The Illumination

by Karen Tintori

  Shmuel laughed, kicking at a stone. “You insult me.”

  Warrick’s face was pale, grim. “You’re living on borrowed time, my friend. You’re a marked man. And you’re on your way out of the country. It’s all over your face. Five million cash would ease your travels. Take you as far away as you want to go. If you think you’ll find someone else who can wire the money to you—today—right now—then walk away.”

  The only sound in the courtyard was the muted echo of women’s voices lifted in song, floating from within the acoustically perfect hallow of the church.

  Sayyed didn’t hear it though. All he heard was his own voice telling him this bastard infidel was right. The five million in cash was too handy to pass up. And the hour of the explosion was too near.

  Hasan is busy right now, but as soon as the Noble Sanctuary goes up in pieces, he’ll rush back to the shop and find his wife dead and his safe empty. Then all of the Guardians of the Khalifah will be hunting me down. I don’t have time to haggle.

  “Five million now. Ten million later.”

  Mundy snapped open the briefcase, lifted the false bottom without a word, and showed him the stacks of bills. The exchange was made without a handshake, and Mundy stared in awe at the eternal treasure now glowing against his palm.

  “Praise be to God. The Light is home. And the Sons of Babylon will return it to the Third Temple.”

  He hesitated only a moment before slipping the gem back into its pouch, sighing as the Light diminished once again.

  Elliot Warrick took a deep breath. “Time for us to get out of here.” He spun toward the courtyard and Mundy joined him without another glance at the man now holding his briefcase.

  Fools, Sayyed thought, watching the Americans scurry away beneath the grapevines.

  He fired two shots, muffled to low pops by the silencer. The Americans were beside the church wall when they toppled.

  He raced toward the older one. The pouch had rolled from his grasp when he’d struck the ground. Sayyed snatched it up and bolted along the north side of the building, elated as he spotted the driveway leading back out to the street.

  He didn’t spot Hasan Sabouri—frozen in his tracks while pacing the Ramparts overlooking the church grounds and beyond. But Hasan Sabouri had spotted him. Drawn by the unearthly glow emanating from beneath the Lion’s Gate, Hasan had thought for a split second that one of the bombs had exploded.

  But no bombs had gone off, though they should have by now. He had stared at the intense white aura below in a rage, his brilliant eyes nearly opaque with fury. The bombs weren’t going to go off. The phones couldn’t trigger the detonators. Because the power of the Eye of Dawn was no longer neutralized in the safe.

  He saw exactly where the ancient stone was. Who had taken it. Who had ruined his beautiful plan.

  With hatred, he watched Sayyed exchange the Eye of Dawn for a briefcase in the garden of the Church of Saint Anne. As he headed for the stairs, he watched Sayyed shoot the two men and retrieve something from the ground. It was then that Hasan spotted something equally staggering—Natalie Landau and her friend D’Amato crouching in wait.

  Shock at her escape from the tunnel rocked him like a blast. Had Sayyed freed her? Was the world inside out?

  But there was no time for questions. Or for lamentations.

  It was time for vengeance.

  Hasan scrambled down from the Ramparts, swift as a lizard. He’d watched enough.

  62

  Sayyed had double-crossed everyone. He outwitted us all.

  And he’s coming straight toward us.

  Around the corner, paralyzed, Natalie felt sick.

  Sick of the killing. Sick of the treachery. Sick to her stomach from running and from fear. Tension bunched every muscle in her body as she squatted with D’Amato, hardly able to breathe. She was determined that Sayyed wouldn’t get away. Determined that Dana’s death wouldn’t be for nothing in the end.

  He burst into view—a streak of royal blue shirt and dark jeans. But in a flash, D’Amato launched himself at him, bringing him down sideways and sending the briefcase skittering. D’Amato slammed a fist into Sayyed’s face and heard the satisfying crunch of breaking bone. Ignoring the pain reverberating from his knuckles to his wrist, he slugged him again.

  Sayyed was wriggling out of his backpack even as he swung an elbow up toward D’Amato’s throat. The blow glanced off the side of D’Amato’s neck, but in the instant it took him to recoil, Sayyed rolled out from under him, scrabbling for the gun in his unzippered backpack.

  “No!” Natalie charged at him, but before she could land a kick, Sayyed had the pistol out and was firing at D’Amato. Missing.

  “Get down!” D’Amato yelled, rolling to his knees, drawing his own weapon. She threw herself to the ground as shots cracked through the air, horror choking her.

  And then Sayyed’s body bucked on the ground, blood spraying from a gaping hole in his chest. She saw D’Amato clamber to his feet, the pistol still pointed at the wounded man.

  She threw herself at her kidnapper, revolted, shaking. Choked back bile as he shuddered, blood dribbling from his whitened lips. She dug in his pocket for the pouch, for the tzohar, trembling as she snatched back the treasure her sister had sent her from Iraq.

  63

  People were flooding from the church, pointing, staring.

  D’Amato holstered his gun and grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet. “Time to get to the consulate!”

  He was right, she realized, as two men ventured forward, fear in their faces. Then she and D’Amato were tearing back onto Lion’s Gate Road, racing through the slippery narrow street once again.

  “Cut right when we get to El-Wad, and after the Damascus Gate we’ll find Nablus Road,” D’Amato called, as they skirted a woman in a hijab pushing a baby carriage.

  And pray we find an IDF soldier on the way, she thought wildly. Then she nearly stumbled as she realized that the consulate might not be the ideal destination. She was confused—the U.S. government had been about to hand over $15 million to a terrorist for the tzohar? Yet the man with Warrick had claimed it for the Sons of Babylon. He had to be Mundy.

  “Wait.” She skidded to a halt, grabbing D’Amato’s wrist. “Something’s not right. Why were Mundy and the assistant undersecretary of Defense working together? We can’t trust anybody. We can’t go to the consulate—they’ll take the tzohar from me. It has to go to the Israel Antiquities Authority. It belongs here.”

  He’d been scanning up and down the street as she spoke. “Alright, Rockefeller Museum it is.”

  “Then we need to go back and turn left on Qadasiya to Suleiman.” Natalie could have kicked herself. They would have been at the IAA already if they’d gone straight there from Saint Anne’s.

  Spinning, they retraced their steps, but even as they reached Qadasiya Natalie saw something that made her throat close up.

  “It’s him,” she gasped, stopping dead. “Hasan. He’s coming straight toward us!”

  From down Via Dolorosa he saw her at the exact same moment.

  “Shit.” D’Amato grabbed her hand, and together they dashed for the intersection, pounding north on Qadasiya. The smell of spices and roasting meats wafting onto the street roiled through her stomach.

  Natalie risked a backward glance as D’Amato tugged her through the doorway of the first restaurant they reached. Hasan was closer now, less than ten yards away, darting through the congested street like a man possessed.

  He’d seen them duck inside.

  Hasan slowed only a fraction as he reached the front window of the restaurant, elated to glimpse the glow suddenly radiating through the glass and onto the street. Even if he hadn’t seen them trying to escape him in the crowded eatery, the Eye of Dawn had shown him exactly where they’d gone.

  Satisfaction burned in his veins as he barged through the door just in time to see Natalie Landau racing toward the rear of the restaurant, toward the alcove where he knew stairs led down to the
toilets.

  She was alone.

  He pushed past the waiter offering to seat him and pelted after her down the narrow steps, fueled by equal measures of rage and adrenaline. He smiled as he heard the bathroom door thud closed.

  Halting outside it, he debated whether to burst through or wait and spring on her when she exited. Spittle gathered at the edges of his lips as he made his decision.

  He shoved open the door.

  Her back was to him as she bent over the sink, splashing water on her face. She jerked upright and caught sight of him in the mirror and gave a small cry.

  The fear in her eyes as she whirled around was his reward. He had her.

  But where was the Eye of Dawn?

  It didn’t matter. He’d kill her first and search her body for it after. Then he noticed the glimmer of the pearl at her throat. Fatima’s necklace—around Natalie Landau’s neck.

  “I got it back,” she said. “In this lifetime.”

  “Your lifetime’s almost over!” he screamed, whipping out his Glock.

  She didn’t flinch. But he did, his body jackknifing sideways as D’Amato shot him at close range from the doorway of a toilet stall.

  Blood sprayed the room. The sink, the mirror, the stalls.

  And the two of them.

  Natalie met D’Amato’s eyes. Slowly, she touched the hamsa at her throat.

  It was over.

  64

  Two days later

  U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem

  Patrick Dunleavy, presidential assistant for National Security Affairs, rose from the gray leather couch and extended his hand first to Natalie and then to D’Amato.

  “Everything we’ve discussed here, as we agreed, remains privileged information,” he said, in his flat West Point baritone. His deep-set hazel eyes were like thumbtacks in his fleshy face as they pinned each of them in turn. “Warrick’s death will go down on record as accidental, in the line of duty. I can guarantee you, however, that our investigation into how he could have been a member of the Sons of Babylon without our knowledge will continue.”

  “Yeah. So will mine,” D’Amato said tightly.

  For a moment Natalie wondered if Dunleavy was going to revisit his displeasure—and the president’s—that the tzohar was now out of their country’s reach. She braced herself for a final politely worded reprimand, but he only glowered at them with a chilly air of dismissal as he wished them a safe journey back to the States.

  Stepping out of the consulate into an unexpected light rain, Natalie felt suddenly refreshed and relieved that she was finally free to go home. The past two days had been a blur of endless interrogations, interviews, and debriefings with Israeli and U.S. officials alike.

  Still, much of what had transpired remained a mystery to her. A mystery it would take time to puzzle through and eventually comprehend.

  But she would never understand how Elliott Warrick, an assistant undersecretary in the Defense Department, one of the principal advisers to President Garrett on defense matters, had managed to work undetected with a clandestine fringe church group—all while feeding false leads to the NSU during their pursuit of the tzohar. Nor how the Mossad had never discovered the traitor in their midst.

  One of the only good things to come of all this was that the Guardians of the Khalifah had been crippled for the time being. Hasan Sabouri and several of their leaders were dead, and Farshid Sabouri was in custody, along with four of the six would-be bombers.

  Also, several members of Shomrei Kotel had been arrested and charged with attempted theft and kidnapping.

  At least this nightmare hadn’t prevented the chance for peace. Owen Garrett, Ze’ev Rachmiel, Mu’aayyad bin Khoury, and Gunther Ullmann had convened at the Knesset even as Israeli Intelligence had raced to find and dismantle the bombs. In the presence of a select group of dignitaries and members of the press corps, they’d signed the historic peace accord. And later that evening, after power had been restored, they’d all gone before the television cameras to shake hands in front of the world.

  As she and D’Amato headed for the cab waiting for them on Nablus, she suddenly felt hungry for the first time in days.

  “El Gaucho,” she said suddenly, as D’Amato opened the cab door.

  “Come again?” For a moment he looked puzzled. Then his face lit with an appreciative grin.

  “On Rivlin Street—the Argentinian Grill.”

  “If it’s still there.”

  They’d been sliding across the worn backseat cushions, and the driver had overheard.

  “Twenty-two Rivlin Street. It’s still here,” he said gruffly.

  “Go for it.” Leaning back against the warm seat, D’Amato winced as the cabbie jerked out into traffic. For some reason, despite today’s dampness and rain, he was finding it easier than usual to ignore his ever-present pain. Possibly because he was just glad—again—to be alive.

  Natalie recognized the grimace that flitted across his face and was gone. If not for D’Amato’s instincts from the very beginning, so much would have been different. Aunt Leonora might have had to bury two nieces within a week. She glanced at him as he stared out the rain-speckled window and was surprised by the surge of warmth she felt.

  “After all you’ve done for me,” she said lightly, “the least I can do is buy you dinner.”

  “I don’t know about that. You look a helluva lot worse than I do.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  D’Amato chuckled. The fact was, her purple-and-red bruises were yellowing now, and he knew he wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. “Give it up, Landau. Dinner’s on me.”

  She laughed. He’d never seen her laugh before. But it suddenly occurred to him that he’d like to see her laugh again.

  The beat of the windshield wipers slowed as the driver bounced down an impossibly narrow street. The rain was diminishing to a fine silvery mist, casting an added sheen on the Old City of Jerusalem as it slid past their window. The holy city was jammed as always with Jews, Muslims, and Christians intermingled on the ancient pathways, most of them now buoyed with hope for a lasting peace.

  Peace.

  Natalie was touching her fingers to the hamsa at her throat. The tzohar, the unimaginable treasure her sister had sent her, was safely ensconced now in the IAA’s National Treasures Storerooms in Bet Shemesh, halfway between here and Tel Aviv. It had been authenticated at the IAA soon after she’d handed it over to the director of the Antiquities Robbery Prevention Unit, along with the pouch and the cracked pendant.

  “Dana knows,” D’Amato said quietly.

  Natalie met his gaze, feeling her shoulders relax for the first time in days.

  “I know. I was just thinking the same thing.”

  65

  National Treasures Storerooms

  Bet Shemesh, Israel

  Later that evening

  “I thank you for welcoming my family here. It is an honor to follow in the footsteps of my father.” Taleb Zayadi was a short man with a stocky body and a thick black mustache. His voice was low and somber as he addressed the director of the storerooms.

  Then his gaze drifted down once more to the swath of royal blue velvet cushioning the shallow case that sat on the table between them. He peered again at the three items arrayed upon it—the cracked gold pendant adorned with the jeweled eyes, its matching leather pouch, and the shimmering crystal gem that long had been concealed within them both.

  “My father, Nejeeb, was murdered on the night this was stolen from our museum,” Taleb said softly, sweeping his hand through the aura of light radiating from the tzohar. “He never knew the nature of what our family had guarded for so many generations.”

  “And that they will continue to guard,” the director said warmly. “Now the Zayadis are among the handful on earth who know for certain of the tzohar’s existence—of its power—and of the imperative need to keep it safeguarded. It’s fitting that you succeed your father in protecting it, Taleb, since the Zayadi fam
ily has long served with such honor.”

  The director replaced the velvet-draped case inside one of the lead-lined vaults on the wall, and sealed it. The room was suddenly much dimmer. Taleb followed him from the rectangular humidity- and temperature-controlled storeroom. It was Taleb who locked the door with the combination he’d just memorized.

  They took seats around a small table in the outer office where a tray had been placed, set with glasses of steaming tea and small dishes of honey, sugar, and lemon.

  Taleb bit a cube of sugar between his front teeth and sipped his tea through it as the director described the routine of the storerooms, the passwords and watchwords, and reviewed with him the list of who had clearance to access the steel-reinforced chamber they’d just left.

  “We’ll be studying the treasure,” he explained, setting down his glass. “Analyzing its properties. Working to harness its energy in ways that will benefit mankind.”

  Taleb listened and nodded, approving of what he heard. But all the while his thoughts were centered on the ancient holy treasure locked securely in the next room.

  Until his son was called to take his place, he would guard it—and well. With his life, if need be. As his father had.

  It was what they did. They were a family of caretakers.

  Read on for an excerpt from

  THE BOOK OF NAMES

  by Jill Gregory and Karen Tintori

  Available from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  PROLOGUE

  January 7, 1986

  Saqqara, Egypt

  Two men shoveled the sand under cover of darkness. Their only light in the cave was a lantern set beside their packs. This series of caves and tombs, fifteen miles from Cairo, was a treasure trove of artifacts and antiquities. For three thousand years, Saqqara, the City of the Dead, had been the burial place of kings and commoners—archaeologists might spend several lifetimes and never discover all of its secrets. And neither would the tomb robbers.