* * * * *
KAGAN STOOD with Andrei, Mikhail, Yakov, and the new man, Viktor, in the corridor outside the three doors. Beyond the middle door, he heard the muffled sound of a television, the only noise in the corridor. All the other guests were probably away from their rooms, enjoying the holiday festivities.
As adrenaline surged through him, Kagan heard just enough of the television program to be able to determine that a little girl was asking someone if he was really Santa Claus. The voice of an elderly man said that he was.
That middle room was where the three bodyguards were based.
Concentrating to control his breathing, Kagan watched Andrei take his cell phone from his pocket. It was set to the vibrate mode, and what Andrei waited for was a call from the nursemaid in the suite. Not that Andrei would answer the call. All he needed was to feel the vibration through his glove.
He also needed to verify the caller’s number. It would signal that the nursemaid had rigged the door to the left, pressing a strip of plastic against the spring-controlled latch, preventing it from sliding into the door frame and locking the door. She had done the same with the door on the right.
By now, she would have taken the baby into the bathroom, where the two of them would be lying in the bathtub.
The bathtub wasn’t sturdy enough to keep bullets from penetrating it, but shots weren’t likely to go in that direction. As a precaution, however, Hassan’s rivals had bribed the nursemaid to lie sideways, with her back to the closed bathroom door, holding the baby on the other side so that if a chance bullet did come into the bathroom, the baby would have a human shield.
Andrei’s phone made a faint buzzing sound. He looked at the screen to view the caller’s number. He nodded to the team, put the phone away, and drew the Glock from his coat pocket.
Kagan and the others pulled out their weapons. A sound suppressor projected from each barrel.
Each man eased back the slide on his pistol just enough to assure that a round was in the firing chamber. They’d performed this precaution several times prior to starting the mission, but no matter how often they’d already done so, they felt compelled to do it yet again, an obsessive habit of gunfighters.
Kagan’s hands were sweaty in his latex gloves.
Andrei nodded a final time. The team separated, Kagan and Mikhail going to the door on the right, beyond which, they’d been told, the nursemaid rested when Hassan’s wife took care of the baby. Yakov and Viktor proceeded to the door on the far left, while Andrei—who liked frontal distractions—went to the middle door.
Andrei knocked loudly on the middle door, no doubt startling the bodyguards beyond it. Kagan pressed a hand against the door on the right at the exact moment Yakov did the same to the door on the far left.
For an urgent second, Kagan met resistance and wondered if the nursemaid’s strip of plastic had in fact kept the latch from engaging, but then Andrei knocked louder on the middle door, and when Kagan pushed, his door came open. Mikhail immediately aimed past him, making sure the room was unoccupied.
Andrei pounded on the middle door a third time, saying, “Housekeeping!” in a loud voice while Kagan and Mikhail hurried into the room on the right. As the nursemaid had promised, the connecting door was open. Kagan pretended that the bed was in his way, allowing Mikhail to charge ahead and crouch, firing upward toward chest and head level in the middle room.
Mikhail’s sound suppressor made the shots barely audible. Amid the smell of burned gunpowder, Kagan hurried next to him and fired upward, his bullets striking bodyguards who were in effect already dead. In the opposite open doorway, Yakov and Viktor crouched and also fired upward, the angle of their aim preventing them from being caught in a crossfire.
Blood spurted from the three bodyguards. Groaning, they fell in a cluster, one of them landing on the other two.
Mikhail stepped into the room and shot each man in the head.
Kagan ran back through the bedroom toward the door he’d shoved open. He leaned into the corridor and motioned for Andrei to enter. The moment Andrei hurried past him, Kagan tore off the plastic strip attached to the side of the door, allowing the latch to function again. He shut the door and turned the dead bolt, then followed Andrei into the middle room, where the coppery smell of blood was now strong.
They stepped over the bodies and joined the rest of the team in the third bedroom, the outer door to which Yakov had closed and locked.
Andrei knocked three times on the bathroom door, twice, then once, completing the all-clear signal.
After a pause, the door was unlocked. As it came open, Kagan saw a Palestinian woman. Her veil made it difficult to tell how old she was or what she looked like, but she had dark, expressive eyes that communicated her nervousness. She wore a black head scarf and a modest, loose black dress.
She held an Arab baby in her arms. The child wore a blue sleeper and was wrapped in a blanket.
Frightened, the woman looked past Andrei and his men toward the middle room.
“It’s finished,” Andrei said.
She knew enough English to understand.
Andrei held out a thick envelope. “Here’s the remainder of what you’re owed. Give us the baby.”
The woman frowned at the envelope, as if wishing that she’d never agreed to be part of this.
“Take the money,” Andrei said. “You earned it. Go far away.”
The woman hesitated.
“Viktor,” Andrei said, “get the baby from her.”
Viktor did what he was told. The infant sensed the less comforting grip and squirmed.
The woman looked troubled.
“Don’t worry. He’ll be fine,” Andrei assured her.
As she took the envelope, Yakov shot her twice in the chest and once in the head. She toppled back, landing on the white tiles of the bathroom floor. Yakov stepped over her blood and yanked the envelope from her hand.
* * * * *
“THE NEXT PART of the story isn’t in Matthew’s gospel,” Kagan said. “It’s in Luke’s, where we’re told that the Roman emperor issued a census decree.”
He swallowed coffee. Needing the energy it provided, he felt his dry mouth absorb the hot liquid. His right hand remained on the pistol in his lap.
“The census was important for a lot of reasons. It established a population base on which Rome could demand taxes from Israel. But it also forced the Jews to travel, sometimes far, and thus reminded them that they were at the emperor’s beck and call.”
“Why were they forced to travel?” Cole asked.
“Because each family had to register according to the tribe—what they called the house—that the husband belonged to. To do that, they needed to go to whatever town was originally associated with that tribe. This is where Mary and Joseph get involved. They lived to the north in Nazareth, but Joseph belonged to the house of David, and the town associated with David was Bethlehem, seventy-five miles to the south. It was a difficult journey over several deep canyons. To complicate matters, Mary was far along in her pregnancy, which meant that they needed to be careful, taking even longer than usual to get there. As a consequence, when they finally reached Bethlehem, a lot of people had arrived sooner, and there weren’t any places for them to stay. No room at the inn, as Luke’s gospel says.”
In the darkness, Kagan finished the coffee and leaned down, ignoring the pain in his wounded arm as he set the cup on the floor. But he never took his eyes from the window. Now the snow fell so thickly that the fence was a blur.
“Mary and Joseph were reduced to sleeping in a stable. Mary gave birth there, and the only spot to put the baby was a manger. That’s a trough from which animals eat. If you ever go to Bethlehem, Cole, you’ll find a cave that’s advertised as the place where Jesus was born. Maybe it’s true. Bethlehem has a lot of limestone slopes, and in those days, people carved stables into the limestone. I like the idea of a cave. It’s more defensible than a mere stable.
The crèche next to your Christmas tree has the Magi
in the stable, greeting Mary, Joseph, and the newborn Jesus. But that wasn’t the case. Matthew says the Magi entered a house, where they found Jesus and his mother. Similar details suggest that the Magi arrived some time after Jesus was born.
“The moment they got to Bethlehem, they did what Herod expected, asking about newborn children and whether there were any unusual circumstances about the birth. If you want my opinion, the last thing they anticipated was to find evidence supporting their story. Their purpose was to give disinformation to Herod and back it up by any means possible. So when they heard about a birth in a stable, they probably decided it was the kind of detail they could use—a great king born in humble conditions. The contrast with Herod’s greed would drive him crazy.
“But as the Magi checked further, trying to manufacture an elaborate hoax to continue fooling Herod, they heard about something else that was unusual about the birth, and that changed everything for them.”
“What was it?” Cole asked.
“Something that involved the other group in the crèche next to your Christmas tree. You already mentioned them.”
“The shepherds?”
“Yes. Word had spread through Bethlehem about something weird that had happened to the shepherds. The night the baby was born, they were out in a dark field, tending their sheep, when a mysterious figure suddenly appeared, surrounded by a blazing light. The figure told them to rejoice, to go into Bethlehem and look for a newborn baby in a stable, for this baby was special, a savior. Abruptly, other brilliant figures appeared to the shepherds, announcing, ‘Glory to God in the highest. Peace on Earth.’ Then they all vanished, leaving the shepherds alone in the dark.
“Frankly, Cole, if that had happened to me, I think I might have had a heart attack. But the shepherds were made of stronger stuff. They adjusted to their shock and were so curious that they decided to go into Bethlehem to see if what the mysterious figure had told them was true. Just as predicted, they found the baby in the stable.
“That’s what the Magi heard the villagers talking about. Immediately, they asked where they could find the shepherds and were given directions to the field where the vision had supposedly happened. There they got the story firsthand. It was exactly the sort of event that would have held their attention. Remember, the Magi believed in magic. Intrigued, they asked where the stable was, where they could find the baby, but as Matthew’s gospel indicates, by then Mary and Jesus were in a house.
“It’s interesting that the gospel doesn’t mention Joseph at this point. I have a theory about him, but I’ll save it until later. For now, the important thing is that the Magi were experts in elicitation.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Cole said.
“It’s the art of making people trust you so much that they volunteer information they normally wouldn’t feel comfortable revealing. By subtly imitating speech patterns and body movements, even the way people breathe, you can make strangers feel as if they’ve known you for a very long time. The Magi were so skilled at it that they persuaded Mary to tell them some very personal details. Among other things, she described how visions had come to her, similar to the apparitions the shepherds had seen in the field. She explained that when she and Joseph were engaged to be married . . . Meredith, how frankly can I talk about the pregnancy?”
Cole answered for her. “If you mean sex and virginity and stuff like that, I guess I know enough that you don’t need to be embarrassed.”
“Me?” Kagan asked. “Embarrassed?”
“It’s okay,” Meredith said. “I have a feeling he’ll know what you’re talking about.”
She almost sounded amused.
Good, Kagan thought. They’re distracted.
He stared out the window and managed to find the words to continue.
“Joseph was engaged to Mary, but before they became husband and wife, Mary told him she was pregnant. Because Joseph knew he wasn’t the father, he naturally assumed she’d been with another man, but Mary swore that she’d been faithful. She said that an angel had come to her and announced that even though she was a virgin, she’d conceived through the Holy Spirit.
“So what was Joseph to do? He could accuse Mary of infidelity and cast her aside, or else he could take her word that an angel had spoken to her about a miraculous conception.
“It was a difficult, painful choice. Joseph felt betrayed. But at the same time, he loved Mary with all his heart. Distraught, he considered one option and then the other, weighing them, unable to decide. Anger versus love.
“Emotionally exhausted, he fell asleep, and all of a sudden, he had a dream in which a brilliant figure—an angel—appeared before him. The angel told him the exact same thing that Mary had insisted an angel had told her: that the Holy Spirit was the father.
“The dream is significant because the house of David to which Joseph belonged had a tradition of believing in the truth of dreams, and of being able to interpret them. But surely Joseph must have wondered if his tortured thoughts had caused the dream, or if an angel really had come to him. It all amounted to this—was he willing to reject the woman he loved because she was pregnant with a child that wasn’t his? In the end, he chose to believe in his dream. He swallowed his pride and proved his love by marrying her.”
The baby whimpered.
“Meredith?”
“His diaper’s still dry. Maybe he’s thirsty again. I’ll bring more of that mixture.”
As the baby’s voice rose, Kagan heard Meredith hurry into the kitchen. He heard the scrape of the saucepan as she poured what was left of the mixture into the shot glass. She rushed back and sat on the floor, lifting the baby into her arms.
A moment later, the baby was quiet.
“He’s drinking, but he’s awfully restless,” Meredith said.
Are you sending me a message? Kagan wondered. Is this the same thing that happened when you kicked me, and I thought you were guiding me here?
He shook his head. Get real, he thought. I’m still off balance from being wounded.
“So Joseph married her,” Kagan said. His temples felt the pressure of his urgent heartbeat. “There was a problem, though. Mary’s pregnancy would soon start to show. Too soon. Like nosy people everywhere, the good folks in Nazareth would start asking questions, and you can bet they wouldn’t believe what Mary said about the angel. The scandal would make her an outcast.
“That’s when Mary learned that one of her relatives, Elizabeth, also was pregnant. Elizabeth lived a distance away in a town called Judah, and Mary decided to go there—‘in haste,’ Luke’s gospel says. She stayed three months, helping with the household until Elizabeth’s baby was born, but then it was time for Mary to return to Nazareth, where the townspeople would certainly have noticed that she was more pregnant than she should be. When Mary and Joseph heard about the Roman census decree, they realized they had a perfect excuse to leave town. Required by law to go to Bethlehem and register, they wouldn’t have taken long to pack.
“Over a period of time, the Magi elicited this account from Mary. It was an amazing match to what the shepherds had told them about being visited by angels. The parallels were astonishing, and these priests who believed in dreams and magic wouldn’t have dismissed them. On the contrary, the Magi would have investigated in greater detail, questioning the people in Bethlehem, looking for inconsistencies and contradictions, anything to cast doubt on what was being said. But after all their efforts, the Magi concluded that the stories were genuine, that the disinformation they’d fed Herod in an effort to destabilize his government was, in ways too mysterious to understand, the truth.
“I was with a group of spies when I first heard this interpretation of the Christmas story,” Kagan said. For a moment, he felt nostalgic. He’d been eighteen the first time he’d heard it. Fourteen years ago, Kagan thought.
And now I’m an old man.
“One of those spies said he could make a case that the Magi themselves were victims of disinformation.”
&nbs
p; “What do you mean?” Cole asked.
“Their sudden appearance in Jerusalem would have been widely reported. Herod’s furious reaction to what they said about the star and the newborn king would have been widely reported as well. Herod was an unpopular ruler. His fears about a rebellion were justified. Perhaps a rebel spy in Herod’s court learned that the king was sending the Magi to Bethlehem to search for the child. The rebels could have arranged for the shepherds and Mary to tell the Magi a story that elaborated on what the Magi had told Herod. Perhaps the Magi were deceived, just as they had deceived Herod.”
“Deceived?” Meredith asked.
“The rebels couldn’t have known that the Magi were foreign spies. They couldn’t have known that the Magi wanted to destabilize Herod’s government. So they told the Magi stories that they hoped the Magi would take back to Herod, further unbalancing the king. Perhaps the shepherds and Mary were rebels. Perhaps they wanted the same thing the Magi did, but neither side realized they were working toward a common goal.”
“Makes my head spin,” Meredith said.
“That’s what the spy world is like. A U.S. spymaster—who might actually have worked for the Soviets—once called espionage a wilderness of mirrors.”
“But I don’t want to believe that Mary and the shepherds were pretending.”
“Neither do I,” Kagan replied. “And as far as I’m concerned, the rest of the story proves they weren’t.”
The baby made a sound.
Kagan tensed.
“He’s more restless,” Meredith said.
Kagan’s apprehension strengthened. “I’d better finish.”
* * * * *
“YOU’RE SURE the same house key fits all the doors?” Andrei asked.
“Yes,” Brody answered.
“Good. Then this doesn’t need to be difficult. Go into the house. Act surprised when you see the intruder. Ask the natural questions about whatever traps you notice he’s arranged. Find out where the baby is.”
The Spy Who Came for Christmas Page 13
