“Chandos…Chandos,” she murmured, her nose and eyes itching at the veil of dust that hung over the book. She was grateful for the cotton gloves that protected her fingers from the old binding. The light was dim and the script too small to read easily, so after an hour or so of examining the book she leaned her head back against the chair and rubbed her head, eyes closed, thinking through the willowy descent charts she had been studying. There was no coherent story, but the fragments of Latin next to the illuminated names were beginning to come together for her.
HIC RICARDUS CORDIS LEONIS REX ANGLORUM…
King Richard the Lion Heart of England, who in 1193 quit the siege of the Temple of Solomon. …Robert de Sablé, Grand Master of the Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, his knight companion…
HIC DOM. GULIELMUS CARNUTENSIS…
Monseigneur William of Chartres, Grand Master of the Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, knight companion, 1210…
So, this Lord of Chartres was Grand Master while the Cathedral was under construction.
HIC DOM. IACOBIMUS MOL…
Monseigneur Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, who in 1293 paid homage in secret to King Edward as companion-in-arms as his predecessors had done. The last of the Grand Masters to do so. In 1314, burned at the stake at Paris falsely convicted of heresy…
Of course, the story of de Molay was well known. The execution of the last Grand Master of the Templars was a medieval scandal. She seemed to remember that someone had uncovered a document in the Vatican not many years ago, said to be a pardon from the Pope for Jacques de Molay. What she hadn’t known was that the Grand Master had paid homage “in secret” to Edward of England as a knight companion. Another piece in the puzzle fell into place.
King Edward III and his son Edward the Black Prince, who in 1348 instituted the Most Noble Order of the Garter with twenty four knights companions…
Sir John Chandos of the Garter, companion to Edward the Black Prince and hero of the Hundred Years’ War. Although as strategist of Poitiers he had won vast territories of France for the English King, he was honored even by his enemies as a peacemaker. He died in 1370 of battle wounds at the Chateau Mortemer. The Chronicles of Froissart said of him, “It was a great pity he was slain, for he was so wise and full of devices, he would have found some means of establishing a peace between France and England”…
She would have liked to photograph the pages, but they had politely taken her GeM from her. So she took a few notes. Genealogical lines continued for generations, occasionally diverted down unexpected channels by revolution, sterility, or murder.
She had not anticipated following so many royal lines. A dried-up sinecure passed over centuries from one old aristocratic lion to another, until the twentieth century brought things to a crisis point.
At last, she arrived at the end of an errant string of names that looked promising:
Major Sir John Chandos, KCB, DSO, MC, Royal Dragoons Guards. b. Derby, April 13, 1908, d. Beirut, May 31, 1987. Mentioned in dispatches from the Levant Campaign, 1941.
That was all. A Knight of the Bath, a holder of the Distinguished Service Order, the Military Cross—a British officer of some accomplishment. This information she wrote down carefully. It was not as extensive as she had hoped, but the regiment and dates were useful. Here the line ended abruptly.
A page had been removed.
She contemplated the blank book for a moment, then grasped that she had gone as far as she could here. She reached for her GeM before realizing it was in the librarian’s hands.
A few minutes later she was in the Via dei Condotti, walking quickly past the high-fashion shops toward the Spanish Steps. In one of the vitrines, a digital projection of a model danced, wearing a dress priced at 17,000 euros. Shopping all around her were women who looked as if they too had been electronically projected into the street, women wearing the blistering gold and orange of autumn, trailing perfumes, admiring their own airy skin in the window glass.
Maryse caught sight of herself. Her face looked red and Irish and irritated in the cold morning sun. So intent for so long on the spirit, she was startled by her flesh; so she walked faster toward the shade of a small café looking up at the famous Steps.
She ordered tea with lemon and concentrated on a GeMsearch, reading rapidly through screen after screen.
Royal Dragoons Guards. Took part in the 1936 peacekeeping mission to Palestine. Withdrawn in 1939, evacuated from Dunkirk, recommitted to the invasion of Germany. Thousands of names scrolled past. Every medal awarded, every soldier, every serving officer for the past century was listed.
But her search requests found no mention of Major Sir John Chandos of the Royal Dragoons. Not a whisper. She squinted at her notes again to make sure of the dates and the spellings. It was odd that there should be nothing—he had, after all, been a Knight of the Order of Malta as well.
She called up her electronic dossier of Peter Chandos. Born in Besharri, Lebanon, 1985. Mother called Rafqa Chandos, father unknown. Attended Maronite schools. Ordained 2007.
Abruptly, Maryse looked up at a cluster of priests passing the café, all young men in black cassocks and white bands, arguing about the forthcoming conclave. Their Italian was too loud and fast for her to follow. One of them caught her looking at him and grinned back at her, making a wry face—he was slender, his skin the smooth color of clay, his eyes a clear brown.
It was getting warm. She took off her coat and breathed in the air of the piazza, seeing all at once the swift life coursing around her.
Cohen Brothers, Yavne Street, Tel Aviv, 1220h
“Shimon Tempelman to see Ivan Luel.”
The office administrator was a squinting young woman whose face glowed blue-green in the low light of the corridor. She was surrounded by cabinets that shone like steel. Her computer screen lit up the cosmetic glasses she wore; a really good—and younger—policeman might be able to read that screen in her eyes just by getting into an attentive conversation with her, Tempelman thought. He wondered how much easier it would be if he had proper eyesight. As Director of Security for the Technion University, he tried to keep to himself the reality that his eyes were fading.
“Mr. Luel will be with you directly. He’s telephoning.” She mirrored his English accent with one of her own—she was clearly one of the top form of secretaries. “He will have only a few minutes for you, Mr. Tempelman. He has an engagement with a client.”
“Thank you. My business will take only a few minutes.”
He looked around at the glassy walls and the fluid-looking art and thought about the sums of money that flowed invisibly through these law offices. Patent law, he knew, was a form of the old protection racket—you pay enough and no one will raid your claim. His old mother had wanted him to be a lawyer because she admired professional men who never got their hands dirty, unlike his father who had been a jeweler down a lane in South London. An open invitation to thieves, the old man’s shop was a warren of caged bracelets and watches covered in carbon dust. He always complained that the inventory never moved. Well, it moved whenever the local villains paid a call, Tempelman chuckled to himself. He had learned a good deal from those men, his father’s most faithful customers—enough to become a policeman smarter than most. Smart enough to stay out of actual police work and lead a comfortable life “protecting” other people’s treasured secrets from the kind of villains he had known in his youth.
Now here he was again. It was his profession, he had to admit: one sinecure after another won by allowing important people just enough of a glimpse of his considerable intelligence to be satisfied of his reliability. He was too smart to require much—pettiness was the best defense against customer revolt, he had learned—and too smart to reveal much. He had found that people were more threatened by enigma than by certainty. He gained his ambassador
ship by dropping hints to a junior Cabinet minister about some artworks trafficked through back channels out of Britain. Alas, the art was never traced. But he had done a creditable job, and the references he carried in his GeM were impeccable, ready to be beamed to the chief partner of the Tel Aviv office of Cohen Brothers.
In the past, he had often debated with himself about the kind of return he would accept for his investments. Sometimes it was a position, sometimes a promotion—with a few off-the-books benefits. Police officials were always looking for clever men and willing to provide extra incentives. In this case, however, there was no debate. He knew exactly what he wanted from Mr. Ivan Luel.
Just a small share. Nothing noticeable. Just enough to provide for a comfortable retirement on a Greek island with a nice golf course. Crete, perhaps. A minuscule share of what was coming—that was all he asked. Hardly worth discussing. He was not ambitious.
Ambition was for others. He knew he would have made a remarkably good policeman—but to what end? What was the return on good police work? The best police end up acclaimed and poor. Or acclaimed and dead. At least he had been smart enough to do the job without bypassing the opportunities that came his way. Most of the people he had worked with were hopeless. This lot investigating the murder of Emanuel Shor—they were either stupid or seriously distracted. Clearly the Levine woman was behind it all; she had cooked the patents so she could sell the rights to the highest bidder on the side. She had duped her uncle into letting a contract killer into the lab and had probably arranged for the instrument itself to be sold to yet another bidder. A dangerous game, the double cross, but common among greedy criminals who imagined they could play it and then escape the consequences.
He had done his research on Cohen Brothers and was reasonably sure she was playing solitary. She would go down for it tidily. Thus, everyone who deserved to would win—the old law firm would maintain its credibility, and he would be set up for life.
Still, there was the odd business of Shor’s visit to his genetics lab just before the murder. Tempelman didn’t like unexplained details. Shor had been utterly Orthodox: it was unthinkable that he would go to the office on the Sabbath. The old man was undoubtedly duped into opening the Nanotechnology Center, but why go to his own laboratory? To collect an electronic key? No, the key he used for the genetics center was coded for his brother’s lab as well. There was the police theory that Shor had removed a DNA sample from the lab. Why would he break the Sabbath and a Holy Day for that, unless he were protecting someone?
Tempelman had pondered all of this while working on a hard turn in the fairway at the Caesarea golf club. Sometimes when the ball goes wrong into deep rough, he thought, it isn’t worth the trouble to go looking for it. Was this one of those times? But he didn’t have the leisure for worrying about it now—Catriel Levine was about to leave the country, Interpol had identified the eyelash, and he had to move quickly. Crete was calling.
At one time it had suited him to become Israeli rather than British. A certain deputy minister of state at Whitehall had encouraged him to emigrate “to prevent a serious hindrance to his career.” He had played on the minister a good deal and had, unwisely, crossed a dangerous threshold with him. But the minister was Labour and had scruples, so Tempelman was allowed to leave Britain freely and even to carry the minister’s highest recommendation for future employment. Israel was open to any Jewish person; there was need for good security people; and the climate was perfect for golf. Judaizing his name eased the way into the country.
But now there would be no need to stay. With enough money, he could find refuge on a small acreage overlooking the Mediterranean, maybe an olive orchard, perhaps a pool. He would have time to work on the flaws in his golf game.
Still, something was wrong. His thoughts kept returning to Shor, to the detour to the genetics lab. Shor was an odd man, it was true—obsessed with his Judaism, dressed day after day in the same sloppy white shirt with the cords of his tallit flying around him—but he had never broken any security protocols. Lots of the eccentrics at Technion had amused themselves at cat-and-mouse with Tempelman over security systems, playing graceless jokes he had come to expect. But never Shor. It wouldn’t have occurred to him. The man had no joking in him. If he had been fooled into opening the Nanoelectronics lab, might he have been fooled into recovering something incriminating from his own lab? The Shin Bet wouldn’t tell Tempelman whose DNA sample had gone missing—perhaps it was the killer’s? No. If so, the case would have been closed by now. Anyway, he knew that the missing sample was from the Cohanic collection, hardly controversial in contrast to the much more sensitive MAO-A collection. Again, the return on such a remarkable investment seemed troublingly small to him. There was something unclear about all of this, something blocking his mental line of sight.
But whatever the complications might be, the man behind the office door would undoubtedly be glad to make a small investment of his own to satisfy Tempelman. That was simple enough and all he cared about. For Tempelman, the details of a case were interesting only as far as they hinted at some advantage to himself. After today, he would be totally focused on burying himself in superb isolation.
“Mr. Luel should finish soon,” the woman with glasses said. “I’m taking my lunch now. When he rings, please go in.” She stood and walked past him, the skin of her face and amazing long legs shining green in the glow of the windows. His eyes followed her out the door.
Just as she promised, after a few moments, a small buzzer sounded on the desk. Tempelman picked up his case and pushed open the office door.
The man in the chair was not Ivan Luel; he knew that straightaway.
Kibbutz En Gedi, Israel, 1220h
Ari missed the cold weather he had left behind in Europe; here he felt throttled by the heat. Jammed into his little car, he and Toad and Miner sped along the road between the Judean cliffs and the baking blue Dead Sea. They passed few vehicles on the road; the heat was too intense here at the lowest place on the planet.
Passing the Qumran historical site where the Dead Sea Scrolls had been taken out of pocky caves in the cliffside, they could see the unlikely green groves of En Gedi flowing over the escarpment overhead. Soon the kibbutz gate opened for them.
A welcome breeze met them as they got out of the car, and Ari reflected that this must be the only cool place in the whole country. The waterfalls of En Gedi looked shrunken, but a faint freshness hung over the hilltop. A male ibex, its horns curving nearly into its back, stood under a tree nearby watching them. I could live here, Ari thought; in this place, even kibbutz life might be all right.
Jules Halevy and his wife emerged from their tiny house to greet them. “Shalom, shalom, welcome!” Halevy repeated as he ushered the three policemen into the house. “Air-conditioned, you see.” Halevy grinned at them and offered drinks, which the three men accepted thirstily. Ari introduced the others.
“Thank you for seeing us. I’m Inspector Davan; this is Mr. Kara and Mr. Sefardi.” Both Halevys shook hands vigorously, smilingly. Although Toad had questioned them briefly several days before, they didn’t seem to remember him.
Looking around, Ari noted that the walls were covered with woven hangings, some of an abstract design, others with bitmapped pictures of palm trees and bearded prophets. It was comfortably cool in the room, and Ari sat back to assess the host. Halevy was stout, short, and dressed in what looked like homemade clothes: a tunic with no shape and trousers in the tannish color of raw linen. Barefoot, he folded himself into a ball on a low sofa and rubbed rapidly at his brief beard the color of fog.
“Now, how can we help you?”
Toad and Miner looked bemused at Ari. It had been his idea to come here. Back in Miner’s cellar, they had conceded to him that religion might have had something to do with the death of Emanuel Shor. Neither man was religious, and Miner was positively allergic to it. Toad’s convictions, if there were any, had never bee
n discussed.
“The inscription on the rings is the key,” Ari had said.
“The key to what? You say it comes from a Bible verse, I can’t remember what…”
“Until he comes whose right it is to reign,” Toad had reminded them; then he had picked up a photo from the pile of evidence on Miner’s table and displayed it to them. The model of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem that sat on the grounds of the Holyland Hotel. And, on the back of the photo, six Hebrew letters scrawled by hand:
עבאלהם
“Did you ever find out what these letters refer to?” Ari to Toad, who had shaken his head.
“I asked the brother and the niece—they said they didn’t know. But now I wonder…”
Ari had run out of the room to his office, the other two behind him, to look in the big Hebrew Bible on his desk. It was hard to take the stairs and study his GeM at the same time, but he found the Latin Bible verse he had photographed in Chartres.
…DONEC VENIRET CUIUS EST IUDICIUM.
Then the same verse in Hebrew. At last he had found it, with Toad and Miner looking over his shoulder.
“A, B, A, L, H, M…” Ari breathed:
עַד־בֹּא אֲשֶׁר־לֹו הַמִּשְׁפָּט
Ad-bo asher-lo ha-mishpat
“It’s Ezekiel. It’s the same. ‘Until he comes whose right it is’,” Ari translated. “Let’s go talk to Shor’s friends.”
So they had driven an hour from Jerusalem to the hills of En Gedi.
Ari held up the photo and read off the inscription.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there,” Halevy said, smiling. Ari had been through this before. “It’s a passage from Tanakh, you say? Echezquel?” An odd sort of accent.
Ari decided to take a back route. “What was your relationship with Emanuel Shor?”
The Flaming Sword Page 4