“Amit!” a voice suddenly called.
He spun around. It was Enoch . . . coming up through the hole the rabbi’s men had burrowed beneath the Temple Mount.
“What took you so long?” Amit said with open arms.
Keeping a careful eye on the choppers zigzagging overhead, Enoch ran over to him. “What the hell is going on up here? Are we too late?”
“Not sure,” Amit said, eyeing his friend curiously. Enoch was barefoot and soaked to the bone. His pale face, tinted blue, had him looking like the walking dead. Under his right arm were three Galils. “What in God’s name happened to you?”
“Long story,” he glibly replied, preoccupied with that fact that Amit had actually considered taking on the enemy with his puny handgun. “Get rid of that peashooter and take one of these.” He tossed a Galil to Amit.
“Much appreciated,” he said, catching it smoothly with his left hand.
“They’re in the shrine, aren’t they?” Enoch ejected the magazine from the third Galil before abandoning it in the flower garden.
“Afraid so,” Amit gloomily replied.
“The rabbi and how many others?” he asked, pocketing the magazine.
“Nine left. I think only two or three with weapons.”
“Better odds than Gaza.”
“Much better.”
“And the woman?”
“Still alive.”
“Right.” He took a deep breath. The icicles in his lungs were starting to thaw. “You have your mobile with you?” Thanks to the cistern, Enoch’s own phone had fizzled out the moment he tried to power it on.
“Yeah,” Amit said, pulling it out of his pocket.
Enoch put a call in to Mossad headquarters, and after providing his agent ID number, he informed the desk that Cohen and his crew had already made it inside the Dome of the Rock with an unidentified procurement and a hostage. He didn’t need to insist on backup or provide instruction. Necessary protocols had already begun.
“We can’t wait for backup,” Amit said. “If Cohen hears them coming—”
“I know,” Enoch replied. He handed the phone back. “I have no intention of dying in there. So let’s make it count. Shall we?”
“We shall,” Amit proudly replied. How the kid had grown. Not exactly like old times.
The two raced up the steps and across the platform. There was a double door centered on the lower marble-clad tier of the shrine’s wall. As in the other seven walls, there were seven stained-glass windows positioned in line above the doors, where the wall’s marble cladding gave way to magnificent Arabian tiles. So there wasn’t much concern about anyone on the inside seeing them coming.
Once they reached the wall, Enoch immediately raised his machine gun to blow out the doors’ center lock. But Amit quickly waved it away and dug into his pocket for his trusty lock-picking set.
85
******
Standing over the Ark, Charlotte was surprised by its robust dimensions. She could easily curl up inside it. Dominating the front of the box was a cartouche set above a large engraved disk with lines radiating down, each connecting to an ankh—no doubt a depiction of the sun. Small ideograms in neat columns covered the remainder of the front side, as well as the Ark’s side panels. She guessed the rear panel was similarly engraved. The designs could have come from only one place. “These Egyptian symbols and hieroglyphs,” she said. “Why are they . . .” Her voice trailed off.
The rabbi smiled knowingly. “Long ago, Egypt had been the dwelling place of the inexplicable life force the Egyptians called ka, the source of ultimate power attributed to the sun and the eternal light. Ancient Egyptians worshipped hundreds of gods, but the sun god always reigned supreme. Their entire society embodied it—from buildings to funerary rituals. And their secrets had been encoded in stone for thousands of years, in temples, tombs, pyramids. Through the centuries, they’d given it many, many names: Ra, Atum, Amun, Aten. But a single visionary pharaoh understood it best.”
Cohen went on to explain that around 1350 b.c.e.,Egypt’s first and only monotheistic ruler, Akhenaton, came to power and commanded that a new capital be constructed on the Nile’s east bank, set between the power centers of Memphis in the north and Thebes in the south—a city entirely dedicated to a single supreme god and creator. In the process, the pharaoh had completely abandoned the traditional polytheistic temple system, which had brought tremendous wealth and power to the centuries-old Egyptian priesthood, the priests of Amen.
“Akhenaton made many enemies,” Cohen continued. “So when terrible plagues befell Egypt during his reign, the priests of Amen expeditiously blamed the misfortune on Akhenaton’s religious digressions. They claimed that the pharaoh had tampered with Ma’at—the spiritual bonds uniting all elements in the universe. Hence a rebellion began brewing throughout the land, fueled by the pharaoh’s increasing number of political dissenters. Fearing not only assassination and reprisals against his family but destruction of his new capital, Akhenaton entrusted the clandestine export of his most powerful relics to his closest vizier.” Just like in 154 B.C.E., when Onias fled the rogue Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, took the Ark from its hiding place in Qumran, and brought it to safety in Heliopolis, Cohen thought. “The vizier was a virtuous man who had mastered the ancient secrets during his tenure as high priest in Akhenaton’s temple. His name was Moses.”
“ The Moses?”
“That’s right,” Cohen replied.
Cohen was on the verge of ranting—a man teetering on the precipice
of a lifetime’s endeavors all coalescing in a single event. Charlotte could tell that Cohen needed to tell his story, almost as if to ensure that should his ambitious plan fail, his secret knowledge (perhaps even his justification for his actions) might be passed on. And she wanted to encourage him, because if she could keep him talking, stall him a little longer, perhaps the Israelis might get to him before anything worse could happen.
“Luckily, Moses did agree to Akhenaton’s request. But Moses feared an even more calamitous reprisal against those who’d always believed in the one true god: an industrious and mysterious group of Semitic tribes tens of thousands strong who had lived in the Nile Delta for over four centuries.”
“The Israelites?” Charlotte said.
“Very good,” he said approvingly. “After secreting the temple relics
north and preparing them for transport across the Sinai, Moses secretly went to the elders of the Israelite tribes. He knew that their ancestral beliefs traced back to a great patriarch named Abraham, who legend told had been the first to speak with the one god. Legend also told that the one god had promised Abraham’s progeny a return to their tribal lands in the north. So Moses convinced the elders that the time of the prophecy had arrived. And under the cover of darkness, the Israelites abandoned their villages and rendezvoused with Moses at the Sinai.”
“And the exodus began,” she muttered.
Cohen nodded and his nervous eyes began scouting the shrine. He waved a couple of the robed men closer.
Keep him occupied! Charlotte thought. Frantic, she tried to remember the biblical account of the exodus. But at the forefront of her brain was the film adaptation produced in the 1950s with Charlton Heston raising a magical staff to part the sea for the Israelites, the Egyptians giving chase, the waters crashing down upon them. “So then why did the pharaoh send his armies after Moses? Did he change his mind?”
Cohen managed to chuckle. “Those were not Akhenaton’s armies that pursued Moses and the Israelites. Those soldiers were dispatched from Memphis by Akhenaton’s coregent, Smenkhkare—a malevolent schemer who supported the priests of Amun, a snake who had even had an affair with Akhenaton’s wife, Nefertiti, and fathered her son.”
“The Nefertiti?” she asked. This exodus story was fast becoming a who’s who of Egypt.
“That’s right. But that beautiful, iconic Egyptian queen was a very treacherous woman.” His eyes pinched tight. “With six daughters and no he
ir to his throne, Akhenaton had been so elated to have a son, he never suspected his wife’s infidelity.”
Cohen considered stopping here but felt compelled to finish the story. After all, the woman deserved to understand the necessity of what was to happen next.
“But Nefertiti’s ambitions had only just begun,” said Cohen. “After Moses successfully fled Egypt, Nefertiti conspired with Smenkhkare to kill her husband by poisoning. Smenkhkare then attempted to erase Akhenaton’s name from dynastic history—the deepest insult to an Egyptian pharaoh. For in the remembrance of the name, the spirit lived on. Akhenaton’s new capital city was abandoned, his cartouches scratched off temples and tombs . . .” He sighed. “And to honor Smenkhkare and restore honor to the priests of Amun, Nefertiti changed her son’s name from Tutankhaten, ‘the living image of Aten,’ to Tutankhamun, ‘the living image of Amun.’ ”
This took a moment to sink in. “Wait. You mean King Tut?”
Cohen nodded. “And only a year after murdering her husband, Nefertiti poisoned Smenkhkare too, so that Tut’s true paternity would remain a secret. Naturally the boy inherited the throne in Thebes. Then Tut became Nefertiti’s pawn,” he scoffed. “God’s retribution eventually did come, though it took almost a decade. The priests of Amun turned against Tut and his manipulative mother. Both were assassinated. An ironic twist of fate, wouldn’t you say?”
Charlotte didn’t answer, though the story was indeed reminiscent of a Sophoclean tragedy.
“Without the treasures of Aten, however, even the priests of Amun could never return the kingdom to its past glory. Egypt was never to rise again.”
“And how do you know all this?” she had to ask.
“The most profound knowledge is not found in books, Charlotte. That is why legacies are so vital to humanity. The written word deceives. The most awesome truths—the most fearsome truths—are those handed down through the righteous words of our most trusted ancestors. There is much to learn from history. Yet people forget. Pride. Vanity. Complacency . . .”
Now she was sensing that Cohen’s patience had run out. But she needed to try to keep up the charade. She pointed to the glyphs. “And what does all this say?”
“That is the story of God,” he reluctantly replied, more abrupt now. “The origins of the universe and creation. It is also a warning given by Moses about what resides within the Ark, how it should be feared and respected. And see there?” Centered on the Ark’s front side, he pointed to glyphs representing a feather, sun disks, water, and an ibis—all framed within an oval outline. “That is Akhenaton’s royal cartouche. His seal.” Charlotte regarded the Ark with equal doses of fear, reverence, and skepticism.
Another low-flying helicopter made the cupola rattle. Cohen’s anxiety visibly deepened.
Eyeing the Ark again, she fished for another question. “And the two angels on the lid? What are they?”
His reply was curt: “Each is a depiction of the winged female goddess that embodied the harmony of creation: Ma’at. But that is enough, Charlotte. It is time to proceed. Kneel before the Ark,” Cohen urged her in an appeasing tone. “Then I want you to remove the lid.”
She took a step back and held up her hands. “You’re a good storyteller. I’ll give you that. But I’m not on board with this whole end-of-times thing you’ve got going on here—”
“I’d hate to have to drug you and pull your hands like a puppet,” he soberly replied. “After all that we have gone through to get here . . .” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “One way or another, the Ark is going to be opened,” he flatly stated. “After all that you’ve sacrificed, and after all the hidden truths I’ve just shared with you, wouldn’t you like to be awake to see with your own eyes the secrets of the universe? Wouldn’t you like to see what Moses carried off from the Egyptians? Don’t you long to know that everything that has happened to you has had a purpose—a divine design? Do you think God is in you by accident?”
She didn’t know what to say. Her reluctance was starting to dissolve.
“You must be very curious as to what we’ve protected for so many centuries, no?”
Perhaps he was right, but she could tell that his curiosity easily trumped hers. The guy was practically jumping out of his skin. If this was the real deal ...
Then, as she looked back at the lid, a plan began unfolding in her mind. “Fine. Let’s open it.” Now she was the one going all-in at the poker table. However, the real question loomed large: was he bluffing?
Cohen’s face softened with a smile. “Handle it carefully,” he reminded her.
This wasn’t the first time she’d been asked to open Pandora’s box. Granted, the Vatican’s approach had been more pragmatic. As she eased down onto her knees before the Ark, her heart was jackhammering behind her breastbone. Now she began a silent prayer of her own. She could feel the rabbi drawing close behind her to watch over the ritual, and the final part of her plan fell into place. “Won’t this be too heavy?” she asked, hesitating and eyeing the lid. “It’s gold, right?”
“A thin gold sheathing covering acacia wood. A purposeful design, since the Israelite priests would’ve been incapable of carrying a solid gold box of this size. You’ll have no problems.”
Charlotte looked around for any opportunity to escape, but the two surviving gunmen were posted on opposing sides of the shrine, behind the rock’s cordons. And they were watching vigilantly.
“I beseech You, O Lord,” Cohen chanted in Hebrew, raising his hands up. “Grant atonement for the sins, iniquities, and transgressions that the entire house of Israel has committed against You. As it is written in the books of your servants Moses and Jesus, atonement shall be made for You on this day to purify all sins. Before the Lord shall we be purified.”
The priests unanimously responded with “Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom, forever and ever.”
Charlotte reached out and positioned both hands on the short sides of the lid, the tingling sensation coursing up through her fingers.
Cohen watched in astonishment as Charlotte’s hands spread over the elaborate lid—the Kaporet (“atonement piece”) or Mercy Seat. His focus homed in on the void beneath the outstretched wings of the gilded cherubim. For there, God’s presence, the Shechinah, would begin to converge to reign over Abraham’s altar, to judge and purify—to speak to humankind and provide guidance and law.
Curling her fingers tight under the lid’s braided rim, Charlotte took a deep breath and applied pressure.
86
******
At first, the Ark’s lid resisted.
Charlotte dug her fingers in tighter until they turned white. Then came a muffled pop, followed by the hissing sound of escaping
gas. The sound immediately brought a flashback of her and Dr. Giovanni
Bersei’s opening Jesus’s ossuary in the Vatican Museums.
Another incredibly preserved ancient seal had just been breached. As the lid unseated from the Ark, Charlotte could already detect a faint
glow emanating from deep within, forming a rectangular halo around the lid. At the same time, the tingling sensations had quickly migrated up her arms and spread into her chest. Now her curiosity was giving way to a raw, primordial terror that signaled danger.
Her eyes went wide as the void beneath the wings of the cherubim began to noticeably change—the distortion she’d detected the first time she’d touched the Ark. Like a tiny, gathering cloud, something was forming there. Mist? Smoke?
The rabbi’s excitement built with the Ark’s response. “Few have ever laid eyes upon this wonder. Moses, David, Solomon . . . Behold!”
Eyes fixated on the opaque orb, Charlotte detected a brilliant white glow at its core—a pinpoint of light that burned with the blinding intensity of a welder’s torch.
An electrostatic energy began to build, lifting short strands along her hairline. The atmosphere was changing. Impossible. Adrenaline poured through her system, threatening panic. But the tingling that had sp
read through her entire body brought forth a sudden transformation—an inexplicable calm.
“Now see what is inside,” Cohen urged her.
Tearing her attention from the orb, she reared up on her haunches to see what she’d uncovered, carefully resting the lid upon her lap.
On the right of the Ark’s interior were indeed neatly piled stone tablets—though it appeared to be hieroglyphs that covered them, not some form of ancient Hebrew as legend suggested. Laid atop them was a beautiful gold, gem-encrusted scepter in the shape of a serpent, its tail straightened along the short staff and coiling near the top to its fanged head, an ankh between its eyes.
But Charlotte was transfixed by the source of the most unearthly luminescence being generated on the Ark’s interior left half—a neatly packed human skeleton. And the eye sockets of its smooth skull were glaring directly up at her.
The Sacred Blood Page 29
