“I hope you rested well. Was your room adequate?”
“It was excellent,” Jill said. “My first genuinely restful night in a week.”
I nodded. “I’ll second that.”
He leaned forward on his elbows and spoke in a voice as sincere as one could expect in a professional apple polisher. “We were most disturbed by the events you described last night. I have been in contact with the Israeli government about it. I have also spoken with a representative of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Representatives of both countries wish to speak with you when we are finished.
“As I believe Colonel Jarvis told you, the scroll was found in Jordan and brought to Israel without the knowledge of Jordanian authorities. This has caused some friction between the two countries, which we would very much like to dispel. Right now a stable peace in the area, with cooperation among all parties, is the top priority of the United States government.”
He had become terribly serious and I began to wonder if he was about to make us ambassadors pro tem, or plenipotentiary, or whatever they call spur-of-the-moment emissaries. I didn’t know about Jill, but I didn’t feel up to forging a new peace treaty right now.
“I get the feeling there’s something you want us to do, Mr. Ambassador,” I broke in.
“It would be in the best interests of all three countries if this incident could be disposed of in the utmost confidence,” he said, rubbing his hands together.
I picked up on it immediately. “Whitewashed,” I said.
He frowned. “That would not be my choice of terms. The government of Israel had no hand in this affair, but they could be adversely affected by any publicity.”
“Won’t the story of a fatal tractor explosion at Kibbutz Kerem make the newspapers and television?” I asked.
“According to officials there, it was purely an accident. A former kibbutz member was checking out a tractor that had been undergoing repairs. No strange activity was observed in the area and no outsiders were seen there.”
Noting the benign look on the CIA man’s face, I suspected he had been in touch with his Mossad counterparts. The cover-up was underway.
“There are two Temple Alliance agents still running around loose who kidnapped my wife, illegally transported her to Israel, drugged her and made life generally miserable for her. And we should say nothing?”
The ambassador did not enjoy my line of reasoning. “Officials of the Temple Alliance,” he said, “which, incidentally, has no connection to the government, assure us that Moshe Levin and his compatriots were acting totally without their knowledge. The two agents involved will be seriously reprimanded, possibly fired.”
“But not criminally charged.”
“As a former Air Force special agent, I’m sure you have dealt with cases where, in the best interest of all concerned, prosecution was deemed to be unwise.”
He had me there. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll go along with your little charade with one condition.”
“Which is?”
“That Messrs. Zalman and Lipkowitz be permanently barred from entering the United States for any reason, under any circumstance.”
He thought about it. I think he was expecting something worse. But he didn’t concede. “I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise it.”
I smiled. “Well, I can promise what I will do if you don’t.”
He glanced around the table and got brief nods. “Consider it done,” he said.
The rest was farcical, though entertaining and, in at least one respect, educational. The representative from Jordan thanked me for saving scraps of the scroll for their archives. He wanted my assurance that the people involved were not a part of the Israeli government. I said to my knowledge they were not. I thought about adding at least not now, but I figured I had pushed my luck far enough. I was afraid that muddling things any further might jeopardize Warren Jarvis’ position.
I did have one question, though. “I was never told who found the scroll and how it got to Israel. Can you enlighten me on that?”
The envoy of the Hashemite Kingdom was a stocky, dark-haired man with a large mustache. He sat with heavy hands folded into fists, which he tapped together in front of him.
“It was found by a Palestinian student from the University of Jordan. He made the grave error of bringing it to Israel, where it was apparently taken from his cousin by a militant group known as the Guardians of Palestine.”
“What happened to the student?” I asked.
He smiled. “With the encouragement of the daughter of one of our government ministers, he confessed to what he had done. The minister pleaded his case and he was allowed to return to his studies. I don’t think he will be anxious to hide any more discoveries.”
I certainly hoped so, particularly if they might lead to anything like what we had been forced to endure the past week.
The Israeli representative apologized lavishly and offered a generous monetary settlement. Jill and I declined everything except reimbursement for transportation costs. We had no desire to be obligated to anyone because of this.
We arrived at the Nashville airport the following morning to a tumultuous welcome. Well, not really, although for some reason an unruly mass of TV cameras and reporters were just retreating down the escalator as we emerged from the concourse. Our welcoming committee was composed of a blue-jean clad, floppy-hatted David Wolfson. Jake Cohen had called him with our travel schedule.
We found David standing outside the secured area with a small sign reading:
WELCOME HOME
NON-PERSONS
Jill and I got a good laugh out of it, following which I introduced them and then pointed at the sign. “What prompted that?”
“I had a nice visit this morning from a serious young fellow from some obscure branch of the federal government,” he said. “He suggested it would be well to develop a memory loss about anything to do with an ancient Hebrew scroll. In fact, when he found out the translation was in my computer, he insisted on paying me ten times what the machine was worth. Then he proceeded to take out the CPU and the hard drive. He pounded several nails through the hard drive before shoving it into his briefcase. He was a very thorough young man. He also advised that I erase from my own personal memory anything regarding some people named McKenzie.”
I grinned. “Then it’s appropriate that you just met Jill. Let me introduce myself. I am ex-Lieutenant Colonel, ex-DA Investigator Gregory McKenzie.”
His face glowed. “Speaking of which, you should be happy to know that Mrs. Tessa Peterson, the young lady your Metro detective nemesis said was dead, turned up yesterday in Key West, Florida.”
My mouth gaped open. “She what?”
“It was in the news this morning. They said she was suffering from amnesia. After a tentative identification, they were to fly her back home. I’d say that’s what the media frenzy was all about just as you got here.”
Jill looked around at me and smiled. “Now maybe they’ll leave you alone.”
Getting home was the best medicine of all for Jill. She bounced back quickly from her ordeal and helped me clean up the mess that Kamal Nazari and his friends had left. The biggest problem we faced was explaining our disappearance to Sam and Wilma Gannon. Our answering machine was crammed with messages from them, and we knew they would have been worried unmercifully when we failed to return their calls. But in order to keep our word with Ambassador Hamilton, we were forced to lie.
We finally devised a small conspiracy with Ted Kennerly, who had been contacted by Colonel Jarvis and told to say nothing about the scroll and its aftermath. Ted called Sam and apologized, saying he was supposed to have informed the Gannons that the OSI had suddenly called me out of town to help close an old case and Jill had gone with me.
It worked. I followed up with an invitation for Sam and Wilma to come over for dinner and view my unedited videos of the Holy Land. The four of us enjoyed reminiscing about the trip, but Jill found it a little difficult to conta
in her enthusiasm when the scene included shots of Jake Cohen. She knew Jake’s help had been invaluable in the quest to free her.
In the days that followed, the media as well as the Metro Police Department totally ignored me, much to my delight. And several weeks later, the final chapter was written. DEA agents and Metro vice squad officers raided Star Express, confiscated forty kilos of heroin and arrested Pat Intermaggio and two of his drivers. Among other things, they charged Intermaggio with running a major money laundering operation. I would never know for certain if he was the one who had tipped the police about me, but considering the obviously close relationship between him and Nazari, it seemed logical that he would have been privy to details of the Palestinian’s caper.
To celebrate the final tip of the scales of justice, Jill cooked an elegant dinner with wine and candles and an exotic seafood dish called lobster thermidor, a dinner to which Ted and Karen Kennerly and David Wolfson were invited. We all agreed it was time to bury the tale of the secret scroll, once and for all. It was also payback time and I offered David an after-dinner cigarette, lighting both his and mine.
Ted brought up the only remaining loose end. “What about the Palestinian that wasn’t in the panel truck when Zalman and Lipkowitz torched it?”
I threw up my hands. “May he rest in peace. If he’s smart, he fled as far west as possible. The bastard’s probably set up outside Disneyland selling little Dead Sea Scroll pots.”
I caught Jill’s eyes narrowing at my reference to the man’s paternity. Then she eyed the cigarette and gave me a wry grin.
“Back to the drawing board, Greg,” she said.
“Hadda do it, babe.” I shook my head. “All’s fair, remember . . . hadda do it.”
Acknowledgements
A special thanks to the following, who were more than generous with their help in bringing this story to life:
Rev. Tom Gildermeister, now at Emory University, who contributed ideas toward the concept. Max Miller, also of Emory, for advice on archeology in the Holy Land. John M. Angelo, former Office of Special Investigations special agent in charge, for insights into the OSI. Jim Campbell, my ever faithful legal and technical advisor. The Quill & Dagger Writers Guild, for general encouragement and constructive criticism. Beth Terrill-Hicks, my first reader and trusted critic. Ben O’Daniel of Sumner Crest Winery and Wilburn Hall of Hall Vineyards, for information on vineyards and winemaking. Agent Karen Lewis, for helpful advice on style. Kay Garrett of Professional Editing Service, for improving the story and coaching me on matters of style. And especially my wife Sarah, for being there constantly, encouraging and cheering me on.
Finally, to Bob Middlemiss, my editor at Durban House, who showed me how to make a thriller more thrilling.
About the Author
An old hand at the keyboard, Chester has worked as a newspaper reporter, freelance writer, magazine editor, political speechwriter, advertising copywriter, public relations professional and association executive. He began writing novels after retirement in 1989 and has eight published books. An Air Force intelligence officer in the Korean War, he retired from the Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant colonel. He is past secretary of the Southeast Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and immediate past president of the Middle Tennessee Chapter of Sisters in Crime. He lives in Madison, TN with his wife, Sarah.
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