“It’s also known as the Mercy Gate, I believe, which the old Jewish tradition says is where the Messiah will enter into the city.” Though he had been feted to holy sites and antiquities galore for two days, Calvin was truly struck by the symmetry and beauty of the ancient gateway. Sacred to three religions, it had watched successive events of human drama unfolding over time. His shirt was too heavy for the location, and sweat was prickling the back of his neck after an oven-hot April day; but the air was marginally cooler now, and the city—filled with Pilgrims for the Passover week and Easter period—offered a comparative stillness in this hour as the faithful walked to the many synagogues and churches around the great city. It made Calvin deeply emotional—a place of such history and beauty, as much as pain and strife.

“But the Golden, or Mercy, Gate is precisely where Jesus made his last entry into Jerusalem. And the next event in God’s prophetic plan is going to be the catching away of the saints, Calvin, in the presence of the Lord. And if the texts from Dee’s angels are right, it may be here, tomorrow, Easter Sunday.” FW had that special fervor in his voice that he reserved for the big places and the even bigger occasions; and in his panama hat and immaculate jacket, Calvin noticed his companion didn’t seem in the least troubled by sweat or heat.

Guy had stood a little apart from the two of them, to give them space for the experience; but now he stepped forward and said “Amen” to the professor’s assertions. “Because this is his alpha and omega, FW, right here in Jerusalem. Here he died; here he will come back to us.”

“And all the clues add to an April date,” FW said with gravity. “My heart thrills at the very idea. Will it be tomorrow that we witness the white horse, and the heavens opening? Jesus coming to get his bride, all of us faithful who are born again?”

Calvin put his sunglasses back on and scanned the edifice again, keeping his eyes from the intense light, but also from the men with him. “And in the Koran this is the Gate of Mercy, isn’t it?” he asked. “Through which the just will pass on the Day of Judgment?”

But FW was somewhere else. “He is dressed in a robe that is dripped in blood, and his name is the word of God,” he told them in a stirring voice, taking his text from his beloved Revelation. Calvin shivered in the sun.

THE AFTERNOON SHRANK AS THEY DEPLETED THE PILE OF OLD RIDDLES IN the pages before them, with proffered solutions and shrugged-off confusions. Lucy decided to ask Alex for a reference book. “There must be a complete Shakespeare here?”

He went to fetch it for her.