The Brotherhood Conspiracy (34 page)

For the hundredth time in the last hour McDonough looked in his rearview mirror.
Is that the same blue car, or is it a different one?
McDonough’s glance in the rearview mirror moved from the nondescript blue car to the hazel eyes staring back at him.
Fool of a man. Fanciful dreams. Come back to reality, you old coot.

McDonough pulled into the gravel driveway of the Loughcrew Gardens Coffee Shop, parked under the large red maple tree, and crossed the lot into the cedar-sided building adorned with posters trumpeting the Loughcrew Garden Opera’s upcoming presentation of
La Traviata
and the Loughcrew Adventure Course (Prior Booking Essential!). He was immediately seduced by the sultry smell of fresh baking and reminded that he overlooked breakfast.

Fortified by strong tea and a still-warm scone, with the key for the cairn in his pocket, McDonough drove back to the carpark for Cairn T and began the quarter-mile, uphill trek to the mound’s entrance. The walk, and the view, were spectacular. Yellow-blooming Irish gorse bushes lined the walk and dotted the slopes of the hill, leading to a panoramic view of the distant Boyne River Valley. He skirted the stone remnants of two ancient ring forts and approached the gated entrance for Cairn T.

It didn’t look like much from the outside. Where Newgrange was nearly one hundred yards in diameter and neatly kept, the cairns on the hills of Loughcrew were a rugged and less-pampered bunch. Much smaller, about forty feet in diameter, Cairn T sat at the pinnacle of the hill. Its circumference was created by an interlocking stack of flat-topped, pewter-gray stones. No mortar
held them together but they had withstood the wind and rain at the top of this Irish hill for more than five thousand years. About four feet up from the base of the cairn, the circle of stones began the formation of a dome that climaxed at a rounded top about fifteen feet off the ground. Whether purposely, or by the hand of nature, the dome was covered with a grass-covered layer of earth and clay.

A brisk wind whipped across the plains of Meath, pushing cotton balls of cumulus across the brilliant blue sky, etching spotlights of shade on the valley floor.

McDonough’s reverent Catholic upbringing, the resting place of long-latent shame, called out in chants of condemnation. He was about to violate a sacred place. Though there was no one within sight, he felt as if he were under the eyes of the law. Whether with anxiety or the climb, his heart rate was accelerated. Cold perspiration chilled his skin and dampened his shirt. “’Tis better to be a coward for a minute than dead the rest of your life,” he said to the wind.
This gives me the creeps.

He hesitated for a long moment, then unlocked the creaky iron gate, turned on the battery-powered torch he received with the key, and ducked his head to enter the low-ceilinged passageway into the tomb.

The passageway was tight, cold, and smelled as if small animals lived and died here. It was flanked by standing stones festooned with Neolithic carvings. McDonough ducked under a low, stone lintel at the end of the passage and entered the cross-shaped burial chamber.

The burial chamber was a smaller version of the outside of Cairn T—round walls of stacked stone about thirty feet across, and a steep-sided, vaulted ceiling about eight feet high at its apex. McDonough had to stoop at the waist to move about its rim. The wide beam of light not only illuminated the chamber and the richly ornamented stones that occupied its edges—and those that flanked the openings to two smaller chambers at right angles to the entry—but also increased his adrenaline flow as the light fell on the low opening to a larger crypt, opposite the entry passage.

McDonough peeked into the crypt. His torch illuminated hieroglyphic sun symbols and spirals around the entrance and on the back wall of the crypt, but what captured his attention was an empty sarcophagus tucked snugly into the right side, as if fit for the space.

A large stone rose from the floor at the portal to the crypt and a low lintel
forced McDonough to place the torch on the floor inside the crypt so he could squeeze through. The light was blocked as his body filled the opening. The circular burial chamber behind him collapsed into darkness and rushed in on McDonough, who stumbled, and fell inside onto the floor of the crypt.

As he picked up the torch, its light flashed across the low ceiling and McDonough halted its arc in amazement. There, a few feet above his head, was something he had never seen in his entire career.

The symbols were similar to those in the outer chamber, but these looked untouched by the harsh Irish climate. The edges of the stone carvings were clearly defined, not eroded by time. More remarkable was the ocher-colored paint that still vividly adorned each of the carvings. Five thousand years, and these carvings appeared as if they were completed a month ago.

McDonough studied the symbols closely. There was a six-petaled flower design inside a circle and the common sun symbol in a circle, identical to those elsewhere in the cairn. But others were unique, and stunning.

On the left was a nine-bar rainbow arching across the sky, painted in sweeping bands of ocher alternating with the gray stone. Above the rainbow, a strange, helix-like circle curving in on itself with a long, curving tail that forked about halfway down its length. A comet? To the right-center, what could only be considered a ten-legged insect with two tentacles extending from the base of its head. And, in the center, a flat-topped symbol with raised arms that looked like a bench . . . or an altar.

McDonough took a deep breath, ran his eyes once more over the carvings so close to his face, then turned the light on the sarcophagus. It was empty, its lid missing. There was no adornment or carving on any of the sides that he could see.

Wondering what had become of the sarcophagus’s cover, McDonough moved the beam of light through the crypt opening and back into the burial chamber. On the far side of the chamber, he noticed for the first time that one of the illustrated stones was different from the others. This one was as long as a man’s body. It lay on the floor, flat on the bottom and rounded on the top . . . the capstone of the sarcophagus.

The capstone called to him. McDonough could feel his years as he squeezed through the tight crypt opening once more. He crossed to the far side of the chamber, stooped like an old man by the low ceiling, and washed his light over the stone.

The markings on this stone were different from the others . . . long, sweeping lines and curves running along its sides. His breath caught in his throat.

On top of the capstone were two carvings—one a cartouche enclosing the budding staff, the symbol of the Aaronic priesthood, and three lines of script—hieroglyphics, Aramaic, and Demotic . . . Prophet of God.

McDonough could feel tingling in the ends of his fingers. He knelt to the floor in the bowels of this ancient burial chamber and reached out a hand, tracing the weathered edges of the second carving. A cool breath of stale air trickled down his spine.

McDonough knew what the carving was . . . the four symbols were very familiar. But he was clueless as to why they were here, on top of this sarcophagus in an Irish burial ground.
Is this your resting place, my elusive friend?

McDonough nearly had a heart attack when the iron gate at the entrance of the passage tomb slammed shut.

And footsteps advanced down the passageway.

Dayr al Qiddis Oasis, Egypt

In two hours, Richard Johnson and Sammy Rizzo traveled a little more than thirty miles from Ras Zafarana on the Red Sea coast along a ruler-straight desert track that laughingly called itself a road. Thirty miles, and they were in another world. Far from the white sand resorts along the Red Sea, this was the vast Wadi Araba in the eastern Egyptian desert, a lifeless, flat moonscape stretching off into the haze, shimmering heat waves obscuring the mud brown mountains that brooded in the distance. Nothing lived here. Nothing grew here. Except sand and rocks . . . and heat.

And this fragile little Fiat he was driving into this wasted terrain threatened, with each cough and sputter, to leave them stranded in a dry and desolate no-man’s land.

“Hey, Lawrence of Arabia,” Sammy said from the passenger seat, “this lush landscape makes me kind of miss Manhattan, you know. Like a food vendor on every corner . . . if they had corners. Are you sure there’s life out here?”

Doc’s head throbbed with a pain that mirrored the ache in his hands as he gripped the steering wheel with a growing desperation. In spite of years of archaeological digs in the most severe deserts of the world, his tolerance for penetrating heat had disappeared long ago. But it wasn’t only the heat that stirred
up his anxiety. He worried that somewhere he had made a mistake. That they might be on the wrong road. That they might be driving south into a wasteland that would swallow them up and hide their bones forever.

So, when Doc saw the two towers rising ahead of him along the ribbon of road, he pointed into the bug-splattered windshield. “O ye of little faith.”

As the southern Gaiala Plateau, an escarpment of bare rock that pushed five thousand feet into the blue sky, closed on their left, the shape of St. Anthony’s Monastery rose from the floor of the desert. Two fifty-foot towers crowned with golden crosses flanked the portal that swallowed the desert road. The towers were the same champagne color as the fortress walls that stretched out to either side of the entry—a champagne that was dry, bleached, and gritty.

“Hallelujah,” screeched Sammy. “I hope they have a Starbucks.”

“Visigoth,” mumbled Doc.

St. Anthony’s Monastery, founded in the fourth century, encircled the oasis Dayr al Qiddis. So Doc wasn’t surprised to see palm trees poking up from behind the high walls. But he was shocked by their numbers. As he drove the car through the gate, the vastness of the monastery community struck him. Its buildings and streets stretched into the distance.

“Not the cave in the rock I was expecting,” said Rizzo, bounding out of the car.

Every monk in the community looked the same to Richard Johnson: small men, their long black robes scraping the ground. The only things visible from under their embroidered, black hoods were long white beards, hooked noses, and veiled, faraway eyes. Why would he expect different from the monastery’s superior? But Brother Walid, taller and thinner than Johnson, moved with an air of aristocracy that would be comfortable in any European palace or American boardroom. The long beard was there, speckled with gray, but so was a twinkle of expectation.

“Dr. Johnson, it’s a pleasure to welcome you to St. Anthony’s,” said the superior, his American New England accent as clear as the bell to afternoon prayer. “I’ve read some of your monographs on the dig at Khoum. Very impressive. I’d like to discuss the cult of the Ibis with you if we have the time.”

Doc’s eyes blinked in disbelief. “What? I’m sorry, I . . .”

“Oh, forgive me,” Brother Walid said, extending his hand. “It’s so seldom I get to talk about anything other than the status of our crops, the lack of initiates, or the schedule for overnight prayer. In my previous life my name was Lionel Gaul. I was an archaeology student at Stanford when I came to Egypt for a dig in the eastern mountains and stumbled upon this monastery. That was thirty-six years ago. I’ve left these walls only once, for my mother’s funeral. But we do receive mail. And old dreams are loath to die.”

The superior turned away and looked down at Sammy Rizzo. “And this must be Mr. Rizzo?”

Sammy pushed the brim of his safari hat away from his eyes and tilted his head to the sun to grab a look at the monk. “No, I’m Bear Grylls and I’m here for the
Man vs. Wild
show. Where’s the alligator pit?”

“What?”

“Never mind, padre,” Sammy said, offering his hand to the monk. “Say, how can I get my hands on one of those cool embroidered bonnets?”

Brother Walid edged back a bit and turned his head to the side, as a scowl creased his forehead. Then he turned back to Johnson. “So, my dear doctor, welcome to our monastery. I hope you will be comfortable during your stay. I’m sorry that we can only offer you some rather rugged cells that were occupied by monks when our ranks were larger. But, I must admit, what I am most curious about is why you are here. What can we poor monks do for you?”

“Well, I have a story to tell you, and a favor to ask.”

Stepping forward, Brother Walid took Johnson by the arm. “Wonderful. Sounds like a mystery. Come,” he said, turning Johnson around and nodding his head toward Rizzo. “Let’s get out of this pitiless sun.”