‘Quick, come out. We haven’t a second to waste!’
Jora blinked. It was difficult to recognise the brightness outside the hideout as sunshine. Yudel had never seen the sun. Frightened, he ducked back in.
‘Jora, I’m sorry. Yesterday I found out that Josef and Odile have been arrested. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to upset you further. But you can’t stay here. They’re going to question them, and no matter how much the Cohens resist, the Nazis will eventually find out where Yudel is.’
‘Frau Cohen won’t say anything. She’s strong.’
The judge shook his head.
‘They’ll promise to save Elan’s life in exchange for revealing where the little one is, or worse. They can always make people talk.’
Jora began to cry.
‘There’s no time for that, Jora. When Josef and Odile didn’t return, I went to see a friend at the Bulgarian embassy. I have two exit visas in the names of Bilyana Bogomil, tutor, and Mikhail Zhivkov, son of a Bulgarian diplomat. The story is that you’re returning to school with the boy after spending the Christmas holidays with his parents.’ He showed her the rectangular tickets. ‘These are train tickets to Stara Zagora. But you won’t go there.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Jora said.
‘Stara Zagora is your official destination, but you’ll get off at Cernavoda. The train stops there for a short while. You’ll get out so that the boy can stretch his legs. You’ll leave the train with a smile on your face. You won’t carry any luggage or have anything in your hands. As soon as you can, disappear. Constanta is thirty-seven miles to the east. You’ll either have to walk or find someone willing to take you there by cart.’
‘Constanta,’ Jora repeated, trying to remember everything in her confusion.
‘It was Romania before. Now it’s Bulgaria. Tomorrow, who knows? The important thing is that it’s a port and the Nazis don’t watch it too carefully. From there you can take a ship to Istanbul. And from Istanbul you can go anywhere.’
‘But we don’t have any money for a ticket.’
‘Here are some marks for the trip. And in this envelope there’s enough to book passage for the two of you to somewhere safe.’
Jora looked around. There was hardly any furniture left in the house. Suddenly she understood what the strange noises the day before had been. The old man had hocked almost everything he owned to give them a chance of escaping.
‘How can we ever thank you, Judge Rath?”
‘Don’t. Your trip will be very dangerous and I’m not sure that the exit visas will protect you. God forgive me, but I hope I’m not sending you to your death.’
Two hours later Jora had managed to drag Yudel to the building’s stairway. She was about to go outside when she heard a truck halting on the pavement. Everyone who lived under the Nazis knew exactly what that meant. The whole thing was like a bad melody, beginning with a screech of brakes, followed by someone shouting orders and the dull staccato of boots on snow, which became more precise as the boots hit wooden floors. At that point you prayed for the sounds to fade away; instead there was an ominous crescendo culminating in knocks at a door. After a pause, a chorus of weeping would ensue, punctuated by machine-gun solos. And when the music was over, the lights went on again, people returned to their tables, and mothers would smile and make believe that nothing had happened next door.
Jora, who knew the tune well, hid under the stairs the moment she heard the first notes. While his colleagues broke down Rath’s door, a soldier wielding a flashlight paced nervously back and forth at the main entrance. The torch’s beam cut through the darkness, barely missing Jora’s worn grey shoe. Yudel grabbed her with such animal fear that Jora had to bite her lip in order not to cry out in pain. The soldier came so close to them that they could smell his leather coat and the cold metal and oil of the gun.
A loud shot rumbled down the stairwell. The soldier interrupted his search and rushed upstairs to his companions who were yelling. Jora lifted Yudel in her arms and went out into the street, walking slowly.
15
EN ROUTE TO THE GULF OF AQABA, RED SEA
Tuesday, 11 July 2006. 6:03 p.m.
The room was dominated by a large rectangular table set with twenty neatly placed folders, in front of which sat a person. Harel, Fowler and Andrea were the last ones in and had to sit in the spaces that were left. Andrea ended up between a young African-American woman dressed in some sort of paramilitary uniform and an older man, balding, with a bushy moustache. The young woman ignored her and went on talking to the companions to her left, who were dressed more or less as she was, while the man to Andrea’s right offered his hand, with its thick, coarse fingers.
‘Tommy Eichberg, driver. You must be Ms Otero.’
‘Another person who knows me! It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
Eichberg smiled. He had a round, pleasant face.
‘I hope you’re feeling better.’
Andrea was about to answer but was interrupted by the loud, unpleasant sound of someone clearing his throat. An old man, well over seventy, had just entered the room. His eyes were almost buried in a nest of wrinkles, an impression that was accentuated by the tiny lenses of his glasses. His head was shaved and he had a huge greying beard that seemed to float around his mouth like a cloud of ash. He wore a short-sleeved shirt, khaki trousers and thick black boots. He began to speak, his voice as sharp and unpleasant as a knife scraping teeth, before he reached the head of the table where a portable electronic screen had been placed. Beside it sat Kayn’s assistant.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Cecyl Forrester and I’m Professor of Biblical Archaeology at the University of Massachusetts. It’s not the Sorbonne, but at least it’s a home.’
There was some polite laughter among the professor’s assistants, who had heard the joke a thousand times.
‘No doubt you have been trying to figure out the reason for this trip ever since you set foot on this ship. I hope you were not tempted to do so beforehand, given that your, or should I say our, contracts with Kayn Enterprises require absolute secrecy from the moment they were signed until our heirs rejoice at our death. Unfortunately the terms of my contract also require that I let you in on the secret, which I plan on doing over the course of the next hour and a half. Do not interrupt me unless you have an intelligent question. Since Mr Russell has informed me of your particulars, I am familiar with every detail, from your IQ to your favourite brand of condom. As for Mr Dekker’s crew, don’t even bother opening your mouths.’
Andrea, who was partially turned towards the professor, heard a threatening whisper from the people in uniform.
‘That son of a bitch thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. Maybe I’ll make him swallow his teeth one at a time.’
‘Silence.’
The voice was soft but it had an undertone that was so violent it made Andrea shudder. She turned her head enough to see that the voice belonged to Mogens Dekker, the man with the scar, who was leaning his chair against a bulkhead. The soldiers immediately went quiet.
‘Good. Well, now that we’re all in one place,’ Cecyl Forrester went on, ‘I’d better do the introductions. The twenty-three of us have been brought together for what will be the greatest discovery of all time, and each of you is going to play a part in it. You already know Mr Russell to my right. He’s the one who selected you.’
Kayn’s assistant nodded his head in greeting.