The president slumped deeply back into his chair. 'And just how the hell did they do that?'

Silence was his only answer.

'Okay, okay,' the president said. 'I want to know exactly what took place, why those missiles disappeared, vanished, or whatever. And in the meantime I want a total lid on this. I hear so much as a whisper about tonight, somebody's gonna finish their career counting caribou in Alaska.'

THREE

Blind Donkey Alley

Bruges, Belgium

2200 European Time

Even though Bruges's canal network was now scenic rather than utilitarian, the trees along the banks in front of redbrick, narrow-windowed medieval houses reminded Benjamin Yadish of his native Amsterdam.

The town was amazingly preserved from its days as a trading center for textiles, fine lace, and intricate gold jewelry some six hundred years past. The silting up of the River Zwin had largely ended its mercantile days, but it had also discouraged replacing tall town houses with more contemporary and far less charming structures, as had happened in so many European cities.

There had been the coldly charmless semidetached in Cambridge, the fourth-story garret in the Sorbonne District of Paris, the wretched and noisy rooms over a Bierstube just outside the university area of Munich, the only quarters worse than the converted barn near Bologna that still leaked hours after a rainfall. Before accepting a post as head of the University of Amsterdam's physics department, he had spent time at half a dozen institutions.

A wandering Jew, he liked to joke.

He rounded a corner, thankful to exit an alley so narrow he could have touched opposing polished doorknobs by stretching out his arms. He breathed deeply in relief.

Relief from what?

He was unsure. He was aware only of an anxiety that had no rational basis. Hardly an emotion to which any scientist would admit.

He crossed the Burg, a pleasant cobbled square consisting of several small restaurants, all closed at this hour. Now he could see the Markt, a thirteenth-century market square lined by tall, stair-step gabled houses, many with brightly painted facades. For reasons he also could not have explained, he was thankful to reach the most brightly lit place in town. Only now did he realize how claustrophobic he had felt in the confines of twisting streets and alleys too narrow for vehicular traffic.

Nonsense, he told himself. He had never feared confined spaces any more than he had standing at the roof edge of tall buildings.

The glances over his shoulder were totally unnecessary.

There was, though, something sinister about this whole trip. The unexpected phone call demanding he bring the CDs containing the protocol of his most recent experiments, a meeting at night in a strange city. Had the call come from anyone else, he would have thought he was speaking to a lunatic.

He settled at a table in one of the few bistros on the square still serving at this hour. A waiter silently materialized, and Benjamin ordered a Brugse Tripel beer. He would have preferred coffee, but caffeine at this hour would keep him awake all night.

Night.

Well after 2200.

The waiter set the beer bottle next to a glass. As was customary for such places, he also left a slip of paper on a small tray, the bill, which Benjamin could pay anytime before leaving. The waiter scurried back to the lights inside. Benjamin poured slowly, intent on the building head of bubbles.

'If you tilt the glass, you will get less of a head.'

A man sat down across from him, speaking accented English. He was positioned so that his face was dark while limned by street lamps.

Benjamin squinted, unable to make out more than a featureless dark blur. 'I don't recognize your voice. You're not…'

The head shook. 'No. I am to take you to him. You have what he requested?'

Benjamin patted his inside jacket pocket as he lifted his glass. 'Of course. As soon as I finish. You?'

'No, thanks.'

Benjamin emptied the glass and held the tab up to the light from the street. Guessing rather than seeing, he left two euros on the table and stood. 'I've spoken with him often, but we met only once. At the beginning. Why now? Why here instead of in Amsterdam, where he can personally inspect what I'm doing?'

The other man either did not hear or, more likely, ignored the questions. He was already hurrying west down Steenstraat. Benjamin caught up, curious as to the need to rush. Perhaps all would be explained shortly. A left turn down Mariastraat past the Welcome Church of Our Lady, its spire, the tallest in Belgium, stabbing the night as it glowed in beams cast by lights at its base. Right turn along the east-west canal. The steep-gabled, tall town houses had given way to modest two-story brick buildings whose steep eaves had sloughed off snow for over five hundred winters.

The man stopped and pointed to a bench under a tree with roots running down to the canal. Across a narrow street was a house with a depiction of a swan on it. A small hotel. That made sense. It was the type of accommodation the man Benjamin had come to see might choose: both luxurious and inconspicuous.

'Wait here.'

Benjamin started to protest, then thought better of it and sat facing water so still that the warm light from the hotel's windows swam on the surface. On a spring night like this, sitting outside was comfortable. Perhaps the man feared some sort of listening devices might be in the walls of the hotel. Benjamin could fully understand why the man would want whatever he had to say not to be overheard. The project was best kept quiet until completed. There would be those who would very much like to see that it never was.

Benjamin heard footsteps and started to rise.

He felt something cold and hard against the base of his skull, cold and hard like steel.

Like a gun's barrel.

But why?

He heard a puff, a mere whisper, and brilliant lights exploded from somewhere behind his eyes. He felt no pain, only the firmness of the earth beneath him.

And someone's hand groping his inside jacket pocket.

Then all went black and he felt nothing.

FOUR

Manuel's Tavern

Highland Avenue

Atlanta, Georgia

8:30 p.m. EST

The Same Night

The original part of Manuel's Tavern dated back to the early 1950s. It consisted of stools along a bar and wooden booths, now time-worn and inscribed with graffiti from generations of students. Then, as now, it was a rendezvous for local Democratic politicos, university intelligentsia, and those who would like to become any of the above. Manuel had chosen wisely, locating his establishment across the street from the border of the Southern Methodist/Baptist-controlled county in which Emory University was located. The bar had been an oasis of beer and free thought on the edge of a Sahara of proclaimed abstinence and intolerance Never mind that the greatest amount of liquor tax collected in the state at that time came from those purveyors of the devil's elixir just across

Вы читаете The Sinai Secret
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату