The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) Page 8

  8

  11:35 p.m., Jerusalem

  “Who should we call first—the cops, Reynolds, or Connor?” asked Rizzo.

  They were back in the relative safety of Kallie Nolan’s apartment, the story of their pursuit by the Prophet’s Guard still hanging in the air. Annie sat on the sofa between Deidre and Rizzo.

  Connor’s voicemail message on Kallie’s phone sounded urgent. Tom ran his left hand through his hair, trying once again to navigate toward the right decision.

  He didn’t need to.

  “Call Sam Reynolds … let him know what happened.” Annie’s voice was firm, calm, determined. “Then we can talk to Connor while Reynolds figures out what he should do.”

  It hadn’t taken them long to cover the half-mile distance from the northern edge of the Me’a She’arim to Kallie’s apartment near Ammunition Hill, off the Bar Lev Road. Tom, Annie, and Joe were physically and emotionally exhausted—but surprisingly alert—following the attack of the Prophet’s Guard on their walk from Rabbi Fineman’s home. They had quickly filled in the details for Rizzo, Deirdre, and McDonough.

  Tom picked up the phone and called Reynolds. He told Reynolds of their race through the empty streets of Jerusalem, the Prophet’s Guard assassins at their heels, then listened for a few minutes. “Twenty minutes? Make it thirty. We may need a few minutes here to get our heads screwed on straight. Thanks.”

  He replaced the receiver and stood next to the table. “He wants us to meet him at the National Police headquarters. It’s just across the Bar Lev Road on Clermont, near the Regency Hotel. It’ll only take a few minutes to walk there. Let’s call Connor.”

  4:45 p.m., New York City

  “That letter sounds a lot like the first one we found, the one that was with the mezuzah,” said his father’s voice, coming through the speaker of the telephone. “There’s no date or anything on it?”

  Connor Bohannon sat in the commander’s office inside the evidence warehouse in New York City, with Police Commissioner O’Neill and Stew Manthey listening in. “No, Dad … nothing on the envelope, either, except for a wax seal stamped with Klopsch’s K. Mr. Manthey says the handwriting looks the same as the handwriting in the first letter. But there was a notation at the bottom of the letter, in pencil and clearly added later. The words were printed, but old fashioned, like calligraphy. Somebody took some time with that notation. It said, ‘Protected by the Prodigal Son’s father.”

  “Well, the letter’s gotta be from Spurgeon, I don’t have any doubt about that,” said Tom. “He sent Klopsch another package and another warning.”

  “But, Dad, what could … I mean, this sounds worse than the first one.” Connor looked over at Rory O’Neill.

  “Tom,” said O’Neill, “I remember saying this to you once before, but this thing isn’t over yet. You’ve wondered why the Prophet’s Guard was still making your life a nightmare. There’s still more unfolding here.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” said Bohannon. “And Spurgeon’s letter just confirms what we’ve concluded … that we never really understood what we were drawn into. Rory, the clues, the threats, the deaths, this whole thing hasn’t been simply about a Temple or about the Tent. All the signs we have here lead us to believe—as far as the Prophet’s Guard is concerned—they’ve been chasing something they believe was the most powerful weapon on earth. If they find it, they hope it will be the most powerful weapon again. This isn’t about the past, Rory, it’s about the future.”

  Annie jumped in as his dad took a breath. “A future that’s getting real short,” she said, her voice coming closer to the phone’s microphone. “The clock started ticking in 1948 when Israel was created as a state, but it started running a lot faster when the priests held ritual sacrifice in the hidden Temple four months ago, before the earthquake. I don’t want to come off sounding like a whacko, but we seem to be living out the final acts of some end-time prophecy movie.”

  “And now Spurgeon’s newest letter seems to confirm what we’ve feared,” said Tom. “Armageddon … he really wrote Armageddon?”

  Silence came across the telephone from Jerusalem. Stew Manthey reached across and put his hand on Connor’s arm, giving it a squeeze. “It’s okay,” he whispered.

  “Hey, Connor, tell us about the discs you found.” Connor could barely hear the other voices in the background as they talked among themselves, but his uncle Joe’s voice was loud and clear.

  “Well, that’s just it,” said Connor, “there was only one disc in the container. And I don’t think there was room for another. The disc was wrapped tightly in a well-oiled rag, even after all this time. The container was sealed with what looked like wax, but it was a firm seal, no gaps. And with the rag and the disc, it pretty much filled the whole container. I don’t see how two could fit—”

  “Connor”—Tom’s voice interrupted with both the command of a leader and the demand of a father—“tell me. What does this disc look like?”

  Connor Bohannon hefted the leather disc in his hand and then held it up. “Well, it’s strange looking,” he said. “It’s got symbols on it, cut into the surface. And there are …”

  “Eight arms and eight slots,” said Tom, half the world away. “Four of the arms have tabs on the end and four have grooves. And the symbols are on both sides of the disc.”

  Connor looked at the disc in his hand, exactly as his dad described it. “How did you know that?”

  “Because I know where the other disc is,” said Bohannon. “Inside the drawer in my desk in the Bowery Mission.”

  11:55 p.m., Jerusalem

  For a few moments, the group continued to sit around the dining-room table, staring at the telephone perched in the middle. Rizzo broke the thoughtful silence.

  “So what is this disc you so conveniently have stashed in your office?” he asked Tom. “What are the symbols that are marked on it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bohannon, scratching his head. “To be honest, I can’t remember what’s on it. We found it while we were involved in the historic renovations we did at the Mission. Hey”—a light went off in Bohannon’s head like a candle in a cave—“the Prodigal Son.” He turned and pointed at Rizzo. “That’s where it was … under the Prodigal Son’s father.”

  Rizzo patted Tom’s right forearm, again held tight by the sling. “That’s okay, Tom. We know how tired you must be. But I think all this excitement has turned your brain to oatmeal cookies. What are you talking about?”

  “I like oatmeal cookies … with raisins.” In spite of the circumstances, his weariness, and the pain in his shoulder, Bohannon could not resist a big smile at the inquisitor to his left. “Listen, when we were doing the renovations, we wanted to clean and repair the huge Tiffany window at the front of the Mission. So we had specialists come in and take the window apart, piece by piece. The window must be twelve, fifteen feet wide and eight, ten feet high. The only way they could move it was in sections. See, the window is a progression of scenes from the Prodigal Son story in the Bible. After they got the sections out, the workers were cleaning up the window frame. Right under the section that contained the Prodigal Son’s father, they found an old, round, pewter container and inside, wrapped in an oiled cloth, was this leather disc with arms and notches. We didn’t know what it was, but Tim Maybry, the construction manager, convinced me to keep it. He said it looked like it belonged to something. So I threw it into the drawer in my desk—and haven’t thought about it since.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if the symbols on the discs were Demotic, same as the scroll,” Annie said from across the table. “Did they look like Demotic?”

  “Honestly, I can’t remember, except that they looked strange at the time. But this is amazing,” Tom said. “We just keep finding more and more pieces of this puzzle. Where’s it going to end?”

  6:03 p.m., New York City

  Manthey unlocked the door to Tom Bohannon’s office in the Bowery Mission and led Tom’s son to the far side of the wel
l-used wooden desk.

  “He said bottom left drawer—in a box in the back.”

  Halfway out, the drawer stuck, then gave way to a greater tug. Manthey reached inside and pulled out a gray metal box and put it on the desktop. Inside was a gray, pewter container like the one they retrieved from Klopsch’s safe. “Here, you open it.”

  Connor gripped the container with both hands and twisted—but this one opened easily. The wax seal was already broken. Inside, wrapped in a well-oiled cloth, sat another of the strangely shaped leather discs with the symbols worked into the surface. Connor Bohannon held the leather disc in front of him. Though similar, this disc varied from the first disc they found in one significant aspect: this one had holes in it, four holes spaced evenly in the sections formed between the arms.

  Connor pulled the other container from his backpack and laid both discs on top of Bohannon’s desk. He took his fingers and ran them over the arms of the second disc. “They have the same arms, the same tabs and grooves,” said Connor, “but they’re different.”

  “Opposite,” said Manthey. He reached down, took the two discs, and joined them together. The arms fit perfectly together, tabs on one slipping into the grooves on the other.

  Stew Manthey sat in Tom’s guest chair and regarded the joined discs. “Do you ever work on Sudoku puzzles?” he asked. “Different numbers going together in different ways on different lines.” He separated the two discs and turned one in his hand so that the opposite side was facing the other disc. “Sudoku is the first thing I thought of when I looked at these two discs side by side.” He brought the two opposite sides together and, once again, they fit perfectly.

  “Wait,” said Connor, “how did you do that?”

  Manthey took the two discs apart again and turned them over in his hands. “You see how the tabs and the grooves are arranged? It’s designed so that whatever way you put them together, a tab lines up with a groove. Here, look at this.”

  The two discs lay flat in his palms. “The right disc has side A facing us, and on its opposite side is side B. The one on the left, the one with the holes, has side C facing us, and the opposite side is side D. You can join A to C,” he said, putting the two discs together, “or”—he turned the one in his right palm over—“you can join B to C. The same is true for the other side. You can join A to D or B to D, and they all fit together perfectly.”

  Taking the joined discs from Manthey, Connor hefted them in his hand. “Okay, that’s cool. But there’s got to be a point. Everything we’ve learned about this mezuzah and scroll is that very little, or nothing, is there by chance. The symbols on the outside of these things—sprockets Spurgeon called them—must have some meaning. So when you fit the discs together and the symbols read in order, there must be a reason … And what are the holes for?” asked Connor.

  Reaching over, Manthey took back the joined disc and separated it once more. “Look at it this way. These sprockets fit together perfectly to form one unit, and they fit together perfectly in four different combinations. But take this solid one,” he said, holding it up. “If both discs were solid, the same, then even when you joined the sprockets together, you would be looking at the same symbols you were looking at when they were separated. See what I mean.” Manthey joined the leather discs together, showed Connor the sides facing out, then joined them together again, changing sides. “See, you’re just looking at the face of each sprocket. You could do that whether they were joined together or apart.”

  “So if these sprockets have some message to deliver, what would be the point of having such a unique method for joining them together in four different combinations if all you come up with is the same thing you were looking at when they were separate? I think the holes don’t determine what symbols we look at, but how we look at them—the sequence.”

  “Wouldn’t there be an almost endless number of combinations?” Connor asked.

  “A lot, but not endless,” said Manthey. “You can only join tab to groove, not tab to tab, so that limits the number of sequences. So this one with the holes, let’s call it the guide, reveals four symbols on one side of the solid sprocket. But if you rotate the guide sprocket like this”—Manthey detached the discs and rotated the guide ninety degrees—“then the holes reveal four different symbols.”

  Connor leaned back in his father’s chair, entwined his fingers behind his head, and searched the ceiling for inspiration. “Yeah, but when you rotate the guide sprocket,” he said, “then the holes end up displaying all eight of the symbols on that one face—four the first way and then the other four when you rotate the guide ninety degrees. What good does that do?”

  “Because depending where you start, you get different sequences. Here, look.”

  Manthey held up the solid sprocket in front of Connor. “See this symbol”—he rotated the sprocket—“and this one? Those two symbols both appear twice on this side. And look. The same thing is true on the other side. The same two symbols repeated the same way on the other side.”

  “Okay … so?”

  “Why was it so important for Charles Spurgeon and Louis Klopsch to separate these sprockets, to keep them apart from the mezuzah and scroll? Why did Klopsch find it necessary to hide the sprockets separately? One he hid inside the window frame during the construction of the Bowery Mission. Spurgeon warned Klopsch the message on these sprockets could be the cause of Armageddon. So there is a message here. And if there is a message, then the message has to begin somewhere and end somewhere. And if there is a message, then the message is meant to be read. So we have two problems—”

  “Only two?”

  “Okay, two for now. Here’s what I think. If we’re going to decipher this message, we need to understand how the message is sequenced—where do we start? Is it one message, four messages, or some different combination? Once we figure out the sequence, the second problem is to decipher what the symbols are telling us.”

  “How do we find out?”

  “I don’t know,” said Manthey, sitting back away from the wooden desk. “But my gut tells me that finding an answer will be even more complex than you can imagine.”

  6:55 p.m., Washington, DC

  “Baruk won’t pick up,” said Cartwright, as he cradled the phone. “Either he has his hands full over there, or he can’t bear having to face you … or both.”

  President Whitestone paced in front of the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. Normally photogenic, his face was drawn and tight this evening and testified to the long, sleepless night he had endured in the residence, waiting for word from his national security advisor.

  “We should be celebrating today,” Whitestone mumbled as he crossed the presidential seal in the blue carpet. “Whatever nuclear threat the Iranians embodied yesterday has vanished. Their government is impoverished and impotent. With the evidence of Iran’s complicity in the assassination attempts, we had the world behind us, cooperating, when we froze their foreign assets. Now …”

  Whitestone stopped in midcourse and turned to his right, lifting his open palms in a gesture of helplessness.

  Cartwright put down the phone. “The reports are only getting worse.” Cartwright hated delivering more bad news to the president. He’d known Whitestone long enough, had been his accountability partner for so many years, that he could see the toll the office and now this disaster were taking on the president’s health.

  “The Israeli scientists are very clever,” said Cartwright, perching himself on the arm of one of the twin sofas. “The radioactive gas released into the Central Bank’s gold depository was a combination of strontium-90, cesium-137, and carbon-14.”

  “That’s a strange combination,” said the president, turning in Cartwright’s direction. “Strontium-90 and cesium-137 are two of the main components of nuclear fallout. They would quickly contaminate the gold on their own. Why the carbon?”

  “To make it last longer,” Cartwright replied. “Strontium and cesium have half-lives of about thirty years, which would hav
e ruined that gold for a generation. But the carbon-14 has a half-life of over five thousand years. The Israelis wanted to be sure that gold was never used again. But it also made the radioactive cloud far more lethal.

  “For those who are close to the Central Bank building—which is located in the middle of downtown Tehran—the strontium will penetrate their bodies. It’s called a ‘bone seeker,’ like calcium. The cesium will burn the skin and eyes. Their bodies will suffer from radiation sickness both inside and out. Death will come quickly. But for those farther away … well this gas is very light, so it spreads far. Once inhaled, the carbon settles in the body and stays there. You’ve been given a death sentence and don’t even know it. This cloud has been dispersed over a large area. The numbers of dead are multiplying every minute—those who will die this week and those who carry death and will never see another birthday.”

  Whitestone seemed to falter, a slight waver through his shoulders. He took his right hand and ran it through his graying hair. “God help us … God help them.”

  “But we have other problems,” said Cartwright. “There is no actionable evidence as to who was behind the attacks on Fordow and Natanz, the oil complexes, or the Central Bank. Yet, as expected, both the Arab world and the rest of the world community are heaping scalding criticism on the Israeli government … on Baruk in particular. Consensus is no other nation has the motive or the means to carry out a raid like this. Hezbollah rockets are falling on northern Israeli villages as we speak. Palestinian leaders are calling for another intifada. The only break we have is that Syria is incapacitated and Egypt remains politically impotent, or there might already be tanks rolling across Israeli borders.”

  “Our turn comes next,” said Whitestone, a somber resolution in his voice. “Perhaps we would have avoided the outcry had it just been the raids. But this nuclear contamination changes everything. We won’t escape being tarred with the same brush.”

  Compassion and concern guiding his actions, Cartwright eased over to the president, took his arm, and led him to one of the sofas in the middle of the room. He captured Whitestone’s gaze and held it.