Three classes of people straggled the church's grounds: the clergy, the reverent, and the tourist.
There were no real security guards around. There didn't need to be. Jerusalem was a holy place to the Christians, the Muslims, and the Jews. These were the most typical people living in the city.
It was on the 22nd of May. In a few hours, certain men with secret fame would start to fritter into this church. They would be welcomed with the quietest pomp fit for such occasions. It was a conference that would not make the news.
Five ordinary-looking people flowed with the crowd of Europe's sightseers, rubbernecks whose principal means of burning off the excess of their finances was visiting iconic places.
Olivia Newton and Tami Capaldi now looked like each other. Tami had cut her hair low, dyed it blonde and like Olivia, wore blue denim long-sleeved shirts and black pants and boots. Diggs dyed his hair black, wore a fake beard, and carried a massive camera around his neck. He wore baggy shorts and brown cowboy jackets. Andrew Gilmore had grown full facial hair and was the most unrecognizable of them.
And each of them that had an implant had removed his and was brandishing a plaster on their wrists.
While the rest of the crowd expressed various degrees of admiration for the wondrous things, their eyes were beholding. These five people's perusal was driven by quite a different curiosity.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was open to everyone—no guards, nor security personnel. However, it was possible that in the shadowy corners, cameras were watching, microphones eavesdropping.
This and more were the things they were there that moment to find out.
"Did you know?" Olivia asked Andrew.
"Know what?"
"That this church was built on the foundations of a Roman temple, a pagan temple?"
"Being Roman doesn't make it pagan."
"Don't worry." Olivia smiled. "I know it hurts your sensibilities. And that's why I told you."
Andrew shook his head, and the procession moved. There was a guide, after all. He appeared from the corner of two pillars to the right. He was a short man who wore a black robe with a white rope tied twice around his fat gut. His blond hair looked like the end of a wet mop. He raised his hand and welcomed the crowd to the church.
"Right this way, please, we begin with the tomb of King David…"
The crowd followed him.
They were led into a chamber with high ceilings. The floor was white marble; it was dusty. The guide said it was left so for religious reasons. The walls here were not as old as the ones outside where there were layers and layers of designs. It seemed that adherents left their mark in every age, a signature to indicate that they were there.
The tomb of David looked like a regular tomb in the Middle East. It was covered with a slab of concrete with the color of polished wood, deep brown, almost red. There were two women there, maybe locals, bowing to the tomb and mumbling.
"What are they doing?" Reno asked Andrew.
Andrew shrugged. "I don't know."
Reno looked slighted. He frowned. "You are a priest. You are supposed to know."
"I'm sorry, but I don't know."
Reno shut his mouth and followed the rest as they came out into another hall, this one more spacious. The floor was marble in some places, especially the center, but mastic asphalt at the edges. Hard designs filled the walls, tightly spaced pillars, and arches and stuccos in between. Natural light illuminated the place; it came from a hole in the dome at the top of the ceiling. Most of the showers of sunshine concentrated in the middle of the hall.
In the far corner, there was standing what looked like an unusual type of desk. It was sitting on six lions, three on both sides. The body was decorated with images of miniature people. The top had more sculptures of animals; dogs and lions were made with plaster.
It was the size of a regular grave. Olivia's mouth opened slightly when she saw it. The guide stood beside it as the crowd gathered about. The grave stopped at the man's shoulder.
"This is about one of the most iconic graves in the Christian faith," the cleric said. "It was discovered in a place not far from here in the seventeenth century and brought here for safekeeping—"
"Did anyone ever get to open it?" someone in the crowd asked.
He smiled and shook his head. "No."
"But Solomon wasn't Christian, was he?" yet another voice echoed in the still air of the hall.
The cleric shrugged. "Of course, you are right, but he shared the Christian God with us, right?"
"Touché."
Olivia tore her eyes off the unusual grave and looked in the crowd. The questioner was Lawrence Diggs. She smirked. Diggs glanced at her; his eyes were cobalt colors in the filtered lucence of the hall.
The guide answered more questions in the interim. Olivia sneaked her camera up and took poor-quality photos from where she stood in the middle.
The crowd of irreverent folks soon got bored with Solomon and wanted to move on.
Olivia and the others hung back.
The murmur of the crowd carried from the next hall, which she heard the cleric declare, was the tomb of the queen of Sheba.
Olivia ran her fingers lightly along the body of the grave. The texture of the plaster was smooth in some places along the edge; the images of the little people felt like they might fall off if she applied too much pressure.
The others were talking from behind the grave. Olivia heard Andrew say, "Watch the door, and make sure no one comes in yet…"
She heard soft footfalls as Tami and Reno went to the entrance through which the crowd just disappeared.
Andrew appeared beside her as she went down on one knee.
"You see anything unusual?" he asked.
"Nope, not yet."
Olivia ran her fingers along what's supposed to be the space between the lid and the base of the grave. There were two such lines. Both looked alike.
She looked at Andrew. "It doesn't look that old to me."
"Relics usually have the quality of agelessness. I guess that's the source of the fascination we have for them."
Olivia rose to her feet. She peered down the hall and saw Tami and Reno talking.
She said to Andrew and Diggs, "Come on, let's try to carry it."
Andrew regarded her curiously. He got Olivia's drift, then he bent his knees. Diggs went to the other edge so that they distributed their strengths almost evenly.
They hefted the grave. It didn't budge, not even one inch from its place on the floor.
They tried again.
"Shit is heavy!" Olivia grunted.
Tami had come away from the entrance. She was staring at Olivia and tittering. Her shoulders shook, she covered her mouth with her palm and the top of her nose crinkled.
"I understand that the men could maybe do it," Tami laughed, "but what difference did you think your strength could make with this?"
Olivia was raising her head, sharing in the amusement of the moment when she froze. Reno had left the entrance. He was laughing and strolling over. Andrew and Diggs were still hunched over, trying to boost the grave.
The cleric in the black robe with the rope, with a head of hair, like a mop, was back. He was staring at the party of men and women. His eyes were round and whammy. His jaw dropped, and his hands were up. He looked like a preacher imploring a sinner to desist from their iniquities.
Olivia's face turned waxen. She said, "Guys, shit."
The cleric walked into the place, gingerly, his hands still in that begging angle.
"What are you people doing? You can't do that, what are you…"
No one moved.
Andrew stepped forward. He said, "Father, it's alright. We are not stealing anything, okay? We are from the Council of the Monsignors."
He glanced at the others. Olivia nodded.
"There's going to be an important meeting in the church tomorrow. Do you know anything about this meeting?"
The cleric's drained face relaxed. He looked
Andrew over, then each of the others. His eyes stopped on Tami Capaldi's face. He grinned at her. "Are you Italian, ma'am?" he asked her.
She nodded. She smiled and came forward to the cleric. He took her hands and made the sign of the cross on her forehead.
"Bless you among women, lady. You do not have to tell me your name. But you are beautiful. You go to church?"
Tami nodded again. Reno rolled his eyes.
The cleric looked at Andrew and said he was aware of the meeting the next day. If the group would love to have dinner in the seminary nearby, it was all he could do to show his appreciation to the—
"What did you call your organization again?"
"Council of the Monsignors," Andrew repeated.
"Oh yes, my name is Uri. I will like to be your host—"
"I'm sorry, Uri. We have to be on our way now," Olivia cut in. "We are expecting another contingency for tomorrow's program."
She smiled gratefully.
"We should leave now."
The cleric walked them to the gate before waving them away.
—
That night, the rest of the team— Frank Miller, Anabia Nassif, Victor Borodin, and Liam Murphy— joined them in a hotel about a mile away from the church. Olivia stood on the balcony of that hotel. She saw the lights around the dome of the church in the distance.
All members of the team had now taken off their trackers. And that was not so good, thought Olivia. But it was better than being picked out one after the other by the unknown killer.
The team sat in front of the TV and stared at Olivia and Diggs's face. They were wanted for the killing of Rodriguez; Lawrence Diggs was wanted for the deaths of policemen in Brazil.
"Bullshit!" Olivia yelled. "He didn't kill them!"
Miller said, "Maybe they died eventually, or something—"
"No, they didn't," Diggs said, his face glued to the TV.
The rest of the team, except Olivia and Andrew, gave the former CIA man a questioning look.
"What?" Miller asked him.
"I didn't kill them. I maimed them. That's why they won't show their faces," Diggs explained.
They turned back to the TV set; the United States ambassador was on. The jowly face looked glowered at the cameras. He promised the Brazilian government that the US would do everything to bring the criminals to book. Meanwhile, Olivia Newton's face was showing on the major networks in the country.
When her phone started ringing, she knew who it was.
"Tom?"
"You are in some real trouble, Olivia. Things aren't looking good down here. I got the press blowing up my phone. Betty is freaking out. And Rob Cohen called too. He wanted to know what I thought about what the media is saying."
Olivia walked back to the balcony. She looked over the city. The night sight of the city was fantastic to behold. It looked like a flattened Los Angeles, with the palm trees growing in the lawns instead of on the boulevards.
"Are you there?"
"Yeah." She closed her eyes.
"I'm not gonna ask you if you or Diggs did those things. I know you didn't, but right now, it's gonna take a lot to prove your innocence. You need to give this thing up, Olivia. Come home."
"You know what will happen if I step into any airport right now. It's not safe. I have to clear my name. I have to find Rodriguez's killers."
"How are you gonna—oh shit. The press guys are back, fuckers."
Olivia felt someone behind her. It was Andrew and Diggs; Miller joined them too.
"Tom?"
She heard a commotion in the background. Betty was screaming at someone to get off the porch, or she'll call the cops.
Diggs took the phone from her in a gentle gesture. "They could have tapped Tom's phone. It's too risky."
It hadn't occurred to her.
"We need to prepare for tomorrow," Miller said.
"Yeah."
She walked back into the living room.
—
It was decided that now, the stakes were even higher. None of the members of the team could appear publicly in their previous appearance. Miller and the others who just arrived would have to assume new disguises.
Paul Talbot appeared at the door that morning with a bag of provisions which included cards, fake IDs, counterfeit hairs for both men and women, and some more clothes and cash. With him was a man he called Hess who wore a long white robe like a kaffir.
"Hess is a tattoo specialist," Talbot said. "Who needs a tattoo?"
Anabia Nassif shaved his head clean. He ditched his black-framed glasses and picked up pince-nez glasses, and he got fake tattoos on the backs of both hands. Liam dyed his hair red, then Tami got it hot-ironed into curls. Liam took up glasses with a red frame, a pair of huge headphones, and he transformed into a Harvard student on vacation in the holy land.
Borodin was the hardest to work on. His hard accent was one thing, and there was a general definitiveness to his appearance that defied any alteration. So, he decided to be a temple guy. Talbot dressed him in a long black cloak and a skull cap. Whereas, Andrew Gilmore transformed himself into a rabbi, completed with the wide-brimmed hat, and two strings of hair hanging down the sides of his ears.
Talbot spread the photo of Solomon's tomb on the inside of the church.
"You guys have seen this before, so I'm not gonna say much except that somewhere around these images, there are five keyholes for five keys."
He opened another page of the paper. The next four frames showed a key shaped like a cross without its head and dying Christ on it. It was silver-coated, and about half an inch longer than a regular key.
"This is your score," he pointed out. "Each of those cunts has this key around their greedy necks. Each key is gold, plated with silver, a disguise. Can you beat that? These people hide things in plain sight."
He fished another piece of glossy paper from his pocket. "Memorize the faces, people. You'll be seeing these men soon. But don't get carried away. The keys around their necks are the key."
"How about security?" Diggs asked.
Then Talbot showed them one photo. It was the face of a young man; he could be in his early thirties or more youthful. His hair was swept back like a Spanish dancer; his eyes were dark like those of a Spaniard.
"He is not Spanish," said Talbot. "He is a killer. They called him the Hacker. He was a tech guy for some big company before discovering his true calling was to kill people no other assassin wants to kill, or that have been hard to kill."
Talbot paused to look at their faces.
"The Hacker is mostly invisible. You are dead when you see him. No one has seen him at work and lived. He's that good," Talbot said this and looked straight into Diggs's eyes.
He asked if Diggs has heard of the Hacker before. Diggs shrugged.
Miller asked Diggs, “Are you worried about this dude?"
"I don't know," said the man.
"Well, then, you get your coms up, suit up. I've got more firepower waiting in the van outside in the street—all types of them. And try not to get killed. If you see the Hacker, start shooting every-fucking-where!"
Talbot looked at the group, nodded solemnly, and went to the door. Hess followed him.
"One more thing Talbot," said Olivia.
"Uh-huh."
"We want all charges dropped against me and Diggs."
Talbot opened his mouth but said nothing. He looked at Diggs. "You went too far with those ladies in Brazil, amigos. Too far. How did you do that? I mean, there were four ladies, man—"
"You know he didn't do it. He didn't kill them," Olivia said hotly.
Talbot was at the door; his hand had been on it. He stepped away from the door and said, "It's them, the men of the Table. It's gonna get worse, I assure you. You guys should be prepared for anything."
When Talbot was gone, Olivia turned to her teammates. She sighed and smiled. What the hell am I doing here? she asked herself. What the hell are we all doing here?
"What we are about to do
is…" She exhaled. "This is about the most dangerous thing we have ever done. We may get arrested and go away for a long time. Or we just might get killed by this Hacker guy."
They stared back at her, listening.
"If anyone wants out, they can. I won't hold it against them. I'd understand. And I understand the risks. So…"
Reno was the first to speak, and perhaps the only one. He had refused to wear any form of disguise. He claimed he could become invisible whenever he wanted to. The team believed him.
"I'm willing to ride with you," he said, "to the end."
Olivia looked at the others.
They all nodded.
Frank Miller said, "Let's do this."
—
6
Jerusalem was coming alive with the voice of three religions.
It began with the muezzin's call to Muslims. It was this call that woke Olivia from her brief sleep. She opened her eyes slowly, with a secret yearning for her bed in Miami. Then the clanging of a cathedral's bell calling parishioners to come to morning mass drummed through the arriving dawn.
She was at the balcony, sucking the Mediterranean freshness in the air when she heard soft wailing of a rabbi, praying, right across the street.
She went back in and filled the coffee maker up. When it was ready, she poured herself a cup.
Talbot said the show at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher would begin at 9:00 am. That was two hours away, but she could never go back to sleep. Nor would any member of the team get any sleep again for the next two days.
The next two days were, however, so far away from her thoughts just then.
She glanced at the TV; it invited her to come to switch it on, get some acquaintance of happenings in the world. For example, wouldn't she like to know how it was in the media? She was a fugitive charged with the murder of a friend. And wouldn't she want to also know how Diggs was being described this morning?
She went to the balcony and drew the blinds.
"Why did you do that?"
Olivia turned around. Andrew was staggering out of the bathroom, pulling the zipper in his fly up. He looked strangely unfamiliar with so much beard.
"Just paranoid, I guess."
King Solomon's Tomb Page 9
