Checking his map, Bohannon measured his progress past the small Gothic chapel and entered a low, dark, narrow passageway with a severe upward grade. He emerged into the light on an overgrown platform that connected to another covered passageway and led to a spiral staircase that wound up into the central of the three powerful towers.
Bohannon bypassed the tower’s stairs and came out into the inner court of the keep. Turning left, he entered an elegant portico with seven rib-vaulted bays and followed the sun-dappled walkway to the Great Hall. Standing in the doorway, he checked his map once more. According to the guidebook, the Hospitallers library lay beyond the Great Hall, up another steep, narrow passageway. And, if the guidebook was correct, the French not only rescued the citadel and its priceless frescoes from the ravages of the local villagers, but also unearthed a library hidden by the Crusaders seven hundred years earlier. It was the library that lured Bohannon to Krak de Chevaliers.
As he turned to step through the door, Bohannon caught sight of a flash of white to his right. Zaka Alaoui stood motionless at the end of the porticoed walkway, no longer a painted smile on his face.
Egyptian Desert, West of St. Anthony’s Monastery
Rizzo was belted into the rear seat of the Jeep, vacantly staring at a tawny, treeless landscape he didn’t really see. The image in his mind was lying on a bed, back among those ochre buildings with the domes and narrow windows with arched tops. Neither of his rescuers uttered a word during the long drive into the morning. He didn’t care.
The Jeep lurched and pounded over a dusty, stone-covered hillock, slamming Sammy’s sore butt against the rock-hard seat and pulling his thoughts back to the present. Heckle and Jeckle were in the front seats, the scarves covering their heads whipping in the wind. Rizzo followed their gaze as they both looked to the west.
Like a beige cliff rising from the ground, billowing up and over itself, an enormous cloud of sand and dust rolled across the flat desert floor, covering everything it passed in a swirling fog.
The Jeep jumped forward, its engine whining a complaint. The old bucket of bolts raced across the desert floor, the cloud closing fast.
“Hold on!”
The abrupt voice jolted Rizzo’s attention back to the driver. He couldn’t see over the dashboard or out the windshield so he wasn’t prepared as his shoulders were pinned against the seat back and his head snapped backward as the Jeep collided with something, and lost its connection with the ground. Rizzo could feel the change in the weight, the displacement of the vehicle. It was floating.
Until it crashed heavily against its groaning springs, launching Rizzo against the restraint of the seat belt.
“Yo, Pancho Villa, where’d you learn to—” Before Rizzo could finish his sentence, the Jeep plunged into a dark cavern, the throbbing protest of its engine echoing off the cavern’s walls, competing in decibels with the screaming sandstorm that howled just outside the cave’s entrance.
Jebel Kalakh, Syria
What was once a great library was a dusty ruin. The rows of empty shelves attested to years of looting and unchecked weather.
“At one time—one point of history—was not this library a marvel?” said the curator to Bohannon. “So much knowledge in such a remote place. But was that not the same cause of its own destruction? Was there no one here to guard or care for the books?”
A small man, his robes sweeping the worn, stone floor, the curator wore a small, white, circular cap on top of his round, almond-colored head. The hat was as exposed to the elements as the Krak, and looked much less secure. He waved with the back of his hand to the small assemblage of books, scrolls, and pamphlets that occupied a lonely corner of the great library. Lonely . . . but well protected. “Only these survived.”
The documents were enclosed in a two-sided Plexiglas cube, the front and right sides of which formed a square in the corner of the room; a third piece of Plexiglas served as a cover, twenty feet off the floor and ten feet short of the arched, stone ceiling.
“A few only remain,” rasped the curator, “but are you pleased with what survived?”
Standing outside the climate-controlled enclosure, Bohannon scanned the shelves, looking for anything that might look familiar. “How were these saved?”
“Aaahhhh”—the curator sounded like he was gagging on his last breath—“how did they survive?” He pointed to the square stones on the floor. “Was it under here? Hidden, a stone vault? How many false tunnels protected them? Lost to time, but are these not treasures?”
Bohannon looked at the collection mere feet away and put his hand on the Plexiglas.
“I may help you?”
He didn’t turn. “I’m looking for a document—probably not a book—that came here from the Dar al-Ilm in Tripoli.”
“From the House of Knowledge?”
Bohannon nodded his head, his eyes still scanning the shelves. “It may be a scroll or a scroll holder. I don’t know exactly. But I think if I could get close to those books in the case, if it’s there, I should be able to identify it.”
“Inside?”
Bohannon turned to the curator. The small man’s eyes were bulging. A look of horror covered his face.
“That is the only way for me to know.”
“No . . . no . . . none can enter,” said the curator, shaking his head. “How do you know it is here? How would you know it?”
Good question. Bohannon wondered that himself. Divine inspiration?
“Do you know Phoenician?” Bohannon asked.
The curator stepped back and regarded Bohannon with a new level of interest. “You do?”
“Enough to know what I’m looking for,” said Bohannon. “It’s probably a brass mezuzah, etched on the outside. Somewhere, there are probably the letters aleph and resh on its face.”
The curator’s head spun around so quickly, checking the length and breadth of the Great Hall, that he almost lost his hat.
“What do you know? Why are you here? What do you want?”
Bohannon took a step closer to the curator. “I want to get inside and look through that collection. Then, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
Settling his hat squarely on the top of his head, the curator stepped to the large, double doors that created an air lock. He pulled a key as long as a dagger from the folds of his robe, opened a huge, ancient padlock, and slid the first door along a sealed runner. Both men stepped into the airlock. Bohannon was about to remark on the dated security when the curator placed his palm on a small LCD pad and leaned close to a lens that scanned his retina.
The second door swung open. The smell of old, dry leather—like the smell of his grandfather’s attic—lured them in.
With his robe dragging behind him, the curator crossed through the enclosed space and stopped in front of a bookcase with drawers in its two bottom sections. He creaked open the top drawer, its wooden surface polished by a thousand hands, reached inside, and pulled out an etched, brass mezuzah. It was larger than the mezuzah that had launched their journey—probably twice as large, about four inches in radius and about eighteen inches long. Even though this was what he was looking for, Bohannon was still startled to see it right before his face, held out in the hands of the curator.
“This is what you seek, perhaps?”
Bohannon stepped forward as the curator turned the brass cylinder over in his hands. “The aleph and resh you seek?”
There it was, Abiathar’s hallmark, the Phoenician letters aleph and resh surrounded by a circle. Bohannon took another step and lifted his hands to receive the tube from the curator. “Yes.”
But the little man pulled the mezuzah away, and held it back toward his body, out of Bohannon’s reach. “Is it the mezuzah, or what it protects, that you seek?”
Bohannon looked at the curator with the baffled fury of a spurned lover. “What?”
The curator took a small step backward. “What do you seek? This, the holder? Or what was inside?”
“I . .
. well . . . I don’t know,” Bohannon stammered, anxiety and frustration bubbling up to the surface of his emotions. “Both, I guess. What difference does it make?”
A sigh escaped from the curator’s chest . . . an edgy rattle of a sigh.
He held the mezuzah away from him and grasped the metal bar that spanned about three-quarters of its length—a three-sided square piece of etched bronze fitted tightly to the outer surface of the mezuzah. The curator looked at Tom with the compassion of a coroner as he pulled the scroll holder’s handle away from the mezuzah’s surface.
“A great deal of difference, don’t you think?”
The handle separated from the mezuzah, but there was nothing there—no scroll attached to the handle—nothing to unroll. “Gone . . . a very long time ago, I believe.”
Bohannon looked at the empty space between the mezuzah and its handle—and that was how he felt. Empty. All this way—what was he doing?
Hunger gnawed at Bohannon’s stomach as furiously as frustration gnawed at his emotions. He walked along the ramparts of the Krak de Chevaliers in a trance. After a frustrating and unrewarding hour examining the nondescript decorations on the surface of the larger mezuzah, he emerged from the library in a state of mental fog and in an area of the castle that he didn’t recognize. The labyrinthine twists had brought him to an unknown corner in a dead-end tunnel, except for a stone stairway that led up, into the light. He climbed the solitary staircase and found himself on the far, southeast corner of the castle’s walls, on the opposite end of the fortress from the main gate.
He looked along the line of stone ramparts to the north. In the distance was the Tower of the King’s Daughter and the tourist-filled restaurant that beckoned to Bohannon’s growling stomach.
His mind wandered over the past and present as he walked along the empty castle rampart, the parapet wall to his right. The Buqai’ah Valley stretched out far below. The late afternoon sunshine filtered through distant billows of dust and sand. What to do next? Exhaustion hung on his bones. He was more than tired. He was worn out and discouraged to his core. The adrenaline accompanying the president’s plea, the excitement of the chase he’d felt on the flight to Tripoli, the miracle of a second brass mezuzah—all were now displaced by a feeling that he was merely a captive of his own foolish, self-serving pride.
Really . . . why am I here in the middle of the Syrian desert? I’m just a normal guy. What am I doing?
Across the valley to the east, the Alawite Mountains radiated a golden glow. From this height—more than two thousand feet above the valley floor—he could see forever across the flat desert plain. Bohannon was lost in his thoughts, in his doubts.
“I sincerely hope your considerable efforts have been rewarded.”
Startled, Bohannon stumbled against the parapet wall.
Standing behind him, a short way back along the rampart, was the student from the gate.
“Forgive me for interrupting you,” said Zaka Alaoui, that painted-on smile failing to bring any softness to his hardened features. “I noticed you walking along the wall. I only wanted to ask if your visit was satisfactory. Perhaps there is something I could help you with after all?”
His demeanor was deferential, but his eyes betrayed a man of many motives. Bohannon didn’t like this guy, or the vibes he was generating. He eased away. Simply speaking to this smarmy young man soiled his soul. “I found what I came to see.”
“Ah . . . so the curator of the library helped you find . . . what was it you said you sought?”
“I didn’t say. Look . . . I’ve got to go. I need to get something to eat before I can think about getting back on that bus.”
Alaoui moved closer, forcing Bohannon’s back against the wall. “Did he show you something?” Now the smile was gone. “A scroll, perhaps? A book? A mezuzah etched with symbols?”
Pushing out his left arm to move the young man out of his way, Bohannon stepped to his right, along the parapet wall, making for the sanctuary of the restaurant in the Tower of the King’s Daughter. Before he could take two steps, the young man clamped his right hand on Bohannon’s left wrist and twisted, pulling Bohannon’s arm back and pushing his wrist up, just under Tom’s shoulder blades. Tom now felt the power of the muscles he’d noticed earlier. And pain, as the young man nearly lifted him off his feet, pressing his wrist higher while pushing him face-first toward the wall.
Bohannon drove the pain from his mind for a moment, and filled his lungs with enough air to launch a call for help. But Alaoui’s left hand came up and wrapped itself around Bohannon’s throat, pressing down on his windpipe.
Alaoui had short, powerful arms that drove the bigger man forward. Tom’s stomach slammed into stone, knocking out of him whatever air was left. Legs scrambling for purchase, choking from lack of oxygen, his left shoulder straining against its socket, he was clearly conscious of only one thing. The man’s strong arms were lifting him, inch-by-inch, onto the top of the parapet wall.
The higher he was pushed, the more Tom could see the sheer drop from the castle’s wall, and the cliffs below it, tumbling into the valley. His head was spinning—whether from lack of oxygen or vertigo it didn’t really matter. The fear that drove the flailing of his arms and legs rapidly turned to panic. He scraped his knees against the parapet, his free right hand grasping at the air, looking for . . . anything. Bohannon’s waist was now above the top of the wall.
“What did he show you?” Alaoui hissed. “What did he tell you? What did he give you?”
The thought came suddenly, through the blackening fog. He can’t get me over. His arms are too short. Bohannon closed his eyes. He fought desperately now to visualize his position in relation to the body of the man behind him.
With all his remaining strength he grabbed the outside edge of the parapet wall with his right hand and pushed his body out, over the parapet even further. As he did, Alaoui lost his grip on Bohannon’s throat and a fresh intake of air cleared his mind. As the pressure on his left arm eased, Bohannon used the leverage of the wall as a fulcrum, and kicked both of his legs like the pistons on a huge, diesel engine, driving his boots into Alaoui’s chest, throwing him backward with a violent thrust.
Bohannon heard scrambling behind him and a short yelp, but his concentration was now solely focused on regaining his balance. Propelled forward by his desperate kick against Alaoui’s chest, Tom’s head, chest, and hips now tipped over the two-thousand-foot drop into the valley below. He could feel in his stomach and see in his mind his body plummeting to its death in the Syrian desert.
He dug his thighs into the top edge of the parapet wall, ignored the stabbing pain in his left shoulder, and grabbed the top of the wall with all the strength left in his arms and hands. His left palm pressed against the inside corner of the parapet, worn smooth through the ages. He tried to hook his legs, his feet, against the inside edge of the wall, his right hand scraping against the face of the fortress, frantic for some traction.
A seam . . . his right hand found a seam between two of the stacked stones, an edge against which he could wedge his hand. He shoved his fingers and part of his palm into the gap between the stones—but the shift in his weight tipped the scales. Bohannon’s body began to roll into space.
His heart jumped . . . his entire body tensed . . . his shoulder dipped into the void. He was going over. “Oh . . . God . . .” He could see Annie’s face. “Ohh . . .”
Bohannon screamed—whether from fear or hope, he would never know—as two strong hands grasped his ankles. With the weight pushing down on his legs, Bohannon’s body lifted out of the abyss. He pushed his hand against the seam in the stones, felt his shoulders rise above the parapet, the balance of his weight shifting to the inside of the wall. Then he thought of the young man, Alaoui, and he tensed once more, ready to fight for his life again. But . . . why?
“Are you safe?”
It was the dry, scraping voice of the curator.
Bohannon’s body slipped over the corner of the
parapet wall, again abrading his thighs against the unforgiving stone. As his feet hit the rampart, his knees buckled, and his stomach began vomiting out his fear. Bohannon collapsed onto the stone walkway. His eyes closed, his heart racing, the bile in his stomach burning his throat, sobs of relief fought with the impulse to retch, rocking his shoulders, as tears slipped down his cheeks.
“Why was that young man following you?” whispered the curator. “With such hatred in his face? A thief perhaps? An assassin?”
He put his hand on Bohannon’s shoulder.
“I watched, and then followed. I was below when he attacked. Perhaps his hatred was its own executioner? Come . . . you must leave. Do you want to be held for questioning by the police, I don’t think?”
Bohannon’s body was lathered in a full sweat. He felt like he was ready to pass out. He didn’t have the strength to lift his head, let alone move. With knuckles, knees, and thighs all scraped and bleeding, Tom tried to lift his body. The curator crouched by his side.
Three feet away, the rampart’s inner edge gave way to a thirty-foot drop into an upper square of the castle. A thick, rough, sisal hemp rope was strung along the inner edge of the rampart, passing through iron stanchions at regular intervals. It was a warning.
Two ragged-edged pieces of white linen cloth hung limply from the coarse surface of the rope. There were two scrape marks leading over the edge of the stone rampart, just below the torn pieces of kaftan snared by the yellow rope.
The Brotherhood Conspiracy Page 26
