But nothing turned.
He twisted harder. Left and right.
Still locked.
He readjusted the key inside the hole.
No success.
“You. Up there.”
A male voice from below.
He glanced down.
Two young men stood on the cobbles at the bottom of the ladder.
Both toted guns in shoulder holsters.
———
ALLE SAW TWO MEN APPROACHING ON A NARROW COBBLED PASSAGE that separated the freestanding synagogue from a block of buildings. The alley connected the commercial avenue she was standing on with another street that ran deeper into the Jewish quarter. She’d been watching her father climb the iron rungs, her gaze darting occasionally to the passageway, vigilant to any passersby. Movement had caught her attention as two shadows appeared at the far end and hustled her way.
She retreated into a dark doorway for a closed shop and watched as her father reached into his pocket and found what looked like a key. He inserted it into the lock of the door to the loft and tried in vain to open it. The two shadows transformed into young men who stood at the base of the ladder, staring up. They did not appear to be police, each dressed in jeans and a dark jacket. Both armed. One of them yelled, “You. Up there.”
Her father’s head turned.
“Get down,” the young man ordered. “Before you hurt yourself.”
Her father did not move. But there was nowhere for him to go. The synagogue’s roof was a steep gable impossible to negotiate and, apparently, the loft door was not to be opened.
The only thing to do was climb down.
Which her father did.
He made it to the bottom rung.
The two men stood below him.
“Stretch from the last one and drop. We’ll get you.”
He did as they instructed, falling to the pavement, their grasp breaking his fall. Then one of the men kicked her father’s feet out from under him. The other shoved him to the pavement, wrestling one arm behind his back, a knee pressed tight to his spine.
“Stay still” came the order.
She needed to leave. Their attention was not on her. She could slip away and use the storefronts and recessed doorways for cover. The car was parked on the far side of the square, and her father carried the keys. But anywhere was better than here.
She crept backward, keeping her gaze locked on the men thirty feet away and six feet below her. The angle of the buildings would soon block her from their view.
She bumped into something.
Startled, she jolted back and whirled.
Another young man stood three feet away.
He, too, with a gun in a holster.
CHAPTER FIFTY
ZACHARIAH STOOD THIRTY METERS AWAY FROM WHERE TOM Sagan and Alle Becket were being accosted by three men. He knew exactly who they were. Not the police, but a private patrol the local Jewish council employed to keep watch. And he knew why. Bigotry had not vanished.
Only about 1,500 Jews still practiced in Prague, sad for a place that had once been an epicenter for European Jewry. Kings and emperors had inflicted their damage, slowly and steadily, but the Nazis finished them off. Nearly 100,000 were exterminated. All that remained of a once thriving religious community was practically gone. He knew some of the local leaders and the challenges they faced. Almost weekly something was defaced. Though a stone wall enclosed the old cemetery, that had not prevented vandals from tossing dead animals over the top. Graffiti appeared regularly. The police did little to either stop or prosecute offenders. So the community had taken the task upon themselves. One of his foundations, geared to the preservation of Hebrew monuments worldwide, had contributed money to fund both cameras and people.
Rocha had tracked the phone he’d provided Alle to a Viennese residential neighborhood. He’d stationed a man there who reported that she and her father had abruptly left the residence and made their way to a car park not far from St. Stephen’s Cathedral. He’d stayed the night in town and was able to quickly find the same highway north that Sagan and his daughter had taken, their man following and telephoning in reports. Eventually, they were able to catch up and ended here, in Prague at the Old-New Synagogue. He knew that the building was under video surveillance, the cameras concealed, monitored twenty-four hours a day. So it had not taken long for the citizen patrol to appear.
He and Rocha stood concealed at the entrance to one of the upscale boutiques lining Parizska Street. This one sold expensive porcelain. The whole place was an insult to his heritage. Once this boulevard had lain inside the quarter, the buildings lining both sides homes to Jews for centuries, all demolished at the beginning of the 20th century. Now it was Prague’s most elegant way, home to Cartier, Prada, Louis Vuitton, and every other designer
