“President Lincoln, like former Prime Minister Rabin, was killed by an assassin’s bullet. I remember seeing a famous drawing that an American newspaper cartoonist did of Lincoln after President Kennedy was assassinated. It portrayed Lincoln sitting in that big chair at the Lincoln Memorial with his face buried in the palms of his hands, weeping. Many Americans thought Lincoln was an angel for preserving the nation at the time of the American Civil War. Maybe this is what the reference to the weeping angel means. You must prevent the prime minister from making that appearance.”
“Professor Kogen, I will personally speak with the prime minister. I will alert our security as well as the American Secret Service, too. However, this trip has been planned for quite some time. There’s substantial international media in attendance, and significant political and public relations gains to be achieved by having the prime minister participate in the observance. The prime minister has, upon occasion, said he would like to be remembered by the people of Israel like the people of America remember President Lincoln. The reference was to an American president who kept the nation together while championing the rights of its people. It would be an embarrassment to keep him away from this symbolic affair now, especially at a time when Israel could use more international support. Regardless, between our security and what the Americans bring, the area around the Lincoln Memorial will be quite secure.”
“Remember, Nathan, they flew a jet into the Pentagon, a mile from the Lincoln Memorial.”
“The information you have provided will be taken into serious consideration, extreme safety precautions will be in place. Now, Professor, I have a meeting to attend.”
Kogen called Paul Marcus. “I have alerted our top security authorities. They are taking this seriously, but I don’t know what obvious action they will seize.”
“What do you mean by obvious action?” Marcus asked. “The only action that matters is to keep the prime minister from laying the wreath at the Lincoln Memorial. If the term weeping angel is analogous to Lincoln, this could be horrific, and played out live on television and the Internet.”
“Can you dig further in the coding and come up with anything more definitive, something that might indicate from where the threat is coming?”
“Look, Jacob, I’m lucky to have had this much revealed. I don’t know if it’s correct or makes sense. But I do know that I can’t casually stand by and say nothing.”
“Maybe there is someone you can call…someone where you used to work that might have some influence on your president. He could cancel the event at the memorial and there wouldn’t be much suspicion. He might fake stomach flu or simply say the schedule was overbooked, and they will lay the wreath at another time.”
Marcus closed his eyes for a moment, heat building across his broad shoulders, jaw muscles tightening. “Why do I have a feeling that you, and the authorities you just mentioned, know more about me than you’re suggesting?”
“Because you’re included in the very elite group of Nobel laureates, much of the world knows more about you because they’re curious. Nothing more, Paul, I promise you. Please, do you have someone you can call, someone to make aware of what you have discovered?”
Marcus exhaled. “I’ll make the call.”
“And I’ll buy you dinner tonight. I will pray that you can bring good news to the table.”
“I will bring my laptop to the table because I have found something else.”
“What?”
“Something that Isaac Newton knew about Israel.”
Marcus looked at his watch to gauge his time before meeting Kogen and then called Alicia Quincy. Surprised by her raspy voice, he said, “Did I wake you?”
“No…yes, it’s okay. Sorry I hung up on you so abruptly this morning.” Her voice sounded lower, filtered through vocal cords closed with sleep. “I went to the office to catch up on a few things and left because I had a migraine. When I got home, I took a couple aspirins and laid down…guess I must have dozed off for a bit. So, two calls in one day — are you okay?”
“Yes. Alicia, I don’t know what the hell’s happening over here. The more I decipher, the more puzzling some things are becoming.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have reason to believe there will be an attempt made on the life of the prime minister of Israel when he meets with the president Tuesday at the Lincoln Memorial.”
“Where’d you get this? Did you decode it? Are you sure?” She sat up in bed and looked at the digital numbers on her clock: 11:59 a.m. “You’re telling me there will be an assassination attempt on the prime minister?”
“I don’t know! I just know this information is coming from multiple layers of decoding. This is what I’m getting: ‘On the tenth, an assassin will fire upon the prime minister in the plot of the weeping angel….’”
“Plot of the weeping angel — what the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know that either. Jacob Kogen, a professor here, remembered a poignant drawing, one that ran in newspapers and on the wire services. It showed Lincoln at the memorial, crying after President Kennedy was assassinated. Alicia, talk with Bill Gray. Have him alert the Secret Service, FBI, Homeland Security, and the CIA for that matter. Try to stop this thing from happening.”
Alicia ran her hand through her hair and pushed a pillow behind her back for support against the headboard. “This is getting weird, Paul. No, it’s getting damn scary. You’ve pulled information on the BP oil spill, John Kennedy Junior’s plane crash and now this about the prime minister. How can we explain this, a freakin’ prophecy, to people who won’t see how notes from a long-dead scientist and passages from the Bible can be used as a warning? They’ll think you’re acting like some kind of psychic. That’s gonna be received with rolled eyes, at best—”
“I don’t care how it’s received if we can do something. The president and prime minister will lay that wreath at the memorial Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Please, rattle some cages. I don’t give a damn whether they think I’m psychic. If it saves a man’s life, they can call me anything they want. Tuesday is only a few days away.”
THIRTY
Jacob Kogen and Paul Marcus sat at a table in the corner of the small restaurant, candles flickering from multi-colored glass vases in the centers of tables. No more than eight diners remained in the restaurant at 9:00 p.m. Many of the guests had finished eating and were lingering to enjoy after-dinner drinks.
The men ordered and waited for their food. The waiter poured each man a glass of wine from a bottle of chardonnay he brought to the table.
“Thank you,” Jacob said, as the waiter draped a white napkin around the neck of the bottle, nodded and left. A candle, in the only mauve vase in the room, burned in the center of their table, its soft light drifting over Jacob’s face in lavender brush strokes. “I am still trying to grasp how you uncovered the threat on the prime minister’s life. I’ve prayed that the authorities will heed the warning and cancel the ceremony. All we have is a reference to the tenth, an assassin, and the plot of the weeping angel. The prime minister receives many threats on his life, no doubt. I wish we had something more definitive.”
“This isn’t a threat. This is a revelation or some bizarre prophecy, and it doesn’t get too damn refined. No more than a riddle is clarified. I don’t know if it’s your prime minister or the prime ministers of Britain, Croatia, Canada or Bulgaria for that matter. But your guy is the only one meeting with the President of the United States on the tenth. If the Lincoln statue is the weeping angel, a betting person might say the odds are weighted in the direction of your man.”