The Sacred Cipher (63 page)

Shouldering a bag of tools, hefting a wheelbarrow that held a spade and stacked racks
of ruby red geraniums, Krupp wordlessly rolled into the depths of the garden. Unlike
the searing heat of Jerusalem, summer was just breaking on Bavaria. The tulips and
daffodils remained colorful, but were in their final moments of life. Mountain laurel
had long lost its blooms. So the beds were being filled with yellow marigolds, purple
salvia, mixed impatiens in the shade, and, Krupp’s favorite, thousands of red geraniums.
Most of them he had planted himself.

“This is my therapy,” he said over his shoulder, pointing Bohannon to an open space
in the flower bed. “This is where I can think, where I can put everything else out
of my head except dirt, sun, rain, and weeds.” Following the call to Baruk, Krupp
needed something to take his mind off the twelve-hour wait. He believed that time
was of the essence, that any delay now only invited calamity. But here in Bavaria,
for Krupp and his guests, all they could do was wait, hope, and pray. And try to keep
themselves busy. “It’s simple, straightforward, and has the benefit of immediate gratification.
Dig the dirt, plant the flowers, bring the water, and you have beauty all summer.
I wish all things in life were this simple. Here, let me give you a hand.”

Smiling at Bohannon’s awkwardness around plants, Krupp lifted one of the flats of
geranium plants and carried it to a large bed of soft, loamy soil. “Bring the spade,
will you?”

Setting the flat of geraniums at the side of the bed, Krupp took the spade. Quickly,
effortlessly, he carved a furrow in the soft earth. “You can do this one of two ways,”
he said, turning to Bohannon, “the industrial way or the personal way. Using the spade
is the industrial way.” A more-than-willing instructor, Krupp displayed his technique.
“Carve out a furrow; pop the geraniums out of their small pots and into the furrow;
slide the spade along the top of the furrow to refill it and cover the root ball.

“We can be careful with life, Tom, savoring it, protecting it, luxuriating in its
richness, or, we can rush through life, exchanging quality for quantity, mistaking
a completed task for a completed life. Each day is a choice.”

Krupp pulled a small hand trowel from the back pocket of his overalls, sat down among
the planted geraniums, and waved the trowel in Bohannon’s direction. “You have made
some interesting choices lately, my friend. What will you choose today? The industrial
way,” he said, waving his hand at the dozen geranium plants where the furrow once
was, “or the personal way?” Turning on his hip, Krupp leaned over to smell the very
faint aroma of the geranium. When he turned back, Bohannon had also grabbed a rack
of geraniums and was making his way to another spot in the bed. He had no spade.

“Where do I start?” Bohannon asked.

Two hours, and several hundred geraniums later, they were back in the potter’s shed,
filthy, perspiring, and fully alive. Krupp reached into a corner refrigerator and
pulled out two large, very cold bottles of Evian water. He pointed to an open space
on the floor, and the two college friends again sat in the dirt, only now they had
the potter’s bench upon which to rest their backs. The first few minutes belonged
to the Evian, which they poured down their throats and over their heads.

Silence. The smell of decomposing loam . . . chatter of birds . . . buzz of insects.

“Thank you.” Bohannon turned his head, and Krupp saw profound gratitude returning
his gaze. “I feel cleansed. Exhausted, but cleansed. As if the weight of the world
has just been lifted off my shoulders. Thank you.”

For a moment, Krupp was “Alex K” again, and his heart ached in gratitude for this
man who had been so kind, so crucial to him in a very critical time. “There is nothing
that you could ever thank me for,” said Krupp. “When you became my big brother, it
was as if you had placed a wall of protection around me. As if you stamped me with
a seal of legitimacy. You helped me gain the confidence to just be myself. I’m serious,
Tom. I owe you my life. My wife, my children, all of us are indebted to you. And I
will do anything you ask of me to honor that gift.”

Bohannon wore an embarrassed, self-conscious look on his face.
Perhaps
, Krupp thought,
I’ve gone too far. After all, we’ve only just . . .

An intercom phone, tucked into a corner of the potting bench, rattled its demand.
Pulling himself from his friend’s gaze, Krupp reluctantly answered it.

“Yes?” Krupp was quiet, listening, a frown forming at his temples. “Yes, we will be
there immediately.”

Suddenly, all the peaceful karma of the afternoon dissipated. Krupp’s neck stiffened,
his heart raced, his breathing shallowed.
What had they done? O, God, what had they done?
It was Krupp, the international billionaire business baron, who turned to face Bohannon.
“There is a telephone call in the house,” he said sharply. “It is your president.”
He paused, watching the alarm register in Bohannon’s eyes. “He wants to speak to you.”

Lukas Painter stepped from the plane dressed in an impeccable, black Italian silk
suit, tailored in Naples, and a vivid pale green tie designed in Venice. His silver
flattop had been slicked into submission with a fistful of mousse. Painter looked
like a typical Italian business tycoon, emerging from one of his two private jets.
While the planes were being rapidly refueled, Painter approached the French customs
official waiting on the tarmac.

“Good afternoon, Gerard,” said Painter. “It is a pleasure to see you once more.” “The
pleasure is mine,” said the official, accepting the envelope containing ten thousand
American dollars.
“Bon voyage.”

With that brief exchange, Gerard returned to his office, and Painter returned to the
Gulfstream and the eight commandos dressed in an entirely different kind of black
suit.

He had been awake all of the night and most of the day, following the pursuit of the
Americans and positioning his men under the Temple Mount. It was time to pray. The
Imam took his prayer carpet and climbed the stairs once again to the roof. He never
got there.

Twisting past the landing on the upper floor, his foot on the last flight of stairs,
the Imam’s immaculate white kaftan began sprouting rosettes of red down his chest.
Quite unusual
, he thought as he looked down. It took a moment more, as the red stains began to
spread, for the Imam to realize his throat had been slashed. A thought that registered
as his body crumpled to the steps, as his eyes locked on a short man, dressed in dusty
and tattered clothes, emerging from the shadow of a corner. The Imam noticed the stained,
razor-thin blade in his hand, an amulet around his neck and a new, round, brown leather
cap on his head. Then his brain stopped, and the Imam’s eyes closed forever.

Rasaf was retreating back into the shadows when he heard a gentle cell-phone buzz.
Quickly, avoiding the spreading blood, he reached into the kaftan and found the phone.
Without hesitation, he pushed Talk.

“Yes?”

A pause. Then an accented voice on the other end made his heart leap. “They are in
Germany, in Bavaria, staying at the home of Alexander Krupp, the industrialist. The
Israelis have sent a commando strike team to make an incursion, a HALO jump, with
the intention of killing these men and seizing all their evidence. They will be on
the ground in four hours. Do what you want with the information. It is the last you
will receive from me. It is no longer safe. Goodbye.”

Rasaf pushed the End button, his mind racing with the new information.
Perhaps all is not lost
, he thought.

Soon, the cell phone was in use again.

When he assumed the office of president of the United States, the voice of Jonathan
Whitestone was immediately familiar around the world. Bohannon had no doubt who was
on the other end of this phone call.

“Mr. Bohannon, you will not divulge any of the information you have discovered in
Israel.” No preamble, no pleasantries, no introduction. Bohannon felt as if he had
been punched.

“As the commander in chief of the United States of America, I am ordering you to maintain
full and complete silence on your claimed discovery. You are to share this information
with no one, do you understand me?”

Bohannon was stunned, in body and mind. “Yes, sir,” was all he could muster.

“Good,” said the president, his voice sounding more relaxed. “Do you have any idea
what your discovery could precipitate? You could ignite the complete annihilation
of Israel and most of the Middle East. Do you understand that? A nuclear war, that’s
what we’re facing if the Arabs and Israelis get into the ultimate conflict. A war
that would not only wipe out all of the Jews and many of the Arab populations, but
a war that would also make that region uninhabitable for generations. God knows what
a calamity like that might trigger.

“No, sir. You do not have the authority nor the power to make a decision like that,”
said Whitestone, his voice recovering its menace. “Who has elected you to make a decision
that could cost millions of lives? No one, Mr. Bohannon. No one. You will keep this
information to yourself, and you will return to the United States immediately. Or
you, and your partners, could spend the rest of your lives in prison. Do you understand,
Mr. Bohannon?”

When he had been a journalist, there had been a few foolish souls who tried to bully
Bohannon off a story. He grew weary of threats, especially when they came from self-important
politicians who were trying to save their hides and their reputations. Threats only
made Bohannon dig deeper, look further, turn over more rocks. Threats always meant
there was more to the story than he was seeing at the time, that he was close to something
really big. Threaten him, and Bohannon became a task-oriented predator, preparing
for battle with an adversary.

That same Tom Bohannon came to the surface as the president of the United States tried
to fill him with fear. Clarity filled his mind while caution seasoned his thoughts,
his instincts pencil-point sharp.

“Mr. President, I understand you fully . . .”

“Good,” said the president.

“However, Mr. President,” Bohannon said, carefully choosing his words, “I am compelled
to remind you, sir, that neither I nor my friends are members of the military. So
we are not subject to your authority as commander in chief. In addition, Mr. President,
what we do with our private property is our concern—”

“Listen, mister—”

“Mr. President,” Bohannon interrupted, “what will you do when a request under the
Freedom of Information Act releases the tapes you have just made, threatening American
citizens with unwarranted imprisonment?”