The Columbus Affair: A Novel (48 page)

Go back.

No way.

Simon would shoot her before she made it halfway across.

———

B
ÉNE WAS READY TO CHARGE
.

Of course, he may well get shot before he made it to the Simon, but he was going to try.

Frank slowly shook his head.

And in the eyes of his old friend, he saw why he had to stay still.

At least for a little while longer.

This must resolve itself
.

We cannot interfere
.

He’d resented being considered not Maroon. Angered by colonels who regarded him as a threat. Frank had told him that he did not understand Maroon ways.

Time to show that he did.

So he held his ground and waited.

Hoping that he wasn’t making a mistake.

———

Z
ACHARIAH KNEW THAT IF
S
AGAN WAS RIGHT AND
A
LLE MADE IT
across, that was the time to kill all three men, then Alle, and find the treasure. If the two who’d left earlier were still around at ground level, he’d use the darkness and avoid them, returning tomorrow with a contingent of his own.

That was the thing about having money.

It could buy a multitude of things.

Including results.

———

A
LLE STEELED HERSELF
.

Five.

Then six.

The stone labeled 5 waited three feet away. A full stride, but she could make it. She lifted her right leg, pivoted forward, and nearly lost her balance. Her arms immediately extended, her lungs tightened, and she fought hard not to fall.

Her right foot settled back down beside her left.

She stabilized herself.

“What happened?” her father called out.

“Just scared to death. The shallow water makes this tricky.”

“Take your time,” he said to her.

“But not too much,” Simon added.

“Go screw yourself,” she yelled, keeping her head and eyes focused on the stones beneath the water.

In one quick stride she lifted her right foot, swung out, and resettled it into the water, the sole of her wet shoe resting on the 5 stone.

Which held.

She transferred herself over.

If 5 worked, why not 6?

This time with no hesitation she stepped onto the 6 stone.

Solid.

Three more feet and she was on the ledge.

Relief and joy swept through her.

She turned back just in time to see Béne Rowe rushing toward Simon.

B
ÉNE WAS READY
.

The woman was safe.

And Simon’s attention was momentarily on her success.

He lunged.

Simon reacted by swinging the gun, but Béne’s right leg arched upward and snapped Simon’s arm, the grip on the gun releasing, the weapon clattering away.

Simon froze.

Béne smiled.
“Yu tan deh a crab up yuself, sittin o do yu.”

He saw that the Simon did not understand patois. “It’s a saying of ours. ‘If you keep on scratching yourself, something is going to happen to you.’ ”

He lunged forward and grabbed the lying bastard with one hand, swinging his right fist hard into the stomach. He released his hold and allowed Simon to stagger back.

He readied himself for another blow.

Simon recovered and tried to land a fist of his own.

Béne dodged, then landed an uppercut to the jaw. He was twenty-three years younger than this man, with a lifetime of experience in facing down opponents.

He righted Simon, who was woozy and breathing hard.

He wrapped his right arm around the neck, tightened, and began to choke the life away. Simon’s muscles tried to counter but, as oxygen lessened, so did his resistance.

Béne lifted Simon off the ground, stepped to the lake’s edge, and dropped him over the side.

———

Z
ACHARIAH HAD NEVER FELT THE PRESSURE OF STRONG MUSCLES
encircling his throat, arms immovable, a vise tightening. He could neither breathe, nor call out. Even worse, Rowe was dropping him into the water.

And not on stones.

His feet found mud.

For a few seconds he held, then his body sank, the mud consuming him. He searched for something to hold on to. Nothing. He tried to arrest the panic rushing through him and recalled what Clarke had said, what Sagan had advised Rócha.

Stand still.

If the mud was unmolested it would support weight.

He told himself to stop moving. He’d sunk to just about his knees, but the rigidity worked. He stabilized.

No more sinking.

Rowe, Sagan, and Clark stood on the bank and watched him, all three within an arm’s grasp.

He was at their mercy.

———

T
OM WAS UNCONCERNED ABOUT
S
IMON
.

He wanted to get to Alle.

So he grabbed one of the flashlights lying on the ground, stepped into the water, and worked his way across the pond, following the prescribed path to the ledge on the far side.

Alle waited, watching what was happening a hundred feet away with Simon.

He hopped out of the water.

They both stared across.

“I appreciate you being right,” she said to him.

“Thanks for trusting me.”

“I didn’t have a whole lot of choice.”

“That’s not our problem anymore,” he said to her, motioning to
the far side. “Time for you and me to see what your grandfather spent his life protecting.”

She nodded, but he could read her thoughts. She’d trusted Simon, believed in him, done his bidding. All for nothing. In the end, he tossed her away as meaningless.

He touched her shoulder. “Everyone makes those kind of mistakes. Don’t sweat it.”

“I was an idiot. Look what I did to you.”

No anger. No resentment. Just a daughter speaking to her father.

He switched on the light. “That’s history. Let’s do this.”

He led the way into the crack, which opened to a narrow corridor that wound a path through a natural fissure cut at tall, odd angles. Absolute blackness consumed them. If not for the flashlight, they would not have been able to see their fingers touching their noses.

The treasures Saki had secreted here were created 2,500 years ago according to directions provided from God. The Ark of the Covenant was long gone, destroyed when the Babylonians torched the First Temple. Or at least that’s what most historians believed. But the golden menorah, the divine table, and the silver trumpets could still exist. He knew about the Arch of Titus, on the summit of the Sacred Way in the Forum, upon which was a relief showing the menorah and trumpets being paraded through Rome in 71
CE
. The Israeli government had asked and the Italians obliged, forbidding anyone from passing through the arch. The last dignitaries to have formally walked under it were Mussolini and Hitler. Tour guides actually allowed visiting Jews to spit on the walls. He’d written a story about that, long ago. He recalled how every Jew he interviewed spoke with reverence about the Temple treasure.

On one thing Simon had been right.

Finding it would mean something significant.

They kept walking, the flashlight illuminating the rocky floor ahead. No moisture here. Dry as a desert. The brittle sand crunching with every step.

Ahead, the corridor ended.

———

B
ÉNE STOOD SILENT AND WATCHED
Z
ACHARIAH
S
IMON STANDING
perfectly still, not a muscle moving.

“What are you going to do?” Frank asked him.

“So-so cross deh pon mi from him.”

He felt more comfortable speaking with Simon not being able to understand.

“A wa you a say?”

A good question. He’d told Frank that there’d been nothing but trouble from Simon. Now his adversary, who’d lied to him from the start and tried to kill him in Cuba, was helpless. All he had to do was jostle the mud and the man would sink to his death.

But that was too damn easy.

“You were testing me,” he said to Frank. “And testing Sagan.”

“We promised that only the Levite would make it across, according to the instructions. I had to make sure that happened. I had to trust the quest. I was sure this man”—Frank pointed at Simon—“was not the Levite, but I had to know that the other one was.”

“Maroons want to trust, don’t they?”

“For all the fighting we were, at heart, a peaceful people who simply wanted to exist. Even when we made peace, we trusted that the British would be fair.”

“But they weren’t.”

“Which was to their detriment, not ours. They lost more than we did. History will always remember their lies.”

He saw the point.

“What happened here today was important for the Jews,” Frank said. “I’m glad we could play a part in it.”

“What’s back there?”

Frank shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“I didn’t come here for any treasure.” He pointed at Simon in the water. “I came for him.”

“And he’s yours.”

Béne extended a hand, which Simon grabbed.

He pulled his nemesis onto the bank.

“That’s right,” he said. “He’s mine.”

———

T
OM STARED AT THE OPENING, A JAGGED SLIT NOT MUCH TALLER
than him, where the dry passage ended at a choke point. He shone the light and saw more sandy floor on the other side.

He approached, Alle behind him, and they entered.

A quick survey with the light revealed a room about twenty feet deep and that much wide, with an uncomfortably low ceiling. In the flashlight’s beam during the sweep he’d spotted a glitter where the light reflected back toward them.

Once satisfied that the chamber was no threat, he aimed the beam and counted three stone pedestals. Rocks, about three feet high, their tops and bottoms chiseled flat, stood upright. To his left, atop the first, was the seven-branched menorah, its golden hue dulled only slightly. Next the divine table, the golden patina brighter, its jewels twinkling like stars. Two silver trumpets lay on the third dais, their silver exteriors dotted with more gold, the rest tarnished black but still intact.

The Temple treasure.

Here.

Found.

“It’s real,” she said.

That it was.

He imagined all those who’d died protecting it. Thousands were slaughtered when the Romans sacked Jerusalem. After that, only cleverness had assured that the treasure survived. For two thousand years it had stayed hidden, safe from the world, safe from the Zachariah Simon. It even made it across the Atlantic, on a voyage whose chances of success had been deemed minimal.

Yet here it was.

And his family.

The secret they’d kept for at least two generations, and who knows how many before that.

Now that duty had passed.

To him.

He heard Alle utter a prayer. Had there been a religious bone in
his body, he’d have joined her. But all he could think about was the past eight years.

His life. Its ruin.

And what the woman in Prague had said.

Find the treasure. Then we will talk
.

B
ÉNE TOOK STOCK OF THE TWO WOMEN WHO STOOD ON HIS VERANDA
. One was petite, in her early sixties, dark hair streaked with waves of silver. She was dressed in a stylish blouse and skirt, low-heeled pumps, and introduced herself as Stephanie Nelle, head of the Magellan Billet, United States Justice Department.

“Brian Jamison worked for me,” she said. “So let’s not play games with each other. Okay?”

He’d smiled at her forwardness, confident that the rules, which once favored her, had changed completely.

The other woman was taller, stouter, a few years younger, and similarly dressed. She introduced herself as the Israeli ambassador to Austria.

“You’re a long way from home,” he said to her.

“We came to see you,” the ambassador said.

He offered both women drinks, but they refused. He poured himself some fresh-squeezed lemonade, one of his favorites, sweetened with honey from bees kept here on the estate. A fickle March sun tried to break through in patches from rising afternoon clouds. Rain was coming, but not for a few hours. A little over twelve hours had passed since he’d emerged from Darby’s Hole.

“What happened last night?” Nelle asked.

He sipped his lemonade and listened in the distance.

He heard the dogs.

Barking.

He’d opened the pens over an hour ago, his pets grateful for the
release. Big Nanny led and he’d watched them disappear into the familiar territory of the high forest.

Their wail was slow and steady.

Businesslike.

As with the Maroon’s
abeng
, he’d learned the meanings of their call.

“Last night?” he asked, referring to the question. “I slept well.”

Nelle shook her head. “I told you we didn’t have time for games.”

“Zachariah Simon landed here a little after midnight,” the ambassador said. “He came with one of his employees, a man named Rócha, and Alle Becket. Tom Sagan arrived about an hour before. Two bodies were found at the Kingston airport this morning. Men who, I am told, work for you.”

He’d been troubled to learn of their deaths. He’d told them to be on guard, to expect Simon to be trouble. Unfortunately, the personalities that came into his employ were often too confident and too inexperienced, which sometimes proved a deadly combination. One of the men was married, with children. He’d pay the widow a visit tomorrow and make sure, financially, she’d be okay.

“You have a remarkable amount of information for two people who don’t live here. How does any of it relate to me?”

Trucks headed off in the distance for one of the far pastures, where his prized horses grazed. He’d been told a few days ago that the coffee beans were blooming, and it looked like a good year ahead.

“Quit the act,” Nelle said. “Simon killed Brian Jamison. For all we know, you okayed that.”

“Me? I liked Brian.”

The Justice Department woman never broke a smile. “Yeah, I’m sure you did. But did you think we’d forget about you?”