hands,” he muttered with a nervous laugh. “My error.”
When no smile was forthcoming, he checked his watch.
“Look, I’m sorry if I’m a tad early. I just thought that with the weather being what it is, well, you know, better to be early than late. Of course, if I interrupted something…”
His gaze darted from Maluka to Aijaz and back again, desperate for any indication of how to proceed. Maluka was pleased. Robert Peterson, assistant to Professor Arnold Ludlow, was not going to offer any resistance. It wouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes for Maluka to get all of the information he needed. Twenty at most.
THREE
A few minutes later
The New York City Grill
She slid into the chair next to Professor Ludlow’s, finished her phone call, and snapped her cell phone shut. She summoned the waiter and ordered her wine and, still, never acknowledged Gil’s presence.
The special smile she flashed the Professor was returned with unabashed adoration. She settled back into her chair and, only then, set her gaze on Gil.
“Have you ordered yet?” she asked, as if continuing an ongoing conversation.
“No, not yet,” Gil answered.
She was striking. Not beautiful, but remarkable looking; tall, with dark straight hair to her shoulders, and high, full breasts that strained against her ivory silk blouse. Gil forced himself to focus on her face.
She was not what he had expected. From day one, Gil’s three-year Internet relationship with Sabbie Karaim had been strictly business. Sabbie was one of a dozen consultants around the world that Gil used as translators.
Whenever he was conducting an investigation for an Israeli client, which was getting more and more frequent, Gil sent the data to Sabbie for translation from Hebrew into English. Her transcription formed the basis for all his analyses, for all of the testing that he hoped would reveal patterns of illegal activity that might help catch a cyber criminal dead in his tracks.
He used her on his most important cases, as well. Whenever an Israeli government agency hired CyberNet Forensics to set up a sting that involved cross-national Internet coverage, Gil would design the English version of the Internet bait intended to lure the cyber criminal into taking the next and, hopefully, fatal step. Then he’d send the cyber bait to Sabbie for translation into Hebrew and for posting on the net. She’d never let him down.
Her work was meticulous, and he had come to rely on her without question. She was not without her idiosyncrasies, however. Her rules were simple but firm: no communications outside Internet business. No matter how urgent the job, he was never to phone. And, surprisingly, she wanted no feedback after the cyber criminal had been caught.
Unlike Gil’s other translators from South America, Germany and France, who took great satisfaction in knowing that their the work had put a criminal behind bars, Sabbie had made it clear that her involvement ended when her translation was complete. She was a professional from head to toe and, as Gil felt his excitement rise, that particular head to toe suddenly took on a whole different meaning.
Any erotic musings he might have been enjoying, however, were quickly expunged by Sabbie’s first words of greeting.
“There’s one thing we should get clear from the start,” she began. “You’re used to giving the orders. The Professor has put me in charge so, on this job, you’ll be working for me.”
Gil stared in obvious surprise.
“If that’s a problem,” Sabbie continued matter-of-factly, “I need to know that now.”
That was it. Like she owned him. No smile, no “Hello, it’s nice to finally meet you.” Nothing. Just now hear this: I’m the boss. You’re the slave. Get over it.
Ludlow rushed in to avoid a face-off.
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not a problem, Sabbie. Mr. Pearson’s such a lovely young man. I’m sure you two will make an outstanding team, just like you always have. Now, where was I?
“Oh, yes,” Ludlow continued, unabated. “Early Christian artifacts. That’s my area. Though officially I’m retired now, I still do a bit of consulting work at The Museum of the Shrine of the Book. In Jerusalem, you know,” he added proudly. “My colleague, Dr. Anton DeVris, actually he’s the Director of Acquisitions for the Israel Museum, well, he thought it would be best for me to speak to you in person…”
Gil emptied his water glass in one long gulp then crunched the single remaining ice cube between his teeth. Ludlow was a gem; an antique from some bygone era. The old guy had probably convinced himself that his pathetically obscure discovery contained some extraordinary secret hidden away for centuries; most likely, a map to hidden treasure or the like.
God, what people wouldn’t do for one last chance at immortality. George must have been out of his mind to get them involved in this. What could he have possibly been thinking? If Sabbie had come to Gil first, he would have turned her down flat. She must have known that or else she wouldn’t have gone over his head.
Instead, she simply bypassed him and went straight to George. The shortest distance between two points, of course. She was smart. He had known that. And she had guts. He had known that too. What he hadn’t suspected, however, was how exciting the combination could be.
FOUR
A few minutes later
The New York City Grill
Lucy used to say that, during the first year of their marriage, she discovered Gil had an amazing talent: he had perfected the art of sleeping with his eyes open. Whenever Gil found himself on the receiving end of one of her stories, some incident that had marred or made her day, she could expect Gil to appear to listen intently, nod at just the right times, ask the appropriate questions, and have absolutely no idea of what she was talking about.
Sleep-talking, as Lucy called it, was a skill that Gil had become rather fond of and one that had gotten him through almost every relationship since the first grade. But with Lucy it was different. He abandoned the practice long before their second anniversary. By then, he had discovered, much to his amazement, that he cared more about the little things that happened in Lucy’s day than his own desire to veg out.
Now, in the restaurant with Ludlow droning on, he had been sleep-talking once again, letting the old man continue his monologue while retaining virtually none of the details.
“…And so we have come to believe that the document might contain a hidden message that would tell us where a certain artifact is located—a copper scroll that dates back to the time of Jesus. The thing is, we’re not sure, it might just be a metaphor that the author of the diary used,” Dr. Ludlow concluded.
“Of course,” Gil confirmed, nodding.
“That’s where you come in,” Ludlow added.
“Where … exactly?” Gil queried, trying desperately to appear as if he knew what the hell was going on.
“Why, telling us if the text of the journal contains any sort of pattern that could be concealing a hidden message,” Sabbie interjected.
“Do you mean a code?” Gil asked. “You know, I don’t do codes.”
“No. Not a code, that’s the whole point,” Sabbie interrupted. “If we needed a cryptanalyst, we wouldn’t have called you.”
“Well, thank you very much,” Gil snapped back.
Ludlow interceded again. “Look, if we’re right, the person who wrote this journal would have been afraid to use an encrypting paradigm. He would have been concerned that, if he had embedded his message into a complex code, by the time the document was found—maybe centuries later—no one would have been able to decipher his message. We’re pretty sure he would have chosen a simpler means of concealing