by Vincent Czyz
“Four,” she corrected. “Jacob Marley’s ghost shows up first.”
“Okay, four. Does anyone believe that? It’s a great book because it’s so beautifully human. Redemption by itself is just a vague abstraction. But dramatized in Victorian London, it becomes as real as the cobblestones. The most jaded reader feels good at the end of that novel. That was Dickens’s magic … we believe in his stories without believing they really happened.” Precisely the reason Jesus, who’s a vaguely drawn dying-and-rising god in Paul’s letters, was historicized: to make him real, to arouse passion and compassion.”
“Sounds good, Drew, but is someone dying of cancer really going to pick up a Dickens novel and feel better?” She shook her head. “A clever high school kid can figure out Genesis is a fairytale. I mean … Noah’s Ark? Dickens’s ghost story is more believable. And yet a poll last year showed that more than half of all of Americans believe the Bible is literally true. Fifty-five percent! You think Christianity will unravel because a few more people know the truth?”
He sighed. “The Church will just go on denying everything.”
“It’s worked for us for more than a millennium and a half.”
“People believe what they want to believe.”
That ugly smirk again.
“Cutherton said something like that before he died.”
“What?”
A phone clipped onto her belt made the same chirp as the walkietalkies Turkish police officers carried. When she answered it, he could hear a male voice on the other end, but couldn’t make out the words.
“Everything’s fine,” Jesse replied. We’re coming down now.”
10: 10
KIND REGARDS
“YOU WERE THERE? When Stephen died?”
“Now’s not the time to get emotional, Drew. Let’s go … out the door. You first.”
“Fine.” He stood up so suddenly the chair bounced off the backs of his thighs and squeaked across five or six feet of floor. “Why don’t you talk while we’re heading out?”
“Later. Once we have the scroll. Once we have Sayings of the Savior.”
Raymond was at the bottom of the stairwell. Drew recognized him even though the left side of his face was bandaged. Half the hair on his head was gone. The rest was golden stubble. Ashraf had given him a third-degree burn or two to remember him by.
The Sicarii’s blue eyes glittered in what little light there was.
Drew wasn’t prepared, as he reached the last step, for the vicious backhand across his face. He his head snapped to the side and his vision blurred.
“Raymond! That wasn’t necessary.”
“No, but eet felt good.”
Rough hands turned him around and shoved him against a wall. Raymond frisked him.
“I don’t play with guns anymore,” Drew said.
“That was a merry little chase you led us on across the Mediterranean, wasn’t it?”
Drew figured no matter what he said, he’d get cracked again.
“Where ees the manuscript?”
“I’ll take you.”
“You’ve decided to cooperate, eh? I hope you don’t mind if we take a look around upstairs first.”
Drew shrugged. “Be my guest.”
“The door’s open,” Jesse said.
Raymond spoke into a phone that doubled as a walkie-talkie. “Jean, Naim, get in here.”
“Let’s go.” Raymond opened the door and shoved Drew in front of him.
The night was cold and damp. Drew was glad he’d grabbed his jean jacket on the way down.
Jean Saint-Savoy, shooting him a glance of vindictive triumph—and someone Drew didn’t recognize—another ex-legionnaire from North Africa probably—pushed past.
Raymond held out a hand. “The keys to the flat.”
Drew took them out of his pocket and dropped them in Raymond’s palm.
The Sicarii looked up at the third floor. “Eef they find it up there, I will keel you on the spot.” Raymond smiled. “I very much hope they do.”
Saint-Savoy stopped at the doorway to the safe house and looked down. Although he knew Jesse and Drew had just walked out of the flat, he couldn’t help looking for an electronic beam that would trip an alarm. Of course there was nothing. Stepping inside, he saw the alarm keypad and nodded to himself. “Disarmed, bien sur.”
Saint-Savoy and Naim split up. The Frenchman went to one of Zafer’s work tables; the Moroccan to the other. Saint-Savoy saw something—a note perhaps?—in the center of the table. He felt the transition from wood to carpet through the soles of his shoes. But there was something else. Something … had shifted. A loose bit of parquet?
He snatched the note off the table.
Take a good look around. It’s the last thing you’ll ever see.
Kind Regards,
Zafer
“Merde alors!”
Naim’s head snapped around.
Raymond was still looking up when the third-floor windows blew out with a muffled explosion—the magnified whoomf! of a gasoline slick igniting. There were no flames, only a flash of hot orange, and no concussive blast, although shards of glass pelted the buildings across the street and fell in a tinkling rain on the sidewalk and parked cars.
Jesse ducked and covered her head with her arms.
Drew tucked his head as though he had a shell into which he could retreat.
Raymond’s knees bent as he dropped into a crouch, but he kept his head up and protected his eyes with a forearm.
Drew didn’t even see where the knife came from. He heard the blade whisper against leather and then felt the point under his jaw. Raymond had simultaneously underhooked Drew’s right arm to keep him from pulling back.
Drew spoke through his teeth. It minimized the discomfort of talking with a blade under his jaw. “Incendiary bombs.”
“Yes,” Raymond hissed. “I recognize the sound.”
“How could—?” Jesse looked up at the blown-out windows with a blank expression. “We were just up there.”
“Booby-trapped his work table. Pressure mats under the parquet. Carpet on top. Five-second delay. We didn’t go near the table. Sucks the oxygen out of the air. Didn’t want the neighbors to go up with the fireworks.” Drew couldn’t keep back a smirk. “Even dead, Zafer’s pretty dangerous.”
“If there are any more surprises waiting for us, I will make sure you and Kadir join him.”
10: 11
BENEATH THE CITY OF CONSTANTINE
IT HAD OCCURRED TO THE OWNER of the Asia Minor Carpet Shop, Mehmet Bey, that a courtyard trimmed with shrubs and flowers would look much better than the parking lot behind his establishment. While workers set about breaking up asphalt and overturning chunks of earth, they discovered a large chamber with the look of antiquity about it. Curious, Mehmet Bey undertook the excavation at his own expense and uncovered a series of vaulted chambers that turned out to be a section of basement directly beneath the former throne room of Constantine the Great’s palace. What was left of the complex of buildings collectively referred to as the Great Palace now took up some thirty subterranean blocks in the Sultanahmet quarter of Istanbul.
After Enrico Dandolo’s Crusaders had pillaged the city, they filled the basement of the throne room with their spoils. Later, when the city fell to the Ottomans, the dank rooms were converted into a dungeon.
Drew, sitting in the backseat of a Renault next to Raymond, gave Jesse occasional directions to the Asia Minor Carpet Shop. Turning to Raymond, he asked, “So … who’s left?”
Raymond whipped an elbow into Drew’s gut.
Air came out of him in a soft explosion.
Drew waited for his breathing to even out. “Let’s see … Hohenzollern’s dead. Collins. Saint-Savoy. Miskovicz is in prison—couldn’t afford his bail, huh Raymie?”
An elbow hammered Drew again.
“Don’t call me that. Jan was too old to be of much use in the first place.”
“That leaves you, Jesse, and … is Gary still in the game
? Or did that RPG sideline him?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Left at the light, Jesse, “ he said it as if she were giving him a ride home.
Raymond’s walkie-talkie phone chirped. “Taxi dropped us off. We’re here.”
American accent: Strahan.
“Wait behind the building. We will be there in a few minutes.”
Driving past the Hagia Sophia, they entered a cobbled street lined by a haphazard assortment of picturesque buildings from another century and more modern, fairly nondescript edifices.
The Asia Minor Carpet Shop was closed for the night. The only pedestrian was an elderly Turk. Bent either by age or the bag he was carrying.
Bumping the car over the curb, Jesse parked it on a tilt, half in the street and half on the sidewalk—a decidedly Turkish move.
Strahan, whom Drew recognized from his photograph, stood in the courtyard with Kadir and a man Drew assumed to be an interpreter.
“N’aber, Kadir?” Drew asked. What’s going on?
“Hershey harika.” Everything’s wonderful. He looked up at the American. “This donkey Ferhat takes care of me well. You?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
“Where now, Monsieur Korchula?” Raymond shoved Drew.
Drew, reestablishing his balance, lifted his chin to indicate the railing around the rectangular mouth of a stairwell.
“Here?” Raymond looked mistrustful. “There are no gates, no locks?”
Drew shook his head. “The government hasn’t paid any attention, and Mehmet Bey doesn’t seem to be interested in turning the site into a tourist attraction.” Drew’s hands were almost numb, and his mouth felt as though it were full of sawdust.
“Remember what I told you—any surprises and I’ll keel you both. Then we’ll just have to find the scroll without your help.”
Drew could feel his pulse in his temples. “We have to go down.”
“Why didn’t you tell us we would need flashlights?”
“We don’t.”
Mehmet Bey, with whom Drew had conversed over several glasses of tea on more than one occasions had not only provided a staircase with an iron frame and carpentered, plywood steps, but also installed an electrical system equipped with floodlights. With Raymond a step behind, Drew flicked a switch. The darkness retreated to a few niches and corners below them.
They descended the stairway into a vaulted chamber. A bulb glowing against flat Roman brick showed marble blocks supporting an arch. Exposed roots dangled from one of the brick domes like a sparse beard. Plywood and planks did a half-assed job of covering holes in the rough floor. The chamber was large and more or less square. In the center was a massive brick pylon supporting the vaulted ceiling. Floodlights had been set up in two different places, but neither was lit. Wires wound up the walls like leafless, gray vines.
With his ghostly eyes and half of his face bandaged, Raymond looked like a resurrected corpse. Drew watched him profile the room, counting exits, estimating distances, memorizing the general layout. Zafer had tried to get Drew into the habit.
“Where’s the scroll?”
Drew looked at his feet. There was a barely perceptible circle scratched into the stone flooring. “Pull away those loose stones.” He pointed to a stack against the chambers south wall. “It’s underneath.”
Kadir started forward, but Raymond stopped him.
“No! Not you.” He glanced at Jesse and tipped his head toward the wall. “You do eet.” He waved Kadir away from the wall with a pistol elongated by a silencer.
Raymond positioned himself about a yard behind Drew, while Strahan, maybe ten feet away, was directly in front of him—just about blocking one of two gaping doorways that led to the rest of the palace ruins.
Kadir was next to Drew, but so was Ferhat. His weapon, also bearing a silencer, was inches from the top of Kadir’s head.
Raymond let the aim of his pistol wander around the chamber. He stopped the gun when it was pointed at Kadir. “Eef the scroll is not there, the dwarf is dead.”
“It’s there.”
The stones, neatly piled, were a few feet to one side of an unlit floodlight. A circuit-breaker box and a set of light switches were directly beneath it.
Jesse began pulling the stones away. They fell and cracked against the floor.
Drew’s entire body now seemed to shudder with each heartbeat—so loud in his own ears he could barely hear anything else.
“I found it!” Jesse’s voice was almost a squeal.
Drew flinched, his legs now as unsteady as his hands. He saw the same long box with snap latches that had been used for the Habakkuk Scroll.
Bending down, she grasped the box at either end and straightened up.
The force of the explosion left Jesse on her hands and knees.
After a final spurt of sparks from the destroyed circuit-breaker box, the darkness was complete. It was not the darkness of a cloudy night; this was the pure black of blindness.
Drew leapt to his right as though making a flying tackle. Tucking his shoulder, he rolled, a drill he’d done a thousand times on the wrestling mat. He bounced to his feet and put his hand out. Brick. He’d come up exactly where he’d hoped—within arm’s length of the massive pylon in the center of the chamber. A stone in the patchwork floor had slammed against his tailbone, and it had gone numb with pain. He’d practiced this escape with his eyes closed dozens of times, but had always landed on the plywood.
Raymond began firing almost immediately, estimating where Kadir had been.
A scream laid itself over the sound of someone collapsing to the floor.
The silencer on Raymond’s pistol cut down on the muzzle flash, but for a fraction of a second, Drew saw a phantasm of Raymond’s face.
A few sentences of mangled English and Drew realized Raymond had shot Ferhat.
Someone scrambled along the western wall—Kadir.
Raymond fired again, but the bullet struck brick and ricocheted. Changing strategy, he jackhammered the bottom of the chamber’s west wall with bullets. Shadows leaped and vanished in a strobe-light effect.
“Kahretsin!” Damn it!
Kadir’s voice. Not a second later there was a muffled explosion—Kadir had hit a tripwire. A peculiar, burning odor overpowered the stink of gunpowder. Now, even with the muzzle flashes from Raymond’s pistol, only coils of thick white smoke were visible.
The chamber became silent except for Ferhat’s whimpering and Jesse crying. Between sobs she muttered, “My ears … my ears.” For a second Drew felt sorry for her.
“Shut up, Ferhat!” Raymond snarled. “I can’t hear him!”
Drew knew exactly where he was in the chamber. What he didn’t know was where Strahan had positioned himself. He was fairly certain Strahan wouldn’t shoot; only Raymond was fanatical enough to fire with next-to-zero visibility. And if Strahan thought about it at all, he’d realize they might still need Drew alive. But there was nothing to stop him from clubbing Drew like a baby seal with the butt of his pistol—if he could see Drew.
Strahan’s gun went off.
Shit! Drew had misjudged. By the yellowish flash of the discharged weapon, Drew saw that Strahan had aimed at the ceiling, for the illumination. But the silencer had reduced the burst of light to a candle being blown out as soon as it was lit. All it had really done was show Drew where Strahan was: still blocking the doorway but looking in the wrong direction. He didn’t know where Kadir was.
Jesse continued crying, now about five feet in front of him.
Drew had to move, but Strahan had planted himself in front of the only doorway Drew felt confident he could find in the smoke and dark. He waited until Strahan fired his weapon again. The whine of a ricochet was followed by the sound of shattered brick hitting the floor. This time, Drew saw, Strahan had his back to the doorway and had taken a couple of steps east—Drew’s left.
Taking two long strides, Drew dove, rolled, and let the momentum carry him to his feet.
Taking a breath and forcing himself to believe he wouldn’t run into a wall in the dark, he darted forward. He knew he’d crossed the threshold when his ankle caught the trip wire he’d set and pulled the pin on another smoke grenade.
Strahan’s fired again, but Drew could see only billowing smoke briefly stained yellow. The muzzle flash looked as though it had been wrapped in gauze. But Strahan, who must have heard him flit past, had started in his direction.
“It’s not here!” Jesse screamed. “There’s just some kind of … book!”
Drew smiled.
“Raymond!” It was Strahan’s voice. “We need Korchula alive!”
“Then keel the fucking dwarf!” Raymond called back.
Drew hoped Kadir had disappeared into the maze of the ruined palace. With one hand on the wall just inside the doorway, Drew listened to Strahan’s footsteps. His nose burned and he had to fight the urge to cough. Estimating that the larger man was nearly on top of him, Drew lowered his shoulder and launched himself. His shoulder rammed into Strahan’s midriff, knocking the breath out of him with a loud whuff! Instead of grappling for his gun, Drew whirled and slipped deeper into Constantine’s palace.
A wall now separated him from Raymond, who had just snapped a new clip into place. Drew shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled out the lighter he’d used in Antakya. He flicked it on for a second. The thin beam made a bright spot on the wall next to a doorway. Memorizing the position of the arched opening, he dashed through it.
He flicked the penlight on again and saw that he was in a small chamber with a doorway so low he had to double over to get through it.
He heard Raymond fire a single shot—probably for light. Drew stopped. Raymond was on the other side of the chamber’s northern wall. Sweat broke out on Drew’s forehead. If he kept moving forward and Raymond did the same, one or two turns later they would converge on the same corridor. But he couldn’t turn around either. Strahan was behind him, slowly making his way forward. Drew could hear him choosing his steps carefully. The floor was uneven, boards and plywood sheets didn’t entirely cover holes, and dropping into an uncovered cistern was a distinct possibility.