Destiny

TWENTY-SEVEN

Early evening on the next day, Marcus headed into the Old City on foot, exploring and observing, to better grasp hold of the synthesis of the place. Tourists and pilgrims roamed David Street in packs led by scripted tour guides. Marcus stepped around a tour group and made his way down the historic street, stopping once to read the address on the card the old man had given him the night of the attempted mugging.

Was I being followed now?

He walked beneath stone arches leading to small shops filled with silk scarves, oriental rugs, copper pots, hookah pipes, guitars, ouds, flutes, Kiddush cups and enough wooden crosses and other souvenirs to represent almost every religion on earth.

He stepped quickly inside a shop, glancing into a decorative mirror with a direct reflection of the street. He could see no one watching or following him. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and placed a call to Alicia Quincy’s mobile phone.

Marcus said, “Look, things are unraveling over here faster than I thought. Hell, at this point, I don’t know what I thought anymore.”

“What do you mean, Paul?”

“I’ve found coding or passages in the Bible that seems to indicate some kind of prophecy of events.”

“Such as floods and national disasters?”

“The manmade kind.”

“Manmade — how?”

“For starters, the BP oil disaster in the Gulf.”

“What does it say?”

“It’s allegorical, but I think there’s enough information to connect it to the disaster in the gulf.”

“Are you sure you’re not reading or misreading between some dusty old lines in the Bible written by dustier old men?”

“It also indicates that President Kennedy’s son, John, would die in a plane crash.”

“What? You found information in the Bible that prophesied John Kennedy Junior’s death in a plane accident?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. If this is accurate, it may not have been an accident. I remember the official reports indicating there was no explosion and that the plane just dropped out of the sky. Reports specify that Kennedy was at fault.”

Alicia was quiet a moment. “Who would do it? Who would have wanted him dead? Where do you go with this information?”

“I don’t know who would do it, and I don’t have a lot of information to do anything with it, either. The revelations are short, but yet they have enough meat on the bone to chew.”

“Could the hacker or hackers have found out about this?”

“I don’t think so. You’re sure NSA isn’t trying to hack, right?”

“Not at the moment — I’d be the first to know. Is anyone else aware of what you’re learning?”

“Yes, a teacher at the university, Jacob Kogen. He believes there’s further information in these notes or in the Bible that might direct the fate of Israel, and the world, for that matter.”

“Paul, what can I do?”

“Let me know if anyone from the agency is sniffing further. Also, see what you can find on a Syrian general named Abdul Hannan.”

“Is he currently in Syria?”

“He’s dead.”

“So is the guy you wanted me to run a background check on, David Marcus.”

“Dead…”

“Since June, 1948. He was killed in some weird friendly fire, according to a report that wasn’t easy to find. David Marcus was an American colonel, a guy who took a leave of absence and then volunteered for the Israeli military under the name of Michael Stone. He was a tour de force during the war and the subsequent evolution of Israel becoming a state. He was shot in the line of duty, allegedly due to a mistaken identity.”

“Does the report indicate how many times he was shot?”

“Hold on…yes. He was shot three times. Why?”

“Three? That’s weird. Alicia, does it say where David Marcus was assigned during the war?”

“Some of the stuff that really stands out is what he did in Germany. He was in charge of figuring out how to sustain and keep alive the millions of people starving in the areas liberated by the Allies at the end of the war. To drive a nail in the Nazis, Marcus was the guy in charge of planning the way the Nuremberg Trials would be operated, including the international legalities of possible death sentences for those found guilty of war crimes. My guess is David Marcus was a hero to many, and a despised authority to Nazi sympathizers.”

Marcus listened to her. He said nothing.

“Paul, you said that you met someone with this name, right?”

“I spent an hour in the car driving him to Jerusalem in a wicked thunderstorm.”

“Maybe that’s why I couldn’t reach you, atmospheric conditions.”

“Alicia, something is happening over here. Something I can’t explain scientifically. Can you check to see —?”

“I have to go. Someone is coming down the hall.” She disconnected.

Marcus continued walking, locating the coffee shop, Cafez, at the end of Hakari, a side street near the Western Wall. As he came closer, the scent of dark coffees and burning tobacco met him. A half dozen people, mostly men, sat in outdoor chairs under cabanas long since faded from heat and rain. Two pokerfaced men smoked Turkish unfiltered cigarettes and sat in metal folding chairs playing a card game called Basra.

Arabic music came from a battered speaker bolted to the exterior of the small shop. Marcus moved past the shop and bought a newspaper a few doors down and read the headlines, a story about the upcoming elections for the prime minister in Israel, and the campaigns for primary elections in the United States.

Marcus walked back to the coffee shop and entered. The old man, Bahir Ashari, recognized him. He stood at the rear counter and grinned. “Welcome, my friend, Paul Marcus. I thought I might see you again.”

Bahir came out from behind the counter, his olive face beaming. He wiped his hands on a white towel. “What kind of coffee you like, American? Turkish? Greek? Lebanese? I grind the beans fresh for you.”

Marcus smiled. “American’s fine. That way, I can drink more of it.”

“Yes, it is so. Not too strong. I do sell some occasionally…to tourists mostly.”

Marcus looked around the small shop. There were a dozen tables, a few worn couches and movie posters from American films on the walls. Two college-aged students, a man and a woman, sat at a table near the window, backpacks beside their chairs. There was one small table with two chairs in the far corner. Marcus gestured toward it.

“Can I sit there? I may be here for a while.”

The old man beamed, leading Marcus to the table. “Sit, please. I told you the coffee and conversations are free for life. However, since I am much older than you, drink quickly my friend.”

“Do you have Internet connection?”

“Yes, of course.” He raised his shoulders. “My grandson works here on the weekends, so he insisted we have this Internet. No wires, eh. People play with their computers and drink. Business is good. Life is good. Even with your computer, I see you bought a newspaper.”

“It seems to go well in a coffee shop.”

“Yes, but many things in the newspaper are not good. I get your coffee now.”

Marcus opened his laptop, setting it on the table. He took his seat, reaching in his pocket and removing the two flash drives. He plugged one in his laptop and waited for data to load. He began to plow through layers of coding, tracking the IP address of the hacker. Marcus reversed the information, keyed in data and waited. He watched numbers loading. He scribbled the numbers on a piece of paper.

A man entered the store. The man, face rutted and the color of a horse saddle, went to the counter where Bahir greeted him and took an order for coffee and baklava.

Within a minute, Marcus began keying and cross-referencing passages from the Bible. He pulled and translated from the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, and King James, searching for the right combination of words to enter. He stared at the screen, unblinking, his mind racing, turning over patterns, unseen links, looking for the subtle signs in three thousand years of stories, languages, prophecies and symbols.

Marcus glanced around the coffee shop. There were only a handful of customers still seated, some reading newspapers or Internet-connected tablets. A few hunched over laptop computers. His thoughts raced. If there’s handwriting on the wall about Jen and Tiffany, I want to see it. He took a deep breath and keyed in the names of his wife and daughter, performed multiple cross-reference searches, decrypted verses from various books in the Bible, crunched numbers, years, and allusions to time and space.

And Marcus waited.