He watched a squirrel hide an acorn in a secret place under the grass, which was turning brown from an early frost. A robin fluttered from a nearby old oak, hopping across the ground. Life all around in a place of the dead. The world turns. Seasons come and go. Somehow he was supposed to rejoin the orbit. Bullshit. What was he expected to do with his own life when the two people he loved with absolute resolve lay in front of him beneath six feet of Virginia earth?
He looked at the graves as a gust of wind blew through the trees. The breeze tugged at the leaves, many releasing their hold on the branches, windsurfing around marble headstones, then departing when another draft scattered them across the cemetery.
“I miss you both so much,” Marcus whispered. “It’s not the same. Nothing is. I know I’m supposed to move on, to live life. That’s what you always said, Jen. And, Tiffany, that’s what you did in the short time you were here. I learned a lot from the two of you. Now, with what I’ve learned, I don’t have you here to share it. Isn’t that what this side of the grave is all about? What’s the purpose, the meaning, if not that? And now that doesn’t exist.” Marcus looked up, his eyes drifting back to the headstones.
“Mama Davis is not doing too well either. She had a fall, sprained her ankle, and her blood pressure shot up. I’m going to visit her again tomorrow. I’m not sure which is more bruised, though, her arms from the fall or her ego.”
The temperature dropped, and Marcus could feel the brisker, drier air coming in from the northwest, out of the mountains.
“Tiffany, Buddy’s doing fine. He’s a little heavier. The vet tells me I have to stop sharing cheese pizzas with him. I guess Italian food isn’t part of a border collie’s diet.” Marcus licked his dry lips, his eyes watering. He could see the Blue Ridge Mountains arching in the distance beyond the fiery tree line. An eagle flew just above the tallest pines and called out, beating its wings, sailing over Marcus.
His cell phone chirped, the sound somehow foreign in place of birdsong and the fussing of squirrels playing hide-and-seek with acorns. He lifted the phone from his belt. Unknown.
He ignored the call, looked at the graves before him. “They want to give me an award for breaking a genetic code that will help regulate the electrical signals for the heart. I’m so sorry I couldn’t have helped you, Tiff. I love you both — my heart aches all the time for you.”
Marcus’ cell chirped again.
Unknown.
Marcus thought about simply tossing the phone harder than he had ever thrown a football, throwing it into the valley below him, the depth already pocketing with afternoon shadows. Maybe it was someone calling from the assisted living center about Mama Davis. He answered.
“Mr. Marcus?”
“Who’s calling?”
“My name is Jacob Kogen. I am calling you from Jerusalem.”
“How’d you get my number?”
“That’s not important, what’s important is how I got your name.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I teach mathematics at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. Also, I have been researching papers donated to the university library in 1969. The papers were written by Sir Isaac Newton.”
“Why are you calling me?”
“May I meet with you?”
“Why?”
“We recently received a second donation — some of Newton’s lost papers, ones he’d worked on for many years. He was a great student of the Bible. Newton was convinced the secrets to our future lie in our past, or maybe in the Book of Revelation. He went to his grave trying to decode the information in the Bible, and he may have succeeded.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“In one of the last papers Newton wrote, he added a name of a man who wouldn’t be born for another 273 years. He added your name, Mr. Marcus. Perhaps Isaac Newton was handing the torch to you, maybe to solve something he could not. The question now is — what will you do with it?”
Marcus said nothing. He lowered the phone for a moment and stared up at the canopy of yellow, ginger and red leaves.
“Mr. Marcus, are you still there?” came the metallic voice from the cell phone.
Marcus raised the phone back to his ear.
“I’m here. Look, I’m sorry, there’s a mistake. I’m not your guy. It’s a fluke.”
“Isaac Newton didn’t create flukes, as you call it. He was a man of science and religion, and he believed the two did not and could not exist apart. But in his lifetime, even he had great difficulty pulling them together.”
“I have to go.”
“Please, Mr. Marcus, simply examine the information, the documents. All of your expenses will be paid. I don’t know how to say this more sincerely than what my heart is telling me. Please, bear with me and allow an old man a moment. What if you found something that could add immense value to our world? If you don’t examine the data, you’ll go to your grave never knowing what was there, and how you might have helped.”
“Helped? I’m really the wrong guy.”
“What if you weren’t selected by Newton, Mr. Marcus? What if God chose you? Could you, would you, refuse the request?”
“God? I’ve only made two requests to God in my life. Both denied, and I’m standing in front of them. I’m standing in front of the graves of my family — my wife and daughter — so don’t talk to me about God. I have to go.”
“Please, don’t hang up. I’m very sorry for your loss. Mr. Marcus, we believe Newton came closer than any human to unlocking the layers of text and passages in the Bible. Imagine if you discovered some prophesies that could literally shine light onto our world, a world often too dark.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Conceivably, at this point in time, the insights Newton labored to unlock centuries ago were not ready to be revealed — their lock impervious to a key. What if now the time is closer?”
“Closer to what?”
“To God’s plan.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I am who I said I was, and everything I’ve told you is true.”
“And I’m ending this call.”
“Before you do, Mr. Marcus, I beg you to consider something I want to leave with you. If you are the successor to Isaac Newton, if you are chosen by God to unlock a biblical prophecy and you walk away, what would it mean?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“Possibly, however, if you are the one, the person chosen to reveal something from the Bible that might have a wonderful influence on our world, and you turn your back — the world becomes far worse because of it…and you know it because you did nothing, could you rest at night?”
“This has gone far enough.”
Marcus disconnected. He glanced down at the graves of his wife and daughter. Even in the chill, he felt a drop of sweat roll between his shoulder blades. He looked to his right, the valley an undulated dark sea of trees, copper and red leaves tossing in the wind, blurring into a horizon of purple mountains against the backdrop of indigo sky.
He turned from the graves and headed to his car, the only sound in the cemetery was the crunch of his boots through the dead leaves.
SEVEN
Jacob Kogen had been in the building only once in his life. It was more than twenty-five years ago when the mathematician was making a name for himself. It was then that he was summoned to meet with the field ops director of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. The former director had retired; he was replaced with a man Jacob had never met, but knew of his persuasive global moves to keep Israel safe.