The 13th Tablet (24 page)

 

Eli hid in the only place where he felt truly safe, in the Ari's room. A candle was still burning, but he couldn't summon up the courage to put it out, even at the price of his own safety. He waited in absolute silence for what seemed an eternity. Suddenly he heard footsteps coming towards him. A tall dark shape entered the softly lit room. Eli clutched the bundle of papers as tightly as he could under his coat. When he saw who the man was, he was surprised and started to rise to his feet, but the man pushed him violently against the back wall and held him there by the throat. Eli‘s eyes widened in shock. The man grabbed the scarf from around the old man's neck and slowly tightened it around Eli's neck until he was gasping for breath. Eli's last sensation was that of his precious papers being wrenched out of his helpless hands.

PART 3

ENGLAND

 

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

(Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 5)

Chapter 20

 

December 12th, 2004. Flight from Tel Aviv to London

 

 

 

‘Two whiskeys and a coke, please,' Jack said to the flight attendant, smiling meekly. Mina was sitting next to him, brooding. He reckoned she would need more than a few drinks to shake off her mood, but he did not want to get her drunk. Her dark eyes were lost in a world of despair and hatred. He understood how she felt; everything had gone so horribly wrong in Safed.

They had discovered so much information about Tudela and the tablet in just a few days and then, within hours, Wheatley's men had retrieved it and murdered Eli. Jack would never forget the pitiful sight of Eli's frail body propped up against the wall in the Ari's room. Luckily, they had been using false identities while in Safed, so no-one knew who they really were. They'd be long gone by the time the local police found out about the young couple that had wanted to meet Eli. Their quest now hung by a fine and mysterious thread: a short letter written from Cambridge about a tablet being safe. They didn't even know if it was linked to ‘their' tablet. Jack had found the letter in Eli's shoulder bag and taken it with him. Eli's death had plunged Mina into a deep melancholy.

Jack had done the only thing he knew how to do. He channelled his grief and guilt into a cold rage aimed at one person: Oberon Wheatley. He missed Eli and knew they would mourn his loss, but right now they had to bite the bullet and pursue their journey. Wheatley's men were assassins. Where Mina's first reactions to Eli's murder had been to freeze up with guilt and shame, the effect on Jack had been the opposite; it had spurred him on to pursue their search. Based on sparse information from an 18th century letter and an ancient kabbalist chronicle they were now travelling to England. With any luck, what the letter hinted at was true and the mysterious tablet was still in England.

Even though he knew it was seriously inappropriate at a time like this, Jack couldn't help but look at Mina's desolate face and think she looked more beautiful than ever. He felt sick to the stomach. He needed to focus right now, not start thinking like that. Mina raised her head and noticed his expression. She turned her head away as if she knew just what he was thinking.

‘Here you go,' he said, serving her a whiskey and coke, ‘drink up.'

‘Thanks.'

‘So, what now?' asked Jack.

‘I don't know. I thought you had great plans for us in England.'

 

She was angry with him. She had noticed his look earlier on, and could not believe how insensitive he was. How could men think of sex at such times? But she also felt guilt, grief and frustration at their situation. She knew her anger ought to have been directed at Oberon, but Jack was the only one around. It was unfair, but she was not in a state of mind to think properly.

‘We're on a plane now. So, why don't we just think through what's happened in the last few days?' Jack said.

‘You think we can make matters any worse?'

‘Mina, all I mean is we need to assess the situation. I don't think it's that bleak.'

She did not answer and instead looked through the round cabin window into the open sky.

‘Right. I'll talk then.'

‘Knock yourself out.' She said, and instantly wished she hadn't.

Jack looked hurt. She guessed he did have some feelings after all.

‘I think you're as shocked as I am to realise that your initial academic interests are connected to the tablet and our current quest. You were looking for information on Tudela, and you got much more than you bargained for.'

He did not wait for her to answer. He was trying to force her, not very subtly, to re-engage with the matter at hand.

‘Although I didn't really follow everything Eli translated,' he continued, ‘I think I got the gist of it. Feel free to fill in the details where you see fit. After all, you took notes while he spoke to us.'

He heard her sighing and went on, ‘Tudela knew about the tablet you found in Mosul and…'

‘No, my tablet is in stone. He found information about a clay tablet.'

Jack smiled to himself, ‘Right, the one which was sent to the Temple in Jerusalem?'

‘Yes,' answered Mina.

‘Can we assume this Jerusalem tablet is a copy of the same tablet you found in Mosul?'

‘We have no choice. Let's assume that.'

‘Well, that arrogant bastard Wheatley did say that there were four copies of the tablet. There's no reason to believe he lied to you. He couldn't imagine you'd rise from the abyss,' Jack said, trying to make her smile.

‘He might have been wrong. Let's focus on the two tablets we know of.'

‘OK. Not only does Tudela find out about the Jerusalem tablet, but also that it can be used to forecast natural disasters. He sends this information to a friend in Safed and it's lost and forgotten until some archivist finds it in the 16th century.'

 

Mina had mixed feelings. She didn't want to pursue the discussion because she was still angry with Jack, but her mind had already started racing through various hypotheses. Reluctantly, she picked up her bag and took out her notebook. Luckily Oberon's men were only interested in the tablet and had ignored the remaining contents of her bag.

Jack sighed with relief. She was back in the world of the living. Mina leafed through her notes while Jack pursued his analysis of the situation.

‘The next part is all described in the chronicle. The rabbis agree that Tudela's letter wasn't a fake. They spend the whole night discussing what to do if they found the tablet and apart from one guy…'

‘Rabbi Tammim,' interjected Mina.

‘Yeah. Apart from that rabbi, they all agree to search for the tablet because they believe it could save lives,' said Jack.

‘Yes. But with one caveat: not to disclose this information to anyone. I still don't understand why. If they wanted to save people from future disasters, why keep it secret?' Mina wondered out loud.

‘They were quite shrewd. Today, you'd call it ‘crowd control.'

Just imagine the panic that such information could produce: riots, plummeting stock-markets worldwide.'

‘Right. I get it. Then a search party is sent to Jerusalem to find the tablet.'

‘And,' said Jack, ‘my guess is that this Ari character – I really like him by the way – gave instructions to send the tablet into the diaspora, as far as possible from Safed.'

‘Yup and he picked Lisbon', replied Mina.

‘Then, someone called “The Dark One” steals the letter…' said Jack.

‘No. He stole Tudela's letter
after
the initial meeting and he wasn't called dark or nameless until after the search party returned from Jerusalem. His name is crossed out everywhere, so there is no way of tracing who he was.'

‘What do we know about him?'

She read from her notes and summarised, ‘He'd been in some sort of catatonic state for about a year but came out of it during the conversation between the rabbis. Who knows what went through his head but evidently he was in violent disagreement with the council and decided to take matters into his own hands, literally.'

‘What do you think happened to Tudela's letter?' asked Jack.

‘If I'm right about his motivations, after having stolen the letter he would have destroyed it, as it went against his understanding of God's Plan.'

‘I think I agree with you,' Jack said, ‘and now the proof that any of this actually occurred has been stolen – for the second time in history.'

He suddenly paused. Mina looked at him inquisitively, ‘What are you thinking Jack?'

‘Since Eli's death I've been wondering about something. Something that just doesn't make sense. You would agree that as far we know, Wheatley isn't aware of Tudela's letter or the Safed chronicle. Remember how in the cemetery his men stopped pursuing us as soon as they had your tablet in their hands?'

‘Yes. And?'

‘For Wheatley's men, Eli was just a means to an end, to get to us. So why did they look for him in the synagogue? And why was there hardly any sign of a struggle in the Ari's room?'

‘It's a tiny room. Eli was a frail old man. He'd have seen them coming towards him, abandoned all hope and succumbed to his fate,' Mina said.

‘I don't buy that. He had searched all his adult life for this chronicle. I'd bet a dollar to a dime that he would have put up some sort of fight.'

‘Maybe. So why didn't he? And should we suppose that Oberon knew about the Safed chronicle?'

They both remained silent and deep in thought.

‘Eli, what happened to you? Why didn't you fight back?' Mina thought to herself as she shed a tear for the old man.

‘I think we should stay in London for a few days' Jack resumed, obviously trying to focus on something practical. ‘And meet this old scholar researcher who warned you about the tablet. He obviously knows something.'

‘Yes. His name is Moshe Shobai. The poor man, when he hears what we've been through he won't believe how prophetic his words were.'

‘How did you get to know him?' asked Jack.

‘I met him at a conference a few years ago. A really lovely old man.'

‘He might be really lovely, but if he knew how dangerous this tablet was, he would have told you more about it. Didn't he strike you as suspicious?'

‘In comparison to everything we've gone through, no I don't think he's particularly suspicious,' she answered sharply.

‘Are you still pissed off at me?' he grumbled.

‘I'm sorry. It wasn't you. If Oberon disappeared from the face of the earth in a pool of his own blood, I'd feel less angry.'

‘Don't despair, it could still happen. But for now we should concentrate on what we can do. I was trained not to worry about or wish for things that are out of my present remit. Why don't you sleep? We'll be in London in a few hours.'

She nodded in agreement, breathed in deeply a few times and closed her eyes. Jack recognised the years of yogic training in the way Mina relaxed all her muscles by a simple act of will. He had learned to do the same but the hard way, during military ops when he had to force himself to relax and sleep for a few hours before springing back into action. He picked up Mina's notes and read through the last pages. Who was behind Eli's murder? He had downplayed this subject in front of Mina, but he was not satisfied with their conclusions.

Same day. New York.

Natasha stepped through the glass revolving doors of the Wheatley Forecast Corporation building, into the main lobby. The security guards greeted her as she walked to the main lift. As the elegant glass lift ascended, she smiled at the irony of a glass building that housed within its walls a business that was anything but transparent. When she reached the thirty-second floor, she inserted a key into a slot next to the lift buttons and the lift rose to the thirty-third, Oberon's floor. She proceeded through the main lobby decorated in an art deco style, with a mixture of glass and metal ornaments, and veered left into the sophisticated waiting area outside Oberon's private office. His secretary, Miss Dawson, was a sixty-year-old Oxford-educated English spinster, always immaculately dressed and totally
au fait
with every aspect of Oberon's official business. She looked up impassively at Natasha, ‘Mr Wheatley is expecting you.'

Natasha knocked on the door and walked into his office.

Oberon was on the phone, closing a deal with a major weather broadcast channel, for special rights on advanced meteorological information. A single glance at Oberon's hunter's smirk, was enough for Natasha to guess that he was forcing his deal down the other person's throat, and enjoying every bit of it. He finished his call and looked at Natasha with glee, eyeing up the metal attaché case she held in her hand.

‘So my dear, what have you brought me?'