The Temple Mount Code

by Charles Brokaw

  Mufarrij sipped his coffee and lamented that it had already gone cold. He also lamented the fact that the local police were taking Thomas Lourds and his Uighur friend into custody.

  The chase was not over yet.

  Lourds’s head pounded as he sat on the uncomfortably thin mattress on the jail cot and looked in the metal mirror he’d finally been able to borrow from his jailer. His nose was swollen, and his left eye had a huge mouse underneath that promised a spectacular shiner later. He sighed and placed the mirror on the cot beside him. Having a hangover and a possible concussion was not how he’d wanted to wake up.

  ‘It could be worse.’ Big Mike sat on the other side of the room, lounging on the cot bolted into that wall. He’d rolled up one of his socks and was playing catch with it, throwing it up into the air and catching it when it came back down.

  ‘How?’

  ‘You could have gotten your nose broken. And you missed the whole gunfight.’

  That was the part that really made Lourds’s head hurt. He shook his head and regretted it immediately. ‘Tell me again about that.’

  Big Mike did, and this time the story grew even grander. By tomorrow morning, the young woman – whoever she was – would be plucking their attackers’ bullets from the air and throwing them back at the men.

  ‘I never saw anyone so fast.’ Big Mike smiled dreamily. ‘I thought I was a dead man. Truly. I threw myself at one of those men, intending to save you.’

  ‘Save me?’

  ‘They said they were there for you.’

  ‘You heard them say that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You couldn’t be mistaken?’

  ‘No. They told the woman they were going to take you.’

  Lourds took a deep breath and released it. He thought back over the last few months and couldn’t think of a single reason why anyone would come gunning for him. He’d made some enemies over the last few years, over the Atlantis thing and the problems in Saudi Arabia, but those people had bigger problems than a relatively obscure professor of linguistics.

  It didn’t make any sense. And that was what scared him. He didn’t know if he was leaving trouble behind or heading straight for it.

  ‘Anyway, I threw myself at one of the men, intending to save you. He tried to shoot me, but this woman shot that man, then she shot the other. She was so fast, she was like Clint Eastwood.’

  ‘Clint Eastwood?’

  ‘Yes. You have seen his movies?’

  ‘I have. This woman didn’t look like Clint Eastwood, did she?’

  ‘No, she was a very beautiful woman.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Of course she was. I’m sure that’s why you were going to her rescue in the bar.’

  Lourds barely remembered that. He didn’t know if the memory loss was from the drink or from getting punched in the face. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten hit so hard.

  ‘But there you were, on the floor.’ Big Mike threw his arms out and looked like he’d been run over by a steamroller.

  ‘Thanks for that visual. Really.’

  Big Mike grinned.

  ‘You know, I’m beginning to think you look entirely too comfortable on that jail cot.’

  ‘I’ve had an exciting life since you left the village.’ Big Mike folded his hands over his broad chest. ‘Jails are all pretty much the same.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t remember anything else about the woman?’

  ‘She was beautiful. We are truly lucky, Professor Thomas.’

  Lourds narrowed his good eye at his friend. ‘How so?’

  ‘The story would not be nearly so good if we’d been rescued by an ugly woman.’

  Footsteps sounded out in the hallway, and one of the policemen reappeared. He wore a green-and-tan uniform and had a hat tucked up under his arm. Thrusting the key into the ancient lock, he worked the mechanism and pulled the door open.

  ‘You’re free to go.’

  ‘Someone bailed us out?’ Lourds grabbed his hat and clapped it onto his pounding head. He looked past the jailer, wondering if the beautiful young woman with the fast gun was waiting out there and wondering, too, if her presence was going to be a good thing or a bad one.

  ‘No. You are just free to go.’

  Lourds stepped out into the hallway, closely followed by Big Mike. ‘Why?’

  ‘You did not kill those men. All the stories have agreed on this. You were dead drunk when that happened, and your friend was barely able to stand on his own.’

  ‘I wasn’t dead drunk. I’d just been in a bar fight.’ Lourds pointed to his injured eye and swollen nose.

  ‘A bar fight.’ The man nodded, obviously very unimpressed. ‘One punch.’ He blew a derisive raspberry. ‘Then the woman knocked the man out. He’s still in the hospital. We’ll be talking to him, but we don’t believe he was involved in this either.’

  ‘Do you know anything about the men that attacked me?’

  ‘They attacked the woman, and no, we don’t know anything about them. Neither of them had papers.’

  Lourds walked down the hallway. At the desk in the small, unadorned office, he recovered his personal belongings. His backpack and suitcase sat on the floor. The message was entirely clear.

  A stolid man sat at the desk and eyed Lourds appraisingly. ‘If you hurry, Professor Lourds, you can still catch your airplane.’

  With his head aching so fiercely, the last thing Lourds wanted to contemplate was a hurried run to catch an airplane that promised five long minutes of torturous buffeting in the Himalayan winds. But he signed for his things.

  ‘One other thing.’ The stolid man reached into his desk and brought out a well-worn copy of Bedroom Pursuits. ‘Would you sign this for my wife? When she heard I had you locked up here, she made me promise I would get you to sign the book.’

  ‘Sure.’ Lourds took up his pen again.

  ‘One more word of advice, if I may.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘A man with a glass jaw should stay out of bar fights.’

  ‘He hit me in the nose when I wasn’t looking.’ Even as he said that, Lourds knew that was almost a physical impossibility. All he could remember was the big man’s even bigger fist rushing into view with the speed of a comet.

  ‘Very well. A man with a glass … nose.’

  25

  HaRova

  Old City

  Jerusalem, the State of Israel

  August 4, 2011

  The heat hanging over the Old City was certainly a change from the frigid Himalayas, but it was evening now, and the night brought cooler temperatures. Lourds kept glancing over his shoulder as he trudged through the winding alleys. He told himself that he wasn’t being paranoid, that there were actually people out to get him.

  He just didn’t know who they were yet.

  He traveled the way from memory. He’d spent a lot of time with Lev off and on back in the day, and he regretted the fact that there hadn’t been more time to spend these last few years. When he thought of how long it had last been, Lourds felt a little ashamed. Of course, not all of that was his fault. Lev Strauss stayed busy with his studies and teaching as well.

  One of the things bothering Lourds was that he hadn’t been able to connect with Strauss over the phone. He’d tried several times during layovers at the various airports during the two days it had taken him to get to Jerusalem from Nepal, but the phone was never answered. He’d left several messages.

  As always, pedestrians filled the cobblestone streets. The black and white clothing of the devout Jews mixed with the traditional Islamic garb, and all of that was interspersed by the obvious tourists, who walked around gawking at things. They were prime prey for the street vendors hawking their goods.

  A few people stared at Lourds, then quickly looked away. One child even pointed at him and tugged on his mother’s arm. As Lourds had feared, the black eye had turned out splendidly.

  He entered Lev’s building, then w
ent up the stairs and stopped at his door on the third floor. Lourds knocked loudly. ‘Lev?’

  He heard no sounds from inside.

  Lourds knocked again. ‘Lev? It’s Thomas.’ Glancing around, he realized something was wrong. By this time, neighbors would have been peering from their doors. With the Jewish, Islamic, Christian, and Armenian people all living so close together in Jerusalem, everyone stayed on their guard.

  Someone should have looked out at him by now.

  Lourds shifted his backpack and took a fresh grip on his suitcase. He didn’t know if Lev was putting him up or if he was going to stay at a hotel. Or if they were going to bolt in pursuit of whatever Lev was working on.

  Two people stepped onto the landing from the stairs. The man wore a suit, and the woman had on slacks and a jacket over a tunic top. When they showed him their police identification, Lourds wasn’t surprised.

  ‘Professor Lourds? Professor Thomas Lourds?’

  It wouldn’t have done Lourds any good to deny his identity to the woman. Her partner was already comparing Lourds’s face to a picture on his clipboard.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I’m Detective Sharon Cohen. This is my partner, Detective Gabi Segalovitch. We’d like you to come with us.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We have some news of your friend Lev Strauss. Not very good news, I’m afraid.’

  The detectives offered to drive Lourds to the US Embassy if he thought he would feel better there while being questioned. Stunned and greatly saddened, Lourds told them he would be fine talking to them at their headquarters. They split the difference and stopped at a sandwich shop not far from Lev’s flat.

  Lourds didn’t have much of an appetite, but he made himself eat while he listened to Detective Cohen relate the shocking events of Lev’s death. He barely tasted his corned beef on toasted rye.

  ‘You people don’t know who killed Lev?’

  Cohen shook her head. ‘Not yet. This is something we’re working on very hard, Professor Lourds, but there are extenuating circumstances.’

  ‘What extenuating circumstances?’

  ‘We haven’t been able, thus far, to identify anyone involved with Lev Strauss or anything that would get him killed. We were hoping to get some information from you.’

  The woman was quiet, reserved and supportive, the perfect person to talk to. Lourds knew that was her role. Segalovitch watched Lourds like a hawk.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any news for you. Lev called me here, and I came.’

  ‘You came without knowing why?’ Sarcasm and suspicion deepened Segalovitch’s voice. ‘And just left a media event in the Himalayas? Quite frankly, if you don’t mind me being so bold, Professor Lourds, that doesn’t sound like something a media hound like you would do.’

  Lourds glared at the man, then felt foolish. The glare would have worked so much better if he hadn’t been wearing a black eye. ‘Lev Strauss saved my life. You don’t forget a thing like that.’

  ‘Is that enough to bring you to Jerusalem? Away from a find like what you had in the Himalayas?’ Segalovitch paused. ‘Or did Lev Strauss tell you what he was working on?’

  Lourds took a breath, then let it out. Honesty, in this case, didn’t hurt. ‘Lev said he was working on something, but he didn’t say what it was. He told me he’d tell me when I got here.’

  ‘But that was big enough to bring you?’

  ‘Lev said it was, and I believed him.’

  Leaning back in his chair, Segalovitch seemed more relaxed and more contemptuous. ‘I told you this would be a waste of time, Sharon.’

  The female detective ignored her partner, concentrating on Lourds instead. ‘We do know that someone was providing Strauss with around-the-clock protection.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because we found the bodies of two of the men who were with him that night. The third was wounded, ended up at the hospital, and disappeared.’

  ‘Lev didn’t have the money to hire a protective service.’

  ‘We know. We’ve seen his finances. Who do you think these people were?’

  ‘Begging your pardon for pointing out the obvious, but guessing games like that aren’t my department. Show me a document, I can tell you whether it’s real or a forgery. I can translate it for you, given enough time. But something like this, Detective, that’s just not something I do.’

  Cohen looked at him for a moment, then nodded. ‘There is one other thing you could do for us, if you feel up to it.’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘We’d like you to take a look around inside Mr. Strauss’s flat.’

  Since he didn’t intend to leave the city without doing that anyway, Lourds readily agreed.

  ‘We’ve shot video of this whole flat, but we don’t know what we’re looking for.’ Detective Cohen gestured at the rooms. ‘We do know that some things were taken.’

  ‘Stolen?’ Lourds inspected the room quietly, juxtaposing how it looked with how he remembered from his visits. A historian always struggled to find a place to keep all his papers, documents, and books. Lev Strauss had fought the same losing battles.

  Shelves lined the walls, filled with books that had bookmarks and flags through them. Magazines and bound papers filled neatly stacked boxes. A few museum-quality pieces, small artifacts from the Muslim, Christian, and Judaic worlds, occupied places of honor among the books.

  Lev’s study was even more jam-packed. Open books lay on top of open books, and the scholar inside Lourds cringed at the sight because it meant the bindings would eventually give way. He didn’t know how many priceless books he’d seen that had been abused like that.

  At the same time, Lourds knew that if anyone invaded his home study or his office at Harvard, they would find books treated in exactly the same manner.

  ‘His computer is missing.’ Lourds stared at the void in the middle of the messy desk.

  ‘Who said you weren’t a detective?’ Segalovitch leaned against the doorframe and smirked.

  Lourds ignored the man and looked at Cohen.

  ‘His computer was missing when we got here.’

  ‘Lev was in the habit of leaving files stuck out in cyberspace. Have you checked any of his on-line accounts?’ Lourds asked the question trying to appear helpful, but he knew Lev would never have trusted anything worthwhile to a computer site.

  ‘We’ve found some of them. We’re searching for others. So far, everything we’ve turned up hasn’t been helpful.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’ Lourds put his hands on his hips like he was doing his best to figure something out, but inside he wanted to escape the detectives’ scrutiny and get to the Wohl Archaeological Museum. If Lev had left him a message in the event something had happened to him, it would be there.

  He hoped.

  ‘What was here?’ Cohen pointed at the bare wall near the desk.

  Lourds walked over to the wall and ran his fingers along the dusty shelves. Patterns in the dust showed where some objects had recently stood. ‘Your people didn’t take these?’

  ‘No. Those shelves were empty when we got here. Gone. Just like the computer.’

  Lourds’s heart hurt at the thought of all those things missing. ‘These were Lev’s special collections. He worked at a lot of digs, put in thousands of hours on different projects. He was an archaeologist and linguist who made a difference.’ He looked at Cohen and spoke from the heart. ‘He was a good man, Detective. He deserved better than this. Catch whoever killed him.’

  Cohen nodded. ‘We will.’

  Once they were through with Lev’s flat, Lourds accepted Cohen’s offer to drive him to his hotel. He checked into the David Citadel Hotel, said good-bye to the detectives after exchanging cell phone numbers with them, and went up to his room.

  There, he hooked up his computer and checked his mail. There were a few video clips from Gloria Chen and David Hu, regaling him with new thoughts on various pieces from the temple, and asking whether he’d managed to
crack the language yet.

  There was a lot of other e-mail as well, from his literary agent, his publisher, fans, the university staff – including the dean, and friends. He left them all for later.

  After a leisurely shower, he changed clothing, then got back on the computer and found the nearest electronics store that carried a blacklight flashlight. He’d need it in the morning.

  Stretching out on the bed, he lay down and took a nap. When his alarm woke him, it was 8 a.m.

  Then he went out the hotel’s back way and took off on foot. One of the many good things about Jerusalem was that it wasn’t far to anywhere.

  Normal operation hours for the Wohl Archaeological Museum were from Sunday to Thursday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. But on holidays and Fridays they were open from 9 to 1.

  Lourds went down the stone steps leading to the underground complex and was completely blown away by the excavation work again. Many visitors to Jerusalem didn’t know that the city existed on two levels. The modern-day city that everyone saw was referred to as the ‘Upper City.’

  In the days of Herod the Great (37–04 BC), the families of important temple priests had lived in mansions throughout the area. Excavations by the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Exploration Society, and the Israel Department of Antiquities (now known as the Israel Antiquities Authority) started in 1968, shortly after the Six-Day War.

  From 1969 to 1982, those excavations were directed by Dr. Nahman Avigad. The archaeologist had also published one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, helped with the Masada excavation, and found the Broad Wall that protected the city during King Hezekiah’s reign in the late eighth century BC. Lourds loved the man’s work, but what fascinated him most was Avigad’s study of Hebrew seals. One of the seals, according to Avigad, had belonged to Queen Jezebel. Despite peer challenges, Avigad had stuck to his guns in his claims.

  The Burnt House had always captivated Lourds’s attention as one of the most intriguing artifacts that had been discovered. It had been found under ashes, informing excavators that the building had burned down, but the ground floor was miraculously saved.

  Lourds stood in the doorway for a moment and imagined what it must have been like before the restoration efforts. Avigad and his people still had so many incredible finds ahead of them: the stone kitchenware that was used instead of pottery to keep the cleanliness by edict of the Halacha, the Roman-period oil lamps and inkwells, the perfume workshop tools that included measuring cups and bowls, an iron spear that might have belonged to a Jewish fighter, and the ghastly remains of a young woman’s arm from fingertips to elbow.