“It was done because you did your job. You know that. They sent an emissary to tell you.”
This woman knew everything.
He stepped closer.
“I wouldn’t do that,” she said, motioning to the car. “He’s watching you through the mirror.”
His gaze darted past her and he saw the man’s watchful face in the exterior mirror. He stared back at her. “You’re working with Simon?”
“Mr. Sagan, at present, you are in no position to barter. But you could be. As I said, I am someone who has great respect for our beliefs. You are the Levite. The chosen successor. The only one who can find our Temple treasure.”
All of which Simon would have known.
“I don’t care about any of that. I want my life back.”
She opened the car’s rear door and climbed inside. Before closing it, she looked out and said, “Find the treasure. Then we will talk about your life.”
She closed the door.
And the car sped away.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
BENE AVOIDED THE DEBRIS, CLIMBING ACROSS THE BOULDERS and finding the wooden slab. He aimed his light past the doorway into another chamber, this one smaller than the previous. No smooth walls. No art. Just a harsh cavity in the rock that extended about twenty meters back and half that tall. He stepped inside. Frank and Tre followed him.
Their lights dissolved the darkness.
He spotted what appeared to be an altar of some sort, fashioned of rock and situated against one wall. Nothing rested on top. To its right was a low rectangle of rough stone, maybe half a meter high and two meters long. A taller slab projected upward at one end.
“It looks like a grave,” Tre said.
They walked closer, loose gravel crunching beneath their feet. Their lights brought the scene into clear focus. Bene now saw that the end slab was a tombstone. He recognized the two letters atop the marker.
“Here lies,” he said. “It’s Hebrew. I’ve seen this on a lot of other graves.”
All of the remaining writing was likewise in Hebrew.
Tre bent down and examined it closely.
“What is a Jewish grave doing here?” Bene asked Clarke.
“I wondered that, too,” Frank said. “So a few years ago I photographed the marker and had the words translated. It says,
Tre stood. “It’s the grave of Christopher Columbus. De Torres wrote that Columbus’ real name was Christoval Arnoldo de Ysassi. This is where he’s buried.”
Bene recalled what Tre had told him on the plane about Columbus’ grave. “You said yesterday that the widow of Columbus’ son brought the body to the New World.”
“She did. First to Santiago, then the remains were moved to Cuba. There’s a lot of controversy over who is buried in Santiago now, or whether the bones are in Cuba or Spain. Now we know that she brought them here, to the island the family controlled. Which makes the most sense.”
“I’ve always wondered who this is,” Clarke said. “We had no idea who the man might be. We knew him to be Hebrew, but that’s all. So we left the grave alone. If others knew this was Columbus, they would have destroyed it.”
“Damn right,” Bene said. “He was a thief and murderer.”
“This is an important historical find,” Tre said. “It’s never been proven where Columbus is buried. Nobody knew. Now we do.”
“Who cares?” Bene said. “Let him rot here.” He turned to Frank. “Is this all?”
“Look around. What else do you see?”
He scanned the chamber with his light.
And saw niches carved into the far wall.
He stepped over and examined the closest one with the flashlight and saw bones. Each of the others was likewise filled with a body.
“Our greatest Maroon leaders,” Frank said. “That one to your left is Grandy Nanny herself. Laid to rest here in 1758.”
“I thought her grave was in Moore Town, on the windward side, Portland Parish?”
“At first, then she was brought here by the Scientists.” Frank pointed. “The bones you just examined are Cudjoe’s.”
He was shocked.
