The Sinai Secret

THIRTEEN

Grand Place

Brussels

Five Minutes Later

The three men stood in front of the yellow-stone baroque facade of Le Pigeon while Vorstaat finished another Gitane.

"What are your plans now, Mr. Reilly?"

"First I'll check at the Amigo Hotel, see if they have my baggage. I'm due to change shirts sometime soon."

The policeman made a sound that might have been a chuckle had there been any humor in it. "You will be staying in Brussels how long?"

"Other than a hot shower, I have no reason to stay at all. I came to make sure the foundation's work was continuing, and Louis assures me it is."

"So you will be returning to America?" The inspector's inflection implied he doubted it.

"First I need to go to Amsterdam with Louis, see exactly where we are on Benjamin Yadish's research, then go by and offer condolences to his wife. Then home."

Vorstaat was studying Lang's face with a stare he surely knew made Lang uncomfortable. "This research, it will continue?"

Lang was taken by surprise. "I… I'm not sure. Our two leading guys-one here, one back homer-are both dead."

The policeman dropped his cigarette and crushed it into the cobblestones with more enthusiasm than was necessary. "Has it occurred to you that these two men were murdered not just to halt their research but to steal it?"

Lang's mind flashed back to the pages torn from Lewis's notebook. "Has anything from Dr. Yadish's laboratory been taken?"

"The Amsterdam authorities tell me his wife said the CD on which he keeps his records is missing. She could not tell them what was on it, but they intend to speak to her again when she has had time to collect her… collect her thoughts. Perhaps next week."

Lang was hardly surprised that Vorstaat had already been in touch with the Dutch police. It was the obvious thing to do. "Did she have any idea why he was in Bruges?"

The policeman was staring at him harder than ever. "He told her he was meeting you."

Stunned, Lang said nothing for a moment. "The night he was killed I was in the United States. I have both a priest and a policeman who can attest to the fact."

That humorless grin spread across wide lips. "You may need them, Mr. Reilly. For the moment, though, I suggest you use care."

Was the man a comedian or just prone to understatement?

"You can count on it."

Vorstaat started to turn to go and then stopped. "One more thing, Mr. Reilly." He reached into a coat pocket and handed Lang a business card. "Please give me a call before you leave Europe. I may have learned more."

Lang slipped the card into his wallet. "Certainly."

Lang and Louis watched him cross the square without looking back.

"He will tell us if he learns more?" Louis asked.

"If he learns more, he will want to ask more questions," Lang said.

"He did not ask many today."

"He knows very little today."

Book of Jereb

Chapter Two

1. And Pharaoh sent forth his army, his archers and chariots into the desert to return the Israelites to Egypt so that they found the Israelites on the shore of the sea. The Israelites saw the army of Pharaoh; they murmured* unto Moses, saying, "Hast thou brought us into the desert and to the sea only to die by Pharaoh's hand?"

2. Moses said unto them, "Fear not in your hearts, tor thy God shall save thee." And once the Israelites had passed through the shallow sea came a wave at the hand of the one God that swept away Pharaoh, his chariots, his archers and horses so that none were left to pursue.

3. And so began the forty years of the Israelites in the desert.

4. The one God commanded Moses to make unto him an ark, measuring forty-five inches long, twenty-seven inches wide, and twenty-seven inches high. [1] And He commanded the box to be made of wood. The Lord told Moses both the inside and the outside should be laid with the purest of gold, and gold rings at each end so that it might be borne by men. A seal should be placed upon the same so that the lid of the box should not fall off should a man stumble.

5. When the ark had been completed, Moses said to the Israelites, "Behold, your one God has created a weapon that you have never seen." And Zete, son of Zel, doubted the words of Moses, and reached to touch the ark and was struck dead by a bolt that came not from the heavens, and the people bowed to Moses, saying, "You are our savior." And Moses became angry, replying unto them, "Your savior is the one God, who hath brought you forth from Egypt."

6. While the Israelites were encamped at the base of the mountain across the sea but south of the land of the Midi- anites, being the mountain of the God of Abraham, the one God said unto Moses, "Come to me on the mountain and I will give you commandments I have written, that thou might instruct the Isrealites, and you shall put these commandments into the ark I commanded you to build"

7. And Moses was upon the mountain a great time, requiring neither food nor water but sustained by the one God. While Moses was on the mountain, the children of Israel began to murmur, fearing he was dead or would not return to them, and they said among themselves, "Let us make a god so that we may worship it." And they melted down their gold and constructed a golden calf and fell down before it, worshiping it.

8. When Moses returned and saw the Israelites worshiping an idol, he threw down the tablets the Lord had given him, breaking the same and rewrote the same, on tablets in his own hand.

9. And Moses cast the golden calf into the fire until it was consumed.