The Guardian

by ROBBIE CHEUVRONT

  “No. I’ve never seen it before. What is it?”

  “I have no idea. I was hoping you would know.”

  “Well, what’s in it?”

  “Just some sketches. Come here. Take a look.” Anna walked around the desk to where Jason was sitting and leaned in over his shoulder. “So what is it? Where did you find it?” “I don’t know what it is, for sure. And I found it in this drawer.”

  He pointed to one of three drawers lining the side of the desk. “It was the only thing in any of them. I kind of did some snooping. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, that’s okay. I don’t mind. I mean, we are supposed to be doing this together, I guess. So what do you think it is?”

  Jason turned the sketch around, then around again, trying to get it to make sense. “It’s weird. It’s like it’s some kind of pool.”

  “Pool? Like a swimming pool?”

  “No. I think it’s some kind of underground pool. Here, look.” He pointed to the shading around what looked like a drawing of a long skinny pool of water. “See how this is all shaded? It’s almost like it’s a rock wall or something. And here, look at these.” He flipped back through some of the earlier pages in the notebook, showing drawings of tunnels. “See? On every page they all have the same starting point. Here.” He pointed to a crude drawing of a building. “Then each one follows the same shaft, until here.” He marked the spot with his index finger. Each tunnel drawing started out exactly alike until it reached the point where his finger rested. “Then, if we look past this point, they all go in different directions. But at the end of the map, so to speak, each one just ends like this.” He pointed to a big question mark that was at the bottom of the page, where the drawing of the tunnel ended. “Then, if we flip through the notebook to the last page that has writing on it, we find this drawing of the pool.”

  “That is weird,” Anna said, studying the notebook. She flipped through the pages then handed the notebook back to Jason. “So, what do you think it means. Is it important?”

  “You tell me. I barely know what’s going on around here. Remember?”

  “Well, obviously my grandpa was trying to find this pool. And we know that he was trying to hide this notebook. So it must be important. I guess we’re going to have to figure it out. Anything else in the desk?”

  “Nope. I looked in every drawer. That’s it. Just the notebook.”

  “And you said it was in that drawer?”

  “Well, not exactly in it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I was sitting here at the desk rubbing my eye, and my contact fell out. I got down on the floor to look, and I noticed that up underneath here,” he said, getting down under the desk, “there’s a seam along the panel.” He pointed.

  Anna ran her fingers along the hairline crevice.

  “When I pushed on the panel—”

  “What? You just thought, ‘Hey, I’ll push this and see what happens?’” she quipped. “You’re just a regular Hardy boy, aren’t you?”

  “Funny,” he said. “Anyway, I pushed the panel, and it clicked.” He demonstrated. “And there you go.”

  Anna felt inside the small cubby, just big enough for a small book. “So it was hidden?”

  “It appears that way.”

  “Well, that’s good.” Anna began pacing back and forth, the wheels in her brain churning. “That means it’s important. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have hidden it. We have to find out where that building is and why my grandpa was trying to find that pool.” She walked over and grabbed Jason by the hand to pull him out of the chair. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go look at the scroll.”

  Anna and Jason sat in the middle of the floor in the living room directly across from one another. The box and all its contents were strewn about the floor around them. There were loose papers, some with ancient Hebrew and Greek written on them, scattered all over. There were a few journals, some written by Thomas Riley, others written by guardians in the past, stacked off to the side. Several drawings of maps, various buildings, rivers, and artifacts were piled up, off to the other side. And Anna had placed the scroll directly between them. They were all set.

  Jason marveled at the size of the tiny scroll, no bigger than Anna’s hand, as she unrolled it and placed it in front of him. A feeling of reverence came over him. At that moment, he felt he was the most privileged person on the planet. He knelt, folded his hands, and began to pray out loud, thanking God for this awesome privilege.

  “I’m sorry.” He wiped his eyes and sat back upright. “It’s just that … well, it’s …”

  “Don’t apologize, Jason. I think it was cool. I kind of had that same feeling when Vin and I saw it earlier.”

  “It’s just that, God gave this thing to John. I mean, I’ve read about this scroll in the Bible a hundred times. And now here it sits, right in front of me! This thing is an actual artifact from scripture!”

  “But we can’t show anyone.”

  “I know. Still, I can’t help but think what this would do for the world.”

  “Or what it would do to the world.” “Yeah. It could cause a lot of commotion.” “Did you look at it, Jason?”

  “What do you mean? Yeah, I looked at it. It’s right there!” He pointed to the scroll lying open on the floor. “No, I mean, did you look at it?”

  “Oh, I guess not.” He leaned in to look at the writing that was printed on it. It looked as though it had been written five minutes ago. It showed no signs of its age. “This is incredible,” he said. “This thing should be weathered, faded, wrinkled—anything but look brand-new!”

  “I know. It’s pretty amazing. So what do we do now?”

  Jason read the translation that Anna handed him of the scroll. He tried to absorb the words as he read. And he spoke them out loud.

  What once was perfect, has now been broken. At the point of no escape, the Father opened the way. So shall He, at the point of entry. The key is found in the temple.

  He read them again and again, speaking the words out loud each time he read through it. Finally, he looked up at Anna. “Well, I’m absolutely confused. How about you?”

  Anna threw her arms up in the air. “I thought you were good at riddles. What do we do now?”

  Jason smiled and said, “I am. But this is a tough one. I mean, it’s two thousand years old and no one has cracked it yet. You honestly think we’re going to get it right off the bat?”

  “I guess you’re right.” Anna sighed. “I just don’t want everything that happened today to be in vain.”

  “Don’t worry. It won’t. I promise. You said your grandfather told you that he had figured some stuff out. Right?”

  “Well, he said he had all of his notes and things. He said I could figure out the rest.”

  “Then we will.” He stood up and stretched his arms up over his head. “I think we should call it a night. Sleep on it. Sometimes it helps me to think about something overnight. We can start fresh tomorrow—after we go shopping and get me something to wear.”

  Anna straightened up the mess they had made and then stood up. She told Jason she was going to go to the kitchen and get a glass of milk. Jason agreed and said he’d like one, too. He got the glasses while Anna retrieved the milk from the refrigerator. She poured them each a glass then put the milk away.

  Jason laughed at Anna when she pulled her glass away from her mouth. She had a milk-mustache. She obviously knew what he was laughing at, because she took the sleeve of her shirt and wiped it across her face.

  “Is that better, Mr. Milk-Mustache Police?” she said playfully.

  “I don’t know. I kind of liked it. It looked good on you.”

  Anna walked over to him and wound her arms around his neck. Then she let go, and without a word, she turned around and headed upstairs.

  Jason sat in the kitchen for a few more seconds. He didn’t know what to think about what had just happened. He knew that Anna was a sweet girl. But she couldn’t have any interest
in him. They’d just met. No, he decided. It was just a friendly hug. But if something else was a possibility, he certainly wouldn’t object. Because when he saw her this morning for the first time, he thought he’d seen the woman of his dreams. And now it was his job to keep her alive.

  CHAPTER 37

  London the Safe House

  The morning broke early for this time of year. Anna lay on her back and squinted as the laser beams of sunlight shot through tiny spaces between the slats in the blinds. She pulled the covers up over her head and groaned. It couldn’t be morning already. She had just closed her eyes.

  A light rap on her door told her that she wasn’t the only one who was up at such an awful hour of the day. She peeked her head above the covers and whined, “Gooooo awaaaaay!”

  The muffled voice on the other end of the door chuckled then said, “Okay. But you’re going to miss out on my famous eggs and bacon. If you thought the cocoa was good, well …”

  Anna sat up a little bit. She stretched and yawned, replying as she let out the big gulp of air, “Scrambled, limp bacon, and wheat toast.”

  Again Jason laughed at the response. “This isn’t the Waffle House! How about over-medium, slightly burned, and croissants?”

  Now it was Anna’s turn to laugh. “Like I said, that sounds great!”

  “Good,” Jason said. “See you downstairs in twenty.” “Thirty!” she yelled through the door.

  “Twenty! We have a very busy day today. Get up and get moving. Now you’ve got nineteen!”

  She thought he was gone, but then he knocked on her door one more time. “Yeah?”

  “Put something nice on,” he said through the closed door. “We’re going to the Israeli embassy.”

  She was dressed and headed downstairs eight minutes later.

  The smell of food hit her nostrils as she opened her bedroom door. Her stomach instantly started growling. She didn’t realize until just now how hungry she was.

  She found Jason sitting at the table, already enjoying his breakfast.

  “Want some?” he said, finishing off a croissant.

  “Looks like you’re getting enough for both of us.” She laughed.

  He finally managed to swallow the mouthful of food and said, “I’m getting ready to go back for seconds, so you’d better hurry up before I do eat it all.”

  She immediately jumped over a chair, ran for the counter, grabbed a plate, and started piling heaps of food on it. “No way, José! I’m starving!”

  Anna had barely finished swallowing her first bite when she brought up the conversation they had started on opposite sides of her bedroom door. “So what’s going on? Why the Israeli embassy? Did you find something?”

  Jason smiled and tapped the top of his head with his index finger. “I’m psychic. Something tells me we need to go there today.” He drew his eyes tight, pursed his lips, and raised an eyebrow.

  “What do you think of that?”

  Anna folded her arms and looked sideways at him and said, “I think you need psychiatric help. That’s what I think!” She smiled.

  “No really, all kidding aside, I was leafing through one of the journals last night. I took it up to bed with me. I figured it would give me something to read. Put me to sleep. Well, that didn’t work. The next thing I knew, it was two hours later, I was wide awake, and I was starting to get to know your grandpa a little bit. He was a very smart man, you know. Just the way he wrote in that journal tells me that he was way ahead of his time with his thinking. There were a few times he mentioned you in there.”

  “Really? What did he say?”

  “Just that he’d been following your life, seeing that you were taken care of, looking out for you. That kind of thing. He was very proud of you.”

  “I’d like to read that. Would you show me later?”

  “Of course. I’d be happy to. So anyway, the reason why we’re going to the Israeli embassy is because your grandpa, Thomas, had a meeting today. And I think we should go in his stead.”

  “And why would we do that?”

  Jason stood and walked over to Anna’s seat and set the journal down in front of her. It was opened to a specific page. The date read three weeks ago. She read the words staring back at her.

  Today wasn’t completely a bust. I have eliminated all but two. These were the only two that I even considered to begin with. Even so, I did need to check out the others. Wouldn’t want to be lazy in my efforts. These last two, however, have me puzzled. I don’t know why.

  I feel confident about my meeting with Benjamin. I’ll be meeting with him on the eleventh. He says that the embassy is

  the safest place to meet. I hope he’s right. We can’t afford another episode like the one we had the other day. That was close. Maybe now we can put this business of the temple to rest.

  It was signed with a slash, then “Thomas,” scribbled in cursive. Beside his name there was a star of David etched on the paper. “Today’s the eleventh,” she said. “I know. We have to go in his place.” “And how do you suppose we do that?”

  “Easy. We go and ask for Benjamin. Then you tell him you’re Anna. I’m sure your grandfather has told him about you.” “And what if he hasn’t?”

  “Well then, we’d better come up with something brilliant.

  Huh?”

  “How do you know it’s the Israeli embassy?” “I Googled it. A Benjamin Shoenfield is the minister of public relations there.”

  “I hope you’re right.” “Me, too.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Paris

  Jonathan awoke to the sound of muffled voices down the hall. He forced his eyes open and squinted as the sunlight streaming through the living room window, attacking him like a giant tidal wave. He checked his watch. Eleven thirty. Wow! He hadn’t planned on sleeping this late. He guessed his body shut down because of the gunshot wound.

  He stretched his arms out and pushed himself up on the couch. He was instantly sorry. A pain shot through his leg that felt worse than the initial bullet. He gasped for breath and tried not to pass out. It felt as if his heart had relocated to his thigh. He was sure that if he looked hard enough, he would see his leg pulsating.

  He sat there for a minute trying to breathe through the pain. Once it subsided a little, he realized his leg wasn’t the only thing hurting. His back and neck were stiff. He would have to remember to thank Remy for the comfortable accommodations.

  He was about to try to sit up some more when he heard footsteps behind him. He craned his neck over his shoulder to see Remy walking down the hall, followed by a skinny, little, weaselly-looking fellow. He was carrying a black bag. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and a tweed jacket. His hair, which looked as if it had been saturated with vegetable oil, was stringy and parted to one side. And Jonathan was extremely glad to see him.

  Remy walked behind the couch and patted Jonathan on the head. She looked down and said, “Jonathan, you remember my brother, Edmond.”

  Jonathan nodded his head. “Edmond, good to see you.”

  Edmond stood in front of him with folded arms and a smug look on his face. “It looks like once again you’ve gotten yourself into something you shouldn’t have. And who has to come to the rescue? Me, that’s who.” He sat down on the coffee table next to the couch. “Now, I personally couldn’t care less if you just up and died right here. My sister, however”—he rolled his eyes and gestured to Remy—”still has a thing for you, I guess. So let’s have a look. Shall we?”

  Jonathan didn’t bother to answer. He knew Edmond’s distaste for him. Like so many other people, Edmond was someone Jonathan had apparently wronged. The problem was Jonathan didn’t know how or why. He only knew that Edmond, for some reason or other, truly didn’t like him.

  Edmond reached his arm out and pulled the blanket away from Jonathan’s leg. He stared at the bandaged limb. “Well, let’s have it then. Take that stuff off.” He pointed his index finger at the leg.

  “I appreciate this, Edmond,” Jonathan said, un
wrapping the gauze. “I know you’re only doing this for your sister.”

  “I’m doing this for the money. Let’s be real here. Speaking of, where is it?”

  “How much?”

  “Five.”

  “Hand me my jacket there.” Jonathan pointed to his coat hanging over the arm of the recliner next to the couch. Edmond reached over and grabbed it by the collar and handed it back to him. Jonathan reached inside the breast pocket and pulled out his billfold. He withdrew five crisp one-hundred dollar bills and handed them to Edmond.

  Edmond laughed, waving the bills in front of him. “Funny,” he said. “What? You’re some kind of comedian now? Five thousand, you imbecile. I’m not some hack doctor you can just go crawling to. I get paid for my services.” He threw the bills back at Jonathan and stood up, looking at Remy. “I’m leaving. When he has the money, call me back.” He didn’t wait for a reply. He grabbed his bag and was out the door in a matter of seconds.

  “Remy.” Jonathan waited for her to chase after her brother. She just stood there looking at him. “Remy!” he said again.

  “Jonathan, I do not control my brother. You know how he is. And he hates you. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. Do you have five grand?”

  “If I had five grand on me, do you think I would’ve let him go?”

  “Well, can you get it?”

  “I can’t get anything! I’m laid up here on your couch. I can barely sit up! My leg is killing me.”

  “I could go get it for you if you tell me where.”

  “You think I just have a duffel bag of cash lying around Paris in case I need it?”

  “I’m not an idiot, Jonathan. I know you have a duffel bag lying somewhere around Paris in case of something just like this. The problem is, you know there’s more than five grand in there, and you think I’ll just take it and leave you to die.”

  Jonathan said nothing.

  “Looks like you’re going to have to trust me.” He said nothing.