There were a handful of cars, mostly junkers that were held together by rust and need. But one car caught my eye. It was also beat up but it didn’t labor to make it down the block; and I saw it three times. Twice on streets that paralleled the one I was on, and once idling at a light a block ahead. My route may have been random, but I paid close attention to cars and people; and one of the tricks is looking down a cross street when you reach a corner to see what cars are moving along at your pace a block or two over.
Spotting the same car three times could have been a coincidence. Kim Kardashian’s boobs could be real, too, and that’s about as likely.
When I got to the next block, I cut through an alley, running only as fast as Ghost could manage. At the end of the alley, I went through a couple of backyards and then a side yard which took me back to the street just as the little sedan drove past. I was in deep shadows and the driver was looking slowly side to side to check the faces of pedestrians on a moderately busy market street.
The driver was a woman.
I could not tell much because she wore a chador, but her eyes were intelligent, intense and, except for heavy makeup, they did not look even remotely Middle Eastern. Northern Italian at best.
“Violin,” I said, and I knew that I was right. My own Sniping Beauty. And as I murmured her name she turned in my direction, but I was in shadows and the traffic gave her no room to stop.
She could not have heard me. No way.
I opened my cell phone and called Bug, giving him the make, model, and license plate number of Violin’s car.
“Whoa!” Bug said as soon as he ran it. “This is really weird. I got a screen pop-up that says all inquiries for this plate number are to be directed internally. Here, I mean. The DMS. The pop-up is initialed D.”
D. For Deacon.
Church.
“Put him on the line,” I demanded.
“I can’t,” said Bug, “he’s on a conference call with somebody overseas. Don’t know who and he’s marked his line for ‘no intrusion.’”
“Then make goddamn sure I’m his next call,” I growled, and hung up.
Violin’s car was gone by the time I stepped out of the alley with Ghost lumbering along beside me. A few people threw me annoyed looks. Iran had weird rules about dogs on the street. I ignored them.
As we picked our way through the crowds of shoppers, I kept one eye on the cars, watching to see if Violin circled back. Then I froze. Another car drifted along, and the driver, much like Violin, was looking side to side to scan the pedestrians. It wasn’t my guardian angel. It was a man, and when he turned my way I saw a gaunt face and red rat eyes staring through the glass.
A Red Knight.
Christ.
I darted out of the flow of traffic and stood in the dense shadows under the broad awning of a big vegetable stand. The car rolled along, and the head moved back and forth, and I held my breath. Then it was gone in the long flow of traffic that vanished into the heat haze. He hadn’t spotted me.
“Sheeez,” I breathed.
I was becoming increasingly paranoid. It felt like there was nowhere to go, no place, not even a street corner, where I could catch my breath. It was getting hard to catch my breath and that had nothing to do with the relentless heat.
The vegetable seller glanced at me and offered a handful of figs. I shook my head, and with a word to Ghost, turned and headed a different way. We needed to get off the street right now. The CIA safe house was close.
We kept our heads down and melted into the crowd.
Interlude Three
Council Chamber of the Red Order
Jaffa, The Holy Land
October 1191 C.E.
Sir Guy LaRoque and Father Nicodemus sat at the end of a long rectangular table made from a massive and ornate wooden door that had once hung in a Jewish temple. The temple was now in ashes, its treasures parceled out among the priests and senior knights of the Hospitallers.
There were a dozen seats at the table. Nine knights sat there, and the rest were minor priests of Nicodemus’s choosing. Each of them had sworn the same oaths, each had sealed their oaths with the tip of a heated knife blade.
Without looking up, Nicodemus said, “Do you know this story, Sir Guy? The binding of Isaac?”
The Frenchman hedged. “Perhaps not as well as I should-”
Nicodemus waved away the excuse with a gentle movement of his hand. “There are valuable lessons in the Bible’s older books.” He tapped the carving of Abraham with a long fingernail. “This one in particular. Abraham, a holy man, was commanded by God to bring his son to Mount Moriah, and there to build a sacrificial altar and sacrifice Isaac upon it. Abraham did as he was told. He built the altar and bound his son to it, drew his knife, and was ready-despite his breaking heart-to kill Isaac to prove his devotion to God. However, before the knife could plunge down, an angel appeared and stayed his hand, directing him to sacrifice a nearby ram instead.”
As he spoke the men seated around the table grew quiet so they could hear the story. A few stood to better see the carving. Nicodemus nodded approval.
“The whole drama,” he continued, “had been staged to force Abraham to prove beyond question his steadfast devotion to God.”
Two of the priests murmured “Amen,” which was picked up and echoed by the knights. However Nicodemus’s next words silenced them. “Or so Abraham told everyone.”
He looked at the men, each in turn, and the molten gold color of his eyes seemed to swirl with shadows. “Personally, I have sometimes doubted whether the story was fairly reported. After all, except for the boy, who was traumatized and confused, there were no credible witnesses.” No one said a word. No one dared. “The power of the story is immeasurable. Because of it Abraham became the father of the Israelites, the father of us all in many ways. He became a leader whose right to lead was bestowed upon him by God. Directly by God. And why? Because of the power of his devotion, a devotion so steadfast that he would have slaughtered his own son.”
The others nodded but said nothing.
“As I sat waiting for our brotherhood to gather,” continued the priest, “I pondered this story, as I have oftentimes pondered it. We know firsthand that the histories being written about our Crusades are often at odds with the facts, but seldom at odds with the truth.” He paused, eyes intense. “With the most useful version of the truth.”
A wealthy knight halfway down the table said, “Surely, Father, there is only one truth. Everything else is…”
His voice trailed off as Nicodemus leaned forward. “Doesn’t that depend on who is telling that truth, and who is listening?” Nicodemus allowed them to ponder that. “I have long ago accepted that history of any kind may be only a version told to suit the listener and serve the teller. Like the story of Abraham and Isaac. While we can understand and fully appreciate the effect of this story upon all of the generations that followed, we liberated thinkers are now called to look at the actual events. We can wonder what Abraham’s true feelings were for Isaac. He could as easily have despised the boy. Or found him bland and uninteresting. Or, if-as some church scholars insist-Isaac was a grown man in his thirties at the time of the sacrifice, then the whole event might have been concocted by father and son. Certainly the result was that their line became the bloodline of the Jews. To tell you the truth, I rather like the idea that it was an agreement between them. It shows high intelligence and careful planning and demonstrates, to us in particular, the power that can be harvested from such courses.”