The synopsis

“…May the wrath of God bring death and destruction upon you, your household, your men and anyone who had, or shall ever have, a hand in this sacrilege…” proclaimed the last high priest of the Second Holy Temple of Jerusalem on the evening of Passover 70 AD, as he vehemently cursed Elazar Ben Yair for robbing the Temple of 300 tons of gold and silver, as well as sacred artifacts. Three years later on the mountain fortress of Masada, Elazar and his Sicarii warriors resolved to take part in a mass suicide rather than fall into the hands of the Roman Legion, giving rise to the phrase ‘NEVER AGAIN’, the maxim upon which the new nation of Israel was born—but not before Elazar succeeded in planting the seed to a 2000-year lineage of holy warriors whose sole purpose was to protect the secret of God’s Treasure. 
For 1100 years the Treasure lay dormant. But when the Knight Templars, another breed of holy warriors, came to possess it during the Third Crusade, the high priest’s curse on the treasure-seekers unleashed its tentacles of death, misery and destruction, bringing about the erasure of the Templars from of the pages of history. 
August 2005: Israel’s Prime Minister decides to return the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian people. He plans to follow suit with the West Bank, also known as Judea and Samaria, the ancient burial place of God’s Treasure. The modern-day Sicarii warriors, as extreme and sinister as ever, are the present generation sentinels of God’s Treasure. Only now, they are also part of the Mossad and the General Security service, the pillars of the Israeli security establishment, as they rise up again to protect their secret and plot the demise of the PM, the man that in their eyes is a traitor to God and the people of Israel. 
Professor Robert Young, a famous archeologist who spent most of his adult life trying to find God’s Treasure, suddenly finds himself a target of the secret assassination squad of the Israeli Mossad, one of the most capable intelligence services in the world. Aiding him in his adventures to uncover the treasure and evade the deadly Sicarii assassins are a Swiss Police inspector, who is tasked with determining whether it is the Mossad or rather some rogue agents instead that are responsible for murders on Swiss soil; an ex-SAS warrior sent by Jay Gross, the billionaire stepbrother of Professor Young, to help protect him from the Sicariis; and a beautiful Israeli Mossad agent, who starts out as a Sicarii then realigns herself with the professor after she falls in love with him. 
This intriguing tale weaves in and out of ancient history to follow the Templars who believed that gaining possession of the treasure from the Sicarii was the source of all their misfortunes. To the world the Templars were dissolved in the early years of the 14th century; they were not. They reconstituted themselves in utter secrecy. When word of the search for the treasure reaches them in August 2005, they know they must find it before Young does and return it to the Sicarii, or again risk potential destruction. During Professor Young’s quest for the treasure and his attempts at escaping the deadly Sicarii, he stumbles upon the conspiracy to assassinate the Israeli PM. Unable to trust anyone within the Israeli security apparatus, the professor travels to New York to try and stop the assassination himself. It is there that the final electrifying confrontation takes place…

Locations - Switzerland and USA

The caption above each image is actually a snippet from the manuscript.

A group of 100 men gathered in the large room at Castle Tourbillion in the town of Sion, in the Southwest of Switzerland. Unlike the previous meetings, this time, a hundred colorful banners hanging from the tall walls decorated the main hall. Each banner depicted the coat of arms of each of the participants.

The irony of it all didn't escape him. The hall he was in belonged to Castle Tourbillion,  which translated literally to whirlwind, which was exactly how he felt, all spinning out of control. 

Through the balcony, Lake Zurich came into view and again she was drawn to it. She stepped outside and was enthralled by the brilliance of the sun's reflection on the water.  The self-proclaimed hopeless romantic thought of what it would be like to share the view with a man.  He would come up from behind her and wrap his strong arms around her, protecting her from the gentle breeze, and the world.  Although the man in her short daydream was not endowed with a particular face, it struck Miki that it was definitely not her husband.  (Author's note - View of Hotel Baur au Lac from lake Zurich)

The top three floors of the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan made up what was known as the ultimate penthouse.  The first floor was comprised of a library, a dining room, a kitchenette and the main kitchen as well as bedrooms for the staff.  The wine cellar rivaled those of the finest restaurants in the world.  The 41^st floor of the 43 story hotel was covered with Byzantine-style ceramic tiles that featured a commanding staircase of black marble leading to the upper floors.

The UN building on First Ave. New York City.



Locations - The Galilee

The caption above each image is actually a snippet from the manuscript.

They arrived to the citadel in the late afternoon. It stood in a perfect location, on a hill about 200 feet above the road leading to the east. The citadel was made of stone with ten foot thick and forty foot high walls.  It covered about 16,000 feet of the summit of the hill with a 360 degree view of the area below.  The place was empty but for a few nuns that tended the small church less than half a mile to the northwest. The Count didn’t allow any rest

A bird's eye view of the Citadel. It is located above the ancient town of Sepphoris, the Capital of the Galilee during Roman occupation of the Judean province. Notice the church off St. Ann and St. Yoachim on the far right of the photo.

The Count knew almost nothing about the area except that he had been to the small church nearby.  At least he would die in the presence of the divine.  The Mamluk scout had shared with the Count that this fortress served as the departure point to the Battle of Hattin.  It was 41 years ago that Guy De Lusignan and many of his fellow Templar knights went to their last battle against Saladin.  They were all killed.  Those who survived the battle were beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam.(Author's note - The ancient town of Nazareth would be on the upper left hand of the photo.)

It was noon.  Grey skies warned of rain and filled the air with the sweet scent of moisture.  Miriam Ben Yair and Jack McLeod stood together at the bottom of a hill on the banks of a river known as Kziv.  It was one of the few rivers in Israel that flowed year round.  Above them on a precipitous rock crest were the ruins of what had once been the splendid Montfort Crusader’s Castle.  Built in the early 12^th century but destroyed by Saladin following the battle of Hittin, it was recaptured five years later and restored in 1220 AD only to be sold to the order of the Teutonic Knights.  With the sale it had lost the name Montfort Castle and been renamed by the Germans “Starkenberg,” the strong mountain.

The History vs. The Fiction

While this novel is a work of fiction, the events upon which it is based are historical and archaeological facts. 

During ancient times, a sacred duty of the Israelites, according to the Torah, was to pay tribute and bring sacrificial animals and gifts to the Temple during the three pilgrimage festivals.

Following the destruction of the First Temple of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC, Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, had allowed for the Temple to be rebuilt in 535 BC.  During the next 500 years up until the rebuilding of the Second Temple by Herod the Great, vast amounts of precious metals and gems continued to accumulate in the Temple’s vaults from those tributes.  Some accounts estimate there to have been about 300 tons of gold, silver and precious stones.

Historical accounts claim that Titus son of Vespasian Caesar had looted some of the Temple’s treasure after he destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 AD.  In modern-day Rome, visitors can still see etched into the stone of Titus’ arch near the coliseum part of that treasure, such as the seven branch candelabrum, or Menorah.

 New light was shed on the treasure following the 1952 discovery of the Copper Scrolls in cave Q3 at the Essene settlement of Qumran on the northern shores of the Dead Sea.  The scrolls described the value of the treasure and the 64 different burial sites throughout Judea and Samaria, today’s West Bank territories controlled by Israel.  To date, no archaeological proof has been found that can positively identify who may have hidden the vast treasure.

In June 2007 the Copper Scrolls were taken from their permanent residence at the Amman Archeology Museum on a tour of the US and were displayed for about 6 months at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

In 2006 Professor Oren Gutfeld, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has identified the Herodian Palace of Hyrcania located ten miles southeast of Jerusalem, also known as Khirbet Mird, to be the place mentioned on the first line of the Copper Scrolls as “the Ruin which is in the Valley of Achor…” He subsequently began to excavate a tunnel leading into the hill on which the fortress had been built.

The other 63 locations described in the Copper Scrolls have yet to be identified.

     The Sicarii, (You can find intersting facts here - http://www.fectio.org.uk/sites/jerusalem1990.htm )a splinter group from the religious faction, the Pharisees, appeared around 6 AD.  Followers of Judas the Galilean, the Sicarii were a sect of extreme right-wing Jews who believed that no other than the Lord God should have the power to rule the Jews.  Considered the first terror group, the Sicarii men were expert assassins. Their favored method of killing was slitting their target’s throat.  Although they killed in broad daylight and in public, for all to see, afterward they always managed to disappear like ghosts, never to be caught.  The Sicarii weapon was a unique dagger known as the Sica, from which the name of the sect had derived. 

The Sicarii’s rebellion against the Romans had began in 6 AD and ended 67 years later when Elazar Ben Yair led the Sicarii in a mass suicide pact on the fortress mountain of Masada.  According to historical accounts written by Yosef Ben Mattityahu (Joseph son of Matthias), also known as Titus Flavius Josephus, two women and five children were spared from the mass suicide.  It is this fact that I am using to fictionalize the Sicarii’s continuous existence throughout history and today. 

 

The Knights Templar Order written about in this novel (historical facts about the Templar Knights - http://www.templarhistory.com/ ) is also an order that in fact existed.  However, according to historical accounts they were completely disbanded following the execution of their last Grand Master Jacques De Molay in 1314.  The order’s role in this book beyond this year is mostly a figment of my imagination.

In August 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to return Gaza to the Palestinians.  There were rumors at the time of right-wing Jewish settlers who may have planned to violently oppose the removal of Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip.  However, except for minor disruptions, the “disengagement” as it was called, went rather smoothly.  The assassination plot against the Israeli PM is also imaginary.  Mr. Yossi Melman, intelligence correspondent for Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and author of seven books on Israeli spymasters and terrorism including his latest, the Nuclear Sphinx of Iran, gave me his approval to use his name in this story.

Locations - Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank.

The caption above each image is actually a snippet from the manuscript.

First let's get acquainted with the area the story revolves around, mostly in Judea and Samaria.

The land was under the control of  the Hashemite kingdom (Jordan) till 1967. It was lost to Israel following the Six day war on June of that same year. Since then a almost a 100,000 Jewish settlers have made that area their home. It is feared that any attempt of relinquishing that land to the Palestinian people, may cause the Jewish settlers to rise and oppose violently such actions by the Israeli government.It is their belief that the land was given to them by God, thus government has no right to remove them.

The particular fortress he planned to survey on that day was called the Bastion of Dagon, located seven miles from Jericho on top of Jabel Al Qarantal.  A cone-shaped hill with a Greek monastery, it was situated on its eastern side about two-thirds of the way up.

    The air was stagnant. Standing at the edge of the hill looking east, Professor Robert Young thought he could see the peak of Mount Nebo far in the distance.  The complete desolation and the exhausting heat turned his mood gloomy. Vale Achor, door of hope.  He almost wanted to laugh. 

Why would anyone use the word 'hope' to describe this place?  No trees, no bushes.  Not one green patch.  Just sand and rocks.  The hope he would find the treasure was equally matched with doubt.  The 8th century BC prophet Hosea, who uttered those words, must have been one incredibly optimistic guy.





Another view of Hyrkania (Khirbet Mird)

In his mind's eye, he could see his father. He remembered a day, many years ago, when the two of them stood at the foot of a hill. The Arabs called it Khirbet Mird. They got off their horses by the man-sized entrance carved into the rock. It was then that Elazar realized he was standing at the entrance to the tunnel his father had told him so much about. He was standing at the epicenter of Sicarii history. The place where the man from Masada had buried God's treasure. A short tremble moved through his body..

The Qumran cave Q3, where the Copper Scrolls were found in 1952





This is how the Copper Scrolls look like, currently housed in a museum in Amman, Jordan.

Here are some interesting facts about the Copper Scrolls,

http://www.philipcoppens.com/copperscroll.html 



“I know a place,” said Young.  “It is south of here, in Wadi Rum, where the chief of the Hawyatat lives.  It is the largest Bedouin tribe in Jordan and the northern parts of Saudi Arabia combined.  About ten years ago I helped the chief’s son out of some trouble.  The chief said that if I ever need his help all I had to do was ask.” (Author's note - The location where the movie "Lawrence of Arabia," directed by David Lean was made)

The Second Temple of Jerusalem had taken 10,000 masons eight years to renovate.  Ten of the thirteen giant gates, adorned with gold and silver, studded the thick, high walls.  Inside, 160 marble pillars, each 36 feet high, held up a roof of polished cedar trees.  Both Jews and Gentiles could enter the Outer Court, but only the former were allowed into the inner court. It was from there that Elazar Ben Yair directed the carnage and plunder

At Khirbet Mird, Elazar and Menachem left four men to stand guard at the entrance to the tunnel and began descending stairs that had been carved into the stone two thousand years before.  It quickly became difficult to breathe.  At about 350 feet below ground they reached a small cavern.  The beams of their flashlights illuminated a small mound in the center. 

The Breastplate of Judgment was first mentioned in the Book of Exodus.  Thirty-five hundred years ago, Aaron the brother of Moses carried it as a sign of his religious authority.  Biblical accounts described it as being inlaid in cloth woven of five different threads and linen, the gems sewn onto it

More locations to come on the next post,

 

This blog is about a dream - writing a novel

In a span of about 50 years, I have read thousands  of books. I admired the authors for their ability to create their stories. I wanted so very much to follow in their footsteps. I promised myself that if one day an idea would come, I would do just that, despite my limitations. My vocabulary limited, my grammar atrocious, I would need someone to help me.  I don't think I can call myself a writer, maybe a good story teller.

One day in June 2005,  speaking with the director of the Art and Natural History museum in San Diego about proposed groups to the Holy Land (I owned a travel agency), he told me about the Copper Scrolls. Although I regard myself as an avid reader and history maven , I had never heard of the Copper Scrolls before. He suggested I should read the book "The Treasures of the Copper Scrolls," by Prof. John Marco Allegro of Oxford. It took some efforts to find this 1960's edition, but I finally managed.   http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~barilm/copertx2.html – when they were unfurled, they hinted at a huge treasure taken from the 2^nd Temple of Jerusalem before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD. It was  buried all over Judea and Samaria, in 64 different locations. When calculated it came to somewhere between 270 and 300 tons of gold, silver and precious stones. Problem was that the places mentioned on the scrolls couldn't be identified.

Two months later the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon announced the disengagement plan from Gaza. Hinting he was also ready to relinquish the control of the West Bank also known by the Israelis as Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians. There was genuine fear the West Bank settlers would rise and violently oppose  those actions. Aside from some sporadic events, there was no violent, but then an idea flashed through my mind. What if ?