The Book of Names (24 page)

“But I've written only the names of the Lamed Vovniks. Are you saying there might be something else buried among them?” David's knuckles whitened on the arms of his chair.

“That's what we're going to find out.” The rabbi scooped up the journal and went to the doorway. “Binyomin,” he called softly to one of the skullcapped men, who rose at once to hurry over, his shiny bald forehead a gleaming contrast to his black yarmulke.

“Binyomin, make a copy of Professor Shepherd's journal and begin searching it. You'll notice that his names are written in a different order than we found on the papyri—try to unravel the reason. I know I don't need to remind you of the urgency.”

The man took the book in his short pudgy fingers and sped off without comment.

“How does he search for a hidden message?” David was mystified. He couldn't imagine how the decoding program might work.

“It's a complicated process, but I'll try to explain in the quickest and simplest way I can.” Cardoza returned to the table, adjusted the yarmulke on his head, shifting it forward. He cleared his throat and met David's gaze squarely.

“First off, you must understand that there is nothing ordinary about the Hebrew
alef-bet.
On the contrary, each letter is imbued with its own mystical powers.”

“Like the gemstones.” David leaned forward, suddenly wanting desperately to believe that all of these supposed powers would come together to make a difference.
That his journal had another chapter, that the mystics in this city would help him find it.

“Exactly like the gemstones.” Rabbi Cardoza's eyes bored into his. “Speaking of which, I'll take them from you now.”

SCOTTISH COUNTRYSIDE

“A spot more tea, my son?”

Bishop Ellsworth's veiny hand trembled as he poured Ceylon tea into Dillon McGrath's china cup. Dillon couldn't help but note how frail the old bishop had become as he lived out his retirement years.

“I regret so that I can't invite you to stay to supper, especially after you've come such a long way to see me, but unfortunately, my flight to London leaves in less than three hours. . . .”

The bishop shrugged apologetically, looking at Dillon with kindly gray eyes. “I truly detest having to rush you off. We have so much to catch up on.”

“No apology necessary, your Excellency.
I
regret having come unannounced at such an inconvenient time.” Dillon took a sip of the milk-laced tea, feeling regret for nothing whatsoever. He reached for a lemon tart on the plate the bishop's housekeeper had set on the low table between them before she'd bid the bishop a good holiday and gone home to her family.

There were just the two of them now in the quaint cottage. It looked small and humble, resting there in the long
shadows of the crumbling stone castle that had once been a summer hunting lodge for the Crown.

Yet Dillon noticed that the china was Spode, that the tablecloth was the finest Irish linen money could buy, and that the bishop was dressed more for a night at the opera than an autumn holiday in the south of France. Even the curtains were of handmade lace and the octagonal clock ticking on the wall was solid gold, adorned with obsidian hands and numerals.

Still, with all the treasures embellishing the simple cottage, it was the ring upon Bishop Ellsworth's right index finger that commanded his attention, though he dared not let the old man see it.

The ruby shone like a drop of blood in its hammered gold setting. It was exactly as he remembered seeing it years ago at the conference in Rome when he had no inkling of the meaning of the inscription carved in its smooth face. Cabochon, just like the stone David had told him about. Like the eleven others described in the reference book.

Dillon swallowed the last crumbs of the tart and licked his lips. It was all he could do not to stare at the bishop's ring as the older man began clearing away the plates.

“Here, let me help you.” Dillon rose and lifted the heavy silver tray. Following his host to the sink, he set the tea service down upon the counter, as the bishop murmured a thank you over his shoulder. But instead of turning back to retrieve the leftover tarts, Dillon seized the heavy, footed teapot and bashed the bishop across the back of the head. It connected with a sickening thwack.

The bony old cleric pitched forward, cracking his nose against the faucet before slumping to the floor.

Dillon felt only disdain as he knelt quickly beside the
bishop, grabbing for his right hand. Mouth set, he tugged at the ring lodged on the old man's scrawny finger.

It stuck there, refusing to budge over the gnarled knuckle. Dillon leapt up to find the dish soap and squirted the liquid over the bishop's digit. With a single yank, the ring popped free like a cork exploding from a bottle of champagne.

Dillon spared one precious second to study the fabled gem before sliding the ruby cabochon onto his own finger.
Reuven.
He could read the Hebrew name clearly now.

“It appears you're going to miss your flight, your Excellency.” He stepped over the inert body on the polished floor and scooped up the envelope the bishop had left propped atop his packed case. There was a Lufthansa insignia in the corner. Dillon flipped through it, smiled, and slipped the envelope inside his own breast pocket.

“I hope you remembered to buy travel insurance, your Excellency.”

A moment later, he swung a leg over the borrowed moped and zoomed onto the tree-canopied country road that would lead him back to the abbey. His bags were already packed and waiting for him.

His own flight departed in less than three hours.

 

Rabbi Cardoza waited expectantly as David took his time digging out the stones from his pants pocket.

Now that the moment to relinquish them had come, David was reluctant, even though he knew this was where they belonged. Still, the agate had been in his possession for nearly two decades now. It felt odd to part with it.

He inhaled as he placed them in Cardoza's beefy palm.

The rabbi gazed down at the gems as if he'd been given the most precious gift in the world.

“Where will you put them?” David asked.

The rabbi looked up, gratitude and hope shining in his eyes. “Someplace very safe. They'll join the others we've recovered from the breastplate of the high priest. We must pray that, together again, their combined power can make a difference in this battle.”

Cardoza slipped the gemstones into a small pouch he withdrew from the pocket of his long-sleeved white shirt. He replaced it, then straightened his skullcap once more, frowning as David's cell phone shrilled.

David snatched it from his pocket, his heart lurching.

“David . . . oh, David . . .”

It was Meredith.
Speaking so tremulously he had to strain to hear her. As David listened, the tightness in his chest made him dizzy.

“What hospital are you in?” he managed when she fell silent. “Okay, try to calm down. I'll call you as soon as I know anything. I'll get her back, Meredith. I promise you, I'll get her back.”

He closed the phone in a daze.
Hutch was dead. Meredith was badly injured. And Stacy . . .

Slowly, he became aware that everyone in the room was staring at him.

“David?” Yael had gone pale.

“He had one blue eye, one brown.” His voice was raw.

“Who, David?” Yael stood up, moved toward him. “Who are you talking about?”

He closed his eyes, seeing something no one else could—his Stacy in the hands of a monster.

“The murderer who took Stacy.”

 

An hour later, Rabbi Cardoza regarded him with a mixture of compassion and urgency. “I know your thoughts are elsewhere, but we need to act while we still can. Are you ready to learn the power of letters and numbers?”

There doesn't seem to be much else I can do at the moment
, David thought, still numb.
All flights throughout the Middle East are still grounded so I can't get to London, can't track down Crispin Mueller, can't tear him apart with my bare hands.

“I'm listening.”

“Good.” The rabbi leaned forward in his chair, motioning David to take the seat beside him. “We use letters and numbers here to solve mysteries every day. Do you
remember your Hebrew alef-bet? Twenty-two letters—five of which are written differently when they end a word,” he added.

David nodded. “That much has stuck with me from my bar mitzvah classes. Though not much more I'm afraid.”

“What you probably didn't learn,” the rabbi said, “is that every Hebrew letter has its own mystical power, a unique energy or vibration. Each letter also has a corresponding numerical value.”

Handing David a chart of the Hebrew alphabet, he began scrawling its initial letters on a sheet of blank computer paper—
alef, bet, gimmel, daled, hey
—numbering them in sequence as he wrote.

“Hebrew numerology is called
gematria.
Here, the first ten letters line up with the numbers one through ten. So,
alef
equals one,
bet
equals two, and so on.”

“And after ten?” David peered at the chart.

It was Yael who answered. “You count by tens. Later, by hundreds. Julius Caesar used a similar technique while he was building the Roman Empire in Gaul. He used substitution codes to send secret messages.”

David raked his hand through his hair. “I hope there's not going to be a test.”

“No test. We haven't the time to teach you more than the most rudimentary examples,” Cardoza assured him.

Suddenly, David seized the chart of the alef-bet, studying it more closely.

“The letter
lamed
equals the number thirty,” he said slowly. “And
vov
is six.” He glanced up, as a flame of understanding sparked within him.
“Lamed Vov.
Thirty-six. The righteous ones—that's why they're called the Lamed Vovniks.”

“Exactly.” Yael came around the table to peer over his
shoulder. “That's precisely how the mystics apply gematria. Kabbalists also believe that there is a mystical interconnection between words in the Torah which contain the same numerical value. And that studying these connected words can reveal hidden meanings not apparent on the surface.”

“Hidden meanings?”

“Deeper meanings,” she clarified, pushing a strand of hair behind her ears. “There are layers of knowledge in the Torah, some on the surface, and others so deeply hidden that centuries of mystics still haven't uncovered them.”

“Jews aren't the only ones who employ gematria,” Yosef told him. “The Arabs do as well. And the Sufis—they use it to explore depths of meaning in the Koran.”

“Some say even your Founding Fathers used gematria in writing your nation's slogan,
e pluribus unum
—one out of many—” the rabbi said.
“Echad
, the Hebrew word for ‘one,' has a numerical value of thirteen. The United States—
one
country, uniting the
thirteen
original colonies.”

“That's amazing,” David gave his head a shake. “My father was a U.S. senator. He would have loved to know that.”

A soft knock at the door interrupted them.

“Yes, Rafi, come in,” the rabbi called to the tall, gaunt man hesitating in the doorway.

“An e-mail just came through from Avi Raz. The only Percy Gaspard we've found died in a suspicious fire six months ago.”

David and Yael glanced at each other. Another Lamed Vovnik murdered. Rabbi Cardoza cleared his throat, looking grave.

“Thank you, Rafi.”

As the man returned to his work, Cardoza checked his watch. “We must move on,” he said heavily. “Let's get to the Torah codes.”

As David refocused his attention, the rabbi plunged ahead.

“Torah codes are nothing new. Theories about such hidden messages have circulated for thousands of years. As early as 1291, Rabbeinu Bechaye wrote about them in his commentary on the Book of Genesis. And in the sixteenth century, the mystic R. Moshe Cordovero bolstered the theory, claiming that every single letter of the Torah is filled with divine meanings.”

“Even Sir Isaac Newton believed there were hidden messages in the Bible,” Yael interrupted to tell David. “But as brilliant as he was, he was never able to prove it.”

“Because he was born too soon,” Yosef chuckled dryly. “He needed a computer to find his proof.”

Cardoza twisted the cap off a bottle of water and took a deep swig. “It's true, David. And here's why no one found the hidden messages until the twentieth century—the codes are too subtle to be manually detected.”

“Enter ELS,” Yosef said.

David frowned.
ELS?
“And that is? . . . ”

“Equidistant letter sequences—or skips.” The rabbi leaned back in his chair. “It's how the computer detects secret words and phrases concealed in the Torah and other texts. They pop out of the manuscript because the letters forming the hidden words fall at equidistant intervals from one another.”

David's brows furrowed. “Run that by me a little slower.”

“Let's say you pick a starting point anywhere in the Torah.” Rabbi Cardoza was a patient teacher, David granted him that.

“From that letter you program the computer to skip ahead or backwards ‘x' number of letters—for argument's sake, let's say ten. So the computer skips to the tenth letter, the twentieth, thirtieth, and so on, producing a printout comprised of every tenth letter.”

To David's relief, he was beginning to see the pattern. “Once you have the printout, you comb through the results looking for words or phrases amidst the gibberish?”

“Right.” Yosef's deep-set eyes reflected a glint of approval. “With the aid of a computer, you can run an ELS skip every possible way—forward, backward, diagonally, horizontally, and vertically. You can change both the length of the skip and the direction of the search from any starting point you choose. I'm sure you can see that such a search is nearly impossible using pen and paper, even if you work at it for years.”