The Brotherhood Conspiracy

by Brennan, Terry

  “I—I . . .” Posner stammered.

  “It’s okay,” said Sharp, lifting his gaze to the younger man. In bearing, dress, personality, and presence, David Posner, acting director of Mossad for less than twenty-four hours, had a regal bearing. His sandy hair was swept up off his forehead in a mass of contained waves, his skin was smooth, his nose long—Caesarean—holding court between angular cheekbones and full lips. Posner looked like the scion of a patrician family, the young, pampered son of ridiculous wealth, his flawless face erased twenty years from his actual age. Sharp, though, knew what the façade masked.

  The newly promoted colonel was pushing fifty. He rose through the ranks of Mossad with the well-earned reputation of tackling the toughest assignments his government could conceive. Posner survived two years in the terror-laced chaos of Mogadishu. While there, he thwarted three terror plots aimed specifically at Israel, personally assassinating two senior Al Qaeda operatives who mistakenly thought they were safely hidden beneath the Somalian anarchy. Two tours in Chechnya, tracking Muslim terrorists . . . eighteen months embedded in the Syrian president’s residence as a French sous chef . . . commander of a lightning-strike commando unit that extracted threatened agents from Iran to Yemen.

  Under the effete exterior lay a hardened partisan, a deadly foe to the enemies of Zion. And, Sharp knew, a fervent loyalist to authority, a relentless stalker of their traitor.

  “We need to include everyone who had knowledge,” said Sharp. “But you and I both know where we will find the traitor.”

  Posner nodded his head. “In the shadows. Someone with a secret.” He reached into the breast pocket of his tan, starched, uniform shirt. “That’s why I compiled this list myself.” He handed the paper to Sharp. “Four names.”

  A current shimmered through Sharp. He didn’t know if it was admiration for Posner’s trained instinct, or apprehension for the fate of one of these four with whom they had all worked so closely.

  “A week—more or less,” said Posner, “and I will come back to you with one name.”

  Sharp nodded his head.

  “Or one body.”

  New York City

  “I don’t care what you think, Sammy, what I know is that this adventure is over for us. And don’t give me those big bug eyes and deep sighs. You already know Annie and Deirdre are going to stomp to death any idea of us getting involved in the scroll again.”

  Rizzo was frustrated. Not so much with the fact that his short legs were marching double-time to keep up with Joe Rodriguez’s long strides. He was accustomed to that. No, this frustration was spawned by a gnawing fear that his great adventure was over. A ragged, livid scar on his right bicep still throbbed where he had been wounded, their lives were constantly at risk, and people died. Yet, Sammy had to admit to himself that he had never felt so alive, so vital, as when he had been swept up with Tom and Joe and Doc in the Temple adventure. On this quest, he was an equal. It was a position he was loathe to surrender.

  Rizzo pushed his thick glasses back up to the bridge of his hooked nose. “Yeah, but why did Sam Reynolds want to talk to Tom? And why has Tom asked us all to get together again? And why does he want to meet in the library?”

  “And why meet in the Reading Room?” Rodriguez asked. “What’s wrong with my office?”

  “What’s wrong with your office is that it’s your office and not my office. I’m getting tired of being stuck in that subterranean hole-in-the-wall. I think a man of my stature should command a more stately abode.”

  “A man of your stature should be in a Hobbit house . . . little round door, with fur on your feet.”

  “There you go again, belittling me. You got something against little people, dragon breath?”

  “No, I just have something against you: your mouth.”

  “Watch it, slim jim, or I’ll hit you with a hate crimes suit.”

  The cadence of their footfalls echoing up from the marble floor, Rodriguez and Rizzo strode through the ornately decorated McGraw Rotunda on the second floor of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library. On their right was the Edna Barnes Salomon Room—a large, open gallery that held only one book, the Gutenberg Bible, safely in the womb of a climate-controlled, bulletproof, clear Lexan case. But they turned left into the large antechamber of the fabulous Rose Reading Room.

  This first room, the Blass Catalog Room, was nearly one hundred feet long and nearly as wide, stocked along the entire left side with flat computer screens, portals to the treasures of the Rose Reading Room, sitting on well-worn wooden tables, a phalanx of curved-back chairs stretching down one side of each table.

  To the right of the central aisle were the gatekeepers, the librarians in their large, half-walled wooden booth of a guardhouse who would review every request slip, making sure the catalog code was copied precisely, before the seeker could advance to the next desk where the slip would be stamped with the time, a numbered code scrawled on the top, and the two parts of the form separated—one page to the requester and the other dispatched down a vacuum tube to a retrieval team in the underground stacks.

  Rodriguez gave a brief wave to the heavyset librarian behind the wall, a man who sneered back in return.

  “I don’t think Jack likes your uniform,” said Rodriguez

  Sammy looked down at his clothes. He was wearing cut-offs that were partially hidden by a Ryan Howard official XXL Phillies game-day shirt. “He must be a Mets fan.”

  Sammy stopped in the middle of the floor and turned to the bespectacled, frowning librarian. “Hey, Jack, you’re a Mets fan, right?” he said loudly, batting his eyelashes as he turned to his audience. “Say, the Mets, do they still play baseball?”

  Jack the gatekeeper fumbled out a protest, but Sammy, a wicked smile emerging from his heart, was already moving off toward the Reading Room.

  Tom sat off in the far corner of the Rose Reading Room at one of the long, oak refectory tables that filled the cavernous space. The Reading Room was nearly two city blocks in length and nearly thirty yards wide, but what gave the space its unique open feel were the huge, arched windows stretching down each side of the room and the fifty-two-foot-high ceilings adorned with expansive murals of blue sky and vibrant clouds. Doc and Brandon McDonough were already sitting across from Tom. Rodriguez moved to Bohannon’s side and pulled up a chair as Sammy stood on the far side. A thin, flat, black book, about twelve inches on each side, rested on the table in front of Bohannon.

  “Sorry I had to ask you all to come here, but I wanted to show you something and this is the only place I could do it. Even Sammy wouldn’t be able to get this book out of this room.”

  The book’s cover was blank—no title, no author. Bohannon slipped his fingers under the stiff, thick cover and brought up his left hand to steady the cover as he gingerly opened the book. “This book is called The Tabernacle in the Wilderness. It was published over two hundred years ago. Obviously, this copy wasn’t treated very carefully.”

  Inside the covers were a few, large pages, heavily darkened at the edges, that were as brittle as thin ice and ragged from years of misuse. None of the pages were attached to the cover, the book’s binding a victim of time.

  “This is what Sam Reynolds wanted to talk about,” said Bohannon, opening the book to a color drawing of a large, rectangular structure surrounded by what appeared to be four walls of thick curtains.

  The silence that greeted Bohannon’s introduction had nothing to do with library rules.

  “The Tent of Meeting?” asked Doc. “Forgive me, Tom, but I just don’t understand this at all.”

  Bohannon turned another page, uncovering another drawing of the Tent of Meeting from a different perspective as he looked up at his four companions. “The Israelis are preparing to rebuild the platform on the Temple Mount. Alex Krupp has offered his men, equipment, and expertise to help.”

  “That’s a good thing, right?” said Joe.

  “It would be,” said Bohannon, “except that the Israelis are not going to al
low the Arabs or the Waqf to return to the Mount when it’s rebuilt.”

  “Holy Jerusalem, the Jews are looking for the Tent!” exclaimed Rizzo. “They’re gonna rebuild the Mount, put up the Tent instead of a Temple, and stick it to the Muslims, right?”

  “That would be suicide,” whispered Johnson. “The Arab world would erupt.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Bohannon. “Which is why the president contacted us.”

  “President Whitestone thinks we may have an answer to the location of the Tent of Meeting?” Johnson asked.

  “No,” Bohannon corrected. “He thinks Abiathar may have provided an answer, either in the scroll or on the mezuzah. He’s come to the same conclusion we did. If Abiathar took the time to build a temple, maybe he took the time to put a back-up plan in place.”

  Bohannon turned over another page and revealed a drawing much more detailed. The dimensions of the Tent were huge. Before the others arrived, Bohannon worked up the math in his head. He figured the Tent of Meeting probably weighed over ten tons. It took three clans of Levites and six wagons to move it from place to place.

  Joe Rodriguez reached out a hand and placed it on Bohannon’s right arm. “Tom . . . I’ve seen things . . . and done things . . . in the last few months that a year ago I would have sworn were impossible. So, it’s a little more difficult for me to say to you, now . . . I mean . . . nobody’s seen the Tent of Meeting for, what, three thousand years? I know it’s a crazy idea . . . but—” Rodriguez looked at the assembled gathering—“Sammy and I think we may have an idea where to start. We—”

  “Just one minute,” interrupted McDonough. “As me sainted mother would say, ’tis difficult to choose between two blind goats. But my colleague and I have a few thoughts of our own on Abiathar and his intentions. See, it’s our belief—”

  “Hang on, Doc,” said Rizzo. “As my sainted mother would say, ‘Joe’s got the floor, and we’ve got something important—’ ”

  “Calm down, will you,” said Bohannon. “We’re already attracting too much attention.” He turned to Rodriguez. “Joe, is your office available tomorrow?”

  “Sure . . . always.”

  “Alright,” said Bohannon. “Tomorrow afternoon—one o’clock. Bring your ideas, but leave your attitudes at home. If we’re going to work on this again, let’s work on it together. Maybe we do have a couple of places to start. Where to start is not the problem. What happens if somebody else finds the Tent, that’s a problem.”

  Standing on the steps of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Washington Heights, Joe Rodriguez felt like a hypocrite. He wasn’t here under his own volition. The steely-eyed redhead to his right was the reason he was walking up these steps, into the domain of the dreaded Monsignor McGarrity.

  “Are you sure . . .”

  “Don’t ask me one more time, Joe.”

  Deirdre Rodriguez had a firm grip on Joe’s right hand. Joe knew she would not let go until she got an answer . . . got this issue resolved once and for all. He was surprised that his wife didn’t drag him to meet with her pastor. Instead, she insisted Joe accompany her to his old, family parish church to meet with the man who ruled St. Frannie’s like a small fiefdom. It was late Saturday afternoon and the monsignor would be in his usual place of power—hearing confessions and providing absolution.

  The church bells ringing the Angelus, Monsignor McGarrity exited the confessional and crossed the large church to the center aisle. He didn’t get far.

  “Excuse me, Monsignor,” said Deirdre, her voice echoing more loudly than she expected in the cathedral-like expanse of St. Francis’s massive stone sanctuary.

  Monsignor McGarrity was an old, stoop-shouldered, white-haired priest, in a plain, black suit. He was a big man, not fat, but massive. It took a moment for him to change the direction of his bulk. But when he did, Deirdre caught the full power of the monsignor’s famous, scowling countenance. Lesser mortals withered and fled under that stare, but Deirdre matched the monsignor’s stare dagger-for-dagger.

  Joe loved her so much when she was in the midst of battle—particularly with someone else. He really believed it was Deirdre’s fire that welded their marriage together all these years.

  “Monsignor . . . you know Joe,” Deirdre announced. “And I need you to talk some sense into his thick, obstinate head. He won’t listen to me so, here”—she released Joe’s hand in the monsignor’s direction—“you do something with him.”

  The priest looked at one, then the other. “Is it divorce?”

  “Hah!” blurted Deirdre. “He should have it so easy. You won’t believe this one.”

  Deirdre spun on her heel. “Joseph . . . tell him the story. Let’s see what he’s got to say.”

  Twenty minutes later, the three of them now sitting in pews, Joe finished his retelling of the Jerusalem adventure.

  “So . . . Joe, how can you be thinking of leaving your family once more and getting mixed up again in this dangerous business?” asked the monsignor. “You need to stay home and take care—”

  “Stay home? Are you kidding?” Deirdre moved closer to the monsignor, who moved farther away. “If I wanted him to stay home I didn’t have to come here. He’s the one who wants to stay home,” she said, hooking a thumb over her shoulder. “He says he’s worried about us, wants to take care of us.”

  Deirdre turned her head and shot a lethal glance in Joe’s direction before turning back to the monsignor, who still looked at Deirdre as if she were speaking in Latvian. “Do you think I need somebody taking care of me?”

  McGarrity’s eyes blinked . . . his head moved hesitantly from side to side . . . and he looked like he wanted to escape. “Well, I—”

  “Right,” Deirdre said triumphantly. “I told him if he didn’t do this, he would never forgive himself. Worse, he would never forgive me. And the last thing I need, Father, is Joe spending the rest of his life regretting this decision.” She stuck out her hand. “Thank you, Monsignor. You’ve been a great help.”

  McGarrity’s brain was still in freeze-frame when Deirdre swiveled on her hip to come face-to-face with Joe. She lifted her hands . . . and gently held both sides of his face.

  “Joe,” she said, her voice a lover’s caress, “you are the most honorable, fearless man I’ve ever known. You would give your life for us without a thought. I know that. But I know this is something you want to do, that you should do, and that some misguided sense of responsibility doesn’t have the right to keep you from doing.”

  The fingers of her right hand slid down his cheek bone and stopped at his lips.

  “Go and be the hero I know you are.” Deirdre kissed him, long and hard.

  And Joe loved her so much . . . this Celtic warrior queen that God blessed him with every day.

  18

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 16

  New York City

  The next day, an ugly, gray, humid New York summer afternoon, Bohannon brought the team back together again in the comfort of Joe Rodriguez’s office in the dark and deserted Humanities and Social Sciences Library. The five men—with Brandon McDonough on board as an adopted member of the club—benefited from the efficient climate-control system that kept the rooms, halls, stacks, and offices of the library cool and dry every day of the year. Five bodies made even Rodriguez’s generous office space feel cramped and tended to obscure the richness of the oak paneling. But Bohannon could tell that his friends were anxious to share what they had discovered.

  So was he. But Joe took the lead.

  “Well, I think we’ve discovered something that will give us a place to start looking,” said Rodriguez. “Or, more accurately, who to start searching for.”

  “The answer to our problem,” Sammy Rizzo jumped in with a flourish, “is Jeremiah!”

  “The prophet?” asked Doc.

  “No . . . Jeremiah Johnson, the mountain man,” snapped Rizzo. “What Jeremiah do you think could have anything to do with the Tent of Meeting? Aunt Jeremiah’s pancakes?”

  Embarrassed, Richa
rd Johnson tried to skewer Rizzo with his most withering stare.

  “Stuff it, Doc baby. I’m the one who came up with the solution.” Sammy jumped off his stool and sauntered in Johnson’s direction, his thumbs tucked under the red suspenders that held up his taxi-yellow Bermudas. Like a diminutive general about to address his officers, Rizzo snapped an about-face and pinioned Tom, Joe, and Brandon with his big brown eyes, magnified to the tenth by Coke-bottle lenses.

  “Think back to the scroll’s message. There was one line in Abiathar’s letter that didn’t really fit with the rest of the message. It came almost at the end of the letter. He said, “Look to the prophets for your direction.” We didn’t pay any attention to it then, because it really didn’t have anything to do with our search for the Temple. But . . . now . . . now there is a reason to pay attention.”

  Sammy stepped closer to Bohannon, who was balanced on the edge of the leather loveseat, and put his hand on Tom’s knee. “You’re going to like this one,” he said, nodding his head, a wicked smile creasing his face. “Joe and I went surfing through the library’s database, looking for ‘prophet’ and ‘Tent of Meeting.’ We got a mess of hits right away. The first was a Bible reference in the book of Maccabees.”

  Bohannon saw his own face reflected back from the thick lenses on Rizzo’s glasses. “Maccabees? That’s not in my Bible.”

  “It used to be in a lot of Bibles, but not anymore,” Rizzo offered. “Maccabees is one of a bunch of books included in the early versions of Scripture that were later tossed out of the game by the Council of Trent, which decided they weren’t really inspired. They became known as the Apocrypha. For a long time, both Catholic and Protestant Bibles included the apocryphal books in a separate section, apart from the Old and New Testaments. But, starting a couple hundred years ago, many Bibles excluded the Apocrypha—Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Esdras—altogether. But there’s a reference in the book of Maccabees that isn’t found anywhere else. You got it, Joe?”