Destiny

TWENTY-ONE

For the next week, Marcus reported to the library and worked twelve-hour days poring through Isaac Newton’s papers. To further protect the computer where Marcus was doing his research, the university and the library’s IT department added firewalls, changed passwords, created a dummy clone and rerouted access.

Marcus still had reservations.

“To catch a mouse, you have to set a trap,” he mumbled, layering in decoy emails and fake subject lines. In one he wrote: Physicist Abromov’s arrival from Moscow to Tel Aviv pending transfer… “Come get the bait,” he whispered.

Then he began reading through the countless words that Newton had written, hypothesizing and leveraging dialogue and text from the Bible into repeating patterns. The further Marcus dug, the more fascinated he became with what Newton had discovered in the ancient passages. He was becoming even more impressed with Newton’s remarkable gift. He started to think that somewhere in the math, parables, early calendars, iconic imagery, and puzzling symbols, that maybe there were hidden predictions to be found.

The more Marcus uncovered, the exhaustive science and Newton’s fastidious attention to detail — the scientist’s ability to find, correlate and understand the connections from Old Testament script with events in the New Testament, was beyond the capacity of anyone he’d ever known. It became apparent that Newton was seeking an innermost set of laws — the secrets to an intricate plan weaving together three-thousand-year-old cryptograms.

Late in the afternoon on the fifth day, Marcus wasn’t sure if he was beginning to hallucinate or if he was starting to see something rise to the surface of the massive amount of text. He had a dull headache, but he didn’t want to stop working. He used every mathematical and decoding skill he’d honed to figure the equations and examine the science from the hand of Newton. Marcus scrutinized how Newton brought forth data from the movement of the planets, the equinoxes, lunar and solar eclipses, and the biblical events in alliance with prophecies that seemed to fit into sequential patterns from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

Marcus tried to find momentum, a nexus that drew sequences into a central theme of what those actions meant at the time they happened and how they may have an influence on things yet to happen. He rubbed his temples and read Newton’s words aloud:

“‘The prophecies of Daniel are related to one another, as if they were but several parts of one general prophecy, given at several times. The first is the easiest to be understood, and every following prophecy adds something new to the former. The first was given in a dream to Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, in the second year of his reign, but the King forgot his dream. Then it was given again to Daniel in a dream, and by him revealed to the King.’”

Marcus sipped room temperature tea, read from the batch of Newton’s handwritten papers in the folder, and then returned to Newton’s words that had been scanned, filed and displayed on the plasma screen in front of his work desk.

‘In the next vision, which is of the four beasts, the prophecy of the four Empires is repeated, with several new additions; such as are the two wings of the Lion, the three ribs in the mouth of the Bear, and the four wings and four heads of the Leopard. Also, the eleven horns of the fourth Beast, and the son of man coming in the clouds of Heaven, to the Ancient of Days sitting in judgment.’

“How are you doing?” asked Jacob Kogen, entering the room. “Anything more, or is it getting increasingly difficult to make sense out of it as you proceed?”

Marcus looked up from the screen, his eyes burning. “Newton’s genius was off the charts. His skill at using mathematics, astronomy, multiple types of calendars, connected to three thousand years of biblical history, and his ability to link it with a margin contingent on whether he was working in Hebrew, Greek, Armenian or Roman calendars, is beyond human comprehension. His grasp of how the events of the Bible seem to fit in a set of moveable laws is astounding.”

“Moveable?”

“As in over the course of time and human events. Through the timeline, from central Europe, Greece, Egypt, Rome, Babylonia and the rest of the Middle East, it’s like looking at one enormous chessboard. The players: kings, queens, bishops, rooks, knights, and pawns, are all given opportunities to play the game with a set of tenets. But, as in chess, it too often becomes a real war; and the lust for land, power and conquest tosses out the rules. The prevailing set of laws that Newton seems to have been uncovering — the symbols, language, and subtext that he’s finding from book to book in the Bible, are the buried cornerstones in the Old and New Testaments.”

“What kind of laws?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“God’s laws, perhaps.”

“That’s apparent in Newton’s writings. Also, he spent years studying alchemy, and I’ve been reading many of his papers on the subject.”

Jacob smiled. “Turning lead into gold, the Philosopher’s Stone, perchance?”

“I don’t know.”

“Many alchemists, maybe Newton included, are thought to have died from the effects of mercury poisoning because the elixirs they consumed, the substance of transforming lead to gold, they believed might give them lives stretching into a second century. Some scholars suggest that the transmutation of lead into gold is metaphoric for the transmutation of the physical body with the goal of attaining immortality.”

“What do you know about the Emerald Tablet?”

Jacob raised a bushy eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

“Because Newton mentions it in his papers on alchemy. He even interpreted the writing.”

“Many have interpreted it. No one alive knows who really wrote it. The brief text could go back to the ancient Egyptians, Hermes perhaps. Many describe it as a short, truth-seeking list that offers insight into the balance of the universe, especially in the area of natural laws.”

Marcus read from the screen. “Newton offered his own interpretations. He listed them from one through fourteen. He writes that the first thing the Emerald Tablet says is that all the rest of what it says is true. The other things include this:

“‘That which is below is like that which is above. This does the miracles of one thing only. The sun is the father and the moon is the mother. The wind has carried it in its belly, and the earth is the nurse. The father of all perfection in the world is here. Its power is absolute if it is converted into earth. Its force is above all, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing…and so the world was created.’”

Jacob interlocked his fingers across his stomach. “What are you thinking?’

“Newton seemed to be trying hard to bring the metaphysical, spiritual and physical into one caldron, turn up the fire and see what it boils into.”

“How about his decoding, anything there? Such as using the ELS coding we found in the Torah? These have proven that biblical prophecies are real, as in revealing the names of some prominent rabbis centuries before their births.”

“If you have enough text in any book, War and Peace, for example, using the ELS codes, picking sequential letters, can fit whatever you feed into them. You must get more specific.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s the question, and I’m hoping I might find the answers, at least some of them, from Newton.”

“He may have written more than a million words on theology alone.”

Marcus stared at the screen, the white light burning into his unblinking eyes.

Jacob said, “You’re tired, my friend.”

“Yeah. I’ll dump this to a flash drive and work on it from my hotel.”

“If you find something, please call me. I don’t care what time it is. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve arranged to have a rental car for you. It’s a blue Toyota in the car park outside. Taxi rides get old.” Jacob handed Marcus the car keys. “Goodnight, get some rest. Your eyes look like they hurt.”

“Thanks for the car.”

It was almost 9:30 p.m. when Marcus parked in a lot across from the hotel and walked into the lobby. His body was drained, but his mind couldn’t disengage from the possibilities of what Newton could have discovered if he’d had the resources of a computer. He checked his watch for the time back in Virginia and made a call.

“Amber, how are Buddy and the horses?”

“They’re fine. I rode Midnight yesterday. Hope you don’t mind.”

Marcus smiled. “Of course not. They need to be ridden more. Ride them anytime you want. Look, I need to stay a little longer over here, okay?”

“No problem. How’s the Holy Land?”

“I haven’t had time to visit much of it.”

“Take lots of pictures. You sound tired.”

“I’m working long hours. There should be plenty of food for the horses. If you run out of food for Buddy, I’ll reimburse you.”

“That’s fine. How long do you think you’ll stay there?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll call you as soon as I get a better handle on the timeframe.”

Marcus couldn’t remember the last time he overslept. But it happened, and it happened when he most needed to be up and out of the hotel. He looked at the bedside clock: 1:00 p.m.

How did Saturday arrive so quickly?

He sat up, on the edge of the bed, using the palms of his hands to wipe the lethargy from his eyes. Focus. He thought about what he’d learned the past few days in Israel and how Jacob’s intrigue had turned into admiration, his new BFF and cheerleader. But, how could Marcus score points in a bold new game where nothing was a consensus, an axiom — nothing was a given because no one on earth, except Newton, had reached that level? Marcus wondered how he could use math or science to prove theorems not provable by any known, conventional way.

Maybe he couldn’t, but he’d try. And, he’d try hard. He thought about that as he took a long, hot shower, ordered coffee and sat down to his computer to work. And he didn’t stop for five hours.

After 6:00 p.m., he went into the city to get some fresh air — to clear his head and find good food. He drove the small car through the streets of Jerusalem, cautious not to hit disoriented, camera-toting tourists stepping in front of his car. He thought about the decoding — the roadblocks. What am I missing? Marcus whispered, “The sun is the father and the moon is the mother.” Newton, you used your own theory of gravity to calculate the position of the moon to reconstruct the Judean Calendar. You explained and proved Daniel’s prophecy of seventy weeks by doing it. What else?

His mind turned over combinations of codes, ways to interpret, maybe translate and decipher some meaning out of what was frozen. For Marcus it was like watching a block of ice melt around an object, hoping the speck in the center of the ice is a pearl. He lost track of time driving. Rain began falling. Marcus searched the controls trying to find the wiper switch, finally engaging it. The blades smeared road dust with the heavy drops of water. Through the grime, Marcus read a road sign:

Where the hell am I? In the falling rain, Marcus didn’t recognize anything.