“Maybe he had four replicas made.”
“What do you mean?”
“It says in addition to the spear in Vienna, there is one in a museum cathedral near Echmiadzin, Armenia. Another is in Krakow, Poland, and one is in the Vatican. So that’s four.”
“Could be that they’re all imposters.”
“And it could be no spear is around after two thousand years, either.”
“Alicia, how did General Patton die, and when?”
“Hold a sec.”
Marcus strode past the Dome of the Rock, the oldest existing Islamic building on earth, where dozens of people cued up in a long line to enter. Armed security was heavy, uniformed guards watching everyone who approached.
Alicia said, “Some of this I got from my dad, the rest from research. Patton was injured in a car crash near Mannheim, Germany, on December 9, 1945. He was one of three passengers in his car and was in the rear seat with Major General Hobart Gay. His driver was PFC Horace Woodring. An Army supplies truck, driven by Technical Sergeant Robert L. Thompson, turned in the path of Patton’s driver, and there was a collision. A passenger in the truck was an Allied soldier, James Tower. The report indicates the wreck was minor. No one but Patton was injured. He was taken to an Army hospital at Mannheim where he died December twenty-first from an apparent heart attack.”
“Was an autopsy done?”
“No.”
“Mannheim, Germany. I imagine Patton had made a few enemies during the war. Certainly in Germany.”
“In Russia, too. Dad says Patton was hated by the Russian military, and even by his own boss, Dwight Eisenhower, for condemning Eisenhower’s handling of German POWs.”
Marcus was silent a moment, his mind working timelines and probabilities. “I wonder if your dad knows the background of the two men in the car with Patton at the time of the accident, the driver of the truck and his passenger.”
“I thought you might ask that, so I ran a check on all parties. With the exception of the Brit, James Tower, the rest are long dead. Tower would be in his late eighties. I couldn’t track down a last known address.”
“What if Patton had the spear-head with him? Maybe on him, in a briefcase, or hidden somewhere in the car, when the accident happened? What if Patton didn’t die from his injuries? Maybe he was killed — murdered by someone in the hospital? German, Russian, or someone else—”
“Paul, slow down. What are you saying?”
“What if he was killed so the spear he had wouldn’t have to be returned to him?”
“Go on.”
“What if this person kept the spear after Patton’s death and had a fake made but sold the real thing to someone. Even by 1945, the Spear of Destiny was probably known in many religious and secret power circles as an extremely valuable object. A wealthy person, or someone representing a government — maybe Germany, Russia or even the U.S. — could have brokered a deal if it became known on the black market that the spear was on the auction block.”
“Whoa, Paul, you need to tell me what you’ve discovered in those Newton papers? Newton lived a couple centuries before there was a World War II. The place you’re standing, Israel, didn’t even exist as a nation.”
“But Newton found information that predicted the Jews would return here. What if he may have foreseen World War II or even World War III…who the players would be, how it would start, when…and how it would all end?”
“What have you found?”
“I’m still finding.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is a mention of this spear in Newton’s deciphered coding, and he draws references to it in the Bible including this: ‘He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear…’ Also, Hitler, the man who possessed the spear, started a war. What would it be worth to someone like him today? Or someone in the background — the power and money brokers behind the next Hitler?”
“What’s control of the world’s economies and governments’ worth? I suppose that is why many of the wars over the last two thousand years began.”
“But it’s only in the last seventy years we’ve had nuclear weapons.”
“Paul, you mentioned something about shattering the spear…making wars cease to the ends of the earth. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, at least not yet. And I wonder if the original spear still exists.”
Marcus looked at the crowd in long, orderly lines at the Dome of the Rock, the golden dome resembling fire smoldering in the sunset. “Shoes must be removed,” said a guard waving a metal detection wand down a man’s back. The people, Muslims mostly, were quiet, faces vacant. They waited their turns to enter the building and see the ancient rock, a stone that is part of the bedrock of both Islam and Judaism. It is believed that the area was where Abraham was going to sacrifice his son Isaac, near the same vicinity where Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven.
“Paul, are you still there?” asked Alicia.
“Yes.”
“I forgot one other thing about James Tower, the passenger in the truck that ran into Patton.”
“What?”
“My dad had mentioned, which was corroborated in an obscure report I dug up, that Tower was a man who spoke fluent German, Russian and Italian. Maybe he was an undercover agent using the guise of an Allied soldier to gain closer access to Patton.”
FIFTY-ONE
Marcus exited the Old City through Lion’s Gate. He walked by Golden Gate, which had been sealed closed for twelve centuries, and up to Jericho Road toward the Mount of Olives. Within a few minutes, the sun was turning the clouds in the west into tapestries of mauve and scarlet. Walking east on the ancient road, the Old City was to his left, the air warm, the smell of cedar trees and dust in the breeze. He hiked past the western slope of the Mount of Olives and the Jewish cemetery, thousands of rectangle crypts casting long shadows in the sunset.
Bahir had told him to watch for the golden onion-shaped domes from the Church of Mary Magdalene. Soon, he spotted the iconic Russian architecture of the seven domes, like fairytale castles aflame with reflections of an orange sun dipping below the horizon. Near there he would find the Church of All Nations and the Garden of Gethsemane.
A dozen or so tourists exited from the church with a mosaic of Christ above the arched entrance. The montage was of Christ with his hands open, his eyes looking up, flanked by people bowing their heads. A kneeling woman held a child in her lap. Marcus studied the mural for a moment. As the tourists walked by, a fleshy man, face shining with perspiration, wearing a disheveled Nike golf shirt, looked back at the mural and said, “They told us the wall painting tells the story of the Day of Judgment. Damn inspiring, you know?”
Marcus nodded. A woman next to the man said, “The church is closing. We were the last people in there today. C’mon, Randy, the group is ahead of us, and we gotta catch the bus.” They left and Marcus walked toward the side of the old church where a small black-and-white sign, shaped like an arrow, spelled ENTRY. Above the stone entryway were the words HORTVS GETHSEMANI. Over that was a white stone chiseled to resemble a shield. Carved into the shield was a large cross with a smaller cross engraved into each of its four quadrants, for a total of five crosses. Marcus felt his pulse quicken. ‘…from the five crosses…to the head of the garden…’
There was the creak of hinges in need of oil. Marcus looked down when an elderly Russian nun, face pinched from sun and time, shoulders stooped, reached up to shut the iron gates. Through the bars she said, “I’m sorry. We’re closing for the day.” She nodded and turned to walk away.