by Brad Ricca
Later, sitting in front of the fire with his recovered hat drying next to him, Warren looked into his notebooks. They had successfully traveled underground from the Pool of Siloam all the way to the Gihon Spring. But it was the discovery of a shaft and some possible other openings that threw considerable light on their adventure. The existence of those dark tunnels—which had appeared on no map but were mentioned in the Scripture—suggested that there were areas of this maze that yet lay beyond their sight. Warren shivered and drew his knees together.
He looked out toward the wall of the city. Under the bright starlight, he could see the glint of the Dome of the Rock, the Haram al-Sharif, the sacred shrine built by the Arabs on the site of the original Jewish Temple, built by King Solomon, the son of David. Dipping his gaze downward, Warren pictured the tunnel they had just struggled through and how it stretched up toward the Temple Mount itself. There was a labyrinth under their feet, and there was no telling where it might lead to.
Or to what.
Warren pushed his boot against the fire until the embers glowed orange. There were many old stories about the gleaming forbidden treasures of Solomon that still might be hidden under the mountain. Things were always out of sight here, thought Warren. That was the whole point. He shivered, though he was not sure if he did so because of the lingering chill of the water or something that, in the brisk and holy silence of the Jerusalem night, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say.
THIRTEEN YEARS LATER, 1880
The midday June sun glittered off the surface of the Pool of Siloam like flowing handfuls of stars. A barefoot sixteen-year-old Jacob Eliahu walked backward, slowly, on the hot rocks. He stopped, wiggled his toes, and, with a shout, ran forward and leaped into the air, splashing magnificently into the water. Sitting on the edge of the basin, Sampson, his friend, laughed out loud. When he stopped, Sampson looked down to the pool. Jacob was nowhere to be seen.
The waters were perfectly still.
“Jacob? Jacob!” he said, with increasing alarm.
Jacob finally surfaced with a great splash, his dark hair wet, long with curls. As he breathed in, he was laughing himself.
“I told you,” said Jacob, “much better than school!”
Jacob took a few lazy turns around the basin as his friend scolded him for being cruel. The water was cold and refreshing. It was worth any trouble they might be in for skipping class at the Boys’ School of the London Mission to the Jews, Jacob thought, as he enjoyed the perfect peace between water and sun. In the distance he could see the city of Jerusalem and the golden dome, peeking over the wall. Jacob stopped and looked down. He seemed to be looking into the water itself, as if it were some faraway picture.
“You want to swim down the tunnel?” Jacob asked.
Sampson took on a frightened look.
“Not this again,” he said. “No! A dragon lives there!”
Jacob splashed at him and laughed. “Come on,” he said. “I have some candles.”
The two friends fixed the candles to some pieces of wood and tied them around their necks with strings. “You go in over at the Gihon Spring,” said Jacob. “I will go in here, and we will meet in the middle!” His friend did not look too excited but nodded and left to run the short distance to the fountain. Jacob was left alone in the Pool of Siloam.
Jacob lit his candle and gently set it onto the water. He slowly made his way to the opening, pushing himself along with his arms. The tunnel before him, half in water, seemed like the inside of a long, meandering snake. Jacob yelled out to his friend but heard only an echo that sounded like some other version of him. He had probably run off, Jacob thought, as he moved farther in. Soon, he was in almost total darkness.
Though he was missing school, Jacob knew the story of this tunnel by chapter and verse. It had always fascinated him. The tunnel dated back to when Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, invaded Judea and trapped King Hezekiah inside Jerusalem. After consulting the prophet Isaiah, Hezekiah convened his royal engineers and tasked them with a secret project: they would build tunnels under the countryside so that water from Gihon Spring could be diverted to the Pool of Siloam, which was at the time inside the city walls. They could then survive the siege.
Jacob ran his fingers along the rock. Did he feel chisel marks? He also knew the stories that these tunnels, in addition to securing water, could have been used to secret away the golden treasures of the Temple. But there were other rumors, too: that these relics were protected by something else, something ancient and evil.
Jacob’s candle went out, and he was immediately lost in the greatest, largest darkness he had ever known. It smashed away the walls of rock and seemed to suspend him in black space. He lifted his hands from the rock. There was no up or down or back or forth. He felt warm and cold, alone and somehow not. He could feel the water and the air in the tips of his fingers and in his lungs. He could visualize the place he was in, but he could not see it.
Jacob fumbled with his matches and somehow got one to flash. A cloud of light billowed around him. He steadied himself on the rock again and felt something strange. The chisel marks were going the opposite way. He felt along the wall some more. He raised his light and stared.
He was looking at something he had never seen before.
When Jacob emerged from the other end of the tunnel at the spring, he was sopping wet with a wild look in his eye. He could see shapes of people around him. Someone was directly in front of him.
“Sampson!” shouted Jacob, running to embrace his friend. But it was only a peasant boy, who thought that Jacob was a genie and fainted.
Sampson, as Jacob finally realized, was long gone. When Jacob crookedly got to his feet, the village women from Silwan who were filling their jars with water shrieked and cursed. Some moved to attack him. In a flurry of splashing laundry, Jacob somehow managed to escape. He stumbled his way along the ridge back to school. He thought about what he saw, which had seemed almost as if it were following him. When he finally plodded in, his classmates stared at his wet curls. Sampson sank down in his seat. Jacob breathlessly told the teacher, Mr. Schick, what happened.
His discovery made its way through his school, and to Jerusalem itself, where it caused a sensation in the Jewish quarter. The scholars came in their tall dark hats. They called forth the young Jacob, who told them what it was that he had seen. The old men said it was a discovery of significant archaeological importance. Jacob felt proud and brave, but also humbled. He had not found a golden treasure, or a fierce dragon, but an ancient inscription set into the wall. The find was important because, for the first time, those stories about Hezekiah’s old tunnel might be proven true after all. Jacob was surprised that people thought they were not.
When they attempted the tunnel, they confirmed the discovery, but the tablet was so old and covered with deposits that it could not be read. What parts were visible were so archaic that they would require a specialist to decipher. In 1881, the Englishman Henry Sayce arrived and went into the tunnel, holding a flashlight in his mouth. After some very awkward positioning, he made a rubbing of the tablet. He attempted to translate the first line of the inscription. Although not at first sight filled with holy wisdom, its mysteries were great.
It read, simply:
Behold.
Two
Monty Parker
LONDON, SPRING 1908
28 YEARS LATER
The man in the white captain’s hat moved down the sidewalk to the left, then the right. He had a thin pipe in his mouth. He stopped and closed his eyes halfway, bracing himself for impact as the horde of schoolchildren running toward him finally reached his position. As they tumbled by, two of them bumped into his legs, causing his pipe to jar loose from his mouth. When the children looked up to apologize, they saw the man was already putting it back to his lips. They stared at him, terrified that he was going to box their ears. The man looked angry, until he saw a woman making her way behind the children.
“Don’t be late for sc
hool,” he said, with a slightly overexaggerated smile.
As the children rolled on, the man picked up his own pace. He made the turn onto Princelet Street, and though it was only about three hundred feet long, he kept to the sidewalk. He passed the synagogue, a three-story brick building with heavy-looking brown doors underneath an impressive stone arch. The windows were shuttered; he could see nothing of what was inside. A Jewish man, tall and thin and dressed in black, walked to the right door, opened it just enough to squeeze through, and closed it behind him with a thud.
The man with the pipe crossed and made his way up the right side of the street, his face feeling the warmth of the springtime sun. The stores and buildings were made of sooty black brick. On the corner was an infamous lodging house, known as the Beehive. The man walked by, past slouchy travelers and fast-walking ladies. Every time he came to the East End, he wondered who in their right mind would open a solicitor’s office here. He walked past the dark passageways and tight warrens that connected to the neighboring streets in Spitalfields and Whitechapel. It had been many years now, but not many enough. As people walked these old streets, many still avoided the alleyways, even in the daytime.
The man walked over a coal-hole cover. He turned into building number 8 and walked through the door. He could hear a viola being played—beautifully—in one of the rooms. In the hallway was seated the old, familiar rabbi who also had offices there. The rabbi, with his curling hair and pudgy frame, was supposedly the best mohel in the quarter. The man took out his pipe and nodded hello before walking to the door with the sign MARTINEAU & REID, SOLICITORS stenciled on the thin glass. He opened the door to see a man, finely dressed with slight spectacles, standing before him.
“Monty!” said Mr. Martineau, “I was just about to check on you. Where were you? Come in.”
Monty put his pipe back in and cracked another smile under his mustache. He was lean and handsome, with a thin face and tanned skin. He had few wrinkles and a very easy smile that was echoed in his eyes. Monty shook his lawyer’s hand.
“How are you doing?” asked Martineau, with a softness to his voice. Monty looked away quickly, dismissing the question.
“Fine. Sorry for my lateness,” he said to the rest, in a more charming tone. He stepped forward, surveying the room. The office was modestly furnished with a great walnut table near the window. An oil painting, a hunting scene of green and yellow, hung on the wall. Around the table were three men, who then stood to greet him. Monty recognized one of them.
“Gentlemen,” said Martineau, turning around. “I give you Captain Montague Parker, brother of the Earl of Morley, nephew of Earl Grey, and hero of the Second Boer War.”
Monty shook his head in an almost angry denial of the last statement—and somewhat tired of everything that had preceded it. Monty had taken this meeting mostly as a favor to Martineau, whose brother-in-law was George Fort, the serious-looking businessman standing up before him.
“George, you know. And this is Captain Frederick Vaughn.”
“Resigned from service, thank you” said Vaughn, with a wink.
Monty shook the hands of these earnest men. He hoped this was not about some real estate opportunity, because he certainly did not have the interest for it. Monty did not want to tell Fort that, but it would be bad form not to at least entertain him. As Monty was thinking, the third man was given a quick name, but he missed it. The man looked European, with a rumpled gray suit and frazzled whiskers; he smiled in excess and nodded several times. Martineau sat at the table and motioned for Monty to join them.
Because Martineau was the Parker family lawyer, Monty knew him well, especially of late. When Monty’s father, Albert, a very popular politician, died three years ago, Martineau had dealt mostly with Edmund, Monty’s older brother, who inherited not only the title of Earl of Morley and its seat in upper Parliament, but also stately Saltram House in the green Plymouth countryside. Saltram was a magnificent estate, covering eight thousand acres filled with high, corniced rooms and servants to spare. Monty could feel its dreamy atmosphere even now, its leveled staircase passing up past masterful paintings. And it had a library unlike any in Devonshire.
Edmund, the new Lord Morley, was just one year older than Monty. Their father’s will was explicit: with the exception of the London house and its furniture, which had gone to their mother, everything went to Edmund.
“Let’s get down to business, shall we?” said Martineau.
“Well, Captain Parker,” said Vaughn, “we have quite the proposition for you.”
Of course, sighed Monty to himself. Real estate.
The third man was now meekly staring down into his lap. He held a sheaf of heavy papers close to him. They were obviously valuable, at least to him.
“I told them about your service, Monty,” Fort said, wagging his finger. “Lieutenant in the war. One of the youngest officers in his regiment, if I recall.”
Monty shifted again. He knew he shouldn’t have come. He should be at the Turf Club, like every other day.
“Monty is also very well versed in antiquities. His family has quite the art collection. He is now with the Grenadier Guards and has recently returned to us from India,” said Fort. Monty thought it wise to keep quiet, as all he really did in India was drink gin and tonic.
“You need a soldier?” asked Monty, in a low, sarcastic tone.
“Actually,” said Vaughn, “no.”
Monty looked at the third man again.
“What’s this all about?” he asked.
“Do you know of General Sir Charles Warren?” asked Vaughn.
Monty paused. Warren was the general at Spion Kop. Monty looked like he wanted to close his eyes, if just for a moment. Everyone knew what had happened there.
“Of course,” said Monty, in a low voice.
“Are you aware of his archaeological work?” asked Vaughn quickly, making it clear that he had no wish to dwell on bad subjects. Monty’s puzzled look served as his answer. Vaughn and Fort exchanged a disappointed glance.
“Thirty years or so ago, before the war, Warren worked in Palestine, doing some mapping of the tunnels there,” said Vaughn. “He actually accomplished quite a bit.” Vaughn unrolled a map and placed it flat on the table. The markings were light, but it appeared to be a side view of a long, curving tunnel. Vaughn put on his glasses and blinked as if the sun had just come out.
Monty looked at the cracked paper before him. He saw names he was unfamiliar with: Pool of Siloam, Hezekiah’s Tunnel, the Virgin’s Fountain.
“When Warren began work near Jerusalem as a Royal Engineer, it was some of the first done by the Palestine Exploration Fund, at the behest of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, herself. His work was quite extraordinary, and, though he didn’t find anything per se, it was really his…”
“We are looking to mount a similar excavation to look for something we think he missed,” said Fort, obviously exasperated by Vaughn’s long-windedness.
“This is delicate,” said Vaughn. He looked at Fort, who nodded. He then turned to the third man.
“This is Mr. Johan Millen,” said Vaughn. Hearing his name, the third man looked up. He was smiling again.
“He is here from Sweden and is an engineer,” said Vaughn. “He represents a man who is … well … Mr. Millen, if you will?”
Millen rose and bowed. Not only did the man obviously know English but he clearly made Vaughn uncomfortable. Perhaps this would not be a waste of time after all, thought Monty. Millen took one of the papers he was holding and placed it on top of the map. Monty drew closer. The document looked somewhat similar to the first map, but not entirely so. There were strange drawings, symbols, and mysterious words scribbled all over it.
“Another map?”
“Yes and no, Captain Parker,” said Millen, with an accent that dipped up and down. “It is like a key, but something more.” Millen crossed his hands behind his back.
“The man I represent is a Finnish scholar named Dr. Valter Juveli
us. He is a friend of mine, I should say. He is, also, quite brilliant. In addition to being a surveyor and an educator, he has been studying the Scripture in its most ancient form for a great many years.
“And he has found something extraordinary.”
Monty gave him a look that said it was time to spit it out.
“Dr. Juvelius has discovered that the Old Testament,” said Vaughn measuredly, “especially the Book of Ezekiel, contains a hidden code that provides a guide to these lost tunnels, the very same ones that Warren tried to explore.”
“How?” asked Monty, looking up at Millen.
Millen pointed to a series of numbers on one of the pages. They were shakily written in black ink. “Very simple, actually, just an exchange of characters. The cipher is based on the holy number 7. From the initial letters of the words in a sentence, a stretch of sentences is picked out. Then, take out two letters according to the scheme 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 5, 8, in such a manner that one first takes out the initial letter l, then the initial letter 2, and so on.” He was speaking very quickly.
“These, placed together in writing, form new words and sentences. Look here.” Monty leaned over as Millen took out another page and pointed to a long sentence. “This is Ezekiel 42.” As he read it, he traced his finger along the verse, as if he were feeling for a vein in an arm. He ended on a passage that sounded like directions.
Then he brought me forth into the utter court, the way toward the north: and he brought me into the chamber that was over against the separate place, and which was before the building toward the north. Before the length of a hundred cubits was the north door, and the breadth was fifty cubits.
Monty looked at the text he was reading; it was filled with red marks. “Now,” Millen said, “if we apply the cipher to the passage, this is what we get”: