The Sacred Cipher (61 page)

His eyes closed, Krupp continued to stretch his neck, first to one side, then the
other. “No, I didn’t believe you found the Temple. I’m sorry, Tom. I shouldn’t have
doubted you.”

Bohannon put his hand on Krupp’s right arm. “That’s okay, Alex. I was there, and I
don’t believe it, either.”

Hidden away in the luxurious family estate of Alexander Krupp, located deep in the
Ruhr Valley in southern Germany, near the medieval town of Fussen, Bohannon felt safe
for the first time in months. It was a well-protected enclave with a sophisticated
level of security, befitting a billionaire industrialist, putting them all at ease.
So it was with a growing sense of dread that Bohannon registered the fear in his friend’s
eyes.

“Alex, what’s wrong? Why did you ask Maria to leave?” said Bohannon.

“I didn’t ask her to leave,” said Krupp, rising again from his chair and crossing
to the wall of windows that separated them from the outdoors. “I asked her to contact
our security chief. We’re going to need more men.”

The next morning, Rodriguez and Johnson were out on the terrace, consuming vast amounts
of delicious wurst and fried eggs, washing it down with vast amounts of freshly brewed
Bavarian coffee, celebrating their deliverance from granola bars and trail mix. But
Krupp steered Bohannon to his private study, overwhelmed with what he had seen the
night before, and alarmed at its meaning.

“Here, Tom . . . please, have a seat.” Krupp had lived here all his life and was quite
comfortable in his home. It was only others who would gasp, gape, and fawn over tapestries
from the ninth century; ancestral portraits by Holbein, Rembrandt, and Sir Thomas
Lawrence; and a fifteen-thousand-volume library. To Krupp, it was a place of quiet
retreat.

Now, with Bohannon sitting beside him, Krupp had a difficult time not flashing back
to his years at Penn State, years of freedom, adventure, academic exploration, and
a camaraderie that Krupp experienced neither before nor after his undergraduate days.
Initially, the transition from feudal lord to foreign geek had been embarrassing,
disheartening, and painful. Then Bohannon came along, threw a mantle of protection
around Krupp’s carrottop, and escorted him into the best time of his life. Through
their years in University Park, Bohannon was the only true friend Krupp encountered.
Bohannon wasn’t interested in his money, his power, or his family. They liked each
other from the first moment, and soon became nearly inseparable. In this moment, Krupp
realized how much he missed Bohannon, how much he missed their youth, and just how
much he truly loved his friend.

“Tom,” he said, resting his hand on Bohannon’s arm, “what you men discovered under
the Temple Mount is incredible, absolutely astonishing. I’ve seen it, and I am still
having difficulty believing that it is true. But,” said Krupp, “this discovery is
also incredibly dangerous, not just for you and the others, but for the rest of the
world. Do you know what might happen when this discovery is revealed?”

“We’ve played out many different scenarios over the past few months, but”—Bohannon
scratched the back of his head—“I don’t think we really know what to expect. All of
us, including Sammy Rizzo and Winthrop Larsen, were simply driven to find out if the
message of the scroll was true. If the Temple was there, we believed it would change
the past, the present, and the future. How, or how much, we didn’t have a clue. Except,
we figured it would be significant.”

“Significant? Classic understatement. Yes, it will be significant.” Krupp arose from
the tufted leather armchair and crossed to a long, dark wooden table with huge legs,
each one ending in an enormous lion’s paw. It was the table that King Leopold of Austria
used to play host to Richard the Lion-heart, upon his return from the Crusades.

“Tom, discovery of the Third Temple could propel all of us into a worldwide conflict,
possibly a global nuclear war. I’m serious,” Krupp said, seeing the look of skepticism
in his friend’s eyes. “This discovery changes everything.”

Krupp came back to his chair and looked Bohannon straight in the eye.

“Tom, did you know that there are Israeli groups who have been preparing for generations
for the creation of the Third Temple, and that religious Jews are already prepared
to hold ritual sacrifice in the Temple as soon as it is restored? We do so much of
our business in the Middle East, for both sides, that we have come to know any group
that could be a destabilizing threat to our commerce.

“There is a group called the Temple Institute who have already manufactured all of
the implements and created all of the clothing that would be necessary for the Jewish
priesthood to hold ritual sacrifice, including the bronze altar, the great basin,
even the high priest’s breastplate. While the institute believes the Temple will emerge
in God’s time and Jews should not force the issue, they have completed all of the
implements needed for an immediate activation of Temple rights.

“There is another group, Atteret Cohanim Yeshiva, that is located in the Old City,
close to the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. This is a school that identifies
Jewish men who qualify for the priesthood and then trains them to carry out duties
according to the Scriptures and the Talmud. Many of the Atteret Cohanim are quite
radical, and some believe that Jerusalem should be free of all non-Jews. One of their
rabbis is the brother of Meir Kahane, the assassinated radical whose organization,
“Kahane Chai,” is classified by Shin Bet as an illegal terrorist organization.

“Then, you’ve got the Temple Mount Faithful, a loosely affiliated group of Jews and
Christians who march on Jerusalem several times a year and attempt to bring their
so-called ‘Cornerstone’ of the Third Temple with them. Of course, the police refuse
them entry, but the Faithful believe we cannot wait for the Messiah and must immediately
build the Third Temple. Worst of all is the Jewish Underground, an illegal group that
may have disbanded, or may simply be inactive, who tried in the past to blow up Muslim
structures on the Temple Mount. Many of their members were arrested and imprisoned,
but their vow is to rebuild the Temple and destroy the Muslim presence on the Mount.

“And those,” said Krupp, pointing emphatically at his listener, “are only the groups
we know about. There are likely others, splinter groups or hidden cells who hold views
just as radical and just as radically opposed to each other. You know of the Northern
Islamic Front, which wants to obliterate any evidence that the Jewish Temple ever
existed atop the Temple Mount.

“Tom, Jerusalem is the most hate-filled, six-square miles on earth. A false rumor
sparks ferocious riots. What do you think revelation of an existing Third Temple would
do?”

Bohannon slumped. “So, this is a disaster? All we’ve done is to discover a disaster?”

Krupp smiled. He wanted his friend to understand the full measure, not only of his
discovery, but also its implications. But now, he needed to give him another picture
of the future, a picture that would give Krupp an opportunity to repay an old debt.
Here was a reality he never expected to see, a chance, at last, for his family to
wash away the guilt they still felt for the war crimes committed by his grandfather,
who was convicted of using slave labor and terrible brutality in his factories while
supporting the Third Reich in World War II.

Krupp swung his chair around so he could face Bohannon directly.

“Tom, yes, this discovery could have grave consequences. It could blow up the world.
But”—and the smile filled his face again—“I have a different plan. Tom, I think your
discovery could bring about ultimate, world peace. Let’s go join your friends. I have
a proposition to make.”

“The lightning rod for war between Israelis and Arabs has always been the fate of
the Temple Mount and Jerusalem,” Krupp said with an earnestness that soon had each
of them transfixed. “Each side has demanded the same thing because each side needed
the same thing to fulfill the exercise of its religion—control of the Temple Mount.
Now, with this secret, but existing, Temple, you have created a bargaining chip that
just may bring about peace in the Middle East.”

The three Americans sat looking at Krupp with furrowed brows.

“I know, I know. On the surface, the existence of the Third Temple seems to guarantee
an explosion in the ongoing conflict between Arab and Israeli,” said Krupp. “But don’t
let yourselves get caught up in stereotypes.

“If the Jewish Temple was already established, and it did not threaten the Dome of
the Rock or the Al-Aqsa Mosque and—a big
and
, I may add—if the Israelis could convince the Muslims that they would, jointly, ensure
the safety of the entire Mount and the freedom of all to worship in their appointed
shrines, then each side would be presented with a way out of the current, endless
fighting and death. Or at least, a first step that Israelis and Muslims could take
together.

“Muslims could worship on the top of the Mount; Jews could worship under the Mount;
and Jerusalem could be opened, once more, as an international city where Christian,
Jew, and Arab could coexist.”

Krupp got up from his chair and walked over to a small table deep in the shade of
the terrace. He poured himself some tea, over ice, and added a slice of lemon.

“You may not be aware of this,” he said, returning to his cushioned chair, “but a
majority of the Israelis could care less about the Temple, whether it exists or doesn’t
exist. But they do care about peace, about an end to this endless season of fear,
bloodshed, and hate.

“Israelis are essentially divided into three basic positions, and about ten million
smaller ones,” Krupp explained. “The religious, the nominal, and the secular Jew.

“Religious Jews—whether orthodox, ultraorthodox, national religious, or Sephardic
orthodox—are a minority in the entire Jewish population of Israel, yet a slim but
growing majority in Jerusalem. The basic ideology of the religious Jews is that the
culmination of the Zionist dream is a Torah-abiding nation of Jews, a people who are
as religious as they are. Religious Jews believe that one day there will again be
a temple in Jerusalem, but this will come about at the time of the Messiah. Truthfully,
rabbinic Judaism is not wholly prepared to face the idea of a renewed ritual sacrifice,
and the Temple is, at present, only a sentimental hope for the future. But if the
Temple actually existed, it would be enthusiastically accepted and embraced by the
religious Jews.

“Now,” said Krupp, warming to his explanation, “if only nonreligious citizens were
counted, nominal Jews would make up slightly less than half of Israel’s total population.
Nominal Jews do not oppose the idea of a temple, on the grounds that it probably shouldn’t
be opposed by Jews, but neither do they hope for one. The Temple is considered a historical
thing that will probably never be rebuilt, but whose restoration should be prayed
for during Passover and the High Holy Days . . . if one ever decides to go to a synagogue.
If the Temple were to be rebuilt, it would simply introduce yet another difficult
burden into their lives.”

With a pinched, thoughtful look on his face, Krupp reached for a small portion of
wurst on the tray between them, dipped it in mustard, and chewed on it absently for
a moment. In the shade, there was still a nip of chill to the air, and he wished he
had thought to throw a sweater over his shoulders. But that was really the least of
his concerns.

“Now, the secular Jews, the secular Jews are a problem.” He looked at his now-yellow
fingers and reached for a napkin. “Secular Jews are the majority in Israel. And for
them, the idea of a temple is simply a no-go. If a temple were to be rebuilt, this
group would actively oppose it and possibly even call for a separate state. Secular
Jews would consider animal sacrifices a strange, ancient form of religious barbarism
and would argue vociferously that sacrifice can hardly be tolerated in a modern and
progressive society. They would quite likely march on the Knesset and demand legislation
preventing religious coercion while, at the same time—and, yes, this is a bit schizophrenic—demanding
their right for open access to the Temple and Western Wall for cultural and historical
reasons. We could reasonably expect large groups of vegetarians and animal rights
activists demanding protection for sheep and other possible ritual victims.”

“Man, I thought Americans were nuts,” said Rodriguez, stretching himself and rising
to a seated position on the lounge chair.