Carrington continued. “Zuberi believed that the financial predicament caused by this property would make you more willing to accept the teaching position at Brandeis.”
“Which it did,” Cam said.
“Why bother with the retention tank?” Amanda asked.
Carrington eyed Cam, her face expressionless. “You know, Zuberi had a true affection for you, Cameron. That is—that was—a rare thing. He had no desire to bankrupt you.”
“Unless he needed to pressure me,” Cam replied, an edge in his voice.
“Yes,” she nodded, “business always came first with him.”
After a few seconds of silence, all eyes turned to Amon, the only person at the table who had not told his story. He cleared his throat. “First of all, I had no idea my father was selling arms to ISIS.” He lifted his chin. “That will end now.” His eyes settled on Cam. “Second, I have no interest in holding Mr. Thorne to the terms of his contract with my father as it seems to me that my father acted … perhaps a bit dishonorably … in their dealings.”
Cam nodded, noncommittal.
Amon continued. “Third, I wish to be part of this excavation at Roslyn Chapel. It meant a lot to my father, so it means a lot to me.”
Duncan pursed his lips and rocked forward in his chair. “I do not object to that. Access to the results of the dig is, in fact, the price your stepmother insisted on for the use of your father’s corpse in this little ruse we all just participated in to damage ISIS.” He smiled. “The proceeds from his last business deal, if you will.” He looked at Amanda and Cam and took a deep breath. “I believe Mr. Youssef had extended the same invitation to you, as well. Unfortunately, I regret to inform you that this invitation expired along with Mr. Youssef. I will do my best to convince the other Trust members to allow you to join us, but I am not hopeful.”
Cam sat back and eyed the elderly Freemason. Amanda knew he had been looking forward to the dig, to being there when centuries-old secrets were revealed. Cam spoke softly and calmly, which he tended to do when he was at his most angry. “That’s fine, sir. But with some extra time on my hands, I will be going to the press with the details of Mr. Sid’s attempt to blackmail me.” He smiled coldly. “The Freemasons do, after all, make for juicy fodder for all the conspiracy theorists out there.”
The kilted man eyed Cam across the table; Amanda imagined he had been involved in hundreds of high-stakes negotiations in his lifetime. “You have no evidence of wrongdoing, Mr. Thorne. And I do not appreciate being threatened. As I said, I’ll do what I can.”
Cam shifted in his seat, his eyes and the elderly Freemason’s locked.
The Mossad agent cleared her throat, breaking the standoff. “Actually, there is some evidence. Mr. Thorne’s veterinarian, a Masonic brother of Mr. Sid’s, put a tracking device in his dog’s collar.” She turned to Amanda. “That is how they’ve been following you. It should be easy to track the device back to your vet’s office.”
So that was it. Amanda shook her head. Another mystery solved. And another mystery born—why would the Mossad, presumably working with the Freemasons on the Zuberi murder ruse, now risk alienating the men’s group by disclosing their secrets? She could only conclude that they were trying to curry favor with Cam.
Cam turned on Duncan, smiling. “Perhaps the gentleman from Scotland would like to reconsider his position on the matter?”
Duncan’s blue eyes narrowed as he eyed the Mossad agent. He ran a shaky hand through thinning white hair. Amanda guessed he was not used to not getting his way, but he recovered quickly and offered a slight bow. “Very well, provided the appropriate non-disclosures are signed.”
“Fine,” Cam said, conceding the small point to allow his opponent a bit of honor in defeat. He sat back. “I’m glad we are all satisfied.”
“Not exactly,” the Mossad agent said. She addressed Cam. “When we met at Brandeis, I asked for your help in keeping the Isaac Question quiet.”
“And I said I would consider it.”
“And?”
Amanda now understood why the agent had told them about the tracking device in Venus’ collar. She was hoping to trade favors with Cam.
Cam shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to include it. I’m a researcher. I don’t believe in censorship.”
The agent exhaled, her face visibly pained. She had obviously misread Cam. “That is a very idealistic way to view the world, Mr. Thorne. But in Israel we can’t afford to indulge in lofty ideals. If we do, we will likely find ourselves annihilated, our people and culture and religion erased forever.” She raised herself in her seat. “The Mossad wishes to make its position perfectly clear: We will not allow this book to be published with the Isaac Question materials in it.”
Amon surprised Amanda by replying. “Are you threatening us?”
“Yes. Yes I am. And I believe you all know that the Mossad does not make idle threats.”
Amon did not hesitate. “And I believe you know that my family does not do the Israeli government’s bidding—”
A knock on the door interrupted the angry exchange. “Sorry to intrude.” A frumpy man in a blue blazer addressed the Mossad agent. “There’s something on Al Jazeera you need to see.” He entered and plugged in a flat-screen TV mounted on the conference room wall. “Something you all need to see.”
Cam had been fascinated by the interplay of the group around the table in the airport meeting room. The grieving Amon seemed to be playing it straight, but Carrington, Duncan Sinclair, and the Mossad agent clearly were playing a high-stakes game full of feints and threats, bluffs and coercion. Cam didn’t really care how it all turned out. All he wanted was to get these people out of his life.
The frumpy man found the channel and stepped away. A bearded, angular figure wearing a black dishdasha, his head covered by a black kufi, stood in front of a podium, the black flag of ISIS hanging behind him.
“That is Khaled,” the Mossad agent Cam knew as Dean Maxson said. Khaled spoke in Arabic, with Al Jazeera translating his words in a running scroll across the bottom of the screen. She turned to the frumpy man. “What have we missed?”
“He has been speaking for almost fifteen minutes. It started off with the usual bullshit, but then he started talking about Zuberi Youssef and some great secret. That’s when I thought I should interrupt.”
In Arabic, his voice rising, the terrorist pointed his finger at the camera. “Zuberi Youssef was not murdered because he was selling arms to the army of Muhammad in its holy war against the infidels and the dirty Jews.” He shook his head. “No. Our Egyptian brother was murdered because he had uncovered the truth about Palestine, the truth about The Most High’s covenant with Abraham, the truth about which people can rightfully call themselves The Chosen Ones. And this truth got him killed.”
An image of the dead Zuberi Youssef appeared on the screen, the words ‘Assassinated by the Mossad’ scrolled beneath it. “But Zuberi Youssef is not the only victim,” Khaled said. “The Jews will attack even one of their own. This is Professor Siegel of Brandeis University, a Jewish university in America.” A second image appeared, of a man in a wheelchair with his head and arm bandaged. Siegel was the professor who first told Rachel about the Isaac Question “He, too, had learned the truth about Palestine. When he began to discuss this with his students, he, too, was silenced.”
Khaled leaned into the camera. “This truth is too much for the Zionist devils to bear. They have no choice but to try to keep their secret hidden.” Khaled smiled. “But it is too late. Allah has seen fit to open my eyes so that I may see the truth, so that I may expose the lies.”
Khaled, his voice now modulated, proceeded over the next five minutes to summarize the evidence calling into question Abraham’s parentage of Isaac. Cam and Amanda shared a grimace—the summary was almost a word-for-word recounting of Cam’s research. Zuberi, obviously, had shared Cam’s outline with the terrorist.
“Now,” Khaled continued, “here is the important thing. T
he Most High promised to Abraham that his descendants would inhabit the land between the Euphrates and the Nile. All religions agree on this—Islam, Christianity and Judaism. This land is to belong to the descendants of Abraham. The lying Zionists refer to this as the Promised Land. Here, you can see a map.”
An image showing the Middle East, with the Nile and Euphrates Rivers hash-marked in, appeared on screen.
Middle East Map Nile (left) and Euphrates (right) Rivers Marked by Dotted Lines
“Now,” the Islamic extremist continued, “you can clearly see that this land encompasses much more land than what we now know as Palestine. And, in fact, the greedy Jews refer to this wider area as Greater Israel and, I am certain, have plans to wipe away the area’s historical residents and claim the land for themselves.
Here is a drawing depicting this area which the Zionists claim as Greater Israel.”
Another map appeared on screen, this one with a circular blob-like area delineated over much of the Middle East.
Map Showing “Greater Israel”
“The Western apologists, of course, claim Israel has no such intentions,” Khaled continued. “But let us examine a modern Israeli coin, the 10 agorot coin.”
Another image appeared, a coin with a menorah superimposed over what looked like a roundish plot of land.
Israeli 10 Agorot Coin
The corners of Khaled’s mouth lifted. “Compare the shape of the land on the coin to a map of Greater Israel. I will let you decide what the image on this coin depicts.” He paused and sipped some water.
Cam leaned into Amanda. “I’ve never heard of this claim, have you?”
“No.”
He glanced at the Mossad agent, who was clearly uncomfortable at the revelation.
Khaled continued, leaning forward. “So, what does the image on this coin depict? It is obvious, yes? But,” he paused, before speaking staccato-like, “it … does … not … matter. It does not matter. Why? Because the land was promised to the descendants of Abraham. The Promised Land. And the Jews do not descend from the great patriarch. They do not descend from Abraham. No. As I explained to you earlier, and as Zuberi Youssef discovered and was killed for, the Jews descend from the pharaoh Tuthmosis III, husband of Sarah, through their son Isaac.”
He stared into the camera, his dark eyes afire. “There is no doubt. The truth is out. The truth that Zuberi Youssef died for at the hands of the Mossad. The Promised Land does not belong to the lying Jews. It belongs to the descendants of Ishmael, the first son and true heir of Abraham. The Promised Land—including Palestine—rightfully belongs to the Arab people, the descendants of Ishmael.” He held his arms up to the sky. “Allah is great! He has revealed to us this great truth. It is now up to us to take the words of The Most High, as accepted in all three religions, and turn them into reality.”
Turning on a heel, Khaled marched off camera.
Cam broke the silence, the weeks of tension perhaps eroding his filter. “Well, I guess no one will care if I include the Isaac Question stuff in my book now.”
Cam and Amanda strolled out the front door of the airport terminal into the late morning sun of a warm summer day. An American flag whipped in the wind atop the glass-faced terminal building. The meeting had broken up after the Khaled news conference. Carrington had denied sending the Isaac Question research outline to Khaled, instead blaming Zuberi. Cam wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not. And he didn’t really care anymore. He just wanted to put this all behind him.
“So where to?” Amanda asked. She called for a taxi on her phone.
They had no car, no destination. “Home sweet home,” Cam replied.
“You think it’s safe?”
He shrugged. “The game is over. Other than finding the skull, there’s nothing left to be done.”
“You mean other than war in the Middle East?”
It was the last thing he wanted. But the idea that this Isaac Question could be bottled up indefinitely was ridiculous. In the age of the Internet, and with Professor Siegel already discussing it with his students, it was only a question of time before the information went viral. But Khaled had misplayed his hand. “You know, this revelation would have had a lot more impact if it had come from a Brandeis professor rather than an ISIS terrorist.”
“That was Zuberi’s original plan.”
“Right. And I think ISIS saw the value in it also. But they needed to get out in front of the Zuberi assassination, needed to convince the other arms dealers it was safe to do business with ISIS. The price for doing that was disclosing the Isaac Question information now, rather than waiting for Out of Egypt to come out.”
They sat on a Jersey barrier positioned to block a path to the terminal building, waiting for the taxi. “So are you going to include it in the book?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t believe in censorship, but now that the information is out there there’s no reason for me to add fuel to the fire by adding Brandeis’ stamp of approval to it. Khaled has all my research—I’m sure they’ll package it up nicely and make it available to anyone who wants to see it.”
“And you’re okay with not getting credit for it?”
“Credit for inspiring another generation of terrorists and Jihadists?” He took her hand and looked up at the American flag atop the terminal. “I can live without that, yes.”
Chapter 13
A week had passed since the meeting in the Hanscom Field airport terminal. The Khaled news conference had been picked up by all the major networks, the Isaac Question revelation fanning the hatred in the Middle East even beyond its normal feverish level. With so much loathing, and so many weapons, the next spark could turn the region into a wasteland.
May had turned to June, and Cam and Amanda now waited in another airport terminal, this time Boston’s Logan Airport, for a flight to Edinburgh via Dublin. They had returned to their Westford home, Astarte and Venus in tow, and—in stark contrast to the turmoil in the Middle East—spent a blissfully uneventful early summer week swimming and boating and watching Astarte play softball. Lieutenant Poulos still had a squad car circle their block every couple of hours, but it seemed as if the Mossad and the Freemasons and the guardian angels and the Middle East arms dealers had all moved out of their lives.
All that was left was to break through a pillar in Rosslyn Chapel and perhaps rewrite history again. “The fun stuff,” as Amanda called it.
Their flight was a red-eye, leaving in the evening and arriving the next morning. They had a couple of hours to kill in the airport and grabbed a pair of vinyl-covered seats along the outer wall near their departure gate.
“Let’s play a game,” Amanda said. “Write down what you think we’ll find inside the pillar. I’ll do the same. Then on our flight home we can see who got closest to getting it right. Winner gets backrubs for a week.”
“What if we have the same answers?”
“That’s a draw,” she said. “House wins all ties. Since I’m the house, I get the backrubs.”
“Why are you the house?”
“Because it’s my game.” She handed him a small spiral notebook. “Don’t write too much. I don’t want those back-rubbing hands of yours to get sore.”
It seemed like every visitor to Rosslyn Chapel had a theory as to what holy relic or secret was buried or hidden there. Popular theories included the Holy Grail, the bones of Jesus, the Templar treasure, records of the Jesus and Mary Magdalene family bloodline, and the Ark of the Covenant. But Cam was convinced, based on his Cult of the Head research, that the pillar safeguarded an ancient skull. The Moses possibility was the most intriguing, but John the Baptist seemed possible also—the skull having been taken from Jerusalem after his beheading and carried back to Ireland, where it was worshiped by the Druids for its visionary powers, hidden in America in a stone chamber by the Druids accompanying Brendan the Navigator, retrieved and returned to Europe by the Templars where it was worshiped as Baphomet, and finally ensconced within Rosslyn Chapel
by the cabalistic Sinclair clan. He sensed that Amanda would choose Moses, and it struck him that there were worst bets to lose than having to give his beautiful fiancée backrubs for a week. Smiling to himself, Cam scribbled his answer in the notebook: “A skull in a limestone box. Baphomet. Probably the head of John the Baptist. And maybe other relics such as the Stone of Destiny and a piece of the Jesus crucifixion cross.” He handed the notebook back to Amanda.
She read his answer and handed her his. “I’m with you on the skull, and I agree the skull was worshipped by the Templars as Baphomet. That’s why the Sinclairs and the Freemasons preserved it. But I went for Moses rather than John the Baptist.” She shrugged, smiling. “In for a dime, in for a dollar. Zuberi was obsessed with the Egyptians settling Scotland. I think he knew more than he let on.”
“And that ‘more’ was the Moses stuff?”
She nodded. “It would explain a lot. Including why the Church put the Templars down—in the end, the secret was just too big, too explosive. In order for Moses to have made it to Scotland, it would require acknowledging that he was actually Akhenaton, actually an Egyptian pharaoh—how else would his head have gotten to Scotland if not with Scota and his other descendants? The skull being Moses would inevitably lead back to the Isaac Question. The Church couldn’t have that.”
He nodded. “You make a strong case.”
“And as your research shows, the story holds together. Scota and her family brought Moses’ head to Ireland with them on their way to Scotland.” She shrugged again. “You know the rest.”
“Too well. I’m a little nervous about the fallout once my book comes out.”
“Speaking of fallout, I have another reason I think the skull is Moses and not John the Baptist.” She shifted to face him. “If the head was John the Baptist, why wouldn’t they just display it like all the other holy relics and saintly body parts? I know we talked about the Church coming in and taking it, but the Sinclairs were powerful enough to prevent that. I mean, if you have the head of John the Baptist, tell the world and let them come make pilgrimages.” She smiled. “And, of course, leave your donation at the door.”
The Isaac Question: Templars and the Secret of the Old Testament (Templars in America Series Book 5) Page 33