P. Deutermann - The Last Man

“Right after this scandal broke in Washington, Adrian left, isn’t that correct?”

“Yes,” David said. “The Israeli Embassy said she’d been called away on travel. I don’t know if she’s even alive.”

“Oh, but she is, Mr. Hall,” Gulder said. “Alive and well, and back in her own country. She even misses you. A little.”

David was stunned. “ What are you talking about?” he asked.

“You’ll figure it out, I’m sure, Mr. Hall. Follow the heavy water. It will become clear to you. Now: Judith Ressner.”

David’s mind was still reeling from the implications of what Gulder had been saying about Adrian. “What about Judith? Does she know all this, too? Does Ellerstein?”

“Well. Dr. Ellerstein works for me, after a fashion, and cares very much for Dr. Ressner. So when your uncle of the NRC calls, he will call Ellerstein, I think, because Dr. Ressner, the discoverer of the most fabulous treasure in the history of biblical archaeology, is very, very busy, Mr. Hall.”

David started to shake his head. Judith would never go along with this. Gulder saw it. “Dr. Ressner is a realist, Mr. Hall. She knows that, sometimes, extreme measures have to be taken by a small state such as ours. Her husband was something of a case in point, correct? Killed by a madman, but still: Skuratov was state security. Dr. Ressner is quite fond of you, I think.”

Then David got it: They had told Judith that he wouldn’t be executed as long as she kept her mouth shut about the Skuratov conspiracy. Gulder was smiling that Cheshire cat smile again. David went back to the matter of Adrian. “Are you telling me that Adrian Draper worked for you ? For Israel?”

“I never said that, Mr. Hall.”

“Then our whole relationship was what, an assignment for Adrian, an Israeli spy? She was just playing me? You were playing me?”

“Much like you played Judith Ressner, is it not, Mr. Hall? Coming here under false pretenses. All that deception, first getting close to her, then striking out at the right moment? Leaving her wondering what she had done? How does that feel, Mr. Hall?”

David opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Gulder got up.

“I will ask them to let you out for exercise in the mornings and afternoons,” he said, motioning to his guards that they were leaving. “These papers, of course, are for you. There will be more, from time to time, as long as you cooperate with these gentle people. They are not jailers, but they do live an exposed existence up here in the Golan. They depend on the Israeli Army, don’t they, Mr. Hall? You can see Syria from your windows, I am told.”

David just sat there, his mind bowled over by what this strange little man had been telling him.

“I’ll send up an English-Latin dictionary, Mr. Hall. This is a very old-fashioned place. Who knows, in time they may teach you how to illuminate a manuscript.”

David got up again and resumed walking, counterclockwise this time. The afternoon sun beat down out in the middle of the square, heating the stones around the fountain and wilting some of the plants and herbs. At nearly eight thousand feet, there was over a mile of atmospheric protection missing, and David took care to stay out of the sun. Gulder had been as good as his word. He had sent the dictionary and another round of newspapers. David had been able to enjoy, if only vicariously, the triumph of the discoveries in the great cistern. Adrian’s theory. His discovery. Judith’s triumph, which was as it should be. There were pictures of the treasures themselves, and also of Judith Ressner, who looked increasingly exhausted by all the media attention. The discoveries made world headlines, and already the scholarly debates had begun, with various religious factions taking widely different positions on interpreting the finds, especially the contents of the sealed scrolls. He sympathized with her. Hell, he missed her.

None of that was going to change things for David Hall. If Gulder had his way, he would remain here until the end of time. The end of his time, anyway. If Judith asked about him, or suspected that he had been executed, Israel Gulder could truthfully say, no, he hadn’t. He’s been seized by a religious vocation.

He had thought hard about escape, but there was simply no way. No tunnels to be dug, no windows to hang from, no clambering up a column here in the cloister and scampering across tiled roofs to the twenty-foot stone wall, there to drop into deep ravines on every side except the front, where the top of the wall was rounded and covered in shards of glass. The monastery itself was perched on a spire of badly eroded rock and built to withstand the siege engines of the twelfth century.

A steady wind blew up the side of the mountain during the day, rising to banshee intensity when storms came across the Mount Lebanon massif to the north and swept down their valley.

Our valley. Listen to me, he thought.

He had not seen a single human being through the windows, and he wasn’t sure he’d even seen all the monks. He’d heard them, though, when their soft chants broke the predawn silence. He wondered how long it would be before he asked to join their nocturnal vigils. He had the beard for it, if not the voice.

He was, as Shakespeare once phrased it, thoroughly mewed up.

Judith Ressner was alone, soaking her tired feet in the hotel’s bubbling hot tub, when Ellerstein came back from the bar, carrying two glasses of wine. Judith was wearing her bathing suit under a beach wrap. She had a silk kerchief tied around her head and was wearing dark sunglasses. She had intended to swim some laps to undo the stress of three media events that day but simply lacked the energy. The government had put her up in the hotel to make it more convenient to do press conferences. When she’d gone back up to her room, there’d been a message from Ellerstein saying that he wanted to buy her a drink that evening and that he had something important to talk about.

“Bless you, Yossi,” she said, making room for him to sit by her side. He took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his pants, and slipped his feet into the hot water. Judith smothered a smile; in his business suit, he looked ridiculous.

“Cheers,” he intoned and tasted the cold white wine. Then he made a face. “Scotch would be better.”

“This is fine. One Scotch and I would keel over into this water.”

“Keeping you running, Ms. World-Famous Archaeologist, hanh?”

She nodded. A hotel guest came into the spa and gawked at Ellerstein sitting there in his street clothes.

“So, you ever hear from Mr. Hall?” he asked gently.

She shook her head. “No. I think the government boys must have threatened him. I’d really like to talk to him, but—”

“But those same government boys don’t want that, either, do they.”

“No, they do not. I had one call from that Israel Gulder, who congratulated me on the way I was representing the nation. He also approved of the way we finessed the discovery methodology.”

“Yes, I’ll bet he did. Listen: Did Gulder tell you the American went home? Back to the States?”

She looked over at him. “Not in so many words,” she said, “but he certainly implied it. He said the less contact, the better for all concerned, more weasel-words like that.”

Ellerstein nodded thoughtfully. “You know, well, of course, you don’t know, I have been making some inquiries. Back in the States.”

“Yes? And?”

“They don’t know where he is.”

She put down the wineglass. “What?”

“They don’t know where he is. A professor I know there made a call to a friend in the U.S. Immigration Service there in Washington. Immigration haven’t seen his passport coming back into the States. No one was especially concerned or anything like that, but there it is.”