The Sword of Moses (35 page)

——————— ◆ ———————

10b St James
’
s Gardens

Piccadilly

London SW1

England

The United Kingdom

Ava awoke in the night.

She had been dreaming of the strange letters slashed into Drewitt’s chest.

Something about them was bothering her, but she could not put her finger on it.

They made her feel uneasy.

Unable to go back to sleep, she eventually got out of bed and pulled back one of the curtains.

It was still dark outside, and the street was eerily quiet.

Slipping on a shirt and jeans, she headed down into the study, where she flicked on a side-lamp and sat at the desk.

Unlocking her phone, she peered at the glowing screen and pulled up the gruesome photograph of Drewitt—focusing on the crude writing slashed hurriedly into his chest:

As she stared at the strange letters, she could feel her uneasiness growing.

Something was not right about the phrase, but she could not tell what.

She had the strong sense there was an important feature she was overlooking.

What had she missed?

She looked closely at each letter, narrowing her eyes in an attempt to focus on every last detail.

What was it that did not click?

She gazed at the lines and angles of the cuts, and forced herself to start the process again—to think clearly, taking it one step at a time.

As she looked at the deep wounds, she felt a wave of revulsion on remembering Ferguson’s suggestion that Drewitt may have been alive when they were carved into him.

She traced the incisions, imagining exactly how they had been cut, but stopped suddenly at the last letter—the germ of an idea forming.

Staring hard at it, letting the thought take shape, she felt a prickle of excitement as she realized she had been right to have doubts.

It was faint, but it was there.

She
had
made a mistake the night before.

And as she looked at it more closely, she could see it had been a big one.

It was not a letter B at all.

It was the number eight.

She peered at it hard.

Definitely.

Her subconscious mind had seen it, and had been trying to push it forward into her consciousness. The error had been nagging away in the part of her mind that never slept. But now she could see it clearly.

It was an easy mistake to make on such a small photograph, especially as the vicious gouges were obscured by the trickles and splashes of blood splattering Drewitt’s chest. But as she looked at it more intently, she was now absolutely sure of it.

It was indisputably an eight.

Her mind whirring, it meant she had to go back to square one. If she had been mistaken about the final letter, she could equally easily have made an error over any or all of the others.

Printing the photograph out full size, she peered at the cuts more closely, running through in her mind the many options of what the other letters could be.

In no time at all, she realized her mistake had been far larger than just the last letter. She had completely misread the entire last word.

It was not ZOZB or ZOZ8 at all.

It was her basic assumption that it was a word which was wrong.

It was not only the last character that was a number and not a letter.

They all were.

The second word was a string of numbers.

The first Z was not a Z at all—it was a two. And the second Z was not a Z either. It was trickier to see, but she could now make out quite clearly it was actually two characters—a seven followed by a dash. It had been done hurriedly, or maybe Drewitt had been moving. Either way, the dash started low and close to the bottom of the seven, pushing the two together, making them look like a Z.

She could feel her breathing coming more quickly as she looked at the whole phrase.

It now made total sense to her—conclusive confirmation she had been wrong first time.

APOC 20 7–8

With a growing sense of foreboding, she knew exactly where to look.

Reaching for the large hardback Bible on her reference shelf, she flicked quickly to the very end, to the dark and prophetic Book of the Apocalypse, also known by its more modern name—the Book of Revelation.

Thumbing her way to chapter 20, she ran her finger down the page until she got to verses 7–8.

As she read the text quietly in the half-light, she felt herself go cold:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle.

It was not the words themselves that chilled her. She understood the text for what it was—an unusually vivid and dramatic example of first-century southern Aegean eschatology.

Its Satanic prophecy held no special fears for her.

But she was well aware that to men like Malchus it was biblical truth.

And she was beginning to see what lengths he would go to in its name.

She could quite believe Malchus thought he was doing preordained work to prepare for an age of darkness—that he saw apocalyptic times ahead, with himself at the centre of his own twisted Armageddon.

She knew enough about men like him to realize the message was also personal—a taunt, a challenge, maybe even an explicit warning, broadcasting his achievements and plans.

She had absolutely no doubt he meant the message for her. Why else would he have taken the picture on Drewitt’s telephone and sent it directly to her?

She stared at the prophetic text.

Was it a clue about what he was planning?

About why he wanted the Ark?

She thought of Israel’s Jezreel Valley, and of the hill of Megiddo, which had given its Greek name to the apocalyptic battle of Armageddon that would mark the end of time.

Although Megiddo was once an important city state, now it was an unremarkable deserted archaeological site overlooking a kibbutz and not a lot else.

It had always struck her as a most unlikely place to stage the final war for humanity.

What was Malchus telling her?

Turning again to the photographs of the medal on Malchus’s desk, she stared at them, trying to find a connection that would help unlock the medal’s meaning.

Deep in thought, she lost track of time, until the light began to show around the edges of the window.

Getting up, she pulled open the heavy curtains and let the weak grey dawn light in.

As she did so, she thought again of Drewitt.

Naturally, Ferguson would need to report the murder to Prince, who would decide what to do.

She was pretty sure Prince would keep the British police away for as long as possible. The Americans did not need the British constabulary getting interested in Malchus and unintentionally jeopardizing the ongoing operation.

Ava was still contemplating the photographs of the medal and the bloody message when she heard the gentle thunk of an e-mail arriving in her computer’s inbox.

Waking the screen, she opened the e-mail programme and immediately saw it was from Saxby.

She had been wondering when he was going to be in touch. After all, he had told her to go to London and wait for him to contact her.

She clicked open the e-mail, and read it quickly.

It was short, and to the point:

BE AT THE ROYAL SOCIETY TODAY AT 9:00 A.M. ASK FOR ME.

YOURS, E.S.

Getting to the Royal Society would be no problem. It was less than ten minutes’ walk from her house.

She closed the e-mail and returned to her thoughts.

As she gazed out of the glass at the dewy window boxes, she hoped very much that Saxby would be able to clear up one or two things for her.

She certainly had some questions for him.

——————— ◆ ———————

10b St James
’
s Gardens

Piccadilly

London SW1

England

The United Kingdom

Ava was still in the study when Ferguson emerged from his room several hours later—dressed and ready for the day.

“Look at this,” she said, calling him over to the desk to share her discovery about the message carved into Drewitt’s chest.

“So he’s preparing a biblical confrontation?” Ferguson replied when he had read the chilling lines from the Book of the Apocalypse.

“Whatever he’s up to, it doesn’t sound good.” Ava had been turning the gory message over in her mind, but was still no closer to understanding why Malchus had sent it to her.

She swivelled the office chair around and looked across at him. “Anyway, while you’ve been taking time out, I’ve come up with a solution to the puzzle on the medal.”

He looked amused. “How do you expect me to be any use if you don’t leave me anything to do?” He dropped down into the comfortable leather chair opposite her.

She flicked off her computer screen. “There’s no time to sit around now. We need breakfast, and then I have to meet Saxby.”

She darted into her room and got dressed, before opening the front door and showing Ferguson out.

She headed for the French café where Ferguson had followed her two days previously, and made for a quiet table in the corner, away from the queue snaking back from the till.

“So,” she announced once they were seated and had placed their order with the cheery waitress. “The puzzle says: ‘THE HOLY CHURCH OF ROME, CLEMENT THE THIRD, HOME OF THE HOLY BLOODY BULL, UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE STARS’. I think I may have made some progress with it.”

Ferguson was listening attentively.

“The references in the first two lines to the Church, Rome, and Clement all seem to point strongly to Pope Clement III,” she began. “He was a thoroughbred Roman, who became pope in his late fifties.”

Ferguson nodded.

She continued. “Then we have: ‘HOME OF THE HOLY BLOODY BULL’ and ‘UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE STARS’, which suggests we should be looking for a bull issued by Pope Clement.”

“But presumably he wrote dozens?” Ferguson objected. “How can we know which one?”

“Fortunately, the medal gives us a strong clue.” Ava took the phone out of her pocket and opened up the picture Drewitt had sent her, putting it on the table between them. “We’re not after just any bull from Clement. It needs to be holy and bloody.”

She watched as Ferguson lapsed into thought.

“The Inquisition?” he suggested. “They were known for their bloody tortures, weren’t they? Maybe Clement condemned a specific group of heretics? Or gave written authority to use a particularly gory torture?”

Ava took a bite of the croissant the waitress had put down next to her. “The Inquisition only began a few years before Clement’s reign, and it didn’t really get going for another two hundred years after that. So it’s possible, but not very likely.”

Ferguson wrinkled his brow, thinking again. “Then what about the whole body and blood thing in the mass? Was that big in Clement’s day? Did he publish any bulls about it?”

Ava’s eyes widened for a moment.

It was a good idea.

“You could be onto something there,” she answered thoughtfully. “The idea that the bread and wine used at the mass becomes the actual flesh and blood of Jesus during the ceremony only really became locked down as the formal Church doctrine of ‘transubstantiation’ in the twelfth century, around the time of Clement. Most people think it started at the Last Supper, but in fact it took over a thousand years to really firm up as a solid Church doctrine. That’s what all the allegorical Holy Grail stories that began to emerge in the twelfth century were all about.” She paused. “We should definitely keep it in mind—Malchus is just the type to have a Grail obsession.”

Ferguson took a sip of his coffee. “What else? Did you come up with any other solutions?”

“Not out of ideas already, are you?” Ava asked, feigning disapproval.

He shook his head in disbelief. “I’m doing pretty well for a man who’s spent more of his life on a firing range than in a library.”

“I’m not awarding prizes for another couple of days,” she smiled. “You’re doing fine so far.”

They paused to order a refill of coffee from the waitress who had reappeared beside their table.

“Maybe we need to think more laterally,” Ava continued. “There’s one other obvious possibility for a holy and bloody bull—and it’s the biggest thing to have happened during Clement’s time as pope.”

Ferguson looked up at her, inviting her to finish her thought.

“The crusades,” she answered.

“Richard the Lionheart and Saladin fighting over Jerusalem?” Ferguson asked, clearly relieved Ava’s answer was something he had heard of.

She nodded. “In fact, there were eight crusades to the Holy Land stretched over a period of two hundred years. But I’ll bet the medal is referring to the most famous—the one you just mentioned, between Richard and Saladin.”

“So Clement started the crusades?” Ferguson tucked into the hot toasted sandwich that had appeared in front of him. “I’m surprised he’s not better known.”

Ava shook her head. “They began much earlier. The first crusader army started walking from Europe in the summer of 1096, and finally arrived at the gates of Jerusalem to take the city back from the Muslims three long years later, in the summer of 1099.”

“Take it back?” Ferguson looked uncertain. “When had Jerusalem ever been Christian before then?”

Ava sipped the scalding coffee. “The Jewish kings lost control of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 597 BC. After that it changed hands many times—conquered successively by Persians, Greeks, and finally the Romans in 37 BC. So when the Roman Empire officially adopted Christianity in the late 300s, Jerusalem automatically became Christian—until the Muslims conquered it in the seventh century.”

“So why no crusades until 1096?” Ferguson looked puzzled.

“The Muslim rulers were tolerant and allowed Christians to worship there and make pilgrimages to the biblical sites. But in 1073 the Seljuq Turks seized the city, and began violently and cruelly persecuting Christian residents and visitors. For people back in Europe, that changed everything.”

“Anyway,” she continued. “The first crusade was definitely bloody. It was an orgy of slaughter. The Christian crusaders butchered anything alive in Jerusalem: women, children, animals, everything. The reports of the time say it was a slaughtering frenzy. The knights were even apparently throwing women and children off rooftops. The blood and gore in the streets was running ankle-deep.”

“Bloodlust,” Ferguson muttered quietly. “Never pretty.”

“The crusaders then ruled Jerusalem as a Christian city until 1187,” Ava continued. “They crushed all attempts to topple them, and figured their success was a sign from God they were his true chosen people.”

“What changed in 1187?” Ferguson asked, finishing the last bite of his sandwich.

“Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub,” Ava replied. “Better known as Saladin—a Kurd from Iraq who decided enough was enough. He knew the regional Muslims were too busy squabbling amongst themselves to be a serious threat to the crusaders. So he first set about uniting them all in order to build a power base. Before long, he single-handedly controlled all the countries surrounding the crusaders’ lands.”

“Smart move,” Ferguson acknowledged.

“As a result, Saladin was able to mobilize the first really coordinated Muslim force the crusaders had ever seen. It was a massive army, and finally faced the crusaders between Haifa and Tiberias at two hills nicknamed the Horns of Hattin. The crusaders were politically split into two feuding camps, and their battle order was in disarray. Saladin exploited their weaknesses, encircled them, cut off their access to water, and the result was a rout. The crusaders lost everything, even Christendom’s most precious possession—the True Cross, which the crusaders had always carried into battle with them. With no crusader army left, Jerusalem fell quickly. All was lost.”

“Not good for the pope,” Ferguson muttered.

“The news was received back in Europe with horror,” Ava confirmed. “People thought God was punishing them all for their many sins. And that’s where Clement comes in. He became pope a few months later, and rapidly made it his number one mission to seize Jerusalem back. After all, losing Jerusalem weakened the papacy he had just inherited. It looked like the Christians weren’t God’s chosen people after all.”

“So what did he do?” Ferguson asked. “How does a pope conquer a city over two thousand marching miles away?”

Ava took another bite of her croissant. “He pulled together Europe’s three most battle-scarred warlords—Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, King Henry II of England, and King Philip Augustus of France. Although he had a bit of work to do first, as all three leaders had their own problems at home—especially King Henry of England.”

“I thought England was quiet in Henry’s reign?” Ferguson asked. “The civil war was well and truly over by then.”

Ava shook her head. “Definitely not peaceful. Henry’s sons spent years sending their armies against him to try and seize their inheritances early. They were all at it, although the very worst was Richard.”

“Richard the Lionheart?” Ferguson looked incredulous. “Did you say he fought his own father, the king, in battle—just to get his inheritance early?”

“Many times,” Ava nodded. “And so did Richard’s brothers. They were a poisonous family. When Henry finally died, he said that of all his sons, it was the legitimate ones that were the real bastards.”

Ferguson burst out laughing. “You’re making this up.”

“I’m afraid not,” Ava shook her head. “Henry was a great king in many ways. But he finally died of weariness after Richard and his lover, the king of France, beat him in battle and took chunks of France from him—”

“His what?” Ferguson interrupted. “I misheard you.” He looked at her in shock. “For a moment I thought you just said that Richard and the king of France were an item?”

Ava grinned. There was no point in knowing history if you could not have some fun telling people things that shocked them.

“You’re inventing this,” Ferguson objected.

Ava raised her eyebrows in amusement. “Historians hate admitting it—especially stuffy English ones. They come up with all sorts of explanations for the awkward chronicles. But the old texts are totally clear. One chronicler famously wrote that the two men were so inflamed with love for each other that they shared a bowl at mealtimes and, as he delicately put it, did not have separate beds.”

“This is the most scandalous history lesson I’ve ever heard,” Ferguson interrupted. “You’re rewriting my education.”

Ava dipped her croissant in her coffee, French-style. “Oh there’s much more about our great King Richard the Lionheart that the schoolbooks don’t tell you.”

“There is?” He looked appalled. “Like what?”

“It’s ironic the English worship him so much,” Ava replied, “because he loathed England. He lived in France, and never bothered learning to speak English. He only wanted England for its royal title so he could join the exclusive club of kings. He spent around six months in England in his entire life—and that was only to sell off everything that wasn’t nailed down to raise cash so he could crusade in style with his friend the French king. He’s even on record saying England was a dreary rainy place, and he boasted he would’ve sold London if he could find a buyer.”

“This is treason!” spluttered Ferguson. “Richard the Lionheart is a national hero. The main statue outside the Houses of Parliament is of him, for God’s sake.”

“Funny old world, isn’t it?” Ava smiled. “Anyway, this is all relevant because Pope Clement III eventually put his trust in the combined mailed fists of Barbarossa, Richard, and Philip Augustus. Going on the number of battles they had each fought and won, Clement figured he had a crack team to recapture Jerusalem.”

“Hence the bloody bull.” Ferguson nodded. “Jerusalem was lost, so he sent the three of them off east to get it back?”

“Exactly,” Ava confirmed. “Except it didn’t turn out so well. Barbarossa was the most experienced warlord of them all. But he never made it there. While crossing Turkey, he rode into the river Göksu and got washed away. It seems his armour was too heavy for whatever he was doing. Anyway, that was the last anyone saw of the crusade’s leader.”

Ferguson burst out laughing again. “Europe’s most hardened warrior? Drowned swimming in his armour?” He shook his head. “Someone needs to make a film of all this—it’s unbelievable.”

Ava continued. “So Richard and Philip Augustus went on alone. And when they got to the Middle East, it started to get seriously violent. Although they failed to recapture Jerusalem, they did plenty of slaughtering. Richard bulldozed anything he could find. When he ran out of villages and villagers in the Holy Land, he sailed across to Cyprus and razed that, too.”

“That was pretty normal for the period, though.” Ferguson objected. “Medieval war wasn’t known for its gentleness.”

Ava took the last bite of her croissant. “Richard proved himself to be a seriously vicious man by anyone’s standards. Furious with Saladin for repeatedly stalling during negotiations for the return of the True Cross, Richard lined up three thousand captured Muslim men, women, and children at a place called Ayyadieh, in full sight of Saladin’s army, and sent his men in to beat and hack them to death. There were no survivors.”

“Christ,” whispered Ferguson. “Along with the slaughter you mentioned when the crusaders took Jerusalem, no wonder the crusades still raise such passions in the Muslim world.”

“Well, Saladin promptly had all the Christian prisoners executed in retaliation. So no one comes out of it well. But there’s no doubt Richard was an extremely brutal man.”

“Anyway,” Ava concluded, “it would be fair to call Clement’s crusade bull a holy bloody bull, and the medal Drewitt sent us might be in English and French to reflect the crusading armies of Richard and Philip Augustus.”