The Sacred Cipher (18 page)

The best part of the My, at least in 1973, was that with the dogs at twenty-five cents
and the one dollar drafts, you could leave with a full stomach and a nice buzz for
less than five dollars.

Tonight, the Guinness never tasted so good, and the waitress had been dispatched for
four more pints as soon as she put down the first round.

They had finally left the mission around 9:00
PM
and grabbed a cab to the Old Town Bar on 18th Street, just uptown from Union Square.
The Old Town, in continuous operation since 1902, hadn’t changed since the day it
opened. A favorite haunt of the young and upwardly mobile, it got crowded and loud
in the evening, particularly on a Friday night. But Bohannon steered his quartet up
the steep stairs just inside the door to the much quieter and less-packed dining room.
Tucked into a booth by the front windows, the team was weary, wary, and thirsty. First,
it was Guinness all around, then the Old Town’s famous cheeseburgers (sautéed onions
and coleslaw on the side, of course) and crispy spuds. They inhaled the burgers as
the fixins dripped through their fingers, and poured creamy black Guinness Stout down
their throats.

When they finally came up for a breath, Rizzo, twirling a spud in a mound of ketchup,
asked the question each of them wanted answered. “Well, do you think it’s true?”

No one said a word.

Bohannon drew
the
sheet of paper out of his shirt pocket, opened it up, spread it in front of him.
It had taken a couple of hours to get the entire scroll decoded, the process moving
more quickly the more they got used to the cadence of the code. First they decoded
each symbol literally. Once through the entire scroll, they went back through the
decoded text, filling in gaps in the language so that it read smoothly in English.

The scroll was, in fact, a message. More precisely, it was a letter from Abiathar,
the Gaon and leader of the Jewish community in Jerusalem, to Meborak, the Ha’Nagid
of Egypt . . . the only remaining, legitimate Jewish authority in the East and the
leader of the Jewish community in Alexandria. The message was a simple one—simply
astounding and simply impossible.

Abiathar, Gaon of Jerusalem, son of Elijah, son of Solomon, to Meborak, Ha’Nagid of
Cairo, most excellent of rulers
—
greetings, and may the God of heaven and earth, the God of our fathers, the most exalted
God of Abraham, Moses, and David bless your house, guide your ways, and give you wisdom
in abundance
.

Grief overcomes me and fear attempts to destroy my faith. It is with broken heart
that I must inform you of the imminent fall of Jerusalem into the hands of the Christian
invaders. These Europeans have swept aside what feeble resistance the Fatimids mounted
and are at this moment assaulting the walls of Jerusalem. They will, no doubt, enter
the Holy City tomorrow
.

Tonight, I will attempt to lead as many of our community as possible through the tunnels
to the Kidron Valley, around the far side of the Mount of Olives to bypass the Christian
camps, in the hope that some remnant of us may reach safety. We pray for the Lord’s
blessings
.

But another, more urgent, matter I reveal to you, my most esteemed Meborak
.

Thirty-seven years ago, my beloved father, Elijah, came to a realization that changed
his life and the lives of all Jews to come. Recognizing the impossibility of building
the Third Temple of God on the heights of the Temple Mount
—
because Islam had stolen the sacred place to erect the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa
Mosque
—
my father decided if we could not build a temple on the Temple Mount, he would lead
the construction of the Third Temple under the Temple Mount
.

For nine years, Elijah and a small band of workmen secretly carved out a great cavern
in the limestone under the Temple Mount and began making preparations for constructing
a replica of Zerubbabel’s Temple. The unexpected invasion of the Seljuk Turks in 1071
forced my father and the Jewish community to seek exile in Tyre. Before they escaped,
the cavern was sealed and the tunnel entrance to the cavern was collapsed
.

Elijah died during the eighteen years we survived in Tyre, but he had instilled in
me both a passion for righteous governance and a determination to see the temple completed.
Once the Fatimids drove the Turks from Jerusalem, our community returned and soon
set about the work of secretly constructing the Temple of God under the Temple Mount
.

Our work was completed not long ago. Then the Christians came
.

Jehovah God has kept our secret thus far, but to keep the infidel from desecrating
the Holy of Holies, we have once again sealed the temple and blocked all entrances.
Most excellent Meborak, you have proven yourself a steadfast brother in the past.
Guard this scroll with your life, and treasure it until the day when the cavern can
be reopened, ritual sacrifice will be possible in the Temple of God, and our Messiah
shall come. Look to the Prophets for your direction
.

May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make His countenance shine upon
you and be gracious to you; may the Lord turn His face toward you, and give you peace
.

Shalom
,

Gaon Abiathar, Jerusalem

The four men around the table looked at each other with a mixture of disbelief and
uncertainty, the same way they had responded just a few hours earlier when they first
deciphered the scroll’s secret. None of them knew where to start.

“Can this really be possible?” Rizzo asked again. “Is it possible? What do you think,
Doc?”

Johnson pushed back his shoulders, bending his head first left, then right, trying
to stretch out the tension of the last few hours and weeks. Opening his eyes, he threw
a cold towel over any simmering sparks of hope.

“I don’t see how there is any possible way for this claim of a secret Third Temple
to be true,” Johnson said slowly. “Look at it realistically. First of all, how could
anybody excavate a cavern, a cavern big enough to hold the massive size of the Jewish
temple, under the Temple Mount and keep it a secret? What did they do with all the
debris from digging the cavern? How did they get regular or daily access to the area
under the Mount? How, in God’s name, could they have assembled all the granite, marble,
cedar, gold and silver, and everything else that was required, and get it under the
Mount and into the cavern without anyone finding out? Where did all the workers come
from, the artisans, the skilled craftsmen? What did their families know? What did
their families think when they didn’t return? And no one breathed a word of it for
a thousand years? How can that be possible?

“But even if that was possible, are you going to tell me that there has been a huge,
secret cavern under the Temple Mount, containing a completely rebuilt Jewish temple,
for over a thousand years and, in one of the most archaeological active areas in the
world, this huge cavern has never been found? That would be ludicrous.”

As Johnson finished his assessment, coffee and apple pie arrived, briefly blunting
the conversation.

“So, what is this thing?” Rodriguez asked. “If you’re right, Doc, and I’m in the same
boat with you, I don’t see how it can be true . . . but if you’re right, then what
is this scroll, this code, this message? Why was Spurgeon so fearful? Why did someone
go to such incredible lengths to create a scroll like this, dig up an extinct language
to write it in, develop an amazingly intricate code to protect its contents, and then
send it off to the only legitimate Jewish leader in the East for its safekeeping?
Why go to all that trouble if it’s all a lie? That doesn’t make any sense, either.”

“You’re right, Joe, it doesn’t make sense,” said Bohannon. “And you’re right, Doc,
if a temple was under the Temple Mount, it doesn’t make any sense that it hasn’t been
found. So, we have two opposing theories, neither of which makes sense. And yet, there
has to be an answer.”

Bohannon shook his head. “You know, I read a lot of Sherlock Holmes books as a kid
and one of the things that Holmes always said was,
‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must
be the truth.’
I think the next thing we have to do is to eliminate the impossible, and then try
to grasp the truth, even if it is improbable.”

Bohannon looked up at the other three.

“Can you repeat that again, this time in English?” Rizzo deadpanned.

“No, Tom’s right,” said Rodriguez. “Either this is a crazy scam, or it’s true. It’s
much less likely that it’s something in between. Remember Kallie’s e-mail? She told
us that Abiathar had written one scroll, a Megillah, to Meborak already. Why couldn’t
he have written another? I don’t know about you guys, but not only am I fascinated
by this crazy scroll, but after all the time and effort we’ve already invested in
it, I’m not inclined to stop now just because it doesn’t seem to make any sense. As
our first task, we need to figure out whether it’s even possible for a temple to be
down there. Let’s see if we can get an answer to that question, and that will tell
us the next place to go.”

“I know the next place I’m going,” said Bohannon. “I’m going to bed, and I’m going
now. You’ve got the check, right, Doc?”

Bohannon was bone weary and wanted to get home, so he was first out of the Old Town
Bar. He turned west on 18th Street, bound for the 6 train station at Union Square.
Normally, crossing 18th Street meant looking to the right to check for oncoming traffic,
but for some reason, when he was halfway across, Bohannon also glanced to his left.
That’s when he saw the man.

He was dressed in dark clothes—jeans, a rough jacket—a black, knit watch cap pulled
down on his head in spite of the mild spring evening. Bohannon thought he saw a hooked
nose, mustache, and Middle Eastern features. He couldn’t be sure. But his heart began
to race. His New York pace quickened.

Left on Broadway, Bohannon had only one short block to cover before crossing 17th
Street, where he would enter Union Square. Another sixty yards, and he would reach
the subway entrance.

Broadway was still bustling with pedestrians. Feeling foolish, Bohannon peeked over
his left shoulder as he reached 17th Street. His breath froze. The man was close behind.
He seemed to be staring directly at Bohannon.

Tom was anxious to get across the street, but he self-consciously held himself back
from the edge of the curb. Even before the light fully changed, Bohannon hustled across
the street and quickstepped through the crowded asphalt area of Union Square, home
to the weekly farmer’s market, hoping to leave the man in his wake.

Suddenly, Bohannon stopped at the top of the stairs to the Union Square station. He
stepped aside, halted by indecision. Should he go into the station or stay on the
street? What was safer?

A quick glance to his right, and Bohannon saw the man moving toward him. Only two
pedestrians and a few yards separated them. The man, clearly Middle Eastern, was looking
daggers through Bohannon’s skull.

Tom turned on his heel and walked quickly past the subway entrance. Union Square Park
beckoned on his left, but it was dark, the pathways twisting. Too isolated.

Quickening his pace, reviewing his mental map, Bohannon hurried south on Union Square
West, crossed 14th Street, and continued down Broadway, that long, diagonal slash
that cuts across Manhattan from Houston Street on the south to 106th Street in Harlem.
Then he remembered the substation that NYPD staffs 24/7 inside the Union Square Station.
A couple of turns, and I
’
ll double back
.

At the corner of 13th Street and Broadway, in front of the Union Square movie theater,
Bohannon hazarded a look behind him. The man was there, closing fast, his eyes on
Bohannon—and his arm raised. Bohannon stifled a scream, pushed himself back against
the wall of the theater, and raised his fists. The man smiled.

“Aliah,” he said, waving his arm.

The man brushed past Bohannon, walked up to a woman with a scarf over her head, gave
her a polite hug, and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry I’m late.” Holding the woman’s
hand, the man turned around, leading her past Bohannon and into the door of the movie
theater.

Bohannon’s shirt was soaked, his breathing ragged and shallow. His fists, still held
in front of him, began to shake. People were looking at him, but avoiding eye contact.
Nobody in New York City messed with crazy street people.