The Second Messiah (4 page)

At that precise moment they were focused not on his three beautiful companions but on the skyline, as the yacht’s Bell helicopter sped in from the Israeli coast.

Hassan Malik was at home in a dozen capitals of the world—in his New York Trump Towers penthouse, two more residences in London and Cannes, and in his palatial villa outside Rome—but he felt at ease in none of them. His soul belonged in the parched deserts of his Bedouin ancestors that lay beyond Jerusalem. He had grown up in dire poverty but that same poverty had lit a fire under him, brought him riches other men could only dream of.

He heard the clatter of helicopter blades as the Bell banked sharply and came in to land. It hovered above the stern deck before it touched down with a bump.

The passenger door was flung open and his brother Nidal stepped out. He was twenty-eight, his boyish face drawn, almost sickly-looking. He wore a dark Armani suit and a white silk shirt, open at the collar, and his beard was neatly trimmed. His angry, olive green eyes seemed to regard the world with distrust.

Hassan Malik waited until his younger brother came over and then he kissed him fondly on both cheeks. “Well?”

Nidal said, “Cane has left Qumran and is headed toward the gravesite. Our pilot has arranged permission from Israeli air traffic control to overfly Jerusalem.”

“Good.” Hassan Malik strode after his brother to the helicopter, climbed in behind him, and slammed shut the door. The pilot raised the aircraft into the hot blue sky. Hassan consulted his watch: 5 p.m.

Fifteen more minutes and I will face my ghosts
.

What was it his father used to say?
We can never escape our past
.

Hassan Malik didn’t want to. He wanted to remember his past because it felt like a stiletto in his heart—a wound that screamed out for vengeance.

And he knew exactly how to avenge that wound.

First, I’m going to use Jack Cane
.

Then I’m going to kill him
.

The powerful GE engines thrust the helicopter forward and sped its passengers in the direction of Jerusalem’s golden dome.

JACK CANE SAT
on a boulder facing the gravestone. He placed the flowers in p pprched, sponge-filled opsis within the nept stone border, filled with gravel chips. Opening the water bottle, he drenched the oasis until it was soaking wet. He lay the empty plastic bottle by his side and his gaze swept over the chiseled granite marker that inscribed his pain.

In memory of Robert and Margaret Cane
,

who died tragically at this spot
.

Rest in peace
.

Miss you always, love you forever
.

Your son, Jack
.

He still missed them, always would. Their passing had left such a deep sorrow, a terrible ache. He removed a worn leather wallet from his pocket and flipped it open. He kept the tattered, twenty-year-old photocopy of the newspaper clipping in a cracked plastic sheath and he unfolded the page. He knew the words by heart as he stared down at the page:

RENOWNED AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGIST

AND HIS WIFE KILLED IN TRAGIC ACCIDENT

Five people were killed yesterday afternoon and another two badly injured on a remote stretch of road near Qumran.

Jerusalem police report that two men and one woman suffered fatal injuries when their pickup collided with an
Israel
Defense Forces truck and crashed into a ravine. The three were respected New York archaeologist Robert Cane, 69, and his wife Margaret, 58, along with local Bedu digger Basim Malik. Two teenage passengers traveling in the back of the pickup—Lela Raul and Jack Cane, both age nineteen—are being treated for injuries.

Police also confirm that the two deceased occupants of the military truck, which exploded carrying a munitions cargo, have not yet been named.

It is believed that Mr. Robert Cane was working on an international dig at Qumran. He and his Bedu helper had only that morning discovered several fragments of an ancient scroll and were traveling to Jerusalem to show their find to the Israeli Antiquities Department when the fatal accident occurred. Police fear that the ancient parchment may have been destroyed by fire.

Father Franz Kubel, the Vatican-appointed coordinator of the Qumran dig and a colleague of Mr. Cane’s, was reported to be shocked by the deaths. “This is dreadful news. Robert Cane was a wonderful man and a highly respected archaeologist. He will be sadly missed.”

Local driver Basim Malik leaves behind a wife and three children.

Jack folded the cutting and shut his eyes. The dream often came to him when he visited the grave and it came to him now.

He was seventeen again, standing in a camp at Qumran, a warm spring day, watching his parents sweating as they dug on a hill above the ancient ruins. In his dream, he ran up the hill to join his parents. They saw him, waved, and opened their arms to greet him. But the closer Jack got, the more the image of his parents faded. He blinked, felt his eyes moisten.

He knew why the dream came. He had loved his parents deeply. His father was a patient, good-humored man with sharp blue eyes and an
infectious
laugh, always ready to share his enthusiasm for archaeology. His mother had blond hair and a beautiful face with high cheekbones. Jack remembered a cheerful woman with a warmth that could lift the gloom of any day.

A college buddy once told him, “All families are screwed up and dysfunctional. But some are even more dysfunctional than others.”

That had never been Jack’s experience. His childhood had been incredibly happy. As he accompanied his parents on digs to South America, Egypt, Rome, and Israel, by his sixteenth birthday he had traveled half the world with two people who never ceased to both love and fascinate him.

He closed his eyes once more and he was nineteen again and the past washed over him …

HE COULD NEVER
forget the day. It was seared into his mind as if with a branding iron.

His parents and their Bedu driver, Basim Malik, were traveling in the front cab. Jack sat in the open back of the pickup, chatting and laughing with Lela Raul, an Israeli girl he had got to know in the last three months since her police sergeant father had been posted to the nearby kibbutz. Lela was smart and kind, with chocolate brown eyes, a sensuous mouth, and long black hair, and she’d made a big impression on a gangly, awkward nineteen-year-old.

Suddenly the vehicle veered out of control and Jack remembered the screams of the passengers and the sickening sensation as their pickup skidded across the road, plunged into the ravine, and rolled over.

A massive blast erupted from somewhere and he was thrown violently from the back of the pickup along with Lela, who lay sprawled nearby, and then the vehicle exploded in flames.

Jack tried desperately to stand but his left leg was shattered, blood gushing from a nasty gash below his knee. He couldn’t hear, for there was a painful ringing sensation in his ears. Helpless and in agony, he crawled toward the wall of flame to reach the upturned pickup, but already it was too late.

He saw the horrific image of his mother clawing wildly at the window, her blond hair on fire. His father yanked frantically at the passenger door as the cab was engulfed in smoke. The last thing Jack heard before he lost consciousness and everything faded was the muted sounds of his parents’ tortured screams.

When he came to he felt groggy and saw a Catholic priest kneeling over him, slapping his face. “Can you hear me? Wake up. Please wake up.”

Jack recognized Father John Becket but he could barely hear him. He was one of a small number of Catholic clerics working on the dig. Nearby, he saw that Lela was propped with her back against a boulder, unconscious, her head lolled to one side. Another priest tended to her, a red-haired man with a strong, sculpted face. He was small and wiry, with the build of a jockey. Jack remembered him as an archaeologist with the Catholic delegation.

Becket said, “The young lady’s concussed but she’s breathing okay. That’s Father Kubel. He was driving by the accident scene too. Father Kubel is skilled in first aid, he can take care of your friend. He thinks she’ll be fine. Do you understand me?”

Jack nodded and saw the wiry little priest patting Lela’s face, trying to wake her. “What—what about my parents?” Jack asked.

Father Becket looked toward the wreckage. The stench of burning flesh seared Jack’s nostrils and he stared in horror at the pickup. Someone had tried to force open the door but without success, and the windshield had been partly shattered, the dashboard turned to melted plastic, black smoke pluming out. He couldn’t see his mother or the driver but his father’s body was nearest the door, his flesh burnt like charcoal.

The priest’s ashen expression said it all. “I—I managed to force open the door a little but the oxygen only made the cabin fire worse. I’m truly sorry. They’re all dead.”

And then Jack’s head swam, his eyes flickered, and he drowned in darkness.

He awoke in the intensive care unit of a Jerusalem hospital. Sergeant Raul, Lela’s father, was seated next to him. He was a tall, fit-looking man with a tanned face and dark, sensitive eyes. “How are you coping, Jack?”

I’m not
. Jack found it difficult to reply. He had lost the two people who had mattered most in his life and his grief seemed bottomless.

Sergeant Raul said gently, “You’ve been out of it for the last three days with a concussion. But thankfully your hearing’s recovered after the blast and the doctors tell me you ought to be up to talking. Do you feel like talking, Jack?”

“I don’t know how I feel.”

“That’s understandable, you’ve been deeply traumatized.”

“My—my parents couldn’t be saved?”

The sergeant said grimly, “I’m afraid not, Jack. Basim Malik, their driver, died too. It’s a terrible tragedy. I’ve examined the accident scene and the skid marks suggest that the army driver was on the wrong side of the road. Once the fire in the cabin took hold, your parents and Basim were trapped inside.”

Jack looked away, racked by anguish.

Sergeant Raul patted his arm. “Lela asks after you. She’s in another ward, doing fine. She’s been checking on you the last few days but you’ve been sleeping for most of it. I know she’d like to see you as soon as you’re up to it. I hear you two have been good friends. I know Lela thinks highly of you.”

Jack simply nodded. He could hardly speak, his heart as heavy as steel.

“It seems you and Lela owe Father Becket your lives, Jack. Luckily he came along when he did. And Father Franz Kubel too.” Sergeant Raul paused, then added delicately, “About the scroll your father excavated. Lela said it was in a map case in the front cabin.”

“That’s right.”

“I couldn’t find it. And forensics found no remains of the case. But the windshield had been partly shattered. I wondered if you recall seeing the map case after the accident, Jack?”

“No, I don’t. Father Becket told me he’d tried to force open the door to free my parents. He must have shattered the window as well. I’m sorry, Sergeant Raul, but I’m really not up to talking right now.”

“Of course. But I need to inform you that your father’s colleagues
have
suggested erecting a grave memorial where the tragedy took place. It’s a particularly beautiful spot, looking toward Qumran, which your parents loved.”

“Y—yes, of course.”

“I also understand that your parents expressed the wish to be cremated in the event of their deaths. They wanted their ashes scattered in the Holy Land where they spent so much of their time. Sadly, your parents’ bodies were so badly burned there was little left but ashes. Perhaps I can arrange a symbolic gesture to help you carry out their wishes. I can arrange that an urn be filled.”

Jack was overcome, fought back tears. His body felt scarred by wounds but the scars inside him were the hardest to bear. “I—I appreciate that.”

“The grave memorial will be looked after, I promise you. Arabs and Jews have great respect for the dead. If only we had the same respect for the living.” The sergeant stood briskly, then said, “One final question, Jack, and then I won’t trouble you any longer. Do you know if the pickup had any maintenance work carried out recently?”