The Last Ember Page 18

  “Not to mention the secular significance of eternal flames all over the world,” Jonathan added, “like the Eternal Flame on John Kennedy’s gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery—”

  “Or the one in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park to remain lit until all nuclear weapons are destroyed,” Emili added.

  “And think of how extinguishing any of them would be the ultimate statement,” Chandler said. “Human rights protesters went so far as to climb the suspension cables of the Golden Gate Bridge to ambush the 2008 Olympic Torch en route to Beijing.”

  “So Titus needs to get inside the Holy of Holies to put it out himself ?” Emili asked. “Like some kind of deicide?”

  “Exactly,” Chandler answered. “And it’s why Josephus’s priestly lineage made him the perfect operative to get inside the Holy of Holies before Titus did. Remember, only a member of the kohanim, the priestly caste, could run into the inner sanctuary to smuggle out the menorah and its flame through the hidden gate.”

  Emili thought for a moment. “So when Josephus added that line, ‘But someone ran in before them,’ he was talking about—”

  “Himself,” Jonathan finished her thought. “Over the centuries, no one has realized he was talking about himself the entire time.”

  “Now if only we had some idea where this gate was,” Emili said.

  “Turns out, I think we do.” Jonathan reached into his jacket pocket.

  “The manuscript page said where the hidden gate was?” Chandler leaned in enthusiastically.

  “No,” Jonathan said, his voice distant, picturing the horrific photograph he had seen a half-hour earlier in Tatton’s office. “The location wasn’t written in the manuscript. It was written somewhere else.”

  From his jacket pocket, Jonathan removed his BlackBerry and accessed the photograph he managed to take in Tatton’s office. The image spread to the four corners of the device’s screen. Its small size did nothing to lessen the macabre nature of the preserved corpse lying in the liquid.

  “What the—!” Chandler stepped back, recoiling as though the digital image were contagious. “What the hell is that?”

  “The carabinieri found this corpse in the warehouse, beside the pages of Josephus,” Jonathan said, and turned to Emili. “A preserved first-century Corinthian maiden.”

  “Sick bastards.” Chandler leaned over to the image, pounced back, and then moved in closer. “What’s she floating in? Olive oil?”

  “It’s probably amber,” Emili said, “or another natural preservative.”

  “Did they cross-reference the photograph with Interpol’s missing-persons database?” Chandler said.

  “Not sure they’ll have much luck there,” Jonathan said.

  “Why not? That database goes back many years. She can’t be more than forty years old.”

  “I think she’d be flattered, Chandler,” Jonathan said, “considering that you’re probably off by a couple thousand years.”

  36

  Late for his meeting at the offices of the Waqf Authority, Salah ad-Din moved with a clipped military gait through the narrow corridors of Jerusalem’s Old City. I do not have time to talk politics over tea and dried fruit, he thought. But he agreed to meet with the mutwali on short notice. He knew the Waqf’s support for his excavations had grown tenuous. Salah ad-Din must not let his pride endanger his team’s access beneath the Mount. Not when he was so close.

  In the arched doorway of the Waqf offices inside the Bab el Nadme Gate, two guards in traditional Islamic dress averted their eyes as they waved Salah ad-Din through. The imams appeared personally insulted that someone with his pedigree—a grandson of the Grand Mufti Sheikh al-Husseini—wore Western clothes and disregarded the Quran’s prohibitions daily.

  I intend to honor the Mufti with more than empty words of prayer, Salah ad-Din answered, but not aloud.

  He stepped through the Waqf’s weather-beaten doors and into the two-story compound that had overlooked Haram al-Sharif since the fourteenth century. Salah ad-Din felt like a stranger among these imams, but he relished the Waqf’s history, how its jurisdiction dated to the expulsion of Richard the Lionheart and his Crusaders from Jerusalem by medieval Islamic warriors in 1192. It was then that the authority was created to administer the Islamic shrines of Haram al-Sharif through a waqf, or charitable trust.

  A young imam escorted Salah ad-Din past renovated offices with granite floors, polished Herodian stone walls, and magnificent Iranian rugs that announced the trust’s recent prosperity. He knew of the large sums the al-Quds fund collected at the annual international Islamic conferences to support the Waqf’s maintenance and construction inside the Mount. Saudi Arabia alone had donated more than $100 million to the Waqf’s projects since 2000.

  “It is an honor to have you in the Waqf’s office,” the imam said, walking toward him. He did not attempt to cover up the falsehood, eyeing Salah ad-Din’s black wool slacks and white oxford with open disapproval.

  “Chapter twenty-four of the Quran,” Salah ad-Din said with a polite smile. Lying incurs Allah’s condemnation.

  The young imam led Salah ad-Din into a sitting room adorned with two prayer apses facing Mecca. Between the apses hung a framed photograph of the grand mufti of Jerusalem. In the 1930s-era photo, the grand mufti was a young man, and the resemblance to Salah ad-Din was unmistakable. A dish of olives and dried fruit had been set on a low table between two chairs in the room’s center: a low red velvet armchair intended to accommodate the aging back of the mutwali, and a wooden chair for visitors. Salah ad-Din sat down and picked at the platter. It was a hospitality ritual and Salah ad-Din knew not to refuse. An engraved marble page of the Quran hung above an office desk.

  A manservant opened the door and Tarik Husseini, the current mutwali of the Waqf, appeared in the doorway. For intricate reasons of Islamic law that Salah ad-Din did not care to learn, the Waqf remained technically a trust, and the chief trustee or mutwali administered its most delicate affairs.

  The mutwali was a small, barrel-chested man who rarely removed his large tinted glasses. His ill-fitting dentures kept his lips permanently pursed, and his black mustache was so deeply dyed that it had long stained the skin above his mouth a cadaverous grayish blue. He walked across the room with a waddle, a constant reminder of the war injury that crippled his leg in 1948 as he fought alongside Jordanian snipers to keep the Israelis out of Jerusalem. He grandly lowered himself into the velvet chair and made a quick gesture.

  A servant wearing khaki pants and a military jacket came in with a tray of black tea. As he leaned over, Salah ad-Din saw the man’s sidearm—a glinting black Beretta that announced his recent activity in Iraq. The gun was the standard-issue weapon of American soldiers, and among insurgents, wearing the weapon of a killed adversary hailed back to early Arab traditions of keeping the sword of the vanquished. At least that was one lesson they managed to learn from my grandfather, Salah ad-Din thought. Keep the Mount protected, not with treaties, but with warriors.

  The mutwali leaned forward, eyeing the door. The guard waiting outside sensed the silence within and closed the door completely.

  “Our work is nearly done,” Salah ad-Din said.

  The mutwali slowly poured the tea for them both.

  “Not our work, young Salah ad-Din. Your work.” The mutwali sat back, sipping his tea. “Your efforts are not supported by the imams of the Waqf Authority. They think you have gone too far.”

  “Too far? Two thousand years, Mutwali. And we are hours from finding it. Where the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Romans failed, I will not.”

  The mutwali nodded, staring out the window; the golden Dome of the Rock was brilliant even beneath the overcast sky. “You have not found the path beneath the Mount where Josephus escaped with the artifact,” he said.

  Salah ad-Din was taken aback by the mutwali’s knowledge of his efforts.

  “You think I haven’t been following your research?” The mutwali labored to stand. “I a
dmired your grandfather, traveled with him throughout Berlin and the Balkans, seeking clues in the writings of Flavius Josephus. But we cannot risk the Waqf’s exposure because you inherited his obsession of controlling the past.” The mutwali’s expression hardened. “Your excavations must end, Salah ad-Din. The World Heritage Committee may vote to grant UN inspection privileges for the Haram any day.”

  “Inspection privileges? But the Waqf has had complete sovereignty of the Mount for nearly a thousand years.”

  “The imams now view the Mount as being more a part of . . . of the present.” The mutwali waved his hand abstractly. “Their intentions are to fill a large cistern inside the Mount with water from the Sacred Well of Zamzam in Saudi Arabia, thereby raising Jerusalem to the holiness of Mecca. If they begin construction before the UN inspection, they can argue that as a religious project already in progress, it should continue. Your efforts, they say, are too preoccupied with ancient history.”

  “Ancient history? Remember the teaching of my grandfather, the grand mufti, peace be upon him.” Salah ad-Din’s eyes rose to meet the picture. “Archaeology is politics.” A moment of reverential silence passed. “Did my grandfather think it was ancient history when he excavated sixty years ago?”

  “Your grandfather is the only reason the al-Quds fund has continued to finance your efforts outside Jerusalem.” Another slow sip of tea, his eyes not leaving Salah ad-Din’s. “Or have you forgotten how the United States Congress almost passed a law to withhold financing from the Palestinian Authority unless we halted our projects beneath the Mount?” There was a stack of paper in front of him, and he adjusted his glasses to read it more clearly. “U.S.C. Bill H.R. 2566. Do you remember how it took the careful strategy of our al-Quds fund’s business interests to silently mobilize the oil lobbies to put out that fire?”

  “I cannot stop my excavations yet,” Salah ad-Din said. “I promised the grand mufti I would find it.”

  “Allah will forgive your promise.”

  “Allah is not my concern!” Salah ad-Din said, his voice strengthening. He stood up from his chair.

  The door opened and the guard looked at the mutwali, who nodded paternally. All is well.

  “You did not see my grandfather at his end in Beirut,” Salah ad-Din said, stepping toward the window. “You did not hold his hand as he kneeled on the prayer carpet of the Al-Omari Mosque, watching the men assemble in the shadows. He knew who they were. The same Israelis who captured Eichmann in Argentina had come for him in Beirut. You did not see him remove a small cyanide pill from the binder of his Quran. He kept it close in case they ever found him.” Salah ad-Din’s tone softened. “You did not watch him slip it in his mouth and hold his hand as he fell onto his side, writhing on the floor. ‘Do not make Titus’s mistake,’ he told me.” Salah ad-Din’s eyes rose to the picture above him.

  “Do you know why your grandfather conducted his search with such passion? He believed the lamp was still aflame. He believed that the Romans failed to wipe out the Jews because Titus did not extinguish it, because he was betrayed and stole an ordinary fire while the authentic flame was squirreled to safety. He sought to finish the task Titus could not complete. Is that your aim, Salah ad-Din?” The mutwali removed his glasses, revealing eerie pale blue eyes. “Perhaps you have your grandfather’s religious passion, after all?”

  “The object is a historical symbol more powerful than any religious myth,” Salah ad-Din said. “You know the historical claims that would follow if others find it. It would endanger the Waqf’s control of the Mount overnight.”

  “Your expert from Rome, Professor Cianari, might have found it, but . . .” The mutwali held a strange, admiring gaze that finished the thought, but you apparently have your grandfather’s temper, too.

  Salah ad-Din looked down and noticed a small spattering of the professor’s blood on the cuff of his shirt.

  “I will have additional expertise,” Salah ad-Din said. “Ramat Mansour.”

  “Your cousin?” the mutwali said.

  “Ramat Mansour is more knowledgeable about the Mount than any professor.”

  “Except your cousin will not assist your efforts. He opposes your activities beneath the Mount.”

  “For this effort he will assist me,” Salah ad-Din said. “I will see to it.”

  “You have until the sabah,” the mutwali said, lowering his gaze to his tea.

  Dawn.

  “I am sorry, Salah ad-Din,” he continued. “I cannot allow—” But the mutwali did not finish. When he looked up he saw that the young man was no longer standing by the window. As the consummate sign of disrespect, while the mutwali was mid-sentence, Salah ad-Din had walked out, leaving the door wide open.

  37

  An ancient dead woman,” Chandler said. “Floating in a column. Congratulations, Aurelius, we’re even. Now I think you’ve lost it. And have you any idea how much it takes for me to say that? A hell of a lot.” He turned to Emili. “I mean, is it even possible? That level of preservation after two thousand years?”

  “Actually, it is,” Emili said. “In 2002, a highway construction team in eastern China uncovered a fluid-filled coffin, and a corpse just as well preserved was floating inside. Nearly perfect, except for the muscle tissue that got discolored from the alkaline fluid.”

  “This old?” Chandler said.

  “Older. A queen of the Han Dynasty. Early first century. I bet she has this young woman’s radio carbon numbers beat by fifty years.”

  “Fine”—Chandler tilted his head back—“let’s say she’s that old, Aurelius, what does she tell us?”

  “The inscription tattooed around her navel indicates a location,” Jonathan said.

  “‘Phere Nike Umbilicus Orbis Terrarum,’” Jonathan read.

  “What does it mean?” Emili said.

  “Well, phere or pheros refers to someone who carries or bears something, like phospheros, ‘a stone that bears light,’” Jonathan said, “or Christopher, as in ‘bearer of Christ.’ Nike, of course, means ‘victory,’ umbilicus, as you might expect, means ‘navel,’ and orbis terrarum means ‘sphere of the world.’”

  “Navel of the world.” Chandler stood up suddenly.

  “Wait,” Emili challenged. “It says ‘orbis terrarum,’ which means a round earth. That means this inscription couldn’t have been written in the first century. The ancient scientific consensus was that the world was flat.”

  “But it wasn’t the consensus among the ancient priests of Jerusalem,” Chandler said slowly, thinking aloud. “The Kabbalists in Jerusalem knew a great deal of astronomy. They correctly modeled the solar system two thousand years before the European philosophers realized the earth was round. In fact, it’s no coincidence that the six branches of the menorah make completely round orbits around a central fiery object. For the ancient mystics, the menorah represented the solar system, each branch embodying the revolution of visible planets around a central light, the sun.” Chandler shrugged. “The Church may have tried to lop off Galileo’s head for suggesting a heliocentric view, but Jerusalem’s priests millennia before had been quietly using the menorah’s symbolism to understand a more accurate depiction of the planetary alignment. The lamp’s central light, a shamash, even uses the same Hebraic letters as shemesh, meaning ‘sun.’ ”

  “Chandler’s right, Emili,” Jonathan said. “Josephus himself says, ‘The seven lamps upon the sacred candlestick refer to the course of the planets. ’ Anyone for whom this tattoo’s message was intended knew—at the very least—that the earth was round.”

  “Center of the world?” Emili said. “Still doesn’t exactly narrow it down, does it?”

  “Oh, yes it does,” Chandler said, grinning. “Ancient cosmology viewed Jerusalem as the geographical center of the world, and the Temple Mount as the center of Jerusalem.”

  “Of the entire world?” Emili said.

  “ ‘As the land of Israel is the navel of the world,’ ” Chandler recited from memory, his eyes obligatori
ly closed for effect, “ ‘ Jerusalem is in the center of the land of Israel, and the sanctuary is the center of Jerusalem.’ ” He turned to Jonathan. “Even through medieval times, cartographers portrayed the continents as cloverleafs and the Temple Mount in the center of the earth.”

  Emili looked suddenly skeptical. “But how do we know this woman is even connected to any of this? Maybe she was just—”

  “Just what?” Chandler said, pointing at the tattoo. “Some ancient hipster, and ‘navel of the world’ was her favorite ancient punk band?”

  Emili ignored him. “Jonathan, this woman may not even have been from the same century. Now you’re the one making assumptions.”

  “No assumptions here at all,” Jonathan said. He pointed at the corpse’s abdomen in the photograph. “Look at the length of those five curved rows of gashes across the torso. They look like—”

  “Claw marks,” Emili whispered.

  “Yes,” Jonathan said, “and big ones, too. Perhaps a tiger. An urban woman this refined wasn’t killed in the wild. She was most likely damnata ad bestias.”

  “Condemned to the beasts,” Emili translated.

  “Right, and most likely for treason. We know Titus reserved his tigers for traitors because he felt their calculated crime merited an executioner that stalked its prey.”

  “So you think she was a member of Josephus’s network, one of the prisoners executed in the Colosseum?”

  “Yes, and I think we can tell who she was.” Jonathan looked up at Chandler. “Even without the Interpol database.” He pointed at the inscription. “They’ve written her name on her.”

  “Her name?” Chandler leaned over the image. “I don’t see a ‘Hello, my name is . . .’ sticker.”

  “Look at the inscription, it’s a mere combination cipher.”

  “As in combining two words,” Chandler said.