The Sacred Blood

“You don’t need to be geneticist,” he corrected. You don’t need to be Dr. Charlotte Hennesey, he bitterly thought—the name the field operative had found on the geneticist’s business card and driver’s license. A search of her passport activity would certainly show that she’d been in Rome back in June. Though it seemed unnecessary, he made a mental note to have his contact at Immigration Control run the query.

Looking apologetically at Ziv, Cohen realized he’d be better suited for this task. “Just get me a list of all the files. I’ll select the ones for you to look at.”

“Of course.” Lightning-fast fingers back at the keyboard, she stripped out unneeded information, filtered, refined.

In the quest to reclaim the purity of his family’s sacred bloodline, Aaron Cohen had become proficient in human genome studies—specifically the genetic research pioneered by Israeli professor Karl Skorecki in 1997, which traced unique gene markers in the patrilineal Y-chromosomes of Ashkenazi (European) and Sephardic (Spanish, North African, and Middle Eastern) Jews claiming to be Kohanim—the priestly descendants traced back over 3,300 years directly to Aaron and Moses. The Cohens. Of the world’s seven million male Jews, less than 5 percent bore the unique genetic markers passed down by Moses’s brother, Aaron. And since the mutations were preserved exclusively in the male Y-chromosome, intermarriages resulting from intercontinental Diaspora had virtually no effect.

Not surprisingly, the study’s expansive database showed that Cohen’s own Cohen Modal Haplotype had been the most pure to date, just as his late grandfather had promised—now vindicated by genome analysis. The problem with his own DNA was that countless mutations, or polymorphisms, had corrupted God’s original perfection. Genetic distortions had been passed down from generation to generation. No doubt it underscored God’s scorn.

The whittled-down list took almost fifteen minutes.

“Not too bad,” she said. “Looks like there wasn’t much here—at least important stuff, that is.” She clicked a command on the screen and the printer came to life, spitting out a seven-page directory of files sorted alphabetically and grouped by file type. Scooping the sheets up, Ziv passed them to the rabbi. “Just let me know what you want to see.”

23

******

In the Land Rover’s fully reclined passenger seat, Jules was fast asleep, snoring like a barnyard animal, hands crossed over her chest.

A new sun was rising over Jerusalem as Amit put the truck in drive with a scab-knuckled hand. He was bleary eyed, exhausted to the bone. The falling rocks had pounded his back, bringing a physical pain that was oddly reminiscent of the automatic gunfire he’d once taken to his Kevlar vest in Gaza—nothing broken, but definitely some deep bruising. Even if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to sleep—not without something to numb the pain . . . and his growing paranoia.

For the time being, he felt they needed to keep moving. Call it instinct. And for good measure, the flat black Jericho 941F pistol he’d recovered from the assassin rested on his lap, its two spare magazines weighing down the deep pocket of his cargo pants.

As the Rover lurched forward, Jules stirred and her bandaged knee touched up against the dash, making her flinch. Amit glanced down to verify that the bleeding had stopped. He’d done a good job cleaning the wound with the iodine from the truck’s first aid kit. The cuts beneath the second tight wrap of gauze were deep, but nothing that required stitches. All things considered, last night could have ended much worse.

He checked the mirrors to make certain that no suspicious vehicle was tailing them.

A few hours earlier, when she’d first spotted him from her hiding place in the ruins of the Essenes’ scriptorium down near Qumran’s visitors’ center, she ran up and threw her arms around him. “What the hell just happened back there?!” she’d cried, squeezing too tight around his tender ribs. But he liked it nonetheless. It’d been a while since Amit felt like any kind of hero.

Now he was still searching for an answer to Jules’s question.

Why would a professional assassin try to kill them? Was what he’d uncovered at Qumran so shocking that its complete destruction was warranted? It made no sense. Sure, the wall painting was highly unusual and the unique chambers brought to mind all sorts of possibilities. And the glyph? Well, the glyph for Heliopolis could mean just about anything.

Then there was the matter of tactics. The assassin came with gun in hand, precisely when he and Jules had been seemingly trapped inside. The run-in, therefore, had been no coincidence. Amit wondered how long the man had been waiting to make his move, because there’d been no other vehicle in the parking lot last night. What had his plan been?

The jar. At least the jar was safely locked away at the Rockefeller Museum. The jar and its scrolls.

The scrolls?

Gears were turning in Amit’s busy mind. Maybe his dear friend Jozsef Dayan could shed some light on matters. No doubt he’d finished the translations already. The man was a machine. The IA A would never get him to leave his post. And why should they? Age had only improved him. And years had only added to the trust Amit shared with the old man. “Morning.”

It was Jules. He hadn’t even noticed she’d stopped snoring. With hands folded behind her head, she was arced in a stretch.

“Hey.” Out of the corner of his eye, Amit couldn’t help but notice that her shirt had hiked up to expose her lovely flat stomach. And her puckered navel was an innie. Nice. “Sleep okay?”

“Not too bad. Been a while since I’ve been laid out on a guy’s car seat.” She yawned. “So what’s the plan?”

He shrugged. “Tough to say. I’ll need to make some calls. I’ve got a friend who can probably help us.”

“A friend? How about the police?”

He shook his head. “Not an option yet.”

“What? You told me that dement is still alive. How is going to the police not an option?”

“Because of this,” he said, holding up the pistol. “Standard issue for the IDF. Also used by Israeli intelligence