Gates of Hell

by J. F. Penn

  Morgan could hear uncertainty in his voice.

  "We could be running into this man and his organization again soon," Jake said, his voice gentle. "We need to know what they're capable of. I'll sort anything out with Marietti, I promise."

  A moment of silence and then Martin started speaking, his words running into each other as he hurried to get them out.

  "ARKANE has always monitored the Kabbalistic community, as it does with any religious group, and Santiago was one of an international group of Rabbis called the Remnant, who met in secret once a year in different locations. They were known to protect the Key to the Gates of Hell, although this was always assumed to be something metaphorical, based on the symbols of their faith. This man, Adam Kadmon, was originally groomed to join that group but it seems that he dabbled in the dark side of Kabbalah, obsessed with demonology."

  Morgan poured black coffee into two cups, handing one to Jake. She wanted to hear what Martin had to say but there was a flutter in her gut, a pressure in her head. Somehow, she knew he was going to say something that would change everything.

  "There were always ten of them, a minyan, the number required for public prayer. But then, about five years ago, the Rabbis started dying. Two from heart attacks, and one under anesthetic in routine surgery. One was beaten to death in his own home – the one who had convinced the others to shut Kadmon out." Martin hesitated again.

  "Then there was your father, Morgan," he said slowly.

  She took a deep breath. "What about him?"

  "Although his death was recorded as part of a suicide bombing, we believe it was to cover up his assassination. His … umm, body parts were recovered from the hospital and tested positive for a fatal drug overdose. It's more than likely that he was already dead before the bomb that killed the rest of the bus."

  Morgan's hand flew to her mouth and she closed her eyes, resisting the tears that threatened. Jake put out a hand to comfort her, and she thrust her arm out, holding him away, her eyes flashing a warning.

  "Why wasn't I told before?" she asked, her voice deadly calm.

  "I didn't know," Martin said. "Truly Morgan, I only just came across this information."

  Morgan remembered how her mentor and friend, Father Ben Costanza, had warned her about ARKANE. She could never fathom the layers of secrets they held – even about her own family, it seemed. Her chest was bursting, her heart pounding as she tried to reconcile this information, tried to hold back her anger.

  "So just to be clear: this Adam Kadmon was responsible for my father's death? It wasn't a random suicide bomber."

  Her voice was frost now.

  "It would seem so," Martin said.

  Morgan's world shifted ever so slightly, as the ramifications of the truth sank in. Her fingers clutched the edge of her seat so hard that her knuckles were white with pressure. She had spent so long working on forgiveness, arguing with fellow Israelis that despite her own loss, she still believed that the two states could one day live side by side in relative peace. She had spent years trying to build something positive from her father's death, but she had also spent those years not knowing the truth, not knowing that actually, her father had been murdered by one of their own.

  A Jew of Spain had killed Leon Sierra, and now he would pay. This was no longer a hunt for the Key to the Gates of Hell.

  This would be her bloody revenge.

  "Where is Kadmon now?" she asked.

  "I'm still working on that."

  "He wants the Key more than anything," Jake said quietly, his amber eyes a pool of concern. "If we find that, he'll come to us, and then he's yours, Morgan."

  She relaxed her clenched fists and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "You're right. That's the best way to get to him. Martin, have you been able to work out the possible options for the gematria on Santiago's numbered squares?"

  "This numerology is an interesting thing," he said, turning professorial. "There is never one final true answer. The codes in each square add up to 70 which has many meanings in the biblical tradition. It is made up of two perfect numbers: seven, representing perfection, and ten, representing completeness and God's law."

  Morgan remembered her father teaching her of these things during lazy summer days in the hills of Safed, his face alive with passion as he described the wisdom of the Torah.

  "It can represent a period of judgement," Martin continued, "as ancient Israel spent seventy years in captivity in Babylon, and it is especially connected with Jerusalem as seventy times seven years were mentioned in the book of Daniel as necessary for the city to end its sin and enter into everlasting righteousness."

  "So we must go to Jerusalem then?" Jake cut in. They had traveled there together during the hunt for the Pentecost stones, and Morgan felt a moment of hope that she could return to the city she loved.

  "I don't think so," Martin said. "The art of gematria is also about finding the equivalent meaning from the codes, and the number 70 can also mean malakh – an angel or messenger from God. In simple gematria, it can stand for the word Vatican."

  "My father and those like him would never have used simple gematria," Morgan said. "It must be Jewish and based on the Hebrew letters."

  "Hmm," Martin mused, and they heard tapping as he worked. "In that case, you might be closer than you think. I considered that perhaps the two squares could be added together. Why else would you etch two of the same in the back of the photo frame? They are an exact match and two lots of 70 make 140. I wrote a little program that calculates place names based on gematria and narrows down results based on resonance with Jewish history. Only one name popped up."

  Chapter 12

  It was only a short flight to Córdoba, northwest of Granada over the flat agricultural plains. Morgan gazed out the small window at the panels of gleaming color below, the fields a patchwork of gold and green. She saw her father's formative early years in the landscape, working in the fields alongside grandparents she had never known. He had left his family to pursue his love of archaeology in faraway places, as he had later left her own mother to return to Israel. Perhaps there were distant cousins here, remnants of a family Morgan had never known. Her family had been fractured, but perhaps broken was the new normal in this world, where the phrase 'nuclear family' evoked images of war, not cozy perfection.

  Morgan thought of her twin sister, Faye, who had never really known their father, brought up instead by their mother in England. Faye had a right to know how Leon had died, but Morgan questioned whether it would even bring tears to her eyes. After all, she had never known a life with him in it.

  Her sister lived in an ordered world, where being a wife and a mother were the pillars of her faith and service to the Christian God she believed in. Some days, Morgan craved the normality that Faye lived within, a cocoon of baking and book groups, playing with little Gemma and church outings led by her pastor husband, David. But as much as that life attracted her, it repelled with its lack of excitement, its absence of the edge that Morgan craved. It was a dark addiction that she knew Jake understood, and the moments where life hung in the balance brought meaning in the aftermath. Without risk, life was far too dull. Her father had indeed raised the right twin, and Morgan knew that only she could honor his memory. She would tell Faye later, but this was her responsibility now.

  The private airstrip was just outside the city limits and a taxi was waiting for them on arrival, sweeping them through the streets towards the ancient center. Córdoba had been a hub of learning during the Caliphate over a thousand years ago, famous for the books collected by its knowledge-hungry rulers. Baghdad and the East were far in advance of Europe then, inventing the Arabic numerals and algebra still used today, along with decimal notation and the zero. As they drove into town, Morgan wondered if those in the mess of modern Iraq even knew how great their nation once had been. It was the curse of great empires perhaps that someday they must fall, as the British Empire had done, and the American reach had begun to crumble as the East rose ag
ain. The great cycles of civilization were an unstoppable force on the face of the earth, building and growing and then falling prey to entropy, the disorder and collapse that devours us all in time.

  Morgan and Jake exited the taxi on the edge of the river Guadalquivir near the cathedral.

  "Where are we heading?" Jake said, as Morgan strode off ahead of him into the narrow streets of the old city.

  "The synagogue first, it's the most obvious place for Santiago to have frequented," she said, walking faster, as if she could outrun her residual anger. Her words were curt and she could see that Jake struggled with how to break the tension as they walked. High white walls flanked the narrow streets, with doorways marked by blue numbered tiles and shops hunkered into the stone. There were no brand-name stores here, just individual shops specializing in different wares, the same as it had been for generations.

  "We don't need to talk about what happened to my father," Morgan said a moment later, as they walked down the Calle de los Judíos and emerged into a tiny square in front of the synagogue. "I'm not upset over his death anymore, I've come to terms with that. But I'm livid at Marietti for not telling me what he knew when he recruited me." She took a step away and then turned back, eyes blazing. "And I will have a reckoning with this Adam Kadmon. He's mine, Jake. Remember that."

  Jake raised his hands in mock surrender. "Of course. You're the avenging angel and I'm your slightly broken sidekick." His mocking smile twisted the corkscrew scar at the edge of his left eyebrow, but Morgan could see truth in his eyes. There was fear in the amber depths. Not of whoever they might meet, but of letting her down. She softened.

  "I still need you, Jake," she said, reaching one hand out to touch his arm. "What you did in the crypt of Sedlec saved us both. Your scars are mine too. Stay with me for this … please."

  She couldn't say any more, couldn't put into words what having him back as her partner meant now this emotional bombshell had shattered her objectivity. This trip had been a search for something in her father's past, and now it was all-consuming revenge. She needed someone who would stop her if she went too far. After all they had been through, she trusted Jake – and there was almost no one else she could say that of. His eyes darkened and she knew that he felt it, too; the bond between them went beyond just ARKANE partners now. He nodded.

  "We'd better get on with it then," he said. "I know you want to move fast. I'll work hard to keep up."

  His joking tone broke the intensity of the moment, and Morgan wiped the prick of tears from her eyes, turning towards the synagogue.

  They entered the low door, stepping back to a simpler time, when there was nothing between the faithful and their God. Built in 1315, the building was of basic design, the prayer room almost square, overlooked by a gallery for the women. The walls were decorated in Hebrew script, geometric patterns and decorative arches drawing the eyes upwards. The air was cool in the shadowy space, the high windows letting in some light but protecting the interior from the harsh Mediterranean sun. It was a refuge, and Morgan sensed an ancient peace, as if the generations of faithful had impregnated the walls with their prayers.

  After the expulsion in 1492, the synagogue had become a hospital, a school and a chapel, finally reopening as a synagogue in 1985. The story of repressed centuries had been repeated across Spain, the efficacy of ethnic cleansing demonstrated in how long it had taken for Jews to find a place here again. Morgan felt a pull of allegiance, a sense of wanting to stay and help rebuild this community. It was the same feeling that had driven her in Budapest, where the rise of anti-Semitism was once again staining the political landscape. Her people, yet not her people. She was Israeli, not Jewish; British and yet not Christian; a woman without a place – except for ARKANE, a sanctuary for misfits.

  "There's nothing here," she said suddenly. "This is not where Santiago would hide a code. This place was sacred to him, and he wouldn't have carved into these walls."

  Jake nodded, looking around the open space. "And there's really no place to hide it, no way to keep a grid of numbers secret here. It would be too obvious. So what's next?"

  Morgan ran her fingers across the Hebrew script on the wall, thinking for a moment.

  "When we were at the Sagrada Familia, Ramon mentioned that Santiago had worked on the Mezquita here. It's a church built by the Visigoths around 600 AD and then turned into a mosque during the Caliphate, rededicated as a Catholic cathedral in the thirteenth century. There's been a lot of restoration work, and from what I remember from my visit here long ago, it's seriously ornate. It would be a far better place to hide a code and it's not far from here."

  Morgan and Jake headed back out into the sun, dodging the tourist groups as they walked the short distance to the Central World Heritage Site of the Mezquita. They emerged from the crowded streets into the Patio de los Naranjos, an Islamic-style ablutions court with fountains for ritual purification before prayer. The orange trees were welcome shade from the baking sun, and the sound of splashing water made this an oasis of calm. Jake walked to the fountain and plunged his hands in, scooping water up his arms and onto his face. Droplets sparkled in the sunlight and Morgan imagined the faithful repeating this action over the last thousand years, an unchanging ritual that bound generations.

  "This is glorious," Jake said, his tousled dark hair wet around his temples. Morgan watched a drop of water trickle down his neck and into his shirt, and she itched to trace its path with her fingertip. She turned quickly to the archways that led into the church.

  They walked in and gazed through the riot of pillars that filled the grand space, linked by archways of red brick and white marble, the striped design repeated throughout the distinctive building. The pillars were all different sizes and types, some reused from the old Visigoth cathedral and others shipped from all over the empire in porphyry, marble and jasper.

  As a mosque, the columned interior had once been open to the air at each side, a continuation of the forest of trees outside. As a church, it was more enclosed, the dim light enhanced by candles at the myriad altars. It was early so there were still only a few worshippers kneeling around the place, and a calm silence gave the atmosphere solemnity. The ornate decoration was exhausting to look at, with a combination of elaborate arabesques and detailed Arabic script in gold, rust-red and turquoise, surrounded by the Catholic icons and shrines around the walls. Morgan appreciated the incredible architectural beauty of the place, but she felt nothing of God here. The air was thick, every breath heavy with incense and candle smoke, cloying in the back of her throat.

  "Santiago could definitely have carved his numeric code somewhere here," she said. "This place wouldn't have been sacred to him."

  Jake turned around, stretching his arms wide as he indicated the sheer volume of space. "But where would it be? This place is huge."

  Morgan gazed deeper into the forest of pillars. "I've heard that there are 856 columns here, and given his passion for numerology, it would make sense for Santiago to have carved on one of them. The question is, where to start counting?"

  She began walking slowly, skirting the edge of the heart of the cathedral and heading for the mihrab, a semi-circular niche indicating the qibla, the direction of Mecca. Jake walked alongside her as they both tried to get a sense for the perspective of the place. The mihrab was at the opposite end from the Patio de los Naranjos and the Puerta de las Palmas, where they had entered. An extension in 960 AD had enlarged the mosque, adding even more pillars in the southerly corner.

  "Hebrew is read right to left," Morgan said, walking to the furthest corner. "So I would start here for my count."

  "What number are we counting to?" Jake asked, staring into the maze of columns.

  Morgan grinned. "Now that really is the question. We should try all the numbers we have come across so far: 33 and 48, 70 and 140. While we're doing that, I'll have a think about the other possibilities."

  They began to walk through the forest of stone, counting silently until they reached the
thirty-third pillar. Morgan crouched to examine the base and Jake stretched up to look at the carved capital, its tendrils of leaves indicating it originally came from a Roman temple.

  "Nothing," he whispered.

  Morgan straightened. "Nothing here either. Let's try forty-eight."

  A dull clang echoed through the church as they stepped away from the pillar, as if something heavy had been dropped. Morgan started, hand automatically going for her weapon. The sound of shouting voices followed, a flurry of Spanish and then what sounded like a gunshot and finally, silence. The few worshippers in sight turned their heads instinctively to the noise. One woman crossed herself and headed for a side door.

  "What do you think?" Jake whispered, his hand hovering near his concealed weapon.

  "Let's hurry," Morgan said, stepping quickly around the pillars to count further. As they reached forty-eight, the great doors of the Puerta de las Palmas swung open, the squeak of the hinges echoing through the cathedral. Morgan peered round the column to see a number of men entering, each armed with an assault weapon.

  Chapter 13

  Morgan counted ten of them, far too many for her and Jake to take on. The distance and the gloom would obscure them for the moment, but they had to hurry. Adam Kadmon must have worked out the last code, or perhaps Sofia had told him of this place. Morgan thought of the stunning young woman, wondering what Kadmon wanted her for, whether she even knew her grandfather was dead by this man's hand. Her heart pounded. If Kadmon was here, she would have a chance to reach him soon. Her hand curled around the grip of her gun.

  She felt the whisper of Jake's breath on her neck, his hand over hers, staying her motion.

  "There are too many of them. We need to find the code and get out of here. You take 140, I'll take seventy and I'll meet you by the Puerta de San Esteban."