by Jon Land
Lorenzo did not look apologetic. “And what if Lev had been right? What if the scroll really had proven that Christ was no more than an ordinary man? The deaths I caused are nothing compared to the upheaval the revelation of such a truth would have wrought. People have little enough faith as it is. They do not need to be tested.” Again his gaze locked on the pages in Ben’s lap. “But now, with that manuscript, at long last we can offer them proof their faith is justified.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Ben said with the slightest of smiles, wincing as he twisted toward the fire and tossed the pages into the flames.
Lorenzo jumped up from his chair.“No!”
He lunged across the room, almost to the fireplace when Ben added Daws’s original pictures and Ari Coen’s disc to the flames. The pages had already been reduced to blackened embers by the time Lorenzo got there. The pictures had melted. The disc was gone.
“For my nephew, Colonel.” Ben looked at Gianni Lorenzo trembling with shock and struggling for breath before him. “To honor a promise I made to my brother. As you said, I’m a man of my word.”
* * * *
W
hen he arrived at the church in Jericho, Ben found Father Mike still cleaning up the mess made the night before.
“Need some help?”
Father Mike peered up from picking some of the larger shards of debris off the floor and sighed. “I think you’ve done enough for one lifetime.”
“Exactly why I thought some of the usual penance might be in order.”
Father Mike pushed himself to his feet, his knees cracking. “You know, I think you are a changed man, Inspector.”
“Maybe I’m just tired.”
“No,” Father Mike said quite surely and deposited a handful of debris into a nearby trash can. “Something happened last night, didn’t it?”
Ben again thought back to the moment in the cave when Rabbi Mordecai Lev pressed the button on his detonator the first time.
The red light had flashed, the charge had been triggered. . . .
“Yes,” Ben said, “something happened.”
Father Mike nodded knowingly. “Don’t bother telling me about it. Whatever happened belongs to you. It’s your miracle, Ben. Sometimes it’s better to leave things that way.” He gestured toward the pulpit. “Unless you would like to make it the subject of a guest sermon here some Sunday.”
“You think people would really believe the story I’ve got to tell them?”
“Would you?” Father Mike put his arm lightly around Ben’s shoulder and led him toward the rectory. “Never mind, let’s go have some lunch.”
“I’m sorry about all the damage.”
“The Lord’s house is always in need of repair, just like the soul of man.”
“Amazing what you can do with a hammer and some nails, maybe a little glue.”
Father Mike stopped and smiled. “Sometimes, Ben, it truly is.”
* * * *
F
rom Father Mike’s, Ben went straight to see Danielle at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. A chilly spring rain had begun to fall and the dust the hot dry wind had blown into the city over the past week ran along the streets in thin streams.
“The doctors said they can’t be sure about the baby for two more weeks.” she told Ben as the raai pelted the window of her private room.
“But the indications ...”
“All favorable. Miraculous, under the circumstances.”
Ben smiled to himself.
Danielle propped herself up onto her elbows with a grimace. “Listen, about how we’re going to raise him—”
Ben eased the tips of two fingers lightly over her lips. “Not now.”
Danielle sighed. “What about the oil?”
“The explosion came too close to the surface to puncture its reservoir casing, so the West Bank’s water supply is safe from contamination. And Colonel al-Asi tells me the oil’s existence will remain a secret until engineers can bring it up in a way that makes sense economically. At that point, he has been assured that the profits will be shared between our peoples.”
“Not if Moshe Baruch has anything to say about it.” Danielle’s gaze hardened, her eyes narrowing into slits of restrained fury. “We can’t touch him, can we?”
“You know the answer to that better than I.”
“He’ll install his own people at National Police from top to bottom. I’ll be lucky to get a job as a samal sheni, a corporal.”
“I’m sorry about Commissioner Giott, Pakad.”
“And I’m sorry about your nephew.” Her gaze drifted. “I wonder ...”
“What?”
“If he hadn’t been part of the team that was killed, if there was never a reason for me to call you to the Judean Desert ...” She frowned, letting the thought go. “God works in mysterious ways, I guess.”
“Yes,” Ben said. “He does.”