Ethan Gage Collection # 1

by William Dietrich

  “You mean we can’t get in there?”

  “If we tried and were found, we’d be executed. It is sacred ground. Excavations in the past have caused riots. It would be as if we tried to excavate St. Peter’s.”

  “Then why are we talking?”

  They glanced at each other in mutual understanding.

  “Ah. So we must not be found.”

  “Exactly,” Jericho said. “Farhi has suggested a possible path.”

  “Why hasn’t he taken this path himself?”

  “Because it is wet, filthy, dangerous, confined, and probably futile,” Farhi said cheerfully. “We were, after all, dealing only with vague historical legend until you come with claims that something extraordinary really existed in ancient Egypt, and was perhaps carried here. Do I believe it? No. You may be an entertaining liar, or a credulous fool. But do I disbelieve, when its existence may have represented great power to my people? I can’t afford to.”

  “So you will lead us?”

  “As well as a disfigured bookkeeper can.”

  “For a share of the treasure, I presume.”

  “For truth and knowledge, as Thoth would be content with.”

  “Which Miriam said could be used for good or evil.”

  “The same could be said about money, my friend.”

  Well, anytime a stranger announces altruism, and calls me friend, I wonder what pocket he’s reaching into. But in my own months of searching I hadn’t found a clue, had I? Maybe he and I could use each other. “Where do we start?”

  “Between the Dome of the Rock and the El-Aqsa Mosque is the Fountain of El-Kas,” Farhi said crisply. “It draws its water from ancient rain cisterns deep within the Temple Mount. Those cisterns are connected by tunnels, to feed each other. Some writers have speculated they are part of a vein of passages that may extend even under the holy rock Kubbet es-Sakhra itself, where Abraham offered his sacrifice to God: the foundation stone of the world. Moreover, these cisterns must also be connected to springs, not just rainwater. Accordingly, a decade ago I was asked by Djezzar to search the ancient records for underground passageways into Temple Mount. I told him I found none.”

  “You lied?”

  “It was a costly admission of failure. I was mutilated as punishment. But the reason is that I did find old records, fragmentary accounts, suggesting a secret route to powers so great that a man such as Djezzar must never get them. The Spring of Gihon that feeds the Pool of Siloam, outside the city walls, may offer a way. If so, the Muslims would never see us.”

  “The cisterns,” said Miriam, “might lead to the deepest places where the Jews may have hid the ark, the book, and other treasures.”

  “Until, perhaps, they were uncovered by the Knights Templar,” Farhi added. “And, perhaps, re-hidden—after Jacques de Molay burned at the stake. There is one other problem, however, that has also discouraged me from pursuing any exploration.”

  “The tunnels are blocked by water?” I had grim memories of my escape from the Great Pyramid.

  “Possibly. But even if they are not, one record I found made reference to doors that are sealed. What was once open may now be closed.”

  “Determined men can force any locked door, with enough muscle or gunpowder,” Jericho said.

  “Not gunpowder!” Farhi said. “Do you want to arouse the city?”

  “Muscle, then.”

  “What if the Muslims hear us poking around down there?” I asked.

  “That,” the banker said, “would be most unfortunate.”

  My rifle was complete. Jericho had carefully pasted two of Miriam’s hairs on its telescope to give an aiming point, and when I tested the gun outside the city I found I could reliably hit a plate at two hundred yards. A musket, in contrast, was inaccurate after fifty. But when I took the piece up to watch for the French brigands from our rooftop, peering until my eye ached, I saw nothing. Had they left? I fantasized that they hadn’t, that Alessandro Silano was here, secretly directing them, and that I could capture and interrogate him about Astiza.

  But it was as if the gang had never existed.

  Miriam has used bright brass to inset two replica seraphim on each side of the wooden stock as patch boxes where I kept my greased wadding. Pushed by the bullet, it cleans the barrel of powder residue with each shot. The seraphim crouched with wings outstretched like those on the Ark. She also made me a new tomahawk. I was so pleased I gave a dubious Jericho some instruction on how to win at pharaon, should he ever find a game, and bought a small golden Spanish cross for Miriam. I also wasn’t entirely surprised, when our evening of adventure came, that Miriam insisted she come along, despite the custom to cloister women in Jerusalem. “She knows old legends that bore me,” Jericho admitted. “She sees things I don’t, or won’t. And I don’t want to leave her alone with the French thieves skulking about.”

  “We agree on that,” I said.

  “Besides, the two of you need a woman’s sense,” she said.

  “It’s important we move stealthily,” Jericho added. “Miriam said you have red Indian skills.”

  Truth be told, my red Indian skills had consisted primarily of avoiding the savages whenever I could, and buying them off with presents when I couldn’t. My few scrapes with them had been terrifying. But I had exaggerated my frontier exploits to Miriam (a bad habit of mine), and it wouldn’t do to set the record straight now.

  Farhi also came, dressed in black. “My presence may be even more important than I thought,” he said. “There are Jewish mysteries too, and since our conversation I’ve been studying what the Templars studied, including the numerology of the Jewish kabbalah and its Book of Zohar.”

  “Another book? What’s this one for?”

  “Some of us believe the Torah, or your Bible, can be read at two levels. One is the stories we all know. The second is that there is another story, a mystery, a sacred story—a story hidden between the lines—embedded in a number code. That is Zohar.”

  “The Bible is a code?”

  “Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet can be represented by a number, and there are ten more numbers beyond, representing the sacred sefiroth. These are the code.”

  “Ten what?”

  “Sefiroth. They are the six directions of reality—the four cardinals of east, west, north, and south, plus up and down—and the makings of the universe, being fire, water, ether, and God. These ten sefiroth and twenty-two letters represent the thirty-two ways of wisdom, which in turn point toward the seventy-two sacred names of God. Can this Book of Thoth perhaps be read in the same way? What is its key? We will see.”

  Well, here was more of the same gibberish I’d encountered ever since I’d won the damned Egyptian medallion in Paris. Lunacy, apparently, is contagious. So many people seem to believe in legends, numerology, and mathematical marvels that I’d begun to believe too, even if I could rarely make heads or tails of what people were talking about. But if a disfigured banker like Farhi was willing to muck about in the bowels of the earth because of Jewish numerology, then it seemed worth my time, too.

  “Well, welcome. Try to keep up.” I turned to Jericho. “Why are you shouldering a bag of mortar?”

  “To brick up whatever we break into. The secret to stealing things is to make it look like no theft has occurred.”

  That’s the kind of thinking I admire.

  We slipped out the Dung Gate after dark. It was early March, and Napoleon’s invasion had already begun. Word had come that the French had marched from El-Arish at the border between Egypt and Palestine on February 15, won a quick victory at Gaza, and were approaching Jaffa. Time was short. We made our way down the rocky slope to the Pool of Siloam, a plumbing fixture since King David’s time, me breezily giving advice to crouch here and scurry there as if it were really trusty Algonquin lore. The truth is, I’m more at home in a gambling salon than wilderness, but Miriam seemed impressed.

  There was a new moon, a sliver that left the hillside dark, and the early spring night
air was cold. Dogs barked from the hovels of a few shepherds and goatherds as we clambered over old ruins. Behind us, forming a dark line against the sky, were the city walls that enclosed the south side of the Temple Mount. I could see the form of El-Aqsa up there, and the walls and arches of its Templar additions.

  Were Muslim sentries peering down? As we crept along, I had an uneasy feeling of being watched. “Someone’s out there,” I whispered to Jericho.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. I feel them, but can’t see them.”

  He looked around. “I’ve heard nothing. I think you frightened the French away.”

  I fingered my tomahawk and took my rifle in both hands. “You three go ahead. I’ll see if I can catch anyone behind.”

  But the night seemed as empty as a magician’s black bag. At length, knowing the others were waiting, I went on to the Pool of Siloam, a rectangular ink pit near the valley floor. Worn stone steps led downward to a stone platform from which women could dip their jars. Sparrows, which nested in the pit’s stone walls, rustled uneasily. Only the faintest gleam of faces showed me where the others huddled.

  And our group had grown.

  “Sir Sidney did send help,” Jericho explained.

  “British?” Now I understood my foreboding.

  “We’ll need their labor underground.”

  “Lieutenant Henry Tentwhistle of HMS Dangerous at your service, Mr. Gage,” their crouched commander whispered in the dark. “You will recall, perhaps, your success at outbluffing me in our games of brelan.”

  I groaned inwardly. “I was lucky in the face of your boldness, Lieutenant.”

  “This is Ensign Potts, who you bested in pharaon. Took six months’ wages.”

  “Surely not that much.” I shook his hand. “How desperately I have needed it to complete the Crown’s mission here in Jerusalem.”

  “And these two lads you know as well, I believe.”

  Even in the midnight gloom of the Pool of Siloam, I could recognize the barricade gleam of a memorably wide and hostile smile of piano-key teeth.

  “You owes me a tussle, after this,” the owner said.

  “And our money back besides.”

  But of course. It was Big Ned and Little Tom.

  CHAPTER 8

  You should be honored, guv’nor,” Big Ned said.

  “This is the only mission we’s ever volunteered for,” said Little Tom.

  “Sir Sidney thought it best for us all to work together.”

  “It’s because of you we’re along.”

  “Flattered, I’m sure,” I said weakly. “You couldn’t advise me of this, Jericho?”

  “Sir Sidney teaches: the fewer to speak, the better.”

  Indeed. Old Ben himself said, “Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

  “So he sent four more along?”

  “The way we figured it, there must be money at stake to draw in a weasel like you,” Little Tom said cheerfully. “Then they issued us picks and we say to each other, well, it must be buried treasure! And this Yankee, he can settle with Ned here as he promised on the frigate—or he can give us his share.”

  “We’re not as simple as you think,” Big Ned added.

  “Clearly. Well,” I said, looking at the decidedly unfriendly squad of sailors, trying to ignore my instinct that this was all going to turn out badly, “it’s good to have allies, lads, who’ve met over friendly games of chance. Now then. There’s a bit of danger here, and we must be quiet as mice, but there’s a real chance to make history, too. No treasure, but a chance to find a secret corridor into the heart of the enemy, should Boney seize this town. That’s our mission. My philosophy is that what’s past is past, and what comes, comes best to men who stand with each other, don’t you think? Every penny I have goes into the Crown’s business, after all.”

  “Crown’s business? And what’s that fine firearm you’re bearing, then?” Little Tom pointed.

  “This rifle?” It did gleam ostentatiously. “Why, a foremost example. For your protection, since it’s my responsibility that none of you come to harm.”

  “Costly little piece, it looks to me. As made up as a high-class tart, that gun is. Lot of our money went into that, I’ll wager.”

  “It cost hardly a trifle here in Jerusalem,” I insisted. “Eastern manufacture, no knowledge of real gunnery…. Pretty piece of rubbish, actually.” I avoided Jericho’s glare. “Now, I can’t promise we’ll find anything of value. But if we do, then of course you lads can have my share and I’ll just content myself with the odd scroll or two. That’s the spirit of cooperation I’d like to enter with, eh? All cats are gray in the dark, as Ben Franklin liked to say.”

  “Who said?” asked Tom.

  “Bloody rebel who should have hanged,” Big Ned rumbled.

  “And what the devil does it mean?”

  “That we’re a bag of bloody cats, or something.”

  “That we’re all one until the mission is over,” Tentwhistle corrected.

  “And who’s this damsel, then?” Little Tom said, poking at Miriam. She stepped distastefully away.

  “My sister,” Jericho growled.

  “Sister!” Tom stepped back as if he’d been given a jolt of electricity.

  “You take your sister on a treasure hunt? What the devil for?”

  “She sees things,” I said.

  “The hell she does,” Ned said. “And who’s that back there?”

  “Our Jewish guide.”

  “A Jew, too?”

  “Molls are bad luck,” Tom said.

  “Nor are we carrying her,” his companion added.

  “As if I’d let you,” Miriam snapped.

  “Be careful, Ned,” I warned. “Her knee knows where your cockles are.”

  “Does it now?” He looked at her with more interest.

  By the lawns of Lexington, wasn’t this a fine mess? I couldn’t have made a worse stew if I’d invited anarchists to draw up a constitution. So, thoroughly unsettled, we stepped into the shallow pool and waded knee-deep water to its end. Current issued from a cavelike opening secured by an iron grate.

  “Built to keep out children and animals,” Jericho said, hefting his iron pry bar. “Not us.” He applied muscle and leverage and there was a snap, the rusty grill swinging inward with a screech. Once inside, our ironmonger closed the gate behind us, securing it with his own new padlock. “For this one I have a key.”

  I looked behind at the well’s long rim. Had someone ducked out of sight? “Did you see anything?” I whispered to Farhi.

  “I haven’t been able to see since we left Jericho’s house,” the old banker grumbled. “This is not my habit, splashing in the dark.”

  Soon the water was thigh-deep, cool but not cold. The tunnel passage we were wading into was as wide as my outstretched arms and from ten to fifteen feet high, bearing the texture of ancient picks. This was a man-made tube built to bring natural spring water into King David’s old city, Farhi told us. Its bottom was uneven, making us stumble. When we were far enough into the tunnel for Jericho to risk lighting the first lantern, I splashed up to Tentwhistle. “There’s no chance you were followed down here, was there?” I asked.

  “We paid our guides to keep their mouths shut,” the lieutenant said.

  “Aye, and didn’t breathe a word in Jerusalem, neither,” Ned put in.

  “Wait. The four of you English sailors went inside the city?”

  “Just to get some tack.”

  “I told you to lie low until dark!” Jericho hissed with exasperation.

  “We were in Arab sheets, and kept to ourselves,” Tentwhistle said defensively. “By the pulpit, I’m not getting all the way to Jerusalem and not have a look around. Famous town, it is.”

  “Arab sheets!” I exclaimed. “All of you look as Arab as Father Christmas! Your beet-red faces couldn’t be any more obvious if you’d marched in with the Union Jack!”

  “So we was s’posed to starve ourselves u
ntil nightfall and then dig you a hole?” Big Ned countered. “Meet us with some tucker if you’re so determined to keep us out of your precious city.”

  Well, what could we do about it now? I turned to Jericho, his face gloomy in the amber lantern light. “I think we’d better hurry.”

  “I left a strong padlock at the grate. But you’re our rear guard, with your rifle.”

  Suddenly Miriam yelped from the shadows. “Don’t touch me!”

  “Sorry, did I brush against?” Little Tom said salaciously.

  “Here, doll, I’ll keep you safe,” Ned added.

  Jericho started to raise his pick, but I stayed his hand. “I’ll handle this.” As I pushed my way back to the rear of the file, I let the barrel of my new rifle drive into Ned’s groin. “Bloody hell!” he gasped.

  “My clumsiness,” I said, swinging the stock away so abruptly that it nicely clipped the side of Little Tom’s face.

  “Bastard!”

  “I’m sure if we all keep our distance, we won’t bump.”

  “I’ll stand where I bloody well…” Then Tom yelped and jumped.

  “That bitch snuck up behind!”

  “Sorry, did I brush against?” Miriam was holding a pry bar.

  “I warned you, gentlemen. Keep distant if you value your manhood.”

  “I’ll geld you myself if you touch my sister again,” Jericho added.

  “And I’ll give you both a dance with the lash,” Tentwhistle said.

  “Ensign Potts! Keep discipline!”

  “Yes sir! You two—behave!”

  “Ah, we was just playing…Lord on high! What happened to him?” Farhi had passed through the lantern light, and the startled sailors had their first look at his mutilated face: the cratered eye, the snoutlike nose, the butchered ear.

  “I touched his sister,” the Jew said slyly.