The Columbus Affair

by Steve Berry

  “Which only shows that he did his job. At least until he was caught with that last story.”

  “For the first time, you sound like a daughter.”

  “I don’t mean to be that. Our relationship is gone. I hate that we even involved him. It was better when we never spoke, never saw each other.”

  “There’s a part of you that doesn’t mean that.”

  “Luckily, it’s way down deep. The main part of me says to stay away from him.”

  He could see she needed reassurance, so he laid a hand on hers. “I appreciate everything you have done. Your assistance has been invaluable.”

  His mind had been working, deciding on the next move. Sadly, the value of this young woman had depreciated to the point of nothing. Shortly, he would deal with her. Rócha had Sagan under surveillance. So there seemed only one avenue left for him. He knew nothing about Rabbi Berlinger but, from everything he’d heard for the past few hours, that man was part of whatever was happening.

  They needed to speak.

  But how to approach him?

  Then it came to him.

  One more performance should do it.

  ———

  HE KNOCKED ON THE DOOR, SOFT AND RESPECTFUL.

  No sense of urgency.

  He’d found the house a few blocks over from the Jewish quarter, on a lovely side street with multistoried flats. This one was brick-fronted with flower boxes adorning the upper windows. Little traffic could be heard from the boulevards beyond, the residential block near the river. It had taken only one call to his estate and a few minutes of Internet research to learn the address for Rabbi Berlinger.

  An old man answered the door. Dry-cracked lips, silvery stubble on his chin, patches of wiry white hair. Zachariah introduced himself and asked if they might speak. He was invited inside. The rooms were neat, clean, and simply furnished. The air smelled of coffee and peppermint. Dingy windows allowed little light and no noise to enter. His host offered him an opportunity to sit. He declined.

  “I’d rather come to the point,” Zachariah said. “You’ve been manipulating Tom Sagan since he arrived this morning. I want to know what it is you told him.”

  “Perhaps, in your world, you are accustomed to having your way. But here, in mine, you are nothing.”

  The words came in a calm, clear voice.

  “I understand you are a man to be respected, perhaps even a sage, but I have not the time or patience to extend any courtesies today. Please, tell me what I want to know.”

  “Where is Sagan’s daughter?” Berlinger asked.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “You made it my business when you came here.”

  “She’s waiting for me to return. I told her this was between you and me. I must learn what it is Sagan has been told. I know you provided him a silver box. What is inside?”

  “You seem to have a problem. You know so much, yet it is so little.”

  Zachariah withdrew a gun from beneath his jacket and pointed it at the rabbi.

  “You think that will persuade me?” Berlinger asked. “I have had guns pointed at me before. None made me do what I did not want to do.”

  “Do you really want me as your enemy?”

  The rabbi shrugged. “I have had worse.”

  “I can cause you and your family harm.”

  “I have no family. I outlived them all. This community is my family. I derive all of my strength and sustenance from it.”

  “Like another rabbi from the past?”

  “I would never presume to compare myself to Rabbi Loew. He was a great man who left a lasting impression on all of us.”

  “I can harm this community. Or I can help it.”

  “Ah, now we come to the point. The gun is for show, it is your money that you think will buy answers.” Berlinger shook his head.

  “For a man of your experience and age, you have much to learn. Your money means nothing to me. But perhaps if you were to answer a few questions, I might be persuaded to trade information. What will you do with our Temple treasures?”

  Now he knew for sure. Sagan and this old man had seen and heard him in the cemetery.

  The rabbi seemed to read his mind.

  “The cameras,” Berlinger said, “which we bought with your donations. They have many uses. So what is it you will do with our sacred objects?”

  “More than you can ever imagine.”

  “Start a war?”

  More of what had been spoken of with the ambassador.

  “If need be,” he said.

  “It is amazing how the world changes. Once it was the Germans who threatened us. Then the communists. Now the single greatest threat comes from one of our own.”

  “That is right, old man. We are our own worst enemy. We have allowed the world to corral us into a corner, and if people start to slaughter us again few will rise to our defense. They never have, in all our history. Sure, there is talk of the past horrors and pledges of support, but what did the world do last time? Nothing at all. They let us die. Israel is our only defender. That state must exist and remain strong.”

  A polite wave of the hand dismissed his point. “You have little idea what will make Israel strong. But it is clear that you have your own vile intentions relative to how to do that.”

  “And what would you do?” he asked Berlinger. “How would you protect us?”

  “The way we always have, by working together, watching over one another, praying to God.”

  “That got us slaughtered once.”

  “You are a fool.”

  Silence passed between them for a few moments.

  “The daughter is in great danger, isn’t she?”

  “As you have already determined, she means nothing to me.”

  “Yet she thinks otherwise.” Berlinger shook his head. “Naïveté. The greatest sin of youth. Which most times is accompanied by arrogance.”

  “She is not your concern.”

  “I lost a son long ago to the same two maladies. Unfortunately, I learned later that he was right, which only compounded my regrets.”

  “So you, of all people, should want to see us strong.”

  “That I do. We simply disagree on the method.”

  “Where is Sagan going from here?”

  Berlinger shrugged and aimed a blunt finger. “That I will never tell you.”

  He decided to try another tack. “Think about what it would mean for our treasures to be restored. The Third Temple built. Would that not make you proud? Would you not marvel that you had a hand in that?”

  “What Jew would not?”

  “Imagine the Temple standing again, built as the Book of Chronicles commands. Can you not see the great embroidered curtain hanging on the western wall, concealing the entrance to the Holy of Holies. Finally, after so many centuries we would have our sacred spot returned. The divine table, the menorah, the silver trumpets, all back where they belong. If only we had our ark, too.”

  “How many will have to die for that to happen?” Berlinger asked. “The Muslims control the Temple Mount. They will not relinquish it without a bloody fight. They will never allow any Third Temple, and the mount is the only place it can be built.”

  “Then they will die.”

  “In a war we cannot win.”

  More weak talk. He was sick to death with weakness. No one seemed to possess the courage to do what had to be done. Not the politicians, the generals, or the people.

  Only him.

  “Tom Sagan is the Levite,” Berlinger said. “He has been selected by the method prescribed. Only he can find our treasures.”

  “By Columbus? You can’t be serious. How did that man come to possess such power?”

  “When the treasures were entrusted to him and he took them to the New World.”

  “You know a great deal.”

  “He was given a duty, which he performed. He was one of us.”

  “And how would you know that?”

  “In his day o
nly Jews were experts in cartography, a skill Columbus excelled in. Jews were the ones who perfected nautical instruments and astronomical tables. Jewish pilots were in high demand. The notes Columbus wrote in his books, that have survived, show a deep appreciation for the Old Testament. I saw some of those myself in Spain. He dated a marginal note 1481, then gave the Jewish equivalent of 5241. That, in and of itself, is conclusive enough for me.”

  And Zachariah knew why.

  No one, other than a Jew, would have bothered adding the required 3,760 years to the Christian calendar.

  “I’ve seen the portrait of him in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence,” Berlinger said. “It is the only one crafted by someone who might have actually seen him alive. To me his features are clearly Semitic.”

  Nothing he did not already know. He’d studied the same image.

  “We financed his first voyage,” Berlinger said. “History notes that. For those Sephardi Jews, Columbus’ dreams were their salvation. They truly believed that they could live in peace in Asia, that they could escape the Inquisition. Columbus sailed to the New World mainly to find a new home for them.”

  “Unfortunately he didn’t live long enough to achieve that goal. His family, though, did provide us a home in Jamaica for 150 years.”

  “Which is why we must respect all that he did, and all that was done after. How that task is accomplished from this point forward is now in Tom Sagan’s hands. You and I cannot affect that.”

  The old man sat straight-backed and stiff-legged, hands resting on the arms. This icon had lived a long time.

  But Zachariah had heard enough.

  He stood. “I see I am wasting my time. You will tell me nothing.”

  Berlinger remained seated.

  He leveled the gun.

  The old man raised a hand. “Might I say a prayer before I die?”

  He shot the rabbi in the chest.

  Only a soft pop from the sound-suppressed pistol disturbed the silence.

  Berlinger gasped for breath then his eyes glazed over, his head drooping to one shoulder. The mouth opened and a trickle of blood oozed down the chin.

  He checked for a pulse and found none.

  “The time for prayer is over, old man.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  TOM INSERTED THE KEY INTO THE SILVER BOX AND TURNED THE lock. Whatever was inside had been placed there by his grandfather. He felt a connection to the man, one he’d never experienced before. Now he was the last link in an unbroken chain that stretched back to the time of Columbus. Hard to believe, but it was true. He thought about all of the other men who’d assumed this duty, what they might have thought. Most of them probably had little to do except pass the information on to the next in line. Saki, though, was different. And he could understand why his grandfather had been paranoid. There’d been pogroms in the past, Jews had suffered and died, but never on the scale they endured from 1939 to 1945.

  An unprecedented time called for unprecedented actions.

  He was alone inside a room off the nave in the Maisel Synagogue. An older woman had opened the glass display case and removed the silver box, never saying a word. She’d laid it on a wooden table and left, closing the door behind her. His thoughts flew back to the room at the cemetery and Abiram’s coffin, lying on a similar wooden table.

  A lot had gone unsaid between the two of them.

  Now there were no more opportunities to right any wrongs.

  True, as Berlinger had said, time had brought everything into focus, but it was not an image he wanted to see. Even worse, it seemed the same mistake he had made twenty years ago was being repeated by his own daughter toward him.

  He flushed those troubling thoughts from his brain and opened the lid.

  Inside was a black leather bag, identical to the one from Abiram’s grave that had held the key. He pressed the outside with his finger and felt something hard beneath.

  He lifted out the bag and opened the top.

  What came out was spherical, about four inches wide, and looked like a large pocket watch with a brass face.

  But it wasn’t.

  Instead it was an assemblage of five interlocking disks, one above the other, held together by a central pin. On top were pointers that could be rotated and lined with symbols that appeared on the disks. He noticed the lettering. Some was Hebrew, some Arabic and Spanish. It weighed maybe half a pound and seemed of solid brass. No tarnish marred its exterior, and the disks freely turned.

  He knew what this was.

  An astrolabe.

  Used for navigation.

  Nothing else was inside the box.

  No explanations, no messages—zero to explain what he was supposed to do next.

  “Okay, Saki,” he whispered.

  He laid the astrolabe down and found Abiram’s note and the Jamaican road map, laying both on the table. He added the key from the lock.

  All of the pieces of the puzzle.

  He opened the map and pressed its folds flat, careful not to tear the brittle paper. He saw again the ink additions to the map, numbers scattered around the island. He made a quick count. Maybe a hundred written in faded blue ink.

  He lifted the astrolabe and tried to remember anything he knew about the device. Used for navigation, but how he had no idea. Across the rim of the outer disk were symbols laid out at intervals. A pointer, notched like a ruler, stretched from one edge to the other and connected symbols from opposite sides. All of the writing was either Hebrew or Spanish. He knew no Spanish and only a smattering of Hebrew.

  He turned it over.

  The back side was a grid of rows encircling the disk, five in total, everything in Hebrew. One row he recognized.

  Numbers.

  As a child Abiram had insisted he study Hebrew. Unlike many languages numerals were formed using letters, and he recalled the number combinations. He recognized 10, 8, 62, 73, and most of the others. Another pointer stretched from one end to the other. He rotated the disks, which spun easily on their central axis. His gaze drifted to Abiram’s message and the main point Saki had explained.

  3. 74. 5. 86. 19.

  He searched the astrolabe and found 3, amazed that he could still translate. He twisted the pointer and lined one end with the symbol for 3. At the opposite end was Hebrew for 74.

  Not a coincidence.

  The second number from Saki’s message was 5. He twisted the pointer and found the symbol for 5. The opposite side rested at 86.

  One left, which seemed the whole point. The first two were there simply to confirm, Yeah, you’re on the right track.

  He searched the grid for 19 and found what he thought was correct.

  The opposite number was 56.

  He immediately surveyed the map, looking for 56. He found it east of the center of the island, south of a town called Richmond, adjacent to the Flint River. Small print on the map, just beside the inked number, noted that the area was called Falcon Ridge. He searched the remainder of the map. The number 56 appeared nowhere else.

  He smiled.

  Ingenious.

  Absolutely no way existed for anyone to know which of the hundred or so numbers was relevant without the sequence and the astrolabe.

  He gathered up the map, note, key, astrolabe, and the black leather bag large enough to hold them all.

  He left the building and walked back toward the Old-New Synagogue.

  He debated trying to find Alle. But how was that possible? And what was the point? She’d made her choice. He’d done all he could for her, but she was Simon’s now, and he only hoped that she’d be okay. He could go to the police, but what would he say? He’d sound like a crazed nut, and he doubted Berlinger would back him up.

  “My duty is done. The rest I leave to you.”

  The only thing for him to do was leave.

  He glanced around one last time. The clusters of buildings that at first seemed protective in their familiarity were now cold and unappealing. His stay had been short, but memorable. Like his p
arents’ home, there were a lot of ghosts here, too. But he wondered. What waited ahead, in Jamaica, at Falcon Ridge?

  There seemed only one way to find out.

  But his heart sank in disappointment.

  “Take care, Alle,” he whispered.

  And he walked away.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  ZACHARIAH WALKED BACK TO THE RESTAURANT WHERE ALLE was waiting. He’d locked both doors that had led out of Berlinger’s house before leaving and would be long gone before the body was discovered. He’d had no choice but to kill the old man: He knew far too much and could definitely link him to the ambassador. Prayer?

  That had never been enough and never would be. Force, or at least its threat, was what offered real security. Jews had never possessed enough force. Only once, at the time of the Second Temple, had they risen in revolt and ousted the Romans, but that victory had been short-lived. The empire returned and crushed them. In modern times the state of Israel had enjoyed more success. Twice invasions were tried, and twice the invaders were defeated. But Israel’s will to fight had waned. The thoughts of rabbis were heeded over the advice of generals. There was no room in this world for any more Rabbi Berlingers.

  He found the restaurant and saw Alle. Noontime was approaching, and the tables were beginning to fill. An aroma of dumplings and roast duck enticed him, but there was no time for lunch.

  “Did you learn anything?” she asked.

  He wondered if she truly believed that he would share with her whatever he may have discovered, but he showed no irritation and simply shook his head.

  “He is a stubborn old man. He told me about your father, but nothing we did not already know.”

  His phone vibrated.

  He found the unit and saw that it was Rócha.

  “Sagan is on the move. Back to his car, I think.”

  He stood from the table and motioned for Alle to follow.

  “We’re coming your way.”

  “Avoid the old square. He’ll be there shortly.”