by Tommy Tenney
Yet he had learned the hard way that it was best to be there on site, while evaluations were still being made and priceless bits of archaeology could still be saved from being overlooked—or, worse yet, crunched under errant army boots. You never know what’s really important unless you’re there to see it! At least, that’s what he’d shouted at his Italian liaison only two nights before.
He hurried into a narrow hallway choked with a cloud of plaster dust. Even without maps, he rarely found it difficult to find his destination after these raids—simple, really: you just follow the lights and the sounds of clunking combat boots.
He turned left into a large, cluttered room whose interior contents, in the glare of a makeshift spotlight, struck him as instantly and tragically familiar. Even without craning his neck, he saw stacks of Persian pottery, a shard of Babylonian bas relief, the statue of a small horse complete with a thin Greek saddle. Easy enough, he assured himself. Large and easily identified, these items were in no great danger. In rooms like these, his eyes always strayed toward the corners—the low, dimly lit places lying shrouded in layers of ancient grime. That’s where his real objectives usually awaited him.
He saw only a pile of old rifles and a scattering of dusty ammo bandoliers, still full. A stack of thin, barkless kindling. A broken chair, sized for a child. And—a pile of documents. Leather bindings, thick, torn pages, engraved spines, a few scrolls.
He was standing over the stack without even knowing how he’d reached it, bending down, carefully picking up the first piece. Realizing that the parchment might be brittle, he silently reminded himself to proceed cautiously. It was a lone scroll, missing its center dowel, frayed about the edges. He slowly unrolled it and strained his eyes. He blew hard, the clichéd reflex of the archaeologist. He squinted against the thick dust he’d aroused.
His heart gave a small jump. He read for a moment. Then he frowned, took a long breath, and caught himself. He needed to be discreet. Yet he could hardly believe it. After a quick glance to each side, he carefully slid the lone document inside a plastic bag, which he zipped tightly shut. It not only needed protection, he told himself, but would make a perfect examination sample.
He picked up the first of the remaining bound papers, read it briefly, shook his head again, and laid it down on the stack with the others.
He exhaled slowly, carefully.
Hebrew.
And more, so much more.
The signature percussive throb announced the arrival of a new helicopter. He looked around him and stepped out of the room. For a moment, he fought an impulse to rush back to headquarters as fast as his lungs and legs would allow. His work in this place had just begun.
He breathed in deeply. The hours ahead would bring him endless heavy lifting, careful digging, and constant maintaining of appearances. Cleaning up and moving out, he’d heard one master sergeant call it. He looked around him and forced his face to relax.
Go. Work. And try to act like your world hasn’t just been turned on its head.
Chapter Three
AL-SAYED IMPORT-EXPORT COMPANY, BAGHDAD—FIVE HOURS LATER
The man known to the Italian army as Dr. Clive Osborn briskly entered the front office of the Al-Sayed Import-Export Company, pulling behind him a small wheeled cart loaded with canvas bags. Once inside, he glanced briefly around the vestibule and, like a familiar vendor making a scheduled delivery, shrugged and walked past the front counter to disappear behind a curtain.
At the end of a narrow hallway, a lanky young man with cropped brown hair stared at the newcomer and his load, his hand jerking reflexively in the direction of a telltale lump beneath untucked shirt-tails. His gaze softened immediately in recognition, and he nodded his welcome.
Osborn turned sideways to pass the sentry and shouldered his way through a nondescript doorway, painted green to match the walls.
He emerged in a large room brightly lit from overhead xenon lights, its ceiling vaulted to the building’s entire two-story height. Automatic weapons and handguns of a dozen varieties overhung countertops strewn with electronics. In one corner, four video monitors lay stacked, each flickering a different black-and-white angle of the street traffic outside and the passageways through which he had just emerged.
A young man wearing a small machine pistol tucked into his belt looked up quickly from his work, eyes flashing alarm. At the sight of Osborn, he nodded amiably, his expression transformed just like the other man’s, and he turned back to his task.
Osborn hiked himself up onto a work stool and ran his fingers through dusty hair. He reached down, unbuttoned a side pocket, and pulled out a yarmulke, a thin black skullcap that he quickly flipped onto the top of his head with an almost rebellious flair. Let the Imams come, he told himself, narrowing his eyes fiercely. If they kill me, at least it will be for the right reasons.
“Osborn” had already put in four hours at the Italian base across town, evaluating thousands of fairly ordinary artifacts recovered in the raid and making a complete copy of the Hebrew documents, facsimiles that he now carried with him concealed under the usual pieces. But in this room, completely unknown to the Italians, he relaxed and allowed his true identity to wash back over him—Ari Meyer, British-born yet actually an Israeli citizen. Less loyal to “Osborn’s” Manchester University than to the ha-Mossad le-Modiin ule-Tafkidim Meyuhadim, the Institute for Information and Special Operations—or simply as the world called it, the Mossad. Israel’s feared and revered international police force.
The Al-Sayed Import-Export Company was actually Mossad’s main Iraqi safehouse.
Meyer’s liaison cover with the Italian army was not entirely dishonest, he reminded himself. He truly was intent on the safe recovery of stolen and smuggled artifacts. Except his interest in Gentile specimens was academic at best, feigned at worst. It was documents of the Jewish variety he was truly interested in. Meyer was actually in Iraq as part of a vast Mossad operation to save the last remaining Jews in the country, a number officially hovering around forty, as well as to intercept and save Jewish artifacts before they could be destroyed or held for ransom on world markets. Throughout the country at that moment, his fellow katzas, as Mossad operatives were called, combed warehouses and black-market alleys for Torahs, Menorahs, and other precious antiques stolen from Iraq’s once-prominent Jewish population. Once found, they would be bought at market price, ransomed, or if the situation required it, confiscated by force.
Exhaling loudly, he turned to the man at the other workstation. “I may need the SAT phone to call Tel Aviv,” he said in a weary voice. “The one with the level five encryption.”
“Yeah, I know the one,” interrupted the other, sounding slightly irritated.
“This could really be something.”
Meyer said it with no expectation of a reply from his colleague. Idle conversation was rare in this place. Everyone performed two or three jobs in the Iraqi war zone, and tensions were part of the ambiance of the place. Right outside the walls lived five million people who would eagerly tear them limb from limb if they ever discovered Al-Sayed’s true function.
Without turning, the younger man reached over to a shelf, grabbed the phone, and offered it behind him with a deft, one-handed flip of the wrist.
Meyer snatched the device and laid it on the table, leaned from his stool to heave the bags to the counter, and slit the topmost open with a box cutter. Pulling out the first bound document, he sighed and began a thorough examination.
Five minutes later, sweat broke out across his brow. If his colleague had looked, he would have seen eyes narrowed into a worried, somber gaze. Ari let his fingers wander and grip the metallic edge of the secure Iridium satellite telephone lying beside him. The phone was a flip-top resembling a common cellular design, yet far thicker and crowned by a wide antenna nearly a foot long. He slipped off the stool and walked over to a nearby skylight, brought the phone to his ear, and flicked on the power. Frowning, he glanced up to check his position. It irritated him
that despite all their customized technology, even the Mossad’s satellite phones still required a scrap of open sky in order to secure their connection. He found it a strange vulnerability—not being able to communicate with headquarters without searching out a patch of the outdoors.
“Tel Aviv,” he said in a low, strong voice.
Meyer did not worry about anyone eavesdropping, for the satellite phone and the surrounding building were completely secure, protected by spy-proof construction materials. The phone’s proprietary signal was scrambled and further safeguarded by incredibly dense computer encryption programmed by the yahalomin—Mossad teams tasked with establishing secure communications among the agency’s network of safehouses. The young katza working across the room was one of those.
He waited for five seconds, then spoke again.
“It’s Ari. Shalom. Listen, I struck pay dirt, but the news is not good.” He took a deep breath. “Well, I found the Battaween genealogy.”
He exhaled slowly.
“Yes. The one. And it looks to be complete. It must have been hidden well, because if it had been discovered before now, there wouldn’t be a Jew left. It’s just like they said. The document lists every family that ever went underground, along with its lineage. And that’s not all. I found traces of duplicate lists. The men who stole the list apparently made copies. That means each and every Jewish family that ever assimilated into Iraqi society is known to the government, subject to being leaked who knows where. They’re all in mortal danger. Understand what I’m saying? There’s going to be a bloodbath. Not if— but when.”
He held out the phone and peered at it with a puzzled look—his party had hung up. He chuckled wryly, for he understood why. The lack of courtesy wasn’t meant as a slight, merely a sign of how urgently his news had been received. Folks in the Mossad didn’t stand on ceremony. And given the bombshell he had just dropped, false tact was even less in order than usual.
He sighed, laid down the phone, and retrieved a small glass wand scanner from a corner of the room. For the next thirty minutes, he painstakingly scanned every page of the genealogy into a nearby laptop. Then, after burning a disc of his results, he reached into his pocket to stow it away and came across the single unbound document he had stashed away for personal inspection.
Reaching precariously to his left, he picked up a large black rifle and unscrewed its ornate infrared scope. Then he held it to his eye, aimed the far end downward, and bent over the document. For nearly an hour he leaned over the table, peering through the lens and translating the fragment from ancient Hebrew, pausing only to wipe his brow in the uncooled Iraqi swelter.
The young man left. The light grew long and dim. The late-afternoon heat subsided. The cool of the evening crept into the room.
Completely motionless, he sat at the desk and, nearly unblinking, worked through to the translation of the signature.
He leaned back, engrossed in his reading. His breathing stopped for a long moment, as air from his lungs whistled past tense lips like a quickly deflating tire.
Chapter Four
PERSEPOLIS, THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR OF KING ARTAXERXES’ REIGN
Dear Esther,
My dear friend, I am in trouble, and I desperately need your counsel.
I hope that despite your being so far away, and the many months since you left for the Promised Land, that you have not forgotten me, your little Leah of the Susa harem. For my part, I miss you dearly—in fact, hardly an hour goes by that your name and your wonderful instructions to me do not cross my mind. I wanted to write you because I miss you, but also, I must admit, for a more immediate reason.
Esther, my night with the King has come and gone. And I do not think you would have yet learned of its outcome from Mordecai. You see, the most shocking and unexpected thing has happened. In fact, I must admit the truth I have sought to conceal from all others. My heart is broken. I have not stopped weeping for days. I have not slept, I have not eaten. I do not know if I can bear this strain much longer. And while I know your reply will not arrive for a very long time, just knowing that I have reached out to you already has eased my suffering.
You see, when I entered the bedchamber of King Artaxerxes, I held out only faint hope for a favorable outcome and, at the same time, braced myself for the harsh reality of palace politics. I really did not want to be there, and felt as though I was sucked into a whirlpool beyond my control. Truth be told, the King was simply hunting for a bride, and I was easy prey.
I use those words because I was fully prepared to have nothing of lasting significance occur, no extraordinary bond develop, and to be rejected as queen. That is a natural outcome, which I would have understood.
That is most definitely not what has taken place.
Esther, knowing that you went through the same exact process with King Artaxerxes’ father, your beloved Xerxes, I followed your advice to the letter, and much happened because I did. I will attempt to take my emotions in my hand and give you this full account of what took place that evening. A description certainly more complete than I have accorded anyone else.
During the final weeks leading up to that day, I found parts of your admonitions easy enough to carry out. Indeed, I felt that my whole year of preparation was a wonderful time of growing, both in body and spirit. For instance, paying special heed to the wisdom in the counsel of the King’s chamberlain was hardly difficult, as he is Jesse, better known around the palace as Hathach, your lifelong friend and my new one as well. As I will describe, I found your advice about focusing on the King’s preferences rather than my own to be a revelation, one which definitely set me apart from the other candidates as markedly as it distinguished you.
And of course dear Mordecai, as you know him even better than I, provided both wise counsel and encouragement during that year. The private meetings I shared with you and Mordecai kept the spirit of my Jewish heritage alive and abated my loneliness. From our first meeting, I had always felt a little awed in his presence, for he is, of course, the second most famous man in the empire, the Prime Minister and the King’s Master of the Audiences, a figure with enormous royal favor and public adulation. Truly, both of your names have been on the lips of my family and community since the day I was born. As I’m sure I’ve told you, tales of your mutual courage during our people’s near-annihilation flowed throughout my childhood.
Yet from my arrival, I had discovered you to be less intimidating than I would have expected—perhaps because you had so kindly sought me out. I will never forget the long letter and its account of your life that you wrote to me. During that year of preparation following your departure for Jerusalem, I clung to your words like a drowning man to a floating log! I intend to keep it with me forever.
However, it could have been the simple fact that you are also a woman. And that Mordecai seemed to act a bit aloof toward me at first. But for whatever reason, I still found your uncle a bit formidable until he and Jesse began to coach me in earnest. Then, as he was called upon to display his incredible knowledge of the palace and all that lay ahead for me, Mordecai quickly became a warm, witty, and wise counselor. He made me laugh as I seldom have in my life; certainly since being taken to the palace. As Exilarch and leader of the Jews in exile, he knew my family well, especially given its royal lineage, and spoke of them often to me, always raising my spirits in the process. Although I still missed my family terribly and spent many of my nights weeping for all I had lost, I was comforted by a growing sense that a new, improbable family was growing up around me, consisting of no less than the King’s prime minister and chief chamberlain—two of the empire’s most powerful men.
After you left for Jerusalem, this family-of-sorts always seemed to be missing a member, and your name was often spoken in wistful, even sad tones. But even with that absence forever before us, I began to see Mordecai in a whole new light: beyond his incredible power and renown and simply as a sometimes lonely, yet always fascinating and endearing, man. His lightheartedness makes him seem
far younger than he is. I cannot imagine how many Jewish girls pursued him in his youth, yet he never married. He would have presented quite a catch, I am sure.
But the disappointment of that year was your absence. I had always expected that when the preparation began, you would stand beside me every step of the way, giving me even more of your wonderful advice.
On the day Jesse appeared at my door in all his palace finery, that smile of anticipation playing upon his lips, I felt calm, prepared, and within the bounds of divine providence, in spite of your being so far away.
Thanks to you, my friend. To you and the new family you brought into my life.
My approach to the palace was surely less visually enthralling than the one you described in your earlier letter. That is mainly due to the harem’s placement this season here at Persepolis—instead of a long march through each of Susa’s majestic inner courtyards, my new harem room lay deep inside the palace complex, requiring only a short walk across the courtyard to a corridor leading into the palace of Artaxerxes.
Yet I’m sure my emotions soared and dipped just as wildly as yours did. I had never ventured to the other side of the courtyard opposite my room; Jesse had most emphatically announced that the opposite doors sheltered the palaces of the King himself and were to be given a wide, fearful berth. Once my fellow harem-dwellers and I saw the gleaming lances and sword-edges of the Immortals guarding His Majesty, we had no trouble heeding the warnings.
Mine was perhaps a cooler day, especially as we are in the mountains of northern Persia instead of Susa of the southern deserts. In fact, the palace walls towered so high around me that they blocked direct sunlight. All I could see, framed between the stone rooftops, was a patch of deep blue afternoon sky. I remember drawing a breath as my foot struck its first step of courtyard marble and feeling a rush of excitement flood my veins. It truly did feel as though I was being ushered to the core of all that is splendid and opulent on this earth.