The Brotherhood Conspiracy

by Brennan, Terry

“Defiantly, they called themselves the Prophet’s Guard. With the aid of a faithful brother on the inside, this small army breached the walls and put every warrior monk under the blade during a frenzied battle. There was a little gold, and an abundance of stored food. But what they took back into the desert was the monastery’s greatest prize.”

  Johnson’s mind scrambled to put aside its growing apprehension and make order of the new facts with the parts of the story he and the others had uncovered.

  “But,” said Johnson, “I thought the Temple Guard brought the mezuzah to the Bibliotheca de Historique in Suez?”

  Out in the night a camel bleated into the lonely dark.

  “You are mistaken because you possess only partial understanding,” said the old man. “In this hidden corner of the desert, many generations have killed and pillaged in pursuit of the scroll. Nearly two hundred years ago, it was stolen once more by a reincarnation of the Temple Guard who took the mezuzah to the French for safekeeping, where it was held in great secrecy, where they thought it was safe. But,” he laid something in the folds of his robe and spread his hands, “there are very few secrets that can survive over hundreds of years. Ultimately, my brothers regained possession of the scroll and put it in a place where they believed no one would ever look—in a bookstore along the back alleys of Alexandria. Where a fool allowed it once again to slip from our grasp.”

  Johnson ran his mind through the rest of the story—how Charles Spurgeon purchased the mezuzah and its printed silk cover while wandering the streets of Alexandria; how the Prophet’s Guard followed its trail to London; how Spurgeon dispatched the hunted mezuzah to his friend Louis Klopsch at the Bowery Mission in New York City. But an overriding question kept interrupting Johnson’s thoughts.

  “But why do you still care? What difference does it make to you, to the Prophet’s Guard, who has the scroll? Not only has the message been deciphered, but the Temple has been found, and destroyed. What good is the scroll to you? Why . . . why are you here?”

  The old man’s smile held no warmth, only the promise of violence, a predator playing with his prey. “You do not understand because you possess only partial understanding,” he said again. “It is not only the scroll we seek. In that you are correct. But there is a greater treasure, a treasure of which you have not dreamed.”

  Rizzo was on the floor before the sound of the bells registered in his mind. And the floor was probably softer than the bed from which he’d fallen. The world was black and it was several startled moments before he remembered where he was. A monastery in the Egyptian desert in the dead silence of deep night.

  He climbed back up into the Egyptian excuse for a bed. Fingering the threadbare blanket, he pushed against the slab of a mattress, and decided he’d endured enough. Early or not, he would go across the corridor. Doc must be awake. Those bells could wake the dead.

  Rizzo lit the candle in the holder on the room’s small table and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders against the desert cold. It trailed behind him like a king’s robe as he pushed open the door and crossed the hall. Candle holder in one hand, the blanket clutched in the other, Rizzo stood at the wooden door to Doc Johnson’s cell, befuddled for a moment by the voices he heard from inside. Clearly, Doc had one of the monks in there, regaling him with stories of the monastery’s history.

  Rizzo pulled the blanket more tightly around his shoulders and headed off down the corridor. He wasn’t going to get any more sleep. Time to do some exploring. Maybe he could find that bucket that lifted people over the walls.

  “What treasure?” Johnson tried to stoke his curiosity, but dread dulled his enthusiasm for understanding. “We saw the symbols etched on the surface of the mezuzah,” Johnson protested. “That’s what brought us here. But there was no hint of treasure.”

  “Fool. You look only on the surface. I thought you were a scientist.”

  Johnson winced at the rebuke, but his eyes remained on the old man’s face while his fear was fueled by the unmoving shape in the shadows. There was no chance of escape. He was trapped.

  “You seek a tent. A childish quest. You pursue something long destroyed by the decay of time.” The old man picked up the smaller book and opened it where a marker was placed.

  “We seek to regain the key to a greater treasure. A key that is hidden, even from you and your associates. A key that will determine the future of humanity. It will lead us to the final Caliphate—the rule of Islam over the breadth of this earth. It will herald the death of everything that is revered by the godless in this modern world. The key—the hand of God—that will bring all of you to your knees.”

  Johnson’s pulse beat a brisk tattoo through his temples. His chest squeezed against his lungs. Oh, God. “This is madness.”

  “Madness? I will show you now what you should not know. Then you will tell me if our dream is madness. Here . . . learn.”

  As Johnson listened, the old man shared a story of this ultimate secret. Working his way through the text of the book, and its many notations in the margins, the old man revealed an impossibility that now made so much sense; a dime-novel tale that now presented a monumental threat to millions. And Johnson accepted with finality that he would never leave this room alive. I have helped make history, and I thank God for that. I only wish I could have seen . . .

  The old man finished speaking. Johnson’s thoughts cleared as he saw the old man rise from his seat, reach into the folds of his kaftan, and withdraw his hand.

  Convinced as he was of his inevitable fate, Johnson’s heart still twisted in his chest as he looked into the old man’s outstretched hand. “Oh, my God,” he whispered.

  Rizzo found the stairs leading to the top of the wall, but when he reached the flat rampart he forgot about hitching a ride in the bucket. He saw the faintest contrast define the arch of the horizon to the east. Above his head, ten million stars shone just for his eyes. This was the rim of the world, and Sammy was balanced on the edge of eternity. How long he sat there, only the stars would know. He was getting colder when . . . he felt the movement more than saw it. When he looked along the length of wall to his left, there was nothing—an empty rampart with a small, round turret about one hundred yards away. Something stirred in the shadows of the turret. Unbidden, vivid memories flashed across Rizzo’s mind. Doc nearly pushed onto the subway tracks in New York City; Winthrop Larsen’s body blown all over 35th Street; Bohannon’s daughter nearly kidnapped from Fordham.

  In the dead silence of the desert, the total darkness broken only by starlight, Rizzo could imagine anything. But he wasn’t imagining this—a large man leapt out of the blackness inside the turret and started running toward him.

  Rizzo jumped to his feet and, leaving the blanket in his wake, ran for the stairs to his right.

  He might be small, but he was fast. He burst onto the top of the stairwell, grabbed the metal leg of the railing, and swung his body down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs he hesitated, listened.

  A faint footfall to his right.

  Clinging to the shadows, Rizzo sprinted left along the monastery’s wall and darted behind the corner of a building that jutted out close to the wall’s inner surface. He ran headlong down a narrow alley and ran through the next intersecting alley, chased by the sound of footfalls behind him.

  The monk’s dormitory was still one building away when he heard the running feet stop, but Rizzo didn’t slacken his pace. He sprinted to the arched portal of white stucco, pulled hard against the heavy, wooden door, and threw the bolt when he got the door closed again.

  Rizzo crouched behind the closed door, hands on his knees, as he gulped air into his pleading lungs. He had to warn Doc.

  Racing down the corridor, he stopped in front of Johnson’s cell, debating whether to knock, and then noticed the door was ajar. He pushed against it, and the ancient hinges screeched in protest. Doc was still in his bed, buried under his blanket.

  “Yo, Doc.” Rizzo crossed the floor with urgency. “C’mon, get
up. I think we’ve got unwelcome visitors here. C’mon, get up.”

  One of the candles, low and guttering, remained lit. Rizzo pulled it across the small table, away from a small, leather-bound book, and turned to the bed. He reached out his hand, touched Johnson’s shoulder, and gingerly gave him a shake. “Get up—”

  It was the blood on the top hem of the blanket that stopped him. Cut himself shaving? Rizzo shook Doc again and the blanket pulled away. He stumbled backward, tripped over the blanket, fell against the table, and knocked the candle onto the floor. The candle’s flame sputtered against the stone floor, but Doc’s waxy, white face . . . blank, staring eyes . . . and bloody, punctured neck told a tale that needed no illumination.

  Rizzo felt his stomach turn, a brackish bile rising in his throat. Rapid, shallow breathing; pain in his chest; doubt, fear, alarm torching his emotions.

  A trio of large, scaly scorpions crawled across Doc’s face and neck like sentries guarding their prey. But they no longer hunted for food.

  Sammy sat on the floor. The weight pressing on him felt so heavy he might never get up. Emptiness engulfed him. He felt as if he were sitting on the deck of the Titanic, watching its bow slip under the waves. The adventure movie ended. Reality, finality, Doc’s lifeless body, numbed both his heart and his bones. Sammy needed to convince himself to breathe.

  He sensed movement by the door. No noise, but they were there.

  There was no running this time. Rizzo set his jaw and tightened his muscles.

  A hand reached for his arm, gently, urging him to get up.

  “Come . . . please.”

  Rizzo’s gaze didn’t leave Johnson’s contorted death mask. He no longer felt fear. But rage erupted like magma on a mission.

  His left hand closed around the pewter candlestick lying beside him on the floor and he swung it across his body with all the force he could leverage.

  “You, bas—” A strong, calloused hand caught his wrist.

  Sammy pushed off the floor, throwing himself at the man to his right. A second hand grabbed his shoulder and forced him back to the floor.

  “I’ll—you—,” Rizzo sputtered, flailing blindly against the force that held him in place.

  “Mr. Rizzo. Please, we must leave, now.”

  It struck him that the man kneeling at his side spoke to him as a servant trying to rouse his master. Courteous killers?

  Sammy’s hands latched onto the cloth of the shirt on the man’s arms, heroically wrestling to free himself. But, now, the fire left his mind and his eyes cleared. Next to him was kneeling a vision from an old B movie. A red checked kaffiyeh, held in place by two black ropes, framed the face, its ends trailing onto the leather vest the man wore over a white muslin shirt. Well-worn, blousy blue pants were tucked into calf-high leather boots, kept in place by a wide, red sash that now trailed on the floor. If it wasn’t for the gleaming rifle slung over one shoulder, the bandolier of cartridges strapped across his chest, or the vicious-looking short scimitar tucked into the sash, Rizzo would have been arrested mostly by the man’s face. A black mustache exploded under his prodigious nose and dropped off each side of his mouth to frame his chin. His eyes were black, but filled with the fire of life and a gladness of spirit. A ragged, screaming pink scar ran from his left cheek, across the eyebrow of his left eye, above his nose, and sliced across his brow until it disappeared beneath the kaffiyeh.

  “Who? . . . What? . . .”

  “The Prophet’s Guard killed your friend. We didn’t get here quickly enough, though we came as soon as we heard you arrived. But we must leave. You are not safe here.”

  A second man, dressed identically, was standing just inside the door. He crossed the room in two steps, swept the scorpions from Doc Johnson’s chest with the back of his hand, and ground each one to oblivion with the sole of his boot.

  Rizzo’s eyes were blinking as fast as his mind was turning. Whoever they were, they weren’t the enemy. “Who are you? Why should I trust you?”

  The man reached under his thin muslin shirt, pulled out a chain, and showed Sammy what hung from it—a Coptic cross. “But no lightning bolt,” the man said, searching Sammy’s eyes.

  “I will ask for your faith. My name is Hassan. That is my cousin. We—our families for generations before us—are members of the Temple Guard who once guarded the mezuzah and the message of the priest, Abiathar. But the others, those who seek to destroy us and destroy you—those with the lightning bolt desecrating the cross—have not completed their work this night. Come . . . we must leave.”

  The man stood to his feet and held out his right hand. Sammy searched the face. He could discern no trace of treachery, no sign of deceit. It was a risk. But staying here was also a risk. He took another, final look at Doc’s waxy, white face, grabbed Hassan’s hand, and pulled himself to his feet.

  “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here. Wait. Where are we going?”

  “To the answer.”

  Hassan swept up the book and motioned to his cousin, who sidled up to the door, listened, stole a glance around the corner, nodded his head, and was out the door and to the right like a bullet.

  “Follow him. Quickly. Silently.”

  Three doors down the corridor, the first man stood at the threshold, his face turned to the length of the hallway, his left hand waving behind his back, directing Rizzo through the open door. His two guardians followed, closed the door, and moved immediately to the open window. Hassan led the way, feet first, through the window, dropping to the ground outside without a sound. Rizzo followed, getting a boost through the window, and Hassan grabbed him at the hips as he cleared the ledge. The other man slipped out the window like a moon shadow. They turned away from the brightening sky and all three fled into the retreating darkness.

  Jebel Kalakh, Syria

  Bruised from the hard, wooden seats, covered with the ocher stone dust of the desert that billowed through nonexistent windows for the six-hour trip through the Homs valley, Tom Bohannon thanked God that he finally escaped from the ancient green bus that now belched and bumped its way down the steep slope.

  Rodriguez had gotten the better of the deal.

  Bohannon was caked with desert grit, withered by the sun, and still had a six-hour bus trip back to Tripoli to endure.

  He removed the handkerchief he had desperately wrapped over his nose and mouth to minimize the damage to his lungs during the interminable trip. He pulled a plastic bottle of water from his backpack, soaked the handkerchief, and rubbed at the dust coating his face and neck as if it were a carcinogen eating away at his skin.

  It was only then, wiping the grit from his eyes, that Tom looked at the walls towering above him.

  The mountain of gray stone stretched to the azure sky that spread from horizon to horizon, dwarfing the vistas that loomed in all directions.

  Krak de Chevaliers—“the perfect castle” according to Lawrence of Arabia—guarded the heavily traveled trade route between Antioch and Beirut . . . from the Syrian interior to the Mediterranean Sea. The limestone fortress, first constructed in 1031 for the emir of Aleppo and later the impregnable keystone of Crusader power, rested atop a steeply sloped hill, twenty-three hundred feet above the floor of the Buqai’ah Valley, with a sheer drop on three sides. Overrun by local villagers for hundreds of years, the castle was rescued by the French Department of Antiquities in 1934, restored over the decades, and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2006. And it was huge.

  Bohannon pulled out the English guidebook he purchased in Tripoli, studied the map on the inside flyleaf, and followed the rest of the weary and dusty tourists across a stone bridge and through the large, arched gate in the sixteen-foot-thick wall. Robed children ran after the knot of tourists ahead of him and Bohannon could hear their plaintive offers to provide “first-class” guide services.

  “Perhaps I could assist you, sir?”

  Bohannon jumped at the sound of a voice by his shoulder. He looked to his left and found a young man with hung
ry eyes looking him over.

  “Please forgive my boldness,” the young man said, bowing slightly at the waist. “But there is no other way for me to offer my services as a guide.”

  He was shorter than Bohannon, but not by much, and wore a crisp, white kaftan that failed to hide the bulked-up muscles of a body builder. Under his white kaffiyeh, his black eyes were bottomless. His smile was bright, but far too vibrant, as if he had painted it on this morning.

  “I am Zaka Alaoui, a student at the university in Homs. This is one way I help to pay for my studies. My knowledge of the castle is extensive and my English is without compare. Perhaps you would allow me to guide you? The castle’s passageways are labyrinthine and one is easily confused.”

  Alaoui tried earnestly to appear at ease, deferential, a servant for hire. Bohannon took a step backward, out of the young man’s sphere of contact. Then he held up the guidebook and shook his head.

  “Thank you, but I don’t believe I’ll need a guide.”

  The young man’s painted-on smile turned down at the edges and his eyes hardened, sending a shiver up Bohannon’s spine in spite of the beating sun.

  “Very well,” Alaoui said, backing away and bowing slightly, touching his fingers to his forehead. “May Allah go with you.”

  Alaoui’s final words may have been a farewell, but, to Bohannon, the look on his face was more like a warning. Unsettled, but determined, Bohannon pulled out his map of the Krak, quickly got his bearings, and began his search for the castle’s library. Walking through the courtyard between the outer and inner walls of the castle, Bohannon was amazed at the wonder of this Crusader fortress. The outer, or curtain, wall was about twenty feet tall with a crenellated battlement running along its crest. It was fortified by thirteen towers spaced at the corners and along the sides of the wall. While formidable, the outer wall was dwarfed by the monumental size of the Krak de Chevaliers’ inner keep.

  Across a narrow, separating moat, now filled in places with stagnant water, the inner walls of the castle rose eight stories tall and sloped away from the one-hundred-foot-thick base at an eighty-degree angle, making assault on the walls nearly impossible. Huge, half-round towers jutted from the inner wall halfway up its angled sides. If the Knights Hospitaller were forced to abandon the outer wall’s defenses, the higher inner walls would afford the castle’s defenders a perfect perch for raining death on invaders. And if an attacking army ever breached the massive inner wall, the interior of the castle was a maddening warren of narrow, zigzagging, vaulted passageways that could be sealed by dropping iron gates from the ceiling.