Startled, Marcas turned around. It was Alexis Jaigu, a former military man who was now an intelligence officer on some assignment in Rome. Jaigu was the friend who had invited him to this affair.
“Alexis! You must save me. Find me a woman in this crowd of beauties.”
Jaigu made circles with his fingers and brought them to his eyes. “Tall blonde at two o’clock, flaming redhead at six. Two apparently isolated targets without patrol escorts. Intelligence report: the blonde heads up marketing for a San Paolo bank. The redhead is second-in-command at an Israeli company that dabbles in arms sales to emerging countries.”
“Too high-powered for me. You wouldn’t have a more classic model — a painter or dancer, someone a little more artistic?”
“So I take it you’re finally over your ex-wife. It’s about time. How’s your son?”
“He’s living with his mother,” Marcas said, looking away. He didn’t like to talk about his divorce. Cops never stayed married long, and Marcas was no exception to that rule. He had spent many sleepless nights after his wife left him, along with difficult weekends with his son who blamed him for the separation. Some men in his shoes found solace in drink, others in one-night stands. Marcas had buried himself at the Freemason lodge, focused on his symbolism studies. It had taken a full year before he started dating again. But he was still single. One of his occasional dates had told him to let go of his ex before bidding him good night. Marcas had laughed. The only time he thought of his ex-wife was when he wrote the alimony check at the end of the month or when he received one of her hateful letters full of accusations.
Jaigu grabbed a toast with Périgord foie gras from a platter. “Hey, do you know the ambassador?”
“I can’t say I do.”
“So he’s not a Freemason, like you?”
Marcas stiffened. “I’m no snitch. Ask him yourself.”
“You’re joking, right? I don’t want to get sent to some faraway consulate in Africa. It’s a favor I’m asking. Don’t you have some sort of secret code of recognition? A special handshake or something?”
Marcas sighed. It was always the same stupidities: occult influence, signs of recognition — the folklore. How many times had his hand been kneaded by overly familiar non-Masons who had read a few things about freemasonry?
“Sorry, I can’t.”
“At least say you don’t want to, Antoine. How long have we known each other? And you still cover for the ambassador? A man you’ve never even met? You brothers really do stick together.”
Marcas didn’t want to get into a long explanation with his now-tipsy friend. He knew Jaigu well, and tomorrow the man would be full of apologies.
“Drop it, Alexis.”
“I won’t press. And I won’t hold it against you. Let me introduce you to two superb actresses who are waiting for nobody but us,” Jaigu said, throwing his arm around Marcas’s shoulder and leading him to the terrace.
4
Bashir Al Khansa, aka the Emir, rarely went anywhere alone and usually traveled under the cover of night. It was his way of playing Israeli security, which was polluting East Jerusalem. When he had time to sleep, it was in homes carefully chosen by logistics specialists in his movement, which Israeli spies had been trying to infiltrate for a long time.
On this night, Bashir was wearing a thin moustache and a white suit like those favored by rich Lebanese businessmen. A perfect disguise for his meeting with Alex Perillian.
The two men were now sitting in the courtyard, heat reflecting off the old stones. Bashir’s two bodyguards watched over the entrance.
Bashir was seething. “Allah is great, showing us to this stone, and you hand it over to those Jewish pigs? They will sully it with their blasphemous hands.”
Perillian sighed. “Since when have the respectful servants of the Prophet been interested in a stone engraved by the sons of Zion?”
“Everything found in the land of Allah belongs to Allah. Where is the stone now?”
“At the archeological institute. The scientists are analyzing it, and if it is authentic, the price will be high, and your share will be great.”
“The servants of Allah don’t care about money from unbelievers! I want the stone.”
Perillion was sweating now. “Be patient. I’ll get the stone back as soon as the tests are done. Then you can—”
“May Allah curse the infidels who don’t acclaim his light. Nobody must know the significance of the stone — especially those Israeli dogs. Do you understand?”
“But there’s nothing I can do.”
Bashir smiled. “Yes there is.”
Marek was leaning over his worktable, examining his translation of the inscription. On his computer, a software program was matching the concordances with ancient Hebrew texts.
His heart had raced at the idea of being the first to proclaim a fragment linking the chosen people with their destiny. But he had just discovered that he was not the first. In the lower right corner of the stone, an anonymous hand had engraved a Latin cross with branches that widened like the sails of a boat. It was the cross of the Order of the Temple — or the Knights Templar, the order founded by nine Frenchmen in the second decade of the twelfth century on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, just above the Temple of Solomon.
Marek, the venerable master of his Freemason lodge, recognized it immediately. Didn’t some people claim that the higher orders of freemasonry were direct descendants of the Templars? Marek thought those stories were nothing but legend, but he knew them well.
Now the cross danced in front of his eyes. What had the Templars been doing with this stone?
The computer screen lit up. Marek examined the word frequencies one after the other. They supported the dating. Except for a single word — a word that didn’t exist in the database.
First the cross, then the unknown term.
The phone rang, pulling Marek back to the here and now. As he reached for the receiver, he looked at his watch. It was ten thirty.
“Oh, professor.” The caller’s accent was melodious. “What luck. I tried to reach you at home first. Happiness to the man who works late!”
“Perillian, if you’re calling in the middle of the night for my conclusions—”
“Oh no, professor, that’s not it. There’s been a miracle. A real miracle. Someone has just brought me another fragment of the same stone.”
“You must be joking.”
“No, professor. It is from the same source. The family brought it over this very evening.”
“Perillian, you realize that such a discovery could have a significant bearing on my current analysis.”
“I’m all too aware of that, professor. I don’t want to keep such a treasure from you.”
“When will you bring it over?”
“Right away. I’ll send over a servant. I can’t just leave the family who brought it like that, etiquette and all. You can trust the man I’m sending. His name is Bashir. Can you make sure he doesn’t get caught up at the roadblocks?”
“Don’t worry about that. Fax me his papers, and I’ll inform the ministry right away.”
“Thank you, professor. You’ll see. It’s one of a kind, really.”
Marek ended the call and turned to the computer screen.
Perillian smiled at Bashir. “You see—”
He didn’t have time to finish his sentence. Bashir, a gun with a silencer in hand, stood over the businessman as he crumpled to the floor. He had aimed for the spleen, granting the man a merciful death — painful, yes, but quick. He had surprised himself with this act of kindness. He usually preferred to watch the life drain from his victims slowly, not so much out of sadism as from curiosity. The life force was there, and then it wasn’t. Every time, death was unique, but in many ways it was the same, whether the man was a Jew, a Muslim, or a Christian.