The Cana Mystery (8 page)

The crowd of real pilgrims, clad in full-length white robes, had just finished praying. Silently, they filed out of the chapel and into the courtyard. Many were strolling about the square, admiring the gardens or filling water bottles from the cistern. Paul smiled when he saw Ava approaching. She seemed quite proud of herself. Clearly, she was aching to tell him a funny story. Then he spotted something odd: A uniformed man was on the roof of the ancient monastery, crouched behind the parapet. He looked like one of Simon’s security guards. The man rammed a magazine into his assault rifle. Paul’s smile vanished.

“Ava, run!” he roared, vaulting the low wall and racing toward her. The guard raised his rifle and took aim. Ava was a perfect target, standing dead center in the courtyard, motionless, staring at Paul with an expression of bewilderment. She knew something was wrong but couldn’t see the danger. Sprinting, Paul flew across the cobblestones, legs fighting and straining for every last ounce of energy.

He’d played baseball all his life. He remembered his coach’s words: “Run straight through the base, son. Do not dive. Do not jump. You’re fastest if you run straight through the damn base. Trust me.”

Paul trusted his coach. He did not dive. He did not jump. He ran directly at Ava, who gaped at him. He kicked with all his might, forcing his body to the limit, and just as he heard the rifle’s report, he ran straight through, tackling her at full speed and wrapping his arms around her waist as he knocked her backward. The machine-gun burst missed by centimeters. Bullets pulverized the area where she’d stood a moment before. Paul felt something hot slice across his calf. It burned like a scorpion’s sting.

They crashed into a crowd of pilgrims, sending many sprawling. Ava hit the turf hard. Paul could see he’d knocked the wind out of her. He prayed he hadn’t broken any of her ribs, but there was no time to check. He gathered her in his arms and ran through the nearest doorway. Just behind him, a hail of bullets splintered the paving stones, spraying razor-edged shards in all directions. Pilgrims, wild with panic, rushed for the exits. A horrific bloodstain marred the ancient masonry, but Paul couldn’t discern who’d been hit. Then he saw two more gunmen fighting to clear a path through the terrified crowd. Only seconds remained.

“Paul, hurry, this way!” It was Father Bessarion, motioning toward a hallway that led deep into the monastery. Paul followed. He had no choice. In a second, the gunmen would have a clear shot. Bessarion led Paul down the hall and around a corner. Paul stopped to catch his breath.

“Ava,” he said, panting, “you okay?”

“Don’t . . . worry . . . about . . . me.” Ava struggled to speak. She was dazed, likely concussed, Paul thought, but she wasn’t bleeding.

Bessarion led them around another corner. From his pocket he produced a key in the shape of a traditional Coptic cross. He slid it into a hidden aperture and gave it a sharp twist. Paul heard a heavy lock spring, then a section of the wall wedged open.

“Go through here,” Bessarion commanded. “At the intersection, turn right. That path leads to the front entrance. I’ll try to delay them, but once you leave the monastery, you must make your own way.”

“I don’t know how to thank you, Father.”

“Go, quickly,” Bessarion urged, pushing Paul into the passage, “and remember, my son,
Gardez bien
! Protect what you found!” Then the monk heaved his weight against the door. With a bang, it slammed shut, and the lock dropped heavily into place.

Paul didn’t hesitate. Lifting the now unconscious Ava over his shoulder, he ran down the passage, turned right, and emerged from a concealed exit about a hundred meters from the front gate.

The bus was waiting. The bedouin had kept his promise. When the driver spotted them, he waved furiously, urging them to hurry. Paul shifted Ava’s weight across his shoulders and broke into a sprint. His lower leg was bleeding copiously. Ignoring the pain, he drove himself faster and faster. In the distance he heard gunshots. One assailant had taken up a firing position in the tower. Bullets rained down into the gravel.

“If he has a sniper rifle,” Paul thought, “we’re dead.” Luckily, the gunman didn’t, and at long range an AK-47 isn’t accurate. Paul threw himself inside the bus. The driver slammed the door shut as he stomped on the accelerator. The diesel engine rumbled to life. Slowly the monastery receded, but then Paul noticed two gunmen running toward a khaki-colored jeep.

“Damn! This overloaded old bus will never outrun that.” He should surrender now and offer to exchange the jars for Ava’s freedom.

The jeep remained immobile. It wouldn’t start! Laughing aloud, the bedouin driver shifted into high gear. The bus rumbled and thundered across the desert road, leaving mountains of dust in its wake.

Atop the monastery wall Father Bessarion watched the Americans escape. He heard angry shouts from the men kicking the jeep’s four flat tires and glanced at his grinning novices.

“You two have a sin to confess?”

“Forgive us, Father.”

Smiling, Bessarion gazed out across the sand toward the ever more distant dust cloud. “Farewell,” he whispered.

Chapter 6

6

P
ARIS, 1462

King Louis XI was pleased by the emissaries’ report. His young spy in the Vatican had served France ably.

“How did he corrupt the prophecy?” Louis asked his minister.

“Sire, the scribe deleted several stanzas and altered others. The true prophecy predicts failure for the pope’s crusade. It foretells that Pius shall fall in Ancona, bereft of allies, to rest in an unmarked grave. These fatal details we have, by our conspiracy, excluded.”

A smile flickered across the monarch’s features. “Was his Holiness deceived?”

“Yes, Majesty. We believe so. He ordered our version of the prophecy read aloud at Mantua. He dispatched couriers to the East and revised his strategy on the basis of the false predictions.”

“Good.” The king harbored much resentment against Pope Pius II. Upon taking the throne, Louis had withdrawn royal sanctions issued by his father, Charles VII. These sanctions had curtailed papal influence in France. In return, Louis had expected the pontiff to support French interests in Naples. “But I was betrayed,” the monarch thought angrily. “And for that, the Church will pay!”

“What else has been done?”

“Highness, we altered several lines of translation to suggest that if Pius II personally takes the cross, he can free Constantinople.”

“But the prophecy does not presage success against the Turks?”

“Just the opposite, sire. The prophecy foretells that Mehmed will survive a night attack and never convert to the True Faith. It says the sultan’s capital will not fall to Rome.”

The king trusted the prophecy. He maintained a number of acclaimed astrologers at court and relied on their prognostications.

So, Louis thought, the pope’s crusade is doomed. He will die in the East. Nothing, then, stands against me. I can break the power of the dukes and reunify France. A proud destiny! “Tell me,” the king asked his ambassador, “what does this prophecy augur for my reign?”

“It’s a mystery, Highness. It predicts you will expel the English from France not by force of arms, but with goose, deer, and grapes.”

“Fascinating,” the Spider King reflected. “What could this mean?” Then he offered his decree: “This prophecy is now a treasure of France. Let it be housed in our private library and defended against all enemies.”

E
GYPT,
F
EBRUARY 2013

Sheik Ahmed spat in disgust and shouted into the phone: “You impotent dogs let them escape?”

“The
nazarani
monks helped the Americans. They warned them and sabotaged our vehicle.”

“Failure is unacceptable. You understand the penalty for incompetence.”

“We may yet succeed,
insh’allah
. I repaired the jeep. We will follow. Perhaps we will overtake them. We know they travel to Masr [Cairo]. I’ve alerted our people there. If we don’t catch them before, they’ll be intercepted the moment they arrive.”

Paul collapsed into the seat, exhausted. Before he could pass out, a pilgrim tapped him on the shoulder. He presented a first-aid kit and pointed to Paul’s leg, which was bleeding profusely. Together they examined the injury: A bullet had grazed his calf. It was messy and painful, but not serious. Gesturing for his patient to relax, the pilgrim cleaned and disinfected the wound, bandaged it with clean linen, and offered Paul a metal cup full of cold water. Paul drank it down and thanked the man, who never spoke, only smiled.

Ava regained consciousness on a crowded bus, surrounded by curious strangers. She looked around nervously until Paul eased in beside her. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“I’ll live,” she replied, “thanks to you.”

“I thought maybe I broke your ribs.”

Ava raised both arms overhead and rotated her torso to the left and to the right.

“Bruised, I think, but unbroken.”

Relieved, Paul lifted two flowing white robes from his pack. “I think it’s time we tried these.” Ava nodded and they donned the disguises. From a distance the hooded robes would mask their identities. The pair wouldn’t survive close inspection, but it was better than nothing.

For a time the bus continued north through the desert. Paul limped to the front and thanked the driver for not leaving them behind. Though they lacked a common language, the driver understood and nodded solemnly.

The bedouin kept a demanding pace, especially given the road’s condition. He seemed to enjoy his role as getaway driver. After one particularly severe jolt, he turned to grin at Ava. They reached a T-intersection, where he swung the bus around to the left, or west, and continued on Highway 26. Majestic mountains towered to their north; empty desert stretched to the southern horizon. Later, a dazzling sunset spread across the Egyptian sky. As darkness fell, they passed Al-Burumbul and came, at last, to the Nile.

Paul asked the driver to drop them in El Wasta, a town of perhaps forty thousand located on the banks of the great river. The bus entered a broad square adjoining the harbor, where an armada of feluccas were moored. Paul unloaded the canisters, safely concealed by canvas, as Ava bade their companions good-bye. The driver told her she was beautiful. He embraced Paul, gave him the first-aid kit, and wished him luck. The driver cried, “
Marhabtein!
” then closed the door, started the engine, and continued north toward Memphis and Cairo.

Father Bessarion sat stoically in his chair. He was prepared to endure torture. He would never willingly betray the confidence of anyone who sought sanctuary within the monastery, but he’d read of extreme methods used to extract information from unwilling captives. He wondered if his years of training and mental discipline would enable him to withstand the latest pharmacological techniques.

Simon entered the monk’s cell and sat down. His shoulder stung where the bandages had been changed. He was in no mood to linger.

“Father,” DeMaj began, “I require information. Let us concede what is already known. Two Americans, a man and a woman, were here. You gave them asylum and protection. Now they’ve gone, on a bus. The bus goes to Cairo. It will arrive there in a few hours, unless it’s overtaken and intercepted by the men in the jeep, which you sabotaged to help the Americans escape. There is no need to deny this.”

Bessarion said nothing. He stared at the floor. Simon continued.

“I must know their plan, Father. I must find them quickly. Their safety depends on it. In addition, I must know if you saw what they carried. Did they discuss this matter in your presence? Did they tell you their intentions?”

Bessarion raised his eyes to meet Simon’s gaze. He took a breath and then said, “The men with rifles threatened to kill me, and still I told them nothing. I am not afraid to die.”

Sheik Ahmed walked through the hidden warehouse that his organization used as a refinery. Inside, workers converted poppy plants grown in Afghanistan and Pakistan into raw opium, which workmen carefully dissolved in hot water. Gradually, by adding a powder to the soup, they rendered the mixture alkaline. After filtration, a chemist added sal ammoniac, then collected and dried the precipitate. Distillers heated the solution with acetic anhydride for six hours. Cooled, diluted, and combined with sodium carbonate, the mixture generated crude heroin. Once the product was purified and decolorized, Ahmed’s soldiers stacked brick after brick into shipping crates for transport to the United States and western Europe via Turkey and Sicily.

Usually the sheik was pleased to observe the operation’s military efficiency. It gave him pleasure to view the construction and deployment of his army’s deadliest weapons in the war against the West, but today his heart was not cheered. For the first time since he was a boy, Ahmed felt fear. Just as he would never tolerate failure from his servants, the master would not tolerate it from him. If the Americans escaped with the jars, he would lose everything.