The Second Messiah

Novara tried to focus on the walls that stared him in the face, the whiteness blinding, almost heavenly. He felt his senses ebbing fast. He reached out to touch the wall.

He failed, his hand falling away in a weak attempt.

Novara groaned, made a supreme effort, and stretched out his bloodstained fingers once more, trying to reach the wall.

42

As the driver pulled up outside the monastery, Lela jumped out.

Mustard walls surrounded a centuries-old Arab fort that, unusually, had a crucifix set high above the arched entrance.

Ari moved behind her, followed by the Mossad agents. One of the archways’ oak doors was wide open, revealing a splendid courtyard garden with gushing ponds. Lela saw thick plumes of smoke billow from the building’s upper floors, orange flames licking the roof. “The blaze looks out of control.”

Ari turned to the woman named Rasha. “Stay with the car. Do you have a flashlight?”

“Right here.” The woman reached under the Volvo’s seat and produced a rubber-encased light.

Ari grabbed it and beckoned the driver. “Come with me. You too, Lela. Everyone keep their eyes open. There could be trouble waiting inside.”

Ari reached for his Sig. He ran toward the entrance, the driver and Lela following, clutching her pistol. They stepped into the courtyard.

It looked deserted.

Without a word, Ari pointed two fingers of one hand to his eyes, and then pointed toward an archway across the courtyard. They swung their weapons left and right, covering each other as they moved toward the monastery, silent as phantoms.

It became apparent to Lela that something was wrong. The monastery was too silent, the rooms empty.

She expected to hear screams and shouts for help, frantic monks carrying water buckets as they fought the fire.

There was no one. Not a soul. Except for the background crackle of blazing wood, the monastery was eerily deserted, hollow as a crypt. After five minutes of searching the rooms, Lela saw it first.

They had moved into the main building and found the fire quickly spreading, engulfing the building. Roof timbers crashed and furniture was ablaze. As they climbed the stairs they were beaten back by a fog of smoke. Ari gave the order to retreat and they moved back down the stairway, along corridors untouched by the blaze. In one of the corridors, they found the monks’ sparse cells.

Lela froze as she stepped inside the first cell. The body of a young monk lay sprawled across the bed from the force of gunshots to his head and chest. His threadbare white habit was stained with damp crimson. A single round left a blossom on his chest and drilled his forehead. Lela had seen death many times but she choked back a cry of disgust.

Ari stepped up behind her.

Lela reached out to feel the man’s lifeless wrist. “He can’t be dead long—he’s still warm.”

Ari examined the wounds. “One shot to the heart, one to the head. A double tap, the sign of a professional hit.”

The Mossad agent joined them. “I saw two more bodies across the hall. The same signature as this one, one shot to the heart, one to the head.”

They crossed the hall and saw the bodies of two elderly monks. Ari said, “We can do nothing for them. Fan out, see if you can find any evidence of Cane and his friends.” He leveled his Sig and they moved back out into the hall. “Go carefully. Whoever pulled the trigger may still be here.”

They searched the remaining cells along the corridor but found them empty. The blaze was spreading, the smoke like a fog, and they covered their nostrils as they found their way back toward the courtyard. Lela noticed a door ajar at the end of an archway.

Ari saw it too. “Stay here and cover us, Lela.”

He and the driver moved toward the door. Lela tensed as she watched both men linger outside the door and listen, then Ari shoved in the door and rushed in, followed by the driver.

Lela waited, her pistol at arm’s length in a two-handed grip, ready to fire.

Almost a minute passed. Nothing happened. Lela began to worry. What’s keeping Ari?

Her pulse hammering in her temples, she stepped along the archway and kept her Sig aimed toward the room. As she approached it, Ari suddenly stepped out through the door, his pistol by his side.

Lela’s heart skipped. “Ari! I could have fired. What kept you?”

Ari’s face was ashen. “You need to see this.”

Lela stepped into the room. It was sparse, with a wooden table and chairs, the floor covered in worn terra-cotta tiles. The Mossad driver was kneeling beside the corpse of an elderly gray-bearded monk. His white habit was bloodied from a massive chest wound and he lay on his side, his right arm outstretched, his fingers stained crimson. It appeared as if he had tried to write something on the wall with his bloodied fingers.

To Lela, it looked like the image of twin crosses, side by side. The upright stem of the cross on the right trailed off in a bloody tendril. The monk’s dead fingers pointed skyward as if he had died in the process of finishing his work.

Lela heard a strange whirring noise and startled.