The Jericho Pact Page 8

  Ulla Viermann seemed to study him for a long moment before she replied, as if she were trying to decide whether he could be so naive. “Oh, there you are wrong, Herr Caine. Burying the truth will help someone. It will help the person or persons who murdered Chancellor Vögel.”

  Egypt

  c. 1300 B.C.E.

  Jacob preferred to live among the Hebrew community to the north of where his son Joseph now served as Grand Vizier to the Pharaoh. He was proud of Joseph’s accomplishments. His brothers had sold him into slavery, but Joseph had risen far, and now Joseph’s daughter, Tiye, was to marry the Pharaoh. It seemed that the Lord’s bounty knew no limit.

  But Jacob’s years were catching up with him, and he knew it was time to pass along the knowledge that had so long ago been entrusted to Avraham. He had, of course, educated all his sons in the knowledge of the Kabbalah, including Joseph, and even a few of his daughters, for it was important that the knowledge not die. But now it was time to pass along the instruments.

  He had debated for a long time, since there were four of them, one ruby, one emerald, one sapphire, one diamond. Should they all be given to one son, or should they be divided?

  In darkness and solitude, he opened the chest where he kept them and lifted out all the old blankets that concealed them. They glowed so that he could see them even without the assistance of an oil lamp. Gently he touched each one.

  He found it symbolic that there were four, and all were the same shape as the three huge, awe-inspiring pyramids on the plain of Giza. The people of Egypt related that the pyramids had been there since a time long lost in the mists of memory, and Jacob had no difficulty believing it. These gemstones, into which one could look and see the mysteries of the universe, along with the accompanying scroll that contained the mystical alphabet of letters that held the sounds that had created the world and now were being incorporated as a way to write the old, sacred Hebrew tongue, also came from a time no one clearly remembered.

  It had been told to Jacob from his fathers that the Lord, El, had given these gifts to Avraham. But it was also said that the glowing pyramids had been created by Seth, at the behest of El. The scholars argued whether Seth was the son of the first adama, or if he was a god himself. The Egyptians likened him to a god and called him Tahuti, who was revered by the scribes as the creator of all writing…which would go along with the scroll of strange writing and the moving symbols within the pyramids.

  But Jacob was now past worrying about the answers. If he had been meant to have answers, El would have provided them. Instead, El had told him that he would be the father of a great nation, that his children would number as many as the grains of sand, and so had named him Israel. Jacob still found that name uncomfortable to bear, although most of his sons and their sons now went around calling themselves the sons of Israel.

  He touched the pyramids again, and watched the light within them shift and change as symbols and signs floated around. He had looked deeply into one once, and El had warned him away, advising him to stick with his study of the scroll. The knowledge in those pyramids was not meant for him.

  He wondered what it must have been like for Avraham to be able to stand face to face with El and accept the charge to move into Canaan. Would being face to face make it any easier than having to rely on dreams?

  Yet, Jacob admitted, his dreams had never misled him, not even when he had fled after stealing Esau’s inheritance. He sometimes remembered his misdeed and wept, but still El had favored him. Or cursed him. He would have been happy to remain in Canaan raising his goats, but no, he had been summoned to Egypt, where he had watched his children and his children’s children turned from herders into laborers. They were not far from slaves now, and he suspected that once Joseph died, slavery would become their lot. Tiye, beautiful and strong woman that she was, would not be able to save her people from the scorn of their Egyptian landlords.

  El must have his reasons, Jacob reminded himself. All he could do was remain a good servant, as Avraham had promised so long ago. El said he had great plans for Avraham’s descendents. Jacob sometimes wondered why it was taking so long, but then he reminded himself that the affairs of the Lord were beyond his ken.

  “Every sword,” his beloved Joseph had once said to him, “must be tempered in fire.”

  So perhaps this was the tempering of the sons of Israel.

  Shaking his head, Jacob once again piled the old blankets, still smelling of goat, onto the pyramids and closed the chest. He would give the sapphire pyramid to Joseph, he decided. The ruby and the emerald… He hesitated as he thought about it. Tiye, he decided. He would give the emerald one to Tiye. Then she could pass it down the line of her royal daughters and bring them to the will of El.

  As for the others, he had numerous sons who he loved. That decision could await another day, he decided. Somewhere deep inside he felt that it was time for the pyramids to be scattered, no longer kept close together.

  There was safety in that, his heart said. Safety for everyone. For together, these pyramids could change the whole world.

  8

  Rome, Italy

  M onsignore Veltroni sat on a bench near the Trevi Fountain as the predawn sky began to lighten. Pigeons cooed to one another, waking to another day of pestering tourists for scraps. So far the tourists had not begun arriving. Only a few people were about, hurrying to open shops that would provide food and thick coffee to those on the way to work later in the morning.

  The fountain was as quiet and peaceful as it could be, except perhaps at three in the morning. The water rushing from Neptune’s rising steeds filled the entire piazza with its soothing sound.

  As he had hoped, in that seemingly magical way that filled Veltroni with both awe and fear, Nathan Cohen suddenly appeared around a corner and walked toward him. Today the man looked like a laborer on his way to work at a construction site. When he sat near Veltroni, he pulled a bag from his pocket and began to toss bread-crumbs to the pigeons.

  “Do you come here often?” Veltroni asked, trying yet again to find out whether Cohen somehow knew when Veltroni would be here, or whether he simply passed by here as part of his routine.

  “As often as I need to,” Cohen answered. “I like the pigeons and the company.”

  “It is a lovely fountain.”

  “It speaks to a time older than much of Rome,” Cohen replied. “Though it is itself not that old.”

  “Meaning?”

  Cohen looked at him, the creases by his eyes deepening as he smiled. “Must there be a meaning to everything?”

  “I am beginning to think so. You reassured me once that my friend Steven was still alive when he had vanished into the jungle in Guatemala.”

  “True.”

  Veltroni looked at him. “Do you know who he is?”

  “He is an important man, your Father Steve. Am I to gather the Church itself has begun to realize it?”

  “Parts of the Church have.”

  “Ah. Your little organization.”

  It always unnerved Veltroni that Cohen seemed to know so much about the Stewards, a group that did not exist in any Vatican record. He wished he had Cohen’s sources, and his resources. Finally Veltroni merely nodded and watched Cohen scatter some more crumbs.

  Presently Cohen spoke again. “Father Lorenzo is more widely known than you might imagine, Monsignore.”

  Veltroni opened his mouth to question, but Cohen had already risen and was emptying his entire bag of crumbs on the ground.

  “Set your spies, my friend,” Cohen said. “But do not be surprised when they fail. And do not worry if you lose contact with him. I will keep him safe for you.”

  Then he strolled away, whistling a tune that sounded vaguely Eastern. After a half-dozen steps, he stopped and looked back. “Monsignore!”

  Veltroni stood and waited.

  “Please attend to the news from Berlin and Strasbourg. Events of great importance are being placed in motion. You have a role to play in them. An impor
tant role.”

  Mouth drawing into a tight line, Veltroni watched Cohen walk away. Then, feeling suddenly paranoid, he turned to see if he was being watched. But no one seemed in the least interested in what had passed between him and Cohen, and there were few enough people about, in any case.

  It was then that Veltroni realized Cohen’s last statement had been spoken in flawless Latin.

  He strolled quickly back toward the Vatican, his thoughts percolating as he stopped at a newsstand and glanced at the front pages of the Rome newspapers. While the specific headlines differed, all had the same theme as La Repubblica:

  Soult—‘Pacificazione’

  Was that what Cohen meant? He had not paid attention to European politics of late; the Vatican was more global in its outlook, and the policies of the European Union were rarely of religious import. But of course he had heard of Jules Soult’s election and was vaguely aware that Soult was offering some new policy to quiet the street violence in Europe. Something surely needed to be done to stop the violence and save lives.

  The wizened old man who operated the stall tapped the newspaper with a yellowed, twisted fingernail. “You should read that, Monsignore. You were not alive under Mussolini, but I was. I recognize the signs.”

  Veltroni looked at him. “Signs?”

  “Read it and see, Monsignore. It is not my place to tell such a learned man as yourself what is in the paper.”

  Veltroni tossed him a coin, took the newspaper and read it as he walked, growing more uncomfortable with each step. The vague and innocuous notion of pacification had taken concrete form in a set of legislative proposals Soult had offered to the European Parliament. While some might laud Soult’s intentions, Veltroni could find no comfort in their proposed expression.

  If the legislation was enacted, each member of the EU would be required to declare one or more “protection zones” for its Muslim inhabitants. While Muslims would not be required to live in these zones, the EU would subsidize additional security measures to protect those who did.

  The word “ghetto” crossed Veltroni’s mind more than once as he read the article. Long before he had reached the Holy City, he had decided it would be in order to call his friend Ahmed Ahsami. If Nathan Cohen saw handwriting on this wall, his advice was not to be ignored.

  Rome, Italy

  “Explain it again, please?” Jefe said, looking at the complex diagram Renate was displaying on a computer monitor. “A Mis-whatever-it-is…that’s like an impeachment, right?”

  “Not quite,” she said. “A Mißtrauensvotum is a vote of distrust, the German equivalent to the English vote of no confidence. For Americans, it would be more similar to replacing the Speaker of the House of Representatives.”

  “But this isn’t the Speaker of the House,” Jefe said, holding out the newspaper whose front page proclaimed that the German Bundestag had proposed a vote of no confidence against the current chancellor, Albert Schlossman. “Your Chancellor is like our President.”

  “In some ways, yes,” Renate said. “In America, the President is both the head of state and the head of the government. The head of government does the day-today leadership, while the head of state is a more ceremonial position. In England, the head of state is the Queen, but the head of government is the Prime Minister. In Germany, the head of state is our President, but the Chancellor is the head of government.”

  “I see,” Jefe said.

  Separating the two positions made no sense to him, but then again, he hadn’t grown up under a parliamentary government, which was why he’d asked Renate to explain the significance of the Mißtrauensvotum. She knew the inner workings of German politics better than anyone else at Office 119, and he needed her expertise.

  “Our Chancellor,” she explained, “is elected by the Bundestag, the senior house of our federal legislature, like your Senate. In effect, he is chosen by the party or coalition of parties that holds the majority of seats in the Bundestag. Chancellor Vögel was the leader of the Social Democrat Party. But the Social Democrats did not hold a majority. They formed a coalition with the Green Party to secure that majority. As part of that coalition agreement, Chancellor Vögel chose the leader of the Green Party, Albert Schlossmann, as his Vice Chancellor. That is how Herr Schlossmann—the leader of a small, minority party—became Chancellor on Vögel’s death.”

  “But that coalition still has a majority,” Jefe said. “So they will defeat the Mißtrauensvotum, and Schlossmann stays in office. I don’t see why this is a big deal.”

  “The Social Democrats will back out of the coalition,” Renate said. “Chancellor Schlossmann is pushing his new Gründgesetze, his Green laws. These are environmental laws that would tighten our already severe limits on emissions from coal-fired power plants. The Social Democrats cannot afford to lose the support of the coal miners’ unions.”

  “So Schlossmann should drop those laws,” Jefe said.

  Renate shook her head. “Chancellor Schlossmann would lose the support of the Green Party, and they would replace him as party leader. He is in an impossible position.”

  “I understand,” Jefe said. “Schlossmann will be voted out. Then what? New elections?”

  “Apparently not,” Renate said. “The proposal is what we call a constructive vote of distrust. If it passes, and I’m sure it will, then one of three things will happen. First, the Social Democrats and the Greens might make a new coalition agreement, with the new SPD leader as chancellor. Second, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats might attempt another Grand Coalition as they did under Chancellor Merkel, but this time the Social Democrats have more seats, so the SPD leader would be chancellor. I don’t think the Christian Democrats would approve that. It gains them nothing.”

  “This Mißtrauensvotum was proposed by the CDU—the Christian Democrats,” Jefe said. “Surely they wouldn’t do that just to replace Schlossmann with an SPD chancellor.”

  “Surely not,” Renate agreed. “That means there is a third coalition deal, one they have not yet announced to the public. The Christian Democrats would need at least two of the minority parties to join with them. Their usual allies, the Free Democratic Party, do not have enough seats to give them a majority. I cannot imagine them making an alliance with the Left Party.”

  “No,” Jefe said. “The Christian Democrats are the conservative party, aren’t they? Like our Republicans in the United States?”

  Renate laughed. “Even conservatives in Germany would be liberal in America, but yes, you are right. The Left Party is far too liberal for the Christian Democrats. And that leaves only one group to tip the balance.”

  “Oh, shit,” Jefe said, looking at the chart again and doing some mental calculation.

  “Yes,” Renate agreed. “Soult’s Europa Prima Party. In coalition with both the Free Democrats and Europa Prima, the Christian Democrats would have a majority. This is why I am so concerned. This would give Monsieur Soult a lot of leverage, and he is not one to waste political capital. So what was his price for this coalition?”

  Jefe lowered his head to his hands for a moment before looking up. “This is going to be bad for Germany.”

  “Not just Germany,” Renate said. “This is going to be bad for the world.”

  9

  Hamburg, Germany

  T he Moorburg district in Hamburg was not featured on most tourist maps. On the southwest edge of the city’s huge port facility, it was a place of commerce with a largely transient population of seamen and dockworkers on short-term contracts. As such, it was the ideal staging area for Paxti Lezeta and his three companions.

  Lezeta had more than once wondered at the ironic twists his life had taken. His given name—Paxti—was the Basque equivalent of Francis, and its Latin root, pax, meant peace. It was, he thought, about as close to peace as his life had ever come.

  His father and two brothers had been active in the Basque Fatherland and Liberty group—Euskadi ta Askatasuna or ETA—the separatist movement seeking independence f
rom Spain. But when it had come time for Lezeta to make his stand and join with them, he had not only declined but had become an informant. He had seen too many attacks planned over the dining room table of his family’s home in St. Palais, a village on the French side of the border, where they had lived just beyond the reach of the Spanish police. Sooner or later, he knew, his family would be implicated, and he would be swept up with the rest to rot in a cell.

  He had been willing to sacrifice his father and brothers for his own freedom, and he had gained far more than that. His treachery had come to the attention of a Spanish colonel, Hector Vazquez, and with that attention had come a life that, if ugly, had been the stuff of spy thrillers.

  For Lezeta had been sent back into the Basque community as the sole surviving member of a martyred family, pretending to be bent on avenging their deaths. Over the next four years, information he provided led to the arrests of dozens of ETA members, always after he had made arrangements to cover his tracks and retain his standing in the movement.

  That many of the men he had turned over were now lying in unmarked graves, having refused to provide information or having tried to escape, did not bother him. As Lezeta saw it, he had not killed them. They had killed themselves by casting their lot behind a hopeless cause. In the end—after it had been mistakenly blamed for the Madrid train bombings in 2003—even ETA had recognized the futility of continued armed struggle. In March of 2006, the group had declared a permanent ceasefire and announced its intention to pursue the Basque cause solely through legal means.

  Thus, Lezeta did not see himself as a traitor to his family or his people. In the end, he believed he had done more to ensure the future of the Basque people than had all of the bombings, kidnappings and murders. As for those who had died, their blood lay on their own hands.