The Second Messiah (59 page)

“He’s got at least nine deep stab wounds. Two to his hands as he tried to fend off Cassini’s blows, others to his side, head, and chest. They’ve pierced organs, severed veins, and he’s lost blood by the liter. They’ve got him hooked up to life support but I’ve been warned that
it
might not be for long. It’s bleak, Joe. I believe we’ve lost him and we just have to accept that.”

Rinaldi’s pallid face was a mask of confusion, his eyes suddenly moist. “Whoever would have thought? The best thing to happen to the church and now we’re losing him. What are we to make of it all, Sean?”

Ryan clutched the press officer’s arm. “I wish I knew. Do you believe in miracles, Joe?”

“Working in this business, I’ve got to.”

“Then start praying for one, because that’s the only hope we’ve got.”

BUDDY SAVAGE PUSHED
his baseball cap back off his head and wiped the gritty 4
A.M.
tiredness out of his eyes. He tried to focus on the Land Cruiser’s twin headlights as they flooded the dark desert road beyond Qumran.

Despite his tiredness, Savage felt alert, scared, and excited.

The tangerine dawn hadn’t yet tinted the horizon and when he reached the rise in the road the Land Cruiser’s beams swept over the gravestone. Savage halted, keeping the powerful beams directed at the grave, and snapped on the handbrake. He left the engine running and jumped out of the cabin.

The desolate landscape was bitterly cold. It would be another hour before dawn struggled behind the mountains of Edom. Buddy Savage shivered and felt an odd feeling of exhilaration rip through his veins.

A goat bleated in some far distant Bedouin camp. Savage ignored it as he knelt in front of the grave, using the wash of the headlights as he scrabbled madly at the gravel. Rummaging and digging below the pebble, he finally grasped the package under loose earth. It was wrapped neatly in a black garbage bag.

The scroll
.

His heart raced as he opened the loose knot that tied the garbage bag. Inside he found the parchment, protected in a clear plastic bag. He carefully examined his find and noticed that some parts of the parchment were already crumbling. But it was still intact, which was all that mattered.

He crumpled the black garbage bag and tossed it away. His anxiety rose as he carried the precious parchment back to the Land Cruiser.

Carefully holding the scroll with one hand, he picked up a worn leather briefcase from the passenger seat and flicked it open. He gently laid the scroll inside the briefcase, holding it in place with two pieces of white foam, then he sweated as he picked up his cell phone and punched in the redial key.

The anonymous male caller answered. “Well?”

“I have the scroll. It’s where you said it was.”

“Good. You know what to do next, Savage. Any mistakes, any involvement by the Israelis, police or military, or anyone else, and Jack Cane is a corpse. Is that very clear?”

Savage’s voice was flecked with a mix of fear and anger. “I’m pleading with you not to harm Jack.”

“Do exactly as you’ve been told and he won’t be. But disobey my instructions, and I swear he’ll die. I’ve told you the rules. You come alone, Savage.”

“I heard you the first time you called.”

“And you had better not be armed.”

“Do you think I’m crazy? I told you, I’ll do whatever you say.”

“We meet in an hour, the place where I said. I’ll call you then.”

“What about cell phone reception in the area? It can’t be that great.”

“Don’t worry, Savage. There’s enough signal coverage.” The line clicked dead.

Savage’s face twisted and he spat the words. “You better be sure about that, pal.”

He punched in another number on the cell phone’s keypad.

When a voice answered, he spoke for at least five minutes before he terminated the call and tossed the phone on the passenger seat.

Then he swung the Land Cruiser east, toward the Jordanian border.

THE DESERT AIRFIELD
was fifteen miles inside Jordan’s border, near the Dead Sea. It had long ago been abandoned. Weeds grew on the cracked concrete, a perfect home to lizards, snakes, and scorpions, and camel thorn bush blew across it when the desert wind shrieked. But that early morning the wind was calm and the landing conditions near perfect, despite the darkness.

The runway had last seen service over twenty years ago by the Jordanian air force. Now the control tower was a derelict mess. Every window was broken, the doors and plumbing scavenged.

Two hours earlier a convoy of pickup trucks had drawn up.

At least two dozen Bedu men jumped down. A pair of the pickups kept their lights dimmed as they drove along the runway, the men working in front as they swept away gravel and rocks and removed any foreign objects from the concrete until the runway was clear of all debris.

A young man wearing spectacles and a Bedu headdress checked the wind direction. The air was still as a rock. Then he climbed into one of the pickup trucks and drove to the far end of the runway, reversing the truck a few yards out into the desert before he halted and jumped out.

An object in the back of the truck was covered with a rainproof tarpaulin and he ripped it away. Underneath was a radio transmitter dish hooked up to a portable power supply and a laptop.

As the young man switched on the laptop, his comrades in two of the other pickups drove along each side of the runway, stopping every sixty feet and placing plastic, battery-operated electric lanterns on the runway’s edge, then adjourned to the
runway
’s edge to brew tea on a battered portable Primus stove.

The young man watched the laptop’s bright blue screen fill with data as the portable Instrument Landing System computer worked through its loading sequence. A motor whirred and adjusted the radio dish to transmit the glide slope at a perfect three-degree angle. Minutes later, the computer finished its setup.

Satisfied, the young man grinned to himself, jumped down off the truck, and then went to join his comrades making tea.

JACK FELT A
sinking sensation again as the Lear nosed down.

Yasmin peered out the oval starboard window. A few weak streaks of dawn’s burnt orange light tinted the cabin. “We’ll be landing soon.”

They were alone. Hassan and the Serb had moved into the rear cabin. Yasmin sat back in her seat and looked over at him. “No doubt you want to know why I tricked you.”

“I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind. What’s your real name?”

“Fawzi.”

“I think I preferred Yasmin. In fact, let’s keep it simple and I call you Yasmin.”

She shrugged, her face even more beautiful in the cabin’s soft light. “Can I say something, Jack? We both know what pain is. You lost your parents. I lost mine. Do you know how my mother died?”

“No.”

Her eyes misted with pain. “I was five. The day my father died she went to Jerusalem on the pretence of being consoled by her sister. Instead, my mother hung herself. All because she couldn’t stand the indignity of raising a family without her husband. My world fell apart that day.”

“I never knew.”

“Had it not been for Hassan, Nidal and I probably would have starved to death in some gutter. But Hassan was always such a good brother to us. He begged, he stole, his own belly went hungry so he could feed us. He did whatever he had to do to keep us together. Many evenings I saw the calluses on his hands and the exhaustion
in
his eyes from hard work. He was still not much more than a child himself.”

“So you helped him out of a sense of duty.”

“You make it sound so flippant, Jack.”

“I didn’t mean to. I’m just stating a fact.”

She stared back. “Of course I helped him. He did so much for me. Washed me, clothed me, replaced the love I lost from my parents. And when he had crawled out of the gutter, he gave me the best education money could buy. Hassan isn’t a beast, Jack. He’s a good man. A good man with a lot of harm done to him—to his head, to his heart and soul, just like you. But no matter how hurt he was himself, he would always assure me that everything would be all right.” Her eyes became wet. “And now with Nidal gone, Hassan’s all the family I have left.”

“How did Professor Green get to play a part in your little game?”

“Green was a ladies’ man, easy to manipulate. Hassan wanted someone he could trust on site when the scroll was discovered. Someone to keep him informed. Who better than his own family? He had Josuf’s help, of course, but he wasn’t family, and Hassan didn’t fully trust him, and rightly so.”

“What do you mean?”

“He worked for Hassan. That’s why he took us to Maloula, on Hassan’s orders, to meet the black-market thieves his brother dealt with and to try to find out where the scroll had disappeared. Unfortunately, Josuf was also an Israeli informer when they paid him enough. But now he is no more.”

“You mean he’s dead?”

“It’s the Bedu way, Jack. Deceit carries a heavy price. Josuf’s family will be taken care of financially by Hassan. But Josuf betrayed his tribe.”

“How did you manipulate Green?”

“I made it my business to bump into him in a hotel bar in Jerusalem. The rest, as they say, was easy.”

“Sex in return for a ringside seat to keep watch on your brother’s big plan?”

Yasmin shook her head. “There was no sex, I made sure of that, only the promise of it. Green was entranced by me, wanted us to spend time together. I told him I was fascinated by archaeology. With a little coaxing he came up with my cover story. As his niece, I’d have a tent nearby and he could see all of me he wanted to, without raising suspicion.”

“Clever. Kisses and hugs for Professor Green when no one was looking, and his hopeful prospect of sex down the line.”

“That about sums it up.”

“I’m not surprised Green fell for it. I did too. You’re good, I’ll give you that. And here was me thinking you might have liked me. But there’s something I don’t understand. After we left the Vatican and sat in the café you alerted me to Nidal and his buddy. Why?”

“Hassan’s plan was to abduct you, along with me. That’s why I followed you out of the café, ultimately to make it easier. I had phoned Hassan, told him you’d confided in me and you’d hidden the scroll. Nidal was to take us to Hassan’s villa to interrogate you and get the information from you. By me alerting you to the danger, it would help protect my cover.”

“Then Hassan could use the ploy of threatening to harm you to make me reveal where I’d hidden the scroll.”

“Yes.”

“But then the Israelis appeared and ruined it all?”

She nodded. “Nidal thought it wiser if I disappeared with him into the tunnels. He didn’t like the idea of leaving me with Israelis.”

“I guess I really fell for it, didn’t I?”

“I’m sorry that you’ve been used and hurt, Jack. But there was no other way.”

The Lear jet lurched as the air brakes deployed, slowing the aircraft, lifting it slightly. Yasmin peered out. “Another few minutes and we’ll be on the ground.”

“And then?”

“Hassan has Bedu friends who’ll take us close to the border but not over it—we don’t want the Israelis interfering in what happens next.”