Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

I have left this place But once. I traveled north to Qumran one night and stole upon the sleeping Essenes. I moved among them like a shadow, taking two jars of scrolls and some ink. I loaded them on the back of three goats and returned to the Resting Place where I feasted upon one goat and kept the other two for breeding.

And then I began to write my story.

--from the Glass scroll

Rockefeller Museum translation

NINE

Jerusalem—the Old City

Kesev followed Qadasiya north from the Via Dolorosa. His footsteps echoed on the street stones. Well after midnight and all quiet in the Moslem quarter.

Suddenly the sound of a car engine echoed off the surrounding stone walls and bouncing lights cast long, jittering shadows up ahead. Had to be a Jeep. A military patrol most likely. Things had been quiet in the Moslem quarter for a while now, but the patrols stayed on schedule. That was the way to make sure things remained quiet.

Kesev had donned Arab dress for the night—a frayed jellaba and a striped keffiyeh held in place around his head with a worn akal. He knew he looked more Arab than many natives of the quarter, and if the patrol spotted him they’d stop and ID him. He ducked into an alley and crouched behind some debris, waiting for them to pass. One look at the Shin Bet ID in his wallet and the patrol would wish him well and continue on its way. But Kesev didn’t want to be stopped at all—the supposedly sleeping walls were full of eyes. He didn’t want anyone to know he was here, especially his superiors.

This business had nothing to do with the Shin Bet.

Kesev stepped out of the alley after the patrol had passed. He scanned the street to see if anyone else might emerge in its wake. Nothing moved. Rising above the silent Old City, the Dome of the Rock gleamed in the starlight. A brilliant gold in daylight, it looked more silver now.

Continuing along Qadasiya, Kesev shoved three sticks of gum into his mouth. He chewed steadily, savoring the peppermint sweetness as he turned into the narrow side street that led to Salah Mahmoud’s antique shop. The dealer lived above his place of work, the better to keep watch over his inventory, Kesev supposed.

Kesev had been watching the shop for three days and nights now, and had finally paid it a visit this afternoon. Most of the statuettes and carvings on Mahmoud’s dusty shelves were junk, some outright fakes, waiting to hook some well-heeled European or American tourist with a craving to take home a piece of the Holy Land.

Mahmoud himself was obviously playing to the foreigners with his waxed mustache and red fez perched atop his balding head. With his jowls and rumpled suit, he looked like a transplant from Hollywood.

But the portly dealer’s manner had changed abruptly when one particular customer arrived. Mahmoud greeted the German-speaking man warmly, ushered him to a secluded corner where they spoke in whispers, then led him up a flight of stairs at the rear of the store. That would be where the items of real value were stored, Kesev decided.

During an apparently casual perusal of the artifacts and rickety third-hand furniture that passed for antiques, Kesev had surreptitiously surveyed the premises and found no security device more sophisticated than a bell attached to the inside of the front door.

Now, in the shadowed recess of that front door, Kesev used a slim piece of plastic to slip the latch on the rickety, post-World War Two lock. Gently he eased the door open a few inches, spit the gum into his palm, reached inside and used it to fix the clapper to the side of the bell.

Once inside, he pulled a penlight from the folds of his jellaba and wound his way among the dealer’s wares to the stairs at the rear. He had spent most of the evening mulling the best way to proceed from here. He’d heard the squeaks and groans from the old wooden staircase as Mahmoud and his customer had ascended this afternoon, so sneaking up was out. That left a more direct approach.

Kesev switched the penlight to his left hand and pulled a silenced Tokarev 9mm from his robe. Then he took a backward step and charged up the stairs, taking them three at a time. He threw his shoulder against the upper door and smashed through to the second floor. Days of watching had told him that Mahmoud lived alone and slept in the room overlooking the street. Kesev barreled straight ahead, burst into the room in time to find a very startled and frightened Salah Mahmoud sitting up in bed, reaching into the top drawer of his night table. Kesev kicked the drawer closed on the dealer’s wrist and jabbed the business end of the Tokarev against his throat as he began to cry out.

“Not a sound, Mr. Mahmoud,” Kesev said softly in Arabic. “I have come to rob you, not to kill you. But I am not adverse to doing both. Understand?”

Mahmoud nodded vigorously, his jowls bulging and quivering under his chin, his eyes threatening to jump from their sockets. He looked like a toad that had just come face to face with the biggest snake it had ever seen.

“Wh-whatever it is you want,” Mahmoud said, “take it. Take it and go!”

“That’s a very good start.”

Kesev allowed him to remove his hand from the drawer. As the dealer cradled his injured wrist in his lap, Kesev switched on the bedside lamp. He removed Mahmoud’s snub-nosed .38 from the drawer and tossed it under the bed. Then he produced the scroll he’d coerced from Tulla Szobel and dropped it on the sheet.

“I want the original.”

Mahmoud stared at the scroll, then looked up. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Kesev felt his anger flare but controlled it. He forced himself to smile. It must have been a disturbing grimace because Mahmoud flinched.

“Before I came here,” Kesev said evenly, “I decided I would allow you one lie. That was it. Now that it’s out of the way, you may answer truthfully. Where is the original?”

“I swear I don’t know what you are talking about.”

He struck the dealer a backhanded blow with the Tokarev. Mahmoud fell on his side, a mass of quaking blubber, moaning, clutching his cheek. Blood seeped between his fingers.

Kesev’s arm rose to deliver another blow but he reined his fury and lowered the pistol. Instead he grabbed the front of Mahmoud’s nightshirt and pulled him close. He turned the broad face so that they were nose to nose. He wanted the dealer to look into his eyes, to see the fury there to feel the truth of what Kesev was going to say.

“Listen to me, Salah Mahmoud, and listen well. The original of that scroll was stolen from me. I intend to retrieve what is mine, and since nineteen-ninety-one I have been searching for it. You are merely the latest phase of that search. Now, you can be a stepping stone or you can be a stumbling block. The choice is entirely yours.”

Mahmoud opened his mouth to speak but Kesev pressed the barrel of the Tokarev’s silencer against his lips.

“But let me warn you. I will not tolerate lies. This is extremely important to me and I have already expended enormous time and effort in my search. I am out of patience.”

He pressed the silencer more firmly against Mahmoud’s mouth.

“This pistol has a seven-shot clip loaded with 9mm hollowpoint bullets. Do you know what a hollowpoint does after it enters the body? It flattens and widens, tearing through the flesh in an expanding cone of destruction. The bullet enters through a little hole and exits through a gaping maw. It is not a pretty thing, Salah Mahmoud.”

Sweat beaded the dealer’s forehead, dripping into his eyes.

“So...here are the ground rules: I will ask questions and you will answer truthfully. The first time I think you are lying I will shoot you in the left knee.” The dealer stiffened and shuddered. “The second lie will earn you a bullet in the right knee. The third in your right elbow, the fourth in your left. The fifth bullet I will use on your manhood. By that time I will have decided that you are either a pathological liar, or you really don’t know anything. I will then leave you. Alive. And you will spend the rest of your days unable to walk, unable to use crutches or a wheelchair, unable to feed yourself or wipe yourself, your urine running through a tube into bag strapped to your leg. Is that what you want?”

Mahmoud shook his head violently, spraying drops of perspiration in all directions.

“Good.”

Kesev straightened and stepped back from the bed. He had no particular desire to shoot this man, but he would do so. He had to retrieve that scroll.

He pointed to the forged scroll on the bed.

“Now tell me: When did you get this scroll?”

Mahmoud hesitated. His nightshirt was soaked with sweat. His eyes darted about the room, like a rabbit looking for a hole to run to.

Kesev worked the slide to chamber a round.

“No!” Mahmoud cried, trying to curl into a ball.

Kesev pulled the trigger once. The Tokarev jerked and gave out a phut! as a bullet tore into the mattress near the dealer’s face.

Mahmoud thrust out his hands amid the flying feathers and began to whimper. “Please don’t shoot! I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you everything!”

Kesev lowered the pistol a few degrees. “I’m waiting.”

“I made that scroll.”

Kesev raised the pistol again.

“It’s true! I copied it myself from a crumbling original!”

“Really. And where did you find the original?”

“I-I didn’t. Two nephews of my father’s uncle’s brother discovered it in a cave in the Wilderness. I don’t know if it’s true, but they claimed one of Saddam’s missiles uncovered it.”

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Kesev felt relief begin to seep through him, but he resisted it just as he’d resisted the rage. He could not let down his guard, not until the scroll was safely back in his hands.

Mahmoud was still talking, babbling, flooding the room with rapid-fire Egyptian-flavored Arabic.

“Their father brought their find to me: a written scroll that was heavily damaged—the boys had been in a hurry and did not know how to care for it—and a sealed jar containing two unused scrolls. I began reassembling the fragments of the written scroll as best I could. So many pieces! It took me years—years—to complete the task. When I had finished I copied what was left of the text onto the blank parchments.”

“Copied? Copied how?”

He shrugged, almost apologetically. “I...I’ve done this before. I have formulae for all the ancient inks. I was especially careful with the copying because I knew the parchments would pass the dating test.” His attempt at a smile was a miserable failure. “I figured, why sell one scroll when I could sell three?”

“Did you read it? Did you understand it?” Kesev held his breath as he waited for the answer.

“I tried. But my Aramaic is rudimentary at best; there were words I could not translate. And besides, the scroll was incomplete. Fragments were out of place and some were missing completely. I reassembled them the best I could but—”

“Where is that original now?”

“It...” His voice shrank to a whisper. “It’s gone.”

Sudden rage crackled through Kesev’s brain. He leaned forward and jammed the muzzle of the silencer against Mahmoud’s thigh.

“You sold it?”

“No-no! Please! It’s gone! Whisked away into the air!”

“I warned you about lying!”

“Please! I swear by Allah! The wind took it! It happened in the back room, not ten meters from here, just as I was finishing the first copy. Suddenly all the windows in the building crashed inward and a blast of icy wind tore through the halls and rooms. The winds seemed to gather in my work room. They rattled my walls, knocked me to the floor, and upset my work table. The scroll fragments swirled into the air in a whirling column, then they blew out the window and were gone. Years of work—gone.”

Kesev’s rage cooled rapidly, chilled by the dealer’s words. A wind...filling the halls and rooms...stealing the fragments in a miniature whirlwind...

“You must believe me!” Mahmoud wailed. “Every word is true!”

Kesev nodded slowly, almost absently. The fat forger wasn’t lying. He wouldn’t make up something so fantastic and try to pass it off as the truth.

And that meant that the original scroll had been destroyed, reduced to scattered, indecipherable bits of parchment...but not before it had been copied.

“How many copies did you make?” Kesev asked finally.

“Two. There were only two blank scrolls. I forged the second copy from the first.”

How many scrolls had been in the sealed jar? Two sounded right but he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t remember.

Two copies: one here in Kesev’s possession, and the other in America. That thought would have panicked him if he hadn’t known it had been branded a forgery.

He had a sense that events were spinning out of control. An odd progression of incidents—the errant SCUD, the theft of the scroll, the copies, the destruction of the original. Especially unsettling was the last incident. An unnatural wind had whirled the scroll fragments into oblivion, but only after they had been copied. After. Unfortunate happenstance, or design? He sensed a power at work, a deft hand moving behind the scenes. But what power? And to what end?

He had to stay on guard. The scroll in America was probably rolled up and sealed in a glass case, just like Tulla Szobel’s. A curio. Something to be looked at but not touched. And besides, how many Americans knew Aramaic? Highly unlikely that anyone would realize what it was about.

But something was happening. Once again he was overwhelmed by the sensation of giant wheels turning, ready to crush him if he stepped the wrong way.

Increased vigilance was the key. He’d have to find a way to keep a closer watch on the Resting Place. And be ready to deal swiftly and surely with any curious Americans he found wandering in the area.