Free Virgin by Mary Elizabeth Murphy Page B

terrorist organizations."
    Amazing how
facile a liar he'd become. It hadn't always been this way. As a younger man
he'd insisted on speaking nothing but the truth. But that youth, like truth,
was long gone, swallowed up by time and tragedy.
    He sighed and
rose to his feet. "Please do not leave the house, Miss Szobel. I will
return in--"
    "Wait!"
she cried, motioning him back toward the couch. "I had no idea terrorists
were involved. Of course I'll tell you where I bought it."
    "Excellent."
Kesev removed a pen and a note pad from his breast pocket. "Go
ahead."
    "His name
is Salah Mahmoud. He has a shop in Jerusalem--the old town. In the Moslem
quarter, off Qadasiya."
    Kesev nodded.
He knew the area, if not the shop.
    "Thank you
for your cooperation." He bent and lifted the scroll and its Lucite box
from the table. "I'll need to take this back to Shin Bet headquarters for
analysis."
    "Of
course," she said, following him to the door. "But I will get it
back, won't I?"
    "Of
course. As soon as we are finished with it."
    He waved
good-bye and headed for his car. Another lie. Miss Tulla Szobel had seen the
last of her forged scroll. He'd take it with him to Jerusalem for his visit to
a certain Salah Mahmoud. The dealer couldn't plead ignorance if Kesev held the
scroll under his nose. Threats probably wouldn't suffice to loosen Mahmoud's
tongue. Kesev might have to get rough. He almost relished the thought.

    I asked the brother why he had come to me with this
miracle.
    He said to me. Because it had been told to us that you are
to guard her, and protect her as if she were your own mother and still alive.
    I told him, Yes. Yes, I will guard her with my life. I
will do anything you ask.
    from the Glass scroll
    Rockefeller Museum translation

    7

    Manhattan
    The Gothic,
granite-block bulk of St. Joseph's Church sits amid the brick tenements like a
down-on-her-luck dowager who's held on to her finer clothes from the old days
but hasn't the will or the means to keep them in good repair. Her twin spires
are alternately caked black with city grime and streaked white with the
droppings of the pigeons who find perches on the spires' remaining crockets.
The colors of the large central rose window over the double doors are barely
discernible through the grime. She's flanked on her left by the rectory and on
her right by the Convent of the Blessed Virgin.
    From his room
in the rectory Father Dan saw the hungry homeless lining up next to the worn
stone steps in front of St. Joe's, waiting to get into the Loaves and Fishes
for lunch. He dearly would have loved to sit here and read the translation of
the scroll Hal had given him, but duty called.
    He left the wooden box on his bed and hurried down to the rectory
basement. From there it was a quick trip through the dank, narrow tunnel that
ran beneath the alley between the church and the rectory to the basement of St.
Joe's. As he approached the door at the far end, the smell of fresh bread and
hot soup drew him forward.
    The tunnel
ended in the kitchen area of Loaves and Fishes. He stepped inside. Heat
thickened the air. All the ovens were going--donated by a retired baker--heating
loaves of Carrie's special bread: multiple grains mixed with high-protein flour, enriched with eggs and gluten. A meal
in itself. Add a bowl of Carrie's soup and you had a feast.
    Dan sniffed the
air as he headed for the huge stove and the cluster of aproned volunteers
stirring the brimming pots.
    "Smells
great. What's the soup du jour?"
    "Split
pea," Augusta said.
    "Split
pea?" Dan said. "I ordered boeuf bourguignon!"
    A slim brunette
at the center of the cluster turned and gave him a withering, scornful stare.
    "Don't you
be starting that again," she said, pointing a dripping spoon at him.
    "Oh,
that's right," he said. "I forgot. This is a vegetarian soup
kitchen."
    The volunteers
glanced over their shoulders and giggled.
    This argument
had become a litany, recited almost daily. "Hush up or we'll be making a
beef stew