The Sacred Blood

pinched between his fingers, thumb resting over the plunger. He’d already tapped the air bubbles out of the clear serum that filled it.

Charlotte peered out the suite’s open window and glimpsed a Lufthansa 747 lifting off the Fiumicino airport’s runway, jetting directly heavenward to the clouds on broad wings. Tears trickled down her cheeks. “I think so,” she said in a choked voice.

Releasing her hand, Evan used his index finger to massage a throbbing vein running down her left forearm.

“I thought you loathed venipuncture,” she said. He’d said it was one reason he didn’t want to become a surgeon: blood bothered him.

“I make exceptions,” he said with a comforting smile.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“It’s not too late to say no,” he reminded her. “Just say the word.”

“We’ve already talked this thing to death,” she calmly replied. “What choice do I have? Just get on with it,” she said with a small grin.

“Okay.”

He was trying his best to keep his hands from trembling.

“Just a quick sting.”

Charlotte directed her attention back out to the planes. The doubts came fast and hard as she sat there wondering if Evan’s concoction could possibly have any effect on her myeloma. People once thought flying was impossible, she reminded herself. Yet just outside that window, a huge metal machine had been climbing up into the sky. Nothing’s impossible, she told herself.

After drawing a deep breath, Evan steadied his hand and plunged the needle’s tip into the vein. She glanced down as he pulled back the plunger a fraction and some blood swirled up into the serum. Surprisingly, he’d gotten it in on the first try. Gently, he depressed the plunger until the entire 4-cc dose was emptied from the syringe. Withdrawing the needle, he held a thumb over the injection point, set the syringe down on the bed, and loosened the rubber tourniquet strapped tightly below her elbow.

The sensation was instantaneous. “Ooh,” she said, grabbing at her arm.

“What? What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said, letting out a breath. The poor guy was already on edge and she could tell that she’d scared him. “It just feels . . . strange.”

“What feels strange?” he asked, struggling to hide his concern. “My arm. It’s . . .” She had to pause to place it. “It’s tingling.”

The rabbi jumped back in, saying, “Would you not agree that ALS is a terminal disease where the chance of spontaneous recovery is zero?”

Snapping back into the moment, Charlotte tried to understand how even a spontaneous recovery could explain how Joshua was walking only hours later. ALS irreversibly destroyed nerve cells, and plenty of diagnostic tests could prove it.

This viral DNA is wildly contagious.

“I think what’s happened here is scientifically inexplicable,” the rabbi added. “So perhaps you might just admit that a miracle has taken place. A miracle for which you are responsible.”

Mute, Charlotte didn’t know how to respond. She stared blankly at the perfectly smooth skin on her own wrists where the raw marks from the duct tape his wife cut away had disappeared in a matter of seconds. Almost spontaneously.

“That, Dr. Hennesey, is the gift,” the rabbi proudly stated.

As Grandfather had taught, since Moses, only Jesus had acquired the most sacred genes. Perhaps the Messiah’s skeleton was indeed with the Vatican. But Cohen knew that what made the physical remains so special wasn’t the bones themselves; it was the incredible gift stored inside them. And now it had been transferred to the geneticist—the Chosen One. How the prophecies did surprise!

“I want you to come with me. There is something you must see.”

57

******

Amit killed the headlights on the assassin’s Fiat, with its bullet-riddled right-front wheel well above the recently installed spare tire, and rolled to a gentle stop outside the Rockefeller Museum. The exhibit hall’s interior was completely dark, as were all the windows in the adjoining wings. But in the circular tower of the administrative building that was home to the Israel Antiquities Authority, a thin outline of light shone around each of the blinds closed tight in the top-floor room.

Easing the car door shut, Amit crept around the building, the Beretta at the ready.

He spotted a flatbed truck loaded with two full pallets of precisionquarried limestone parked near the service entrance. The stone looked similar enough to the Rockefeller building’s exterior. Perhaps a renovation was under way?

His eyes kept scouting the area as he moved out from the cover of the wall.

No watchmen.

This isn’t Gaza, he kept reminding himself; there wouldn’t be a highly visible security detail protecting a hot zone. Cohen had included Mossad contract killers in his entourage. Just because one now lay dead on the doormat of the Israel Museum, he wasn’t about to let his guard down or get haughty about his marksmanship. There was a reason these killers were very good at what they did—lots of practice. And they didn’t do it by showing themselves. They were masters of stealth.

Parked in front of the flatbed was what Amit had expected: a white delivery van.

Most likely, the museum door closest to it was open.