The Jerusalem Creed: A Sean Wyatt Thriller by Ernest Dempsey Page B

his friend in the United States. At least Mamoud’s men had possessed the decency to knock. They gave him the chance to give himself up or they would break down the door. He chose to go easily, thinking that it would be better for him in the long run if he didn’t resist.
    When Mamoud’s men entered the apartment, led by the one he called Sharouf, the group of mercenaries ripped through everything in the apartment while Nehem sat idly by in his desk chair, watching helplessly. They’d taken the tablet, which he knew there was no possible chance he could hide. The three-thousand-year-old piece of stone was taken from his tiny breakfast table where he’d placed it on a towel. Part of his plan was to keep it in plain sight, knowing that the only people who could translate it were his friend in America and himself. Had he claimed to not know the whereabouts of the tablet, the men might have simply killed him right then and there.
    “Is there anything else?” the one called Sharouf had asked.
    Nehem had slowly shaken his head and watched as the other men finished tearing apart his belongings.
    When they were satisfied they had what they needed, they’d put a pillowcase over Nehem’s head and taken him down to their van. The next day, he’d woken up in this cramped little storage room.
    Over the days that he’d been held hostage, Nehem knew what Mamoud Al Najaar wanted. He knew that the wealthy young Arab wanted the symbols to be interpreted, and he knew why. Nehem may have just been an archaeologist, but he was no fool. The reasons why someone would want the relics he searched for could be many in number. If anyone who’d studied the Bible or the Torah took note of the relics, they could easily wonder what possibilities awaited if the two were found and reunited.
    Of course, neither Scripture discussed what happened to the Hoshen and the Urim and Thummim when the Babylonians came. Both sacred texts seem to just cease mentioning the items, much like the Ark of the Covenant.
    Nehem knew exactly what Mamoud wanted to hear. Unfortunately, he didn’t know enough about the man to come to a logical conclusion. All he could do was hope that Tommy could figure everything out before it was too late.
    Nehem tapped on the keyboard and moved the mouse around, pretending to examine the grid on the screen. Next to the monitor, the stone tablet sat like a heavy, priceless paperweight on the desk’s surface.
    He was pretending because everything he’d done up until now was part of a plan to stall. Nehem didn’t tell Mamoud that he had already figured out the riddle in the symbols. He’d discovered the translation shortly before sending Tommy the email. He didn’t actually need his friend’s help. He had all the same technology. But Nehem didn’t entirely trust the Internet, either. If he sent an email out with specific locations and with the translation of the riddle on the stone, it could be hacked and spread around the world within an hour.
    There were going to be enough hurdles. Worrying about a thousand treasure hunters didn’t need to be one of them.
    So instead of including the key to the symbols on the tablet, and the way in which they could be used with the grid, Nehem played it safe and sent copies to Tommy, knowing that the American would be one of the few people in the world with the software powerful enough to break down the extensively complicated cipher. Along with that, he’d left another clue that Sharouf and his men had missed.
    Nehem suppressed the laughter that tried to escape from his lips, aware that the cameras were always watching for any unusual behavior. Even in a dire situation like the one in which he presently found himself, he could see humor in some things.
    He moved the mouse around again and picked up a pencil, pretending to write down something important. They were meaningless symbols, but the men behind the cameras didn’t know that. Nehem already had the solution to the code, and to the