Virgin

by F. Paul Wilson

  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.

  “This pistol has a seven-shot clip loaded with 9mm hollowpoint bullets. Do you know what a hollowpoint does after it enters the body? It flattens and widens, tearing through the flesh in an expanding cone of destruction. The bullet enters through a little hole and exits through a gaping maw. It is not a pretty thing, Salah Mahmoud.”

  Sweat beaded the dealer’s forehead, dripping into his eyes.

  “So … here are the ground rules: I will ask questions and you will answer truthfully. The first time I think you are lying I will shoot you in the left knee.” The dealer stiffened and shuddered. “The second lie will earn you a bullet in the right knee. The third in your right elbow, the fourth in your left. The fifth bullet I will use on your manhood. By that time I will have decided that you are either a pathological liar, or you really don’t know anything. I will then leave you. Alive. And you will spend the rest of your days unable to walk, unable to use crutches or a wheelchair, unable to feed yourself or wipe yourself, your urine running through a tube into bag strapped to your leg. Is that what you want?”

  Mahmoud shook his head violently, spraying drops of perspiration in all directions.

  “Good.”

  Kesev straightened and stepped back from the bed. He had no particular desire to shoot this man, but he would do so. He had to retrieve that scroll.

  He pointed to the forged scroll on the bed.

  “Now tell me: When did you get this scroll?”

  Mahmoud hesitated. His nightshirt was soaked with sweat. His eyes darted about the room, like a rabbit looking for a hole to run to.

  Kesev worked the slide to chamber a round.

  “No!” Mahmoud cried, trying to curl into a ball.

  Kesev pulled the trigger once. The Tokarev jerked and gave out a phut! as a bullet tore into the mattress near the dealer’s face.

  Mahmoud thrust out his hands amid the flying feathers and began to whimper. “Please don’t shoot! I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you everything!”

  Kesev lowered the pistol a few degrees. “I’m waiting.”

  “I made that scroll.”

  Kesev raised the pistol again.

  “It’s true! I copied it myself from a crumbling original!”

  “Really. And where did you find the original?”

  “I—I didn’t. Two nephews of my father’s uncle’s brother discovered it in a cave in the Wilderness. I don’t know if it’s true, but they
claimed one of Saddam’s missiles uncovered it.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere.

  Kesev felt relief begin to seep through him, but he resisted it just as he’d resisted the rage. He could not let down his guard, not until the scroll was safely back in his hands.

  Mahmoud was still talking, babbling, flooding the room with rapid-fire Egyptian-flavored Arabic.

  “Their father brought their find to me: a written scroll that was heavily damaged—the boys had been in a hurry and did not know how to care for it—and a sealed jar containing two unused scrolls. I began reassembling the fragments of the written scroll as best I could. So many pieces! It took me years—years—to complete the task. When I had finished I copied what was left of the text onto the blank parchments.”

  “Copied? Copied how?”

  He shrugged, almost apologetically. “I … I’ve done this before. I have formulae for all the ancient inks. I was especially careful with the copying because I knew the parchments would pass the dating test.” His attempt at a smile was a miserable failure. “I figured, why sell one scroll when I could sell three?”

  “Did you read it? Did you understand it?” Kesev held his breath as he waited for the answer.

  “I tried. But my Aramaic is rudimentary at best; there were words I could not translate. And besides, the scroll was incomplete. Fragments were out of place and some were missing completely. I reassembled them the best I could but—”

  “Where is that original now?”

  “It …” His voice shrank to a whisper. “It’s gone.”

  Sudden rage crackled through Kesev’s brain. He leaned forward and jammed the muzzle of the silencer against Mahmoud’s thigh.

  “You sold it?”

  “No-no! Please! It’s gone! Whisked away into the air!”

  “I warned you about lying!”

  “Please! I swear by Allah! The wind took it! It happened in the back room, not ten meters from here, just as I was finishing the first copy. Suddenly all the windows in the building crashed inward and a blast of icy wind tore through the halls and rooms. The winds seemed to gather in my work room. They rattled my walls, knocked me to the floor, and upset my work table. The scroll fragments swirled into the air in a whirling column, then they blew out the window and were gone. Years of work—gone.”

  Kesev’s rage cooled rapidly, chilled by the dealer’s words. A wind … filling the halls and rooms … stealing the fragments in a miniature whirlwind …

  “You must believe me!” Mahmoud wailed. “Every word is true!”

  Kesev nodded slowly, almost absently. The fat forger wasn’t lying. He wouldn’t make up something so fantastic and try to pass it off as the truth.

  And that meant that the original scroll had been destroyed, reduced to scattered, indecipherable bits of parchment … but not before it had been copied.

  “How many copies did you make?” Kesev asked finally.

  “Two. There were only two blank scrolls. I forged the second copy from the first.”

  How many scrolls had been in the sealed jar? Two sounded right but he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t remember.

  Two copies: one here in Kesev’s possession, and the other in America. That thought would have panicked him if he hadn’t known it had been branded a forgery.

  He had a sense that events were spinning out of control. An odd progression of incidents—the errant SCUD, the theft of the scroll, the copies, the destruction of the original. Especially unsettling was the last incident. An unnatural wind had whirled the scroll fragments into oblivion, but only after they had been copied. After. Unfortunate happenstance, or design? He sensed a power at work, a deft hand moving behind the scenes. But what power? And to what end?

  He had to stay on guard. The scroll in America was probably rolled up and sealed in a glass case, just like Tulla Szobel’s. A curio. Something to be looked at but not touched. And besides, how many Americans knew Aramaic? Highly unlikely that anyone would realize what it was about.

  But something was happening. Once again he was overwhelmed by the sensation of giant wheels turning, ready to crush him if he stepped the wrong way.

  Increased vigilance was the key. He’d have to find a way to keep a closer watch on the Resting Place. And be ready to deal swiftly and surely with any curious Americans he found wandering in the area.

  So here sit I, alone, a filthy cave for a home and only locusts, wild honey, a few goats, and figs for sustenance. I who once dwelt in luxury, who once wore the striped blue sleeve and had free access to the Temple.

  I am alone and mad. And sometimes I imagine I am not alone. Sometimes I see her walking. Sometimes she speaks to me. But it isn’t her. Only a fever-dream of my madness.

  I pray that each day is the Last Day, but each ends like the one before it. When will it end? Dear Lord, when will you allow it to end for me?

  from the Glass scroll

  Rockefeller Museum translation

  TEN

  Manhattan

  Dan awoke with a start—bright light in his eyes and an excited voice in his ear.

  “Dan! Wake up! Wake up!”

  He blinked. Carrie … leaning over him … dark hair falling about her face … bright eyes wide with excitement. God, she was beautiful. She made him want to sing though he knew damn well he couldn’t carry a tune. How had he spent his whole life without this woman—not any woman … this woman? Celibacy was an unnatural state for a human being. He didn’t care what the Church said, he was a better person—a more compassionate, more understanding, more fully rounded man—and therefore a better priest because of Carrie.

  He’d never been in love before. Grade school and high school puppy loves, sure. But this went beyond physical attraction, beyond infatuation. If Carrie were a lay person he’d leave the Church for her—if she’d have him. But Carrie had no intention of leaving her order. Ever. So he’d have to settle for things the way they were.

  Of course, if she’d been laity, the relationship never would have begun. He wouldn’t have let her within arm’s reach. His guard would have been up, his defenses primed at all times when he was around her. But Carrie, being a nun, being a member of the club, so to speak, had slipped past his guard without even trying.

  That first afternoon in her brother’s condo had awakened a long-dormant hunger in him. Along the course of his years as a priest he’d learned to structure his life without regard to sex. Excruciatingly difficult at first. He’d found it went beyond avoiding thoughts of sex. It meant avoiding thinking about avoiding thoughts of sex. You did that by cramming your days full of activity, by hurling yourself headlong into the never-ending hustle and bustle of a downtown urban parish, by sublimating your own needs to those of your parishioners. After all, that was what it was all about, wasn’t it? That was why you joined the priesthood. And if you did your job right, at the end of the day you collapsed into bed and slept like the dead until dawn when it was up and out for early Mass and back again into the parish whirl.

  After a while you got pretty good at it. After a while, the lusty parts of the brain atrophied and became too weak to bother you with much more that an occasional, feeble nudge.

  Unless something kick-started them with a steroid charge and pumped them up to strength again.

  Something like making love to Sister Carrie.

  Now he was like a randy teenager. He wondered where the guilt had gone. Overwhelmingly awful at first, especially when she’d told him about her father and what he’d done to her. Dan had almost despaired then, wondering if he might be aiding and abetting some dark, self-sabotaging compulsion within Carrie. She’d run to the convent to escape a sexually molesting father; she’d become a model nun, a paradigm of virtue and saintliness except for the fact that she was having a sexual relationship with her parish priest … a man everyone called “father.”

  Dan ha
d always been skeptical of facile parlor psychoanalysis, but the doubts nagged at him when he was apart from Carrie. When he was with her, however, they melted in the warmth of her smile, the glow of her presence. Carrie seemed perfectly comfortable with their relationship; it had taken him a while, but now he was just as comfortable.

  Dan loved her as he had never loved another human being, and that love let him see the world in a whole new light, brought him closer to the rest of humanity. How could that be wrong?

  He loved Carrie completely, and he wanted her—all the time. Every moment they were together at Loaves and Fishes was a struggle, a biting agony to keep his hands off her. He’d learned to freeze his emotions at those times, confine his thoughts to the instant, force his brain to regard her as no more than a pleasant coworker and to leave her clothes on whenever he looked at her.

  But God, it was hard.

  But more than wanting Carrie physically, he wanted her emotionally. Just being near her was a thrill. But being near her in bed was Heaven. Like now …

  He noticed her bathrobe hanging open, exposing the rose-tipped globe of her left breast. He reached for it but she brushed his hand away with a sheaf of papers.

  “What is this?” she said, shaking them in his face.

  “Wha—?” Dan propped himself up on his elbows and stared at the papers in her hand.

  “Where did you get this, Dan?”

  He couldn’t remember ever seeing Carrie this excited.

  “Oh, that. Harold’s back from Jerusalem. It’s the translation of a scroll that somebody turned in to the Rockefeller Museum over there. He gave it to me as part of a little gift.”

  She laughed. “A gift? He gave this to you as a gift? But this is fabulous! Why hasn’t the world been told?”

  “There’s nothing to tell, Carrie. The scroll is a fake.”