The Columbus Affair: A Novel

by Steve Berry

  He knew to whom she referred.

  They followed a graveled path through the markers to the far side, directly adjacent to the western wall. Still, no one else had, as yet, entered the cemetery. Traffic could be heard, but not seen. She stopped before one of the larger tombs, framed by Renaissance cartouches sunk deep into the ground. The side facing them was decorated with a motif of grapes and a lion. He knew who rested beneath the elaborate marker.

  Rabbi Loew.

  Chief rabbi of Prague in the late 16th century. Rector of the Talmudic school, teacher, author. An original thinker.

  Like him.

  “The most visited tomb in this cemetery,” she said. “He was a great man.”

  He noticed the stones lined across the top and on every other available edge. Jews rarely brought flowers to graves, as stones were the traditional way of expressing respect. A custom that dated back to their nomadic ways in the desert when rock covered the dead to keep the animals at bay. These stones, though, were special. Many had scraps of paper beneath them, some affixed by rubber bands. Each contained a prayer or a wish left for the rabbi to act upon. He’d left one himself a few years ago.

  His hope that one day he’d find the Temple treasure.

  Which might soon come to be.

  ———

  TOM ADMIRED THE CEREMONIAL HALL. FROM THE ARTICLE HE’D written years ago, he was familiar with the Prague Burial Society. Membership was restricted to senior married men of unimpeachable repute who could provide for the sick and the dead. He’d toured the building then. The first floor had once been used for purification, the basement a mortuary, the second floor a meeting room. The walls were decorated with intricate murals, the floors a rich mosaic tile. This had been an important place. Now it was a museum.

  He, Alle, and Berlinger stood among wood and glass cases that displayed funerary objects. Various paintings depicted the society’s history and activities. A six-candled, polished brass chandelier burned bright.

  “These objects were once used by the society,” Berlinger said.

  “They’re not important,” Alle said. “Why are we here?”

  “Young lady, you may talk to your father in such a disrespectful manner. But not to me.”

  She seemed unfazed by the rebuke. “You’re playing games with us.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “You know why we’re here.”

  “I have to be sure.”

  “Of what?” she asked.

  But Berlinger did not answer. Instead he reached for Tom’s arm, leading him toward a set of display cases that fronted an outer wall. Three tall, arched windows with a Star of David design towered above the cases.

  “You might find these interesting,” Berlinger said to him.

  They approached the displays, and Tom’s eyes began to search inside.

  “Out the windows. Look,” the rabbi whispered.

  Then the old man released his grip and turned back toward Alle.

  “Come, my dear,” Berlinger said. “I want to show you something in the next room.”

  Tom watched as they disappeared through an archway.

  He turned to the window but discovered the glass in each was opaque. Only through small, transparent pockets here and there in the design could he see outside.

  The view was of the cemetery, the tombstones, blooming trees, and emerging grass. All quiet except for movement on the far side. Near the wall. Two people. A woman.

  And Zachariah Simon.

  A touch to his shoulder startled him.

  He whirled.

  Berlinger stood a foot away.

  “Would you like to hear what they are saying?”

  ———

  ZACHARIAH STARED AT THE AMBASSADOR. TIME TO FIND OUT what was really going on. “No more games. What are you doing here in Prague? And do not tell me you came to simply talk.”

  “I would say it was good I came. You discovered that I truly do understand you.” She paused. “And that I know what you are planning.”

  That was true.

  “But you are right,” she said. “I came to tell you that the Americans are more intent on stopping you than I realized. They have been watching you for nearly a decade. Were you aware of that?”

  He shook his head.

  “It is true. I have been able to divert them for a while, but eventually they will be back on your trail.”

  “And when will they discover that you are not their friend?”

  She smiled. “After I become prime minister, when they will have no choice but to work with me. Hopefully, by then you will have changed the world.”

  What a thought.

  “I wanted you to know this information,” she said. “You have to be careful, Zachariah. Extremely careful. I can protect you only so far.”

  He caught the warning in her voice. “I am always careful.”

  “One can never be too careful.”

  He caught the smile on her lips.

  He’d already plugged the leak within his inner circle. But he wondered. Had Béne Rowe sold him out to the United States? He’d been told Brian Jamison worked for Rowe. Twice, in Jamaica, Rowe had made Jamison available, touting his abilities. Rowe either was a party to the American lie or had been duped himself.

  “And what of Thomas Sagan,” she asked. “Is he proving helpful or a problem?”

  This woman was informed.

  “He has proven to be a problem.”

  “I assume you know he is a journalist who once covered the Middle East. I remember reading his stories. He was regarded as one of the best in the region. Not a favorite, though, of those in positions of power. He took both sides to task.”

  “How do you know so much about Sagan?”

  “Because, Zachariah, I know who destroyed him eight years ago.”

  “Destroyed?”

  She nodded. “See, there are things that you do not know. The supposedly fabricated story that brought about Sagan’s downfall? I read it yesterday for the first time. It dealt with Israeli and Palestinian extremists. Explosive information, detrimental to both sides. And all false. Sagan was set up. The sources he quoted were actors, the information fed to him, all designed to end his career. Like the subject of the story itself, a bit extreme, but the tactic worked.”

  “There are people with that capability?”

  “Certainly. Their services are for sale and they are not ideologues. They work for any and all sides.”

  Unlike himself.

  “Do what you have to with Sagan,” she said. “Handle the problem. I am on my way back to Israel. I came here to meet with you one last time. You and I shall never speak again. You know that once you have accomplished your objective, you cannot be a part of what happens after. You are David to my Solomon.”

  From Chronicles. King David had wanted to honor the Lord with a permanent monument to take the place of a roving tabernacle. He possessed ample slaves from his many war victories, along with gold and silver, and planned to build the greatest temple then known. But God told him that he’d spent his life in violence. He was a man of blood. So the privilege of erecting the temple would pass to his son, Solomon.

  “You are a man of blood,” she said to him.

  He considered that a compliment. “Which is necessary.”

  “As it was to David. So finish this last battle, start your war, and allow Israel to reap the reward.”

  ———

  TOM STARED AT THE MONITOR. BERLINGER STOOD BESIDE HIM. They’d descended to the basement of the ceremonial hall. What had once been a mortuary was now some sort of security center. A bank of eight LCD screens hung from one wall, fed by cameras located throughout the Jewish quarter. Berlinger had explained that this was where they kept an eye on things. He saw that the Old-New Synagogue was monitored in two views. Easy to see how his presence had been so quickly detected.

  “I know who destroyed him.”

  That’s what the woman had said.

  No one else occupie
d the windowless room. Berlinger had excused the man on duty when they’d entered. Alle had been taken to the Old-New Synagogue for prayers.

  “She went willingly,” the rabbi said. “Though I gave her little choice. I thought it better that only you see this.”

  He wanted to flee the building and confront the woman. She was the first person, other than the man in Barnes & Noble, who’d ever uttered those words.

  He stared at Berlinger.

  Who clearly knew more than he was saying.

  “You believe me, don’t you?” he said. “You know who I am.”

  The rabbi nodded. “That is right. You are indeed the Levite. But you are in grave danger.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  BÉNE FOLLOWED FRANK CLARKE AS THEY NEGOTIATED THE EVERTIGHTENING tunnel. Thankfully, he’d never been claustrophobic. He actually felt comfortable within closed spaces, away from a world that demanded he act like one person, but be another. Nobody watched him here. Or judged him. He was just himself.

  “You told me the Tainos cared nothing for gold,” he said. “So why have a mine?”

  “I said that they didn’t value gold. For them, it was decoration. So when the Spanish asked about the mine, it meant little to reveal its location. It was much later that this place became special.”

  Frank kept walking, the dry, rocky floor brittle beneath their wet boots. Luckily the route was a straight line with no offshoots. No evidence of bats or any other creature could be seen or smelled, the unique entrance ensuring that the cave stayed pristine.

  He spotted something ahead, just beyond the reach of Clarke’s light.

  They came closer and stopped.

  A grille of stalactites barred the passage, the rock thick and black, like metal.

  “The iron grille?” he asked.

  Frank nodded. “A little fact creeps into every legend.”

  He recalled what else he’d been told. “And men have died getting this far?”

  “That they have.”

  “What killed them?”

  “Curiosity.”

  They wedged their way between the rock. Another tunnel stretched on the opposite side. He heard a rush of water and they found a swift moving underground stream. His light revealed a blue-green tint to the surging flow.

  “We have to jump,” Frank said.

  Not more than two meters, which they both easily negotiated. On the other side the tunnel ended at a spacious chamber formed from two massive slabs, one the roof, the other the floor. The walls were brick-shaped stones, their surface worked smooth, their rise about five meters. Carvings and pictographs dotted the whitish surfaces.

  Too many to count.

  “It’s amazing,” Frank said. “The Tainos knew nothing of metal smelting. All of their tools were stone, bone, or wood. Yet they were able to create this.”

  Béne noticed another level that extended out from the far wall, up maybe two meters. He shone his light and spotted more ancient art.

  Then he saw the bones, all shapes and sizes, scattered on the floor against the far wall. And what looked like a canoe.

  “The Tainos came here to escape the Spanish. Instead of being slaves they waited here, in the dark, to die. That’s what makes this place so special.” Frank stepped to a rocky ledge that extended from the wall like a half table. Two lamps were there and Béne watched as both were lit. “Burns castor oil. Odorless. Which is good here. The Tainos knew of it, too. They were much smarter than the Spanish ever thought.”

  The mention of castor oil made him think of his mother, and how she’d make him swallow the black, smelly, evil-tasting liquid every year, just before he returned to school. A purging ritual that most Jamaican schoolchildren endured, one he came to despise. He knew that the Tainos and Maroons used the oil to ease pain and swelling, but the only use he’d ever found for the stuff was as a lubricant for tractors.

  Their lamps revealed the chamber in all its glory.

  “This is where Columbus came,” Frank said, “after he murdered the six warriors. Why he killed them, no one knows. He left the island after that and never returned. But hundreds of other Spaniards did come. Eventually, they enslaved and slaughtered the Tainos.” Clarke pointed upward. “On the second level, there, in offshoots, are gold veins. The ore is still there.”

  “And you’ve done nothing with it?”

  “This place is more sacred than gold.”

  He remembered what Tre had told him. “And the Jews? Did they store their wealth here, too?”

  Two men appeared from the portal leading out.

  Both wet, dressed only in swim trunks.

  Béne’s heart thumped with a pang of fear that he quickly quelled with anger.

  “I’m sorry,” Frank said in a cold, calculating monotone. “The colonels overruled me. These men are from a group in Spanish Town. Yesterday they came and asked if anyone had heard or seen anything in the mountains the past few days. They say their don is missing and you were the last one to meet with him.”

  “Why didn’t they come and ask me?”

  “ ’Cause we knows the answer,” one of the black forms said. “Da posses seh you to pay.”

  He wasn’t interested in what some gang had decreed. He was more concerned with Frank Clarke’s betrayal.

  “Mi nuh like di vides, man,” he said to his friend in patois.

  He meant it, too. Lots of bad vibes here.

  Frank stared at him. “Mi nuh like, either. But dis your worry, Béne.”

  The colonel turned to leave.

  “If yu a deestant smadi, mi wi gi yu a cotch.”

  He knew Clarke understood him. “If you were a decent man, you’d stay a little while.”

  “That’s the thing, Béne. I don’t feel so decent.”

  And Clarke left through the portal.

  “I wuk o soon done,” one of the men said to him. “We gon kill you.”

  No more patois. He’d used it to disarm these two. “I’m going to give you a chance to leave here and we’ll forget this happened. That way you’ll stay alive. If you don’t, I’m going to kill you both.”

  One of them laughed. “You nut dat good, Béne. A no lie. You gon die.”

  He’d not had a fight in a long while, but that did not mean he’d forgotten how. He grew up in Spanish Town among some of the roughest gangs in the Caribbean and learned early on that to be a Rowe meant to be tough. Challenges came from all quarters, each pretender wanting to be the one who took Béne Rowe down. None had ever succeeded.

  The two men flanked him. Neither was armed. Apparently they intended to kill him with their bare hands.

  He almost smiled.

  Apparently, the idea had been to lure him here using Frank Clarke. He wondered how much the gang had paid for that service, since little in Jamaica was free.

  He studied the men. Both were tall and broad. Surely strong. But he wondered how tested they were. British redcoats had been the best-trained, best-equipped soldiers in the world. But a group of runaway slaves with little more than spears, knifes, and a few muskets brought them to their knees.

  This was his world.

  His time.

  And nobody was going to take that from him.

  He pivoted, grabbed the nearest lantern by its handle, and hurled it at the man to his left. The projectile was deflected with a bat to the ground. It only broke the glass receptacle and spread the oil, which burst into flames, the fireball driving the one man back. He seized the moment to yank his trouser leg up and free the blade from its sheath.

  A diving knife, used when he snorkeled. He kept the thick blade sharp, one edge serrated.

  As the one man rounded the flames, he advanced on the other, faking right, then thrusting left, grabbing the man’s arm and whirling the body around. As he did the hand with the knife rushed up and, with one swipe, he opened the throat.

  He shoved the man aside.

  He heard the gurgle of breath and saw blood spurt out. The man reached for the wound, but there w
as nothing he could do. The body dropped to the ground, twitching in agony.

  The other man pounced, but Béne was ready.

  The knife swished upward again and a second throat was slit.

  Shock filled his assailant’s eyes.

  He watched as death immediately grabbed hold and the body collapsed.

  Enough of this.

  Frank Clarke was now his concern.

  Movement in the darkness beyond the exit caught his gaze. He leaped to one side of the portal, knife ready. Reinforcements?

  Someone entered the chamber. A man.

  He lunged and slammed the body to the rock wall, bringing the knife up, its leading edge pressed to flesh, ready to cut.

  Tre Halliburton stared at him, eyes wide with terror.

  He exhaled and relaxed his grip. “I told you to stay outside.”

  Tre aimed a finger at the doorway. “He told me to come.”

  Béne’s gaze darted to the man who stood there.

  Frank Clarke.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  TOM’S PATIENCE HAD RUN OUT. “EXPLAIN YOURSELF, OLD MAN. And fast.”

  “Is what that woman said about you true?”

  He nodded. “I was set up. Taken down.”

  “Your daughter does not know?”

  “It wouldn’t matter to her. My mistakes there were my own. And as you’ve seen, probably irreversible.”

  “I had a son like that, too.”

  He caught the past tense.

  “He died before I had the chance to make amends. I’ve always regretted that.”

  Not his concern. What mattered was the woman. Barely a hundred yards away. Who could clear his name. His gaze darted to the monitor.

  “You can’t do it,” Berlinger said, seemingly reading his mind.

  “The hell I can’t.”

  “If you confront them, the quest will end.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because it can’t continue without my assistance. I won’t give that if you leave this room.”

  “I don’t give a damn about this quest. My life was destroyed. Everything I worked for was taken from me. I was about to blow my brains out a few days ago because of that. I want my reputation back.”