Alex Mitchell - The 13th Tablet

‘We’re on a plane now. So, why don’t we just think through what’s happened in the last few days?’ Jack said.

‘You think we can make matters any worse?’

‘Mina, all I mean is we need to assess the situation. I don’t think it’s that bleak.’

She did not answer and instead looked through the round cabin window into the open sky.

‘Right. I’ll talk then.’

‘Knock yourself out.’ She said, and instantly wished she hadn’t.

Jack looked hurt. She guessed he did have some feelings after all.

‘I think you’re as shocked as I am to realise that your initial academic interests are connected to the tablet and our current quest. You were looking for information on Tudela, and you got much more than you bargained for.’

He did not wait for her to answer. He was trying to force her, not very subtly, to re-engage with the matter at hand.

‘Although I didn’t really follow everything Eli translated,’ he continued, ‘I think I got the gist of it. Feel free to fill in the details where you see fit. After all, you took notes while he spoke to us.’

He heard her sighing and went on, ‘Tudela knew about the tablet you found in Mosul and…’

‘No, my tablet is in stone. He found information about a clay tablet.’

Jack smiled to himself, ‘Right, the one which was sent to the Temple in Jerusalem?’

‘Yes,’ answered Mina.

‘Can we assume this Jerusalem tablet is a copy of the same tablet you found in Mosul?’

‘We have no choice. Let’s assume that.’

‘Well, that arrogant bastard Wheatley did say that there were four copies of the tablet. There’s no reason to believe he lied to you. He couldn’t imagine you’d rise from the abyss,’ Jack said, trying to make her smile.

‘He might have been wrong. Let’s focus on the two tablets we know of.’

‘OK. Not only does Tudela find out about the Jerusalem tablet, but also that it can be used to forecast natural disasters. He sends this information to a friend in Safed and it’s lost and forgotten until some archivist finds it in the 16th century.’

Mina had mixed feelings. She didn’t want to pursue the discussion because she was still angry with Jack, but her mind had already started racing through various hypotheses. Reluctantly, she picked up her bag and took out her notebook. Luckily Oberon’s men were only interested in the tablet and had ignored the remaining contents of her bag.

Jack sighed with relief. She was back in the world of the living. Mina leafed through her notes while Jack pursued his analysis of the situation.

‘The next part is all described in the chronicle. The rabbis agree that Tudela’s letter wasn’t a fake. They spend the whole night discussing what to do if they found the tablet and apart from one guy…’

‘Rabbi Tammim,’ interjected Mina.

‘Yeah. Apart from that rabbi, they all agree to search for the tablet because they believe it could save lives,’ said Jack.

‘Yes. But with one caveat: not to disclose this information to anyone. I still don’t understand why. If they wanted to save people from future disasters, why keep it secret?’ Mina wondered out loud.

‘They were quite shrewd. Today, you’d call it ‘crowd control.’

Just imagine the panic that such information could produce: riots, plummeting stock-markets worldwide.’

‘Right. I get it. Then a search party is sent to Jerusalem to find the tablet.’

‘And,’ said Jack, ‘my guess is that this Ari character — I really like him by the way — gave instructions to send the tablet into the diaspora, as far as possible from Safed.’

‘Yup and he picked Lisbon’, replied Mina.

‘Then, someone called “The Dark One” steals the letter…’ said Jack.

‘No. He stole Tudela’s letter after the initial meeting and he wasn’t called dark or nameless until after the search party returned from Jerusalem. His name is crossed out everywhere, so there is no way of tracing who he was.’

‘What do we know about him?’

She read from her notes and summarised, ‘He’d been in some sort of catatonic state for about a year but came out of it during the conversation between the rabbis. Who knows what went through his head but evidently he was in violent disagreement with the council and decided to take matters into his own hands, literally.’

‘What do you think happened to Tudela’s letter?’ asked Jack.

‘If I’m right about his motivations, after having stolen the letter he would have destroyed it, as it went against his understanding of God’s Plan.’

‘I think I agree with you,’ Jack said, ‘and now the proof that any of this actually occurred has been stolen — for the second time in history.’

He suddenly paused. Mina looked at him inquisitively, ‘What are you thinking Jack?’

‘Since Eli’s death I’ve been wondering about something. Something that just doesn’t make sense. You would agree that as far we know, Wheatley isn’t aware of Tudela’s letter or the Safed chronicle. Remember how in the cemetery his men stopped pursuing us as soon as they had your tablet in their hands?’

‘Yes. And?’

‘For Wheatley’s men, Eli was just a means to an end, to get to us. So why did they look for him in the synagogue? And why was there hardly any sign of a struggle in the Ari’s room?’

‘It’s a tiny room. Eli was a frail old man. He’d have seen them coming towards him, abandoned all hope and succumbed to his fate,’ Mina said.

‘I don’t buy that. He had searched all his adult life for this chronicle. I’d bet a dollar to a dime that he would have put up some sort of fight.’

‘Maybe. So why didn’t he? And should we suppose that Oberon knew about the Safed chronicle?’

They both remained silent and deep in thought.

‘Eli, what happened to you? Why didn’t you fight back?’ Mina thought to herself as she shed a tear for the old man.

‘I think we should stay in London for a few days’ Jack resumed, obviously trying to focus on something practical. ‘And meet this old scholar researcher who warned you about the tablet. He obviously knows something.’

‘Yes. His name is Moshe Shobai. The poor man, when he hears what we’ve been through he won’t believe how prophetic his words were.’

‘How did you get to know him?’ asked Jack.

‘I met him at a conference a few years ago. A really lovely old man.’

‘He might be really lovely, but if he knew how dangerous this tablet was, he would have told you more about it. Didn’t he strike you as suspicious?’

‘In comparison to everything we’ve gone through, no I don’t think he’s particularly suspicious,’ she answered sharply.

‘Are you still pissed off at me?’ he grumbled.

‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t you. If Oberon disappeared from the face of the earth in a pool of his own blood, I’d feel less angry.’

‘Don’t despair, it could still happen. But for now we should concentrate on what we can do. I was trained not to worry about or wish for things that are out of my present remit. Why don’t you sleep? We’ll be in London in a few hours.’

She nodded in agreement, breathed in deeply a few times and closed her eyes. Jack recognised the years of yogic training in the way Mina relaxed all her muscles by a simple act of will. He had learned to do the same but the hard way, during military ops when he had to force himself to relax and sleep for a few hours before springing back into action. He picked up Mina’s notes and read through the last pages. Who was behind Eli’s murder? He had downplayed this subject in front of Mina, but he was not satisfied with their conclusions.

Same day. New York.

Natasha stepped through the glass revolving doors of the Wheatley Forecast Corporation building, into the main lobby. The security guards greeted her as she walked to the main lift. As the elegant glass lift ascended, she smiled at the irony of a glass building that housed within its walls a business that was anything but transparent. When she reached the thirty-second floor, she inserted a key into a slot next to the lift buttons and the lift rose to the thirty-third, Oberon’s floor. She proceeded through the main lobby decorated in an art deco style, with a mixture of glass and metal ornaments, and veered left into the sophisticated waiting area outside Oberon’s private office. His secretary, Miss Dawson, was a sixty-year-old Oxford-educated English spinster, always immaculately dressed and totally au fait with every aspect of Oberon’s official business. She looked up impassively at Natasha, ‘Mr Wheatley is expecting you.’