The Temple Mount Code

by Charles Brokaw

  The young man looked troubled. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No. I don’t suppose you know what Lev is working on, do you?’

  Big Mike shook his head.

  Lourds drained his beer and stood. ‘I guess there’s only one way to find out.’

  The telephone rang and rang. At first, no one answered. Lourds stood outside the temple on a nearby hill where the satellite phone’s reception was better. He’d borrowed a boost from one of the media groups streaming live feeds back to their parent company.

  Cold and uneasy, Lourds listened to the phone ring. He tucked his free hand up under his arm and stared out over the frozen landscape. Just as he was certain the line was about to go to the answering service, a woman answered.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘My name is Thomas Lourds. I’m a friend and associate of Professor Lev Strauss. I’m trying to get in touch with him, and this is the only number I have.’

  ‘Of course. I’m afraid Lev isn’t here right now.’ The woman’s voice was cold and efficient, reminding Lourds of some of the secretaries at Harvard.

  ‘I can call back. Do you know when you’ll be expecting him?’

  ‘I can’t say at the moment.’

  Well, scratch the efficiency. The secretaries and office managers at Harvard would have known exactly where their charges were and when they could expect them to return.

  ‘Can I leave a number? Lev can call me at his convenience.’

  ‘Of course.’ Dutifully, the woman wrote Thomas’s contact number down.

  21

  Covert Operations

  Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad)

  Tel Aviv, the State of Israel

  July 30, 2011

  Katsas (Collections Officer) Sarah Shavit cradled the phone and stared at the image of the handsome man on the computer screen in front of her. She was familiar with him, of course. She’d read his file when getting acquainted with the operation involving Lev Strauss. More than that, she kept a copy of Bedroom Pursuits next to her bed.

  ‘That was Lourds?’

  Startled, Sarah looked up at her superior. Isser Melman was sixty and sleek, with silver hair and a weathered face. His prosthetic right eye didn’t always track properly and sometimes gave him the appearance of looking in two directions at once.

  Sarah nodded.

  Melman entered the room and sat at one of the chairs facing the desk. He crossed one knee over the other and straightened the hem of his pants. ‘You didn’t tell him Strauss was dead.’

  ‘He didn’t seem to know. I saw no reason to scare him off at this point. I sent you the report regarding Lev Strauss’s Facebook communication with Ziya Kadeer.’

  ‘Perhaps telling Lourds his friend was dead might have made him come here.’

  Sarah leaned back in her chair, trying to find a more comfortable position. Since Lev Strauss’s assassination two days ago, she’d spent every waking hour poring over the files they had assembled on the man. She’d also ordered an additional layer, springing out from Strauss’s known associates, to be gathered.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Then why not tell him?’

  ‘We saw the note Strauss sent to Lourds, but Strauss was a master linguist – as well as being one of our agents – and Lourds is a clever man. There’s a chance that Strauss communicated sensitive information in that message. I have our cryptographers going over it, but they’ve found nothing so far.’

  ‘There has been some speculation that Lourds is a CIA agent.’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘I don’t believe that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Lourds isn’t jaded enough or careful enough to be a CIA agent.’ Sarah glanced at the image of the man on the computer screen. ‘He’s still an innocent. Despite his age, he’s still very much a boy, more interested in his adventures and the puzzles he comes across.’

  ‘Then let’s hope he finds Lev’s message puzzling enough to lure him to Jerusalem. If Strauss’s beliefs are correct, the world as we know it is in jeopardy.’ Melman glanced at the desktop littered with files. ‘Do we have anything on the mercenaries found with Strauss?’

  ‘No. Those men all have spotty histories. Tracking them has proven difficult. We’ve connected them to operations by several corporations around the world so far.’

  ‘So who runs mercenary operations?’

  ‘Several international corporations have invested in those kinds of operations nowadays. Like any other corporate resource, those CEOs don’t like to see assets idle when they could be out turning a profit. As a result, those mercenaries are often farmed out or loaned to smaller corporations that need black ops work done.’

  Melman sighed. He already knew everything she was telling him. ‘We saw this day coming, Sarah, where corporations would evolve into competition with intelligence agencies. Not only competition, but enemies.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘These are delicate games we play these days.’

  Sarah nodded. ‘I took the liberty of putting someone on Lourds.’

  Surprise lifted Melman’s eyebrow. ‘Without consulting me?’

  ‘Assigning someone to Lourds seems like overkill at this point, but I thought it might be a good training exercise for an agent we’ve been watching. Someone who can work in the shadows.’

  Melman scratched his chin and smiled. ‘That’s what I like about you, Sarah. You’re always thinking.’

  ‘I try.’

  ‘Who is the agent you put on Lourds?’

  ‘Miriam Abata.’ Sarah leaned forward and typed in the name. A moment later, Miriam Abata’s file popped up on the screen. She turned it so Melman could see.

  Miriam Abata was a pretty young woman. Dark hair hung in her face, partially obscuring one brown eye. In the picture, she was smiling, obviously amused. Her features were definitely Middle Eastern, with a hawk’s nose, dark eyebrows, and dark coloration that was a mix of her Israeli mother and her Ethiopian father.

  A frown deeply etched Melman’s face. ‘You sent a woman? With Lourds’s record as a womanizer?’

  ‘I made certain Miriam knows all about him. She’s a good agent, Isser. She deserves a chance to prove herself.’

  ‘What is she? Twenty-one, twenty-two? She looks like she just graduated university.’

  ‘She’s twenty-seven, actually, and she graduated university in New York just this year because she was getting a master’s in Arabic languages and software design, specializing in encryption. Also, we were setting up a cover identity for her. She’s one of the bright ones, a smart young woman. She can handle Lourds if she has to.’

  ‘Let’s hope she doesn’t have to.’ Melman’s good eye narrowed. ‘She’s Jewish?’

  ‘Yes. Her mother Sofia works in our cyber unit in the United States and is a citizen there, which Miriam is as well, but has a dual citizenship in Israel. Her father is Ethiopian, Beta Israel, and worked in Tehran as a field agent. His parents moved there when he was a small boy, and he grew up in Iran. He was killed by the Revolutionary Guard when Miriam was a teenager. You won’t find anyone more loyal.’

  ‘Where is Abata now?’

  ‘At the temple site.’

  ‘Has she made contact with Lourds?’

  ‘No.’ Sarah frowned. ‘He’s hard to get close to because he’s involved in every aspect that’s taking place there. Also, there’s been no reason to contact Lourds directly.’

  ‘She’s a loose leash on the man.’

  Sarah nodded. ‘Very loose.’

  Melman stood. ‘As always, you’ve done well, Sarah. We don’t yet have Strauss’s research, and he saw fit to contact Lourds about it.’

  ‘We assume.’

  ‘I think it’s a safe assumption. Keep Miriam on Lourds, and let’s see what develops.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And let me know the minute you have any developments.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Melman left the room.

  Sara
h returned her attention to the screen. She tapped the keyboard again, and the screen returned to Thomas Lourds. Why had Strauss reached out to the linguist when there were so many others he knew?

  She didn’t have an answer for the question, and that annoyed her.

  On her desk, the encrypted satphone rang. The agent identification number assigned to Miriam Abata showed in the screen. Sarah scooped up the phone. ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s on the move.’

  Sarah tensed, her thoughts sharpening. ‘He’s leaving the temple?’

  ‘Apparently.’ Excitement vibrated in Miriam’s voice.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just walked past his private quarters. He’s packing.’

  ‘Does anyone else know?’

  ‘Maybe his friend, Professor Hu. I’m not certain. I’ve been working in the lower level. Cataloguing.’

  ‘Have you had contact with Lourds?’

  ‘No. He doesn’t even seem to know that I exist.’ She sounded chagrined at that.

  ‘That works to your advantage. If he’s leaving the temple, I want you to stick close to him.’

  ‘Of course. If he’s intending to come to Jerusalem …’

  ‘I’ll make sure your cover identity has a ticket waiting at the airport and that you can switch it to Lourds’s flight.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Sarah thought about the brutal massacre that had left Lev Strauss, the unidentified woman, and the mercenaries dead. The man who had done that was still out there, still hunting. And they had no way of knowing what Strauss had told the man before dying.

  ‘Stay close to Lourds if possible, but I want you to come back to us in one piece. Do you understand, Miriam?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good luck.’ Sarah broke the connection and tried not to think about how young the woman was, or that she might just have sent Miriam Abata into harm’s way.

  22

  Scholar’s Rock Temple

  Himalaya Mountains

  People’s Republic of China

  July 31, 2011

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  Lourds paused in his packing. Gloria Chen stood in the doorway of his personal quarters.

  ‘Yes.’ He tossed a shirt into the suitcase and tried to sort out his cleanest socks.

  Without a word, she shouldered him aside, dumped all the contents from the suitcase, and started folding his clothes.

  Feeling irritated and invaded, Lourds stepped back. ‘Those are dirty.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. They’ll pack tighter and travel better if they’re folded.’ Gloria picked up a pair of jeans and started folding those as well. ‘Want to tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know.’ Lourds cracked open a beer from the ice chest on the floor and offered her one. She accepted, and he gave her his, then reached for another, hooking the chilled bottle out with two fingers.

  Finished with the suitcase, she zipped it closed and sat on the bed.

  ‘I got a message from an old friend,’ he said.

  ‘Delivered by the guy the Sherpas brought in.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t your friend call?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You could call him.’

  ‘I tried.’ Lourds sipped his beer.

  ‘You’re just going to walk away from everything we’ve got going on here?’

  ‘I don’t have a choice.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’ Anger tightened Gloria’s face and darkened her eyes. ‘Thomas, there’s a lot of work to be done here. A lot of cataloguing, a lot of PR. If we play this right, we can interest enough universities or television-production-company deep pockets to fund our studies for years. Something like this makes careers.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘“I know”?’ Gloria looked exasperated. ‘If you know, why aren’t you staying?’

  ‘Because I have to go.’

  She studied him and shook her head. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you. I’ve never seen anyone who could give himself to his work so completely.’ She paused. ‘It makes me curious about who could send a message and have you drop everything you’re doing on a huge find like this. I mean, I know this isn’t as big as Atlantis, but this is something, Thomas. You don’t just throw something like this away.’

  ‘I’m not throwing it away. I’m leaving it in very good hands. Yours and David’s.’

  ‘You know this isn’t going to be the same if you leave. A lot of those people, especially the media people, are here to photograph Professor Thomas Lourds in his element, finding another mystery that history had kept locked up for so long.’

  Lourds smiled. ‘And now this place has been found.’

  ‘So now you’re through with it? Just going to ride off into the sunset?’

  ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘Who can just call you away like this?’

  ‘A friend. An old friend.’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘No. A man named Lev Strauss. He’s an archaeologist in Jerusalem. We were friends, classmates, and competitors. Over thirteen years ago, we were on a plane that went down over the Dead Sea.’ As he talked, Lourds remembered the screaming engines and panicked voices all around him. ‘Everyone was certain we were going to die. A lot of people did.’ The smell of burning flesh flooded his nose, and his heart was suddenly thudding in his chest as he relived those frantic moments. ‘I hit my head when we crashed. Lev got me out of that plane, saved other people, and when the fuel tanks blew up, a piece of shrapnel cut off the bottom half of his left leg.’ He took a breath and focused on Gloria. ‘I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for him.’ He shrugged. ‘So when he calls for me, I’m going to go.’

  Gloria held his gaze with hers. ‘Even so, I can’t believe you’re walking away from this.’

  ‘I know you can’t, and I wish I could make you understand.’ Lourds stood, slung his backpack on, slid his hat into place, and picked up the suitcase. Big Mike was already waiting.

  He took a deep breath. ‘You’ve got what you wanted, Gloria. You’ve got a great find, a book deal, a chance to continue your studies on something meaningful. You don’t want anything else. Not really.’

  ‘You want to know the saddest part?’ She looked up at him with shiny eyes.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re right. This is what I want. I’m not going to let go of this site till they pry my fingers off it. Nothing else matters. Just this chance to become something, to see something no one else has seen.’

  ‘I know. Look, I’m taking copies of the language with me. If I get anywhere with it, I’ll let you know. Please let me know how your work goes.’

  ‘Sure.’ Gloria crossed her arms. ‘But there is a difference between us, you know.’

  Lourds didn’t say anything.

  ‘You’re weak enough to let a friend pull you away from this. I didn’t think that would matter to you.’

  Guilt flushed through Lourds, but he didn’t say anything. He knew in his heart that it wasn’t just the friendship for Lev that was drawing him to Jerusalem. It was the hint of the mystery, all the things that Lev hadn’t mentioned, that was pulling Lourds from the temple.

  Maybe he wasn’t as good a friend as he should have been, or even the friend that Lev had expected him to be. Pushing those thoughts out of his head, Lourds walked out the door.

  23

  Namche Bazaar

  Solukhumbu District

  Sagarmatha Zone, Nepal

  August 1, 2011

  Because of the weather, the distance, and the ease of getting out of the high country, Big Mike took Lourds down the mountains into Nepal. As soon as they were low enough, they arranged for a jeep and drove into Namche Bazaar.

  Lourds had been to the small town before. Residences ran in rows along the mountainsides, and the beauty of the Himalayan highlands was all around them. The permanent population was less than two thousand people, but there were a lot of tra
nsients. Hiking and climbing groups met their guides there, merchants who had traveled across the mountains to trade spread out their wares and made deals, and the locals counted their good fortune that so many people bought things while passing through.

  The town also had the Shyangboche Airstrip, which offered charter planes to Lukla on most mornings when the weather was favorable. The five-minute flight cost hundreds of dollars, but it saved two days of hiking across the rough terrain.

  Lourds sat in the passenger seat as Big Mike fearlessly drove down the mountain roads. A plume of dust followed them. Even though the snow had given way to brown earth again, the cold remained, and the jeep’s heater wheezed more than it blew.

  He worked in a spiral-bound notebook to decipher the new Jiahu language they’d discovered. As it turned out, he was more distracted by the terrain and the company than he’d thought he would be.

  ‘You’ve been awfully quiet, Professor Thomas.’

  ‘I think maybe hanging out with the monks has rubbed off on me. That whole solitude thing.’

  Big Mike shot him a glance and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. You’ve never been quiet. You’ve always had something to say.’

  ‘Maybe I didn’t relish the idea of trying to talk over the whining transmission or the tires grinding on this cow trail.’

  Big Mike grinned at him and ran off the side of the road for a moment. He corrected their direction with a flick of his wrist. ‘You know what I think?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think you need to get drunk.’

  ‘And then climb on a puddle jumper tomorrow morning in those uncertain winds?’ Lourds shook his head. ‘That sounds like a recipe for disaster.’

  That night, however, they ended up in a small, clapboard bar serving thin, overpriced beer. Big Mike regaled Lourds with stories of his recent life, then as they got deeper into the beer, they talked about the time when Lourds and Lev had lived among the Uighur.

  Rough men hung out in the bar with them. Mountain guides boasted of their bravery and cleverness. Pilots talked about the treacherous winds that blew through the mountains. Experienced climbers told horror stories of past expeditions to newbies in exchange for drinks and to see their audience’s eyes grow into saucers.