Secret of the Scroll (Greg McKenzie Mysteries) (18 page)

Once outside, I ran toward my Jeep. Jill had to have been in that vehicle with Nagy.

Chapter
23

I found Ted talking on his cell phone.

I jerked open the door. “Nagy is dead!”

Ted shut off his phone. “I know. That was the dispatcher at THP. Nagy was in the panel truck with the stolen
Nevada
plate.”

I felt my eyes stinging as I climbed in and sat down. The voice that came out hardly sounded like my own. “What about Jill?”

“There were two fatalities–both male, both badly burned. No mention of a woman.”

I closed my eyes and laid my head back against the seat, uttering a brief prayer of thanks. But the relief was only temporary. “Was it a bad wreck?”

“Bad enough. They found the truck rammed into a tree on a back street near Radnor Yards.”

“Anybody see it happen?”

“No. There were no houses in the area, only the railroad yards.”

“It must not be far from where you lost them at
Harding Place
.”

“Right. The police are just starting to look into it and they aren’t real sure what happened. They’ve got fire investigators at the scene. THP said the wreck wasn’t severe enough to have caused much personal injury. What do you suppose happened to Jill?”

“Maybe she somehow managed to escape.”

“Wouldn’t she have called you?”

I closed my eyes again. Then it hit me.

“My cell phone is turned off.”

I grabbed the phone and punched the power button. There were two voice mail messages. The first one was from Eli Zalman, the
Temple
Alliance
guy. He left a number to call, said it was urgent. The second was from Wolfson.

“This is David,” he said. “I’ve hardly had time to go to the john, but I ran the codes program. I thought it might somehow help find whoever killed J. Q. You won’t believe what I found. If you still have the scroll, don’t let those
Temple
Alliance
creeps get their hands on it. Call me and I’ll explain. But do not
–repeat, do not–
under any circumstances, give them that scroll.”

I wondered what the devil he had found, but Jill’s fate was still a big void.

“No word, huh?” Ted said.

I shook my head. “None from Jill. But the
Temple
Alliance
guy wants me to call right away, and David Wolfson says keep my distance from him.”

“Why?”

I repeated what David had said.

“I wonder what got him so worked up? Are you going to call Zalman?”

“I probably should, but I’d sure like to talk to David first.”

“If Zalman and Lipkowitz are ex-Mossad, they’re bound to be pretty sharp people. Maybe they could help you track down Jill.”

That was a possibility. From what limited contact I had had with Mossad operatives, I knew them to be top-notch intelligence agents. But they could also be brutally ruthless, and Ted’s FBI source believed Zalman had been involved in Israeli assassination missions.

“I’m not sure how much to trust them.”

“What have you got to lose, Boss? We’re about back to square one.”

“True.”

We looked around as Pat Intermaggio streaked past in his Lincoln Town Car, headed out of the Star Express lot. “Let’s get out of here,” Ted said, “go pick up my car.”

I parked beside Ted’s Mercury. He went into the market to get us a couple of cappuccinos, one of Jill’s favorite picker-uppers, and that thought put urgency into my actions. I dialed Wolfson’s office, only to be told he had gone to a client meeting which would last the rest of the afternoon.

What should I do about Zalman? I wondered. I was not ready to put my trust in him, but I decided calling him might shed light on David’s curious message.

I punched in the number Zalman had left and he answered immediately.

“Thank you for returning my call,” he said. “Did you give Kamal Nazari the scroll?” He sounded like a man in a hurry.

“No.” I didn’t volunteer anything further.

“You did meet with him though.”

He made it a statement. Was he bluffing, or had he tracked down Nazari and followed him to Cool Springs?

“Were you there?”

“I have my sources,” he said.

“Then they must have told you Nazari tried to lure me into a trap. I tried to catch him but he got away. I dropped a decoy can, similar to the one the scroll came in. One of his people picked it up.”

“I’m impressed.”

“In case you haven’t heard, Nazari is dead.”

“Really? Where did you hear that?”

“From the Metro Police, as well as the Tennessee Highway Patrol. He and a companion were killed. Their truck hit a tree. It burned up.”

“And your wife?”

“My wife was in there when I last saw them at Cool Springs. Now she’s missing.”

His voice softened. “At least there’s a chance she’s alive. Perhaps she escaped and is now in hiding, trying to get in touch with you.”

“Not likely. She could have gotten to me the same way you did.”

“I see. But you do still have the document?”

“I do.”

“It was stolen from us, you know. We are authorized to compensate you well for your trouble. But we need to get it immediately. Time is of the essence.”

What was the hurry? If it had been stolen from the
Temple
Alliance
, surely they would have decoded its contents already. And Nazari had claimed the scroll belonged to his people.

“Are you aware of the message it contains?” I asked.

“How do you know this?”

A new note in his voice.

“That piece of parchment has caused me no end of trouble,” I said. “I’ve been checking into it.”

“We will take it off your hands,” Zalman said. “How quickly can we meet?”

“Where?” I asked.

“How long would it take you to get near the airport?”

I glanced at my watch. It was about
two o’clock
.
Nashville
International
Airport
was only a few miles away on I-40. “Ten minutes, more or less.”

“Good. Bring the document. Use the Jeep Cherokee.”

He must have had a dossier on me. And that made me even more wary. “My friend Ted, who you talked with this morning, will be with me,” I said. “We will be in his car. It’s a black Mercury with a
Coffee
County
plate.”

Zalman did not sound too happy with that news, but he instructed me to come out I-40 and turn left on Donelson Pike, going away from the airport entrance. “Not far past McDonald’s you will see a small jewelry store on the right with a large diamond stone on the sign,” he said. “The name is Golan Jewelers.”

“As in
Golan Heights
?”

“Correct. Come inside and ask for Mr. Benjamin. And for your own good, hurry.”

He hung up.

For my own good?

Ted walked up to the driver’s side, gingerly carrying
two twenty
-ounce cups, just as I put down the phone. I lowered the window to take my cappuccino. The rain had stopped, but it was still cold and damp. I lit a cigarette to go with my drink. I watched the windshield steam up from the cappuccino.

“Zalman wants me to bring the scroll to a shop on Donelson Pike,” I said.

“Did he agree to help find Jill?”

“I didn’t ask. Frankly, I’m not too happy with the whole deal.”

I related the conversation with the Israeli.

Ted shrugged. “But you did say we would come out there in my car. So let’s go and see what happens.”

“Okay,” I said. “But I’m not taking the scroll. I have a friend from church who runs a machine shop near here. Follow me. I’ll park my Jeep at his place, then we’ll go meet the Israeli.”

“Okay.”

The sky still had a brooding look, not one Jill would have enjoyed flying through. I parked at the rear of my friend’s building, where the Jeep could not be seen from the street. After sticking my head in to tell him I would be back for it soon, I climbed into Ted’s car with my cappuccino cup and we struck out toward I-40. The mid-afternoon traffic was light, except for the semis. We reached the Donelson Pike exit, just past the airport cutoff, at around
2:15
. That
four o’clock
deadline was closing in. It was getting likely that I would need the help of the Metro Police Department. But I dreaded the thought of facing Detective Phillip Adamson and having to confess what had been taking place.

We found the jewelry shop in a small strip center and parked out front. A dumpy, white-haired man with thick glasses greeted us from behind a showcase filled with rings and bracelets. “Can I help you?”

“We’re looking for Mr. Benjamin,” I said.

He nodded, opened a door at the rear of the showroom and pointed down a narrow hallway covered with dark paneling. “Last door on the right.”

I hadn’t really thought about my safety until now, but I reached around to feel the reassuring bulk of the Beretta. I glanced at Ted. “Ready?”

He nodded.

The door was painted solid black. I knocked and waited. It was opened by a dark-haired man I judged to be in his late thirties. He had heavy brows and penetrating gray eyes. Dressed casually, he had the physique of a professional athlete.

He held out his hand. “Eli Zalman, Mr. McKenzie. Come in.”

I watched his eyes search me and harden.

I stepped inside. “This is Ted Kennerly, Mr. Zalman. A colleague of mine.”

“Does he have the document?”

“It’s in a safe place,” I said.

“I told you we had little time,” he said. His mouth twitched.

“We have enough time for you to tell me a bit more about yourself and about Kamal Nazari and his group.” I glanced at the tall, muscular man who stood silently at the back of the room, leaning against a wall. “I presume this is Mr. Lipkowitz.”

“Yes,” Zalman replied.

Lipkowitz nodded. He had a long, angular face and dark cold eyes. He reminded me of a sleek black panther I had once seen at the St. Louis Zoo.

We were in a workroom with a counter on one side that held a supply of stationery and envelopes, a postage meter and other office paraphernalia. A large copy machine stood beside it. Faded walls. There was a table, several chairs.

Zalman motioned to the chairs. “Have a seat, if we must. But we have little time.”

Could he know about Detective Adamson? I wondered. We took our seats like players at a Friday night poker party, Zalman on my right.

“Tell me about the scroll,” I said.

“It was taken from us by the Guardians of Palestine, a shadowy militant group cast in the same mold as Hezbollah. They have contacts in southern
Lebanon
as well as
Syria
and
Jordan
. And, of course, here in the
U.S.A.
It was one of their people who ‘sold’ you the fake Dead Sea Scroll in Old Jaffa.”

“How did you find out about it?”

“We have excellent contacts, including Mossad and Shin Bet. They discovered a worker at Middle East Tours had turned over the list of your tour group to her brother, a Guardians leader. This man contacted Nazari, who checked out the names and selected you to be their courier. They wanted to get the document out of the country because they knew nothing of the kabbalist codes and didn’t trust giving it to anyone inside
Israel
.”

“So they were sending it to one of their trusted agents over here.”

“Correct.”

Just as I thought. But from the way Zalman was acting, his people hadn’t broken the code, either. And considering that David Wolfson had decoded it easily, that would likely mean the
Temple
Alliance
had never actually possessed the scroll.

“How were you able to get to
Nashville
so quickly after we got back?” I asked.

“Our friends located the souvenir seller and interrogated him. By the time they had all the necessary information, however, you were on your way home. We were dispatched immediately.”

“Nazari must have received a warning that you were headed his way.”

“I’m sure his Guardians contact learned of our departure.” He glanced at his watch. “Will you bring our document to us now?”

“That depends on whether it
is
your document,” I said.

“Of course it is. I told you it was stolen from us.”

“What is your connection to the
Temple
Alliance
?”