D’Amato sat silently as Natalie nodded. “That’s a pretty strong parallel,” she allowed.
“Ah, but there are more,” the priest assured her. “And they are striking enough that I don’t see how they could be considered coincidental.”
He hefted the silver coffee pot and refilled all of their cups. “In both legends the jewel-encased primordial light is lost. Noah’s falls from the ark, while two of the three Silmarills similarly disappear—one swallowed by the sea, one swallowed by lava. The third Silmarill, however, is set in the sky as a brilliant star. Tolkien’s star of Earendil. If you remember,” he said to Natalie, “its light was reflected in Galadriel’s mirror.”
She nodded, gazing intently into the cup he’d just refilled. “Galadriel gave Frodo a fragment of it in a vial,” she recalled.
“Correct.” The priest strode back to the bookcase, found another book among his collection, and flipped through the pages.
“Ah, here it is. Galadriel’s speech to Frodo when she gave him her gift.”
He began to read.
“In this vial, is caught the light of Earendil’s star. It will shine still brighter when night is upon you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.”
“Just as Adam and Eve had the tzohar with them—a light in dark places.” Natalie’s tone was quiet, contemplative, as she tightened her fingers around the pendant in her palm.
“Let’s back up a minute.” D’Amato held up a hand. “Explain that bit about the tzohar falling out of the Ark after the Flood. Was that the last time anyone saw it?”
“Not at all.” Father Caserta shook his head. “Jewish sages say that when it fell overboard, it drifted deep into an underwater cave. And there it lay until the floodwaters receded and the cave was no longer below sea level.”
“And then?” Natalie lifted her cup to her lips.
“And then . . .” the priest said with a smile. “There is another Talmudic legend.”
The Ethiopian guard stared at the two photographs proffered by the Vatican gendarme. “These two people are not here.”
“Have you seen them?” The gendarme glanced at the Rome synagogue’s security camera, then again, sharply, at the guard.
The guard shrugged. “They were here and they left,” he said neutrally.
“We must speak to Rabbi Calo.” The gendarme drew himself up, as if he could grow taller than his five-feet-nine-inch height. “We have reason to believe the woman is carrying something of great interest to us. It is urgent that we meet with Rabbi Calo at once.”
35
“The next legend about the tzohar recounts what happened after it fell overboard from Noah’s Ark,” Father Caserta continued, glancing from Natalie’s intent face to D’Amato’s contemplative one.
“In the very cave where the tzohar washed up after it fell into the sea, Abraham, father of the Jewish people, was born. He found the sparkling gem as a child, and it became his treasured plaything, which he wore around his neck. Abraham passed it down to his son, Isaac, who in turn gave it to his son, Jacob, and Jacob gave it to his favorite child, Joseph. While some Jewish legends say it had great powers of healing, we don’t hear that the tzohar also possessed the powers of divination until the days of Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph, who like his ancestor, wore it around his neck.”
The priest continued. “When Joseph’s brothers took his coat and threw him into the well, none of them realized they’d left him with something far more valuable than that coat. Joseph had no idea either, until the jewel around his neck began to glow in the darkness of the well, frightening away the snakes and vermin. It’s said that Joseph used it in Egypt to interpret the Pharaoh’s dreams, and that Moses reclaimed it from Joseph’s burial tomb and placed it in the Ark of the Covenant.”
“And this is all in the Talmud?” There was amazement in Natalie’s voice. “I hadn’t realized there was so much I didn’t know about my religion.”
“Well, we all have our areas of expertise, Ms. Landau. Mine is the Babylonian Talmud, on which I based my doctoral thesis. But I can assure you that you do know something about the tzohar. If you’ve been to synagogue, you are already familiar with a reminder of this special light.”
His eyes crinkled at her puzzled expression.
“It hangs above the bimah—the altar—in every Jewish sanctuary,” he informed her with a smile. “In every synagogue in the world.”
“And not only there—it also hangs before the tabernacle on the altar of every Catholic Church,” Rabbi Calo pointed out. He inclined his head, amused by her puzzled expression. “Now do you know what we’re referring to?”
“The Eternal Light.” It was D’Amato who answered. “Apparently we Catholics borrowed the concept from you.”
Natalie leaned back in her chair, letting the answer wash over her. The ner tamid—the eternal light. The lamp in the sanctuary that was never allowed to go out, or to be switched off. The lamp that burned continuously, remained illuminated day and night, as a reminder of God’s eternal presence.
Rabbi Calo’s enthusiasm thrummed through his next words. “The tzohar is the original ner tamid, the eternal light shining from the dawn of time.”
From the dawn of time. The words echoed in Natalie’s brain. Dawn of time. Eye of Dawn. She started, the pendant suddenly heavy in her palm and the rabbi’s words fading to a dull hum. The man who’d tried to kill them, who had Dana’s silver hamsa. He had demanded she hand over the Eye of Dawn.
“. . . and the lights burning on our bimahs and altars”—Rabbi Calo’s voice penetrated her thoughts once more—“are all a remembrance of the tzohar, which was hung above the Ark of the Covenant after the First Temple was built in Jerusalem. The tzohar and the ark were ensconced in the Holy of Holies—the most sacred area of the Temple, which only the High Priest could enter. The crystal God gave first to Adam and Eve shone there until the sixth century B.C., when Nebuchadnezzar’s army destroyed the Temple, carrying off all of its treasures, along with Jerusalem’s captured Jews.”
“To Babylon.” Natalie spoke softly. “The treasures were carried off to Babylon. Has anyone seen the tzohar since then?”
“The Babylonians saw it.” Caserta returned the Tolkien books to the shelf and came back to lean against his desk. “At least, those who gained entrance to Nebuchadnezzar’s palace did since the king hung it there to remind everyone he’d conquered the Temple.”
“But when his grandson was conquered by the Persians three thousand years ago,” Rabbi Calo put in, “the tzohar disappeared again. And it hasn’t been seen since. Only written about.”
“Written about where?” Natalie’s heart was thudding so hard she could barely get the words out.
The rabbi’s eyes brightened, as if she’d arrived at the crux of the matter. “In a little-known Dead Sea scroll, Ms. Landau. One found badly damaged in Qumran. It’s taken researchers years to piece some of it together and to uncover the writing. The words have been obscured in animal skins blackened by time. Perhaps you’re familiar with it.”
“Which scroll?” she asked. “I’ve seen several of them at the Dome of the Book in Jerusalem.”
The priest smiled gently at her and leaned forward. “It isn’t on display there. This scroll is still being studied, bit by bit, and few of its contents have been made public.”
D’Amato squinted questioningly.
“This scroll was written by one of the last people in Babylon to see the tzohar,” Father Caserta murmured. “By a man very close to King Balshazzar. So close that the king gave him a Chaldean name. Belteshazzar. But in the Bible he’s called—”
“Daniel,” Natalie finished for him, her eyes widening and the pendant seeming to tingle in her palm.
“Correct again.” Rabbi Calo nodded. “The tzohar is described at length in the long-lost Scroll of Daniel.”
36
Shock reverberated through Natalie. She’d handled countless ancient artifacts, categorized them, arr
anged them—but always as an observer of history. Now history, in all its wonder and mystery, had fallen into her lap. Filled with a dawning sense of awe, she stared down at the pouch, at its two Aramaic words—Belteshazzar—tzohar. Then her gaze shifted in disbelief to her fingers, concealing the ancient pendant encrusted with the protective eyes.
Something is enclosed inside it. Something from the dawn of time.
Slowly, still trying to grasp the magnitude of what she was learning, she extended her hand toward the Italian clerics. She unfolded her fingers, now marked by the impression of the jewel that had been pressed tightly against her flesh. She held the pendant out like an offering.
“This necklace was inside that pouch. It’s the one my sister sent me from Iraq,” she said through dry lips. “I know for certain that, like the pouch, it’s three thousand years old—and that it has something sealed inside.”
Hasan, Siddiq, and Jalil approached the church on foot. Three more Guardians, from the Rome cell, were on their way, but Hasan doubted their assistance would be needed.
He made a harsh gesture toward Jalil, and the lithe young driver nodded and crept toward the small patch of graveyard behind the spired building, his Walther P99 in hand.
Hasan drew his Beretta, a .40 caliber, chambered and ready to fire. And he would, the moment he claimed the Eye of Dawn from the Landau woman. He’d be back in Al Quds with the Eye tonight.
He noted with approval that Siddiq already had his weapon pressed against the side of his Italian suit as together they advanced on the small stone church.
Father Caserta jumped up from the desk, tumbling his chair behind him. He reached toward the pendant, but his hand froze in midair. Rabbi Calo hadn’t moved, but his gaze was trained in fascination on the jewel-encrusted eye.
“Have you opened it?” He blinked rapidly behind his glasses.
“We can’t. Not without damaging it,” D’Amato replied.
“I have no idea how my sister got it.” Natalie spoke quickly in the hush of the room. “But she was murdered right after she sent it to me. She was beaten to death. And from the moment I received it, people have been trying to get it away from me.”
“The man who delivered it to Natalie was also murdered,” D’Amato said grimly. “We’ve been chased and shot at, and someone just left a threatening message scrawled across the wall of our hotel room.”
The rabbi snatched off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “The light of the tzohar is a bit of the primordial light of creation.” His voice was almost a whisper. “It has the power of healing, the power of divination. It was a part of that radiant light in the Garden of Eden—a light so bright it outshone the sun seventy times over. Just a bit of that light, encased in a crystal, had the power to illuminate the entire ark when the world was thrown into darkness.” Calo took a deep breath. “The tzohar contains within it a spark of the very force of creation. It would possess a power men can only dream of. A power that, if harnessed, could do great good—or great harm.”
“Basically, you’re telling us that the tzohar is a trapped particle of pure creative energy.” D’Amato’s forehead furrowed in concentration.
Calo nodded. “And just imagine what one could generate with that kind of energy.”
“It could make oil obsolete as our chief source of energy.” Caserta’s face lit with excitement. “It could be a God-given source of limitless clean fuel. Or,” he added grimly, “humans could subvert it to manufacture horrific weapons.”
“I shudder to contemplate the kind of destruction something so powerful could unleash.” The rabbi looked stricken. “In the wrong hands . . .” His voice trailed away.
“If the tzohar is inside this pendant,” Natalie said slowly, “I haven’t seen any evidence of its power yet. Still . . . if others in the world believe it’s as powerful as you’ve described, then I can understand why every nation, every power in the world would want it.”
Reflexively, she clamped the pendant in her fist again. Was it her imagination, or was there really a tingling running from her fingertips all the way to her wrists, her arms, her shoulder blades?
“What does Daniel’s scroll say about the tzohar?” she asked.
But before anyone could answer, the rabbi’s cell phone interrupted. He spoke into it briefly, frowning with concern.
He tucked it back into his pocket with a sigh. “One of our guards. He says the Vatican police are at the museum.” He looked at Natalie and D’Amato. “They’re inquiring about the two of you.”
Natalie stiffened, her gaze swinging to D’Amato. Sir Geoffrey called them. The same thought flowed instantaneously between them. Then it was forgotten as a slight scraping sound from the sanctuary reached her ears.
Apparently everyone heard it—they all turned toward the door.
“Somebody’s out there,” D’Amato whispered. He crept toward the door, signaling Natalie to draw the curtains across the lone window facing onto the graveyard.
“It could be a parishioner,” Rabbi Calo murmured.
The scraping sound came again. Softer. Someone was working very hard not to be heard on the smooth stones.
“Is there a back way out?” D’Amato’s voice was a breath.
“Not exactly.” Father Caserta was staring in shock at the Glock that had suddenly materialized in D’Amato’s right hand. “There’s a door off the robing room, but that’s on the other side of the altar. There’s one other exit.” He hesitated. “But it hasn’t been used in years.”
“Where is it?” Natalie whispered, as she plunged the pendant back into the pouch and stuffed both once again into her shoulder bag.
“It’s beneath the altar. It’s actually a trapdoor that leads down to an underground passage,” the cleric said softly. “A leftover from the original church. The early Christians used it to escape the Romans back in the day. There’s a circular tile that swivels aside—”
“How do we open it, Giuseppe?” Calo breathed. D’Amato was listening intently at the door. Natalie glanced frantically around the room, the words of her Krav Maga instructor ringing in her head. Use whatever is at hand as a weapon.
Then, in the blink of an eye, D’Amato was gone. The office door clicked closed behind him. She grabbed an embossed silver letter opener from the priest’s desk and edged toward the door—freezing an instant later as gunfire roared off the high hollow ceiling of the sanctuary.
Then all hell broke loose. More gunfire thundered—and suddenly the glass window behind them shattered. A man dove through the splintered opening into the center of the room. He was young, dressed all in black, and he had a gun.
He lunged straight for Natalie. She struck out instinctively with the letter opener, aiming for his eyes, but he ducked just in time and escaped with only a shallow slash across his left cheekbone. She had a quick impression of dark malevolent eyes before he swung the gun up level with her heart.
“Give me the Eye of Dawn!”
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you to knock?” Natalie’s heart was pounding. She knew she had to distract him, to get out of his line of fire. As another burst of shots exploded from the sanctuary, she used his momentary distraction to take a step to the side.
At the same instant, Father Caserta dove low, hitting the gunman in the back of the knees and knocking him off balance. His shot went wide and ricocheted, pinging off the stone wall and slamming into the desk. Both Caserta and the gunman tumbled to the floor.
The attacker was younger and more nimble and was the first to scramble to his feet. But before the assailant could straighten, Rabbi Calo lunged for the gun. To Natalie’s horror, the intruder swung the weapon up into Calo’s chin, connecting with a sickening crack. Blood spurted from between the rabbi’s lips as he toppled sideways against the bookcase.
Panting, the man wheeled again toward Natalie, but she attacked before he could take aim. With all of her strength, she drove the letter opener into his throat. This time she made more than a surface cut.
H
e let out a gurgled scream. As he struggled to pull the blade from his bloody throat, Natalie grabbed for the gun, wrenching his wrist at a forty-five-degree angle and wresting the gun away by its butt.
Good, pull the letter opener out, you bastard. You’ll bleed to death all the faster. But her hands shook as she leveled the gun at his forehead. She couldn’t allow herself to think that she’d inflicted a mortal wound.
“Give me the hamsa you took from my sister.”
He was pressing his hands against his gushing throat. “That . . . Hasan’s . . . trophy.” He was having trouble getting the words out, but his baleful stare was one of pure malice. He seemed unaware of the amount of blood drenching his black shirt. “You . . . will . . . never. . . .”
Natalie jerked her head toward the sanctuary. “Hasan,” she bit out. “Is he out there?”
He staggered to his knees, defiance blazing in his eyes. “The khalifate . . . will return,” he gasped. “Hasan . . . will . . . succeed. Al Quds . . .” He fought for air. “. . . will be ours. And . . . the Eye . . . of Dawn . . . Allah-hu akbar . . . Allah . . . is great!”
Behind him a trembling Father Caserta was helping Calo to his feet. The rabbi’s face was pale, his shirt smeared with blood. “Don’t worry, I’ll be alright,” he gasped. He spit a tooth from his mouth. “Right now,” he said shakily, “D’Amato needs our help.”
The gunshots had halted. There’s either a standoff or everyone out there is dead, Natalie thought. She pushed away the thought.
But even as she turned toward the door, the gunman collapsed, sprawling across the broken glass. Natalie pivoted and hurried toward him. Her stomach churned as she nearly slid on his blood.
“Check to see if he has other weapons,” the priest cautioned.
Taking a deep breath, she felt for a pulse. Found none. She was afraid she was going to be sick. She’d never killed anyone before, let alone touched a dead body.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. She couldn’t fall apart. She forced herself to focus. Gingerly, she patted the man’s pockets, then remembered something else from her Krav Maga training—and yanked up the hems of his pants. Sure enough, there was a knife concealed in a leather holster lashed to his right calf.
The Illumination Page 17