The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) (2 page)

BOOK: The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies)
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Building a reputation as a composer, chiefly from his works for the great choral festivals of the English Midlands, Elgar would have normally felt foolish orchestrating these cloak-and-dagger maneuvers. But there was the break-in at his home in Great Malvern one week ago, in which his study was completely ransacked, and the two knife-wielding assailants who cornered him on a side street three nights earlier after he’d attended a concert at the Crystal Palace. Were it not for the two constables who intervened and captured the foreign-looking criminals, Elgar could have lost his life.

Elgar didn’t need to see their amulets to know that the killers were back, that he was their target, and that it was critical he contact Sir Charles Warren. Waiting three days for Warren to return from the Continent nearly destroyed his constitution.

Exiting Manchester Square, Elgar momentarily regretted his decision to help his good friend and renowned English preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon unravel the cipher that protected the mysterious message on that confounded scroll. When Charles dispatched the scroll into the safekeeping of his colleague Louis Klopsch, the New York City publisher of Spurgeon’s evangelical newspaper, both Spurgeon and Elgar felt released from their fear of the men who pursued the scroll—the men with the amulets. Spurgeon returned to preaching in his packed New Park Street Chapel in London, and Elgar returned to his work composing the Pomp and Circumstance Marches and his masterpiece, the “Enigma” Variations. But years ago, just prior to his death, Spurgeon had sent an odd warning for Elgar to notify Warren if his life were ever threatened like this. Combined with the report he recently received about the burglary in Klopsch’s New York City home … well …

The Palestine Exploration Fund, the organization that funded Warren’s 1867 excavations under Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, occupied a four-story building constructed in the late 1700s in the Marylebone Village, its entrance tucked into the thin, short alley of Hinde Mews that turned off Marylebone Lane. Hard to find, but the rent was reasonable for an organization that Elgar knew was constantly scrabbling to maintain its funding.

After surveying the darkened streets once more, Elgar entered the side door and trundled up the steep stairs, shaking the chill from his coat. The attendant asked his business as he reached the second floor and pointed him up the stairs to the reading room on the third floor, where most of the fund’s meetings were held. Elgar found the room warm, well lit, and inviting, a fire in the generous fireplace keeping out any chill.

Any Englishman who read a newspaper could have recognized Sir General Charles Warren, who sat hunched deep in a leather armchair that flanked the fireplace. Warren’s face was a front-page fixture in the
Times
—and the more disreputable rags that claimed to practice journalism in London—not only for his many heroic military exploits in Africa but also for his daring, unprecedented explorations under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And then there was Warren’s unlikely, but remarkable, three-year tenure as chief commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police from 1886 to 1888, when he was the lead investigator in the Jack the Ripper murders. Warren’s face was often published more than the queen’s.

Elgar crossed the room and extended his hand. “Sir Charles, thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

Warren’s face was thinner than Elgar’s, but both carried the high forehead of intelligence, the thinning hair of middle age, and the mustache that was nearly obligatory for an English gentleman—though the thick, bristly hedge that overwhelmed Elgar’s upper lip was of a different magnitude than Warren’s. Starched collar, thick cravat, wool suit and waistcoat—Elgar’s brown, Warren’s gray—completed the uniform of the day.

Warren stood and took Elgar’s hand. “My pleasure, sir. I’ve enjoyed your music and was fascinated by your association with the Reverend Spurgeon.”

“Which is why I am here tonight, I’m afraid.” Elgar took off his coat, hung it beside the fireplace, and settled into the leather armchair opposite Warren’s. “Charles urged me to contact you if I ever believed—”

“That your life was in danger?”

“How did you know?” Elgar was stunned by Warren’s question, but even more shocked by his subsequent answer.

“I know, sir, why you believe you are in danger, and I agree with your assessment. When you contacted me, I inquired with a former colleague at the Yard. I know about the break-in at your home and the attempt on your life. I know you’ve come to me for help and protection. And I also know I’m going to disappoint you.”

“But … I …” Elgar stammered, trying to find traction for his thoughts.

“Mr. Elgar, forgive me. I have looked forward to making your acquaintance. Sadly, it appears to be under strained circumstances, and more so, I have very little time this evening. I fear we will need to be brief and to the point. Please, allow me to begin.

“I met the Reverend Spurgeon during my time as commissioner of police, and we continued that relationship until I was assigned to command the garrison in Singapore. During that time we spoke often and at length, both about my experience exploring under Temple Mount in Jerusalem and also about the scroll the two of you deciphered that claimed a third Temple had been built, and then hidden, under Temple Mount prior to the Crusades.

“It is not because of the message on the scroll that you are being hunted, Mr. Elgar—”

“Please, call me Edward.”

“Yes … Thank you … It’s not the scroll, but rather because of a message contained in the mezuzah itself. A message that confirmed things I had discovered under Temple Mount, things that I have divulged to no one else except the Reverend Spurgeon. Two years after Charles died, on my return from Singapore, I took a ship north, crossing the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf to the land route through Persia and Palestine. A longer trip, but necessary to support what Charles and I suspected.”

With a momentary look around the room, Warren leaned in and closed the distance to Elgar. The composer became even more nervous.

“I joined an expedition from the British Museum at the site of the ancient city of Babylon in Assyria. My friend Hormuzd Rassam led the expedition. He was looking for cuneiform tablets. What I sought, and found, Edward, you will not be able to verify because the proof is in two far-off places, New York City—protected and safe, we can only hope—and under the sands of the Persian desert.

“I have kept this information in my safe until this night. I believe that you are one of the few living souls who can appreciate and understand its critical importance. Unfortunately, this information, were it to be discovered by others, would only increase the danger under which you now live.”

Warren reached into the inner pocket of his suit coat, revealing to Elgar the pistol that rested in a holster under his left armpit. His anxiety already growing during Warren’s comments, Elgar’s heartbeat spiked at these last words and the sight of the weapon.

“You should think about getting one for yourself,” Warren whispered. He held out a small envelope and kept it suspended between them until Elgar took it in his hand.

“I know you are very fond of ciphers and codes,” said Warren. “On the paper inside this envelope are a series of directions from a point in Babylon to a portal. These directions, if combined with other, coded instructions that were hidden in Spurgeon’s bronze mezuzah, would lead to the most astounding archaeological discovery in the history of man. And it’s a discovery which we must never allow to happen.”

Elgar’s mind was as overloaded as it was on the first days of creating a symphony. “But … Sir Charles … I’ve come to
you
for help, for protection for my family. These men are now pursuing me.”

Sir General Charles Warren, commander of the Thames District of the British Army, hero of the Boer War, drew himself upright in the leather armchair, facing Elgar directly and unveiling the full magnitude of his military bearing and presence. He leaned in closer to the composer, his voice low but brimming with authority.

“Mr. Elgar, I sympathize with your plight … I do. But what we face today—what Charles and I faced every day since that trip to Persia—is the very real prospect of the most powerful and destructive weapon in the history of the world falling into the hands of bloodthirsty killers who would use this weapon not simply to further their nefarious ends. No, these men do not seek riches. What they seek is the destruction of Western civilization as we know it, the subjugation of the Christian world, and the overthrow of its precepts.”

Whether from the heat thrown by the vigorous fire, or from his own growing sense of dread, Elgar was perspiring heavily under his wool suit. His breathing was shallow, and his mind searched the corridors of his wisdom, looking for a door through which to escape the responsibility Warren was entrusting to him.

“I could be reassigned at a moment’s notice,” said the general, “dispatched to a part of the world where those directions would be even more at risk. No, I regret to say, Edward, this burden must fall to you. You understand codes and ciphers. Take what I’ve given you and make its secret secure. Use that code you deciphered from the scroll. Whatever you do, hide this secret and hide it well. If these directions are never deciphered, that would be an acceptable outcome.”

Elgar was astonished to see the envelope still in his hands. He looked at the fire and wondered if that would not be a better fate for this fearful slip of paper.

“I know,” whispered Warren, close now to Elgar’s shoulder. “I’ve often thought the same thing myself. Why not just destroy it?”

“Why not?”

“It was the Reverend Spurgeon,” said Warren. “He convinced me there was a spiritual, supernatural purpose for these directions. That someday, someone would need to know the way. He told me,
‘When the day of reckoning comes, the day evil is defeated will be the day God’s arm will stretch forth, and in his hand will be his power.’”

A chill filled Elgar. “What are these? What are these directions?”

Warren leaned over, took the envelope out of Elgar’s hand, and stuffed it into the inside pocket of Elgar’s jacket. “They lead to the birthplace of man. And to the manifestation of the power of God. Hide them well, my friend.”

The envelope in his jacket pocket felt as if it were burning a hole in his chest as Elgar traveled home by train to Worcestershire and the town of Great Malvern. He was thoroughly exhausted and at his wit’s end after staying up all night in his London hotel room, working on the cipher. In the carriage from the station, the closer he got to his home, the heavier his burden became. Elgar had no safe at home, no secure place to hide such dangerous information. He recalled hearing someone speak on the advantage of hiding things in plain sight, but his thoughts were as chaotic and random as discordance theory. Nothing made sense.

Alice was standing on the front steps as the carriage pulled up the drive. He paid the driver, rushed up the steps with his bag in his hand, and barely acknowledged his wife as he hastened inside and went straight to his study. This was the room recently ransacked. What was the chance they would come back to it again? He looked frantically about him as Alice called his name from the doorway. Her steps started down the hall.

Elgar noticed his box of stationary on top of his desk. Of course. In with the note paper and cards, it would be nearly invisible. Elgar slit the envelope and took the single sheet of paper in his left hand. With his right, he lifted the lid on the stationary box, thumbed through the contents and, as Alice walked into the study, slipped the paper between two pieces of card stock. He would deal with it later.

“Edward … what is wrong with you? You look as if you’ve stared into the face of death.”

1

F
RIDAY
, A
UGUST
28

5:30 p.m., Jerusalem

Annie could see that guilt, like a ravenous cancer, consumed more of her husband with every heartbeat. The dead just kept piling up around them—Winthrop and Doc were dead. Now Kallie. Even Annie herself had narrowly escaped the same fate. Tom rubbed at his hands as if the blood would never wash away. Annie feared that the violence torturing Tom Bohannon’s sleep and haunting his days was expanding beyond his capacity to cope.

BOOK: The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies)
7.32Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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