Will Adams - Newton’s Fire

But at last something was happening in London. The black screen came to life, showing a great slab of stone and mortar being winched from a mosaic floor. There was no sound, however, and impatient mutters told Avram that the show wasn’t impressing its audience. The slab was set aside. The camera peered down into the gaping hole. A ladder was fed into the darkness. The feed jerked and jumped as the cameraman made his descent. The lighting became ever more darkly atmospheric. Blacks and greys erupted in flares of golden torchlight. The very roughness of the pictures somehow added to their authenticity and mystique, and the basement fell quieter and quieter.

The cameraman walked down a flight of stone steps. There were gasps as the inner sanctum of white marble and ebony doors came into focus. The doors parted reluctantly. A curtain was swept aside. For the longest moment, total silence fell in the basement, astonishment and awe. But it didn’t last. The place erupted with cries of joy, jubilation, even ecstasy. Enemies a few minutes before now laughed and hugged each other, wept openly on each others shoulders. Some prayed while others danced, their euphoria needing physical release as, at long last, they all came together on this night of Rosh Chodesh Sivan . A single mind. A single heart. A single Israel.

He turned to Benyamin, that diehard cynic and sceptic, put his hand on his arm. ‘So?’ he asked. ‘Are you coming with us?’

Tears were streaming freely down the big man’s face. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m coming with you.’

The wave of religious enthusiasm died quickly, leaving Croke feeling almost sheepish. He got back to his feet, brushed his knees, assumed his most purposeful expression, the one that said there was serious work to do. He checked his buttonhole camera then turned to Morgenstern, who was still murmuring a commentary to accompany his cameraman’s footage.

This was no time for asking permission. He placed himself squarely in front of the lens, unplugged the microphone jack. ‘Congratulations, Madam Vice President,’ he said. ‘The Reverend told me you were the new Esther. It seems he was right.’

A moment of silence; he began to fear he’d misjudged this. But finally she spoke. ‘Our task isn’t complete yet, Mr Croke,’ she said, in that distinctive voice.

‘No, Madam Vice President.’

‘You’re delivering it yourself, I understand.’

Croke nodded. ‘We’ll take it to the airport now. We need to get it there by dawn.’

‘I’ll be watching. The whole world will be watching. Praying for your success.’

‘Thank you.’ He hesitated just a moment, then said: ‘Madam Vice President, there’s something I have to ask.’

‘What?’ she asked, her tone suddenly wary.

He dropped his eyes and nodded to himself, wanting to convey that he knew how far over the mark he was stepping. ‘Madam Vice President, I’ve no illusions about the risks ahead. That’s fine. This mission is worth it. But there’s something I can’t reconcile myself to, however hard I try.’ He looked up again into the camera. ‘My father has served our nation all his life. It would kill him to think I’d betrayed it in any way.’

‘You know I can’t publicly acknowledge our involvement.’

‘No, Madam Vice President. Of course not. But he trusts you. He admires you. So if I don’t make it back, I beg you please to find some private way of letting him know that I gave my life for a mission that had your knowledge and blessing. Just a word in his ear from someone he can trust, so that he can hold his head up high when the media goes to work on him.’

Her voice relaxed. Promises were cheap. ‘Of course. I’ll gladly let your father know.’

‘Thank you, Madam Vice President.’

And he meant it. Her voice was far too well-known to be denied, and his buttonhole footage of Morgenstern and his NCT comrades was all the corroboration he’d need. When they tried to make him the fall guy now, as they surely would, they’d find themselves in for a nasty shock.

Jay wasn’t among those who’d fallen to their knees. He’d known what they’d find, after all. And he knew the truth of it, too.

After he’d discovered the faint traces of a schematic hidden beneath one of Newton’s religious texts in Jerusalem’s Yahuda archive, he’d come to believe that the great man had somehow discovered the true Ark, had analysed its workings and then restored it. And his uncle Avram had joyfully agreed, for it had long been an article of his faith that the Ark would be found and returned to Jerusalem before the Third Temple could be built. This discovery, therefore, had seemed more than happy providence. It had seemed like the hand of God at work.

Luke’s find yesterday, however, had made him question this assumption. For in his cryptic note, Newton had acknowledged receipt of 12 plain panels and blocks of SW. SW, in such a context, could surely only stand for shittim wood, the material from which the Ark had been fashioned. If this had been the original Ark, the panels would therefore already have been worked, not plain or still in blocks. And so Jay had been forced to a different conclusion: that Ashmole had bequeathed Newton not the true Ark itself, but merely the materials and concept necessary for building a perfect replica.

Jay hadn’t shared this revised theory with anyone. He owed it to his uncle to tell him first, and he hadn’t yet had the chance. And, to be honest, he wasn’t sure he’d tell him anyway. It would only dismay and dispirit him, and what difference did it truly make? To Jay, an Ark by Newton was as wondrous and ordained as one by Moses. Besides, this was what destiny had written, and who were they to argue?

The schematic strongly implied there should be other materials here. Jay couldn’t see them inside the Holy of Holies, so he went around back and there they were: three oak chests, a large one with two shrunken versions of itself in front, like a mother posing with twin daughters.

‘What are they?’ asked Luke, at his shoulder.

‘Let’s find out,’ Jay said.

The boxes’ sides and lids were elaborately fashioned with scenes from Genesis, Exodus and Kings. He opened one of the smaller ones first. It was tightly packed with vestments. The topmost robe was so heavy that it was an effort to hold it up. It was fashioned from purple, violet, white and scarlet cloth embroidered with gold thread and decorated with thin golden plates and bells. But what really caught Jay’s eye were the four rows of precious and semi-precious stones sewn into its bodice. He turned with delight to Luke and Rachel. ‘The ephod,’ he said. ‘The robe of the Kohen, High Priest of the Ark of the Covenant.’ He held it against his chest to show them the stones. ‘Sardius, topaz and carbuncle.’ He moved his finger down a row. ‘Emerald, sapphire and diamond.’ His finger moved to the third row. ‘Ligure, agate and amethyst.’ And finally the fourth. ‘Beryl, onyx and jasper.’

‘The initials from the Newton papers,’ said Rachel.

‘The initials from the Newton papers,’ nodded Jay. ‘The twelve stones that Ashmole left Newton so that he could make himself an ephod. It proved this was for real, not some intellectual exercise. Why else would he have needed them otherwise?’ He shook his head in awe. ‘But he wasn’t a Kohen, Luke. That was the fact of it. He needed a Kohen like me.’

‘Jay Cowan,’ murmured Luke. ‘Jakob Kohen.’

‘It was my great-grandfather,’ said Jay. ‘He thought that Cowan would be a more prudent name for travelling here from across Europe. But we’re Kohens all the same.’

‘So that robe is yours, is it?’