by Steve Berry
Haddad led them into the kitchen, where they sat at an oval table. The tepid air hung heavy with a lingering scent of wine and tobacco. “It’s complicated, Cotton. I’ve only in the past few years understood it myself.”
“George, I need to know it all.”
An uneasy understanding passed between them. Old friendships could atrophy. People changed. What was once appreciated between two people became uncomfortable. But Malone knew Haddad trusted him, and he wanted to reciprocate. Finally the older man spoke. Malone listened as Haddad told them about 1948 when, as a nineteen-year-old, he’d fought with the Palestinian resistance, trying to stop the Zionist invasion.
“I shot many men,” Haddad said. “But there was one I never forgot. He came to see my father. Unfortunately that blessed soul had already killed himself. We captured this man, thinking him a Zionist. I was young, full of hate, no patience, and he spoke nonsense. So I shot him.” Haddad’s eyes moistened. “He was a Guardian and I killed him, never learning anything.” The Palestinian paused. “Then, fifty-some years later, incredibly, another Guardian visited me.”
Malone wondered about the significance.
“He appeared at my home, standing in the dark, saying the same thing that the first man said in 1948.”
“I’m a Guardian.”
Had Haddad heard right? The question formed immediately in his mind. “From the library? Am I to be offered an invitation?”
“How do you know that?”
He told the man what had happened long ago. As he spoke, Haddad tried to assess his guest. He was wiry with coal-black hair, a thick mustache, and sun burned skin that bore the texture of tawny leather. Neat and quietly dressed, with a manner to match. Not unlike the first emissary.
The younger man sat silent and Haddad decided this time he, too, would be patient. Finally the Guardian said, “We’ve studied your writings and your published research. Your knowledge of the Bible’s ancient text is impressive, as is your ability to interpret the original Hebrew. And your arguments on the accepted translations are persuasive.”
He appreciated the compliment. Those came few and far between in the West Bank.
“We’re an ancient band. Long ago the first Guardians saved much of the Library of Alexandria from destruction. A great effort. From time to time—to those, like yourself, who could benefit—we’ve offered an invitation.”
Many questions formed in his mind, but he asked, “The Guardian I shot said that the war we were fighting back then wasn’t necessary. That there are things more powerful than bullets. What did he mean?”
“I wouldn’t know. Obviously your father failed to appear at the library, so he never benefited from our knowledge—and we did not benefit from his. Hopefully, you’ll not fail.”
“What do you mean failed to appear?”
“To have the right to use the library you must prove yourself through the hero’s quest.” The man produced an envelope. “Interpret these words wisely and I’ll see you at the entrance, where it will be my honor to allow you into the library.”
He accepted the packet. “I’m an old man. How could I possibly take a long journey?”
“You’ll find the strength.”
“Why should I?”
“Because in the library you will find answers.”
“My mistake,” Haddad said, “was telling the Palestinian authorities about that visit. I spoke the truth, though. I couldn’t make the journey. When I reported what happened, I thought I was speaking with friends in the West Bank. But Israel’s spies heard everything, and the next thing I knew you and I were in that café when it exploded.”
Malone recalled the day. One of the scariest in his life. He’d barely managed to extricate them both.
“What were you doing there?” Pam asked him, concern in her voice.
“George and I had known each other for years. We share an interest in books, especially the Bible.” He pointed. “This man is one of the world’s experts. I’ve enjoyed picking his brain.”
“I never knew you had an interest,” Pam said.
“Apparently there was a lot neither one of us knew about the other.” He saw that she registered his true meaning, so he let that truth hang and said, “When George sensed trouble and didn’t trust the Palestinians, he asked for my help. Stephanie sent me to find out what was happening. Once that bomb went off, George wanted out. Everyone assumed he died in the blast. So I made him disappear.”
“Code-named the Alexandria Link,” Pam said.
“Someone obviously found out about me,” Haddad declared.
Malone nodded. “The computer files were breached. But there’s no mention of where you live, just that I’m the only one who knows your whereabouts. That’s why they went after Gary.”
“And for that I’m truly sorry. I would never want to place your son in jeopardy.”
“Then tell me, George, why do people want you dead?”
“At the time the Guardian visited me, I was working on a theory regarding the Old Testament. I’d previously published several papers on the then-current state of that holy text, but I was formulating something more.”
The lines at the corners of Haddad’s eyes deepened, and Malone watched as his friend seemed to struggle with his thoughts.
“Christians tend to focus on the New Testament,” Haddad said. “Jews use the Old. I daresay most Christians have little understanding of the Old Testament, beyond thinking that the New is a fulfillment of the Old’s prophecies. But the Old Testament is important, and there are many contradictions in that text—ones that could readily call its message into question.”
He’d heard Haddad speak on the subject before, but this time he sensed a new urgency.
“Examples abound. Genesis gives two conflicting versions of creation. Two varying genealogies of Adam’s offspring are laid out. Then the flood. God tells Noah to bring seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean. In another part of Genesis it’s just one pair of each. Noah releases a raven to search for land in one verse, but it’s a dove in another. Even the length of the flood is contradicted. Forty days and nights or three hundred seventy? Both are used. Not to mention the dozens of doublets and triplets contained within the narratives, like the differing names used to describe God. One portion cites YHWH, Yahweh, another Elohim. Wouldn’t you think at least God’s name could be consistent?”
Malone’s memory flashed back a few months to France, where he’d heard similar complaints about the four Gospels of the New Testament.
“Most now agree,” Haddad said, “that the Old Testament was composed by a host of writers over an extremely long period of time. A skillful combination of varied sources by scribal compilers. This conclusion is absolutely clear and not new. A twelfth-century Spanish philosopher was one of the first to note that Genesis 12:6—at that time the Canaanites were in the land—could not have been written by Moses. And how could Moses have been the author of the Five Books when the last book describes in detail the precise time and circumstances of his death?
“And the many literary asides. Like when ancient place-names are used, then the text notes that those places are still visible to this day. This absolutely points to later influences shaping, expanding, and embellishing the text.”
Malone said, “And each time one of these redactions occurred, more of the original meaning was lost.”
“No doubt. The best estimate is that the Old Testament was composed between 1000 and 586 bce. Later compositions came around 500 to 400 BCE. Then the text may have been tinkered with as late as 300 BCE. Nobody knows for sure. All we know is that the Old Testament is a patchwork, each segment written under differing historical and political circumstances, expressing differing religious views.”
“I appreciate all that,” Malone said, thinking again about the New Testament contradictions from France. “Believe me, I do. But none of it is revolutionary. Either folks believe the Old Testament is the Word of God, or they believe it a collection of ancien
t tales.”
“But what if the words have been altered to the point that the original message is no longer there? What if the Old Testament, as we know it, is not, and never was, the Old Testament from its original time? Now, that could change many things.”
“I’m listening.”
“That’s what I like about you,” Haddad said, smiling. “Such a good listener.”
Malone could see from Pam’s expression that she didn’t necessarily agree, but, keeping to her word, she stayed silent.
“You and I have talked about this before,” Haddad said. “The Old Testament is fundamentally different from the New. Christians take the text of the New literally, even to the point of it being history. But the stories of the Patriarchs, Exodus, and the conquest of Canaan are not history. They’re a creative expression of religious reform that happened in a place called Judah long ago. Granted, there are kernels of truth to the accounts, but they’re far more story than fact.
“Cain and Abel is a good example. At the time of that tale there were only four people on earth. Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel. Yet Genesis 4:17 says Cain lay with his wife and she became pregnant. Where did the wife come from? Was it Eve? His mother? Wouldn’t that be eye opening? Then, in recounting Adam’s bloodline, Genesis 5 says that Mahalale lived eight hundred ninety-five years, Jared eight hundred years, and Enoch three hundred sixty-five years. And Abraham. He was supposedly a hundred years old when Sarah gave birth to Isaac, and she was ninety.”
“No one takes that stuff literally,” Pam said.
“Devout Jews would argue to the contrary.”
“What are you saying, George?” Malone asked.
“The Old Testament, as we currently know it, is a result of translations. The Hebrew language of the original text passed out of usage around 500 BCE. So in order to understand the Old Testament, we must either accept the traditional Jewish interpretations or seek guidance from modern dialects that are descendants of that lost Hebrew language. We can’t use the former method because the Jewish scholars who originally interpreted the text, between 500 and 900 CE, a thousand or more years after they were first written, didn’t even know Old Hebrew, so they based their reconstructions on guesswork. The Old Testament, which many revere as the Word of God, is nothing more than a haphazard translation.”
“George, you and I have discussed this before. Scholars have debated the point for centuries. It’s nothing new.”
Haddad threw him a sly smile. “But I haven’t finished explaining.”
TWENTY-ONE
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
2:45 PM
Alfred Hermann’s château offered him an atmosphere reminiscent of a tomb. Only when the Order’s Assembly convened, or the Chairs gathered, was his solitude interrupted.
Neither was the case today.
And he was pleased.
He was ensconced in his private apartment, a series of spacious rooms on the château’s second floor, each room flowing naturally through the other in the French style of no corridors. The winter session of the 49th Assembly would open in less than two days’ time, and he was pleased that all seventy-one members in the Order of the Golden Fleece would be attending. Even Henrik Thorvaldsen, who at first had said he would not be coming, had now confirmed. The membership hadn’t talked collectively since spring, so he knew the discussions over the coming days would be arduous. As Blue Chair, his task was to ensure that the proceedings were productive. The Order’s staff was already at work preparing the château’s meeting hall—and all would be ready by the time the members arrived for the weekend—but he wasn’t worried about the Assembly. Instead his thoughts were on finding the Library of Alexandria. Something he’d dreamed of accomplishing for decades.
He stepped across the room.
The model, which he’d commissioned years ago, consumed the chamber’s north corner, a spectacular miniature of what the Library of Alexandria may have looked like at the time of Caesar. He slid a chair close and sat, his eyes absorbing the details, his mind wandering.
Two pillared colonnades dominated. Both, he knew, would have been filled with statues, the floors sheathed in rugs, the walls draped in tapestries. In the many seats lining the corridors, members bickered over the meaning of a word or the cadence of a verse, or engaged in some caustic controversy about a new discovery. Both roofed chambers opened into side rooms where papyri, scrolls, and later codices lay stored in bins, loosely stacked, tagged for indexing, or on shelves. In other rooms copyists labored to produce replicas, which were sold for revenue. Members enjoyed a high salary and exemption from taxes, and were provided dining and lodging. There were lecture halls, laboratories, observatories—even a zoo. Grammarians and poets received the most prestigious posts—physicians, mathematicians, and astronomers the best equipment. The architecture was decidedly Greek, the whole thing resembling an elegant temple.
What a place, he thought.
What a time.
At only two points in human history had knowledge radically expanded on a global scale. Once during the Renaissance, which continued to the present, and the other during the fourth century BCE, when Greece ruled the world.
He thought about the time three hundred years before Christ and the sudden death of Alexander the Great. His generals fought over his grand empire, and eventually the realm was divided into thirds and the Hellenistic Age, a period of worldwide Greek dominance, began. One of those thirds was claimed by a far-thinking Macedonian, Ptolemy, who declared himself king of Egypt in 304 BCE, founding the Ptolemaic dynasty, capitaled in Alexandria.
The Ptolemies were intellectuals. Ptolemy I was a historian. Ptolemy II a zoologist. Ptolemy III a patron of literature. Ptolemy IV a playwright. Each chose leading scholars and scientists as tutors for his children and encouraged great minds to live in Alexandria.
Ptolemy I founded the museum, a place where learned men could congregate and share their knowledge. To aid their endeavors, he also established the library. By the time of Ptolemy III, in 246 BCE, there were two locations—the main library near the royal palace and another, smaller one headquartered in the sanctuary of the god Serapis, known as the Serapeum.
The Ptolemies were determined book collectors, dispatching agents throughout the known world. Ptolemy II bought Aristotle’s entire library. Ptolemy III ordered that all ships in the Alexandria harbor be searched. If books were found, they were copied, the copies returned to the owners, the originals stored in the library. Genres varied from poetry and history to rhetoric, philosophy, religion, medicine, science, and law. Some 43,000 scrolls were eventually housed in the Serapeum, available to the general public, and another 500,000 at the museum, restricted to scholars.
What happened to it all?
One version held that it burned when Julius Caesar fought Ptolemy XIII in 48 BCE. Caesar had ordered the torching of the royal fleet, but the fire spread throughout the city and may have consumed the library. Another version blamed Christians, who supposedly destroyed the main library in 272 CE and the Serapeum in 391, part of their effort to rid the city of all pagan influences. A final account credited Arabs with the library’s destruction after they conquered Alexandria in 642. The caliph Omar, when asked about books in the imperial treasury, was quoted as saying, If what is written agrees with the Book of God, they are not required. If it disagrees, they are not desired. Destroy them. So for six months scrolls supposedly fueled the baths of Alexandria.
Hermann always winced at that thought—how one of humanity’s greatest attempts to collect knowledge might simply have burned.
But what really happened?
Certainly, as Egypt was confronted with growing unrest and foreign aggression, the library became victim to persecution, mob violence, and military occupation, no longer enjoying special privileges.
When had it finally disappeared?
No one knew.
And was the legend true? A group of enthusiasts, it was said, had managed to extract scroll after scroll, copying some, steali
ng others, methodically preserving knowledge. Chroniclers had hinted at their existence for centuries.
The Guardians.
He liked to imagine what those dedicated enthusiasts may have preserved. Unknown works from Euclid? Plato? Aristotle? Augustine? Along with countless other men who would later be regarded as fathers of their respective fields.
No telling.
And that’s what made the search so enticing.
Not to mention George Haddad’s theories, which offered Hermann a way to further the Order’s purposes. The Political Committee had already determined how the destabilization of Israel could be manipulated for profit. The business plan was both ambitious and feasible. Provided Haddad’s research could be proven.
Five years ago Haddad had reported a visit from someone known as a Guardian. Israel’s spies had conveyed that information to Tel Aviv. The Jews had overreacted, as always, and immediately tried to kill Haddad. Thankfully the Americans had intervened, and Haddad was still among the living. Hermann was equally thankful that his American political sources were now negotiable, recently confirming those facts and adding more, which was why Sabre had moved on Cotton Malone.
But who knew anything? Perhaps Sabre would learn more from the corrupt Israeli waiting in Germany?
The only certainty was George Haddad.
He had to be found.
TWENTY-TWO
ROTHENBURG, GERMANY
3:30 PM
Sabre strolled down the cobblestoned lane. Rothenburg lay a hundred kilometers south of Würzburg, a walled city encircled by stone ramparts and watchtowers straight out of the Middle Ages. Inside, narrow streets wound tight paths between half-timbered brick-and-stone buildings. Sabre searched for one in particular.
The Baumeisterhaus stood just off the market square, within shouting distance of the ancient clock tower. An iron placard announced that the building had been erected in 1596, but for the past century the three-story structure had hosted an inn and restaurant.
He pushed through the front door and was greeted by the sweet smell of yeast bread and apple-cinnamon. A narrow ground-floor dining hall emptied into a two-story inner courtyard, the whitewashed walls dotted with antlers.