Zealot

  “Poor Duncan,” Constantine murmured. “And that poor woman.”

  The video panned away from Maral and the other delegates and swept across the mass of media personnel and equipment covering the Palestinian statement. “Several of the other delegates were treated at the scene for minor injuries and released.” And then for a second Constantine saw him. Avram. Clear as day in the sea of reporters. As the muted video panned back to the podium, the delegates began to shudder and fall as the assassin’s bullets hit their marks. Then the camera spiraled to the ground and the video ended. The image of the news anchor filled the screen once more. “Within minutes of the attack, a Jewish fundamentalist organization called Oneg Shabbat had claimed responsibility in a call to Paris police. Oneg Shabbat is also implicated in the massacre of forty-three Muslim Palestinians outside a Hebron mosque exactly one week ago.”

  “Marcus, are you okay?” the assistant curator asked, concerned by the uncharacteristic look of horror on her boss’s face.

  Constantine was already out the door. “I have to use the phone.”

  MacLeod’s barge was not at all what Avram expected. When he learned that MacLeod lived on the Seine a stone’s throw from Notre-Dame, he’d pictured a luxurious yacht, a few servants, perhaps some scantily clad beauties lounging on deck—a real 007 pad. This, on the other hand, was simple, without ostentation. He could respect that. It was also ridiculously easy to break into. He couldn’t respect that.

  Know your opposition. The first rule of chess, of business, of war. Only by knowing him could you anticipate him, stay in front of him … know his weaknesses. A standard background check on MacLeod was meaningless, full of forgeries and lies just like his own. No, to get into the head of Duncan MacLeod, he needed to see firsthand how he lived, what he threw away and what he felt was important to keep, how he treated the things that were precious to him. A man’s home was his castle, but it was also a blueprint to his soul.

  Avram’s time gathering intelligence with the Shai, before Israel’s War of Independence, and later with the Mossad, had taught him many things, not least of which was how to violate a person’s privacy and yet leave no trace. He studied the photos on MacLeod’s writing desk. The blonde would be “Noel, Tessa; DOB: 24 August 1958; killed in a random mugging incident” or so MacLeod had reported it to the police at the time.

  Carefully sorted in the drawers, MacLeod’s personal correspondence and bookkeeping. In an age of instantaneous communication, MacLeod obviously still enjoyed keeping in touch with a well-crafted letter. But he was also not averse to picking up a cellular phone, as his monthly statement indicated. A lot of calls to the States, primarily two numbers. Avram recognized one immediately as MacLeod’s business in Seacouver. He would run a trace on the other, but he suspected it might correspond to an establishment called “Joe’s,” a neighborhood bar that seemed to be MacLeod’s only other interest back in the U.S.

  Avram continued around the room, scanning the titles of the CDs on the shelves, pulling down random books to see how well thumbed they appeared. MacLeod seemed to actually read the weighty tomes he collected. He was stymied by a piece of statuary on prominent display—burnished chrome, very modern, very dramatic, very stark. Very out of place amid the pottery and other world folk art in the rest of MacLeod’s collection. It didn’t fit in with the profile he was creating of the man and that bothered him … until he remembered reading that the dead girlfriend had been a sculptor.

  On a table by the couch, the phone and answering machine, blinking, blinking an open invitation to press the play button. So he did. “MacLeod?” Avram recognized his teacher’s voice before he identified himself on the tape. “It’s Marcus … Hello? Are you there? Damn, you’re probably still at the hospital. Look, MacLeod, I saw the news footage. It was Avram. Do you hear me? Avram. We have to do something. The museum closes at three today. Meet me here. It’s important.” The tape clicked off.

  Avram’s time with the Mossad had indeed taught him many things. Another lesson hard learned had been that you never know who your enemies are until they stab you in the back, so trust no one. Now all the pieces fit. Constantine was against him, too.

  Constantine had just shooed the last straggler out of the exhibit in preparation for closing when he sensed that MacLeod had arrived. He threaded his way back through the gallery, turning off displays as he went. The doomed holographic hill-fort at Alesia disappeared into smoke. The crowds filling the stands at the Coliseum urging the lions on were silenced. The names of the societies driven to extinction by the empire of the Romans ceased their ceiling-to-floor spiral. Constantine had expected to meet up with MacLeod somewhere midway through the exhibit and was surprised when he made it all the way back to the replica of the Arch of Titus that formed the entrance without seeing him. Then he realized it wasn’t MacLeod he’d sensed at all.

  “Avram,” Constantine acknowledged, friendly but wary.

  He was standing just outside the arch, studying the tableau that was carved into the face of the gateway. “What kind of sick joke is this, Marcus?”

  “What do you mean? It’s no joke.” Constantine passed through the arch to the side where Avram stood, concerned that someone had graffitied or vandalized the reconstruction, but the faux marble was just the way he had commissioned it.

  Avram’s face hardened. “Then you deliberately meant to exclude the Jews?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s the rape of the Temple, Marcus!” He gestured angrily at the frieze carved into the arch, where members of Titus’s victorious legion were systematically stripping the Great Temple of its holy treasures to carry away in triumph to Rome. “For two thousand years, no Jew in Rome has willingly walked under this obscenity, and now you’ve left us no choice!”

  Constantine was horrified. “Avram, I had no idea.”

  “No, you just didn’t care,” Avram shouted over him. Constantine was even more horrified at the violent reaction his unintentional insult had provoked in his student. Avram had never been one to wear his anger openly, not when mocked and attacked back in the streets of Rome, not even under the reign of the Inquisition. This man was no longer the Avram Mordecai that he’d once known.

  “Which one were you?” Avram pointed bitterly to the image of a Roman officer supervising a gang of Jewish slaves carrying off the menorah from the sacred altar. “Is that you looting the Temple, Marcus? Or is that you defiling the holy vestments?” He turned on his teacher with hate in his eyes and venom in his voice. “Or were you too busy defiling the Jewish virgins with the rest of your legion?”

  “You know I wasn’t like that, Avram,” Constantine said carefully, trying not to inflame him further, but he could tell it was far too late.

  “You were like that, you were all like that! The Romans, the Crusaders, the Turks, the Nazis. You were all alike. Butchers, rapists, destroyers—every one of you determined to wipe us from the face of the earth. But we’re still here. I’m still here.”

  “And now it’s the Palestinians?” Constantine beseeched his student. “Avram, why are you doing this? Why did you try to kill all those people today? All they want is peace.”

  “Peace?” Avram couldn’t believe he’d heard the word. “This isn’t peace—it’s surrender. This is rolling over and closing our eyes and hoping that if we give the murderers half of what we have, they won’t come and kill us for the other half in the dead of night. Well, ‘make nice and hope they go away’ doesn’t work, Marcus. You and your kind keep coming.” His anger and his voice were escalating to a fevered pitch. “You take the other half, and you take our families, and our homes, and our people, and our God, and all you leave are ashes!” He screamed out the word, and it ricocheted like a gunshot from the marble walls of the vast exhibition hall.

  Before the echo died away, Avram continued. “There will be no surrender. No compromise. I have been fighting for Israel for two thousand years. I’ve watched a hundred generations bleed and the for her�
�and I’ll be damned if I’ll see her handed over to them, no matter what.”

  “Even if that means becoming a butcher yourself?” Constantine wondered, full of sadness for him.

  “I finally know my purpose. Now I know why I’m still here—I am her champion. Don’t you understand? I do whatever I have to do. And there’s nothing, nothing you or MacLeod can do to stop me!”

  “What’s happened to you? You were never a murderer.”

  “You made me a murderer. You and Silva and your damned legion. What I’m not any longer is a victim.”

  Constantine understood him all too well. “The best defense is a good offense?” He touched Avram on the arm, friend to friend, teacher to student. “Avram, listen to me. That’s not a way to live your life. It will eat you up inside and destroy you.”

  Avram slapped his hand away. “Are you going to be the one to try and stop me, Marcus?”

  Constantine, resigned, “I will if you make me.”

  Avram drew his sword, one he’d once liberated from a Cossack sacking his village before driving it into the Cossack’s heart. “So be it.”

  Constantine kept his hands in plain sight, still trying to placate him. “It doesn’t have to come to this, Avram. I’m your friend. We can talk this out.”

  Avram snorted derisively. “The talking’s long done, Roman. This is a fight we should have had two thousand years ago, before I let you enslave me and drag me to Rome.” With that, he slashed wildly at his teacher’s head. The blade was neatly deflected by the blur of a Roman gladius as Constantine swiftly withdrew it from hiding.

  It had been a long time since he had taken the sword out in battle, but for a thousand years on a thousand campaigns he had slept with it, eaten with it, killed with it, died with it. It was a natural extension of his arm, and the patterns long ago ingrained in his mind and his muscles returned to him at its touch. The curator might be a bit rusty, but the general was far from overmatched.

  “You were never my slave, Avram.” Constantine stayed on the defensive, turning back attacks, blocking thrusts and jabs that would have killed a lesser fighter, but he was reluctant to attack, unwilling to try for his friend’s head. “You were my student. You came with me willingly.”

  “Because you’d left me nothing. My city was gone, my people were gone.” Avram swung at Constantine, and their two swords locked, hilt to hilt. “What else could I do,” Avram snarled. The two men faced off momentarily in a test of strength and will, then Avram slipped under Constantine’s guard and hit him hard in the stomach with his shoulder, driving him back against a leg of the arch. His sword freed, Avram swung for the head, but Constantine, with barely enough room to maneuver, managed to dodge at the last second.

  Avram’s sword bit deep into the faux stone and Constantine took advantage of the precious seconds it took to free it, spinning out of Avram’s reach and slipping through the arch to the other side. He turned to look at Avram and saw his resolve waver—Avram almost followed him through, but he couldn’t bring himself to enter the hated archway. Constantine hurried deeper into the labyrinthine exhibit.

  Behind him, he could hear a popping and a tearing sound. The dividers between the displays were simple drywall. Avram was ripping himself a path directly into the gallery with his sword, bypassing the despised monument.

  Constantine’s sword led around every corner. He had the advantage of geography, he knew every nook and jog of his creation. Still, he trod warily, expecting Avram around each bend, behind each case.

  Avram knew better than to attempt to surprise the general on his home field. When Constantine found him, he was standing openly in the middle of the corridor, sword ready.

  “You can still stop this, Avram,” Constantine offered, conciliatory. “It doesn’t have to end this way.”

  “It’s the only way it can end.”

  Constantine nodded, resigned. “As you wish.” He unleashed a flurry of blows that Avram, surprised by Constantine’s sudden aggression, was hard-pressed to beat back. Then the battle was joined in earnest.

  The Roman scored first blood, slicing a bloody line down Avram’s upper arm, but the Jew held the sword firm, seemingly oblivious to the pain.

  They fought through the corridor, in and around the displays, hacking, slashing, thrusting. Each man tallying minor hits on the other, neither man gaining the upper hand. Each determined not to be the one to yield.

  At last, despite the fatigue that was creeping into his own arms, Avram could see the Roman was also tiring, and he pressed his advantage with a series of slashing blows to the head that Constantine managed to parry, but that forced him back, little by little.

  To avoid being maneuvered against a wall, Constantine ducked into the room of the Great Temple. Avram continued to hammer away—at his unprotected left side, at his legs, at his throat—but each time Constantine was ready with a block or a parry and an attack of his own.

  Frustrated, Avram brought his sword down in a massive two-handed slash. Constantine spun out of the way, dodging the blow, the impact of which landed on the display case holding the model of the Temple, shattering the glass.

  The shock of seeing the contents of the case was enough to slow Avram momentarily. That’s all he needed—Constantine saw his opening and Avram suddenly found himself impaled through the gut on the general’s sword. He sank to his knees and howled in pain. The sword did not yield.

  “I don’t want to kill you, Avram,” Constantine said between labored breaths, exhausted from the fight. “Swear to me you’ll stop this senseless holy war, and I’ll let you live.”

  Avram, each breath a lesson in pain, glared at the Roman with hate in his eyes, but did not speak.

  “Dammit, Avram, swear it!” He turned the sword in Avram’s wound, just a bit. An old trick, but an effective one. He saw the wave of agony shoot through Avram’s body.

  “I swear,” Avram finally managed through clenched jaws.

  “On your honor,” Constantine pressed.

  “On my honor.”

  Constantine removed his sword from Avram’s belly and Avram slumped to the floor like a broken toy. “It’s over, Avram. This is over.”

  Constantine had barely finished speaking when a searing pain blossomed in his chest. He staggered back against the shattered Temple display, unable to breathe. His hands clutched desperately at the boot knife suddenly protruding from his body.

  “Now it’s over.” Avram struggled to his feet, a look of grim satisfaction on his face. He moved toward Constantine, his sword at the ready.

  “On … your … honor …” Constantine managed to croak out as his heart began to die.

  Avram shook his head. “Honor is meaningless. Life is all that matters.” And with a mighty swing, he cleaved his teacher’s head from his shoulders.

  Constantine’s body hung there for a moment, taunting him, then the momentum of the blow carried it backwards, crashing onto the Temple, demolishing it.

  Then, as if out of the ruins of the Temple itself, the tendrils of the Quickening rose like a mist on the moors, coalesced, dancing in the air, and sought its new home in the vessel that was Avram.

  Its first touch flowed through him like lava and he howled, a wild, feral sound, as his identity was consumed by the great chaos that claimed him by force.

  Lightning arced from Constantine’s body and slammed into his own, igniting the circuitry of his nervous system, uncontrolled power surging through him. The intensity of the bolts drove him across the room, pinning him against the wall, his arms outstretched, forcing him to take in all that was Marcus Constantine.

  As Constantine’s essence overwhelmed him, he screamed even louder and the lights hung overhead exploded in a rain of glass and shooting stars. Avram was oblivious to the jets of flame that shot through the gallery, kindling the displays, for he was no longer Avram the Jew, but Constantine the Roman—the warrior, the leader, the lover, the scholar. Suddenly, he knew Constantine, understood him far better than he did himself, fo
r he was Constantine. Constantine was in him and with him and around him.

  Alarms rang and a shower of water cascaded from the ceiling to douse the fires, but still the lightning coursed through the crucified form of the body called Avram as two Immortal essences fought for control. He was Constantine. He was Avram. He was Constantine. With a thundering cry ripped from his soul, the lightning stopped—

  And he was Avram. Avram, son of Mordecai. And he was alive.

  He slid down the wall and sprawled on the floor, spent, exhausted, deaf to the alarms sounding around him. The water from the ceiling sprinklers anointed his head like a soothing rain and slowly brought him back to the world. He struggled to his knees and forced himself to look at the body of the man he had defeated, lying in the ruins of the shattered Temple. He felt no joy, no elation at the sight, only a deep, abiding sorrow. He’d been forced to kill his father once again.

  Suddenly, his weakened body was assailed by the presence of another Immortal, MacLeod. He couldn’t face him, not now, not like this. They would have their time later. Avram staggered to his feet, retrieved his sword, and stumbled toward the exit.

  Chapter Twenty

  Paris: The Present

  As MacLeod pulled up beside the Musée National des Antiquités, he had a vague premonition that something was wrong. He had remained at the hospital until he was sure Maral was out of immediate danger. He’d left her sleeping peacefully in her hospital room, ably protected by Farid, and returned to the barge. It was already three o’clock when he retrieved Constantine’s message from his answering machine. He left the Citroën in a loading dock and ran into the museum, the tails of his black overcoat fluttering wildly in his wake.