The Alexandria Link

He stared out the window.

Dusty, barren soil stretched in every direction, an irregular tableland, tilting ever upward as the Sinai Peninsula narrowed and erupted into craggy brown, gray, and red granite mountains. The Burning Bush and the theophany of Jehovah all supposedly occurred down there. The great and terrible wilderness of Exodus. Monks and hermits for centuries had chosen it as their refuge, as if being alone brought them closer to heaven. Perhaps it did. He was curiously reminded of Sartre’s Huis Clos vision.

Hell is other people.

He turned from the window and watched McCollum leave the loadmaster and walk toward him, taking a seat on the aluminum frame that stretched across the bulkhead. Pam lay ten feet away, on the opposite side, still sleeping. Malone was eating one of the meals ready to eat-beefsteak with mushrooms-and drinking bottled water.

“You eat?” he asked McCollum.

“While you were sleeping. Chicken fajitas. Not bad. I remember MREs all too well.”

“You do look at home.”

“Been here, done this.”

They’d both removed their earplugs, which provided only minor insulation from the constant drone of the engines. The aircraft was loaded with pallets of vehicle parts destined for Afghanistan. Malone imagined that there were many similar flights each week. Where once supply routes depended on horses, wagons, and trucks, now the sky and sea offered the fastest and safest routes.

“You look like you’ve been here, too,” McCollum said.

“Does bring back some things.”

He was watching his words. Didn’t matter that McCollum had helped get them out of Belém in one piece. He remained an unknown. And he killed with expert precision and no remorse. His redeeming quality? He held the hero’s quest.

“You’ve got some pretty good co

“I do have friends.”

“You’re either CIA, military intelligence, or something along that line.”

“None of the above. I’m actually retired.”

McCollum chuckled. “You keep that story. I like it. Retired. Right. You’re up to your eyeballs in something.”

He finished the meal and noticed the loadmaster eyeing him. He recalled that they could get touchy as to how MREs were trashed. The man motioned and Malone understood. The container at the far end of the bench.

The loadmaster then flashed his open palm four times.

Twenty minutes.

He nodded.

SIXTY-FIVE

VIENNA

8:30 AM

THORVALDSEN SAT INSIDE THE SCHMETTERLINGHAUS AND OPENED the atlas. He and Gary had awoken an hour ago, showered, and eaten a light breakfast. He’d come to the butterfly house not only to avoid the electronic listening devices, but to await the inevitable as well. Only a matter of time before Herma

Morning was free time for the members, as the next gathering of the Assembly was not scheduled until late afternoon. He’d kept the parchments inside the atlas beneath his bed all night. Now he was anxious to learn more. Though he could read Latin, his Greek was minimal, and his knowledge of Old Greek, which surely would be the language of Jerome and Augustine, was nonexistent. He was thankful that Herma

Gary sat across from him in another chair. “You said last night these may be what we came for.”

He decided the boy deserved the truth. “You were kidnapped so as to force your father to find something he hid away years ago. I think that and these papers are linked.”

“What are they?”

“Letters between two learned men. Augustine and Jerome. They lived in the fourth and fifth centuries and helped formulate the Christian religion.”

“History. I’m starting to like it and all, but there’s so much to it.”

Henrik smiled. “And the problem today is we have so few documents from that time. Wars, politics, time, and abuse have devastated the record. But here are writings straight from the minds of two learned men.”

He knew something about both. Augustine was born in Africa to a Christian mother and a pagan father. Eventually, as an adult, he converted to Christianity and recorded his youthful excesses in The Confessions, a book Thorvaldsen knew was still required reading at most universities. He became the bishop of Hippo, an intellectual leader of African Catholicism, and a powerful advocate for orthodoxy; he was credited with formulating much of the church’s early thinking.

Jerome, too, was born to a pagan family and misspent his youth. He was also learned, and came to be regarded as the most intellectual of all the church fathers. He lived as a hermit and devoted thirty years of his life to translating the Bible. Ever since, he’d been associated with libraries, so much so that he became their patron saint.

From the little that Thorvaldsen had overheard last night, these two men, who lived in differing parts of the ancient world, apparently communicated with each other during a time when Jerome was fashioning his lifework. Herma

My learned brother Augustine, there was a time when I believed the Septuagint to be a wondrous work. I read that text in the library at Alexandria. To hear the thoughts of those scribes, as they recounted the troubles of the Israelites, brought to life the faith that had long filled my soul. But this joy has now been replaced with confusion. In my work to convert the old text it is clear that great liberties were taken in the Septuagint. Passage after passage is not correct. Jerusalem is not a single place, but a region that contains many places. That most sacred of rivers the Jordan is not a river, but a mountain escarpment. As to the names of places, most are wrong. The Greek translation does not conform to the Hebrew. It is as if the entire message was altered, not through ignorance, but design.

Jerome, my friend, yours is a difficult task, made even more so by our great mission. What you have discovered has not gone u