Shadow Ritual (3 page)

The descent seemed to last an eternity.

Helpless, Obersturmbannführer Le Guermand gazed at the branches slapping against the windshield like wild animals clawing the vehicle.

Then, by some miracle, the slope flattened out, and the battered truck came to a stop in what looked like a muddy creek.

Le Guermand’s head hit the steering wheel, but he didn’t feel any pain. He had slipped into a kind of trance on the edge of madness. Everything around him was dark. The truck had slammed into a rocky bank covered with blackish moss. Only a few rays of sunlight could make their way into this dark chasm.

There was no noise. Nothing but a heavy, wet silence.

He managed to climb out of the cab, his head spinning and his legs shaking. Blood was spurting in fits from his temple and dripping down his face and neck. He was slipping in and out of consciousness, but he was still standing, and a survival instinct was deeply embedded in his muscles.

He walked around the truck and climbed into the back. If he was going to die here, he wanted to know why. What was in those damned crates?

And what was that sickly sweet smell? He looked down and saw that bullets had ripped open a can of motor oil, and the dark liquid was spilling between the crates. He took two steps to retrieve the can and slipped. He reached out to keep himself from falling. He felt something hard, but soft too. And sticky. It was a bullet-ridden face. He pulled his hand away and retched.

Gathering his last strength, Le Guermand sat down next to one of the crates. He picked up the assault rifle next to the body and started hacking at the top.

His vision was blurry. His brain wasn’t getting enough blood. In a burst of rage, he gave the crate a final blow, which broke the oak planks apart.

Wood shards and a bundle of old papers landed on his lap.

Papers. Nothing but stupid pieces of paper.

His mouth went dry, and his hand stiffened. He stared at the yellowed sheets full of symbols. He didn’t recognize much, but the black skull was unmistakable. He focused on it. No, it wasn’t the familiar skull on his SS helmet. It was misshapen—and it was wearing a grotesque smile.

François Le Guermand started laughing uncontrollably, like a madman, as he slipped into the shadows.

BOAZ

One of two pillars guarding the temple entrance,

derived from Hebrew, meaning “in strength”

1

2005

The speaker, a Generation Xer with jet-black hair, stood in front of a stylized sun painting. He scanned the room. It was silent.

This space in Rome’s Alessandro di Cagliostro Freemason Lodge resembled a large dark-blue cavern. Thin rays of light shone down from the ceiling, which was adorned with stars to make it look like the night sky.

To his left and right were forty or so men in black suits, white aprons, and gloves. They were impassive, motionless, like statues made of flesh. There were also a few women in long robes.

He turned to the east, toward the man presiding over the meeting. “I have spoken, Worshipful Master,” he said.

The master waited a few seconds and then pounded a wooden mallet on his small desk. Behind him hung a huge all-seeing Egyptian eye.

“Brothers and sisters, I would like to thank our brother Antoine Marcas for coming from France to speak to us. His lecture on the origins of ancient Masonic rites was quite instructive. He claims to just be a little curious, but it’s clear that he has taken great pains to educate himself in our mysteries. I am sure you have many questions. Sisters and brothers, you may speak.”

A brother clapped, asking to be acknowledged. The senior steward spoke the ritual words and invited him to speak.

“Worshipful Master in person, Worshipful Masters from the Orient, and my brothers and sisters, as we all know, our lodge was named after Alessandro di Cagliostro, and I would like to ask our distinguished brother Marcas to clarify, if possible, the origin of the Cagliostro ritual.”

The speaker looked over the notes he had jotted down on three-by-five cards. “In 1784, in Lyon, France, Cagliostro inaugurated his High Egyptian Masonic Rite in the Triumphant Wisdom Lodge. According to current biographers, Cagliostro was initiated in Malta at the Saint John of Scotland Lodge of Secrecy and Harmony, which is where he founded the ritual that now bears his name.”

Another man clapped.

Antoine Marcas took a closer look at the audience. Both Italian and French lodges were represented. He recognized the Grande Lodge brothers with their red-trimmed Scottish rite aprons and the Memphis Misraïm sisters dressed in white.

The worshipful master gave the floor to a brother with a strong Milanese accent, which made him sound very serious. “Italy’s declining institutions and political corruption continue to make headlines. And the country’s troubles appear to be affecting the rest of Europe, especially France. Some are accusing the Freemasons of being at least partly responsible for this situation. What do you have to say about this?”

Marcas nodded. He didn’t like political questions.

Fifteen years earlier, his idealistic trust in the secular values of the republic had motivated him to become a Freemason. He was also excited by the promise of personal development. Since then, he had watched the image of freemasonry decline in France. Before, the media had praised Freemason contributions to education and conflict resolution. Now they were focused on scandal and mysterious networks of shadowy figures.

Marcas took time to choose his words. He wouldn’t fully disclose his thoughts about anti-Freemason media campaigns or about the brothers who didn’t deserve their aprons. For a while, Marcas had attended a lodge that was full of money launderers and others in cahoots with politicians skilled at rigging public contracts. The lodge was nestled in a suburban Paris townhouse and was rotten to the core. When he’d found out what was going on—a full year before the media went wild over it—he had changed lodges, refusing to condemn all of freemasonry with a handful of corrupt individuals. But doubt had taken seed. And so he dived into the history and symbolism of freemasonry, as if the past could wipe the present clean. Still, every time he read about a scandal involving a Freemason, he took it as a personal affront.

“France has not escaped the evils affecting all Western democracies. There’s a rise in extremism, along with widespread distrust of elitism and power. Whether we deserve it or not, many people who don’t know us consider us both powerful and manipulative. It’s hard to shake that ‘hoodwinker’ slur. Let’s not forget, too, that a good scandal—whether it’s real or not—sells newspapers.”

Marcas answered a few more questions, mixing his expertise with humor.

Then there was silence. The worshipful master took the floor and began the closing ritual, finally calling for the chain of unity.

One by one, the men and women rose, removed their gloves, and crossed their arms, taking their neighbors’ hands to form a human chain around the center of the lodge.

The worshipful master repeated the words of the ritual. “This chain binds us in time and space. It comes to us from the past and stretches toward the future. It connects us to those who came before us.”

Each phase of this ritual and many others had been refined over the centuries, and every participant knew his role perfectly, as though it were a play.

The stewards held mallets across their chests. The master of ceremonies struck the floor with a metal-tipped cane while a mason called a tyler continued to guard the door, a sword in his right hand.

Marcas proclaimed the final pledge. “Liberty, equality, fraternity.”

The meeting was over, and the temple calmly emptied.

In the anteroom, the worshipful master—an aristocratic-looking banker—called out to Marcas in perfect French, “Will you stay and have something to eat?”

Marcas smiled. In every lodge around the world, eating and drinking followed these meetings.

“Alas, no, brother. I’m expected at the French embassy. There’s a Victory in Europe Day shindig. But I plan to come back tomorrow to consult some rare books in your library.”

Marcas said good-bye to his host and walked down the black marble staircase to the ground floor. He left the building, pulled up his coat collar against the wind, and hailed a cab.

“Palazzo Farnese, please.”

As the cab made its way through the Eternal City, Marcas’s thoughts wandered. He gazed at the Piazza Campo de Fiori, where more than five hundred years earlier, the papacy had burned philosopher Giordano Bruno at the stake. Marcas thought Bruno would have made a good “widow’s son,” which some Freemasons called themselves. The widow was the wife of Hiram Abiff, the legendary architect of King Solomon’s Temple, and the son was a reference to Hiram’s descendants, Freemasons around the world.

Things had changed a bit since Giordano was burned at the stake, although the Catholic Church still frowned on freemasonry. The Church held that freemasonry espoused a naturalistic religion—a parallel religion that rivaled the Gospel.

This didn’t bother Marcas. He hadn’t attended church in a long time, although he was still very much a seeker. He had been drawn to the Freemasons’ ethics and body of knowledge, which were based on the idea that one needed to strive continually toward self-improvement and enlightenment. He liked freemasonry’s opportunities for fellowship and education. And the Freemason rituals more than satisfied any yearnings he might have had for the church liturgies that he had left behind.

The sight of the Farnese Palace at the end of the street drew Marcas out of his thoughts. The elegant edifice was glowing, and in the courtyard, expensive cars were performing an intricate ballet as they let out well-dressed partygoers.

Marcas felt for the invitation in the inside pocket of his jacket.

A tingle of enjoyment ran up his spine. He liked the contrasts of his life. Less than a half hour earlier, he had been giving a serious speech in a solemn setting. In a few minutes, he would be mingling with the moneyed set in a luxurious palace that was now the French embassy. And in two days, he would be back at his seedy police station in Paris.

The taxi stopped behind an impressive line of limousines a few hundred feet from the palace. Marcas paid the fare.

He felt a gentle breeze from the south and looked up. The leaves in the nearby trees were quivering. Evenings were cool at this time of year, and Marcas took a moment to enjoy the fleeting springtime air before the brutal summer heat took hold.

Marcas walked up to the doorman, who was wearing a black suit, a white shirt, a black tie, and an earpiece. The guy could have a future as a bodyguard in Hollywood, Marcas thought. The man looked him up and down and let him in without saying a word.

He had barely stepped in when he spotted a hostess in a blue suit walking toward him. With her were two beautiful women who looked to be in their thirties. They offered to show him in.

The night was off to a good start.

2

When it was early May, and the wisteria plants were blossoming, Marek would work late into the night and keep the windows in the lab open to better enjoy the scent of the flowers.

Jerusalem’s Archeological Research Institute was headquartered in a sprawling brick building that the English had built. Its high ceilings were reminiscent of the lost grandeur of an empire. Marek loved its antiquated, nearly abandoned look.

He heard the sprinklers click on outside and gazed once again at two of the mementos on his large worktable: his yellowing dissertation and a hockey stick with flaking paint that he had brought back as a souvenir from the United States, where he had lived for a time.

Marek observed two birthdays every year. The first was the day he was born. The second was the day he was reborn. A walking skeleton, he had been liberated in the spring of 1945 from Dachau. He had made two oaths on that day. The first was to flee the cursed continent of Europe and start over again. He had gone to America. Then, in the nineteen fifties, he had immigrated to Israel, becoming one of the country’s top specialists in Biblical times—a kind of wiseman, he thought: old, mischievous, erudite.

Marek let his mind drift for a moment before he returned to the file on his desk. Two hundred and forty pages, single-spaced. Five test reports from distinguished geology, chemistry, and micro-archeology laboratories, with diagram after diagram and long lists of references.

When the shifty Armenian dealer Alex Perillian had brought the stone in to be authenticated, he knew right away that it was genuine. Artifacts were a big—and clandestine—business, and Marek had seen his fair share of shady characters seeking certificates of authenticity for worthless relics. But this stone was different. The Tebah Stone, Perillian had called it, bought from a family of goatherds for a hundred dollars. But worth infinitely more.

Marek set down the file and opened the linen cloth.
A fragment of a stone tablet lay there. It measured sixty-two by twenty-seven centimeters, and it vibrated with history. The bottom-left corner was chipped, and the end of the inscription was missing, but the remaining words had resisted the assault of time. Was it from pure luck? Or had someone kept it safe? This piece of stone bore a truth passed down through the centuries, a message, written by a hand whose bones had long since returned to dust.

Marek’s palms were sweaty. Original texts were extremely rare, and ever since the discovery of the Dead Sea manuscripts, the state of Israel and the major monotheistic religions had kept a close watch over all finds that could shake their foundations.

His conclusions were concise. “Based on mineralogical analyses, the Cambrian-era stone could have originated in one of three geological regions: southern Israel, the Sinai and Jordan, or south of the Dead Sea. Analysis of the surface alterations reveals the presence of silica, aluminum, calcium, magnesium, and iron, along with traces of wood, which date to 500
BCE
, plus or minus forty years with carbon-14. It could very well date to the rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon.”