by Ted Dekker
Still no sign of a breakthrough in the basement.
“He’s burned himself out,” Lars said. “The fool stumbled over a gas can or something—”
“Quiet,” Roth snapped.
The game had escalated. It was more than he’d hoped for. The others had no clue what was happening, but they weren’t meant to. This was between him and the Jew.
Naturally there was the possibility of failure, but that was part of the exhilaration—success was still a hope.
Lucifer’s hope.
In reality, the possibility of failure was very small. Roth was far too powerful. He just had to bring that power to play in a reasoned, methodical way, as he had last night.
He would be out of the country before anyone figured out that he was connected to the killings. This thought made Roth feel warm.
The streets filled with running people. Firemen quickly strung a hose, yelling at the gathering crowd to stay back. How likely was it that something had caught fire and was forcing the Jew to shut down?
A fist pounded on the front door. “Fire Marshal. Open up!”
Roth took a deep breath and turned from the building. He glanced at the car. Claude slammed the trunk on the last of the equipment they’d retrieved from the third floor and nodded. Roth walked to the door and pulled it open.
A fireman stood in a yellow slicker. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to evacuate this building.”
He looked past the fireman and gazed at the fire. “Is everything under control? What happened?”
“We need everyone out. Don’t worry, it won’t touch this building.”
“Then we’ll stay here.” He began to close the door.
The man leaned forward, barring the door open. “I’m sorry, but you have to leave. City ordinance. No more than half an hour, with any luck. Let’s go.”
Roth motioned Claude out with a nod. “You won’t be entering the building?”
“Just to clear it.” The man waited while they filed out. “Anyone else inside?”
“No.”
“Wait here.” The man ran for the stairwell and disappeared.
“Spread out along the street,” Roth ordered his men. “Keep your eyes open. No one enters without my knowing.”
The fireman ran out, slammed the door, and stretched a piece of wide yellow tape over to seal it. “This one’s clear. Stay back on the street. We’ll let you know when it’s safe. Unauthorized entry is a crime, understand?”
Roth ignored him and looked at the burning building. Three police cruisers had joined the party. Stephen was up to something.
Think, Roth. Outthink the Jew.
“GO, GO!” Sweeney yelled down the manhole. “They’re out!”
Stephen turned to the rabbi. “Cut the lights!”
The string of lights went out. He scrambled into the hole, put his full weight into the jackhammer, and squeezed the lever. The machine shook furiously in his hands. Four inches. With any luck, the Germans wouldn’t hear the sound now that they had evacuated. Not that it mattered. With a little more luck, the slab he was pounding on would break free along the circle of holes he’d drilled while they waited for the fire trucks to respond.
They were taking three calculated risks, any of which could sink them. The most obvious was the whole arson bit. They’d laid down slabs of old asbestos on the top two floors, piled the slabs with tires, and lit the stacks on fire. Unless the fire department responded slowly, the smoldering tires would be extinguished and the building cleared in short order, though hopefully not too short. The stunt might cost them a slap on the wrist, but they already had their story in place. Sweeney wanted to see how much smoke tires made. He’d taken precautions. If there was a law against burning tires, he was totally unaware of it.
The second risk was possibly being discovered by the fire marshal down in the manhole, operating a jackhammer. To this end, Sweeney had closed the door to the coal room and presumably pulled the mound of insulation over the cover as planned.
The third risk was beyond them entirely. Stephen wasn’t positive how many men Braun actually had over there. What if he’d hidden one away in the coal room with a gun?
He would find out soon enough.
So close. So, so close after so much effort. Stephen redoubled his pressure on the jackhammer. “Come on, baby, break. Break!”
He’d drilled twenty holes—surely that had weakened the slab. Sweeney had assured him there was no rebar in the floor, said they would’ve run into it by now if there was. Man, if there was rebar, they were dead. He would kill—
The jackhammer suddenly surged forward. He released the trigger. Chunks of large concrete lay over the bit. Above, a gray circle of light.
The breakthrough was so sudden, so complete, that Stephen wasn’t sure it had actually happened.
“Guys?”
Stephen jerked his head up, slammed it into the ceiling and ducked back down, hardly aware of the pain. He lowered himself back into the sewer. Pitch black.
“Guys?”
“Here,” said Sweeney.
“We’re in!”
“We’re in?”
“We’re in!”
Stephen tugged at the jackhammer and jumped out of the way as it hurtled out of the drain.
Splash.
“What was that?” Sweeney asked.
“The jackhammer.”
Stephen clambered back up the hole, saw that the broken concrete would need to be removed for him to climb past, and dragged the two largest pieces back down the hole.
Splash, splash.
“What was that?”
“Concrete.”
He crawled up again, scooting all the way on knees and elbows. Shoved more debris past him, down the hole. Someone grunted.
“Sorry.”
The slab had broken free along the line of holes he’d drilled. “Perfect. Perfect, perfect.” He reached up, gripped the floor’s edge, and pulled his head out.
The basement.
The sweet, sweet, beautiful basement. Silent and bare past the open door. No guns, no Germans. He could hardly stand such a sight.
Something bumped his foot. “Go, go!” Sweeney called up.
Stephen climbed out of the hole and stood. The door into this room stood open; it had a dead bolt on the inside, which was strange. Maybe it had been a study or hideout once. The bulb out in the basement glared. The cement on the floor was shiny. He ran to the door, poked his head out, and then stepped into the main room. The door to the boiler room was closed.
“Please, please,” he breathed. What if they had found it? He couldn’t think like that. Not now.
“Take my hand,” Sweeney whispered behind him. Stephen glanced back to see Sweeney kneeling over the hole, helping one of the others. He looked up at Stephen. “Hurry, man! We have to do this and get out!”
Stephen walked to the boiler room, cracked the door, peeked into the dark. His heart pumped like that jackhammer, breaking up his confidence. What if the tin was gone?
He hit the light switch, and the lone incandescent bulb snapped to life. The boiler was open. He’d left it closed. The drums looked as if they might have been shifted.
Braun had been here!
Stephen leaped for the boiler, grabbed the empty drum behind with both hands, and sent it crashing to the side. There lay the top of the safe, covered in dirt.
Stephen let out a soft, involuntary cry. For a moment, he felt ruined by relief. Then he dropped to his knees, swept the dirt off, and yanked the lid. Esther’s face stared up at him, serene.
He shoved both hands into the safe, latched his fingers around the tin box, and pulled it out.
Surprisingly light. What would four gilded Stones wrapped in cloth weigh? Less than the tin box perhaps. Maybe more. Maybe much more.
He spun around and ran into the rabbi, who had come in unnoticed.
“It’s here?”
Stephen clutched the box with white fingers. “Yes.”
The rabbi lo
oked from the box to Stephen.
“I have it,” Stephen said.
“Yes. Yes, I see that.” A slight smile formed on Chaim’s face.
Stephen rushed past him into the main room, driven by the adrenaline in his blood, not the thoughts in his head. There were no thoughts in his head. He had the box, that was all. The box was in his hands.
“Are you going to open it?” Chaim asked.
He whirled around, caught off guard by the question. “Here? Not here!”
Sweeney and Melissa stood by the coal room, staring. “That’s it?” Sweeney asked.
For a moment, they all stared at it. Why? What were they trying to prove with their gawking? Sweeney had already mixed the quick-setting concrete, which sat in a bucket behind him. They should be moving, not gawking.
Sweeney stuck out his hand. “As much as I would love to sit around and look at your five-hundred-thousand-dollar box, the clock is ticking. It’s been a pleasure, Groovy. If I don’t see you in prison, I’ll try to look you up.” He grinned. “The concrete’s already half-set, so as soon as I wedge the wood in place, you pour. Got it?”
Stephen’s legs were numb. He nodded.
“You sure you’re all right?”
“’Course.” He cleared his throat.
“And you might want to stash the contents of that box in your pockets. It’s a bit obvious.”
It was Stephen’s idea that he should be the one to stay behind, fill the hole, and escape through the garage. After all, it was his treasure, and someone had to do it. The notion struck him as a bit ambitious now.
Melissa kissed him on the cheek. “See you around, Stephen.”
“Okay,” Sweeney said. “Come on, Rabbi.”
“I’ll stay with Stephen,” Chaim said.
“You have to get out, you know? Two will be harder than one.”
“And three will be harder than two escaping from the smoking building. I think I should stay with Stephen.”
“Okay, Stephen?”
“Okay.”
Sweeney winked, followed Melissa down the tunnel, and wedged a piece of plywood behind him, forming a floor of sorts for the quick mix. He knocked on it from below. “Okay, all set. Good luck.”
Stephen kept looking down at the box in his hands. It was an old cookie box, roughly twelve by eight inches. Orange wafers ran around the sides. No tape to seal it. Ruth’s picture looked up at him in a surreal silence. He shook it gently once—something thumped softly inside. A knot filled his throat.
Chaim watched Stephen, and then, without a word, dumped the concrete into the hole. He smoothed it as best he could with the bottom of the bucket, and then shoved loose coal over the mess.
Stephen would have helped, but he couldn’t bring himself to put down the box. He watched in silence, contemplating Sweeney’s advice that he leave the box behind. A box was just a box. He could take the picture off and take out the Stones and leave the box.
Chaim finished in less than a minute. It wouldn’t support a man’s weight for another half hour, but the coal masked the job well. If Sweeney was as successful at hiding the manhole on his end, their tunnel might never be discovered.
All Stephen and Chaim had to do now was get out.
SOMETHING WAS wrong. Roth had never been so sure of his instincts before. It was the fire—something was wrong about the fire. So much smoke and yet no flames.
He paced the sidewalk, eyes peeled for any sign of a fireman, a policeman, a city inspector, anyone who might look like the Jew or the construction worker. For that matter, he wouldn’t have to look like the Jew—Friedman wasn’t beyond dressing as a woman. Anyone who approached the building would be suspect.
Ten minutes after their evacuation, he learned why there were no flames. Tires. They were saying that someone had set tires on fire.
The Jew had set the tires on fire knowing it would force an evacuation, resumed his digging, and was now in the building.
Roth ran toward the front doors.
He pulled up. What was he thinking? The authorities had eyes everywhere.
He hurried back to Lars. Panic spread through his limbs, enough to make him want to scream. “They may have tunneled through the floor under cover of the fire. Have Ulrich set fire to one of the cars down the street—I need their eyes away from me. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Start a fire? How?”
“I don’t care how!” he yelled, then quickly turned in the event he’d attracted attention. “I don’t even care if he’s caught. Tell him to stuff a rag into the gas tank and set it on fire. Just do it!” His head swam with emotions he had never experienced before. He might be having a breakdown right here on the street. Control. He had to regain control.
“Hurry!”
37
“RABBI!” STEPHEN WHISPERED.
Chaim turned from the door that led into the stairwell.
“Maybe I should take them out.”
“We have to hurry!” the rabbi said.
“I know, but maybe Sweeney’s right. I should hide them somewhere else so that if they take the box, I’ll still have the Stones. I think we still have time; it’s only been ten minutes—didn’t you say we had at least twenty?”
The rabbi looked at the door, then back. “Where would you put them?”
“In my pockets. Or my shoes.”
Chaim walked back. “Okay.” He looked at the box. “Open it.”
“Okay,” Stephen said.
He couldn’t move his fingers though. They hadn’t moved in five minutes.
The rabbi’s hand reached out and touched the photograph. “She’s very beautiful. Please, Stephen.”
“Okay.”
He gingerly set the box on the ground, knelt down, wiped his palms on his pants, and pried his fingers under one end of the lid. It came loose with a soft popping sound. Stephen felt such a terrible desperation in that moment that he nearly slammed the lid closed. Desire, of course; yes, desire. But fear as well. Terror!
What if the Stones of David weren’t in this box?
He slid the lid over and let it clatter to the floor. Inside was a red bundle. Silk. He scooped it out with trembling hand. Beautiful, soft silk that felt like cream in his hands.
He looked down, thinking there could be more at the bottom of the box. There was. A worn journal. He scooped it out, leafed through it quickly, and handed it to Chaim.
Carefully, he unraveled the silk scarf. It felt empty. Panic crept up his throat. He shook the scarf. A folded letter fell to the floor.
No Stones.
Stephen sank to his haunches, horrified. He could hardly breathe. A red scarf and a folded letter. There had to be more. The safe! The safe had a false bottom!
He leaped to his feet, tore into the boiler room, and plunged his hand into the safe. His knuckles crammed against a hard bottom. He struck at it furiously, but it sounded dull. No false bottom.
Stephen stared into the hole and began to breathe hard, as if he were locked in an overheated sauna, desperate to get out.
“Stephen?”
The truth was unbearable. A mountain on his shoulders, crushing with its dead weight. There was no treasure. The children were the Stones of David. Esther. Ruth’s picture flashed through his mind.
“Stephen!”
Chaim was at the door. Stephen turned slowly, senses dulled. The rabbi looked at him, face white. The letter shook in his right hand.
Stephen stood unsteadily. “What?”
“I . . . you should read this.” The rabbi held it out.
“It’s a letter,” Stephen said. “To Esther?”
“Yes. To Esther and David. From Martha.”
“Martha?”
“I think you should read it.”
Stephen walked forward and took the letter. Written in cursive. The ink was old, and the creases in the paper were worn nearly through.
My dearest son, David, and Esther, for whom you were born:
I’ve searched the wo
rld and cannot find you. I can only pray that someday one of you will find this letter and know the truth.
I have married a good man, Rudy Spritzer, and I call myself Rachel now in honor of the woman who cared for you, David, in the camp. There I was known as Martha. I was able to give birth to you at the labor camp Torunå only because of the sacrifice of Ruth, who had given birth to Esther just weeks earlier. I was chosen by the red scarf to die, but Ruth took the scarf for herself.
The commandant wouldn’t let me care for you, David, but I cared for Esther. He took you both before the camp was liberated. I searched for five years and then came to the United States when I learned that many orphans had immigrated. I discovered only that the commandant left my dear David in an orphanage near Ketrzyn and took Esther into Germany.
Please forgive me, but I couldn’t let him know that I had taken the journal, or he would hunt me down. It contains enough information to send him to his grave. But you must understand, I could not allow them to prosecute the commandant. He alone may have knowledge of your whereabouts.
I couldn’t seek you out publicly, for fear that they would come for you as well. You will know you belong to me and to Ruth because I have marked both of you with half of David’s Stone. I tried to find you through the mark—I’m so sorry I could not.
I have prayed every day that God will draw you to me and to each other as he draws a man seeking the pearl of great price. May he fill you with the hope we entrusted in you. You must find each other. Then you will know the real treasure, which makes the Stones look like toys for children. I am sorry, so sorry, dearest children. You are the true Stones of David, and I pray every day that if I cannot find you, you will find each other in good health.
As for the Stones, their hiding place will go to the grave with Ruth and me. Find each other and find God.
Martha
Sept. 1958
“Esther,” Stephen said quietly. Tears welled in his eyes, and he was forced to swallow. “Dear God, I have to find her.”
He owed his life to a woman named Ruth, and by extension to her daughter. Esther was the treasure. Not some ancient Stones covered in gold, but a child of the war. A woman. Esther, for whom he was born.