“Cain and Abel is a good example. At the time of that tale there were only four people on earth. Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel. Yet Genesis 4:17 says Cain lay with his wife and she became pregnant. Where did the wife come from? Was it Eve? His mother? Wouldn’t that be eye opening? Then, in recounting Adam’s bloodline, Genesis 5 says that Mahalale lived eight hundred ninety-five years, Jared eight hundred years, and Enoch three hundred sixty-five years. And Abraham. He was supposedly a hundred years old when Sarah gave birth to Isaac, and she was ninety.”

“No one takes that stuff literally,” Pam said.

“Devout Jews would argue to the contrary.”

“What are you saying, George?” Malone asked.

“The Old Testament, as we currently know it, is a result of translations. The Hebrew language of the original text passed out of usage around 500 BCE. So in order to understand the Old Testament, we must either accept the traditional Jewish interpretations or seek guidance from modern dialects that are descendants of that lost Hebrew language. We can’t use the former method because the Jewish scholars who originally interpreted the text, between 500 and 900 CE, a thousand or more years after they were first written, didn’t even know Old Hebrew, so they based their reconstructions on guesswork. The Old Testament, which many revere as the Word of God, is nothing more than a haphazard translation.”

“George, you and I have discussed this before. Scholars have debated the point for centuries. It’s nothing new.”

Haddad threw him a sly smile. “But I haven’t finished explaining.”

VIENNA, AUSTRIA

2:45 PM

ALFRED HERMANN’S CHÂTEAU OFFERED HIM AN ATMOSPHERE reminiscent of a tomb. Only when the Order’s Assembly convened, or the Chairs gathered, was his solitude interrupted.

Neither was the case today.

And he was pleased.

He was ensconced in his private apartment, a series of spacious rooms on the château’s second floor, each room flowing naturally through the other in the French style of no corridors. The winter session of the 49th Assembly would open in less than two days’ time, and he was pleased that all seventy-one members in the Order of the Golden Fleece would be attending. Even Henrik Thorvaldsen, who at first had said he would not be coming, had now confirmed. The membership hadn’t talked collectively since spring, so he knew the discussions over the coming days would be arduous. As Blue Chair, his task was to ensure that the proceedings were productive. The Order’s staff was already at work preparing the château’s meeting hall-and all would be ready by the time the members arrived for the weekend-but he wasn’t worried about the Assembly. Instead his thoughts were on finding the Library of Alexandria. Something he’d dreamed of accomplishing for decades.

He stepped across the room.

The model, which he’d commissioned years ago, consumed the chamber’s north corner, a spectacular miniature of what the Library of Alexandria may have looked like at the time of Caesar. He slid a chair close and sat, his eyes absorbing the details, his mind wandering.

Two pillared colonnades dominated. Both, he knew, would have been filled with statues, the floors sheathed in rugs, the walls draped in tapestries. In the many seats lining the corridors, members bickered over the meaning of a word or the cadence of a verse, or engaged in some caustic controversy about a new discovery. Both roofed chambers opened into side rooms where papyri, scrolls, and later codices lay stored in bins, loosely stacked, tagged for indexing, or on shelves. In other rooms copyists labored to produce replicas, which were sold for revenue. Members enjoyed a high salary and exemption from taxes, and were provided dining and lodging. There were lecture halls, laboratories, observatories-even a zoo. Grammarians and poets received the most prestigious posts-physicians, mathematicians, and astronomers the best equipment. The architecture was decidedly Greek, the whole thing resembling an elegant temple.

What a place, he thought.

What a time.

At only two points in human history had knowledge radically expanded on a global scale. Once during the Renaissance, which continued to the present, and the other during the fourth century BCE, when Greece ruled the world.

He thought about the time three hundred years before Christ and the sudden death of Alexander the Great. His generals fought over his grand empire, and eventually the realm was divided into thirds and the Hellenistic Age, a period of worldwide Greek dominance, began. One of those thirds was claimed by a far-thinking Macedonian, Ptolemy, who declared himself king of Egypt in 304 BCE, founding the Ptolemaic dynasty, capitaled in Alexandria.

The Ptolemies were intellectuals. Ptolemy I was a historian. Ptolemy II a zoologist. Ptolemy III a patron of literature. Ptolemy IV a playwright. Each chose leading scholars and scientists as tutors for his children and encouraged great minds to live in Alexandria.

Ptolemy I founded the museum, a place where learned men could congregate and share their knowledge. To aid their endeavors, he also established the library. By the time of Ptolemy III, in 246 BCE, there were two locations-the main library near the royal palace and another, smaller one headquartered in the sanctuary of the god Serapis, known as the Serapeum.

The Ptolemies were determined book collectors, dispatching agents throughout the known world. Ptolemy II bought Aristotle’s entire library. Ptolemy III ordered that all ships in the Alexandria harbor be searched. If books were found, they were copied, the copies returned to the owners, the originals stored in the library. Genres varied from poetry and history to rhetoric, philosophy, religion, medicine, science, and law. Some 43,000 scrolls were eventually housed in the Serapeum, available to the general public, and another 500,000 at the museum, restricted to scholars.

What happened to it all?

One version held that it burned when Julius Caesar fought Ptolemy XIII in 48 BCE. Caesar had ordered the torching of the royal fleet, but the fire spread throughout the city and may have consumed the library. Another version blamed Christians, who supposedly destroyed the main library in 272 CE and the Serapeum in 391, part of their effort to rid the city of all pagan influences. A final account credited Arabs with the library’s destruction after they conquered Alexandria in 642. The caliph Omar, when asked about books in the imperial treasury, was quoted as saying, If what is written agrees with the Book of God, they are not required. If it disagrees, they are not desired. Destroy them. So for six months scrolls supposedly fueled the baths of Alexandria.

Hermann always winced at that thought-how one of humanity’s greatest attempts to collect knowledge might simply have burned.

But what really happened?

Certainly, as Egypt was confronted with growing unrest and foreign aggression, the library became victim to persecution, mob violence, and military occupation, no longer enjoying special privileges.

When had it finally disappeared?

No one knew.

And was the legend true? A group of enthusiasts, it was said, had managed to extract scroll after scroll, copying some, stealing others, methodically preserving knowledge. Chroniclers had hinted at their existence for centuries.

The Guardians.

He liked to imagine what those dedicated enthusiasts may have preserved. Unknown works from Euclid? Plato? Aristotle? Augustine? Along with countless other men who would later be regarded as fathers of their respective fields.

No telling.

And that’s what made the search so enticing.

Not to mention George Haddad’s theories, which offered Hermann a way to further the Order’s purposes. The Political Committee had already determined how the destabilization of Israel could be manipulated for profit. The business plan was both ambitious and feasible. Provided Haddad’s research could be proven.