The Lost Codex

For Florence Jacobson

My mother’s life changed dramatically the moment her father succumbed to a fatal heart attack at the dinner table. Following that traumatic event, she took on the challenge of raising her younger brother while my grandmother went to work in Manhattan. A dozen years later, during my childhood, whenever there was an issue in our Queens neighborhood, be it a broken streetlight or a problem at our local elementary school, people knew they could rely on my mother to raise hell—and get the problem taken care of. She fought when others yielded. She persisted when others acquiesced. Most importantly, my mother taught me perseverance, a vital trait without which I never would’ve been able to overcome the obstacles I’ve encountered in life. While each of my novels could have been dedicated to my mother, my milestone tenth book is for her.

“At the center of this story is not a diamond, a painting, or a suitcase full of bills, but a book. Some would say it is the book: the authoritative copy of a text whose position at the root of more than one civilization has given it bearing on the lives of billions of people, even if they have never read it.”

—M
ATTI
F
RIEDMAN
,
The Aleppo Codex

“Just sitting down five minutes drinking a cup of tea with mujahedeen is better than anything I’ve ever experienced in my whole life … I lived in America! I know how it is. You have all the fancy amusement parks, and the restaurants, and the food, and all this crap and the cars and you think you’re happy. You’re not happy, you’re never happy. I was never happy. I was always sad and depressed. Life sucked … All you do is work 40, 50, 60 hours a week. [Now] I see paradise and I can smell paradise.”

—M
ONER
M
OHAMMED
A
BU-
S
ALHA
American al Qaeda suicide bomber
seconds before blowing himself up

“The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, is sown thick with evidences that a truth is not hard to kill, and that a lie told well is immortal.”

—M
ARK
T
WAIN

PROLOGUE

Wadi Qumran

One mile Northwest of the Dead Sea

The West Bank, Jordan

August 6, 1953

E
ylad Uziel walked carefully over the rough terrain of the Qumran caves. This was Bedouin territory in land governed by Jordan, but he was an Israeli—an unusual if not suicidal proposition. Then again, no one knew his true identity or nationality. Officially, he was the primary translator on the Catholic archaeological team led by Roland de Vaux, a French Dominican priest. Their sprawling, multiyear project was like no other in history: excavating the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Uziel, a soldier during Israel’s war of independence and a scholar before that, had been recruited into Mossad, the fledgling security service designed to gather information regarding threats to the state. Given Israel’s location, pinned in by hostile countries determined to wipe it off the face of the earth, Mossad’s charge was a vital asset during a time of unrest.

But Uziel’s assignment was extraordinary. In spring 1947 a Bedouin shepherd had stumbled onto a cave containing ancient scrolls on animal parchment that turned out to be a handwritten copy of the Old Testament, penned thousands of years ago under the threat of the advancing Romans and their conquering marauders. Uziel’s job was to blend in with the archaeologists working at the site, take stock of what was discovered, and perform a cursory accounting of its significance. Six years earlier, when the first cave had been discovered, the Bedouins who found the scrolls sold them to private antiquities dealers.

Israel, like the West Bank, was still under British rule at the time and powerless to stop the plundering of what its leaders felt was its legacy: the two-thousand-year-old documents were the earliest recorded portions of the Hebrew Bible ever discovered, copied by an ancient Jewish sect whose members likely believed that they were preparing an archive to preserve their religious and cultural traditions in the event the Romans sacked Jerusalem.

The scrolls belonged in a museum, not on the black market.

Uziel’s scholarly work, leading digs and excavating Israel’s hidden history in stone fragments, leather parchments, long-buried buildings, coins, and religious artifacts, also entailed providing analysis to the government and its burgeoning national museum, so that the ancient Jewish civilization that populated the Judean land over the centuries could be properly recorded, studied, and brought into historical perspective.

On November 29, 1947—the day of the historic United Nations vote in Queens, New York, that partitioned Palestine and led to the establishment of the state of Israel five months later—Uziel had purchased three scrolls from a Jordanian antiquities dealer.

Examining the manuscripts left him thirsty to see what other parchments had been holed away in that cave—and the adjacent caves that had been excavated in the subsequent years. Not far away sat the ruins of a complex that housed the Essenes, the Jewish sect whose community members were thought to be the scrolls’ primary scribes.

Despite Uziel’s efforts, and those of other Mossad and government agents, many of the ancient scrolls were still privately held—most notably, by a Palestinian family who had purchased them for a pittance from the Bedouin, who did not know the significance of what they had stumbled upon.

The Vatican had stepped in and taken custody of the rest, and despite requests from numerous Catholic and Jewish scholars, kept them under lock and key, sequestered for some as yet unstated reason.

Uziel made a case to the young Israeli government and national museum that they needed a set of eyes at the dig, overseeing any new discoveries.

Bolstering Uziel’s argument, intelligence analysts had heard rumors that Roland de Vaux’s deputy, Alberi Michel, was a bigoted, vindictive sort who was a fascist sympathizer and displayed flashes of anti-Semitism. Although Mossad could not verify such allegations, Uziel’s mission was approved and conceived in a way that the Israeli government could have eyes on the ground, ensuring that whatever remained of its cultural and historical treasures were not defaced, destroyed, stolen, or sold on the black market.

Uziel wore a straw hat with a wide brim and a white linen shirt, his skin brown from months in the intense sun. Standing on a precipice and looking out at the Qumran landscape, he drew a cotton rag across his brow. There was no breeze and the air was desert dry, despite the proximity of the Dead Sea, which sat off to his left, in plain view on this clear day. Directly in front of him were the undulating burnt sienna and cinnamon colored rocky outcroppings of the hills that sported small openings to the caves which had served as hiding areas for the clay jars that bore the scrolls.

A loud whistle echoed across the divide a few meters away, in the vicinity of Cave 11. Uziel made his way over, navigating the rough terrain and using rope ladders stretched across the stony surfaces.

“I’ve got something!” one of the men said in French. “Another scroll, a big one.”

Uziel quickened his pace. Finds of any magnitude were now few and far between, and witnessing the moment of its unveiling was a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Uziel climbed the rope ladder, slipping twice and nearly taking a header when his toe missed the rung and instead hit a protrusion in the rock face. “What do you got?” he asked in Arabic.

“Look, look!” Michel said. He tossed his whisker brush aside and squared his body in front of the excavated find. “Give me a hand.”

There were now three men in the mouth of the cave behind Uziel. He knelt beside Michel and helped him lift the clay vessel from the loosened dirt.

“How do you know there’s a scroll in here?”

“There’s always a scroll in these pots.”

Uziel gave him a look.

“And I peeked.”

Uziel laughed—more giddy with excitement than from the comment.

The two men carried the container carefully, the other workers standing aside as if in reverence of its contents. Twenty minutes later, they had the receptacle open and the scroll sitting on a work table that was shielded from the elements.

They put on clean work gloves, then Michel glanced at Uziel. “It’s big, like I told you.”

“I can see that.”

They held their breath as they began to slowly unroll it. After exposing three feet, they paused and Uziel hunched over the parchment. This was why he was here: to read, and translate, the Hebrew or Aramaic.

“Remarkably well preserved,” Uziel said. His eyes moved from right to left, line to line, when Michel nudged his left shoulder.

“What is it?” Michel asked. “What’s it say?”

Uziel kept reading. “This is … it’s different.”

“Different? How so?”

He carefully unrolled another foot and continued moving across the document. “Extraordinary.” He stopped and looked up. “Clear the table, give me more to read.”

“Tell me,” Michel said, staring at the black ink block letters. “What does it say?”

Uziel soldiered on, his lips moving as he spoke the Hebrew aloud. Ten minutes later, having reached the end, he reached for the chair behind him and sat down heavily.

“I swear it,” Michel said. “By the hand of Christ, I will strike you with my walking stick if you don’t tell me what it says.”

“Christ is an interesting choice of words.” He made eye contact and his elation turned to concern. “This could change history, my friend.”

PART 1

“Our military and intelligence personnel go face to face with the world’s most dangerous men every day. They have risked their lives to capture some of the most brutal terrorists on earth and they have worked day and night to find out what the terrorists know so we can stop new attacks. America owes our brave men and women some things in return; we owe them thanks for saving lives and keeping America safe …”

—P
RESIDENT
G
EORGE
W. B
USH
, S
EPTEMBER
6, 2006

“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions to be destroyed.”

—F
RIEDRICH
N
IETZSCHE

1

14th Street NW

Washington, DC

Present day

T
he waitress set the glass of Board Meeting brown ale on the table in front of FBI profiler Karen Vail. Vail took a long sip and said, “Notes of dark chocolate and coffee. I’ve definitely developed a taste for this. It’s very … stimulating.” She winked at her fiancé, DEA special agent Roberto Hernandez.

“You mean like an aphrodisiac?” Robby asked. “Beer?”

Vail leaned close to him, her lips tickling his ear. “When we get home, after I pull your pants off, I’m going to take your—”

Two gunshots echoed off the facades of the neighboring buildings. Vail and Robby pulled their pistols in unison and ran toward the exit of the storefront bar.

“That was nearby,” Vail said as she hit the glass door.
So much for a romantic night out.

“Anything?” Robby asked, swiveling in an arc, eyes scanning the nighttime cityscape.

The vapor from their now-rapid breathing trailed off like apparitions, carried on the breeze that found its way down the collar of Vail’s sweater. She had left without pulling on her coat, and the chill made her shiver involuntarily.

A shrill scream off to the right in the vicinity of 14th Street NW sent them sprinting down the block. They turned the corner—and saw a body laid out on the sidewalk, the blood pooled next to it dripping over the edge of the curb.

“Call it in,” Vail said as she continued on toward the injured man. She pressed two fingers against his carotid and shook her head. “Let’s secure the perimeter, hold the scene for Metro PD.”

Robby brought the phone to his ear and craned his neck to find the street signs so he could report their location.

Vail hovered over the body but could not resist the urge to check the identity of the deceased.

C’mon, Karen, let Metro do their jobs. This isn’t your case. This isn’t your jurisdiction.

She gently patted the man’s jacket with the back of her hand, then moved on to his jeans. In his front pocket Vail felt a wallet. She forced two fingers against the denim and extracted the smooth black leather bi-fold. Her heart skipped a beat as she splayed it open and saw an FBI shield. Agent Harlon Filloon.

Whoa. Was he killed because he’s a federal agent? Was he working a case? Or is it just a coincidence?

“Robby.” Vail held up the credentials so he could see what she had found, then folded them and slid them into her pocket.

He nodded as he finished the call and then reholstered his phone.

“Something’s not right.” She rose from her crouch and glanced around, her Glock now tight in her grip, following the direction of her gaze.

She moved toward the street corner a few yards away and heard feet slapping against asphalt.
Fleeing suspect?

Vail pressed her back against the building’s masonry wall as Robby headed toward her.

“What’s up?”

“Footsteps. Running. Could be nothing.”

Glock out in front, chest high, elbows locked against her ribcage, she swung left, around the corner of the edifice—

And saw a man sprinting across Irving Street, approaching a row of brick townhouses. “Hey!”

He turned, their eyes met, and that’s when she saw the handgun glint in the amber glow of the streetlight.

“FBI, don’t move!”

He twisted his torso and something flew from his hands as he brought up the pistol. But Vail and Robby fired first.

One or both of them scored a direct hit—and a concussive blast blew them both back onto their buttocks, glass and shrapnel flying past, and against, them. Vail shook her head, opened her eyes, and looked up into a fog of detritus floating down toward her. She rolled onto all fours, her hearing diminished.
Robby
—

She swung her gaze around and saw him on a knee, slowly pushing himself upright. “You okay?”

“I think so.” He staggered toward her, slipping on shards of glass littering the asphalt.

Car alarms blared as people scurried out of the nearby buildings, running this way and that, trying to escape a formless threat.

As Vail made her way toward the area where the perp was standing when they shot him, she became aware of her phone ringing—and vibrating violently in her pocket.

Vail stopped and brought the handset to her face.

“Agent Vail, this is Director Knox.”

A call from the FBI director? On a Saturday night?

“Yes sir,” she said as she caught a glimpse of Robby starting to sift through the rubble. “Can you speak louder?”
I just escaped being blown to bits and my hearing’s a bit muffled.

There was a pause, then, “We’ve got a situation I need you to handle.”

“Does it have anything to do with the gunshots? Or the bomb that just went off?”

“Yes. I know you’re on site.”

Vail looked around, her eyes trying to locate a camera—but she did not see one. “You do?”

Then she remembered the ShotSpotter system installed around the district: hundreds of acoustic sensors designed to capture and instantaneously pinpoint certain sound frequencies, in particular those of gunfire.

“I need you to secure the scene.”

Vail jerked her head around as sirens blared in the distance. It was muted, but she definitely knew the unmistakable cry of a law enforcement vehicle. “Metro PD’s gonna be here in seconds. Why do you need me to—”

“You are to take control of that scene. Not Metro PD.”

“But s—”

“No buts. Listen to me, Agent Vail. You are to take control of that scene on my authority.”

“Okay, but—”

“This is the time to follow orders and not ask questions. Can you do that?”

“Of course.”
Who am I kidding? Hopefully the director.

“Harlon Filloon, the downed man, is an agent. You’re to protect his identity and keep others—meaning police, medical examiners, forensic personnel—away from his body.”

“Yes sir.”

“Send Agent Hernandez home. And tell him not to talk with anyone about what he just saw.”

“Send him
home
?”

“I don’t have time to repeat my orders. Do as you’re told. I’ll be in touch.”

“Yes sir.”

“We’ve dispatched a team that’s four minutes out. Let them in. No one else is to enter that scene. No one. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Who was that?” Robby asked as Vail shoved the phone back in her pocket.

“You need to leave,” she said, still trying to process what Knox told her—attempting to read between the lines, attempting to understand, attempting to clear her head of the fog induced by the blast. “Go home.”

Robby tilted his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I can’t say anymore. And you can’t either. Not to anyone.” She started toward the end of the block, where she had been standing when she pulled the trigger. “Just listen to me. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

“What the hell’s going on? Why do I need to go home?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve got my orders. And—”

“Your orders are to send me home?”

“Yes. And it’d be best for you to listen.”

“Karen—”

“Robby, please. Let me deal with this and we’ll sort it out later, okay?”

Jonathan. What are the chances he was on this block at this exact moment when the bomb exploded? C’mon, Karen. Don’t be ridiculous.
Ridiculous or not, she wanted to be certain her son was safe. “And check in on Jonathan. Make sure he’s okay.”

“I’m sure he’s fine. He’s probably at a bar with some friends.”

“A bar? What the hell are you—”

“He’s in college. That’s what college students do.”

“Just call him. No—text him, make sure he’s okay. Humor me.”

“Fine.” Robby backed away, then slowly disappeared into the mass of people staring at the destruction—but keeping their distance, afraid to approach.

Vail did not like being rude to Robby, but what else could she do? When the boss of all your bosses ordered you to do something, you did it, right?
Actually, I’d better not answer that.

As she was taking a quick survey of the area, getting a feel for what she was dealing with and making sure no one approached the scene, a police car pulled up behind her. “Police! Don’t move.”

You’ve gotta be kidding me.
Vail turned slowly, hands up, and identified herself. “I’m a federal agent. I’m gonna remove my creds,” she said, carefully extracting her Bureau ID and then holding it up. “I’ve taken control of the scene and I need you to clear the area. I’m under orders from FBI Director Douglas Knox. This is a federal investigation, a matter of national security.”

The cop clicked on his tactical flashlight and pointed it at her face.

“Turn that goddamn thing off,” Vail yelled. “Notify all responding units to establish a larger perimeter and evacuate any restaurants or residences in a two-block radius.”

“I don’t take orders from you. This is our jurisdiction—”

“Look, I’m just doing as told. You need to do the same. Tell your lieutenant to contact Director Knox’s office. Let the brass fight it out.”

The officer seemed to think that was a good idea because he pulled his radio and began speaking into it—hopefully conveying what she had said and not requesting reinforcements for dealing with a deranged redhead with stolen FBI creds standing in the middle of a potential crime scene.

While the cop jabbered into his two-way, a couple of large black unmarked cabover vans pulled up, two or three dozen personnel hopping out the back doors dressed in dark tactical coveralls with white luminescent block letters spelling POLICE.

“You Vail?” a man with a square jaw asked as he approached.

“Who are you?”

“The director told me to touch base with you. We’ll secure the perimeter. He wants you to start your investigation.”

My investigation?
“Right.”

He seemed satisfied with that response because he turned and headed toward the knot of similarly attired officers who were moving gawkers away from the scene.

A moment later, Vail felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and saw one of the men holding up a jacket. “You’ve gotta be freezing.”

Must’ve heard my teeth chattering.
“Thanks so much. You’re my hero.”

The man nodded curtly. As Vail snuggled into the coat, her cell vibrated with a text from Robby:

jonathans fine. hes at a bar. told you.

She dashed off a quick thanks as a red Corvette pulled up. She knew that car, which now bore a personalized plate: BLACK 1.

The vehicle came to an abrupt stop and Hector DeSantos got out of the driver’s seat, dressed in a leather jacket and wearing small metal rimmed glasses.

“Hector, what the hell’s going on?”

“Nice to see you too. Knox is on his way with some intel. Other than that, you probably know more than I do.”

Vail gave him a dubious look. But before she could reply, a DC Fire Chief vehicle—and two engine companies—arrived, their diesel engines and airbrakes making it difficult to speak at normal volume.

They watched as three members of the tactical team approached the commander. A healthy helping of testosterone flew in both directions, Vail catching snippets of the argument. Finally the chief backed away, promising to escalate the matter to higher ranks—after playing his trump card that they were endangering lives by not permitting his men to check gas mains and other flammable infrastructure.

As the commander turned to make his case to his superiors over the radio, a Ford Explorer pulled in behind DeSantos’s Corvette. Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Uziel, head of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force for the Washington Metro field office, got out and headed toward them.

“Santa,” Uzi said with a fist bump against DeSantos’s closed hand. He glanced at Vail, eyes moving head to toe. “Karen. You look very nice. Did we interrupt something?”

“I was out with Robby.”

Uzi swiveled. “Where is the big guy?”

“I sent him home.” She noticed Uzi’s confused expression. “Knox’s orders.” Vail looked past his shoulder and saw the dozens of men in black outfits now establishing a physical boundary with unmarked sawhorses.
I think I’m starting to see what’s going on here.
“A few months ago, I’d be at a loss to explain what’s happening.”

“And now?” Uzi said.

“Let’s start with the fact that Hector’s here.” She looked at DeSantos, her head tilted ever so slightly, inviting him to jump in.

“And he doesn’t get involved in a case unless it’s a sensitive matter,” Uzi said, glancing at the damaged storefronts and streetscape.

“I’m standing right here,” DeSantos said. “You got a question?”

“You have the answers?” Vail asked. “Because, yeah, I’ve got questions. Like, What’s going on? What the hell happened? Who was the guy who got blown to bits?”

“Can’t tell you.”

Vail narrowed her eyes. “Don’t start with me.”

“Santa—”

“How about we go get some answers.” DeSantos handed booties to Vail and Uzi, then led them down the street and into the epicenter of the blast. Some of the men Vail saw arrive in the black trucks were poring over the wreckage, taking photos and measurements along the periphery and working their way closer to the body. Or what was left of it, which wasn’t much.

“Who are these guys?”

“A forensic crew,” DeSantos said.

Doesn’t look like any forensic crew I’ve ever seen.

“First impression?” Uzi said. “This was deliberate. And if that’s the case, Santa, it needs to be investigated as a terror attack until proven otherwise. As head of the JTTF—”

“That’s why you’re here, Boychick,” DeSantos said, using his nickname for Uzi—Yiddish for buddy.

Uzi glanced at Vail.

“Now you know how I feel,” she said.

“Look.” DeSantos gathered them together and said, “All I know is that officially this is being investigated as a gas main explosion. Unofficially, yeah, it’s a terrorist
event
. And that’s why you’re here.”

“If I’d been properly notified, I could’ve had my task force—”

“It’s sensitive. These guys dressed in black?” He turned to Vail. “They’re OPSIG operators.”