Jacob easily located the nondescript offices of Mossad north of Tel Aviv. He was cleared by security and told to wait in the adjacent lobby for an escort to take him to the office of the director.
“Professor Kogen,” said a young man with a wide smile, extending his hand. “I’m Ira Schultz. Although I didn’t attend Hebrew University, I’m in awe of your reputation in theoretical and quantum physics.”
Jacob smiled. “Don’t believe everything you hear. I still have a difficult time balancing my checkbook.”
“Somehow, I think you can handle it. Please, come with me. Mr. Levy is ready to see you.”
Jacob followed the intern to an elevator leading to a top floor filled with a labyrinth of halls and floors. The director’s door was partially closed. The intern knocked softly.
“Come in.”
“Nice meeting you Professor,” said the intern, walking away.
Jacob entered the office. It was filled with photographs on the walls. Many depicting the director in his career as a military officer before he joined the Mossad. He also was seen posing with Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and Ariel Sharon.
One old photograph caught Jacob’s eye. It hung directly behind the man’s chair. The black and white picture was from World War II, and the image was that of two dozen people, all dead, lying shoulder-to-shoulder in a muddy trench. Two men stood near the trench. One was a German officer pointing a Luger pistol at an emaciated man. The man showed no sign of fear on his dirty and, yet, defiant face.
“The gentleman about to be shot was my father,” said the director.
“I’m sorry.”
“I keep it there as a reminder of what happened, how it happened, and how it shall never occur again. Please, sit Professor.” Nathan Levy, the field ops director of the Mossad, had a heavy face and large eyes the color of black onyx. He had the discreet baggage of a man who’d seen tragedy, but kept an impression of optimism on a face marked by time and decisions involving life and death.
Jacob said, “I understand. Israel cannot afford to lower her guard.”
Levy grunted. “Your work has helped define and perhaps refine some of our nation’s best scientists. Physics has always been rather abstract to me. Although I must admit, there’s no deception in numbers. They don’t lie.”
Jacob smiled. “Why did you want to see me?”
“Do you really believe the name you discovered in Isaac Newton’s notes, Paul Marcus, is the American who is declining a Nobel Prize?”
“Absolutely.”
“You know, Professor, it may be a coincidence.”
“Newton didn’t spend too much time dealing with happenstance.”
“I heard that a good scientist begins with things coincidental and attempts to prove a definitive relationship, or perhaps none at all.”
“Are you referring to my years studying the Newton papers that Abraham Yahuda willed to the National Library?”
“You are a great mathematician, Jacob, but what have you proven?”
“We’ve proven that Newton was most definitely on the cusp of something.”
Levy half smiled. “But you cannot tell me what our adversaries are planning.”
“Newton was fluent in Hebrew and Latin. Discovering biblical prophecies was his real passion, a passion he had to hide before his death.”
The director said nothing, his eyes drifting from Jacob to a window overlooking the Sea of Galilee. “You received Paul Marcus’s phone number. Have you spoken with him?”
“Yes. He didn’t believe it was his name I found penned in Isaac Newton’s hand.”
“An old acquaintance at the CIA, a man I worked with, who lived in Syria, Jordan and Israel for almost twenty-five years, gave me a small bit of Marcus’s background. Perhaps there is something to the name you found on Newton’s notes.”
“What is that?”
“Paul Marcus grew up on a farm in Virginia. He was a gifted football player, as a young man he played for the University of Michigan. Academically, his high school college scores were extraordinary, especially in mathematics. He learned languages easily. His talents caught the eye of recruiters at the CIA where he worked for two years. Marcus, however, was more intrigued with breaking codes rather than catching spies, so he moved over to NSA. He broke an exceedingly difficult code that exposed some movements by al Qaeda.”
“How?”
“Marcus figured out how to substitute words, symbols or numbers for plain text. A single symbol could, in fact, mean an idea or a short message. The code the terrorists created consisted of words chosen out of dialects from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Lebanon. Local street jargon was inserted with the words either before or after them. The finished message was hidden in Islamic religious passages.”
“Most impressive.”
“But Marcus’s job at NSA ground to a halt after ten years.”
“Why?”
“He’d been married to a woman he knew from college. They had a child, a girl, during the time he was at NSA. When his daughter was about eight, she was diagnosed with heightened arterial fibrillation. Marcus quit NSA and joined Hughes-Johnson Medical where he worked almost nonstop for three years. The result was that he cracked a type of gene therapy that could be used to stabilize false electronic signals sent through the hearts of those suffering from a type of ventricular arrhythmia. One of those suffering was indeed his daughter. She died right after Marcus had found the results he was seeking.”
“Killed from heart disease?”
“No,” Levy paused and glanced at the picture of his father on the wall. “She was murdered. His wife was shot and killed at the same time. Marcus was shot, stabbed and left for dead, but somehow he survived a wound that severed his aorta. Medics say he was without a heartbeat for at least two minutes. Miraculously, his heart started beating again, when he was clinically dead. His brain was oxygen deprived, perhaps for too long a period. Regardless, he returned to an empty home and a job he’d decided to leave right after his gene code proof-of-concept was demonstrated.”
“He was robbed of the chance to see if it would have restored his daughter’s health.”
“Yes. Marcus left Hughes-Johnson within a month after breaking the genetic code to the mystery of the human heart. He was out of sight until the announcement of the Nobel.”
“Do you think Marcus will travel to Jerusalem to meet with me?”
“If the man has no interest in traveling to Stockholm to pick up the most prestigious prize in the world, he may not be inclined to travel to Jerusalem.”
Jacob looked at the photograph on the wall, the fearless face of the man about to be killed. “Maybe I could convince him to come by appealing to his scientific interests.”
“You’re more likely to get him if you tell him there’s something in those divine notes that will help find the person responsible for the deaths of his wife and child.”
“But I don’t know that.”
“He doesn’t either. To catch a fish, put bait on the hook.” Levy slid a folded piece of paper across his desk.
Jacob reached for it. “What’s this?”
“The address for Paul Marcus. Send him plane tickets.”
EIGHT
Buddy sniffed the morning air and followed close behind Paul Marcus, walking from his restored farmhouse to the barn. A chill hung over the October morning in Virginia, the autumn leaves sprinkled with heavy dew, traces of wood smoke coming from a neighbor’s house a quarter mile away.
“C’mon, Buddy.” Marcus lifted a bale of hay from his pickup truck and entered the stables. Buddy barked once, the dog’s breath a puff of mist in the cold air. Marcus set the hay down and approached the two horses, both in adjacent stalls. He pulled out two carrots and gave each horse a snack.