Charles Brokaw - The Temple Mount Code

PENGUIN BOOKS

Charles Brokaw has been a university professor, a teacher, a little league coach and a rodeo cowboy. Hes a frequent speaker, who has given lectures at such widely divergent places as the CIA, West Point and science-fiction conventions. Hes travelled widely, and has more interests than he can possibly keep up with, even if he lives to be a hundred. Among his other many passions, hes an expert on aviation, international politics, advanced weaponry and pulp fiction. He collects both scholarly military non-fiction and comic books. He lives in the Midwest with his family.

CHARLES BROKAW

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published 2011

Copyright Trident Media Group, LLC and Tekno Books, 2011

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-141-95721-0

For my wife, with love.

You make it all possible.

Thanks to my excellent agent, Robert Gottlieb, at Trident Media Group, and to Libby Kellogg, who ably assists him there. Thanks also to my family and students, who are the light of my life.

Thanks are also due to the wonderful people at Penguin Books, including Alex Clarke, Nick Lowndes and Catriona Hillerton. I cant thank you enough for your professionalism and enthusiasm.

Jiahu Dig

Henan Province

Peoples Republic of China

July 21, 2011

Youve had quite a night, havent you, Professor Lourds?

Buckled into the passenger seat of the Bell helicopter, Thomas Lourds smiled. He was pleasantly tipsy and looking forward to his tent and the cot within it even more. Personally, I thought the evening ended rather abruptly.

It has a tendency to do that when you get thrown out of the bar. Robert Anders sat in the pilots seat, deftly handling the aircrafts controls. His voice was a pleasant baritone over the radio system. He was a burly Australian with an unkempt air. Tattoos of mermaids and dolphins danced along his forearms as he maneuvered the helicopter over the craggy landscape below.

Lourds stared through the window at the ground. He knew they should be coming up on the Jiahu dig before long. After a moment, he saw the area, dotted with various lights, some coming from battery-powered lanterns and other areas lit by generator-powered strings of lights. Those camps were set up using private funding by corporations looking for tax shelters. Lowly universities, like Peking University, which Lourds was currently visiting, didnt have money to throw around. Instead, the crews professors and grad students worked from sunup to sundown.

Anders shook his shaggy head. I warned you not to hit on that woman.

Lourds sighed. If the lady had worn a wedding ring or waited to come with her husband, I wouldnt have flirted with her so diligently. Rings were made for several reasons, you know, and one of those reasons was to keep a man from making a fool of himself.

Working the stick, Anders dropped altitude and swooped down over the dig. Before theyd left the Peking University campsite, the Australian pilot had marked the makeshift landing pad with a fluorescent-painted sign. Lourds searched for it in the darkness.

I dont think the fight started because you were flirting with the missus, mate. Anders grinned. I think it was because you were on the verge of taking her home with you.

Lourds smiled with genuine regret, which turned into a brief wince as his jaw twinged with pain. She was quite lovely, wasnt she?

Pretty as a pip, that one.

It wasnt just about the beauty, though. Marie had a wonderful way of listening.

Thats cause youre a natural-born storyteller. I never seen the like.

Youre too generous.

Just calling it the way I see it, Professor.

You can just call me Lourds.

Anders nodded and looked out over the landscape again. Hows Sleeping Beauty?

Glancing over his shoulder, Lourds watched Professor Gao Kelu snoozing in the helicopters backseat. The young man hadnt been able to go the distance with his older comrades. When theyd gotten kicked out of the club, after Anders and Lourds had gotten physical with the jealous husband and his brother, theyd had to carry Gao out with them.

Still sound asleep.

Good. Anders rubbed his face with a big hand. That bloke couldnt carry a note in a bucket. He pointed through the Plexiglas. Thats the campsite there, isnt it?

Lourds leaned forward and stared through the cockpit windshield. His eyes were bleary from alcohol, days spent eating the yellow dust of the central plains of ancient China, and from long hours of studying text. He made out the signal with difficulty. It is.

The landing strip had been situated on the other side of the dig Professor Hu had arranged for his students to work and for Lourds to visit. Lourds was initially visiting Peking University to deliver papers regarding protowriting to the professors undergrad classes. Although Harvard was expecting him back in a few days, Lourds had managed to squeeze out extra time from the dean, which he was putting to good use here.

Hang on, and Ill put us down.

Lourds leaned back in his seat and felt the helicopter drop even closer to the ground. Hed lost most of the glow from the alcohol, but he knew hed sleep well once he crawled into his cot. He wouldnt need any aid from the thriller novel he habitually carried.

Tall and lean, Lourds was in his early forties and kept himself in good shape with dedicated soccer as well as his international trips. His short-cropped goatee was in need of a trim, and his hair had gotten a little shaggy, but he knew it looked good on him. He was dressed in a chambray shirt over a white T-shirt, and brown cargo pants tucked into tall hiking boots to cut down on the amount of dust that crept into his footwear.

As the helicopter started its final descent, movement and a red flash near the one of the dig sites caught Lourdss attention. He grabbed for the spotlight mounted on his side of the helicopter, switched it on, and trailed the beam across the broken terrain.

What is it? Anders glanced in the direction of the beam.

Thought I saw something.

What?

The beam fell across the corner of the dig. The Jiahu was mostly undiscovered country for archaeologists. Even though over three hundred bodies had been taken from burial sites in the region, much of the area had yet to be explored. Lourds was a linguist, trained in dozens of languages, and a gifted translator.