Free The Aleppo Code (The Jerusalem Prophecies) by Terry Brennan Page A

you stay with us, but go. Get your food. Take your medicine.”
    Tavana took his lunch bucket, edged past the other guardsman at the door, and turned down the hall toward the lunchroom. The packages, including his, were now taped to his thighs, under his blousy, linen trousers. His knees shook, but only he was aware.
    Halfway down the hall, Tavana turned and entered the men’s restroom. He went into the very last stall—the one just under the security camera in the corner, the one with the dead spot below—lowered his trousers, and sat on the toilet lid. With the precise gentleness of a surgeon, Tavana removed each of the objects from his thighs. Blocked from the eye of the camera, he assembled two devices from the six pieces. He took his lunch from the bucket, replaced the lunch with the two devices, and then flushed his lunch down the toilet.
    Tavana washed his hands, left the men’s room, and continued down the hallway to the lunch room. Entering the room, he went to the coffee maker, poured himself a small cup of thick, sweet, strong coffee and retreated to a table in the corner. He sat there, sipping his coffee, until his lunch break concluded, then gathered up his bucket and walked back to the mailroom. The captain and his aide were just leaving.
    “Feeling better, Tavana?” The captain’s question felt more like an accusation.
    “Not yet, sir. But I will.”
    “Then get on with your work.”
    He watched the two guardsmen saunter down the hall, and then turned into his mailroom. Loading his cart with the inspected deliveries, Tavana took the two devices out of his lunch bucket and stuffed them into the canvas bag below the shelf. He pushed the cart out of the mailroom, his calm exterior belying the riot of fear and dread that raced through his veins.

    Marwan Alami waited patiently for the messenger’s return. Famid Hussein worked diligently at his engraving table. He hadn’t moved from his space all night. But Tavana was scheduled for his final pickup, and it wouldn’t be too long. Alami walked to the water cooler and filled a cup. She turned, with a full view of Hussein’s face, as Tavana entered the engraving department. Alami glanced over her shoulder. The two guardsmen stood outside the enclosure to the engraving department. All that was needed was a wave of her hand.
    Tavana pushed his cart down the main aisle of the department, scanning outboxes left and right for any waiting delivery. He passed Hussein’s desk without a pause. Hussein never took his eyes off the engraving tool and the design he was cutting into the metal. Alami waited a heartbeat. Nothing changed. She shook her head. Disappointed, but undeterred, she went back to her desk.

    Tavana did not have access to the vaults, to the stacked bars of gold stamped with the seal of Iran and piled in pyramids a meter and a half high. But he didn’t need to get to the vaults. The anteroom of the guards would suit well enough.
    From the neat stacks on top of his cart, Tavana handed the sealed message to the guard at the desk and backed his cart into the anteroom so he could return up the hallway from which he came … the same maneuver he made every day. But this time he stopped. He knelt on the floor and bent down to tie the laces on his boots. While on the floor, Tavana took the two assembled devices from the canvas sack. There were two large, heavy, reinforced carts lined up in the anteroom, sitting to Tavana’s right. With a minimum of movement, using the powerful magnets on the side of the device, Tavana attached one device under the bottom shelf, into the corner of the heavy frame of one cart. With the guard intently studying his work schedule for the next two weeks, Tavana swiftly deposited the other device in the same location on the second cart—under the shelf, a heavy rim surrounding it, invisible to anyone who didn’t look from underneath.
    It took less than two breaths, and Tavana was back on his feet. He pushed his delivery cart