The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) Read online

  “Here’s what I think,” said Rizzo, taking a bite and chewing heartily. “Hey … Missus Fineman! This is great. Thanks.” He turned back to the group. “I think Jeremiah was trying to tell us something. I think there was a third message on the mezuzah, a message from Jeremiah, something about Aaron’s staff. That’s what the guys with the Temple Guard believe—what they told me the Prophet’s Guard believes. That Jeremiah was the last guy with this awesome weapon and that somehow—whether through the scroll, the mezuzah, or the scribblings in the margins of the Aleppo Codex—they will find the clues to reveal what Jeremiah did with the staff, where he hid it. Jeremiah was big into hiding stuff. Why wouldn’t he hide the staff, too?”

  An audible rustle circulated around the room. Bohannon could feel the excitement level ratcheting up.

  “I asked those guys why they didn’t reveal the secret before—the secret of the Temple, the secret of the Tent, or now of the Staff,” said Rizzo, leaning against the door leading to a small dining area. “They said they knew they had not fully discovered all the secrets. They knew the message that was on the scroll, from when the code breaker came to the monastery, and there appeared to be other clues. Their incomplete copy of the codex told them about the power of Aaron’s staff but not what happened to it. That’s why they are not giving up, why the Prophet’s Guard is still hard on our heels. They want Aaron’s staff, and they want its power.”

  For a heartbeat, silence joined them. Tom was about to raise an objection …

  “Hang on,” said Annie. “I hear the history and I hear the legends. But there is one thought I can’t escape. It’s God’s power. We’re not talking about a stick’s power, or an Ark’s power. We’re talking about God’s power. And God’s not going to allow his power to be used for evil. Who cares if the Prophet’s Guard gets the staff? In their hands it will be a dead piece of wood.”

  “Yes, you are right,” said Fineman, inching forward on the sofa. “All power is in the hands of the Creator. Yet, there are many things we humans don’t know. None of us can see God’s ultimate plan or understand his ultimate will. Isaiah has written, ‘“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”’ Perhaps the staff will have no power in the hands of God’s enemies. But then, tell me, why has God brought you here? Why all these clues about Aaron’s staff from so many different times, different places, different people, all coming to completion in this group of people? You have been called. So, why have you been called? What is your role and purpose? What is God’s purpose.”

  He looked around the room and his eyes settled on Bohannon. “We don’t know,” said Fineman. “We do know that the Prophet’s Guard has searched for centuries and risked everything to gain possession of the staff and that their adversaries, the Temple Guard, have fought just as earnestly to protect it. Both groups believe the staff could have power inherent in itself. We don’t know.”

  Fineman turned his attention back to Annie. “This is no coincidence, no accident, that you are here. If it were, your friends would have perished in vain and I don’t believe that’s true. I believe God’s plan is at work in the world and you were enlisted to bring part of that plan to fruition. I don’t know why you or what part—and neither do you. I don’t know if the staff itself has any power. I don’t understand it all. But what am I confident about is that all you have experienced these last several months has been orchestrated by God. And now, I believe God has called you to find Aaron’s staff.”

  “But, wait a minute,” said Bohannon, shaking his head. “Sammy just said nobody knows what happened to the staff, right?”

  “Well, me bucko, that may no longer be true,” said Brandon McDonough. McDonough had the quick wit and the acerbic tongue all so familiar to the Irish, but his edges were softened by a passion to protect the downtrodden and a love of words, art, and beauty. “As me sainted mother used to say, ‘If God sends you down a stony path, may he give you strong shoes.’ I showed you the rubbing I made from the inscriptions carved into the top of the sarcophagus of Jeremiah’s tomb. When I got here, the rabbi and I began sharing information. I believe that the carving on Jeremiah’s sarcophagus was his last communication to us. It’s a statement about what he did with Aaron’s staff—that he brought it home … back to the garden of Eden.”

  The guttural rattle of the air conditioner ricocheted around the room. There was no other sound. Even each person’s breathing seemed to be muted.

  “Okay, I’ll ask,” offered Rodriguez, piercing the silence and indicting McDonough’s logic with reasonable doubt. “The garden of Eden? I’ve heard some pretty crazy stuff over the past few months, but this is probably the most bizarre premise any of us have thrown on the table thus far. I’m sorry. This is crazy.”

  Fineman got up from the sofa and stretched his back. “You are correct, of course,” he said. “The existence of the garden? No, it’s just not possible.”

  “There. Thank you, Ronald, for agreeing with—”

  “Only one thing. No, three things.” Fineman stood in their midst and waited until all eyes were upon him. “First, on the last page of the Aleppo Codex are the names of some of the scribes involved in the project. At the head of those names are two hallmarks: Elijah, the man who was in charge of the final stages of its creation; and his son, who was the man who received the completed Codex—our old friend, Abiathar, head of the Jewish community in Jerusalem. Second, Elijah and Abiathar are direct descendants of Jeremiah the prophet.”

  “But that’s not enough—”

  Fineman’s raised finger stalled Rodriguez’s interruption.

  “And the third thing are the notations in the Aleppo Codex around what is now considered the twenty-ninth chapter of Jeremiah—one of those missing from the original in the Israel Museum—where Jeremiah writes a letter to the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Those notes confirm what we know from rabbinical history, that in the year 594 Jeremiah traveled to Babylon at the request of King Nebuchadnezzar. Significantly, both Daniel and Ezekiel were exiles in Babylon at the same time, and Daniel was in charge of all facets of Nebuchadnezzar’s government and continued as one of the most powerful men in Babylon during the reigns of the emperors Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Great.

  “But this is most important.” The rabbi looked around the room like a magician about to pull a rabbit out of a hat. “Following the flood of Noah, Babylon was the first city built by man. It was founded and built by Noah’s grandson, Nimrod. The Masoretic notes surrounding Jeremiah twenty-nine attest that Nimrod built Babylon—which literally means ‘The Gate of God’—directly over the location of the garden of Eden as a memorial to his family’s salvation from the flood. And that Jeremiah brought Aaron’s staff with him on his journey to Babylon for the express purpose of returning the staff to the garden of Eden, where it would be safe once again—until Messiah comes.”

  Tom could hear Mrs. Fineman singing a Hebrew song in the kitchen, the laboring air conditioner syncopating to her voice. One word kept buzzing in his mind. Again? Are we really going to do this again?

  Across the room, Brandon McDonough held up the heavy paper containing the rubbing. “And I believe that is the same story being confirmed by this carving on the lid of Jeremiah’s sarcophagus in Cairn T—that Aaron’s staff has been returned to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, guarded by archangels of God, in the garden of Eden.

  “This staff is the last and only connection to the garden of Eden—Paradise in which man would live a perfect, content life in communion with God. The place of eternal life.”

  Rizzo pulled himself away from the doorjamb and crossed the room to where McDonough held the long piece of paper. He tapped the symbol of the staff on the drawing. “This is what the Prophet’s Guard is hunting. They will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. It’s the only way they can guarantee victory for themselves. Right
now, they don’t know where to look to find it.” Rizzo turned back to the room. “How long will that last? And can we risk that they won’t figure it out? Padre, why don’t you tell them the kicker, what you told me.”

  Fineman tilted his head and scratched the back of his neck, a squirrely grimace twisting the edges of his mouth. “While there is much we know,” he said, choosing his words with care, “there are still many unanswered questions about the staff and its place in prophecy. Many believe that the plagues of Egypt are the same as the plagues that will be released during the Tribulation period. That the plagues of Exodus will be the same as the plagues of Revelation. But, assuming the staff is the power of the Ark, will the staff need to be returned to the Ark before the events of Revelation can transpire? Now, with ritual sacrifice having returned to the Temple of God on Mount Zion—albeit only once—it’s possible we are in the end of days. The return of Aaron’s staff to the Ark of the Covenant could be another of the precursors to the events of Revelation. Or would the resurrection of Aaron’s staff itself, whether used for good or evil, be enough to accelerate the end-times prophecy of Scripture?”

  Deirdre Rodriguez rose from the futon and stretched her body from her red curls to her toes, attracting attention. “If I was an Islamic militant,” she said, her eyes surveying the room, “the last thing in the world I would want is for the power of the Ark to be returned to its home. These Islamists read the Bible, too. They know what is prophesied about them and their future in Revelation. Why would they take any chance that the Bible may be accurate?”

  Tom shook his head and stretched his left shoulder, almost as much to sort out his thoughts as to ward off the weight of weariness that hung on his bones more heavily every hour. “So this is why none of us understood what we were involved in? This … quest … mission … call it what you will. This assignment that has us all in its grip and won’t let us go. It’s much bigger than the mezuzah and the scroll. It’s much bigger than anything we could have imagined. These relentless thugs, the Prophet’s Guard, and now whoever is behind the Muslim Brotherhood, are not pursuing the Temple under Temple Mount or the Tent of Meeting. They’re after Aaron’s staff—the true power of the Ark of the Covenant and potentially a weapon of unimaginable force. And we remain square in the path of these murderous fanatics.”

  Bohannon twisted to the left to look at his wife. “It’s still not over.”

  Annie, who had sat quietly beside Tom through the entire narration, was now on her feet. “Ronald, how do you know all this? You told us that nearly half of the Aleppo Codex was destroyed, including a good bit of the book of Jeremiah. How do you know what was written in the margins of a section that was lost?”

  Fineman walked over to Tom and took the old book he had put in Tom’s hands earlier. He looked at its cover and hefted its weight. “Because there is a complete copy of the Aleppo Codex in existence. And I’ve seen it.”

  The team all blurted out questions at the same time. Fineman held up the book as if trying to fend them off. “Wait … wait. It’s much too late to go any further. I’m an old man. I need my sleep. So does my wife. Tomorrow. I have something to show you tomorrow.”

  “Reynolds is coming tomorrow,” Annie reminded them. “And for some reason he wants us packed and ready to go home. Rabbi, we’d better make it early.”

  4

  1:04 p.m., Washington, DC

  The president and prime minister sat on opposite sides of the world, on either end of an encrypted, secure broadcast, but they were of one mind. Their revenge would leave a sovereign nation’s economy a wasteland for generations.

  “When someone targets two of the most powerful men in the world for assassination—one in his own home—then that someone needs to pay, and pay dearly,” said Eliazar Baruk, the prime minister of Israel.

  Jonathan Whitestone felt older than his years. The constant tension of the last few months, the attempted assassination, the gun battle outside Senator Green’s home in Virginia, the panic as a human wall of Secret Service agents hustled him into a safe room in the senator’s basement, now the final go-order for this destructive and dangerous raid on Iran—all took an exacting toll on his weakening heart. But there was no weakening in his resolve. The Iranian government was out of control, megalomaniac fanatics who had finally moved from empty denials of their nuclear intentions to a clear and present danger to Israel, the United States, even to world peace. Sanctions failed. Direct action was needed. Iran must be stopped. The assassination attempts on Whitestone and Baruk three days earlier interrupted their original timetable, but they still had in motion the means to devastate Iran’s economy, its capacity to threaten anyone.

  “Some may be more than a trifle suspect when we strike back this quickly,” said Whitestone. Bill Cartwright, promoted to national security advisor when Whitestone purged his cabinet members following the near disaster surrounding the Tent of Meeting, was the only eyes and ears who would ever know of this conversation. They were locked into a secure communications room—with no recorders—deep in the bunkers under the White House.

  “Let them speculate,” Baruk responded. The normally unflappable and dapper prime minister looked as if he hadn’t slept. His clothes were rumpled, his eyes heavy. “It took a few days, but there is now enough evidence in place to connect those hooded assassins to the Iranian mullahs.”

  “Are the teams still in place?”

  Baruk pushed back his shoulders as if to wish life into his bones. “Three teams at Abadan, three teams at Bandar-e Abbas—the refineries will be ash in minutes. All the necessary items are in place at Fordow and the national treasury in Tehran. We have even managed access to certain portions of the Natanz facility. Don’t worry, Jonathan, in twenty-four hours Iran will cease to be a threat to anyone. And their new president may have trouble keeping his position.”

  Cartwright leaned in around the president, an old friend, and pressed toward the camera. “Mr. Prime Minister, what about the teams on the ground? What are their chances?”

  “The chance of success is high. The chance for survival? The teams at the refineries we hope to pick up by submarine in the gulf. The devices are nearly all in place in Fordow and Natanz. They are set to go off at the same time. Our assets will be far away when the explosions occur. The gold depository … well, the gold depository is another story.

  “We’ve been planning for this day for quite some time,” said Baruk, “long before you or the international community joined the call for Iran to cease its nuclear operations. We’ve sabotaged their centrifuges, taken out their scientists, even managed to deliver inferior grade concrete during their building boom at Natanz and Fordow. Those things slowed down the Iranians. But we knew this day was coming, and we’ve been patient and meticulous in the planning.”

  Baruk ran a hand through his thick, curling hair. “But the team at the Central Bank … we just don’t know. It’s the most difficult assignment—near impossible to gain access, more difficult to get out. You don’t want to make it easy to leave a gold depository, do you? We tried hiding the devices in Iranian gold bars, but we couldn’t get the weight right with the bars bored out, and the gold is so dense it would muffle a good bit of the explosive, limit the contamination. There’s no place else to hide the devices in the depository.

  “This has to be an inside job. The men are all native Iranians … long-time employees at the Central Bank. The devices are timed for just after shift-change, when the men are making their pickup inside the vault. There will be no time to escape. They knew the risk, the probable outcome. They volunteered anyway. Anyone inside that vault is a dead man.”

  Whitestone was well into his first term when he and Cartwright came to the same conclusion: the Iranians were unyielding in their determination to create nuclear weapons. And to use those weapons against Israel. Whitestone was an early champion of economic sanctions, which crippled the government in Tehran and impoverished its people but failed to deter the mullahs in control. It was in White
stone’s second term, when convinced only force would cripple the Iranian rush to nuclear capability, that he and Baruk began laying the groundwork of this most clandestine operation.

  American B-2 stealth bombers were already in the air from Incirlik air base, circling over eastern Turkey, waiting for orders if they were needed. Their “bunker buster” bombs would not fully penetrate the facilities at Fordow or Natanz, but if the Israeli devices didn’t fire properly, the bombs could destroy some of the underground labs and leave a pile of rubble forty feet thick, enough to hold in any radiation that would be unleashed in the deeper labs.

  More importantly, the federal courts and federal banking system were on notice to be prepared for immediate action. What action, they didn’t know. But before this day was over, every Iranian asset in the United States would be seized or frozen and evidence presented that Iran was behind the attempted assassinations of both Whitestone and Baruk. With the right amount of pressure, European banks would follow suit. And the Iranian government would be bankrupt.

  5

  9:22 p.m., Jerusalem

  Bohannon needed to clear his head and unburden his heart. His memory was plagued by the dead, and the guilt was so stifling that at times he felt his lungs would simply stop working. Now Rizzo, Fineman, and McDonough had revealed this fantastic story about a book and a staff. It appeared as if Jeremiah—or whoever was at the root of this mystery—wasn’t finished with them yet. There was just too much to absorb.

  “I’m not waiting for the cab. I’m going to walk back,” said Tom as they departed the rabbi’s house through the courtyard.

  Joe Rodriguez’s arm was protectively wrapped around his wife’s waist. He looked back over his shoulder at his brother-in-law. “Do you think it’s safe?”