The Bible of Clay (62 page)

"Right now, nobody. Baghdad is a city at war: The winners haven't taken control yet and the losers still haven't completely given up, although a lot of Iraqis have taken to the streets to welcome the Americans. In situations like this, it's hard to tell what's happening— confusion is the only constant," Miranda explained.

"Are the borders open?" asked Clara.

"I don't know, but I'd guess not. I'll bet there are lots of Iraqis trying to flee to neighboring countries."

"And you—how long will you be staying in Iraq?" Clara asked Miranda.

"Until my boss pulls me out. When this stops being news, I'll be out of here—but whether it's a week or a month, I couldn't say."

The long conversation consisted of one lie after another. Gian Maria knew he hadn't convinced Ante that he knew nothing of Clara's whereabouts. He told Plaskic he could have a look at the room, mistakenly thinking that would satisfy him.

"Don't you dunk the time has come for us to get out of here?" Ante had asked.

"Easier said than done," the priest had answered. "First they'll have to reestablish transportation—the roads have been bombed and no traffic is allowed to cross the borders—and then, finding a car to take us out
...
I don't know, I think it's too soon. It's still dangerous to be out on the streets, much less the highways."

"Let's ask Miranda," Ante had insisted. "I heard some of the reporters saying that as soon as the Americans declare victory, they'll be out of here."

"I guess we could get a lift with them, although I may stay behind to give a hand with the reconstruction—people are going to need all the help they can get. The wreckage everywhere, the families that have been destroyed, the children who have lost their parents, innocent men and women wounded . . . I'm a priest, Ante, and I'm needed here," Gian Maria had replied, trying to justify his reluctance to leave.

On May 1, the coalition forces declared an end to the war and a coalition victory. Baghdad was in chaos, and the Iraqis were bemoaning the widespread and devastating destruction the foreigners had unleashed. The National Museum had been looted, as had almost every museum in Iraq, and many Iraqis felt that their national pride had been violated.

Ahmed Husseini was overcome with guilt. Ayed Sahadi had told him that the stolen pieces were already outside Iraq, in safe locations, and that soon both of them would be immensely wealthy. All they had to do was wait for their contact. Paul Dukais had it all planned out— one of his men would come for them, carrying the necessary permits allowing for their timely exit, and nobody would ask any embarrassing questions.

But before he left Iraq, Ayed Sahadi was going to do everything in his power to earn the money Clara had promised him. He hadn't gone back to the hotel for her, knowing she'd be safer there than with him, especially considering that the Colonel had eyes and ears everywhere. He had run an unnecessary risk the night he'd gone to the hotel, so he had decided to leave her there until the situation cooled. He knew that the Colonel was safely out of the country by now, across the border into Kuwait. With a new passport he'd begun his life under a new identity, as an ordinary citizen living in a luxury hotel near Cairo. Now might be the time. . . .

When Ayed entered the lobby of the Hotel Palestina, he saw Miranda with a group of other reporters, arguing heatedly with three American officers. He waited for her to step away from the group before he approached her.

"Miranda . . ."

"Ayed! God, I thought you'd disappeared forever. Your friends have missed you."

"I imagine, but if I'd come to see them any earlier, I'd have put their lives in danger. And I knew they were in good hands with you and Gian Maria."

"Great. So you're one of those people who leave others to do the dirty work?" Miranda shot back resentfully, causing Ayed to burst out laughing.

"Well, thank you, Miranda. Now, where are they?" "Holed up in my room again. That Croatian is searching madly for Clara, certain that she's in the hotel."

"Don't worry—I'm here to take them off your hands." "And where are they going, if I may ask?"

"First to Jordan, then to Egypt. Clara has a lovely house in Cairo, and her grandfather's fortune is waiting for her there—didn't she tell you?"

"And how are you getting to Jordan?" "Some friends are taking us." "What about Gian Maria?"

Ayed shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows to signal his absolute indifference to the fate of the young priest. He had no intention of dragging him along. That wasn't part of the deal he'd made with Clara. As far as he was concerned, the priest was on his own.

Miranda took Ayed straight up to her room—she wanted to get rid of Clara as soon as possible.

Clara listened to Ayed's explanations in silence.

"I'll see that nothing happens to you," he assured her.

"If it does, you won't collect a penny," she warned him.

"I know."

"I want to go with you," Gian Maria interrupted.

Clara looked at Ayed and preempted any response. "He's coming with us. He's part of the deal."

"I'll have to charge more—and I can't guarantee that my men will be willing to take on another passenger."

"He comes with me," Clara said flatly.

"And what about your friend Ante Plaskic?" Miranda asked. "Say good-bye for us," Ayed told her. "Very funny," Miranda snapped.

No one seemed to notice Ayed Sahadi and the two Shiite women veiled in black leaving the hotel. But neither Ayed nor the two women spotted Ante Plaskic watching them from a corner of the lobby.

The Croatian saw at once that Clara was clutching a bag tightly to her side—inside which, he was certain, was the Bible of Clay. All he had

to do was follow her and take the tablets—the easy way or the hard way. He figured that would mean killing Ayed, but that was a detail he could live with. And then there came the priest, tagging along behind. Another collateral casualty, but war was war. . . .

And then his plans turned to shit. The two men and two women got into a car that screeched away and disappeared into the chaos of the city. He'd lost Clara again, and now he'd have to hunt her down outside Iraq. But he knew where to go. Sooner or later she'd meet with Yves Picot. It was just a matter of beating her to him.

Lion Doyle had reached the same conclusion long before. Lion, too, intended to finish his mission and eliminate Clara Tannenberg. Professor Picot would lead him to her.

52

rome was as beautiful as He'd remembered. gian maria

shook his head and wondered how he'd managed to live so far from this glorious city for so many hot, dry, dangerous months. He realized how dearly he'd missed his peaceable routines— the prayers at dawn, the quiet reading in the evening.

He entered the clinic and walked down the hall to his father's office. Maria, Dr. Carlo Cipriani's secretary, greeted him warmly. "Gian Maria! How wonderful to see you!"
"Grazie,
Maria."

"Go right in, please. Your father is alone—he didn't tell me you were coming."

"He doesn't know—it's a surprise." He put his finger to his Hps and smiled.

He knocked softly at the door of his father's inner office, then turned the doorknob and entered.

Carlo Cipriani froze when he saw his son. He stood up, but found himself unable to speak. Gian Maria just looked at him, unblinking, standing in the middle of the office. His father saw that he was thinner, his skin tanned by the wind and sun. He no longer looked the frail, studious boy he'd always been; he was a man now, a different man, who was clearly taking the measure of his father.

"Figlio mio!"
the old man exclaimed almost shyly, going to his son and taking him in his arms.

To Carlo's relief, the priest responded to his embrace.

"Sit down, sit down, I'll call your brother and sister. Antonino and Lara have been very worried about you. Your superior has given us very little news, my son. Only that you were well, but he refused to tell us where you were. Why did you go
away, figlio mio}"

"To keep you from committing murder, Papa."

At those words, Carlo Cipriani felt the weight of his entire life upon his shoulders—his legs almost failed him, as though he had aged twenty years in that instant, and he lowered himself with difficulty into the chair.

"You know who I am, you know who I was. I have never hidden that from any of my children. How can you judge me? I went to ask your forgiveness and understanding, and God's forgiveness as well."

"Alfred Tannenberg is dead, Papa—murdered. But I suppose you already know that."

"I know, I know, and don't ask me to . . ."

"To ask forgiveness? Didn't you go to confession to ask forgiveness for that sin, that crime? You cannot imagine what I've been through to try to ease that burden on my conscience, but I have failed. I assure you that I would have given my life in order to prevent you from committing this mortal sin."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the pain and trouble I caused you, my son, but I do not think that God will condemn me for having . . . for having facilitated the death of that monster."

"Even the life of a monster belongs to God, Papa, and only he can take it."

"I see you have not forgiven me." "Do you truly repent for what you've done, Papa?" "No." Carlo Cipriani's voice was once again strong and fall of conviction, without a hint of doubt, as he looked straight into his son's eyes. "And what have you gained by this, Papa?"

"I have gained justice, the justice that was denied us when we were helpless children, when that monster ordered us to beat our own mothers, as though they were mules, beasts of burden! I watched my mother die, then my sister, as unable to stop it as you were unable to prevent Alfred's death. Because of him you will never know your grandmother or your aunt. You are not one to judge me."

"I am just a priest and a son, and I love you, Papa."

Gian Maria bent over his father and took him in his arms again, as tears came to both men's eyes.

"Where have you been, my son?"

"In Iraq, in a little village called Safran, fearing for the life of Alfred's granddaughter, Clara. Is she also to pay for the death of your mother and sister?" Gian Maria asked solemnly, stepping away from his father.

The old doctor didn't answer. He got up out of the chair and turned his back, beginning to pace the office, not looking at his son.

"She is innocent; she's done nothing to any of you," the younger man pleaded.

"Gian Maria, you don't understand. You're a priest; I'm just a man, perhaps the worst of men in your eyes, but don't judge
me,figlio mw,
just forgive me."

"Whom are you asking to forgive you, the priest or the son?"

"Both, my son, both."

"Where is Clara?" Enrique asked.

It irritated George Wagner that even over the secure phone connection, static broke up Enrique's voice. But everything irritated him now—his complications were mounting.

"In Paris, with Professor Picot," Wagner answered. "But don't worry, I've just talked to Paul Dukais, and he's got a man in. He assures me we'll have the tablets soon."

"He should have gotten them sooner," Enrique complained from the quiet shadows of his house in Seville.

"Yes, he should have, and I told Dukais not to pay him if he doesn't deliver. But apparently the contractor has just come back from Iraq and has rekindled his relationship with Picot, so he knows exactly where the tablets are."

"We should put together a group," Enrique suggested.

"That's what Frankie said. We will, in due time. From what we can tell, Picot wants to mount a public exhibition with all the artifacts they found in Safran, including the Bible of Clay. But they've locked it away in a safety-deposit box in a bank, where it will remain until the exhibition is ready. We just have to wait. Until then, Dukais' man can still be useful to us, since he's part of the group that worked with Picot in Iraq—he can tell us what Clara and Picot are up to."

"What about the husband?"

"Ahmed?
We
told him not to lose sight of Clara, but they've separated and filed for divorce. Clara doesn't want anything to do with him—she knows he's working for us. So I don't know whether he can help. Or if he ever
was
of any help."

"Christ, George, Ahmed has been incredibly useful to us. If it hadn't been for him, the operation to sack the museums could never have succeeded."

"Alfred planned it," George replied softly.

"True. But Ahmed took it the rest of the way, with the help of the Colonel, so let's give recognition where recognition's due, eh?"

"Don't worry. He'll receive his share. But now, my friend, the first priority is getting our hands on the Bible of Clay. I have a very special buyer, a man who's willing to pay millions for it."

"Let's be prudent, George; it would be crazy to put it on the market so soon."

"We'll wait long enough, but the person who wants the Bible of Clay has no intention, I assure you, of exhibiting it."

"Have your people at the foundation inventoried the merchandise?" Enrique asked.

"They're doing that right now. Ahmed's helping them."

"I need you to help me with the merchandise on this end too."

"I know—so does Frankie. Don't worry, I've let Robert Brown and Ralph Barry know; they'll take care of it. But if you want to get started, Ahmed can come to Seville."

"What do we do with Clara?"

"She's not making any waves for the moment, aside from not cooperating with us. If she stays out of our way and keeps quiet, I don't give a damn about her. If she starts to make trouble, she goes the way of her grandfather."

"Agreed, my friend."

Yves Picot was listening in silence to the voice on the other end of the line, a voice that seemed to be in no hurry to finish what it was saying. It had been over ten minutes since Picot had uttered a word. When he finally hung up, he gave a sigh of relief. Clara had been pressuring him to mount the exhibition as soon as possible, ignoring the mountains of paperwork and the myriad difficulties involved in putting together an exhibition of this magnitude. Clara Tannenberg, in fact, had insisted that they weren't working fast enough. The artifacts were packed and crated, Lion Doyle's photographs were ready, all the archaeologists who'd taken part in the excavation had written articles on the aspects of the work that they had overseen and the objects they'd found. And as though that weren't enough, there was the Bible of Clay itself. Clara wanted to show the world those tablets, which seemed to be burning a hole in their packaging, since their chances of "misplacement" increased with every passing day, even from the safety-deposit box in the Swiss bank.

So Clara would hear nothing of a break from their months-long labor, and ever since she'd shown up in Paris she'd been hounding them. Every day another phone call.

Thank goodness, Picot thought, that Marta Gomez was as efficient in the art gallery as she was on the dig. And a pleasure to work with besides. Although she shared Clara's burning desire to mount the exhibition, she wasn't blind to the realities of the enterprise. Within mere weeks, Marta had mobilized foundations and universities in search of support funds. Picot, too, had done his part, calling influential friends in academia and finance to tempt them with the news that the exhibition was going to make public a truly revolutionary discovery.

From what Fabian had just told him, Marta had finalized arrangements for the exhibit's first venue, the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. Picot himself would have preferred it to be in Paris, in the Louvre, but scheduling conflicts had made that impossible for several months, so Madrid it would have to be.

Fabian also told him that a Spanish banking house and two large corporations had agreed to finance the exhibit's first stop. And that didn't even take into account the upper echelons of the Universidad Complutense in Madrid; the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture had been very enthusiastic about the show as well. It was a great opportunity for Madrid—the first European city to host the exhibit. Then it would move on to Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, London, and, last, New York.

He was going to call Clara with the good news, although he was almost certain Marta had already done so. The two women seemed to have grown closer through their dedication to seeing this exhibit up and running.

The four old friends had met in Berlin. After his recent travels, Hans Hausser had asked to meet near his home; in the last few days he hadn't been feeling too well. When Mercedes saw him, she was worried—he'd grown so thin, and his face had a sickly pallor.

"I went to London, as we discussed, to see Tom Martin. I told him that we were not going to pay the last installment until the job was finished. I'd already told him that on the phone, but in person there can be no misunderstanding."

"And what did he say?" Mercedes asked.

"He said the price had gone up because it had taken his man longer than expected to do the job—the difficulties had been greater than they'd imagined. But I made it perfectly clear that not only were we not going to pay more—not a euro more, I told him—if he didn't keep his end of the contract, but that we'd pay only a portion of it if his man doesn't complete the job.
We
went back and forth, but we finally reached an agreement. If his man solves the problem within the next few days, he'll get the full fee plus a bonus; if it takes longer, they'll get the original price."

"Where is Clara Tannenberg?" Bruno wanted to know.

"Until a few days ago she was in Paris," Hans told them, "but now she's in Madrid, organizing an exhibit to showcase the artifacts she uncovered in a temple in Iraq. Apparently, she'd been excavating there for several months with a team of archaeologists from all over Europe. I honestly don't know how they did it, given the situation there."

Carlo Cipriani looked sad and withdrawn; he barely said a word, and seemed to stare into space, without really seeing his friends.

"What's on your mind, Carlo?" Hans asked him.

"Nothing. . . I've wanted to tell you all that Gian Maria is back.
...
I just can't believe it. . . . I've been thinking that we ought to let Clara go. Her death would not rest easy on my conscience. Alfred Tannenberg is dead; we've kept our vow."

"I'm happy to hear about Gian Maria, but no," said Mercedes. "We are going to see this out.
We
swore that we would kill him and all his descendants. Clara Tannenberg is his only living relative, the last Tannenberg, and she must die."

Bruno Miiller and Hans Hausser lowered their heads, knowing that no one would ever convince Mercedes to settle for anything but total revenge, as she saw it.

"We'll do it—we'll go through with it, but I understand what Carlo is saying. The girl is innocent—" Hans finally murmured.

"Innocent?" Mercedes repeated the word incredulously. "Innocent? My mother was innocent, and yours, and our brothers and sisters. Every one of us in that camp was innocent. No, she's not innocent, she's that monster's legacy. If you people are going to back out now . . . tell me . . . because I'm going ahead with this, even if I have to do it alone."

"Please, Mercedes, let's not argue! We'll do what we vowed to do, but Carlo's concern seems to me worth taking into account," Bruno said, trying to forestall her spiraling fury.

"Clara Tannenberg will die, whether you people like it or not, I assure you," Mercedes said flatly. "I will not discuss it further."

Under the watchful eye of one of the security guards in the Archaeological Museum, Ante Plaskic was lifting the newly published books out of boxes and placing them carefully on the empty shelves.

It struck him that Yves Picot was a sentimental guy: The Frenchman had argued with Clara that it wouldn't be fair to exclude Ante or any of the others who'd been part of the team in Safran. Marta Gomez had agreed.

So for two weeks Ante had been in Madrid doing a little of everything. Picot had put him under Marta's supervision, and Marta had been as trusting as Picot. They both believed his story: He just wanted to be a part of this historic exhibit.

Fabian and Marta had managed to piece together a catalogue in record time—a two-hundred-page book detailing the temple in Safran. Picot was optimistic that sales would be considerable.