He’d done that before, though he never admitted to it. And each time, the next few days were always awful as her body recovered. When Klaus loosed his inner depravity, he was a beast.
No matter how much she struggled, though, she couldn’t remember that night. They’d talked, she was sure of that, but she had no idea what they’d talked about or even what Klaus would be interested in talking to her about.
She got up, pulled on her robe, and went out into the hallway. She’d worn some of her sexiest lingerie, hoping to seduce Klaus. She did that to him sometimes, and when he was passed out in postcoital bliss, she went through his pockets, his phone, and his PDA.
There was always precious little to find. Klaus was very careful. Sometimes she wondered if he knew what she did and wondered if he thought the layers of duplicity was some grand game. Things like that delighted him.
Out in the hallway, she grew more afraid. This could be some kind of game, too. Leaving the house unattended with the secret project here was enticing.
Of course, there was the possibility that he didn’t think she could figure it out. Or that it wouldn’t matter if she did.
He mentioned Thomas by name. There must be a reason. Alice screwed up her courage and walked to the doors at the other end of the hallway. A fresh security lock had been installed on the door. This one required a thumbprint.
She smiled at that. Klaus did love gadgets, but he wasn’t nearly as clever as he thought he was. A thumbprint-recognition system in a house where he lived was foolish.
It only took her a moment to get a print off his electric razor with a piece of clear tape. Then she pressed the borrowed thumbprint to the door, watched the green bar cycle from top to bottom while it read it, and heard the locking mechanism pop open.
Her breath caught in her throat. If this was a trick planned by Klaus, this would be the point at which he would step forward and catch her in the act.
She remained alone in the hallway.
Trembling, she pulled open the door and stepped inside.
As she gazed in wide-eyed wonder at the artifacts revealed on the tables in the moonlight streaming through the windows, she wondered what it could all mean. How was Thomas mixed up in anything her husband might be doing? The only history Klaus was interested in was the German Confederation and how he might be able to bring Austria and Germany together as a large, imposing nation the West would have to acknowledge.
The news had been full of her old lover lately. Although she’d had to keep her interest hidden from Klaus, Alice had followed all the breaking reports about the temple Thomas had located in the Himalayas. She’d also heard that he had left the dig site a few days ago.
That hadn’t sounded like the Thomas Lourds Alice knew. Wild horses and rampaging lions wouldn’t have gotten him away from something like that.
But something had.
Alice studied the artifacts, realizing they were an impressive collection of Christian, Judaic, and Islamic pieces. There were centuries-old crosses, Stars of David, a sword-wielding figure that could only be a representation of Iblis, the Islamic devil, who’d been either a jinn and a devoted servant of God or a disobedient angel. That was just one of the many ways Muslim faith diverged. Iblis had been made of fire while Adam had been made of clay, and Iblis had refused to accept that Adam was better. God had thrown Iblis into hell and renamed him Shaitan. Since those days, Shaitan had devoted himself to turning men and women against God.
What did any of this have to do with Thomas Lourds?
As she touched the figure of Iblis, she thought of where she’d last seen a figurine like this. Lev Strauss had had one at his flat in Jerusalem. Only it had been his grandmother’s flat at the time. The Iblis had been one of his first pieces.
Curious, Alice lifted the figurine and gazed at the bottom. There, on a piece of masking tape worn and faded with time, was the legend IBLIS, and it looked like Lev’s strong, sure hand. She replaced the figurine and went to one of the computers on a desk. She didn’t dare use her personal notebook computer because Klaus had loaded it with spy programs.
The computers in here had been left up and running. She went to the Internet and Googled Lev Strauss’s name. She saw his handsome face, a touch of gray in his hair and beard now, and read the headlines that declared he’d been killed in a tragic terrorist attack on July 28.
Tears filled her eyes as she remembered the beautiful young man he’d been. For a time, after she and Thomas had parted ways, Lev had kept her company. She’d known he cared for her, but she was unable to return his interest. Every time she’d thought of him, she’d thought of Thomas.
In the end, not only had Alice lost Thomas to his treasure hunt for the Library of Alexandria, but she had lost a good friend, too. Now she’d lost him forever. How had she missed this story?
She knew the answer at once. Klaus kept her away from the world for the most part. She wiped the tears from her face. For just a moment, a piece of that drugged night of wanton sex surfaced in her mind.
Is Lev in Jerusalem?
She was certain that Klaus had asked her that.
And now Lev was dead, with his things somehow in her husband’s control.
Desperate, she returned to the computer. If Klaus was going after Thomas next, he needed to be warned.
27
Walking like a man who belonged there, trying to ignore the little voice in the back of his mind that insisted he was stepping into a trap, Lourds entered the modern eight-story building that had replaced the old bus station in 2001. The building had five floors of office space above the three main levels and two levels of underground parking.
The new bus station also had a shopping concourse and a food court that had stirred up considerable strife among the Haredi community. Rabbis of the superconservative Orthodox Judaism had protested vehemently against adding more than coffee shops and magazine racks, the way things had been in the past.
Lourds missed the old bus station as well. He preferred it to the gleaming monstrosity that sprawled out around him. Getting big and modern had taken a lot of character out of the neighborhood. People had once been able to find small places and corners to talk over coffee and the newspaper, and even felt like they had some privacy. Now the food court was in plain sight, and everything felt hurried.
He took the bus locker key from his pocket. He’d retrieved it from inside an old prosthesis Lev kept in his closet as a hiding place. After all, who would think to look there?
Earlier that morning, Lourds had slipped into Lev’s building through the back way, awakened Mrs. Hirsch, and listened to her complain about her bad hip the way she always had, even though it hadn’t appeared to get any worse since the last time he’d seen her. She’d opened Lev’s door with her spare key. Someone had to water the plants when Lev was gone. Mrs. Hirsch wasn’t moving, so she’d been a good temporary flat sitter. They had consoled each other briefly over Lev’s death, then Lourds had headed to the bus station.
At the locker area, aware that he was being watched by closed-circuit television, Lourds took note of the lockers and the way the numbers ran. The IDs held Hebrew and English markings.
He found B-34 with ease. He put the key into the lock and turned it, almost expecting someone to jump out of the small square space and shoot him. Relief filled him when he saw only a bound notebook inside.