Authors: Michael Byrnes
The driver turned west, following signs for Kafr Hamra.
Minutes later, they passed a tiny Coptic church with a mosaic on its belfry depicting Joseph guiding a donkey burdened with Mary. The Holy Mother was tightly cradling the baby Jesus. Laid out in colorful tiles, the narrative placed them along the palm-treed Nile, three distant pyramids rising up on the opposing riverbank. The imagery always made Cohen smile.
Churches like this could be found throughout the Nile Delta—Tel Basta, Farama, Wadi al-Natrun, Bilbeis, Mostorod, even Cairo. Each venerated its own ancient folklore built around the Holy Family’s refuge in Egypt after escaping Herod’s supposed infanticide in Judea: water springs brought forth by the baby Jesus; caves and sacred trees that had given the Holy Family shelter; wells from which the Holy Family drank; a granite trough used by the Virgin for kneading dough; the Holy Child’s footprint and handprint set in separate stones; pagan idols that crumbled in the Holy Child’s presence.
Despite these tales, Grandfather had taught him that many truths could also be found here in Egypt—and many facts had bled into ancient Christian scriptures deemed heretical by the Catholic Church.
Like the Essenes at Qumran who’d preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls from Roman destruction, the ancient Egyptian Christians, called Gnostics, had hidden their Coptic texts in buried jars. In 1945 thirteen leather-bound Gnostic codices had been accidentally unearthed by local peasants at Nag Hammadi. This caused much controversy for the Vatican since the texts spoke at great length about the resurrected Jesus as a spiritual being.
How the Vatican had twisted the truth,
he lamented.
And still they stop at nothing to protect their lies.
Cohen particularly admired the stunning accuracy of the Gnostic codex entitled the Dialogue of the Savior, in which Jesus himself denounces the weakness of the flesh: “Matthew said, ‘Lord, I want to see that place of life, [the place] where there is no wickedness, but rather, there is pure light!’ The Lord said, ‘Brother Matthew, you will not be able to see it as long as you are carrying flesh around . . . Whatever is born of truth does not die. Whatever is born of woman dies.’ ” And in the codex called the Apocryphon of James, Jesus’s words resonated with Cohen even more so
:
“For it is the spirit that raises the soul, but the body that kills it . . .”
The spiritual being—the eternal spark—was paramount to the Gnostics, as well as to their brothers in Judea, the Essenes—all members of Cohen’s legacy. Those who understood the weakness of the flesh were the enlightened—“Sons of Light.” And they had been given secret knowledge that from the one true God did all light (spiritual essence) flow in perpetuity.
Heading north on Highway 400, they approached their destination— Tel el-Yahudiyeh, or “Mound of the Jews.” Across the expansive delta plain, the tightly packed buildings of Shabin al Qanatir could easily be seen in the distance.
As they rounded a bend in the road, Cohen peered over at the ancient heap of marl and sand that rose up from the dust. It resembled a huge sand castle built too close to an ocean swell, washed over and stripped of detail. Some of the ancient fortifications could still be made out along the mound’s expansive boomerang footprint.
This ruin had once been a grand temple-fortress built by Cohen’s ancient ancestor.
The car drove past the mound and a wide-open field separating it from an industrial, corrugated steel warehouse. The driver slowed as he approached the warehouse and turned onto the short drive leading up to it. He waited as the bay door rolled back on creaking hardware.
Squeezing the Peugeot in beside a dilapidated tractor, the driver slid the gearshift into park. In the rearview mirror, he watched a man dressed in a white tunic press the button to close the door.
“Did you see anything suspicious?” Cohen inquired.
“Nothing,” he confirmed.
“Good.” He waited for the driver to open his door.
Cohen stepped out onto the cement floor. The warehouse’s expansive, raw interior was lined with steel support columns and had a high ceiling with exposed rafters. Corralled into crude work bays were tool chests and various machines dismantled to their bare mechanical guts.
The moist air stank of motor oil and acetylene.
The building had been registered with the municipality as a machine repair shop. To legitimize that claim, the priests spent considerable time tending to local clients’ broken-down tractors, tillers, and farm machinery. Lately, the decoy operation had expanded to include car repair too. A healthy profit fed the coffers of the Temple Society.
Cohen turned to the driver. “Have them prepare the truck. I want to be out of here in an hour.”
Strutting with a slight limp—too much time sitting always aggravated his damaged hip—to the rear of the building, he opened the door to the office and stepped around a beat-up metal desk that hosted a greasy computer monitor and a stack of crisp yellow invoices.
He dragged a box of motor parts off a stain-covered Persian rug centered on the plank floor. Then he half squatted to grab a corner of the rug and peeled it back. What lay beneath was a rectangular hatch. He threaded his finger through its O-shaped hasp, heaved the door up, and let it fall open with a dull thud.
Patting dust from his black vest, he proceeded downward into complete darkness, the wooden treads groaning under his weight.
“...Eleven ... twelve,” he muttered, counting the last steps.
He remembered that the priest who’d first brought him down here had performed the same counting ritual, which he’d always assumed was a tribute to either the twelve tribes or the twelve whom Jesus had recruited.
The final footfall connected with a spongy clay floor. Groping at the cool air just in front of his face, he found the pull-cord for the overhead light. A single bare bulb crackled to life just above Cohen’s
zayen.
The square basement was modest in size, just large enough to accommodate twelve shelving units along its mud brick walls, neatly stocked with chemical containers, tools, and welding supplies. Moving to the storage unit on the rear wall, he snaked his hand between some boxes until he felt a cold metal handle. He hooked it with his fingers and tugged. The shelving and the faux-brick laminate behind it noiselessly swung out on concealed hinges.
The solid metal door that lay behind it looked like the entry to a bank vault.
Jerusalem
In full stride, Jules was in the lead, Amit close at her heels. They’d doubled back through the South Gallery, slaloming through the dallying Americans. This had caused great alarm among the docents and tourists, but no one was moving to stop them.
Through the South Room they angled a hard right into a coin gallery.
“Go through that door!” Amit said.
Up ahead, Jules saw exactly the one he meant. It was a fire exit. She threw herself at the door and activated the shrill alarm. The door flew open hard enough to knock over an employee who’d been out back smoking. Facedown on the pavement, the poor man shouted his protest, but she wasn’t stopping to make any apologies.
Now they were along the rear drive reserved for employees and deliveries. The Land Rover sat only twenty meters away. With key chain in hand, Amit had remotely opened it the moment he was outside.
Jules was already in the passenger seat and pulling her door closed as Amit was fumbling with the driver’s-side door latch.
“Come on! Hurry!” he heard her yelling on the other side of the glass.
Yanking the door back, Amit hopped in.
Back at the exit door, the befuddled smoker was back on his feet, assessing the ragged tear in his pants, just over the right knee. Amit couldn’t hear the swearing, but the guy looked awfully pissed off and was throwing his hands into the air. It would only be another second before his mood would surely worsen, Amit thought, jamming the key into the ignition.
By the time Amit looked back up, the smoker had been knocked facedown onto the ground again, his left leg blocking the door that was once more being forced open from the inside. There was a split second where Amit considered reaching for the pistol stashed in the center console. He’d left a round chambered, safety off. But as he made to get it, Jules screamed.
“Go!”
Cranking hard on the gearshift, Amit stepped down on the accelerator just as the arm-casted assassin muscled his way around the door and used the smoker’s back like a doormat. In his good hand, he was clutching a replacement for the Jericho pistol taken from him last night. And now he was positioning himself for a clean shot.
Should’ve killed him when I had the chance,
Amit thought again. “Down, Jules!” He reached over and pushed her head below the dashboard.
The Land Rover’s tires screeched as he ducked and pulled the wheel hard to the left. The gunshot was loud, the report of breaking glass just as harsh. The would-be assassin’s left-handed aim wasn’t so great. He’d only managed to take out the driver’s-side rear passenger window. Amit peeked up over the dash just in time to cut a hard right that avoided a thick gatepost at the lot’s exit. A successful maneuver, yet the Rover’s rear tire caught the curb that stuck out beneath it, bouncing the truck into the air. Amit and Jules catapulted up from their seats, both smacking their heads on the roof.
But it was a fortunate thing, because the second shot that had cracked an instant earlier on a direct line for Amit’s skull instead blew out the spare tire bolted to the truck’s lift gate.
“Holy shit!” Jules yelled, cradling her pounding head in her hands.
Amit sped around the building. Then he confused Jules by bringing the truck to a sudden halt. He hit the switch that rolled down his window, then flipped open the console and pulled out the pistol.
“What the ’ell are you doing?” The French accent was really thick now.
“Trust me.” He gave it about ten seconds. “Get down and stay down.”
“Amit, I don’t think—”
“Do it!”
She did.
Then he eased down on the accelerator again and cornered stealthily onto the front circular drive.
His timing was good. The gunman was already outside working his car remote like a lobster with the two mobile fingers of his cast hand. Before the guy could figure out what was happening, Amit stomped on the accelerator and steered straight for him. Clutching the Jericho, Amit stuck his arm out the window, aimed, and squeezed off a shot that spat through the silencer. Unlike the assassin, Amit was a seasoned lefty.
The shot was close but missed. It did, however, force the guy to duck for cover behind his Fiat coupe.
That gave Amit just enough time to slow the Land Rover and maneuver for another shot. But this time, it wasn’t the assassin he was going for. It was the front tire of the Fiat. He took aim and held the trigger down, forcing the pistol into semiautomatic mode. A slight circular sweep emptied three successive rounds into the Fiat’s front wheel well and tire rim. A fourth tore apart the tire with a loud pop.
The assassin tried to come up over the hood for a shot, but Amit fired again to force him back down.
Satisfied, Amit ducked low and gunned the engine. One more shot came, but it merely shattered the driver’s side mirror. Amit made a wild right onto Sultan Suleiman Street, which ran parallel to the Old City’s northern wall. Not wanting to attract attention from the IDF guards stationed outside the Damascus Gate up ahead, he immediately slowed.
“You are one crazy bastard,” she said.
“Best defense is a good offense,” he reminded her.
Vatican City
It was nearing one o’clock when Charlotte heard a knock at the door.
“Just a sec,” she called out from the bathroom.
She checked her mascara and lipstick in the mirror one last time, hoping she hadn’t overdone it. “Sexed up” was not the look she was going for with a pair of priests. Just a little something to put some color back in her cheeks and jazz up her swollen eyes. With the amount of crying she’d done up until now, she might as well have poured acid over her eyelids.
But she had to remind herself that the last time she’d stared into a mirror inside a guest room at the Vatican’s Domus Sanctae Marthae, her eyes showed a different kind of pain that no makeup could conceal. And she’d relied on chemo pills to suppress it, not Revlon.
Charlotte was glad she’d accepted Father Martin’s offer to have her pantsuit dry-cleaned by housekeeping. As promised, it had been freshly pressed and discreetly hung on her door in a plastic garment bag by noon.
She snapped her black clutch shut, then decided there wasn’t much need for it. After all, her passport was with the Swiss Guard, and everything else—money, keys, credit cards—was all left behind in Phoenix. And Donovan had said that Father Martin was hosting them inside the city.
“Keep it together,” she told herself. That’s what her father would surely tell her in a situation like this. Being alone, even for this short time, hadn’t settled her one bit. She just kept seeing Evan with a bullet in his head, over and over again. The thought of having company comforted her, got her mind moving in a different direction.
She went and opened the door. Déjà vu came over her when she laid eyes upon Donovan standing in the hall wearing a black suit and priest collar. It seemed he was feeling it too.
“Bringing back some memories?” he said with a smile, breaking the ice.
“You could say that.” She pocketed her key card and pulled the door shut. In the unflattering fluorescent-lit hall, Donovan looked especially fatigued. No doubt his harrowing experience in Belfast and the mara
thon transatlantic flights had taken a lot out of him. Yet still the man managed to keep smiling. And she could tell that it was more for her benefit than his.
“So let’s see what the Vatican is serving up, shall we?” he said.
Since the Holy Father was still enjoying a five-day retreat at Castel Gandolfo, Father Martin had managed to reserve the sumptuous dining room that typically hosted international dignitaries and diplomats. Being the personal assistant of the secretary of state did, after all, come with many privileges.