The Columbus Affair

by Steve Berry

  He motioned toward the object.

  “GPS locator,” Tre said. “Unlike the Spanish, we don’t have to grope in the dark. I have coordinates for the cave site.”

  “You really think this is it?”

  “I do, Béne. Everything points this way.”

  He introduced Tre to Clarke and said, “He’s Maroon, and already knows of this place.”

  He handed Frank a flashlight. Through the moonlight he caught the concern on his old friend’s face.

  “What else aren’t you telling me?” Béne asked.

  But there was no reply.

  Instead Frank turned and headed into the trees.

  ———

  ZACHARIAH STARED AT THE AMBASSADOR. “HOW DID YOU KNOW I was in Prague?”

  “Those friends of mine,” she said in English. “Did you check on Jamison’s body?”

  “Of course. Impressive.”

  She nodded at his compliment. “The local mayor here is also a friend. After you contacted him earlier, I did as well.”

  “And how did you know I made contact?”

  “That phone you carry. If you use it, the world will know.”

  “Which means you have friends in the Mossad.”

  “Among other places. But, like I said yesterday, they know nothing. This is between you and me.”

  “What do you want?”

  “A private moment, and I thought this an excellent location.”

  “How did you know I would come here?”

  “The lord mayor assured me that he would bring you.”

  He was uncomfortable with her presence. Yet there was nothing he could do but listen.

  “I have to say,” she said, “when I first reasoned out your plan I thought it preposterous. But, on reflection, I began to see that you are right. The Temple Mount is the perfect ignition point.”

  Since the 1967 Six-Day War Israel had controlled the city of Jerusalem. As a concession after the fighting, the Supreme Muslim Religious Council had been allowed to continue to police the thirty-five acres known as the Temple Mount. This was the place where God chose the Divine Presence to rest. From where the world expanded into its present form. Where dust was gathered to create the first man. Where Abraham bound Isaac. Jews around the world faced toward it when offering prayers. Solomon had built the First Temple there. The Second Temple rose from the same spot. So holy was the site that rabbinical law forbid Jews to walk there so as to avoid unintentionally stepping where the Holy of Holies once existed.

  “You have never mentioned what my plan is,” he said.

  She grinned. “No, I have not.”

  Maybe it was good she’d come. He had a few questions of his own.

  “God has never rescinded His command in Exodus that we build a sanctuary for Him,” she said. “Muslim control of the Temple Mount is like a dagger in the side of every Jew, and they are not going anywhere.”

  He knew what Islam called the mount. Noble Sanctuary. The end point of Muhammad’s journey to Jerusalem. The spot from where the prophet ascended into heaven. One of the oldest Islamic structures in the world, the Dome of the Rock, was there, facing Mecca, built atop the spot where the Second Temple had formerly stood.

  “We should never have ceded control,” she said. “What did they say in 1967? ‘If we try to keep it all, then there will never be any semblance of peace.’ ”

  “Yet we gave the mount away and still lived in fear. Arabs threatened to invade every day.”

  And they finally did. In 1973. The Yom Kippur War. Then, six years later, everything won during that conflict was given back at Camp David with the accords signed by Carter, Begin, and Sadat.

  Damn Americans, interfering again.

  He told her what he thought.

  “We did learn one thing from those two wars,” she said. “Keep the Arabs fighting among themselves, and they will never have time to fight their enemy.”

  Useless information, considering all that happened afterward. “I remember the day the Israeli flag flying atop the Dome of the Rock was lowered. My father cried. So did I. That was when I resolved to never concede anything to our enemies.”

  The ambassador knelt down, examining some of the rotting papers. “They lie here, in the dark, and slowly disappear. So sad.”

  But there was something more important. “Like the bodies encasing us.”

  She stood and faced him. “I want to hear more about your spark.”

  Enough. “I want to hear what you know.”

  ———

  TOM TRIED TO PROCESS WHAT BERLINGER HAD JUST SAID. “You agree with me?”

  “Marc and I debated this point at length. He felt strongly that the secret should remain hidden. I thought then it was time Jews were restored their sacred treasures. Why not? Christians, Muslims, Buddhists all have theirs. Should not we also be allowed?”

  He watched Alle, who was processing everything that was being said. He decided to offer her the complete note. “Here’s what your grandfather actually wrote.”

  She accepted the paper and read.

  “Why is their such tension between you two?” Berlinger asked.

  “She hates me.”

  “Is that true?” the rabbi asked Alle.

  She looked up from the page and asked him, “Why did you trick me?”

  “Your loyalty is to Simon.”

  “Who is Simon?” Berlinger asked.

  And he told him.

  “I know the man. He has been here several times. His money is appreciated by some.”

  “But not you?”

  “I am always cautious with men who offer money freely.”

  “He’s dangerous as hell,” Tom said. “He’s after the Temple treasure. And so is the American government. Any idea why?”

  He saw that the information caught the old man by surprise.

  “Marc was afraid that, one day, the secret could no longer be contained. His fears were centered on Germany and the Nazis. Mine were, too, but eventually I feared the Soviets more. Neither of us, though, thought of a threat from one of our own. Is Simon after the treasure for all Jews?”

  “That’s exactly what he wants,” Alle said. “He agrees with you. It’s time we have our sacred vessels restored.”

  “But you don’t concur,” Berlinger said to Tom.

  “That’s the last thing Simon wants.”

  “Then what is he after?”

  “My father,” Alle said, “believes Zachariah is a danger. You may or may not know, but my father was once a newspaper reporter. He was fired for fabricating a story. So you better keep that in mind before you start listening to his tales.”

  He slammed his hands onto the table and sprang from the chair. “I’ve had enough of your smart mouth. You don’t have a clue what happened with that story. I understand that you want to believe I’m a cheat and a fraud. That probably helps you keep on hating me. But you listen to me. I made enough mistakes with you as a father. Hate me for those, if you want. But don’t hate me for something that I didn’t do.”

  His gaze bore into her.

  Alle stared back.

  Berlinger gently laid a hand on his arm.

  He faced the rabbi, who nodded slightly, indicating that he should retake his seat.

  He did.

  “We have to make some decisions,” Berlinger said, his voice low. “Important decisions. Both of you, come with me.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  BÉNE FOLLOWED TRE, WHO LAGGED BEHIND FRANK CLARKE. None of them had switched on their flashlights. No need. Sharp rays of bright moonlight provided more than enough illumination. Tre was reading the GPS, but Frank plunged ahead without any electronic aid.

  “He’s headed straight for it,” Tre said to him.

  No surprise, considering the conversation he’d had with Clarke back at the estate. He’d never thought his old friend would deceive him in such a way. But that violation had made him cautious, so he’d come prepared, a semiautomatic tucked into a shoulder holster
beneath his open shirt.

  “Another fifty meters,” Tre said.

  A rush of falling water could be heard. They pushed through more foliage until they found a pool, water tumbling down from twenty meters above. A stream entered and exited the pool, disappearing into the black forest. He’d seen a thousand of these in the mountains around his estate. Water was not in short supply on Jamaica, and had always been one of its main draws.

  Frank’s flashlight clicked on and the beam cruised across the pool’s surface, then up the waterfall. “There’s a slit in the rock. Behind the water. A cave. But it’s a dead end. A false route that goes back to nothing.”

  “So why show it to us?” he asked.

  The colonel lowered his light and turned. “It once led to the mine, but was sealed long ago. Maroons eventually laid traps there. A way to deter anyone who might come for a look.”

  “What are you saying, Frank?”

  “That what you are about to see has cost men their lives.”

  He heard the unspoken part. There’s risk here.

  “I’m ready,” he declared.

  “That gun you’re toting will do no good. You have to swim to get inside.”

  He stripped off his shirt, then removed the shoulder harness, handing both to Tre. He started to remove his pants and boots but Frank stopped him.

  “You’ll need those in there.”

  “So what do I do?” Béne asked.

  “There’s an opening about three meters down, below the waterfall. It’s a shaft that leads up a few meters to a chamber that was part of the mine at the time of Columbus. Back then, you walked straight in through the slit behind the falls. Not anymore. That’s why this place has never been found.”

  “How do you know about it?” Tre asked.

  “It’s part of my heritage.”

  “I’m going, too,” Tre said to him.

  “No. You’re not,” Béne said. “This is between Maroons.”

  ———

  ZACHARIAH WAITED FOR AN ANSWER TO HIS QUESTION.

  “You want the Third Temple,” the ambassador said. “Without the coming of the Messiah.”

  “It is my belief that the Messiah will return if we build the Third Temple.”

  “Most Jews believe that the Messiah must first come before we will have our Third Temple.”

  “They are wrong.”

  And he meant it. Nowhere had he ever read anything that convinced him that the Temple must await the Messiah. The first two were built without him. Why not the third? Certainly it would be preferable to have the Messiah. His arrival would herald the Olam-ha-Ba, the World to Come where all people would coexist peacefully. War would cease to exist. Jews would return from their exile to their home in Israel. No murder, robbery, or sin.

  Which justified everything he was about to do.

  “You also plan to start a war,” she said. “Tell me, Zachariah, how will you return our Temple treasures to the mount?”

  She did know.

  “In a way that the Muslims cannot ignore.”

  “Your spark.”

  What better way to reawaken a sleeping Israel than to have the Jews’ most venerated objects—lost for two thousand years—attacked on the Temple Mount. And the Arabs would react. They would regard any such act as a direct threat to their control. Every day they suppressed any semblance of a Jewish presence on the mount. For the Temple treasure to return after 2,000 years? That would be the greatest provocation of them all.

  They would act.

  And even the meekest of Israeli citizens would call for retaliation.

  He could already here commentators comparing the Babylonians to the Romans to the Arabs, each defiance a denial to Jews of their divine right to occupy the mount and build the Lord a sanctuary. Twice before destruction occurred with no consequences. What about this time? they would ask.

  Israel possessed more than enough might to defend itself.

  This singular act of sacrilege would resurrect its protective vigilance.

  “A spark that will ignite a blazing fire,” he said.

  “That it will.”

  “And what will you do,” he asked, “once all that happens?”

  He truly wanted to know.

  “A call in the Knesset for retaliation. The Temple Mount retaken. Every single Muslim expelled. When they resist, which they will, they will be shown that we are not weak.”

  “And the world? The Americans? They will not want any of that to happen.”

  “Then I will ask them, what did you do when your country was attacked by terrorists? You mounted an army and invaded Afghanistan. Eventually, you invaded Iraq. You defended what you believe to be important. That is all we will be doing and, in the end, we will have Israel, the mount, and our Third Temple. If you are right, the Messiah will then come and we will have global peace. I would say all that is worth the risk.”

  So would he.

  As had his father and grandfather.

  “How close are you to success?” she asked him.

  “Closer than I have ever been before. The final piece of the puzzle is here, in Prague. Which I should have shortly.”

  She seemed pleased. “What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing. I have to do this myself.”

  ———

  BÉNE DOVE INTO THE CHILLY WATER AND CLAWED HIS WAY down, following the light Frank Clarke held as he led the way. He should be cold but his blood ran hot. He felt like one of his ancestors, preparing to do battle with British redcoats, their weapons few, their determination great.

  Clarke’s light disappeared into a dark hole, the beam faded but was still there. With a light in one hand he followed and entered the same cavity, about two meters in diameter. He stared through the water and still saw Clarke’s light toward the ceiling. His pants and boots were like anchors and he was reaching the limit of his breath, so he kicked toward the brightness, propelling himself upward, breaking the surface and sucking air.

  Frank stood on a rocky ledge, pants dripping, staring down, holding his light. “It takes about all you have, doesn’t it?”

  That it did.

  He laid his light on the rocks and leveraged himself from the water. His lungs stabilized. His nerves calmed, but remained on high alert.

  Frank angled his beam around the chamber. He saw it was irregularly shaped, a few meters deep, the same in height, with one exit—beside which, carved into the rock, was a hooked X.

  “The mark of the Spanish,” Frank said. “Maybe made by the great Admiral of the Ocean, Columbus himself.”

  ———

  ALLE WALKED WITH HER FATHER AND BERLINGER.

  They’d left the underground room and house, emerging onto the street. The clock above what the rabbi noted as the Jewish town hall read nearly 9:00 A.M. People filled the cobbled streets, the quarter alive for another day. Vendors were beginning to open stalls that lined the cemetery wall, the iron gates leading inside to the graves now guarded by an attendant. She could hear a murmur of traffic and the growl of engines in the distance. The chill from earlier remained, though it dissipated rapidly beneath a brightening sun.

  Her father’s outburst had affected her.

  She wondered about something he’d said.

  “Don’t hate me for something that I didn’t do.”

  She’d called him a cheater and a fraud because of all that happened.

  But what had he meant?

  She should have asked, but could not bring herself to do it. She simply wanted to learn what she could and get away from him. She carried her shoulder bag once again with the cell phone inside. Her father harbored the note, the key, and the map.

  Of Jamaica, she’d seen.

  What did all this mean?

  Berlinger led them to a turreted building identified by a placard as the ceremonial hall, built in 1908. Three-storied, neo-Romanesque style, fortresslike, with a turret rising from one side to a distinctive slate roof.

  The rabbi stopped, then turned
and faced them both. “From that balcony up there funeral orations were once delivered. This was the place where the dead were prepared for final resting. Now it’s a museum.”

  Berlinger motioned to an exterior staircase. “Let us go inside.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  BÉNE SWITCHED ON HIS LIGHT, GLAD HE’D BROUGHT WATERPROOF cave lamps. And though his gun was outside, he’d not come unarmed. On the pretense of forcing more water from his pants he checked for the knife strapped to his right leg.

  Still there.

  The story of Martha Brae his mother reminded him of at dinner came to mind. How she led the Spanish into a cave to find gold, only to disappear and leave them to drown.

  “The Tainos showed the Spanish this place,” Frank said. “We have to follow that tunnel for a little way to see more.”

  He studied the chasm, its diameter about two meters. Clusters of black rock guarded the entrance. He’d noticed a moment ago, and now again—air rushed in and out from the tunnel, like breaths, in a rhythm.

  “Columbus was stranded on Jamaica for a year,” Frank said. “During that time there was a lot of contact among him, his men, and the Tainos. Once he was able to leave the island, he returned a few months later and bargained for six natives to help him with an expedition. They brought three crates into the jungle. Some say they were full of gold, but no one knows. Columbus left and the bodies of the six Tainos were found in the forest, all stabbed to death. The first to die for this place.”

  He said nothing.

  “The Tainos returned and found the entrance behind the waterfall sealed by rock. The doings of the Spanish. The Spanish knew nothing of the second entrance we just used. So the Tainos were able to come back inside.”

  “What did they find?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  ———

  ZACHARIAH FOLLOWED THE AMBASSADOR UP THE LADDER, BACK to ground level. He was invigorated discussing the possibilities. They’d both expressed regret that the precious relics might be harmed, but he’d made clear that their sacrifice was the price to be paid. Another menorah, more silver trumpets, and a second divine table could be made according to God’s dictates. But the state of Israel—that was singular, a precious commodity, which could not be replaced.