The Sacred Cipher (16 page)

Arguably one of the most widely accepted scholars among the Jewish people since the
closing of the Talmud in 500 AD and generally showing a preference for a natural (as
opposed to miraculous) redemption for the Jewish people, Elijah had studied with some
of the ancient world’s most renowned scholars. Influenced by the rationalist school
of thought, and perhaps by the experience of having his rightful title usurped by
another, when Elijah was installed as Gaon in Jerusalem in 1062, he established a
rational and practical governance for the Jewish community
.

In 1071, centuries of relative peace and calm in Jerusalem came to a sudden, smashing
end when Islam finally broke through the Byzantine western borders and a new group
of converts rose to power. They were known as the Seljuk Turks, and their brand of
Islam was extremist. Their soldiers were assassins, and their eyes were on Jerusalem
and Egypt. Overtaking the stable but sleepy Abbasid Empire, the Seljuk Turks marched
on Jerusalem with all the fierceness and wrath of bloodthirsty new converts. Always
a rationalist, Elijah gathered the Academy members and the Jewish community and fled
to the coastal town of Tyre just as the Seljuk swept into Jerusalem
.

For eighteen years, the Gaon Elijah
—
and his son Abiathar after him
—
held their exiled community together in Tyre. While free of the Seljuk, Elijah was
not free from conflict or controversy. A much revered scholar, judge, and human being,
Elijah found himself thrust into leadership of a group steadfastly opposed to another
fraud
.

David Ben Daniel, another descendant of the Davidic dynasty, wandered into Egypt and
laid claim to the title of Exhillarch. Meborak, the highest official of the Egyptian
Jewish community, supported David’s claim. David, though authentic in lineage, was
not loyal in heart and mind. Threatened by the powers of Meborak, the Nagid, he then
used his high title to end the office and remove any higher authority than himself.
Meborak, a much-loved physician, fled in fear of his life to Spain. Over thirteen
years, David deposed every legitimate Jewish ruler except Elijah. When the Fatimid
Dynasty of Cairo overthrew the Seljuks in 1089, David, his power now extended beyond
Egypt by the Fatimids, stripped Abiathar of his title and authority. But the Jews,
still loyal to their Gaon, returned to Jerusalem, where they openly resisted David’s
tyranny
.

It took another five years before Meborak, the legitimate Nagid, ruler of the Jews
in Egypt, and Abiathar, ruler of the Jews in Jerusalem, wielded enough power and influence
to remove this usurper from office. In gratitude, Abiathar penned a “Megillah” (or
scroll) detailing the turbulent events of his reign, his rise and fall and reinstatement.
This was sent to Meborak Ha-Nagid in Egypt for safekeeping. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem
to which the exiles returned was scarred, having long ago fallen into disrepair, and
was now dilapidated. The Fatimid government had little interest in the city, concentrating
instead on the important coastal cities and their harbors. A very small retinue of
Fatimid soldiers was left to guard the walled city
.

For ten years, the Jerusalemite Jews lived and worked freely, occasionally contending
with their Muslim neighbors, many of whom preferred the extremist Seljuks to the more
liberal Fatimids. During this time, Abiathar remained in close correspondence with
leaders of the Jewish communities in Constantinople, Damascus, and Egypt and was one
of the first to identify a new threat growing in the West
.

Constantinople’s emperor was calling to Europe for help. The Byzantine emperor was
frustrated by the constant onslaught of Muslim invasion and by the Egyptian government’s
hostility to, and harassment of Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land. Both the
pope and the emperor were beating the drums of war
.

As an army of Christian crusaders crossed west toward Constantinople, the Egyptians
failed to reinforce Jerusalem. When the crusaders finally marched on the Holy City,
they met only minor resistance from a small, badly armed retinue of guards and soldiers
.

Now, with the Christian takeover of Jerusalem imminent, anticipating his fate and
the fate of all “unbelievers” once the crusaders breached Jerusalem’s defenses, Abiathar
again implemented his plans to escape the city with his followers, as his father had
done before him. Abiathar’s plan was the same, to find refuge in one of the fortified
coastal towns and wait for a safer moment to return to Palestine
.

It wasn’t long before the crusaders swept into Jerusalem, riding a wave of butchery,
killing every Muslim and Jew in the city
—
along with an uncounted number of fellow Christians
.

The European conquerors established the Kingdom of Jerusalem and reigned for 159 years.
Abiathar, meanwhile, vanished from the annals of history. There is no record of Abiathar
or any exiled Jews from Jerusalem entering Aker, Tyre, or any other fortified Muslim
coastal city . . . and in those times, the arrival of a band of Jews from Jerusalem
would most certainly have been recorded
.

Over the span of time, Abiathar is wiped both from the pages of history and from the
memory of the Jews. His name is not only obscured; it is forgotten. It is shocking
to discover that a man of his ancestry, importance, and education disappeared without
a trace after the fall of Jerusalem
.

***

Sorry, but that’s all I have for now. I am totally fascinated by this Abiathar character,
and I intend to continue searching for any further evidence of his life after the
crusader invasion. This is going to make a great thesis! Thank you for handing me
something original.

And Sammy, you may have been reluctant to ask, but I forgave you a long time ago for
making that move on me. You were a great friend then, and I hope you will continue
to be a great friend now. I’ve missed you, and I’ve got so much to share with you.
But that will wait for another time.

New York . . . Jerusalem . . . wherever, I hope to see you soon.

Kallie

“Do I read this right?” Rodriguez asked. “Is Kallie saying that Abiathar was the head
man of the Jewish community in Jerusalem when the crusaders first captured the city
in 1099? Our Abiathar? This is the same guy?”

Rizzo wriggled happily, clapping his hands together. “Yessiree . . . that’s our guy,”
he hummed gleefully. “‘We got the motive, which is murder and we got the body, which
is dead!’”

Rodriguez looked blankly at the little man opposite him.

“Rod Stieger—you know?
In the Heat of the Night?”
Rizzo watched, but the blank look remained. “What did you do with your youth, Rodriguez?
Yes, he’s our guy! The author of that crazy scroll was Abiathar, leader of Jerusalem’s
Jewish community over a thousand years ago. Isn’t that great? Now we can really get
someplace.”

“Not so fast, Sammy.” Rodriguez’s voice was heavy and resigned as he rested his forehead
in both palms, his elbows atop his disaster of a desk. “If that scroll is from the
leader of the Jews to somebody else, why was it written in a language that had been
extinct for nearly six hundred years? Why wasn’t it written in Hebrew or Greek or
Aramaic? No, it still doesn’t make sense. What does Abiathar know about a language
that represented the spoken word in Egypt one thousand years before he was born? No,
Sammy, Abiathar may be the author, but we’re no closer to understanding this message
than when we found it.

“And I’m getting a bigger headache. I’m going home.”

Two days later, the band of four sat in Dr. Johnson’s apartment on Central Park West,
soaking up the warmth of well-aged brandy and finely brewed, hazelnut coffee.

“Hey, Joe,” Rizzo said over his snifter, “I renounce my claim on your office. I’ll
just allow Dr. Johnson to bequeath me this apartment. I could force myself to live
here.”

Mellowed both from the fine dinner Johnson had prepared and the hypnotic effects of
the brandy, Bohannon glanced around the study. Beautifully preserved, leather-bound
books occupied a majority of the study’s bookcases and competed with mementos memorializing
Johnson’s many overseas adventures.
Now, this is the guy I expected to meet
.

Johnson’s apartment—stunning to the others who lived in typically cramped New York
City apartments—boasted twelve huge rooms with soaring ceilings. There was a Victorian
opulence in the design of each room: hand-carved wooden moldings framing each fireplace,
each doorway, each set of windows; pocket doors and leaded, stained-glass windows,
lamp shades and ornamentals; custom-made stone columns and floors, treasure after
neck-turning treasure. In addition to some stunning, original oil paintings that strategically
adorned the walls, and the seemingly haphazard placing of priceless antiques, perhaps
the rarest and most beautiful vision was available on the twenty-foot wide terrace
that ran the length of the sixteenth-floor apartment and directly overlooked a sprawling
vista of Central Park.

Tucked into a sumptuous leather club chair, Bohannon wondered how Johnson had come
to reside in an apartment that could only, in the superhot real estate market of Manhattan,
be afforded by multimillionaires.

“It’s not mine,” Johnson said, so startling Bohannon that he had to grab his glass
with both hands. “My elderly aunt owns this apartment. Her husband worked closely
with George Eastman in developing the process for mass producing roll photographic
film. He became one of the officers of the Kodak Company that Eastman launched, acquired
thousands of shares of Kodak stock for pennies, cashed out at their peak, and was
still filthy rich after he bought this apartment for cash many years ago. My aunt
is now ninety-four, living in the most opulent assisted-living facility you’ve ever
seen, and keeping me guessing about her future plans for this more-than-adequate home.”

Bohannon caught Johnson looking directly at him and understood the unspoken message
. . . no, this apartment was not purchased with the proceeds from looting a museum
or selling forgeries like Randall Swinton. Bohannon could feel the burning in his
cheeks as they reddened, a physiological reaction that he had never learned to control.

“Well, gentlemen,” said Doc, breaking the stupor and sitting up in his chair, “what
do we know, and what do we do next?”

Bohannon seized the moment and automatically slipped into reporter mode. “We know
the scroll is a message, sent by Abiathar, Gaon of Jerusalem. We know, with fair certainty,
that the message was likely dispatched prior to 1099 when the crusaders captured Jerusalem
and butchered its inhabitants. That the message is written in Demotic, a language
that is unknown and was extinct hundreds of years before Abiathar was born. We know
that the message was written in twenty-one vertical lines, grouped together in sets
of three to form seven columns of Demotic script, and that there is no other existing
example of Demotic being written in vertical, rather than horizontal, lines. So, we
also know that the message is most likely in code and that understanding it will not
require translating the Demotic but will require a cipher to unlock the code.

“That message is obviously important, and we know that Charles Spurgeon must have
found a way to understand the message since he warned Klopsch about its contents.
Spurgeon urged Klopsch to contact Dr. Schwartzman at Trinity Parish, and Schwartzman
was a close friend of composer Edward Elgar, who was fascinated with codes, ciphers,
riddles, and other forms of puzzles. We know that 110 years ago, Elgar sent a letter
to Miss Dora Penny with a cipher that has never been broken, that Miss Penny’s father,
Alfred, was rector of St. Peter’s church in Wolverhampton, and that Alfred was acquainted
with Dr. Schwartzman, a fellow Anglican priest from America. Dr. Schwartzman traveled
with Elgar to California on one of Elgar’s rare concert tours, thus there was an overlapping
relationship between Elgar, the Penny family, and Schwartzman.

“And we know there was, or is, a group of men here in New York City, ready to kill,
willing to die to prevent us from uncovering the truth of the scroll,” said Bohannon.

“Maybe we should call the cops,” Rodriguez suggested.

“Hey, Joe—you getting senile?” snapped Rizzo, sloshing the brandy high along the sides
of his snifter. “We call in the cops, and one thing is certain. We’ll be out of the
code-breaking business in a New York minute. I think we just keep our eyes open and
a roll of quarters in our fists. That’s what I know—lethal hands. What do you think,
Tom?”

Foreboding failed to dampen Bohannon’s enthusiasm for the chase.

“
I
think that Sammy Rizzo has terrible taste in clothes,” Bohannon said, stifling a
grin.

Bohannon watched as Rizzo looked down at his black, Hawaiian shirt with yellow palm
trees, the red-and-green-plaid Bermuda shorts, and his pink, hi-top Converse sneakers.
Rizzo seemed perplexed as the others chuckled behind their snifters.

“And we also know that no one will believe anything about what we have here.” Bohannon’s
voice sounded more calm than he felt. “I, for one, will be looking over my shoulder
at every corner, but we can’t stop now.” The rest of the team nodded.

“Come on, now, what else do we know?” said Johnson. “That was a great summary, Tom,
but it was only a summary of what we now know conclusively. Look under the surface;
search for a crack or a connection; what
else
do we know? The answer has been before our eyes. It must have been. Or Spurgeon had
access to something we don’t.”