The Last Ember (7 page)

“The UN investigation,” Emili said, breaking her silence, “concluded it was from Sharif’s skull, the back of his head and brain, carried away by the exit of a single bullet.”

T
he headquarters of the carabinieri’s Cultural Heritage Guard once housed an ecclesiastical college in the early 1700s, but the late-baroque building was now known to the officers of this elite unit as “the Command.” The morning sun slanted into the dim conference room on the sixth floor, and the lieutenants watched Comandante Profeta step into the blue blaze of a projector’s light. His hand was bandaged—cut by a flying wood plank in last night’s blast. The officers sat silently around the table, their uniforms still darkened from ash.

Profeta massaged his shoulder. The paramedics had brought him to the hospital and, throughout the night, doctors X-rayed him up and down like a Greek
kouros
of questionable provenance. Nothing broken, but the physicians protested his departure, wanting to prod him further. Profeta ignored them and returned to the Command at dawn. He knew they were running out of time.

The lab had not yet returned any information about the corpse. Because of much-needed emotional release, the lieutenants created their own mythology surrounding the discovery. “The Princess of the Pier,” Profeta overheard them call her. The junior officers created a betting pool, wagering on her age pending laboratory results.

A first slide appeared on the screen: an oversized photograph of the female corpse submerged inside the viscous fluid of the ancient column. Taken from the foot of the sarcophagus, the crisp digital image made the woman’s naked figure even more lifelike.

“Late last night, beside an unused commercial dock in Civitavecchia, our team discovered this victim, female, age estimates range in the late thirties, and the cause of death appears to be lacerations sustained across her torso. The perpetrators disguised the homicide as an ancient burial: a perfect imitation of a Corinthian maiden.”

“Corinthian maiden?” Brandisi asked.

“An ancient practice in which conquerors marched women prisoners of war back to their city and literally buried them inside columns. They were called Corinthian maidens.”

“Barbaric,” another officer said.

“It’s no coincidence that the flutes of Corinthian columns today still imitate the folds of the togas of women once buried inside them,” the
comandante
said, “or that our Ionic capitals emulate the hairstyle of first-century women.” Profeta knew how much of classical architecture bore hidden cultic secrets. Universities trimmed their buildings with moldings of eggs, darts, and claws, not realizing that any ancient Roman would recognize those symbols as the trappings of pagan sacrifice.

“Could this have been a cult murder?” one of the officers asked. “An initiation rite gone too far?”

“Could be,” Profeta said. “Someone studied the ancient practice carefully, right down to the emollients used in ancient Rome. The hoax appears better researched than any I have seen. Next slide, please.”

Profeta nodded toward the back of the room. The next slide displayed ornately illustrated parchment pages lying scattered on the warehouse floor.

“We found dozens of these pages. They are from manuscripts hundreds of years old. Most would have been quite valuable, particularly this fifteenth-century page”—Profeta touched the screen with his pointer—“except someone made them virtually worthless.” The slide changed, displaying a close-up of a manuscript’s text. Inked bracket markings and circled letters dotted the parchment’s ornate script. “Someone marked up the texts, conducting research of some kind. Has anyone noticed what all these pages have in common?”

Even under pressure, the
comandante
never missed an opportunity to impart a historical context to improve his officers’ investigative skills. He offered a continuing education in ancient history so rigorous that his lessons became renowned across Interpol’s antiquities units.

Profeta stepped to the side of the projector’s screen and, on the dry-erase board behind him, wrote in big block letters.

“Flavius Josephus,” Profeta said, pointing up at the illustrated manuscripts on the screen. “Notice how the first letter on each page is decorated with a small portrait of a city in flames, depicting the smoldering turrets of Jerusalem’s city walls after the Roman siege. It was Flavius Josephus who wrote the defining eyewitness account of the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, known as
Bellum Iudacium
, or
The Jewish War
. It became an instant best seller in the ancient world, recopied by scribes throughout the ages. By the Renaissance, Josephus’s histories were the most widely read texts in the Western world after the Bible. The manuscript pages we found in the warehouse”—Profeta pointed at the screen—“were each torn out of priceless editions of Josephus, ranging from medieval manuscripts to Renaissance folios. All from different scribes, different centuries, and different languages, but they are all translations of the same first-century historian. It’s as if they were comparing versions transcribed across the centuries to find something inside the text.”

Profeta paused a moment, surveying the room.

“And if our targets are researching the ancient historian Flavius Josephus . . .”

The officers knew the commandant’s method well enough to chorus, “Then so must we.”

Profeta turned his attention back to the manuscripts on the screen. “What else do we know of this ancient author?”

“Sorcio!”
Brandisi said, inviting much-needed laughter into the room.
Rat
, a term unique to the organized crime families that the carabinieri battled in the rougher patches of Torre del Greco, outside Naples.

“A turncoat.” Profeta nodded. “That’s the popular view. Josephus’s swift rise from prisoner of war to Roman citizen suggests a deal greased during his capture. Even more mysterious are the circumstances of Josephus’s surrender described in this manuscript page on the screen.”

“You mean when all the other soldiers in Josephus’s battalion chose suicide over capture?” asked Brandisi.

“Precisely,” said Profeta. “Imagine that Josephus was a general, leading his troops to stop the Roman advance toward Jerusalem. But when Roman forces outflanked his platoon, Josephus and his men were surrounded. The men under his command threatened to kill him if he surrendered. So Josephus suggested a mass suicide pact: pick lots to determine who would kill the next man and the one after, and so on.” Profeta pointed at the slide, running his laser pointer beneath each line, translating the text as he read:

“And here lies the heart of the mystery of Flavius Josephus,” Profeta said. “How was he left the last man alive?”

“Reminds me of the Josephus problem in computer science,” said Profeta’s technology director, Lieutenant Lori Copia, a woman at the long table’s far side.

“The Josephus problem?” Profeta asked.

“A security dilemma in computer database protection. Most firewalls are built to secure a digital perimeter by eliminating unauthorized codes. The Josephus problem arises when an unauthorized code detects the firewall’s pattern of elimination, and can constantly avoid being eliminated each time.”

Profeta grinned. “The modern term goes to the center of the historical controversy of Josephus. How did Josephus keep drawing the right lots? The original Josephus problem.”

The projector’s screen whirred upward, and the room’s dimmers gently returned the lights to normal.

“Speaking of technology, Copia, any information from the smashed computers at the warehouse?”

“Still searching,
Comandante.
We managed to retrieve only one of the computers before the explosion. It had an Arabic keyboard. We are running ninhydrin tests for prints.”

“Hard drives?”

“There are a few intact sections of the hard drive. Likelihood of recovering anything is slim.”

“Next, Brandisi. Have we found any activity along the pier near the warehouse? Witnesses?”

“Not a soul,
Comandante
. Last reported activity on the pier was a preservation project months ago. A third-century Roman watchtower, a small circular structure adjacent to the warehouse.”

“Next, Rufio, forensics?” Profeta said, but then paused a moment and turned back to Brandisi.

“On second thought, get a list of everyone involved in that preservation project, Brandisi. Donors, staff members.” Profeta turned to Rufio. “Forensics?”

“We found some burnt municipal identification tags,” Rufio said.

“Manufactured or stolen identification tags?” Profeta asked.

“Too early to tell,” Rufio said. “The blast gave them a pretty good scrub,
Comandante
.”

“The men running that safe house were professionals,” Profeta said, returning to the dry-erase board and tapping it with the back of his marker. “And whoever was running that operation was not interested in academic history. They were studying Josephus for a very practical purpose.”

 

 

 

 

The meeting broke, and Profeta’s ranking first lieutenant, Alessandro Rufio, left the Command, pulling hard on a hand-rolled cigarette as he walked across Piazza di Sant’Ignazio.

Rufio was a tall, rangy young man with fair skin and red curly hair that announced his Sicilian heritage like a flag. Like many Sicilians, his light features owed to the Normans’ eleventh-century conquest of Sicily, but here in Rome he was more conspicuous. He walked rapidly now down side streets, turning frequently to ensure no one trailed him from the Command. He scanned each alleyway for a pay phone. His instructions were always to use a pay phone. He knew the reason better than anyone: the carabinieri’s random surveillance of cellular phones to monitor organized crime was vastly underreported.

He turned off Via del Corso into a small alleyway, not three feet wide. The pay phone’s proximity to the morning scooter traffic was intentional: the unmuffled blare would make any carabinieri-model listening device useless within the booth.

His instructions were to dial collect, using the foreign prefix provided him. The number was Egyptian, most likely Cairo, but of course he knew it was merely a switchboard. He stood nervously in the half-booth, his short breaths frosting the metal of the receiver. The tone brayed irregularly before steadying, and then grew silent as the number routed elsewhere. A sudden click interrupted the tones. Someone had answered.

“You blew up the warehouse,” Rufio said furiously, incautious about his volume. “I was still in there.”

M
aurizio Fiorello returned to the lectern, where he began his direct examination. “
Magistrato
, it has taken generations for these fragments of the Forma Urbis to cycle through the black markets of the Arab world and western Europe before recently resurfacing in the Capitoline Museum on anonymous loan. Dulling and Pierce will offer a provenance for this artifact as shopworn and fabricated as any other unscrupulous dealer would do. Their briefs will try to convince you that this artifact slumbered safely in an anonymous Geneva estate or in a private French collection
coincidentally
having left Italy just before our antiquities law came into effect in 1902. But this time you must not believe them,
Magistrato
. These fragments of the Forma Urbis, at last, have returned home to Rome. Unlike the brave UN official, Dr. Sharif Lebag, they survived their voyage across violent waters of the illicit antiquities trade. We must not allow them to chance that sort of trip again.”

As Fiorello sat down, the magistrate leaned forward in his chair, taking some brief notes. Emili surveyed the courtroom from the witness stand. Lifting her head, she noticed in the upper level of the gallery an old man sitting alone. He sat in the last row of the balcony wearing a shabby brown coat and tweed cap. He was barely visible as he watched the courtroom proceedings below.

From the bench, the magistrate nodded to Bruce Tatton. Tatton pushed himself to his feet to begin his cross-examination. He allowed the silence to settle as he approached the witness.

“These custodians of the Temple Mount, the ‘Waqf Authority,’ is it? For how many years has this Islamic trust administered the Temple Mount?”

“As I said, since the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 1187. Salah ad-Din’s defeat of Richard the Lionheart.”

“And you said you did
not
have their permission to enter the cavern you discovered.” Tatton paced. “Is that correct?”

“We attempted to contact—”

“It’s a yes-or-no question,
Dottoressa
.”

“We received no formal permission from the Waqf.”

“So you were trespassing, then?”

“Objection,
Magistrato
!” Fiorello said. “Is any of this
relevant
to Dr. Travia’s identification of this fragment?”

“Very relevant,
Magistrato
. This witness violated countless jurisdictional laws by crossing beneath the Temple Mount. According to the UN, the Temple Mount may lie in the heart of Jerusalem, but it remains under Jordanian administration. By crossing from East Jerusalem into the subterranean chambers of the Temple Mount, the witness flagrantly disregarded international law. Her behavior presents issues regarding her credibility.”

“Proceda,”
the Magistrate said. Proceed.

“Dr. Travia, you have accused the Waqf Authority of illegally excavating beneath the Temple Mount. Is that correct?”