The Rosetta Key (13 page)

There was a wider cave ahead, and light. “I’m guessing we’ve come out in the cave under the holy rock itself,” I said with a whisper.

“We’re right under Kubbet es-Sakhra, the sacred stone, root of the world, and the Dome of the Rock.”

“Right under what once was Solomon’s Temple,” Farhi said excitedly, gasping from exertion at the tail of our party. “Where Temple treasures might have been kept, or even the ark itself…”

“Right where any guardians of the mosque can hear intruders below,” Jericho warned. This was all going too fast.

“You mean the Muslims…”

The seamen weren’t waiting. “Treasure, boys!” Ned and his comrades pushed into the corridor. Then there was an Arabic cry and a shot and poor Pott’s head exploded.

One moment the ensign was dragging me with him in mad enthusiasm, and the next his brains sprayed us all. He dropped like a puppet with cut strings. Gun smoke filled the narrow passage with its familiar stink. “Get down!” I shouted, and we dropped.

Then a roar of gunfire and bullets pinged madly around us.

“Allah akbar!” God is great! The Muslims had heard us blundering into their most sacred precincts and had called their janissary guard! We’d stirred up a hornet’s nest, all right. Through the smoke I could see a cluster of men reloading.

So I fired, and there was a scream in response. Tentwhistle’s pistol went off, too, hitting another, and now it was the janissaries’ turn to tumble to cover.

“Retreat!” I shouted. “Hurry, by God! Back through that door!”

Yet even as we began to swing it shut, the janissaries charged and a dozen Muslim hands grasped the rim from the other side. Ned gave a great cry and cleaved at some with his cutlass, severing fingers, but more guns went off and Little Tom took a ball in the arm. He bucked backward, cursing. The door was inexorably being pushed open, so Ned roared like a bear and waded into them, chopping like a dervish until the arms disappeared. Then he slammed it shut, taking one of our pry bars to jam it temporarily closed until they could ram it open. We ran back down the twisting stairway to the empty Templar room. Behind and above, we could hear the heavy slam of a hammer as the Muslims beat on the stone door.

If they caught us, they’d butcher us for sacrilege.

Only through the archway might we have a chance. In the passage back to the spring, Farhi had said, one man could block an army. We sprinted through the corridor with its frieze of skulls to the hole we’d excavated just an hour before. I’d buy time while the others fled, using cutlass and rifle. What a bloody mess!

Yet something had changed. The opening we’d made through the stone archway had shrunken. The stones were somehow reassembling themselves and the hole was too small to crawl through. What magic was this?

“Au revoir, Monsieur Gage!” a familiar voice called through the shrunken hole. Once again, it was the voice of the so-called customs inspector who’d tried to rob me in France, and who I’d fought in Jerusalem when his henchmen accosted Miriam. This time he was calling through what was now the space of a single block! So there was no magic after all, just Silano’s perfidy. The final stone slid back into place in our faces, sealing us in. The French must have followed us as I feared, broken Jericho’s lock on the grating at the Pool of Siloam, and heard our cries when we found no treasure. Then they’d started to brick up our escape route with the bag of mortar Big Ned had carried. We were trapped by our own foresight.

“The mortar can’t have set!” Ned roared. But either the lime fused quickly, or the stonework was braced from the other side with rubble and beams. He bounced off like a ball. The sailor began beating on the blocked archway with his fists, while Little Tom staggered like a drunk, holding his arm with a hand that dripped blood from his fingertips.

“We’ve no time for this!” Tentwhistle snapped. “The Muslims are going to get through the stone door above and come down the stairs of the Black Madonna!”

“The stairs of the White Madonna!” Farhi cried. “It’s our only chance!”

Back to the Templar hall we ran. There was a crash, and an echo of warlike Arabic cries spilled down from the stairway of the black statue. They were through! Tentwhistle and I ran to the bottom of it and fired blindly upward, the balls pinging and forcing some hesitation. On the opposite side Farhi squeezed past the White Madonna and began climbing those stairs, Jericho pushing his sister hard on the Jew’s heels. Then the rest of us retreated across the Templar hall too, squeezing upward one by one. Finally Big Ned shoved even me ahead of him. “I’ll take care of that rabble!” The goliath seized the White Virgin, muscles almost bursting, and broke her loose. Now our pursuers were entering the Templar hall, looking about in wonder, and then shouting as they spotted us on the opposite side. Turning sideways, Ned barely squeezed into the stairway entrance while dragging the Madonna’s head with him, jamming her stone body in the narrow entrance. That gave a partial plug between us and our pursuers. We turned and scrambled upward.

A wave of Muslims, running wildly, dashed against the obstruction and recoiled, howling with outrage and frustration. They began pulling to break the Madonna free.

We climbed as desperately as the damned. I could hear the mob below scream in frustration as they battered the statue blocking our escape route. More guns went off, but the bullets ricocheted harmlessly on the lower stairs. Alarms were called, no doubt alerting compatriots on the Temple Mount above of our imminent emergence. We came to an iron grate that locked us in. Tentwhistle blew its lock apart with his pistol and slammed it aside. It rang like a gong. I used the pause to reload my own rifle. We emerged atop the Temple Mount in the El-Aqsa Mosque. I noticed how it had been modified by the Crusaders, its line of arches and high windows giving the cavernous space an architectural cross between an Arabic palace and a European church. As Farhi had guessed, the stairway of the White Madonna must have been built to allow secret access from the main Templar headquarters to the chambers and tunnels below.

We ran to the mosque’s door. The vast temple platform, dimly lit by a predawn sky, was swarming with hundreds of crudely armed Muslims, like so many bees in a hive that’s been disturbed. I could see the blue tile and golden crown of the serene Dome of the Rock beyond, its door boiling as men ran in and out in consternation. The mob was chanting, shouting alarms, and waving cudgels. Thankfully there were few janissaries and few guns. Finally some of them saw us, and with a great shout they turned as if one and began to charge.

“What a bollocks you make of things,” Ned said to me.

So I took aim.

E
l-Aqsa Mosque is illuminated at night by enormous hanging brass lamps that can be lowered from white cotton ropes for lighting. One of these lamps — with several dozen individual flames on metalwork ten feet wide, its grillwork weighing well over a ton — hung above the main door of the mosque. As the mob surged through, I sighted through my rifle-mounted spyglass, put the rope and its hook on the ornate ceiling in my crosshairs, and fired.

My shot shredded the rope and the lamp came down like a guillotine, landing with a great crash as it buried the head of the mob and scattered the rest. Our pursuers momentarily recoiled, looking warily upward. It was enough to give our crew of filthy, bleeding troglodytes the precious seconds necessary to retreat toward the back of the mosque.

“They have the sacred relics of Muhammad!” I heard the mob cry.

And I suddenly wondered if the Prophet’s midnight journey to Jerusalem and his ascension to heaven was just a myth, or if he too had truly been here once, seeking and perhaps finding wisdom. Had he, too, heard of the Book of Thoth? What had Jesus learned in Egypt, or Buddha in his wanderings? Were all the faiths, myths, and stories an endless interweaving and embroidery of ancient texts, wisdom built on wisdom, and mystery concealed by yet more mystery? Heresy — but here at the religious center of the world, I couldn’t help but wonder.

We raced over worn red carpets that covered the flagstones of the mosque and into the small anterooms beyond the great hall, dreading a dead-end that would trap us. But at the point where the El-Aqsa and the Temple Mount joined the city’s periphery wall there was another locked door. Big Ned ran at it full tilt and this time smashed it open, the torn splinters like fresh wounds in old wood. We looked out. The wall led off the southern end of the Temple Mount at a downward slope, to enclose Jerusalem. At a tower it turned westward, encompassing the city below.

“If we get into the maze of streets we can lose them,” Farhi gasped.

He, Miriam, and the injured Little Tom began trotting along the rampart toward the steps that led downward at the Dung Gate, staggering with exhaustion, while Tentwhistle and I reloaded on the rampart and Ned and Jericho stood ready with swords. When our first pursuers filled the doorway we’d just exited, we fired. Then our swordsmen charged into the smoke, swinging. There were howls, retreat, and Ned trotted back, speckled with blood.

“They’re thinking now,” he said with a toothy grin.

Jericho looked sickened, his blade wet. “This is evil you’ve brought,” he told the sailor.

“If I remember, blacksmith, it’s been you and your doxy sister leading the way.”

And we retreated yet again.

If the mob had been better armed, we would have been dead. But we ran a gauntlet of only a few shots, bullets passing with that peculiar hot sizzle that paralyze if you stop to think about it. Then we were down the stairs of the wall and onto a Jerusalem street, the Dung Gate bolted shut by a squad of janissaries, scimitars ready so we couldn’t run outside. Above us, the battlements were crammed with screaming Muslims racing for the stairs.

“Into the Jewish Quarter!” urged Farhi. “It’s our only chance!”

Now there were calls of alarm from the minarets, and Christian bells were ringing. We’d roused the entire city. Shouting people streamed into the streets. Dogs were howling, sheep bleating. A terrified goat galloped past us, going the other way. Farhi, panting, led us uphill toward the Ramban Synagogue and Jaffa Gate, the Muslim mob behind lit by torches in a snake of fire. Even if I could find time to load again, my single shot would be no deterrent to the anger we’d aroused by trespassing under the Dome of the Rock. Unless we got help, we were doomed.

“They want to burn the Ramban and Yochanan ben Zakkai synagogues!” Farhi shouted to the anxious Jews as they poured into the streets. “Get Christian allies! The Muslims are rioting!”

“The synagogues! Save our holy temples!” And with that, we had a shield. Jews ran to block the mob surging into their quarter. Christians warned that their real goal was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Mob collided with mob. In moments there was chaos.

With it, Farhi disappeared.

I grabbed the others. “We split up! Jericho and Miriam, you live here. Go home!”

“I heard Muslims call my name,” he said grimly. “We cannot stay in Jerusalem. I was recognized.” He glared at me. “They’ll sack and burn my house.”

I felt sick with guilt. “Then take what you can and flee to the coast. Smith is organizing the defense of Acre. Seek protection with him there.”

“Come with us!” Miriam pleaded.

“No, alone you two can likely travel unmolested, because you’re native. The rest of us stand out like snowmen in July.” I pressed the seraphim into her hands. “Take these and secrete them until we meet again. We Europeans can run or hide, sneaking when it’s dark. We’ll go the other way to give you time. Don’t worry. We’ll meet in Acre.”

“I’ve lost my home and reputation for an empty room,” Jericho said bitterly.

“There was something there,” I insisted. “You know there was. The question is, where is it now? And when we find it, we’ll be rich.”

He looked at me with a combination of anger, despair, and hope.

“Go, go, before it’s too late for your sister!”

At the same time, Tentwhistle pulled at me. “Come, before it’s too late for us!”

So we parted. I looked back at brother and sister as we ran. “We’ll find it!”

I and the British sailors headed toward the Zion Gate. I looked back once, but Jericho and Miriam were lost in the mobs like flotsam in a tossing sea. We stumbled on, too slow and desperate. Little Tom, his arm sticky with blood, couldn’t hurry but kept manfully on. We entered the Armenian Quarter and came to the gate. Its soldiers had gone, probably to control the rioting or search for us: our first stroke of luck in this entire fiasco. We unbolted the great doors, pushed hard, and passed into open country. The sky was just pinking. Behind, flames, torchlight, and the coming dawn had turned the sky orange above the city’s walls. Ahead was sheltering shadow.

To our right was Mount Zion and the Tomb of David. To the left was the Valley of Hinnom, the Pool of Siloam somewhere in the darkness below. “We’ll circle the city wall to the north and take the Nablus Road,” I said. “If we travel at night we can make Acre in four days and get word to Sidney Smith.”

“What about the treasure?” Tentwhistle asked. “Is that it? Do we give up?”

“You saw it wasn’t there. We have to figure where next to look. I hope to God they didn’t catch Farhi. He’ll know where to try next.”

“No, I think he’s betraying us. Why’d he slip off like that?”

I wondered that too.

“It’s our own skins first,” said Big Ned.

And with that his lieutenant jerked and the sound of a shot echoed up the hill. Then another and another, bullets whapping into the dust. Tentwhistle sat down with a grunt. Then I heard the words in French:

“There they are! Spread out! Cut them off!”

It was the group that had tried to brick us up in the tunnels, the same Frenchmen who had accosted Miriam. They’d crawled back out of the Pool of Siloam, heard the chaos, and waited under the wall for someone to appear.

I crouched by Tentwhistle and aimed. My lens found one of our ambushers and I fired. He went down. Pretty rifle. I feverishly reloaded.

Ned had taken Tentwhistle’s pistol and he fired too, but our assailants were not within pistol range. “All you’ll do is draw their aim with your flash,” I told him. “Get Tom and the lieutenant back through the gate. I’ll hold them here a moment and then we can lose them in the Armenian Quarter.”