Amazing he still remembered the words, but Abiram had been relentless in his teachings. He also recalled that, after the sin of the Golden Calf, when the Israelites wrongly worshiped a false idol, Levites, who’d abstained from that act, were chosen to serve the Temple.
But how did any of that relate to Abiram?
Never had anyone in his family ever mentioned that their Jewish roots came from the Levites.
Until Tom reached high school he and Abiram had been close. Being an only child came with the advantage—and disadvantage—of constant parental attention. During his teenage years they began to drift apart. The gap widened in college. Meeting Michele and falling in love finally confirmed what he already knew.
He was not a Jew.
No matter his birth, heritage, custom, or duty.
None of it meant anything to him.
His mother had tried to persuade him otherwise. Perhaps she knew what her husband would do. But Tom had not been convinced. So he renounced his birthright and, to please his new wife, became a Christian. For a few years he, Michele, and Alle attended Episcopal services. That happened less and less as he traveled more and more. Eventually, he realized Christianity meant nothing to him, either. He just wasn’t spiritual.
Chalk that up as another failure.
“Patch things up with your father,” Michele said to him.
“It’s too late for that.”
“I’m out of the picture. We’re divorced. He should be happy with that.”
“It’s not that simple with Abiram.”
“He never cared for me, Tom. We both know that. He resented that you were baptized and blamed me. He only cares for Alle. That’s all.”
Maybe not, he thought.
He may have cared for something no one ever realized.
Son, I kept a great deal to myself.
Things that would surprise you.
Now I take those secrets with me to my grave.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ZACHARIAH WAS READY FOR REST. TOMORROW COULD BE THE day he’d been waiting for all of his life. Had he found the Levite? The keeper of the secret? Finally, after five hundred years?
Columbus had been a clever one, that he’d give him.
In 1504 the admiral returned to Spain from his fourth and final voyage, spending the next two years trying to force Ferdinand and Isabella to honor their promises. In 1506 he died and his sons assumed the cause. When they died, it remained for one of their widows to finally make a deal with the Crown, one that gave the Columbus family total control over Jamaica for the next 150 years.
Luis de Torres, Columbus’ Hebrew interpreter on the first voyage, never returned to Europe.
He stayed.
And for good reason.
De Torres’ birth name had been Yosef Ben Ha Levy Haivri—Joseph, the son of Levi the Hebrew—making him the first person of Jewish origin to settle in the New World. He’d been forced to convert to Christianity in order to be eligible for the voyage but, like so many other conversos, he remained a Jew all of his life. History liked to downplay the fact that de Torres was, most likely, the first person ashore that day on Hispaniola in October 1492. Since he was the expedition’s interpreter, he would have been the one who initially confronted the natives. What a thought. The first words spoken in the New World were probably Hebrew.
Some historians claimed de Torres died in 1493 on Hispaniola, one of 39 left there by Columbus at the end of the maiden voyage, part of the settlement called La Navidad. All of those men were slaughtered by natives before Columbus could return months later on the second voyage.
But de Torres had not died.
Instead he’d guarded three crates that had crossed the Atlantic with Columbus on the first voyage and had been deposited on land for safekeeping.
The first person, called the Levite, charged with that duty.
And there’d been a succession of others ever since. Each guarding their secret, remaining in obscurity.
Until Abiram Sagan.
Finally, a mistake.
Sagan had told his granddaughter things. Meaningless to her and 99 percent of the rest of the world.
But not to a Simon.
Where the Levites went to great lengths to keep their secret, the Simons had gone to even greater lengths to expose them. His father and grandfather had both searched, learning bits and pieces from old documents, especially ones found in a forgotten archive. They’d wanted to provide the new state of Israel a magnificent gift—restoring the Temple treasure. But they’d both failed. History mattered, his father would many times say. Thank heaven for the Internet. That resource had not been available before his generation. From there he’d been able to discover Abiram Sagan’s mistake.
Now he would capitalize on that error.
He climbed into bed.
His phone buzzed and he checked the display. Rócha.
“What is it?”
He listened as his acolyte told him about Alle Becket and what had happened at a Viennese café.
“It was him,” Rócha said. “Brian Jamison. He is here.”
That meant trouble.
He’d spent the past few months coddling Alle Becket, listening to her progressive garbage, all the while thinking that she embodied everything wrong with the current state of Judaism. She was naïve to the point of stupidity. But this unexpected contact directly with her signaled a problem.
He could not afford any mistakes of his own.
“Where is she now?” he asked Rócha.
“Back at the apartment. She went home. I am having it watched.”
“What did she say happened?”
“He appeared. Pressed her about you. She told him to leave a couple of times, then we showed up.”
“She revealed nothing?”
“She said no.”
But he wondered.
Brian Jamison worked for Béne Rowe. He was to Rowe as Rócha was to him. Jamison being in Vienna and connecting with Alle was a clear message that his Jamaican partner was both well informed and perturbed.
He’d been ignoring Rowe.
But Rowe had not been ignoring him.
Luckily, he and Rócha had discussed contingencies before he’d left Austria for Florida. One of those dealt with what would happen when Alle Becket was no longer useful. “Handle things with her, as we agreed. With nothing to find.”
“She may not cooperate.”
He knew what Rócha meant. With what happened on the video.
“I will make sure she does. Give me an hour. And, one thing. After that stunt you pulled today, don’t do this yourself. She will go nowhere willingly with you. Use someone else.”
And he ended the call.
———
ALLE WAS BOTH ANGRY AND CONFUSED. RÓCHA HAD FOLLOWED her back to her apartment with Midnight leading the way. The man who called himself Brian was gone, but his warning lingered in her mind. Rócha had quizzed her on what had happened, and she’d told him the truth.
For the most part.
“Zachariah Simon is an extremist.
“And those are a problem to us all.”
But how could that be? Zachariah seemed so genuine. They’d spent a great deal of time together. Thirty years separated them in age, but she found him both charming and interesting. Apart from some glowing compliments, which also seemed sincere, he’d remained the perfect gentleman and confined his attention to business. Not that she would not have minded an advance or two. He’d been nothing but open and honest in their discussions, never a hint of deceit, and he seemed to genuinely care about their religion.
She sat alone in her three-room flat, the windows open to a cool night. Vienna was enchanting after dark, and the angle afforded her an impressive view of the brightly lit and ornately patterned glazed tile roof of St. Stephen’s Cathedral.