The Columbus Affair: A Novel (25 page)

He and Rócha retreated.

He motioned to his left and whispered, “I have been here before. That passage where they are standing will intersect with this one. There are several turns, but it is a big circle. I am going down here to wait.”

Rócha nodded in understanding.

Then he explained what else he wanted done.

———

A
LLE KNEW ONLY ONE THING
. S
HE HAD TO GET AWAY FROM BOTH
her father and Brian. They both seemed to believe that Zachariah was the enemy, but the only person to so far place her in danger was standing right beside her, holding a gun.

“What are you going to do?” she asked Jamison.

“We’re getting out of here. Mr. Sagan, I assume you came down here for a reason?”

She watched as her father remained silent. Finally, she said, “He has a way out.”

“I thought as much. That’s why I followed. Let’s take it, then I’ll explain everything.”

Her father seemed unconvinced and even more irritated with her.

“I suggest we go,” Brian said. “People upstairs may be coming this way.”

“No. They won’t,” Sagan said. “I took care of that. The gate is locked for the night.”

“Then let’s get out of here. I assure you, what I have to say is important.”

Her father stepped in front of her and faced Brian. “We’re not
going anywhere. If you want to shoot me, go ahead. I don’t give a damn.”

“I know what happened in Florida. That you were about to kill yourself. But you didn’t. You’re here. We were watching, along with Simon. I sent a man to the cemetery to spook you, in the car, when you visited your father’s grave, but you didn’t back off. I’m not your enemy, Mr. Sagan. I’m an American intelligence agent, working for a unit known as the Magellan Billet. We’re after Zachariah Simon and need your help.”

Alle caught movement over Brian’s shoulder.

Rócha appeared, holding a gun.

Her eyes went wide.

Brian saw her surprise and started to turn.

———

T
OM SAW THE MAN AND IMMEDIATELY LUNGED TOWARD
A
LLE
, his body covering hers, both of them pounding the floor.

Two pops echoed.

Brian’s body lurched, his arms went skyward, his grip on the gun was lost and it clattered to the floor.

Another pop.

Blood seeped from Brian’s lips. Then the body went limp and he collapsed into convulsions.

Tom rolled twice and reached for the gun on the floor, slipping his finger around the trigger. He swung his arm around and fired, the retort loud off the stone.

The bullet ricocheted and, instinctively, he covered his head.

When he looked up, the man at the end of the hall was gone.

And so was Alle.

———

Z
ACHARIAH KEPT WALKING, HEADING FOR WHERE THE CORRIDOR
intersected another. He heard shots and hoped that was the end of Brian Jamison. Béne Rowe surely had other people working for
him, but the loss of his chief lieutenant would eliminate Rowe’s most valuable eyes and ears in Austria. He’d read Abiram Sagan’s note, which was explicit, but not as much as he’d hoped considering the Levite would be passing on all that he knew. Had Sagan changed it? After all, it was typewritten. How hard could it have been? Especially for a man accused of falsifying news stories.

His original plan was no more.

He now needed a few moments alone with Alle.

A loud bang, then more pops came from the catacombs.

One problem was surely gone.

Two more were about to be solved.

———

A
LLE WATCHED AS
B
RIAN WAS SHOT THREE TIMES, HIS BODY
finally ceasing all movement on the floor. Her father was trying to find Brian’s gun and she used that moment to spring to her feet and race ahead, finding the passageway’s end and turning a corner. She had no idea where she was headed, but it was in the direction her father had been taking them.

Brian’s words still hung in her ears.

I’m an American intelligence agent
.

What in the world?

A shot rang out from behind her, louder than the others. She slowed, but kept a brisk pace, her head constantly spinning, checking her flank. She spotted a stairway fifty feet ahead, the path well lit.

Another glance back.

More pops.

Her shoulders were grabbed from the front, her body spun.

The unexpected violation startled her and she was about to scream when a hand clamped over her mouth and she saw Zachariah’s face.

———

T
OM WAS PINNED DOWN, HUDDLED INSIDE ONE OF THE ARCHWAYS
that framed an iron grille with a gate that separated the hall from
bone rooms on each side. He was hugging the bars, keeping his body shielded, when he realized that the gate was not locked. He eased open the hinged section and rolled into the narrow room, his body now flush against a stack of blackened bones. He stared back, trying to spot whoever was firing at him.

Then he saw.

The bone rooms were not individual. The niches formed one long path, archways dividing them from the center passage. Lights illuminated the niches and the bones. He could actually escape the shooter, staying out of the corridor, the angle and pillars providing plenty of cover.

He crouched low and started to leave.

Another pop.

Bones a foot away shattered as a bullet slammed into the pile.

He dropped to the floor and lay flat. Bad idea.

He told himself to calm down, breathe slower. Think. He still held the gun. His shot a moment ago, the first time in his life he’d ever fired a weapon, had been a message that he was armed. Strange that his first shot was here, among so many reminders of death, when it should have been two days ago. He crawled ahead across the gritty floor, paralleling the bones inches away. A musty, dirty smell filled his nostrils, which reminded him of Abiram’s open coffin, but he kept moving, staying low to the ground.

He heard movement behind him.

He rolled onto his spine and stared back through the bars and arches.

A shadow grew in size.

Someone was approaching.

———

Z
ACHARIAH HELD
A
LLE TIGHT, HIS HAND OVER HER MOUTH
. H
E
could feel her shaking with fear.

He removed his hand.

“Are you all right?” he whispered, concern in his voice and eyes.

Her head bobbed. “I’m okay. Brian is back there. He was shot. Somebody is there with a gun.”

“Listen to me, Alle. I need your help. Rócha will make sure your father is okay. No harm will come to him. But I need you to go with him. Find out what it is your father knows.”

“He told you.”

He shook his head. “He is holding back. There is no reason for him to be truthful with me. I would have no way to verify anything, and he knows that.”

“Why would he lie?”

“Perhaps he feels an attachment or duty to his father. I have to know if he is being entirely candid.”

“Brian is a government agent.”

His heart shuddered.

Had he heard her correctly?

“He said he worked for U.S. intelligence.”

How was that possible? But he contained his surprise and decided to use that fact. “That’s exactly what I have been saying. The Americans would like nothing better than to stop me.”

“Why?”

“I will explain later. Right now, find out for me what your father knows. Much is at stake here for us all.”

“Why did you sell me out?”

“I wanted you to go with him. I thought it the only way to make sure you would not come with me.”

A lie, but a good one.

He watched her eyes, searching for confirmation that she was still his.

“Okay,” she said. “I can go with him and find out.”

“I knew you could. You must know that I would never have allowed anything to happen to you. I took a great chance coming down here. Brian was a danger, but I had to make sure you were okay.” He handed her his cell phone. “Take this. My home number is there in the memory. Call me when you learn something.”

“Did you kill Brian?” she asked.

“Not me. Somebody else is here. That is why you and your father
have to leave. Rócha is making that possible. We have enemies everywhere.”

She did not know what to say.

He gently grasped both of her shoulders. “It is unfortunate that all this has happened, but much depends on you. Please, find out what we need to know.”

B
ÉNE HAD SEVERAL TIMES VISITED
S
ANTIAGO DE
C
UBA, A CITY
with half a million people. It was the island’s second largest, behind Havana, which lay nine hundred kilometers to the west. Its deep bay made it invaluable, as from here Cuba imported and exported most of its goods. What he’d not known was its history relative to the Spanish. That had never been important, until today.

Tre explained that one of Spain’s first conquistadores, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, founded the city in 1514 before he laid siege to the island. Cortez began his conquest of Mexico and de Soto his exploration of Florida from here. This was the center of Spanish power over Cuba, serving as the island’s capital until 1589. More recently, the Battle of San Juan Hill happened not far away, which ended both the Spanish-American War and any European presence in Cuba forever.

“Castro proclaimed the victory of the Cuban revolution from this town’s city hall balcony,” Tre said.

They were climbing into a Range Rover that had been waiting at the airport. Béne had arranged for the vehicle through contacts he maintained for his export businesses.

“Columbus landed here on his first voyage in October 1492,” Tre said. “He thought he was in Asia, on a new continent, so he searched for the Grand Khan. He had on board a man named Luis de Torres, who served as the ship’s translator. He could speak Hebrew and some Arabic. Columbus sent de Torres and another man inland to find the Khan. Of course, all they found were half-naked natives, living simply. But de Torres did discover one thing.” Tre paused. “The locals showed
him how to roll leaves into what they called
tabacos
. They would light one end and draw a few drags. He watched as they took the firebrands with them on hunting journeys, halting every hour or so for more drags. They were able to travel great distances thanks to those drags. We call them cigars today, and the leaves tobacco. De Torres could have been the first European to ever smoke. But within a hundred years, tobacco had spread throughout Europe.”

Béne drove as they left the airport, heading for a small community west of town. Tre had told him the archive’s location and a map had been waiting in the vehicle.

“De Torres never returned to Spain,” Tre said. “He stayed in the New World and eventually settled here, in Cuba. He started a plantation and was the first European to cultivate tobacco. This island, more than Hispaniola, became the Spanish headquarters in the New World. So it makes sense that this is where the majority of documents from that time can be found.”

Which probably saved them, Béne thought. As a socialist state, Cuba had been closed to most of the world since 1959. Only in the past few years had that changed.

“I’ve been told,” Tre said, “that this archive is contained within a small museum about the Spanish time in Cuba.”

“I despise Columbus.” He was comfortable enough with Halliburton to express himself openly, at least on this topic.

“You’re not alone. October 12, Columbus Day in America, is hardly celebrated anywhere else. In Mexico it’s called the day of one race,
Raza
, with hardly a mention of Columbus. In Uruguay the natives commemorate it as their last day of freedom. Many other South and Central American nations feel the same. What happened in 1492 definitely changed the world, but it has created an era of unparalleled genocide, cruelty, and slavery.”

They rode in silence for a while through kilometers of palm-lined cane fields. Béne thought about the information Simon had offered, which wasn’t much. He’d not shared anything with Halliburton about the Austrian’s existence. That was his alone to know. But what Tre had said about Luis de Torres,
a Hebrew translator
, stuck in his brain.

“Why was there a person speaking Hebrew on Columbus’ ship?”

“Nobody knows, Béne. There are some who think Columbus was a Jew and that he was searching for some promised land where Jews lived in peace.”

Which was what Simon believed. “Is that possible?”

Tre shrugged. “Who the hell knows? We know so little about Columbus that anything is possible. It’s a fact that he brought no priests with him on the first voyage, which is odd in and of itself. Columbus was an enigma then, and remains so today. Who would have thought he found some lost Tainos gold mine? But maybe he did.”

The highway led them into a small hamlet with colonial-style buildings, a place where things seemed reused, mended, and recycled time and again. Three feed-and-supply stores catered to farmers, but there was also a tinsmith, tobacco shop, and what appeared to be a church. He parked the Range Rover near a cobbled square surrounded by more colonial-era buildings. The hot air reeked of ripe fruit and toiling humanity. Little breeze, just a trapped and boiling stew of conflicting smells. They’d passed their destination just down the street, a sign indicating
MUSEO DE AMBIENTE HISTÓRICO CUBANO
and that it was open until 4:00
P.M
. He’d not come unprepared. A semiautomatic was tucked snugly beneath a thin jacket. Cuba, for all its supposed innocence, remained a hostile place, one where he’d learned to be cautious. Only a few people were in sight. A mangy-haired dog ambled over to investigate them. Some Cuban jazz leaked from one of the cafés.

He faced Tre. “You said this place was privately owned. By whom?”

“The Jews of Cuba.”

That information piqued his interest.

“Surprised me, too,” Tre said. “Once there were tens of thousands of Jews here. They came after Columbus. Then they fled here for Brazil in the 17th century because of the Inquisition. They came back after 1898, when the island gained its independence from Spain. Now only about 1,500 are left. Amazingly, Castro left them alone. Over the past decade they’ve made a name for themselves by preserving the island’s history. Some of them are distant descendants from the
conversos
who immigrated here in the early 16th century with de Torres. They’ve spent a good deal of time and money gathering up documents and
artifacts from that period and storing them away. Thank goodness they have a generous benefactor. Like with you and the Maroons.”