The Columbus Affair

by Steve Berry

  “I don’t give a damn about this quest. My life was destroyed. Everything I worked for was taken from me. I was about to blow my brains out a few days ago because of that. I want my reputation back.”

  “It’s not that simple. You are the grandson of Marc Eden Cross. He knew this day would come. He told me many times to be ready. You have to fulfill what he started.”

  “For what?”

  “For us.”

  He knew what he meant.

  “I’m not a Jew any longer.”

  “If that were the case, then why did you come to Prague? You climbed to the synagogue’s loft, just as your grandfather did. You know, in your heart, that you have to do this. You’re the only one who can.”

  “Do what?”

  “Find the Temple treasure. Give it back to all of us.”

  But in his mind he heard the words the woman on the screen had said. “So finish this last battle, start your war, and allow Israel to reap the reward.” “What is Simon going to do?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s clear that it will not be good.”

  “Go to the authorities.”

  “And tell them what? There’s a treasure? Lost for two thousand years? Zachariah Simon wants it?” Berlinger shook his head. “No one would listen.”

  He pointed to the screens. “You have a video.”

  “No, I don’t. Nothing was recorded.”

  “Why not?”

  “This is not about involving the authorities. This is about you. Only the Levite can complete this journey. I will tell what I know only to the Levite. I promised Marc that would be my duty, and I will not violate that pledge.”

  “Then tell me what it is and I’ll go to the authorities.”

  “If what that woman said is true, about you being ruined, who would believe you? You have no proof.”

  He was right. If the woman and Simon were in a conspiracy, neither was going to admit it. He’d have no source, no information, no corroboration. Nothing. Just like eight years ago.

  Simon and the woman were now leaving the cemetery.

  This may be his only chance.

  The hell with it.

  He rushed from the room.

  ———

  ALLE FINISHED HER PRAYERS.

  She’d been escorted by an older woman the rabbi had brought to her. Clearly, Berlinger had wanted to speak to her father outside her presence. If she was going to have any chance of learning anything, she would have to give them some slack. Already she’d been able to read her grandfather’s complete message. But she’d pressed her father hard in front of Berlinger.

  Maybe too hard.

  And Jamaica.

  That locale seemed important.

  Why else include a fifty-plus-year-old road map?

  The Old-New Synagogue was about to open for the day, the vestibule busy with attendants preparing themselves. She stood in the main hall, drawn to a set of seats that abutted the east wall, right of the tabernacle. One was adorned with a raised back, higher than the others, topped by a Star of David.

  “The chief rabbi’s place,” the older woman told her.

  But a chain barred anyone from sitting.

  “It has long been reserved only for Rabbi Loew. No one else sits there. He was a man greatly respected and we honor him by preserving his seat.”

  “How long has he been gone?”

  “Four hundred years.”

  “And no one has sat there?”

  “Only during the war. The Nazis learned of our honor. So they all sat in the seat. As many as could be. Their way of providing an insult. Of course, that was before they started killing us.”

  She did not know what to say.

  “My parents died during the war,” the woman said. “Shot by Germans not far from here.”

  She wondered if this woman was Berlinger’s way of sending her a message. She’d resented being shuttled away. Treated as a child.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “I’m going back to the ceremonial hall.”

  “The rabbi asked us to stay here until he sent for us.”

  “No, that’s not right. I’m sure he asked you to keep me here until he sent for us. I’m going back.”

  She headed for the vestibule.

  The older woman nipped her heels.

  “Please, my dear, stay.”

  She stopped and turned back, wondering at the urgency. So she decided to make clear, “This does not concern you.”

  And she left.

  ———

  ZACHARIAH WALKED WITH THE AMBASSADOR BACK TOWARD THE same iron gate where he’d entered, adjacent to the ceremonial hall. He noticed that the mayor was gone and that a group of visitors had finally entered the cemetery from the opposite end.

  “They come here from all over the world,” the ambassador said. “This is as close to Israel as many of them will ever get.”

  “But it is not Israel.”

  “Few understand the pressures faced in the Holy Land,” she said. “Unless you live there every day and know the fear that comes from being surrounded by enemies, how could you? We fought that fear for thousands of years. Now the people may have finally succumbed to it. You and I know what a mistake that is.”

  “My father tried to warn them decades ago. We gave away too much then, and received too little in return.”

  “Jerusalem has been invaded more than any other city on earth. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Syria, Greece, Rome, Persia, Muslims, Crusaders, Turks, the British, Palestinians, and now, finally, the Jews. I don’t plan to give it back.”

  “I shall parade the treasures to the mount without warning,” he said. “The more public the display, the better. To make that happen, I may need some of your help.”

  He knew what would happen. Jews would see the return of their treasures as a sign. The menorah, the divine table, and the silver trumpets had returned. Thousands would come. In the past large crowds had been routinely turned away. But this was different. Muslims, too, would see a sign. The presence of the Jewish treasures would be taken as a challenge to their presence, something they had defended for centuries with violence and blood.

  This time would be no different.

  Or so he hoped.

  “I am afraid not, Zachariah,” she said. “For that you are on your own. As I said, you and I will not speak again.”

  No matter.

  Until yesterday, he’d planned on accomplishing his goal without any help.

  He’d stick to that plan.

  They stood before the ceremonial hall, part of which jutted into the cemetery grounds, shaded by ash trees. More people were entering from the far side, admiring the graves, some offering stones to markers in remembrance. They all wore yarmulkes, which he knew were given to them with their admission tickets.

  “Our heads should be covered, too,” he said.

  “Not to worry, Zachariah. The dead will forgive us.”

  ———

  TOM LEFT THE SECURITY ROOM AND FOUND A DOOR THAT LED outside.

  But it was locked, no way to open it without a key.

  He rushed to the interior stairway and leaped the short risers two at a time up to the first floor where visitors were entering the exhibits, showing their tickets to one of the female attendants.

  This was too much.

  Here he was in the Czech Republic, eight years after the fact, about to be confronted with someone who knew the truth.

  He told himself to calm down. Think. Be rational.

  Calmly, he left the stairs and excused himself past the visitors and out the door to the exterior staircase. The landing was enclosed on three sides, periodic openings offering views down to the cemetery. Through one of those he spied Simon and the woman, standing on a graveled path among the graves, talking. He watched them from the safety of his perch, no way for them to see him. To his left the stairway right-angled to ground level, the view open to a street that led down a short incline, past the vendor stalls, to the Old-New Synagogue.


  He spotted Alle.

  Fifty yards away.

  Marching toward the hall.

  ———

  ALLE IGNORED THE VENDOR STALLS TO HER LEFT, BUSY WITH tourists, and concentrated on the iron gate fifty yards away. More people were negotiating the exterior staircase for the ceremonial hall, heading up to the exhibits on the first and second floors, where she had been an hour ago.

  Berlinger’s rebuke still stung.

  As did her grandfather’s.

  In the final years of his life she’d been there for him, pleasing him beyond measure with her conversion. He’d never thought his grandchild would practice his faith. He’d resigned himself to the fact that since his son had abandoned the religion, all would be abandoned.

  “But you, my dear, are so special. You chose on your own to become what your birthright entitled you to be. It must be God’s will.”

  They’d many times talked of life and the Jews, in the abstract, him responding to her questions.

  “I may not agree with your mother’s beliefs,” he told her. “But I respect them. As much as I wanted my son to be a Jew I understand how she would want you to be a Christian. So I would never violate that.”

  And he never had.

  But in the end, he still hadn’t thought her worthy.

  Or at least her new religion had not.

  The Levite must be male and I failed to find anyone capable. So I took the secret entrusted to the grave.

  She kept walking up the street, stepping around several tour groups. She was worthy. She could be the Levite. And do a better job than her father, who seemed not to care about anyone or anything. And where was he? Still inside the ceremonial hall? Her gaze focused ahead and she spotted two people beyond the iron gate, up another inclined path.

  A man and a woman.

  One was a stranger.

  The other was Zachariah.

  Here?

  ———

  ZACHARIAH SPOTTED ALLE.

  Too late for a retreat.

  She’d clearly seen him.

  “Time to deal with her,” the ambassador said.

  And he watched as the woman walked away, back toward the cemetery’s main entrance.

  He headed for the iron gate and the exit.

  ———

  TOM WATCHED AS SIMON LEFT THE CEMETERY GROUNDS, WALKING down the street toward Alle.

  The woman.

  That’s who he wanted.

  From his vantage point he saw her follow a path through the graves, going against the grain of tourists entering in a steady pace.

  He turned back toward Alle. Simon approached her, grasped her arm, and they headed away from the ceremonial hall, on the street that led back toward the house where they’d been held.

  More visitors were climbing the stairs around him.

  He quickly descended and rushed toward a glass-enclosed placard that detailed the quarter. He located the cemetery and saw that the entrance point was a block over.

  Where the woman was headed.

  A quick glance and he saw Alle and Simon, their backs to him, still moving away.

  If he hurried, he could catch his one chance to right the wrong.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  BÉNE RAISED THE BLOODIED KNIFE TO FRANK CLARKE. “I SHOULD slit your lying throat, too.”

  “Don’t you find it odd, Béne, how you so detest lying, but don’t mind doing it to your own mother?”

  Not what he expected Frank to say.

  “And the point?”

  “Only that you did exactly what I knew you’d do.”

  Not a hint of fear laced Clarke’s words. In the light from the remaining lamp and the glow of the dimming fire from the broken one, he saw no concern in the hard eyes.

  “The gang came,” Frank said, “offered money, and some of the colonels took it. When you called earlier and told me that you had found the mine, I had to report that information.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I’m Maroon, Béne. I take my oath of allegiance to my brothers in a serious way. Is their don dead?”

  “He’s scum. My dogs hunted him down.”

  “You killed both of them?” Tre asked, pointing at the bleeding bodies.

  He raised the knife. “They got what they deserved, too.” He turned to Frank. “And why shouldn’t I kill you?”

  “This had to happen. You know that, Béne.”

  The voice never rose above a whisper.

  “And what will the colonels say when I emerge from this cave?”

  “That you’re a man to be feared.”

  He liked that. “And there will be debts to be paid. By them.”

  And he meant it.

  “Why did you come back?” he asked Clarke.

  “You need to see why this place was special to the Spanish.” Frank pointed to the upper portion of the chamber. “We have to climb up there.”

  “Lead the way.”

  He was going to keep this man in his sights and he wasn’t about to discard the knife. Halliburton was still shaken by the corpses.

  “Forget them,” he told Tre.

  “It’s not easy.”

  “Welcome to my world.”

  He motioned for them to follow Frank up rough boulders that acted as a makeshift stairway to the next level. There he spotted three exits from the chamber, each a dark yawn in the rock wall.

  “Which one?” Béne asked Clarke.

  “You choose.”

  He assumed it was some sort of test, but he was not in the mood. “You do it. We’ll get there faster.”

  “You tell me all the time that you’re Maroon. That you’re part of us. Time to start acting like one.”

  He resented the implications.

  “They call you B’rer Anansi,” Frank said to him.

  “Who does?”

  He hated the mythical reference. Anansi was often depicted as a short, small man or, worse, a spider with human qualities whose most notable characteristic was greed. He survived by cunning and a glibness of speech. Béne’s mother used to tell him how the slaves told tales of Anansi.

  “I don’t think they mean to insult you,” Frank said. “It’s just their way of describing you. Anansi, for all his faults, is loved. We’ve told his stories ever since being brought here.”

  He wasn’t interested in what others thought. Not anymore. He was here, finally, in the lost mine. “Which tunnel?”

  “I know,” Tre said.

  He faced his friend.

  “I read in the journal we found in Cuba, the one from Luis de Torres, how this place was chosen as the cripta.”

  “A vault?”

  Tre nodded. “A hiding place. Columbus himself came, inspected, and chose it. They hid something away here. Something of great value, or at least that’s what de Torres wrote.”

  “Like crates of gold from Panama?” he asked.

  Tre shook his head. “I don’t know. He talked of this mine and three paths. He wrote that to know where to go is to know where you are from. Then he rattled off a list of things. ‘The number of vessels for the altar of burnt offerings, the altar of incense, and the Ark. The number of sections for the blessing. The number of times the word holy is repeated in the invocation of God. And the percent the Holy of Holies occupied in the First and Second Temples, per God’s command.’ ”

  None of which meant anything to him.

  “You have to be Jewish to know the answers,” Tre said. “I looked them up. There were three vessels for each altar. Three times the word holy is repeated. And one-third, .33 percent, is the amount of space the Holy of Holies occupied. That was the Jews’ most sacred spot in the world.” Tre pointed to the third opening. “That’s the way.”

  Clarke nodded.

  “What’s down there?” Béne asked.

  “Something that is not Maroon or Taino.” Frank approached the doorway and shone his light inside. “Maroons discovered this cave long after the last Taino died. We respected them. So we protect
ed this.”

  Béne wondered who Clarke was speaking to. Him? Or the ancestors? If duppies did in fact exist, this would be their home.

  Frank led the way into the cavern, its walls the same coarse stone. He wondered about gold veins since he’d seen little evidence of any mining. He asked Clarke about them.

  “In the other tunnels there are offshoots that lead to crevices. In some the Tainos found gold. Not much ore, but enough to attract the Spanish.”

  The duct meandered in a straight line, the air becoming progressively more stale. Béne felt light-headed. “Why is it hard to breathe?”

  “That sound you heard when we entered from the pool, like the earth sucking lungfuls of air, then exhaling? It creates a suction. More bad air here than good, which was why the Tainos chose this place to die.”

  Not comforting, and he saw Tre was likewise concerned. But with his eyes he said to his friend, You chose to come. And he could understand why. For an academician this was the ultimate experience—a chance to see firsthand something history could only talk about.

  His head began to hurt.

  But he said nothing.

  “The Tainos knew religion,” Frank said, “in every way the Spanish did. They just didn’t think themselves superior to everyone. They respected their world and one another. Their mistake was thinking white men felt the same way.”

  They’d walked maybe fifty meters, as best he could estimate. And they’d risen slightly. Their three lights revealed only a few meters ahead, the darkness around them absolute. No moisture anywhere, which was unusual for Jamaica’s caves, which were generally saturated from underground lakes and rivers.

  Then he saw something.

  In the first wash of Frank’s light.

  Ten meters before them.

  A wooden door, the planks warped and misshapen, blackened from time. No hinges lined any side. Instead the rectangle simply fit into an opening carved from the stone. Chunks of rock and boulders lay scattered on the tunnel floor, nearly blocking the way.

  Béne stepped forward, intent on climbing over the debris and seeing what was there.

  Frank grabbed his sweaty arm. “You sure you want to go in there?”

  “Try and stop me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE