Moses & Mac, page 14
part #1 of Vatican Archaeological Service Series
“Maybe you have brothers or sisters that could give me some information. Any information is better than none, no matter how small.”
“My father lies in the Rafah Cemetery.”
“What about your mother?”
“My father lies in the Rafah Cemetery.”
He folded the tablecloth, put it in his duffel bag, and rushed off, almost knocking over the table beside him, without so much as a glance back.
Chapter Seventeen
I was so distraught I took the bag of chocolates out of my pocket but couldn’t bring myself to eat one. “Well, that was a bummer.”
Eoin took a chocolate. “No, it wasn’t. He told us where to find his father three times.”
I handed him the whole bag. “But his father is dead.”
“The dead can also speak, Doc.” He popped the confectionary into his mouth.
I hadn’t thought of that. My cell rang. “Bubbie Bakes” flashed across the screen. “It’s Adiva. Hello—”
“Where are you?” she shouted.
I was startled. “In the Muslim Quarter.”
“Get out, now. Go directly to the Damascus Gates. I’ll be waiting outside for you. And keep your faces down!”
She hung up before I could ask why.
“We have to get out of here and now,” I quietly told Eoin. “I don’t know why but she’s meeting us at the Damascus Gates and she wants us to keep our faces down.”
Eoin checked his map and we strode through crowds to the gates, trying not to look like thieves on the run. Once outside the gates, we saw Adiva’s minivan, the back door open. She was arguing with several taxi drivers but waved to us. We raced toward her and jumped in to the car. I didn’t want to drive with her again, but was there a choice?
“Cover yourselves up with the blanket.”
Eoin and I looked at each other but crawled to the back and did as she asked. The door slammed after us, she said something in Hebrew to the taxi drivers, which could have been nice or not, it all sounded harsh. She opened the driver’s door and pulled the car into traffic. But she came to a screeching halt, making us roll and bump around in the back. There were more heated words and she was off again.
“What’s going on, Adiva?” I asked once the car had settled into traffic.
“I went to get my father at the synagogue and people were pulling boxes out. My father was beside himself, so I knew they were taking things from VAS. I didn’t dare pick him up in case those people put two and two together and knew I was involved, too.”
“Were they the police?” Eoin asked.
“They had suits on. Dark suits.”
“They could have been accountants,” I said. Heck, even professors wore dark suits when there was some special occasion.
“No, no. I recognized one of them. He’s Mossad. His mother always used to brag about her Mossad son to my mother and me at Shabbat. ‘My Aaron this’ and ‘my Aaron that.’ She still can’t stop talking about him when I see her. Her precious Aaron couldn’t tie his shoelaces until the third grade. The others in the dark suits, I didn’t recognize, but I took pictures of them. Check your messages. I sent them to you.”
I pulled out my cell and opened the messages. There were several pictures of men and women in Wall Street type suits. I stopped when I recognized the gladiator. “Staff Sergeant Gianluca Conti. RCMP.” The next picture was of his female associate. “And the tall lady works with him. Did they see you?” There were pictures of more men and women, but I didn’t know any of them. Thanks to Sophie, I was sure several were Interpol.
“I don’t think so. I stayed in the car and took the pictures. Once I knew what they were doing, I raced to the Grace Bed and Breakfast. No one there knew where you had gone. Your bill was paid for, so I just packed your bags. I did it just in time because I saw several black SUVs parking in front of the house when I pulled out.”
I lifted the blanket to find my luggage beside me. “You got everything?”
“Everything. Nice Louboutins, by the way, Professor. Too small for me. There was a package waiting for you at the front desk from the Vatican. I put it in your luggage.”
That had to be our passports with our new identities. “Where are you taking us?”
“To heaven, Professor.”
I wasn’t sure if that was good for someone who had neither died nor repented so I waited with some apprehension. Adiva drove for a good fifteen minutes while Eoin and I held on for our lives. The car finally screeched to a stop. Adiva rushed out and opened the back. “We’re here.”
“Here” was a narrow alleyway cluttered with boxes of garbage behind a complex of stores. Eoin took my luggage as Adiva opened a door, leading in to a small storage room, filled with sacks of flour and sugar and jumbo size containers of baking ingredients. Piled one on top of each other, were boxes with the VAS symbol on it. The room opened up into a kitchen with large ovens built into one wall and a glass fridge lining another wall packed with cakes of various shapes, sizes and colors. A long marble counter separated the ovens from the fridge. It had shelves stacked with baking trays, pans and industrial-sized mixers.
“Dawud, it’s me,” Adiva called out.
“I’ve got your challah packed.”
A tall lanky man with his hair shaved off, wearing a white apron over a dark t-shirt and jeans came out holding a loaf of challah.
“Professor Braden and Major Reilly, this is my good friend, Dawud Sabbagh, the owner of the bakery. He makes the best challah in all of Jerusalem—not to mention some of the most heavenly cakes and cookies I shouldn’t eat but do—they’re not kosher—and please don’t tell my father if you ever meet him. Dawud, these are the VAS agents from Canada I told you about.” She saw us staring at her. “Oh, not to worry. Dawud knows everything. This was the only place I could keep the important things I removed from the VAS offices.”
Dawud came forward and shook our hands.
“Professor Braden and Major Reilly have to stay here until we know what to do next.”
“Not a problem. I have an air mattress I’ve slept on when I’ve been too tired to go home.”
“That’s good of you but we actually have to get to the Rafah Cemetery,” I said.
Adiva’s and Dawud’s eyes widened in disbelief. They started to laugh.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Do you know where Rafah Cemetery is?”
“In never-never land,” Dawud said. “The Gaza Strip. I still have family and friends there but most of us left when we could. The whole city is referred to as a Palestinian refugee camp. Gaza isn’t a place any tourist needs to go. Especially Rafah. There is only destruction there.”
My stomach started churning, and it wasn’t because I had eaten too many chocolates. He was right. It was in never-never land.
“Can someone take us there?” My voice faltered as I tried to keep up hope.
“Maybe in earlier days but not now,” Dawud said. “The border between Israel and Gaza is closed. Has been since the 50-day war several years ago. To get into Gaza you would first have to cross into Egypt, travel up Sinai and then cross the border into Gaza. The border between Egypt and Gaza is sometimes open and other times closed. We never know.”
“We still have to go. How can we do it?”
“Well,” Adiva said, “First, you both have to get a visa to enter Egypt from the Egyptian consulate.”
“How long would that take?”
“Since you are not Israeli citizens, a day or two.”
“That sounds good.” Not really, since I couldn’t use my passport and Eoin’s had blown up in his plane.
“Then you have to get permission or an invitation to go into Gaza from the Palestinian government.”
“How long would that take?”
“Hours, days, months, years but more than likely not until everyone in the Middle East is living happily ever after with each other.”
“Is there no other way in?” Eoin asked.
Dawud opened his mouth but shut it again.
“You know another way,” Eoin said.
Dawud glanced at Adiva who nodded. “Do you have money?”
“We could get some,” I said. “How much would it cost us?”
“Not that much. The Egyptian government evacuated the houses along the border to Gaza, but crossings can still be made. There are people who will act as your…tour guides for very little when they have nothing at all.”
Eoin and I had very little money on us and couldn’t take anything from our accounts. But I knew he was thinking the same as me. I pulled out my phone. “Let me speak to someone.” I called Sister Emma’s cell and Father Logan picked up on the second ring. I put him on speaker.
“You have to get out of Jerusalem as soon as possible,” he said. “Everyone’s there now. The RCMP, the CIA, Mossad, Interpol-”
“Tell us something we don’t already know,” I said.
“Did they find you?”
“No, Adiva came to our rescue and took our things from the Grace Bed and Breakfast.”
“Yes, about that, I don’t know how you managed to register, but I just found out Rudy Mendelsohn is dead.”
“Dead? But he was alive and well last night.”
“Dead for five years.”
Eoin and I looked at each other. The surprise in his eyes probably mirrored mine.
“Then who the heck did we speak to?”
“I have no idea but that’s neither here nor there at this moment. Where are you now?”
“We’re sitting in the kitchen of Bubbie Bakes, Adiva’s favorite bakery and the temporary establishment of the records she pulled out of the VAS office before it was raided by officials. She’s here with us, along with Dawud Sabbagh, the owner of Bubbie Bakes.”
“Shalom to both of you and bravo to you, Adiva.”
“Can I be a VAS agent now, too?” she asked.
Father Logan laughed. “I’ll speak to Cardinal Z about it.”
“That’s wonderful!” she said with a clap and a happy dance.
“Did you find Yaaqob Quraishi?”
“Yaaqob is dead,” I said.
“Oh, dear.”
“But we did find his son and may have a lead.”
“That’s wonderful news.”
“We have to get into the Gaza Strip.”
Silence. We were back to that.
“The Gaza Strip is no-man’s land,” he said.
“Yes, our colleagues here told us.” I updated him on why we had to get there. That was followed by more silence. “We need money for our various—tour guides into the Gaza. Can you ask Cardinal Z?”
“How much?”
Dawud said a number, which sounded pretty reasonable to me. I would have asked for more. My Grandfather Seamus’ rule of thumb: go for the gusto and work your way down.
“I’ll call him right now and give him your number. You can speak to him directly.”
He hung up and I turned to Eoin. “It was Rudy Mendelsohn we spoke to, wasn’t it?”
“That’s what he said.”
I thought about it. “Did he? Or did we just assume when he didn’t deny it?”
All thoughts of him were forgotten when not even a few minutes later, my phone rang. It was a private number, belonging to Father Gustave Biyombo. I put him on speaker, too.
“Hello, Father Biyombo. This is Mackenzie Braden. I have Eoin Reilly, Adiva Kleiman, and Dawud Sabbagh here with me.”
“Greetings to you, Mackenzie, and to your clan.”
His voice was a wonderful blend of French, British, Italian and South African. If he wasn’t a priest I would have called it sexy.
“Please call me Gustave. Father Biyombo weighs me down with its obligations and age.”
I brought him up to date about the money.
“Where can I transfer it?”
Wow, that was easy. My father would have growled at me.
“You’re not at the Grace Bed and Breakfast and I believe your accounts are being monitored by our colleagues at Mossad, Interpol, the CIA and the RCMP.”
Adiva stepped forward. “Does the Vatican like bread, Father Gustave?”
“You mean that sinful carb?”
“Exactly.”
“We’re in the middle of Italy. We inhale it along with air.”
“Good because you’re going to buy a truckload of Dawud’s wonderful bread and cakes and when you or Cardinal Z or the Pope next visits the Holy Land for official or unofficial business, you will all be rewarded with the most sinful carbs you’ve ever inhaled.”
I was impressed and gave Adiva a thumb’s up.
“Done!” Father Gustave said. “Did you receive the passports I sent you?”
I had forgotten about the package. “Hold on.” I opened my suitcase, found the package and pulled out two passports. “Holy shit!”
“That will cost you a couple Hail Marys, Mackenzie,” Father Gustave said with a laugh.
“They’re Vatican City passports.” I slid my fingers over the coat of arms made up of two crossed keys below a tiara. I opened mine up to a picture of me and my new identify.
“You are now Annalisa Bertolucci,” Father Gustave said. “Born in Milan, Italy and living in Rome with your husband, Guillaume Haberlin. You are a Vatican librarian and have been for five years. You studied in Canada, so you therefore don’t have an Italian accent. But you do speak Italian.”
“I do,” I said. I was so thankful now for my grandparents speaking to me in Italian, all those Italian classes my mother insisted my sisters and I take, and some wonderful summers studying abroad in Florence.
“There is a passport for Major Reilly, too,” Father Gustave said.
I handed the other passport to him.
“Guillaume Haberlin,” Eoin said.
“Precisely,” Father Gustave said. “You were born in Geneva, Switzerland. You’ve lived around the world with your military family and that is why you don’t have any Swiss accent, but I believe you speak French fluently, is that correct?”
“Not quite as fluently as before but well enough.”
“Excellent. You are a major with the Pontifical Swiss Guards.”
“A Swiss Guard?” he said with a laugh.
“From someone who also shares a military background as you do, Eoin, I thought that would appeal to you.”
Heck, it appealed to me! I had a Swiss Guard as a husband. So many wicked fantasies coming true!
“You are accompanying your wife Annalisa to the University of Cairo to retrieve some Vatican documents for his Eminence Cardinal Maurizio Zeccarelli. I enclosed a letter outlining your mission just in case you are asked for proof by Egyptian border guards. You went to the Holy Land for your wedding anniversary and are now combining business with pleasure. The passports do offer you diplomatic immunity. Even if Mossad, Interpol, the CIA and the RCMP locate you, they cannot detain you. They can, however, follow you so we’re hoping you will not be recognized by any border guards. We don’t want anyone stopping you from finding Moses’ rod.”
“Vatican City passports can get a visa on arrival in Egypt.” Adiva was reading from her cell phone. “You don’t have to go to the embassy.”
Finally, a perk about being a VAS spy. This was so—sick! Immunity, privileges and my own Swiss Guard. Correction to my previous fantasy. Take a sabbatical at Oxford, write an international best seller, and have wild sex with a hot Swiss Guard in the Vatican libraries! This would be even better than bubbles and bubbly in the shower!
“I’ll transfer the money to Bubbie Bakes right now. Good luck—Annalisa and Guillaume,” and he hung up.
I pushed the fantasy aside and turned to Dawud. “Can you start arranging for our trip and our tour guides?”
Dawud pulled out his cell. “Are you afraid of closed spaces?”
We shook our heads.
“Sandy spaces?”
We again shook our heads.
“How about artillery fire?”
We were shocked.
He laughed. “No need to fear. There hasn’t been any artillery fire in months. I will call my Egyptian cousin to contact our Palestinian cousin about getting you exclusive passage into chaos.”
Chapter Eighteen
While Dawud decorated cakes, rolled out rugelach, served customers and made dough for the next day’s batch of rye bread, he arranged for our trip into chaos. Adiva stayed with us, much too afraid to pick up her father in case she was interrogated by all those police acronyms and blurt her heart out in a panic attack of honesty.
After arranging for one of her brothers to pick him up and stay the night, she paced the kitchen until Dawud put her to work icing cookies. When she made a mess of that and began eating all the broken pieces he made her wash pans. More water splashed on the floor than on the pans, so he put her in the store, taking orders and serving customers. She was a born salesperson, managing to sell everything in under an hour and take orders for ten babkas, twenty challahs and several batches of rugelach (whether the customers needed them or not). Dawud had to call in two bakers to help out that night with the orders.
Eoin and I sat in the storage room, out of sight of any customers. We couldn’t sin, so I caught up on international and celebrity news (I was sort of on vacation). Eoin caught up on sports standings and aeronautical advances. Dawud closed the bakery early and went to the bank to withdraw the money Father Gustave had put in to the Bubbie Bakes account. When he came back, we ate a wonderful dinner of falafels, hummus, eggplant salad, pita and my all-time favorite, potato bourekas. That was followed up with coffee and the most amazing chocolate babka. Spy work was going to put a few inches on my waistline, but it was all for a good cause.
While we ate merrily away, we discussed our plan. I nodded a lot to show my support, but I was scared beyond any adequate adjective.
Adiva and Dawud would drive us to the Taba Border, about a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Jerusalem, where Eoin and I would cross the border into the South Sinai of Egypt. Dawud’s cousin, Hassan, would meet us and drive us another four and a half hours to Rafah in the North Sinai of Egypt. There we would be escorted under cover, i.e., illegally, into the Rafah that belonged to Gaza. Adiva told us to pray—a lot. Rafah in Egypt wasn’t a safe place, but Rafah in Gaza was suicidal.
