The Second Messiah

Lela found Ari’s cell, examined the screen, and handed the phone back. “You’ve still got a reasonable signal strength. Call Cohen. Tell him where you are.”

“How can I? I don’t know where the heck I am.”

“I heard Jack say we were somewhere near the Via Famagosta.” Lela fumbled again in Ari’s pocket and relit the remaining lamp with his lighter. Then she checked her magazine for rounds and slammed it home. “Have Cohen find the nearest underground entrance and come and get you. Tell him to bring a doctor. You ought to be okay until help comes. But if you start to feel worse, call me on my cell.”

Lela readied her Sig in the two-hand position. She clutched the lamp’s wire holder in her fingers and moved to the mouth of the darkened arch.

Ari’s furious voice boomed around the chamber walls. “Just where do you think you’re going, Lela?”

But she had already disappeared into the passageway.

84

Jack moved deeper into the passageway, feeling his way along the coal-black walls. Seconds later he banged his head and staggered back, pain jolting through his skull.

A rush of dizziness overcame him. He put a hand to his brow and his skull hurt like mad. He reached out his palm and touched something round and hard—a pillar, he guessed—thicker in girth than an oak tree.

Without light, he felt totally lost.

“Jack. Wait, please. I’m not going to harm you.”

From behind him came the sound of someone stumbling over rocks. He looked back and saw a flash of light. Twenty yards away Lela was clambering over the rubble, clutching a lamp in one hand, her pistol in the other.

Jack froze. He could thrash on in darkness and get himself lost or hurt or both. Lela had a lamp. She also had a weapon. He needed her.

She reached him and caught her breath. “Are you crazy, going on alone?”

“No arguments, Lela, not now. I’ve got to find Yasmin and I’m losing time. If you want to stop me, you’re going to have to use that gun.” Jack peered ahead but the light from Nidal’s lamp had disappeared.

Lela put away her Sig, brushed her hand across Jack’s forehead, and showed him her crimson-stained fingers. “Do you know you’ve got a gash on your scalp? If you keep rushing ahead unarmed, all you’ll do is earn yourself a slab in the mortuary.”

They locked eyes and Jack said, “What would you suggest? That I borrow your lamp and gun?”

“Very smart. You’ve probably never used a firearm.”

“Who are you kidding? That’s a Sig nine-mil you’re carrying. I was plinking cans with a twenty-two on my grandfather’s farm when I was twelve. But I’m confused. How does an Israeli police officer go armed in a foreign country? Isn’t that against the law?”

Lela reached for her Sig again as she stepped past him and moved ahead, swinging the light. “Explanations later. Be careful where you walk, this ground’s treacherous. If anything happens that causes me to drop my pistol, find it fast and use it if you have to, okay?”

“Now you’re talking.”

85

Sixty feet on, Lela pointed to a trail of crimson splashes on the rubble. She knelt, touched one of the splashes, and withdrew her fingertip, red and wet. “It seems Ari hit someone.”

“Your cop friend?” Jack’s mouth tightened with fury. “What if it’s Yasmin?”

“Don’t blame me. And he’s not a cop, he’s Mossad.”

“Mossad?”

“Like I said, explanations later. Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Lela cocked an ear. “It sounded like rumbling. From somewhere up ahead.”

They came to a winding metal staircase. The blood trail curved up the steps. Lela kept her gun aimed upward as she climbed the creaking metal, Jack behind her. At the top they found themselves in another passageway. This time the ground was smooth, no rubble in sight. Splashes of blood spotted the way every few feet.

“They went this way.” Lela pressed on and stayed in front. “I need to know what happened to the scroll, Jack.”

“Why does everyone assume I know where it is?”

“Who’s everyone?”

“You. The two guys who abducted Yasmin.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know that either. But I have a feeling they may be connected to a very unpleasant Syrian I met recently.”

“Where?”

“At a monastery.”

“You mean in Maloula?”

Jack stared at her, incredulous “How did you know. . .?”

“Later,” Lela answered simply.

“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

“All in good time. Go on.”

“That’s all I can tell you. I don’t even know why you’re in Rome, except maybe to arrest me for something I didn’t do. I keep asking myself how the heck I got mixed up in this nightmare. Maybe I should have picked a less dangerous career. Like land-mine disposal.”

Lela put a hand on his arm, her brown eyes searching his face. “Are you telling me the truth about the scroll, Jack? You didn’t steal it from Green?”

“No, I sure didn’t.” Jack met her stare and felt the spark of attraction again.

Lela seemed conscious of it too but a second later she peered ahead and broke the spell. “The blood trail’s gone.”