“A call in the Knesset for retaliation. The Temple Mount retaken. Every single Muslim expelled. When they resist, which they will, they will be shown that we are not weak.”
“And the world? The Americans? They will not want any of that to happen.”
“Then I will ask them, what did you do when your country was attacked by terrorists? You mounted an army and invaded Afghanistan. Eventually, you invaded Iraq. You defended what you believe to be important. That is all we will be doing and, in the end, we will have Israel, the mount, and our Third Temple. If you are right, the Messiah will then come and we will have global peace. I would say all that is worth the risk.”
So would he.
As had his father and grandfather.
“How close are you to success?” she asked him.
“Closer than I have ever been before. The final piece of the puzzle is here, in Prague. Which I should have shortly.”
She seemed pleased. “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing. I have to do this myself.”
———
BENE DOVE INTO THE CHILLY WATER AND CLAWED HIS WAY down, following the light Frank Clarke held as he led the way. He should be cold but his blood ran hot. He felt like one of his ancestors, preparing to do battle with British redcoats, their weapons few, their determination great.
Clarke’s light disappeared into a dark hole, the beam faded but was still there. With a light in one hand he followed and entered the same cavity, about two meters in diameter. He stared through the water and still saw Clarke’s light toward the ceiling. His pants and boots were like anchors and he was reaching the limit of his breath, so he kicked toward the brightness, propelling himself upward, breaking the surface and sucking air.
Frank stood on a rocky ledge, pants dripping, staring down, holding his light. “It takes about all you have, doesn’t it?”
That it did.
He laid his light on the rocks and leveraged himself from the water. His lungs stabilized. His nerves calmed, but remained on high alert.
Frank angled his beam around the chamber. He saw it was irregularly shaped, a few meters deep, the same in height, with one exit—beside which, carved into the rock, was a hooked X.
“The mark of the Spanish,” Frank said. “Maybe made by the great Admiral of the Ocean, Columbus himself.”
———
ALLE WALKED WITH HER FATHER AND BERLINGER.
They’d left the underground room and house, emerging onto the street. The clock above what the rabbi noted as the Jewish town hall read nearly 9:00 A.M. People filled the cobbled streets, the quarter alive for another day. Vendors were beginning to open stalls that lined the cemetery wall, the iron gates leading inside to the graves now guarded by an attendant. She could hear a murmur of traffic and the growl of engines in the distance. The chill from earlier remained, though it dissipated rapidly beneath a brightening sun.
Her father’s outburst had affected her.
She wondered about something he’d said.
She’d called him a cheater and a fraud because of all that happened.
But what had he meant?
She should have asked, but could not bring herself to do it. She simply wanted to learn what she could and get away from him. She carried her shoulder bag once again with the cell phone inside. Her father harbored the note, the key, and the map.
Of Jamaica, she’d seen.
What did all this mean?
Berlinger led them to a turreted building identified by a placard as the ceremonial hall, built in 1908. Three- storied, neo-Romanesque style, fortresslike, with a turret rising from one side to a distinctive slate roof.
The rabbi stopped, then turned and faced them both. “From that balcony up there funeral orations were once delivered. This was the place where the dead were prepared for final resting. Now it’s a museum.”
Berlinger motioned to an exterior staircase. “Let us go inside.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
BENE SWITCHED ON HIS LIGHT, GLAD HE’D BROUGHT WATERPROOF cave lamps. And though his gun was outside, he’d not come unarmed. On the pretense of forcing more water from his pants he checked for the knife strapped to his right leg.
Still there.
The story of Martha Brae his mother reminded him of at dinner came to mind. How she led the Spanish into a cave to find gold, only to disappear and leave them to drown.
“The Tainos showed the Spanish this place,” Frank said. “We have to follow that tunnel for a little way to see more.”
