The Nostradamus File

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Selena had been on her computer for almost an hour.

"I know what the five trees stand for but I'm not sure it helps much."

Nick waited for her to explain.

"It's a Gnostic symbol. There are several possible meanings. One is that they symbolize purification of the five senses, a metaphor for gaining union with God. Jesus is supposed to have said there are five trees in paradise and that whoever knows them will find eternal life. You come across it in the Gospel of Thomas and other Gnostic texts."

"I don't remember a Gospel of Thomas."

"It's one of several books that were kept out of the Bible."

"Why didn't they keep it?"

"It doesn't tell the same story as the others. The Gnostic texts were all considered heretical. They tell a different story. Gnostics believed in a direct knowledge of God. No intermediaries."

"No priests?"

"Right. If you're building a church where you want to be in charge, you can't have people deciding on their own what God wants. You need to make sure someone acts as the middle man."

"So young and yet so cynical," Nick said.

She shrugged. "I didn't come up with that idea. Anyway, that's what the trees symbolize."

"That still doesn't tell us where to look."

"What if we're on the wrong track about the trees?"

"What do you mean?"

"I've been thinking the clue was what the trees symbolized. That doesn't lead anywhere useful. Now I think Nostradamus meant something else. I still think the trees are the five signs in the quatrain."

Nick got up and looked out the hotel window at Amman. "Okay." he said over his shoulder. "If it's not what the trees mean as a symbol, why write a quatrain about them?"

"To draw attention to the shepherd?"

"The shepherd is just a shepherd. You kneel there and see the trees. The trees are part of the mosaic. What else is there, if it's not the trees?"

"The animals," she said. "The zebra and lion and the others."

He turned back to face her. "African animals. Maybe Nostradamus means that the Ark is in Africa."

"Ethiopia," she said. "The city of Axum. There's a chapel that's supposed to hold the Ark."

"I've heard of that," Nick said. "If it's there, it isn't lost, is it?" Nick pulled up a chair next to her and sat down. "We don't know anything. We can't run around Africa looking for this. Let's make some assumptions."

"Feel free."

"The first assumption is that the quatrain is a genuine clue to the location of the Ark, right?"

"If it isn't, we've wasted a lot of time."

"Tell me a little more about Nostradamus."

"Like what?"

"You said he always hid the real meaning of his quatrains because he was afraid of persecution."

"Yes. That's why it's so hard to interpret them."

"Did he mention specific places like Mount Nebo in the prophecies?"

"Often."

"Were those places symbolic?"

"Sometimes. What are you getting at?"

"What is it that's important about Mount Nebo?" Nick said.

"It's where Moses was shown the Promised Land by God, and where he's buried. I don't see where you're going with this."

"What if the clue isn't about the trees, but about Moses as the shepherd of his people?"

"You think the shepherd in the mosaic is Moses?"

"No. I think Nostradamus wanted to make the association with Moses."

"How does that help?"

"What's the first thing you think of when you think of Moses?"

"That's easy," Selena said. "The Ten Commandments."

"Right. He gets the Commandments from God and then eventually he gets to Mount Nebo. The clue is about Moses. That's assumption number two."

Selena looked at him. "You could have been a preacher," she said. "All this biblical thinking. But I still don't get it."

"Assumption number three is that the clue is really about the Ten Commandments. Where Moses received them."

"He got them on Mount Sinai. You're saying that you think the Ark is on Mount Sinai?"

"If not the Ark, then a clue to where it is."

"Nick, that's a real stretch. Besides, even if you're right there's a complication."

"There's always a complication. What is it?"

"No one is sure exactly which mountain is the one where Moses got the Commandments. Assuming the whole story isn't just a story."

"It's not in Egypt, on the Sinai Peninsula?"

"A lot of biblical archeologists don't think so. I don't see how the Ark could be there anyway. That's one of the most picked over mountains in the world."

"Then where else would it be?" Nick said.

"When you read Exodus it says there was thunder and lightning and a cloud of smoke on the mountain."

"That sounds like someone writing in a little dramatic effect."

"But what if it wasn't for effect? What kind of mountain has smoke and thunder?"

"A volcano. Are there any volcanoes in Egypt?"

"No. But there are in Saudi Arabia," Selena said.