At Sword's Point (8 page)

"Equine virus," Drummond repeated.

"It makes perfect sense, Mr. Drummond," Rubinsky went on. "Stories about
wampyrs
have been part of European folklore since the time of the crusades. These same stories have been part of the Eastern folklore tradition for far longer. So where did they originate, and how did they propagate?"

Drummond shook his head.

"I'll tell you. When the nomads of Mongolia moved west toward Europe, they were mounted on the ponies that became the Cossack horse. On the march, these Mongol warriors used to drink the blood of their horses to give them extra strength and energy. Not more than a few swallows at a time, because they needed the horses.

"But I maintain that one of these warriors drank the blood of an infected horse, and—it's a million to one occurrence—the virus mutated and took hold in his body. In a society of warriors who regularly drank the blood of their foes, as well as the blood of their horses, a
wampyr
would pass unnoticed. Unnoticed, that is, until he came into contact with Western civilization." Rubinsky smiled like a university professor lecturing to freshmen.

"So, Mr. Drummond, when did these cultures clash? I'll tell you. During the crusades. The Seljuk Turks were the descendants of the Mongol horde, just as the Norman crusaders were descendants of Viking raiders. At some time during the crusades, our Mongol
wampyr
met a crusader whom he infected—don't ask me how—and that man returned as the first European
wampyr
."

"Did Kluge tell you all of this?" Drummond asked.

"Not hardly. Kluge and his men were most uncooperative. In fact, we kept them alive only as a source of infected blood, so we could try to clone the virus for military purposes," Rubinsky replied.

"If it's not a state secret, what possible use could a vampire have been to the Red Army?" Drummond asked.

"Well, the virus has several beneficial side effects," Rubinsky replied. "First, it causes the adrenal gland to enlarge and produce a highly concentrated burst of energy to the
wampyr
. This accounts for their legendary feats of strength. Second, it accelerates the healing process, giving
wampyrs
the appearance of invulnerability. A cut—or a bullet wound—heals in a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds. Certainly these are two great assets for any soldier to possess. Finally, the
wampyr
has greatly improved night vision and superior hearing. These reasons I don't know why. My specialty was the virus, not what it did."

"You said the virus had beneficial side effects," Drummond said. "What was the downside to infection?"

"The virus greatly retards the aging process, so long as the
wampyr
is given a few ounces of blood a week. But if the blood
is
withheld, the aging process accelerates. Aging can take place at a rate of five or ten years in a week or less. This process is very painful and leads to insanity at the end. Without blood, a
wampyr
dies in not more than a month." Rubinsky pushed his glasses back down on his nose. "That, as you say it, is the downside, Mr. Drummond." Dr. Rubinsky walked back to the table and sat down between Trostler and Meier.

"Now, Mr. Drummond," Gluckman asked again, "do you believe in vampires?"

"I'm afraid I'm still a skeptic." Drummond stared at Gluckman sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Mr. Drummond, when you were attacked in your hotel room at Palais Schwarzenberg in Vienna, were you attacked by a vampire?"

Gluckman saw the flash of surprise race across Drummond's face.

"Come, come, now. Was the man who attacked you a vampire? Could he have been one of Kluge's men?"

Drummond swallowed several times before replying.

"He might have been one of Kluge's men." In his mind's eye, Drummond could see the young man impaled on the wrought iron spikes of the fence below his balcony pushing himself up off the spikes and running away into the night. "But even if he was a vampire, what could I do about it?"

Gluckman stared at Drummond for several seconds before signaling to Meier. The Mossad agent stood up and, reaching into his pocket, brought out a straightedge razor similar to the one found in the tub with Stucke's body. With a snap of his wrist, he flicked the blade open and walked over to where Drummond sat taped to the chair.

"What could you do about the vampire, Mr. Drummond? For starters, you can go in the bathroom and clean up." Gluckman signaled again to Meier, who bent down and cut Drummond free.

Lev Shapiro was looking at the Christie's auction catalog with a magnifying glass when he heard the muffled purr of his fax machine starting up. Setting down the catalog next to a pile of first-day covers, he shuffled across the floor of his small stamp shop in Jerusalem and went into the back room.

The fax machine was wedged between two scuffed leather stamp albums. Shapiro played absently with one of his sidelocks as the message slowly scrolled out from the machine, nodding to himself. The machine buzzed, once the six-line message had been received, and Shapiro picked it up from the basket and carefully folded it into a small packet, placing it in the pocket of the long overcoat he habitually wore.

Putting an advertisement for an upcoming stamp auction in the machine, Shapiro keyed in a fax number used by the Mossad in one of their many drops in Jerusalem. His thin finger pressed the "send" button, and once the machine made contact he put on a wide-brimmed black hat and headed out of the shop to the Wailing Wall.

It was hot, but it was always hot in Jerusalem in late September. Walking up to the Wailing Wall, Shapiro took the folded fax and tucked it into a. crack, then began to pray, rocking back and forth on his heels.

After about ten minutes, a nondescript-looking man in his mid-thirties joined Shapiro in his devotions, a blue-and-white crocheted yarmulke bobby-pinned to the back of his head. Like the stamp dealer, he too reached up to the wall as if to place a prayer in one of the cracks. Instead, his heavily scarred hand took away the fax that Shapiro had stuck into the wall.

Seeing the message delivered, Shapiro finished his prayers and left the wall. A few minutes later, the man in the blue-and-white yarmulke also finished praying and headed off deeper into the Old City. Across the square from the Wailing Wall, the transaction had been observed by an Orthodox Christian priest, Father Archimedes Santos, who waited until his quarry had nearly disappeared into the crowds before heaving his bulk off the rickety bench where he had been seated.

The house was in the Christian quarter of the Old City, one of the buildings bought by some nameless front organization with secret Israeli government funds in an ongoing program of displacing the dwindling Christian population. Father Archimedes also knew it to be a Mossad safe house. He snorted in anger as he saw the agent head up the side stairs and enter the house above the abandoned shop on street level. Sitting down at a small table outside a cafe across the street, he ordered a coffee from the Palestinian Christian owner and settled in to wait for the Mossad agent to come out again.

* * * *

"So, Eli, what have we got from the stamp man?" Golda Sapperstein said, lighting another cigarette from the butt of the one she had just finished.

The messenger handed her the folded fax. "I don't know, Major. I don't read them. I just deliver them."

Major Sapperstein coughed as she blew a lungful of smoke into the room. "Well," she said, "let's see what our man in Los Angeles has to say for himself." She unfolded the fax and read the message scrawled in Hebrew across the page.

Have interviewed subject and feel he was not aware of intended target of attempted hijack. I do not think subject will connect our visit with assassination attempt, nor do I feel subject will agree to work for us later. Please advise.

Sapperstein leaned back in her chair and rolled her cigarette between nicotine-stained fingers.

"Eli," she said after several minutes, "I want an opinion. We spent several years setting up a PLO hit man to take out a major player." She took a long drag on her cigarette. "Very clean operation. It would have looked like an airline hijacking that went sour. Everything goes according to plan, except that at the last minute, some schmuck cop takes out our man at thirty-five thousand feet.

"Now, that might be coincidence, except that when we check this putz out, we find that he's been fuckin' around Vienna with a lot of Nazi types. So we pick him up, ask him a few questions, and turn him loose—the usual." She fit another cigarette. "I don't like this dick-head wandering around. What do you think?"

"An eye for an eye. He cost us one of ours, so he pays." Eli scratched the back of his scarred hand. "They shoulda killed the goy."

Sapperstein stubbed out her cigarette and pulled a notepad out of her desk, scribbling a brief message in Hebrew.

"Here," she said, handing the message to Eli. "Take this to the stamp man and tell him it's for his customer in Los Angeles."

Outside, Father Archimedes watched as Eli came out of the safe house and headed back down the narrow street. At the bottom of the hill, he turned into the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and made his way through the winding lanes to Shapiro's stamp shop, unaware of his priestly shadow.

Shapiro was carefully lifting stamps out of an old album when Eli entered the shop.

"Hello," he said without bothering to look up. "I'll be right with you." Holding the stamp with a pair of tweezers, he carefully slipped it into a small glassine envelope before looking up at Eli.

"Well?" he said.

"My boss wants to sell some stamps. Said you might have a customer in Los Angeles who'd be interested."

Eli handed over Golda Sapperstein's message, which Shapiro read before answering.

"First-day covers with a double cancellation aren't much, but I'll see what I can do." Shapiro looked at his watch. "I'll send this now, but I wouldn't expect a reply for maybe a day. I'll call you if my client wants your stamps."

Eli left the shop and headed back up the hill toward the Christian quarter. As he passed by the small Orthodox Church of the Blessed Sorrows, two priests were coming out of the door. As Eli brushed past, one of the priests threw his thick silk cincture around the Mossad agent's throat, while the other drove his fist into the man's kidneys.

Eli sank to his knees without so much as a groan, and the two priests dragged him quickly into the church. Hustling him to a small stair behind the altar, they manhandled him down into the undercroft and from there into the crypt.

"Tie him to the chair, Dimitri," the taller of the priests said, his silk cincture still digging into Eli's neck.

The other priest looped half-hitches of rope around the subject's wrists, securing him to the chair arms, then knelt to tie the ankles.

"Don't kill him, Bartholomew," he said, as he tightened the knots binding Eli's feet to the chair legs.

"Just put some tape over his mouth," Bartholomew said. "I don't want him yelling until I'm ready."

Producing a roll of silver duct tape, Father Dimitri tore off a six-inch section and plastered it over Eli's mouth.

"Now what?" he asked, nervous perspiration rolling off his forehead.

"Now, when he comes to, I ask him questions. Just watch," Bartholomew replied.

He loosened the cincture around their captives neck. Eli's cheeks began to color as the blood rushed to his head, and his dull eyes popped open wide as he regained awareness. Seeing that the Mossad agent was conscious, Bartholomew slapped him across the face hard enough to send a gush of blood rushing from His nose.

"Now listen to me, you goddamsonofabitch," Bartholomew said to Eli in Hebrew. "I'm going to do things to you that'll make the priest over there throw up, if you don't answer my questions. Understand?"

Eli glared contemptuously at Bartholomew, who leaned closer and said, "Don't fuck with me, Jew, or I'll hand you over to the PLO when I'm finished." Bartholomew suddenly hit him again, turning Eli's nose into an unrecognizable pulp.

Behind him, Dimitri gagged.

"Now then. We are going to have a contest. In twenty-five words or less, what did the message say that you picked up at the Wailing Wall?" His fist slammed into

Eli's face again, then he ripped the tape off his lips. "Well"?" Bartholomew said. "What did it say?"

"Fuck you…"

"Wrong answer, asshole," Bartholomew said, grabbing one of Eli's fingers and dislocating it.

Eli screamed with the pain, and Bartholomew hit him again.

"Oh, for God's sake!" Dimitri began, trying to pull Bartholomew away from Eli.

"Exactly," Bartholomew said, shaking off the smaller man. "It's for God's sake that I'm asking these questions. Now," he said, turning his attention back to Eli. "What was in those messages?"

"Like I said," Eli mumbled, "ff… aaaahhh!"

Bartholomew held up Eli's little finger before his eyes.

"Do you see this?" He flung the finger on the floor. "Now, I'm going to rip your cock off next, if you don't answer my question. And then, while you're sitting there wondering what life's going to be like without a cock, I'll gouge your eyes out." Bartholomew shoved his hand down inside Eli's trousers and grabbed him, yanking upward. "So, what did the message say?"

"It's about some cop," Eli gasped.

"A cop? Where? Tell me more," Bartholomew said, his grip on Eli tightening.

"In Los Angeles. I don't know his name!" Eli was on the verge of passing out from the pain. "He prevented our hijacking a plane…"

Bartholomew twisted Eli until he screamed in terror.

"One of our agents was killed… oh, God… please stop… please…" Eli was whimpering, blood and tears washing down his face onto Bartholomew's black sleeve.

"What else?" Bartholomew demanded.

"Sapperstein told our team in Los Angeles to kill him…" Eli was panting heavily. "That's all. "I swear to God, that's all!"

Bartholomew let go of Eli. "That wasn't so bad, was it? I didn't even have to make the priest puke."

Eli's head rolled forward, and Bartholomew could tell that he was on the edge of unconsciousness. Reaching into his cassock, he pulled out a switchblade and flicked open the blade, deftly stabbing it deep behind Eli's ear. The Mossad agent died almost instantly.

In the corner of the crypt, Dimitri retched.

"How could you?" he said, looking up at the other priest through tear-filled eyes. "How could you?"

"Easy. My school was run by the Christian Brothers." Bartholomew wiped the blade of his knife on Eli's chest. "Help me put this scum in one of these coffins, will you, Father? And then, maybe you could show me where the telephone is."