She almost wished she smoked. As much as she hated the smell, a cigarette would have given her something to do with her hands. She liked to keep busy and she always felt at loose ends here in Brad’s. She couldn’t do any cleaning because his housekeeper kept the place immaculate; she couldn’t rearrange things because none of it was hers. So she stuck her idle hands—those Devil’s workshops—into the pockets of the robe and continued to wander aimlessly.
As she meandered through the dining room she spotted the typed sheets Dan had been so intent on when she’d entered. She sifted through until she found the face sheet. The title caught her interest.
Translation: the Glass scroll
The Glass scroll . . . what was that?
She glanced at the first paragraph and her interest was piqued. She scanned the second, then the third. Captured, she sat down and began to read.
I have left this place But once. I traveled north to Qumran one night and stole upon the sleeping Essenes. I moved among them like a shadow, taking two jars of scrolls and some ink. I loaded them on the back of three goats and returned to the Resting Place where I feasted upon one goat and kept the other two for breeding.
And then I began to write my story.
--from the Glass scroll
Rockefeller Museum translation
NINE
Jerusalem—the Old City
Kesev followed Qadasiya north from the Via Dolorosa. His footsteps echoed on the street stones. Well after midnight and all quiet in the Moslem quarter.
Suddenly the sound of a car engine echoed off the surrounding stone walls and bouncing lights cast long, jittering shadows up ahead. Had to be a Jeep. A military patrol most likely. Things had been quiet in the Moslem quarter for a while now, but the patrols stayed on schedule. That was the way to make sure things remained quiet.
Kesev had donned Arab dress for the night—a frayed jellaba and a striped keffiyeh held in place around his head with a worn akal. He knew he looked more Arab than many natives of the quarter, and if the patrol spotted him they’d stop and ID him. He ducked into an alley and crouched behind some debris, waiting for them to pass. One look at the Shin Bet ID in his wallet and the patrol would wish him well and continue on its way. But Kesev didn’t want to be stopped at all—the supposedly sleeping walls were full of eyes. He didn’t want anyone to know he was here, especially his superiors.
This business had nothing to do with the Shin Bet.
Kesev stepped out of the alley after the patrol had passed. He scanned the street to see if anyone else might emerge in its wake. Nothing moved. Rising above the silent Old City, the Dome of the Rock gleamed in the starlight. A brilliant gold in daylight, it looked more silver now.
Continuing along Qadasiya, Kesev shoved three sticks of gum into his mouth. He chewed steadily, savoring the peppermint sweetness as he turned into the narrow side street that led to Salah Mahmoud’s antique shop. The dealer lived above his place of work, the better to keep watch over his inventory, Kesev supposed.
Kesev had been watching the shop for three days and nights now, and had finally paid it a visit this afternoon. Most of the statuettes and carvings on Mahmoud’s dusty shelves were junk, some outright fakes, waiting to hook some well-heeled European or American tourist with a craving to take home a piece of the Holy Land.
Mahmoud himself was obviously playing to the foreigners with his waxed mustache and red fez perched atop his balding head. With his jowls and rumpled suit, he looked like a transplant from Hollywood.
But the portly dealer’s manner had changed abruptly when one particular customer arrived. Mahmoud greeted the German-speaking man warmly, ushered him to a secluded corner where they spoke in whispers, then led him up a flight of stairs at the rear of the store. That would be where the items of real value were stored, Kesev decided.
During an apparently casual perusal of the artifacts and rickety third-hand furniture that passed for antiques, Kesev had surreptitiously surveyed the premises and found no security device more sophisticated than a bell attached to the inside of the front door.
Now, in the shadowed recess of that front door, Kesev used a slim piece of plastic to slip the latch on the rickety, post-World War Two lock. Gently he eased the door open a few inches, spit the gum into his palm, reached inside and used it to fix the clapper to the side of the bell.
Once inside, he pulled a penlight from the folds of his jellaba and wound his way among the dealer’s wares to the stairs at the rear. He had spent most of the evening mulling the best way to proceed from here. He’d heard the squeaks and groans from the old wooden staircase as Mahmoud and his customer had ascended this afternoon, so sneaking up was out. That left a more direct approach.
Kesev switched the penlight to his left hand and pulled a silenced Tokarev 9mm from his robe. Then he took a backward step and charged up the stairs, taking them three at a time. He threw his shoulder against the upper door and smashed through to the second floor. Days of watching had told him that Mahmoud lived alone and slept in the room overlooking the street. Kesev barreled straight ahead, burst into the room in time to find a very startled and frightened Salah Mahmoud sitting up in bed, reaching into the top drawer of his night table. Kesev kicked the drawer closed on the dealer’s wrist and jabbed the business end of the Tokarev against his throat as he began to cry out.
“Not a sound, Mr. Mahmoud,” Kesev said softly in Arabic. “I have come to rob you, not to kill you. But I am not adverse to doing both. Understand?”
Mahmoud nodded vigorously, his jowls bulging and quivering under his chin, his eyes threatening to jump from their sockets. He looked like a toad that had just come face to face with the biggest snake it had ever seen.
“Wh-whatever it is you want,” Mahmoud said, “take it. Take it and go!”
“That’s a very good start.”
Kesev allowed him to remove his hand from the drawer. As the dealer cradled his injured wrist in his lap, Kesev switched on the bedside lamp. He removed Mahmoud’s snub-nosed .38 from the drawer and tossed it under the bed. Then he produced the scroll he’d coerced from Tulla Szobel and dropped it on the sheet.
“I want the original.”
Mahmoud stared at the scroll, then looked up. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Kesev felt his anger flare but controlled it. He forced himself to smile. It must have been a disturbing grimace because Mahmoud flinched.
“Before I came here,” Kesev said evenly, “I decided I would allow you one lie. That was it. Now that it’s out of the way, you may answer truthfully. Where is the original?”
“I swear I don’t know what you are talking about.”
He struck the dealer a backhanded blow with the Tokarev. Mahmoud fell on his side, a mass of quaking blubber, moaning, clutching his cheek. Blood seeped between his fingers.
Kesev’s arm rose to deliver another blow but he reined his fury and lowered the pistol. Instead he grabbed the front of Mahmoud’s nightshirt and pulled him close. He turned the broad face so that they were nose to nose. He wanted the dealer to look into his eyes, to see the fury there to feel the truth of what Kesev was going to say.
“Listen to me, Salah Mahmoud, and listen well. The original of that scroll was stolen from me. I intend to retrieve what is mine, and since nineteen-ninety-one I have been searching for it. You are merely the latest phase of that search. Now, you can be a stepping stone or you can be a stumbling block. The choice is entirely yours.”
Mahmoud opened his mouth to speak but Kesev pressed the barrel of the Tokarev’s silencer against his lips.
“But let me warn you. I will not tolerate lies. This is extremely important to me and I have already expended enormous time and effort in my search. I am out of patience.”
He pressed the silencer more firmly against Mahmoud’s mouth.