The Temple Mount Code

by Charles Brokaw

  ‘I’d think you’d have a friend to call on.’

  ‘I have called on a friend. She’s working on a different angle at the moment.’

  ‘I meant that you could call someone to watch over you.’

  ‘If I did that, the police officers who are already watching me would have even more reason to keep tabs on my actions. I can’t have that.’

  ‘How much trouble can you be in?’

  ‘From whom? The university? They can’t touch me because they can’t prove this book was theirs. The police? They’re looking for a killer. I was in the Himalayas when Lev was murdered.’ The word murder fit much better to describe what had happened to Lev. ‘The only people I have to worry about right now are the ones looking for this book.’

  ‘Maybe they gave up after your friend was killed.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because a Viennese Austrian People’s Party member named Klaus Von Volker had men kidnap me in Vienna. They were going to kill me. I escaped and came here.’

  Miriam just stared at him.

  ‘Look.’ Lourds felt guilty. ‘I need someone to act as an extra set of eyes and ears right now. But if you feel this is too dangerous, I’ll totally understand.’

  She still didn’t speak.

  For a moment, Lourds thought she might get up and walk out on him. But he’d been telling her the truth about needing someone, and his reasons for not calling in someone else. He didn’t know anyone trained well enough to act as a bodyguard in the places he was certain he would have to go.

  ‘Miriam, I know this is a lot to take in, but I’m going to offer you something that could be valuable. I don’t know where your dreams lie with regards to your education and career, but if you work with me, nothing dangerous, just act as a lookout, I’ll give you partial credit for whatever we discover. I promise, if this turns out as big as Lev thought it was, it’s something that could make your career.’

  She blinked at him.

  ‘So?’ Lourds took a deep breath. ‘What do you say?’

  For the next three hours, Miriam watched Lourds struggle with the mysterious book she’d helped him get from the university. Thankfully, he’d had a couple of paperbacks in his backpack that she could read while she performed lookout duty. Both of the books turned out to be spy novels, though, about big, violent men who killed indiscriminately. That wasn’t how spies killed. At least, it wasn’t how she killed.

  Part of her still resented Lourds for his part in the shootings. Then she relented a little when she realized he’d gotten caught up in the scramble for whatever it was they were looking for just as much as she had. Lourds hadn’t asked his friend to call him up and drop him into the middle of this.

  And God knew Lev Strauss hadn’t intentionally gotten himself killed either.

  Working through that actually seemed to help her with her own guilt regarding the two dead men. She had gotten caught up in the web of lies and deceit while trying to help Lourds, just as he had gotten caught up. Instead of running away or dumping the problem in someone else’s lap, he’d stuck with it.

  Of course, part of that reason was that incredible ego of his. No one else, in his mind, could do quite the job he could of sorting things out.

  In the end, in spite of the ego, Miriam found herself liking and respecting Lourds more than she’d thought she would when Katsas Shavit had asked her to take the assignment. It was, to say the least, startling and mystifying. Instead of remembering how Lourds had gotten knocked out with one punch, she seemed focused on the fact that he’d gotten up in the first place – knowing that he wasn’t at his best and probably would have been outmatched even if he were – and tried to help her.

  That was both innocent and foolish.

  She suddenly realized Lourds was looking at her. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said, is that book not holding your interest?’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘You haven’t turned a page in twenty minutes that I know of.’

  ‘I was watching for men with rocket launchers.’

  Lourds grinned, and the genuine humor was infectious. The overall effect was blunted by the fact that it was true. Miriam had been watching for suspicious people.

  ‘I was also thinking that maybe we are sitting in the open, making it too easy to be attacked. If it should come to that.’

  ‘I like to think of it as hiding in plain sight.’ Lourds shrugged and took another bite of the sweet cheese blintz he’d ordered for dessert.

  As she’d watched him eat, Miriam hadn’t been able to understand how he could put away as much food as he did and be as trim as he was.

  ‘People are killed in plain sight, too.’

  ‘We’re still alive.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think the waitress wishes we were dead.’ Miriam took another sip of her Turkish coffee. Lourds had stuck with muscat dessert wine, but he drank it slowly.

  ‘I tip big.’

  ‘How are you coming with the book?’

  ‘I don’t think the language is natural.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Lourds put the book in his backpack, stretched, and yawned. ‘Pardon me. The last few days – weeks, actually – have been filled to the brim.’ He assembled his thoughts. ‘I can translate bits and pieces of the narrative here and there, just enough to give me a glimpse of what’s actually being written about, but I think there’s a subtext as well.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The book contains a narrative by a man who claims to have known Mohammad ibn Abdullah.’

  ‘The Prophet.’ That surprised Miriam. Katsas Shavit had told her that the Iranians might be involved in the mission, but she hadn’t expected this.

  ‘Yes.’ Lourds picked up his journal. It was covered with Post-its he’d removed from the book. ‘According to Lev’s notes, he’d had the book carbon-dated. It’s fourteen hundred years old.’

  Miriam looked at the backpack. ‘How much is it worth?’

  ‘It’s not a scientific study by any recognized scholar, doesn’t cover anything concrete about scientific thinking or verifiable history, and focuses on a tale that can’t be verified.’ Lourds stopped himself. ‘At least, the story can’t be verified at this moment. I suspect some of it will become quite real.’ He frowned. ‘And that might be unfortunate for many of us.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Instead of answering, Lourds looked back over the notes stuck to his journal. He tapped one of them. ‘Lev was talking to an Iranian professor named Hashem Nabi Namati. He’s a professor at the Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi. Are you familiar with it?’

  Miriam thought for a moment, then placed the university. ‘They handle old and rare manuscripts.’

  ‘Exactly. The university was first established prior to 1457 and holds over a million books focusing on Islamic research. They’ve got over seventy thousand documents in the antiquities section, nearly twenty thousand of those handwritten documents. Much of the collection is over a thousand years old.’

  ‘What does that have to do with the book Professor Strauss had?’

  ‘Before his death, Lev was doing a lot of communication with Professor Namati. Letters, e-mail. I saw the name several times on documents at Lev’s office and on his computer.’

  ‘Maybe they’re just friends.’

  ‘Possibly. Except for this.’ Lourds pulled out a Post-it and passed it over to Miriam.

  Namati code cipher?

  Miriam pushed the piece of paper back across the table. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You know what a code cipher is, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s a master key to a code.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Lourds grinned. ‘If I’m right, and I think that I am, that book Lev was working so hard to translate is written in code as well. Merely cracking the language to provide a translation isn’t going to be enough to
solve all the mysteries associated with the book. Something else is hidden in its pages, and I’m sure Lev suspected that.’

  ‘Does Professor Namati know he has the code cipher?’

  ‘I doubt it. But in order to ascertain that, we’ll have to talk to him.’

  ‘“We”?’

  Lourds nodded. ‘If you’re up to it.’

  ‘We’re going to Iran?’ The thought made Miriam’s guts churn. Her father had escaped that country once, then died there trying to close a case for the Mossad.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just like that?’ Miriam didn’t have to fake incredulity. She was feeling it.

  ‘Well, I’ll have to talk to the US State Department first, but it shouldn’t be a problem. I can trade on the fact that I’m a scholar. I’ve spoken in Iran before, though it’s certainly been a while. But it shouldn’t be a problem. If you’re up to a little adventure, I think I can fold you under the umbrella as my graduate assistant. I’ll pay your expenses and will add a stipend at the end of this.’

  Miriam thought about that, and her throat turned dry. With Iran in its current situation under the Ayatollah, with a populace striking back to get their voices heard in elections, she felt like she’d be surrounded by enemies. She swallowed hard. ‘Okay.’

  She could only imagine what Katsas Shavit would say when she learned of the plan.

  37

  Security Checkpoint

  Ben Gurion International Airport

  Outside Lod, the State of Israel

  August 11, 2011

  Tense and anxious, Miriam sat in the taxi’s backseat and watched the line of cars approaching the Israeli airport checkpoint.

  ‘Shouldn’t be much longer.’ The heavy-set driver cranked down his window, filling the car interior with the smell of exhaust along with his sharp cologne, and picked up his papers. ‘Some days you get through quickly. Other days, like today, not so quickly. That’s why it’s always better to arrive early. Have your passports ready.’

  Miriam dug hers out from her purse. Next to her, Lourds was lost in Lev Strauss’s mysterious book. He had it open on one knee and was making notes in his journal.

  They’d had breakfast together that morning, but only after she’d beaten on his door to wake him. Lourds hadn’t been a scintillating conversationalist. It had taken him most of yesterday to get tickets for her and himself, and he’d gotten frustrated. Miriam had finally taken it upon herself to spend time on the phone talking to travel agents, and even had to have Katsas Shavit intercede – quietly – to make the trip happen. Travel at the time was exceptionally high.

  Part of his frustration, she felt, was related to his inability to make sense of the journal. He seemed to be translating it quickly, and she was impressed by that because she’d worked at translating some of the pages herself and found it almost beyond her grasp. She’d even copied some of the pictures with the specially encrypted phone the Mossad had provided for her and sent it off to the intelligence division. The encryption staff there had only marginally improved on what she’d been able to do.

  Katsas Shavit had admitted that the book was beyond what the intelligence division could do – and many of them were linguistics professors. She’d also learned that Professor Thomas Lourds was a frequent translation go-to person for the Mossad, CIA, and other international intelligence agencies.

  That impressed Miriam even more because Lourds had never mentioned it. She didn’t know if he was merely being secretive or if he really didn’t think that much of the work he’d done for those agencies. In some ways, he was different than she’d thought he would be. Arrogant and egotistical, definitely, but he was also putting his life on the line to find out who had killed his friend.

  She nudged his knee, then had to do it again, almost hard enough to dislodge the book. ‘Hey, Professor.’

  He looked up at her and, for an instant, looked like a small child who had just woken up in a strange place. He glanced around, then took a deep breath and stretched. ‘What?’

  ‘Passport.’ Miriam brandished hers.

  Turning to his backpack between them, Lourds withdrew his passport and handed it to her. She was amazed at how thick it was. He returned his attention to the book and his work.

  ‘Have you been to Istanbul?’

  She nodded, then realized he wasn’t watching her. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Beautiful city.’

  ‘One of my favorites.’

  ‘When did you go there?’

  ‘My father took me when I was a little girl.’

  Lourds looked up at her then and smiled. ‘Your father traveled a lot?’

  ‘Some. He repped some art-acquisition galleries.’

  Before Lourds could respond, a bullet cored through the back window behind them and spread their driver’s brains over the windshield in a crimson splash.

  Behesht-Zahra (The Paradise of Zahara)

  Tehran

  The Islamic Republic of Iran

  August 11, 2011

  Colonel Davari cursed and reached for the microphone headset’s transmit controls. ‘Watch what you’re doing, you imbecile! You almost hit Lourds. Do not kill him! We need him alive!’

  The images on the computer monitors jerked and heaved now that the attackers were in motion. The wireless cameras attached to their headsets connected to a nearby van loaded with equipment that relayed the signal to the Ayatollah’s palace.

  The man himself stood nearby, watching the scene much more calmly than Davari.

  Putting the whole picture together in his head from the six camera views was difficult. Even though he’d planned the attack with the Hezbollah operatives he’d briefed on the task, the action was proving distracting. Attacking at the checkpoint was risky, but it was the only place Davari knew for certain they’d get a chance to take Lourds.

  With the driver dead at the wheel, the taxi lurched forward and slammed into the car ahead of it. Only two vehicles were in front of the taxi. They were enough to hold up progress, but they allowed the taxi to get blocked in by other cars when they tried to scatter amid the gunfire.

  ‘I’ve got the van camera online, Supreme Leader,’ said one of the men at the computers in front of the Ayatollah. Davari looked up at the screen before him as it filled with images.

  The van had a mounted camera that telescoped up from the top to give an overview of the attack site. It hadn’t been deployed until the attack and kidnap attempt had been initiated.

  Almost immediately, the scene at the airport’s security checkpoint became much clearer. The Israeli security people responded to the attack, but it was too late to hope to control anything. Drivers behind the taxi steered wildly in an effort to get out of harm’s way and only ended up miring themselves in the resulting confusion. Vehicles slammed into each other, effectively choking off escape routes.

  One of the Hezbollah attackers stopped and brought up a rocket launcher. No sooner did the long weapon rest on his shoulder than he fired. The warhead slammed into one of the outside cars broadside, flipping the vehicle into the air. It crashed down roof-first onto the car beside it with a spray of glass and shriek of overstressed metal. Flames roared from it, and the passengers scrambled out and away to escape the pyre.

  By then the snipers were in place. Sharp cracks carried over the streaming audio. The synchronization between the audio and video wasn’t complete, and there was at least a two-second lag between them, giving the events a surreal feel that Davari found irritating. The uniformed security guards dropped and spun, helpless before the Hezbollah snipers.

  Davari smiled in anticipation. Now that they were certain Lourds had the book, they could take him and force him to help find Mohammad’s Koran and the Scroll.

  Nothing could prevent that.

  Security Checkpoint

  Ben Gurion International Airport

  Outside Lod, the State of Israel

  August 11, 2011

  As soon as he realized the driver had been shot, Lourds dove for Mir
iam. She was already in motion, though, opening her door and throwing herself outside.

  At first he thought she was running for cover, and he was vaguely disappointed. He’d thought she was made of sterner stuff, or maybe he’d only wished she was because of the journey they were undertaking. She hadn’t flinched at all when he’d told her they were going to Iran.

  Instead of running, though, she stayed low as one of the vehicles behind them suddenly exploded and flew into the air. Shrapnel slapped against the taxi like popcorn popping, and tongues of fire flashed across the back glass, coming in through the hole left by the rifle bullet for just a moment before dying.

  Miriam opened the car door and yanked at the dead driver. Despite her desperate efforts, she couldn’t move the bulky corpse. She glanced back at Lourds. ‘Help me!’

  Galvanized into action, Lourds got out of the taxi on his side, crept up to the passenger door, and threw it open. He hesitated for just a moment at all the blood, then put both hands on the dead man and shoved as Miriam pulled.

  The driver toppled out of the car as at least one round shattered the passenger-door window and rained broken pieces down over Lourds’s back. Thomas stayed low across the front seats. Miriam put her hand in the middle of his face, mashing his sore nose hard and causing him to yelp in protest as she shoved him into the passenger seat.

  Behind the wheel, she shoved the transmission into reverse and backed swiftly toward the burning car atop the other vehicle.

  Lourds pointed. ‘The car.’

  ‘I see it.’ Miriam stomped on the brake, and rubber shrieked as the tires locked up on the pavement. The taxi’s rear butted up against the bottom car, and the burning wreckage above slowly started to topple – and was heading straight for their battered taxi.

  ‘The car!’

  ‘I see it!’ Miriam changed gears and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The taxi’s engine screamed like a tortured animal, but the tires caught and propelled them forward. ‘Hang on.’

  Lourds braced himself with his hands and feet as Miriam crashed into the rear of the car ahead of them. Metal crumpled, and the front windshield shattered, spraying bloody glass fragments into his lap.