F Paul Wilson - Novel 03

by Virgin (as Mary Elizabeth Murphy) (v2. 1)

  "Today, I would assume. They took it on a two-day special—unlimited mileage. But there's nothing to say they won't keep it till tomorrow. They have an option for extra days."

  Tomorrow—he prayed they wouldn't keep it till then. Especially since he wasn't even sure this Ferris couple were the ones he wanted. The tire tracks around the Resting Place might not be theirs.

  But they were the only lead he had.

  If only there were some way to involve Shin Bet in this. He could have the tire tracks identified as to their size and brand and from that get a list of what vehicles used them as standard equipment. If a Ford Explorer was on the list, he'd issue an all-points alert for the Ferrises and their vehicle.

  But Shin Bet would want to know what crime they'd committed or were suspected of committing. Theft? What did they steal?

  Kesev could not answer those basic questions, so Shin Bet had to stay out of it. He was on his own.

  He wrote down his home phone number and handed it to the Eldan clerk.

  "I will be close by and will be checking in with you frequently. But if I am not about, call this number immediately should you hear from the Ferrises. Leave your message on my answering machine. Make sure you fill in whoever relieves you."

  "Are they dangerous?" Chaya said, a note of anxiety creeping into her voice.

  He smiled to reassure her. It wasn't easy. He wanted to grab the front of her blouse and pull her half across the counter and shout that they may have stolen a relic that God Himself had designated as untouchable and only God Himself knew what might happen to Kesev—to the entire world—if it was not returned immediately to its designated Resting Place.

  Instead he kept his tone low and even.

  "Absolutely not. They are just a couple of tourists who may have witnessed something and we may need to question them. The problem is that they don't know we're looking for them and we don't know where to find them. Not yet. But with your help we can clear up this matter swiftly and everyone can go about their business."

  Meanwhile, he didn't have to sit idle.

  He went to one of the Hilton's house phones and asked the operator to connect him with the Ferris room. He slammed his fist on the counter when she informed him that there was no Ferris registered at the hotel, then glanced around to see if he'd startled anyone. He did not want to attract attention. He forced himself to return the receiver gently to its cradle.

  Then he moved to a pay phone and called all the major and some of the minor hotels in Jerusalem, asking to be connected to the Ferris room.

  No luck. They weren't registered in Jerusalem. One could almost believe they'd driven to the north end of Route 90, and instead of turning left toward Jerusalem, turned right toward Jordan. Or worse yet, were hijacked by some PLO crazies. . .

  The thought staggered Kesev, weakening his knees.

  The Mother . . . in the hands of that rabble!

  No. Such a thing was unthinkable, so why torture himself with it?

  Kesev found himself a seat in the lobby where he had an unobstructed view of the Eldan desk. He calmed himself with the thought that he had done all that one man could do at the moment. All that was left was the waiting. So he sat and waited. He was good at waiting. An expert.

  Sooner or later the Ferris couple would show up to return their car. When they did he would confront them. He'd know if they were hiding something. And if they were, he'd get it out of them. First by intimidating them with his Shin Bet credentials. If that didn't work, there were other ways.

  Kesev slipped his left hand into his pocket and gripped the handle of the long folding knife he always carried.

  Yes, he thought grimly. He knew other ways, and he was quite ready to use whatever means were necessary to return the Mother to the Resting Place.

  14

  Tel Aviv

  "It should be right around the next corner to the left," Carrie said, glancing between the street signs and the map on her lap.

  "I sure as hell hope so," Dan muttered from the front seat.

  Carrie reached forward and gave his shoulder a gentle rub.

  Poor Dan. Not a happy camper at the moment. He'd complained most of the trip that her sitting in the back made him feel like a chauffeur. Carrie was sorry about that, but with the way the Explorer had bounced around the hills, she'd been afraid the Virgin would be harmed. She'd folded down part of the rear seat and pulled the Virgin's blanket-swathed form beside her to steady and protect it.

  But even after they'd hit paved road she stayed here, her fingers gripping one of the cords that bound the blankets. Carrie felt good sitting close to the Virgin. Despite the danger in smuggling her out of the country—Carrie had no idea how the Israeli government felt about smuggling, but she was sure it could cost Dan and her years in jail if they were caught—she felt strangely calm. At peace.

  "Damn this traffic!"

  Poor Dan. He was anything but at peace. They'd got lost twice already, and now they were sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic that would give Manhattan's cross-town crawl a run for its money, all of which might have been bearable if the air conditioner had been working. Tel Aviv in the summer . . . almost as hot as the desert they'd left this morning, but suffocatingly humid thanks to the Mediterranean, only blocks away.

  "At last!" Dan said as he turned off Ibn Givrol in the northern end of the city.

  Carrie saw it too: The Kaplan Gallery. Gold letters on black marble over two large windows filled with paintings and sculpture. A spasm of anxiety tightened her fingers around the cord. She prayed Bernard Kaplan would help them. If not, where else could they go?

  Dan had called him from Jerusalem and asked if he could arrange a shipment for them similar to the one he'd arranged for Harold Gold. Dan said Kaplan had been noncommittal on the phone but gave them directions—not very good directions—to his gallery. Dan double-parked and turned to her. "Stay with the car. I'll leave the engine running and run inside. Hope this isn't a wasted trip."

  Carrie nodded and watched him disappear through the gallery doors. She sat in the heat and fumes, ignoring the glares of annoyed drivers as they inched around the Explorer. As long as they weren't police . . .

  Dan seemed to take forever inside the gallery. Finally, when she was almost ready to run in and see what was taking him so long, he emerged with a man in a gray business suit—tall, tanned, silver hair slicked straight back. Dan introduced him as Bernard Kaplan. He said Mr. Kaplan had called Harold in the interim and Harold had vouched for them.

  "He wants to get a look at the size of our, uh, sculpture."

  "Ah, yes," Kaplan said with a British accent—or was it Australian?—and flashed a dazzling set of caps as he looked at the bundle. "About life-sized, as you said. I'll have a couple of my men bring it in and we'll—"

  "That's okay," Carrie said quickly. "We'll bring it in ourselves."

  Kaplan glanced at Dan who nodded and said, "It could be fragile and this way we'll take full responsibility for any damage."

  Kaplan shrugged. "Right. Very well, then. I'll have one of my men find a parking spot for your car."

  With Carrie taking the shoulders and Dan the legs, they carried the bundled Virgin the length of the gallery to the shipping area at the rear where they placed her on a bench.

  Before she could stop him, Kaplan had a knife out and was cutting the cords.

  "What are you doing?" Carrie said.

  "Going to take a look at this sculpture of yours."

  "Must you?"

  "Of course. How else can I list it for the manifest?"

  She watched anxiously as Kaplan cut the rest of the cords and unwrapped the blankets. He gave a low whistle when he saw the Virgin's face. His diction seemed to regress.

  "Well, now, that's bloody somethin', in'it?"

  He leaned closer and touched the Virgin's face, running the tip of his index finger over her cheek. Carrie wanted to grab his wrist and yank him away, but restrained herself.

  A few more indignities, Moth
er Mary, then you 'II be on your way to safety.

  "What is this?" Kaplan said. "Some sort of wax? I've never seen anything like it. The detail is incredible. Where'd you get it?"

  Dan glanced at Carrie before he spoke. On the trip from the desert they'd agreed that rather than invent a series of lies, the best course was to give no answers at all.

  "We'd prefer to keep our source a secret," Dan said.

  Kaplan nodded and straightened. Carrie sighed with relief as he folded the blankets back over the Virgin.

  "Very well. But 1 see no problem shipping this out. We'll simply list it as a wax sculpture—a piece of contemporary art."

  An idea flashed in Carrie's mind. She turned to Dan. "Why can't we do that ourselves? Ship it home on the plane with us?"

  "You could do that," Kaplan said. "You wouldn't need me for that. But remember, anything going aboard an El Al flight gets a going over like no other place in the world. Direct inspection, dogs, metal scanners, X rays—"

  "Never mind," Carrie said quickly as she imagined the Virgin's skeleton lighting up on an inspector's fluoroscopic scanner. "We'll do it your way."

  "Very well," Kaplan said. "I can include it with a consignment of our crates I've scheduled for shipment, and have it on a freighter out of Haifa tonight."

  "Wonderful!" Carrie said. "When will it get to New York?"

  "It's not going to New York," Kaplan said. "At least not on this freighter. The Greenbriar will get your shipment to Cork Harbor. After that, we'll have to make other arrangements for the second leg."

  "Can't we get a nonstop?" Carrie said. Kaplan's smile was tolerant. "No, love. We don't want a direct route. Why draw a line straight to your door? Much safer to break up the trip. We ship your crate to a fictitious name in Cork where one of my associates picks it up, holds it a while, then puts in on another ship to New York. Bloody near impossible to trace."

  Carrie was uncomfortable with the thought of the Virgin lying in a moldy warehouse in Ireland, but if this sort of route would safeguard her secret . . .

  "How do we pay you?" she said.

  "Cash, preferably."

  She looked at Dan. Cash? Who had cash? All she had was the AmEx card Brad had given her.

  "Do you take plastic?"

  Kaplan sighed. "I suppose we can work something out."

  Jerusalem

  Kesev had given up sitting and waiting. Now he was pacing and waiting. He'd explored every nook and cranny of the lobby, browsed all of the shops until he thought he'd explode with frustration. Where were these people, these Ferrises? They had to turn in their rental sooner or later. Didn't they?

  An awful thought struck him. He ran to the Eldan counter. Chaya was still there. She'd just finished with a customer when Kesev arrived.

  "How many offices—rental centers—do you have?" he said.

  "I'm not sure," she said, furrowing her brow. "Let's see . . . a couple in Tel Aviv, a couple in Haifa, one at Ben Gurion Airport—"

  This was worse than he thought. "Can these people, the Ferrises, turn their car in at any of them?"

  "It's not a practice we encourage. In fact, there's a drop-off fee that—"

  Kesev tried to keep from shouting. "Can they or can't they? A simple yes or no will do."

  "Yes."

  I am cursed by God, he thought. I have always been cursed.

  He wanted to scream, but that would solve nothing.

  "I want you to call every Eldan agency in the country."

  "But sir—"

  "Every one of them! It won't take you long. See if the Ferris car has been turned in at any of them. If not, give them this very simple message: The Ferrises rented their car here and you wish to be notified immediately if they turn in their car anywhere else. Immediately. Is that clear? Is that simple enough?"

  She nodded, cowed by his ferocity.

  "Good. Then get to it."

  He turned and stalked away from the counter to continue his pacing. And as he paced he was haunted with the possibility that the Ferris couple might have had nothing at all to do with the disappearance of the Mother.

  Haifa

  Haifa had its beauties and Carrie wished she could spend some time here seeing the sights. Behind them rose Mount Carmel, high, green and beautiful; somewhere on its slopes, near the Stella Maris lighthouse, sat the Mount Carmel monastery, home of the Carmelite order; and in a grotto on the monastery grounds was the cedar and porcelain statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Carrie would dearly love to climb the mountain to see it.

  But she had to be all business now as she and Dan stood in the monolithic shadow of the huge Dagon grain silo and watched the inspector check off the crates on the manifest from the Kaplan Gallery. Her American Express account now carried the purchase price of a piece of "modern sculpture" from the Kaplan Gallery. Carrie had nothing tangible to show for that charge, but the Virgin had been packed up and placed on the gallery's shipping manifest. Carrie scanned the ships anchored in the harbor but couldn't make out their names in the hazy air. One of them was the Greenbriar, which would unknowingly start the Virgin on the long first leg of her journey to a new home. Beyond the long breakwater stretched the azure expanse of the Mediterranean, bluer than she'd ever imagined a sea could be. The creak of nails snapped her attention back to the docks. The inspector was using a pry bar to open one of the crates. She looked more closely. Good God, it was the Virgin's crate! She stepped forward but Dan grabbed her arm. "Easy, Carrie," he whispered. "I told you we shouldn't have come."

  True enough. Carrie should have been satisfied that the Virgin was safe after watching Kaplan's staff seal her into that excelsior-filled shipping crate, but she couldn't let her go. Not yet. She'd insisted on accompanying the crate to Haifa. There'd been this overpowering urge to see her off, like a child coming to the docks to wish a beloved parent bon voyage.

  And now she was glad she'd come.

  "That's our crate. Why did he have to pick ours?"

  "Kaplan warned us that they do spot checks. Don't worry. She'll pass. Just stay calm."

  Carrie held her breath as the inspector lifted the crate top and pushed the excelsior aside. He unfolded the blankets and she saw him freeze for a moment as he stared at the Virgin's face. She watched him lean closer, staring. Please don't touch her. PLEASE don't!

  The inspector looked up from the crate and scanned the area. He had close-cropped gray hair, wore aviator sunglasses, and carried himself like an ex-military man. When he spotted Dan and Carrie, he tucked his clipboard under his arm and approached them.

  Beside her, Carrie heard Dan mutter a soft, "Uh-oh." The inspector thrust his hand at Dan. "Good day. My name is Sidel. You are the owner of that sculpture, I believe?"

  "Yes," Carrie said. She noticed that he didn't offer to shake hands with her. "We just acquired it." She emphasized the first word.

  "It's most unusual for people to come down to the docks to see off a shipment, but in your case I can understand why. What an extraordinary piece. Who's the artist, if I may ask?"

  "Frankly, I don't know," Dan said. "We saw it and just had to have it."

  "I can understand," Sidel said, nodding. "I do a little toying with modeling clay myself, so I can appreciate the fantastic detail of this work. You're shipping it to Ireland?"

  Carrie felt her heart begin to thump. Why all these questions?

  But Dan was cool. "The name's Fitzpatrick, after all."

  "Enjoy it," Sidel said, turning away. "I envy you." Sidel returned to the crate, stared at the Virgin a moment longer, then shook himself and covered her again. Carrie's heart rate began to slow as the crate top was nailed back into place. She sagged against Dan.

  "Oh, Lord. That was close. For one very long minute there I thought . . ."

  "You and me both," Dan said. "All right. We've seen her off. Time to go."

  Reluctantly Carrie had to agree. They'd discussed their options as they'd followed the Kaplan Gallery truck to Haifa. Dan saw two courses: stay in Israel a whi
le longer, then head home, or head directly home tonight. He favored the latter.

  Carrie agreed with getting out of Israel as soon as possible. Just as she had at the Resting Place, she felt an urge to keep moving. But she preferred a third route: fly to Ireland and meet the Greenbriar in Cork, make sure the Virgin was transferred properly, then fly back to New York and wait for her there.

  They'd argued but eventually Carrie had won, as she'd known she would. From the outset she hadn't the slightest intention of doing it any other way but hers.

  She called and learned that there was an El Al flight to London tonight. If they hurried, they could make it. From there it was practically a shuttle flight to Shannon.

  They wheeled into Ben Gurion Airport with time to spare. But they received a shock when they turned in the Explorer at the Eldan desk.

  "Ferris!" said the thin, mustached man behind the counter. "Boy, have you caused a stir."

  Carrie saw Dan go pale and felt her own heart kick up its tempo again.

  "Really?" Dan said. "What's the problem? Look, I know we rented the car in Jerusalem but I thought we could return it anywhere we—"

  "Oh, that's not the problem," he said. "No drop-off fee if you turn it in here. But somebody at the Jerusalem desk has been burning up the wires looking for you two. Something about a Shin Bet fellow who wants to talk to you."

  "Shin Bet?" Carrie said.

  "Right. Domestic Intelligence. Somewhat akin to your FBI, I believe. But don't worry. You're not in any trouble. Just wants to ask you some questions."

  "Well, uh, we'll be glad to cooperate in any way we can," Dan said. "Just, uh, have us paged. We'll be around for a while."

  His grip was tight on her arm as he led her toward the El Al ticket counters. Her mouth felt dry. Were they in trouble?

  "Dan, what's the matter? Why would this Shin Bet—?"

  His voice was tight. "Somebody's on to us. How long before we leave?"

  Carrie glanced at her watch. "A little less than an hour."

  "Damn!" He stopped. "Look. Before we buy our tickets and check our bags, let's get changed."