The Book of Names (10 page)

Terror punched through her as with one hairy arm her attacker hoisted her clear off her feet. Her chest felt like it was going to burst from lack of air as he began running with her like a quarterback streaking for the goalpost.

Wild with panic, she realized where he was headed. In ten strides she'd be inside the strange van parked outside the garage.

 

Eva Smolensky grunted as she tugged the Dyson down the stairs. She was a tiny bird of a woman, barely a few inches taller and not much wider than the vacuum she pushed into Dr. Shepherd's office. Flicking on the overhead light, she clucked her tongue at the stack of newspapers that had piled up since she'd cleaned last Tuesday. She figured as long as Dr. Shepherd had called and asked her to let Father McGrath in this afternoon, she'd clean the house a day early, leaving her Tuesday morning free to visit her newest grandchild.

But, boy oh boy, she wasn't as young as she used to be. Eva hadn't cleaned this late at night since her kids were little and she'd waited until they went to bed to pick up around the house. And picking up after Dr. Shepherd
wasn't exactly easy. He was a very nice young man and all, but he was a slob, just like her son-in-law, Henry.

Eva shook her head. Well, at least he'd called early enough. She'd have most of his house in order before Father McGrath got here and picked up whatever Dr. Shepherd needed.

Peering out the window for a glimpse of the priest, Eva massaged the small of her back. She was getting too old and creaky to clean houses, but she still kept her favorite customers. For now.

Next year, who knew? Maybe she'd finally retire.

There was no sign of that handsome priest yet, so she trudged back to the vacuum and bent over, pushing the plug into the wall. No matter if he came to the door while she was still vacuuming—she'd told him the front door would be unlocked in case she didn't hear the bell over the vacuum and washing machine.

As her finger hovered on the vacuum switch, a buzzer sounded. The dryer. With a sigh, she shuffled to the laundry room and the waiting load of permanent-press shirts. Those she had to get on hangers right away, before they wrinkled.

The washing machine thudded into its rinse cycle as she opened the dryer door.
Now why couldn't someone invent a washer and dryer that cycled on the same schedule? Would that be too much to ask?
Suddenly, Eva heard movement in the hall. Father McGrath. He must have slipped in right before she looked out the window. Now how had she missed him? Maybe she did need a hearing aid like her daughters kept telling her. . . .

Hmmph.
She scurried to the hall, more than happy to spend a few moments with her favorite priest. Not only was Father McGrath easy on the eyes, but he had that
warm and gentle manner about him. Every time she saw him, she came away feeling she'd been in the company of angels.

She peered around the hall. Strange. He wasn't there.

“Father McGrath?” Eva sang out. She padded to the kitchen and glanced around, then doubled back to the hall and squinted up the staircase.

Odd. She could swear she'd heard someone in the house. “Father?” she called again.

There was only silence.

Puzzled, Eva started toward the office.

But she never got there.

Dr. Shepherd's pin-striped pale blue shirt was still piping hot from the dryer when it was flung over her head and its sleeves twisted around her crepey throat.

She fought for air like a marionette dangling at the end of her strings, but she was with the angels a full minute before her body was stuffed in among the shirts wrinkling inside the clothes dryer.

 

Stacy's eyes pleaded toward her mother's open bedroom window.
Mom
, she wanted to scream.
Mom!
But she couldn't scream, she couldn't even breathe. Her nostrils, her throat were on fire, and pinpricks of light began to dot her vision.

She struggled to wrest free of the man's grip, twisting the same way she did to wrench the ball from an opponent. It wasn't working. He was too strong. The van's open hatch yawned like the mouth of a monster.
Don't pass out
, she told herself, then on a surge of adrenaline she forced her mouth open as widely as she could and bit down like a Doberman on the fingers crushed against her lips.

Instinctively the man released his grip and yelped. Stacy gulped air and twisted free of his grasp. She threw herself forward even as he lunged for her.

“Help! Rape!”
Her bare feet pounded toward the street.
Thank God!
Mr. Atkins was taking Reckless for his after-dinner walk.

The border collie began barking and Mr. Atkins was staring at her. Then he was suddenly dragged forward as the leashed dog lunged for the Lachmans' driveway.

The van's engine roared to life behind her and she dove out of the way, toppling into the jacaranda tree as the van squealed past her and careened into the street.

“Stacy! Who was that? Are you all right?” As Mr. Atkins and Reckless reached her, Stacy let out another scream.

“Mom!”

 

A muggy twilight settled over Capitol Hill. Dillon McGrath let himself out of the house on D Street and hurried to his Acura. He slid behind the wheel and fitted the key into the ignition, but didn't turn it. Instead, he pulled out his cell phone and a handkerchief, swiping at the perspiration beading along his upper lip.

“Dillon, do you have it?”

David sounded more anxious than Dillon had ever heard him. That was more than understandable, Dillon thought, considering he'd seen ben Moshe die right before his eyes.

“Sorry, David. I couldn't find it. It wasn't in your top bureau drawer, or in any of the drawers, as a matter of fact. I even searched the desk in your office. No luck.”

“Look again. It has to be there.” Alarm resonated in David's voice.

“I scoured the place, believe me. It wasn't. Eva wasn't there either—she left the front door unlocked for me.” With a flick of his wrist, Dillon brought the car engine to life.

There was silence at the other end.

“David?”

“Someone got there first. Before you.” David's voice shook with frustration. “Someone took my damn passport.”

“No, no, I don't think so.” Dillon gripped the steering wheel, tension winding through him. “The place didn't look like it had been ransacked. Everything was in order. Except the vacuum cleaner. Eva forgot to put it away.”

“That's not like her.”

“So what should I do?” A car whizzed past, scattering dry leaves in its wake. “Do you want me to call the police and report your passport missing?”

“No. Forget the police. I'll find another way.”

“David—the agate.” Dillon cleared his throat. “You still have it, don't you?”

“Yes. As well as an amber stone. Ben Moshe gave me Levi just before . . .” His voice trailed off.

In the dark car, Dillon closed his eyes. “I hope you realize the power you're packing.”

“I haven't had much time to dwell on it.”

“I wish there was more I could do, David. As it is, I've got to leave the country for a bit. If you need me in the next few days, leave a message with my office. I'll be checking in regularly. But. . .” He hesitated.

“Be careful, David. I'm not liking the feel of this.”

David grimaced. “Tell me about it.”

 

As David snapped the phone shut, he glanced at Yael. Her hair fell across her cheeks like a copper curtain as she bent over the rabbi's loose-leaf notebook.

“My passport's gone, Hutch hasn't called back, and I don't know where the hell my daughter is. So how is
your
day going?”

Sinking down on the bed, he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Yael looked up. “That's how.”

She pointed to the muted television, where images of death and rubble wrought by the earthquake in Turkey flickered across the silent screen.

“We're not the only ones having a bad day,” she said.

 

Dillon waited until he'd stopped at a traffic light before dialing another number.

For days he'd been ruminating about the gemstones. Now it was time to take action.

“You're sure Bishop Ellsworth is there?” he asked without preliminaries. “I'm on my way to Reagan International as we speak.”

He listened for a moment as the light changed and an impatient horn sounded behind him. “Excellent. I should be landing in Glasgow early tomorrow evening. I'll come directly to you.”

 

“I know Avi Raz can get you a counterfeit passport, but it could take him a few days.” Yael fretted, pacing back and forth in front of the window.

David emerged from the bathroom, rubbing his face with a damp towel. “I've got a better idea. I know how to get a genuine passport by tomorrow morning.”

“How?” She paused, staring at him.

“Sometimes it pays to be the son of a senator.”

If Judd Wanamaker was even in the country.

He made the call.

His father's closest friend was now the American ambassador to Egypt. They'd been allies in the Senate and had worked tirelessly championing the national wetlands preservation bill they'd cosponsored—to the chagrin of developers and logging interests. Their families had also formed a bond. The Shepherds and Wanamakers vacationed together one year at Niagara-on-the-Lake and an annual tradition was born. It had continued for almost two decades, right up until the time David's father dropped dead on the Senate floor of a heart attack.

“We're in luck,” David told Yael. “He's right here—on
business at the UN. He insisted on meeting us for dinner. There's a Japanese place only three blocks away with a private room where we can talk freely. We're meeting him in an hour.”

“That gives me time to look through the rest of this.” Yael carried the rabbi's satchel over to the bed and, one by one, began removing its remaining contents. She arrayed them across the flowered bedspread next to the notebook, shooting David a questioning look.

“Did you find anything of interest when you checked it out earlier?”

She's observant as well as attractive
, David thought, suddenly surprised he'd even noticed.

“Actually I did. A few things I didn't understand. What about you? Anything important in the rabbi's notebook?”

She settled on the bed beside the satchel before she answered, tucking her legs beneath her. “Some details he's researched about the Gnoseos. How they're obsessed with secrecy, just like the ancient gnostics. It's why so little is known about their beliefs and practices. They pass their traditions down by word of mouth only and still use secret talismans and symbols to identify one another.”

A frown furrowed along her forehead. “He was deeply worried. He wrote of his fear that the Gnoseos are close to achieving their goal. He also wrote something else.”

David waited, watching her expression soften.

“The rabbi wrote of his faith in God. His belief that God would reveal the way to defeat the Gnoseos.”

David had never experienced faith like that. He wondered what it would feel like to believe with such conviction.
His
soul had been stirred by critical thinking and careful analysis of political systems and how they function—not by sermons, prayer, or Bible stories. But now, here he was, trying to find logic in the inexplicable.

For a moment the only sound was the rain drumming against the windows. Then David plucked some sort of colorful card from the bedspread. “Did he make any reference to this?”

“A tarot card.” Yael reached for it, her brows knitting.

“Is that what it is?” David looked surprised. “I thought consulting palm readers or Ouija boards—anything occult—was forbidden to Orthodox Jews. I had a college suitemate once who was Orthodox—he kept nagging one of our Jewish friends to quit reading her horoscope every day, insisting that the Torah forbade divination.”

Yael raised her brows. “That's true, but your friend was misguided. Astrology has never been equated with divination. You should see the floors of ancient homes and synagogues that we've excavated in Israel—especially those from the first to the fourth century. I can't begin to count how many I've seen adorned with elaborate wheels of the zodiac.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yes. Ancient Kabbalists believed that everything in the spiritual realm is reflected and transmitted to our physical realm on earth through the cycles of the stars and planets. They taught that the stars and planets are an integral part of God's great design. That everything in the heavens is mirrored on earth.”

Yael studied the card in her hand. The face of it was a brightly colored drawing of a tower—a mighty spiraled fortress from which people were tumbling head first into a moat. Behind them, lightning crackled across an inky sky, setting the uppermost tier of the tower aflame. On the back side, there was a simple drawing of intertwining snakes and the number 471 in the lower left-hand corner.

“I can't imagine why Rabbi ben Moshe would have this card.” She sounded puzzled. “I'm no expert on the
tarot, but I can tell you that it was derived directly from the Kabbalah's Tree of Life. I'll show you.”