Conspiracy of Silence

by Ronie Kendig

  Saw something yellowish. She bent closer.

  “Tear it,” Mr. Cohen said.

  Hesitating for only a second, Tzivia obeyed. Pulled at the thread, surprised when it slid free from the wool. The lining fell away, revealing a folded—“Parchment!”

  “Yesss,” Mr. Cohen breathed.

  Elation tore through Tzivia as she unfolded it, moving to the light. She held it out, Dr. Cathey peering over her shoulder.

  “Praise God,” Dr. Cathey muttered. “It’s from the Codex!”

  In front of them, Benyamin wheezed his last.

  41

  — Day 14 —

  London

  Comms piece in, Tox waited in the nondescript van for Iomhair Kaine’s detail to deliver him to the hotel. He glanced to the right and verified Cell on a motorcycle in the alley. Maangi and Chiji were concealed in another vehicle at the end of the drive. Wallace sat in the driver’s seat of Tox’s van.

  “Entering now,” Ram said from his spot in the vestibule. “Car Two in three, two . . . go.”

  The van with Maangi and Chiji started forward.

  Eyeing the rearview mirror, Tox waited as Kaine’s Rolls-Royce glided up toward the hotel porte cochere. “Nice and easy,” Tox whispered.

  “Bike One, you’re a go.”

  The revving of the motorcycle rankled the air.

  “Go,” Tox said to Wallace and the van rolled closer for the upcoming incident.

  Cell whipped up to the entrance on his motorcycle just as Kaine’s driver and security guard stepped out. The men were posturing, a show of force and protection of their precious cargo.

  Cell aimed into van two, which swerved—naturally—to avoid hitting the biker. They narrowly avoided banging up the Rolls. The driver lunged, shouting at Cell, who laid out his bike and threw himself at the driver. The two went to blows. The security guard banged on the van, demanding Maangi move it, shouting that it blocked their car.

  The door on the other side of the Rolls opened and a man in an expensive suit emerged. Bingo.

  Ram was there, pretending to talk into a phone. He tripped, trying to avoid the new suit. Which put their target off-balance just as Tox’s van slid up behind him.

  Tox hopped out. Slid his arm around the man’s neck and pressed against his skull. Kaine thrashed. But nobody heard him for the shouting and horn honking the team had started.

  Dragging the man backward as he went limp, Tox never took his eyes off the chaos. Off the guard and driver still distracted.

  Wallace helped hoist Kaine into the van. Ram leapt into the driver’s seat.

  The Rolls driver turned.

  “Go,” Tox barked, drawing in his legs. “Go go go!”

  The driver and security guard looked to the Rolls, then to the van. With a shout, they gave chase. Shots pinged off the vehicle. Cracked glass. Someone banged on the back window.

  The van lurched forward. Tox kicked the door closed and pushed himself farther in. He flipped backward. Grabbed his weapon. Aimed out the rear at the shrinking form of the bodyguard. Pulse jackhammering, he slumped against the side. Then twisted around to the front. “Don’t stop.”

  Tox shifted toward Kaine. In minutes they were going to have a lot of heat breathing down their necks. Into his comms, he said. “We have the package.”

  “That was too easy,” Ram said.

  “Or we’re just that good,” Wallace said.

  “Not likely.” On his knees, Tox duct-taped Kaine’s mouth, hands, and legs.

  Ram was a genius behind the wheel and navigating out of the city. Ten minutes had them in a parking garage. After scanning Kaine for tracking devices, they put him in the back of a blue SUV. Another ten minutes had them bouncing down the country road to the safe house.

  In the barn that served as an interrogation room, they secured Kaine to a chair and anchored his hands to rivets in the floor.

  “Hey,” Ram said, walking toward him with something in his hand. “Look. He had this.”

  Tox angled in. Saw an object wrapped in plastic.

  “It’s a censer.”

  Tox frowned. “How does he have that?”

  “I don’t know. From Tanin, maybe? Need to notify Tzivia.” He tugged out his phone and called his sister. Left a voicemail.

  Tox stood back, staring down at the man who had caused so much destruction and death. How could Kaine live with himself?

  Ram filled a bucket with water, then threw it over Kaine’s head. Tox folded his arms and waited.

  Kaine gasped, the shock of the water snapping him awake. He shook his head. Looked around wildly. “Where am I?”

  “In my control,” Ram said.

  The panic that had shot through the man vanished in a blink. “You are a fool. They will find you. Then they will kill you, and I will watch.” He bared his teeth. “With pleasure.”

  Tox sighed. This was going to be a long night.

  ****

  — Somewhere over Europe —

  Tzivia had no nails left. She’d bitten them off, watching Dr. Cathey study the leaf fragment over the last several hours. He’d stared and stared. Said nothing. Though she’d tried a half-dozen times to engage him in conversation, to pry whatever he thought and knew from his vault-like mind, he’d shushed her.

  “Please,” she finally whispered, her voice nearly lost amid the drone of the engines. She touched his arm.

  He placed his hand over hers. “I was wrong once before,” he mumbled.

  Her heart tripped. “Kafr al-Ayn.” When he’d thought returning the artifact to its cradle and sealing it with appropriately dated wax would stop the toxin. But the wax had nothing to do with the warrior’s seal. The “seal” had been the blood of a warrior—Tox.

  “What is here—” He sniffed. “There is little. And the little is too simple.”

  “You’re afraid of guessing wrong.”

  “Indeed. Thousands could die.”

  “And they will, if you make no attempt at all.”

  He removed his glasses and let out a long sigh, then folded his arms over his chest. His wizened gray eyes rested on the leaf.

  “You have an idea.” The thought spurted elation through her veins. “You do, don’t you?”

  His grave expression confirmed it.

  Why must he be so maddeningly cryptic? “Just tell me. Even if it’s wrong. I’m going insane watching you watch it.”

  “Just remember, it’s only a thought.” He adjusted the air nozzle overhead before pointing with his silver pen to the yellowed piece of history. “As with the leaf from Numbers 16, there is an odd cantillation mark in this one.”

  “Right. Which is why Israel could be hiding the Codex—to protect its credibility.”

  “Perhaps. But I am not convinced it’s a cantillation mark.” His crooked finger pointed to the margin. “The symbol here on the side, it is the same as that found in the other leaf. Then the cantillation”—he dragged his finger a half-inch in the air above the script—“here is wrong.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning not that the word itself is wrong—I think.” He seemed to get lost in his thoughts again.

  “Then what?”

  “It’s a clue,” he said. “The mark hovers over the word shemen, and in the other, over miktereth.”

  “So, ‘oil’ and ‘censers.’”

  “Mm, I think it should be holy oil. The holy oil.”

  “You mean the one mentioned in the Masoretic texts?” Tzivia nearly laughed out loud. A fable like fish that never ran out but multiplied. Or the woman whose son filled dozens of jars with oil. The holy oil was purported to have never run out, despite years of use. “It doesn’t exist anymore.”

  He chuckled. “And according to you, neither do miracles or God.” He patted her hand.

  “Is it supposed to mean something?”

  “I am certain it does,” he said with vehemence. “I’ve asked Akiva to see if he knows of other leaves, even pictures of them, that could give us more. Particular
ly those with this mark in the margin.”

  Tzivia bent closer. “Is it a T?” Why would there be an English T in a Hebrew text?

  “No, it is a cross—the mark of Thefarie.”

  Tzivia scowled. “The one from Tiberius’s Writings?”

  “Indeed. Were there not plagues in his time? Would it not make sense that if he had a way to stop the disease, that as a Knight of the Lord Jesus Christ, he would see it as his duty to pass on the solution?”

  “But you said he only found three of the censers. I think you have been studying that leaf too long.”

  “Why? Because you don’t have the faith to believe God saw a way to use a warrior centuries past, an absentminded professor, and a bright, beautiful doctor of archaeology?”

  “No, because what you’re suggesting strains credulity.”

  He smiled. “Making it all the more likely it was done as I suspect. Did not Thefarie write that he had helped hold the Codex hostage?”

  She touched her temple. “But it’s stupid—marking up the Codex makes it useless, calls everything into question. Why would he do that?”

  Another crinkly-eyed smile. “Hmm, if he did, indeed.”

  Tzivia banged her head against the seat. “This is all futile anyway—even if your theory is right, we don’t have all the censers.”

  “True, but we have Aaron’s and the one we reclaimed in India.” He sighed, then frowned.

  “And what are we supposed to do with them, even if we had them all?”

  “That is the question, is it not?”

  42

  — Day 14 —

  Outside London, England

  Kasey watched the live feed in the safety of the farmhouse. She kept the main goal of Kaine’s kidnapping in mind: find out the AFO endgame.

  Interrogations weren’t for the weakhearted. And she quickly realized that she fit that description today. It’d taken Cole and Ram several hours to wear down Kaine, exhaust him mentally and physically, but it was needed. This wasn’t a situation sanitized to placate sensitivities. This was real life. They were dealing with a man willing to wipe out hundreds, if not thousands. Kasey wasn’t naïve enough to think men prepared to die for their cause suddenly became willing to talk after a few terse questions. And Iomhair Kaine wasn’t just willing to die for the cause. He was the cause.

  “You okay?” Levi asked.

  Kasey gave a quick nod.

  “It’s hard to watch,” he said quietly.

  True, but that was her job—to watch, observe. Analyze.

  “What do you know about the New Black Death virus?” Cole asked.

  “It’s killing people,” Kaine said around a sneer.

  “What does the AFO want to accomplish?”

  Kaine glared at Cole and spit out, “I won’t give you what you want. I didn’t get to where I am by being weak.”

  “So you prey on children?” Cole demanded.

  “Hey, that—” He shook his head. “Some children were hurt, but that’s about it.”

  “Passive language,” Kasey blurted, then remembered she had to key the mic. She repeated her words with a hot mic that fed to Cole and Ram. “That’s passive language. He knows more than he’s saying.” When nobody moved, she took a deep breath. This was her area. They trusted her. “Ask him about a division, a rift in the Order.”

  In the live feed, Cole and Ram exchanged a glance.

  Ram stepped forward. “Tell me about the rift.”

  Kaine’s swollen lid barely lifted as he dragged a bloodshot eye to Ram. “An organization as big as the Arrow & Flame, you know, has many people. So there will be disagreements. Of course. It has to happen, you know.” His gaze drifted. “And people betray you . . .”

  “It’s personal.” Seated in front of her, Cell glanced back at her. “Right?”

  Kasey smiled at him. He’d clearly remembered their encounter at the beginning of the mission. “It’s personal,” she repeated into her mic. “The rift is between him and someone else. Someone high up probably.” She glanced at Cell. “Does he have a girlfriend or wife?”

  Cell checked the monitor. “I don’t remember . . . wait.” He tapped the screen. “Yes. Yes, he did. Wife filed for divorce three weeks ago.”

  “Guys, his wife left him,” Kasey said into the mic. “Maybe for whoever defied him.”

  “She moved to France,” Cell whispered into the comms.

  “And they move to France,” Cole said.

  “Shack up with your enemy,” Ram added.

  “No,” Kaine growled, his lip curling. “Not my enemy—a friend.”

  “Drive a dagger into his heart,” Ram said, murder in his tone. “Tell us what his plan was, his target.”

  Kaine gritted his teeth. Pursed his lips. Angry. So very angry. Yet thirsting for blood—the death of the one who’d stolen his wife. “Football—”

  Crack! Thunk!

  Cole and Ram jumped back. Shouts exploded through the room. A bright cloud whitened the screen for a moment. The camera slowly compensated, revealing the source—an arrow stuck out of Kaine’s chest, boiling.

  Kasey watched stupefied as Cole and Ram raced from the room. “What happened?”

  Cell was on his feet. He grabbed something from the floor and darted out. But a gargled tangle of words filtered through the feed.

  “Wait! He’s talking!” Kasey dropped into Cell’s empty chair and slipped on the headphones. She played back the video. She wanted to run this through her program, record her notes on her own system, so she transferred it to her laptop. Switched seats and filtered it through the program. With so much chaos and shouting, she had to strain to hear. To eliminate ancillary distraction, she closed her eyes.

  She made out three words: Football. Censers. Airborne.

  Her computer glitched. The ground shook. She shot her gaze back to the monitor and found only a grainy static. When she went to open the video again, she noticed another file on her desktop but didn’t recognize it. Where had that come from? She double-clicked on it.

  Surprise chugged through her veins as a dark hall glimmered on the screen. Wait—that looked like a— “Hospital.” Her pulse raced. It was Evie’s hospital!

  Two men entered an empty room. Her heart climbed into her throat. Cole! And Barry.

  Where had this come from? Who sent it to her? Curiosity cranked the volume. This had to have been recorded when they were there yesterday. But even as she realized that, Kasey noticed the deception cues in Barry’s words and body language. Why was he not being truthful about Naftali Regev?

  The feed blipped and showed an empty hall.

  A chaotic but dulled roar stilled her. She glanced over her shoulder, sliding off the headphones. An eruption of shouts and banging pulled her to the door.

  ****

  “I’m warning you . . .”

  Tox held out a hand. “Give me straight answers and this all goes away.”

  “Leave Regev alone.” Ram stood in a sparring stance.

  The side door opened. Maangi and Thor entered, looking sweaty and angry.

  “Did you find anyone?” Ram asked.

  Maangi nodded. “Nailed one before he could get in a car. Second one got away.”

  Tox scowled. “Look, I was given Regev’s name, and until I check it out—”

  “When did you start trusting Attaway more than me?” Ram countered.

  Tox felt miserable but he didn’t relent.

  “I can’t give you answers, not direct ones.” Hands held out, Ram shrugged. “But Regev is a member of the Knesset. He’s . . . trustworthy.”

  “Cole,” Haven said.

  When had she come into the room? “Stay out of this, Haven.” He never took his eyes off Ram, but he felt the team grouping up, with Chiji just inside his periphery. “This is about doing our due diligence.”

  “It’s about sending us on a wild-goose chase. Remember the synagogues? Conspiracy of silence? Anything to get us away from the truth.”

  “I remember your Mossa
d buddies—”

  “No. The ones tasked with protecting the Codex did that.”

  “And you’re going to tell me Mossad isn’t interested in protecting archaeological treasures?”

  “Cole.” Haven stepped closer. “Cole, I need to talk to you.” She glanced around at the men in an angry, silent standoff. They were tired. Frustrated. “I think you should listen to what I have to say first.”

  “What?”

  “I found a video.”

  “So?”

  “It’s of you and Barry. In the hospital.”

  His gaze swung to her.

  “I don’t know where it came from, but it’s from when he pulled you aside privately. The entire conversation is there.” She wet her lips, then looked at Ram. Back to Tox. “Attaway was deceiving you about Naftali Regev. I don’t know why, but I know that he didn’t believe what he was telling you.”

  “Boom!” Ram snapped. “There. The truth.”

  Tox faced her. “Show me.”

  With the others on his tail, Tox followed Haven into the command center. She tucked herself into a chair and opened the video. They watched, quietly huddled around her chair.

  “Coward,” Ram hissed when Attaway uttered Regev’s name.

  “If you watch,” Haven said, starting the video over, “he seems to pull Regev’s name out of nowhere. I don’t know that he meant to necessarily blame him.”

  “Then why mention him?” Maangi asked.

  “To distract us,” Ram said. “Get us off the scent.”

  Tox nodded. “Kaine and Abidaoud.”

  “Hey . . . guys?” Leaning over Haven, Cell stuffed on the headphones. “Send me that file.” He pushed into the other seat as Haven complied. “I have a sound program specifically designed to lift audio, cancel white noise . . .” Cell listened. Watched. His eyes widened. “Guys—get this. Attaway talks to someone after you leave the room, Sarge.”

  “Who?” Tox moved to his side.

  Finger held up, Cell adjusted a few dials then scooted back, ripping off the headphones and unplugging them. “Give a listen.”

  “Do not worry,” a voice said. “They are still chasing their tails. You’ve done your job well.”