The Brotherhood Conspiracy (5 page)

“You destroyed the Temple, you brought destruction on the Temple Mount and the Western Wall,” railed the thick-set, muscular man, his face contorted with hate as a New York City policeman stepped in and dragged him back behind the police barrier in front of the Bowery Mission. “Fool . . . you have placed Jerusalem at risk!”

Feeling the eyes of the world on his back, Bohannon looked down at his shoes and willed his feet to move forward. But they remained frozen to the concrete sidewalk. In spite of the tumult behind the barrier and the horns of impatient taxi drivers, he could hear the shouts from across the street of the people bussed in from the Lower East Side mosque: “Free Temple Mount. Free Temple Mount. Free Temple Mount.”

Stew Manthey took Bohannon’s arm and steered him around the shouting throng and through the narrow passage being held open by the police. “It’s been like this every day,” Manthey said. “When is it ever going to stop?”

Bohannon’s despair bent his neck—its intensity matched only by the depth of his confusion. His body moved in response to Manthey’s urging, but it had no direction or destination of its own.

Manthey, CFO of the Bowery Mission, pulled Bohannon to a halt at the corner of Bowery and Stanton. “You don’t need lunch, you need some peace. And you need to talk. C’mon,” he said, steering Bohannon down Stanton Street, “we’re going to the park.”

Officially it was called Sara D. Roosevelt Park. But the long, thin strip of paved basketball courts, fenced in soccer fields, and community gardens that stretched from Houston to Canal between Chrystie and Forsyth streets had always been known as Chrystie Park to Bohannon. The gate to the community gardens was open. Manthey and Bohannon entered and found a park bench shaded by an overhanging red maple.

They sat in silence for a moment, breathing in the heavy perfume of peach-colored roses and the honeysuckle that covered the chain-link fence to their backs.

“You know, Tom, I thought you were distracted before the four of you took off for Jerusalem,” said Manthey. “But since you’ve gotten back . . . well . . . it’s like you’ve hidden yourself in some deep place . . . locked yourself in a room and refused to open the door.”

Bohannon felt Manthey turn toward him.

“Tom, you’ve got to talk about this,” Manthey said. “What happened over there? What’s changed you so much?”

Stew Manthey looked a bit like Grizzly Adams. In the final year before his retirement, the Bowery Mission’s CFO defied the perception of his colleagues by growing a thick beard that was speckled with gray and nearly covered the lower half of his face.

The change in appearance didn’t change the CFO’s effectiveness. For more than twenty years, Manthey astutely guided the Mission through seasons of financial change, challenge, and growth. Outside of his job description, for the last twelve years Manthey served as Bohannon’s mentor, the CFO’s integrity and character providing wise counsel for the mission’s VP of operations.

It was counsel Bohannon desperately needed. And a listening ear he could trust.

“I don’t know, Stew,” Bohannon said, running his hand through the curly, copper-colored hair that grew long on his neck. He stared out over the beds of
geraniums and remembered planting the same kind of flowers with Alexander Krupp at his Bavarian estate after he, Joe, and Doc escaped from Jerusalem. That seemed so long ago, so far in the past. Yet only weeks had passed.

“This whole experience has been so confusing. When we first found the mezuzah in Louis Klopsch’s safe and discovered the scroll inside, it felt like I was on such an adventure. That Charles Spurgeon had warned Klopsch about the importance of the scroll gave the quest a sense of gravity. Trying to understand the scroll, figure out its message, figure out the code it was written in was thrilling—like the adrenaline rush I used to get when I was in the middle of an investigative piece for the
Bulletin
. Even though we knew there was this group trying to prevent us from deciphering the scroll . . . well, you know . . . it felt like we were destined to be part of this. Remember? I felt like this was something God was instructing me to do. We were on a mission. It was so exciting . . .”

Bohannon fell silent as he looked out over the garden. He loved gardens. Whenever he had dirt, he planted flowers and vegetables—anything to get him outdoors and in the soil that was his therapy. Normally, sitting among this living green landscape, the heady dankness of composted loam filling his nose, Bohannon would have felt a restorative peace. Not today. His face, imperfect but handsome, looked as if he had lost his best friend. His eyes, normally a glimmering blue, were lifeless and distant.

“We felt we had to go to Jerusalem to see if the message on the scroll was true. I know
I
had to go. It was like a calling.” He paused, trying to sort and organize his memories with his feelings. “Then Winthrop was killed . . . murdered . . . when the car bomb blew apart his van outside the Collector’s Club.

“How could we go on after that?” Bohannon asked the trees. “How come we didn’t just give it up . . . turn all the information we had over to the government and let them deal with it? Right now—I wish we had. Yet . . .” He bowed his head. “Yet, I still thought I had to go to Jerusalem. We all did.”

A soft breeze rustled the leaves of the trees, caressing Bohannon’s cheek.

“You were called,” Manthey said with a reverence often reserved for church buildings. “I have no doubt that God chose you to be part of this. I don’t know why. But I know it’s true just as much as we’re sitting here right now.”

Bohannon rubbed his palms against the knees of his pants. “C’mon, let’s walk.”

They strolled along the paths of the garden, past the seldom-used bocce court.

“You know what I’m ashamed of?” Bohannon asked. “I’m ashamed that I
felt like I was living a movie in Jerusalem . . . and I was loving it. I was Indiana Jones and James Bond and Jason Bourne all rolled into one. The hero beating off the bad guys in the name of world peace. And all the time I was playing with our lives. Now, today, it seems so irresponsible. Then . . . well . . . I guess I was caught up in the thrill of the chase.”

Bohannon stopped and looked at Manthey. “You know, Stew, I never thought we would get under the Temple Mount. I mean, that was impossible, right? But there we were, wandering around in the tunnels, crossing underground lakes, pursued by Israeli soldiers and Islamic terrorists.” Bohannon shook his head. “And we found it . . . we found the Third Temple, hidden there for a thousand years. Then, it was one miracle after another. Krupp’s crew was there, repairing the collapsed Eastern wall; they got us on their plane, and, within hours, we’re in Krupp’s Bavarian estate trying to figure out what to do with the evidence of the Temple’s existence.”

Bohannon started walking again, shaking his head, oblivious to the colors and aromas all around him. “Everybody thought it would mean war—the president, the Israelis thought news of the Temple would drive the Arab states to war. But peace? Peace, Stew. They signed it . . . they all signed the treaty and decades of war and death were over.”

Bohannon found himself at the gate leading out of the garden. He stopped, and turned around to see where he had been.

“For a month. They had the hope of peace for one month, and a signed peace treaty for a couple of hours,” said Bohannon. “Then the earthquake hit and everything above and below the Temple Mount was destroyed—along with the peace. Now”—he turned back to face Manthey—“the Middle East is worse than ever. Winthrop is dead. Thousands have died in Jerusalem . . . for what? Why? What was the point? And, you know what? It’s my fault. I’m the one who was ‘called,’ who felt I was on a mission from God. I’m the one who didn’t want to give up, to quit, because I was having so much fun. I was the hero . . . Now what am I?”

He sensed Manthey was searching for a suitable answer. None came.

“I just want to get back to normal,” said Bohannon. “I thank God this is over. That we all got back here in one piece—Joe, Sammy, and Doc. I just want to get back to normal again.”

They came to the traffic light at Chrystie Street. “Just plain old Tom,” Bohannon said as they crossed the street and walked under one of the ubiquitous
sidewalk bridges—protective scaffolds—that was being erected over the sidewalk along Rivington Street. “But, you know what?” Bohannon turned to face Manthey. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be normal again. I just can’t seem to shake—”

Bohannon felt Manthey’s hands on the shoulders of his shirt before it could register in his brain what was happening. His back slammed against the wall of the building to his left as one of the steel, bracing beams from the overhead scaffolding flashed past his ear, swinging like a pendulum at the end of a long chain. As the beam swung upward, it pierced the plywood flooring of the completed section of the sidewalk bridge, and stuck there, sending a violent shudder through the rest of the structure.

Stew Manthey still had both fists wrapped up in his shirt as Bohannon glanced up at the rogue beam. “See,” Bohannon said, “I need to get back to normal before I walk into a truck.”

4

S
ATURDAY
, J
ULY
25

Jerusalem

“Don’t tell me it can’t be done.” Gideon Goldsmith pounded his fist against the map on the wall. “You tell Baruk that it must be done. The city of Jerusalem has been decimated. Five thousand people are dead and tens of thousands are living in tents. And he’s worried about political repercussions?” The mayor of Jerusalem, as small and nondescript as his position, pounded the map once again, as if noise would add to his argument.

“My city needs healing. My people need healing. Leaving this city with a gaping wound in its heart only invites more disaster. We must rebuild the Mount.”

General Moishe Orhlon, Israel’s defense minister, empathized with the mayor and shared his grief for Jerusalem and its citizens. He felt sorry for Goldsmith as well. But not that much. The man was a fool if he thought he could pressure the government into a decision about the Temple Mount.

“Mr. Mayor.” Orhlon’s sonorous voice was as soothing as a lullaby, but as final as a father’s last word. “You may repair your streets. You may inspect your buildings. You may invite people to return to their homes as soon as they are deemed safe. You may even demolish those buildings that are a hazard . . . with prior approval, of course. But you will not go near the Mount. Not even close.”

Thin, bald, embittered by years of insignificance, Goldsmith’s face burned crimson as he looked at the men and women around the table for support of any kind. None was offered.

“But the Wall,” he pleaded, abandoning any pretense of power. “The rabbis are demanding we do something about the Wall.”

For once, you’re right.
Orhlon turned from his pity for the mayor and half-pointed to a man across the table, the half-hearted gesture the only physical evidence of the exhaustion that sapped strength from each of his cells. “Avram, how long before you are ready?”

Captain Avram Levin, commander of the Aleph Reconnaissance Center, which covered central Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Temple Mount, looked up from the legal pad on which he was writing. “All of the cameras have been replaced or relocated,” he said, looking only at General Orhlon, his ultimate commander. “The Aleph Center is now in a secure building. Our monitors and computers have been replenished and the men I lost—”

Levin’s voice caught for a moment, confirming once again Orhlon’s confidence in Captain Levin as an exceptional leader of men.

“—the men we lost have been replaced with well-trained veterans. All that remains is completing the fiber optics to link the cameras to the monitors. Two days.”

Orhlon’s gaze swept the recovery task force sitting around the table in Central Command. “All right, then . . . Mr. Mayor, you have Krupp’s crews for two more days. After that, you will have to continue the recovery with the police and reserve units at your disposal.

“Captain Levin . . . as soon as Aleph Center is operational, we will divert the Krupp Industries crews to the Temple Mount. Since Mr. Krupp was kind enough to offer his unlimited support, and the service of his engineers and laborers from the refinery site, we will take him up on the offer. Combining our engineers and equipment with Krupp’s support, we will rebuild the walls of the Mount, starting with the Western Wall. But only the walls. We’ll get the stones back in place, repair the breach, and make sure the perimeter is secure—but that is all. And no one goes near the walls until we are ready.”