01 Babylon Rising by Tim Lahaye Page A

it?”
    Murphy tilted the scroll slightly to get a better angle. “Well, I’m not exactly fluent. I can order a salad or ask directions to the post office, but anything more complicated than that …”
    Laura gripped his arm. “Be serious. I’ve seen you doodling in Chaldean. What does it say?”
    “Well, that’s the funny thing.” Murphy squinted intently at the letters. “I can definitely make out the symbol for ‘bronze,’ and here”—he pointed to a barely legible smudge— “is the symbol for ‘serpent.’ And look, there they are again, with the symbol for ‘the Israelites.’”
    They were silent for a moment, and Shari watched as it seemed both Murphys’ minds were racing to make sense of the images before them. “What does it all mean?” she asked.
    “The Brazen Serpent,” whispered Laura.
    “Exactly,” said Murphy. “Made by Moses thirty-five hundred years ago …”
    “And broken into three pieces by King Hezekiah in seven fourteen B.C.”
    “But, ladies, this doesn’t make any sense. Methuselah said this prize was an artifact that had to do with Daniel. He lived in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar—which was almost a hundred fifty years after the time of King Hezekiah.”
    Murphy pushed his chair back and started pacing. “It doesn’t make sense. What would a Chaldean scribe be doing writing about the Brazen Serpent? And what’s the connection to Daniel?”
    Laura peered at the scroll to see if she could make out any more details. “Any chance of asking the crazy person who gave it to you?”
    “Gave
it to me?”
    “You know what I mean.”
    Murphy shook his head. “Methusaleh likes me to figure things out for myself. That’s part of the game.” He snapped his fingers. “But there’s no reason I can’t ask for a little help. Come on, let’s take some photographs. I know someone who practically speaks Chaldean in her sleep.”
    Laura folded her arms and gave him a stern look.
    “Not,” he added quickly, “that I know from personal experience. In fact, I’ve never even met her.”
    “Relax, Murphy. I know you love only me—and anythingthat’s been lying in the ground for two thousand years. Who is this oracle?”
    “You’re not going to believe me, but her name,” said Murphy, pronouncing each syllable carefully as if he were ordering an exotic bottle of wine in a fancy restaurant, “is Isis Proserpina McDonald.”

ELEVEN
    THE PARCHMENTS OF Freedom Foundation was one of hundreds of private organizations headquartered within the very official-looking stone buildings in Washington, D.C., that many citizens automatically assumed must be government offices. The plaque on the door of the office on the second floor of the PFF building read simply DR. I. P. MCDONALD and only initiates would have known that behind the door was one of the smartest living experts on the subject of ancient cultures.
    Nor would anyone passing by this office make the connection between the study of dusty, forgotten civilizations and the very loud, persistent commotion coming from behind the closed door.
    The noise of books thudding to the floor one by one was followed by the gentler swish of cascading paper, then a crash as a heavy object (a lamp? a paperweight?) connected withsomething solid. It was lucky for the perpetrator of the chaos that few people ever did pass down this particular corridor.
    The small, windowless office was lined with bookshelves on three sides, but many of the volumes—some irreplaceable, almost all of them rare or at the very least out of print—now lay in a sprawling heap on the faded brown institutional carpet. Standing in the middle of the carnage, a petite, lithe figure was scanning documents from a large pile on an antique roll-top desk and furiously tossing them aside.
    “It must be here. It
must
be,” rasped a voice as a tottering column of academic journals was heaved onto the floor. Now the desk’s drawers were exposed and these were systematically