The Columbus Affair: A Novel

by Steve Berry

  “Abiram was a man of few words. That was actually a long conversation for him. I think the note makes clear that I had no idea he was some kind of Levite. Now that task is supposedly mine.”

  “As I told you in Florida, you are not worthy even to say that word.”

  “Are we done?”

  Simon nodded. “Our business is concluded. Perhaps you can now finish what you started at your father’s house.”

  He resisted the urge to slug the SOB. “Or maybe I’ll shoot you.”

  Simon frowned. “There is one other matter you might care about. Something I doubt your daughter will tell you. She was not kidnapped. At least not by me. She willingly participated in the charade you witnessed.”

  He told himself to stay calm.

  “Tell him,” Simon said to Alle. “The truth is always best.”

  Alle said nothing, but she was clearly surprised by Simon’s admission.

  “I mention this because she actually was kidnapped yesterday by others, released today thanks to me.”

  “I was told you were going to kill me,” Alle said.

  “I assure you, the danger was from them, not me.” Simon faced Tom. “Her kidnappers work for a business associate of mine who decided to change our relationship. I intervened and made a deal for her release. I mention this because the man who took her prisoner just entered the church.”

  ———

  ALLE WHIRLED AND SAW BRIAN, STANDING AT THE OPPOSITE END of the nave. He’d said he was going to wait outside.

  Another lie.

  “He is no friend of mine,” Zachariah said, “or yours. I wish you well.”

  “I’m going with you,” she said.

  “Your father would never allow it. Talk to him. Work through whatever needs to be said between the two of you.”

  An unnatural fear filled her. One she’d never felt before. “Why did you sell me out?”

  “The truth is never a bad thing, is it, Mr. Sagan?”

  “I guess you’ll find out.”

  ———

  ZACHARIAH LEFT AND WALKED ACROSS THE CHECKERBOARD tiles to where Brian Jamison waited. Casually, he slipped the paper Sagan had given him into his trouser pocket. He stopped a few feet away.

  “Get what you wanted?” Jamison asked.

  “That’s between me and your boss.”

  “So you’re just going to walk right out of here? Let them go? Let me have them?”

  He turned back toward where Alle and Tom Sagan stood.

  “Not exactly.”

  ———

  TOM WATCHED THE SCENE A HUNDRED FEET AWAY, THEN ASKED Alle, “Is what he said true?”

  She did not answer him, but he saw uncertainty and fear in her face, both of which caused him alarm.

  “That man there,” she said. “His name is Brian Jamison and he did take me prisoner yesterday. What Zachariah said about him could be true.”

  The man started their way as Simon left the church.

  Thank goodness he was ready.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Out of here.”

  He led her across the transept to the iron gate with the attendant. No more tickets for the catacombs were being checked. Inna had arranged for him to have a private tour after the underground area closed for the day. He’d talked with the attendant earlier and she was expecting him, waving them both through. A quick glance back and he saw the man called Brian heading straight for the entrance. Tom stepped to where the tile floor stopped and the stone risers started their decent. He passed through the gate, then grabbed the iron bars and slammed them shut, the lock clicking into place. When he’d arrived a couple of hours ago he’d noticed that the doorway would take a key to reopen. The surprised attendant surely held that key, but the minute or two that would buy them would be critical to their escape.

  He’d thought Simon would be his enemy.

  Now there was a new threat.

  “Follow me,” he told Alle.

  And they raced down the stairs into the crypt.

  ———

  ZACHARIAH HESITATED AT THE MAIN DOORS AND WATCHED AS Alle and her father entered the catacombs. Sagan had apparently closed the iron gate, which stopped Jamison’s advance, the cathedral attendant now trying to reopen the lock. He’d wondered what Rowe would do next. Apparently he still wanted Alle Becket—and now her father. He’d compromised Alle because he wanted her to go with her father. That way Rócha could deal with them both. Of course, he assumed they would leave through the main doors.

  But that was not the case.

  And what Sagan had said to him about the truth.

  “I guess you’ll find out.”

  Something was wrong.

  He stepped outside and immediately spotted Rócha. He gestured and his man trotted over and said, “I saw Jamison go in.”

  “They are all headed down into the catacombs.”

  He wondered if this might be an opportunity.

  “Come.”

  And he and Rócha reentered the church.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  TOM HUSTLED DOWN THE STAIRS WITH ALLE CLOSE BEHIND.

  They found the bottom.

  Before them stretched a maze of passageways, all hewn from bedrock centuries ago. Now it was an elaborate, Baroque necropolis where bishops and provosts lay buried. He’d studied the cathedral guidebook while waiting and had learned the layout, knowing where he had to go. When he’d met with Inna, one favor had been to get him inside the cathedral unnoticed.

  The other had been to get him out.

  “That way,” he pointed.

  ———

  ZACHARIAH HALTED HIS AND RÓCHA’S ADVANCE AND THEY sought cover behind one of the pillars. Brian Jamison hurried the attendant, who was still trying to reopen the gate. The commotion had drawn some attention from visitors, but not much. He’d toured the catacombs before. Lots of tombs, crypts, and bones. But he wondered. Was there another way out?

  The older woman fumbled with her keys and finally inserted the right one into the lock.

  Jamison disappeared, descending stairs.

  He and Rócha rushed forward just as the woman was beginning to relock the gate. He was careful to keep his face angled away from her.

  “Entschuldigen sie bitte,” he said as they slipped past.

  The older woman opened her mouth to speak, but Rócha slammed the gate shut behind them.

  ———

  ALLE WAS CONFUSED AND SHAKEN. SHE’D HAD NO CHOICE BUT to go with her father. Zachariah had sold her out. He seemed irritated. But how could she blame him? She’d accused him of trying to kill her. Had he in fact saved her? And was it Brian, not Zachariah, lying to her?

  She had no idea.

  She knew about the catacombs, though. A series of vaulted subterranean rooms. Lots of clergy were buried here, along with the bodies, hearts, and viscera of the Hapsburgs who, for centuries, ruled much of Europe. There were also the bones of over 11,000 people moved from the cemeteries above after an outbreak of plague in the mid-18th century. Their remains lay in massive piles, the display a bit macabre for her tastes. She recalled from her tour that the subterranean rooms flowed one into the other, each lit from the amber glow of incandescent fixtures. Her father seemed to know exactly where he was going, bypassing the main visitor areas that lay straight from the stairs, leading them left toward the bone rooms. Along the way they passed several notable tomb monuments with elaborate copper coffins.

  She stopped. “Where are we going?”

  He turned. “Out of here.”

  “How do you know there’s a way out?”

  She caught the irritation on his face.

  “Contrary to what you may think, I’m not stupid. I thought ahead.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Maybe because I got to watch while my daughter was groped by two men, tied to a bed. You think that might motivate someone? Now I’m told the whole thing was an act. Was it, Alle?”


  She hadn’t seen anger from her father in a long while and its presence unnerved her. But lying seemed useless. “He was right. It was an act.”

  He stepped closer to her. “And you have the nerve to judge me.”

  She knew what he meant. All those times she’d told him what a lousy husband and father he’d been, calling him a liar, a fraud, culminating at her mother’s funeral when she demanded he leave.

  “Nothing to say?” he asked.

  “I wanted you to open the grave. I knew you wouldn’t do it if I simply asked.”

  “I wouldn’t have. But you still should have asked.”

  They stood at a junction where the main passage continued ahead and another disappeared left. A placard indicated that the bone rooms lay that way. Movement to her right caught her eye.

  Fifty feet away Brian appeared.

  Her father saw him, too.

  Their pursuer reached beneath his jacket. She knew what he kept there.

  The shoulder holster.

  A gun appeared.

  ———

  TOM REACTED TO THE SIGHT OF THE WEAPON, DECIDING INSTANTLY that they could not flee straight ahead, as this man would have a clear shot at them. Earlier, when he’d reconnoitered the catacombs, Inna had shown him the shortest way out—which, unfortunately, waited where they could not go.

  No choice.

  He grabbed Alle’s hand and they raced down the connecting passage toward the bone rooms.

  ———

  ZACHARIAH DESCENDED THE STAIRS THAT LED INTO THE CATACOMBS. Light from below illuminated the flooring, and he caught the faint movement of a shadow disappearing to his left.

  He grabbed Rócha’s arm and signaled for them to slow down.

  He also gestured with his head and Rócha found his weapon, a sound suppressor already attached to the automatic’s short barrel. He was hoping for a few undisturbed minutes down here. The problem of Brian Jamison irked him, as did something else.

  Had Sagan provided him everything?

  They ended at the bottom of the stairs in a long room with pews. Some kind of underchurch. A Baroque crucifix hung above an altar. Carefully, he peered around the edge of the wall. A corridor led out. Jamison stood fifty feet away, a gun in hand, turning left around another corner.

  He and Rócha followed.

  ———

  TOM WAS CONCERNED. THIS WAS NOT GOING AS PLANNED. HE should have entered the catacombs with Alle, the iron gate locking behind them to keep Zachariah Simon at bay. He hadn’t expected a third party in the mix and certainly had not expected his own daughter to be in collusion with the other side. From the catacombs diagram in the guidebook, he knew that the route they now were following would eventually lead to the exit he’d planned on utilizing, just in a longer and more roundabout path.

  Inna was waiting there, at the top of another stairway beyond the church’s east façade, the exit opening into a side alley, there for centuries, rarely used. A metal door, which could be opened only from the inside, protected that entrance, but Inna had managed to convince her contact at the diocese to allow her reclusive American visitor to leave from there once his private tour of the catacombs had ended. Inna herself assumed the responsibility to make sure the door was closed after they left. The diocese’s PR person had been more than willing to accommodate, knowing he was accumulating a favor from the press that might come in handy.

  Tom understood that currency.

  Once he’d been a world-class trader in it.

  They came to the end of the corridor and turned.

  Niches opened to their right and left, each blocked by iron bars. Beyond the bars, illuminated by more incandescent fixtures, bones were stacked eight feet high. Some in precise piles, others in a bewildering mix, as if tossed there. The sight was troubling and surreal. So much death packed so tight. Who were these people? How had they lived? What was their story?

  He noticed Alle’s gaze was drawn toward them, too.

  He just wanted to get out of here. But the corridor that bisected the bone rooms was long and straight. Maybe sixty feet from end to end with stone arches and iron bars lining both sides. Little cover. Not good.

  “Stop right there,” a voice said behind him.

  He and Alle halted and turned.

  Their pursuer stood twenty feet away.

  A gun pointed straight at them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  BÉNE SAT IN THE CABIN OF THE KING AIR C90B, A SMALL TURBOPROP that he chartered whenever he traveled anywhere in the Caribbean. Luckily, the plane had been available on short notice and he and Tre Halliburton had climbed on board in Montego Bay. Tre had said there might be more information in Cuba, so he’d made a call and gained them access to the country. He regularly did business with the Cubans. They knew him and had been eager to cooperate. The plane could accommodate up to seven passengers, but with just the two of them on board there was plenty of room. What he liked about this particular charter was the service. The galley was always stocked with fine foods, the bar top-shelf liquors. Not that it mattered much to him, he drank precious little, but it did matter to his guests. Tre was enjoying a rum and cola.

  “This archive is privately owned,” Tre said. “I’ve always wanted to take a look but could not get into Cuba.”

  “Why do you think it would be helpful?”

  “Some of what I found last night. There were constant references to Cuba in the Spanish documents left in Jamaica. The archivist and I have talked about this Cuban cache before. He’s actually seen it. He said that there are more documents there from the Spanish time than anywhere he knows of.”

  “He doesn’t know what you were after, does he?”

  “No, Béne. I know better. I assume we can get a car once on the ground?”

  “It’s waiting on us.”

  “Apparently you’ve been here before.”

  “The Cubans, for all their faults, are easy to work with.”

  “When I was in the archives last night,” Tre said, “one of the clerks told me about another clerk who’d gone missing. His name is Felipe. Is he the man who stole those documents for you?”

  “Not for me. Someone else.”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  He wasn’t going to admit to that. Not to anyone. Ever. “Why would you ask me?”

  “The clerk told me that he’s never missed work. Young man. Bright. Now he’s gone.”

  “Big leap from there to me.”

  “Why do you do it, Béne? Why not just go legitimate?”

  He’d often asked himself the same thing. Maybe it was his father’s genes swirling inside him. Unfortunately, the lure of easy money and the power it brought was impossible to ignore, though he wished sometimes that he could.

  “Should we be having this conversation?” he asked.

  “It’s just you and me here, Béne. I’m your friend.”

  Maybe so, but he wasn’t a fool. “I do nothing that harms anyone. Nothing at all. I grow my coffee, and I try to stay to myself.”

  “That man. Felipe. He might disagree with that.”

  He could still feel the glare of the wife’s eyes as he tossed the money on the bed. He’d destroyed her life. Why? For pride? Anger? No. It simply had to be done. Jamaica was a tough place, the gangs many and strong. True, he was not a formal part of that system—he’d like to think that he’d risen above it—but to maintain that status he had to manage fear. Killing that drug don had been part of that. Felipe? Not so much, since no one would ever really know what happened, except the men who worked for him. But that had been the point. If someone like a minor clerk could lie to him with no consequences, what would they do?

  Now they knew the price for that mistake.

  “It’s unfortunate that the man is missing,” he finally said.

  “I read about your father,” Tre said. “He was quite a man. He may have single-handedly created the entire Blue Mountain Coffee industry.”

  He was young when his father died,
but he remembered some and his mother had told him more. She seemed to remember only the good. His father saw a need to regulate Jamaica’s most valuable export. Of course, the Rowe family benefited. But what was wrong with that?

  “My father wanted to find this mine, too,” he told Halliburton. “He was the one who first told me about it.”

  He wanted the subject changed. This trip was about the mine, not his family or his business. But he liked Halliburton enough not to become angry at the intrusion.

  “And what will you do if the place really exists?” Tre asked.

  A gale of turbulence rattled the plane. They were twenty thousand feet over the Caribbean Sea, headed northeast toward Santiago de Cuba, a populous city on the southeast shore. The flight was short and they’d be landing soon.

  “Does it exist?” he asked.

  “Two days ago I would have said no. Now I’m not so sure.”

  “It is there,” Zachariah Simon said to him. “My family has searched for this mine a long time.”

  “Why is it important to you?”

  “It is important to my religion.”

  That surprised him. “How?”

  “Christopher Columbus was a Jew. He converted to Christianity on threat of force. But he remained a Jew at heart.”

  He’d never heard that before.

  “His real name was Christoval Arnoldo de Ysassi.”

  He made no effort to hide his disbelief.

  “It is true,” Simon said. “His family took the name Colón after converting.”

  “Why does that matter?” He truly wanted to know.

  “To my family it matters a great deal. To the Jews, even more. Do you know the story of Columbus’ death?”

  “How did Columbus die?” he asked Halliburton.

  “Where’d that come from?”

  “Something I was thinking about. How did it happen?”

  “He died in Spain in May 1506 after a long illness. Nobody knows what killed him. It wasn’t so much his death but what happened after that’s really interesting.”

  He listened as Halliburton explained how Columbus was first buried in a convent at Valladolid. Then in 1513, his daughter-in-law requested that the remains be brought to the Seville cathedral. In 1537 the family was granted permission to bring the body back to the New World, and Columbus was interred inside a newly built church in Santo Domingo.