The Temple Mount Code (27 page)

Studying the city now, Lourds could see where the battles had been staged. Gardens and new buildings covered many of the old scars, but they were still there, still ingrained in a culture that would never forget the injustices, the hatred outsiders had poured on them, and the oppression they’d suffered at the hands of foreign invaders.

Some said Jerusalem would never heal until God Himself descended from the heavens and ministered to the city. But which God? That had been the question for so many ages.

And, as always, predators around the city awaited the moment to strike. Most of those were descendants of those who had gone before, and everything they did was in God’s name.

‘Professor Lourds.’

Startled, Lourds turned from a group of beautiful coeds sitting in the shade of trees near the entrance to the Botanical Gardens.

A short, well-kept man in his early sixties and a good gray suit approached him. He was hawk-faced, bald, and wore a neat salt-and-pepper goatee.

‘I’m Aaron Jacob, president of the university. We talked on the phone this morning.’ Jacob offered his hand.

Lourds took the man’s hand and shook. Jacob had a strong, practiced grip, but there were no calluses. He’d shaken a lot of hands over the years – as university president that would have been a prerequisite – but he’d pushed pencils more than he’d shifted rock and dirt in the field. ‘Just call me Thomas.’

‘Of course. Call me Aaron.’ Smoothly, Jacob slid his arm around Lourds’s shoulders and guided him up the steps toward the main building. ‘I’m told this isn’t your first visit to our university.’

‘No. I’ve been here a few times, actually. As a visiting professor and as a lecturer.’

‘Really? I must have missed those opportunities to hear you. My loss.’

‘There are recordings.’

Jacob smiled at that. ‘Yes, I’ll have to familiarize myself with your work when I have the opportunity. You said this morning you wanted to look around Professor Strauss’s office?’

‘If I may.’

‘The two of you were good friends?’

‘Very good friends. We studied in Vienna together, did some fieldwork among the Uighur tribes in the Himalayas, and Lev saved my life in a plane crash a few years ago. That’s how he lost the leg.’

‘I never did hear that story.’

‘Lev didn’t like bragging.’

‘He seemed like a quiet, intense man.’

‘Get a six-pack and a pizza in him, and he could be quite different.’

Jacob grinned. ‘I suppose that can be said of most men. Can you tell me what you’re looking for?’

‘I just want to put Lev’s papers in order, perhaps finish some of the work he’d started.’ Lourds shrugged. ‘It was a drunken promise we made to each other one night. We were young and idealistic. It’s one of those foolish promises you make to a dear friend, but while I’m here, I thought I’d see what I could get sorted.’

‘You left that marvelous discovery in the Himalayas to come here?’

‘Lev sent word to me, asking me to be here. I didn’t know we had lost him till I arrived.’

‘I’m sorry. That had to have been hard. As for Professor Strauss’s office, you could actually help us. We don’t know where to get started as far as packing things up.’ Jacob looked at Lourds and grimaced. ‘Sorry. That came out rather more cold and bureaucratic than I’d intended.’

‘At this point, I don’t think there’s any other way to put it.’

Jacob opened the door and guided Lourds into the air-conditioned building. ‘I did put off cleaning the office until we could get someone that knew Professor Strauss well enough to put his work into perspective. The university doesn’t want to lose any of his research that needs to be saved.’

Lourds removed his sunglasses and looked at the lobby. History fairly dripped from the walls. Jerusalem was filled with thousands of years of artifacts from cultures all around the world. The Department of Restoration and Conservation specialized in prehistoric, biblical, and classical archaeology. Pictures of digs sat on display.

‘A special exhibition of some of the projects the institute has done. To introduce our work to prospective students signing up for fall classes.’

A plastered skull from Kfar Hahoresh sat in a glass case, the closed eyes and straight line of the mouth giving the face the semblance of sleeping. Pottery shards from the Yoqne’am Regional Project were arranged on another shelf. A replica of a mosaic of a Roman archer in armor hung on the wall. Dozens of other pieces, all impressive, occupied more space.

‘It should get their attention.’

‘It has.’ Jacob pointed down a hallway. ‘Professor Strauss’s office is this way.’

Lev’s office looked like a bomb had gone off inside. Lourds would have been surprised to find it any other way. When they’d roomed together in Vienna, they’d both been messy about research and work, and neither had complained about the other. However, each one had known where every scrap of paper he was working with was located.

‘I apologize for the mess.’ Jacob looked a little embarrassed. ‘Perhaps I should have had someone tidy up.’

‘No. This is perfect. Lev thought in groups.’ Lourds pointed his hat at the organized chaos. ‘With everything left untouched, I’ll be able to follow Lev’s thinking like a bloodhound trails scent.’

‘All right. I’m glad you like it.’

Lourds smiled. ‘Besides, if people had always cleaned up after themselves, archaeologists would have nothing to discover.’

‘I suppose that is one way to think about it.’

‘It is.’

Jacob held out a set of keys. ‘These will get you into and out of the office. How long do you think this will take?’

‘I don’t know. A few days at most.’

‘All right.’ Jacob pulled a business card from his pocket. ‘These are my office and home phone numbers. If you should find you need anything, please don’t hesitate to contact me.’

‘Thank you.’

Jacob nodded. ‘There’s a university cafeteria within walking distance, and a few places the students like to go. You can even have food delivered from a few nearby restaurants.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ Lourds pocketed the keys and the business card, anxious to get to work.

‘A graduate student will be by shortly to assist you.’

Lourds looked at the man. ‘Oh?’

‘I looked for a volunteer to help you shift Professor Strauss’s papers.’ Jacob smiled and shook his head. ‘That’s a lot of work to do by yourself. Plus, she’ll know more about the university.’

‘All right.’ The idea of someone peering over Lourds’s shoulder made him slightly uneasy, but there wasn’t much he could do to dissuade the university president. He was fortunate they were even letting him onto the premises. He looked around at the office as Jacob said good-bye and walked away.

Of course, the office was a
lot
of work.

For a time while she was walking through the halls of the university, Miriam Abata could believe that she was back in school. Those days were barely behind her. If she could step back, only a few days, the two dead men wouldn’t be haunting her.

Every now and again, she thought she saw one of them standing just a short distance away, caught in the corner of her eye, pistol drawn. But every time she looked, no one was there. Nights were the hardest. She played the events over again and again, wondering if there was some other way she could have handled herself.

Let it go.
That had been
Katsas
Shavit’s advice.
Accept what is, know that you did the best you could to save yourself. That was your job. Save yourself. That is every operative’s primary job.

They had talked for a while, then
Katsas
Shavit had taken her to a piano bar and gotten her drunk. Later, at Miriam’s flat, they had cried together. Somehow,
Katsas
Shavit had gotten her into her bed and left.

They’d never talked of the shooting or the drinking since, but Miriam knew the woman would be there for her if she needed her.

She drew a deep breath as she took the final corner toward the office she was looking for. The assignment had come as a surprise because she had expected to be left on her own for weeks. From what she had learned from other agents, that was how things were generally done.

At first, she’d been resentful yesterday when
Katsas
Shavit had laid out the assignment for her. Being involved with Thomas Lourds had already proven detrimental. Then she’d looked at the recent days that she had behind her. For the past week, she had gone to counseling sessions –
I am so sick of those
– worked out in the dojo near her house until she’d barely had the strength to walk to her flat, and drunk entirely too much. She always knew when she drank too much because during those times, she wondered what her father would have thought of her and how her life had turned out.

Would he have been proud?

Or would he have wanted her to be anything other than a Mossad agent?

Most days, Miriam wished she could ask him those questions. She visited his grave regularly, but she hadn’t gone there since she’d killed the two men in Namchee Bazaar. Until she made that right in her mind, she knew she’d find no solace at her father’s final resting place, and she didn’t want to drag that baggage there.

When she reached the office door she was searching for, she took a deep breath. Now was the point of no return. Lourds had been drunk the night he’d seen her, and since then she’d colored her hair black and added an exotic blue-and-white stripe on the right side that drew attention from her features.

He shouldn’t be able to recognize her.

She knocked on the closed door and waited, thinking that Lourds would recognize her immediately, and she would be sent back to Tel Aviv. She told herself that would be fine, that she didn’t need any part of the man.

Then something crashed on the other side of the door. She gripped the knob, reached for the pistol that should have been at her hip but wasn’t, and put her shoulder to the door as she went through.

35

The Institute of Archaeology

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Mount Scopus

Jerusalem, the State of Israel

August 9, 2011

Lourds lay sprawled on the floor. He looked up at Miriam in stunned surprise.

She stared down at him, then at the pile of books that had toppled from the desk to the floor.
What is it with this man
? ‘Are you all right?’

‘My ego may be a little bruised.’ Gracefully, Lourds pushed himself to his feet. He pointed at the swivel chair behind the desk. One of the wheels lay on its side, crushed, allowing the chair to tilt dangerously. ‘The chair gave out.’

‘While you were sitting in it?’

‘Standing on it, actually.’ Lourds picked his hat up from the floor and hung it on the coatrack in the corner of the room. He started picking up books and putting them back on the desk.

‘Why were you standing on the chair?’ Miriam picked up books as well. Most of them were heavy and cumbersome.

‘To get at a hiding place.’

‘What hiding place?’

Lourds looked at her. ‘I’m sorry. I just suddenly realized I don’t know who you are.’

Relief washed over Miriam as she straightened and offered her hand. ‘Miriam Abata.’

‘The graduate assistant President Jacob promised?’ Lourds took her hand and shook.

‘Yes.’ That was the cover story
Katsas
Shavit had created for her. Evidently the university was used to doing favors for the Mossad. Miriam had not known that, but it didn’t surprise her. The Mossad had resources throughout the country and across the Middle East.

‘Did you know Lev?’ Lourds picked up a sheaf of papers and set them on the corner of the desk.

‘No. I’m sorry. I heard he was a great professor.’

‘And a good friend.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ Miriam squatted and picked up more papers.

‘Thank you.’ Lourds looked at her. ‘Why would President Jacob sent you to help me if you didn’t know Lev and his work?’

Katsas
Shavit had already thought of that and had briefed Miriam. ‘He felt it would be hard on any students who’d worked with Professor Strauss. I’m good with languages and have a minor in archaeology.’ Both of those things provided good covers for a spy working in the Middle East and Europe. ‘One of my primary fields of study is Farsi, with some work on the Turkic languages of Central Asia.’

‘That’s a hard field.’

It had been, but Miriam had wanted to be able to speak her father’s native language. He had taught her a lot of it as she’d grown up, and majoring in it at college had appealed to her. ‘I know.’

‘So, are you any good?’

‘Oral or written?’

‘Both.’

‘Yes. Very.’ Miriam smiled when she realized how boastful that sounded. ‘Sorry. I don’t mean to sound immodest.’

‘Not at all. I’ve found it’s better to tell people when you’re good. Otherwise, they might not notice.’ With the last of the papers in hand, Lourds stacked them on the desk and glared at the broken chair. ‘I suppose I need to find another one.’

Miriam looked around the ceiling, thinking maybe Lourds had been trying to get something from the top of the bookshelf. ‘Perhaps I can get whatever it is you’re looking for. I’m light enough to climb the bookcase.’ She walked to the bookcase. ‘Something from the top?’

‘Actually, it’s not on the bookcase. It’s above the door.’

Miriam turned and looked at the space over the doorway, then immediately thought Lourds was an idiot. ‘There’s nothing up there.’

‘I believe there is. Come here.’ Lourds motioned her over behind the desk.

Suspicious of the man, as
Katsas
Shavit had been very thorough regarding Thomas Lourds’s predilections toward the opposite sex, Miriam joined him. Despite her superior’s stern warnings, Miriam couldn’t help noticing how handsome the American professor was. The fading black eye he wore, even though she knew how he got it, made him look like a rough character. He smelled nice, too, some kind of musk she wasn’t familiar with.

‘Look at the wall now.’