13th Apostle (29 page)

“Since you have disproved my hypotheses that people do not change, you deserve a reward. So, when Darwin's records and connections self-destruct—in honor of your evolution—the Darwin program itself will likewise self-destruct. No continuing evolution, no future game for any future bad boy like me. We'll call Darwin an evolutionary experiment gone sour, and you can rest assured that it will never see the light of day again. Even as you hear these words, my grandest creation, like myself, is fading into oblivion, All because you refused to play the game anymore. I hope that makes you happy.”

The screen went black.

“So, you figured out what George had been up to all along without detonating the e-mail time bomb,” Sarkami said. “That must make you feel very good.”

“Of course. It makes me feel great.”

“What about the other question?” Sarkami continued.

“Why Sabbie didn't want George killed? No, I don't have a clue.”

“That's because you're still looking under the street lamp,” Sarkami replied and, once again, moved toward the door.

“Wait a minute, you!” Gil said breathlessly. His hand grabbed onto Sarkami's shoulder to prevent the older man from taking one more step. Sarkami broke free and moved rapidly through the busy library corridor with Gil racing to catch up.

“I haven't done all this work just so you can give me some cryptic remark and leave,” Gil snarled.

“No, you haven't,” Sarkami confirmed.

“What do you
want
from me?” Gil asked. Desperation was seeping into his voice. “What does it matter why Sabbie didn't want George killed? Who cares anyway?”

Sarkami stopped and faced Gil. The great eagle's voice bellowed in the vast library lobby. “
I
care and
you
care, even though you would do anything to pretend you don't. Every living soul on earth cares and they don't even know it.”

“Everyone on earth?” Gil scoffed.

“Yes, all of mankind, even though they don't know it. And you still think it doesn't matter,” Sarkami bellowed. “There is nothing on earth that matters more!”

The man had gone mad, Gil concluded. What could Sabbie's last request mean to anybody but him? What could it possibly mean to anyone else, much less the entire world?

“You might want to know one more thing,” Sarkami said, his great nose inches from Gil's face. “Sabbie didn't say that she didn't want George killed, she said she didn't want
you
to kill him.”

Gil's mind fought for an answer. The only possible conclusion was too great to even imagine. The High Tzaddik must be one who had never taken a life. If she had been trying to say that
he
must not kill then…

“Then I'm the High Tzaddik,” whispered Gil.

Sarkami looked at him in disdain. “My God, Gil. Your arrogance is astounding. You are most certainly
not
the High Tzaddik. I am.”

Day Twenty-five, twilight
The Concourse of the Israel Museum Library
Jerusalem

Gil waited outside on the Library steps. He squinted at his watch in the fading light. He'd give him five minutes, no more. Sarkami had said to meet him in the little conference room inside but Gil wasn't feeling well. It took all that he had to not give in to the nausea and weakness that threatened to overtake him. The thought of a tiny room filled with hot, stale air filled Gil with a sense of panic.

He'd catch Sarkami on the way in; there was nothing new to report anyway. The old guy had insisted that Gil take a break for two days. Two totally wasted days with nothing to do but sit on his hands and think about Sabbie.

Gil had agreed to the hiatus only because he didn't know what else to do next. And because, apparently, Sarkami did. Still, if Sarkami was the High Tzaddik, why hadn't he just taken the scroll off Gil's hands himself? Gil shrugged. The whole thing was crazy and he was feeling lousier by the minute.

He sank to the steps and put his head between his legs.

“Feeling badly?” Sarkami asked. Gil had neither seen nor heard him approach.

Gil wiped the cold sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “Must be something I ate?” he answered.

“Or something that's eating you.”

Gil's head snapped up to offer protest but he had neither the will nor the energy to take on the fight. Besides, as usual, the bastard was right on target.

He looked up into Sarkami's eyes. Funny that he had never seen the sadness in them. Or the compassion. At least, not for him.

Sarkami nodded and, in that single gesture, urged Gil to surrender to that which would no longer be denied.

The pain came hard and fast. Silent twisting shrieks tore at his chest. There on the steps, in the middle of the busy Museum campus, Gil sobbed as he had never cried before. Its power took him by surprise, though Sarkami seemed to have been waiting for it.

“Good,” Sarkami said, then waited patiently until the first wave subsided. His arm guided Gil inside, to the library conference room. The golden light seemed to welcome Gil and rather than stale, the air seemed as cool as the fresh night air outside.

“Very good,” Sarkami said as he helped Gil into a chair.

The older man leaned back against the table, waited patiently and asked no questions.

“I did it,” Gil said simply. “I killed her. If I hadn't…” There were so many sentences that started with “If I hadn't…” he could barely keep track of them. If he hadn't dismissed Sabbie's concerns about George, they might have stopped him while there was still time; if Gil hadn't laughed at the idea that Global Positioning Systems could work in two directions, he might have thrown away his PDA which, most likely, would have cut George's access to their every move. If only he had listened to Sabbie when she said she thought George might not be dead…So many if's and that one was the worst of them all.

Sobs overtook Gil once again. He wept for all he had done and all he had failed to do. He wept for the consequences of his arrogance and for the life they would never share together.

“Good. Those two days were well spent,” Sarkami whispered half to himself.

He turned to Gil. “You've done well. Sacrifice cleanses the spirit. It is the first task of three that you will have to complete for the scroll to find its way to its rightful heir.”

“I thought you were the rightful heir,” Gil said accusingly. “You said you were the High Tzaddik and Sabbie said the scroll was to be delivered to the High Tzaddik, so why don't you just take the damn thing?”

“Sacrifice cleanses the spirit,” Sarkami repeated as if Gil had said nothing. “It is the first task of three that you will have to complete.”

“What are you saying? That Sabbie had to die so you could get the scroll or that her death was my sacrifice.”

“Neither,” Sarkami answered. “Sabbie's death was not your sacrifice. Nor was it hers, if that's what you were thinking. Sacrifice requires the loss of yourself not another, the loss of the certainty that you are right and others are not, the loss of the illusion that you are in control.”

Something in Sarkami's words called to him. And terrified him at the same time.

“Sabbie lost the person she knew herself to be with the rape and the death of her friend,” Sarkami continued. “That first transformation was not her choice and it left her a lesser, rather than a greater, person. Fortunately, she was transformed again, this time by choice, after she killed her assailant.”

“You mean
when
she killed her assailant,” Gil corrected.

“No, I meant exactly what I said. She did not
lose
herself when she killed the man who raped her. Killing him was well in keeping with the person she had become after the rape. Sabbie's sacrifice came after she had killed him.”

“After she killed him?” Gil asked.

“Yes. After she killed her first attacker, she chose to abandon her plan of vengeance on the others. It was a great sacrifice for her; there was little doubt that, had she chosen to, she would have been able to complete the job.”

“But…” Gil urged.

“But, instead, she refused to continue as the violent animal they had made her into. She chose to spend the rest of her life reaching for something greater, for something she believed in.”

“Did you know that she said you saved her that day, the day she killed him?” Gil asked.

“She saved herself.”

“She said you gave her a reason to live,” Gil continued.

“That I did and you did as well,” Sarkami added.

“
I
did?”

“Yes,” Sarkami explained. “You discovered it in Weymouth Monastery.”

The Scroll. What Sarkami said was true. It was what she and Sarkami and Ludlow had dedicated their lives to. And he had found it for her, for them all. And for himself.

The guilt eased within Gil's chest. He had given Sabbie something greater than anyone else could have. Sobs of relief pressed to be let out but he pushed them down. There was more he had to know.

“The way she looked at you. I've never seen such love,” Gil said simply.

“It was far more than love,” Sarkami said. “She trusted me.”

“Why?”

“Because of what I did when I found her with the young man she had killed,” Sarkami continued.

“But he was scum and deserved to die. Anyone in their right mind would have allowed her to get away before the body was discovered,” Gil replied.

“Yes, he was scum and yes, it was better that he was dead. And most certainly, it was fitting that she was allowed to flee. But, you see,” Sarkami added, “he was also my son.”

Gil stared in disbelief.

So, that was Sarkami's sacrifice. Not the death of his son but of himself, of the man who had still carried hope of what his son might have become, of the father who, no matter what, still blindly loved his own child. In that moment, Sarkami had relinquished it all, simply because it was the right thing to do.

“You may not know it yet, Gil, but you have been transformed, as well,” Sarkami said softly. “You will never again feel self-righteous in the face of another's misdeeds, you will never lack compassion for another's regrets. Your guilt and anguish were honest and in their truth, they cleansed your soul.”

Two other tasks lay ahead, Sarkami explained. Upon their completion, Gil could deliver the scroll to the righteous soul for whom it was intended.

“But if you are the High Tzaddik, isn't the scroll meant to go to you?” Gil asked. “Why can't you just take it from me and do what you want with it?”

“Because it isn't intended for me,” Sarkami replied. “And because if I were to accept it, its message would be lost on the occasion of my death.”

Gil's blood ran cold. What was Sarkami saying? He pressed the man who had now become his mentor for an explanation. None was forthcoming.

“Well, you're going to be with us for a good long time,” Gil concluded on a lighter note. “After all, you're reasonably young and healthy.”

“The Chinese say that we own nothing that can't be lost in a shipwreck,” Sarkami replied with a gentle smile. “Now, let's get back to work.”

The second task was at hand and that came more easily. Over the next two days, at Sarkami's request, Gil designed and uploaded a message that would serve as a digital signpost in cyberspace for the next millennium.

Gil had written the message using an advanced binary pattern, a language he believed would be understood by the High Tzaddik of the next millennium. There the message would remain, in cyberspace, until it was needed to lead the High Tzaddik to the scroll of the Thirteenth Apostle, a thousand years in the future.

Only the third task remained unfulfilled.

“Soon,” Sarkami assured Gil. “McCullum is not far now. And he is more determined than ever. You will know when it is time.”

An hour later
Library Conference Room, Israel Museum Library

Sarkami chose his position carefully. With his back to the open conference room door, he would appear unsuspecting. McCullum would believe that his arrival had been unanticipated. That assumption was essential to Sarkami's plan and, if all played out well, it would buy Gil the few extra days he would need.

McCullum was certain to bring two new Power Angels, capable of an equal or greater brutality than the now-dead twins. Oh, how that loss must have infuriated the old Nazi, Sarkami thought. No matter, the freedom of having George out of the picture had probably done much to sooth McCullum's loss.

The old eagle's eyes glanced over the props he had so carefully arranged. On the floor, to the right of his chair, partially obscured by his coat, sat a beautiful new leather travel case, now empty. Handwritten notes, highlighted and underlined, open texts of Aramaic translation, and computer printouts, covered the conference room table. Sarkami's hand instinctively touched his right pocket. The key to the library locker remained where he had carefully placed it.

If only he hadn't had to cut short his last meeting with Gil in anticipation of McCullum's imminent arrival. There was so much left unsaid; so much that could have helped Gil with the last of his tasks. Sarkami shook his head. No, Gil would have to discover it for himself. That was the way it was. And he would succeed. Of that, Sarkami was certain. So, perhaps, it was all for the best.

Now, everything was done but the waiting. And even that went far more quickly than Sarkami had calculated.

In one blur of sound and movement, the door to the conference room had been closed, Sarkami had been lifted to his feet by one of the infamous white angels from hell, and a very angry McCullum awaited the answer to a single question.

“Where's the scroll?” McCullum asked.

Sarkami remained silent, unmoving, and awaited the enactment of the script he had gone over a dozen times in his mind. It was remarkable, he thought, how utterly predictable this kind of man was almost certain to be.

“There are only so many places you could have hidden it and from what I can see,” McCullum said as he leafed through the notes strewn across the table, “it's not far away.”

Sarkami repressed a wry smile. The fool had completely missed the empty travel case on the floor. Power Angel #1 emptied the contents of Sarkami's pockets onto the table. McCullum's excitement over the discovery of the library locker key was almost palpable. It was all so banal. Somehow, Sarkami would have preferred a bit of imaginative challenge at the end.

A momentary flash of panic brought Sarkami to attention when, for an instant, it appeared that McCullum was incapable of deducing the location of the locker.

Christ, do I have to draw you a map?

In the end, Sarkami concluded that McCullum's stupidity worked in Sarkami's favor. The beating and threats stretched out McCullum's discovery of the scroll and allowed Sarkami to relinquish its location only after suitably persuasive techniques had been put to use.

After stuffing his mouth with his socks, they had broken three of his fingers and had cut the Achilles tendons on both of his feet. In anticipation of permanent damage to the tendons of his fingers, and the end of his life as an artist, Sarkami had surrendered the hiding place, only a few feet from the room in which he had just been tortured.

Key in hand, Power Angel #2 returned with the prize and laid the tarnished scroll into McCullum's hands. A final stab to the heart left Sarkami barely able to hear his attacker's last words.

“How do we know it's the real scroll?” one of the white assassins asked. “I mean, after all, he makes fakes for a living, doesn't he?”

“He would not die so hard for a mere facsimile,” McCullum said with a satisfied smile, then closed the door behind him.

Sarkami's last thought brought him inexplicable peace.

No, but I would gladly do so for the real one.