, uttered by Matthew Broderick on his first day at Paris Island. “It was hot . . . heat hot . . . jungle hot . . . Africa hot.”

  Walking up the Jetway to the terminal in Ben Gurion Airport, outside Tel Aviv, his pampered Western body was once again embraced by man’s artificial climate control.

  The four of them cleared customs quickly—scholars and amateur spelunkers on a trip to explore some Israeli caves, a trip sanctioned through Kallie’s connections at Tel-Aviv University. And they were blessed to find their luggage waiting for them on the carousel, El Al’s legendary effectiveness proven once again. While the luggage may have undergone security scans
of many stripes, none of them was concerned about tripping an alarm because the only things in their bags were personal items. The cave-exploring gear was shipped separately to their hotel.

  So carrying his bags out of the baggage claim that mid-June Saturday morning, why did Bohannon feel more like a spy than a tourist?

  I am a spy, he suddenly thought to himself.

  Another thought was beginning to form in his mind in response to the first one, when the desert attacked again. It took only one step through the sliding pneumatic doors, and Bohannon’s rebelling body began to soak the short-sleeved oxford—the signature blue cotton button-down that he wore with unfailing regularity, except when he wore a white one. Immediately, he regretted the poplin suit. Jealously he looked at Rizzo’s green and blue plaid shirt over fluorescent green, nylon running shorts—garishly glaring, but disgustingly more practical than anything Bohannon was now sweating through.

  “It’s hot,” said Rodriguez, now at his side. Bohannon resisted comment.

  Other than Rizzo constantly pestering the attendants, there had been very little conversation during the trip. Bohannon was lost in his own thoughts, and the others appeared to be suffering in their own pain. Prior to the trip, Bohannon had not noticed how alike he and Johnson and Rodriguez were in makeup. In the face of grief, each of them retreated to a safe place, behind the protection of well-constructed walls. It was there, also, that Bohannon wrestled with the forces of fear that he could seldom understand or describe.

  Rizzo, who had brought only a backpack and kept it under the seat in front of him, preceded the others out of the airport and into the heat, a head-turning neon apparition. The other three looked the part of who they were, experienced travelers who packed light and kept themselves mobile. But none of them had dressed correctly for this heat. Even though it was early June, each was beginning to visibly wilt in the desert’s midday swelter. Then Bohannon saw her winding her way through the knots of people waiting for shuttles or waving down taxis. Rather, he saw the hat . . . broad-brimmed straw Stetson, western style, the sides tied up tight under a leather thong. Even more distinctive was the green and blue tartan ribbon wrapped around the base of the hat’s crown.