by Jeff Spence
"I can't," Ben said to her, without moving his eyes form the man in front of him, "I can't let you die too." Marina looked at the remaining gunmen, grim smiles coming across their faces. She considered firing anyway, ending this in the one sure way to still the inner voices, to calm the rage… to have it all over, and not to let these bastards win.
But they would win. If she did it that way, the big boys at the top would win. They would find another scholar. They would get another translation. They would hire more armed muscle and press onward until they got whatever it was they wanted. Whatever it was.
She was helpless.
Despite the time spent dodging snipers' bullets back home in the war. Despite nights spent under rubble and plastic sheeting, trying in vain to keep out the teeth of the frost and fear, here, in a soft robe in this luxury hotel overlooking one of the oldest cities still occupied, she was once again helpless. She had to face the cold truth: she had no real way to beat these men.
But maybe Ben did.
The thought came unbidden, but she trusted it. Ben may not be a fighter, like she was, but he was smart. Yes, that was obvious. He had a bookish intelligence, a sharp academic intellect that she’d already begun to envy. But there was more. He had something else she wanted… he had hope. Despite the obvious pain and brokenness in his life, he seemed to keep going in the hope — expectation even — that all he had lost might be regained. Somehow. Sometime. It was a hope that Marina herself barely dared to think could be hers as well.
And there was more. He also had integrity. There he was, a professor from an Indiana suburb, standing willingly in front of three guns, one of them pressed against his chest, and though his knees were shaking, his voice was steady, his conviction clear. He would give his own life before he would let them take hers. Whatever deep pool he had dipped into to find this kind of courage, despite no experience with this kind of violence… it was impressive. Marina wondered if her heart even housed such a place.
"Tell me who you work for," she said in a soft voice, toward the one she knew was in commend.
"I cannot tell you that. That is for him to say."
"Are you here to kill us?" She knew even as she asked it that it was a silly question.
"If we were…" he shrugged.
Yes, she knew. If they were there to kill them, there would have been no shouted warnings, no big show of firearms and power — it would have been quick, quiet, and already over. So they weren't intending to kill them, at least not yet. Would they do so later? It didn't matter. She had to trust them. For good or for bad, this standoff in the hallway had only two possible outcomes, and she was unwilling to risk Ben in the bloody one. At least the other way, they had a shot.
She lowered her gun to the floor.
The man with the cane walked slowly down the empty hallway. He wore a thigh length raincoat that a trained eye might see was thicker than it should have been under the left arm, and he walked with a limp, favouring one whole side of his body rather than just the leg. He was still sore from whatever that bastard had dosed him with on the plane. As he reached the door and saw the damaged jamb, he transferred the cane to his left hand and reached into the raincoat with his right, easing the weapon from its holster. Standing on his strong foot, he nudged the door open with the other, the handgun up high, stabilised against his chest.
Nothing.
They had cleared out — or more accurately, they had been cleared out by force. Their clothes were gone, the room empty and still, the odour of blue cheese and bacon wafted up from the untouched food on the service tray. No blood on the floor, no disarray other than the usual used towels and the broken door.
He backed out of the room and continued down the hallway, listening carefully as he went.
Nothing.
He pushed open the door to the stairwell and began his descent, sliding the gun back into the holster as he did so. When he exited through the steel door and into the parking area, he took one sweeping look around, taking in every detail, his mind meticulously searching for anything out of place, anything to trigger an alarm.
Again, nothing.
"Fuck," he muttered, and pulled out his phone.
TWENTY-ONE
Marina did not speak for the entirety of the ride to the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Ben sat beside her, staring straight ahead at nothing, or closing his eyes entirely. Beside him sat a man with a gun in his hand, relaxed, but with the barrel pointed vaguely in their direction. She glanced at the trigger finger. It wasn't on the trigger, but rested lightly on the trigger guard, an inch forward of the deadly lever. No accidental discharge for a bump in the road, or a startled twitch. A pro then, most likely. It gave her a strange, mixed feeling of comfort and futility. Perhaps not so strange.
She hadn't known what to to do when Ben stepped between her and the gunmen. Everything up to that point had been driven by conditioned reflex, instinct born of an early life in the midst of death and danger. She had seen the gun, felt the bulk of the man move toward her, and it was as if her body moved of its own accord.
Disarm.
Disable.
Dominate.
Just like Bratislav had taught her. And everything had gone as it should have. Until Ben stepped from the room.
She had shared with him a little, but with such things it was always best to hold back, to keep the details back or, at the very least, share them only with those carrying similar burdens, for whom the information would be nothing overwhelming. But such sharing was never needed with those ones, the other ones who knew it for themselves. Eyes looked into eyes and there was a mutual understanding, an agreement that each had enough of their own weight to carry. Too much discussion could inadvertently turn into a contest, a mutual measurement to see who had suffered the most, or done the most things they regretted. With those not burdened by the same cares it was best to hide them, act out the show of normalcy until both actor and audience believed it to be true. But in the hallway… She blinked and held back tears. She had been ready to kill those men. All of them. And she wouldn't have been tortured by it if she had… no more than she already was, by other things. But that had shown Ben too much. She was sure of it. He had gained a glimpse into the darkness that bubbled and churned under her surface of calm, under the cover of clean adventure. He had seen the black.
She glanced at him, at the red-gold light of the dropping sun shining on his face. His eyes were closed, the small mounds of his eyeballs twitching now and then beneath the lids. Unbidden, a vision of Bratislav overlaid that of the dozing professor. The old man, too, sat with his head slumped back, eyes darting around under the thin, wrinkled lids. His breathing shallow. Rapid. His skin clammy to the touch and even more pale than it normally was. And she had watched. Not shouted. Not run for help, from the soldiers or from anyone else. She had been… afraid.
She looked to her lap, to her hands. Rubbed them lightly together. In shame? She didn't know. All she knew was that the man beside her had stepped between her darkness and a bullet. For all she knew, he had now closed his eyes in order to banish her image. Her presence. Her existence itself. She didn’t blame him. Couldn’t blame him. If she had some way to banish her own image from her own sight, she would do it. No, she understood the revulsion the man felt for her now. He might hide it under polite manners, but it would show. It was showing already. She turned her own gaze to the side, to the passing blur of ignored scenery, and rode in a miasma of self condemnation and silence.
Ben was exhausted. He fought back his need for sleep, but was losing the battle in stages, drifting in and out of consciousness as the vehicle thrummed and bumped over the dark asphalt. The previous night, too, had held little sleep for him, despite the comfort of the warmth and scent of the woman beside him. He had risen early, started off the translation work right away, and filled the intervening hours with caffeine and high hopes.
All the while, Marina had taken care of him. Ordered food. Brewed more coffee. Kept out of his hair. Kept the televi
sion barely audible. Even took an interest in the process itself. Even Donna had seldom looked into the actual work he did, beyond the sensational surface of the popular Dead Sea Scrolls conspiracy theories. When she had learned the truth of them, her interest had plateaued, and even waned over time.
The moment he had struck up against the end of the document, the obvious straight cut of the digital photo, he had known immediately that Bass had hedged his bets, retained part of the document as an insurance policy against somehow losing contact with — or control of — his personal scholar. So the so-called brilliant professor had called the sociopathic billionaire. With that call, he had let, what? — his own ambition? — blind him to potential consequences. For himself, yes, but also for the girl he had dragged into the middle of his personal mess. He swore at himself yet again for his foolishness. He could have said 'no' in the beginning. Well, he did. But he could have done it another way, found another way to stop all of this, before money changed hands, before it came down to thugs and guns and fearful flights into the midst of a battle for which he had everything to lose, and no power to push one side or the other away from him. And then there had been the hallway.
He watched it all over again in his mind's eye. His hand had flown up immediately, once he had realised what was happening and had seized control of the tremors of shock in his arms. As he hit the floor, the words shouted at him were incomprehensible and needless. Fear had gripped him. He had cringed. Cowered. A gun in his face. A pen in his hand. All grand platitudes thrown away in favour of one thing: his own survival. He watched his memory with shame.
But then the girl.
Shouting in the hallway, a woman's grunt, a body falling on the floor — something in him welled up and when his gunman turned his attention and footsteps to the hallway, Ben had pulled himself up, forced his own feet through the broken opening, to the centre of the danger. Then he had seen her there: Gun in her hand, and what he now knew to be a professional gunman on the floor, disarmed at her feet. How did he come from being part of a professional, surprise attack, to a groaning slab of meat on the floor of a hotel hallway? The only explanation was that she had done it. The woman who had stood there in one slipper and a terry cloth bathrobe.
Any sense of heroism in him had instantly withered away in the face of her bravery. How had she done it? How had a beautiful young woman turned the tables on these… soldiers? While Ben himself lay on the floor in surrender?
And when Ben's attention had noted the third man in the hallway, the two muzzles aimed at her one that aimed back, he had experienced another wave of fear. This time it welled up years of pain and regret, impotence and frustration in the face of Donna's cancer. The illness had eaten at her body even as it ate at his soul. Her flesh had weakened and the peaks and valleys of his humanity had flatlined into a long string of plodding existence.
Marina, somehow, seemingly without trying, had begun breaking up those long, featureless days of trying to sweep his mind and heart clean. He had noticed her body heat against the chill of his own skin. He had breathed in her words, the vapour of her vitality, and had given her his own. But there she stood, facing the real probability of death and the tearing up of her vital flesh. She stood there. Donna stood there. David. Mimi. Everything stood there.
So he had taken three more steps. Stepped between them.
"We're here."
Marina and Ben must have drifted as they drove, the stress and effort of the last few days finally catching up with them, jet-lag doing its part as well. The passing rows of houses and shops were gone, left behind in favour of a rural landscape, now growing dim in the onset of twilight.
Up ahead was a stone wall with wrought-iron gates, slowly tracking to the side to allow them entry. As the vehicle passed through them, shadowy forms shifted in the dimness. The gate closed behind as they drove up a curved drive to a two-story, ultramodern house overlooking the shallow valley to the west. A home, but a fortress as well. Ben saw the signs of understated security. Marina felt it in her bones.
The broad bronze door opened and a man in a black suit stepped out onto the concrete landing. The car stopped. Ben and Marina stepped down into the fine gravel and walked toward the dark opening.
Without knowing who had grabbed whom, Marina realised that she and Ben were holding hands. Tightly.
They walked down the main hall, broad and marble-floored, and then out into a large, open room walled on one side entirely by glass, the distant clusters of twinkling lights giving the feeling that the house itself floated in a dark sky. Leonard Kantor sat, legs crossed, on a broad and sharp-angled easy chair. He stood as they entered.
"Professor Gela, Miss Saalik, please forgive the circumstances of this visit."
Ben's eyes were sharp. "It isn't a visit, sir. It is a kidnapping."
Kantor paused. "Yes, what you say is true, Professor Gela. Mitigating circumstances, perhaps, but it is so."
"Why can't you just let us go…” Marina said, not quite able to muster enough hope to make a real question of it.
"But I can let you go, Miss Saalik. It is my intention to do so, in fact, after a brief discussion, and if you still wish to leave at that point. Or you can stay until the morning, and go then. I will even offer you what assistance I can, to take you to a place of your choosing, where you would feel safe. Anything you like… after a brief discussion. That is the only thing upon which I must insist. Please, both of you, sit. Just for a moment." He motioned to the long sectional.
They sat.
Despite the sharp, geometric lines of the furniture, it was welcoming and comfortable, the leather soft like fine suede, if not more so. With another motion from Kantor, a young woman brought in a tray of drinks, some cold in frosted glassware set alongside cups of coffee and hot water. A wooden box of herbal and traditional teas was open beside them.
"I took the liberty of providing an assortment from which to choose; I did not wish to delay our discussion."
"So then," Ben said just above a whisper, "Discuss."
Kantor settled back into his chair and lifted an icy glass of something that looked like lemonade to his lips. He looked intently at Ben. Briefly at Marina, then back to Ben.
"First of all," he began, "At no point prior to today have I had any armed personnel confront or intimidate you. That was not my doing."
"The gunfight the night we arrived?" Ben asked.
"My people were there, following you, yes. But this was in an effort to protect you, not to coerce. On your aeroplane, as well, I was forced to intervene for your own safety."
"How are we supposed to believe that?" Marina spat the words, her intensity jarring in the calm, soft atmosphere of the room.
"I expect nothing, I suppose. You can accept or not. I can only tell you it was so. Perhaps after this discussion, when you are free to go, you will believe me."
"I would believe a lot quicker and easier if you would let us go now."
"You may go now, Miss Saalik. This very moment, if you like. But Professor Gela is needed for a few minutes more."
"Go." The word was out of Ben's mouth before he even knew he said it.
She looked at him.
"Go now. When Mr. Kantor is finished with me, I'll follow you."
"I can't leave you here!"
"Please. When we're done here we can meet up. In the meantime, I won't say anything until I know you're safe. Please. I need to know your safe."
Kantor was silent. Watching both of them, the same look on his face that Ben had when scrutinising the scrolls.
"No," she whispered, "I can't leave you here." She leaned back in her seat, the hope seeming to ease from her body in resignation to fate.
Kantor stood. "Please, I can bear it no longer. In two minutes, if you choose to walk out that door, there will be none to stop you. I will give you a car to take you anywhere you like. You can call to tell me where to pick it up when you leave."
"Why?" Ben asked, as both he and Marina stood to face their host
. "What is it you need from us that gets us out of here in two minutes?"
"You don't need to give me anything to get out of here. I simply wanted you to take a look at these." He gestured to a table set back away from the windows. Upon it sat a shallow box, about a foot square and six inches deep. Beside it was a stack of photographs of text. Ben recognised these immediately; he had spent so many hours staring at the same photos over the past week.
"What is it?" Ben asked.
"I think you know what it is, Professor Gela," Kantor replied, "and by this gesture I would like to prove to you that I am indeed the rightful owner. The original was not stolen." He stepped over to the wooden box and lifted the lid. He stepped back, and Ben was drawn in as if some kind of magnet had locked onto his skeleton.
In the case was a moulded interior, perfectly conformed to the shape it held: A cylindrical scroll of rolled metal, darkened and embrittled by time, and unmistakably ancient.
Ben’s breath came out in a long, low sigh, his fingers reached out, hovered over it like a reiki master, unwilling to touch it, but unable to resist getting as close to it as he could, to feel the energetic connection between his fingertips and the scroll.
"That's it?" Marina whispered.
"Yes," Kantor replied, "That is the real thing. But I suspect the professor now has a few questions of his own?"
TWENTY-TWO
Nawab Khoury finished his third cup of coffee in as many hours. His stomach was rebelling, throwing acid up to assault his throat and sour the taste in his mouth. He know it wasn't just the coffee. His nerves, too, were bothered.
The last two nights had been fitful and without rest. The potential importance of the items Thoma had brought to his attention weighed heavily on him. He had been following the actions of his brother in law for the last twenty-four hours and did not like the inaction reported back to him.