by Brad Ricca
And then Ava laughed, again. She pulled at his lapels.
“OK then, Captain Parker,” she said, stepping away, the old look in her eye once more. “Bring me back the Ark of the Covenant … and perhaps we’ll talk again.”
As Monty watched her make her way from him, he knew she did not believe him. He was not sure if he believed himself. But he felt that he would see her again.
Later, when Ava was deep in conversation with Lord Curzon (who indeed did seem a bit stiff), she looked over her shoulder to find Monty.
But he was already gone.
Of course, she did not believe him. She was used to impossible promises from impossible men. She looked over to the king and saw the Gold Cup. Even though it was under glass, it gleamed in the sunshine. One of the guards looked at her. Ava knew that it was being protected because last year someone had stolen it. Such a thing had seemed impossible.
Ava stifled a laugh and dismissed the thought in her mind.
Four
Monty Parker
FALL 1908
Over the next few months, Monty Parker traveled on trains and boats that moved with smooth purpose across the map of the world. After resigning from the Grenadier Guards in August, Monty went to America to help find backers for the expedition. In hotel lobbies along the East Coast, Monty smiled, uncrossed his legs and stood, shook hands, told this and that important financier about the enterprise over a drink or two—only enough to get them interested—and did it all over again an hour or so later. Sometimes it felt ridiculous to say—“my associates have made a monumental find in Palestine based on a mathematical code”—but Monty would just say it and most people believed it. Some did not, of course, but Monty would sit on the richly upholstered chairs and wait for the next appointment. He had a drink in his hand and ate the chops, St. Hilaire at the Waldorf-Astoria.
By the time Monty’s trip was nearly over, it was clear that funding was not going to be an issue. By the end of the day, when a particularly rich industrial magnate offered up his checkbook, Monty was heard to say, “I’m sorry we’re full up.” After all, the more people who invested, the more people they would have to share with once they found the Ark.
Monty returned to London in October. They assembled their secret group of Vaughn, Fort, and Millen, along with their newest hire, Captain Axel Werner Hoppenrath, a Swede with narrow eyes and a flamboyantly curled mustache. His military background was undisguised in his bearing and uniform. When Monty shook his hand, he noticed that behind him was another man, rail thin, in his early forties with black hair and a Vandyke beard. He wore a forgettable wool suit and slight glasses, and his face seemed sunken. He had an air of intelligence about him.
* * *
“This is Dr. Juvelius,” said Millen, stepping forward.
“A pleasure,” said Juvelius. Monty shook his hand. Millen could read the surprise on Monty’s face. “Dr. Juvelius can speak English in spots, but his writing requires great aid,” he said. “I will serve as his translator today. Captain Hoppenrath can help as well.”
Monty nodded, and they sat down. Monty had paid for Juvelius to come to England. Anyone could flash some numbers and claim they had cracked a biblical prophecy; Monty wanted to look this man in the eye.
“The cipher, then?” asked Monty.
Millen said something in Swedish, and Juvelius produced a leather bag. He took out some messy papers, which he opened on their table. Juvelius said something else. To Monty, it sounded like there were fish sliding around in his mouth. Juvelius pointed to the page.
“This is the original text in Ezekiel,” said Millen. “The prophet, you know.”
Monty gave him a stare.
“Right,” said Millen.
Juvelius began speaking. Millen nodded, kept nodding, and when Juvelius had stopped, he offered his translation. It was awkward at first, but eventually they found a rhythm among the three of them as ideas became words, looping through the air between them like a ribbon. It was then that Monty realized that Juvelius was showing him the same example that Millen had at their first meeting.
“No, no,” said Monty. “Show me how it works.”
Juvelius listened to the translation, then said something animatedly to Millen. He looked offended.
“You will understand, Mr. Parker, this is very difficult. Dr. Juvelius reads the Bible in the ancient Hebrew before translating it to Swedish. I could try to translate into English, but it takes a knowledge of all three to keep the cipher pure.”
Monty stared Juvelius down.
“Show me,” he said.
Millen and Juvelius spoke for a moment.
“There is an example here in the cipher—I will translate that, but I warn you it may be imperfect.” Monty nodded.
Millen spread the cipher out and began copying something from the first page onto a blank sheet of paper. He scratched some things out, conferred with Juvelius, and then motioned for Monty to look. Monty smelled pencil on paper.
“Here is the paragraph,” said Millen. “There is some loss due to translation.”
Here discovered peculiar cipher writing has always been deciphered perfectly mechanically the scheme. That the bibletext has not been corrupted afterwards, but evidently only revised in regards to orthography. And certain uncertain separate sounds is particular as the interesting. The cycle itself with its seven numbers has a holy significance and is by no means unknown. The number is generally used as a factor during the Talmudic period in mystic cabalistic formulas obeying complicated rules.
Monty winced. “Now, if we apply the cipher…” and here Millen took a pencil and began crossing out single letters, then underlining others, all the while counting from one to seven. When he stopped, he rechecked his work. Juvelius kept nodding in agreement.
“Now observe,” said Millen said. He began circling some of the letters he marked and reproduced them at the bottom of the page. Letters became words, then became two, became three. Monty looked. Using letters obtained from the cipher, the hidden message of the paragraph was laid bare at the bottom of the page.
It read: “Hesekiel’s chiffer.”
“Hezekiel,” said Millen. “The great king of Jerusalem whose tunnels we will soon be entering.”
Monty looked closely. Millen had clearly followed a process that looked methodical, but card sharps did the same thing. But it seemed to have worked. Monty looked up. Juvelius was staring at him.
Juvelius proceeded to speak very quickly, his eyes almost closing; Millen followed with his translation a few moments behind. Juvelius explained that the great secret that had been revealed by the cipher was that the Ark had remained in its original place where King David had first placed it, one thousand years before Christ. Juvelius quoted Isaiah: the Lord promised David that, because of the Ark, his lineage would be secure, “as a nail in a sure place!” Juvelius said that this verse “may be taken perfectly literally and must not be considered as symbolical,” that the Ark was indeed in a fixed place. Juvelius then read from the cipher again, in a passage he had decoded from Ezekiel:
Hurriedly seek “the gold,” resplendent, embellished, the “enclosed,” and the entrance emptied (of water); and in the division(?) spacious occur with delight return!
There was a moment, or perhaps a great many of them that slowly blended into one, where Monty either began to believe in what he was being told or, perhaps more likely, wanted to believe what it might get him.
“How did you come by this?” asked Monty. Millen answered immediately.
“A man named Melander began work on it many years ago, but Dr. Juvelius has perfected it. He has unlocked the key.”
Juvelius sat down again and began working more numbers from his pencil to the paper. Monty could tell that it was an obsession to him. That meant he was either an expert they should listen to, or he had been utterly consumed by his work.
“Now what?” asked Vaughn.
They agreed to draw up the papers to form the official J.M.P.V.F. Syndi
cate, named after their last initials. Though they would have to announce it in the newspapers for legal reasons, Monty urged everyone to keep things as secret as possible. Their success depended on it.
“If everything goes well, we will need some more men,” said Monty, looking around. “No offense. Soldiers. Gentlemen,” he said, nodding to the Syndicate, “you can take care of that.” Vaughn nodded.
“And one more thing,” said Monty. “Dr. Juvelius and Captain Hoppenrath are going on a trip with me.”
“Where?” said Millen.
“We’re going to test it,” said Monty. “In Jerusalem.”
Five
Monty Parker
JERUSALEM, NOVEMBER 1908
From a mile or so away, Monty Parker could see the gray walls of the Holy City as they staggered up and down the top of the hill. From the distance, Jerusalem looked like a fortress, or at least a long-ago attempt at one. Seen in bits and pieces peeking over the wall, its limestone buildings interlocked like some uneven puzzle. An ethereal cupola stood over the right wall. Monty looked at the scene, awash in shadow.
In the shadows of the famous cypress trees, Monty spied the single minaret at the west gate. People moved about the few villas outside the gates with their baskets of washing. As Monty rode closer, he saw the famous Dome of the Rock rising from behind the wall, one of the holiest places in Jerusalem, built and controlled by the Arabs. Juvelius and Hoppenrath rode behind him, talking in Swedish.
When Monty passed through the gates into Jerusalem, his hat was over his eyes and he wore a scarf over his mouth, with his pipe sticking out. The interior of the city was filled with tiny staircases and narrow streets. Monty saw merchants and pilgrims, Jews and Christians. The Arabs ran to prayers in their flowing robes. Ottoman Turks in their trim suits walked by on streets that seemed to wind in on themselves in a never-ending, rolling labyrinth. It was a shared city, but the differences were plain to any eyes. The city was romantic and ancient, that much could be felt in the air, but it was also crowded, noisy, and exceedingly filthy. It smelled of warm bread, thick incense, wisteria, and rot.
Juvelius began talking again. Hoppenrath paused, then translated for Monty.
“Twice this city has been completely destroyed, literally razed to the ground. Yet there are many holy sites and artifacts here for all three religions. The Chapel of the Holy Ghost, Armenian and Georgian mosaics, the old tombs, the old hospice of the Teutonic Order. The great Kufic, Karmatian, and Arabic texts of the khalifs and sultans of Islam, who founded or repaired the beautiful buildings in the Haram. And two Holy Sepulchres, multiple Zions, possibly three Calvarys, and at least two Gethsemanes.”
Monty looked to Juvelius, who was smiling, confident in Hoppenrath’s translation. Perhaps this man was more human than he seemed. Juvelius continued, via Hoppenrath.
“Of the holy places, almost the only thing we know for sure is the Temple. It is still in its old place. There is no doubt a huge hiding place beneath the ruins of the Holy City that could perhaps change our entire base of knowledge.”
Monty saw an Arab appear in one of the minarets of a nearby mosque. He spoke out a long, tremulous roll of words, calling the faithful to prayer.
The next day, they rode donkeys out of the city from the Dung Gate to the Kidron Valley, just outside the city to the southeast. Monty saw the very Mount of Olives, filled with thousands of graves, frame their way to the countryside. The atmosphere was dusty and hot, but the sky was bright and there were deep green grasses poking through the sharp rocks. Juvelius pointed to the opposite ridge and an irregular clumping of huts and caves that hung to the side of the mountain.
“That’s Silwan,” said Hoppenrath. Juvelius suddenly stopped and said something else. “This valley, the Kidron, is also called by the Arabs Wadi-en-Nar. It means ‘Lake of Fire.’”
They rode a little farther down into the valley. Juvelius took out the cipher and began reading aloud. Hoppenrath translated:
In the entrance of the place of refuge and where the stairway of the aperture /
The stairway of the aperture / Well the cistern! / And then the hiding place
Praise the Lord!
Monty looked around. He saw some houses, and a short tower-like structure, but that was all.
Juvelius got off his donkey and started walking down the side of the slope, toward a small building. Monty and Hoppenrath followed. They walked about over the uneven ground, dust and pebbles and grass. They seemed almost in a daze. Juvelius wandered off toward the tower. When Monty looked up again, Juvelius was shaking, almost jumping. He was shouting.
By the time Monty and Hoppenrath reached him, Juvelius had a look of what could have been relief or fear. He was talking very rapidly. Before Hoppenrath could translate, Monty ran up and saw what he was pointing to. For some reason, he felt the whole scene looked familiar. He looked down.
He saw a set of stairs, falling into the darkness, just as the cipher predicted.
Monty had been impressed by the cipher when he saw it in London on pieces of marked-up paper, but there was an abstraction to it, an almost mathematical quality. To see its results now, here in the ground of the Holy Land, was an entirely different story. Juvelius, bursting with pride, read something else from the cipher. It was a line from Isaiah:
Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.
That night, as they sat around a table in their hotel, Juvelius, through Hoppenrath, told Monty more about what the cipher revealed about the location of the Ark. The Philistines had captured the Ark from the Israelites for many years, but when David got it back, he kept it under a simple tent, called the tabernacle. The Lord spoke to him and said, “I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them that they may dwell there and not be moved hence any more.” David then began gathering the raw materials for a temple worthy of God, whom he loved, one that would stand forever, though he knew he would not build it himself because of his own sins, which were many. David told his son, Solomon:
My son, I had it in my heart to build a house to the name of the LORD my God. But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, You have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me upon the earth. Behold, a son shall be born to you; he shall be a man of peace. I will give him peace from all his enemies round about; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for my name. He shall be my son, and I will be his father, and I will establish his royal throne in Israel for ever.
When David died, Solomon brought all the things David had gathered and built the First Temple, a magnificent house of God made of white and gold and lined in cedar. Not only did the Temple house the Ark in the Holy of Holies but it became the physical and symbolic center of Jewish life, high upon the Temple Mount.
But, said Juvelius, the cipher suggested another possibility. The Lord had also spoken to Solomon. “The Lord said that he would dwell in thick darkness,” said Solomon, and “I have surely built thee a house to dwell in a settled place for thee to abide for ever.” This all connected, Juvelius said, to the cipher’s claim that the Ark was still in the fixed and secret place where David had first put it. It was somewhere in the dark.
Jerusalem would fall, many years later at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon who wore a long, square beard. In the name of Marduk, his demon god, Nebuchadnezzar spread the blood of his enemies across the table of the civilized world. It was during the second siege in 587 BC that he destroyed and looted the First Temple. The Ark went lost at exactly this moment, unmentioned in the lists of what Nebuchadnezzar and his forces took to Babylon.
The important thing, said Juvelius, is that the cipher revealed that the Ark was still there. That the “thick darkness” Solomon spoke of was the original tabernacle, cut deep into the mountain
. The Ark was so holy that even the high priest went before it only once a year. Such a location made sense. Part of the covenant was to keep it fixed, like a nail. It was there, he said.
“Here,” corrected Monty. “It is here.”
Six
Cyril Foley
LONDON, JUNE 1909
Tell the story, Cyril, come on.”
A few men—it was hard to tell how many in the jumble of shoulders and forearms—were huddled around the circular table. The center of the attention, finishing his drink with a flourish, was Cyril Foley. He had a high forehead, a dashing dark mustache, and a well-set jaw. He was not smiling.
“Lads…,” he said, looking around with a mean and serious look.
He took a long pause, before a brief, inevitable smile appeared.
“It was 1893, July sixth, and we were playing Sussex at Lords.…” The men cheered. Cyril continued, drawing his head closer to his audience. He enunciated all the right words and used his hands when needed. He had told this story before and knew the best way to tell it.
“A tremendous crowd was there because it was the day that old King George V was married.” The men nodded. “So with all those people about, many of them came up to see the cricket.” He stopped for another swig.
“A Sussex bowler named Gutteridge bowled me a ball which narrowly missed my wicket; struck Butt, the wicketkeeper, on the pads; and rebounded into the wicket. Butt replaced one bail, and I the other. As I was preparing to receive the next ball, Henry, the umpire, said, ‘You’re out.’ I was flabbergasted! ‘What for?’ I asked.”
“For handling the bail, said the umpire.”
“Well, I was stunned,” said Cyril, opening his arms. “I walked about like a man in a dream. I reached the pavilion and ran into Buns Thornton, who said, ‘What did they give you out for, Cyril?’”
