“We find a notable connotation for this action, in the Old Testament.” The Professor added, “We read in Ezra 1:1-2, ‘… The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus King of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing… Thus saith Cyrus King of Persia, the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah,’” he looked at Paul with keen eyes. “Even in Isaiah 45:1, the book that was manipulated to appear Jewish, we read, ‘Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before me…’” he ended.
“How strange,” Paul murmured pensively, “I mean, for the Hebrews, at the time, to write that their Lord God stirred up the spirit of a Persian, even anointing him to become a kind of Messiah, a savior!”
“We found that strange too, at first,” answered the Professor with a grin. “But in time, we succeeded in grasping what lingers behind that statement in the Old Testament.”
“Really!” he looked at the Professor then at Dr. Najem and Dr. Bechara, lifting his eyebrows in disbelief, “I find this impossible to believe. I mean, how come they would recognize a Persian—a non Jew—to be their savior, especially since we know that they considered only themselves as the Chosen people!” Paul questioned, still in confusion.
Dr. Bechara, with a stern look that seemed permanent in him, illustrating the perfect traditional figure of a Psychiatrist, rolled his cigar between his fingers, and—with somber black eyes that inspired respect—gave a quick look at Dr. Najem then at the Professor. “Well, that’s precisely it, the master plan of the Babylonian Brotherhood,” he said in a strict posture.
“Having said that...” Professor Michel interfered, as he walked towards the window, gazing back at Dr. Bechara. He paused for an instant of inward reflection, leaning on the window. The sunrays outlined his silhouette and shadowed his façade, as if he stood as mediator between the Sun and Paul—the neophyte the Fraternity had chosen with much delicacy. Continuing, he said, “The man who first led the people—known as the Aebirou-al-naher or the Hebrews who crossed the river, in constant waves? That began with him, under Cyrus II—was called Zoro-Babel. He was an eminent member of the Babylonian Brotherhood. This occurred when they had just thought of building a Temple in Jerusalem.”
“Zoro-Babel!” Paul wondered aloud, “I remember reading this name in the Old Testament… Wasn’t he the Hebrew leader who brought the ancient Jews out of their exile and into Jerusalem?” He looked at them in perplexity, and added, “He was the Prince of Judea, of Davidic lineage! Wasn’t he?” he added.
“Not exactly true…” Dr. Najem answered him in a firm tone, “That’s only what the Scribes of the Old Testament wanted the whole world to believe in their narration. Truth be said, Zoro-Babel means the son or seed of Babel!” he clarified, always remaining gracious and agreeable in his answers.
Paul was stunned after having heard all this information, concerning the Brotherhood that tried to finish him off in Montreux, simply because he rejected—as a Historian—the historicity of the Temple of Solomon. He had just realized how lucky he’d been to escape, with the help of Mr. Thomas Lampson and the German students—Mr. Lukas Steiner and Ms. Alycia Schiffer—who had driven him to Munich.
He had finally come to understand the organic link between the ‘BB’ and the Temple. His heartbeat increased, time had come for him to face what fate and the future held in store for him. His trip to Iraq must take place, and there was no way for him to back out now. Yet, he didn’t know where to start. As he was entertaining these thoughts, he looked at Nabil then at the three Keepers around him, waiting for them to continue the explanation.
Professor Michel, his grey eyes smiling behind his rimless eyeglasses, grinned at Paul. In fact, he seemed to be smiling most of the time, even when he wasn’t. “You’ve been scheduled to leave Beirut by Monday at 12:50 PM, and arrive in Baghdad at around 2:20 PM,” the Professor said. “Everything is set for your Journey. Don’t worry,” he added, reassuring him. “A person by the name of Mikhail Al Malkoye will be waiting for you at the Baghdad Al Muthana Airport. He is our friend in Iraq.”
Paul didn’t utter a word. He just lingered in silence, waiting for them to explain to him exactly what his mission would be. Dr. Najem had already conveyed that the information they had now was oral, having lost the written documents, as they had been stolen some seven years ago, before the move to this Fortress. His mission in Iraq was to repossess the missing documents.
“Allow me to ask the question that has been turning in my mind ever since you mentioned my trip to Iraq,” Paul said with his eyes on the Keepers, one after the other. “How could the missing documents, if found, help in the efforts to protect ourselves against further attacks?”
“That’s a vital question, Paul,” replied Dr. Bechara. “The information we need will surely expose the Brotherhood to the world. When this is done, they won’t be able to strike back. They’ll be totally paralyzed.” He held on to that thought, before he added, “The original idea was to expose them seven years ago—with indubitable proof and evidence—but the intruder that infiltrated our previous sanctuary stole the parchments, and rendered us open to them. It was then that we secretly moved to the Fortress, and made it our new haven,” he explained.
A moment of silence passed in which Paul began to assess the situation, and think of the seriousness of the mission he had been entrusted with—by an ancient Order he had never even known existed in the first place. Now, the Order—which went back many thousands of years—needed his assistance to continue working in safety, to continue the Tradition. Being the fifth element of the Lebanese branch was certainly not an entertaining prospect, but rather a duty to fulfill at any cost.
“I see,” Paul said in a serious tone, breaking the silence that took hold of his mind for a minute, “How can Mikhail help me find the secret documents?”
“Good point,” the Professor replied with a smile. “Once you arrive in Baghdad, Mikhail will give you shelter in his house for the night. On the second day, he will take you to Ur—where it all started.”
“You mean the ancient city of Ur of the Chaldeans?” Paul questioned.
“Yes,” The Professor nodded.
“But…” Paul rushed to interrupt him; “Dr. Najem spoke about the Chaldean-Hebrew priests and families transferred from Babylon to the Land of Canaan, which the Persian King had promised them. Why not search in Babylon for the missing information instead of Ur?”
“Good thinking,” said Dr. Najem with a wide smile. “The city of Ur is mentioned several times in the Old Testament as Ur of the Chaldeans and as the birthplace of the First Hebrew Patriarch, Abraham. According to Judeo-Christian historians, Abraham could well have existed around 2000 years BC, whereas credible accounts of History state that Chaldeans settled in Iraq sometime around 800 BC, maybe a bit before, but not that long before. Therefore, in simple calculation, there is a difference of about 1200 years. No matter what else we might think, Ur stands as the primary point of foundation for the Hebrews at the time of Cyrus II, and it is then and there that things started happening,” he explained, and then added, “Mikhail will tell you everything you need to know when you get there.”
“Is he an Initiate of our Order?” Paul wondered.
“He knows some important historical facts about that area of great interest to our Order, and yes, he is one of us,” he replied.
“At any rate,” Dr. Bechara uttered, with eyes focused on Paul, “Be very careful on your endeavor in Iraq. Do as Mikhail tells you, and don’t venture out on your own. He knows where the secret agents of the Brotherhood are lurking,” he advised, before he ended with, “Good Luck!”
“Come safely back to us,” Professor Michel added in a sympathetic tone.
“You’re scheduled to return a week from now but—should you find it necessary—you may stay longer, until the mission is accomplished,” Dr. Naj
em said in a soothing yet determined voice. “The Society of Keepers truly counts on you,” he concluded with a smile.
Paul nodded, “I will not fail you, Brothers in Truth.”
“Here’s your passport and your ticket,” Nabil said, “I wish I could be going with you. It would be an honor,” he smiled, “Maybe some other time.”
“Yes, maybe…” Paul rejoined calmly.
The meeting had ended when the clock on the wall marked 06:39 PM. After they had all left the living room, expecting to meet for dinner at 08:30, Paul sank deep into his thoughts. He imagined many things happening to him in Iraq—a country that had not been stable since the multinational coalition war, in 2003, to oust the Iraqi regime, led by the fierce dictator: Saddam Hussein.
What could be more dangerous than that to Paul, except, of course, for the Babylonian Brotherhood’s secret agents! Even so, his mind needed to be clear by the next day, Sunday. Set like the sun, lining the Horizon, he was ready to leave the Fortress on the morrow and journey into a land of uncertain promises.
The night fell too quickly on him, taking him by surprise.
.38.
Baghdad
Monday, November 15, 02:25 PM
The jet flight to Baghdad arrived as scheduled. The flight details—displayed on the monitors at the Airport terminal—were being observed by a man of middle height, standing in front of them, waiting. He was around his early fifties, with short hair and a beard adorning his face. The word ‘Arrived’, for the ME322 flight, coming from Beirut, flashed in red in front of his big brown eyes. He extracted a photograph from his beige jacket, paced the floor of the Airport, and stood searching for the man in the photo, Mr. Khoury, to show up in the section designated to MEA—Middle East Airlines.
Standing in front of the customs cubicle, with his garment bag in one hand and his laptop’s case slung over his shoulder, Paul waited for the man in the olive-colored military suit to finish scrutinizing his passport, photo, and the authenticity of his visa. Five minutes later, he lifted his gaze, and gave Paul a fierce look. “What is your purpose in Iraq?” he asked in a rusty voice.
“I’m a Historian,” Paul replied quickly, “I came here only to visit a couple of beautiful archaeological sites in your country. You have a great history, I believe,” he smiled. His answer had been courteous and diplomatic, though Paul had really been more involved in Phoenician and Egyptian History.
“Very well,” the military man said, giving Paul a piercing look. “Can I see your University ID?”
To his luck, Paul always kept his Historian’s tag from the University with him, wherever he went. He remembered he had kept it in the laptop bag, so he unzipped it, took the card out from one of the pouches, and with a wide grin handed it to the military man. After looking at it for a couple of minutes, he stamped the arrival notice of the Baghdad Airport on Paul’s passport. “Welcome to Baghdad, Mr. Khoury,” he said, examining him one more time. “I gave you 10 days, no more, just be careful where you go.” Although strict in his consent, he finally showed a courteous conduct, or was it a warning? Paul couldn’t tell.
“I will, thank you,” Paul answered with a smile, and walked to the arrival gate of the flight he had un-boarded half an hour ago. Looking above and beyond the heads of the other passengers, walking ahead of him, he searched for Mikhail Al Malkoye—the person who would be waiting for him. In fact, he didn’t know what the man looked like, but speculated that Mikhail would find him first. Although they would be total strangers, Paul believed he should trust Mikhail, after all, the Keepers had said to him: He is one of us. Paul remembered this as he walked, when suddenly; he felt a hand on his right shoulder. He instantly turned straight into the soothing gaze of a man of middle height. He knew it was Mikhail.
“You must be Mr. Khoury,” said the man in a tranquil voice to Paul, who nodded. “I’m Mikhail, please, come with me,” he smiled.
The trip in the white nineties-vintage Toyota Corona, out of the Airport and into Baghdad, was pleasant to Paul. Here was a country he never would’ve imagined visiting one day, except perhaps for archaeological or historical reasons, and that, now that he thought of it, was precisely what had brought him here today. It might end up being a dangerous trip, for Paul was not here as a tourist or historian, looking for plain historical records. What Paul was doing here was: representing an ancient Fraternity—as one of its eminent members—and questing for some missing information, related to the Chaldean-Hebrew priests and families that had been transferred from Babylon to the Land of Canaan, on an edict made by the Persian King, Cyrus II.
Mikhail will tell you everything you need to know when you get there, he remembered Dr. Najem’s words, and remembered also how he had wondered about the possibility of finding the missing documents in Babylon instead of Ur. Paul decided not to tackle that issue now, perhaps later on, at dinner.
“Ur had once been a coastal city, near the entrance of the Euphrates River, on the Gulf of Persia,” Mikhail suddenly said, giving Paul a quick look, as if reading his mind, and then back at the steering wheel in front of him. It seemed he didn’t have any time to waste. Things were on the move. “Nowadays it is well inland, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar, south of the Euphrates, on its right bank, almost 16 km from Nasiriyah and about 365 km south of Baghdad,” he informed in a rigorous tenor, took out a pack of cigarettes from his blue shirt pocket, lit one, offered another to Paul, and opened the window.
“You see,” he resumed, giving another quick stare at Paul, “Ur was one of the most vital cities of ancient Iraq. It dates back to maybe four thousand years BC. After the Chaldeans were well established in Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar II began a new period of building activity in Ur, pretty much as Solomon did in Jerusalem, and that, my friend, if we’re going to believe the Old Testament.” He chuckled, “The last of the Babylonian Kings—Nabonidus, who ruled between 556 and 539 BC—adorned the Temples, and completely refashioned the Ziggurat of Nanna—the ancient moon god of the Sumerians, recognized as Sin by the Babylonians—making it great, by raising it seven stages,” he added.
Paul didn’t comment. He just listened to what Mikhail said and how he said it. He’s a friendly person, he thought, as he smoked his cigarette, and enjoyed the trip from the Airport to wherever their destination was.
“When the Persian Empire took control of Babylon, around 539 BC, under Cyrus II,” Mikhail continued, “The city of Ur gradually began to decline, and by the 4th century BC it was almost forgotten, some say, due to a shift in the course of the Euphrates River,” he stated in a doubtful voice.
“You sound as if you’re not convinced by this theory,” Paul said, finally breaking his silence, and deciding to communicate with the person driving the car—a man he had met no more than an hour ago, and was about to have an adventure with, in an unknown world. “What do you think the truth was?” he asked.
Mikhail took one last drag at his cigarette, smothered it in the car’s ashtray, and turned his head towards Paul, “I’ll tell you once we get home.” He smiled, “It’s only fifteen minutes from here.”
The drive through the streets of Baghdad reminded Paul of some of the streets in Lebanon. “The third world,” he murmured under his breath. Minutes later, Mikhail turned left and then right, entering al-Karada street on the Tigris riverfront, and reaching a two-story building of modern architecture, not too modern, of course. Then he parked the car under a tree, and invited Paul to his house. “It’s on the second floor,” he uttered with a grin. “We have to walk up,” he then said.
Upon entering Mikhail’s house, Paul breathed a sigh of relief, for he was extremely exhausted from the flight and the drive from the airport. Sensing his guest was weary, Mikhail pointed at a brown sofa to lie down. “You can have some rest now, while I prepare something to eat,” he said with a smile.
Paul nodded.
While making lunch, Mikhail briefed Paul on Baghdad. Its population exceeded the 7 million mark, consisting of: a ma
jority of Arab Muslims, mostly Shiite and Sunni; Christians, constituting the second largest portion of the population; and Jews, the minority. Baghdad stood as the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest in all the Arab World—Cairo, in Egypt, being the first. The name Baghdad could well be a composed Kurdish and Turkish term for Bag-dad, meaning, ‘The Fair Garden’. However, there is a diverse explanation that suggests the name having Persian roots: Bad-dad, which means ‘God’s Gift’.
Located along the Tigris River that cuts it in two, the city was founded around 762 AD by the Caliph, Al Mansur, becoming the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. It soon evolved into an essential cultural, commercial, and intellectual center for the Islamic World, with key academic institutions like the Grand Library of Baghdad, better known as the House of Wisdom. Baghdad’s massive destruction by the Mongols, around 1258 AD, resulted in a serious decline, and it remained that way through many centuries.
Iraq was recognized as an independent state by the British mandate of Mesopotamia in 1932, and that allowed it to regain some of its former fame as a major center of Arabic Culture. Although Iraq experienced some form of growth during the era of Saddam Hussein, it was not very favorable to the aspirations of the Iraqi people, who considered him a dictator. After the US led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and the continuous state of war that continued for seven years, Iraq once again became an unstable country, open to many activities and attacks of a terrorist nature from some of the adjacent countries.
They sat for a lunch, consisting of fried freshwater fish and a tossed salad half an hour later, and Mikhail looked fixedly at Paul. “Almost a month after the multinational invasion led by the US, some kind of systematic looting began at the Iraqi National Museum,” he started, his face showing resentment. “It was, in fact, one of the most controversial moments of the war. US soldiers—who were sent in to dispose of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath regime, led by Saddam Hussein, and to secure the city in its aftermath—apparently had no orders to protect the museum or any other cultural institute here,” he paused, sighing for a moment. He then continued, “In the confusion that ensued, lots of invaluable pieces of Iraq’s ancient history were sacked out, and institutes were burned.”
The Phoenician Code Page 33
