The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies, 3, Band 3) - Softcover

Brennan, Terry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 082544389X ISBN 13: 9780825443893

Verlag: Kregel Publications,U.S., 2015

Inhaltsangabe

Will the code reveal history’s most powerful weapon for destruction—or humanity’s only hope?
The living members of Tom Bohannon’s band of adventurers gather again in Jerusalem—physically battered, emotionally exhausted, spiritually challenged, and in various stages of shock—to examine a copy of the tenth-century Aleppo Code, the oldest complete text of Jewish scripture. What the clues inside reveal could lead to the reuniting of the Ark of the Covenant with its true source of power, a weapon that could lead to victory for this ragged bunch trying to save the world.
Hunted by the relentless assassins of the Prophet’s Guard and caught in the web of an international conspiracy plotting the conquest of Europe, Bohannon’s team searches the ruins of Ancient Babylon. Their search lands them amid the chaos that engulfs western Iraq, but they must press on to accomplish one of the most pivotal pieces of end-times prophecy. This intrepid group will uncover secrets that require them to risk everything for their faith, their country, and the peace of all mankind.
Unfolding against the backdrop of an Israeli/U.S. strike against Iran and the planned economic overthrow of the European Union by the sinister, secret head of the international Muslim Brotherhood, The Aleppo Code is a heart-pounding race. Brennan takes an epic story on a grand scale and tells it primarily through the eyes of one man who is desperately trying to save the world as he follows God’s purpose for his life.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Terry Brennan is the award-winning author of The Jerusalem Prophecies series, including The Sacred Cipher. He was the leader of a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism team and has received the Valley Forge Award for editorial writing from the Freedoms Foundation.

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The Aleppo Code

A Novel

By Terry Brennan

Kregel Publications

Copyright © 2015 Terry Brennan
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8254-4389-3

CHAPTER 1

Friday, August 28

5:30 p.m., Jerusalem

Annie could see that guilt, like a ravenous cancer, consumed more of her husband with every heartbeat. The dead just kept piling up around them — Winthrop and Doc were dead. Now Kallie. Even Annie herself had narrowly escaped the same fate. Tom rubbed at his hands as if the blood would never wash away. Annie feared that the violence torturing Tom Bohannon's sleep and haunting his days was expanding beyond his capacity to cope.

Chiseled rays of the late-day sun sporadically pierced the wisteria that twisted over a wooden trellis tucked into the corner of Rabbi Ronald Fineman's garden in the Nahla'ot section of Jerusalem. A few hours earlier, Annie, Tom, and other friends who held Kallie Nolan dear had endured her memorial service, paying their respects in the land she loved, where she had lost her life, before sending her body back to her family in Iowa. Emotionally spent, the friends were seeking respite from their grief in Rabbi Fineman's garden. But respite was not on the guest list.

Annie kept her eyes on Tom as they all struggled to process what they had just been told by Sam Reynolds.

"But who would try to assassinate the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel, both on the same night?" Tom asked. The last few months had dropped pounds from Bohannon's fifty-eight-year-old body — high anxiety and times of near-starvation had taken a severe toll. Now the awful burden of responsibility along with the weight of regret was evident as his six-foot frame hunched over a small table in a corner of the garden. "Who has that kind of power ... that kind of reach?"

Under the trellis, the shade was full. Tom sat across from Annie, holding her hand. Tom's brother-in-law and sister, Joe and Dierdre Rodriguez, occupied a bench on the far side, Dierdre pressed closely against Rodriguez's side. In the rear, on a raised, shaded section of stone patio, Rabbi Fineman was engaged in hushed conversation with archaeologist Brandon McDonough.

"Radical Islam is behind this," said Reynolds, as he concluded his update. Despite his loose-limbed, Texas-cowboy looks, Reynolds had the sharp mind and dapper dress of a career diplomat with the US State Department. Annie was grateful that Reynolds had quickly become Tom's friend, ally, and protector over the past several months. "We see the Muslim Brotherhood's hand at work throughout the Middle East. We can only guess how far ISIS reaches. And your guys with the amulets seem to be involved, too."

Annie pulled her hand free from Tom's and shoved her chair back, a bolt of rage driving her to her feet. "God help us. Aren't we ever going to be rid of these people?"

Annie could feel that she'd become a different woman since she and Kallie were kidnapped by the Prophet's Guard, since Kallie had been murdered and Annie rescued on a dark road near Gaza. Her inner peace, which kept her balanced, had been replaced by a smoldering reservoir of anger that refused to cool.

She wanted revenge. "Why can't you guys wipe out the Prophet's Guard and give us our lives back?"

"But —" Reynolds stammered.

"But nothing," Annie snapped. "You and the president and all his power have been nothing but bystanders watching from the sidelines as we — as Tom and Joe and Sammy — risked our lives, our families, chasing after the messages on the scroll. We need —"

A voice from outside the shade entered the conversation.

"They were never after the scroll."

Sammy Rizzo stepped under the trellis. Today Rizzo had shed his characteristic Hawaiian shirt for a stark black suit tailored to his four-foot frame. Sammy's grief — honed by a desired romance that would now be forever unrealized — bled from his eyes

He walked up beside Annie, took her hand in his, and looked into her face. "We were wrong," Rizzo said. "They wanted what the scroll, the mezuzah, pointed to. And it wasn't the Temple or the Tent. The guys who got me out of the monastery — the Temple Guard guys — they told me what this is all about. They showed me. I think it's why so many have died. Why so many more may die."

Rizzo stroked Annie Bohannon's hand, his eyes on her fingers. "You know, Kallie was so excited about this treasure hunt of ours, she was willing to sacrifice anything to be a part of it."

Annie knelt down on the flagstones and looked directly into his face. "I'm sorry, Sam. It's okay —"

"No! It isn't over. What they're after, they'll never stop until they find it or they kill us all."

Annie reached out her right hand and placed it on Rizzo's shoulder. "Then you and I will stop them, Sammy. You and me, Tom, and Joe, if that's what it takes. God knows I'd rather go home and be normal. But we can't live the rest of our lives like this, running in fear from these killers. And we can't rely on the authorities to keep us safe. Can we, Sam?" She glanced at Reynolds who simply looked down at his polished shoes. "The Prophet's Guard is ruthless and relentless. Richard wasn't safe. Kallie wasn't safe. They even went after Caitlin."

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"You know, I almost forgot this." Annie turned her head to look at Tom. "If God's hand is in this — and I believe that with all my heart — then he's called us to be in this to the end." There was no rebuke in Annie's words, only resignation. She turned her attention back to Rizzo. "No matter what it is that the Prophet's Guard wants."

Rizzo took a deep breath, holding eye contact with Annie. "They want to control the world," he said. "And they think they can use God's power to do that. That's what they're after."

"I don't understand," said Dierdre Rodriguez. "What do you mean, use God's power?"

Rizzo turned his head to face her. "They're looking for a weapon," he said.

"That is what we suspect." From the raised section of the patio, where he'd been in deliberations with the rabbi, McDonough now joined them, carrying a large sheet of paper.

"I traced these images," said McDonough, "from the cover of a sarcophagus in what I believe is Jeremiah's tomb." On the sheet of paper were traced two large, angelic beings, their wings upraised, flaming swords held aloft in their hands. Behind the angels stood a huge tree. Below the angels and the tree was a shepherd's staff.

"We believe they are looking for this." McDonough pointed to the staff. "The most powerful weapon in the history of man ... And I think I know where we need to look: in the place where man's history began."

In the ensuing silence, Annie could hear the wings of an insect humming in the garden. From inside the house came the voices of Rabbi Fineman's other guests as they made their farewells.

A ringing cell phone shattered the stillness.

She looked to her right, where Reynolds was digging a phone out of his hip pocket.

"I must admit you've piqued my interest to hear more about the greatest weapon in the history of man, but" — he raised the still-ringing smartphone — "this is one call I've got to take. Don't get into the good stuff until I come back, okay?"

Reynolds took two steps out from under the arbor and stopped, his back to the group in the shade. The conversation was brief. Reynolds took one more step away from the group, then straightened up and stuck the phone back in his pocket. Hands on his hips, he stood motionless...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Kregel Publications,U.S.
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 082544389X
• ISBN 13: 9780825443893
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchbär; info@buchbaer.de; ; Weberstr. 67; Osnabrück; 49084; Deutschland