‘With Lev. He had a wonderful little flat. His grandmother left it to him.’
Von Volker seized that tidbit of information. Property in Jerusalem rarely changed hands. Everyone — the Jews, the Muslims, and the Christians — all tried to hang on to as much of the land there that they could.
‘Alice?’
‘Sleepy. I want to sleep.’
‘Where was Lev’s lovely little flat?’
She didn’t respond.
Gently, which was hard to do, Von Volker shook his wife. Despite his continued efforts, he got no response.
Angry but hanging on to his clue, Von Volker rose from bed, pulled on a robe, took out the picture of Lev Strauss Davari had given him, and went to his wife’s library in one of the adjoining rooms.
Alice had her hiding places, just as Von Volker had his. The difference was that he knew where hers were and didn’t care. Her secrets were very small. She was too afraid of him to do anything more than write about her discontent in her journal. Even there, she equally blamed her parents for her situation because they had arranged the marriage. They had wanted her to marry into nobility because they were of noble blood as well. However, their family fortunes had dwindled, while his had grown.
Even the hiding place Alice had chosen wasn’t that imaginative. She’d found a loose board in her closet and had shoved her journals and other personal effects into the space behind it.
Von Volker knew about the journal because Alice had accidentally left it out one day. He hadn’t asked her about it, and it had promptly disappeared. He’d had one of his security people come in the next day and find it while he’d taken Alice shopping.
Clever girl, she had tried to disguise what she was doing and writing by writing different passages in different languages. Having studied at the School of Languages, Alice could read and write well in several different ones. Von Volker had simply had the pages photocopied, then translated.
At the time, he’d considered destroying the journal and other items. The only reason he hadn’t was so he could do it some other day, preferably before Alice’s eyes.
On his knees, Von Volker removed the board, reached into the space, and hauled out Alice’s personal treasures. Selecting the college album, he left the others.
He crossed the room to her table, surrounded by leatherbound classical editions in foreign languages. When the piano couldn’t soothe her unhappiness, she retreated to her books and their stories of romances. It was all foolishness. Power made a person happy. Nothing else.
Placing the picture of Lev Strauss on the table, Von Volker leafed through the album. Several of the pictures showed Alice with a dark-haired man in a goatee. The man was handsome, one of those types women invariably threw themselves at, and looked American in the ugly hat he wore.
Von Volker had seen the man before but had never known his name. Alice hadn’t written more than the dates and places on the backs of the photographs.
Was this Thomas?
Von Volker decided he hated the man, and that it might be worth looking him up later to kill him.
But other matters were more pressing.
Only a few minutes later, he found pictures of a much younger Lev Strauss. He looked confident and outgoing, exactly the kind of Jewish spy the Mossad would turn out. Von Volker turned the pictures slowly, looking at the trio in the dig sites, then in restaurants and marketplaces, then — at last — in a dwelling. Judging from the books and magazines strewn around the room, this was Lev Strauss’s flat that Alice had mentioned.
A few of them listed the address.
Von Volker smiled.
‘Elise, you look as radiant as ever.’ Von Volker stepped into the expensive apartment and kissed his mistress exuberantly.
‘Klaus?’ Although she was surprised, Elise Feuerstein smiled at his arrival and looked pleased to see him. She was a slim blond in her midtwenties, and resembled his wife as Alice had looked at that age. That was on purpose because Von Volker made her dye her hair and wear it in the same style. She wore a gauzy green negligee.
Von Volker ripped the thin material off her and discovered she was naked beneath. Already aroused, he picked her up and carried her to the circular bed. She laughed and giggled like a schoolgirl, and that made him harder than ever.
One of the best things Von Volker loved about Elise, in addition to the fact that she looked so much like Alice, was that she never needed foreplay. She was always ready because powerful men turned her on. After undressing, he sheathed himself, locked her hands above her head, and took her. She managed two explosions of her own before he reached his release.
Then stretched out comfortably atop the young woman, Von Volker reached for his jacket.
‘That was certainly eye-opening, my love, but what’s the occasion?’
‘Can’t I just be happy to see you?’
‘Yes, but this was more than that.’ Unlike Alice, Elise knew her place and took comfort in it. She never nagged at him to replace his wife because she knew Alice was important to Von Volker’s political aspirations.
‘I have something I want you to do.’
She laughed. ‘You already know I would do anything I can for you. All you have to do is ask.’
‘This man.’ Von Volker flicked the photograph of Lev Strauss. ‘I need you to contact him and play a little game with him.’
‘Of course. Is that all?’
‘Yes.’
With a strong push, Elise rolled him over onto his back and mounted him once more. She was almost as insatiable as he was. Knowing that he would soon have Lev Strauss where the Ayatollah and Colonel Davari had failed filled Von Volker’s blood with passion. His immediate response surprised Elise, but she laughed, positioned him better, and started to ride.
13
Steam from the bath rose around Lourds as he lay back and tried to figure out what he was missing from the mysterious cavern and the scholar’s rocks left by the immigrants from Jiahu. Something was there, pulling at the edges of his thoughts but never quite manifesting.
It was maddening.
At least the monks hadn’t sworn off all creature comforts in the temple. They believed in bathing and bathing well. They’d carved baths from stone that were just deep enough for a man to sink down into. Shamar had said it was a trade-off with the outside world. People donated supplies to the temple more readily if they could get a warm bath and have private sleeping quarters. The meager guest quarters hadn’t been enough for the whole expedition. Even though Lourds hadn’t asked for special treatment, he certainly hadn’t turned it down when it was offered.
He luxuriated in the hot water. A stone oven in the center of the room provided heat. All he had to do was step out of the tub long enough to fill a copper kettle with water from the bath and reheat it. For the moment, the water was wonderful.
He took a breath and slid down into the tub till the water closed over his head. He closed his eyes and let the hot water soak into him. He felt sleepy and knew that he would do well to crawl into bed on the other side of the room when he got out. He was already feeling pruny, like he had spent far too much time in here …
And suddenly, just like that, it all made sense.
Lourds couldn’t see in the darkness. He opened the stone oven, burned his fingertips enough to smart, and fed in a few pieces of wood. The orange glow brightened and pushed back the darkness. He spotted his pants, went to them, and started pulling them on.
Once his boots were on, Lourds fisted his shirt and headed for the door. Out in the hallway, he trotted over to Hu’s quarters across the narrow stone hall. He rapped on the door. ‘David. It’s me. Time to get up.’ He rapped on the door again. ‘David.’