He looked at her quizzically. Despite her fear, there was desire in her lucid eyes. He gently cradled her chin and brought his lips to hers. Not his best work, he knew, but as passionate as the situation permitted.
The moment he pulled away, he knew things had irreversibly changed between them. And her genuine smile made something melt inside him.
“Now go get them,” she said.
56
******
Though Joshua quickly reached out for his mother’s arm to steady his wobbling legs—the musculature had no doubt atrophied during the months he’d been confined to the wheelchair—the result was nonetheless overwhelming. Charlotte gasped.
“A miracle, would you not agree?” the rabbi quickly cut in.
Such a quick turnaround was hard to attribute to anything else, she thought. “Is this some kind of trick?” Charlotte was so caught up in the transformation that she’d just now noticed that the boy’s right hand was wrapped all around in bandages. The nail biting wasn’t that bad. So what had happened to the kid’s hand?
“You’re familiar with ALS, Dr. Hennesey?”
“Of course,” she said.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, was an aggressive neurological disorder that attacked the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord, which regulated voluntary muscle movement. The incurable wasting disease gradually affected mobility, speech, chewing and swallowing, and breathing. Its later stages brought on severe pain. Though ALS more often struck the middle-aged, it wasn’t uncommon for a young person to fall victim to it.
“Then you’re aware that curing ALS is no trick,” he said. “Joshua’s
symptoms began only two years ago,” he explained without emotion. “He would fall often. At first, we thought he was just clumsy. Then he began dropping things. Simple things, like cups, forks, pencils. Within no time, his legs weren’t functioning at all. The neurologist spotted the symptoms immediately and the tests began. So many tests.”
Charlotte’s sad eyes went over to the boy. Poor kid. But given the circumstances, she needed for him to be more specific before she’d buy into this story. “Did his doctors try drugs?”
“Baclofen, diazepam, gabapentin, to name a few,” he swiftly replied. “Not to mention a regular cycle of antidepressants.”
So far, he was getting it right. She had seen it firsthand when she’d been treated for cancer. Parents of chronically ill children, particularly those with a terminal prognosis, gained clinical proficiency along their taxing journey—a defense mechanism against the utter helplessness that was the alternative. The drugs he’d named were prescribed for muscle spasms and cramping. The antidepressants were no surprise. Like bone cancer, ALS was a diagnosis that amounted to little more than a death sentence. For a young man, it must have been psychologically overwhelming, hence the compulsive nail biting. And like bone cancer, ALS had no cure—just therapeutic damage control.
Genetic chaos. Bad coding. Corrupted chromosomes. Evan had injected the serum into her bloodstream. She had no contact with the kid, except for ...
“When I touched you, I felt something in my fingers,” Joshua said. “Tingling. Not the bad kind I normally feel, though. When I left you, it began to spread . . . down to my legs and feet.”
Touched me? She shook her head in disbelief. Then Charlotte remembered the cracked skin on Joshua’s fingertips peeling the tape away from her mouth. His wet fingers. The sweat from Charlotte’s cheeks. An exchange of fluids? “It can’t be that simple,” she said. “You can’t just touch...” Her words trailed off.
But what the kid just explained had jolted a memory Charlotte would never forget . . .
“Are you ready?” Evan asked, holding her hand in his left hand. In his right hand, a plastic syringe was pinched between his fingers, thumb resting over the plunger. He’d already tapped the air bubbles out of the clear serum that filled it.
Charlotte peered out the suite’s open window and glimpsed a Lufthansa 747 lifting off the Fiumicino airport’s runway, jetting directly heavenward to the clouds on broad wings. Tears trickled down her cheeks. “I think so,” she said in a choked voice.
Releasing her hand, Evan used his index finger to massage a throbbing vein running down her left forearm.
“I thought you loathed venipuncture,” she said. He’d said it was one reason he didn’t want to become a surgeon: blood bothered him.
“I make exceptions,” he said with a comforting smile.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“It’s not too late to say no,” he reminded her. “Just say the word.”
“We’ve already talked this thing to death,” she calmly replied. “What choice do I have? Just get on with it,” she said with a small grin.
“Okay.”
He was trying his best to keep his hands from trembling.
“Just a quick sting.”
Charlotte directed her attention back out to the planes. The doubts came fast and hard as she sat there wondering if Evan’s concoction could possibly have any effect on her myeloma. People once thought flying was impossible, she reminded herself. Yet just outside that window, a huge metal machine had been climbing up into the sky. Nothing’s impossible, she told herself.
After drawing a deep breath, Evan steadied his hand and plunged the needle’s tip into the vein. She glanced down as he pulled back the plunger a fraction and some blood swirled up into the serum. Surprisingly, he’d gotten it in on the first try. Gently, he depressed the plunger until the entire 4-cc dose was emptied from the syringe. Withdrawing the needle, he held a thumb over the injection point, set the syringe down on the bed, and loosened the rubber tourniquet strapped tightly below her elbow.
The sensation was instantaneous. “Ooh,” she said, grabbing at her arm.
“What? What is it?”
“Nothing,” she said, letting out a breath. The poor guy was already on edge and she could tell that she’d scared him. “It just feels . . . strange.”
“What feels strange?” he asked, struggling to hide his concern. “My arm. It’s . . .” She had to pause to place it. “It’s tingling.”
The rabbi jumped back in, saying, “Would you not agree that ALS is a terminal disease where the chance of spontaneous recovery is zero?”
Snapping back into the moment, Charlotte tried to understand how even a spontaneous recovery could explain how Joshua was walking only hours later. ALS irreversibly destroyed nerve cells, and plenty of diagnostic tests could prove it.
This viral DNA is wildly contagious.
“I think what’s happened here is scientifically inexplicable,” the rabbi added. “So perhaps you might just admit that a miracle has taken place. A miracle for which you are responsible.”
Mute, Charlotte didn’t know how to respond. She stared blankly at the perfectly smooth skin on her own wrists where the raw marks from the duct tape his wife cut away had disappeared in a matter of seconds. Almost spontaneously.
“That, Dr. Hennesey, is the gift,” the rabbi proudly stated.
As Grandfather had taught, since Moses, only Jesus had acquired the most sacred genes. Perhaps the Messiah’s skeleton was indeed with the Vatican. But Cohen knew that what made the physical remains so special wasn’t the bones themselves; it was the incredible gift stored inside them. And now it had been transferred to the geneticist—the Chosen One. How the prophecies did surprise!
“I want you to come with me. There is something you must see.”
57
******
Amit killed the headlights on the assassin’s Fiat, with its bullet-riddled right-front wheel well above the recently installed spare tire, and rolled to a gentle stop outside the Rockefeller Museum. The exhibit hall’s interior was completely dark, as were all the windows in the adjoining wings. But in the circular tower of the administrative building that was home to the Israel Antiquities Authority, a thin outline of light shone around each of the blinds closed tight in the top-floor room.
&
nbsp; Easing the car door shut, Amit crept around the building, the Beretta at the ready.
He spotted a flatbed truck loaded with two full pallets of precisionquarried limestone parked near the service entrance. The stone looked similar enough to the Rockefeller building’s exterior. Perhaps a renovation was under way?
His eyes kept scouting the area as he moved out from the cover of the wall.
No watchmen.
This isn’t Gaza, he kept reminding himself; there wouldn’t be a highly visible security detail protecting a hot zone. Cohen had included Mossad contract killers in his entourage. Just because one now lay dead on the doormat of the Israel Museum, he wasn’t about to let his guard down or get haughty about his marksmanship. There was a reason these killers were very good at what they did—lots of practice. And they didn’t do it by showing themselves. They were masters of stealth.
Parked in front of the flatbed was what Amit had expected: a white delivery van.
Most likely, the museum door closest to it was open.
But that didn’t stop Amit from trying a couple other doors first. Locked, of course.
It was going to be tough making a subtle entrance.
58
******
The two burly guards who’d manhandled Charlotte out of the basement had taken up posts at the wide doors leading out of the octagonal conference room. The rabbi had had them position her directly in front of something plunked down on the glossy tabletop commanding the room’s center. The object was covered by a silky blue veil with gold embroidery depicting two winged creatures. Angels, maybe? she guessed. Though the form beneath it was largely rectangular, the veil was draped clumsily over two peaks on its top.
Pinched between Rabbi Aaron Cohen’s fingers was a vial of blood, and he rocked it back and forth, watching how the thick crimson swished side to side. “You’re quite familiar with the sophisticated tests used to study blood?”
Another rhetorical question, so Charlotte chose silence. No use encouraging him.
“While you were sleeping, I took the liberty of taking this from you,” he said, holding up the vial.
Was nothing sacred with this guy? “You’ve taken a lot more than that from me,” she said, seething.
He knew precisely what she meant. “Sacrifice, Dr. Hennesey. It must be made. Shortly, you’ll have a much better understanding of that. You’ll realize that no death would be too great a price for what you are to witness.
“Since the beginning of human history, blood has been the symbol of life and sacrifice. It is the tie that binds us to our ancestors.” His expression hardened. “Blood also separates us.”
Charlotte felt like she’d been picked from an audience to assist in performing a bizarre magic trick. She couldn’t help but think the rabbi would jam her into the box and saw her in half. Maybe then he’d get what he was really after.
“Let me show you what I mean,” he said. He summoned one of the men to the table. Then he pulled up a corner of the blue shroud so that the top corner of the box was revealed.
Charlotte was amazed to see that the surface of what lay beneath glinted wildly in the light. Gold? And its decorative edging looked an awful lot like the ossuary she’d studied at the Vatican. What most perplexed her was the fact that the small section of the box’s exposed face was covered in neat columns of ideograms. The top corner had a unique edging to it that suggested a lid or removable panel.
“Give me your hand,” the rabbi told his drone.
The man gave it no thought, offering his left hand palm up.
The rabbi took a small blade off the table and deeply incised the flesh along the base of the man’s pinky.
From there, the man didn’t need instruction. Curling the hand into a tight fist, he held it over the box and squeezed hard. The blood swelled from the slit, then rained down onto the box.
The instant the blood hit the gold sheathing, bright sparks crackled it into tiny droplets, then completely burned it away to nothing—all in under a second.
Charlotte didn’t know what to make of it. The effect was like that of water dripped onto a hot frying pan, but more potent. Though this could have come across like a rudimentary science project in electrical conductivity, it didn’t. She was engrossed.
The rabbi had watched her reaction, her incredulity, very closely. “Now watch, please,” he demanded as he uncapped the vial.
Holding the vial over the same spot where the man’s blood had completely disintegrated, he slowly tipped it so that Charlotte’s blood spun out in a thin string. When it connected with the gold lid, nothing happened. No sparks came.
The rabbi smiled victoriously. “Blood binds us, blood separates us. Purity and impurity.”
“What’s the point?”
“You see, Dr. Hennesey,” the rabbi said, his tone suddenly more reverential, “the most pure blood holds God’s covenant given to Moses at Sinai. The blood of the Messiahs is the most pure . . . the most sacred. This box hasn’t been opened in two thousand years. Jesus was the last to touch it—to be given the Spirit. But the prophecies have foretold that a Chosen One would come after Him. He sacrificed Himself on Golgotha so that his bones—His sacred blood—would be passed on to the next Messiah at the appointed time.”
Now Charlotte had to fight the urge to smirk. This was crazy talk.
“If you don’t believe me,” he said, “put your hand on the box.”
“Put your hand on the box,” she retorted.
He shook his head. “You still don’t understand.” Cohen signaled to the men and they grabbed her to bring her closer.
“Hey!” she protested, shaking her arms free. “No need to get rough. I’ll touch it.”
The rabbi motioned for them to back away.
“Fine,” Charlotte said. “I’ll play your game.” Stepping up to the table, she couldn’t help but admire the relic’s craftsmanship. The scientist in her found herself peeking around its sides for hidden wires that might have activated the light show she’d witnessed. Yet something else stirred in her when she found nothing.
Stretching out her hand, she could see the men backing away on the periphery of her vision. The rabbi himself seemed to be holding his breath.
Time for the big show, she thought. Very slowly Charlotte lowered her left hand over the golden lid.
59
******
When Amit finally reached the rear service door, he’d waited a full two minutes behind the van, deliberating on how to proceed. In his head, various scenarios were playing out, and every one of them featured lethal Mossad contractors exiting the building and engaging him in a blazing gun battle. That had him thinking of what it would feel like to be shot a few times without the luxury of a bulletproof vest. Couldn’t be pleasant, and he wasn’t curious enough to want to give it a try.
Nevertheless, what Rabbi Cohen had gone to such great lengths to protect was most likely sitting in the IA A’s conference room. No doubt it was Amit’s discovery at Qumran that was the cause for Cohen’s hasty trip to Egypt. And Amit was willing to wager his genitalia that the very same relic that had once resided within the heart of Solomon’s temple was now inside this building.
But it was the thought of the bullet that killed poor David, and the second one that almost erased the first genuine connection he’d had with a woman since God knew when, that finally got him moving closer.
Yet after all that consideration, when the last ever-so-carefullyplaced steps brought him right up to the door in perfect silence—the gun hand ready to respond, the right hand grasping the doorknob and preparing for a three-stage disengagement of the door latch—the door was locked.
Locked?
“Shit,” he spat with little regard for silence.
He did his best to listen for any activity coming from inside, but the thick door wasn’t exactly the off-the-shelf variety. There could be someone standing right behind it yapping away and he might not hear it.
Setting the gun in the waistband of
his pants at the small of his back, he dipped his fingers into his inside vest pocket to retrieve his Gaza lockbuster set. The flat tension wrench slid into the keyhole with barely a whisper, and he turned it clockwise. The hook-ended fisher slid in beside it. Ten seconds of hunting and twisting popped the lock.
Still got it.
Smoothly withdrawing the tools and returning them to his pocket, he took up the gun and reached for the knob. His eyes had a momentary standoff with the circular casing of a second lockset—the dead bolt above the knob. If he had to open that one too, things could get a lot noisier.
Biting his lip, he started the steady three-step turn. “Come on”—a little resistance—“give it up”—a little more—“you nasty—” Tickunk.
Exhale.
Pause. Regroup.
The next motion was all or nothing.
Another breath and he went for the pull.
Staying low, Amit cranked the door open and trained the gun straight out, fully prepared to take a bullet. But the corridor beyond was dark and empty. And thankfully, no after-hours alarm seemed to have tripped. Cohen had most likely turned it off when he’d entered the building. The guy seemed to have the password to all of Israel—and apparently some obscure precincts of Egypt too.
The Sacred Blood Page 23