The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies)

by Terry Brennan

  Even at the Oriental Institute, where they knew more about ancient languages than anywhere else in the world, the team may have deciphered the various definitions of the symbols. They may have even gotten to the point where—they believed—they could make informed assessments of the general meaning or purpose of certain documents. But they still couldn’t claim to know what any of the thousands of Demotic examples currently known to be in existence really meant.

  Now, after all that immersion in Demotic, after all her years of research and nearly four decades of shepherding the dictionary to completion, Roberta Smith sat in front of her computer with the excitement of a first visit to the circus.

  Several months ago she had been introduced by a colleague to Dr. Richard Johnson Sr., former chair of the Antiquities College at Columbia University and, now retired from academia, director of the Collector’s Club in New York City. Johnson had come to her with the most remarkable document she had seen in her entire professional life. It was a complete, intact scroll containing a lengthy message in Demotic symbols. The message was written in a code that Johnson and his colleagues had broken, allowing them to decipher the message. Not by translating from the Demotic, which would have been a miracle, but by deciphering the code and then comparing the code symbols to the Rosetta Stone—inscribed with three languages: Greek, Demotic, and hieroglyphics—converting the Demotic symbols into Greek symbols and thereby breaking the secret of the scroll.

  Johnson not only shared images of the scroll and the message it contained, but he also told her some of the details of the harrowing experience he and his comrades endured in the bowels of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

  Now Dr. Johnson was dead, murdered by the relentless agents of the Prophet’s Guard, and Tom Bohannon’s son, Connor, had called, desperate for an immediate conversation on Skype. The screen on her computer cleared …

  “Dr. Smith? Hi … I’m Connor Bohannon and this is my dad’s close friend Stew Manthey. Thanks for taking the time to meet with us.”

  At first glance, Dr. Roberta Smith looked exactly as Connor had imagined. Well past middle age, dark but graying hair pulled back in a bun, black-framed glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose. But that’s where the caricature stopped. Dr. Smith wore a smart, black business suit with a crisp white shirt and a string of pearls at her neck. Her cheekbones high like a model’s, the sparkle in her dark eyes belied the gray in her hair.

  If she were thirty years younger, thought Connor.

  “I don’t intend to be rude, but I’m afraid we don’t have much time,” said Connor. “I believe Doc Johnson talked to you about the safe my dad found in the Bowery Mission. There were three drawers in that safe, two of which they couldn’t open. With the help of the NYPD, we got those drawers open yesterday. You know my mom and dad and the rest of the team are still in Jerusalem. Mr. Manthey and I found something we believe will be very important to them, and we’re hoping you might be able to help us figure out what it means.”

  Connor slipped the two sprockets out of their protective containers …

  Roberta Smith didn’t know what she was looking at.

  “What is that?”

  Connor Bohannon picked up a thick disc that looked like leather and pulled it apart into two thinner discs.

  “These are the sprockets that were originally inside the mezuzah that held the scroll,” he said. “They held the center spindle in place. Each side is separated like slices in a pie. These raised arms have nubs; they divide some sections. And the arms alternate with these grooves that divide other sections. When you put them back together again, the arms with the nubs fit into the grooves with these slots in them.”

  Bohannon held up the separated discs in front of the camera for her to see. One of them was solid; the other had four holes evenly spaced around the disc within the eight spaces between the arms and the grooves.

  On the face of each of the discs, Roberta saw some very familiar symbols. Her old friends, Demotic. “It’s more of your code?” Her low, modulated voice sounded far away, even to her.

  “That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” said Manthey.

  He took the two discs from Bohannon and joined them, fitting the arms into the grooves. “I noticed something odd when we first took them apart and put them back together.” He separated the discs again, held up the one in his right hand and pointed it toward the camera. “Side A,” said Manthey. Then he flipped over the one in his right hand and once again fit it into the half in his left hand. “See, side A fits into this one, and side B also fits into this one. You can flip over the other disc, also, and those sides also fit together … they all fit the same—A to C … A to D or B to C … B to D.”

  Ingenious, thought Roberta as Manthey continued to join the discs together in different combinations. “There must be a reason—”

  “Yes … the symbols,” Manthey said.

  He pulled the discs apart and held the solid one up for her inspection.

  “One symbol that appears to be in the same pattern appears on both discs, no matter what way you combine the halves. Do you see that little snake squiggle?”

  “Yes. In the Demotic language, for the purpose of identification, we refer to that symbol as the letter D,” said Roberta.

  “Well, it appears every fourth symbol on both sides of both discs. There are eighteen other symbols on the discs. Although some appear more than once, there is no pattern like the snake squiggle. But look at this.”

  Manthey held the disc with the holes in his right hand and combined it with the solid disc. He held it to the camera. “See … Mr. Squiggle appears every fourth symbol. And if you turn one disc ninety degrees, they fit together perfectly again, and Mr. Squiggle is still every fourth symbol. It’s the same no matter how you put the sides of the sprockets together or how you rotate the discs. Mr. Squiggle shows up as every fourth symbol.”

  He took the two discs apart again and held them in opposite hands. “There are four ways to view the symbols each time you combine a side to a side—the first way, a ninety-degree turn, one-eighty degrees, and two-seventy degrees. Four views on each combination of sides—sixteen views overall. Each of those views reveals eight symbols—three symbols and Mr. Squiggle; three symbols and Mr. Squiggle. See?”

  Roberta had drawn four large circles on two pieces of paper in front of her and was scribbling down the symbols as Manthey rotated the discs. “Yes … I’m following you.” To the right of the circles she had a pad of paper where she had inscribed sets of the symbols from the sides she had seen thus far. “If you assume each four symbols is a set either starting with or ending with the symbol D—Mr. Squiggle as you call it—then there are thirty-two sets of four, correct?” Roberta looked down at the sets on her piece of paper. “Mr. Manthey, are all the sets unique? None of them are the same?”

  “That’s correct,” said Manthey, who combined the two discs again and held the resulting object up to the screen. “The sequence of the symbols that you can see through the holes is the same no matter how you combine them—three symbols and then Mr. Squiggle; three symbols and then Mr. Squiggle. The symbols, or the order of the symbols, change each time. But each time you switch the sides or rotate the guide disc, the one with the holes, the pattern remains the same—three symbols and Mr. Squiggle.” Manthey looked up at the camera. “Don’t you find that odd?”

  Roberta laughed in spite of herself and clearly her laugh startled both men.

  “Are you kidding? Everything you gentlemen have come up with so far has been a little odd, don’t you think? The largest existing sample of Demotic in history—in perfect condition. A temple under a mountain in Jerusalem. Moses’s Tent of Meeting in a cave in the Negev. And now a one-thousand-year-old Rubik’s cube of a message in an extinct language. Yes, Mr. Manthey, I do think it a bit odd, but not for the same reason you do. And here’s another question, no offense—but how did the two of you figure all this out?”

  “Sudoku,” said Bohannon.

&
nbsp; “What?”

  “Sudoku … Mr. Manthey likes puzzles.”

  Unbelievable. All of this is unbelievable.

  Roberta took a moment to marvel at her incredible fortune. In the course of a few months, these amateurs had introduced her to the two most fascinating examples of Demotic in recent history. She shook her head, picked up her pencil, and continued inscribing on the pad of paper to her right. “This is an exceptionally complex puzzle you’ve discovered.” She looked up at the camera. “The question I keep asking myself is why … why would someone go to such Byzantine lengths to hide something that, ultimately, is meant to be shared with someone else?

  “Mr. Squiggle has about one thousand meanings listed in our dictionary.” She held up the paper upon which she was writing. “But look at this: these other symbols change position relative to Mr. Squiggle as you rotate the discs, and as you assemble and disassemble the sides, correct?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “But the symbols are not all completely random. Look—you have nineteen distinct symbols. Mr. Squiggle shows up in all thirty-two combinations. But the other eighteen symbols also recur … six of them eight times, the other twelve, four times.”

  Roberta pulled the paper back to glance down at it and get oriented, then took her pencil and pointed at the symbols in two circles on her paper. “Normally with just a few symbols and those changing positions, it would be very difficult to venture a guess at which direction to take … hmmm … no pun intended.”

  Bohannon looked perplexed. “Excuse me?”

  “Mr. Squiggle may have a thousand meanings, but those meanings become dramatically limited when it is used in conjunction with numbers. And these symbols”—she pointed—“these symbols, these symbols, are all numbers.”

  She looked up to see if reality had dawned on either Bohannon or Manthey, but their faces were as blank as an unplugged computer terminal.

  “These are numbers … sequences of numbers.”

  Roberta Smith turned away from the sheet of paper and stared into the camera. “Mr. Bohannon … what are you looking for?”

  “Well, we’re just trying to figure out—”

  “No. I don’t mean this puzzle. I mean, what is your father looking for? This crew has unearthed a thousand-year-old temple and a two-thousand-year-old sanctuary tent. What are you looking for now? What are you searching for that this message could help you discover?”

  Manthey returned her stare with a growing intensity. “You know, don’t you. You know what it says?”

  “No,” said Roberta. “But I know what it is. We have papyrus documents that are lists of numbers. Often, when the numbers are combined with other symbols, we get a pretty good idea what it means.”

  She lowered the piece of paper. “In this context, with these accompanying symbols, I am as confident as I can be that Mr. Squiggle means ‘paces.’ There are numbers ahead of the symbol for paces. What we have here,” she said with a depth of importance and awe, “are directions.”

  15

  6:50 p.m., Jerusalem

  One stalk of celery in one fist and another sticking out of the pocket of his shirt—a nondescript, pale khaki work shirt—Rizzo came out of the kitchen to find Joe staring out the window.

  “Deirdre’s mom still with Gracie and Paul?”

  “Yeah,” said Joe, turning away from the window, “and all three of them are getting a little edgy. Deirdre checked this morning when we were over at the synagogue. Gracie thinks, because she’s nineteen, we should have left her in charge—which is why we didn’t. Paul just got his driver’s license and feels like a prisoner. And Mary is unhappy with the role of warden, not to mention her fear for all of us over here. Not a very happy bunch. Deirdre’s in the back room with her Bible. She always finds peace when she reads her Bible. She and Tom are alike in that—things get tough, and they lean on their faith.”

  Biting off a huge chunk of celery to keep his mouth busy, Rizzo evaluated the twinge of jealousy that shot through his heart. What did he have to lean on other than regret? If only Kallie …

  Rizzo crossed the room, reached in past the celery stalk, and pulled two pieces of paper from his shirt pocket. “I was looking at these on the flight from Egypt after Doc died, but then I forgot about them with all that happened.”

  Tom and Annie were on their way back to the Ades Synagogue to look at the replica codex more closely, and McDonough’s snores were probably knocking plaster from the ceiling of the bedroom. Rizzo unfolded the two sheets of paper. He handed the first one to Joe. “These are some of the notations I wrote down from the margins of the Aleppo Codex pages the Temple Guard possessed. I didn’t know then if we’d have any use for them, but it seemed important.” He handed over the second sheet. “And you’re familiar with these guys.” Three lines of C characters, the Dorabella Cipher.

  “You know, there are still a lot of questions about this whole mystery that we haven’t really resolved. It’s like that line in Abiathar’s scroll message to Meborak that said, ‘Look to the Prophets for your direction,’ which eventually led us to Jeremiah and the Tent of Meeting.”

  “Missing that little gem cost us dearly,” said Joe.

  “But this one,” Rizzo said, pointing to the Dorabella Cipher, Sir Edward Elgar’s birthday gift to Dora Penny, a simple cipher of eighty-seven characters, still unbroken after 150 years, “is the one that’s bugged me the most. What does this thing mean—and what part does it really play?”

  “It gave us the sequence of the scroll … it’s how we broke the code.”

  “Yeah, but look … what if there is more to it? This cipher”—Rizzo started pacing around the apartment, his arms orchestrating punctuation as his mind raced with ideas—“has stumped the best minds and the fastest computers. I mean—jeepers—the scroll itself was already written in a code, in the symbols of an extinct language where the letter T has what? Like eight hundred thousand meanings?”

  Joe shook his head. “When I was growing up in Washington Heights, the Dominican kids on the corner would call you jablador.”

  “Ha … blah … door? Does that mean handsome?” Rizzo was still pacing, headed across the living room.

  “Not quite. To be kind, let’s just say it means somebody who stretches the truth, just a little.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Rizzo spun on his heel to face Joe. “But how much more obtuse does Elgar’s secret code need to be? Elgar didn’t write this cipher just because he didn’t have the New York Times crossword to keep him busy.”

  He started pacing the room again, his hands twirling like a windmill. “Would Elgar spend so much time perfecting a code so intricate, clever, and impenetrable that it’s never been broken and then simply put it in a birthday card to the schoolgirl daughter of a preacher in the English countryside? No. The Dorabella Cipher must be hiding something—something that Elgar and Spurgeon knew they wanted to keep secret, and a secret that was not the existence of a Temple under Temple Mount.”

  Counterbalancing Rizzo’s animated gyrations, Joe sprawled out on the sofa, lifting his long legs onto the cushions. “Okay. Let’s say the cipher does have a role to play. But what is it? And how would we know? Just like you said, people have been trying to crack the Dorabella Cipher for over a hundred years with no success. What are we going to learn from it? What does it matter?”

  “Look, dragon breath, what if it does matter—what if it matters in some way we don’t understand yet?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. The codex spent time in Alexandria, the same place Spurgeon picked up the mezuzah and scroll. Could it be possible that Spurgeon had a chance to see the codex while they were in Egypt?”

  “No, the codex was in Aleppo by then, long gone from Egypt. You think Elgar and Spurgeon went looking for the staff?”

  “I don’t know what I think.”

  “I’ll say amen to that.”

  Rizzo stopped his pacing, walked over to the sofa, and stood eye-to-eye with Rodriguez. “What I was going to s
ay is I don’t know what I think about Spurgeon and Elgar looking for the staff. But what I do think is that Elgar and Spurgeon figured it out—the whole shooting match. They discovered Abiathar’s scroll. They realized the power of Aaron’s staff, and I think they probably discovered the location of the garden.”

  Rodriguez pushed himself up into a sitting position, his face a puzzle. “But how could a couple of old guys like Spurgeon and Elgar travel from Egypt to Babylon? Alexandria, they take a ship. Babylon, they’ve gotta cross over six hundred miles of desert?”

  “They wouldn’t have had to. Maybe they talked to somebody who did.”

  “Like who?”

  “Sir Charles Warren.” Rizzo felt the wicked smile rise on his cheeks as he watched the thoughts and emotions move like flashcards across Rodriguez’s face. “You’re not the only nerd who knows how to use the library.”

  7:00 p.m.

  Joining the people entering the Ades Synagogue, Bohannon took one of the yarmulkes from the basket by the door as Annie covered her head with the shawl she had brought. It was just before sunset, when the synagogue began its Sabbath-ending evening service of Syrian Hazzanut, the Middle Eastern–style Jewish liturgical singing that was one of the unique features of Ades services.

  Entering the vestibule, Tom and Annie turned to the right. Bohannon was concerned to see the elder Rabbi Asher waiting by the stairs to the lower level.

  “You have come just in time,” said Rabbi Asher. “Once the service begins, the doors are closed and entrance is denied. Come. Let me get you established before the service begins. I need to be in place.”

  They descended the stairs with alacrity and entered the gniza that Rabbi Asher unlocked for them. He moved to the table in the front section, ignoring the long rows of wooden shelves containing the collected Torah scrolls of the synagogue that stretched away for thirty yards in the building’s basement. They joined the rabbi in donning the white cotton gloves resting on the table and watched as Asher unlocked the metal box containing the synagogue’s copy of the Aleppo Codex, lowered it like fragile treasure, and opened to the book of Jeremiah.