Zealot (13 page)

Before the Centurion could answer, Constantine suddenly knew there was another Immortal on Masada. The sensation surprised
him with its unexpectedness, and the Centurion could note the sudden change in Constantine’s face as he looked up. “Are you
unwell, sir?”

Constantine quickly schooled his expression and stood up. “Bring in the Second Cohort,” he ordered. “Initiate a room-by-room
search of the fortress. Every storehouse, every cistern, inch by inch. I want a complete accounting. Start at the northern
palace.” He started to leave the room through a door to the south. The Centurion called to him.

“You should take a guard.”

“Why, Marius? In case the dead rise up and come for their revenge?” Constantine laughed a bitter laugh. “Let them come.” He
dismissed the Centurion and strode purposefully out of the villa through the southern porch.

He pulled his
gladius
again and proceeded cautiously, tracking the sensation south along the outer wall of the fortress. Within earshot of an entire
Roman legion was not the optimum place for a Quickening, but he wanted answers, and this was the only indication of life on
the entire cursed rock. He hoped it wouldn’t have to come to taking a head.

At 150 paces from the villa, he found an entrance into the wall surrounding the complex. Sword first, he entered the dimly
lit stone corridor. Oil lamps stood in niches along the wall, but most had long run out of oil, and only a few still sputtered.
The Immortal was closer now, he could tell, possibly within only a few feet. Constantine set himself and drove his hobnailed
sandal into a wooden door, forcing it from its hinges. He planted himself in the doorway and announced, “
Mihi Nomen est Marcus Constantinius.
“

Two bloodied bodies lay on the floor. One, a Jewish gray-beard. The other, veiled, unmistakably a woman. And near her, cringing
against the wall, wild eyes wide, a Jewish youth trying in vain to shake away the lightning flashing in his brain. He looked
up and with effort focused his eyes on Constantine, suddenly aware that the Roman was the source of his pain.

“I am Marcus Constantine,” Constantine announced again, waiting for the answering challenge. Avram dived for the bloodstained
iron knife lying on the floor and Constantine raised his sword, on the defensive. “I don’t want to fight you.” The youth’s
information would be more valuable to Constantine than his head.

Avram screamed something incomprehensible to Constantine and, before Constantine could stop him, plunged the knife into his
own chest. The Jew fell to the ground, dead once more, and Constantine realized that the young man had no idea of his own
Immortality. Like it or not, Constantine had just inherited another student.

It was only a few seconds after Avram revived, chest still burning with fire, that he realized his hands were bound be-hind
him. He thrashed about on the floor, then on his knees, desperate to free himself.

“It’s for your own good, boy,” Constantine explained gently. He had removed his helmet and his shining breastplate in order
to appear less intimidating when the terrified young man awoke, but his flame red tunic and noble bearing still proclaimed
him as Roman. “
Quod Nomen tibi est
?” he asked.

Avram, breathing hard, glared at the Roman with hate in his eyes, but did not speak.

“What is your name?” Constantine asked again, less gently. Damn these Jews! They all knew Latin well enough, the dogs, but
they would not dignify it with a response. “Tell me your name!” he demanded.

Avram’s only response was to spit in the Roman’s face.

Constantine grabbed the Jew viciously by the length of his hair. Marcus Constantine tolerated such insubordination from no
man! He drew a fist back to strike—then hesitated. Angrily, he pushed the youth away from him and took a step back. This was
a student, he reminded himself, not an interrogation. He would need a different tactic.

He knew no Aramaic, rarely bothered to learn the native languages of the subjugated peoples because they were so quickly supplanted
by Latin. But the young Jew refused to respond to Latin. A compromise: “
Athanatos
, “ he said in Greek. “You are Immortal, you cannot die.” The Jewish scholars all seemed to know some Greek, and the robes
of the dead old man on the floor proclaimed him a scholar. With luck, his boy was one as well. “We are alike, you and I. We
are Immortal. I am Marcus Constantine, and I’ve come to help you.”

Avram sat back on his heels, stunned, no longer struggling against his bonds. “I cannot die?” he repeated, wary. “Never?”

There were terms and conditions they would get into later, but for the moment that would suffice. “Never,” Constantine confirmed.
“You’ve seen so yourself.” He cut Avram’s bonds with the iron knife, and Avram scrambled away from him, moving to the woman’s
by.

Avram pulled the veil from Deborah’s head and gazed longingly at her lifeless face. “Never?” he asked again, his voice filled
with anguish.

“Accept the gift, Jew. We are blessed by the gods. We will live forever—Immortal.”

“Blessed? I’m
cursed
, don’t you see? Cursed by God.” He clutched Deborah’s body tightly to his own. “God in Heaven, what have I done to you to
deserve this?” He rocked her cold body back and forth, back and forth, tears welling in his eyes. “Deborah!” he bellowed in
a voice he hoped would crack Heaven. “Deborah!”

Paris: The Present

“I don’t think Avram ever got over Deborah. How he’d lost her. How he’d betrayed her. And how he’d betrayed his God. Over
and over, I heard about how he’d betrayed God by not dying. I remember thinking at the time what a demanding God that young
man had. But now I know it’s Avram who’s the demanding one.” Constantine paused a moment, then continued. “I took Avram and
we left Judaea not long after. I’ve never been back. And I’ve never been able to get the images of Masada out of my head.”

“I don’t know how anyone could,” MacLeod concurred.

Constantine picked up the sword box and led the way out of the Temple room. “But that’s not actually what you were asking
about, was it? You wanted to know about Israel now, not Israel then.”

MacLeod followed him back through the exhibit. “Don’t you have to understand one to understand the other?”

“If more people realized that, Duncan, maybe we wouldn’t still be debating the future of Palestine two thousand years later.”

A flock of wayward children came running down the aisle, screaming and laughing. MacLeod dodged out of their way and they
swirled around Constantine like an ocean wave engulfing a rock. Behind them, a harried teacher’s aide called out, “Stop! It’s
time to leave.” But the children paid her no mind as they pushed past Constantine toward the next exhibit.

“FREEZE!”

And the voice that had commanded a hundred generations of fighting men to his will reverberated through the marble hall like
the voice of God. The children froze in their tracks, silenced by the general’s order.

With a grateful look, the teacher’s aide gathered her charges. “Come, the bus is waiting,” she told them, and they followed
her toward the exit in a quiet and orderly fashion.

Constantine shrugged and gestured for MacLeod to follow him into the next cubicle of the exhibition, the room with the case
containing Nefertiri’s sarcophagus. “Hold this.” He handed the sword box to MacLeod, then opened the locked cabinet. Carefully,
he removed the gleaming short sword from the box and attached two lengths of nylon monofilament to the terminals of the hilt,
suspending the sword in the space reserved for it.

“You were pretty certain I’d come through on this, Marcus,” MacLeod noted, and Constantine just smiled, knowingly.

The jangle of MacLeod’s cell phone added to the general clamor in the gallery. He flipped it open. “MacLeod.”

“Doon-can?” her voice purred velvet in his ear.

“Maral,” he said, and watched Constantine raise an indulgent eyebrow at the softening of his voice. “Are you all right?”

He could hear her sigh through the phone. “Arafat left the negotiation in a huff and the Israeli foreign minister broke off
the session. I need … I don’t know what I need …”

“How about a hug? For a start.” Constantine’s face broke into an almost patronizing smile, and MacLeod waved him away.

“That would be lovely,” she agreed. “But they won’t let me out. I’m suffocating here. Can you rescue me?”

“One knight in shining armor, coming right up.”

“Really? You’ll help me?” The joy in her voice was clear even over the ragged cellular connection.

“Daring rescues, my specialty. I’m on my way. Wear comfortable shoes.” MacLeod toggled off the phone and turned to Constantine,
who was grinning with fatherly pride. “I think I’ll be going now.”

“I won’t wait up.”

“You don’t have to be so smug,” MacLeod said, starting from the room.

“You don’t have to look so happy,” Constantine countered, as MacLeod left.

Tel Aviv, Israel: The Present

The four o’clock train from Haifa was late. The four o’clock train from Haifa was always late. Inside the crowded Arlozorov
Railway Station, it was stifling hot. The antiquated air-conditioning system was out of commission again, as it so often was,
and Avram, seated on a bench near the gate where the train from Haifa would someday arrive, berated himself for his choice
of garb.

Heavy black suit, black overcoat, black-rimmed spectacles, black felt hat pulled low and tight around his ears to conceal
his close-cropped hair and anchor the false prayer curls he wore, he was traveling as one of the ultra-orthodox
haredim
, one of the “black hats” as they were known colloquially throughout Israel. Packed tightly on the bench between an enormous
Jewish matron and an unwashed European backpacker, he was certain he was dying. If it was the purpose of the “black hats”
to suffer before God, they succeeded admirably. He admired their discipline, but wanted nothing more than to strip off the
oppressive black wool and plunge into the Mediterranean, so blue and inviting just a little over a mile away.

The arrival of the train brought some relief as his seatmates hurried off to meet it. Avram stayed where he was, his briefcase
on his lap, watching from beneath the brim of his hat as the passengers just off the train from Haifa passed through the gate
and into the railway station. Businessmen mostly, returning from a day of transacting business in the northern city. A number
of tourists rushed through the station, afraid to miss their connection to Jerusalem. More backpackers, French and Italian,
off in search of the youth hostel. As the surge of people off the train began to thin, he spotted a small group of Israeli
soldiers in uniform, three men and a woman, coming through the gate with duffel bags slung over their backs. Avram watched
them pass his position, laughing and joking with each other in that easy camaraderie that’s forged in the trenches. As they
started to exit the railway station, he picked up his briefcase and followed them out.

The four walked to a nearby bus stop, Avram not far behind them. After a brief wait in the blazing sun, the bus arrived and
the soldiers boarded along with a handful of civilians. Avram followed, choosing a seat near the front of the bus behind the
driver, away from the soldiers who sat at the back. The bus was nearly full, but at least the air-conditioning was working.
There was no room for his briefcase on the crowded seat beside him, so he slid it under his seat. Several of Avram’s fellow
passengers looked at him curiously. It wasn’t every day that they saw one of the black hats on the streets of very secular
Tel Aviv—many of the
haredim
considered the city a modern Sodom or Gomorrah. Good. Avram had counted on being noticed.

The bus ran west, away from central Tel Aviv and into the western suburbs. The line terminated near the Ben Gurion National
Defense Base, where the soldiers were returning from their Passover leave. There had been no Tel Aviv when Avram was young,
just a few fishing villages near the already ancient port of Jaffa. When he’d returned to liberate his homeland after World
War II, the tiny hamlet founded by struggling Zionists only fifty years earlier was already a city. Now nearly a third of
Israel lived in the sprawling metropolis. As the bus continued on into the suburbs, picking up and discharging passengers
along its way, Avram noted that throughout the world, one modern cement suburb looked pretty much like any other.

Several stops from the military base, the last civilian got off the bus. Now only Avram and the soldiers remained. He chanced
a look at them from beneath his hat. They were so young, all of them. Soldiers always were. One of the men looked even younger
than Avram did. He probably didn’t need to shave yet, either. Why was it always the young, so vibrant and full of potential,
who were sacrificed so the old could survive?

He caught the eye of the woman, who smiled at him, teeth white against her tawny skin. Avram noticed how attractive she looked
in her olive uniform, dark hair pulled back beneath her cap, but he resisted the temptation to return her smile. While Avram
had supported a young woman’s right to fight for her country since the liberation and had fought side by side with many he’d
been proud to serve with, to the black hats she was anathema. He turned away from her pointedly.