Galishnikov swung the bird around, and they began to climb rapidly. They could still hear rounds smashing into metal all around them, but before they knew it, they had cleared the mountain and were racing westward, trembling, wounded, and wondering who had found them and how.
60
Eventually they landed at Galishnikov’s seaside estate in Netanya.
Perhaps someday, thought Bennett, they’d be able to relax on the grounds of the palatial, five-acre, $19 million compound, with its tennis courts, swimming pool, and fountains, all overlooking the glistening Mediterranean. But today, he knew, wasn’t going to be that day.
Dmitri’s wife, Katya, met them on the landing pad and hurried them inside and into the spacious living room as Dmitri explained what had just happened. Then Katya wrapped Erin in blankets, got her tucked in on a couch, and began treating Natasha’s facial lacerations, while Dmitri made coffee and brought in some rolls and fruit.
“How about you?” Katya asked Bennett when she had finished with the others. “Are you okay?”
“Just a little rattled,” he said, grateful for the hot mug in his cold hands, “and worried about those two.”
“I’d imagine so,” she replied. “I just feel sick about what’s happening to the three of you — Eli, then Yossi, and now this. It’s madness. I don’t know how you three are still functioning.”
“Adrenaline,” said Bennett.
“Caffeine,” said Erin, peeking out from the blankets.
“Revenge,” said Natasha.
A chill settled over the room, despite the fire now crackling in the fireplace.
“Yes, well, how can we help?” asked Dmitri. “What do you need now?”
Bennett looked at Erin, then at Natasha. “A lawyer, for starters,” he said.
“I guess so,” said Dmitri. “Well, I’m afraid Katya here doesn’t practice much anymore, but I could make some calls… .”
“No, no,” said Bennett. “You’d be perfect, Mrs. Galishnikov. Do you still have your license?”
“Please, Jonathan,” she replied. “We’ve known each other too long. Call me Katya. But yes, I still have a valid law license.”
“And everything we say from this point forward would be covered by attorney-client privilege?”
“Of course,” she said. “And from what I can tell, you’ve got an airtight case for self-defense.”
“Actually, that’s not our main concern right now,” said Bennett.
“What is?” asked Dmitri.
Again Bennett looked at Erin and Natasha. Both nodded, though each a bit reluctantly. So he opened his backpack, pulled out the blanket, and set it on the coffee table in front of them, where he unwrapped it until the scroll he had found deep inside Mount Ebal was visible.
The Galishnikovs stared in disbelief.
“What is it?” asked Dmitri.
“Bait,” Bennett replied.
Mariano slammed down the phone and unleashed.
He threw a plate across the kitchen. When it smashed against the refrigerator, he began heaving everything on the table across the room — plates, glasses, silverware. Then he flipped the table over and stormed around Miriam Gozal’s house, cursing at the top of his lungs. Lost them? His team had actually lost the Bennetts and the Barak girl? It was unbelievable. It was impossible. Now what was he supposed to do? Someone would pay for this failure.
Bennett laid out the whole story.
The serial killings. Mordechai’s last words. How they had met the Baraks and learned about Abdullah Farouk. Finding the Key Scroll. Their emerging theory that perhaps the Copper Scroll was an elaborate ruse, designed to cause people to look in dozens of different locations when the treasures — if they were, in fact, real — could be hidden in just a single location.
Bennett’s new theory was that now that they had the Key Scroll and the scroll from Mount Ebal, they had the initiative. If they could only find the treasure, Mordechai’s killers would find them and the conspiracy that had left a trail of blood from London to Los Angeles would soon unravel.
“And that gunfire back there?” asked Dmitri.
Bennett nodded. “The bait is working.”
“And you think this scroll will lead you to the treasures?”
“It better,” he said. “It’s the only hope we’ve got.”
An hour later, Mariano’s team pulled into the driveway.
They gathered in the living room of Miriam Gozal’s house, their heads hung low. The team leader explained what had happened as Mariano paced the thick Persian carpets, barely able to contain the rage seething within. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t ask for clarifications. The team leader just continued talking, and Mariano finally could take it no longer. Before anyone realized what he was doing, he drew his silenced pistol and fired two bullets into the man’s head.
Everyone got the message. Mariano didn’t want excuses. He wanted the Bennetts and whatever they had found in that cave.
Natasha excused herself from the discussion.
She was still in pain, still battling shock, but she knew full well that none of them were going anywhere until she cleaned and translated the scroll they’d just found. The longer she waited, the more danger they were in. So she requested a toothbrush, baking soda, a glass of water, and a washcloth and headed for the dining room as Katya went to gather the items.
But Dmitri still had more questions.
“You’re certain this Abdullah Farouk fellow is behind all this killing?” he asked.
“I’m not sure if it’d hold up in court, but yes, we’re sure,” said Bennett.
“And you think that’s who opened fire at you?”
“I doubt it was Farouk personally. But his people? Sure.”
“How much do you know about him?”
“Not much,” Bennett conceded. “Obviously, an heir to an enormous fortune, said to be worth several billion dollars, but Farouk is also believed to be a shrewd investor. For the past several years he’s been concentrating most of his assets in Iraqi oil and real estate. But his real passion is collecting antiquities. He apparently owns one of the world’s largest private collections of Babylonian, Persian, and Roman artifacts and keeps most of it at his summer estate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, overlooking the Red Sea. Fancies himself an amateur archeologist but has obtained most of his collection through auctions and on the black market.”
“And you said he’s obsessed with hunting the Ark?” asked Dmitri.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Bennett replied. “He once told a London paper that the Ark wasn’t some ‘relic’ to be put in a museum but ‘a weapon of mass destruction’ that would help Arab leaders build a caliphate from Morocco to Pakistan.”
“Then I doubt he’s working alone,” said Dmitri.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it doesn’t sound like he wants the Ark sitting on his mantel, if he finds it. He’s an ideologue. He thinks the Ark can help someone build a new Arab empire. The question is, who is the someone he’s working with?”
Bennett suddenly realized just how tired he and Erin were. They hadn’t been thinking through the larger geopolitical picture. They’d been in pure survival mode.
“Farouk has had a great deal of contact with Iraqi officials of late, though I’m not sure exactly who,” said Bennett, considering the implications. “You don’t think there’s an Al-Hassani connection to all this, do you?”
“After the firestorm, who else is standing?” said Dmitri.