by Jill Gregory
“Enter ELS,” Yosef said.
David frowned. ELS? “And that is? . . . ”
“Equidistant letter sequences—or skips.” The rabbi leaned back in his chair. “It’s how the computer detects secret words and phrases concealed in the Torah and other texts. They pop out of the manuscript because the letters forming the hidden words fall at equidistant intervals from one another.”
David’s brows furrowed. “Run that by me a little slower.”
“Let’s say you pick a starting point anywhere in the Torah.” Rabbi Cardoza was a patient teacher, David granted him that.
“From that letter you program the computer to skip ahead or backwards ‘x’ number of letters—for argument’s sake, let’s say ten. So the computer skips to the tenth letter, the twentieth, thirtieth, and so on, producing a printout comprised of every tenth letter.”
To David’s relief, he was beginning to see the pattern. “Once you have the printout, you comb through the results looking for words or phrases amidst the gibberish?”
“Right.” Yosef’s deep-set eyes reflected a glint of approval. “With the aid of a computer, you can run an ELS skip every possible way—forward, backward, diagonally, horizontally, and vertically. You can change both the length of the skip and the direction of the search from any starting point you choose. I’m sure you can see that such a search is nearly impossible using pen and paper, even if you work at it for years.”
“But a computer can do it in a flash,” David said, nodding. “So when you searched the papyri fragments from Adam’s Book of Names, what skip did you use to find the Lamed Vovniks?”
A gleam showed in the rabbi’s eyes. Yosef smiled, but it was Yael who answered him, her voice rich and throaty in the silence of the library.
“Thirty-six. The ELS skip that revealed the names of the Lamed Vovniks was thirty-six letters.”
For a moment David didn’t speak. He allowed the sheer simplicity of what he’d just learned to settle over him. Suddenly he felt very small as the concept of infinite knowledge—the vastness of God’s brilliance and design in all things, throughout all of time—struck him like a firebolt. Although Adam named all of God’s creatures and recorded them in a book written by his own hand, God yet concealed a secret within its text. The names of all the truly righteous souls.
David’s head was aching from trying to puzzle it out.
“God knows everything,” the rabbi said softly. “So He always knew—even from the beginning, even while Adam was writing his book—the identities of the Lamed Vovniks in every generation.”
David pushed himself from his chair and began to pace around the room, the others falling silent watching him.
“We have free will—like Adam did,” Cardoza continued. “God didn’t force his hand as he wrote, and yet it’s all there in Adam’s book.”
“The names of every Lamed Vovnik from the beginning of time . . .” David exhaled. “Concealed within Adam’s list of every living creature.” He’d been facing the glass doors, staring off in the direction of the men working at the tables, but abruptly spun around.
“If God knew the names of the Lamed Vovniks, He also knew the names of the Gnoseos and the other enemies of God.”
“Amelek.” Yael’s eyes widened. “In every generation, they rise up against the Jewish people, and against God.”
“Amelek?” David shook his head. He’d never heard the term.
“The tribe that followed the Israelites as they wandered through the desert afer escaping from Egypt,” Rabbi Cardoza explained. “They attacked the Israelites from the rear, killing thousands. The book of Exodus recounts the battle, relating how when Moses lifted his arms to God the Israelites beat back Amelek, but when he tired and his arms fell, Amelek gained. Then Aaron and Xur rushed to Moses’ aid. One on either side of him, they held his arms up, and the Israelites defeated Amelek.”
Yosef let out a weary sigh. “Although Israel ultimately decimated Amelek, our rabbis insist we always remember them. You see, David, Amelek rises again in every generation to destroy the Jews. It has done so, many times. Haman, Herod, Hitler, and even now—”
In every generation. The words had stopped David cold.
“What’s the gematria of Amelek?” he blurted out.
“Two hundred forty,” Rabbi Cardoza answered. “Why?”
David rushed to the doorway and scanned the library. “Where’s Binyomin? I need my journal back.”
The rabbi stared at him in surprise, then without a word, lumbered past him in search of the Kabbalist. Yael turned to David. “Why do you need it back? What are you thinking?”
“Have you searched the parchments of Adam’s Book with a 240 skip for the names of the Gnoseos?”
“Not that I know of—” Yael broke off. “Let’s try it. You could be right.”
When Rabbi Cardoza and Binyomin returned with his journal, David quickly explained his theory.
“I think we should search both the parchments and my journal with an ELS skip of 240. Maybe we can uncover the identities of the Gnoseos and attack them from the rear before they can carry out their plan.”
Rabbi Cardoza’s eyes glittered with hope.
“Binyomin, quickly. Distribute copies of David’s journal to the entire search team. Have them run a 240 ELS skip on both the journal and the parchment fragments concurrently.”
He sank back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “While we’re waiting, I’d like you both to tell me everything you learned from Rabbi ben Moshe, alav ha’shalom—of blessed memory.”
David dug out the rabbi’s leather satchel from deep within his duffel and placed it on the table between them.
“My journal is only part of this mystery, Rabbi. Yael and I have been trying to figure out the connection between ben Moshe, this tarot card,” he placed the tower card on the table, “and a Jewish printer in Krakow who was recently murdered for the printing plates.”
David reached into the duffel again. “And this card we took from a Dark Angel who tried to kill us in New York,” he said grimly. “It’s identical to the rabbi’s except they have different numbers written on the back.”
David spread all of the items on the table and tried not to think about where Stacy was right now—and what Crispin Mueller might do to her.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND
It was no problem for Geoffrey Bales or either of the two other Dark Angels to obtain security clearance. Their credentials were impeccable. Lord Hallister had vouched for them and secured the proper documents, and why wouldn’t he? Aiding a Dark Angel in eliminating one of the final Hidden Ones was an honor that would serve Lord Hallister well once the Gnoseos ascended from the Ark. He would be one of the heroes—along with us—Bales thought as he donned the dark green porter’s uniform in the privacy of his rented flat.
The pants hung a bit long, but they’d have to do. There was no time for tailoring. Tonight, Lionell would hide the last of the weapons inside the wall of the men’s loo at the pier. No one would suspect that an arsenal had been stored in a tidy hole behind the large metal paper towel dispenser. No one would suspect that three of the porters on duty as the Queen Mary 2 sailed into safe harbor would be vying for the privilege of taking out a singular passenger as he disembarked.
Bales had a good feeling about this final assignment. He sauntered to the mirror where he’d taped Cherle’s glossy color photograph to the dusty glass. He took his time, memorizing every crease and wrinkle on the man’s smiling face.
He smirked back, knowing, somehow, that he’d be the one to put a bullet in Cherle’s throat long before the old man ever got his land legs back.
THE ARK
Crispin sniffed, waiting across from the cot where Stacy had begun to stir. The small underground chamber smelled stale and vaguely medicinal. He didn’t like the odor, it reminded him too much of his years entombed in blackness—of the hospital where he’d spent the lost years of his youth. In a way
it was fitting that this child who was so dear to David Shepherd was the one now lying semi-conscious on that cot.
What goes around comes around. And now it was coming back to Shepherd.
Ironic, Crispin thought, that David Shepherd’s precious “daughter” looked to be about the same age as that Abby creature was back then. Her coloring was different, but both had that budding ripeness of a girl teetering on womanhood. The same wavy shoulder-length hair, full innocent mouth, and a gawky sort of promise.
An idea sprang into his mind and his pulse quickened. Perhaps the ultimate punishment I could mete out to David Shepherd wouldn’t be her death, but the knowledge that I’m bringing her with me to the new world—another vessel to be used, along with the other chosen females. . . .
Crispin started. What was he thinking? She wasn’t Abby. She was one of the Hidden Ones. She had to die, in order that the Gnoseos would live—and rise up to find the ultimate Source.
So be it. Shepherd the Noble would be tortured enough by his helplessness to save her—and the world.
Faint cries leaked through the walls. The women again. The unwilling vessels. It amused him that they thought someone might pay them any heed. They’d be taken from their pen soon enough. And he, as the Serpent, would get first choice as to which vessel would be his conduit for repopulating the world. He laughed aloud, a guttural sound rolling from deep within his chest.
The girl’s eyes flew open.
Stacy winced at the pain in her head. It felt like her brain was receiving jolts of electricity, delivered out of sync with the rhythm of her heart. Everything looked gray for a moment, until she blinked several times and finally focused on a low rough ceiling overhead.
Move. Try. Sit up.
She managed to raise her head from the pillow, but fell back onto the cot as waves of nausea assaulted her.
Laughter. Laughter reached her ears. The same laughter she’d heard in her dream. Painfully, fighting the spinning room, she turned her head toward the source of the sound.
The man staring at her reminded her of a lion she’d seen at the Wild Animal Park in San Diego. Long tawny hair tumbled over his eyes and his smile was ferocious. She scrunched closer to the wall, wanting to get as far away from him as possible, only to hear him laugh again.
He rose from the chair and advanced toward her.
“What’s so special about you? I’ve read that the Hidden Ones are not afflicted with the normal human shell around their souls. Nothing separates them from the Divine.”
Stacy jammed her back into the wall, recoiling from the eyes boring into hers. “What. . . are you . . . talking about?”
He straightened, his mouth tight. “That’s right. You don’t know, do you? None of you do. Why am I wasting my time?”
He turned away from her. Went to the door. Soon it wouldn’t matter.
“Your stepfather is coming for you, Stacy,” he said from the door. “Yes, good news, isn’t it? But for me, not you. Because I’m going to kill him once I take back what he stole from me.”
Crispin raised his hands palms out, reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I won’t kill him right away. First I’m going to let him watch while I kill you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
David awoke to the sound of his cell phone ringing, bolting upright in the armchair. When had he dozed off? As his eyes focused, he realized he’d been wakened by the whir of a printer spitting out the latest run of an ELS skip on his journal. His cell phone sat silent as a rock, charging on the table in front of him.
Why hadn’t Crispin called back?
This waiting was impossible. Maddening. David felt superfluous. He had nothing more to give, no matter what any of them believed was still locked inside him. No more names had come to him, he was spent. Cardoza and the others had toiled through the night trying to decode his journal. But he knew nothing of computer printouts and nothing of meditation or sacred prayers. There was nothing more for him to do here. And Stacy needed him.
London was the last place he’d seen Crispin Mueller. It was the only place he could think of to start.
The Iranians had finally backed off, the security alert lifted, and the airport reopened some time around 4 A.M. His flight left at two this afternoon.
Stretching his tense muscles, David wove his way to the door and peered out at those working painstakingly in the next room. He saw Yael peering over her father’s shoulder, her hair caught loosely in a clip atop her head. The long night’s toll was etched in the drawn contours of her face, yet she still exuded the same tough grace he’d picked up on the moment she strode into Rabbi ben Moshe’s office.
She lifted her head at that moment, as if sensing his glance, and offered him a wan smile.
“You look like you could use some fresh air,” she told David.
“Take David to see what may be his only sunrise in Safed,” Yosef said grimly. “It is truly spectacular and might be the last for all of us.”
David walked silently beside her as they descended the stairs. A small buffet of fruit, cheese, olives, and juices had been set up in the staff lounge. While David poured coffee in insulated cups, Yael scooped up an orange and a paring knife. Glancing out at the waning cloak of night, they took their meager picnic outside, Yosef’s words clamoring somberly in their ears.
“Can you carry both cups while we walk?” Yael asked. “There’s some place I’d like to take you.”
They walked the cobbled streets in silence as the grayness slowly gave way to pale opal light and the city of Safed quivered with the breath of a new day.
“Who knows how much time is left,” she murmured as they turned a corner and headed down a narrow lane. “Days, hours. And yet. . .”
“I know. We can’t just give up, can we?”
“My husband didn’t.” She fed David a section of peeled orange. “Yoni had a dream before he was sent into Lebanon. He dreamed of peace. A peace that would come long after he died.”
She stopped at the entrance to a cemetery lined with graves, some flush with the grass, others raised and arranged in neat rows between paths studded with fig trees. David saw that each of the raised plots was framed by an attractive border of brick and cement and planted with abundant greenery.
“He’s buried here in the military cemetery. He was only twenty-eight when he died.” She turned to David, her eyes brimming with exhaustion and loss.
“I’m sorry,” David said quietly.
Yael slipped the paring knife into the pocket of her khakis and stooped to gather up several pebbles, dropping them in her empty coffee cup.
Without thinking, David reached for her hand. Her fingers felt warm and strong, as full of life as she was. “I’m sorry about your husband—and about losing my temper yesterday. You didn’t deserve that.”
“Lo davar—forget it. I’m a Sabra, remember? We native Israelis are like the cactus we’re named after—tough and prickly on the outside, mushy soft within. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Mushy soft. Is that so?” David asked, with a wry smile, surprised that she could forgive so easily. Another time, another place he might have kissed her. Instead he released her hand, and followed as she made her way down the narrow paths of the graveyard.
They walked on for a little ways until Yael stopped at the headstone inscribed Yonaton HarPaz. “His soul is still here, you know,” she said, her gaze fixed on the grassy outline of the grave. “The Kabbalists believe that the nefesh, the lowest of the three dimensions that make up the soul, remains to hover over the grave when someone is buried. Rabbi Cardoza told me the nefesh stays behind to protect the living in times of difficulty, while the two higher dimensions of the soul—the ruach and the neshamah—move on to higher realms.”
“This definitely qualifies as a time of difficulty,” David acknowledged. “How are they able to help?”
“The rabbi has told me that when the living come to the cemetery and ask the departed for their help, the nefesh flits up to the realm of the ruach and inform
s the ruach of the trouble below. The ruach in turn hurries up to the realm of the neshamah—closest to God—and the neshamah intervenes, asking God to have mercy on the world.”
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To ask Yoni’s nefesh to remind God we’re in trouble. To ask for help.” David stared down at the graceful ferns upon Yoni’s grave, trying to take in the concept of both a hierarchy and a unity in one’s soul. He’d always been taught that every person had a direct line to God, that no intermediaries were necessary. One could attend synagogue services and recite the ancient prayers, or one could go anywhere and compose personal prayers from the heart. All would be acceptable to God.
That was the teaching of traditional Judaism. These mystical beliefs of the Kabbalists were still foreign to him. Yet, remembering his own near-death experience and everything he’d learned in these pressure-packed few days, the idea that Yael could ask her husband’s soul to intercede in the heavenly realm made as much sense as did the spirits of the Lamed Vovniks begging him to intercede on their behalf in the physical realm.
He watched her stoop to place the pebbles on Yoni’s grave, adding them to others already there. David knew the reason, he’d done it himself when he’d visited his parents’ graves. Yael was leaving behind a token of her visit.
He touched her shoulder and moved off, deciding to give her some privacy. He meandered off until he found himself at a concrete staircase leading downhill. He followed it down and came upon another cemetery nestled below. It was older, less orderly, but equally peaceful, with visitors praying at various tombs painted sky blue and piled with rocks.
It was only as he began reading some of the names carved on the tombstones that he realized this was the ancient burial place of famous Kabbalists.
A powerful sense of history enveloped him as he wandered through the sunlit cemetery and out again. He wandered the nearby lanes, walking uphill again. Before he realized it, he found himself in an alleyway where a blue sign with white letters pointed toward the Abuhav Synagogue.