She quickly sorted the in-box by date received, then isolated all the e-mails that had come in during the first two weeks after the firestorm. As best as she could recall, that was roughly the time Mordechai had first come across the clue, according to Doron.
But the more she hunted for the proverbial needle in the haystack, the more Erin was taken aback by the enormous number of e-mails she found that Mordechai had written and received that had to do with her — with finding her, with letting the White House and CIA know she had been found, with organizing an extraction to get her and Jon out of Russia after the firestorm had hit. There were e-mails to senior officials in the Mossad, to Ken Costello, to Indira Rajiv, to Ruth Bennett, and to dozens of colleagues and associates of Mordechai’s located throughout Iran and the former USSR.
Until now, Erin had had no idea just how involved Mordechai had been with their extraction. She knew he was a key player, of course. She and Jon had, after all, been flown not to Washington after leaving Russian airspace but to Jerusalem. They’d spent weeks recovering from their ordeal in Mordechai’s guest rooms. Only now did it suddenly dawn on her how much Jon and Mordechai had shielded her from the specifics of her rescue so she could focus solely on the rest and medical care she so badly needed after being held by Gogolov’s forces.
What’s more, she had unexpectedly uncovered a treasure trove of Mordechai’s thinking on all kinds of political and spiritual issues, issues about which he was corresponding with people all over the world. She was eager to explore more, but there was one e-mail that now caught her eye.
A gift, was all the subject heading said.
It was from someone named Kenneth Donovan. It was not a name she recognized, but she was curious about what might be inside.
35
“Jon, get up — you need to see this.”
He heard the words, and the urgency in Erin’s voice, but it took a moment to make sense of it all. He stared at the ceiling and at the ceiling fan he’d been too busy to notice earlier, but he dreaded the notion of being awake so soon.
“What have you got?” he groaned.
“Black gold,” Erin replied. “Texas tea.”
“What are you talking about?”
He forced himself off the couch and stumbled over to her. His bleary eyes took a while to adjust to the words on the screen, but when they did, he was suddenly and completely awake.
Dear Dr. Mordechai:
Please don’t toss this into your spam file.
You don’t know me. In fact, you’ll never meet me. But you know my kid brother. Or rather, you did, until his death in October 1996.
My brother was Raymond S. Donovan. Most of his family and friends believed (and still do, to this day), that Ray was a pilot for Continental. But you were among a handful of people who knew the truth-that he was a NOC officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.
I only learned the truth upon being informed of his death by a phone call from the director of Central Intelligence and becoming executor of his will. That’s when I gained access to his safe-deposit box and to the secrets it contained.
I am writing to you now because in the box was a large, sealed envelope with your name on it. I assumed Ray wanted me to get this to you, but frankly, I didn’t know how. I had no idea who you were. The CIA proved to be no help. I couldn’t find a shred of information about you on the Internet. So I finally gave up.
But now your "Ezekiel Option" memo has hit the news, and suddenly the whole world knows who you are. I see you have a Web site and an e-mail address. So I’m passing this whole mess on to you.
But first, a confession: When I couldn’t track you down back in ’96, I decided to open the envelope and see what was inside. It was the most foolish thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve done some pretty stupid things in my day. Inside was an audiocassette, made by Ray. There was also a copy of an old leather journal he bought somewhere in southern Syria. It’s all in Arabic. It makes no sense to me. But the tape is pretty clear, and it has shattered my life.
I thought I knew my brother. But the more I learn of the life he was really living, the more I realize how little I knew. We weren’t as close as I thought. Little Ray was living a lie. It turns out he was a felon and a traitor, and I don’t know how I could have failed him so badly.
As I don’t have a mailing address for you, I’ve converted the audiocassette to an MP3 file and the journal into a PDF file. I’ve been living with this nightmare for too long. It’s yours now. May you have more strength than I.
Sincerely,
Kenneth J. Donovan
Erin double-clicked on the audio file, and suddenly they were listening to the voice of Ray Donovan.
“Dr. Mordechai, greetings from the hereafter. If you are listening to this, it can only be for one reason. I have failed, and thus I am dead, and my brother, Kenny, has found a way to track you down and get you this tape and the accompanying journal.
“You and I first met at the Farm nine years ago, when you addressed my class of new Agency recruits. We met again three years ago when you were helping my colleague Craig Harkin and me train Kurdish rebels to run sabotage missions in northern Iraq. Ring any bells? Remember me now? If not, perhaps this will jog your memory. About eighteen months ago, you took Craig and me to meet with some Bedouin trackers you thought we should hire. We were scheduled to meet them at that archeological museum in Qumran, and while we were waiting for them to show up, you and I got into a big argument over the Dead Sea Scrolls.
“You said they were proof that the Bible we have today is the exact same one people had two thousand years ago. No changes. No alterations. Word for word, the same. I said religion was fine for old people who needed a crutch but had no serious basis in science and history. You were very gracious about the ‘old people’ crack, for which I want to apologize again. But I’ll never forget the story you told me next, the story of the Copper Scroll. You insisted that one day the Key Scroll would be found as well, that the Second Temple treasures would be found, that the Ark of the Covenant would be found, and that all these would be further proof — if more were needed — that the Bible is not a myth, not a legend, not some sort of superstitious fiction, but rock-solid history, history that one day would explode into the headlines.
“To your face, I suggested we just agree to disagree. Inside, I was laughing at you all the way back to my hotel. But I have to admit, I was intrigued by what you’d said — not about the religious part, mind you. What intrigued me was the idea of buried treasure — billions of dollars of buried treasure — scattered throughout the West Bank.
“And then something unexpected happened.
“It was around Christmas 1995. Craig and I were in Syria. We were set to meet the economic attaché from the Iraqi embassy whom we were running as a double agent. He was feeding us intel on Saddam’s ties to Hafez al-Assad. We were supposed to meet him that afternoon in a bookstore on the east side of Damascus.
“As we waited for the guy to show up, I was browsing through a wooden crate of used books, and I came across an old leather journal that caught my eye. It was handwritten in colloquial Arabic but had originally been written by a rabbi. The first entry was dated December 9, 1924. The last entry was June 9, 1967. How the bookstore got it, I have no idea. Why the store was selling it rather than burning it, I have no idea. Clearly the store owner hadn’t ever read it. But there it was. I didn’t ask any questions. I just bought it and stuffed it in my briefcase until after our meeting with the Iraqi.