Newton’s Fire (34 page)

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?’

‘Made for me by Newton himself,’ said Jay. ‘Think about that. All my life, people have told me that I was a freak. Yet now it turns out I was made this way for a reason. Now it turns out that I have a destiny. That’s quite something, don’t you think? To have a destiny?’ He folded the robe back in its chest, turned his attention to its twin. Its interior was divided into two; on the left were sheets of some dull metal; on the right were glass flasks with encrusted stoppers three-quarters full of some clouded liquid. He closed it, turned to their mother. Its lid, however, wouldn’t lift. He frowned and walked around it, looking for a way in. It had sturdy brass handles set into its sides, but they didn’t give when he pulled. And the oak panels fitted so perfectly together that they gave no hint of how they might open. Out of frustration as much as anything, he pushed each of the sides in turn, and finally one of the end panels sank in a little way. He pushed harder and a slot opened in the lid, allowing him to slide the panel up and out. There was a second panel immediately behind it, covered in rich blue cloth and fitted with a pair of leather handles. He pulled them and an interior compartment slid sweetly towards him, like a drawer on oiled castors. He pulled it all the way out, turned it around. It was perhaps two and a half feet long, half the length of the chest. Its sides were covered in the same blue cloth, but its interior was finished with brown and white fur, and it was as obviously shaped to accommodate the Ark as a glove is to fit a hand.

He knelt to look inside the hollowed chest. A mirror twin of brown and white fur was fitted to the far end, so that the two halves together would form a perfect womb for its precious cargo. He reached inside to see if the far end pulled out too, but it appeared to be fixed in place. He looked up at Luke. ‘You can’t carry the Ark openly,’ Jay told him. ‘It’s against Jewish law. If you need to move it, you first have to wrap in
tachash
and blue cloth.’

‘
Tachash
?’ asked Luke.

‘It’s a kind of fur,’ said Jay. ‘Though no one’s quite sure from which animal.’ He stroked it against its nap to raise it. ‘But Newton followed the King James Version of the Bible, and the King James translates it as badger.’

‘So they built this to bring it here?’ asked Rachel.

Jay didn’t answer, his attention seized instead by a large oval cut in the bottom of the chest, the exact same shape
and size as the base of the Ark itself. He smiled when he
saw how it worked. He found and released a pair of latches holding the front half of the floor panel in place, then slid it out and set it aside. Now the chest could be carried over to the Ark and fitted snugly around it. The
floor panel would then slot back in and lock around
the
base of the Ark like the collar of a guillotine around the
neck of its next victim. Slide the velvet mould back in and fix it in place with the front panel and the Ark would be ready for moving without anyone having touched it at all.

The thought reminded him that he was here for a reason. He went around to the front and found the
goyim
with their hands all over the Ark. ‘Stop that!’ he commanded, his voice sounding imperious even to himself. ‘Put that lid back on.’

Croke gave him a sour look. ‘You’re here to observe,’ he said.

‘Don’t you realize what this is?’ asked Jay. ‘We take our time with it. We handle it with respect. And no one touches it. No one but me.’

‘But—’

‘Only a Kohen may touch the Ark, on pain of death.
On pain of death
. I am a Kohen. Are there any other Kohens here?’ And he looked so belligerently around the chamber that no one said a word.

Luke and Rachel watched anxiously as the Ark was packed into the large oak chest and was then hoisted by crane up to the crypt. Whatever fate Croke had planned for them, they were surely about to discover it. So it came as an intense relief to learn they’d be going with it. Walters covered Luke with his taser while Kieran cut a fat strip from a roll of surgical tape and made to gag him. ‘There’s no need for that,’ Luke assured him. ‘I gave you my word.’

‘Sure,’ snorted Walters. ‘And if you think we trust you …’

Kieran stuck the tape across his mouth, then did the same to Rachel. He and Walters then manhandled them up the ladder, handcuffed them when they got to the top, then took them out of the cathedral. A vast white canopy had been rigged up over the front plaza, large enough for two heavy vehicles to be parked inside it: a lorry hauling a container emblazoned with nuclear hazard warnings and a windowless white security truck, to which they were now taken. The three oak chests were already loaded along its spine, constricting the legroom of the bench seats that ran down either side. Walters herded them all the way in, made them sit side by side facing the largest chest. He briefly undid one of Luke’s cuffs to loop the chain through a brass handle, thus securing him to it. He did the same with Rachel, then checked to make sure his team were all inside. Satisfied, he closed and bolted the rear doors then gave the side of the truck a loud double thump.

It was time to roll.

Croke put on a yellow police bib before climbing into the front of the security truck. ‘Another quiet night in, eh, boss?’ said Manfredo, already at the wheel.

‘Another quiet night in.’

Morgenstern was on the cathedral steps. He’d be staying behind to supervise the re-plugging of the crypt floor before taking a chopper to USAF Lakenheath to meet the convoy. Croke waved to let him know they were ready, and to thank him for his help. Morgenstern relayed the signal to the driver of the nuclear container. Its lights came on. Its engine started to rumble. It began slowly to move, nudging its nose like a curious dog against the parting curtains of the canvas canopy then slipping out between them.

The security truck followed immediately behind. The sun had set, and they were greeted by a dazzling wildfire of camera flashes that made Croke blink despite their tinted windscreen. The first eruption died away; it grew diffuse. The spotlights of TV helicopters tracked them as a police escort formed around them. Blue lights flashed in synchrony as they forced a path through the crowds to Ludgate Hill, and sirens suddenly began to blare in a hideous concerted screech of noise. They picked up speed, though not too much. They were, after all, supposed to be carrying a dirty bomb.

All the feeder roads had been closed off by the police, so that there was no traffic to negotiate, no need to wait for lights. They reached the Limehouse Link and plunged down into its mouth. The white-tiled walls and compressed space reflected their sirens and lights, like some devilish nightclub. The tunnel was a mile long, with lay-bys for breakdowns every hundred yards or so. Two nondescript vans were waiting in the first. Manfredo braked sharply to drop off the back of the convoy and pull in beside them. A second security truck, indistinguishable from their own, was parked in the next lay-by along. It began to pull out the moment the last police outrider had passed, then accelerated to catch up with the convoy before it left the tunnel. In the nocturnal gloom, surrounded by this riot of noise and light, it would take a freakishly smart-eyed observer to notice the switch.

Croke opened the passenger door, jumped down, went around back. Working together, they all heaved the two smaller chests into the first van; the larger, along with Luke and Rachel, into the second. They locked up the security truck, covered it with a blue tarpaulin, then they divided into the two vans, Manfredo and Kieran taking the respective wheels. They drove on a short distance and pulled into another lay-by halfway along the tunnel. Then they waited.

It was another five minutes before the police opened
their roadblocks and the first few headlights appeared in
their rear-views. Manfredo and Kieran now pulled out well ahead of them, emerging unheralded and unobserved from the eastern mouth of the tunnel a minute later, before proceeding in a far more discreet convoy to City Airport.

There were no benches in the back of the new van, so Luke and Rachel had to kneel on the bare metal floor as though in supplication to the Ark. It was gloomier here than in the truck too, with only a single, low-powered roof light. Luke raised an eyebrow at Rachel, about the only communication available with his mouth still taped. She raised both hers in response. The way the skin crinkled around her eyes made it look almost as though she were smiling. Her courage was astonishing to him, and gave him heart. He leaned forwards, looked around the van. Walters and Kieran were here, of course. And Jay, too, his eyes fixed on the chest. He noticed Luke looking his way and coloured a little, then he rose to his feet and crouched his way towards them.