“What? To Israel?” she asked. “Right now?”
Bennett looked over at Erin, who smiled, nodding her approval, knowing how much it would mean to his mom to be needed at a moment like this.
“We’re going to be here a little while,” Bennett explained. “And there’s also a friend of ours — she’s actually still in surgery right now — but when she gets out, she could really use your help and your prayers.”
“Is that Natasha?” she asked.
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“I told you, it’s all over the news — the whole crazy thing.”
He laughed and quickly filled her in on Natasha and Yossi Barak and how much they had both come to mean to them in the few short days since they’d met.
“For you, I’d do anything, sweetheart,” his mother said. “I just want you to know, I love you very much, and I couldn’t be prouder.”
“Thanks, Mom, I love you, too,” he said. “I’ll have an e-ticket waiting for you at the Continental desk for the one o’clock Orlando flight to Tel Aviv. It routes through Newark. And I’ll have a car waiting to pick you up when you land.”
Erin watched her husband hang up the room phone.
Only to have his BlackBerry begin ringing. It was Ken Costello in Washington, and Erin listened as Jon took the call.
“Hey, Ken, good to hear from you,” Jon said, walking to the windows and staring out over the Old City. “No, no, we’re fine… . Minor, but the doctors say she’ll be up and around in no time… . Yeah, it was pretty close, but we got ’em, Ken, we got ’em… . No, Zadok hasn’t stopped by yet… . His office just called — he’s supposed to be by around five — Doron is going to call us around then as well.”
Then Erin watched as her husband stopped cold.
“What?… What are you talking about?… Say that again.”
“What is it?” Erin whispered, but Bennett wouldn’t say.
“How long ago?” he asked. “But what about her husband?… Doesn’t he… you’ve got to be kidding me… . I just… I don’t know… . I can’t believe that.”
“What?” Erin pressed. “What’s going on?”
“All right, Ken, call me back as soon as you know. Thanks.”
“Jon, what in the world was that all about?” Erin asked.
“It’s Indira,” he said.
“What about her? Is she okay? Jon, tell me she’s okay.”
“They don’t know. She’s missing.”
“What do you mean missing?”
“I mean gone, missing, disappeared. Nobody knows where she is.”
“Have they talked to Peter? He’s got to know where—”
“I’m just telling you what Ken told me. She’s gone. And there’s more.”
“What?”
“Scott Harris at FBI just told the president he believes Indira was the mole.”
“What?” Erin gasped. “Indira is the mole? You’ve got to be kidding! That’s impossible.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “The FBI has found phone logs linking her to Viggo Mariano. He’s the guy who tried to kill us in the tunnels. Apparently he was leading the whole operation. They found a bank account she opened two months ago in the Cayman Islands. Harris believes she may have copied top-secret files and smuggled them out of the country. And Ken said she was supposed to take a lie-detector test over the weekend, along with a group of CIA and NSA officials who were suspected of being linked to Mordechai’s murder.”
“And?”
“And she never showed.”
“What?”
“That’s when she disappeared.”
“Maybe she’s hurt. Maybe she’s… ”
For a moment, Erin’s voice trailed off; then she added, “It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve known her for… I recruited her… . I… ” Again her voice trailed off.
“Ken says the evidence is overwhelming, and it’s mounting rapidly,” said Bennett. “There was never a mole inside Doron’s office, he said. It was Rajiv. She knew about Doron’s Temple project. She knew about Mordechai’s involvement, almost from the beginning. She knew about George Murray, Jaspers, the Baraks — all of them. She knew where we were in Israel, every step of the way.”
“Of course she did,” said Erin, still in denial. “Because I told her. I told her we were on Mount Ebal, and I told her we were heading for Hezekiah’s Tunnel.”
“Exactly,” said Bennett, taking her hand to comfort her. “How could Mariano and his men have found us so quickly unless she was working with them?”
71
A day passed, and then another.
There was still no sign of Rajiv, but Natasha was asking for them. She had been through three surgeries and was still in the ICU. But the doctors now felt confident she was going to make a full recovery and agreed to let her have ten minutes with the Bennetts.
“Hey there,” said Erin as Jon guided her through the door in a wheelchair.
Natasha smiled for the first time in days, though they could tell she was still in great pain.
“That bad, huh?” asked Bennett.
Natasha nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“Have you been watching all the coverage?”
“No,” she said. “Maybe later.”
“Don’t worry,” Bennett offered. “I asked the embassy to tape it all for you. You can watch it when you get out of here.”
For some reason, the notion of watching all they had been through on TV made her laugh, which only triggered more pain. They both apologized but Natasha waved it off. They sat for a little while without saying a word. They only had a few more minutes together, but something about the lack of activity — and the silence that went with it — felt good to all three of them.
“I have a question,” Natasha whispered at last.
Bennett didn’t think she should speak. He didn’t want her to be in any more pain.
“If it’s about the Ark,” he said, “the Sanhedrin and the chief rabbis still aren’t sure how to move it. They asked Doron for a detachment of special forces to protect it and the Temple treasures, and he ordered an entire battalion to secure the tunnels and the surrounding area. Meanwhile, the rabbis and the museum are arguing over who is going to catalog everything down there. But they all seem to agree it will all be stored in the Temple, when it’s done. Last night Doron and the cabinet approved plans to get started. They break ground on the Third Temple on May 14, Independence Day.”
Natasha smiled, but there was clearly something else on her mind.
“You weren’t indicted, if that’s what you’re wondering,” said Erin. “Neither were we. But we’re still not sure who this Viggo Mariano was working for. Farouk is dead. Al-Hassani’s people are denying they had anything to do with it, which means this thing still may not be over. But—”
“No,” Natasha said with great difficulty, “that’s not it.”
The head nurse popped her head in the door. “Five minutes,” she said.
Bennett thanked her, then turned back to Natasha.
She looked at them both and finally just blurted it out. “I want to know God like you do.”
Bennett was stunned. So was Erin.
“You heard me,” said Natasha. “I want what you have. I just don’t know how to get it. I wondered if you’d help me.”
“What do you think we have?” Erin asked.
“Buried treasure,” said Natasha, without emotion. “I want to know what Uncle Eli told you, Jon, at that restaurant on Gibraltar a few years ago. The night you became a believer.”
Bennett wasn’t trying to be coy, much less evasive. He was just totally surprised. “How did you know about that?”