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were more at Jaffa.” The Butcher was a shrewd one, I saw, not some Ottoman weakling imposed by the Sublime Porte in Constantinople.
He gathered information about his enemies like a scholar. “Napoleon’s weakness is time, Pasha. Every day he stays in front of Acre, the sultan in Constantinople can order more forces to surround him.
He gets no reinforcements, and no resupply, while the British navy can bring both to us. He tries to accomplish in a day what other men require a year to complete, and that’s his weakness. He’s trying to conquer Asia with ten thousand men, and no one knows better than he that it’s all bluff. The moment his enemies stop fearing him, he’s finished. If you can hold . . .”
“He goes away,” Djezzar finished. “This little man no one has beaten.”
“We will beat him here,” Smith vowed.
“Unless he finds something more powerful than artillery,” another said from the shadows.
I started. I knew that voice! And indeed, emerging from the gloom behind Djezzar’s cushioned perch was the hideous countenance of Haim Farhi! Smith and Phelipeaux blinked at this mutilation but did not recoil. They’d seen it before, too.
“Farhi! What are you doing in Acre?”
“Serving his master,” Djezzar said.
“We left Jerusalem an uncomfortable place, Monsieur Gage. And with no book, there was no reason to stay there.”
“You went with us for the pasha?”
“But of course. You know who modified my appearance.”
“It was a favor to him,” the Butcher rumbled. “Good looks allow vanity, and pride is the greatest sin. His scars let him concentrate on his numbers. And get into heaven.”
Farhi bowed. “As always, you are generous, master.”
“So you escaped Jerusalem!”
“Narrowly. I left you because my face draws too much attention, and because I knew further research was required. What do the French know of our secrets?”
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“That Muslim outrage bars them from further exploration of the tunnels. They know nothing, and threatened me with snakes to try to learn what I knew. We’ve all come away empty-handed, I think.”
“Empty-handed of what?” Smith asked.
Farhi turned to the British officer. “Your ally here did not go to Jerusalem merely to serve you, Captain.”
“No, there was a woman he inquired about, if I recall.”
“And a treasure desperate men are seeking.”
“Treasure?”
“Not money,” I said, annoyed at Farhi’s casual sharing of my secret.
“A book.”
“A book of magic,” the banker amended. “It’s been rumored for thousands of years, and sought by the Knights Templar. When we asked for your sailor allies, we weren’t looking for a siege door into Jerusalem. We were looking for this book.”
“As were the French,” I added.
“And me,” said Djezzar. “Farhi was my ear.” It was appropriate he used the singular, since the scoundrel had cut off his minister’s other one.
Smith was looking from one to the other of us.
“But it wasn’t there,” I said. “Most likely, it doesn’t exist.”
“And yet agents are making inquiries up and down the province of Syria,” Farhi said. “Arabs, mostly, in the employ of some mysterious figure back in Egypt.”
My skin prickled. “I was told Count Silano is still alive.”
“Alive. Resurrected. Immortal.” Farhi shrugged.
“What’s your point, Haim?” Djezzar said, with the tone of a master long impatient with the meanderings of his subordinates.
“That, as Gage said, what all men seek might not exist. Yet if it does, we have no way to look for it, locked up as we are by Napoleon’s army. Time is his enemy, yes. But it’s our challenge too. If we are besieged too long, it may be too late to find first what Count Alessandro Silano is still seeking.” He pointed at me. “This one must find a way to look for the secret again, before it is too late.” t h e
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I followed the smell of charcoal to find Jericho. He was in the bowels of the armory in the basement of Djezzar’s palace, his muscles illuminated by the glow of a smithy furnace, hammering like Thor on the tools of war: swords, pikes, forked poles to push off scaling ladders, bayonets, ramrods. Lead cooled in bullet molds like black pearls, and scrap was piled for conversion into grapeshot and shrapnel. Miriam was working the bellows, her hair curled on her cheeks in sweaty tendrils, her shift damp and disturbingly clingy, perspiration glistening in that vale of temptation between neck and breasts. I didn’t know what my reception would be, given that they’d lost their Jerusalem house in the tumult I’d caused, but when she saw me her eyes flashed bright greeting and she flew to me in the hellish glow, hugging. How good she felt! It was all I could do to keep my hand from slipping onto her round bottom, but of course her brother was there. Yet even taciturn Jericho allowed a reluctant smile.
“We thought you dead!”
She kissed my cheek, setting it on fire. I held her a safe distance away lest my own enthusiasm at our reunion be too physically obvious.
“And I feared the same for the two of you,” I said. “I’m sorry our adventure has left you trapped here, but I really thought we’d find treasure. I escaped from Jaffa with my friend Mohammad in a boat.” I looked at Miriam, realizing how much I’d missed her, and how angel-ically beautiful she really was. “The news of your survival was like nectar to a man dying of thirst.”
I thought I saw a blush beyond the soot, and certainly I’d erased her brother’s smile. No matter. I wouldn’t release her waist, and she wouldn’t release my shoulders.
“And now here we all are, alive,” Jericho said. “All three of us.” I finally let her go and nodded. “With a man called the Butcher, a half-mad English sea captain, a mutilated Jew, a disgruntled school-1 3 8
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mate of Bonaparte, and a Muslim guide. Not to mention a burly blacksmith, his scholarly sister, and a ne’r-do-well American gambler.
Quite the merry men, we are.”
“And women,” Miriam said. “Ethan, we heard what happened at Jaffa. What happens if the French break in here?”
“They won’t,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “We don’t have to beat them—we just have to hold them off until they’re compelled to retreat. And I have an idea for that. Jericho, is there any spare heavy chain in the city?”
“I’ve seen some about, used by ships, and to chain off the harbor mouth. Why?”
“I want to drape it from out towers to welcome the French.” He shook his head, convinced I was daft as ever. “To give them a hand up?”
“Yes. And then charge it with electricity.”
“Electricity!” He crossed himself.
“It’s an idea I had while in the boat with Mohammad. If we store enough spark in a battery of Leyden jars, we could transfer them with a wire to a suspended chain. It would give the same jolt I demon-strated in Jerusalem, but this time it would knock them into the moat where we could kill them.” I’d become quite the sanguinary warrior.
“You mean they wouldn’t be able to hold onto the chain?” Miriam asked.
“No more than if it were red hot. It would be like a barrier of fire.” Jericho was intrigued. “Could that really work?”
“If it doesn’t, the Butcher will use the links to hang us.”
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Ineeded to generate an electric charge on a scale even Ben Franklin had not dreamed of, so while Jericho set to work collecting and linking chain, Miriam and I set out to assemble glass, lead, copper, and jars in sufficient quantity to make a giant battery. I’ve seldom enjoyed a project so much. Miriam and I didn’t just work together, we were partners, in a way which recaptured the alliance I’d had with Astiza. The demure shyness I’d first encountered had been lost somewhere in the tunnels beneath Jerusalem, and now she exhibited a brisk confidence that stiffened the courage of anyone she worked with. No man wants to be a coward around a woman. She and I worked shoulder to shoulder, brushing more than necessary, while I remembered exactly the spot on my cheek where her kiss had burned. There’s nothing more desirable than a woman you haven’t had.