I found a most wondrous book in a little shop in Cairo. I know you and I’ve been there together before, and probably either hungover or chasing women. Perhaps that’s why we never found this book before, or perhaps the book didn’t arrive till after we had gone.
I truly feel that I was fated to find this book and discover the truth of the legend in its pages. Even though i have had to call on you for help.
I was puzzled by the book because it was written in a dialect of Arabic that looked familiar, but that I couldn’t quite decipher. Better minds than mine are obviously required.
So I thought of you. Not as a better mind, but as someone who might know one.
All kidding aside, as I’m sure I’m in dire jeopardy or dead at this moment and you’re probably worried or grieving –
‘If you only knew how much, old friend.’ Lourds blinked to clear his eyes and focus on the page.
– I’ll get to the problem straightaway.
The author of this book claims to know where Mohammad’s personal Koran, written by him as God spoke it, is located. There’s also talk of a scroll that foretells the future of the Muslim people. And of the need for all Muslims to join and raise a great Jihad that will strike down all who oppose them.
Pretty heavy stuff. Apocalyptic, even. It even sounds comic bookish, but maybe that’s because we tend to trivialize that which will destroy us. Foolishness or a survival mechanism? I don’t know. However, the problems of a unified Middle East cannot be overlooked.
Mohammad’s Koran promises a way to provide that unification of the different Muslim faiths by delivering the true word of the faith. The scroll will describe a way for it to be done, though all these centuries later I have to wonder about that.
I translated that much of the book, but the location of the Koran and scroll evades me. I’m frustrated and stuck, and if anyone can think of something I haven’t, it’s you.
I’ve left you a message on the bottom of the ‘gift of the magi’ you gave me as a Christmas present one year. Your idea of a joke, which was pretty lame at the time, but I kept it anyway. I also hollowed out a section of it to keep messages in. Don’t burn it!
I didn’t want these two messages (the one in the mikveh you thought we’d never use!) to fall into the wrong hands at the same time.
Don’t fail me, Thomas. I know you can do this, and it pains me to ask.
Love
Lev
The Magi’s gift had been a candelabrum, given at Christmas, but in celebration of Hanukkah. It was intended as a joke, a holiday present wrapped in the most garish wrapping paper Lourds could find – a naughty Santa showing his north pole to a group of young Penthouse-worthy women. The candelabrum was an artifact Lourds had received from one of the projects he’d worked on, not worth much more than sentimental value, but he knew Lev would appreciate it.
Evidently Lev had also worried that Lourds might have forgotten what it was, which was why he’d offered the ‘burn’ clue.
The thing that troubled Lourds most was that the candelabrum was among the artifacts missing from Lev’s flat. He closed the book and placed it in his backpack.
Covert Operations
Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad)
Tel Aviv, the State of Israel
August 6, 2011
Sarah Shavit picked up the ringing phone and tried to organize her thoughts in the space of a drawn breath. That was usually all the time she had to move from case to case. She placed the agent’s identity number as one of the team currently riding Professor Lourds’s coattails in Jerusalem.
‘Our charge has evidently read whatever was written in the notebook he recovered from the bus station.’
Sarah opened the Lev Strauss file on her computer and made a note. She also made a note on Miriam Abata’s file to check on her. The young woman was going through her psych eval this morning. Sarah wanted to handle the exit interview personally.
‘What is he doing now?’
‘Nothing. Sitting in a coffee shop. Do you want us to bring him in?’
Sarah thought about it, then decided against that. The Jerusalem police had already taken a run at Professor Lourds and come up empty. ‘No. Stay on him. If he knew something, he would be up and moving. This isn’t a man who sits around waiting for grass to grow. He’s drawn by his own passions. Give him rope and give him time. See if he can produce anything if he’s left on a long leash.’
‘Understood. But perhaps our people would know more about whatever’s in that journal than he does.’
‘If this weren’t that man, if this weren’t tied to antiquity, and if the matter weren’t so important, I’d agree with you. But it is that man and it’s tied to a history that we’ve all but lost, and this is something that can potentially change the world as we know it. You have your parameters.’
‘As you wish. It’s time for a stress-free assignment anyway.’
The man’s cockiness irritated Sarah. She made a note in his personal folder. ‘I’d like to point out that the last agent assigned to this task left two dead men in her wake. Don’t be too stress-free.’ She broke the connection.
Acid burned in her stomach. Over the years, she’d learned to pay attention to that feeling. It was a manifestation of some sixth sense that let her know when a mission was about to turn critical in the worst ways.
She felt like she was on fire now. The pieces for this mission were scattered all over the board. Even Melman only had passing knowledge of what it was they were hunting, and no one knew if it truly existed.
Her secretary buzzed for her attention.
‘Yes, Ben.’
‘Agent Abata is about to be released from psych.’
‘Thank you.’ Sarah closed her files and went down to talk to her young charge. She hadn’t been much older than Miriam Abata when she’d killed her first person, a man she’d been hopelessly in love with at the time. She thought she might have a unique perspective on the situation and repercussions and surviving the trauma that the psychologist couldn’t deliver.
David Citadel Hotel
King David Street
Jerusalem, the State of Israel
August 6, 2011
The ringing phone dragged Lourds out of a deep sleep. Groggily, he brushed aside the pillow he’d used to block the light that even the drapes couldn’t adequately filter. He had a headache and his face hurt.
‘Hello.’
The voice at the other end of the connection brought him to full wakefulness quickly. ‘Thomas?’
‘Alice?’ Not believing he was hearing her voice after so many years, Lourds sat up.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. Just surprised to hear from you. You’re not the last person I expected to hear from, but you would have been near the top of the list.’
She laughed and the sound was so pleasant it wiped away a decade and placed him at picnics and dig sites he’d gone to while at university in one country or another.
‘I can’t believe you recognized my voice so easily.’
‘I will never forget your voice, my dear.’ After losing Lev so suddenly and so brutally, being contacted by someone else from his past buoyed Lourds up for a moment. Then the probability of both things happening out of the blue brought him crashing back down. If he was having that kind of luck, it was time to go to Monte Carlo. ‘How’d you get this number?’
‘It wasn’t easy. I managed to get hold of one of the film crews still in the mountains, then asked them to let me speak to Professor Hu. They did. I explained to him that I needed to speak to you on a matter of some importance and he helped me. Terribly nice man.’
‘David’s one of the good ones. So he gave you my number?’
‘Yes. Thomas, I’m calling you about Lev.’
Lourds stood and paced. ‘I’d only gotten the news yesterday.’
‘The first I’d heard of it was this morning. Otherwise, I’d have called earlier because I knew the two of you we
re very close.’
‘Yes.’
Alice hesitated. ‘This isn’t exactly a social call, Thomas. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. On the surface, it appears my husband had something to do with Lev’s death.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because many of Lev’s things have turned up in our house. I thought maybe you’d like to come and have a look.’
Lourds immediately thought of the candelabrum. ‘Yes, I would.’
28
Ringstrasse
Innere Stadt District
Vienna, Austria
August 7, 2011
Getting a flight from Tel Aviv to Vienna was pretty easy, as long as a passenger flew either by midmorning or late evening. EL-AL and Austrian Airlines both had regular flights out of the city, but they were gridlocked on their takeoffs and landings.
Lourds spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on his computer, researching everything he could find on Mohammad and a purportedly lost Koran written in the Prophet’s own hand. There wasn’t much. What he did find tended to turn up on the same sites that talked of a hollow earth and Lost Lemuria.
The long day and the hard rush after the Himalayas finally took their toll, and he’d slept. Then he’d gone to Ben Gurion International Airport and taken one of the scheduled flights to Vienna. He’d left his bags at the hotel and remained checked in there for the time being.
He was certain he’d be back to Jerusalem before the hunt was over. Lev had been there, not somewhere else. Wherever the clue in the candelabrum led, Lourds was certain it’d be in the city.
Now, standing on the street that circled Vienna’s old town, Lourds tried to remember the last time he’d been in the city. The Wiener Staatsoper looked beautiful. The state opera house’s blue-green curved roof standing out against the dark blue sky.
He paid the taxi driver, shouldered his backpack, and strode to the Albertina Museum just behind the opera house. After paying the admittance fee, he went up to the open terrace where he was supposed to meet Alice. He was surprised at how rapidly his heart was beating, but he didn’t know if it was from the coming reunion or the fact that his life could potentially be forfeit soon.
At the top of the steps, he stood in the shadow and gazed out across the terrace. The statue of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I and his high-stepping mount occupied a central location, and the old warrior gazed out over his city with sword in hand.
‘You had quite the life, didn’t you, old fellow?’
‘Talking to yourself, Thomas? They say that’s a bad sign.’
Startled, Lourds turned around and found Alice standing a short distance away. He hadn’t even noticed her as the city’s horizon had come into view because the sight was so breathtaking.
‘Alice.’
He had just a brief impression of her dressed in an emerald green evening dress that was so light it seemed ready to blow away in the breeze. The flyaway halter top and thin spaghetti straps revealed an expanse of honey gold tanned skin, and the chiffon looked like fairy’s wings wrapped around her curved hips. She held a flowered sunhat in one gloved hand.
Then she was in his arms, holding him tight, and kissing him hard enough to bruise his lips. Lourds’s reaction was uncontrollable and immediate, and it made itself known as she pressed against him.
‘Well, it appears some things never change.’ She leaned back and laughed. Her expression sobered as she gently touched his face. ‘Oh, Thomas, your poor eye.’
‘It’s nothing. You should see the other guy.’
‘Seriously, Thomas. You were never a fighter. You were always a lover. Was it a soccer injury? Did you walk into a door? You’ve done that before, as I recall.’
Lourds didn’t want to go into the whole story, but he knew Alice deserved part of it. ‘I got this in Namchee Bazaar.’
‘In the Himalayas?’
‘Close enough. Two men tried to kidnap me. Fortunately, I had a guardian angel. Unfortunately, she killed them both, so no one knows who sent them. But … I don’t think they were merely muggers. Then there’s the second mystery of the woman that saved me.’
That sobered Alice up even more. She stepped back out of his arms, looking nonplussed. ‘“Woman”?’
‘I never even got her name. I don’t know who she was, either.’ Lourds doffed his hat and ran fingers through his hair, then resettled it on his head. ‘Everything about this affair concerning Lev has been mysterious, Alice, and I’m thrown from one confusing event to another. You have to believe me.’ He paused. ‘Your phone call was confusing as well. I have to admit, I didn’t know if I could even trust you. I half expected to be snatched the minute I saw you.’
A sad look twisted Alice’s full lips. ‘Thomas, if there’s one person in this world you can trust right now, it’s me.’
Part of the knot in Lourds’s stomach relaxed, but the sour taste at the back of his mouth hovered. ‘I hoped I was right about that. That’s why I came.’
‘To answer Lev’s mystery?’
‘And to see you.’ Lourds smiled. ‘You look gorgeous, Alice. The years have been very kind to you.’
‘That hasn’t come without effort, I’ll have you know.’ Alice took him by the hand and led him to the terrace’s edge. ‘You were talking to Franz Joseph when I so rudely interrupted.’
‘Casual conversation.’
‘No discussion of history is ever casual with you.’
Lourds shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Perhaps not. You are aware that his reign of sixty-eight years places him third, after Louis XIV and Johannes II, as the longest and most influential?’
‘I was aware of that, but I didn’t know the exact number of years. That’s something you would know.’
‘He was an impressive man. A warrior, a scholar. He fought off Prussia’s attempts to create a new German Confederation in their image. Survived an assassination attempt that would have taken his head off, and lived to see the completion of the church built to commemorate the event.’ Lourds pointed off in the distance toward Votivkirche. ‘That one, in fact.’
The two tall, slimline spires stood out prominently atop the church and towered over the buttresses, including flying buttresses and abutments. Many tourists mistook the Votive Church as Gothic, but the architecture was more modern by several centuries.
‘He also survived an unhappy marriage with a woman he idolized, from all accounts. I actually translated several of his later letters, you know.’
‘You’ve told me.’
‘I suppose I have. I did that while we were at school here in Vienna.’
Alice gazed wistfully at the statue. ‘You know the thing that I most remember about the emperor?’
‘What?’
‘That he forbade his son to marry the woman he loved and insisted on a marriage that the prince didn’t want.’
Lourds nodded. ‘Princess Stephanie of Belgium was the only royal of Roman Catholic faith who was considered the equal to Prince Rudolf in station. Who wasn’t related too closely by blood, I mean.’
‘They had to delay the marriage because she hadn’t even gone through puberty. How could that poor girl be expected to know whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life with?’ Wrapping her arms around herself, Alice shook her head. ‘When a person marries, Thomas, it should be for love. At least Prince Rudolf and his seventeen-year-old mistress had the fortitude to kill themselves before they were made to separate.’
Lourds nodded again. The Mayerling Incident, as it was referred to, was a sad thing. Thirty-year-old Prince Rudolf and his lover had been so smitten with each other that they hadn’t been able to separate. ‘Some historians think that it wasn’t a lovers’ suicide pact, you know.’
‘I know. They think it was an assassination because of Rudolf’s arguments with his father or because of his pro-Hungary stance.’ Alice looked up at Lourds. ‘I prefer to think of it as two lovers strong enough to chart their own course.’
Placing his hands on Alice’s
shoulders, Lourds looked into her eyes. ‘Are you that unhappy?’
‘Terribly so, Thomas. You can’t even begin to imagine the misery I’ve been through.’ Sadness glinted in her sapphire blue eyes. ‘How else do you think I can betray my husband to an ex-lover? This wasn’t done frivolously. If Klaus finds out what I’m doing, I truly believe he will kill me. Then he will kill you.’
‘If you didn’t love him, why did you marry him?’ Lourds sat across the table from Alice at an open-air café the way they had when they’d attended the university.
Around them, the Ringstrasse moved slowly. Fewer people lived there these days, and Lourds missed the crowds.
‘I didn’t have a choice.’
‘Of course you had a choice.’
Alice took Lourds’s hands in hers and smiled at him. ‘Sweet Thomas, so immersed in the world of the past that you often don’t realize how the real one works. Austria isn’t the United States. People don’t have the same liberties here.’
‘Even so – ’
She cut him off. ‘I was fortunate that my parents allowed me to finish my extended education before they insisted on marrying me off.’
‘Are they truly that backwards?’
‘You met them.’
‘Once.’ Lourds growled at the memory. Herr and Frau Reinstadler had made it immediately and abundantly clear that they didn’t care for their only daughter’s infatuation. The weekend they’d spent in the Reinstadler estate home, in separate bedrooms, had been decidedly uncomfortable.
Alice smiled at him. ‘And wasn’t that enough?’
‘It was.’ Lourds shook his head. ‘You could have left Vienna.’
‘And gone where?’
Lourds had no answer.
‘Before Klaus, before the arranged marriage, I’d been in love. When that ended, my confidence had been broken. In those days, the attentions of Klaus Von Volker had seemed a godsend. He wanted me in a way I thought I needed to be wanted.’
The Temple Mount Code Page 17
