The Flaming Sword

by Breck England

  But Bevo’s mind was elsewhere. Only hours before, he had heard of David Kane’s death—a heart attack while supervising Interpol operations in Jerusalem. Now what would become of him? He had made a few inquiries, as judiciously as possible, but no one at Interpol seemed to know anything about Kane’s recruitment of him.

  The request had been so simple. “Give it out that the Israeli agent Ari Davan was the one who killed the Palestinian. It’s important to our plan to capture the real culprit.”

  Bevo had seen immediately through this. Kane merely wanted Davan out of the way for some reason. “I’m reluctant to do that, Signor President,” he had said. “It is very much out of order.”

  “Signor Bevo, your position with the Rome Police is tenuous, I hear, since the papal assassination happened on your watch.” Kane was smooth. “But we can solve that. We’re always looking for good police executives at Interpol.”

  “I’ll see to it,” was Bevo’s reply.

  Since then he had put through several calls to follow up with Kane, who was staying at the Via Condotti. Nothing. He had kept his part of the agreement, but now Kane was dead.

  The Commendatore shouted into his headpiece: “They’re coming out now. I want all eyes on the crowd.” Each of dozens of police scrutinized his own little segment of the piazza.

  “It looks under control.” Bevo sighed with indifference.

  “It looked under control ten days ago, too.” The Commendatore was cold.

  Staring angrily at the screens, Bevo saw nothing. “If I were you, I’d retract that statement.”

  “I have already retracted your identification of Inspector Davan as the killer of Nasir Ayoub,” the Commendatore whispered, his gaze never wavering from the panel in front of him. “That is the only retraction you can expect from me, Bevo. The Minister of Justice has asked for my recommendations regarding you. You can imagine what I will have to say to her.”

  A distant rumble from the crowd. The balcony drapery moved.

  “Here they come,” the Commendatore called. The voice of the Cardinal Dean rang out across the Piazza:

  “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum;

  habemus Papam:

  Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum,

  Dominum Emmanuelem

  Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Estades

  qui sibi nomen imposuit Emmanuel I.”

  To the immense crowd, the name of the new pope meant virtually nothing; still, shouts and applause thundered across the square with a noise like a waterfall. Flowery hand-lettered “Z3” signs—calling for another Pope Zacharias—wilted underfoot. An Irish claque cheering for Cardinal Tyrell fell silent and looked around bewildered, not understanding the name that had been announced. Nuns fell to their knees. Everywhere people screamed with joy, and at the same time called to each other in fifty languages: “Who?”

  Within the curtained balcony doors, Tyrell looked, stunned, at his friend Manuel Estades, who was taking the embraces of his brothers in turn. It was the second shock of the day: David Kane, dead in Jerusalem. The invulnerable, iron Kane, who had blackmailed him for decades over Rafqa Chandos, who had thrust Peter onto him to raise up in the Church hierarchy. He had learned to love the son and to hate the father. In one hour, his greatest fear and his greatest ambition had died within him. He felt his soul collapsing, his spirit within his stony frame crying the tears of a child—of anguish or relief, he himself could not say.

  Smiling expansively, buried in the white and golden robe of the papacy, Estades—now Pope Emmanuel I—raised his hands in blessing and passed through the veiled doors to greet the City and the World.

  Only moments before, the election had ended in a way no one had anticipated. All the tensions of the previous days at once vaporized. A glow of interest in Estades had ignited immediately after the ardent sermon given by his protégé at the beginning of conclave; it grew among the bishops who looked uncertainly at Cardinals Tyrell and Stone; it bypassed the haughty man from Manaus. At last, in the early hours of Monday, like a flame of warm wind over the conclave, the choice spread and gently toppled all opposition.

  Estades nearly fainted. “Accepto,” came his astonished whisper when he was informed of his election. “What else can I do?” He shrugged up at Tyrell.

  Immediately, the Cardinal Archpriest John Paul Stone, his face frozen, asked Estades what name he would choose to rule by. “My own?” he responded. “I can’t think of another.”

  Since that moment, Pope Emmanuel’s quick, generous mind had blazed a path through the tangle of conflicts that surrounded him. He knew exactly how to begin his work, and thanked God silently for it.

  Smiling down at the people in the square, so many of them, he intoned the age-old blessing Urbi et Orbi—to the City and the World. Traditionally, the new pope would then leave the balcony; Emmanuel chose to stay. He spread his arms, reached for Cardinals Tyrell and Stone, who stood on opposite sides of the balcony, and drew them toward him. With the raising of his hand, he calmed the sea of cheers and spoke again into the microphone.

  “Today our friends of the Jewish faith devote one full day solely to reconciliation, as Leviticus commands: ‘Upon the tenth day of the seventh month shall be the day of atonement; it shall be most solemn, and shall be called holy.’ For them, this is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. In English it is called the Day of Atonement—the day when all debts are forgiven, all differences put aside, and all people become ‘at one’ with each other and with God, embraced together in the love of God.

  “May God grant that this new day become for us all a Day of Atonement, a day of forgiveness, of understanding, of embracing one another’s differences—not in sacrifice of principle, but in upholding of brotherhood. Not with an unyielding mind, but in remembrance of the yielding knees of Our Lord, who Himself knelt to wash the feet of the Apostles.”

  Emmanuel embraced Stone and then Tyrell, who whispered, “It was you who wrote those words.”

  “My brothers,” he said privately, firmly to the two of them, “we will not tear the Church in two. We will work hard together, and we will love each other. And we will be One in the end.”

  The new pope then turned back to the congregation below and cried out a Psalm. “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity.”

  Situation Room, Shin Bet Headquarters, St. Helena Street, Jerusalem, 1430h

  “You’re holding Lambert Sable? The head of GeM Corporation?” The Prime Minister was incredulous.

  “Yes, we’re holding him for conspiring against state security,” Kristall answered, with an official sniff.

  She smiled at the air. Across the conference table, Ari sat in a comfortable briefing chair, his knee in a brace, while Miner played with the GeM Ari had taken from Chandos. Toad was at a flatscreen in the corner of the room, completing the paperwork on Lambert Sable and Bob Jonas. The Prime Minister’s voice filled the room.

  “You must release him immediately.”

  “Sorry, sir. He’s already been charged. You’ll have to take it up with the judiciary.”

  There was a gagging noise from the speakerphone. “First the head of Interpol, and now this. Sable is one of the most powerful businessmen in the world. On my own authority, I order you to release him.”

  “But not even his Board of Directors want him released. They want him right where he is.”

  “His Board of Directors?”

  “They’re unhappy with his recent conduct. Apparently, a large piece of the GeM Corporation disappeared this morning into a bank account in the Bahamas. They’re going to seek a few charges of their own against Mr. Sable.”

  The Prime Minister rang off without another word. Ari and Miner laughed.

  “Toad, what put you onto Sable?” Ari asked.

  Toad looked up absently from his monitor. “His name was in the contact l
ist of her GeM.”

  Ari grinned at Miner.

  “Her GeM? You mean, Catriel Levine’s GeM?”

  “Yeah, who else?” Toad seemed irritated.

  “She was a cold customer,” Miner said softly.

  “She had strong convictions,” Toad sighed. He pushed himself away from the monitor and rotated his chair. “She was one of those people who talk only to themselves—and to God. She went to Sable with the nano device because she knew he was interested in the Temple. With enough of his backing, the Arab powers might be bought off and the Mount opened to the Temple.

  “Then, a few days ago, Sable had second thoughts and tried to shut down the deal. Catriel insisted, so he independently hired Catriel’s contractor to get the device for him. What neither of them realized was that the contractor was working against them both.”

  “Elias Chandos,” Ari said, his smile gone.

  “Right. Known to them only as ‘the Arab.’ He had his own purpose: to get his hands on the nano devices so that his father could use them to destroy the Dome.”

  “But what was her connection to Elias Chandos?” Kristall asked.

  “Sable confessed the whole thing an hour ago. He’s talkative. Catriel Levine told him she’d had to use the Arab to…eliminate her uncle because she found out he was working against the Mishmar, trying to prevent the building of the Temple. She considered him a traitor.”

  “That makes sense,” Ari said. “Shor was one of the Cherubim sworn to protect the shrines on the Mount.”

  “Right, and I’ve been formulating a theory about that,” Toad went on in his dull voice. “It occurred to me yesterday, when you told us about the Order of the Cherubim—that each member was responsible for recruiting his own successor. What if Shor tried to recruit his niece Catriel Levine to succeed him? Who would be a more natural choice? She was smart, well connected, deeply religious. And one of the family. But it would be appalling to her—it would mean renouncing everything she believed in. For her, the Dome had to be removed so the Temple could be built. And Shor was head of the Mishmar.”

  “So Catriel Levine hired the Arab—Chandos—and it was all over for Shor,” Kristall offered.

  “For her, too. Chandos’s father couldn’t afford any loose ends to snarl up his plans. No one could be left alive who knew anything about the murder of Emmanuel Shor and the connection to the nano device. So Elias Chandos was sent to dispatch her.”

  “And Tempelman,” Ari added. “If I know him, he had worked things out and intended to blackmail her. That was his way.”

  Agitated, Kristall stood and began walking aimlessly around the conference table. “A bloody, wasteful mess. And to think—for more than forty years, that madman Kane schemed and plotted for just this day. Using his own son as an instrument of murder. Tentacles everywhere.”

  Ari sat back and closed his eyes. In that moment, he felt both relieved and dejected. So much death, so much anger. Deep down, it alarmed him to think of the big, distinguished man with his white hair, who had listened with such apparent sympathy to him. The alien nature of Kane’s heart frightened him.

  Ari murmured to the air. “It must have been Kane who tipped off our enemies about the danger to the Dome.”

  “And tipped off the Saladin Brigades about you,” Toad added. “He must have contacted them directly he heard from Maryse Mandelyn that you were on the road to Jerusalem. He wanted you out of the way.”

  “And out of Mandelyn’s life,” Kristall said briskly. She continued her pointless wandering around the room. Ari opened his eyes, glared at her, and closed them again.

  “How far back? Did you say forty years?” Ari shook his head at the intricacy of Kane’s scheme, his endless patience, his careful maneuvering into one position of power after another, the murders that seemed random but all fit into one bizarre picture—the apparent suicide of Sir John Chandos once Kane was in his confidence, his induction into the Order of Cherubim to replace Sir John, his careful vetting of one son as a lethal weapon and the other at the center of power in the Vatican. Every chance and opportunity he turned to benefit his scheme. And no one who got close to the scheme could be allowed to live. No one except Maryse.

  “It’s my fault, in a way,” Kristall said quietly. She continued her orbit around the table. “Kane slipped out of our hands long ago. It was…I can’t remember exactly. We cornered the Lifta gang on the Temple Mount, but the athletic one escaped. After we put the others away, we lost interest in him. But the Waqf never forgot him. And it’s sad.”

  Ari was surprised at her tone. It was not like her.

  Kristall went on. “Sad that Nasir Ayoub was helping us all along and we didn’t realize it. He obviously figured out who Elias Chandos was long before we did, and then went after him.”

  “How did he figure out Elias Chandos?” Miner asked.

  “That’s clear from our surveillance,” Toad said. “Nasir was trying to find out what had happened to that terrorist Bukmun. We listened in on Nasir’s conversation with the owner of the shop where Bukmun was killed. The shopkeeper said that Bukmun was after ‘the man in Rome.’ Naturally, we assumed the ‘man in Rome’ was Nasir, who attended the security conference there—but it was actually Elias Chandos.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It was on television,” Toad was patient. “Bukmun had seen video of Nasir Ayoub’s meeting with the Vatican officials in Rome. In the video, next to Nasir, was Peter Chandos, who looked exactly like Elias. Bukmun mistakenly assumed that Peter was Elias—the man who had bought two contraband Hawkeye rockets from him to destroy Jewish holy sites. When Elias used one of them on the Great Synagogue, he was happy. But when another struck al-Aqsa, he felt betrayed. That’s why he rang Nasir Ayoub—he wanted to tell him about the ‘man in Rome.’ ”

  “So Nasir didn’t kill Bukmun.” Miner was beginning to see. “Elias Chandos did.”

  “But Nasir made the mental leap. He realized that ‘the man in Rome,’ who was now dead, must have a living twin. He tracked the twin to Rome, which ended up fatal for him.” Toad shrugged, turning back to his monitor.

  “And that’s the sad part,” Kristall said. “We were chasing the same ghost, we and Nasir Ayoub. But there’s so little trust between us and the Palestinians that even now, we can’t talk to each other.”

  “Why did Elias attack the Great Synagogue and the Mosque?” Miner wanted to know.

  “To whip up hatred on both sides,” Toad answered simply. “To raise the alert level to red so that a threat to the Dome would be more likely to ignite a war.”

  Someone knocked at the conference-room door. “Where’s my assistant?” Kristall grumbled as she stalked over to open it.

  “He took the holiday off,” Ari laughed.

  “Holiday? What holiday?” She let in Sarah Alman, who walked past her and took Miner by the hand.

  “And who’s this?” Kristall asked, miffed.

  “You don’t remember your own staff? This is Sarah Alman—used to work in the lab,” Ari said.

  “I’m taking the rest of the day off, if it’s all right with you,” Miner asked Ari. “Sarah’s invited me to break the fast with her family.”

  Ari looked questioningly at Miner.

  “I’ve got Dr. Rappaport’s permission to lead a new project.” Sarah was shy. “We have a new lead on Tay-Sachs. Gene therapy on chromosome 15. A promising study.”

  “Go,” Ari grinned, waving him away.

  Sarah smiled at Miner and they left together.

  Kristall moved quickly around the table once more and reached to grasp a note from her desk. “That reminds me. Davan, you’re invited to break the fast tonight at the Royal David.” She held up the invitation. “A formal request from Jean-Baptiste Mortimer.”

  “Hm,” Ari was noncommittal.

  “Inspector Mandelyn will be there,” Kristall adde
d, as she started another stroll around the table.

  Ari changed the subject. “Why are you wandering the room like this? Usually, you’re never out of your chair.”

  “Nerves. I’ve given up smoking for Yom Kippur.”

  At that, even Toad smiled.

  The King’s Garden, King David Hotel, Jerusalem, 2030h

  A slight fall wind, just enough to stir the white candles on the table, breathed past as Maryse gazed out over the Old City. The Dome of the Rock rose above the ancient stone walls like a bright planet. Reflexively, she stroked with dismay the unfamiliar gold ring on her fourth finger. The voices around her, like the breeze, seemed to come from nowhere; she still felt infinitely remote from them.

  “Some of this sour cream cake, my dear?” Mortimer nudged her. “It’s exquisite.”

  She looked down at the delicate cake on the plate before her, smiled at him, and shook her head.

  She felt utterly alone, without connection. Blunt images of her father and David Kane had pounded in her mind all through this blinding day. She couldn’t bear the sight, even in her imagination. In her room she had tried to sleep, but a sharp diagonal light fell through the curtains onto the bed and, as she stared at it, faded first to red gold, then to purple—and at last, like an anesthetic, darkness approached.

  She must have slept then, because she remembered the dream. It was Eastertime. Once again, a boy, suntanned, supple as a spider, skittered by the ends of his fingers over the rocks of Glendalough while she sat watching in her pool of shade by the lake. She yearned to be with him, to share his strength and courage and cunning, to join him and live alongside him among the cliffs.

  Then a sound had awakened her. What was it? Mourning? A horn throbbing in the distance, resonating up from the streets, through the open windows. It was truly dark now. As if after surgery, a sensation of pain pressed on her: she knew who the boy had been. Easter. David Kane always visited at Easter. She hadn’t imagined it after all.

  He had brought Elias with him.

  Her past life drained away from her as if history had lost its meaning.