The Templar's Code (36 page)

Rubin learned of these things from his aunt Tovah. She’d not been given a cuckoo clock on that long-ago night. Instead, she’d been bequeathed a badly scarred face from having been shoved into the bonfire by a gang of local boys intent on “joining the fun.” It was his aunt Tovah who told Rubin about that monstrous episode, hoping he’d understand why, each year on November 10, his father would sit for hours on end, in the dark, sobbing uncontrollably. Rubin only understood that living with his father was akin to living with a ghost. Chaim Woolf walked and talked and took meals with his family, but he had no ties or bonds with the living.

Rubin had always asserted, rather strenuously in fact, that he didn’t care. What use did he have for a father who lacked the emotional fortitude to overcome his inner demons? Chaim Woolf’s retreat from the world bespoke a weakness that made his son cringe.

As the line of poetry popped into his head, Rubin derisively snorted. Sylvia Plath.
Really
. How pathetic. Besides, what need did he have for a father? What need did anyone have?

“I have my books. I am content,” he reassured himself as he entered the boudoir. Originally a staid Victorian parlor, ten years ago he’d completely transformed the space, paying a small fortune to have a room in a half-timber Winchester abode completely dismantled, the woodwork shipped to Cecil Court and reassembled. The paneled walls exemplified the very best of the era, masculine exuberance wedded to feminine civility.

He suspected that his father had never known an exuberant day in his life.

No doubt that was the reason why Rubin had been drawn to the scowling anarchists who’d invaded the London club scene in the 1970s. But, like the punk-rock movement itself, the love affair had been short-lived. Rubin had always required an intellectual challenge to maintain a long-term interest.

Enter Sir Francis Bacon.

He’d often wondered if his family history didn’t have something to do with his fascination with Sir Francis. A Renaissance man extraordinaire, Sir Francis was at once philosopher, courtier, and esoteric adept. But more important, Sir Francis Bacon was a tolerant and benevolent man of God.

Walking over to the bed, he picked up the Mylar-covered frontispiece. In the
New Atlantis
, Jews played a prominent role in society and harmoniously lived side by side with their Christian neighbors. The children of the Old Covenant united with those of the New. A paradise not seen since Adam and Eve blithely strolled their earthly garden. And the adhesive that bound the residents of Bacon’s utopian realm was the hidden stream of knowledge.

Heady sentiments made manifest by the alchemical power inherent in the Emerald Tablet. Sacred teachings whose roots extended to the time before the pharaohs. To the time when Thoth and his fellow refugees fled the destruction of Atlantis.

No different from when the German Jews fled from the Nazi thugs.

Rubin chortled, cynical enough to be amused by the comparison.

In the foyer, the cuckoo annoyingly announced the quarter hour.
Fifteen minutes late.
Royally pissed, he strode over to the window and stared at the gloomy montage below. A few shops kept Sunday hours. Most were closed. Christians were not as rigid as Jews when it came to keeping their Sabbath.

As if on cue, the downstairs bell rang.

“About time,” he muttered as he turned away from the window.

Annoyed at being made to wait, he took his time descending the steps.
Let the bastard stand in the rain a bit longer.
Time was a valuable commodity, tardiness a tiresome character flaw.

Again, the bell rang.

Reaching the ground floor, he stormed across the dimly lit bookshop, in high dudgeon.

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls, you bloody impatient bastard, it tolls for—”

Unbolting the lock, Rubin swung open the shop door.

On the other side of the threshold stood a dark-haired man. Six feet in height, he had about him a classical beauty that harkened to the ancient world. A marble kouros come to life. Carved by the hand of the master sculptor Phidias.

Admittedly taken aback, Rubin could see that, like the kouroi of ancient Greece, his beautiful visitor was the living, breathing embodiment of the ideal male form.

For several moments they mutely stared at one another.

The beautiful stranger smiled. “I’m Saviour Panos. We have an eleven o’clock appointment. Please accept my apology for being a few minutes late. I hope that you weren’t inconvenienced.”

“Not in the least,” Rubin assured him. He tugged at the bottom of his vest, self-consciously aware of his middle-aged paunch.

“May I come inside?”

“Where are my manners? Of course, please come in,” Rubin invited. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “I trust that you like martinis.”

“. . . and Benjamin Franklin’s code name was Moses.”

“Indeed?”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Edie scooted her chair closer to the flat-screened monitor.

To get out of the rain, she and Caedmon had ducked into an Internet café called Pie-Ro-Mania. Owned and operated by an American expat, the joint billed itself as a “No Latte Zone” that served dark-roast coffee and homemade pie by the slice. The décor was equally bare-bones with several rows of conference tables lined with monitors and keyboards. The music—Muddy Waters—and the incredibly flaky piecrust more than compensated for the spartan design. She’d ordered pecan with a big dollop of whipped cream.

“The whole time that he was living at the town house on Craven Street, ol’ Ben was engaged in high-level espionage activities,” Edie continued. She hurriedly ripped open a cellophane package with plastic cutlery, anxious for a sugar fix. “Those were the turbulent years leading up to the Revolution. And, according to the biography that I read a few years back, Franklin used the secret code name ‘Moses.’ ”

“Which explains why he titled the hidden pages
The Book of Moses.
It’s a tongue-in-cheek reference to his espionage activities.”

“Okay, book title explained. But what I want to know is how did Franklin get a hold of the Bacon frontispiece? Ohmygosh! This is to die for,” she exclaimed around a mouthful of pie. “You sure you don’t want some?” She extended her plastic fork in Caedmon’s direction.

He politely shook his head, clearly spooked by the idea of so much corn syrup having gone into a single slice of pie. “Perhaps Franklin’s enigmatically titled missive will shed some light.” Caedmon opened the leather pouch and carefully removed the dozen or so sheets of thick old-fashioned paper. “Let’s have a go at the missive, shall we?”

“Since we have no idea as to the contents, I think we should read this quietly at our desks rather than reciting it aloud.”

Caedmon inched his chair closer to hers. “I agree. Sub rosa.”