by Jill Gregory
Before David could answer, a woman appeared in the doorway. She was tall and slender, in a long gauzy black skirt, ivory shell, and fitted silk blazer. She strode into the room with purpose, carrying a copper leather tote. He was struck by her exotic cheekbones and generous mouth, frosted with the barest tinge of pink. He guessed she was about thirty, and from her coloring—long coppery hair twisted into a loose knot and a tawny complexion—he guessed she was a Sabra, a native-born Israeli.
“Yael HarPaz, this is David Shepherd, the man I told you about.”
The woman flashed David a straightforward, appraising glance and set down her tote. They shook hands, her silver bracelet jingling. “Shalom.”
Her voice, with its rich Hebrew accent, was as sleek and attractive as the rest of her.
“You’ve come a long way on my account. I don’t really understand why.”
“I came for the stone. Did you bring it?”
David was surprised by her authoritative tone. He paused before turning back to the desk, then picked up the stone and studied it. “So you also believe this is from the high priest’s breastplate?”
“May I?” Yael’s dark green eyes sparked as she took it from his hand. Before David could say anything, she began turning it from side to side, as the rabbi had done.
“Naphtali,” she said with excitement in her voice.
The rabbi smiled.
“All right.” David drew a breath. “Let’s say for argument’s sake this is one of the stones from the breastplate. What about the others? Are they accounted for?”
“We have four others secure in Jerusalem,” Yael told him. She glanced at the rabbi, waiting for him to speak.
“I have another here,” he told David. “Levi’s stone, an amber.”
Even as he said the words, he moved toward the bookcase and pulled down the volumes that masked the safe. “This one surfaced in a Sephardic synagogue in Detroit. A Tunisian Jew bought it at an outdoor market in Cairo seventy years ago and had no idea what it was. His son emigrated to the United States and a month ago he showed it to his rabbi, who contacted me.”
The rabbi pulled out the worn satchel and reached inside. He withdrew a velvet drawstring pouch from which he plucked a stone identical in size to David’s agate. When he set them down side by side, David’s breath caught in his chest. Not only were the agate and the amber stones identical in size, they were identically cut. Even the Hebrew script was undeniably from the same hand.
Everything was happening too fast. The stones, the names, the names on the stones, Crispin, Stacy, his journal. He tried to marshal his thoughts, even as the rabbi spoke again.
“I intended to carry the amber to Israel next week, but your visit has saved me an urgent trip. It’s imperative that these two stones reach the safety of Jerusalem—before any harm befalls them. Yael?”
As ben Moshe picked up both stones to hand them off to the archaeologist, they slipped from his arthritic fingers to the floor and rolled under the desk. David knelt to retrieve them.
But he saw something under the desk that stopped him cold.
“What the hell?” There was a small silver receiver stuck to the bottom of the desk.
“Are you taping our conversation?” he asked, an edge of anger in his voice. Scooping up the gems he surged to his feet.
Alarm flicked across Yael’s face.
The rabbi spoke quickly. “What are you talking about?”
Even as he finished the question, Yael sank to her knees and peered under the desk. She ripped the bugging device from the wood, her face fading pale beneath her tan.
“They know,” she said, meeting the rabbi’s horrified eyes.
“Quickly.” Ben Moshe latched the satchel with shaking hands. “Take these things and go—”
Just then a loud noise sounded from the floor below. For a moment David thought it was a car backfiring, but then they heard a scream.
“Rabbi, run! Get out!” Rabbi Goldstein’s voice gurgled from the main floor. Then more shots rang out and screams filled the building.
“David, hide the stones!” Ben Moshe pushed the satchel into Yael’s arms as heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs. “The fire escape! Hurry! Take everything—I’ll explain later, God willing—but you must leave now.”
The rabbi rushed to bolt the door as David shoved both gemstones into his pants pocket. He threw his journal back into the duffel and slung it over his shoulder. Yael was already thrusting the window upward.
“You first.” David grabbed the rabbi’s arm and pulled him toward the fire escape, but the older man shook free.
“No, David, you first. Now.” Ben Moshe’s tone was calm. “Yael, get him to Safed. He knows the names. He knows the names of the Lamed Vovniks.”
She was already throwing a leg over the windowsill. “Come on,” she ordered David.
“Go!” Ben Moshe pushed him as the intruders began battering against the door.
His adrenaline pumping, David ducked his head and climbed onto the fire escape. Rain slashed at his face. Yael was halfway to the street, yet he hesitated and reached a hand back for the rabbi. But as ben Moshe struggled to position himself on the windowsill, the door burst open and shots rang out. With a grunt, the rabbi toppled, blood dripping crimson from his beard, splattering across David’s hand.
“Run, David!” Yael screamed as horror rocketed through him. He hurtled down the fire escape to the street below, nearly slipping on the wet metal. He glanced up for an instant to see a huge man with blond hair kick the rabbi’s lifeless body aside and take aim.
David ducked as a bullet pinged the brick beside him. He bolted after Yael as another shot rang out and the blond charged down the fire escape.
They ran through the driving downpour and rounded the corner, Yael nearly colliding with a woman battling her way down the street with an umbrella and an armful of groceries.
“Watch out,” the woman yelled, but Yael had no breath to apologize. She catapulted between two buildings and David followed, gaining on her as she plunged across the street, dodging traffic as horns blared at them. Suddenly, a gunshot blew out the rear tire of a UPS truck, sending it careening straight toward David.
He threw himself forward and landed sprawled on his side against the curb. Yael grabbed his arm and he scrambled to his feet. The blond man was barreling toward them, gun in hand, and people were scattering.
“This way!” David tugged her toward a bus discharging passengers ten feet away. They scurried around piles of bagged garbage and forced their way up the steps, wedging past others trying to get on. David caught a glimpse of the blond through the rain-smeared window—he was running hard now, straight for the bus.
The doors hissed closed. The blond took aim.
“Everybody down! There’s a maniac with a gun back there!” David yelled. An old woman screamed.
“Move it, man, now!” he shouted at the driver.
Other passengers spun to look out the window.
“No shit, man!” a black kid listening to his iPod yelled. “Get outta here!”
Swearing, the driver swerved into traffic. A bullet screamed into the bus’s back end as it lumbered away from the curb, sending tall sprays of water in its wake. The giant windshield wipers raced to keep pace with the torrent of rain dousing the city.
“Call your dispatcher,” Yael directed the driver breathlessly. David saw there were tears on her face. “Tell him to send an ambulance to the B’nai Yisroel Center on Avenue Z. A man’s been shot.”
She looked at David, but neither of them spoke as the bus rumbled through traffic. They both knew it was too late. Rabbi ben Moshe was dead.
Dazed, David wondered if he looked as pale and shaken as she did. His heart was still thundering in his chest. He couldn’t wrap his mind around what had just happened.
His grip tightened on the rain-soaked satchel even as his other hand checked his pocket.
The gemstones were still there. And Stacy’s name was still in his journ
al.
“He emptied the goddamn safe! Everything’s gone!” Enrique shouted, as Gillis hurtled back into the room from the fire escape. Gillis stared at the barren cavity gaping behind the bookcase.
Shit. Sirens were already screaming. There was no more time.
“The journal’s not here? What about the gemstones?”
“Shepherd and the Israeli woman must’ve got away with both.” Enrique had already torn through the rabbi’s desk and dumped out the contents of each drawer onto the floor. Suddenly, he spotted the stack of faxed pages beside the computer. David Shepherd’s name and fax number were scrawled across the top. He snatched them up.
“Hey, what do you make of this?”
He thrust the papers at Gillis, whose face relaxed as he scanned through the list of names.
“Got something, Sanjay,” he barked into the microphone of his cell phone’s headset. “The pages Shepherd faxed from his journal. We’re bringing them over now with the computer.”
“Aren’t the cops there yet?” Sanjay demanded. His voice no longer sounded steady and bored. It sounded alarmed. “Get out.”
Even as he spoke, Enrique hoisted the computer, ripping the cords from the power strip on the floor. He sprinted toward the stairs. Gillis took time only to grab the stack of floppy disks from their bin on the desk, and to whip out his lighter. He watched the flame for a split second before touching it to the tumble of papers on the floor, relishing how close he was now to the world to come.
He took the stairs two at a time, as the scream of sirens grew closer.
By the time the police cars squealed to the curb, the white bakery van was half a block away, nothing but a pale, insignificant blur in the driving rain.
And Sanjay was already e-mailing his initial coded report to headquarters in Sicily where Eduardo DiStefano bent forward at his computer, poring intently over each and every word.
CHAPTER NINE
Meredith leaned forward in the bleachers, her shoulders tensing. She watched as Stacy wiped the sweat from her forehead and bounced the ball twice at the free throw line.
Come on, baby, she thought. Sink it.
Stacy squinted at the basket and then lobbed the ball toward the backboard as if it were the easiest thing in the world. For a moment silence hung over the middle school’s packed gym. Even Meredith held her breath as the ball arced through the air, then cheers erupted as it swooshed through the net.
Grinning, Stacy spun around to slap fives with her teammates. There were only five seconds left in the game—not enough time for her opponents to sink a basket.
“That’s my girl!” Meredith yelled from the bleachers as the buzzer blared. Stacy was already in line with her teammates, shaking hands with their opponents.
Glancing at her watch, Meredith considered her options. The game was over early. Len wouldn’t be calling her from Stockholm for another hour. Plenty of time for her and Stacy to grab some Chinese on the way home.
“I’ll get the car while you shower, sweetie.”
“Okay, Mom, but I’ll be quick—I’m starving.”
“Why don’t we go to China Palace? It’s just around the block,” Meredith called as she headed across the court toward the exit.
Stacy ran for the locker room. It felt great to strip out of her sopping uniform and plunge under the water. She didn’t even bother to dry her hair after she washed it, she just pulled it into a damp ponytail and reached for her jeans and the hot pink t-shirt David had bought her last summer when she’d visited him in D.C. The same day he’d bought her the yellow message bracelet she wore every day as a reminder to always “Aim High.”
It was only because of David that she was such a good basketball player, she thought as she dressed. He’d started her shooting hoops in the driveway when she was five and barely able to wrap her hands around the ball. He’d taught her to dribble when she was eight, and they’d practiced every night while her mom made dinner. Stacy smiled, remembering how David would yell for her mother to come cheer her whenever she beat him at a game of Horse. Of course, she knew now that all those times, he was letting her win.
She’d loved how they’d raced to load the dishwasher every night after dinner so there’d be time for her to get in her hundred free throws before it got dark.
Then, when it was too dark to see the net, they’d sit on the patio, all sweaty, alongside Mom, cooling off with big blue bowls filled with bananas and ice cream, watching the first stars peek out. David had called it “twinkle time.”
Running toward the door, Stacy slung her gym bag over her shoulder and tried to push the memories away. Face it. Now Len is your stepdad. And he isn’t into basketball—or ice cream.
Len was into squash and soy lattes.
Suddenly, as she pushed the double doors open, the ground seemed to tremble beneath her feet. All the girls screamed.
Oh God, was that another aftershock? Yesterday she’d woken up to the vibrations of a 3.6 earthquake rocking her bed. It turned out to be nothing too major, luckily, just a little wiggle.
Good thing she was almost used to them by now. When she and her mom had first moved to Santa Monica her heart had pounded in her throat every time there was a little tremor. Now she was more like a native Californian, letting them roll on by.
But lately, there’d been so many disasters in the world, she’d started worrying that a big earthquake might come, too. Everyone said it was only a matter of time before the big one hit the West Coast. It was scary to think about.
Scary—like that sniper in Toronto. How many people had he killed already? Just this morning Mom had switched off the TV in disgust, saying she couldn’t take one more news report about all the horrible things happening in the world.
But Stacy kept worrying about them.
Just for a day, why can’t you try to be like Mom and block out all this bad stuff? she asked herself, hurrying toward the car in the late afternoon sunshine. Try thinking about chicken lettuce wraps. And hot and sour soup. And ginger ice cream.
She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the man reading a newspaper in the Dodge Caravan idling at the front of the parking lot. She hadn’t noticed him in the back row of the bleachers either.
She climbed up into the Explorer and buckled her seat belt, her stomach growling with hunger.
“I need food!” She slid an Alicia Keys CD into the player and turned up the volume as Meredith put the SUV in gear.
Stacy Lachman was a cute kid, Raoul LaDouceur thought. Too bad she was about to meet with some very foul play.
He folded the newspaper and tossed it to the floor. He pulled out of the parking lot and kept a good three cars behind Meredith Lachman’s Explorer. The woman was as oblivious as her kid. He’d been tailing them for the past two days, making a log of their routine, and getting comfortable navigating the streets of Santa Monica. And those two didn’t have a clue.
The only tough part about this assignment was the damned smog. It was far worse than the raw stinging throat he got from the fucking olive trees.
He’d have to remember to stop at Walgreens for a new inhaler tonight, before he ran this one dry. By necessity he always carried a current prescription with him—along with his guns, ribbed Trojans, and an international cell phone.
When the Explorer pulled into the China Palace lot, Raoul did the same, parking a short distance away.
He felt a wheeze coming on and took a puff from his inhaler as he watched Stacy Lachman and her mother head inside.
His instructions had been general—make this one look like an accident or an abduction. He’d decided abduction would be cleaner. So Stacy Lachman was going to vanish. The same way his target in Sierra Leone had vanished four months ago. This time, he’d dump the body in Death Valley on his way to Vegas. It would be months before anyone found the bones.
Not until his stomach protested did Raoul realize he was hungry. He stepped out of the car and ambled into the dimly lit, red and black restaurant.
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The Lachman kid and her mother never turned a head as he slid into the booth catty-corner from them. He placed his order, then watched the girl, so adept with her chopsticks. Stirring two packets of sugar into his oolong tea, Raoul smiled.
Eat up, Stacy Lachman. You’ll be dead by tomorrow.
Unless the fucking smog gets to me first.
CHAPTER TEN
“Bolt the door,” Yael ordered as David followed her into Room 736 of the Riverside Tower Hotel. She plopped her tote and the rabbi’s satchel on the desk near the window, and pulled out her phone.
“I need to make a call—”
David grabbed the BlackBerry from her hand. “First you’re going to tell me who the hell we’re running from.”
“There’s plenty of time to explain once I’ve made the call. Give it back!” Her voice was cold, her green eyes even colder.
“Who was he? Gnoseos?”
Yael scowled. “Their assassination squad. They’re called Dark Angels. Please—I have a contact here and if you allow me to call him, you and I just might get out of the country alive.”
“Get out of the country? How? I don’t even have my passport.”
“That’s the least of your worries. Now give me that phone.”
She grabbed it from him and David turned away. He tossed his soaked duffel onto the luggage rack and caught sight of himself in the mirror over the dresser. His hair was plastered to his head. His skin had turned a sickly gray. Probably from shock. No wonder. His mind kept replaying the image of ben Moshe slumped across the fire escape.
He and Yael had jumped off the bus at the next stop. Somehow, they’d managed to hail a cab in the pouring rain and headed toward the Hudson River, silent, soaking wet, and shivering from more than the storm.
Who knew if they were safe even now. Was the blond hulk after the gemstones? Or the journal?
