Newton’s Fire

then these numbers might indicate how many times each letter is used in the cipher text. This first 2, for example, would imply that the letter A appears twice.’ He wrote two capital As at the top of a fresh sheet of paper. ‘This second 2 would indicate two Bs.’

‘I’m with you,’ said Rachel. ‘One C. No Ds. Eight Es.’

‘How do you know the grid reads left to right?’ asked Luke, a little piqued. ‘Maybe it goes from top to bottom.’

‘E is by far the most common letter in the alphabet,’ said Jay. ‘Eight Es therefore makes sense. Under your system, we’d have just one E, but eight Us. Are you really arguing that eight Us are more likely than eight Es?’

‘I guess not.’

‘Plus my way also gives us six Os, which I’d say makes rather more sense than your six Ws. Maybe you’d disagree? Maybe you’d prefer your six Qs to my six Is. At least it would give you something to do with all those Us. ’ He glanced at Rachel, almost with a smirk, as though showing off for her. ‘And I get four Rs and eight Ss, not to mention three Ns and two As, Ms and Ts, all of which make sense. That’s why, incidentally, I can be confident that this is a YZ cipher rather an IJ one. Any other questions, or may I get on with it?’ He didn’t bother waiting for Luke to answer, but instead wrote out all the letters in sequence:

A A B B C E E E E E E E E

F H H H H I I I I I I

L M M N N N N N O O O O O O

P R R R R S S S S S S S S T T T T

U V W W Y/Z

‘What about the pairs of letters before and after the numbers?’ asked Rachel. ‘What are they for?’

‘The numbers stood for letters,’ said Jay. ‘So perhaps the letters stand for numbers.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘A equals one. B equals two. E equals five. Add all the letter pairs up and what do you get?’

Luke shook his head. ‘What?’

‘My god, Luke! How long have you had this? Sixty. Now count up the numbers.’

‘Sixty?’ hazarded Rachel.

‘Exactly. Well done. Sixty. Now do you see?’

‘No,’ said Luke.

Jay took a fresh sheet of paper, set it next to the list of letters. He wrote two dashes on the left of the page, followed by a space and another five dashes, as in in a game of hangman. ‘There’s your first B and E,’ he said. He wrote two dashes and then six more on the right-hand side of the page. ‘And that’s your first B and F.’ He repeated it immediately beneath, then followed it with a third line of two dashes followed by eight, a fourth line of two and three dashes, with eleven and four dashes on the bottom line. ‘Now all we have to do is fit these sixty letters onto these sixty blank spaces until we’ve got a phrase that makes sense. Which would be easier if I knew where’d you found this thing, or what its context was.’ But he said this more to make the point than in reproach, for he was clearly enjoying the challenge now and didn’t want it made easier.

‘Maybe we should each have a go,’ suggested Luke.

‘Yes. Or maybe you could allow me some silence in which to work.’

‘Fine,’ said Luke. ‘We’ll leave you to it.’

II

The farm was a few kilometres north-west of Megiddo Junction, an old kibbutz that had died twelve years before from internal rifts and a lack of new blood. Thaddeus and his friends had bought it cheap, sold off the surplus arable land and then switched its remaining cattle facilities from dairy to beef. They’d refurbished the dormitories for their American volunteers and had added state-of-the-art farming facilities, including a laboratory for testing, treating and preserving semen samples. Then they’d set about breeding themselves a red heifer.

The yard was dark and deserted when Avram parked outside the main house. But a light came on inside even as Shlomo pulled up alongside him, and then Francis came out, dressed with unusual modesty in tattered farmhand clothes, deliberately downplaying his status here. Avram nodded at him. He beckoned for them to follow him to a cavernous barn, pungent with animal smells. Huge strip lights flashed and shuddered like a silent storm before finally coming on. Certificates, photograph albums and other documentation for the heifer lay on a pair of worktables inside the door. Another pair of tables against the end wall were arrayed with bowls, knives, vestments and everything else they’d need for the sacrifice itself. Water splashed into a ritual bath opposite the door, while the wall behind it was covered intriguingly by a vast white sheet. And, to their left, a wooden altar had been built beneath an expanse of open roof.

Yet, for all these marvels, Shlomo and his men had eyes for just one thing.

And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying: This is the statute of the law which the Lord hath commanded: Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer, faultless, wherein there is no blemish, and upon which there never came yoke.

A red heifer, faultless, wherein there is no blemish. And there she was, caged in a steel pen in the corner of the barn, trembling a little, shying away from the sudden light and the crowd of staring men.

Purity was impossible in this world. Try as one might, one simply couldn’t avoid death and dirt and disease. Yet no observant Jew had been allowed to enter the grounds of the Temple while tainted. And certainly none would ever even contemplate intruding impure upon the Holy of Holies. That would have been a terrible sacrilege. On the other hand, Jews had still needed to visit the Temple. Before each visit, therefore, they’d cleansed themselves with ritual bathing and the anointment of ashes from a perfect red heifer.

Nine times in history such a heifer had been identified, sacrificed and burned. But then the Romans had destroyed the Temple and there’d been no more ashes. With the exact location of the Holy of Holies lost to human knowledge, few observant Jews would now dare walk upon the Temple Mount, let alone enter the Dome of the Rock, lest by accident they trespass on that most sacred space. Only by anointing themselves with the ashes of a new red heifer, therefore, could Shlomo and his men so much as venture onto the Mount. Only with a new heifer could they and their brethren bring down the Dome and build the Third Temple.

They edged tentatively towards her, almost as frightened as she was. They clustered around the small pen, leaned over the steel bars, yet not getting too close, as though scared that something cataclysmic might happen. But then one of them touched her by accident and instantly the spell was broken. Their hands were all over her, and they were babbling and laughing as they sought in vain the one white hair that might disqualify her, the one whisker.

Avram glanced at Francis. He looked serenely confident. Whatever dyes, tweezers or other tricks he’d used, they’d surely fool a dozen city boys like this. Reassured, he went to join them and share their joy as the truth dawned exultantly on them.

The heifer was real. The moment was real.

The time of the Third Temple had come.

TWENTY-SIX I

Rachel opened the curtains a little way to allow some morning in. A cyclist wobbled by outside, and a yawning man trudged gloomily towards the river. Everything seemed so normal. She nodded at Jay’s phone. ‘You think he’d mind if we called Pelham’s sister? See how she’s getting on, if she needs any help?’

Luke shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t put it past them to be monitoring her phone. If they are, they’ll be able to