Authors: Michael Byrnes
Jules picked it up for him: “ ‘I fear that such a controversial message might—’ ” And she let her voice break off just as the words had. “What happened there?”
“He obviously sent this in a rush. Didn’t get a chance to finish.” Amit checked the time and date of the transmission. “See here . . . this came yesterday, right before Joshua said Yosi left the museum.”
“You mean when he was talking with that rabbi?”
Amit’s face went pale. “Exactly.” He tried to imagine the timing of it all. “Rabbi Cohen must have interrupted him.” The thought of this troubled him deeply. Cohen was a powerful man.
“Yet he still felt the urge to get the e-mail off to you?”
“Yeah.” Amit could only guess that what the transcription revealed had profoundly unnerved Yosi. Now, with great trepidation, he stared at the tiny paper clip icon next to the subject line. Could Yosi have felt that he was in danger?
“Come on. Open it,” Jules urged.
He quickly moved the mouse pointer over the paper clip icon to open the document Yosi had attached. The moment it came up, he knew it was the transcription. But there was no time to read it. Amit clicked the print button. “We’ve got to get out of here right now,” he told Jules, jumping up from the chair.
“What are you—”
But he was already at the printer snatching up the pages. Verifying that he’d gotten the whole document, he paid the cashier for the printout. Then he raced back, logged off his e-mail account, and grabbed his sandwich.
Jules was already standing, emptying her mug.
Amit threw back his coffee too.
“Ready,” she said, and followed him out. “What’s with the sudden rush?”
“This guy is most likely monitoring everything. My credit cards, my passport ...I’m sure he’s already traced all of Yosi’s e-mail. Which means he already knows that Yosi sent this e-mail to me. So I have no doubt that my Yahoo account is being monitored too.” He explained how stationary computers were open books and that techs with even basic knowledge of Internet protocol addressing could easily pinpoint where activity was originating.
As they moved through the throngs of commuters, Amit’s radar was working overtime—his eyes scanning faces, storefronts, escalators . . .
“So now what?”
“We get ourselves safely away from here and read this transcription. But first, I need to use a pay phone.” His eyes motioned to a cluster of phones next to the entrance doors.
Once again, Enoch picked up in two rings.
“Hey, it’s me,” Amit said loudly over the bustling commuters moving about the terminal. “Find out anything yet?”
“Plenty. Got some very interesting info for you,” the Mossad agent said without formality. “Good news and bad news.”
Amit’s fingers tightened around the receiver. “I could use some good news.”
“Good news is, the tank hasn’t marked you.”
That definitely came as a relief. “Bad news?”
“That picture you sent me? Outside contractor. And I don’t think I need to tell you his specialty.”
His fingers clamped tighter. “Assassinations?” Jules was standing close beside him, and her eyes went wide.
“Among other things.”
His worried eyes swept over the sea of faces moving all around him, looking for anyone suspicious—particularly a man with a fresh head wound. “Were you able to get a name?”
“Come on, Amit. You know how those guys work.”
“Right. Aliases and anonymous bank account numbers.”
Deniability.
“You got it,” Enoch said. “And I picked up lots of activity with the credit bureaus, immigration, the works. Not in-house. Someone on the outside, trying to track you down.”
“Can you trace it?”
“Tried. No good. The connections bounce through phantom routers, stay live for less than a minute at a time. But he’s got all your information.”
“So this guy has help?”
“Very good help.”
“Great,” Amit grumbled. “You know Rabbi Aaron Cohen, right?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“I have a feeling he might be involved in all this. Call it a hunch. I found out today that he took a last-minute trip to Egypt. Can you find out where he went, what he’s up to?”
A tired sigh on the other end of the line preceded Enoch’s reply.
“I’ll see what I can find out.”
“You’re the best. I’ll be in touch shortly.” Amit hung up the phone and turned to Jules. “Come on.”
He led her down the escalator to the main level, in the direction opposite where they’d come into the station.
This was all happening way too fast for Jules and she was getting frustrated. “Slow down,” she said, tugging his thick arm. “We parked back there,” she said, pointing behind her.
“Forget my truck. I’m sure that’s being watched too. We’ll take a taxi from here.”
Vatican City
Donovan was in full sprint as he flew out the rear exit of St. Peter’s Basilica onto Via del Fondamento. He had no cell phone to call ahead to Charlotte’s room—to warn her that Martin had snared them in his trap. And there was no time to double back to the Swiss Guard barracks to arrange a rescue team.
Worst of all, Donovan was unarmed.
He only hoped that the dormitory’s deskman had stopped the men from entering the building, or at least called ahead to security if anything seemed suspect.
As he rounded Piazza di Santa Marta, a group of nuns scattered from the sidewalk to make way for him, gasping as he tore past. A searing burn was radiating up his leg muscles as he pushed harder.
Breathless, he slid to a stop at the dormitory entrance, yanked open the door, and darted into the vestibule. “Call secur—!” he began to yell to the curved front desk. But no one was there. He quickly hurled himself halfway onto the counter to try to see if the deskman was in the rear office through the open doors on the left and right.
“Ao! ”
Donovan yelled, not seeing any trace of the guy.
“Ao! ”
But then his eyes caught reflections glinting off the pool of red spreading over the tiled floor beneath the desk. The deskman was sprawled out on his back, lifeless eyes frozen in terror, a clean hole pierced through his forehead.
Donovan recoiled, his chest heaving up and down.
The bank of security monitors was still live, and on the closed circuit for the second floor, he spotted a large man pushing a bulging laundry bin toward the elevator. This time the man wasn’t wearing a lab coat. Father Piotr Kwiatkowski, or whatever his name was, had donned the gray uniform of a maintenance worker.
Donovan feared he might already be too late. The Petrine Gate was very close by, as was the Arch of Bells. If Martin had gotten them into the city legally, they would easily make their exit past the Swiss Guards posted there. Then a couple of quick turns onto Via Gregorio VII and they’d surely disappear.
If, however, Donovan could immediately warn the Swiss Guard, they might respond in time to stop the intruders prior to their leaving the city. He reached across to the desk phone and snatched up its receiver. The line had been cut.
On the monitor, the elevator doors had just closed. He could hear the machinery come to life behind him.
Did deskmen carry guns? His frenzied eyes went back to the body, the navy blazer that had flapped open when it hit the floor. No gun belt or underarm holster.
His eyes scanned furiously for anything resembling a weapon. The far wall—a red fire extinguisher, and a formidable ax encased in safety glass beside it.
The instant the elevator doors parted, Donovan sprang out with the extinguisher’s hose aimed straight. With Kwiatkowski in clear view, Donovan pulled on the cylinder’s unpinned lever and sprayed a blast of ammonium phosphate directly at his face.
The stunned assassin’s reaction was a split second off—his hands came up only after the searing chemicals jetted into his eyes. He went down screaming and simultaneously thrust the linen bin out at Donovan, knocking him back onto the floor.
Donovan relinquished the extinguisher and scrambled for the fire ax. Jumping back to his feet, he jigged around the bin, hooked his free arm inside the elevator, and jabbed blindly at buttons on its control panel. Kwiatkowski was already getting to his feet, struggling to see.
When he lunged for the closing doors, Donovan swung down at his outstretched arm; the ax blade split open his thick forearm with a wet
thwack
and blood sprayed wildly. The assassin howled in pain, giving Donovan a final opportunity to plant a firm kick that made him stumble and collapse against the rear wall of the elevator car. Another quick poke at the panel inside the car brought the doors together and sent the shocked assassin on his way to the fifth floor.
Trembling all over, Donovan pulled back the sheet covering what was inside the laundry bin. Charlotte was there, curled into a ball, unconscious . . . but still breathing.
“Thank God!” Donovan cried.
Next he went for the fire alarm near the stairwell. But as he made to pull down on the handle, he heard a commotion on the stairs. He only glimpsed the man storming down at him and knew immediately that it was Kwiatkowski’s partner.
Donovan yanked on the handle and ran past the bin. There wasn’t time to get Charlotte to safety, but at least security would respond. The fire alarm immediately began squelching in fast intervals—the sound was so ear-splitting that Donovan didn’t even hear the shot.
But he certainly felt the force of its impact as the round punched through his left shoulder and tore out of his chest. His body pitched violently forward and spun, then smashed down against the marble floor.
Seconds later, Father Donovan went still. An ice-cold sensation crawled over his skin as the piercing alarm faded to silence.
Jerusalem
The taxi turned off Ruppin Boulevard and climbed the steep tree-lined drive leading up to Jerusalem’s most famous complex of art and history galleries—the Israel Museum.
My third museum today,
Amit mused.
As the roadway crested, he stared out the window at the Knesset building dominating the nearby hillside in Givat Ram—a bland, 1960s rectangular eyesore with a flat, overhanging roof supported on all sides by flared rectangular columns. It was lit up against the night sky, making it even harder for him to imagine that its unnatural symmetry and harsh lines had been inspired by the temples of Egypt. But what did impress him was the huge power base Rabbi Aaron Cohen had built inside its unicameral hall during his tenure with the Israeli parliament.
Cohen was a powerful man whom many considered a visionary. But he was also a Zionist at heart—as pure as they came. Amit somehow knew that he was responsible for what happened at Qumran, not to mention Yosi’s coincidental death, followed by the disappearance of the scrolls. Now in his pocket he had the printed translation that might answer many questions concerning the rabbi’s motive.
Outside the museum’s entrance, Amit settled up with the driver and he and Jules proceeded through the glass entry doors.
Jules was busy watching some guests arriving by limousine, who were dressed elegantly in gowns and tuxedos. Some impolite stares came back at her. “I’m feeling a bit grungy,” she muttered. “What’s going on here?”
“Probably a private showing for VIPs. And don’t worry, you look fabulous,” Amit added.
She smiled.
He was actually feeling naked without the Jericho, so the metal detectors and security guards inside provided great relief. “We’ll be safe here for the time being,” he told Jules, recognizing one of the security guards on detail—an older, gaunt man with pure white hair.
When the guard stood and reached out for a handshake, Jules noticed his sleeve hike up, revealing some numbers tattooed just above his wrist.
“Amit, how are you, my friend?” he said with a heavy Polish accent.
“Good, David. Yourself ?”
“Another day aboveground,” the old fellow cheerily replied, as if he’d just won the lottery. When his eyes turned to Jules, he couldn’t help but whistle. “With this lovely lady at your side, you should have
no
complaints.”
Amit formally introduced his companion.
“You know we closed at nine tonight?” David said, verifying on his watch that it was already past the hour. “I don’t mean to be rude . . . ,” he said, giving both their outfits an obligatory once-over as more sweet-smelling guests in sleek black filtered through the lobby. “It’s a private function, I’m afraid.”
“We’re not looking to crash the party. Just wanted to show Jules a few things.”
Looking both ways, David leaned closer and stage-whispered to her, “He may not be on the list, but he’s certainly a VIP in my book.” He winked and motioned with his head to the inside. “Get going.”
“I appreciate that,” Amit said.
“Just don’t cause any trouble in there, eh?”
“By the way, David,” Amit said before heading in. “Tell me, were you here for the symposium yesterday?”
“Of course.”
“Yosi came, didn’t he?”
This immediately saddened David. “Sure. He was here. The poor fellow. What a shame. I guess God was ready for him.”
Amit was sure that God was surprised to see him, but he said, “Came as a shock to me too.” He let the moment pass before asking, “This may sound like an odd question, but was he carrying anything when he came in? A briefcase? Anything like that?”
David scrunched his eyes, pondering for a second, then shook his head. “Everything was going through the scanner,” he said, pointing to the conveyor-belted machine behind him. “He did have a fancy pen in his pocket that made him ring. Besides that . . .” He shook his head.
“You’re sure he wasn’t carrying anything else?”
Now David took mock offense. “I may not be a kid anymore, but my wheels keep turning.” He pointed to his brain.
Amit knew there was no chance Yosi would’ve left the scrolls in his car. He would have fretted about the humidity, the heat—not to mention the possibility that they might get stolen. And David’s story did agree with Joshua Cohen’s recollection of Yosi leaving the museum empty-handed. “Thanks, David. You take care of yourself and tell your wife I send my love.”