The Babylonian Codex

by C. S. Graham

  Then the car slammed down on its roof and skittered sideways along the road, the impact tearing through Noah’s body, stealing his breath and sending up a billowing cloud of dust.

  He gasped in agony, fighting hard to draw air into his empty lungs. He realized he was hanging upside down and clawed frantically at the seat belt that held him suspended. Releasing the catch, he curled into a ball as he landed on the roof. Pain exploded in his shoulder, reverberated through his body.

  Only then did he glance over at Mustapha. The driver was dead, his eyes open wide, one side of his head gone.

  “Oh, my God,” sobbed Noah.

  He could smell the hot engine, the reek of spilled gasoline. In a panic, he grabbed his backpack and squeezed through the broken window of his mangled door. His backpack caught on a jagged piece of metal and he yanked it free. Kicking away from the taxi, he skittered backward across the rutted road—

  Just as the car exploded in a giant fireball.

  Chapter 54

  Soria, Spain: Monday 5 February 3:35 P.M. local time

  Jax and Tobie rented a little two-door Seat Ibiza in Soria.

  Bubba leaned against the car. “I’ll give y’all until seven o’clock. Then I’m outta here.”

  “Eight,” said Jax, sliding behind the wheel.

  Bubba glanced at Tobie. “Seven thirty. But don’t be late.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  They drove across a high, windswept plateau of winter-browned, shrub-covered hills. “You think this is what Noah Bosch was doing in Spain?” Tobie asked, staring across the undulating stone-strewn fields to the flat-topped mesa crowned by Medinaceli’s medieval walls. “Coming to see Zapatero?”

  “Seems reasonable, doesn’t it?”

  “I wonder who his source was. Someone close to Patterson, you think? Or Carlyle?”

  Jax turned off onto the narrow road winding up to the top of the plateau. “Patterson and Carlyle are just the two men we know about. I suspect there are a good half dozen billionaire nutcases up to their Armani-clad necks in this scheme. Pizarro is threatening to derail their little gravy train. They’re not going to just roll over and give up their privileges without a fight.”

  She stared out the window at bleak hillsides covered with windmills. “Duane Davenport knew Bosch was in Spain. I wonder if they got him?”

  “Probably,” said Jax.

  They parked the Seat in the shadow of the crumbling ducal palace overlooking the village’s vast plaza mayor. Like the narrow medieval streets through which they’d passed, the plaza was deserted, the ancient, golden-hued stone buildings fronting the square standing quiet and forlorn in the last rays of the cold winter sunshine. When Tobie closed her car door, the sound echoed around the vast space.

  “Wow. Where is everyone?”

  “Dead,” said Jax. “Or living in Madrid.”

  They found a little old woman in black sitting in a battered, straight-backed wooden chair beneath the age-worn arcade that ran along one side of the plaza. She gave them directions to Señor Zapatero’s house, her eyes narrowed as if with a secret knowledge she had no intention of sharing.

  “Something has happened,” Tobie said as, following the woman’s directions, they took the crooked lane that opened off the far end of the plaza.

  “Why do you say that?” Jax demanded, his head falling back to scan the silent stone facades and moss-covered tile roofs.

  “There’s something she wasn’t telling us.”

  Jax brought his gaze back to Tobie’s face. “What is this? More woo-woo mind reading?”

  “No.” She squeezed through a narrow passage that opened up into a smaller plaza centered around a crumbling, shuttered old church. “It’s women’s intuition. It’s all a matter of—”

  She broke off. The house opposite the church was a blackened shell.

  “Shit,” whispered Jax.

  Stepping up to the gaping, blackened doorway, they found a young woman on the far side of the fire-blasted room hunkered down beside what looked like the charred remains of an ancient trunk. She was sifting through the rubble, occasionally pausing to put something into the small plastic box she held.

  “Excuse me,” said Jax, slipping easily into Spanish. “We’re looking for José Zapatero.”

  “He’s dead,” said the woman, her attention all for her task. “There was an explosion.”

  Tobie drew in a quick breath scented with ash and burnt wood. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”

  Jax said, “You’re Zapatero’s daughter?”

  “That’s right. Antonia.” She looked up, her shoulder-length brown hair falling into her eyes. She brushed it back with one hand, leaving a streak of soot across her forehead. Her face was wan, her eyes red and swollen. “Who are you?”

  Jax surprised Tobie by telling the woman the truth. “We’re with United States intelligence.”

  “Is that so?” Antonia didn’t sound terribly impressed—or convinced. “And what does any of this”—she swept her hand in a wide arc that took in the shattered windows and blackened walls—“have to do with the United States?”

  “Are you familiar with the Babylonian Codex?”

  She pushed to her feet, the contents of the small plastic box rattling in her hand. “I’m a classical archaeologist. Of course I know about the codex.” She glanced from Jax to Tobie, then back.

  “What?” prompted Jax when Antonia looked at him expectantly.

  “You have identification?”

  He handed her James Anderson’s Homeland Security credentials.

  She studied it thoughtfully for a moment, then tossed it back to him. “These could easily be fake. How would I know?”

  “Actually, they are fake,” said Jax, pocketing the badge and ID. “My real name is Jax Alexander and I work for the CIA, not Homeland Security.” He nodded toward the scorched walls. “I think this explosion was the work of rogue FBI agents.”

  She gave short, incredulous laugh. “If that were true, why would you tell me?”

  “Because I’m getting desperate,” he said. “Because Vice President Hamilton’s death wasn’t natural; it was murder. And because his death is part of a plan to overturn the results of the last election. The guys behind it are a bunch of financiers and industrialists in league with some loony fundamentalists who believe they have a God-given mandate to prepare the world for the Second Coming.”

  It sounded so incredible that Tobie expected the woman to laugh again. Instead, she said, “I have heard of this movement. Although I must admit, I find it difficult to understand.”

  “Have you ever heard of a journalist named Noah Bosch?”

  “Actually, yes. He came to see my father yesterday. They were together when the bomb went off.”

  Tobie said, “So he’s dead?”

  Zapatero’s daughter shook her head. “If he is, his body has not been found.”

  Jax and Tobie exchanged a quick glance.

  Antonia set aside the small plastic box and dusted her hands on the seat of her jeans. “What precisely has any of this to do with either my father or the Babylonian Codex?”

  “We think these men have decided that the lost chapter from the codex is their own private blueprint for action.”

  “That is the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard. Have they never actually read the Revelation of John? It says quite clearly at the very beginning of the first chapter that these are things which must come ‘shortly’ to pass. Then John says it again, in verse three: ‘the time is at hand.’ And as if that weren’t enough, God says once more in 22:10: ‘The time is at hand.’ ”

  Tobie looked at Jax. “I didn’t know that. Did you know that?”

  He shook his head.

  Antonia said, “The early Christians were convinced Jesus would return soon—as in, in their very own lifetimes. They had this idea that since one person—Jesus—had already been raised from the dead, that the rest of them couldn’t be far behind. In fact, there was a serious crisis in the earl
y church when some of the first followers of the Messiah began dying and He still hadn’t returned. Anyone who reads Revelation and thinks he’s reading something that was meant to serve as a prophesy of the end times two thousand years in the future needs to learn more about the origins of his faith.”

  Tobie said, “But if it’s not meant as a prophesy about the end of the world, then what is it?”

  “Basically, it’s religious poetry, inspired by earlier Jewish prophets and the cosmic myths current in the Mediterranean at the time. The author of Revelation—or perhaps one should more accurately say the ‘authors’—were interpreting their own times for the followers of Jesus. It’s all about giving moral support to Christians at a time of persecution, and providing consolation for the dismal fate of humanity in general. Its central message is very simple, which is why it has resonated so powerfully through the ages.”

  “What’s the message?”

  “That in the struggle of good against evil, God is not neutral.” Antonia gave a wry smile. “Of course, do you think anyone has ever read Revelation and identified themselves as being on the side of the forces of evil? Men are always saintly heroes in their own minds—even when they’re committing murder. Somehow they find a way to convince themselves they have a ‘good’ reason for what they’re doing.”

  Tobie said, “So the ‘beast’ in Revelation was really meant to be—what? Rome?”

  “Definitely. So is the Great Whore. So is Babylon; they were all standard code words at the time for Rome—because the Roman state was the Christians’ enemy.” Antonia reached for the small plastic box she’d set aside. “And the famous scary ‘mark of the beast’ without which ‘no one can buy or sell unless he bears it’?” She plucked a small disk from the box and tossed it at Jax.

  He caught it easily and rubbed the surface with his thumb. It was a coin. A Roman coin, now covered in soot.

  “Virtually all Roman coins circulating at that time carried the image of the emperor, which certain Jews and early Christians considered a violation of the strict interpretation of the commandment against images. You literally couldn’t buy or sell without the ‘mark of the beast.’ ”

  Tobie looked up. “And the number 666?”

  “Probably referred to Nero. The ancients had a system known as ‘gematria,’ in which every letter had a specific corresponding number. If you added up the numbers of the letters in a man’s name, you’d get a numeric value. Nero’s name written in Aramaic has the value of 666. If you write his name in Latin, the value comes up 616. Which is probably why some of the earliest copies of Revelation assign to the beast a different number: 616.”

  “What number appears in the Babylonian Codex?”

  “The number 616.”

  Tobie studied the other woman’s pale, drawn face. “So you’ve seen the codex?”

  Antonia shook her head. “One verse only. What I know of the rest I know from my father’s conversations with Dr. Araji.”

  “Given that he hadn’t published his translation yet, I’m surprised Dr. Araji shared any of it with you,” said Jax.

  Antonia said, “Let me show you why.”

  Chapter 55

  High Atlas Mountains, Morocco: Monday 5 February 3:35 P.M. local time

  Noah scrambled backward, his heavy pack clutched one-handed against his chest, the heat of the fire from the burning car scorching his face.

  Fine, loose stones ripped at his palm. He was trembling uncontrollably, his breath coming in noisy, wheezy gasps. He kept propelling himself backward on one hand, pushing his butt along the ground, his heels digging into the dirt, his gaze mesmerized by the inferno before him.

  The road here was narrow, cutting into the rocky red cliff. The Mercedes had landed sideways across the road, blocking it completely. The flames and smoke and dust obscured all visibility. Right now, the homicidal maniacs in the Land Rover were probably thinking Noah had died in the crash. But when the flames died down, they’d see him.

  Shuddering with terror, he pushed to his feet and spun around to take off up the road. The crackling, whooshing roar of the flames covered the patter of his footsteps in the dirt. He sprinted hard around the curve, then kept running, lungs gasping for air, legs reaching.

  The rocky red hillside hid him from sight. But before him stretched the wide, barren, empty expanses of the High Atlases, the ochre tones of the stony earth turning fiery red beneath the slanting rays of the setting sun. Already he could feel the temperature plunging.

  Soon, it would be dark.

  Washington, D.C. Monday 5 February 11:10 A.M. local time

  After working through the weekend, Duane Davenport was taking the morning off, staying home with the kids, who were out of school thanks to the snow. At noon, his wife, a nurse, would take over. He was helping his five-year-old daughter, Molly, push a giant ball of snow around the yard in preparation for making what Molly was calling “the bestest snowman I ever built,” when the call came through from Agent Brockman.

  He took it standing on the front porch, with the snow melting off his boots into little puddles that spread across the gray concrete. “This had better be important,” he said, watching Molly struggle to heave the giant ball of packed snow by herself. “I’m busy.”

  “The Sierra Leone connection has been terminated,” said Brockman, choosing her words carefully. The line was unsecured, and if there was one thing Davenport had learned in this business, it’s that you never knew who might be listening. “There was an interesting development.”

  “Oh?”

  “The Ark Builder was there, too.”

  Noah Bosch. “Well I’ll be damned,” said Davenport. “I assume you got him, too?”

  “Probably. But it’s inconclusive at this point. There was a car crash and the vehicle burned,” she added by way of explanation. “But we got something even more valuable.”

  “What’s that?”

  “His Blackberry.”

  Chapter 56

  Medinaceli, Spain: Monday 5 February 5:20 P.M. local time

  Antonia Zapatero led them outside to a flagged terrace and then down a shallow set of steps to a winter-browned garden enclosed on two sides by high stone walls. At the base of the garden stood a squat stone building, its ancient, honey-toned walls badly eroded and battered by time. Up to the height of about five feet, the walls were formed of large, carefully dressed sandstone blocks; above that, the stones became irregular, cruder, as if the structure had been rebuilt at some point. Its only opening appeared to be a weathered door set into a horseshoe arch.

  “There used to be two windows,” said Antonia, reaching into her pocket for a large iron key. “But they’ve been walled up. You can see traces of them, there.” She pointed to just below where the courses of irregular stone began. “Once there was obviously a second story, as well; we’ve found remnants of steps that would have led up to the women’s gallery, since women are not permitted to worship with the men.”

  “This was originally a synagogue?” said Jax.

  She unlocked the door and thrust it open. “Yes. The original structure dates back to the time when Medinaceli was a Roman city. It survived as a synogogue through the Moslem period, up until the time of the Reconquista. Then it was abandoned. At some point the building collapsed. When it was rebuilt, the floor was covered with earth. Which was fortunate for us because those six inches of dirt helped to preserve this—”

  She flipped a switch mounted on the rough wall, and a string of bare bulbs strung overhead blazed.

  “My God,” whispered Jax.

  The old prayer hall was some eighteen to twenty feet long and perhaps a few feet narrower. A stone bench two feet high ran along three walls. Above that, traces of mudéjar plasterwork added during the age of the Moors still clung in places to the walls. But what instantly drew and held their attention was the vast mosaic that covered the floor.

  A geometric border rendered in jewel-like tones of blue and green and ochre formed the outer edges of the mo
saic. The same tones were used to fashion the mosaic’s large centerpiece: a medallion encircling a large, rampant lion. Flanking the lion stood two shepherds. They faced each other across the central medallion, each bearing a lamb on his shoulders. A Latin inscription ran along the sides and top of the mosaic. But on the fourth side, along the base, flowed a vast blue sea teeming with fish. And along the top of the water slithered a long, sinuous serpent with a forked tongue and ruby-red eyes.

  “The inscription,” said Tobie, her voice cracking so that she had to swallow. “What does it say?”

  Jax whispered to her, “What? A dozen languages and you don’t know Latin?”

  Antonia smiled, “It says, ‘A Lion shall rise up, God’s right hand, and on his shield shall be written, God’s justice, God’s judgment, God’s glory.’ ”

  Jax said. “That’s from the Babylonian Codex?”

  “Yes. It’s why Dr. Araji sent the verse to my father. My father gave a paper on the synagogue at a conference shortly before the invasion of Iraq, and Araji came up afterwards and told him the inscription was from the Codex.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Tobie. “How old is this mosaic?”

  “It dates to sometime in the first century A.D.”

  “But . . . you said this was a Jewish synagogue, right? Why are there shepherds?”

  “The image of the shepherd with a lamb over his shoulders was actually a common Roman symbol for the virtue of philanthropy. Love of humanity was revered as an important part of Roman life; as Roman Jews, the people who built this synagogue would have absorbed that. It’s like the fish—” She pointed to the teaming sea. “Fish were a standard symbol for abundance in the Roman world.”