The Temple Mount Code

25

The heat hanging over the Old City was certainly a change from the frigid Himalayas, but it was evening now, and the night brought cooler temperatures. Lourds kept glancing over his shoulder as he trudged through the winding alleys. He told himself that he wasn’t being paranoid, that there were actually people out to get him.

He just didn’t know who they were yet.

He traveled the way from memory. He’d spent a lot of time with Lev off and on back in the day, and he regretted the fact that there hadn’t been more time to spend these last few years. When he thought of how long it had last been, Lourds felt a little ashamed. Of course, not all of that was his fault. Lev Strauss stayed busy with his studies and teaching as well.

One of the things bothering Lourds was that he hadn’t been able to connect with Strauss over the phone. He’d tried several times during layovers at the various airports during the two days it had taken him to get to Jerusalem from Nepal, but the phone was never answered. He’d left several messages.

As always, pedestrians filled the cobblestone streets. The black and white clothing of the devout Jews mixed with the traditional Islamic garb, and all of that was interspersed by the obvious tourists, who walked around gawking at things. They were prime prey for the street vendors hawking their goods.

A few people stared at Lourds, then quickly looked away. One child even pointed at him and tugged on his mother’s arm. As Lourds had feared, the black eye had turned out splendidly.

He entered Lev’s building, then went up the stairs and stopped at his door on the third floor. Lourds knocked loudly. ‘Lev?’

He heard no sounds from inside.

Lourds knocked again. ‘Lev? It’s Thomas.’ Glancing around, he realized something was wrong. By this time, neighbors would have been peering from their doors. With the Jewish, Islamic, Christian, and Armenian people all living so close together in Jerusalem, everyone stayed on their guard.

Someone should have looked out at him by now.

Lourds shifted his backpack and took a fresh grip on his suitcase. He didn’t know if Lev was putting him up or if he was going to stay at a hotel. Or if they were going to bolt in pursuit of whatever Lev was working on.

Two people stepped onto the landing from the stairs. The man wore a suit, and the woman had on slacks and a jacket over a tunic top. When they showed him their police identification, Lourds wasn’t surprised.

‘Professor Lourds? Professor Thomas Lourds?’

It wouldn’t have done Lourds any good to deny his identity to the woman. Her partner was already comparing Lourds’s face to a picture on his clipboard.

‘I am.’

‘I’m Detective Sharon Cohen. This is my partner, Detective Gabi Segalovitch. We’d like you to come with us.’

‘Why?’

‘We have some news of your friend Lev Strauss. Not very good news, I’m afraid.’

The detectives offered to drive Lourds to the US Embassy if he thought he would feel better there while being questioned. Stunned and greatly saddened, Lourds told them he would be fine talking to them at their headquarters. They split the difference and stopped at a sandwich shop not far from Lev’s flat.

Lourds didn’t have much of an appetite, but he made himself eat while he listened to Detective Cohen relate the shocking events of Lev’s death. He barely tasted his corned beef on toasted rye.

‘You people don’t know who killed Lev?’

Cohen shook her head. ‘Not yet. This is something we’re working on very hard, Professor Lourds, but there are extenuating circumstances.’

‘What extenuating circumstances?’

‘We haven’t been able, thus far, to identify anyone involved with Lev Strauss or anything that would get him killed. We were hoping to get some information from you.’

The woman was quiet, reserved and supportive, the perfect person to talk to. Lourds knew that was her role. Segalovitch watched Lourds like a hawk.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have any news for you. Lev called me here, and I came.’

‘You came without knowing why?’ Sarcasm and suspicion deepened Segalovitch’s voice. ‘And just left a media event in the Himalayas? Quite frankly, if you don’t mind me being so bold, Professor Lourds, that doesn’t sound like something a media hound like you would do.’

Lourds glared at the man, then felt foolish. The glare would have worked so much better if he hadn’t been wearing a black eye. ‘Lev Strauss saved my life. You don’t forget a thing like that.’

‘Is that enough to bring you to Jerusalem? Away from a find like what you had in the Himalayas?’ Segalovitch paused. ‘Or did Lev Strauss tell you what he was working on?’

Lourds took a breath, then let it out. Honesty, in this case, didn’t hurt. ‘Lev said he was working on something, but he didn’t say what it was. He told me he’d tell me when I got here.’

‘But that was big enough to bring you?’

‘Lev said it was, and I believed him.’

Leaning back in his chair, Segalovitch seemed more relaxed and more contemptuous. ‘I told you this would be a waste of time, Sharon.’

The female detective ignored her partner, concentrating on Lourds instead. ‘We do know that someone was providing Strauss with around-the-clock protection.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because we found the bodies of two of the men who were with him that night. The third was wounded, ended up at the hospital, and disappeared.’

‘Lev didn’t have the money to hire a protective service.’

‘We know. We’ve seen his finances. Who do you think these people were?’

‘Begging your pardon for pointing out the obvious, but guessing games like that aren’t my department. Show me a document, I can tell you whether it’s real or a forgery. I can translate it for you, given enough time. But something like this, Detective, that’s just not something I do.’

Cohen looked at him for a moment, then nodded. ‘There is one other thing you could do for us, if you feel up to it.’

‘If I can.’

‘We’d like you to take a look around inside Mr. Strauss’s flat.’

Since he didn’t intend to leave the city without doing that anyway, Lourds readily agreed.

‘We’ve shot video of this whole flat, but we don’t know what we’re looking for.’ Detective Cohen gestured at the rooms. ‘We do know that some things were taken.’

‘Stolen?’ Lourds inspected the room quietly, juxtaposing how it looked with how he remembered from his visits. A historian always struggled to find a place to keep all his papers, documents, and books. Lev Strauss had fought the same losing battles.

Shelves lined the walls, filled with books that had bookmarks and flags through them. Magazines and bound papers filled neatly stacked boxes. A few museum-quality pieces, small artifacts from the Muslim, Christian, and Judaic worlds, occupied places of honor among the books.

Lev’s study was even more jam-packed. Open books lay on top of open books, and the scholar inside Lourds cringed at the sight because it meant the bindings would eventually give way. He didn’t know how many priceless books he’d seen that had been abused like that.

At the same time, Lourds knew that if anyone invaded his home study or his office at Harvard, they would find books treated in exactly the same manner.

‘His computer is missing.’ Lourds stared at the void in the middle of the messy desk.

‘Who said you weren’t a detective?’ Segalovitch leaned against the doorframe and smirked.

Lourds ignored the man and looked at Cohen.

‘His computer was missing when we got here.’

‘Lev was in the habit of leaving files stuck out in cyberspace. Have you checked any of his on-line accounts?’ Lourds asked the question trying to appear helpful, but he knew Lev would never have trusted anything worthwhile to a computer site.

‘We’ve found some of them. We’re searching for others. So far, everything we’ve turned up hasn’t been helpful.’

‘That’s too bad.’ Lourds put his hands on his hips like he was doing his best to figure something out, but inside he wanted to escape the detectives’ scrutiny and get to the Wohl Archaeological Museum. If Lev had left him a message in the event something had happened to him, it would be there.

He hoped.

‘What was here?’ Cohen pointed at the bare wall near the desk.

Lourds walked over to the wall and ran his fingers along the dusty shelves. Patterns in the dust showed where some objects had recently stood. ‘Your people didn’t take these?’

‘No. Those shelves were empty when we got here. Gone. Just like the computer.’

Lourds’s heart hurt at the thought of all those things missing. ‘These were Lev’s special collections. He worked at a lot of digs, put in thousands of hours on different projects. He was an archaeologist and linguist who made a difference.’ He looked at Cohen and spoke from the heart. ‘He was a good man, Detective. He deserved better than this. Catch whoever killed him.’

Cohen nodded. ‘We will.’

Once they were through with Lev’s flat, Lourds accepted Cohen’s offer to drive him to his hotel. He checked into the David Citadel Hotel, said good-bye to the detectives after exchanging cell phone numbers with them, and went up to his room.

There, he hooked up his computer and checked his mail. There were a few video clips from Gloria Chen and David Hu, regaling him with new thoughts on various pieces from the temple, and asking whether he’d managed to crack the language yet.

There was a lot of other e-mail as well, from his literary agent, his publisher, fans, the university staff — including the dean, and friends. He left them all for later.

After a leisurely shower, he changed clothing, then got back on the computer and found the nearest electronics store that carried a blacklight flashlight. He’d need it in the morning.

Stretching out on the bed, he lay down and took a nap. When his alarm woke him, it was 8 a.m.

Then he went out the hotel’s back way and took off on foot. One of the many good things about Jerusalem was that it wasn’t far to anywhere.

Normal operation hours for the Wohl Archaeological Museum were from Sunday to Thursday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. But on holidays and Fridays they were open from 9 to 1.

Lourds went down the stone steps leading to the underground complex and was completely blown away by the excavation work again. Many visitors to Jerusalem didn’t know that the city existed on two levels. The modern-day city that everyone saw was referred to as the ‘Upper City.’

In the days of Herod the Great (37–04 BC), the families of important temple priests had lived in mansions throughout the area. Excavations by the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Exploration Society, and the Israel Department of Antiquities (now known as the Israel Antiquities Authority) started in 1968, shortly after the Six-Day War.

From 1969 to 1982, those excavations were directed by Dr. Nahman Avigad. The archaeologist had also published one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, helped with the Masada excavation, and found the Broad Wall that protected the city during King Hezekiah’s reign in the late eighth century BC. Lourds loved the man’s work, but what fascinated him most was Avigad’s study of Hebrew seals. One of the seals, according to Avigad, had belonged to Queen Jezebel. Despite peer challenges, Avigad had stuck to his guns in his claims.

The Burnt House had always captivated Lourds’s attention as one of the most intriguing artifacts that had been discovered. It had been found under ashes, informing excavators that the building had burned down, but the ground floor was miraculously saved.

Lourds stood in the doorway for a moment and imagined what it must have been like before the restoration efforts. Avigad and his people still had so many incredible finds ahead of them: the stone kitchenware that was used instead of pottery to keep the cleanliness by edict of the Halacha, the Roman-period oil lamps and inkwells, the perfume workshop tools that included measuring cups and bowls, an iron spear that might have belonged to a Jewish fighter, and the ghastly remains of a young woman’s arm from fingertips to elbow.

That sight had stayed in Lourds’s mind. The arm bones had been buried according to Jewish custom, but pictures of the find remained on display.

A short distance farther on, Lourds found the mikveh, the ritual bath used by men and women. Regulations varied widely among the different interpretations of the religion, but most agreed that the ritual baths had to be fed by natural springs and be deep enough to cover the person bathing.

The mikveh was constructed of stone and had two doorways at the top of the steps: one for entering and one for leaving. Lourds went down when no one else was there. He took the Black Scorpion blacklight he’d purchased from the electronics store from his pocket.

He stopped at the bottom of the mikveh’s stone steps, then turned to his right and tracked the blacklight beam across the stones, counting as he went.

Thomas, if I ever have anything that is important and must be found, I will leave it where you can find it. Only you and I will know of this place. If, for whatever reason, I cannot finish my study of whatever this thing might be, I want you to promise me that you will look for it.

They’d been drunk at the time. It had been after Lev had gotten out of the hospital and been fitted with his prosthetic leg, after which walking with the prosthesis had proven both sad and hilarious.

As a boy, Lourds had fallen in love with the old Doc Savage pulps, and Lev had shared a love of them. In the stories, Doc Savage and his aides were forever leaving messages for each other written in ultraviolet chalk.

Over the years, Lev had occasionally left messages for Lourds in different places. Never the mikveh. That place was sacred, meant for only the holiest of things.

Lourds knew that if Lev had truly been working on something important, earthshakingly important, he would have left a clue there. He hoped there was nothing there.

Then the blacklight touched the message and brought it to vibrant life.