The Book of Names (11 page)

Nothing surprises me anymore
, David thought as Yael picked up another card, the small laminated drawing he'd noticed earlier. She pointed to the interconnected molecules.

“This is the Tree of Life,” she told him. “The central framework of Kabbalah.”

“So that's what it is. I thought it was a drawing of molecules,” David admitted.

She shook her head, trying to hide a small smile. “It's
a symbolic tree, of course. Each of these ten circles—or
Sephirot
—represents an attribute of God, an attribute humans can emulate. Kabbalists meditate on them as stepping stones along their path to spiritual enlightenment. You know that I'm a scientist, too, David, not a mystic—but I'm in awe of the concepts, the mystery, and the beauty of what this tree represents.”

David glanced at the card, impatience beginning to chafe at him. The circles still looked like molecules. And he didn't see how any of this was tied in with protecting Stacy.

“But what does it have to do with the tarot? Or the Gnoseos?” he asked tautly.

“I don't know of a connection to the Gnoseos, but the tarot deck was patterned after the Tree of Life. A nineteenth-century French occultist named Eliphas Levi was the first to explore the similarities. It's like this—” Yael bit her lip, choosing her words carefully.

“In a nutshell, the Sephirot represent all of creation—past, present, and future. Imagine each of these circles, David, as a ‘vessel' filled with divine light or energy. The mystics say that God created the world from them—pouring such strong light into these ‘vessels' that they shattered into shards. The shards scattered, sprinkling that divine light throughout the universe to form the world.”

“The Big Bang?”

Yael narrowed her eyes. “Not exactly. May I go on?”

Her pained expression reminded him of his beleaguered third-grade teacher, Mrs. Karp. But Yael HarPaz was much prettier.

“Go on.” David flexed his shoulders. The tension in his neck was starting to get to him.

“Okay, the scattered shards,” Yael continued. “The mystics say that each of them was concealed by a shell which hid their light, and that our task as human beings is
to crack open those shells, to bring God's light into the world again.”

She pushed herself off the bed and began to pace once more. “Don't expect to understand much of this, David. Kabbalah is extremely complex. Believe me, my knowledge is superficial at best. It takes years of in-depth study just to scratch its surface. Which is why, in the past, it was always kept secret.”

“I guess the Kabbalists have something in common with the Gnoseos ” David mused.

“Secrecy, yes. Also an intense yearning for a divine connection.” She stopped pacing and turned toward him. “But the Kabbalists' views of the world and of humankind's purpose in it is radically different from the Gnoseos'. Kabalah teaches of the potential for creating light and goodness in the world. About our job as human beings to repair the world, not to destroy it.”

“Finally. Something I remember from Hebrew school—
tikkun olam.
The obligation to repair the world, to make it better.”

“Exactly.” Yael leaned a hip against the desk. “Here's another difference. The Gnoseos start teaching their children at a very early age that the material world is evil. Kabbalah, on the other hand, has traditionally been taught only to married men over forty who'd spent years studying the Torah.”

“That would have left Madonna out.”

Her lips quirked. “And a lot of others who've appropriated it as a pop religion. You can't separate Kabbalah from Judaism, from the study of Torah. They've always been intertwined.”

“Well, I'm not forty yet and I'm not married anymore, but I still want to know how this tree is connected to the tarot.”

“Patience isn't your strong suit, is it?”

“Not when my daughter is in danger.”

Yael shoved her fingers through her still-damp hair. “We're almost there.” She thrust the card into his hands.

“The ten Sephirot—the circles—represent levels of spirituality. The twenty-two interconnecting lines running between them are the paths Jewish mystics follow to elevate their spiritual consciousness.”

David rubbed his temples. A slight headache had begun to throb at the back of his skull. “Got it.”

“Okay—ten sephirot, twenty-two paths—and twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. There also happen to be twenty-two cards in the major arcana of the tarot. The number ten is important in the tarot deck, too—What's wrong?”

David was kneading his temples. He looked like he was in pain. “Are you okay?” she pressed, moving toward the bathroom to fill a glass with water.

David had the strongest impulse to close his eyes. This headache was consuming him. He forced himself to check his watch.

It was nearly time to meet Judd. Why hadn't he heard from Hutch? He saw Yael holding out a glass, looking at him with concern.

“Headache,” he muttered, then suddenly he stumbled from the bed. In two strides he reached his duffel and yanked out his journal.

Percy Gaspard.

Seizing a pen from the desk, he flipped frantically to the back section of the journal and scrawled the name in the next blank space.

“Percy Gaspard.” His voice was barely audible. Yael crossed to him and peered over his shoulder at the newest name in the journal as David scribbled the date after it.

“I'll call Avi, have him run it against those we've transcribed,” she said quickly. “He'll cross-reference it to see if he's still alive.”

Or dead. Or a current target. . .
David thought.

“While I'm at it,” Yael spoke with the phone to her ear, “I'm telling him to get going on your passport—in case your father's friend doesn't come through.”

David staggered to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. “We have to leave,” he muttered, returning to the room. He stuffed his journal inside the duffel, then scooped up the rabbi's belongings from the bed and threw those in, too.

“We're taking all this with us, just in case.” Pulling a deep breath, he grabbed the door handle. “Ready to face the deluge?”

Yael shrugged into her green silk jacket, barely dried. “Too bad Noah's not waiting outside with his ark.” She stepped briskly past him through the open door.

 

Judd Wanamaker looked like a country doctor. He was a sparse-haired, stout man with a neatly trimmed gray beard and a Santa Claus nose dominating his earnest face. David's father had always said that if Judd ever lost a bid for reelection, he'd have a great second career as a New York cabbie because he drove like a fiend with a death wish, had a million stories to tell, and never tired of sharing them.

“You have to order the
sanma shioyaki”
, Judd insisted the moment introductions were completed and they were seated in the private tatami room one floor above Yotsuba's main dining area. Yael settled against the curved wooden back of her floor mat plump with rice straw, and crossed her legs beneath the low table. She picked up the menu decorated with an embossed four leaf clover.

“Salt grilled jack mackerel. And they serve it with freshly grated daikon. The best I ever ate. Ted Kennedy introduced me to it five years ago and it was so fantastic I came back the next night for more.”

“Judd's always been as enthusiastic about food as he is
about politics,” David told Yael, as the waiter bent to set water glasses before them. “And about his wife.”

He turned back to his father's friend. “How
is
Aunt Katharine? Still raising more money than anyone else for the National Symphony?”

“Setting records even as we speak. I think fundraising is even more political than politics, and Katharine is a natural. You really should consider the mackerel,” he told Yael, setting aside his menu.

“I'm afraid that's a little too adventurous after the day we've had, Ambassador Wanamaker.” Yael offered a wan smile. “I think I'll stick with the
kitsune udon
.”

Judd regarded her sympathetically. “And what kind of a day was that, Ms. HarPaz, besides a very wet one?”

“A very harrowing one.”

She looked remarkably self-possessed, David thought, for a woman who'd arrived in the country only this morning, had seen a man murdered, been shot at, pursued, and was now dining with an American ambassador. He wondered what else she'd been through in her life that had given her such mettle.

“I think we should order first,” David suggested with a glance at the hovering waiter.

For the first time, concern entered Judd's eyes and he gave a nod.

Suddenly the lights dimmed, then powered back on. David felt his nerves tighten.

They settled on an array of appetizers and main courses, and only after the waiter exited, sliding the shoji doors closed behind him, did David's tension begin to ease. The brown-out hadn't been a harbinger of a power failure.

“I wouldn't involve you in this if it wasn't necessary,
Judd.” David cleared his throat. “But I need to leave the country tomorrow and my passport has turned up missing.”

“I see.” Judd searched David's face. “Business or pleasure?”

“Business.” The word came out more curtly than David had intended. Judd's eyes sharpened with concern.

“Sounds urgent.”

“I wouldn't impose on you if it wasn't.”

“It's not an imposition, David. I'm more than happy to help you. There'll be some paperwork involved, you'll need to meet me at the UN first thing in the morning, but it shouldn't be a problem getting you emergency clearance.”

“How long will it take?” Yael interjected, unwrapping the linen napkin that covered her chopsticks.

“I'll make a phone call after dinner and you should have it in your hands by noon.”

“Thank you, sir.” Filled with gratitude, David addressed him in the formal manner he'd been taught as a child. That made Judd grin.

“I daresay your father would have done the same for one of my brood.”

“How are Katie, Ashley, and Mark?” David asked as the waiter returned, setting down a wooden tray overflowing with an artistic array of sushi rolls and sashimi.

David took a bite of a California roll, but it could just as well have been Styrofoam. His appetite was nowhere to be found. Hoping Judd wouldn't notice, he moved the food around his plate with his chopsticks as they fell into an easy patter of conversation about family, careers, marriage. He saw Yael listening quietly as she picked at her bowl of wheat noodles and fried tofu, commenting occasionally, but for the most part observing.

Then Judd inquired about Stacy, triggering a sudden tense silence.

“I haven't spoken to her in a few days.” David tried to conceal his anxiety. “She's a bit rattled since Meredith remarried.”

Judd was no fool. He caught the flash of uneasiness clouding David's eyes for a brief millisecond before he regained control.

The furrows in Judd's brow deepened. “There's some trouble here, isn't there, David?” he asked quietly. “I can read you like my own children. Is Stacy ill?”

“No. She's fine,” he began, then as his chest filled with pain, he shook his head. “She's in danger, Judd. And there's a lot of it to go around.”

The ambassador set down his chopsticks and fixed David with the intent stare that had cowed many a witness in a congressional hearing. “What are you saying?”

“You don't want to know. I don't even understand it myself.”

“Try me. If there's something I can do, anything, you know I will.”

David and Yael exchanged glances. The tiny shrug of her shoulders freed him to follow his own instincts.

He looked directly into Judd's questioning face.

“Have you ever heard of a religious sect called the Gnoseos?”

 

Two hundred fifty miles outside of Santa Monica, and Stacy was still shivering. The dark night enfolded the open road, lit only by the distant flare of wildfires in the hills as the rented Jeep Grand Cherokee barreled east on 1-40 beneath the shadow of the Black Mountains.

Hutch glanced in the rearview minor. In the backseat, Meredith cradled her daughter in her arms. Stacy's sobs had subsided as they'd left city traffic behind and lost themselves in the hum of the highway. Now she was settled in against her mother, no longer jumping at every white minivan that sidled alongside them.

What kind of maniac went after this kid in her own backyard?
Hutch wondered.

Or was David the one they were after—was someone trying to get to him through his stepdaughter?

It was like some kind of weird déjà vu. How many years ago had he guarded David—and now this girl, who meant as much to David as if she'd been his own blood, needed his protection, too.