The Jerusalem Puzzle

by Laurence O'Bryan

  There was a more obvious risk, clearly, if Arap were to be captured, but Lord Bidoner had made plans for that eventuality too.

  The big question in that regard was whether his contact would be able to intervene fast enough if Arap fell into the hands of the authorities.

  The interview with the Palestinian was over. He turned the television up with a gesture. The situation in Jerusalem was developing fast.

  Sky News HD was relaying images of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from the corner of the Muristan, about thirty feet from the entrance to the church, and from a helicopter circling a hundred feet above.

  Images from the helicopter were on the screen now. All that was visible was a group of priests and a cluster of police in the courtyard of the church. Then a trickle of smoke rose from the cupola of the building. The commentator didn’t seem to notice it for a minute, than her tone went up at least three octaves.

  Lord Bidoner passed his hand over the flame of the black candle burning on the coffee table. He turned his hand over and let the flame linger on the scar on the back. Pain seared through him.

  He held his hand steady for a few seconds, then pulled it away. A taste was enough for him. It kept him grounded.

  He thought about checking Ebony’s portfolio of stocks. He knew what would be happening to it already on the Israeli future’s market – they’d all be climbing fast – but he decided to wait until he saw which way the Jerusalem situation developed.

  When to sell was going to be the next big decision. Their gains would be far higher if he waited until a war actually started, and everyone was rushing to move into the right stocks. The wave of stock increases might crest higher than a two hundred percent jump, if he got his timing right.

  He stood. The commentator was talking with the blogger who had notified the media that the mobile phone system had been out in the area of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He’d watched the Israeli police units arrive on a tourist webcam overlooking the entrance to the church.

  There was still no sign of any fire brigade equipment. The commentator wondered loudly what was taking them so long. The smoke from the roof of the building was a thin column, but it was rising fast.

  Lord Bidoner turned the sound down. It was time to make the phone call. If the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was badly damaged, the reaction in the United States would be critical.

  Five star generals might already be updating their war scenarios. What mattered in the coming hours and days was ensuring the right people knew who to blame, who to hate.

  Anders Breivik in Norway had proved how much pain one man can inflict, but he’d gone down the wrong path.

  It was better to inspire hatred than to seek publicity.

  And a hurricane of hatred was about to arrive.

  48

  Isabel cradled Susan’s head. The rock beneath them was no place to lay it. She was desperate to prevent the worst of Susan’s pain, to stop the harsh reality of where they were being all that Susan experienced in her last moments.

  They were in pure darkness. It was the sensation of emptiness Isabel hated. Waves of paranoia and fear passed through her regularly.

  Cold was seeping up from the rock she was sitting on, as if it was crawling up her. There was a sickly smell in the air too, a smell of infection and damp and death. She could taste it.

  At times Isabel imagined she was back in her apartment in London, in bed with Sean, with her eyes closed. It helped. But at other times the blackness was a gloved hand around her head and she wanted to beat it away.

  A few times she swung her arms all around when faint noises gave her the impression that something was moving close to her.

  There wasn’t much time left for Susan. She knew that.

  Susan Hunter had given up. And Isabel couldn’t blame her. They both knew that their captor had left them underground and might never return. And even if he did, it might only be to inflict some awful final torture on them.

  He’d moved them earlier that day. She knew it was daytime, because of the daylight she’d seen before he’d covered her eyes. Isabel had wanted to lash out, to kick and scream, but there isn’t much you can do when your hands are tied behind your back and you can’t see what to kick.

  She’d tried it just the same, had kicked out at what she thought was the source of the pushes she was receiving in her back, but she’d suffered a slap across the head and laughter for it, which had made her think hard before doing it again.

  Whatever the reason he’d brought them to this new place, it was not for anything but evil. She was sure of that.

  ‘Isabel.’ The voice echoed.

  Isabel shook from the suddenness of it. It was Susan Hunter speaking and her voice was more lucid than it had been for a day or more.

  ‘Hush, save your strength,’ said Isabel. ‘We’ll be out of here soon.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Susan’s voice was flat, accepting.

  ‘Stop that. It is true.’

  ‘I don’t have long. Listen to me.’ A rasping noise, like a death rattle, or something near it came from Susan’s throat.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘There are dark forces. They want power.’ The rattle came again.

  ‘There are always dark forces,’ said Isabel.

  ‘No, no. You don’t understand.’ Isabel felt the weak grip of Susan’s hand on her arm. It was like a baby’s.

  ‘Don’t say any more. No more!’ Isabel didn’t want to hear about dark forces. This was not the time for such talk.

  ‘They want compassion to die.’ Her voice was small, like a child’s.

  ‘There have always been people like that.’

  ‘They must be stopped. If you get away … you must stop them.’

  ‘I will. I promise. Now stop talking.’ She said it softly.

  ‘I met Max … before he died. He knew.’ Susan coughed again, weakly. Then her voice came back.

  ‘I think we’re going to be sacrificed, Isabel.’

  ‘What?’ The idea was numbing, incomprehensible.

  Susan slumped in her arms. She could feel Susan’s body fading, as if she was giving up the fight.

  ‘Stay with me,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll get through this. Don’t even think about all that stuff.’ She had no idea if they would survive, but she had to say it. She had to believe there was hope.

  ‘There was a secret in that book you found in Istanbul, Isabel,’ Susan coughed.

  ‘What secret?’ Isabel hadn’t asked Susan about what was in the book.

  ‘A secret that could change the world.’ Susan shivered. ‘I came here to see Max. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Isabel.

  ‘I needed parchment … to do a carbon dating comparison.’ Susan coughed and coughed. Each cough was weaker than the last.

  Isabel held her. She wanted to ask about the secret, but Susan was fading and she didn’t want to do anything that would hasten the end.

  After another minute Susan’s voice started up again in the darkness.

  ‘I needed to check, you see … to see if it was a forgery,’ she said.

  Isabel waited. It was another minute before Susan spoke again.

  ‘One part of that manuscript you found is a quire … goatskin folded into leaves, like they used to use in the first century.’

  ‘Is that what you wanted to carbon date?’

  Isabel was holding her tight. She could feel Susan’s head nodding. ‘Max said they’d found quires. They sounded similar.’

  Susan groaned, it was a wrenching sound. The sound of someone in pain, near the end.

  She couldn’t resist any longer. ‘So what’s this secret that could change the world?’

  Susan spoke slowly when she responded. ‘There’s an official Roman transcript of the trial of Jesus in that book you found.’

  ‘My God,’ said Isabel. Could this be true? It would certainly be spectacular if it was. It would be a sensation. Sean would be amazed.

&n
bsp; ‘But that’s not all of it, Isabel.’ Susan was shaking her head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a secret in the symbol in that book. I don’t know what it means. But it’s referred to in the trial document. Right at the end.’

  Susan talked on in the darkness, drew the arrow and square shape on the back of Isabel’s hand. Isabel shrugged when Susan asked her if she knew what the symbol meant. At that moment she didn’t care.

  49

  Smoke was streaming fast from the mound of bodies. The fire crackling must have covered my arrival for a vital few seconds.

  I was on him as his gun went off.

  I smashed my fist into the arm he was carrying the gun with. Rule number one, disable any weapon.

  The force of my arrival propelled him back on his heels as he was trying to get up. I could smell his sweat. The undiluted adrenaline of the fight poured through me, tunnelling my vision. I had to subdue him!

  I found his throat, gripped it with my right hand. He was moving his head violently from side to side. I grappled with his gun hand. He still had the gun. His arm was swinging around, trying to get free. I was surprised at how he squirmed.

  ‘You can’t stop me,’ he screamed in a strangulated roar.

  I squeezed his neck, hoping he would give up. I felt his blood vessels pumping, his windpipe and skin squelching like rubber as he shifted away from me.

  ‘Where is she?’ I screamed. He reared up, tried to push me off him. My breathing was in loud gasps.

  ‘You will die like Kaiser, begging for the pain to stop!’ he screamed. His gun hand was coming towards my stomach. I jerked it away.

  His blue eyes were neon lit. Hatred roared from them, as if I was the one who’d done some terrible wrong to him.

  Warm spittle hit my face.

  We rolled. I banged his skull against the grey stone floor. Heat from the fire seared my back.

  My head hit stone with force. I heard a crack, hoped it was from something else.

  Sparkling lights swirled in my vision. Move!

  I pushed desperately to the left. He came with me. My hand was still squeezing his neck. I was going to kill the bastard!

  He slammed a fist into my stomach. Pain surged in a boiling wave. But my grip on his neck didn’t falter.

  I pushed his head back hard, rolling away from the fire, over and over. If only I could …

  A chest pummelling blast, and a roar of wind hit us. I was knocked backwards as if a hand had taken me. It took me a few seconds to realise I wasn’t dead and to reach around in the clearing smoke and discover that he was gone. He’d slipped from my fingers! Bastard!

  I stood, stumbled, then looked around, hearing shouts. I was shaking.

  Other arms were grappling me. There were voices. I was being dragged away by policemen clad in blue bulletproof vests. What the hell?

  They dragged me outside, pushed me up against a wall. The courtyard was empty of priests now. Three of the policemen held me with a cold gun barrel pressed into my chest, while a troop of men dressed in yellow jackets, carrying fire extinguishers, raced into the church.

  That was the moment my stomach reacted. I put my hand to my mouth, bent forward. The police stepped back. I vomited. I’d been holding my stomach, but the punch and the smoke I’d inhaled had turned it. Two different policemen, without armour, arrived as I was straightening up, wiping my mouth. One of them spoke into a walkie talkie as the other started reciting the laws I’d broken by entering the church out of hours.

  They said they were going to arrest me. I shouted, and started gesticulating at the church door.

  ‘Are you mad? I fought the man who started that fire! I was trying to stop him! You can’t arrest me!’ I shouted.

  There was smoke coming from the front door of the church. It was hanging from its hinges with a gaping hole in each leaf. That explained how the police had got in. Presumably whoever had the key hadn’t turned up quickly enough.

  I pointed a finger at the door.

  ‘I need to go back in. Let me go!’ I took a step forward. I wanted to see if Isabel was in there.

  The policemen grabbed my arms, one on each side, twisting them backwards painfully. I was lifted an inch from the ground.

  ‘You won’t do that, sir.’ The officer on my right spoke quickly, politely. ‘Describe the man who started the fire.’

  I did, there wasn’t much to say, and as I glanced at the door of the church and watched people running in and out, it dawned on me that they hadn’t found him.

  ‘I had a hold on him, until you broke the bloody doors in! You have to check the whole building!’ The only reply I got was a dismissive stare.

  Seconds later I was being hurried out of the courtyard and down a back lane, accompanied by four riot-helmeted and bulletproof vest-clad policemen. We passed through a blue and white police line, where a crowd of Arabs

  in keffiyehs, black robed priests, brown and white clothed monks, sombre looking nuns and a mixture of tourists had gathered.

  There were shouts. I heard the words, ‘Bashokh aleek!’ It sounded like an insult.

  Questions were shouted at me in English as we passed too.

  ‘What have you done, blasphemer?’ was the most memorable of them. The voices were all angry.

  Beyond the police line there were two ambulances with a white Star of David on them parked in front of King David’s Tower, inside the Jaffa Gate.

  My mind was racing. I’d nearly caught him. I should have smashed his head in. What more could I do? Had I blown my chance to rescue Isabel?

  Rage at myself for not finishing the fight tightened my fists.

  I thought I was being taken to the police station, so it was a pleasant surprise when I was led to the nearest ambulance.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. My injuries weren’t serious, but they were real. My head was bruised, ringing oddly, sounds were echoing, and my stomach was aching. A few minutes later Mark arrived. He waved to me, then showed his ID and spoke to the blue uniformed police officer with a concrete hard expression, who was standing near the back door of the ambulance keeping an eye on me.

  After the officer had closely examined the ID and had spoken into his buzzing walkie talkie, he let Mark approach the vehicle.

  Mark leaned in the door.

  ‘They didn’t arrest you?’ I said.

  He smiled. ‘The Israeli authorities are back in cooperating mode.’ He paused, leaned towards me, as if examining me for injuries. ‘You almost got yourself killed in there.’

  ‘Did they find Isabel?’ I was dreading that her body might have been somewhere in that burning building.

  He shook his head. ‘I personally went through the whole church. She’s definitely not there.’

  I nodded. ‘The bastard got away, didn’t he?’

  Mark nodded. ‘He must have had a key to a back door that hasn’t been used in years.’

  I closed my eyes. ‘I had him!’ I gripped the crisp blue sheet under me. Our best chance of finding Isabel had slipped away through my fingers!

  Then something else came to me. ‘Do they know who he is?’

  Mark climbed into the ambulance. That was when I noticed a cut on the side of his forehead.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  I was propped up on one of the gurneys. My arms were still trembling from the exertion of the fight. The sickly sweet burning smell lingered in my nostrils. A medic, dressed all in green, had checked me over already and had disappeared. He reappeared now, climbing into the ambulance.

  ‘Are you coming with us, sir?’ he asked Mark.

  ‘Yes, I need to get this cut checked,’ said Mark, pointing to his face.

  The medic examined Mark, and made him lie down on the other gurney. He strapped us both in. Then he knocked on the sliding window that separated us from the driver and with our siren blaring we moved away.

  The medic was sitting on a little fold-down seat and was talking loudly on his mobile phone behind us.

>   Mark took his phone out of his pocket and checked something on it. Echoes of the questions and curses that had been shouted at me while I was being bundled away from the church were playing in my mind. They were a demented chorus to my despair at having let the bastard slip away.

  I thought about my phone and ran my hands through my pockets, groaning as the realisation came over me that I’d lost it.

  ‘The police will find it if it didn’t get burnt or smashed up,’ said Mark when I told him. ‘You’ll get it back eventually. They put that fire out very quickly. You saw what he was burning, didn’t you?’

  I didn’t answer. I was thinking about Isabel.

  I’d imagined, initially, as I broke into the building, that she might have been in that church somewhere, being tortured. When I saw that sick pile of bodies, I thought she might be among them but I’d quickly seen that none of them were her.

  But if she wasn’t there, where was she?

  Mark and I were taken to adjoining cubicles in the emergency room at the hospital when we got there. There were two Israeli policemen on guard near us. One was sitting on a chair.

  The other one was over six foot six tall and built like a quarterback I’d seen once at a New York Giants game. His circumference must have equalled his height and he had arms as thick as my thighs. He could block a double doorway just by standing near it.

  Presumably he was the muscle in case we did anything funny. Actually, it was probably me they were worried about.

  I refused any pain killers, I didn’t want to feel woozy, and after they’d put a dressing on my forehead they probed at my side to determine if anything was wrong in there. They wanted to keep me in overnight for observation, a nurse told me.

  I wanted out of the place.

  She also told us she’d seen the fire at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on TV, after I’d explained where we’d come from. Apparently the whole incident had been relayed live to the world.

  ‘Do you have immunity from prosecution here?’ I asked Mark, leaning out of my cot towards him. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to be locked up for breaking into the church. I wouldn’t be much good to Isabel in a cell.