Newton’s Fire

III

The Old City, Jerusalem

There was another aftershock that afternoon, half an hour or so after Avram Kohen returned from the hospital. It was mild, as tremors went; barely enough to rattle the crockery in his cupboards and set off an intruder alarm further down the street. Yet it sent a shiver through Avram all the same. What with the news he’d had earlier, it was as though the Lord Himself, praise His Name, had come into his home to tell him bluntly that there were to be no more deferments, no more excuses.

This was to happen now.

His heart swelled within his chest. His eyes began to water. And then, just like that, his phone began to ring.

‘Shalom,’ said Avram, picking up. He heard soft breathing and three distinct clicks before the caller disconnected. He put the receiver down, his heart racing, hands a little clammy. This was how he had to communicate these days, since learning that his security had been compromised. He went to his bedroom, rolled up the rug, levered up the terracotta tile to get at the steel safe beneath. He punched the password into the keypad, opened its door, took out the small laptop, the satellite modem and his security keys, and carried them all up the wooden ladder onto his flat roof.

The afternoon was cloudless and fiercely hot, exacerbating the stench seeping from all the sewers in the Old City that had been fractured by the earthquake, and hadn’t yet been repaired. He sat with his back to the low perimeter wall as he aimed his modem north. From the corner of his eye he could see the Dome of the Rock, lording it over the Old City of Jerusalem like some conceited golden toad. But he didn’t look away. He’d taken this house precisely because of this view, for he’d known it would act on him like a scourge.

Three thousand years before, King Solomon had built his temple upon that sacred mount. The Babylonians had torn it down some four hundred years later, but Cyrus had authorized its rebuilding and then Herod had renovated and expanded it. In 70 AD, the Romans had destroyed it again, punishment for the Jewish uprising. Then the Muslims had arrived. Aware that this was Judaism’s holiest site, in 691 Abd al-Malik had built his wretched Dome upon it. And there it had remained ever since, a golden thorn in the heart of every Jew.

Many years before, Avram had dedicated his life to pulling that thorn free. Yet he’d gradually come to realize that bringing down the Dome wouldn’t be enough. World opinion, after all, would be outraged; and Israel’s craven leaders would doubtless succumb to pressure to rebuild it. And what sacrilege that would be! Not merely a Dome, but a Dome enabled by Jews. So he had come to the conclusion that it had to be brought down in such a way that only a Third Temple could be built in its place: in such a way that the Promised Land would be theirs forever.

The satellite modem finally acquired its signal. He typed in clearance codes from his security key to make the call. ‘You’ve found the papers,’ he stated when Croke picked up. ‘Didn’t I tell you that you would?’

‘I’ve just emailed you photographs,’ said Croke. ‘Check the bottom of the sixth side and call me back.’

The file opened with teasing slowness on Avram’s screen, a courtesan at her veils. It was all he could do not to slap his machine. But finally the page appeared.

Received from E.A.

12 plain panels and blocks SW, 2 linen rolls

S T C, E S D, L A A, B O J

Papers J.D. J.T.

On completion, E.A. asks that ye whole be in SALOMANS HOUSEwell concealed.

Something splashed against Avram’s wrist. He looked up, half expecting clouds to have appeared, but the sky was of an almost impossible blue, so that he realized he was crying. He stood and paced around his roof, the tears now spilling freely down his wrinkled cheeks. He stopped, clenched a fist, shook it at the Temple Mount, at the insect workers striving so futilely to repair its earthquake cracks. Only now could he acknowledge, even to himself, how his faith had begun to falter this past year or so, despite his best efforts.

Never again, he vowed. Never again.

First things first. The message still needed interpreting. He was intimately familiar with Newton’s studies of the Tanakh and the Kabbalah, with his writings on ancient kingdoms and the sacred cubit. But this lay outside that. He needed to talk to his nephew.

‘Jakob,’ he said, when the young man answered his phone. ‘It’s me. Uncle Avram.’

‘Uncle? What is it?’

‘You were right: the papers do exist. We’ve just found them.’ He talked Jakob through what had happened, read out the cryptic message.

‘“In Salomans House well concealed”,’ echoed Jakob, when he was done. ‘Then that must be where we’ll find it.’

‘Yes. Of course. But where is Saloman’s House?’

‘It’s here,’ said Jakob. ‘In London.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It was Sir Francis Bacon. He wrote a book called The New Atlantis. Salomon’s House appears in it: a kind of prototype research institute that was the direct inspiration for the Royal Society. And listen: Newton became the Royal Society’s president. And one of his first big decisions was to move the Society out of Gresham College into two adjoining buildings in a place called Crane Court. He had them gutted and rebuilt to his exact specifications.’

‘That’s it, then,’ said Avram, a little awed. ‘We’ve got it.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ cautioned Jakob. ‘The Royal Society moved out of Crane Court back in 1780. And now no one knows which buildings they occupied there.’

‘Someone must,’ Avram protested.

‘I give you my word, Uncle,’ said Jakob. ‘I tried to find out myself two years ago. But its exact address isn’t in any of the histories, there aren’t any commemorative plaques outside and there’s nothing online. Well, nothing definitive, at least. I spent days searching, I assure you.’

‘What about old London directories and maps?’

‘No use. Where they give an address at all, it’s just the Royal Society, Crane Court, never a number. I even approached the Royal Society itself, asked to consult their old minute books and property deeds; but they’d shipped them all off to some storage facility in Wales to save money, only to lose them in the floods.’

‘I don’t believe this, Jakob. Someone must know.’

‘I’m sorry, Uncle. They don’t. And even if you could find the old address, which you can’t, there’s no guarantee it would help. Crane Court isn’t what it used to be. They’ve demolished some buildings, knocked others together, turned some into offices and restaurants and apartment blocks. Even if we knew what numbers they had back then, the chances are high they’d have changed by now.’

‘We’ll find it,’ insisted Avram. ‘It’s destined. And, when we do, you’re going to have to escort it here personally. Are you ready? Do you have everything you need?’

‘Yes, Uncle.’

‘You’ll have to arrange it with our friends. I’ll be too busy myself.’

‘As you wish, Uncle.’

‘Shalom, Jakob. Till Jerusalem, then. It will be good to see you again.’ He rang off, called Croke once more, told him what he’d learned.

Croke grunted in disappointment. ‘That’s too bad,’ he said. ‘But I can have my London people look into it next week, see if your nephew is right about-’

‘No,’ said Avram. ‘This can’t wait. Discovering these papers today, it’s not a coincidence. It’s a sign. The day after tomorrow is the seventh of June. That’s the very day my people took Jerusalem back from the Muslims.’ His mind flickered briefly to the moment nearly fifty years before when, as a young conscript, he’d stood outside the Golden Gate and stared in amazement up at the Temple Mount, waiting for the bulldozers that for some inexplicable reason had never come. ‘The 49th anniversary. The date foretold by the Prophet Daniel. The exact date.’

‘I’m sorry. There’s too much to arrange by Tuesday. You have to see that.’

‘Not Tuesday. Monday.’

‘But you just said-’

‘The Jewish day begins and ends at dusk. We’re going to need the cover of darkness for our assault. That therefore means tomorrow night. People will start rising for the first call to prayer around three a.m. our time, which is one a.m. London time. We have to have seized the Dome by then. And I’m not giving the order to attack unless I know it’s already on its way. So you have a maximum of thirty hours to find it and get it in the air.’

‘Thirty hours? It’s not possible.’

‘It is possible. It has to be.’

‘I don’t understand,’ grumbled Croke. ‘Why do you even have to seize the place at all? Why not just bring it down with those Predators I got you?’

Avram sighed. It was like talking to a boulder sometimes. ‘You do know what this place is called?’ he asked.

Croke sounded puzzled. ‘You mean the Dome?’

‘No. I mean the Dome of the Rock. The rock that we Jews know as the Foundation Stone. The same Foundation Stone from which Adam himself was made by the Lord, praise His Name. The same Foundation Stone on which Abraham offered his son Isaac in sacrifice. The same Foundation Stone on which, for hundreds of years, the Holy of Holies housed the Ark of the Covenant. The navel of the world, the place where heaven meets earth, the holiest site in all Creation. And you want me to launch missiles at it?’

‘Ah,’ said Croke.

‘Yes,’ said Avram. ‘Ah.’

‘So what did you need those Predators for?’ asked Croke. ‘Do you know how difficult they were to get hold of?’

‘Turn on your television set tomorrow night. You’ll see for yourself.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Croke. ‘I really don’t think we’ve got enough time.’

‘But we do,’ insisted Avram. ‘The Lord, praise His Name, makes hard demands of His servants; but He never asks the impossible. There has to be a way. Find it, my friend. Find it — and we’ll both get what we want.’