The Sacred Cipher Read online

  A soft knock on the door was followed by a young, African American man who walked in and silently handed Rizzo a small, soft-cover booklet and a manila folder fairly thick with documents.

  “Thank you, Kevin,” Rizzo said, looking up. “I appreciate your getting this to me quickly. I owe you one.”

  The young man nodded his head, turned, and left as silently as he had entered. Rizzo was back into his story before the young man had reached the hallway.

  “After Napoleon’s 1798 campaign conquered Egypt, the French founded the Institut d’Égypte in Cairo, bringing many scientists and archaeologists to the region. But the stone wasn’t discovered by scientists. It was discovered by a guy who was digging a ditch.” Rizzo picked up the small booklet, opened it, and, referring to the book now and again, continued with his history lesson. “A French army engineer discovered the stone in July of 1799 while he was guiding construction workers at Fort Julien near the Egyptian port city of Rosetta. Recognizing the uniqueness of his discovery, the engineer called his general, who dispatched the stone to the Institut d’Égypte, where it arrived the next month. The French then announced its discovery.

  “Once Napoleon returned to France, leaving behind his soldiers and a couple hundred French scientists and scholars, it was like the stone was a war magnet. Both the British and the Ottoman Turks attacked Egypt. The French soldiers valiantly resisted for two years, but the British ultimately captured Cairo. French troops and scholars, with the stone, fled to Alexandria in hopes of escaping to France, but the British blockaded the port and soon captured Alexandria. That’s when the real fun began.

  “If the military battles were fierce, the scholarly ones were even more intense.

  “The French refused to hand over the archaeological and scientific discoveries they had made in Egypt. The British general—Hutchinson, I believe—was anxious to send home more booty for the newly completed British Museum, so he continued the blockade, refusing to allow food, water, or supplies through to the French. In response, the French declared they would burn all they had found, rather than surrender it to the English, at the same time hiding as many of the objects as they could.

  “Imagine,” said Rizzo, his gaze swinging back and forth between the two rapt listeners, “if the French had followed through with their threat. Imagine all of the history, all of the knowledge that would have been lost forever. But the British had a solution.

  “While a couple of the British scientists were bargaining with the French, telling them they could take home some biology specimens, English soldiers secretly infiltrated the French quarter, broke into the institute, and carried off the loot.” Rizzo flipped a page in the folder and scanned the contents. “Colonel Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner, who escorted the stone to Britain, personally seized the stone from General de Menou and carried it away on a gun carriage.

  “Wow, this stuff would make a great movie, wouldn’t it?” Rizzo said with a big grin.

  “You see, even at that early stage, even though nobody had the foggiest clue what was inscribed on the stone, scholars and scientists were convinced that the keys to deciphering hieroglyphs were on the stone because one of the languages was Greek. Since we understood the Greek, we would probably be able to figure out the other languages. But it wasn’t that easy.

  “More than twenty years passed, and no one—not the scholars at the British Museum, not the French, who had made plaster casts of the stone before it was swiped by the Brits, and not any other linguist—had any success making the connection between the Greek translation and the other two Egyptian languages on the stone.”

  Rizzo took a deep breath, drained the remainder of his tea, closed his eyes, and stretched back in his chair, sharpening the edge of the silence.

  “It was a physicist—a physicist!—who finally figured out the key. The guy’s name was Thomas Young, and he had a revolutionary insight. Young discovered that some of the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone wrote the sounds, not the letters, of the royal name, Ptolemy. From there, a French scholar named Champollion realized that all hieroglyphs recorded the sounds of the Egyptian language, not the letters, and his discovery laid the foundation of our knowledge of ancient Egyptian language and culture. He unlocked the stone.”

  Without a twitch, Rodriguez and Bohannon waited. And waited some more.

  “So . . . ?” Bohannon finally said impatiently. “So . . . what does all that have to do with our characters? Those aren’t hieroglyphs.”

  “No, they’re not,” Rizzo said softly. “In fact, those symbols are even more unknown, even more difficult to understand than hieroglyphs. Those symbols are the third language on the Rosetta Stone,” he said, a note of triumph in his voice. “Those symbols are Demotic.”

  “Demonic?” Bohannon squeaked.

  “No, not demonic,” Rizzo chided, bringing a blush to Bohannon’s cheeks. “Demotic. It’s an ancient type of writing that was used in Egypt for a thousand years, up until about the third century. It was used primarily for business and literary purposes.

  “You know something,” he said, pulling on his earlobe, “it’s been over two hundred years since that stone was found. Two hundred years during which the best minds in the world have pored over every swoop and swirl on its face. And even with the Greek and the hieroglyph to work from, only half of the letters of the Demotic language have been deciphered. Of the fifteen symbols that have been identified, linguists have only been able to figure out the meaning for eleven. The University of Chicago has spent years trying to complete a Demotic dictionary and has done a great job, without a significant amount of success in clearly understanding the entire language. Duke University has many examples of Demotic, mostly from the wrappings of mummies, and hasn’t made much headway. The Louvre in Paris has an extensive collection of Demotic language samples, and it’s still a mystery to them.”

  Bohannon whispered loudly in Rodriguez’s direction. “Perhaps the Louvre should apply the DaVinci Code to this Demotic. Maybe that would solve the puzzle.”

  “You guys are a riot,” sneered Rizzo. “I’m just trying to help you out here. You want to go read Dan Brown, go ahead. He’s not going to help you a bit.”

  “Oh, come on Sammy, lighten up,” said Rodriguez. “You’ve got to admit, that was a pretty good line.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not going to be laughing when you realize you may never figure out what this scroll actually says.” Rizzo pushed on the arms of his chair to gain more height, leaning into the desk to pierce Rodriguez with his gaze. “The problem is that Demotic has defied every attempt at translation for hundreds of years. It’s impossible. Don’t you realize it yet? You are never going to be able to translate this. You will never know what it says.”

  Rizzo dropped back into his chair and watched as hope drained from Rodriguez’s face.

  “Sammy, is it really that bleak?” he asked.

  “Look, guys, I wish I could help you here. This is one of the most fascinating things I’ve seen in years. But there are some daunting, inherent problems that anyone will face if they try to decipher Demotic. The first thing you need to understand is that Demotic was originally a spoken language, not a written language. As the language became more commonly spoken, it began to be translated into symbols for written communication. But from all of the different specimens of Demotic that have been discovered, one of the few consistencies is that the language changes with the circumstances.” Rizzo stopped for a breath and looked at his guests. “The language changes depending on who was writing it, their handwriting, what they were writing. Different types of texts—letters; economic and legal documents; administrative documents; religious, literary, and scientific texts—were all written in differing versions of the language. And it changed from location to location, especially around Cairo. Those differences have stumped scholars for centuries.”

  “Well, then, how did you know what this was when you looked at it?” Rodriguez asked.

  “I know what it is,” said Rizzo, looking u
p, “but I don’t know what it means. Demotic was unique to its time, even in its construction. Its letters are much more flowing and joined, similar to each other—another reason it is difficult to translate. Where something like Akkadian is all triangles and lines in differing formations and quantities, a pattern you can follow, Demotic is beautiful but unpredictable. Look.”

  Rizzo whipped around and typed into his computer. Soon, he was on the Web site of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and had pulled up the introduction to the Demotic Dictionary Project.

  “Look, look at this letter Q. It looks like a side view of a kid’s sled or a toboggan—with a desktop attached to the top of the curve. There are 105 pages of definitions for this letter and its combinations. It takes 8.6 megabytes of memory . . . just on this one symbol. Not a word, a symbol! The first five meanings are ‘length; high ground; a plant; work; high.’ Here, here’s another one that will truly drive you nuts. This letter, F—it sort of looks like a wavy ‘x’—it can mean ‘hair, viper, lift, steal, and fly.’ How does that make any sense? And those are just the first five meanings. The Demotic Project in Chicago started with the easiest letters. Once they translated the easier symbols, they moved on to the more complicated. One letter, C, has 164 pages of definitions. They expect those that are left to decipher will have a lot more meanings than the ones they have already done.

  “This language may have represented the spoken idiom of the time, how a Southerner sounds if he visits New York. You know it’s the same language, but it is hard to understand. Over time, the written form of Demotic diverged more and more from the spoken form, giving Demotic texts an artificial character.”

  Rizzo swept his arm in the direction of the drafting table. “Gentlemen, the document you copied those symbols from could be more than two thousand years old.” He paused for effect. “A remarkable find. But its meaning? Its meaning is a secret, protected by a lock that has no key.”

  A long, deep sigh escaped from Bohannon, who rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. Rodriguez had his hands clasped at his chin, fingers entwined, eyes on the floor.

  “It looks to me like we’re all running down different paths but coming to the same conclusion,” said Rizzo. “Where in the world do we go from here?”

  Two heads nodded in assent.

  “Well, I know one place we’re going. C’mon,” said Sammy, whipping his chair behind his desk again and shutting down his computer. “C’mon, let me buy you a beer. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  5

  Bohannon’s mind was reeling that week, trying to remain balanced between his responsibilities at the Bowery Mission and the remarkable discoveries connected with the mysterious scroll. Even though it was deep into Friday evening, Bohannon felt obligated to return to the mission and finish his final tasks for the week. As he walked up Madison Avenue and turned right on 32nd Street, he was oblivious to the soft April night, the exotic bird store on his right, and the constant stream of people in and out of Artisanal, the popular restaurant and cheese shop.

  Bohannon swiped his MetroCard in the turnstile entrance, turned left on the subway platform, and then instinctively walked to the far end of the platform where he’d be in the best position to disembark right at his exit. He dodged an obvious tourist, head buried in a foldout map, and squeezed himself into one of the typically packed rush-hour trains—the 6 Downtown. Bohannon held firmly to the stainless steel pole in the middle of the train, completely encased in other bodies without making eye contact. In a city of more than eight million people, eye contact could often be misinterpreted. And who needed that hassle? Waiting patiently for his Spring Street stop, Bohannon was pounded into by a body from behind, driving him into the pole. At the same time, he felt two hands slip under his arms from behind, lightly groping for something.

  “Hey!” Bohannon shouted, alarming those around him and spinning quickly to confront his assailant. Facing a middle-aged man with Middle Eastern features, Bohannon went on the offensive. “What do you think you’re doing? Keep your hands off me,” he said menacingly. “What are you trying to steal?”

  Bohannon was agitated, angry, and feeling superior. That ended.

  “Are you accusing me?” the man said through a thick accent. “Are you accusing me?” he said again, his voice rising to a shout. “You call me thief? You call me thief! Who are you to call me thief, you persecutor? You white Americans, ever since the planes you are convinced that all Arabs are murderers and thieves. I am no thief!” he screamed, his diatribe continuing without letup. The commotion was so disturbing, there was now space around Bohannon and this man as the other riders pressed farther and farther away from the threat. “Prove it. Prove it. You want to call the police? Come, let us call the police. I will call them myself,” he screamed.

  The train doors opened, Spring Street. Bohannon made sure his wallet was still in place, then pushed past the man, disgust in his eyes and relief in his gut, happy to get out of the train along with a score of others. “I am no thief!” followed Bohannon through the turnstile exit.

  God help me, he thought as he ascended the steps to Spring Street. That was crazy. What a madman. You never know what you’re going to find on the train. He stood at the corner of Spring and Lafayette, waiting for the light to change, running his hand through the thick, copper-colored hair at the nape of his neck.

  Lafayette was a busy, four-lane street, a major feeder route for taxi cabs heading uptown for the more lucrative fares around Lincoln Center or the Theater District, as well as for delivery trucks and commercial vehicles. Bohannon’s mind was spinning with images from the confrontation on the train, wondering what the man had been after.

  He had no consciousness of a truck picking up speed on Lafayette Street, a truck that veered to the far left and began bearing down on the crowd waiting at the corner of Spring Street. His mind focused inward, he didn’t register his fellow pedestrians fleeing, not until the last possible moment. The headlights, too close, were caught in the side of his eye, massive motion closing fast. Bohannon recklessly threw his body forward and to the left, stepped on a box at the curb, vaulted over a green postal storage box, and rolled over the trunk of a parked car, falling into the street. As he scrambled for his life, he heard screams cut short and the sickening, crashing, smashing of metal-against-metal as the truck exploded into the newspaper and magazine store on the corner, crushing some bodies beyond recognition, impaling others with flying shards of broken plate glass.

  Bohannon’s mind struggled, unable to focus either on the disaster facing him or whether he was still in danger from oncoming traffic. Using the fender of the car he had rolled over, Bohannon pulled himself to his feet, knowing for sure he had seriously sprained his weakened left ankle again—too much volleyball in college. He edged behind the car and looked at what, a few moments ago, had been a place he had passed thousands of times and just took for granted. Now, the missile of a truck was halfway into the store, its right front wheel up in the air, still spinning, as the truck was perilously tipped to the left. Already, people from every direction were responding. Two firemen from the Ladder 23 Station House a few hundred feet up Lafayette Street were already crawling through the ragged metal that was once the store’s facade, first-aid bags over their shoulders, another half dozen of their mates not far behind.

  Dazed, uncertain of what hurt, wondering how he had physically managed to launch himself over this postal box, Bohannon turned to see pedestrians swarming around the truck’s cab, trying to extricate the driver . . . or were they trying to kill him? Uncertain of why, but certain of the necessity, Bohannon shakily made his way around the remains of the truck to the driver’s side and pushed close as civilian rescuers drew the limp, bloodied body of the driver out of the cab. Beginning to succumb to the loss of adrenalin, Bohannon felt foggy, but his mind did register that the dead driver was of Middle Eastern heritage. And there was something else. What was it? Bohannon’s half-working mind focused on the uniqu
e amulet hanging around the man’s throat, a Coptic cross with a lightning bolt slashing through it on the diagonal.

  Funny, Bohannon’s brain transmitted. Where have I seen that before?

  “Sir, are you okay?”

  Bohannon focused on the present. In front of him stood a fire lieutenant, a young man with a concerned look on his face. “Sir, do you hear me?” Bohannon’s mind retreated. The amulet, where have I seen it?

  “Sir . . . sir, can you respond to me?”

  Not that long ago.

  “Medic!” the fire lieutenant shouted.

  The volume clicked with Bohannon. The train . . . the man . . . that man . . . he had an amulet on, too. Yeah, . . . same cross . . . same lightning bolt. Strange. Two men, same necklace, a few minutes.

  “Sir, we’re going to give you something to make you comfortable until the ambulance can take you to the hospital. Sir? Sir . . . are you with me, sir?”

  What’re the chances? Bohannon began to drift off. Two guys . . . some club . . .

  Red lights were flashing in all directions, paramedics, police officers, and firefighters running back and forth. The critical, the bleeders went first, those with a chance for survival. Then the walking wounded, many glassy-eyed and disoriented clutching broken or crushed limbs, their hands gently resting on a heavily bandaged head. In their midst was Bohannon, bruised, scraped, limping on a rapidly swelling ankle, full of questions without answers. The body bags came last. For them, there was no hurry.

  6

  Bohannon lay down in his bed, hoping that he would be asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. His body still bore the bruises and wounds of his near-death experience with the runaway truck ten days ago, but his schedule had given him little time to recover from the accident or process much of anything. So he lay awake again, his mind betraying his body as it raced over the events since the scroll had been discovered.