The Second Messiah

“If someone thinks a cowardly act like that’s going to stop me, then they’ve got another thing coming.”

59

TEL AVIV

Lela clutched her seat in the back of the wailing ambulance. She stared out past tinted windows and saw a white paramedic station wagon with a siren and flashing blue light speeding through the traffic in front of the ambulance. Julius Weiss’s bodyguards riding shotgun, Lela guessed.

Ari sat next to her, clutching a leather attaché case on his lap. His boss, Weiss, was sprawled opposite on a red leatherette seat, next to an array of medical equipment. Beside him was a pale-faced man wearing a Jewish skullcap, a worn black suit, and scuffed brown shoes. One side of his glasses was held together with blue insulation tape. He was stonily silent—Weiss had not introduced him when they boarded the ambulance—but every now and then his myopic eyes darted shyly at Lela.

The Mossad chief said with an impish grin, “What do you think of my transport, Inspector Raul? It’s the perfect cover. Who’d suspect the head of Mossad of traveling in an ambulance?”

Lela saw the whitewash sprawl of Tel Aviv rush past as they sped along the roadway. “Do I get to know where I’m being taken?”

Weiss snapped his fingers. Ari Tauber handed him a bulky, mustard-colored envelope from the attaché case. The Mossad chief removed a sheaf of color photographs. Lela saw that they were the ones Ari had taken at the monastery.

Weiss examined the images and let out a sigh. “It seems that you and Ari had an interesting evening at Maloula, Inspector. Everyone in the monastery is dead and there’s no sign of Cane or the scroll.” The Mossad chief looked up and fixed Lela with a stare. “The plot certainly thickens, doesn’t it?”

“I think you could say that.”

Weiss pursed his lips in thought. “An interesting snippet of information that you ought to be aware of: Cane crossed back into Israel at seven this morning, along with the Bedu and Yasmin Green.”

“What?”

“I had their passports flagged with border security and was alerted as soon as the three showed up at the Allenby Bridge crossing. The pickup and its occupants were searched but the scroll was nowhere to be found. Cane, however, had a noticeable leg wound.”

Lela’s face creased with concern. “What happened to him?”

“He claimed he’d had an accident. On my direct orders the border security guards didn’t pursue the matter and risk making Cane suspicious. They allowed all three back into Israel.”

“So we’re none the wiser about what happened at the monastery?”

Ari said, “Lela, Professor Feldstein here thinks he may be able to help enlighten us.”

Weiss added, “Inspector Lela Raul, meet Professor Feldstein. I should point out that the professor’s a Harvard graduate and a Dead Sea scrolls expert. Go ahead, Paul.”

Weiss handed the clutch of photographs to the black-suited Feldstein, who held up a snapshot for Lela to see. It was of Father Novara, lying in a pool of his own blood.

Feldstein pushed his glasses off the bridge of his nose and said in a soft, almost whispered voice, “This man, Father Vincento Novara, was a leading Aramaic scholar—an Aramaist. Many years ago he worked in the Vatican’s archives as a translator and archivist. He specialized in the old Aramaic and the later dialect common at the time of Jesus. He was also an expert on the Dead Sea scrolls. It’s my belief that the priest’s job was to translate the stolen parchment.”

Lela raised an eyebrow. “I think we’ve already figured that one out, professor. The question is for whom? And what does the scroll contain?”

“This is no ordinary Dead Sea scroll, Inspector.”

“What do you mean?”

“Many years ago, soon after the first Dead Sea scrolls were discovered at Qumran, an expert named Professor Schonfeld worked on their translation. He discovered a code hidden within certain of them. Have you heard of Schonfeld’s work?”

“Never.”

“It’s a very simple code, one that Schonfeld called the Atbash Cipher. The letters of the Aramaic alphabet are completely reversed. The first letter becomes the last, and the last the first, and so on. It couldn’t be simpler. Do you understand?”

“I think so. Go on.”

“Not all of the Dead Sea scrolls contain a code, but a select few certainly do.” Professor Feldstein removed a pen and notepad from his pocket, flicked open a fresh page, and drew two short dashes:

- -

“Only scrolls that contain two dashes in the upper-right-hand corner of the parchment contain code. It was a simple indicator to those who had knowledge of the code’s existence that a secret message was contained within the text.”

Lela said impatiently, “And the significance of all this is, professor?”

Feldstein met her stare. “We believe that the scroll found by Jack Cane contains a similar marking, suggesting the document has an Atbash code.”

“What kind of message are we talking about?”

“Schonfeld’s work led him to believe that a number of Dead Sea scrolls contained important announcements meant to be passed down to future generations.”

“How do you know this?”