Book of Nathan (39 page)

“Just for the record,” Arcontius said as he nudged me toward
the east side of the island, “we were ready to pay the extra two million. Had
you handled things differently, we wouldn’t be having this conversation and
you’d be a lot richer.”

“The two point five million you already contributed will
make life comfortable enough.”

“Will it? Comfortable
is
not something you’re going to be once we’re done talking.”

We continued walking toward a dark corner of the island.
Arcontius pushed open an unlocked chain-link gate that led to a work area
cluttered with building materials and construction equipment. Across the
harbor, lower Manhattan was ablaze with lights. But the east end of Ellis Island
was deserted and foreboding.

Arcontius jabbed Dong’s arm with his free hand. “Let me have
the disk.”

Dong passed the CD to Arcontius then fell back several
steps. Arcontius was too far ahead of Dong to hear him whisper a few words into
a cell phone. Sandwiched between the two men, I was close enough to the Asian
to overhear what he was saying.

“He’s got it.”

Pause.

“I’ll take care of it.”

That was the end of it. Dong glided past me, each catlike
step so quiet that I was certain Arcontius had no idea what was about to
happen. Dong gripped Arcontius’s head with his huge hands, then with one
sickening jerk, he yanked Arcontius’s skull back and jammed it hard to the
left. A snapping sound cut through the night. The effect was instantaneous.
Arcontius was dead before Dong dropped him to the ground.

Chapter 27

Ellis
Island’s repository for rare books, unpublished manuscripts, periodicals, and
old photos is its Research Library. On this night, the large room tucked into
the third-floor corner of the main building was Arthur Silverstein’s hideaway
until nine p.m., when he would be escorted one floor below to deliver his brief
message to the United Way audience.

Dong unlocked the library door and shoved me inside.
Silverstein sat in a leather chair with a small circular glass table at his
side. A floor lamp cast a cone-shaped glow of light over the small man.

“Ah, Mr. Bullock,” Silverstein said. He rested his cigar on
the lip of a brass and walnut ashtray. “I’d pretend to be surprised, but the
fact is we thought we might see you tonight.”

Running a men’s shelter steels the nerves. You get hardened
to misery, despair, brutality, and hopelessness. Acts of violence are no more
the exception to everyday life than addicts speedballing themselves into
oblivion. After twelve years, you think there’s no aberration left that hasn’t
been thrown in your path. But then an Arthur Silverstein shows up to prove how
wrong you can be.
  

Dong punched me to one side with his Glock, then placed the
Book of Nathan
disk between Silverstein’s ashtray and a bottle of Glen Garioch Highland
Scotch.

“Your boy just murdered Arcontius.” I shot a quick look at
Dong who looked as unperturbed as the man who gave him the order to break
Abraham’s neck.
 

Silverstein poured himself a glass of Scotch. “Murdered? I
think you’re mistaken. Abraham’s body is at the foot of a stairway on the east
side of the building. Terrible tragedy. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Just a
simple misstep and you’re dead.”
 

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Silverstein shrugged off my comment. “Abraham is—or, should
I say, was—known to be a little too fond of this.” The billionaire hiked his
glass. “There’ll be an autopsy, of course. The toxicology report is going to
confirm Abraham had a high blood-alcohol level. Heavy drinking and a long
flight of stairs. What a shame.”

“Arcontius is lying face down in a construction site on the
other side of the main building,” I said warily. The muzzle of Dong’s handgun
pressed against the small of my back reminding me that the killer was only
inches to my rear.

“No, he’s not. You see, where Mr. Dong left off, other
people moved in—people who are very skilled at making a misfortune look like an
accident.”

Ellis Island, it seemed, was overrun with other people
.
Quia
Vita
had at least two representatives waiting for the
Book of Nathan
handoff. Arcontius had claimed there were Almiras Society agents on deck ready
to check the authenticity of Le Campion’s disk. And now Silverstein was telling
me he had his own team on the field.
 

Watching Arcontius get slaughtered like a barnyard chicken
had sent me into temporary shock. But now I was face-to-face with a reality
named Silverstein and his henchman Dong. I wondered why Dong hadn’t left me
with my nose in the mud next to Arcontius. I was still breathing, but given the
look on Silverstein’s face, maybe not for long.

“So you knew Arcontius was working for the other side,” I
said. The question sounded complimentary.
Wow,
you clever old fart, you really are a smart bastard.
“When
did you find out?”

“Quite some time ago,” acknowledged Silverstein. “Several
years, actually.”

I wasn’t surprised. “How much do you know about the Almiras
Society?”

“Everything.”

“What about Dong?”

I threw a sideways glance at the Asian, who stood like a
fixture, his face void of emotion. Maybe there was a conscience inside that
massive body. Another peek at those empty eyes and I dumped that idea.
 

“Thaddeus works for me,” Silverstein announced. “He’s a
long-time employee, and I suspect he’ll remain a loyal worker if I continue
putting the right amount of money in his pocket. Like most everything else on
earth, allegiance can be bought and paid for. Am I right, Thaddeus?”

Dong didn’t respond. I took his silence to mean a fat
paycheck more than offset having to put up with Silverstein’s arrogance.

“Arcontius thought Dong belonged to him,” I said.

Silverstein grinned. “So he did. But that was never the
case. Dong kept me informed about all of Abraham’s doings, including his work
with the Almiras Society.”

My brain was in a spin cycle, desperately looking for any
way to escape. The only option that came to mind was figuring out how to stick
a shard of distrust into the relationship between the old man and his Asian
muscle.
 

“Did Dong mention how he let Arcontius steal millions
from you? Did you know he said nothing
while Arcontius sent truckloads of cash to the Almiras Society—probably the
most radical pro-life movement in the country?”

Silverstein laughed. “Nice try, Mr. Bullock. I controlled
the flow of any money Abraham removed from my accounts. Whatever he took was
used for benign purposes—I made sure of that. True, Arcontius did siphon off a
lot of cash. But the information I got in return made whatever he stole a good
investment, considering what I was able to learn about Abraham’s secret society
as well as
Quia Vita
.”

I could practically hear Arcontius screaming in hell. “You
knew Arcontius worked for Judith Russet?”

“We used Abraham to feed
Quia
Vita
information that took Russet’s group on more than a few futile missions.”

Silverstein’s candor made me shiver. Whatever hope I had of
surviving was going up in the billionaire’s cigar smoke. The old man wouldn’t
be divulging this much information if he intended to keep me alive. I could
practically feel Dong’s fingers digging into my Adam’s apple. I checked my
watch. A minute or two after eight.

Concern cut across Silverstein’s face. “Expecting someone?”

“Just the United Way team that’s on its way to bring you
downstairs.”

“That’s not how I operate. I set the timetable—not the other
way around. We won’t be interrupted for another fifty minutes. That’s long
enough for us to come to an understanding.”

“What kind of understanding?”
 

“You’ll recall that I paid you a ten thousand dollar
retainer. Seems to me you still owe me some of your time. I have another job
for you.”

I tried to decipher what was being said. Arcontius’s body
wasn’t even stiff, and the conversation had shifted to my living up to the
terms of a one-sided contract.

Silverstein spoke through a billow of smoke. “You
understand, I’m sure, that you’re expendable. But eliminating you might not be
necessary if you do what I ask.”

I wiped a line of sweat that had beaded up on my forehead
with my left hand. Silverstein didn’t appear to notice that the maneuver gave
me another quick check of my watch. Five after eight.
 

“I want you to deliver something to Judith Russet.”

I thought about Doc’s description of Lewy body
dementia—about how someone with LBD could bounce back and forth between sanity
and disorientation. The way Silverstein talked, the old man was sane. And yet
what he was saying bordered on lunacy. What was this man like when he went over
the edge?

“Deliver what?”

“The
Book
of Nathan
disk.”

The expression on my face delighted the old man. He hoisted
his glass and gave me a wide smile. Give Russet the transcript of a Biblical
book that might prove to be the pro-life movement’s A-bomb? Silverstein hadn’t
killed Arcontius to get the disk, only to turn around and hand it to
Quia Vita
.
The old man was as devious as he was rich, which meant there was a self-serving
undercurrent running through his plan. “I don’t understand,” I said.
 

“
Quia Vita
won’t be getting Le Campion’s CD tonight. But in three or four days, we want
you to tell Ms. Russet that you have it.”

Which is what Judith Russet had suspected all along. That
underneath a trumped-up crusade to free an innocent man, I was nothing more
than a thief. I was beginning to make out the bleary edges of Silverstein’s
plot.
 

“My people need time to decipher the coded text,”
Silverstein went on. “And since Le Campion programmed the translation so it
can’t be copied, more time will be needed to re-create a facsimile of the
original book. After we’re done, you’ll deliver the replacement disk to Russet,
but not until she wires a second multimillion dollar payment to a Cayman
Islands account I’ve set up.”

Everything was now in full focus. “You get back the two
point five million Arcontius paid for Le Campion’s notes. On top of that, you
edit the
Book of Nathan
so
it says what you want it to say before I give it to
Quia Vita
.”

Silverstein released another cloud of smoke. “There’s a
possibility that no changes will be needed. The text might be in line with our
point of view.”

“Why me?” I asked. “Why not just drop the disk on Russet’s
doorstep or put the damn thing in the mail?”

“A CD worth another two point five million falls out of the
sky?” replied Silverstein. “Judith Russet’s far from stupid. If you walk into
Quia Vita
with an offer to sell the disk, that’s a different story. It will simply shore
up what Russet’s been thinking since the beginning.”

“There’s a glitch in your plan,” I said. “The person who
took the disk is still out there and can blow your scheme apart with a phone
call.”

Silverstein emptied his glass, poured another. “We’re not
worried. Thanks to Arcontius, whoever that person might be happens to have two
point million dollars of my money.
Quia
Vita
probably matched what I paid.”

“What about the payment due tonight?”

“Our thief will be disappointed,” noted Silverstein. “But
with so much tax-free money already in hand, disappointment doesn’t tend to
linger. He or she will go quietly into the night.”