The now-empty glass nearly dropped from Melissa’s hand at the old woman’s mention of the deadly contents of the crates from Ephesus.
“You discovered it was missing,” she continued. “You discovered what I have feared would come to pass for forty-five years now, since we tried to bury it from the world forever.”
Melissa felt a chill slide up her spine, thinking back to the mummified remains of the three Jews inside the cavern. “My God, the first time the White Death was removed, you were part of it!”
The old woman did not bother to deny it. “So many years ago,” she said softly. “So much has changed since, and yet so little.” Her eyes sharpened, and she continued before Melissa could start up again. “I founded this place, you know. I founded it because I needed it for myself. I could never have children of my own.” A veil of sadness swept over her face. “The Nazis at Auschwitz took care of that. Auschwitz was where it all began for me. For others it started in different places, but the pain was always the same.”
“Who?” Melissa asked in exasperation. “What?”
“This is a tale I do not wish to tell twice. We must wait.”
“Wait for—”
“The wait is over,” the old woman said, casting her gaze beyond Melissa’s shoulder. “He is here.”
Melissa turned around, and the sight sent a joyous shock wave pounding against her. She couldn’t believe her eyes no matter how much she wanted to.
Blaine McCracken had stepped into the clearing.
As Blaine’s eyes met Melissa’s, he froze in his tracks. The next instant she was out of the chair, running his way. She leapt into his arms and hugged him with all her strength.
“The hotel, all the killings,” she muttered.
“I know,” he tried to soothe.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” She eased herself to arm’s length, still holding tight to him. “God, that sounds ridiculous.”
“Not to me.”
She dropped her arms away now. “The journal! I’ve got to tell you what I found in that journal!”
“The White Death …”
“You know,” she said, dumbfounded. “How could you know?”
“Same destination. Different route.”
And the last of that route had been traveled with the woman who had rescued him outside the old toymaker’s house. They had journeyed through the night — two planes, several cars, and even a bus — to reach here. The second plane had landed on a military airfield in Israel, and twenty minutes into the drive that followed he recognized the Golan Heights. The woman had told him the name of the kibbutz and nothing more when they approached it. Whatever else Blaine needed to know about Nineteen, he had learned from the flower-encased M-60 tank placed two hundred yards inside the gates. The symbolism was striking: where war had once reigned, a new life and world had bloomed over it.
“Come here, both of you,” the old woman called in as loud a voice as she could manage. “Since you are both present, the tale can be told.”
“She had me brought here,” Melissa explained.
“Me, too, it would seem. Saved my life, maybe.”
“No maybe in my case.”
They turned toward the old woman and, almost in unison, said, “Why?”
“Sit,” she told them after they had made their way back to the table. Then, as Blaine took the chair between her and Melissa, “You know what this place is?”
“That tank near the front makes things pretty clear in my mind.”
“It was one of the tanks used in the battle to take the Golan Heights. We had it restored, and then the children designed the monument it now has become. It was they who insisted that we leave it fully armed and functional. Every week when Friday brings the Sabbath, a different one of them starts it up at sundown. To make sure we remember …”
“And what do you remember about World War II, about a certain secret chamber in Ephesus, Turkey?”
The old woman looked at Blaine closely. “Plenty. And you need to hear it all. Everything.”
Melissa had retaken her seat. McCracken pulled his further away from the table so he could squeeze his legs beneath it.
“We have little time,” the old woman started. “Perhaps none at all.”
“Because of the White Death,” McCracken followed.
“Yes.”
“She was involved with the first shipment of crates that was removed from the chamber,” Melissa elaborated, eyeing the old woman.
“And now the time has come to finish something that should have been done with forty-five years ago. That task falls upon you.”
“Us,” McCracken echoed.
“I brought you here to aid you in this quest. To help you save the world from them.”
“From who?”
“The Tau.”
“We will begin the day they were born,” the old woman continued after introducing herself as Tovah. “A late winter day in 1942 at a Catholic boys’ school in France, a school where three Jewish boys were being sheltered from the Nazis.”
“Tessen,” Blaine muttered, speaking while his eyes shifted between Tovah and Melissa. “A Nazi who may have saved my life in the hotel. He was at the school that day, a member of the firing squad.”
The old woman flinched and shuddered. “Then you know what happened.”
“Three boys were shot, and then the priest.”
“The three Jewish boys.”
“Yes.”
“Edelstein, Sherman, and Grouche,” the old woman added as if she were calling the roll.
“How could you know?”
“Because my brother was one of them, except he didn’t die.”
“What?” Melissa raised.
“Another boy took his place. A friend he had made who had helped shelter him from the very beginning.” Tovah’s voice trailed off. “A friend who was dying of cancer. It was a pact they had made long before. The friend asked only that my brother take care of his family, make sure they were watched over when the cursed war was over. And my brother did as he was asked. To this day he continues to do just that.”
“Your brother’s still alive?”
Tovah nodded almost imperceptibly. “We found each other again after the war. I had survived Auschwitz. After the school was closed down, he became a youthful member of the French Resistance. The experience served him well in later years with the Haganah and the Irgun.”
“The founding of Israel …”
“He was one of its best soldiers. No one served this country better.” The old woman’s eyes filled with tears. Her lips trembled. “And he will serve it again, once he recovers.”
“Recovers?” asked Melissa.
“They tried to assassinate him three days ago. My brother is Arnold Rothstein.”
Chapter 29
“He helped build this place,” the old woman continued, as Blaine and Melissa exchanged shocked glances. “And he has helped maintain it, providing us with a brand-new irrigation system for our fields six months ago.”
“And what about fifty-one years ago?”
“If you know of that last day at the school, you must know of the priest’s final words.”
“A curse aimed at his killers, if not unleashed by holy powers, then by unholy ones.”
“My brother was standing in the back of the assembly. He could barely hear the words, but he never forgot them. When we found each other after the war, they were among the first things he told me. I looked in his eyes and knew he was not the boy, even the person I had known. He had become a killer.”
She looked at Blaine knowingly, and Blaine looked back, meeting her stare.
“He was a survivor,” McCracken added, “just like you.”