The Brotherhood Conspiracy (27 page)

Johnson bowed his head and ran the fingers of both hands through the long, silver curls that flowed like rapids around the nape of his neck and over his
shirt collar. When he turned to face the room, Tom saw weary resignation in his eyes.

“Gentlemen, if the president of the United States truly wants us to find the Tent of Meeting . . . if such a thing even exists . . . then I think we have to consider a certain confluence of evidence. Jeremiah is the last person reported in possession of the Tent. Jeremiah escaped to Egypt with Jewish exiles who were fleeing Nebuchadnezzar’s army. Abiathar’s mezuzah was sent to Egypt with a message—a message that appears to have failed to reach his coconspirator, Meborak. The mezuzah we found has what appears to be a newer set of markings including the symbol of the tau, the symbol of Saint Anthony’s cross. St. Anthony’s Monastery is close to Suez—the home of the Prophet’s Guard—where our mezuzah and scroll were either hidden or protected for over seven hundred years in the Bibliotheca de L’Egypt. Correct me if I’m wrong, Brandon, but my experience tells me that if I’m looking for a clue to the location of the Tent of Meeting, perhaps a good place to search would be the Monastery of St. Anthony.”

“So, is that it, then?” blustered McDonough. “Tripoli, Mount Nebo, and a monastery in the middle of the desert? Just hold onto your britches. If we’re talking about Jeremiah being a catalyst in this search for the Tent of Meeting, then I believe there is an entirely different path we may need to follow in looking for clues to the Tent’s ultimate destination.”

Brandon McDonough’s round, jovial face and Irish brogue were as warm as the glowing bed of a peat fire. Under his academic tweeds there was little evidence of the Belfast boy from Bogside who survived bombings along the Shankill Road and who fought his way out of “the Troubles”—the religious guerrilla war spawned by four centuries of English occupation of the Irish nation.

His smile was as big as the tales he told, but there was a steely resolve under the good-natured veneer—the determination of a man who refused to accept “you never can” as a determinate of his future. McDonough was a formidable apologist. And he wasn’t prepared to give any ground.

“In Jeremiah’s day, after Nebuchadnezzar crushed Judah, destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, a group of rebels—or patriots, depending on who’s telling the
tale—scooped up Jeremiah and his scribe, Baruch, in their fleeing band. Their number also included Zedekiah’s daughters, including the princess Tamar, or Tephi, and her handmaidens . . . clearly an attempt at securing and continuing the royal line of Judah. And this whole motley crew headed to Egypt and the promised protection of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Hophra.

“The exiles from Judah settled in the city of Taphanes, but Jeremiah prophesied that God’s wrath—in the form of Nebuchadnezzar’s armies—would find the Jews in Egypt. In other words, it was time to leave.

“From biblical history, that’s the last we hear of Jeremiah,” said McDonough. “But not from recorded history. There are many historians who claim ancient writings prove Jeremiah not only left Egypt, but that he also sailed—along with Baruch, the princess Tephi, and her servants—first to Gibraltar and then to the most beautiful place on earth.”

“So Jeremiah ended up in California?” asked Rizzo.

“Ah, not exactly California,” said McDonough. “No, Jeremiah sailed to Ireland. And Zedekiah’s daughter, Tephi, married the king of Ireland.”

“And I’m the queen of the fairies,” snapped Rizzo. “Have you been hitting the sauce? Next you’re going to tell us that Jeremiah ended up sharing an apartment with Saint Patrick and Santa Claus and a couple of leprechauns with a pot of gold.”

McDonough crossed the room to the whiteboard and, taking a marking pen from Rodriguez, added a fourth column and labeled it Ireland.

“This is no fairy tale, Samuel,” he said, turning back to the room. “It’s the stuff of legend and lore, most certainly. But there is enough legend, and enough support to those legends, that we need to take this possibility seriously. Look,” McDonough said, swinging his right arm to include them all, “you really don’t have much hope of finding the Tent of Meeting, no matter what you do. But, if you are seriously going to consider the first three as possibilities, then you’ve also got to at least consider this possibility . . . particularly when you look at all the evidence linking Ireland, Egypt, and Israel.”

In spite of himself, Bohannon was intrigued by McDonough’s story. “What kind of evidence?” he asked. “We might as well listen.”

McDonough scanned the faces of his audience, nodded his head, and perched himself on the corner of Joe Rodriguez’s desk.

“According to ancient lore, many believe the lost tribe of Dan—one of the
twelve tribes of Israel—also settled on the Emerald Isle.
The Psalter of Cashel
, an ancient book of Irish history, states that the Tuatha de Danaan ruled in Ireland for about two centuries, and they were also said to have possessed a grail-like vessel.

“The kings of Ireland were called Ardagh. That’s a Hebrew word—
Ard
, meaning commander and
Dath
meaning laws or customs . . . the commander of the laws. And, up until the time of Saint Patrick, the law of Ireland was identified as the Law of Moses.”

Silence hovered in Rodriguez’s office, wrestling with the lingering aroma of stale coffee. No one challenged McDonough’s theory, perhaps because they didn’t know him well enough to skewer him. It was Doc Johnson who pounced first.

“Now, Brandon, you’re talking about an incredible leap here. Do you really think there’s a connection between Jeremiah, Abiathar, and the Irish? The Tuatha De Danaan, they invaded Ireland, what, seven hundred years before Christ?”

“More.”

“So, there’s at least fifteen centuries, an ocean, and a continent between the Tuatha Da Danaan and Abiathar,” said Doc. “Jeremiah in Ireland . . . seems to me you are desperately grasping at straws. Do you really think we should be putting our faith in myths and legends?”

“Aye, you are most certainly correct,” said McDonough, with a twitch in his eyebrows and a twinkle in his eye. “Exceptin’ that it may not be so much myth and legend, after all.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Sure, now, I wouldn’t want to be takin’ you on a fairy hunt,” said McDonough, “and I would chalk it up to a wee tendency to exaggerate, for which the Irish are famous, except for three very fascinating facts.”

McDonough looked around the room at the expectant faces and allowed the pause to lengthen into silence.

“Jeepers creepers, Saint Patrick,” snapped Rizzo. “Spill it, will ya?”

McDonough rubbed the side of his nose and a chuckle tumbled from the corners of his lips. “Richard, I know you have some experience with the Elephantine Papyri, is that not so?”

“Yes . . . yes,” Johnson grumbled. “What of it?”

“Well, I’ve taken a trip to Brooklyn,” said McDonough.

Johnson sat bolt upright in his chair as a self-righteous smile spread from Brandon McDonough’s toes to his teeth. “Wilbour’s treasure?” Johnson whispered.

“Aye . . . yes, Richard.” McDonough leaned back against the desk, taking them all in. “Charles Edwin Wilbour was a very unique individual—a linguist, a reporter, and a lawyer, he was tarnished through some scandal involving Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed. In 1871 he went into self-exile in Paris and studied to become the first trained American Egyptologist.

“But Wilbour is best remembered for a remarkable purchase he made in 1893 on one of his many trips up the Nile. During a stop at Aswan, he bought a group of papyrus documents that were dug up on the Nile island of Elephantine by the locals. Wilbour died three years later. The Paris hotel where he lived packed all his belongings into a trunk and stuck the trunk in its attic, where it remained for the next twenty years. When Wilbour’s possessions were finally returned to his family in 1916 they were donated to the Brooklyn Museum where it was discovered that his purchase was the first of three discoveries of what has come to be known as the Elephantine Papyri. These documents, written in Aramaic I might add, record much of the history of a Jewish community which lived in Egypt, even built their own, small temple, from the fifth century before Christ.”

Crossing the room with a measured gait, McDonough placed a hand on Richard Johnson’s shoulder—a peace offering—as he took the long way around to the whiteboard. “I went to the Brooklyn Museum this morning, enlisted the assistance of the principal librarian of the Wilbour Library of Egyptology, and studied these papyrus documents. One of them was different . . . appeared much older. The librarian said it dated to the early sixth century
BCE
, one hundred fifty years earlier than the other papyri, about the time of Jeremiah’s exile. It was a legal document of a man purchasing property . . . in Persia.

“The librarian showed me a notation that was applied to the papyri at a later date by Azariah, an official of the temple at Elephantine. Azariah recorded on this papyrus document that this man left Egypt with his scribe, Baruch, and the daughter of King Zedekiah, and left the document in Azariah’s safekeeping. Even though the papyrus is written in Aramaic, it concluded with this—”

McDonough turned to the whiteboard and drew an extended, vertical oval. Inside the oval he began drawing symbols. Without turning around he pointed to the symbols. “The first section has three lines—hieroglyphics, Aramaic, and
Demotic. In the middle is a pictograph—a budding shepherd’s staff. The final sign is the massive rock—Gibraltar—with the hieroglyphic sign for travel.”

He swiveled his head and set his eyes directly on Doc Johnson. “It’s a signature,” McDonough said. “The first three lines mean the same thing. Using the Aramaic you can decipher the Demotic—Prophet of God. The budding staff is the symbol of the Aaronic priesthood.

“I believe this papyrus records that the prophet Jeremiah purchased some property in Persia, deposited the deed with a secure Jewish population in Egypt, left the country, and sailed to the island of Gibraltar. And this cartouche,” he said, pointing to the entire large oval with Jeremiah’s name, “is Jeremiah’s signature, validating the document.”

“Okay, so you get the J-man to Gibraltar,” said Rizzo, “but you haven’t convinced me on the Irish Eyes thing yet. How can we ever know where Jeremiah’s scrawny carcass ended up?”

“Aye, most certainly, that’s the other two points. The first is the
Fadden More Psalter
. Five years ago, a man harvesting peat near Bir, in County Tipperary, found a twelve-hundred-year-old manuscript, a leather-bound book of Psalms. After four years of study, Ireland’s National Museum recently revealed that it had discovered fragments of Egyptian papyrus inside the leather cover and that the leather binding probably came from Egypt. The museum described the finding as ‘the first tangible connection between early Irish Christianity and the Middle Eastern Coptic church.’”

“Well, hit me with a hurling stick,” said Rizzo.

“And the second point,” said McDonough, a leprechaun’s glint in his eye, “is that Jeremiah is buried in Ireland.”

Four voices were raised in various levels of disbelief, but McDonough raised his hand, put flint in his voice, and sliced them to silence. “Jeremiah’s tomb rests in County Meath, in Loughcrew, near Oldcastle. On large stones inside the tomb are carved hieroglyphics that many believe prove this is the tomb of Jeremiah, who came to Ireland from Egypt. And who’s to say that some of those markings might not lead us to the whereabouts of a certain Tent, eh? Don’t you think, Dr. Johnson, these markings might be worth a look?”

19

W
INTER
, 589
BC

Jerusalem

Baruch cursed himself for wanting to kill the king. But the thought warmed his blood. A sharp knife, quickly, through his lung and into his heart.

But it wouldn’t be enough to save them.

Not now.

He ran through the Market District, the scroll tucked tightly under his arm, concealed under his cloak, his gulping breaths frosting the evening air. Baruch entered the city through the Water Gate and was now climbing the Ophel toward the Temple and the palace. It was late, so the Street of the Bakers was empty and quiet, except for the sound of his sandals slapping on the stones as he plunged forward with his news, his dread, and the book.

Nephussim, the scribe, initially refused to surrender the scroll. But Baruch was very persuasive. There was no time for debate.

Baruch skirted the outside of the temple court, a shadow darting under the porticoes. He slowed to a trot as he turned the corner of the palace wall and desperately tried to slow the deep gulps of frozen air he was pulling into his lungs. Geshur was at the gate.