There was a collective gasp. Jack felt a huge burst of adrenaline course through him, as all the loose ends suddenly seemed to coil together and point in one direction. He quickly took his cell phone out again, and pressed the number for the IMU direct line. ‘Sandy? How soon can you get us to Tel Aviv?’
Morgan gestured, pointing towards himself. Jack eyed him, nodding. ‘Four of us. Yes. His name is Morgan.’ He listened for a moment, replied quickly and snapped shut the phone. ‘We may as well head for the airport now. We’ll pick up what you need on the way.’ Morgan nodded, and Jack stepped towards the painting with the chi-rho symbol, putting his hand on it. He turned round and looked at the others, his khaki bag slung over his shoulder. ‘From now on, we’re back in the firing line. We already know someone else has been on the trail of Everett, and may even have tracked us here. As soon as we leave on that flight, things really hot up. They’ll know we’re on to something. We’re all in this now. There’s no backing out. Anyone got any questions?’
‘Let’s do it,’ Costas said.
22
‘ J ack? Jack Howard?’
A woman detached herself from a huddled group of monks on the rooftop of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and marched across the sun-drenched courtyard, her white robe flowing around her. Jack shielded his eyes as he took in the scene. The dome of the greatest church in Christendom lay before him, rising above the whitewashed walls and flat rooftops of the Old City of Jerusalem. Up here there seemed to be more room to think, above the narrow alleyways and hemmed-in courtyards below, where every square inch was zealously guarded by one of the many factions who had staked a claim in this holiest of cities. Jack looked over at Costas, and rubbed his eyes. He had found it impossible to sleep on the flight from Los Angeles. They had left Morgan a few minutes earlier at the entrance to the Holy Sepulchre, intent on checking accessibility to the part of the church he wanted them to explore. But Jeremy was not with them. At the last minute Jack had asked him to go to Naples, to join Maria and Hiebermeyer and to do what he could to find out what had happened to Elizabeth. Jack had felt uneasy about sending anyone else back there, but Maria and Hiebermeyer were completely wrapped up in the media circus at the villa site and he felt he could rely on Jeremy to do everything possible until he himself could get there.
The car ride from Tel Aviv had been hot and dusty, but as the Old City of Jerusalem opened out in front of them Jack had felt a surge of exhilaration, a certainty that they had come to the right place, that whatever lay at the end of the trail would be here. With the feeling of certainty had come increased anxiety. Ever since he and Costas had met with the mysterious figure in the catacombs under the Vatican he had felt trapped in an inexorable process, a narrowing funnel, with no knowledge of who might be watching them. If what they had been told was true, for almost two thousand years those who were following them had won all their battles, allowed no failure. And with every new person Jack brought into the fold, there was another name added to a hit list. He looked at the approaching woman, then glanced again at Costas beside him. He suddenly remembered his friend’s old adage: If you can calculate the risk, then it is a risk that can be taken. But he hated gambling with other people’s lives.
The woman came up to him, smiling. She had strips of colourful embroidery down the front and around the wrists of her robe, and wore a gold necklace and earrings. Her long black hair was tied back, and she had the high cheekbones and handsome features of an Ethiopian, with startlingly green eyes. She extended her hands and Jack embraced her warmly. ‘My old school friend,’ he said to Costas. ‘Helena Selassie.’
‘That surname rings a few bells,’ Costas said, shaking hands with her and smiling.
‘The king was a distant relative,’ she said, in perfect English with an American accent. ‘Like him, I’m Ethiopian Orthodox. This is our holiest place.’
‘Virginia?’ Costas murmured, his eyes narrowing. ‘Maryland?’
Helena grinned. ‘Good guess. And you have a hint of New York? My parents were Ethiopian exiles, and I grew up among the expat community south of Washington DC. I was at high school with Jack in England when my father was stationed in London, then I went back to MIT. Aerospace engineering.’
‘Really? I must have just missed you. Same faculty, submarine robotics.’
‘We didn’t mix with the sub jocks.’
‘The Old City of Jerusalem’s a far cry from moon rockets and outer space, Helena,’ Jack said.
She gave him a wan smile. ‘After NASA wound down the space shuttle programme, I figured I’d seek the spiritual route. Get there quicker.’
‘You knew you’d be coming out here eventually.’
‘It’s in the blood,’ she said. ‘My father did it, my grandfather, his father before that. A fair number of women along the way. There are always at least twenty-eight of us up here on the roof, mostly monks but always a couple of nuns, have been for almost two centuries now. Our presence on the Holy Sepulchre is the hub of our Ethiopian faith, helps keep our sense of identity. I don’t just mean the Ethiopian Church, I mean my extended family, Ethiopia itself.’
‘Seems a little crowded down in the church below,’ Costas said.
‘You can say that again. Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Roman Catholic, Coptic Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox. We spend more time negotiating when we can use the washroom in this place than we do worshipping. It’s like a microcosm of the world here, the good, the bad and the ugly. In the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Turks who ruled Jerusalem imposed something called the Status Quo of the Holy Places, in an attempt to stop the bickering. The idea was that any new construction work, any change in the custodial arrangements in the Holy Sepulchre required government approval. Trouble was, it got turned on its head and used for more in-fighting. We can’t even clear fallen wall plaster from our chapels without weeks of negotiations, then formal approval from the other denominations. Everyone’s always spying on each other. We’re never more than one step from open warfare. A few years ago an Egyptian Coptic monk staking a claim up here moved his chair from the agreed spot a few feet into the shade, and eleven monks had to be hospitalized.’
‘But at least you’re in pole position on the roof,’ Jack said.
‘Halfway to heaven.’ Helena grinned. ‘At least, that’s how the monks console themselves in the middle of winter, when it’s below freezing and the Coptics have accidentally on purpose cut off the electricity.’
‘You live up here?’ Costas asked incredulously.
‘Have you smelled the toilets?’ she said. ‘You must be kidding. I have a nice apartment in the Mount of Paradise nunnery, about twenty minutes’ walk from here. This is just my day job.’
‘Which is what, exactly?’
‘Officially, I try to get back all our ancient manuscripts, the ones held here by the other denominations. They’re easy to spot, with Ethiopian Ge-ez inscriptions and bound in colourful artwork, the signature of our culture.’
‘Get back?’ Costas repeated.
She sighed. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘The nub of it.’
‘Okay. Ethiopia, the ancient kingdom of Aksum, was one of the first nations ever to adopt Christianity, in the fourth century AD. Not a lot of people realize it, but Africans, black Africans from Ethiopia, are one of the oldest Christian communities associated with the Holy Sepulchre. We were given the keys to the Church by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great’s mother Helena, my namesake. But then for centuries we had a very unholy rivalry with the Egyptian Coptic Church, the monks from Alexandria. Things began to go seriously downhill when we refused to pay taxes to the Ottoman Turks after they took over the Holy Land. Then in 1838 a mysterious illness wiped out most of the Ethiopian monks in the Holy Sepulchre. They said it was the plague, but none of us believe it. After that most of our property was confiscated. The surviving monks were banished to the roof, and we kept our foothold here, bringing mud and water by hand from the Kibron Valley to build these huts you see around us. Then came the worst desecration of all. Many of our precious books were stolen from us and burned. They claimed the manuscripts were infected with the plague.’