The Columbus Affair

“Señor Simon, we have problem.”

He listened to the report of a black man named Béne Rowe and a white man named Halliburton, there to view the archives. He was glad that the curator had followed directions. He was to be immediately informed of anyone who inquired about the archives. His grandfather had first found them, and his father had shielded them with a contribution that created a local museum. A way for the Jews of Cuba to establish themselves with something important, and it had worked.

“What do I do?” Mateo asked.

“Let them see what they want. I will call you back shortly.”

———

ALLE LEFT THE APARTMENT BUILDING AND WALKED FAR ENOUGH away that she could be assured of being alone. Why couldn’t her father have simply turned over whatever her grandfather had left? She hadn’t asked for heroics. She hadn’t asked for his involvement. This was about righting a wrong that had occurred thousands of years ago. Not repairing an irreparable relationship. Or him trying, for once in his sorry life, to do the right thing.

She was new to her religion, but not to the Jewish way of life. She’d watched her grandparents live that way and wanted to emulate their devotion. If she could also help restore what so many had held sacred for so long, then so much the better.

But she wondered.

Why had her grandfather not wanted the same? Why keep the Temple treasure secret? Why not tell her? Was it because of those people Zachariah had warned her about?

All she knew was that she could not deal with her father.

So she found the cell phone in her pocket and dialed the first number stored in its memory.

———

BÉNE DID NOT LIKE ANYTHING ABOUT THE SITUATION. OF course, he could not say a word to Halliburton since his apprehensions would generate questions he did not want to answer. The curator had returned from his phone call all smiles and led them to a windowless room lined with wooden shelves and plastic bins, each packed with journals, ledgers, and parchments. There was a loose order to the system, the containers identified by time and place. Tre had not been impressed with the preservation efforts, but seemed excited about the content.

“There are four bins loaded with 17th-century writings. That’s the most I’ve ever seen in one place.”

“Be quick and go through them.”

“This could take hours.”

“We don’t have hours. Scan what you can.”

“Something wrong, Béne?”

“Yeah, Tre. This is Cuba. So be quick.”

———

TOM SAT IN THE KITCHEN AND CHEWED ON A PIECE OF DARK bread. Inna had prepared some stewed tomatoes and white rice that smelled great, but he had no appetite.

“I’ve written books the past few years,” he told her. “Ghostwriting. Some fiction, some nonfiction. They’ve all been bestsellers. A few were number ones.”

He was answering her question about what he’d done since the turmoil.

“I’m good at it, and the writers I worked for want me to be completely invisible.”

She was nursing a cup of coffee and a plate of her food. “You were always good at what you did.”

He liked this practical woman. So he decided to tell her the truth.

“I was set up, Inna. That story about Israeli extremists was planted. I was led to it, fed it, then ratted out. They faked the main sources and most of the information. They were good. I never suspected a thing. Everything was right on. Solid. I never saw it coming.”

“Who did it?”

“Some group who does that sort of thing. Seems I pissed off both sides in the Middle East with my reporting. So, unbeknownst to each other, they each took me out.”

“No way to prove what happened?”

He shook his head. “Like I said, they were good.”

“I always knew there was an explanation. Thomas Sagan was no liar.”

He appreciated her loyalty.

“No one stuck by you, Thomas?”

He thought of Robin Stubbs. She had. For a while.

“The evidence was overwhelming and I had no explanation other than I didn’t do it. It was the perfect setup. Not a loose end to be found. I never knew who did it to me till over a year later.”

He told her about that Saturday morning in the Barnes & Noble bookstore, the first time he’d ever spoken of that day to anyone.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again.

“So am I.”

“Your daughter is a problem.”

He chuckled. “What gave you that impression?”

“She has no idea what she’s doing, but thinks she knows it all.”

“I was a lot like her when I was twenty-five. I was married by then and thought I could do no wrong.”

“Why did you let her leave?”

“She’ll be back.”

He saw the curious look on Inna’s face, which dissolved into understanding. “You think Simon sent her?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. They spoke to each other in the church like old friends. She wanted to go with him, until he sold her out.”

And he wondered if that had been part of the act, too.

“When Alle found you in the catacombs, was she running or walking?”

“Walking. Why?”

“She calm?”

Inna nodded.

“We were being shot at. She ran away. But then she just walks right up to you, a stranger, and waits for me?”

He saw she grasped his point.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked.

He reached for another piece of bread. “I have no choice.” He then found a folded piece of paper in his pocket and handed it to her. “That’s the full message I found in the grave.”

She read.

“I did an Internet search. That part where it says, ‘The golem now protects our secret in a place long sacred to Jews.’ And the name. Rabbi Berlinger. They connected with only one place in the world.”

“Prague.”

He was impressed.

“I know the tale of the golem,” she said. “It’s quite famous there. I’ve never heard of Berlinger, though.”

“He was head of the congregation for several decades. He could have known Abiram and Saki, my mother’s father, Marc Eden Cross. Berlinger is also still alive.”

“Strange how you call your father only by his name.”

“It’s how I think of him. Distant. A stranger. Now all I can see is his decaying face. I misjudged that old man, Inna. We both kept too damn much to ourselves.”

The room was quiet. Inna’s two children had left, visiting at a neighbor’s apartment. She’d already told him that he would spend the night here, on the sofa. Tomorrow they could retrieve his rental car. He was too fatigued to argue. Jet lag had caught up with him.

“This secret,” he said in a near whisper. “It’s time to expose it.”

“If not you, then Simon seems intent on doing it.”

“Which is all the more reason to find this Temple treasure first.”

He thought of Brian Jamison. “Why would American intelligence be interested in this? He said he worked for something called the Magellan Billet. Can you find out what that is?”

She nodded. “I have contacts in the American embassy.”

He was glad he’d called her. “There was a body in the catacombs. But something tells me it’s long gone. Still, someone should take a look.”

She nodded.

They sat for a few moments. He watched while she ate her tomatoes and rice.

“I’m going to Prague,” he said. “And I’ll take Alle with me.”

“That could lead to big trouble.”

“Probably so. But she’s my daughter, Inna, and that’s what I have to do.”

Inna smiled, then r

eached over and squeezed his hand. “Thomas, you sell yourself short. You are far more of a father than either your daughter or you even realize.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

ZACHARIAH LINGERED IN THE GARDENS AT SCHÖNBRUNN, HIS mind racing. He imagined the tranquil spot as it had been two hundred years ago, when Napoleon’s only son lived inside the palace. Or the Emperor Franz Joseph, who struggled here to hold the Austrian Empire together in the face of world war. Or 1918, when Charles I renounced his throne and left the palace for the last time, ending the monarchy.

But he cared nothing for Austrian history. For his people, this country had been nothing but an impediment. It had never cared for Jews, persecuting and slaughtering them throughout history by the tens of thousands. And though Austrians came to hate Hitler, it was not because he hated Jews. Few of the synagogues the Nazis razed had been rebuilt. Only a fraction of Jews who once lived here still remained. His family stayed, and weathered the storms. Why, he’d asked as a boy. Because it is our home.

The phone vibrated in his hand. This time the number displayed was familiar. His own.

Alle was calling.

He answered, “I hope you have good news.”

He listened as she told him what had happened with her father. He asked her to read to him what she’d been shown and realized it was the same thing Sagan had already provided.

Now he was convinced.

“He’s keeping the truth to himself. He showed you nothing new.”

“Maybe that’s all there is?”

“It cannot be. It is too incomplete.”

But he realized that Sagan definitely suspected his daughter.

“Alle, your father most likely thinks you are there as a spy. But he is still your father. He won’t reject you.”

“What should I do?”

He wanted to ask her about Brian Jamison and what was said between them, but thought better. Leave it alone. Instead he told her, “Go back. Keep your eyes and ears open. You said it yourself—the Americans are now involved. Brian was an agent. We cannot allow them to find what we seek. This is for us, Alle.”

He hoped the silence on the other end of the line meant she agreed with him.

“I’ll try,” she finally said. “Do you want to know where he is?”