Steve Berry - The Alexandria Link

“Why kill Haddad?”

“I asked the ambassador the same question. He’s former Mossad and he told me an interesting tale.”

“I assume that’s why I’m here?”

Jonah tossed him a smile. “I knew you were a smart man.”

David Ben-Gurion realized that his political career was over. Ever since his days as a frail child in Poland he’d dreamed about the deliverance of the Jews to their biblical homeland. So he’d fathered the nation of Israel and led it through the tumultuous years of 1948 to 1963, commanding its wars and delivering statesmanship.

Tough duty for a man who’d actually wanted to be an intellectual.

He’d devoured philosophy books, studied the Bible, flirted with Buddhism, even taught himself ancient Greek in order to read Plato in the original. He possessed a relentless curiosity about the natural sciences and detested fiction. Verbal battle, not crafted dialogue, was his preferred mode of communication.

Yet he was no abstract thinker.

Instead he was a tight, craggy man with a halo of silvery hair, a jawbone that projected willpower, and a volcanic temper.

He’d proclaimed Israel’s independence in May 1948, ignoring last-minute admonitions from Washington and overruling doomsday predictions by his closest associates. He recalled how, within hours of his declaration, the military forces of five Arab nations invaded Israel, joining Palestinian militias in an open attempt to destroy the Jews. He’d personally led the army and 1 percent of the Jewish population had ultimately died, as well as thousands of Arabs. More than half a million Palestinians lost their homes. In the end the Jews prevailed, and many had labeled him a combination of Moses, King David, Garibaldi, and God Almighty.

For fifteen more years he led his nation. But now it was 1965, and he was nearly eighty and tired.

Even worse, he’d been wrong.

He stared at the impressive library. So much knowledge. The man who’d called himself a Guardian had said the quest would be a challenge, but if he managed to succeed, the rewards would be incalculable.

And the envoy had been right.

He’d read once that the measure of an idea was how relative it was not only to its time, but beyond.

His time had produced the modern nation of Israel, but in the process thousands had died-and he feared that many more would perish in the decades ahead. Jews and Arabs seemed destined to fight. He’d thought his goal righteous, his cause just, but no longer.

He’d been wrong.

About everything.

Carefully he again paged through the weighty volume open on the table. Three such tomes had been waiting when he’d arrived. The Guardian who’d visited him six months back had been standing at the entrance, a broad grin on his chapped face.

Never had Ben-Gurion dreamed that such a place of learning existed, and he was grateful that his curiosity had allowed him to amass the courage for the quest.

“Where did all this come from?” he’d asked on entering.

“The hearts and minds of men and women.”

A riddle but also a truth, and the philosopher within him understood.

“Ben-Gurion told that story in 1973, days before he died,” Jonah said. “Some say he was delirious. Others that his mind had wandered. But whatever he may have actually learned at that library, he kept to himself. One fact is clear, though. Ben-Gurion’s politics and philosophy changed dramatically after 1965. He was less militant, more conciliatory. He called for concessions to the Arabs. Most attributed that to advancing age, but the Mossad thought there was more. So much that Ben-Gurion actually became suspect. That’s why he was never allowed a political comeback. Can you imagine? The father of Israel kept at bay.”

“Who’s this Guardian?”

Jonah shrugged. “The files are quiet. But for those four who received visits-somehow the Mossad learned about each one and acted swiftly. Whoever it is, Israel doesn’t want anyone talking to them.”

“So your colleagues plan to eliminate Haddad?”

Jonah nodded. “As we speak.”

He’d heard enough, so he slid from the booth.

“What of my payment?” Jonah quickly asked.

He slipped an envelope from his pocket and tossed it on the table. “That should bring our account current. Let us know when there’s more to tell.”

Jonah pocketed the bribe. “You’ll be the first.”

He watched as his contact stood and headed not for the front door, but toward an alcove where restrooms were located. He decided this was as good an opportunity as any, so he followed.

At the bathroom door, he hesitated.

The restaurant was half filled, ill lit, and noisy, the table occupants self-absorbed, buzzing with talk in several languages.

He entered, locked the door, and quickly surveyed the scene. Two stalls, a sink, and a mirror, amber light from incandescent fixtures. Jonah occupied the first stall, the other was empty. Sabre grabbed a handful of paper towels and waited for the toilet to flush, then withdrew a knife from his pocket.

Jonah stepped from the stall, zipping his pants.

Sabre whirled and plunged the knife into the man’s chest, twisting upward, then with his other hand clamped paper towels over the wound. He watched as the Israeli’s eyes first filled with shock, then went blank. He kept the towels in place as he withdrew the blade.

Jonah sank to the floor.

He retrieved the envelope from the man’s pocket, then swiped the metal on Jonah’s trousers. Quickly he grasped the dead man’s arms and dragged the bleeding body into the stall, propping the corpse on the toilet.

He then closed the stall door and left.

Outside, Sabre followed a guide who was steering a walking tour to the town’s rathaus. The older woman pointed to the ancient city hall and spoke about Rothenburg’s long history.

He hesitated and listened. Bells clanged for four PM.

“If you’ll look up at the clock, watch the two bull’s-eye windows to the right and left of the face.”

Everyone turned as the panels swung open. A surmounted mechanical man appeared and drained a tankard of wine while another figure looked on. The guide droned about the historical significance. Cameras clicked. Camcorders whined. The event lasted about two minutes. As Sabre strolled away, he caught a glimpse of one tourist, a man, who deftly angled a lens away from the clock tower and focused on his retreat.

He smiled.

Exposure was always a risk when betrayal became a way of life. Luckily, he’d learned all he needed to know from Jonah, which explained why that liability had been permanently suppressed. But the Israelis were now aware of Jonah’s contact. The Blue Chair seemed not to care and had specifically instructed him to provide a “good show.”

Which he’d done.

For the Israelis and for Alfred Hermann.

LONDON

2:30 PM

MALONE WAITED FOR GEORGE HADDAD TO FINISH EXPLAINING. His old friend was hedging.

“I wrote a paper six years ago,” Haddad said. “It dealt with a theory I had been working on, one that concerns how the Old Testament was originally translated from Old Hebrew.”

Haddad told them about the Septuagint, crafted from the third to the first centuries BCE, the oldest and most complete rendition of the Old Testament into Greek, translated at the Library of Alexandria. Then he described the Codex Sinaiticus, a fourth-century CE manuscript of the Old and New Testaments used by later scholars to confirm other biblical texts, even though no one knew whether it was correct. And the Vulgate, completed about the same time by St. Jerome, the first translation from Hebrew directly to Latin, major revisions to which occurred in the sixteenth, eighteenth, and twentieth centuries.