Picking it up, he looked around to see if anyone was taking undue interest in him. Satisfied that he was safe for the moment, he walked out of the bus terminal. He hadn’t slept a wink all night, and now — with adrenaline fueled by the discovery of the notebook — he was more awake than ever.
Dear Thomas,
If you’re reading this, something unseemly must have happened to me. If I am captured, hurry and come save me because the people looking for Mohammad’s Koran (more on that in a moment) are desperate to find it and bloodthirsty as well.
If I am dead — well, i hope it was quick. You know how I dislike pain.
Tears welled in Lourds’s eyes as he read the last, but he chuckled as well. That was Lev, always a jokester. But the message reminded Lourds that he could be in danger as well.
He glanced around Jaffa Road as he sat in a coffee shop down the street from the bus station. He didn’t see anyone watching him, and he felt quite certain that if anyone had been watching, they would have grabbed him when they saw he had Lev’s book.
He resumed reading.
I’m not going to go into the whole story at this moment, but it’s a great one, trust me on that. Rather, I’m asking you to try to find what I haven’t been able to yet. Or quite possibly to find what I found that got me killed.
I found a most wondrous book in a little shop in Cairo. I know you and I’ve been there together before, and probably either hungover or chasing women. Perhaps that’s why we never found this book before, or perhaps the book didn’t arrive till after we had gone.
I truly feel that I was fated to find this book and discover the truth of the legend in its pages. Even though i have had to call on you for help.
I was puzzled by the book because it was written in a dialect of Arabic that looked familiar, but that I couldn’t quite decipher. Better minds than mine are obviously required.
So I thought of you. Not as a better mind, but as someone who might know one.
All kidding aside, as I’m sure I’m in dire jeopardy or dead at this moment and you’re probably worried or grieving—
‘If you only knew how much, old friend.’ Lourds blinked to clear his eyes and focus on the page.
— I’ll get to the problem straightaway.
The author of this book claims to know where Mohammad’s personal Koran, written by him as God spoke it, is located. There’s also talk of a scroll that foretells the future of the Muslim people. And of the need for all Muslims to join and raise a great Jihad that will strike down all who oppose them.
Pretty heavy stuff. Apocalyptic, even. It even sounds comic bookish, but maybe that’s because we tend to trivialize that which will destroy us. Foolishness or a survival mechanism? I don’t know. However, the problems of a unified Middle East cannot be overlooked.
Mohammad’s Koran promises a way to provide that unification of the different Muslim faiths by delivering the true word of the faith. The scroll will describe a way for it to be done, though all these centuries later I have to wonder about that.
I translated that much of the book, but the location of the Koran and scroll evades me. I’m frustrated and stuck, and if anyone can think of something I haven’t, it’s you.
I’ve left you a message on the bottom of the ‘gift of the magi’ you gave me as a Christmas present one year. Your idea of a joke, which was pretty lame at the time, but I kept it anyway. I also hollowed out a section of it to keep messages in. Don’t burn it!
I didn’t want these two messages (the one in the mikveh you thought we’d never use!) to fall into the wrong hands at the same time.
Don’t fail me, Thomas. I know you can do this, and it pains me to ask.
Love
Lev
The Magi’s gift had been a candelabrum, given at Christmas, but in celebration of Hanukkah. It was intended as a joke, a holiday present wrapped in the most garish wrapping paper Lourds could find — a naughty Santa showing his north pole to a group of young Penthouse-worthy women. The candelabrum was an artifact Lourds had received from one of the projects he’d worked on, not worth much more than sentimental value, but he knew Lev would appreciate it.
Evidently Lev had also worried that Lourds might have forgotten what it was, which was why he’d offered the ‘burn’ clue.
The thing that troubled Lourds most was that the candelabrum was among the artifacts missing from Lev’s flat. He closed the book and placed it in his backpack.
Sarah Shavit picked up the ringing phone and tried to organize her thoughts in the space of a drawn breath. That was usually all the time she had to move from case to case. She placed the agent’s identity number as one of the team currently riding Professor Lourds’s coattails in Jerusalem.
‘Our charge has evidently read whatever was written in the notebook he recovered from the bus station.’
Sarah opened the Lev Strauss file on her computer and made a note. She also made a note on Miriam Abata’s file to check on her. The young woman was going through her psych eval this morning. Sarah wanted to handle the exit interview personally.
‘What is he doing now?’
‘Nothing. Sitting in a coffee shop. Do you want us to bring him in?’
Sarah thought about it, then decided against that. The Jerusalem police had already taken a run at Professor Lourds and come up empty. ‘No. Stay on him. If he knew something, he would be up and moving. This isn’t a man who sits around waiting for grass to grow. He’s drawn by his own passions. Give him rope and give him time. See if he can produce anything if he’s left on a long leash.’
‘Understood. But perhaps our people would know more about whatever’s in that journal than he does.’
‘If this weren’t that man, if this weren’t tied to antiquity, and if the matter weren’t so important, I’d agree with you. But it is that man and it’s tied to a history that we’ve all but lost, and this is something that can potentially change the world as we know it. You have your parameters.’
‘As you wish. It’s time for a stress-free assignment anyway.’
The man’s cockiness irritated Sarah. She made a note in his personal folder. ‘I’d like to point out that the last agent assigned to this task left two dead men in her wake. Don’t be too stress-free.’ She broke the connection.
Acid burned in her stomach. Over the years, she’d learned to pay attention to that feeling. It was a manifestation of some sixth sense that let her know when a mission was about to turn critical in the worst ways.
She felt like she was on fire now. The pieces for this mission were scattered all over the board. Even Melman only had passing knowledge of what it was they were hunting, and no one knew if it truly existed.
Her secretary buzzed for her attention.
‘Yes, Ben.’
‘Agent Abata is about to be released from psych.’
‘Thank you.’ Sarah closed her files and went down to talk to her young charge. She hadn’t been much older than Miriam Abata when she’d killed her first person, a man she’d been hopelessly in love with at the time. She thought she might have a unique perspective on the situation and repercussions and surviving the trauma that the psychologist couldn’t deliver.
The ringing phone dragged Lourds out of a deep sleep. Groggily, he brushed aside the pillow he’d used to block the light that even the drapes couldn’t adequately filter. He had a headache and his face hurt.