The Solomon Scroll

by Alex Lukeman

  Now warning bells were sounding in his mind. Rhoades had a well-developed ability to see trouble coming before others knew it. It had gotten him out of situations that would have ended badly for most men.

  He stood under the shower for a long time, his mind clearing under the flowing water. The night before had been unusually disturbing. Al-Bayati's behavior was becoming more erratic, more extreme. Standing under the water, Rhoades faced the thought that had been nagging him for months.

  He's insane. He really is.

  Addison Rhoades was under no illusions about his own perverted morality, but Al-Bayati had gone beyond what even he could tolerate. Nazar's brutal and sexually sadistic nature was sliding out of control. That was bad enough. What had convinced him was when Al-Bayati had told him the real reason he wanted to find the tomb and Solomon.

  It wasn't just the money, the enormous treasure that was supposed to be buried with the king. It wasn't even the potential profit in exploiting an explosive political situation where all the major players in the Middle East had a stake in the outcome. It was because of something rumored to have been buried with Solomon.

  A ring. More specifically, a magic ring, bearing the Seal of Solomon.

  In Jewish, Islamic and Western occultism, Solomon's ring had magical powers for good and evil. Legend held that Solomon could bring the desert wind with the ring. He could call upon the jinni, the dark spirits of the desert. He could speak with animals.

  Al-Bayati wanted the power he thought that ring would bring him.

  Working for a madman who sought to retrieve a magical ring was not Rhoades' cup of tea. It was time to think about finding new employment. He'd miss the drugs but he'd been there before. A week or two of unpleasantness and he would be past it. Besides, there were other drugs to ease the transition. In the meantime, he needed to make sure Al-Bayati had no reason to suspect his loyalty. If Nazar became suspicious, the results would be most unpleasant.

  Rhoades turned off the water, stepped out of the shower stall and began to dry off. He thought about the scroll. Even though he was certain that Solomon's ring was a myth, the treasure of the Jewish Temple was not.

  The ancient Hebrews, like many other peoples of the time, believed that God was pleased and honored by the gleam of gold. The Temple had been filled with treasures made from the precious metal, a horde unlike anything else in history.

  Religion had changed since the destruction of the Temple. One thing that had stayed the same was the worship of gold. It was as strong as ever. Rhoades didn't believe in magic or religion but he believed in gold. As long as Al-Bayati was looking for the hidden tomb, he would bide his time. Why not let him do the work, using his network of spies? If anyone could find it, it would be Nazar, Rhoades was certain. When the tomb was discovered he'd make his move.

  He finished drying his hair and looked at himself in the mirror. Even with the dark bags under his eyes he thought he was still an attractive man, though some would say the mirror revealed his dissolution. There seemed to be more lines today than usual. His eyes were bloodshot, that was to be expected. It was a small price to pay for pleasure.

  The gold in that tomb would buy anything he wanted for the rest of his life. Women, boys, a villa in the islands, youth. Anything he wanted.

  He smiled at his reflection.

  Rhoades dressed and went down the main staircase to the grand entrance of Al-Bayati's villa. He put on sunglasses and walked back to the patio where Al-Bayati lay by the pool.

  It was midmorning. The full strength of the sun had not made itself felt. Even so Rhoades felt sweat break out on his forehead. Al-Bayati lay on his lounge chair covered with glistening oil, like a beached, hairy creature from some dark sea.

  "What is it?" he said.

  "I found out who came after Yusuf."

  "Go on."

  "I don't know who was in the alley. Witnesses said there were three men involved. One of them was in the club, along with the woman."

  "Get to the point."

  Rhoades resisted a sudden urge to reach into his pocket for the switchblade he always carried and cut the disrespectful bastard's throat from ear to ear. He filed the thought away for another time.

  "They were Americans."

  Al-Bayati sat up. "Americans? Who? CIA?"

  "No, another group, much smaller. Another intelligence unit, not well publicized. I identified the woman from a picture taken inside the club."

  Al-Bayati was many things but he was far from stupid. "They're after information about the scrolls," he said.

  "It would appear so. When I looked at the video from the club, I knew I'd seen her somewhere. She was leaving the British Museum as I was going in."

  "Then they know what is on the second scroll as well."

  "That would be a logical assumption."

  Rhoades could see Al-Bayati's mind working out what he was going to do.

  "Where do these people work?"

  "They seem to have a special relationship with the American president. The group is run by a woman."

  Al-Bayati made a sound of contempt.

  Rhoades ignored it. "They have a secure compound outside of Washington, across the river in Virginia."

  "Vulnerable?"

  Rhoades could see where this was going. "No."

  "They could be a real problem for us. I want you to eliminate them."

  "That isn't a good idea," Rhoades said, "even if it were possible. The Americans would never stop until they found out who was responsible. Then they would eliminate the threat."

  "They won't find out if you do your job properly."

  "You pay me to handle things for you. You need to trust me on this. It might be possible to eliminate one or two of them if they were outside the compound. A few deaths would send an appropriate message and it would divert their attention from the scrolls. They'll be busy running around trying to figure out who did it. It would give us time to recover the treasure."

  "The ring," Al-Bayati said. "With the ring no one can stand against me. All right, we'll try it your way. Kill as many of them as you can."

  Madness, Rhoades thought.

  CHAPTER 20

  The early morning briefing was in Elizabeth's office, as usual. The day's heat had not yet settled in and Elizabeth had the patio doors open to a light breeze that brought the scent of fresh cut grass and flowers.

  "The Israelis want to know what we know about the scroll," she began. "Langley has made us the point on this. It's up to us what we tell them."

  "I don't like playing front man for Langley," Nick said. "They wouldn't pass this along unless they thought it might blow up in their faces."

  "You may be right, however there's nothing I can do about it. The president has told me to handle it."

  "What are you going to tell Tel Aviv?"

  "What we found out. They have the same information as we do about Caprini's scroll."

  "And the one in the British Museum?"

  "They don't know about that. I thought I'd wait until we know more about what's going on."

  Nick smiled.

  "Then they haven't seen the coded part," Selena said.

  "No. Stephanie has. She's downstairs working on it right now."

  "It has to be something simple," Nick said.

  "I hope so." Elizabeth picked up her pen and set it down again. "If it has to be decrypted with a companion writing, we're out of luck."

  "Like a book code? I don't think those came in until the fifteenth or sixteenth century," Selena said. "Not until after the invention of the printing press."

  "If it can be broken, Steph will do it. Meantime, we're stalled out. With Abidi dead we don't know who ended up with that Semtex."

  "There's more than one end-user," Nick said. "It turned up in several of the recent bombings."

  "Yes. Probably brokered by Abidi and probably to Hezbollah. Someone who wants Semtex to attack the Israelis isn't going to waste it on an obscure Italian professor in France. It doesn't fit."
<
br />   "There are a couple of things we haven't asked ourselves," Nick said.

  "Such as?"

  "How did whoever took the scroll find out about it in the first place? No one knew what was on it until it was x-rayed. Somehow the assassin found out about the scroll between the time it was x-rayed and the time Caprini got on that train. That's only a couple of days. What does that tell us?"

  "Someone at the x-ray facility tipped them off," Ronnie said. "Has to be."

  "It could have been the technician," Selena said, "the one who was killed. He would have known about it before anyone else."

  Elizabeth nodded. "He told someone. Or Caprini did."

  "I don't think Caprini would do that. He'd want to keep it under wraps so he could make a big splash with an announcement. It was going to make him famous. I suppose he could have talked about it with the technician while they were working on it."

  "Good point. We'll focus on him as the possible contact point with the killer."

  "If he's the contact he had to call someone," Nick said. "Can we get his phone records?"

  "I'm sure we can." Elizabeth made a note. "I'll give it to Stephanie."

  "How about Abidi's phone as well? His calls must be in a database somewhere. NSA has been recording everything in Lebanon for years."

  Elizabeth made another note. "Nick, you said there were a couple of things we hadn't asked. What else?"

  "Why blow up the train?"

  "To kill Caprini."

  "There are easier ways to do that. I think it was to make it look like the scroll was destroyed."

  "That's a stretch."

  "Can you think of a better reason? Nothing was found in the wreckage. The French went over the wreckage with everything they had. There should have been something left behind, fragments, traces, something. I think whoever killed Caprini was trying to keep anyone from finding out the scroll had been stolen."

  "Why kill all those people?" Elizabeth asked. "It would be easy enough to just steal it after they killed him."

  "I don't think they cared about collateral damage. If everyone thinks the scroll was destroyed in the crash then no one will look for it."

  "That's cold, Nick," Ronnie said.

  "What makes it worse is that it doesn't make any difference. The bad guys didn't know the x-rays still exist and show what's on it."

  Diego spoke up. "The Temple treasure would be enough reason to take the scroll out of circulation."

  "Maybe." Nick sounded doubtful. "It's still overkill."

  "What about the political angle?" Selena asked. "The body of Solomon is a big deal."

  Elizabeth picked up her pen and tapped it on her desk.

  "I suppose someone could try to sell the location of the tomb to Israel or the Arabs if they knew where it was. They'd never get away with it. It would be like pasting a target on their head. Diego is probably right. They're after treasure."

  "Whoever is behind it is one ruthless son of a bitch," Nick said. "Taking out the train like that."

  "I wonder how Stephanie's coming with that code?" Elizabeth said her pen down.

  Nick nodded at the door. "Why don't you ask her?"

  Stephanie entered the room and sat down.

  "Ask me what?"

  "About the part of the scroll Selena couldn't read," Elizabeth said. "Is it a code?"

  "Yes. It's a variation of an Atbash, a classic."

  "I've heard of that," Selena said.

  "What's an Atbash?" Diego asked.

  "It's a substitution code using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The simplest form substitutes the last letter of the alphabet for the first, the second to last for the second and so on. Back when the scroll was written it was almost unbreakable. No one would've figured it out."

  "You said Hebrew. The scroll is written in Aramaic."

  "The principle's the same, whatever the alphabet. In our alphabet A becomes Z, B becomes Y, C becomes X and you keep going like that. The Aramaic complicated things but once I knew what I was looking at it wasn't difficult. Freddie printed it out in English."

  "Who's Freddie?" Diego asked.

  "My favorite computer," Stephanie said. "He's a Cray XT."

  She handed copies of the computer print out to everyone.

  "The first and last parts are missing. The scroll is damaged."

  Selena read the decoded message.

  ...water. Enough, praises to God. At dawn we continued south. I grow weary of this journey. Two moons and the Sabbath have passed since we began. This land is harsh and cruel, the people few and ignorant. They live in the high places, fearing their neighbors. They worship spirits and animals, without knowledge of the One God. They decorate themselves with flowers and plants in their hair.

  We have been following a wide valley. Cliffs rise high on either side and three columns of rock stand guard, one sharp to pierce the sky. If you seek wisdom, look there for...

  "For what?" Nick asked.

  "It doesn't say," Stephanie said. "That's where something ate the scroll."

  "He'd been traveling for more than two months," Selena said. "Assuming he left from Jerusalem, where would that put him?"

  "How far could a caravan get in a day?" Diego asked.

  "That depends on the country and what they were using for pack animals," Nick said. "Donkeys or camels. Those are both stubborn animals. They'll only go so far unless you drive them to exhaustion."

  "On a good road, flat, you can get about twenty miles out of a donkey in a day," Diego said. "That's pushing it."

  "How do you know that?"

  "We had donkeys on the farm. The town was about ten miles away. I remember my grandfather saying that when the truck broke down he'd hitch two of them up and take a wagon to town. He said it took him all day to go there and back and that the animals were worn out."

  "Ephram wouldn't have had a road like that," Stephanie said.

  "I don't think he would've used donkeys," Selena said. "Too many things can go wrong in bad country. Camels would be a better choice. They can go farther without water and they can carry more than a donkey."

  "You don't think they had wagons?" Nick asked.

  "I doubt it. A caravan track would have been impossible for wagons"

  "Okay, camels. How far can they go on a day?"

  "I don't know."

  Stephanie entered a few keystrokes. The answer appeared on the monitor.

  "Looks like a camel can travel about twenty miles a day loaded down."

  Nick said, "Let's cut that a little bit and allow for things like rough terrain or unavoidable delays. Say fifteen miles a day, loaded to the max. How far would he have gotten when Ephram wrote that part of the scroll?"

  Stephanie tapped her keyboard and a map of Saudi Arabia and surrounding areas popped up on the wall monitor.

  "Two moons and a Sabbath is a little over two months. If we assume fifteen miles a day, call it a thousand miles."

  She drew a line on the screen that went along the eastern edge of the coastal range of Saudi Arabia. The line ended near the modern city of Abha, in the Haraz Mountains.

  "That's almost into Yemen."

  "Yemen was where the Queen of Sheba is supposed to have ruled," Selena said. "Back then it was all part of Arabia. This coded fragment pops up right after Ephram mentions her. And he uses the word wisdom again. He wrote that in the other scroll."

  "If you seek wisdom. What does that mean?" Nick asked.

  "Solomon is called the wise king." Stephanie said. "You all know the story about the wisdom of Solomon. If you substitute the word Solomon for the word wisdom it means to look between those three columns of rock he describes in the scroll. It's a landmark."

  Elizabeth had been quiet, listening to her team work through the meaning of the coded message. Now she said, "You think Ephram is telling us where Solomon is buried."

  Stephanie nodded. "It's possible. Somewhere in the south of what's now Saudi Arabia, right in the middle of those three columns. We find those, we find
Solomon."

  "Seems too easy," Nick said. "Think about it. Here's this guy who's gone to a lot of trouble to get Solomon and the treasure out of Jerusalem before the Romans get there. He spends two months traveling into Arabia. He decides that's far enough and buries Solomon and the loot right in the middle of a distinctive landmark. Then he writes it down. He leaves a trail a mile wide. Why?"

  "The Romans would have had people who could crack a code written in Aramaic," Selena said. "Ephram must have known that sooner or later they'd catch him."

  "Exactly," Nick said. "He had to consider that possibility. Remember, the scroll was found in a library that belonged to a Roman. Why make it easy for the Romans to find out where he'd hidden everything if he was captured?"

  "Why write it down in the first place?" Ronnie asked.

  "In case he got captured or was killed," Nick said. "He wanted to make sure there was some way everything could be recovered in the future."

  "I suppose that makes sense," Elizabeth said. "We know Ephram was caught and executed. He was probably tortured. If the Romans did read the scroll they would've sent someone to look for the treasure. I wonder if there's any record of a Roman expedition into Arabia about then?"

  "I thought of that," Stephanie said. "I couldn't find anything at all. Even if I had, it wouldn't necessarily mean they were looking for Solomon."

  "Has there ever been any record of the Temple treasure being found?" Nick asked.

  "No."

  "Then there's a good chance it's still out there somewhere."

  "If we get an idea where that might be you can verify that for yourself," Elizabeth said.

  CHAPTER 21

  Everyone liked Chinese food and occasional meals meal at the Happy Family Chinese restaurant were a chance to unwind and socialize outside of work. Stephanie's car was in the shop. Lucas had come to pick her up. Elizabeth usually went with them. Tonight she'd begged off to catch up on work. Stephanie was trying to persuade her to come.

  "You know you want to," Steph said. "Come on. A couple of hours, that's all. Lucas will drive you back."

  "I can't, Steph," Elizabeth said. "This report has to go to the White House tomorrow."