The Illumination

by Karen Tintori

  “A small one. It’s no megachurch by any stretch of the imagination. Which is a good thing.” Doron looked grim. “This guy is very off the mainstream, condemned by the entire evangelical community.”

  “And why is that?” D’Amato asked.

  Wearily, Doron ran a hand through his red hair. “Because he thinks he has the power to do what only God can. Namely, bring forth the Messiah.”

  “Barnabas told me that’s what the Light was for,” Natalie murmured. “Mundy needed it to usher in the Rapture.”

  D’Amato’s brows lifted.

  Lior held up a hand. “Don’t dismiss him. He’s an extremely charismatic guy, and we know how dangerous that can be. At the end of the day, he’s managed to attract hefty financial backing from a number of wealthy people.”

  “What happened to Barnabas?” D’Amato was still bothered by the bruises on Natalie’s face. “He get away again?”

  “He’s dead.” She was staring into her empty mug. “I killed him.”

  “She sure did.” Yuvi’s olive eyes glinted with admiration. “Lucky for us we got there in time to preview your proficiency in Krav Maga—or one of us might have ended up in a bloody puddle, too.”

  D’Amato saw the slight tremble run through Natalie.

  “You had no choice, Natalie,” he said quietly. “You had to save your own life.”

  “Not to mention the tzohar,” Rafi chimed in, finally looking up from the computer.

  Natalie felt all of their gazes on her. She sensed their sympathy and pushed back the tears that threatened to turn into convulsive sobs. Tears for the two lives she’d taken. Tears for the sister she’d lost. Tears for the insane pattern of running and hiding that had become her life.

  “I want to know some things, too.” Her voice sounded unsteady. She cleared her throat, started again. “I want to know about the man responsible for my sister’s murder. The man who’s been trying to kill me and D’Amato to get his hands on the tzohar.”

  “His name is Hasan Sabouri.” Rafi’s eyes darkened. “We’ve had him and his followers in our sights, but our priority in Rome was to get the tzohar and you to safety.”

  “How does he know about the pendant?” Natalie asked.

  Doron, seated opposite, looked grim. His voice came from so deep in his chest, he sounded hoarse. “We’re not the only ones who’ve read the Scroll of Daniel, or who know about the unfathomable power of the tzohar. Ever since Daniel’s writings were first deciphered, people like Mundy and Sabouri have been hunting for it—scouring museums and flea markets and raiding private collections to find the distinctive jeweled pendant Daniel the prophet protected with eyes to ward off evil.”

  “Sabouri’s group calls itself the Guardians of the Khalifah,” Rafi told her. “Their ultimate goal is Islamic domination of the world by returning the khalifate to power. They’ve managed to pull together the most cohesive terror network in the Middle East, younger, stronger, more sophisticated than Al Qaeda.”

  “They’re the masters of unlikely alliances,” Lior added, leaning back in his seat. “They’ve attracted support and trained fighters from nearly every Arabic country. From Yemen to Azerbaijan, from Lebanon to Iran—”

  “Yeah, I know exactly who they are.” A muscle had tensed in D’Amato’s jaw. “The Guardians of the Khalifah funded at least a half dozen suicide bombings inside Israel in the nineties, before the wall went up. And bragged about it. I’m left with some permanent souvenirs thanks to them.”

  Natalie drew in her breath. As Doron and Lior studied him with a new interest, he pointed to his right hip and leg. “Nail shards. Makes walking through airport metal detectors a real treat every time.”

  “Which attack?” Doron asked.

  “The Number 27 bus.”

  Rafi looked away. For a moment no one spoke. The only sound was the usual faint whir of white noise in the cabin.

  “Tell me more about Daniel’s scroll,” Natalie said, breaking the silence. “Have any of you read it?”

  “I have,” Nuri said.

  She leaned forward eagerly. “What else does it say?”

  At precisely the time Air Force One landed at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, the Reverend Kenneth Mundy and his wife, Gwen, boarded their overnight flight in Miami.

  And Hasan Sabouri, proffering his forged Saudi passport, breezed through airport security in Rome and settled into his first-class seat on the Lufthansa airliner bound for the Middle East.

  He was ready to see the last of Rome. Siddiq was dead, as well as two others. The backup team had arrived at the church too late to be of any use—by then the Eye of Dawn was gone. Again. There’d been no time to search for the secret passageway beneath the altar, no time to remove the dead before the sirens were blaring, shrieking closer.

  The Eye will be mine regardless, he told himself, shaking open his linen napkin. It is only a matter of time. The Eye is the reason I was born with these cursed blue eyes. It is my destiny.

  For now, his reunion with Fatima awaited. And so did the events of tomorrow. In one more day the bombs would rip beneath Al-Haram al-Sharif, obliterating the Dome of the Rock—and every other edifice within the Noble Sanctuary, including the Western Wall.

  In one more day, the enemies of Allah who had engineered this peace treaty would be dead, vaporized: the President of the United States; the Israeli prime minister; the secretary-general of the U.N., and the most abhorrent enemy of all, Mu’aayyad bin Khoury—that cowardly Hamas traitor who would dare to trade the sacred khalifate for the West’s abominable democracy.

  Tomorrow the streets of Jerusalem would run with blood, and all of the carnage would be laid at the feet of the Shomrei Kotel.

  Tomorrow—he smiled, as the flight attendant set a chilled goblet of tomato juice on the starched linen cloth before him—would be a most momentous day.

  44

  “How much do you remember of Daniel’s story from the Torah?” Nuri asked Natalie, as the plane stuttered through a bump of turbulence. His voice was thick and nasal, thanks to the broken cartilage. He glanced darkly at the man who’d given it to him, as everyone refastened their seatbelts. “Perhaps you know this from the Old Testament.”

  “Daniel in the lion’s den.” D’Amato shrugged.

  “That’s one of his experiences,” Nuri conceded. “Daniel also interpreted the king of Babylon’s dreams. Some say with the help of the tzohar. But the more pertinent tale involves the final night of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson, Balshazzar. Of course,” he added, “Balshazzar had no idea his reign—or his very life—was about to end. He threw a great feast—there was dancing, carousing, merriment. The goblets of gold and silver which his grandfather had stolen years before from the Temple were overflowing with wine. Then, abruptly, poof!” He flung both hands into the air. “The laughter died; the assembled nobles went silent. Strange words had begun to glow across the wall. It was as if an occult hand had drawn them there.”

  “Must’ve been some pretty strong wine.” D’Amato adjusted his seat back as the plane continued to bounce.

  Nuri ignored the comment. “These are the words that appeared on the plaster: Mene. Mene. Tekel. Uparsin. Everyone was stunned. Afraid. No one could make any sense of them. Balshazzar summoned his chief adviser and his soothsayers, but even they couldn’t translate the words on the wall.”

  Lior took up the tale, stretching his legs into the aisleway. “So he screamed for Daniel, the man his grandfather had made the master of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and soothsayers.”

  “And Daniel told him what they meant,” Natalie murmured.

  “That he did.” Nuri took back his story. “He told the king and his assembled guests that ‘mene,’ which appeared twice, was Aramaic for ‘number,’ and that the days of Balshazzar’s kingdom had been numbered by God, and He had brought that kingdom to an end.”

  “That must have put a damper on the festivities.”

  D’Amato was in rare form. Natalie shot him
a scowl.

  “Believe me, it only gets worse.” Lior was interrupting again, obviously enjoying the story.

  “Next, Daniel told them that the following word, ‘tekel,’ meant ‘to weigh,’ and announced that the king had been weighed in the balances and found wanting.”

  “Now that took balls,” D’Amato acknowledged.

  “Ignore him.” Natalie looked at Nuri. “I want to hear about the scroll.”

  “I’m getting there. Next came the final word, ‘peres,’ which in Aramaic means ‘divided.’ Daniel told Balshazzar that his kingdom was now divided, given over to the Medes and the Persians. And on those words, horses’ hooves suddenly thundered from the five courtyards surrounding the palace. There was pandemonium as everyone realized that King Cyrus the Great of Persia had breached the city walls. Within minutes, he’d stormed the palace—and Balshazzar lay dead.”

  “And that’s where the Torah leaves off—and Daniel’s scroll comes in.” Rafi regarded Nuri over his mug of tea. “May I?”

  Nuri shrugged, his short neck disappearing into his shoulders.

  “According to the scroll, Daniel knew Balshazzar’s downfall was coming,” Rafi went on. “And he’d prepared for it. For years he’d watched the tzohar hanging in that palace in Babylon. And for years he’d longed to return it to Jerusalem, where it could hang once more in a rebuilt Temple. In the scroll, he wrote, he’d secretly commissioned a jeweler to craft an orb of gold. He described it as covered on both sides with protective eyes made of lapis lazuli, carnelian, and jasper. He hoped that this powerful symbol would help protect the last remnant of the Light of Creation after he’d hidden it inside.”

  Yuvi stood up and stretched, then headed toward the lavatory.

  “Bring back some more ice for Natalie’s bruise,” Lior called after him.

  D’Amato was regarding Rafi thoughtfully. “Go on.”

  “So while the Persians were storming the palace that night, Daniel wasted no time. He snatched the tzohar from the great hall before Cyrus or the Persians ever saw it, then ran to the home of the craftsman and had him solder the orb shut, without telling him that an unimaginable treasure was already inside.”

  Natalie set the damp compress down on the small table between the seats.

  “So Daniel hid the tzohar—the pendant—the night of Balshazzar’s fall. What happened to it after that?” she asked quietly.

  “Daniel wrote that he buried it. But he didn’t say where. Daniel himself, you know, is thought to be buried in Kirkuk.”

  Natalie went still. “My sister’s last assignment was in Kirkuk.”

  No one spoke. Finally, D’Amato cleared his throat.

  “Does Daniel write anything more about the tzohar?”

  “The scroll is still being deciphered, but so far the only other thing it’s revealed is a detailed description of the pendant—and of the pouch Daniel tore from his waist to bury it in.” Lior shifted in his seat. “He wrote of copying the protective eye symbols on both sides of the leather pouch as well, hoping all those eyes would deter anyone from looking inside.”

  “And Daniel’s Chaldean name inside the pouch—Belteshezzar—confirms this is the real deal.” All levity had vanished from D’Amato’s tone.

  Lior nodded. “No doubt his name was there long before he decided to hide the pendant inside.”

  “So,” D’Amato mused, as Yuvi headed back and handed Natalie a fresh compress full of ice, “ever since the Scroll of Daniel was deciphered—what? in 2000—2001?—the whispers about the tzohar leaked out, and the search for it was on.”

  “It became an open secret,” Nuri said, his lips twisting.

  The voice of their pilot came over the loudspeaker, a bit tinny, warning of more turbulence ahead.

  “The United States wants it, too,” Yuvi muttered, bracing his hands on the armrests. “So does the entire Arab world—not just the Guardians. Everyone for their own purpose. The Muslims? They call it ‘the Eye of Dawn.’ Their mullahs have predicted it will shine as a beacon signaling the triumph of Islam over the West.”

  Natalie closed her eyes. Tiny treasure from the Middle East.

  Dana had been trying to make peace. She never would have guessed that her accidental discovery would trigger anything but.

  45

  Muslim Quarter, Jerusalem

  The next day

  The street where Fatima Al Mehannadi worked smelled pleasantly of cumin and mint and lemons. But it was hardly peaceful. It roared with the chatter of shopkeepers hawking their wares and customers hunting for bargains as they made their way through the narrow lanes strung with merchandise. Here they could choose among rugs, ceramics, postcards, religious items, and filmy scarves and tunics that formed a colorful canopy overhead.

  Women, many with children in tow, hurried from shop to shop, past men waving people into their carpet stores or whiling away the hours smoking cigarettes or heady tobacco from their hookahs. People clustered in cafés drinking small cups of thick black coffee, talking about the very real possibility of peace, whispering about the summit that had the world’s eye focused on their city.

  The door of the little souvenir shop where Fatima sold brass teapots, ceramic plates, and Arabic music tapes was flung open to the dust of the cobbled street to let in whatever air could filter through the congestion. It was hot air, but without even a fan in the tiny premises, any type of breeze was welcome. Fatima fanned herself with a sheaf of paper in between waiting on customers.

  And waiting for Hasan to arrive.

  She felt warm in her high-necked, long-sleeved shirt and the flowered cotton skirt that fell to dust her sandaled toes. She longed to lift her black woven hijab just long enough to fan her neck, but Hasan might walk in at any moment, and he’d be displeased. He didn’t accept the modern tendencies of the Bahraini upper classes in which she’d been raised, where a more relaxed and Western mode of dress for women was acceptable—unlike in Iran, where he’d grown up. It irked her sometimes, but Hasan was a generous husband and a great leader. And she loved him for both.

  They’d been married less than a year, but she still quivered with a mixture of excitement and trepidation whenever she thought of him. Whenever she looked in the mirror and saw the scar that glistened pink and jagged across her right cheek.

  Some women might have been terrified to marry Hasan, but she felt no regret. Only a twinge of sadness. She knew that there would always be a price to pay for loving a man who possessed the evil eye. His gaze was dangerous. But she felt worse for Hasan than for herself.

  The day after the Sabouri and Al Mehannadi families had announced their engagement, the curse everyone whispered about had visited her father’s home. Fatima had glanced up at herself in the hallway mirror as she hurried to the kitchen, and had caught Hasan’s gaze following her. In that instant the mirror fell from the wall, showering glass onto her head.

  But Fatima refused to be afraid. As long as their eyes never again met—while they made love, while they shared their meals, or when they greeted each other—she had to trust that no further harm would befall her. Hasan needed her. No one else would risk being close to him. Even his brother, Farshid, kept his distance, though they were brothers by blood, brothers in a shared cause.

  Fatima knew the depths of her husband’s isolation. Outside of the business of the Guardians, he had few dealings with others. He feigned indifference to friendship, yet she knew that the boyhood he’d spent feared and shunned had left its wounds. She wondered what kind of man he’d be if he’d been born with brown eyes. But then, she reminded herself, he wouldn’t be the man destined to lead the Guardians, destined to bring them the Eye of Dawn.

  She spotted Hasan through the shop window before he reached the doorway and adjusted her hijab, pulling it more snugly toward her cheeks. She lowered her eyes as he crossed the doorway, a smile breaking across her heart-shaped face.

  “Fatima. You look well.” Hasan strode toward his bride, glancing quickly at her and then away.<
br />
  “I am better now that you are back,” she replied, love flooding her, her gaze fixed carefully on the center of his patterned tie, daring to roam no higher than the lapels of his tailored black suit. “Sayyed was here earlier. He is eager for today.”

  “May Allah bless his clumsy hands.” Hasan’s eyes narrowed. “His success remains to be proven. He’d better not fail us on this of all days.”

  Seeing the worry flicker across her face, he turned the conversation.

  “I brought you something to mark this day of victory. It’s nearly as lovely as you.”

  Her sudden smile rewarded him. Reaching into his trouser pocket, he pulled out the hamsa charm, threaded on its delicate silver chain. He dangled it from his fingers, letting the amethysts catch the light and splay tiny transparent stars across the walls.

  Fatima beamed with pleasure. It was lovely. Her dark eyes shone at the glimmer of the amethysts, the turquoise cloisonné eye, and, most of all, at the shimmering pearl at its center. Her parents had told her when she was a child that pearls were formed when mermaid tears fell into open oyster shells. The Bahraini legend said that certain pearls possessed supernatural powers, helping their owners to find lost objects—or love. She’d never seen a Hand of Fatima quite like this one.

  “Hasan, it is extraordinary,” she breathed. “Thank you!”

  “It’s more special than you know,” he murmured, and there was an edge to his voice. Fatima wondered why, but she didn’t ask. “This will protect you today. And in sha’allah, for many days to come.”

  She turned around so that he could clasp it around her neck. It dangled at her throat, just beneath the juncture of her hijab and her blouse.

  “Your trip—I am sorry it did not go as well as you hoped.” How she longed to gaze into his eyes, to see if he was troubled by the failure in Rome Farshid had told her about. But she couldn’t risk the danger or Hasan’s anger over her tempting fate.