I, Saul (27 page)
Authors: Jerry B. Jenkins
Primus nodded. “The children don't notice the lack of meat, as long as they get their honey and bread.”
The proprietor delivered the wine and refused Luke's offer to pay. “I told you, my privilege.”
Primus sipped. “It's been a long time since I've tasted something like this. And I don't expect to again soon.”
Luke told him of his arrangement with Gaius.
“You know you can't trust him,” Primus said.
“That is clear. However, I believe he will not testify against you. In fact, he may help you regain your post.”
Primus looked dubious until Luke told him the man's price.
“You'd do that for me, Doctor?”
“A hypocrite should never prevail.”
“I'm no better. Until I got to know Paul, I thought nothing of accepting your gifts for ignoring what you were doing for him. I'm too much like Gaius to hate him.”
Luke held his closed hand out to Primus and dropped several coins into his palm.
“Oh, no, I can't.”
“You must. You can't be expected to miss a week's pay. Consider it a favor from Paul himself. A wealthy friend provided for him.”
“If it weren't for my family, I would refuse.”
“I know you will use it wisely. Anyway, you deserve no less than Gaius. Paul will be pleased to know we have been able to help. When is your hearing?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“We will be praying.”
An hour later Luke sat in his room at Primus' house. He was glad to have been able to help, but how it broke his heart to see both Paul and Primus in such despair. It was a relief to lose himself again in Paul's memoir.
Father seemed to walk more slowly than ever as we trudged back to our lodging. “Those two headmasters wore me out,” he said. “Rabbi Enosh with his negativity, Rabban Gamaliel with his generosity.”
We entered our chamber and sat on our cots.
“We are strict Pharisees,” Father said. “That part of Shammai appeals to me”
“Me too. But I also long to know more than the Law. I want to know God.”
“If He is knowable,” Father said. “Be careful what you wish for. My fear for you studying at Shammai is that you might develop the same attitude as Rabbi Enosh.”
“I didn't notice it until we met Rabban Gamaliel. He is certainly compassionate.”
“A man of character,” Father said. “I would never want to see you soften your view of the Law, but you could do worse than to develop a bearing like his.”
“I would not come here just to have a good time,” I told my father, “but somehow I think studying under Gamaliel would be more pleasant.”
“That should hardly be your priority. You must promise me that you will give yourself wholly to your studies for as long as you're in Jerusalem. We are uprooting our whole
family and moving far from our home just so you may get the best religious training.”
I lay back on my pallet and intertwined my fingers behind my head. “Studying here is a gift I never imagined.”
“You have been diligent. You have earned it.”
“I want to study under Gamaliel,” I blurted, surprising even myself.
Father turned and seemed to search my face. “Really? That would be your decision?”
I nodded. “I know it's not up to me, but yes.”
“I don't know what Rabbi Daniel will think, but I too lean toward Hillel. Naturally, you must tell me of any teaching contrary to orthodoxy. But I rather like the idea of your sitting at the feet of Gamaliel.”
Closing In
SUNDAY, MAY 11, 4:10 P.M.
Sofia put her phone on speaker.
“Dad, how much did you tell Dimos?”
“Only what you told me. What's the problem? He's trustworthy.”
She shot a glance at Augie. “Maybe, maybe not, but he knows more than what I told you.”
“What have you not told me, dear? How can I help if I don't know everything?”
“I'm talking about private stuffâthings that happened since I talked to you.”
The pause was too long to suit Augie. And when Malfees Trikoupis began again, he spoke deliberately, as if taking great care to not trap himself. “Private? And recent? Thenâthen how would I have been able to
tell him something even I did not know?”
“That's my point, Dad. He shows up gung ho and ready to go, but he slipped up. He knows too much. Roger's life is not the only one on the line here, and we feel like we've already been compromised by someone who's supposed to be on our side.”
“He is on your side! He is there on my behalf. You know I would do nothing to jeopardize your safety.”
“Then how does he know all this stuff?”
“You're absolutely certain he has knowledge of your private conversations.”
“Yes, at least two. He had to have access to my phone.”
“No! How?”
“I just asked you that.”
“On my life, darling, I would neverâ.”
“Augie and I are going to have to get to the bottom of this before we can continue working with Dimos. If he's here to examine the parchment and determine its age, there's nothing for him to do until then. Yet he's already trying to make connections.”
“I have contacts who could be helpful, Sofia.”
“But what if Dimos were to say too much to the wrong person? Why don't you call him back to Greece and let us call for him when we're ready?”
“No, no. Now, he's there. I can talk to him, but let him establish the contacts andâ.”
“Then we'll have to confront him. We have to know how he got access to my phone.”
A long pause. “Just be careful not to accuse before you give him a chance to explain. Maybe it's not as sinister as you think.”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing. It's just that at my age I have been through many misunderstandings. You don't want to jump to conclusions. Now, was Dr. Knox able to learn where the manuscript might be?”
Augie shook his head. “No,” Sofia said. “I'll keep you posted.”
As soon as she was off the phone, Augie said, “Let me try something else. It's what, seven hours earlier in Dallas?”
He called Biff Dyer.
“Augie! What's up?”
“You, I hope. Did I wake you?”
“Honestly? Yeah. But we've got to get the kids ready for church anyway. You find Michaels? He okay?”
“We're all fine for now, Biff. I just need a little help. We think someone's hacked Sofia's phone, and we have to know who. Any way to figure that out?”
“Won't be easy. But give me her number and the serial number on her chip and I'll try.”
Augie kept checking his phone for word from Roger. “No sense heading out unless we have a clue where to look.”
“Maybe he dialed you by accident.”
“One way to find out.” Augie called Roger. No answer. Augie texted him, “on r way soon as u say where.”
While they waited, Augie showed Sofia the first page of the memoir. “It has to be real, doesn't it?” she said. “It just has to be. Has anyone ever discovered an older document?”
“The Dead Sea Scrolls, and even some older fragments, but this is hundreds of pages all intact.”
“What's in the envelope?”
“It's addressed to Roger, who was to open it if anything happened to Klaudios. I shouldn't open it unless something happens to Rog. He believes it tells where the rest of the originals are. The box is full of reduced photocopies of the rest of the manuscript. It'll take me a long time to read through, but I have to do it when I won't be disturbed.”
Augie's phone chirped. “It's him! A picture.”
They studied the image. “A corner,” she said. “Both street names are visible. He's in the center of Rome on a Sunday? Isn't that the Vatican across the Tiber there? Maybe he's trying to hide in the crowd.”
Augie reassembled the protective covers for the parchment. “We've got to get to him.”
“Better take a cab,” she said. “Don't want to be driving in that mess.”
“What if we need to get him out of there fast?”
“You wouldn't be able to do it in a car anyway. Unless this were a James Bond movie.”
Augie's phone signaled a text.
“br ur 9.”
“cops kept.”
“br mine. mattress.”
Augie found the nine millimeter between the mattresses in Roger's bedroom. It felt heavy enough to be loaded, but he made sure by releasing the magazine, then snapped it back in.
“Pray I don't have to use this,” he said.
“I'll pray you don't get caught with it.”
As he threaded his belt through the holster and positioned it in the small of his back, Augie said, “We can't leave this stuff here.” He put the envelope in the safe and found a plastic laundry bag in the closet big enough to hold the parchment. He looped the bag over the top of a hanger, draped a shirt around it, and they headed for the parking lot.
Augie hung the shirt in his rental car and stashed the laundry bag and the box in the trunk.
At the main entrance the doorman waved for a white car with a
TAXI
sign on the roof. The crest on the door bore the Latin acronym
SPQR
(The Senate and People of Rome). Augie studied the picture on his phone and told the driver, “First street west of Piazza Navona.”
Sofia whispered, “Think he's running?”
“I'll ask,” Augie said. But before he could punch in the text, Sofia reached to turn his phone toward her.
“This says he sent that picture from his tablet, Augie. Why not his phone like the original call?”
“I don't know. Better quality?”
Augie tapped in, “on r way. u ok?”
Nothing.
“Driver,” he said, “could you hurry, please?”
“Perdono?”
“Potrebbe sbrighi, per favore?”
Sofia said.
Within minutes the driver had picked his way through heavy traffic, most of it heading toward the Vatican, and stopped at a curb near Piazza Navona. “We'd better split up,” Augie said. “You go north, then east. I'll go south, then east. We'll meet in the middle on the other side of the piazza. Don't make it obvious we're looking for anyone. Let him find us.”
Augie didn't expect to be recognized, but since someone had compromised his phone after Roger had called him in Dallas, they could have Googled him and found out what he looked like. If the number two man at the Art Squad really was behind all this, he could have tracked Augie's flight from DFW to FCO.
Augie had to consider all the possibilities. He had shown his passport to the carabiniere in the Naples train station, to the car rental clerk, to the policewoman near Roger's apartment. He had even used it to check in to the hotel and to retrieve the stuff from Roger's luggage locker. Augie could only hope the cop at the gymnasium who absconded with the Smith & Wesson had reason to not report that encounter.