there’s a list of twelve letters on the back of one of the pages, which is one of the things you told me to look out for, right?’
‘Yes,’ said Croke. ‘Send them to me.’
‘Already on their way, sir. I just wanted to alert you.’
‘Good work.’
‘Thanks. If you want the originals, I’m free this afternoon and I’ve still got that Riyadh cash. And I’ve put Kieran and Pete on notice.’
‘Let me take a look,’ said Croke. ‘I’ll call you back.’ He downloaded and opened the email, found the twelve letters in four groups of three in a perplexing passage on the back of the third page. He brought up an online King James’ Version, went straight to Exodus, scrolled down for the relevant passage and split the screen to check email against scripture. Then he sat back in his seat, his heart pumping.
A perfect match.
Over the past six months or so, his friends in Jerusalem and the southern United States had been increasingly in his ear, urging him to ramp up the hunt for these papers, claiming they needed them found by a very specific date. That date was the day after tomorrow, Tuesday 7 June.
Mostly, Croke was his father’s son, feeling only mild disdain for religion and related superstitions. But there were other times, times like these, when his mother’s blood would assert itself and he’d glimpse the vast hinterland of the unknown. He called Walters back. ‘I want those papers,’ he told him. ‘I want them today. I don’t care what they cost. Just get them for me.’
‘What if she won’t sell?’
‘Find a way. That’s what I pay you for, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And I want all copies of these photographs destroyed. And this woman and your Newton expert are to keep their mouths shut. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir. And when I get the originals, where do you want them sent?’
Croke hesitated. His father’s seventy-fifth birthday wasn’t until next weekend, and his flight-path back to the States would near enough take him over the UK. And what was the point of a private plane, after all, if not for moments like this? ‘I’ll try to do a fly-by,’ he said. ‘Are there any airports up that way?’
‘Cambridge and Norwich for sure. There are bound to be others.’
‘Fine. I’ll let you know.’ He ended the call then spent a few moments staring at Newton’s cryptic message, trying to puzzle it out. But it was too obscure for him; he couldn’t make head nor tail of it.
It was time to call in the expert.
It was time for Avram.
III
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
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
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.
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.
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
‘“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
