to look back toward the tomb, now lost in a small city of tombs. The noon had grayed over again, and the glassy wet marble of the hundreds of monuments looked dull again.
Maryse spoke softly. “I won’t let it lie. If I can help it, there will be no stain on his memory.”
Fatima gave her a doubtful smile. “I hope so. He was a good, good man. I know this if others don’t. Every thought, every action of his was goodness. The last thing he did on the last morning of his life was for the children.”
“That last thing he did?”
“Yes, the shipment. He wanted the Pope to bless the shipment before it left.”
“What shipment?”
“Books, furniture, clothing, school uniforms for the children in my town. In Besharri.”
Maryse looked questioningly at the men.
“For the Antonine school he attended as a boy. And for the orphanage,” Stone clarified.
“In Lebanon.”
“Yes. There were two vans.” Stone saw that Maryse was suddenly intrigued. “It was a project of Peter’s, to give something back to his home town. The Pope blessed the vans only a few minutes before the…the end.”
Maryse made sure she understood. “Two vans blessed by the Pope, heading overland to Lebanon—and they left the piazza that morning?”
“Just so,” Fatima responded, giving Maryse a querying look.
“I’m sorry.” Her face flushed with shame; here she was, interrogating the widow at her husband’s funeral.
But Fatima hadn’t noticed. She was gazing back again toward the tomb of Peter Chandos.
Director’s Office, Shin Bet Headquarters, Queen Helena Street, Jerusalem, 1445h
“What is the lattice?” Ari demanded to know.
He had requested a formal meeting with his superior. Tovah Kristall was mildly impressed at this; it had never happened before. Unlike some other operatives she detested who were forever submitting “formal requests” for this or that, Ari was the informal sort. She knew why he wanted this one. Everything would be recorded so that future reviewers would not be able to blame him for things he was ignorant of. So Alexa 3, the digital pyramid in the corner, now tracked their words.
Kristall looked into the dark brown eyes to gauge just how far off she could put him. In chess, patience was crucial. Her lips tensed. There was no leeway this time.
“Where did you hear of such a thing?” she snapped at him.
“From Jules Halevy,” he threw it back at her.
She reached for her GeM and barked at it. “Come in here.”
Her stick-thin assistant with the big eyes entered. “I want Jules Halevy’s clearance revoked immediately. I also want him brought here for questioning. Now.”
The assistant nodded and started out. “Not yet. Here.” She scribbled a note and handed it to the little man, who read it and left.
Then she turned fiercely back to Ari, but he was not intimidated.
“I’m not cleared to tell you anything about it,” she answered his gaze and lit a cigarette. She knew he hated smoke.
“Why don’t you take a chance and tell me what I’m supposed to be investigating.”
“You’re the one who hangs from cliffs, not me.”
“All right. For the record, this is the situation you and your superiors have put me into.” He stood and paced the room, thinking for a moment, then speaking loudly for the computer’s benefit.
“Here are the main results of our investigation. Emanuel Shor, Monsignor Peter Chandos, and the Pope himself all died the same day. Shor and Chandos both wore finger rings of the same type with identical inscriptions, acronyms for a Biblical verse: ‘Until He comes whose right it is to reign.’ Emanuel Shor also carried a photo of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem with the same verse scrawled on the back, only in Hebrew.
“Shor entered his own laboratory minutes before his death and removed all trace of a DNA sample belonging to someone named Chandos, a Cohanic sample that shows lineal descent from the high priests of ancient Israel who officiated in the Temple. The DNA of Peter Chandos is of a nearly pure Cohanic strain, and a hair matching that DNA profile was found at the Shor death scene. Finally, we know Shor, his brother and niece, and the Halevys were mixed up with an extremist group that wants to rebuild the Temple.”
Ari looked straight at Kristall, who was staring back at him through a thick screen of smoke; he took a breath.
“So, I believe with reason that a religious fanatic—or a group of fanatics—are engaged in some kind of plot regarding the Temple Mount.”
“With what object?”
“I don’t know, but I believe it’s connected with this ‘lattice,’ whatever it is. Unless you tell me what it is, I’m at a dead stop—and that’s what I want on the record.”
Kristall flicked ash into a paper coffee cup. The briefing room was blue with smoke. She looked up at Ari, considered him for a moment, and then said only, “Peculiar story.”
“Jerusalem is a peculiar place.”
“So you would connect a fairly straightforward technology theft with the assassination of the Pope?” She inhaled deeply from her cigarette. “That’s just bizarre.”
“Bizarre it may be, but straightforward it is not. There’s more.”
Kristall nodded for him to continue.
“Chandos and the Pope died in a remarkable room. It’s called the Sancta Sanctorum, or Holy of Holies, said by Roman Catholics to be the holiest place on earth.”
“Holy of Holies. The Debir? I thought that was a feature of Solomon’s Temple. Where the Ark of the Covenant was kept?”
Ari was surprised she knew this; he had always thought of Kristall as totally nonreligious. Unconsciously, he had gone back to his natural tone of voice. “Apparently, Christians envy the Temple of Jerusalem. They’ve always wanted something like it, where God’s presence dwells…thus, this Roman chapel. It’s perfectly cubical, like the Debir in Solomon’s Temple.
“Anyway, a good deal happened in there that morning. Someone wrapped Chandos’ official red sash around his head—like Jewish priests did anciently with the scapegoat. Someone also collected Chandos’ blood and used it to spatter the chapel altar—the same thing the high priest did in the Jewish Temple on Yom Kippur. And someone stole a valuable art object—a silver icon of Jesus of Nazareth that they believe represents God on earth.”
Kristall shivered at this. She was enough of a Jew to abhor the idea of picturing any man as God. “Someone’s been very busy. I hadn’t heard any of it…but then the Vatican are professionals.”
She inhaled smoke again.
