The Brotherhood Conspiracy (26 page)

“Gets a bit complicated, doesn’t it, now?” quipped McDonough as he followed the museum’s curator.

Plotting his revenge while looking for an exit, Johnson trailed his colleagues.

Silver rested against a desk at the end of the aisle, folded his arms over his significant chest, and allowed a smile to widen the only gap between his whiskers. The smile infuriated Johnson more than the man himself.

“Can I see the mezuzah . . . please?”

Johnson reached into the padded leather case that hung over his left shoulder, withdrew the wrapped mezuzah, and handed it to Silver.

The bearlike scientist rested the bronze cylinder on the desk with the gentleness of a nurse with a newborn, unwrapping it and setting it on a thick cloth. He picked up a magnifying glass. With a deft touch, Silver rotated the mezuzah slowly, searching every inch of its surface.

“You’ve already identified the aleph and resh figures that arc up the sides of the cylinder,” Silver said as he traced his fingers over the different markings, “the signature of this Abiathar. But the symbols under these two animals—the lion and the lamb—have stumped you, correct?”

“Well, Joshua, not entirely,” McDonough interrupted. “We looked at those lines of symbols on the structures under the animals—they look like ornamental or decorative lines. But when you look more closely, there are recurring sets of symbols. One we know—the Hebrew letters
kaf
,
shin
, and
mem
—the letters for
mishkan
, meaning the residence, or dwelling place. It’s the Hebrew word that was used to mean the Tent of Meeting. Then there are four arches, then kaf, shin, mem repeated again.”

“What about the rest?” asked Silver.

“We don’t know,” McDonough admitted. “Some tau symbols, the budding
staff, a scorpion. We know the symbols. We just don’t know how—or if—they go together. That’s why we’re here.”

Now the cleft in Silver’s bushy whiskers stretched from ear to ear.

“Very well, Dr. Silver. The theatrics are not necessary. What is it that you wish to tell us?”

The curator pulled himself upright and his self-righteous smile disappeared beneath his whiskers.

“Of what family was Abiathar . . . what priestly family?” Silver asked.

“He was an Aaronite,” said Johnson, “a descendant of the high priest Zadok and thus a member of the family line that faithfully carried out the duties of the sanctuary . . . the only priests allowed into the sanctuary of the Temple, the Holy of Holies.”

“And you’re looking for his plan B? What he would have done if the Temple he built was lost or destroyed, right?”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

“Okay. There are six sets of symbols creating these ornamental lines on the mezuzah. The first set is the aleph and resh, Abiathar’s signature. The
mishkan
is the second set, alternating with the four arches, which is the third set. But look here . . . follow me on this. The fourth set, these tau symbols—three together in repeating order—is called the Triple Tau. It is a very old symbol—predates Abiathar by a millennium—and one that has been misused and maligned throughout history. As you both know, the tau is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. But this Triple Tau design—with the upright
T
standing on the two
T
s lying on their sides, like an
H
shape—has been part of the Hebrew Kabbala ever since Moses helped the Hebrews escape from Egypt. Supposedly, it was decoded from the Talmudic declaration of God—“I Am that I Am.” Among other things, the symbol means Templum Hierosolyma—the Temple of Jerusalem.”

The Temple?
Johnson’s petulance began to ebb.

“It has other meanings, too. The Triple Tau has also been translated to mean a key to a treasure . . . or . . . a place where a precious thing is concealed . . . or . . . the precious thing itself.”

Johnson’s heart felt like the strumming of a twelve-string guitar, his animosity for Silver vanishing with each word from his mouth.

“Sadly, this symbol has been hijacked and corrupted from its original meaning.” Silver turned to his two guests, leaving the mezuzah on the desk. “Back in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, when Free Masonry got its start,
the Masons adopted the Triple Tau, enclosed in a triangle and surrounded by a circle, as a sacred symbol of progression. Then”—Silver shook his head—“the Ku Klux Klan took the symbol of the Triple Tau and used it as the central symbol on the Klan’s flag.”

“Aye, that’s mad,” said McDonough. “From the divine to the profane. Such a sad report.”

“Yeah . . . but what interests us is its original meaning—the Temple in Jerusalem,” said Silver, “particularly in light of this other set of symbols separating it. If Abiathar, a priest of the Hebrews, was behind these etchings and he was sending it to his peer in Egypt, then this third set . . . the four arches . . . most likely represents wilderness. The four arches are hieroglyphic symbols—four tens—meaning the number forty. To a Hebrew priest, forty means wilderness. Israel was tested for forty years in the wilderness. Jonah preached judgment to Nineveh—spiritually a wilderness—for forty years. If you consider that the Triple Tau can not only represent the Temple, but could also mean a place where a precious thing is concealed, then I think there is a high level of probability that this series of symbols on the outside of this mezuzah . . . the Triple Tau and the four arches . . . is attempting to communicate that the Temple is in the wilderness.”

“No . . . it must be the Tent,” said Johnson, jumping into the conversation in spite of his bruised ego. “Abiathar knew where the Temple he built was hidden, under the Temple Mount. He must have been giving Meborak a second message, that the Tent is in the wilderness. But where? Joshua, do the other symbols help us?”

Silver shook his mangy head, picked up the mezuzah, and held it out in front of him. “That’s what I was saying before. I thought I saw something on that rubbing and I just confirmed it when I examined the mezuzah. I don’t believe all of these symbols are from your boy Abiathar.

“Look, between the sets of Triple Taus is the fifth symbol set—a budding staff and a scorpion. The budding staff is the symbol of the Aaronic priesthood, right? The scorpion—well, I’ve got to admit I simply don’t know. Could be anything, but those symbols go with the first four sets. But, what is most interesting is
this
. Here . . . rub your finger over this line of symbols—the sixth set, a single tau and a palm tree, repeated three times.”

Silver held the mezuzah out to Johnson as if it were a peace offering, sweeping the last of Doc’s reluctance into the past. Johnson closed his eyes and ran his
fingers over the etched surface. When he reached the single tau, his breathing skipped a beat. “It’s different,” he whispered, almost to himself. “The symbols . . . they feel different. There’s a different edge to them.”

“That’s because they were made by different tools . . . at different times,” said Silver. He picked up the magnifying glass. “Look, you can see the rougher edges on the single tau and the palm symbol. I felt it right away when you handed it to me. All the other etchings on the mezuzah were done with a smaller tool. Everything was polished to smooth edges. Except the sixth series, the single tau and palm tree images. They were added later.”

With a quick step to Johnson’s side, McDonough put his hand on Doc’s shoulder. “Ah, that’s it, then, isn’t it,” he said. “Fantastic!”

Johnson stepped back, the mezuzah still resting gently in his hands.

“It was lost,” he said as he looked from McDonough to Silver. “The mezuzah and scroll probably never made it to Meborak. Somewhere in transit it was lost, and it remained lost for seven hundred fifty years until it popped into Charles Spurgeon’s hands in Alexandria in the late nineteenth century. You’re saying that whoever was hiding the mezuzah, wherever it was, added the single tau and the palm?”

Silver stepped over to Johnson with a big grin on his face and wrapped his right arm around Doc’s shoulders. “Now it’s payback time, Richard.” Johnson stiffened. “I know where it was . . . and I know what those symbols mean.”

Before a word could escape from Johnson’s stunned lips, Josh Silver half-carried him to a case in the middle of the corridor while speaking over his shoulder to McDonough. “The tau represents many things, Brandon, but the tau and the palm tree together reminded me of something. For centuries, and in many places still today, the tau is called Saint Anthony’s cross. Here . . . look.”

Silver released Johnson from his grasp, made room for McDonough, and the three men gazed into a large, dimly illuminated glass case. It was a desert exhibit, a cave entrance constructed against the left wall, artifacts scattered on a sandy floor and—dominating the center of the exhibit—a large, three-dimensional picture of an emaciated, brown-robed man with a scraggily, white beard reaching down to his waist.

“This is Saint Anthony the Great,” said Silver. “An Egyptian, a Coptic Christian, known as the father of monasticism . . .”

“A Coptic?” blurted Johnson, his eyes opening wide as he pored over the three-dimensional image.

Silver gave Johnson a quizzical look before continuing. “Yeah . . . a Coptic Christian. They were the majority in Egypt at the time. Saint Anthony was the first ascetic monk to go into the wilderness and live most of his life as a hermit, living first in a cave, then locked into the ruins of a Roman fort. When he died, in 356 Common Era, a monastery was built above his burial site. It’s still there at the base of the al-Qalzam Mountains in Egypt, surrounding the huge al-Quiddis oasis. And it’s still a monastery, the longest occupied monastery in the world.

“The tau became known as Saint Anthony’s cross later in the tenth century and was worn as an emblem on the tunics of the Hospital Brothers of Saint Anthony. There was an illness called Saint Anthony’s fire—a condition caused by eating rye or barley contaminated with a fungus. The disease caused convulsions and gangrene—eventually eating away its victims. It got its name because several monks of the Order of Saint Anthony were successful in treating the ailment.”

“Joshua . . . what does all this have to do with the mezuzah?” Johnson said, trying to suppress his impatience.

“Look over at the right wall. See that drawing? It’s a copy of a Coptic icon depicting Saint Anthony in the desert with several other images around him. On the left he’s meeting with Saint Paul. On the right are several classic Egyptian symbols . . . the flying trident, the three fans, and the flanking lions. But look at the symbol above the lions . . . the markings that are inside that cartouche.”

Johnson looked at the drawing, then down at the mezuzah in his hands. “They’re the same,” he said. “It’s the same symbol, the tau and the palm tree.”

Josh Silver turned away from Johnson to face the other two scientists.

“Richard, I don’t know where the Tent of Meeting may be hidden, or if it even exists. There are other symbols on the mezuzah—vines, flowers, a lion, a lamb—I have no idea what they mean or if they are even connected. There’s nothing obvious, and nothing in my experience, that would connect those other symbols to what we’ve already found.

“But one thing I do know. Wherever that mezuzah ended up, it spent time at the Monastery of St. Anthony. That cartouche, with those symbols,” he pointed over his shoulder, “is carved into the stone over the doorway to the monastery’s library. If you’re looking for the Tent . . . the Temple hidden in the wilderness . . . I think you have to start looking in Egypt.”

T
HE
P
RESENT

New York City

His story completed, Johnson stretched again, pulling out Rodriguez’s chair from behind the desk and planting himself in its ergonomic cocoon. He leaned forward in the chair and rested his elbows against the desk.

“I’ll tell you what I think. As much as I hate to admit it, I think Dr. Silver was right. Abiathar etched—or had someone etch—the outside of the mezuzah with everything except these three pairs of symbols, the single tau and the palm tree. I think he was telling us—anyone who looked—that he knew where the Tent was hidden. That’s why he etched the word
mishkan
inside that structure under the lion. The home for the Lion of Judah. The home for his God. But somebody else etched in the single tau and the palm tree.”

Johnson pointed across the desk. “Brandon, to bring you up to speed, it appears the mezuzah, and the scroll that was inside it, were kept in a locked room in the Bibliotheca Historique de L’Egypte in Suez from sometime in the eleventh century until sometime in the nineteenth century. At first, the room was the private domain of a small group of men—Coptic Christians of Egypt—who called themselves the Temple Guard. Then, about two hundred years ago, there was some violent overthrow. A new group—Muslims this time—calling themselves the Prophet’s Guard, wrested control of the room and the scroll from the Coptics. Not long afterward, the mezuzah and scroll disappeared from the locked room . . . called the Scroll Room . . . and, for a time, the Prophet’s Guard appeared to vanish.”

Johnson slid from the chair, moved behind the desk to a large map of the Middle East that Rodriguez had pinned to corkboard. With his finger on Suez, Doc turned toward Bohannon. “Tom, do you know where Taphanes, the city that Jeremiah and the exiles escaped to, is located? Here”—he inched his finger up—“along the Suez River, just north of Suez. And, right here, just south of Suez, at the foot of Al-Qalzam mountain range, is St. Anthony’s Monastery.” Doc rested his hand on the map. His hand and fingers more than covered all the land from Taphanes in the north to the monastery in the south. “Pretty close together, right?”