by Tom Bane
Suzy looked up, surprised. She had heard a lot about Ben Sanders at Oxford. He was something of a legend among younger archaeology students. Piper often used to talk about him, and was particularly concerned when the news came through that he had vanished in the Mexican jungle under suspicious circumstances.
“According to Ben, the Mayan and Incan temples also have the same phenomenon at certain times of the year,” Ari went on. “But here it is all year round. He said it occurs when the sun reaches its high point above the hole in the ceiling at the top of the upper chamber. The blue color of the aura is caused when the intensity of the sun’s rays is strong enough to project the blue of the spectrum into the chamber below. Also, the long, narrow passage is open just enough to diffract and intensify the blue beam of light.”
“It’s so beautiful,” she sighed, “It looks like the heavens have actually come down to earth.” They lingered for a few moments, marveling at the sight before turning round and setting off for the cave opening. As they emerged into the raw sunlight, a small rock rolled toward Suzy, just catching against her foot. She barely noticed it, or the sudden sound of footsteps. But the unmistakable click of a gun’s safety catch dropping made her freeze in fear. Two silhouetted figures carrying machine guns appeared.
“Shalom!” shouted Ari. One of the soldiers gestured.
“Stop! No further!” cried one soldier who pointed his gun at Suzy. Suzy instinctively dove to one side and picked up a sharp rock, ready to defend herself.
“Hey, it’s OK,” Ari frowned. “They’re just soldiers.” The two Israeli soldiers slid down the rock slope toward them. One of them pointed to a sign written in Hebrew.
“Military training today,” he read aloud. “You go back now.”
“Of course,” Ari bowed and ushered Suzy back down the path.
“You should not have reacted like that,” he said once they were out of earshot. “They could have misunderstood. You might have gotten us into a lot of trouble.”
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry.” Suzy was embarrassed. She looked around. “So, tell me, what else do you think I should be looking out for?”
“There is so much,” he grinned. “What do you know about the Kabbalah?”
“To be honest, not that much.”
“Well, the word is formed of Ka, the independent creative life force formed at birth, which survives death but needs sustenance, and Ba, which you could call the soul or the personality of a person. Both Ka and Ba come from Ancient Egypt, where resurrection was thought to be achieved after a period of three days, the deceased being escorted through the seven halls and ten gates, each guarded by watchers. On the day of the person’s rebirth the Ka and Ba would ascend up the channel through the hidden doorway toward the stars and be reborn. Finally, alah means to ascend.”
Another reference, another link to the idea of resurrection. Suzy shoved her hands absentmindedly into her pockets and felt a sharp edge, the piece of broken pottery she had removed from the site at Amarna.
“I wonder can you take a look at this?” She pulled out the fragment and the label she had found attached to it. Ari took it from her and examined it carefully.
“It is very ancient,” he said eventually. “It looks a bit like the script on the copper scroll. I cannot read it, but let me think. Yes, you need to go and see Professor Simon Gurion at Jerusalem University. Tell him I sent you. He’ll be able to translate this for you, I’m sure.”
“Thanks. You have been so helpful,” she said, and she meant it, convinced that the pottery and its label were a key to much of what she was trying to piece together. “Would you consider contributing to my thesis?”
Ari raised his hands. “Oh, Miss Suzy! I am honored that you ask, but, that would not be appropriate.”
“Why not?” she asked. “You could be a really big help. And obviously I would give you a citation.”
“No!” The vehemence of his response stopped her in her tracks. Seeing her confusion, he inhaled slowly and then tried to explain.
“Please, Miss Suzy, please understand and do not be offended. I don’t want to contribute, or even receive a citation. It would end my career. I have a family to support. The Church, they can pull strings; they can reach anyone. I just can’t get involved.”
Suzy was shocked by the genuine fear she saw in his eyes. “OK, Ari,” she said. “Of course, I understand.” Sensing the awkwardness of the moment, Ari resumed his tone of official guide.
“We must go now, or the soldiers will arrest us.” he said, walking off so quickly she almost had to break into a jog to keep up. He didn’t say much after that, and hurried away from her as soon as was polite. She took a last look at the ancient citadel and walked back to her car. Once safely inside, she tried Professor Piper’s number. He answered as if he had been standing by, willing her to call. She told him of Ari’s odd behavior.
“I’m afraid,” he said, “the thought that Jesus and John the Baptist were Essenes and that Christianity can trace its origins back to Egypt is just too fearful a proposition for the establishment.”
“Dr. Salam also showed me the grave of John the Baptist. He told me the body was exhumed and it was headless. Ari said the body mysteriously disappeared.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You know?”
“I studied it many years ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”
“Scholarly research is always best experienced as a journey of self-discovery.” She could hear the smile in his voice. For the first time it occurred to her that the professor might be playing a game with her.
“Why didn’t you tell me that Ben Sanders had been here before me?”
“Had he? I didn’t know about that. I thought he just went to Egypt and Mexico before he disappeared.”
“Well, is there anything else I should know?” she demanded.
“Suzy, you just have to respect the status quo. We’ve talked about this. You need to understand just how strongly people feel about these matters, people who have a lot of influence. Remember, in the 1950s, when the British researcher, John Allegro, broadcast and published some of these findings on the Dead Sea Scrolls? The New York Times was forced to include letters from Jerusalem attacking his position. I remember them denouncing the facts and accusing Allegro of ‘misreading the texts’ and ‘building a chain of conjectures which the materials do not support.’ What do you think makes highly intelligent scholars attack and suppress facts in this way?”
He answered his own question before Suzy could open her mouth. “You are up against some of the most powerful institutions in the world, the Catholic Church and the Jewish theocracy. If you want to impress them, you’ll need to convince them, and that requires cast iron archaeological proof.”
“I think I’ve got proof.”
“Oh, yes? What?”
“I have a pottery fragment from Amarna. There’s a label on it which I think is in ancient Hebrew.”
“Really? Can you send me a copy of the script?”
“I can do better than that.” She replied, pleased at last to show she could get one step ahead all by herself. “I’m going to see Professor Simon Gurion at Jerusalem University, to ask him to translate it for me, and then I’ll send you the translation.”
“Gurion? Wow, I’m impressed. You can’t get a better expert than him. He’s an authority on the copper scroll as well.”
“I know. It’s fantastic. And I’ve also seen the halo used in the cave tomb of Panhesy in Amarna.” She was aware she was babbling like an overly enthusiastic schoolgirl. “It’s just like the nimbuses that surround the head of Jesus in religious paintings. There’s also the Egyptian Ankh cross, which is just like the Christian cross with the disc of the Sun in the center. What if Jesus was both an Essene and also a direct descendent of Akhenaten? Or, what if—”
“Suzy,” Piper interrupted. “You’re running away with far too many ideas. You have to be rigorous in your methods and you cannot do that
in this state of mind. Calm down, and let’s get you back on track and organized.”
“You’re right” Suzy agreed reluctantly. “OK. First stop, Professor Gurion.”
“Good girl,” Piper laughed.
Suzy set off in the Jeep toward Jerusalem. As she drove, she replayed her conversation with Piper in her head, unsure if everything was as it seemed or if she was somehow being manipulated, a pawn in some game. What if he’d known that Ben Sanders had been here before but chose not to mention it. Was he trying to get her to retrace Sanders’s steps? And, if so, might she be risking coming to a similar end and vanishing off the face of the earth?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
In the blackest depths of space, a CIA-NRO satellite in low earth orbit intercepted Suzy’s call to Piper, compressing and beaming it back to the Arlington HQ of DARPA for decryption and translation in virtual real time.
The conference phone LED flashed red six thousand miles away, and the small video screen displayed Suzy’s conversation in its entirety. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, was capable of tapping any phone in the world as long as it could triangulate its coordinates. DARPA was a formidable $50 billion research machine, which had brought such diverse inventions into the world as the Internet, passive radar and the sea shadow (IX-529) stealth ship. These were only the publicly acknowledged projects. The rumored projects included a liquid laser, the invisibility cloak and the SARCOS military exoskeleton that enables an ordinary man to lift a Humvee with one hand. The Special Operations Group of the CIA had exclusive rights to utilize the technologies of DARPA as it saw fit.
Christie was uncomfortable about being called to a meeting outside Camp Peary, but she was hoping to be given an opportunity to meet the boss in person, a rare breach of protocol. Maybe, she fantasized, she was going to be promoted. She sat drumming her fingers on a long mahogany conference table under the harsh glare of fluorescent lighting in a room with no windows, before running one finger around her shirt collar. It seemed more restrictive than usual. She stared at a lone photograph on the wall showing SOG troops on a joint training exercise in cyber warfare with DARPA. Underneath, in silver italics, was her section’s motto, Oderint Dum Metuant, let them hate so long as they fear. She would have preferred a less ruthless epithet. She was proud to be the leader of such an elite team, but she wanted to be fighting terrorists rather than chasing Oxford grad students.
The polycom conference phone light blinked in the center of the table. She pressed the receiver button and heard the boss’s voice. He never bothered with small talk.
“Sometimes I think Piper’s on our side, but this girl is quite intelligent.”
“I think you’re right, sir. I don’t like this girl,” Christie replied. “She seems too inquisitive.”
“She’s miles out,” the boss said, dismissively. “She’ll never even get near to what we’re doing.”
“What about Brooking?”
“Brooking has the science background; he was an astrophysicist as well. As long as we keep her away from Tom Brooking, she’ll just spiral around in all this sacred feminine and Jesus mumbo-jumbo, never putting two and two together. Follow them day and night and scare them off, but don’t liquidate them. Not yet.”
“But it’s turned into a chase,” Christie protested. “The target is now aware.”
“Yes, I’m aware of what ‘chase’ means, General,” The boss sneered. “But at least they are unguarded.”
“What about Dr. Ari Salam?”
“Same story. He’s harmless but keep him monitored. We don’t want to create a trail of bodies.”
“Yes, sir.” Christie thought for a moment. “We’ve still got Dr. Haworth as a ghost captive at our black site in Al Jafr prison. He’s very secure, deep inside Jordan.”
“Good. Hold him a bit longer. We can give him some selective amnesia before we release him if we need to. We don’t want any secrets leaking out.”
Christie said nothing. The true purpose of this mission remained a complete enigma to her. This was a “deep cover” project, so secret that it was buried entirely inside another completely different project known only by its CIA cryptonym LI/QJWIN, a highly covert operation which was ostensibly to develop a rapid kidnap and exfiltration capability in foreign countries. As far as she could see, it seemed to be morphing into a project to track people and develop different assassination methods.
“Would it be appropriate for me to know what secrets?” she asked after an uncomfortable silence.
“Yes, General, we are trying to find out why the Egyptian Pyramids point to Orion.” Sarcasm. She knew she had gone too far.
“Understood, sir.” Christie did not ask any more questions. There were some things that were too important to be shared. She understood that.
“Nice work, General,” the boss said.
“Over and out, sir.” Maybe she was finally getting something right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Swirls of spaghetti streets adorned the domed hills, like inverted bowls of pasta, every turning promised a new cacophony of sounds and smells: sandalwood and jasmine mixed with the rustic clattering of ox hooves and bleating goats, the assorted vehicles oozed through the stone-paved streets of Jerusalem like tomato ketchup, a sudden spurt of frantic movement then back to frozen immobility in the blink of an eye. Suzy was enthralled by the feel of this holiest of holy places; cruising through the Old City was like being lost in time, a different culture beckoned around every corner. As the traffic ahead moved several feet ahead, she stepped on the gas, the exhaust belching. It sounded like the whole engine was about to fall through the floor and the last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to herself. Fortunately no one seemed remotely interested in what was just another shabby vehicle inching through the slow-moving traffic.
High in the Judean Hills, it was as if she was back travelling through biblical times. It was here that God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son. It was the residents of this city who welcomed Jesus by spreading palm leaves on the ground as he rode in on a donkey, very much a free man. And it was here in this city that he was executed. It was impossible not to feel moved by such a historic and evocative place.
She entered the deepest part of the Old City driving past the Golden Gate on Temple Mount, heading for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the legendary site of Jesus’s tomb and crucifixion, known as Golgotha. Suzy felt the tires slipping on the greasy road, and jerked up the handbrake to steady herself on the steep slope. With almost divine providence, an Audi just up ahead reversed out of a rare parking spot. Seizing her chance, Suzy maneuvered her way in, fitting snugly into the narrow space. She jumped out and grabbed her bag. A stern-looking Israeli guard with an alarming-looking Uziel Gal machine gun stepped into her path and demanded to search her bag. Giving him a nervous smile, she handed it over. He rifled through her belongings. He pulled out the piece of broken pottery, and studied it for a brief moment before putting it back inside her bag. Suzy exhaled slowly. Not only did she not want to lose her precious pottery piece before she’d gotten it translated but she was painfully aware of the dagger she still had secreted in her shoe. She was glad he didn’t subject her to a pat down.
Three minutes later, she was walking along the dusty street through the souk on her way to the Holy Sepulchre. Glancing up at a street sign, she saw she was on Via Dolorosa, The Way of Sorrow, where pilgrims can follow in the footsteps of Christ.
As well as the divine, Jerusalem also preserves the memory of Jesus as an ordinary man, who ate and slept and talked and preached and drove the moneylenders from the Temple. Suzy felt humbled to be walking in his footsteps. Along the route were marked the fourteen sacred Stations of the Cross, signposts of the Passion, culminating in the fourteenth point, Jesus’s tomb inside the Holy Sepulchre. With all this mystique, it was disorienting to experience the Via Dolorosa as an ordinary road filled with men, women and animals.
Two Norman archways, relics of the cru
saders, stood at the entrance to the Holy Sepulchre. Above her head was perched the famous immovable ladder, left for eternity, as the different Christian sects squabbled over who should be allowed dominion over it after an errant builder left it behind.
Suzy passed the Muslim gatekeepers and entered a labyrinthine wonder, with the glint of gold everywhere. Ten-foot golden candles illuminated the shiny stones and the black and white chessboard floors. Although daylight permeated the interior, the air flickered light and dark at the same time. Just inside the entrance was the stone of anointing, which tradition claims to be the spot where Jesus’s body was prepared for burial by his uncle, Joséph of Arimathea, and where Mary cared for Jesus after his body had been anointed with myrrh. Suzy thought of Ay, the uncle and successor to Tutankhamun, who had many similarities to Joséph of Arimathea. White lamps tinkled against one another as they swung over the stone floor like pendulums hoisted by elaborate golden braids. Clouds of Yemeni incense coiled around the sacred columns like effervescent snakes.
A stairway on the right led to the sacred entrance to Golgotha, the place where Jesus had been crucified. Suzy climbed the steps with deliberate care up to the Franciscan Chapel of the Nailing of the Cross, sacred station number eleven on the Via Dolorosa. Filling the niche of a large archway and with a background of shimmering gold was a mosaic of Jesus being nailed to the cross. Beneath it was a Medici altar from Florence, topped with candles and flowers and surrounded by noisy crowds of pilgrims shuffling on their knees. Making her way through the bustle and past the ornate Golgotha altar, she descended some more steps, pausing to study the Chapel of Derision, a small round alcove with a triptych painting, and a wooden box containing a stone column to which Jesus had been tied. It was difficult, Suzy thought, to take in all this history.
In the next large room was an altar, stood before it were tall brass candelabras, their flickering candles sending ever-changing patterns of infinite shades around the objects in the room. Mosaics of fragmented light reflected from the ornate crosses standing in the inlaid alcoves carved into the rock. Monks in white and black robes stood like sentries among the slowly gliding silhouettes of silent visitors and worshippers. Before Suzy, shrouded by wisps of thick incense hanging motionless in the stuffy air, stood the altar itself, the simplest piece of plain wooden construction, dedicated to Mary Magdalene.