In the summer of 1914, sixteen-year-old Evan Sinclair leaves home to join the Great War for Civilization. Little does he know that, despite the war raging in Europe, the true source of conflict will emerge in Ottoman Palestine since it's from Jerusalem where Kaiser Wilhelm II dreams to rule as Holy Roman Emperor.
Wages of Empire
by Michael J. Cooper
Genre: YA Historical WWI Fiction
Grand prize winner - 2022 CIBA
Dante Rossetti Award for YA fiction
First place honors - 2022
CIBA Hemingway Award for wartime fiction
#1 Amazon Best
Seller—Jan 2024—Historical World War I Fiction
In the summer of 1914, sixteen-year-old Evan Sinclair leaves home to join the Great War for Civilization. Little does he know that, despite the war raging in Europe, the true source of conflict will emerge in Ottoman Palestine, since it's from Jerusalem where the German Kaiser dreams to rule as Holy Roman Emperor.
Filled with such historical figures as Gertrude Bell, T.E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, Faisal bin Hussein and Chaim Weizmann, Wages of Empire follows Evan through the killing fields of the Western Front where he will help turn the tide of a war that is just beginning, and become part of a story that never ends.
“Masterful storytelling will keep you furiously turning the pages of this compelling (historical WWI) novel. A winner!”–Andrew Kaplan, New York Times Best-Selling Author of Blue Madagascar and the Homeland Novels
“The characters, historical and fictional, come to life on the page as the storyline drives relentlessly forward. Bravo!”–Matt Coyle, bestselling author of the Rick Cahill novels
“A beautifully written tale...exhibits seamless research in illuminating unforgettable historical and fictional characters...a tour de force!” –Professor Ronit Meroz, Dept of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud, Tel-Aviv University, Israel
“This superb historical novel is a must read...directly relates to issues we face today.” –Rizek Abusharr – Emeritus Director General of Jerusalem International YMCA
“Cooper has made this period of history come alive. It is a treat to read.” –Rabbi David Zisenwine, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Education, Tel Aviv University
“A Young Indiana Jones–style adventure.” –KIRKUS reviews
“Story is gripping and the characters that he describes come alive through his skillful writing. I couldn’t put it down!” –Rabbi Gordon Freeman, Ph.D., Rabbi Emeritus, B’nai Shalom, Walnut Creek, CA
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Prologue
April 18, 1911
Jerusalem
The Temple Mount was
shrouded in darkness. It was the dead of night yet sounds of digging echoed
within the Dome of the Rock.
Gunter
von Wertheimer knew the sounds well—the steady scrape of a shovel, the bite of
a pick, and the whisper of soil poured from full panniers.
Cloaked
in a hooded robe, he stood in the shadow of the shrine and looked up at the
sky. Among the bright points of stars, the constellation of the scorpion
hovered over the Dome; the sharp stinger formed by a bright star the Arabs
called Lasa’a, poised to strike.
As the
digging continued, another sound whispered out of the darkness.
“It’s
time.”
He knew
the voice was that of his friend and fellow archeologist, Rahman B’Shara, a hulking shadow in the darkness.
“You know what you must
do,” said Gunter.
“It’s strange, though,” Rahman murmured. “When Walker first came, I thought
he was like the others—just another greedy treasure hunter, anxious to get his
hands on the golden vessels hidden beneath the Foundation Stone. But once I
joined the dig, I couldn’t believe
how quickly it was progressing.”
“Do you still believe
he’ll break through in the next few
days?”
“No. He’ll break
through in the next few hours.”
“Because of the
spiritualists and clairvoyants he hired?”
“More likely, it’s the unchecked access he’s
had to dig for the last two weeks. Walker also has a keen sense of which
Ottoman officials to bribe—starting with the Turkish governor.” Rahman turned,
stepped past Gunter and whispered, “There’s no time
to lose.”
“Good luck, my friend.”
“Why do I need luck?”
“You know that better
than I. His guards are well armed.”
Rahman smiled, his white teeth flashing in the
starlight. “We
have something more powerful than their guns.”
“Indeed. We have the
power of the Temple.”
“In the end, yes, but I
was speaking of a power of this world—the power of the mob.”
“And what a mob!”
Gunter agreed. “Thousands
of pilgrims in Jerusalem for the Feast of Nebi Musa! When they hear the Temple
Mount has been desecrated by treasure hunters, Walker won’t
need to enter the Temple to experience divine wrath.”
“Yes! The faithful will
be quick to avenge this outrage.” Rahman bolted away, disappearing into the
darkness.
Gunter
knew he was heading to the Moslem Quarter beyond the northern edge of the
sacred precincts. After a few seconds, he heard his voice calling out, echoing
among the narrow lanes.
“Sacrilege!
The Frengi are breaking the foundation stone! Sacrilege!”
Within
seconds, two armed Turkish guards with torches shot out of the shrine and
sprinted in the direction of Rahman’s voice.
Gunter
flattened himself against the smooth tiles and watched as they came to a stop,
apparently despairing as they heard the words Rahman was shouting.
“Arise to vengeance!
The Turks have given over the Holy Mountain to the greed of infidels. Avenge
the sacrilege! Arise!”
The
guards ran back into the shrine and within seconds, Gunter heard the anxious
voice of Montagu Walker.
“We must get out of
here double quick! Hurry! Take whatever you can carry!”
As he
waited in the shadows beneath the arches of the arcade, Gunter knew that
Rahman had been the one best suited to infiltrate Walker’s scheme—to expose and stop him.
Walker had hired him as his consulting archaeologist to give his treasure hunt
the patina of a legitimate excavation—Rahman, who could trace his ancestry in
Jerusalem back for a hundred generations.
Though
Gunter had also been born in Jerusalem, he was the son of German Templers, and
never completely trusted by the local population; suspected of working for the
Germans, or the Ottomans, or both.
But
Gunter served no colonial empire. He, like Rahman, was a Guardian of the Temple
Mount, an order that traced its origins to a time before the holy mountain had
a name, a time cloaked in the shadowed silence before history.
A line
of flaming torches appeared along the northern border of the Temple enclosure.
Shouts of execration filled the air.
Walker
and his crew tumbled out of the Dome of the Rock, struggling with heavy sacks,
shovels and picks that scraped and clattered on the paving stones.
“Leave that stuff!”
Walker shouted. “Run
for your lives!”
They
rushed headlong away from the mob, frantically clawing past one another.
Gunter
knew they were making for a gap in the southern border of the enclosure.
The mob surged forward in pursuit,
the light of a thousand torches beneath the black sky.
Walker
was finished.
The
passages and chambers within the Temple Mount would remain sealed, as they had
been for a thousand years.
But
Gunter knew that others would come—drawn by the power and mystery of Jerusalem.
And he also knew that the Guardians of the Temple Mount would be watching, and
they would never rest.
Chapter 1
June 11, 1914
Cedar
City, Utah
‘Where the hell is he?”
Clive Sinclair said aloud as he set water to boil on the stove. “He should have been home hours
ago!”
Leaving
the kitchen, he went to the living room, which also served as foyer of the
small house. He opened the front door and looked out through the screen,
already adorned with lacewings, past the porch and dusty front yard into the
desert. Where the hell is he?
Still
dressed in the dusty dungarees, khaki shirt and boots he had worn for work,
Clive turned from the door. Regarding the mahogany clock on the mantelpiece, he
took the watch from his waistcoat pocket and checked the time, then opened the
glass lens over the clock face and pushed the minute hand back three minutes to
eight o’clock. Closing the glass, he was
surprised at how loudly the smooth metallic click of the copper clasp sounded
in the silence of the house.
His
eyes rested on the photograph next to the clock, taken at the outdoor bus
terminal in Jerablus on the day that they had left for Beirut—the first leg of
the return trip to England, before continuing his sabbatical in the United
States.
“Almost two years now.”
He lifted the photograph off the mantelpiece and looked at Janet—her hair the
way he loved it, gathered in a single braid over her shoulder. Leaning closer,
he saw that a fugitive strand had escaped the braid and lay along her cheek. He
looked into her steady eyes, her mouth, smiling. He saw the same happiness in
his own and Evan’s face as they stood
on either side of her. And in the glass over the photograph, he saw the current
weary solitude of his own reflection. “Now Evan is avoiding me and we’re
still in Utah,” he said looked back at Janet’s face. “You were the bridge between us in
this land of long shadows, my love. Evan and I are now like two solitary and
unmoving pinnacles in vague proximity but no longer connected.”
He
thought back to the night of her death—the onset of early labor, the pain
rippling through her belly, the fear gripping their hearts, and the same
unspoken prayer; Please, God, not again!
But the
pattern was sadly familiar; Janet had miscarried twice in Mesopotamia, and the
long drive through the night from Cedar City to St. George was fraught with the
specter of a recurrent nightmare. As he
drove, checking the time and counting the miles to the hospital, he realized
that his notions of time and distance had yielded to a primal force that kept
its own measure—in the ebb and flow of the birth pains and in the sound of
Janet’s breathing. In the end, the baby
had been born in hospital, marked by a single weak cry followed by silence.
And
Janet?
“We’re trying
to stop the bleeding.”
But the
bleeding wouldn’t stop.
Clive
took off his wire rim spectacles and dried his eyes.
In the
kitchen, the teakettle was shrieking. He turned off the fire, and the shrill
whistle fell silent.
And in
that silence, he heard a voice.
Out in
the desert, someone was shouting.
He
stepped to the front door and stood listening, looking into the crimson desert.
There
it was again.
Someone
calling for help?
And in
the space of one terrible moment he realized it was Evan. He sprinted out of
the house, past the low picket fence, and across the road. Threading a path
among clumps of sagebrush, he was guided by Evan’s
sporadic shouts, his heart gripped with fear as he catalogued lethal denizens
of the high desert; cougars, diamondbacks, recluse spiders. A final shout led
him to a bluff above a dry wash.
To his
relief he saw that Evan appeared unhurt. He paused to catch his breath
and watched him fit a stone into what looked like a sling, and spin it round.
Then he saw the target—the remains of a huge flowering prickly pear cactus on
the far wall of the gulley with ragged fragments of the plant scattered on the
ground.
He
watched as Evan released a stone with such force that it tore through the
cactus’ pulpy flesh and rattled among the
boulders along the gulley wall.
As Evan
shouted for joy, Clive shouted from the bluff, “What in the name of heaven are you doing?”
Clearly
startled, Evan turned. “Just…practicing with my sling,
Sir.”
“I can see that.” He
picked his way down the steep embankment, and nodded in the direction of the
cactus. “And
that’s your target?”
“Yes, sir.”
Clive
approached the wounded prickly pear, shaking his head. Apart from the fragments
and flowers scattered on the ground, dozens of stones were embedded in the
flesh of the plant’s remaining pads,
with jagged wounds where stones had grazed it.
“Have you completely
lost your mind?” he asked, struggling to control his anger. “Do you realize that this cactus may
have been a hundred years old? Do you
realize that you have destroyed an ancient living thing?”
“Sorry,” Evan offered
weakly.
“He’s
sorry,” Clive repeated in the direction of the cactus.
Michael J Cooper writes historical mysteries set in the Holy Land at major turning points of history—all the while subtly promoting the notions of coexistence and peace. His books have won multiple awards and include; Foxes in the Vineyard (winner of the 2011 Indie Publishing Contest Grand Prize), set in 1948 Jerusalem, The Rabbi’s Knight (finalist for the CIBA 2014 Chaucer Award for historical fiction) set at the twilight of the Crusades in 1290, and his current novel, Wages of Empire set at the start of WWI in 1914 and winner of the CIBA 2022 Grand Prize for young adult fiction as well as the Hemingway first prize for wartime historical fiction. A sequel of Wages of Empire, Crossroads of Empire, will be published in the fall of 2024, and the unpublished manuscript has already won first prize honors in the 2023 CIBA Hemingway wartime historical fiction category.
A native of Berkeley, California, Cooper absconded to Israel after high school and spent the next eleven years studying and working there. He lived in Jerusalem during the last year the city was divided between Israel and Jordan, studied at Hebrew University, and graduated from Tel Aviv University Medical School. He returned to the US to specialize in pediatric cardiology, and after 40 years of practice, he continues to return to the Middle East for biannual volunteer missions serving Palestinian children who lack access to care. Otherwise, he lives in Northern California with his wife and a spoiled-rotten cat. Three adult children occasionally drop by.
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