The Temple Mount Code (22 page)

‘The first I’d heard of it was this morning. Otherwise, I’d have called earlier because I knew the two of you were very close.’

‘Yes.’

Alice hesitated. ‘This isn’t exactly a social call, Thomas. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. On the surface, it appears my husband had something to do with Lev’s death.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because many of Lev’s things have turned up in our house. I thought maybe you’d like to come and have a look.’

Lourds immediately thought of the candelabrum. ‘Yes, I would.’

28

Ringstrasse

Innere Stadt District

Vienna, Austria

August 7, 2011

Getting a flight from Tel Aviv to Vienna was pretty easy, as long as a passenger flew either by midmorning or late evening. EL-AL and Austrian Airlines both had regular flights out of the city, but they were gridlocked on their takeoffs and landings.

Lourds spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on his computer, researching everything he could find on Mohammad and a purportedly lost Koran written in the Prophet’s own hand. There wasn’t much. What he did find tended to turn up on the same sites that talked of a hollow earth and Lost Lemuria.

The long day and the hard rush after the Himalayas finally took their toll, and he’d slept. Then he’d gone to Ben Gurion International Airport and taken one of the scheduled flights to Vienna. He’d left his bags at the hotel and remained checked in there for the time being.

He was certain he’d be back to Jerusalem before the hunt was over. Lev had been there, not somewhere else. Wherever the clue in the candelabrum led, Lourds was certain it’d be in the city.

Now, standing on the street that circled Vienna’s old town, Lourds tried to remember the last time he’d been in the city. The
Wiener Staatsoper
looked beautiful. The state opera house’s blue-green curved roof standing out against the dark blue sky.

He paid the taxi driver, shouldered his backpack, and strode to the Albertina Museum just behind the opera house. After paying the admittance fee, he went up to the open terrace where he was supposed to meet Alice. He was surprised at how rapidly his heart was beating, but he didn’t know if it was from the coming reunion or the fact that his life could potentially be forfeit soon.

At the top of the steps, he stood in the shadow and gazed out across the terrace. The statue of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I and his high-stepping mount occupied a central location, and the old warrior gazed out over his city with sword in hand.

‘You had quite the life, didn’t you, old fellow?’

‘Talking to yourself, Thomas? They say that’s a bad sign.’

Startled, Lourds turned around and found Alice standing a short distance away. He hadn’t even noticed her as the city’s horizon had come into view because the sight was so breathtaking.

‘Alice.’

He had just a brief impression of her dressed in an emerald green evening dress that was so light it seemed ready to blow away in the breeze. The flyaway halter top and thin spaghetti straps revealed an expanse of honey gold tanned skin, and the chiffon looked like fairy’s wings wrapped around her curved hips. She held a flowered sunhat in one gloved hand.

Then she was in his arms, holding him tight, and kissing him hard enough to bruise his lips. Lourds’s reaction was uncontrollable and immediate, and it made itself known as she pressed against him.

‘Well, it appears some things never change.’ She leaned back and laughed. Her expression sobered as she gently touched his face. ‘Oh, Thomas, your poor eye.’

‘It’s nothing. You should see the other guy.’

‘Seriously, Thomas. You were never a fighter. You were always a lover. Was it a soccer injury? Did you walk into a door? You’ve done that before, as I recall.’

Lourds didn’t want to go into the whole story, but he knew Alice deserved part of it. ‘I got this in Namchee Bazaar.’

‘In the Himalayas?’

‘Close enough. Two men tried to kidnap me. Fortunately, I had a guardian angel. Unfortunately, she killed them both, so no one knows who sent them. But … I don’t think they were merely muggers. Then there’s the second mystery of the woman that saved me.’

That sobered Alice up even more. She stepped back out of his arms, looking nonplussed. ‘“Woman”?’

‘I never even got her name. I don’t know who she was, either.’ Lourds doffed his hat and ran fingers through his hair, then resettled it on his head. ‘Everything about this affair concerning Lev has been mysterious, Alice, and I’m thrown from one confusing event to another. You have to believe me.’ He paused. ‘Your phone call was confusing as well. I have to admit, I didn’t know if I could even trust you. I half expected to be snatched the minute I saw you.’

A sad look twisted Alice’s full lips. ‘Thomas, if there’s one person in this world you can trust right now, it’s me.’

Part of the knot in Lourds’s stomach relaxed, but the sour taste at the back of his mouth hovered. ‘I hoped I was right about that. That’s why I came.’

‘To answer Lev’s mystery?’

‘And to see you.’ Lourds smiled. ‘You look gorgeous, Alice. The years have been very kind to you.’

‘That hasn’t come without effort, I’ll have you know.’ Alice took him by the hand and led him to the terrace’s edge. ‘You were talking to Franz Joseph when I so rudely interrupted.’

‘Casual conversation.’

‘No discussion of history is ever casual with you.’

Lourds shrugged good-naturedly. ‘Perhaps not. You are aware that his reign of sixty-eight years places him third, after Louis XIV and Johannes II, as the longest and most influential?’

‘I was aware of that, but I didn’t know the exact number of years. That’s something you would know.’

‘He was an impressive man. A warrior, a scholar. He fought off Prussia’s attempts to create a new German Confederation in their image. Survived an assassination attempt that would have taken his head off, and lived to see the completion of the church built to commemorate the event.’ Lourds pointed off in the distance toward Votivkirche. ‘That one, in fact.’

The two tall, slimline spires stood out prominently atop the church and towered over the buttresses, including flying buttresses and abutments. Many tourists mistook the Votive Church as Gothic, but the architecture was more modern by several centuries.

‘He also survived an unhappy marriage with a woman he idolized, from all accounts. I actually translated several of his later letters, you know.’

‘You’ve told me.’

‘I suppose I have. I did that while we were at school here in Vienna.’

Alice gazed wistfully at the statue. ‘You know the thing that I most remember about the emperor?’

‘What?’

‘That he forbade his son to marry the woman he loved and insisted on a marriage that the prince didn’t want.’

Lourds nodded. ‘Princess Stephanie of Belgium was the only royal of Roman Catholic faith who was considered the equal to Prince Rudolf in station. Who wasn’t related too closely by blood, I mean.’

‘They had to delay the marriage because she hadn’t even gone through puberty. How could that poor girl be expected to know whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life with?’ Wrapping her arms around herself, Alice shook her head. ‘When a person marries, Thomas, it should be for love. At least Prince Rudolf and his seventeen-year-old mistress had the fortitude to kill themselves before they were made to separate.’

Lourds nodded again. The Mayerling Incident, as it was referred to, was a sad thing. Thirty-year-old Prince Rudolf and his lover had been so smitten with each other that they hadn’t been able to separate. ‘Some historians think that it wasn’t a lovers’ suicide pact, you know.’

‘I know. They think it was an assassination because of Rudolf’s arguments with his father or because of his pro-Hungary stance.’ Alice looked up at Lourds. ‘I prefer to think of it as two lovers strong enough to chart their own course.’

Placing his hands on Alice’s shoulders, Lourds looked into her eyes. ‘Are you that unhappy?’

‘Terribly so, Thomas. You can’t even begin to imagine the misery I’ve been through.’ Sadness glinted in her sapphire blue eyes. ‘How else do you think I can betray my husband to an ex-lover? This wasn’t done frivolously. If Klaus finds out what I’m doing, I truly believe he will kill me. Then he will kill you.’

‘If you didn’t love him, why did you marry him?’ Lourds sat across the table from Alice at an open-air café the way they had when they’d attended the university.

Around them, the Ringstrasse moved slowly. Fewer people lived there these days, and Lourds missed the crowds.

‘I didn’t have a choice.’

‘Of course you had a choice.’

Alice took Lourds’s hands in hers and smiled at him. ‘Sweet Thomas, so immersed in the world of the past that you often don’t realize how the real one works. Austria isn’t the United States. People don’t have the same liberties here.’

‘Even so – ’

She cut him off. ‘I was fortunate that my parents allowed me to finish my extended education before they insisted on marrying me off.’

‘Are they truly that backwards?’

‘You met them.’

‘Once.’ Lourds growled at the memory.
Herr
and
Frau
Reinstadler had made it immediately and abundantly clear that they didn’t care for their only daughter’s infatuation. The weekend they’d spent in the Reinstadler estate home, in separate bedrooms, had been decidedly uncomfortable.

Alice smiled at him. ‘And wasn’t that enough?’

‘It was.’ Lourds shook his head. ‘You could have left Vienna.’

‘And gone where?’

Lourds had no answer.

‘Before Klaus, before the arranged marriage, I’d been in love. When that ended, my confidence had been broken. In those days, the attentions of Klaus Von Volker had seemed a godsend. He wanted me in a way I thought I needed to be wanted.’

Lourds took off his hat and placed it on the table. ‘I’m sorry, Alice. I never intended to hurt you.’

‘I know. This isn’t about you, Thomas. If I’d allowed you to take me off with you, I’d have been just as unhappy.’

Lourds grimaced, the hurt from her comment evident on his face.

Alice laughed at him. ‘Don’t be so fragile. It doesn’t become you. I like remembering you as the aloof, self-centered young professor who once told me life was too big to live in one place.’

‘Did I ever say that?’

She placed a hand over her heart, almost cupping one delectable breast. ‘I swear. That was almost word-for-word.’

‘I was something of a bounder, wasn’t I?’

‘No. You were young.’ She studied him unashamedly. ‘In many ways, you still are, and – I think – always will be. You’ll always be the boy I fell in love with, always seeing the fascinating things and adventures in the world that no one else sees.’

‘Still. If I had known – ’

‘You would have only made things worse for yourself and for me. I still cling to that memory of how we were. Some days that’s my only solace. I would not have it destroyed.’ Alice took a breath. ‘The fault was mine. I hadn’t planned for my own life. I had no place to go, Thomas. No money of my own to make a life anywhere. That was one of the keenest interests my parents had in arranging the marriage with Klaus. They hoped their fortunes would increase when they aligned with his.’

‘Did they?’

‘Of course not. Klaus is not a generous man. Not even with me. Though I do think he is more generous with the string of mistresses he’s kept over the years.’ She shrugged. ‘Still, my parents have some consolation. They get to claim kinship with one of the most powerful men in the Austrian People’s Party.’

‘The man foments anti-Semitic behavior and calls for Austrians and Germans alike to rise against Israel. He lobbies for Iran to become a nuclear power, which would endanger all of the Middle East, and the Western world if the Ayatollah could make that possible. Various news agencies have accused Von Volker of supplying munitions to the Ayatollah, and have all but proven it.’

‘I know. I live with the man. It’s all true. Including the arms trafficking.’ Alice pursed her lips in distaste. ‘My parents idolize him for his opinions. They believe, like a lot of other Austrians and Germans, that Klaus Von Volker is the man who will bring about a new glory for a resurrected German empire.’

Lourds shivered at the thought. He looked out at the Ringstrasse. ‘Austria has a long history of anti-Semitism.’

‘Yes, but we’re here to talk of the evils done by my husband.’

Lourds took her hand and kissed it. ‘True, but we’re not going to forget the evils he’s done to you as well. Maybe – together – we can find a way for him to get his comeuppance as well.’

‘There’s a rally tonight. Klaus is speaking. We should go.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Klaus expects me to put in an appearance before he speaks.’

‘I thought you said Lev’s things were at your house.’

‘The
schloss,
yes. But if I don’t show up at the rally, Klaus might become suspicious that I’m snooping into his private business.’

‘Perhaps I could go there myself.’

‘You’d never get through the security. You’ll need me.’

‘Won’t Klaus notice when you disappear from the rally?’

Alice shook her head. ‘No. Once he’s in front of his adoring audience, I cease to exist. He’ll be swept away into the arms of one of his mistresses at the after-rally party while I go home to be the dutiful wife. Only tonight, I don’t plan on being so dutiful.’

29

Stadtpark

Heumarkt (Hay Market Street)

Vienna, Austria

August 7, 2011

Klaus Von Volker had set up his rally near the north end of the Stadparkbrucke. The City Park Bridge, once known as the Karolinenbrucke, was a popular place. The bridge spanned the Wienfluss, and the Vienna River cut through the heart of Vienna.

When he’d gone to school in the city, Lourds had been fascinated by the river. People weren’t allowed to walk or cycle along the concrete riverbed that had been laid. The headwaters in the Wienerwald sat on a bed of sandstone that saturated quickly. As a result, the
Wienfluss
could turn from a slow-moving creek to a roaring river pushing nearly 130,000 gallons of water a second. Even heavy equipment machines would get washed away in the deluge.