Destiny

EIGHTY-FOUR

Alicia spent four straight hours on her computer at the small desk in the hotel room. Marcus picked up orders of hummus, grape leaves, lentils, flat bread and baba ghanoush and brought them back to the room where they ate. He called Bahir and asked about the package.

“It arrived a half hour ago. Are you coming, Paul?”

“Yes. Until we get there, what is the most secure place in your shop?”

“You mean a place where no one would ever find this?”

“Yes.”

“I have such a place. As a matter of fact, it hasn’t been used since 1935. I will keep it in there until your return.”

“Thank you.” He disconnected and turned to Alicia. “The spear’s arrived.”

“Great…and so has some new information.”

“What do you have?”

“Carlson received an email from someone named Thomas Andrew Jenkins. In it, Jenkins tells him the acquisition will be made soon…the birds have landed. He says the acquisition will be ready for the next meeting.”

“Acquisition…birds have landed. Maybe the acquisition is the spear. Birds could mean us…our flight landing. Who is Thomas Jenkins?”

“I dug through every clearance I could. Jenkins is now a consultant with the Kinsley Group. His background listed him as working in sales for the Coca Cola Company in Tel Aviv and then he went to work for one other company, Regions Oil Limited. I suspect that was his cover. It gave him a license and credentials to travel across the Middle East.”

“You’re saying CIA, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d you say is his full name?”

“Thomas Andrew Jenkins.”

Marcus thought back to his first meeting with Nathan Levy. ‘An old friend of mine, Andy Jenkins, was once stationed in Tel Aviv by your government for almost two decades.’

“What’s wrong, Paul? What are you thinking?”

“How long was he with Regions Oil, and who are they?”

“Let me see.” Her fingers raced across the keyboard. After half a minute, she looked up at Marcus. “He worked twelve years in sales for Regions Oil, an international company with operations in Israel and the U.S. Net profits last year were 27 billion. Regions Oil was established in 1988 as an outgrowth of agricultural organizations from the Kibbutz Movement. And, today, three companies own Regions. Controlling ownership, at fifty-five percent, is the PetChem Consolidated Group. Its chairman is none other than Jonathon Carlson. Regions purchased the operations of Genesis Petroleum, including the refineries, terminals, pipelines, and retail assets in the U.S. and continued the expansion of its business in the Middle East.”

Marcus was silent.

Alicia added, “Here’s another thing. Senator Wyatt Dirkson, at one time, was on the Board of Directors for Genesis. The man who’s now the interim prime minister of Israel was formerly on the Board for Regions. As the ride at Disneyland serenades us, it’s a small world after all.”

“So it seems.”

Marcus’s phone buzzed on the counter. The caller ID displayed: Hebrew University. Marcus answered and Jacob Kogen said, “Paul, I have only slept a few hours a night since you left on your journey. I know you’ve found something. We must talk.”

“I’m listening, Jacob.”

“No, in person, please. I want to review what you have found. But even more than that, I wanted to tell you to be very careful. The Mossad is following you.”

“How do you know?”

“They’ve questioned me about your whereabouts, what you may have said the weeks you were doing research here.”

“What do you mean, may have said?”

“I don’t know for sure. By the line of their questioning, I’d surmise it has something to do with the enemies of Israel. Most likely, Iran.”

“Jacob, listen to me. I haven’t done anything that will compromise the safety and security of Israel. If anything, what I have done and will do is something that will further protect it. You’re going to have to trust me here.”

“I do. I trust you with all my heart and soul. This is providence. It must be. I have no doubt in my mind. But it is very dangerous because evil is fighting you. Dark forces will keep coming at you with savage repetition.”

Marcus said nothing

“Paul, we must meet.”

“I’ll call you.”

“Please, be very careful.”

They entered the Cafez coffee shop in the late afternoon. Half a dozen customers sat at the tables, some reading Arabic newspapers, others reading from tablets, iPads and laptops. Marcus led Alicia to a table in the far corner just as Bahir came in from the back room with a bag of coffee beans in his arms. He grinned when he saw Marcus, set the bag down, went behind the curtain to a rear room and came out with a small FedEx box. He brought it to their table with a cup of coffee in his other hand for Marcus.

“Paul, I have missed you my friend. I hid this well, under an old trapdoor. Even my grandson doesn’t know the trapdoor exists.”

“Why is it there?”

“Perhaps I will show you.” Bahir’s face bloomed.

“Bahir, I want you to meet Alicia Quincy.”

Bahir grinned, his eyes suddenly luminous. “Paul leaves to return with the most wonderful gift in the world, the company of a beautiful woman. It is my honor to meet you, Alicia.”

She smiled and reached to shake his hand. “Paul told me how much he appreciates your friendship. I’m delighted to finally meet you, too.”

Bahir nodded and set the box on the table next to the coffee cup. “It is rare a man sends a present for himself and arrives the same day to find it waiting for him. You did not tell me what is in the box. If it is a secret, I shall go grind twenty pounds of Ethiopian beans. Only first I find out what coffee your friend would prefer. Alicia, what may I bring you?”

“The Ethiopian sounds exotic.”

Bahir bowed slightly, walked to the counter and filled another cup. He returned.

“Bahir,” Marcus said, glancing around the coffee shop. “Please, sit down. I want to show you something. First, I need to tell you what Alicia and I have been through the last few days.”

The old man waived to his nephew to bring him a coffee, took a sip, and then listened without interruption. When Marcus finished, Bahir said, “I’m fearful that your journey is only beginning. Please, let me see the spear. I have waited all my life for this.”

Surprised by his last comment, Marcus looked at Bahir quizzically for a moment then discreetly opened the box. He lifted out the thick newspaper wrappings that encased the spear to protect it, and carefully uncovered the spiritual artifact. Lying on the seafood cooking section of the Ouest-France newspaper was the Spear of Destiny.

Bahir simply stared at it for a half minute in total silence, his dark eyes unblinking. A fly landed on his coarse hand, crawling to the tip of his thumbnail. Bahir finally waved the fly away. He lifted his eyes to Marcus, tears welling above his lower eyelids. “It is astounding. Here in my little coffee shop, in a corner table, lies the blade that pierced the body of Christ. The event turned a Roman soldier into a believer who achieved sainthood. And the spear, with its inherent power, was left for whoever had the means and presence of mind to acquire it.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, revealing the brown-dotted age spots. Looking at Alicia before shifting his glance back to Marcus, he said, “Billions of people call our earth home. You are the only one who found this…the only one who understood and figured out where to seek it.”

“I don’t know if I had a choice. What do you think the inscription means?”

The old man took a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket, held the spear low, using his body to block it from anyone. He turned the spear over and slowly read the language, his lips moving, but with no words coming out of his mouth. Then he cleared his throat. “The city had no need of the sun, neither the moon to shine in it…for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light that will be there.”

Marcus looked around the coffee shop. All patrons seem oblivious to what was going on at the back table. “Bahir, what does it mean?”

“What do you think it might mean?”

“The passage is from Revelation. I’m not sure what it’s referring to, but I feel the reference to the city is right here — the Old City of Jerusalem.”

“Is it a riddle?” Alicia asked.

“No.” Bahir’s unkempt eyebrows arched. “It is not a riddle. It is an answer.”

“What do you mean?” asked Marcus. “An answer to what question?”

“To the one you’ve carried for a long time, Paul. As the whole universe was brought forth from one by the power of one God…so all things are born perpetually from this one force according to the character of nature…of God. We do not come into the world at birth. We come from — from the source of life, like an apple comes from a tree. The miracle of that which is above is moveable to that which is below. It is one. We, all of us, every atom and every cell, are one with God. He is perfection, all above, below and beyond, comes from a single whole, a strength that is the ultimate influence because it is the ultimate love. As invisible as gravity, yet it is the might, the power and mind that placed the entire universe into motion and breathes life into its center…mankind. Your wife and daughter are part of that, loved and well. They are in a dimension that may be not visible to all, yet, but it is not anonymous.”

Marcus said nothing, his chest filling with weight. Alicia looked down at the spear and then into the old man’s face. Bahir touched the spear with his index finger. “You are partially correct in your reasoning of the city as referred to on the spear. But, the city is the new Jerusalem, not the old one, where we are an eternal community made from one designer. That which is above is also below through all, and the universe.”

There was a soft jingle of glassware behind the counter. “What’s that?” asked Alicia. Bahir stared at the coffee in his cup, his aged face reflecting from the dark surface. The reflection broke when the coffee began quivering.

Bahir stood. His customers looked around, some unplugging their laptops, others glancing nervously out the windows. Five seconds later, the buildings of Jerusalem began to tremble and break apart.