Читать книгу The Flaming Sword - Breck England - Страница 9

Chapter 2

Friday, October 8, 2027

Interrogation Room, Shin Bet Headquarters, Queen Helena Street, Jerusalem, 0030h

Jules Halevy sat on one side of the table. He rubbed his wet face and beard. “Doesn’t the air-conditioning work in this building?”

“Not well,” Kristall answered from the other side of the table. The interrogation room was buried in a labyrinth of hallways where no air from the outside could penetrate, and she was smoking with unusual energy. A glass of boiling hot coffee stood at her elbow. Kristall had no sensitivity to heat.

“So. Here we are. What can I help you with this time?” Halevy smiled without humor.

“We’re grateful to you for coming tonight,” Ari said from his perch on the corner of the table. He didn’t like bringing people in for questioning in the middle of the night; he put himself in their place and resented the Service for it. Usually, he thought, it was unnecessary.

Kristall gave Ari a harsh look. “Dr. Halevy, one question. Tell us everything you can about the Mishmar.” She sat back in her chair and exhaled smoke.

“One question, madam? One question? One question like that will take a long time to answer. Why don’t you ask me another question…explain nuclear physics, for example?”

She took a long draught of coffee and put it down.

Halevy sighed and answered in a weighty French accent. “The Mishmar? We are patriots. We are a patriotic group. We are Zionists.”

“Who want to build the Temple on Mount Zion.”

“Yes, that is one of our aims.”

“And how do you plan to carry out this aim of yours?”

“With the help of God.” He answered her stare with his own.

“You don’t contemplate helping him along with the job?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean plotting to remove the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount. To make God’s job a little easier?”

Halevy reared back as if slapped, then began to laugh.

“You can giggle later. For the moment, I want you to answer my question,” Kristall said in a ragged voice. Halevy stopped laughing.

“You take me from my house and my wife in the night. You bring me to this ‘office,’ this torture chamber. And then you demand my respect.”

“Professor, I’m prepared to keep you from your house and your wife in this torture chamber, as you call it, for many more nights. As soon as I have what I need from you, you may go home.”

Halevy grimaced. “No, no. Of course not. There is no such plot. Our group exists to keep the hope of the Temple alive. To prepare for the day.”

“The day?”

“The day that Israel takes back what is rightfully ours. In 1967 our troops took the Temple Mount and then the secularists in the government turned it back to the Muslims. It was treason. So we march, we protest, we raise money, we prepare—but everything we do is legal, peaceful, within the law.”

“So…what do you plan to do? Offer the Waqf enough money and they turn their Haram al-Sharif over to you?”

“We plan to continue what we’ve been doing. That’s all.”

“And so you’ve prepared priestly costumes, ritual items like the menorah and incense burners—all this just in case God decides to sweep the Muslim shrines off the Mount and give you a building license?”

“We propose to bring about the Temple through peaceful means.”

“Such as? How do you propose to ‘peacefully’ erase the Dome of the Rock?”

Halevy was tired. They both knew there was no good answer to the question, so he stared at her impatiently.

Kristall reached for an evidence bag and pulled out Shor’s photograph of the Temple model. “And you know nothing about this writing?”

“Nothing at all, as I told your friend here earlier.”

“What do you know about the gold ring Emanuel Shor wore?”

“It was a gold ring. What is there to know?”

“What does the name ‘Chandos’ mean to you?”

“You’re joking. Chandos? You mean the man who killed the Pope? Who doesn’t know that name?”

“Why was Emanuel Shor in the nanotechnology center on Sabbath? On a holy day?”

“I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times. And so have your people.”

“Why did Shor have a red circuit on his GeM?”

“What is a ‘red circuit’?”

Kristall beamed a photo of Nasir al-Ayoub from her GeM onto the table. “This man…do you recognize him?”

Halevy barely looked at it and shook his head.

“Dr. Halevy, you are a dry fountain.”

“Then may I go?” He stood; his shapeless linen clothes were creased with sweat.

“Not yet. I have one more question… Now you may explain nuclear physics.”

Irritated, Halevy arose and went to the door. It was locked.

“I’m quite serious, Dr. Halevy. I want you to explain to the officer here about the lattice,” she indicated Ari.

Halevy sighed. “I suppose you have cleared this.”

“Inspector Davan is now on the need-to-know list.”

Ari looked up in surprise; Kristall had changed her mind. But he leaned forward intently.

“All right, Inspector. If it will speed things up.” Halevy stood by the door, looked at Ari with contempt, and began speaking rapidly. “The lattice is a nanoelectronic device composed of quantum dots wired in cadence to each other within a silicon matrix…”

“We can stay here all night, Dr. Halevy. Some people think I live here, and it’s very nearly true,” Kristall said.

Halevy sank back into his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. “How do I explain this to a dolt?” He was quiet; then he seemed to gain new energy.

“Levinsky and I became interested years ago in what are called ‘designer atoms.’ The idea is this: an atom is made up of a nucleus of protons and neutrons surrounded by orbiting electrons. The number of these particles dictates the kind of atom it is. The lowest number of electrons occurring in a natural element is one—hydrogen. The maximum number that occurs in nature is 92—uranium. Atoms that heavy are unstable and give off particles in the form of radiation.

“Suppose, however, that you could trick electrons into orbiting an artificial nucleus. Then by adding and taking away electrons you could change any element into any other element—like changing lead to gold and back again.

“Such an artificial nucleus is called a quantum dot; we can create it in the laboratory.” Halevy stood. “And that’s what we call a ‘designer atom.’ ”

He held his hands up to the bare lamp hanging from the ceiling and laced his fingers together. A cross-hatched shadow fell on the table. “Now picture a lattice made of silicon threads, woven like a basket, with many of these designer atoms embedded in the spaces between the threads. You flood the lattice with, let’s say, seventy-nine electrons per dot. The result?”

Ari answered immediately. “Gold.”

Halevy was delighted. “You know! You’re not such a dolt after all.” He wiggled his crossed fingers and laughed. “Gold! Number seventy-nine on the periodic table of elements. The lattice turns to gold! You can pump electrons in and out of the lattice, changing the number at will many times a second.”

“You mean, you can turn silicon into gold?”

“Or any other element you wish, although you’d be wise to create the ambient temperature the element needs to remain solid—hydrogen, for example, dissipates into a gas at room temperature.”

“Which is why Levinsky’s laboratory is kept freezing.”

“Exactly. Certain elements such as phosphorus are extremely unstable, even explosive, if it gets too warm.”

“And you’ve built a lattice like this.”

“Just a few of them so far.”

Ari was impressed. “It’s fantastic. The value of it…”

“Is beyond calculating. We can create elements undreamed of. Superconducting materials. Batteries that last a decade. Solar cells thousands of times more efficient than the ones we have now. But we didn’t build the lattice to make ourselves rich. Catriel Levine has ironclad patents—the rights belong to Technion…and…”

“To the Mishmar,” Kristall interrupted. “Enough money to persuade a good many people in high places to, let us say, align themselves with your way of thinking?”

“The Jewish people need the Temple, and we will do whatever we can—legally—to bring it about.”

Kristall shook her head wearily. “Dr. Halevy, the Israeli people don’t want the Temple. Ninety percent of us are secular. All we ask for is a little peace, to live our own lives and let our neighbors live theirs. People like you disturb our peace. You scratch at old wounds until they bleed and turn septic. In August somebody fired a rocket at Al-Aqsa and nearly brought the wrath of twenty Islamic nations down on us.”

“Others would come to our aid. America.”

“Doctor, now you’re making me laugh.”

“And God.”

Kristall put out her cigarette and stood. She was tired of this. She whispered to her GeM and the electronic lock on the door released itself with a quick hum. “Dr. Halevy, I sincerely hope your intellectual property is as secure as you think. Today there was a break-in at the offices of your solicitors in Tel Aviv. Two people were murdered, one of them the superintendent of security at Technion.”

“Security? You don’t mean Tempelman?” Halevy murmured.

“I do. The other victim was Levinsky’s daughter, Catriel Levine.” Kristall fingered another cigarette and walked out. “Take him upstairs, Davan,” she called over her shoulder. “I want to talk to him again in the morning.”

Halevy suddenly looked a hundred years old. His eyes shrank in his head, his hands and legs shook as he crumpled to the floor, and a high wail rose softly and hung in the air.

Ari watched with revulsion as Tovah Kristall disappeared down the corridor.

Palace of Sant’Uffizio, Vatican City, 0530h

The cobbled square below his window was unusually dark. Night lasted longer now, and the lamps that ordinarily lit up the City were kept low in mourning for the dead Pope. Cardinal Tyrell stood at the window and watched for his visitors.

As he waited, he prayed. There can be no compromise with evil, he said to God. Evil can be stopped. Noah stopped it, Moses stopped the Midianites, Elias stopped the priests of Baal. The Lord Himself cast out evil spirits. He can cast evil from the Church. He sent Peter Chandos to remove Zacharias; He must now finish His work.

Two figures emerged from the darkness and sounded the bell. Tyrell called for them to be let in.

Shedding his cloak, Cardinal Estades came in moaning about the early hour and his arthritic legs. “This day will be far too long. The funeral goes on for eternity, which is fitting, I suppose. And then if the conclave begins immediately…”

“The conclave will not begin until the end of canonical mourning,” said John Paul Stone, the cardinal archpriest, who stood like a giant in the entryway. He stepped forward, removed his cloak and laid it carefully down, sitting uninvited in an armchair. He sat still and rocklike.

“Is there coffee?” Estades asked. Tyrell rang for coffee to be brought, and Estades leaned back with relief on the settee. “Well. Here we are, Leo, as you asked. Father John Paul has a busy day ahead, you know.”

“I know. We all have a busy day ahead.”

“I need to see to final preparations,” Stone said. “It’s not very convenient, so let’s get to business.”

Tyrell looked at Stone with distaste and spoke abruptly. “I want your assurance that you won’t oppose the calling of an extraordinary conclave immediately after the funeral.”

Stone realized that, despite the bullnecked strength of the man, Tyrell was deeply exhausted. He knew he had been holding telecons day and night with cardinals in South America and the Far East, lobbying hard with the conservatives for the election.

“The camerlengo’s office won’t permit it.”

Tyrell snorted. “The camerlengo will do as we tell him.”

Stone didn’t want the conclave rushed; he needed time to put the opposition case to these same cardinals.

“At any rate, I’ll give you no such assurance. Not until after a decent interval of mourning for Pope Zacharias.”

Tyrell braced himself with a swallow of coffee. “Let’s be realistic, Father. You know that a dozen Latin American bishops are ready to leave the Church. The same is happening in Africa and China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines. The archbishop in Manila is refusing to ordain women, and so is Nunes in Sao Paulo.”

“If they disobey the Pope, they can be replaced,” Stone shrugged at this.

“Replaced with whom? People who think as you do? You have no constituency—just empty cathedrals in Europe and the coastal archbishoprics in the USA”

“Being right is enough. Justice and fairness are enough. The Holy Spirit assists the conclave—that’s enough of a constituency for me.”

“And the Holy Spirit assists perversion and sodomy in the Church? In the priesthood itself?”

“In Salutem Ecclesiam. The encyclical…”

“There will be other encyclicals,” Tyrell snapped.

“You can’t switch these things on and off like a light bulb. The magisterium of the Church is at stake.”

“Brothers,” Estades interrupted. “If there is a conclave on Monday or not, it isn’t the end of the world. What are a few weeks in a two-thousand-year-old Church?”

It could be the end of that Church, thought Tyrell. He was desperate to move now; he calculated having a bare majority in the Council, but many were wavering. Once the Cardinal Archpriest and the energetic young men around him began their offensive, a few weeks could make all the difference. He sat down heavily in his vast swivel chair.

“ ‘Brother.’ It’s a good word,” Tyrell intoned. “We are brothers, you and I, priests of Christ after all. So, Brother Stone, I would really like to know why…I would really like to understand…why you are so eager to open the Holy Sacraments, even the priesthood itself, to unconfessed sinners. To people who practice the most abominable perversions.”

Stone smiled and shook his head. “It’s very simple. I don’t consider them sinners. God has made them what they are, and they are my brothers, too.”

“For two thousand years…before that, from Sinai, from the angels who destroyed Sodom, God has decreed death as the penalty for these sins.”

“It was the times, Brother Tyrell. At Sinai, death was decreed for many things—for marrying a Gentile woman, for adultery…Would you have all adulterous Catholics stoned in the streets?”

“They choose death. God administers it.”

“But God loves them…”

Tyrell rose from his chair. “ ‘God will not withhold justice even from those he loves.’ Saint Augustine.”

“ ‘The anguish in our neighbor’s soul transcends all doctrines. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself, because God is love.’ Saint Edith Stein.”

Estades interrupted again. “Stop. All morning you will throw quotations at each other like rocks. Leo, I don’t know why you asked me here, except that I’m reminded of the old steers my father kept among the bulls to calm them so they wouldn’t gore each other. I suppose I’m the old steer, so I’ll do my work.”

“Manolo, you are the perceptive one, as usual.” Tyrell put his fingers to his forehead and rubbed hard. He looked at Stone. “As senior man, I will put the question to the others directly the funeral is over.”

“Then there will be a breach between us. A breach in the Church.”

“It’s happened before,” Tyrell waved them away.

Police Headquarters, Dizengof Street, Tel Aviv, 0630h

“Apparently they’ve embedded this lattice into a GeMscreen. You can turn it into whatever element you want, even some that have never been heard of before. They have an app that turns the screen into a high-definition hologram projector. Another one turns it into a 99-percent efficient solar cell, so you can set your GeM in the sun for five minutes and not charge it again for years.”

They were both waiting outside a dingy conference room for Kristall to call for them. Miner was fascinated by the rough sketch Ari was making on a notepad. “And you say it could be made into a weapon?”

“That’s what Halevy said, but he wasn’t very forthcoming about it. I got an idea he wasn’t sure what to say.”

“How could he be?” Toad interjected. “If the thing can be turned into any one of an infinite number of elements, he could never know exactly what it was capable of.”

Ari had explained everything to Miner; Kristall would have known he wouldn’t withhold anything from his team.

“And now everything points to the Arab… I mean, the ‘Eagle’?” Miner asked.

“He’s the intersection. The eyelash, the murder scenes. And now we’ve tracked him here.”

“When did he surface? I thought they lost him yesterday.”

Ari laughed. “We had a hundred people looking for him from Ramla to the coast. Then the airline rang this morning to tell us ‘our man’ had just booked a flight to Rome on the Internet.”

“In his own name?”

“Right. He’s planning to waltz onto an Alitalia flight at 0800 just as cool as you please.”

“I suppose it’s really him.”

“Oh, yes. He’s already at the airport—arrived two hours early, like a good customer. Either he doesn’t know that we’re onto him or doesn’t care. Plus, he’s flying business class.”

Miner was puzzled. “Are we going to let him go?”

“Yes. Kristall wants me to stay with him. She’s intrigued.”

“So…any idea why the two vic’s in Tel Aviv?”

“The woman was involved in patenting the thing… There’s so much at stake here that the killer might have wanted her out of the way, maybe to make it easier to steal the rights. Tempelman…I don’t know. He was shady. Obviously he was involved somehow.”

“What’s in Rome?”

“Nobody knows. Maybe Eagle’s going there to hand off that very special GeM to somebody?”

Miner brightened up. “That makes sense. No better way to smuggle the, um, item out of the country than as a perfectly ordinary GeM.”

“That’s Kristall’s way of thinking.”

“So you’ll be on the flight too.”

“Yes, and I’ve got something for you to do while I’m away.”

***

Toad stood in a corner of the cramped morgue and watched as the examiner measured the gaps between the wounds on the body of Catriel Levine. The long white corpse was punctured once in the forehead and three times in the chest. If the three points were connected, they would form a straight line. The examiner had already measured a similar pattern on the body of Shimon Tempelman, which lay covered on an adjacent table.

Toad felt cold inside and out. He was used to the role of observer. Sometimes he felt as if he were not arms and legs and head, but just eyes, looking out at a world that he was not spatially a part of. He put no trust in people’s descriptions of things until he saw them himself. Now he saw under the lights the dead body of Catriel Levine and submitted to a reality he had only imagined. For an instant he felt like he was drowning—a sudden burning in his eyes, a contracting throat. She’d been remote, contemptuous; still, it felt like his own life had been lost.

The examiner covered the body and beamed his data to Toad. All the statistics of Catriel Levine’s mortality poured digitally into his GeM; he stared at the image on the screen and wondered why it had such power over him. He thanked the examiner and left for the briefing.

He went into a choked little conference room as a group of city police came out, grumbling about Shin Bet. GeM projections played on the walls: Kristall, Ari, and Miner were showing a schematic of the Cohen Brothers offices to a big white-haired man in an elegant suit. Another man Toad did not recognize sat looking desolate in a chair too small for him while two impassive Shin Bet operatives stood behind him.