Isaac sat, feeling vaguely embarrassed and awkward. Romulus’s eyes had not opened, so how could he know for certain that Isaac stood before him? Of course, he had sent Reis to fetch him, but Reis could have been the one coming through the door . . .
“You are wondering how much I can see in this meditative state.” A secretive smile softened Romulus’s lips. “I see everything in this room, Major, and in this entire aircraft. For I am seeing now with spirit eyes, and my spirit is not located in the physical body you see before you. I am hovering above you. If you believe in the mystical, you might call it an out-of-body experience.”
Feeling foolish, Isaac looked up. He saw nothing above him but the soft glow of recessed lighting shining on the jet’s vinyl ceiling.
“You should try meditation sometime,” Romulus said, slurring words between his teeth. “It is quite . . . empowering.”
The president’s voice died away as his head dropped forward and his hands turned to clench the leather armrests in a spasmodic grip. For a moment Isaac tensed, afraid that something was physically wrong with the man, but before he could move Romulus lifted his head, his eyes alert and bright.
His smile flashed briefly, dazzling against his tanned skin. “You prefer to converse with me in the flesh, don’t you, Isaac? I don’t blame you—most people are uncomfortable with matters of the spirit. But I have found great strength in meditation. Focusing one’s spiritual energy renews the body as well as the soul.”
Romulus drew a deep breath, then linked his fingers and leaned forward. “In the last hour, I have spoken with my spiritual counselor, and he told me the time is right. Our meeting with the American Jewish leadership today was a precedent-setting event, but we are far from reaching our goals. The next step is a simple one, but terribly crucial—and I know you are the man I should trust to see it through.”
The wings of shadowy foreboding brushed Isaac’s spirit as he sat there, blank and shaken. “Me, sir?”
“Yes, you.” Amusement flickered in Romulus’s dark eyes. “I find a delicious irony in the task I will ask you to perform. Hitler took possession of the spear and tried unsuccessfully to unite the world by eradicating the Jews. So I will send a Jew to take the spear . . . and I will succeed where Hitler failed.”
Isaac listened with a vague sense of unreality. He’d been around Romulus long enough to know that the man often spoke in riddles, but this one made no sense at all.
Romulus’s mercurial black eyes deepened. “I have been in negotiation with the curators of the Hapsburg Treasure House. They agree, of course, that as president of the Universal Network the Imperial Regalia is at my disposal, but what do I care for a crown and scepter? The treasure I want—the piece I must have—is the Spear of Longinus. I could send an armored car to fetch it tomorrow, but that would draw unwanted attention, as would my presence in Vienna. And so I am sending you, Isaac Ben-David. You will go to the Imperial Palace in Vienna, and you will quietly receive the Spear of Longinus in my name. And then you shall bring it to me in Paris.”
Unnerved by the sudden change in agenda, Isaac looked up and blinked in bewilderment. “Sir, I work as the liaison between you and the State of Israel. I’m not sure I see how this task has anything to do with Israel’s interests—”
Romulus smiled then, but it was the smile he used to freeze men’s blood. “Is Israel part of the Universal Network?”
“Well, yes. Of course.”
“Did Israel not send you to serve me?”
Isaac shrugged to hide his confusion. “They did.”
“Then how can you hesitate to fulfill this request? To serve me is to serve Israel, for Israel and I are one. Jerusalem and I are one.” Passion flickered in Romulus’s eyes like heat lightning. “Do you remember the crowd at the Temple dedication? And did you hear those gathered in Times Square today? On both occasions, Isaac, my name was on every tongue. Jerusalem will soon be the capital of my new empire, and from Jerusalem I will send peace to cover the land like a blanket.”
Isaac said nothing, but nodded soberly. “When am I to go on this errand?”
“Very soon, perhaps tomorrow.” Romulus lifted his head then, like a cat scenting the breeze. “As soon as Nadim tells me the way is clear. He will prepare your path.”
Isaac clenched his jaw, instinctively knowing that the subject of Romulus’s spirit counselor was not open for discussion. Nearly everyone who moved in Romulus’s inner circle had heard several references to the elusive Nadim, but never had anyone questioned his existence. Isaac wondered if this so-called guide might even be a manifestation of some sort of mental illness, but thus far Romulus had not made an impolitic move . . .
The president leaned back in his chair, a beatific smile creasing the fine wrinkles on his face. “You are wondering about Nadim.”
Isaac blinked. Could the man read minds? “I am curious,” he admitted.
Romulus seemed not to take offense. He smiled, his dark eyes creasing in an expression of admiration. “Nadim is not to be feared, Major. He is not evidence that I manifest multiple personalities, as some have suggested, nor is he a figment of my imagination. He is a spiritual being, as real as the air this jet floats upon, as real as the life that sparks in your blood. I am not a slave to him, of course, but he is wise, he knows things, and he recognizes . . . my unique gifts.”
His expression stilled and grew serious. “We don’t talk about Nadim in the media because most people’s minds are too darkened to understand. But one day I will bring the light of clarification to everyone. All of mankind will recognize the true spiritual glory and light and power that have surrounded men and women for eons. And then, at last, we will truly be one with the gods. We will be at peace.”
Romulus looked at Isaac with an intense but secret expression. “That’s what you want, isn’t it, Major? Peace in your nation, in your city, in your home.”
Keenly aware of Romulus’s scrutiny, Isaac nodded.
“Your home is particularly troubled.” Romulus paused to run his finger along the arm of his leather chair. “You and your wife are practically strangers, and you have been estranged for months. Is this not true?”
Isaac drew himself up, swallowing to bring his heart down from his throat. How could Romulus know these things? Isaac had not spoken to anyone about his relationship with Sarah. He was too angry, too hurt, and too confused to even speak of his wife and yet . . .
Across the cabin, Romulus closed his eyes. A glow rose in his face, as though he contained a candle that had just been lit. Beneath his eyelids, Isaac could see the fluttering of his eyes, like the heartbeats of baby birds.
“You fear your wife no longer loves you,” Romulus whispered, a faint bite in his smooth voice. “Nadim knows this. If you want to know the truth, you have to ask. Nadim will search the matter out and give you an answer.”
Isaac stared wordlessly at Romulus, his heart pounding. Surely he had misunderstood something. Exhaustion had confused his thoughts. Because this was either a very bizarre dream or the most powerful man in the world had just offered to act as a psychic on Isaac’s behalf.
He squeezed his fist and felt the muscles along his arm contract. He was awake, and Romulus sat in the chair, his eyes closed, his face perfectly blank, waiting. The man had offered to help, and Isaac had questions aplenty.
He opened his mouth, but the words would not come. Years of religious training clogged his throat; fortunetelling was an abomination; any and all occult practices were detestable. But though he had obeyed the Law throughout his childhood and youth, what had the Holy One done for him? HaShem had taken his child, left his marriage a cold and barren wasteland, and destroyed his personal peace . . .
“I want to know the truth.” Isaac forced the words past his unwilling tongue, “Does my wife still love me, or does she want a divorce?”
Romulus’s eyes twitched again beneath the thin covering of his lids, then he drew a ragged breath. “Your wife, Sarah,” he said, in an aching, husky voice Isa
ac scarcely recognized, “is in love with . . . his name is Melman.”
Isaac shook his head, disbelieving. This could all be a trick. Romulus had spies everywhere, every nation, even the allies of the Universal Network kept their intelligence agents busy. Sarah’s association with Danny Melman could be a lucky guess.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Isaac insisted, his voice hoarse. “Tell me something no one else would know. Tell me the truth.”
Romulus’s face twisted, then he said, “The last time you were home, many months ago, you stood in the bedroom with your wife.” He paused and shuddered slightly, then continued in a voice that seemed to come from far away. “She began to undress, but stopped and stepped into the bathroom. She did not proceed because she did not want you to see . . . that she was expecting another child. But she miscarried that baby and swore you would never know what happened.”
Cold sweat prickled on Isaac’s jaws. Sarah, pregnant? Impossible. If she’d been pregnant and had a miscarriage, his father would have told him . . . unless Sarah did not want anyone to know.
He took a deep, quivering breath to quell the leaping pulse beneath his ribs. Romulus opened his eyes slowly then, seeing Isaac’s expression, reached out a hand in silent sympathy. “I’m so sorry,” he said simply, dropping his hand in his lap. “I know this is hard to hear from anyone, but at least you heard it from a trusted friend.”
“Please.” Isaac closed his eyes. He did not want to talk about Sarah now. He didn’t want to talk about anything.
Romulus leaned forward in his chair and rested his arms on his knees. “Renounce your old life, Isaac, and become one of us. Divorce your faithless wife and join me. Do you want a beautiful woman on your arm? I can arrange it. Do you want another child to carry on your name? I can arrange that. I can arrange anything on earth you require to be happy, if only you will join my cause, Isaac Ben-David. We are larger than Israel. We are the world.”
Isaac drew a deep breath and felt a dozen different emotions collide. Every step in his life until this moment had carried him in the wrong direction. As a boy, he had given his devotion to a God who did not hear the desperate prayers of his people. As a young man, he had given his strength to a country that could not protect innocent citizens as they rode upon city buses. As a mature man, he had given his love to a woman who had not needed or wanted him for years.
Well, today Romulus had lifted the blinders from his eyes. Sarah had been playing him for a fool, living under his roof and using his name while living a secret life.
He would play the fool no longer.
Isaac looked up and met Romulus’s steady gaze. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
A look of dark satisfaction crept over the president’s features, a look almost of gloating. “In order to establish and preserve global peace,” Romulus said, as calmly as if they were discussing the weather, “we must eradicate all resistance. Charisma and pleasant words can only accomplish so much, Isaac, so we will need to add authority to our arsenal. To insure our power, I must possess the Spear of Longinus. You will go to Vienna and accept delivery of the spear, then bring the relic to the Paris chateau. There you will place the spear into my hands. It is most important”—Romulus paused for emphasis—“that you do not tell anyone in Tel Aviv about this task. It is a classified mission, known only to you, me, and Elijah Reis.”
Isaac leaned back and considered the proposal. Though the spear could not have any real power, the legend surrounding it would enhance Romulus’s authority. The obscure story would have to be widely disseminated, of course, but the Universal Movement’s PR machine could spread a dozen variations of it around the globe within an hour. And the relic itself was nothing, just an ancient spearhead with a colorful history. Its purported powers came from the imaginations of men, not from the iron molecules that formed its composition.
He shifted his position as he mentally weighed the other side of the argument. His superiors at the IDF would probably not approve a mission that had nothing to do with Israeli security or diplomacy. But his mission at the Universal Net-work was to do his part to preserve world peace, and this mission did fit within the parameters of that goal. Finally, in the grand scheme of things, what the IDF did not know would not matter . . .
Isaac looked up. “I’ll do it,” he said. “As soon as you give the word, I’ll go.”
A faint smile hovered about Romulus’s lips as he nodded.
SEVENTEEN
ISAAC SAT IN A PRIVATE COMPARTMENT ON THE TRAIN, relaxing to the easy rhythm of the wheels. After flying to Vienna, he had decided to return to Paris via rail for two reasons: First, the train was the least likely mode of transportation for a diplomatic attaché carrying a priceless relic; second, he needed quiet time alone to think about his wife.
The pickup in Vienna had gone as Isaac expected, with few problems. The curator at the museum had been expecting him and seemed quite relieved to have the spear removed from his custody. The curator personally escorted Isaac into his office, where he locked the door and then took a leather briefcase from a vault behind his desk. With trembling fingers, he unlocked the briefcase, then waved his hand over the contents.
Isaac leaned forward and frowned. He had expected the Spear of Longinus to be some glorious and shining weapon, but the triangular object lying on faded red velvet was black with age and wrapped with a gold sleeve and metallic thread. As a weapon, it appeared incredibly primitive. As a treasure, it appeared misnamed.
“That’s it?” he asked the curator.
The man nodded so vigorously that Isaac feared his wire glasses would fall from his nose.
“All right, then.”
With a sigh of resignation, the curator snapped the briefcase shut, then whirled the dials on the locking mechanism. “Finally,” he said, producing a pair of handcuffs from a drawer, “there is this.”
Isaac said nothing as the little man fastened the handcuffs first to the briefcase, then to his own wrist. He had transported classified documents before—less openly than this, but they had certainly been more crucial.
“You know, of course,” the curator said, pausing as he gave Isaac the handcuff key, “about the legend of this relic.”
“I’ve heard of it.”
The thin line of the curator’s worried mouth clamped tight for a moment, and his sinewy throat bobbed once as he swallowed. “I believe the story. The relic has been safe here, tucked away with so many other pieces of history. I shudder just to think of it going forth into the world again—”
Isaac gripped the handle of the attaché case with both hands. “Adrian Romulus is a man of peace. I assure you, sir, the spear is merely symbolic for him.”
A tide of fear washed through the man’s eyes. “I certainly hope so. The last time this thing left the museum, over sixty million people died before it was returned.”
Not knowing how to answer, Isaac nodded to the curator, extended his free hand in courtesy, then picked up the briefcase and left the curator’s office.
As he traversed the museum and moved toward the exit, he couldn’t help noticing the gleaming crowns, swords, and scepters worn by other Germanic kings. Why hadn’t Romulus chosen one of those objects to symbolize his consolidation of power? They did not have legends attached, but the brains employed by the Universal Movement could certainly have invented a new one to suit the occasion. And backstopping a legend was a relatively simple matter—an agency merely had someone place forged documents in places where they would likely be stumbled upon by a reporter or researcher. Romulus could have invented a convincing legend for any of the more attractive relics and convinced the world that every word was true.
Odd, that he would so fervently desire this spearhead.
Isaac was fairly certain he spied at least one surveillance team as he left the museum—a man and a woman, following at wing and tail positions. As he paused to buy a newspaper from a vending machine, he saw the woman, about ten feet behind him, freeze on the sidewalk like a
startled deer. The man across the street was more composed; he kept walking for about eight paces, then stopped to look in a window—an old and obvious trick that allowed an agent to watch his rabbit in the window reflection.
“Amateurs,” Isaac muttered. He walked quickly through the lunchtime crowds, mingling as best he could, then ducked inside an alley. While mentally counting from one to fifteen— the longest time a tail might wait without panicking, he fished the handcuff key from his pocket and released the briefcase from his wrist, then pulled off his overcoat. After untaping a bright red shopping bag from the underside of his coat lining, he wadded up the garment and stuffed it behind a pile of cardboard boxes. He slid the briefcase into the shopping bag, then pulled a folded Chicago Bulls baseball cap from his trouser pocket and fitted it to his head.
“Fourteen, fifteen. Ready or not, here I come.” Easing back into the flow of pedestrian traffic, he quickened his pace and caught a glance of himself in a store window. To any observer, he appeared to be a happy American tourist on a shopping spree. The shopping bag had come from a department store on the same block, and his step was far livelier and less encumbered without the heavy overcoat.
After crossing the street in a crowd, he stood on the corner and lifted his face toward a posted bus schedule. His gaze, however, followed the tails, both of whom were now working in an expanding circle, searching for the man in the black coat.
Isaac suppressed a smile, then stepped into the street and lifted his hand to hail a taxi. When a cab stopped, he slipped into the backseat with his shopping bag and told the driver to take him to the train station.
Now, riding in the smooth rhythm of the rails, Isaac wondered who had sent the surveillance team. They weren’t Israelis—no Mossad agent would ever be as clumsy as those two. The Americans had sharply curtailed their overseas operations after the Disruption, so the surveillance could have come from any disgruntled nation affiliated with the Universal Network . . . or even Romulus himself.
The Spear of Tyranny Page 15