“I’d like to know who she really is. And why she’s been lying to me.” Jack took his notebook from his back pocket. “Now that we’re being totally up front with each other, how about I show you these?”
“What are they?”
“A couple of interesting translations. Another from the scroll I found and one I discovered inscribed under the streets of Rome.”
Lela read the translations, and after Jack had explained, she stared down at the words. “You’re certain that you interpreted them correctly?”
“They’re accurate, Lela. My Latin’s okay. I’ve translated enough Roman inscriptions in my day. And my Aramaic’s pretty passable.”
“They’re. . . incredible.”
“It makes me even more convinced that religion, history, everything could be changed by the scroll’s contents. That’s why I made the phone call.”
“To whom?”
Jack snapped shut his notebook and put it away. “Dr. Alfonse Gati, to be precise, Harvard-educated historian extraordinaire. Fonzi to his friends. Fonzi’s a little. . . well, odd, to put it mildly. But he’s one of the foremost scrolls experts and he’s familiar with the Atbash code. He worked with my folks in Qumran years ago and he’s a friend of Buddy’s. I’m hoping he may be able to help us decipher the code.”
She sat there for a long time, looking at him, saying nothing.
Jack said, “What’s up?”
Lela hesitated. “It’s personal. I just wanted you to know something.”
“What?”
“After your parents died, after you left Qumran, I thought about you all the time.” Lela put a hand to his face, touched his cheek, let her hand fall away. “I’ve often thought that maybe I could have helped you heal back then.”
Jack smiled bleakly. “It was something I had to go through myself. But there were often times when I thought of you. Wondered what had become of you. The truth is, I used to hope that we’d meet once more, that I’d have the courage to tell you why I didn’t see you again.”
Lela searched his eyes. “Kiss me, Jack.”
Jack didn’t answer but gently cupped her face in one of his palms. In response, Lela brushed a finger against his lips and then her arms went around his neck. Her eyes sparked, and he kissed her mouth.
A second later the bedside phone rang.
93
ROME
9:15 A.M.
The ruins near the Colosseum were crammed with tourists that morning. Despite the rainy weather, hundreds had disembarked from tour buses parked along the curb.
Julius Weiss grunted as he handed some coins to a street food vendor. In return he received a hot slice of salami pizza. The Israeli spy chief bit into his snack as he watched across the street.
The café bar wasn’t yet crowded with patrons, the polished metal tables outside mostly empty. Weiss recognized the small, scrawny Sicilian with bushy eyebrows. He sat alone at one of the tables, reading the
Weiss dumped the remains of his unfinished pizza slice in a garbage bin, dusted his hands, and crossed the street to the café bar. Cardinal Umberto Cassini looked up. “Julius, it’s good to see you. What’s it to be? Coffee? Tea?”
The Israeli eased his frame into the seat and grunted. “Something stronger. A grappa. Ice and water, a slice of lemon.”
Cassini called the waiter and ordered a double espresso and the grappa. When the man had gone Cassini said, “It’s been a long time, Julius.”
“What made you pick this place?”
Cassini glanced around the café with tired eyes. “An old haunt of mine from when I was an archaeology student. The kind of bar where everybody’s too busy admiring the Colosseum and the pretty girls passing by to pay attention to two old friends chatting.”
Weiss removed his sunglasses and wiped them briskly with a handkerchief, his face mournful. “Acquaintances, Umberto. You and I have never been more than that. So, what’s such a big secret that you have to drag me all the way from Tel Aviv to hear it from you in person?”
The waiter returned with their drinks. Julius Weiss sipped his grappa and studied Cassini’s face. It was scoured with worry lines as deep as canyons, as if the cardinal was privy to too many secrets.
When the waiter had gone, Cassini ignored his espresso and said as quietly as a conspirator, “First, tell me what progress you have made, Julius.”
“We’ve lost the woman. We think she may be with Cane and to tell the truth it has me worried.” Weiss explained the details he’d learned from Ari Tauber. “It seems another party is interested in Cane’s scroll.”
“Who?” Cassini’s eyebrows arched into twin peaks.
Weiss had dealt with Cassini for many years on matters of mutual interest. He grudgingly admired the Vatican’s intelligence apparatus, considered it one of the best in the world. He took an envelope from his pocket and slid it across the table. “One of our agents took photographs of two men in St. Peter’s Square, the same pair they followed into the tunnels. There was also a shooting near the square. Our agents engaged fire with the men.”
