Pillars of Solomon - [Kamal & Barnea 02]

by By Jon Land

  Ben approached cautiously and noted that two more guards patrolled the exterior of the compound on foot. Their approaching shadows forced him to duck into the cover of a nearby thicket. They passed forty feet in front of him and continued their patrols. Ben doubted they had ever encountered an intruder in this remote place, in which case they would hopefully be less wary and more complacent in their duties. His trip here was worth nothing unless he could gain access to the compound itself.

  The fortress, though, was imposing to say the least; impregnable might have been a better way to describe it. Ben crouched in the bushes wondering what Danielle would do. Probably summon reinforcements to stage a commando raid backed up by air power. He smiled faintly to himself. There would be no reinforcements and certainly no air power coming to his aid tonight.

  He thought of Danielle and what she might have done with the terrible truth she had uncovered on theLucretia Maru. As personal as this had become for him, it was even more personal for her. But he didn’t regret leaving her back in Israel, for he knew Faustin was right: finding Al Safah was the only way to end this once and for all.

  It was foolish, even stupid, though, to believe he could do that himself, or even consider trying to enter the compound alone. Perhaps his best strategy was to find a radio and summon help from somewhere, anywhere. There would be a radio back on board theLucretia Maru, and having only two deckhands to overcome on the freighter made much more sense than entering a fortress full of armed men. He would use that radio to summon the Italian authorities, take things from there.

  Ben started to rise, intending to retrace his steps, when he felt the cold touch of a gun barrel against his neck.

  “Don’t move,” a voice said.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 65

  D

  anielle had read the final section of Levy’s first journal so many times on the flight that she almost had it memorized. To keep her focus, and her wits, during the drive from the airport to David Wolfe’s home in Greenwich, Connecticut, she went over it again, seeing the pages turn in her mind as the words came back to her.

  * * * *

  “What are you talking about?” I asked Wollchensky, growing tired of this macabre game.

  “You heard me.”

  “I heard you say you could bring a dead child back to life.”

  “I can.”

  “When did you become God, David?” Pearlman demanded.

  “You’re the religious one, Hyram. You’re the one who always told me God lives in all of us. I guess I’m finally listening.”

  “You aren’t being fair to that woman,” I accused him. “We should have been the ones to tell her. Now when she wakes up . . .”

  “Her son will be sleeping by her side.”

  I looked at Pearlman. We both shook our heads.

  “Are you with me or no?” Wollchensky asked us.

  “You are asking a lot, maybe too much,” Pearlman told him.

  “No. I am asking that you honor your pledge.”

  “What pledge?”

  “To look out for the wife and child of our friend.”

  “We’ve done everything we can.”

  “Have we, Hyram, have we really?” He stared at us both. “I need an answer: Are you with me or not?”

  Pearlman and I glanced at each other and shrugged.

  “With you in what, David?” I asked Wollchensky.

  He checked his watch, looked relieved that we were prepared to join him. “There’s little time. We must hurry.”

  “Make sense, David!”

  “Not until we get there. Then you will see for yourself.”

  Max and I knew we had no choice. We had made a pledge to our friend Rossovitch and had to honor it.

  But in later times, when I think of the things I would have done differently given the chance, this is the one that comes most often to mind. None of us realized that the decision we reached that day would change all of our lives forever.

  We didn’t realize it then, of course. We didn’t realize it until . . .

  * * * *

  That was where the first journal had ended. The second journal in what was a set of four was missing, and journals three and tour contained no reference to whatever Levy had been referring to at the close of number one. He had brought his life into the 1970s in the final journal, but then stopped, as if the rest of his days didn’t matter at all or, at least, paled by comparison. His years as the Engineer were not even touched upon, not holding the same weight his earlier experiences had in his own mind.

  In Atarim Square Max Pearlman had hinted at the existence of the journals, baiting Danielle to see if she had recovered them. Danielle had no doubt it was only for that he had agreed to see her. And that meant someone else had removed the journals from Levy’s shop and then, for some inexplicable reason, made sure she received them.

  But what had happened to the missing journal? Why hadn’t it been included in the package? The second journal would surely have explained the desperation of the final two months of Levy’s life, because Danielle felt certain that desperation was based on what Levy had become party to following the death of Jacob Rossovitch’s child.

  David Wollchensky would be able to fill in the gaps, since it was he who had hatched the plan Levy and Pearlman had reluctantly gone along with.

  Danielle had to stop twice to ask directions to the home of the man who now called himself David Wolfe. The first time at an all-night gas station at a rest stop on the Connecticut Turnpike to find out which Greenwich exit to take. The second time to get more detailed instructions at a convenience store north of the Merritt Parkway where she was the only customer.

  David Wolfe’s house was situated among other sprawling estates that dotted the most exclusive area in Greenwich. Some of the mansions were set back behind imposing steel fences; others weren’t even visible from the road. Wolfe’s was accessible by a private road marked keep out and no trespassing. Danielle drove down that road through an unchained gate, expecting to meet up with a roving security patrol any moment. David Wolfe could change his name, but he couldn’t change the fact that he was party to the same secret as Max Pearlman and Hyram Levy, making him a target as well.

  Danielle’s intention was to use a direct, as opposed to surreptitious, approach. She had nothing to hide, after all. Once accosted by the expected security guards, she would explain who she was and what had brought her here. Her hope was that the truth was the quickest way to gain access to David Wolfe.

  But to her bewilderment, no guard appeared during her drive down the private road. Nor was there a single man in evidence on the lavish well-manicured lawns that fronted Wolfe’s mansion, lit by the bright hue of floodlights bouncing off its facade. It felt wrong to her. Either David Wolfe had left his estate to go into hiding like Max Pearlman, or something had happened to him before he had the chance.

  Danielle parked her car along a circular driveway and headed up the walk. She longed for the gun international travel regulations prohibited her from taking out of Israel. She noticed fresh dog prints in the soft dirt of nearby gardens. Where were the dogs now? Where were their handlers?

  She mounted the marble steps cautiously and approached the front door. Almost there, she saw it had been cracked open.

  Intruders rushing away, their job complete . . .

  Danielle could see it all happening in her mind’s eye. Someone had struck out at David Wolfe as recently as a few hours ago, perhaps after being alerted that she was on her way. Danielle silently dropped the single hastily packed bag from her shoulder to the stone entry before pressing herself against the door and easing it inward. She entered the house behind the thick cover the door provided, half expecting the caustic smells of gunpowder and pooled blood to accost her.

  Instead the pungent scent of cigar smoke drifted mellowly out of a room to the entry’s right. Danielle followed it through a wooden double door into a vast book-lined study. In the dim, atmospheric lighting she could see t
he shadow of a person sitting in a chair with his back to her.

  Danielle stopped halfway between the double door and the chair, watching as the shape slowly rose from it into a cloud of cigar smoke and turned her way.

  “Good evening, Chief Inspector,” said the man she recognized as David Wolfe. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 66

  A

  ll right,” the voice said, pushing the gun barrel harder against Ben’s neck, “stand up slowly with your hands in the air.”

  Ben did as he was told, feeling the barrel of a rifle pressed against him the whole time. The sharp branches of the bushes scratched at his arms when he raised them over his head.

  “Who else is with you?” the voice demanded. “How many of them are there?”

  Ben realized immediately the answers to those questions were the only reason he was still alive. The thought that one person could, or would, infiltrate the island was so ridiculous that the guard assumed Ben must have been accompanied by the kind of commando team Danielle would have brought. It was almost funny, thinking of it that way. If he told the truth, the guard would never believe him.

  “Where are they holding?” the guard demanded, snapping Ben’s head forward with a vicious thrust. The barrel steadied against his neck anew. “What are their positions?”

  “They’re—”

  Ben spun, knocking the barrel aside as he twisted around and lunged in the same motion. Stunned, the guard made the mistake of trying to resteady his rifle on his target, providing Ben the opening he needed. He kept his charge going and smashed his left elbow into the man’s face, grabbing the rifle with his right hand.

  A crack sounded. The guard grunted and tried to yank the rifle from Ben’s grasp. But Ben latched his second hand to the stock and rammed the butt into the guard’s stomach. The blow staggered the guard and he sprawled backward into the bushes, back-crawling out of them as he tried to free a pistol from a holster on his hip.

  Ben was still holding the rifle butt forward when the guard lurched out of the thicket. He could see the man working his pistol free, no time to swing the rifle all the way around, aim and fire it. So he rammed the butt into the center of the guard’s face and heard a crack like china breaking. Blood spurted from the guard’s nose, and Ben jerked the butt down again, into his mouth, shattering his teeth.

  The guard kept fumbling for his pistol, coughing up globs of blood between gags.

  “Don’t!” Ben ordered.

  But the guard had drawn the pistol in a trembling hand, and Ben brought the rifle butt down against the throat this time. He felt something give before the butt sank deeper, the flesh receding in its path.

  The guard’s whole body spasmed. He writhed about the ground, twisting back and forth as he gasped desperately for air. Both his hands clawed at his throat. His eyes bulged, continuing to widen until they froze and glazed over.

  Ben dropped to his knees, still holding the rifle. He took deep breaths to steady his heart and fought against the urge to flee. There was no reason. If the guard had used the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt to summon help, it would have arrived already.

  Like the other guards patrolling the front of the complex, this one wasn’t wearing a uniform. Just a jacket and cap to ward off the chilly sea breeze through a long night outdoors.

  Ben eyed his attacker. They were about the same size, same build too.

  Maybe, just maybe . . .

  Ben dragged the guard’s body into the center of the bushes and emerged again after donning the man’s jacket, cap, and gun belt, the automatic rifle shouldered casually. Anyone who saw him from inside or outside of the compound would now assume he was the guard whose body now lay cooling in the night air.

  But Ben did not approach the fortress directly. Instead he quickly retraced his steps over the road for the airstrip. A single hangar, camouflaged by a brush-colored roof and walls, lay at the south end of the field. Gaining access was as simple as raising a rear window out of sight of the workman and pilot who continued to linger near the large supply plane. Inside the hangar he quickly located a vat of airplane fuel and siphoned off enough to fill two large cans. Then, for want of a match or lighter, he wedged a single emergency flare in his pocket.

  The weight of the cans forced Ben to stop a few times to ease the burden on his way back to the compound. Once there, he spilled the fuel out in a straight line near the edge of the clearing in which the compound was contained, draining one can and then doubling back while emptying the other to create a more dramatic effect. He backed up behind the cover of a tree a safe distance from the fuel-soaked ground before pulling the emergency flare’s top.

  He heard a brief sizzle and then the flare was alive in his hand, flaming bright. He tossed it toward the thick patch of fuel and thought at first he must have missed when no flames shot up.

  Then, suddenly, there was a loudpoof! like a sudden gush of air, followed by a rippling blast that sounded like the ground itself had exploded. Instantly flames jerked out of the earth, running along the path he’d laid and burning white hot as they shed ugly black smoke into the night that was at once aglow.

  The sounds of guards screaming for help briefly preceded the rumble of activity from inside the compound. Seconds later, the heavy gate swung open and men in various stages of dress poured out. A few had forgotten their shirts, but all had remembered their rifles or shotguns to turn on their expected attackers.

  Ben imagined their surprise when there was no enemy to greet them.

  He chose the moment some of the men began lugging heavy hoses through the gate to make his approach. He emerged from the woods coughing and stumbling, after blackening his face with dirt and pulling the guard’s cap down low over his forehead to further disguise himself. He waved off assistance and headed straight for the front gate, through which more hoses were being dragged, connected to aboveground pipes somewhere inside the compound.

  Ben entered the fortress half doubled over and coughing, looking to be on the verge of collapse. He continued through the black smoke that had begun to blow noxiously into the compound and moved for the first door he saw, left open by the frantic surge of men through it. He didn’t know how much time he had before sabotage was confirmed to be the source of the fire; certainly not enough to manage the entire evacuation, but plenty, he hoped, to at least find his charges.

  Five minutes, Ben thought, just give me five minutes. . . .

  And with that he unshouldered his rifle and rushed down the corridor.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 67

  Y

  ou were expecting me,” Danielle said, dumbfounded, as the man with the cigar faced her, standing beside his chair.

  She had read and heard so much about the exploits of David Wollchensky this past week that she had trouble reconciling the slight, stoop-shouldered old man with the image conjured up by her mind.

  Like Hyram Levy and Max Pearlman, though, Wolfe would be in his seventies now, many of those years grindingly hard. Yet in spite of that there was something resolute and forceful in this old man’s eyes that spoke of the David Wollchensky from the tales told her by both Giott and Pearlman, as well as what she had read of him in Levy’s journal.

  “Are you surprised, Chief Inspector?” he asked her. “I would have expected it would all be clear to you now.”

  “Nothing is clear,” she told him.

  “Except what brought you here.”

  “Hyram Levy’s journals . . .”

  “One of which, regrettably, was missing.”

  Danielle’s breath caught a little in her throat. “How did you know that?”

  Wolfe reached down to the table set along the chair’s side. “Because I have it here,” he said, holding up a volume perfectly matching the other three, cigar dangling in his other hand.

  Danielle took one step forward, didn’t speak.

  “I see, Chief Inspector Barnea, I have surprised you again.”


  “May I have one of those cigars?” she asked him after she collected herself.

  “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “Now I’ve surprised you.”

  “On the mantel,” Wolfe directed. “Behind you and to the right.”

  Danielle pulled one from the box labeled partagas lisitania and picked up a nearby wooden match. The cigar was longer and wider than the one Sabi had provided. “You were the one who sent me the journals.”