She nodded and reached for another photo. “What about this one?”
Chi-Rho Symbol
“That’s called a Chi-Rho symbol. The early Irish monks used it.” Standing over her, he explained that the Greek letters were the first two letters in the Greek word for Christ.
“I think it looks sort of like the other one.”
She reached for a third photo as Cam nodded. The round part of the ‘P’ was off-center, but otherwise the symbols were nearly identical. “I never noticed that, but you’re right.”
“What about this one?” she asked.
Crook and Flail
Cam’s neck tingled, his body intuiting the importance of her observation even as his mind processed it. “That’s an Egyptian pharaoh,” he whispered. “He’s holding a crook and a flail, which are symbols of power.”
“They all sort of look the same to me,” Astarte said.
Of course they do, he thought, focusing on the head above the crossed X.
Three symbols, all similar, tying three groups together as sun worshipers, just as he had theorized while in Washington. First, the Templars, and with them the Freemasons; second, the early Druids as they were becoming Christianized; and third, the ancient Egyptians. All three using a variant of the skull and crossbones in their symbolism.
But there was another connection he had not made, one that he saw only now because of Astarte’s astute observation. The symbolism did not merely tie the three groups back to ancient Egyptian sun worship. It tied the groups to a specific pharaoh, a pharaoh who championed the sun god over all others, a pharaoh who named this god Aton after the Hebrew word for the Lord, Adonai. The Templar/Masonic and Druidic fixation on ancient Egypt was far more specific than Cam had realized: Through their symbolism they were all paying homage to the exiled, monotheistic Pharaoh Akhenaton, a/k/a Moses.
Cam awoke early on Thursday morning. Or, more accurately, Venus woke him by jumping on his head. He wondered if she was insulted by the installation of the house alarm, as if she somehow wasn’t up to the job. He checked his watch: not even six o’clock.
Ascending the basement stairs, he disabled the alarm—including the motion detectors on the main floor set to detect any movement above Venus’ thirty-inch height—and put the dog out on her leash. A faint glow illuminated the eastern horizon; the sky was clear and he was tempted to wake Amanda with a fresh cup of coffee and invite her to sit on the deck with him and watch the sun rise. But he was afraid she’d decline the offer.
He wanted to go for a run, but he and Amanda had agreed to avoid putting themselves into risky situations. Instead he let Venus in, threw his workout clothes into a duffel bag, and wolfed down a breakfast bar. After leaving Amanda a short note and resetting the house alarm, he headed for the gym.
He turned right out of his driveway; the neighborhood was quiet, including any sign of police surveillance. A retired CIA operative had once complained to Cam that modern agents were soft and lazy. “God forbid they have to do something early in the morning, before they’ve had a shower and cup of coffee. You know,” he had said, winking, “sometimes the bad guys set their alarms early.”
Windows open, Cam drove slowly along the long side of the lake, into the rising sun. The cool morning air invigorated him even as his gloveless fingers tingled in the cold.
A garbage truck pulled out just ahead of him from an intersecting street, blocking his way, a loud and malodorous intrusion on his morning. He nodded to the man perched on the rear of the truck, then again at the burly driver walking toward him. What a horrible job, he thought—not just because of the work itself, but because of the way most people looked down upon them. Who wanted to roll out of bed every day and spend eight hours with their nose in other people’s trash while those same people stuck their noses up at the sight of them?
And then it hit him. It’s not garbage day. The men raced toward him and had guns pointed at Cam through both front windows even before the thought had fully formed. “Get out,” the burly man on the driver’s side grunted, his demeanor controlled and matter-of-fact. He had done this sort of thing before. “Now.”
Cam’s mind raced. Could he throw it in reverse and make a run for it? As if reading his thoughts, his assailant reached in, turned off the ignition, snatched the keys, and tossed them over a fence into a neighbor’s shrubbery. He aimed the gun at Cam’s knee. “We can do this hard, or we can do this easy.”
Cam cursed and unbuckled his seatbelt. A flash in his side-view mirror caught his eye—a bicyclist cruising down the street toward them. “What do you want from me?” he said, hoping to buy some time.
The burly man saw the bicyclist also. “Say a word,” he whispered, leaning in, the smell of cigarettes on his breath, “and we kill the guy on the bike.” He shielded the gun with his body from the bicyclist’s view.
Cam bit his lip. “Okay.”
“Just sit there, until he passes.”
The bicyclist pedaled past without slowing. Cam exhaled. Didn’t the guy think it odd to see a pair of garbage man leaning into opposite windows of a passenger vehicle?
“Okay, get out,” the burly man ordered. “Now.”
Cam didn’t know what else to do. Something about the man’s icy calmness convinced Cam that he could, indeed, do this the hard way if Cam didn’t cooperate. Cam unlatched the door and slowly stepped out of the SUV.
His captor edged up against him, the hard barrel of the gun pressed into Cam’s side. “Walk. Toward the truck.” They were going to toss him in the back. This was becoming eerily similar to being locked into the dumpster. “Now get in.”
Through his fear an odd thought rose into his consciousness. Today the bad guys set their alarm early. He lifted his leg, took a deep breath and, almost retching at the smell, hoisted himself into the back of the garbage truck.
The burly man motioned to his shorter cohort. “Stay back here and watch him. Now let’s get out of here.”
Cam eyed the man left to guard him. Cam probably outweighed him, and could probably outrun him as well. But the gun offset any size advantage, and Cam could not outrun a bullet. He’d have to use his brains…
The truck suddenly rolled forward. “What the—?” the short man exclaimed, still a few feet away from the truck.
Who was driving? Cam wondered. The burly man could not yet have reached the driver’s door.
The truck lurched ahead. The short man reacted and, sprinting, lunged for the metal platform on the rear of the vehicle. Thinking quickly, Cam rolled to his knees and, as the man leapt, shoved both arms into the man’s chest, knocking him sideways and away from the platform. The man tumbled to the pavement. The truck swerved to the left, and a second later the body of the burly driver bounced along the side of the road opposite his cohort—apparently the loser in some kind of confrontation with the truck’s driver.
Cam leaned back, the truck continuing to accelerate, the bodies of the two henchmen in its wake. The burly man stood, stared angrily at the disappearing truck, and delivered a vicious side-kick to a bicycle leaning against a nearby tree.
Bartol pulled the garbage truck into the lot of a small office park a mile from Thorne’s house and exhaled. That was close. He had arrived for his daily surveillance of Thorne’s home just as the SUV was leaving the driveway. A minute or so later and the Mossad would have had Thorne.
Which, Bartol was beginning to believe, might not be such a bad thing. Based on the cell phone calls Bartol had intercepted, Thorne’s research seemed to have taken a turn into some dangerous territory. It was one thing to glorify the accomplishments of early European explorers. But what benefit would it be if doing so undermined Judeo-Christian culture and all its accomplishments? This idea that Thorne was exploring, that the covenant God made with Abraham extended to the descendants of Ishmael rather than Isaac, was a toxic one.
It would be one of many things he and Thorne would be discussing this morning.
Bartol stepped from the cab and, giving wide ber
th in case Thorne tried to jump him, walked toward the back of the truck.
Thorne stood at the edge of the nearby woods, a thick branch in his hand. He had not run, just as Bartol expected. His curiosity would win out—who had rescued him? Plus he probably figured the one-on-one odds were the best he would ever get if he wanted some answers.
Bartol smiled, enjoying the look of recognition and then shock on the author’s face. “You,” Thorne stammered. “With the scratch ticket.”
“Yes, me. You can call me Bartol. I was testing you.” Bartol stopped ten feet away, giving Thorne plenty of space. “I imagine you have some questions. We can start at the beginning, or we can start at the end and work our way back.”
Thorne held up his cell phone with his left hand. “First of all, all I need to do is push one button to call 911. The police know my number, they know I’ve been attacked, and they will respond quickly. So don’t get any closer.”
Bartol nodded and took a step back in response.
Thorne lowered the tree branch. “Now who were those guys with the guns?”
“Mossad. At least I think so.”
“Wait, what? Israeli intelligence?”
“You can’t get into bed with Arab arms dealers and expect the Israelis aren’t going to notice.”
“Wait again. Hold on.” Thorne’s jaw tightened. “Zuberi Youssef is an arms dealer?” Bartol nodded. “What did you think he did?”
“Import-export.”
Bartol arched an eyebrow. “Okay, you can call it that.” “How do you know?”
Bartol turned his palms to the sky. “I know a lot of things. Like I said, we can work backward, or I can start from the beginning.”
“Either way, I’m not in bed with anyone,” Thorne said defensively. “I’m doing research. That’s all.”
“Research that could destabilize the Middle East.”
Thorne lifted his chin. “People have a right to know the truth. If it changes things, so be it. Who am I to decide which truths to tell and which to hide?”
Bartol nodded slowly. Thorne’s argument carried weight—Bartol had always hated the idea of Big Brother deciding what the populace should know and not know. That was what had first attracted him to Thorne’s writing, the fact that he was exposing the true history of early American exploration. But there was still the question of the arms dealer. “And you don’t think this arms dealer is using you?”
Before Thorne could answer his eyes widened in fear.
Bartol dove instantly, his training kicking in. Rolling toward the shelter of the truck, he pulled a Glock .45 from a shoulder holster. Slowly he peered out from behind the rear tire of the truck. Two men had positioned themselves at either corner of the office building. Somehow the Mossad agents had followed. In Thorne’s SUV, he guessed, after retrieving the keys they tossed. They had probably used some kind of tracking device in the garbage truck. Bartol’s entire body tensed. He needed to protect himself, and more importantly his charge.
The adrenaline surged. This is what soldiers did.
Cam pushed the “call” button on his cell phone just as the shot rang out. Lunging for the shelter of the woods, he listened for the ping of the bullet ricocheting off the truck or pavement. Instead he heard a dull thud, followed by a low moan.
“Got him. Should I go after Thorne?” A man’s voice, across the parking lot.
The burly garbage truck driver responded. “No. We gotta get out of here before the cops come.”
Cam’s 911 call connected as he watched the two gunmen run toward the main road, where presumably they had parked Cam’s SUV. He quickly explained the situation, his hand sweaty and shaking. “A guy’s been shot. He needs an ambulance.” He described the culprits and his SUV. “They’re going east on Route 40.”
“Thorne,” a raspy voice called.
Cam crouched next to the truck. “An ambulance is coming.”
“They got me good,” Bartol panted. “Lucky shot, right in the gut.”
Cam ripped his sweatshirt off and pressed it to the wound; within seconds his hands were drenched in warm blood. “What else can I do?”
“Just listen.” He gulped air. “The property … in Groton … it’s not contaminated.”
“What?” How did he know about Groton?
“Trust me,” Bartol said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “They set you up.” He coughed, blood dripping down his chin, his face otherwise an unnatural shade of white. “I dug … there’s some kind … of retention tank … buried.”
A siren approached. “Are you saying the chemical is in the tank, but not in the ground itself?” Who was this guy?
He grinned, his teeth red with blood. “Yes.”
The ambulance sped into the lot. Bartol reached a shaking hand out to Cam. “Keep writing … the truth.”
A pair of paramedics rushed over. Cam had dozens of questions for Bartol, but they would have to wait. Perhaps, he sensed, forever.
Cam arrived home just as Amanda and Astarte were sitting down for breakfast. Hard to believe less than an hour had passed; the police had agreed to drive him home and let him clean up before taking a full statement. “How was your workout?” Amanda asked.
“Um, okay,” he said, his bloody hands hidden in his pockets. “But I think I got a splinter in my foot.” He caught her eye. “Can you come try to get it out for me?”
In the bathroom he showed her his hands and quickly summarized his morning.
“Is Bartol dead?” Amanda asked.
Cam nodded. Later he would explain to her that Bartol was the lottery ticket guy, though Cam never did get an explanation for why other than that Bartol had been testing him. “He bled out before they could even get him out from under the truck.”
“How horrible.”
“There’s a squad car in the driveway now. He’s going to wait while we pack.” He turned the water on and began to scrub the blood off. “We need to disappear. Now.”
She nodded. “Where shall we go?”
“The police have done this a few times before in domestic violence cases. They have a protocol to make sure we won’t be followed. We’ll get a bunch of American Express gift cards to pay for things. And the police know of hotels and car rental places that won’t ask questions.”
“What will we tell Astarte?”
He appreciated Amanda trying to be rational, but the blood had drained from her face and her pupils had dilated with alarm. “Good question,” he answered. “If she weren’t so damn sharp, we could lie to her. But I think we have to tell her the truth, or at least a version of it. Bad guys are trying to stop my research, and until the police catch them we think it’s safer to stay in a hotel.”
Amanda nodded. “That should work. And we’ll need to bring Venus.”
“You’ll need to take some time off from work, and obviously Astarte will be missing school.”
“What about you?”
“Same. I’ll have someone cover my closings and cases. And at some point I’ll need to make a decision about teaching the summer course at Brandeis. But I am going to continue my research.”
“Good. Once you’ve discovered whatever it is someone doesn’t want you to discover, presumably then the cat will be out of the bag and there’ll be no reason to intimidate you into silence.” She smiled nervously and shrugged. “Or something like that. It made sense in my head.”
He turned off the water. “There’s just one thing I need to do before we go.” He related what Bartol said about the contaminant. “Like I said, I need to give a statement about today’s shooting. But the detective agreed we can do it while he drives me out to Groton.” Cam’s cousin owned a landscaping company. “I’ve arranged for a Bobcat to meet me out there. It’s going to take the police a few hours to arrange our escape anyway. You’ll be safe with a detail parked out front.”
“Do you think Bartol is correct?”
He shrugged. “Bartol’s claim is no more ridiculous than anything else about that property.”
She touched his arm. “That would be amazing if the property wasn’t contaminated.”
He tilted his head. “Yeah, I guess.” With their lives in danger and his future with Amanda unsettled, somehow it didn’t seem so important anymore.
Tamara and Moshe sat in her office at Brandeis, listening to the report from their field agent on a speaker phone. “I think I got the son of a bitch that killed Raptor, so it wasn’t a totally wasted morning.” She dipped a spoon into some yogurt while Moshe ate the parts of a blueberry muffin that didn’t end up in his lap.
Moshe asked a few operational questions then issued his orders. “Get to New York. Next flight to Tel Aviv.” He didn’t need to be more specific than that.
They hung up; Tamara tried to control her anger. “Shit, Moshe, was that really necessary?” It was a good thing she had a solid relationship with her boss.
“What do you mean?”
“Going all Rambo like that?”
“How else we going to get Thorne in here?”
Boys. Everything was about guns and trucks and fast cars. “Here, watch.” If Moshe had consulted her first, they could have avoided this whole mess. She found a phone number in a manila folder and dialed it. “Hello, Professor Thorne, this is Dean Maxson from Brandeis University.”
“Um, hello.”
He sounded distracted, but she plowed ahead. “I was wondering if you might be available to come in for a quick meeting? We want to go over some administrative matters, and also get you set up in an office here. And I’ll need a syllabus from you so we can order the books your students will need. As you know, summer classes start in two weeks already.”
“Hold on one second, it’s loud here.” She heard heavy machinery. “Okay, that’s better. As for coming in, this week will be tough. Can I just email you the syllabus?”
The Isaac Question: Templars and the Secret of the Old Testament (Templars in America Series Book 5) Page 23