Gold of Kings (17 page)

“Sir, my report specifically lays out evidence suggesting Syrrell's was the repeated victim of carefully aimed attacks.”

“You've been corrupted by them. Syrrell's is a major player. We have only identified the tip of a massive illegal operation.”

“I inspected the company records going back six years. Ditto for the banks. I found nothing—”

“You didn't look hard enough. They laundered funds and dealt in stolen goods. We knew this going in. The only question has been, who are they working for. Which you were assigned to determine. How far have you gotten with that detail?”

“Sir, I no longer believe our premise fits the evidence.”

“Nowhere, is the answer. Okay, Webb. Let's cut to the chase here. What exactly is the motive for somebody laying out this elaborate fraud and perpetrating these two attacks?”

“Actually, sir, there has been a third incident—”

“Oh, give me a break.”

Emma gripped the door handle. Her hand went pale and bloodless. “I'm not sure who is behind the attacks, either on the persons or the company. Yet.”

“They've got you hook, line, and sinker. What's more, your attitude is jeopardizing our case. We've decided there's too much risk of losing the suspects. You're hereby ordered to arrest Storm Syrrell and her accomplice.”

I
NTERPOL OCCUPIED THE TOP FLOOR
in a typical Washington monolith. The building also contained consulates of nations requiring heightened vigilance. The people who shared the elevator were silent, careful. The Interpol receptionist saluted Hakim, noted Emma's ID, and buzzed them through a bulletproof barrier. They entered a windowless bull pen staffed by a dozen different nations.

Hakim led her into the corner office, shut the door, pointed her into a chair, and said, “In some ways, our situations are not so far apart. I too have enemies within my own government who would rather see me fail.”

“I'm still not clear on exactly what your mission is.”

He walked behind his desk. “The same as you, Agent Webb. To arrest the criminals and to protect the innocent.”

She dragged out the word. “Okay.”

He unlocked his top drawer and withdrew a manila folder. “We have both reached uncomfortable junctures, you and I. We must choose between who we are taught to call enemies, and what the evidence is telling us.”

He opened the folder and passed the first page across the desk. “You are hereby granted a temporary appointment with Interpol.”

“Dauer will use this to have me fired.”

“He may.” Hakim's jacket fit as snugly as a handcrafted holster and was made from some smooth material, possibly silk. On Hakim it looked natural. “On the other hand, Agent Webb, this may actually be the break we have both been looking for. To find the perpetrators, we must understand their motives. Someone considers this affair so vital that they have brought in an international assassin. Such an assassin, repeatedly risking his life to take out two insignificant locals, is not logical.”

Emma's mind was snagged by the word
assassin
. Hakim had given it a subtle shift, as though drawn from a heritage beyond her comprehension. She said, “They're after treasure?”

“Consider what I am saying. This assassin is a professional, which means he survives by being swift and unseen. Yet now he repeatedly risks being uncovered. And for what? No single treasure justifies the intensity of these attacks.”

“You have something.”

“Just one more small piece in the puzzle, Agent Webb.” He traded her signed document for the next page from his file. “Just one more mystery to be solved.”

The page was lined in a thick black frame. At the top of the sheet, below the Interpol symbol, a word was repeated in six different languages.

Alert.

Beneath that were four photographs of the same man. Two were standard mug shots. Two others were taken from surveillance cameras.

“Whatever is driving these assaults, Agent Webb, is far greater than we are seeing.”

A single paragraph was translated six times:
This individual is on the international watch list. Notify Interpol immediately. Considered armed and extremely dangerous.

Emma said, “They don't give his name.”

“Go protect your two charges, Agent Webb.” Hakim lifted her signed document. “As soon as Jack Dauer learns of your transfer to Interpol, he will send others to arrest Storm Syrrell and Harry Bennett. They must be beyond his reach before that happens. Then come straight back. We have important work to do.”

 

THE DIGNIFIED DEMEANOR OF GEORGETOWN
University's Healey Hall vanished the instant Storm and Harry stepped through the main doors. The charmless interior was dictated by too many students and too few dollars. Linoleum and fluorescent lighting tracked them down a scarred hallway and into a battered elevator. They took the elevator to the sixth floor, as high as it would go, then traversed a long corridor and found another elevator fronted by a dusty out-of-order sign. They climbed the final two flights into the tower, where a stone landing adorned a stubby hallway. Storm knocked on the peaked oak door. It creaked open. “Professor Morgenthal?”

Evelyn Morgenthal's office, in the building's turret, was crammed with documents and books. The woman sat in a padded chair yet remained half-hidden behind her oversized desk. She shut a folder, rolled up a scroll, set both in her desk drawer, and squinted at Harry. “Sean always came alone.”

“Harry Bennett was my grandfather's friend. Now he's mine.”

“He looks like a salvager to me. A treasure hound. My work is with artifacts. The legacy of lost civilizations. Invaluable testimonies to what was, and what was not, a part of their culture.” She stabbed the air with a child's hand. “That man and his ilk are the enemy of all I hold dear. They find, they sell, they pocket their filthy lucre and smile as yet another fragment of our past is lost to some rich man's mantle.”

Storm took the lone seat across the desk from the professor. “And yet you helped my grandfather. Sean was passionate about legacy. But he was also fanatical about profit. So what made it acceptable to work with Sean?”

Professor Morgenthal kept her hostility aimed at Harry, who took up station by the exit.

“Here's what I think,” Storm said. “Sean made some discoveries that could only have been claimed as unique. But unlike a lot of other dealers, he was never a man in a hurry. He could keep his treasures out of sight for years. I think Sean worked out an agreement with you. If he came across something really special, he'd give you time to research it, write it up, make your presentation, collect your kudos.”

Reluctantly the professor's gaze swiveled over. “You checked my publications.”

“Just your two most recent articles. I didn't have much time.”

Dark eyes held a fiercely intelligent light. “My husband has Parkinson's. The university medical system only covers the basics. Taking care of him costs a great deal and also makes travel impossible.”

“But to maintain your stature in the professional community, you have to keep coming up with new finds. Which Sean supplied. The question we have to determine is, would you be willing to work with me on the same basis.” Storm reached for her purse and drew out the pages she had printed off that morning. She set them facedown on the edge of the professor's desk. “Sean believed he had found some link between several artifacts and the location of treasures from the Second Temple. He asked you to research the Copper Scroll. How am I doing so far?”

Professor Morgenthal remained silent, her gaze locked on the unseen photographs.

Storm offered the professor the first sheet. “Perhaps you'd tell us what this is.”

Evelyn Morgenthal inspected the page. She drew a magnifying glass from her drawer, swiveled the light in tight, leaned closer. “This is from a triptych?”

“Yes.”

“Is it intact?”

“Yes.”

“You have the other panels?”

Storm remained silent.

“This is the seal of Empress Constantia, mother of Constantine. The emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and brought the Roman empire with him. His mother, a believer since before her son was born, was a great one for furthering Christianity's reach.” She tapped the page with one finger. “But this seal is shaped as a standard, such as a kingdom or provincial capital might use…”

The professor leaned closer still.

“What is it?”

“Perhaps nothing. I'll need to check this thoroughly.”

Storm leaned forward. “Let's pretend we're actually on the same side here.”

Professor Morgenthal set down her glass and studied Storm for a long moment. “In the fourth century, Salamis, the capital of Cyprus, was destroyed by earthquake. Empress Constantia traveled there on her return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. She sponsored the city's rebuilding, and ordered the Roman navy to sail in provisions to keep the population alive through the next planting season, as they had lost almost all the island's crops.”

Harry murmured, “Cyprus.”

“Legend has it, the island rulers wanted to rename their city and nation in her honor, but Constantia refused. It has been said they adopted her standard instead. But there has never been any evidence to that effect.”

“Until now,” Storm said.

“Which panel have you just shown me?”

“The right.”

“The triptych's center panel is the most important,” Morgenthal said. “The other two are always related in some way, but not so crucial.”

Storm kept her hands planted on the pages. “Tell us about the Copper Scroll.”

“The arguments still rage. But a growing number of experts, myself included, accept that the scroll is a record of treasures from the Second Temple. We feel this argument over the contents masks the true mystery.”

Storm supplied, “And that mystery is, why the scroll was outside Jerusalem at all.”

Morgenthal asked, “May I see what else you have?”

Storm handed over the next photograph. “Where does Cyprus fit in?”

The professor was too intent upon the picture to respond. Harry supplied, “Cyprus is only a hundred miles off the coast of Lebanon. If ships were smuggling items through hostile waters, it'd be the perfect refuge.”

Morgenthal nodded reluctant approval. “The island was considered docile by their Roman masters. They garrisoned the port, they guarded the copper mines, and they left the rest of the island very loosely manned. The island held strong Jewish and Christian communities.”

Harry added, “Which adds weight to the possibility that the treasures might have been taken there. The people fleeing Jerusalem needed a safe haven. One they could reach fast and where they'd find people they could trust.”

Morgenthal's gaze swiveled up once more. “Cyprus was also base for the second Jewish revolt.”

“What revolt was that?”

“In AD 116, Jews from throughout the Roman empire gathered in Cyprus. A smaller force, probably made up of Jews who had spread through North Africa, came together in Alexandria. The plan was brutally simple. They defeated the Roman garrisons on Cyprus, both at Salamis and Kyrenia.”

Storm said, “Having temple treasures located there would have added a special impetus to their rebellion.”

“They began preparing and equipping an army to retake the homeland,” Morgenthal went on. “And they might have succeeded. Only the Romans vividly recalled the Jews' fighting ability from fifty years earlier, when they had managed to conquer Jerusalem, at least temporarily. So Rome sent their finest general, a young man by the name of Hadrian, who responded with a level of brutality that earned him a reputation throughout the empire. By the time he was done, two hundred and fifty thousand Cypriots were dead, and the burgeoning Christian and Jewish communities were erased.”

Morgenthal rose from her chair and began pacing between her desk and the rear window. Behind her, the sun shone upon a springtime vista of college lawns and redbrick buildings and treetops and sparkling Potomac waters. “Paul and Barnabus traveled to Salamis on one of their earliest missionary journeys and converted the Roman consul, making Cyprus the first nation on earth to be ruled by a Christian. Remember, the earliest followers of Jesus were almost all Jews. But major schisms between the synagogue leaders and these Jewish Christians began around the time of Jerusalem's destruction, because these Christians refused to take part in the city's final defense. But we know they were actively involved in the second Jewish uprising. When the rebellion was crushed, Jews and Christians alike were slaughtered. Whatever secrets they might have held were lost forever.”

Storm handed over the final page. “Not entirely.”

Morgenthal returned to her desk. “What is this?”

“An etching from a fore-edged book. An illuminated Gospel of John. In both Latin and Greek.”

“But this…”

“Had to be from the tenth century or later.”

She clambered into her chair and reached for her magnifying glass. “A second triumphant arch has never been found. Or even mentioned.”

Harry asked, “Is there any way a secret might have somehow been kept, or at least part of it, until around the tenth century, and then lost entirely?”

“Oh, most definitely.” She continued to inspect the photograph through her glass. “Cyprus was struck by plague precisely at that point in time. The Black Death wiped out virtually the entire population. When King Richard the Lionhearted landed, he found Cyprus to be almost empty of human inhabitants. After he deeded the island to the Lusignan princes, they brought in subjects from all over the Mediterranean to repopulate the island. Holders of any such secret could have certainly been lost to the plague.”

Harry's phone went off. He slipped out the door. Storm said, “I need a list of the treasures mentioned on the Copper Scroll.”

The professor pulled the computer keypad in front of her, typed briefly, and the printer began whirring. She pulled out the printed sheet and asked, “May I see the triptych's third panel?”

Storm leaned forward. “How did the treasures get out of Jerusalem?”

Morgenthal straightened into as lofty a pose as her diminutive stature allowed. “I am months away from being ready to release my findings. Years, perhaps.”

Harry stepped back into the room. “Storm. We have to go.”

“In a minute.”

“Now. Something's come up. Emma's downstairs.”

Morgenthal's ire strengthened. “You bring another stranger into my life?”

Storm rose from her chair because Harry's hand was now on her arm. “The Romans had the city surrounded. The siege lasted over two years. When they finally conquered Jerusalem, they burned it to the ground. Sean must have asked you the same question.”

Morgenthal's gaze tracked the unseen printout in Storm's hand. “There is no conclusive evidence. Nothing definite has turned up, not in two thousand years of searching. But the only logical answer lies in linking two men.”

“Their names.”

Harry's phone rang again. “Storm. Now.”