The Graveyard Of God's Name 5z5l66

The Graveyard of God’s Name

A Have Body, Will Guard Adventure by

Neil S. Plakcy

Copyright 2021 Neil S. Plakcy. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Smashwords edition.

Reviews for Neil Plakcy’s Have Body, Will Guard series: "This over-the-top sexy couple brings it all together in every way in for that author Neil Plakcy deserves a robust five stars for a great series. - from an Amazon review for The Madness of Husbands

"This is both an action-packed adventure and a personal journey rich with emotion." Review of The Madness of Husbands by Ulysses Dietz, author of Cliffhanger.

For Marc, who showed me the highway of stars across the heavens. And for Brody and Griffin, who regularly remind me that it’s time to have fun.

1: Hunting for Parchment: Danny The high, wailing music made Danny Cardozo’s brain feel like it was trapped inside a haunted house, and the mixed smell of leather tanning, spices and live animals in the souks around him constricted his sinuses and made each breath an effort. He tilted his broad-brimmed fedora down and pulled up his scarf to cover his mouth. His guidebook said there were seventeen different souks in Tunis, squirreled into alleys around the city center, and he was determined to explore each one. Many dated back to the 13th century, and electricity and plumbing had been added haphazardly over the intervening centuries, so he was sure he smelled age-old sewage somewhere underneath it all. He was only twenty-four, a sheltered American student who had spent two at Oxford studying dead languages and exploring history, but in his heart, he longed to be a world-traveling scholar like Indiana Jones. And yes, he knew Jones was a fictional character, but there were plenty of real-life equivalents, like Roy Chapman Andrews, Percy Fawcett, and Lawrence of Arabia. Oliver Caswell, the professor who led his seminar on Ancient Aramaic at the Clarendon Institute, was a prominent scholar engaged in his own translations, and depending on his mood his classes veered from enthusiastic discussions of how to translate a particular word to in-class worksheets focused on grammar and syntax. He was a vigorous man with the tan, creased face of one who had spent years in the sun at archaeological digs, and it was easy for Danny to put him on the same pedestal as his heroes. In one of Caswell’s early lectures, he had told his students that there were still scraps of ancient parchment to be found deep in the medinas of Arab cities, beyond narrow streets, blind alleys and dead ends. They were available for sale to discerning customers and could be the subject of original research. Danny was determined to find one of those, rather than lock himself into drudgery helping Caswell with research and translation. Without his own manuscript, he’d never get a research grant or further chances to travel the world.

Danny belonged to a number of online forums including one on ancient Aramaic, which he was struggling to learn. One of the commentors there wrote, “There was an active trade between Ottoman Egypt and Ottoman Tunisia from the 16th to the 19th century. This resulted in a scramble for packing materials including reusing scraps of old manuscripts.” These pieces, called cartonnage, had been long disdained, until the 19th and 20th centuries, when many fragments had been rescued by dealers of antiquities. That made him choose Tunis for this trip during his spring break from late March until mid-April, which gave him three weeks to search. In his last tutorial of Hilary Term, when he told Caswell where he was going his tutor said, “Think about your history, lad. What was being shipped to Tunis in ancient times? What needed packing? Caswell leaned forward. “At this point, though, there’s no telling which shop in which bazaar might have old parchment in the back, so you’ll have to check each one.” The closest market to the entry to the medina was the Souk Al Attarine, the Perfumer’s Souk. Stalls were stocked with large glass bottles filled with aromatic colored liquid, which was decanted into smaller bottles and mixed to make perfumes. The aisles between stalls were narrow, crowded with tourists and Tunisians. He was afraid that at any minute he’d be jostled into one of the glass displays, leading to broken bottles and an eruption of scent. A young Tunisian in an American rapper’s T-shirt grabbed Danny’s arm. “You want gift for girlfriend? Make her smell nice?” Danny shook his head. “Hal ladayk 'ayu raqin qadim?” he asked. Do you have any old parchment? The man turned up his nose and sniffed. “No old paper here. Only finest giftwrap for special ladies!” Danny gently shook free of him and continued on. He was working from basic logic: glass bottles needed packaging when shipped. So where there was glass, there might be cartonnage.

At least his Arabic got better the more he used it. “La shay' akhar,” he would respond. Nothing else. And then a quick shukran, or thank you, and then on to the next stall. He spent two days in the perfume souk, ducking beneath archways ed by spiral columns, surrounded by the fragrances of jasmine, lemon and rose. He focused on the older vendors—the young men and women were only interested in selling tourist junk. Often he lurked in the background, waiting for an arrogant young man to head out to lunch, leaving his mother or grandmother behind. The third day he moved on to the Souk Al Q’mach which specialized in textiles. Here, perhaps, he could find old parchment squirreled away at the back of one of the shelves, which held roll upon roll of colorful blankets, carpets, and bolts of fabric. The answer was still the same. La waraq qadim, no old paper. One old woman with a single gold tooth told him to ask for Benny, a tailor who specialized in the traditional jebba made of silk. He pulled out his phone and searched for the term, discovering it was an intricately-stitched tunic worn by men and boys for weddings. But after an hour’s fruitless search he discovered Benny had sold his stall and moved to Australia. Danny nearly gave up then. But he reminded himself that he could not afford another research trip to a different city. He had to stay in Tunis, and he had to find something to work on, even if it was a single scrap of parchment with a few letters inked on it. Each day, he sat in the central market, surrounded by piles of colorful lemons, limes, whole fish and hunks of meat, and other foods that were completely unrecognizable to him. He mechanically ate a pressed sandwich, the rich cheese running out over his fingers, and drank a lemon soda. And each evening he returned to the youth hostel where he was staying in the old city empty-handed. Everyone else his age at the hostel was on vacation. He was up early, while they slept in. He spent his days in the cramped quarters of the medina, while they toured the city, explored the ruins of Carthage and day-tripped to the beach at Sidi Bou Said. At night, they drank, smoked dope and partied from club to club, while he collapsed into his bed with exhaustion. He couldn’t help who he was. He was the descendant of Jews who had fled the

wrath of conquerors, soldiers and statesmen and merchants who had made fortunes. He was determined to draw his own mark on the world. He spent the next week circling around from souk to souk, checking every stall that looked promising and getting increasingly worried that he would return to Oxford with nothing. Though the temperature was only in the mid-sixties, the sun beat down mercilessly and sweat pooled along his brow and under his arms, and each day his skin threatened to burn, despite liberal applications of SPF-50 sun cream. If he was lucky, a cool wind blew into the square, bringing goose pimples to his arms. He ed the ornate arched doorways of madrassas, mosques with elaborate Byzantine tiling, pockets of beauty like a vine climbing a block wall with a single vibrant red blossom. None of them mattered, because none of them could lead him to his goal. He spent hours at the Souk El Koutbiya, searching through piles of books in Arabic, English and French, finding nothing printed earlier than the beginning of the eighteenth century. He went to the hat-maker’s market, the Souk des Chéchias, where the red hats and fezzes were stacked in endless piles. He hunted through souks dedicated to baking supplies, to medicinal plants and leather shoes. The answer was always the same. No old parchment. Periodically he would find himself back at the Bab el Bahr, the gateway to the medina, where men and teenaged boys sheltered under the overhangs of white stucco buildings, clutching fistfuls of sunglasses, baseball caps, and round, red felt chechias. They were interspersed with shoeshine boys and vendors standing over flaming grills. As each day wore on, the crowds got heavier, men with gold teeth bumping into Danny and moving on without apologizing. Foreigners in matching tourcompany T-shirts moved past in large groups like cattle. Fat women in brightcolored dresses swished by, and occasionally a man with a handcart squeezed past, knocking against one of his legs. He built his stamina, though, sleeping soundly each night and fortifying himself each morning with cups of dark Tunisian coffee, smelling of chocolate and rich with sugar. Each day, he worked his way past falls of carpets, elaborate

birdcages with pointed arches, brass teapots, and cotton blouses in a rainbow of colors, embroidered with intricate designs. On the first day of his last week in Tunis, he took a different turn and realized that he had come to a hat-maker’s souk he had not visited. He consulted his guidebook and discovered it was a third souk dedicated to the craft, off the rue de la Kasbah, apart from the main one and the smaller one. The air smelled of burned wool and the tanning of leather nearby. He watched an old man proudly demonstrated the traditional process of making the chechia, the cylindrical brimless cap worn by so many Tunisian men. When he paused to take a break, Danny stepped up and complimented him on his technique. “Jamila,” he said. “Eamal jayid.” Beautiful. Fine work. “You like?” the man asked in English. “Special price for Americans.” “I have nowhere to wear it, or even keep it,” Danny replied. “I am a student. Looking for old parchment to translate.” The man eyed him up and down. His face was deeply creased, his head nearly bald. He reminded Danny of old sepia photographs in his synagogue party hall, where he’d celebrated his bar mitzvah. “Jewish parchment?” the man asked. Danny’s heart began to race. In college he and his friends had joked about Jewish radar, the unseen cues that let the People of the Book recognize each other. Was this old hatmaker Jewish? “Yes, Jewish, if I can find some. I can translate Hebrew and some Aramaic.” “You go to Djerba,” the man said. “Town of Houmt Souk. Is very old synagogue nearby, and many scrolls buried in the long past. Some of them, you say, rise up from dead? Ask for my cousin Shimon, in the hatmaker stall at the Marché Central there.” And then he picked up his needle and thread and felt and went back to work. Danny reeled away. A lead! An old Jew in a souk who knew about buried scrolls. Who needed cartonnage when there could be a whole scroll to explore?

Perhaps a Torah, or even better, one of the lesser books like those of Tobit, Judith or Manasseh. If he found something unusual there, he could make his mark as a scholar. How could he get to Djerba quickly? Head down, he pulled out his phone and searched as he rushed out of the souk.

2: Graveyard of God’s Name: Danny As Danny hurried back toward the Bab el Bahr after his encounter with the hatmaker, his mind raced. Why would scrolls be buried? Then he ed what he’d learned in preparation for his bar mitzvah. Nothing that contained the word of God could be destroyed except by burial. Old, tattered Torah scrolls, as well as prayer shawls, phylacteries, and prayer books, were stored, often for centuries, before they could be disposed of. They were kept in a sacred space, usually an annex of a synagogue called a genizah. All his exhaustion vanished as he pushed his way through narrow streets to his hostel. As soon as he got there he hooked up his laptop to the Wi-Fi network and searched for information on the synagogue in Djerba. The El Ghriba was indeed very old. It was the center of Jewish life in Tunisia, and over a thousand of the Jews still in the country worshipped there. It hosted a special pilgrimage each year at Lag B’Omer, and the year before hundreds of Tunisian Jews had returned from exile to celebrate. The more he read, the more excited he became. He had to share his enthusiasm —but who could he tell? Everyone else in the hostel was on vacation, and even the students he’d met were undergrads, still being spoon-fed a specific curriculum. His parents would be polite but wouldn’t realize what this meant to him—they’d never understood why he wouldn’t become a lawyer like his father. Could he call Ivo? They’d dated for a while at Oxford. He was a computer geek, getting his master’s in political economy, studying the effects of micro-lending on developing countries where many poor people were unbanked. Ivo’s research was very analytical. He used the Internet to collect public opinion data on how people felt about poor women in India who had accepted a nointerest loan to buy a cow or a sewing machine. Then he showed statistics on what percentage were able to raise their families out of poverty and repay the loan, and asked his questions again. It wasn’t anything original.

Plus, when he announced his decision to fly to Tunis on the break between Trinity and Hilary Ivo had not been ive. “I thought you were going to focus on your family history during Hilary,” he said. “Weren’t they some kind of big deal in the States?” In his Michaelmas term at Oxford, he’d taken a seminar on Medieval Jewish History with Dr. Rebecca Mansoor, a renowned expert. “I have some genealogical research my grandfather did. My family, along with other Spanish Jewish families, fled Spain in 1492 after the Alhambra Decree. They landed in the Netherlands, where they prospered as merchants.” He lounged naked in an armchair he had brought into the bedroom from the other room. There was something very louche and European to the position, which appealed to him on many levels. “The first Cardozos came to the United States before it was even a country. One of my distant cousins was a justice on the Supreme Court, and another wrote the poem on the bottom of the Statue of Liberty.” “You could get some mileage out of that,” Ivo said. Dr. Mansoor had been intrigued by his last name and suggested that he for a tutorial with her during Hilary term to expand on his paper, which had been based on an essay he’d written at Brandeis about his Cardozo legacy. He’d used that to qualify for a partial scholarship from a US foundation as the top scholar in his year in Judaic Studies. Oxford was full of brilliant people desperate to make their mark in the world, and that scholarship had reassured him he belonged among them. Cardozo was not an uncommon name among the Sephardim, and Daniel, with its Biblical antecedents, was just as common. Because his clan had the tradition of naming the first newborn grandson after his father’s father, there were plenty of Daniel Cardozos around, including his cousin, a famous fashion model, and another on the west coast he barely knew. “I know. But my father says genealogy is an avocation, not a vocation. It’s something to do when you retire from a career. So I chose the tutorial with Caswell on introduction to translation instead.” “Why can’t you just study what’s in the Bodleian Library?” Ivo asked. “Surely there are books there you haven’t read yet.”

“But all those old texts have been studied to death. I want to find something new, something no one has ever seen before.” Ivo turned up his beaky nose. He was lounging, naked, on Danny’s bed, smoking a Dunhill cigarette. The flat maroon package rested on the dresser, and Danny resisted lighting one himself. He found smoking after sex a cliché, along with many of the things that Ivo did and said. Ivo blew out a perfect smoke ring. “Rediscovering a thousand-year-old manuscript sounds highly unlikely.” “Look at the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Danny insisted. “They weren’t found until 1946. And what’s seventy years compared to the age of those parchments? Some of them date back to the fourth century BC.” “Which reminds me that I have a seminar in an hour,” Ivo said, stubbing out his cigarette. “Come back to bed before I have to leave.” Danny had done so, only to discover a few days later that Ivo’s idea of a seminar involved sex with a professor he had met at the Jolly Farmers, a gay bar not far from the college where they both studied. That revelation, and Ivo’s disdain for Danny’s plans, had put the kibosh on that relationship. Your boyfriend was supposed to understand and your desire to blaze a new trail through Biblical scholarship, he reminded himself. He had not spoken with Ivo since discovering his affair with the professor. Ivo’s only apology was that the man “sucked cock for England,” one of those odd phrases he used to mean someone was the equivalent of a national champion. That left his cousin, also Daniel Cardozo. They were the same age, named after the same grandfather, and had grown up together. Though they didn’t look much alike as kids, as they matured, as Danny lost weight and shot up to his full height and Daniel matched him, they had begun to be mistaken for twins. Daniel would appreciate this progress, would cheer him on. He picked up his phone and then hesitated. Daniel was a high-fashion model, traveling the world on photo shoots. Danny had no idea where he was. What if he disturbed him in the middle of a job, or woke him in the early hours of the morning?

If he couldn’t take the call, he wouldn’t, Danny decided. He pressed the speed dial button and after a brief lag and a couple of rings, his cousin answered. “Oh, Danny boy,” he sang cheerfully. “Great to hear from you. How’s Oxford?” “I’m in Tunis now,” Danny said. “You’re not the only globe-trotter.” “Well, well. You’ve got one on me, bro. Never been there. What are you doing there? Give up on your studies?” “I’m looking for old parchment to translate.” Danny explained how he’d landed in Tunis, how he’d searched the souks. “And now I have a clue. I’m going to Djerba.” “Djerba?” Danny heard someone else in the background, and a moment later Daniel was back. “Giselle says Djerba is beautiful, full of surfers and hang-gliders. Maybe you’ll meet a cute one.” Giselle was Daniel’s girlfriend, a famous model in her own right. “I’m more interested in the old shul there. According to legend, when the high priests left Jerusalem after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, they carried a door and a stone from the temple with them and incorporated them in the El Ghriba synagogue in Djerba.” “That’s way cool.” Danny couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice. “And it makes sense that such an old synagogue, and one so far removed from other congregations, would have its own genizah – it’s like a storage vault for old Jewish stuff before you can bury it.” “Oh, God, I Rabbi Shulevitz warning us that not to drop the Torah when we were carrying it at our bar mitzvahs,” Daniel said. “He said we’d have to fast for forty days," Danny ed. “And that everyone who watched it fall had to fast, too. And that if it was damaged in the fall, it would have to be buried.”

“Frightened the crap out of me,” Daniel said. “Here’s the thing,” Danny said. “This old Jew I met in the souk told me that some ancient materials were buried and had been dug up, and his cousin in Djerba knows about it.” “You’re like a modern-day Indiana Jones,” Daniel said. “Go Danny!” That was what he needed to hear. He already had the fedora. He wasn’t sure about the whip that Jones carried—Danny was more likely to hurt himself than someone else if he tried to use one. They talked for a few more minutes, and Danny was even more energized to have shared his information with his cousin. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense that after the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, there might have been a search for other similar parchments, even leading to robbing the synagogue’s burial grounds. Did the old Jew’s cousin have some ancient parchments? Or did he know where Danny could find them? The only way to know was to fly to Djerba. And once he had the scroll in hand, maybe he’d meet a cute kite-boarder or surfer to celebrate with.

3: Sweeping Up: Liam Liam McCullough sat back in a chair facing the Mediterranean while his husband, Aidan Greene, made small talk with their newest client, an elderly Dutch widow on a shopping spree in Monte Carlo. “My husband dealt with many unpleasant people when he was in business,” she said, as they chatted over mid-morning tea at the terrace restaurant of the Hôtel de Paris. “I always believe in safety when I travel.” “Have you received any specific threats, Madame?” Liam asked, as the water sparkled behind them and the staff moved soundlessly, serving coffee and breakfast to trust-fund families and second wives and the entourages of billionaires. “Oh, no. But as you see, I am a woman of a certain age, and you have but to look at me to know that I am wealthy. I do not wish to become a victim of a street thug.” He couldn’t blame her. There was little crime in Monte Carlo, and yet as she pointed out, an elderly woman of wealth could be an opportune target. It was no surprise that she had called the personal protection company they worked for, the Agence de Securité, and asked for an escort. They had been available, and probably their boss, Jean-Luc Derain, had thought a gay couple would be good company for Madame. Or at least Aidan would be. After years in his previous career as a teacher of English to second-language students, he had developed the ability to talk to anyone. It didn’t hurt that he was handsome and at 44, young enough to be her son. Liam was the same age, but his sixteen years in the Navy had offered him little opportunity to chat with elderly matrons, and he was much more capable of protecting them than charming them. “My husband ran a chain of coffee shops in Amsterdam,” Madame de Jong continued, picking up a tiny pastry. It was so elaborately embellished with swirls

of white cream and tiny dots of dark red purée it could easily have been featured in a jewelry store. And yet it was only a piece of raspberry Danish like the kind he had enjoyed as a kid back in New Jersey. “We were only moderately well off,” she said. “My husband worked very hard and tried many ways to succeed.” Liam popped one of those tiny raspberry concoctions in his mouth. Ah, the flavor of his youth, though heightened by the purity of the fruit and the airiness of the cream. His mother was allergic to the kitchen, she always said, so he had been raised by every diner waitress in New Brunswick. Raspberry Danish was like mother’s milk to him. “In 1976, when the Opium Act was amended, allowing coffee shops to sell marijuana, Hendrik followed the lead of The Bulldog, one of his competitors, and began to sell marijuana in small amounts.” She smiled, and Liam struggled not to laugh at how casually she spoke. He ed shore leave in the Navy, before he’d become a SEAL, when he and his buddies had gone around and sampled the wares. They’d hit the whorehouses, too, but Liam, who went by his childhood name of Billy back then, had begged off, pretending to be too high to do any business. “As you can imagine, we became quite wealthy,” Madame de Jong continued. “But Hendrik was always too busy to travel, or even spend money.” As she sipped her tea, Aidan smiled at her, and Liam could see his husband was smitten. “Then Hendrik sold the chain and retired and we planned to spend the rest of our days traveling. But he suffered a heart attack soon after, and I was left alone. To carry out our plans.” He tuned out the conversation and took another look around. Though the Hôtel de Paris was one of the most exclusive in Monte Carlo, this terrace was exposed to a narrow street on one side, the perfect place for a mugger to lurk. A sniper could position himself on one of the terraces of the adjacent high-rise. A highpowered rifle could shoot a bullet at over 2,600 feet per second—twice the speed of sound.

Their client could be dead before they even heard the shot. “Ready to go?” He looked at Aidan, confused. He had wandered so far off into his brain he’d forgotten where they were or what they were doing. He straightened up immediately. “On your mark,” he said. Aidan smiled, and backed his chair up. “We’re heading to the Metropole first. I’ll get us a cab.” He and Madame de Jong walked together, with Liam taking up the rear. It seemed like a foolish exercise, scanning for dangers to an innocent old woman, but it kept his brain active. Too many of the jobs he and Aidan got from the Agence were like this, picking up businessmen at the airport and waiting in hotel corridors while they transacted their million-dollar deals. Most of them were inflated with self-importance, requiring personal protection as a status symbol rather than an urgent need. The hotel doorman waved forward the next cab in line for them, and Liam was pleased to see Aidan check the driver’s permit and photo before allowing Madame de Jong into the car. They needed to be careful, even on such a simpleseeming assignment. Inside the Metropole, an elegant, high-end shopping center, they followed a regular pattern. Madame de Jong surveyed windows and decided if there was anything inside that interested her. Aidan accompanied her while she shopped, and Liam stood guard outside. It had been nearly six months since their last big assignment, and Liam worried that he was getting rusty. Each time Aidan and Madame entered a store, Liam surveyed anyone ing by, evaluating each one as a threat. The slim young man in a suit with a name tag over his breast? He could be a clerk at a high-end watch store. But why was he sweating, inside this air-conditioned retail palace? Did he have a gun under that jacket? Had he just left a bomb in the men’s room? Or maybe he had just come in from the heat, Liam reminded himself. The trick was to look for someone who almost fit in, but not quite. A woman in a burka, walking on her own? Rich women from cloistered Arab countries never

traveled by themselves. Ah, there was the rest of her party, a few feet behind. She was probably the sheikha, and the women behind her were her friends or family. From the Metropole, they moved on to the Golden Triangle, the neighborhood of exclusive shops bounded by the Avenue des Beaux Artes and Avenue de Monte Carlo. They shopped, they walked, they shopped and walked some more. Each time they stopped, Liam forced himself to play the same mental game. Who was a possible threat? The bearded teen with a backpack? Liam knew from experience that an assault rifle could be stored in a pack like that, and a skilled gunman could have it assembled and aimed in the time it took Madame to cross a street. They had lunch at an Italian restaurant, and then continued collecting bags and boxes from some of the most elegant names in the world. Didn’t they have these stores in Amsterdam, Liam thought crossly? Or was it the experience of shopping in Monte Carlo that Madame de Jong was after? He felt like a well-oiled car only driven occasionally. How much longer would he be able to respond quickly to threats, to take down assassins and chase perpetrators? Would he spend the rest of his working life on this kind of job, nodding pleasantly at clients, carrying their bags like a trained monkey? It was early evening as he stood impatiently outside the arched, marble-framed windows of the Bulgari store in Monte Carlo. The displays were filled with white and yellow gold bracelets, necklaces and watches, all with the store’s signature circular logo. Inside, Aidan stood by the counter, peering at a tray of rings the clerk had brought out. Thank God Aidan was not looking for something for himself. They made enough money from their work to themselves, pay down the mortgage on their cottage and put food on the table and kibble in their dog’s bowl. But five-thousand-dollar watches and twelve-thousand-dollar gold bracelets were out of their price range. Something stubborn in his head said, why not, though? Why didn’t they have the extra money to buy Aidan a piece of jewelry, or Liam that Mercedes SLC Roadster he’d been eying in the window of the car dealer at the edge of Banneret-les-Vaux each time he went for a long run?

And yeah, he itted that he’d been past that dealership more than a few times, and once he’d even gone inside and sat in the model, sure it wouldn’t be big enough to fit his six-four frame. Surprisingly, it was very comfortable, from the legroom to the leather seats. He had pushed the idea away because their work in personal protection was so up and down that he wasn’t willing to commit to a five-year lease or loan. But he did love that car. It was clear that Aidan had been charmed by Madame de Jong, and charmed her in return. Liam, for his part, preferred to be aloof from his clients. If he was sipping tea with them, listening to their stories or iring their purchases, he couldn’t be as wary as he needed to be. Not that there was much to worry about. The people on the street were almost as prosperous as Madame de Jong, in designer suits and fashionable dresses, hurrying to business appointments or cocktail hours. Even the man sweeping the street wore an expensive jogging suit. Liam turned back to look through the window. Madame de Jong had decided on a purchase and was in the process of digging her credit card from her peacockshaped silver purse, embellished with at least fifty percent more jewels than necessary. Something niggled at the back of Liam’s mind. A street cleaner wearing fancy clothes? That didn’t make sense, even in Monaco. He turned back to where the man stood, holding a broom outside a designer dress shop. A late model Peugeot idled on the street in front of him. Suddenly, a young woman darted out of the store, holding several dresses over her arm. The sweeper dropped his broom and opened the door of the Peugeot for her. She threw the dresses in the back seat and jumped in the front. The sweeper followed the dresses into the back of the car, which accelerated down the street. Liam made no move to stop them. He wasn’t a police officer, and he hadn’t been hired by the store to provide security. As much as he wanted to intervene, he couldn’t risk his obligation to his client. The car drove off in the opposite direction, and he saw that the rear license plate

had been obscured by dirt. He noted the make and model of the car, though. By the time Madame de Jong had finished her purchase, Liam heard the first high-low police siren on its way. The shopkeeper, a middle-aged woman in a bright red dress and matching stiletto heels, stood on the sidewalk yelling and shaking her fist at the Peugeot, long gone. “Could we walk this way?” Liam asked, as Aidan and Madame de Jong exited the jewelry store. Aidan carried a new small bag with the Bulgari logo, and for a moment Liam was hit with a longing to provide his husband with everything he wanted—that black-framed watch Aidan had ired in the window, the new sofa they needed to replace their saggy old one—a trip around the world, if that’s what Aidan wanted. “Whatever is happening there?” Madame de Jong asked, as a pointy-nosed white police car pulled up, festooned with two red stripes and one blue one. “I need to speak with the police for a moment,” Liam said. “I’ll explain later.” He walked forward and approached one of the two officers who got out of the car. He told them what he’d witnessed, and pointed to the abandoned broom, which might provide fingerprints. “Just a minor disturbance,” he told Madame de Jong, as they continued walking. Later that night, after they had left the Dutchwoman at the hotel and returned to their home, he told the whole story to Aidan over a bottle of their current favorite wine, a Côtes de Provence rosé. “Do you think they’ll catch the criminals?” Aidan asked. They sat on the sagging couch, Liam at one end, Aidan and the other, and their little lion-faced dog Hayam in the middle. The TV played a cooking show in the background, at low volume. “If the street sweeper has a record, and left prints on the broom handle, perhaps.” “Was he wearing gloves?” “You know, I didn’t notice. I saw the track suit first, and then by the time I turned back to take a closer look the woman was already rushing out of the store.”

“That’s not like you. You’re always so observant.” “Getting old, my friend. Which is why this kind of simple job is right for us. Did you have a good time shopping?” “I did. Madame de Jong has excellent taste. And she’s so charming. You didn’t mind all the standing around outside, did you?” “I managed. At least this was only a single day.” The dog looked up at them and yipped sharply. “Hayam is not happy we left her alone all day,” Aidan said. Liam reached over to scratch beneath the little dog’s chin. “If she wants to keep getting kibble in her bowl she’ll get over it.” “We have nothing on the books for the next few days,” Aidan said. “We can spend a lot of time playing with her and rubbing her tummy.” “Unless a new client pops up.” He looked over at Aidan. “Are you happy?” “What kind of question is that? Of course I am. Aren’t you?” Liam shrugged. “I’m happy as long as I can be with you. I just… I saw you in those expensive stores today, and I wanted to buy you anything you want. But I can’t.” “Sweetheart. I spent eleven years with a rich guy who bought me gifts instead of loving me. I’ll take you any day.” Liam had met Aidan’s ex twice, once right after Aidan had fled from Philadelphia to Tunis, and then the year before, when he had hired them for a bodyguard assignment. He considered himself very lucky that Blake Chennault hadn’t recognized the jewel he had in Aidan, and had tossed him away for Liam to find, like a lucky penny on the sidewalk. He lifted his glass of wine toward Aidan, who responded the same way. “To being lost and found,” Liam said, and clinked Aidan’s glass. Aidan repeated the phrase. “To being lost and found.” Then he paused, because

he was curious. “What do you mean by that phrase, lost and found?” “Why do you think Madame de Jong is such an obsessive shopper?” Liam asked. Aidan shrugged. “She has the money, so why not?” Liam frowned. “Really? That’s all you’ve got? You’re the one who’s supposed to be so insightful about our clients.” “You tell me, then.” “She told us that she and her husband were planning to travel after he retired, and then he died. So maybe she’s looking for something to replace him. Buying stuff.” Aidan pursed his lips, then said, “I never thought of that. And maybe she didn’t really need protection today, but she wanted someone to go shopping with her.” “She’s lonely, and she knows she’s getting old, so I think she’s feeling some pressure to spend her husband’s money the way he wanted to before it’s too late.” Liam pulled in a mouthful of wine, swirled it around and let himself taste the nuances. It was dry and crisp, more like a white wine than a red. He’d been trying to teach himself more about wine, since they drank so much of it. He’d never let himself drink too much beer or wine when he was in the Navy, or even for years afterward, too afraid that his father’s alcoholism lingered somewhere in the back of his brain. He’d always had to be alert 24-7. Now that he had finally relaxed into being part of a team with Aidan, he knew he could take the occasional night off, relax and enjoy the world. “I think that’s a really interesting idea,” Aidan said. “Is there something you feel you haven’t accomplished yet? Anything you’re still searching for?” “I found what I was looking for when I walked into the Bar Mamounia and saw you sitting there. It just took me a while to realize what was right in front of me.” He took another sip of wine. “And you? What’s still on your bucket list?”

Aidan shrugged. “You know. More travel. There’s so much of the world I haven’t seen. We’re lucky that our jobs take us places, but I don’t want to end up like Madame de Jong, going places on my own when I’m old and decrepit.” Liam couldn’t avoid a smile. “You think that’s going to happen?” “I worry about it,” Aidan itted. “That something will happen to you and I’ll be alone.” Liam put his glass down, picked up Hayam and put her on the floor. Then he motioned Aidan over to his side. Aidan slid over, resting his head against Liam’s shoulder, and that physical felt so right, so perfect. And yet something niggled at the back of his brain. He had had to be physically and mentally active and alert since boot camp at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, outside Chicago. He had come to the conclusion that he simply wasn’t made to sit around and do nothing, or watch from the shadows while widows spent their husbands’ money. He ed the Mercedes convertible in the dealership window. A new gym had opened across the street, and they were advertising for personal trainers. What if he picked up an occasional client that way? It would keep him active, force him to talk to people now and then, and perhaps he could earn enough on the side for a down-payment on a Mercedes. He didn’t want to tell Aidan that, though. If he was having a mid-life crisis, and this lusting after fast cars was just a symptom, he didn’t want to it it. He’d approach it like a SEAL operation, keeping everything quiet and secret, and then pop up for the kill. He doubted that Aidan would mind if he began some private coaching. And surely the clientele in a small town like Banneret wouldn’t provide any temptation to make Aidan jealous. Well, he was sure about everything except the last point.

4: The Hatmaker: Danny Danny booked an hour-long flight on Tunisair Express that left for Djerba-Zarzis International Airport early the next morning. He would have to stay over at least one night; there was no return flight in the afternoon, and he wanted to be sure to connect with Shimon at the souk. When he finished packing, he decided he deserved a night out. Didn’t Indiana Jones have fun now and then? He went downstairs and surveyed the handful of people his age sprawled around the common room. He spotted Sherry, a girl who’d spoken to him at breakfast that morning. She and two friends were students at Smith, spending a semester studying art history in Rome, and they, too, were on a college break. They had spent the day looking at Roman mosaics at the Bardo Museum and they were about to head out for drinks. Sherry invited him to them, and then at a bar nearby they met up with a couple of Australians on a gap year. The music was loud and Danny, never much of a drinker, kept a Heineken Berber Blonde beer in his hand to keep from feeling awkward. He and the others from the hostel sat with a motley group of dreadlocked young men and tanned young women. Most of them were European, traveling the world before settling down to conventional lives. The other travelers compared notes on the best grass in Tunis, the wildest clubs, the camel excursions they had taken out into the desert. Danny bragged that he was leaving for Djerba in the morning. A Dutchman, Dirk, had been there. “Fabulous place, that.” There was a foam of beer on his upper lip. “Great grass and awesome kitesurfing. You’ve got to get to the beach while you’re there.” “I’m going to meet someone,” Danny said. “For my research.” “You can still have fun,” his girlfriend Anika said.

Danny ached because he wanted to be one of them, to do those things and share those stories, but he wasn’t built that way. Fun didn’t seem to be in his vocabulary. He’d been too shy to go to most of the LGBT activities at Brandeis, afraid of losing control and having others laugh at him. At another bar they met four young Russian men studying Arabic. Danny wanted to practice his language with them, talk about some of the quirks he couldn’t quite master, but by then they were all drunk. Their party waxed and waned as they moved from bar to club, laughing and dancing and talking loudly. He wanted to go back to the hostel but he’d gotten turned around somewhere, and so he had to stick with them. Sherry’s long blonde hair was like a beacon he kept following around the city. Around midnight, they were at the Bab el Bahr, where a group of young Tunisian men were playing American rap songs on a boom box. The stone arch, once a gate to the city, was lit from above, and when the music changed to a sinuous Arab rhythm, he found himself dancing with Sherry like an extra from a Bollywood movie, twisting his hips and waving his arms as the group formed into a line dance that everyone else seemed to know the moves to. Danny felt like he’d stumbled into a movie set, so different was this experience from his day-to-day life. He was daring and brave, for once free of the fear of making a fool of himself. He didn’t know these people; no one would report back to Great Neck or Oxford if he missed a step, did something crazy. Following the lead of a couple of the Russians, he pulled off his T-shirt and waved it around above his head. Sherry put her hands on his pecs and caressed his chest, and while he smiled at her, he had his eye on a handsome Tunisian man, also shirtless. He turned his back on Sherry and strode over to the dark-haired man, gyrating his hips in invitation, and the man laughed and grabbed his waist and pulled him into a kiss. Their sweaty bodies slid together for a moment, Danny’s dick hard against the stranger’s, and then the man spun him off again and turned to one of the Australian girls, who’d gone similarly topless. He slumped against a wall. Was this what he’d come to Tunis for, this kind of wild revelry with his peers?

No, he wasn’t there to get crazy. He was a scholar, wasn’t he? He had a plane to catch, a hatmaker to meet, an ancient scroll to discover. Then he spotted the arch over the door to a madrassa he often ed, which he knew was close to the hostel. He’d talk to Shimon, purchase whatever manuscript the hatmaker’s cousin had to sell, and return to the safety and dullness of King’s College. Back at the hostel, he stripped down, and ed the feel of the Tunisian’s chest against his, their dicks dueling through their pants. He thought for a moment in a maudlin way about Ivo, and then fell asleep. He struggled out of bed early the next morning, his head aching as if he’d just spent hours at the souk. He packed his bags, checked out of the hostel, and took a Bolt hired car to the airport. While he waited for his flight, he realized that for the first time since arriving in Tunis, he knew what he was doing. He had done as much research as he could before he left Oxford, but once in the country he had realized how much he didn’t know. It had either been incredibly fortunate to meet the old man at the hatmaker’s souk, or simply the result of perseverance, asking the same questions over and over until he got the right response. He walked out onto the tarmac with his fellow engers and climbed the stair to the small plane, with only two seats on either side, and realized why he’d been asked for his weight. It was funny how the skinny engers like him had been placed by the windows, and the heavier ones, like the bulky woman beside him, were put by the aisle. The plane arced out over the Gulf of Tunis, then turned south, crossing the peninsula that ended in Cape Bon. It flew so low that Danny saw houses and farms below, the occasional car or truck crawling around the base of a mountain that rose out of the plains. He glanced periodically at the map inside his guidebook, recognizing that when they reached the Gulf of Hammamet, they turned and began to follow the coastline. Waves crashed against a long strip of sandy beach, where a couple of surfers danced with the waves. White arcs of kite-surfer sails blossomed below against a backdrop of bright blue ocean water.

His heart soared along with those sails. This must be what Indiana Jones felt as he approached an archaeological site. Wonders awaited him. Perhaps this scroll would be something totally new, a window into another civilization like the Rosetta Stone. He’d be lauded in academic circles, invited to lecture on his discovery. And then other opportunities would open up. Would he specialize in Jewish artifacts, or bring his genius to bear on other lost stories? Then the plane bounced roughly and he hit his head on the bulkhead above him. He was just a grad student, mired at the moment in the details of other scholars’ research, and Shimon the hatmaker might not even have a scroll to offer him. He took a deep breath and looked out the window again. As they approached Djerba, he saw small fishing boats rocked in the current in the tiny bays that ringed the island. Such a gorgeous country, and one that had provided refuge to his people centuries before, when they fled the Babylonians in the sixth century BC. He hoped it would be good to him, too. Unconsciously he fingered the gold figurine of a lion’s head beneath a prayer shawl that hung on a chain around his neck. Both he and Daniel had been given matching pendants on their bar mitzvah, by their grandmother. “To how Daniel prevailed in the lion’s den,” she had said at the time. Had the hatmaker in Tunis recognized it? Was that why he thought Danny was Jewish? It was an unusual piece and he’d never seen one like it. When the plane landed, Danny stepped out onto the metal stairs to temperatures that were at least ten degrees cooler than in Tunis, and he shivered in his shortsleeved shirt. There was hardly a cloud in the sky, and the sun was bright but not blinding. He called for a Bolt and waited for the driver at the end of the terminal, outside the last of the huge arched windows. He could have been in any large city in Europe, surrounded as he was by couples and families on holiday. The chatter around him was a mix of French, German, and Arabic, and he longed to in —but had nothing to say. “Do you know the Youth Hostel in Houmt Souk?” he asked the driver before he got in. “Oh, yes, very close,” he said. “Fifteen minutes only.”

Danny slid into the back seat. “You come to Djerba to surf?” the driver asked, as they pulled out of the airport. It was easier to say yes, and then listen to a list of all the best beaches. “I take you by coast road, so you see everything.” The island was flat and sandy, with palm trees everywhere. All the buildings were one or two stories of white stucco, and the water to his left was glorious, in shades of blue, green and turquoise. There were surfers or kite surfers on nearly every beach, and he longed to put on a bathing suit and jump in the water. But he had business to accomplish. The driver pulled up at the youth hostel, a building where it looked like the area between each archway was strung with colorful bathing suits left out to dry. “You wait for me, please?” Danny asked. “I want to check in, and then go to the Marché Central.” The driver agreed, and when Danny came back out the car was still there. “You want bathing suit?” he asked. “I know great place.” “Just take me to the market, please.” It was only a few minutes’ drive to the Marché Central, and Danny was glad because it meant he could walk back to the hostel easily. The driver parked in front of an arched arcade, and Danny tipped him, then stepped out of the car and looked around. This city was less different from Tunis, with more of a tourist vibe. Unlike in Tunis, many of these merchants displayed their wares on the sidewalk —brightly colored pots and trays, and tajines, the conical pots used for stew. The riotous colors contrasted with the brutal white of the streets and the buildings, and the brilliant blue of the sky. He asked an old woman for directions to the hatmaker’s stall, and she sent him down one street and around a corner. The man who sat behind the counter there was at least ten years younger than his cousin in Tunis, with the same weathered face, though his was less genial. “I am looking for Shimon,” Danny said in rough Arabic. “His cousin in Tunis sent me.” The man continued pushing his needle through a piece of felt. “To buy a hat, you come all this way?” he asked in English.

Emboldened, Danny said, “Not for a hat. For parchment. I am a student and a translator and I am looking for very old texts to study.” Shimon put down his handwork and looked at Danny. “For this, we need tea.” He stood and nodded behind him. “Come.” Danny followed him, threading between piles of red and black fezzes that looked like they had been machine-made in China, embroidered with Tunis or Djerba on them. A separate stack of chechias rested on a wooden cabinet. Those looked handmade. A small table sat against the back wall, beside a counter littered with bits of fabric and thread. An electric tea kettle roosted to one side. Shimon motioned Danny to one of two chairs while he poured tea leaves and water into a pot and set it to boil. Then he sat across from him. “Where do you study?” “Kings College. Oxford University, in England.” “My son studied at the Saïd Business School there. A Tunisian Jew at a British university named for a Syrian Arab. The world is a funny place, isn’t it?” “Is he here? Your son?” Shimon shook his head. “Moshe is an investment banker in London. His only interest in what I do is in cotton futures and the shares of tour companies. And you? What do your parents make of you?” “They would rather I was a lawyer,” Danny said, with a burst of honesty. Something about Shimon reminded him of his grandfather, a genial man who ran a junkyard in Newark’s fading Portuguese neighborhood and who had died when he was a boy. The teakettle whistled, and Shimon removed the top and dropped in a handful of mint sprigs. “We all want better for our children,” he said. “Even if that pushes them away from us.” The aroma of mint rose in the room. “Tell me what you study,” Shimon said.

“Medieval Jewish History. Biblical Hebrew. And I took a course last term in ancient Aramaic.” “So you can read these old languages?” Danny shrugged. “I’m no expert. It’s much easier when you have a whole block of text and you can understand the context of unfamiliar words. If you have only a fragment to review it can be difficult to make sense of the characters and the words.” “I have always thought that reading is an amazing gift,” Shimon said. “To see a collection of dots on a page, recognize them as letters, and then words, and after that make a connection between those words and what they represent in the real world.” He inhaled deeply. “Our tea is ready.” He sprinkled a handful of pine nuts into the bottom of two glass mugs, then strained tea into each. The smell was so redolent Danny was eager to grasp his and drink, though he knew it had to cool. “Why do you think an old hatmaker like me might have access to ancient manuscripts?” Shimon asked, when he had sat across from Danny again. “Because your cousin sent me,” he said, and the old man’s eyes laughed. “And because the El Ghriba synagogue was founded nearly two thousand years ago,” Danny continued. “And scrolls that contain the name of God cannot have lasted that long. They must have been stored in a genizah, then buried somewhere here in Houmt Souk.” Shimon sipped his tea. “And?” Danny took a moment to compose his thoughts. He couldn’t accuse the old man of grave robbing. He lifted the mug of tea to his nose and inhaled. His great-aunt had made mint tea like this, though without the pine nuts, and the smell brought him back to his childhood in the Newark suburbs, sitting in her kitchen decorated with Judaica. She collected Seder plates, ornate etrog boxes made of silver, candle-holders and spice boxes for use in the Havdalah service. “Because a man who cares about his heritage will not let it be treated like common trash,” Danny said. “If in the past, someone were to raid the graveyard

and disturb what had been stored in the genizah, a man such as yourself would have taken steps to secure what he could. To save it for the next generation, or for the next deserving guardian.” “You are a smart young man,” Shimon said, nodding. “If such materials existed, and had been safeguarded, what would you do with them?” “The first step would be to have anything I find authenticated by carbon dating. I have a friend who works in a lab that does that.” Soon after arriving at Oxford, he had met a graduate student at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at a gay orientation party. He and Philip, a nerd from Manchester with floppy brown hair, had dated a few times before Danny had decided they were better as friends than lovers. “My friend can tell how old any piece of parchment is. And then I would settle down to read it and study it and figure out what it means.” “And what if all you find are old grocery lists?” “Then I would know what people ate back then, and how it affected their lives.” Shimon laughed, then paused to think. “I have a very old scroll, that came to me in awkward circumstances which I do not wish to reveal. It is very, very fragile and needs to be handled with great care. Can you promise to do that?” Danny’s heart raced as it had when the hatmaker in the souk had directed him to Shimon. And yet, why was this man trusting him? If indeed the scroll was ancient and valuable, why hand it off to a total stranger? Though it might mean he’d walk away empty-handed, Danny had to ask, “Why me? I’m still a student. I’m sure there must be more important people you could trust this treasure with.” “I have had interest before,” Shimon said. “Pompous fools interested in the scroll only for its monetary value. I would not trust them. But you? I see something in you.” “What?”

“You are a scholar, like my grandfather and so many men of his generation. They would sit at El Ghriba every Shabbat and debate the Talmud. There were always many more questions than answers. I have been waiting to give the scroll to someone who would really read it, and ask questions of it. I see that in you.” Danny gulped. It was the first time in his life anyone had seen real value in what he wanted to study. His parents had pushed him to law. His professors at Brandeis, seeing his interest in Judaic studies, had suggested the rabbinate. One had even told him to go to business school and then work for one of the multinational corporations in the Middle East. But no one had ever ed the idea that he might spend his life analyzing old books and thinking about Jewish life in the past. He looked at Shimon and said, “I swear I will study and protect the scroll.”

5: Louis Fleck: Liam A few days after Madame de Jong had returned to Amsterdam, Liam’s old friend Louis Fleck invited him to meet for coffee at the café in the center of Banneret, facing the fountain and the memorials to those lost in the first and second world wars. The café, Zamu Zant, took its name from the French phrase “très amusant,” and the way the S in très elided over to the following word. It was the kind of linguistic detail that Aidan could spout in a second, and to Liam it signified how long they’d been together, that he’d picked up so much from his husband. Louis was waiting as Liam approached, sitting in a wrought-iron chair on the sun-dappled outdoor patio. He was a husky, hairy guy, called a bear in the gay world, in his mid-forties like Liam. They had first become acquainted in Tunis, though both were in the closet then. It wasn’t until they were both married, and both couples had relocated to the Riviera, that they had become close friends. As Liam slid into the chair across from him, the Goth waitress approached. “Un noisette,” Louis said to her. Though the drink had no nuts in it, the mix of espresso and hot foamy milk gave it a hazelnut color. “Et un pain au chocolat, s’il vous plait.” “Un café crème,” Liam said. “Merci.” Then he turned to Louis. “Living large,” he said. “A chocolate croissant in the middle of the morning.” “You never know when it’ll be your time to die. Might as well enjoy life.” “You always have such a cheerful outlook on life. Everything all right?” Louis shrugged. “Comme ci, comme ça. I have to leave on a little trip this afternoon, and I wanted to ask you to look after Hassan while I’m gone.” “What is he, a puppy who needs to be walked? He’s a grown man.” There was something about the way that Louis looked to the side that Liam finally understood. “You still work for the government, don’t you? Does Hassan know?”

Louis was ostensibly a cultural attaché at the US embassy in Tunis when they met. He had never said anything specific, but gradually Liam had come to understand that he really worked for the CIA. The Goth girl delivered their coffees and Louis’s pastry. When she was gone, Louis leaned forward. “Look, you don’t just walk away from a job like the one I had. There are always tendrils that keep you connected.” “I thought they let you go because they were closing the consulate in Nice.” “And that was the public story. When I signed up for this job, I was young and single and I couldn’t conceive of marrying another man. Hell, Hassan is the first man I ever did more than fuck in the back of a bar.” Liam shivered. The story was so close to his own. “Then I was offered a transfer to Nice. Things were looser back then, there were drugs coming in, there was human trafficking, and the terrorist threat was beginning to grow. The next few years, the French did a good job of cleaning things up and announced that they didn’t need our help anymore. My boss wanted to transfer me to Cairo, in a more, let’s say aggressive role. It would have meant keeping a lot of secrets from Hassan, and I decided I didn’t want to live like that. So we negotiated a departure.” “Have you been working for them all along?” Louis shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and Liam knew. “Of course you can’t tell me.” “I can’t. But that flic from the FIPN we met with last year, Brodeur? Let’s just say that wasn’t the first time I worked with him.” Things he had noticed were starting to make sense to Liam. Louis was often busy ‘working,’ but it was never clear on what. And after they had shut down their t business, Hassan only picked up occasional work as an architect but he and Louis never seemed short of money. How had he missed all these signs? His best friend, other than Aidan, was still a covert operative, and Liam had been unaware. He really was slipping.

“Is this assignment dangerous? That’s why you want us to look after Hassan?” Louis looked down at the perfect swirl on the top of his cup. “Perhaps.” He looked up. “It’s really just a courier job, but with all their cutbacks and early retirements, they don’t have someone available who has my skill set.” “Where are you going?” Louis brought his lips together and stared at Liam. Liam stared back. A courier job, Louis had said. His unique abilities. How could Liam put two and together and come up with the right answer? He picked up his coffee and sipped. Traffic moved lazily around the town square, the water fountain burbled, and a pair of birds sung to each other up in the far reaches of the plane tree beside them. What were Louis’s unique abilities? He wasn’t a hand-to-hand combat guy like Liam. For most of his career he had been a behind-the-scenes worker, making connections, gathering news. He spoke fluent French and Arabic… and something else. What was it? He closed his eyes and focused. When he’d met Louis, they were both new to Tunis. Liam had left the Navy, spent enough time back home in New Jersey to know he couldn’t stay there, and then landed in Tunisia, where he knew a highranking police officer who promised to send him personal protection clients. Where had Louis come from? Not a stateside post. Eritrea. That was it. And the other language he spoke was Tigrinya, one of the country’s official languages, though concentrated in the northern province of Tigray, along the border with Eritrea. He continued to sip his coffee as he tried to recall what he had read lately about Ethiopia. He had the impression that a rebellion was brewing in Tigray. He opened his eyes. “So you fly to Addis Ababa today? And then where? To Tigray?” Louis opened his mouth wide, then shut it. “How did you figure that out? You

can’t know anything about this.” “Just a little mental calculation.” He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Fine. I’ll go with you,” Liam said. “I’ll even pay for my own ticket.” Louis laughed. “I’m an ordinary businessman on a quick trip. I’ll arouse suspicion showing up with my own personal hulking bodyguard.” Liam wasn’t sure he liked the term ‘hulking bodyguard.’ “Listen, I appreciate the offer,” Louis said. “But the truth is that I won’t need you. I have a simple task to handle, and it will be easier if I slide completely under the radar.” “When do you think you’ll be back?” “Four to five days.” “Fine. We’ll have Hassan over to dinner one night. And I know Aidan wants some new cushions for our living room. Maybe they’ll go shopping together.” “This isn’t a big deal,” Louis said. “And yet it’s the first time you’ve asked us to look after Hassan.” “And it probably won’t be the last.” Louis pushed back his chair and stood up, then pulled a couple of euros from his wallet. “I’ll let you know when I get back in town.” They shook hands, and Louis walked out of the café and down the street. Liam remained where he was, feeling a longing that rose up from the pit of his stomach. This was the kind of job he needed, not chauffeuring old ladies around Monte Carlo. The sense that what he did mattered. He’d always appreciated that in the Navy, and in the SEALs. Even when they did routine exercises, he knew it was so they could be in fighting shape if any danger arose. Now? He was still close to that shape, though a few pounds heavier than he had been, with a few degrees less of flexibility. But he could still kick Ethiopian ass, if he needed to. Or Tigrayan, or whoever had a reason to interfere in Louis’s

mission. Though Louis didn’t need him, he knew someone who did. His husband. He left the café for the walk back home.

6: Authentication: Danny As soon as Danny returned to Oxford, the day before the Trinity term began, he texted Philip. “Need to see you & get yr advice. This evening?” Philip texted back with an invitation to meet at a pub, but Danny responded that they needed someplace private. “My rooms?” Philip agreed, with a banana emoticon followed by a question mark. Danny laughed and replied instead with a bottle of beer. “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” Philip responded. “C U at 6.” As a graduate student, Danny had snagged a large single with en-suite shower and WC, facing the quad on the fourth floor of one arm of the centuries-old dormitory at Pembroke College. He loved the multi-paned windows, the way the rippled glass threw shards of light on the ancient wooden floor. A shelf along one wall was lined with tattered Biblical texts and books of criticism he had brought with him or scored from used book dealers in Charing Cross Road, Bloomsbury and Camden. A twin bed rested along the other side, with a wardrobe beside it. He had a desk and a pair of chairs, positioned to look out the window so he could wool-gather when he was supposed to be studying. Philip appeared promptly at six with a bag of bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale. “So, what’s the reason for the urgent summons?” Philip asked, when they were both seated with open beers. After he left Shimon, Danny had gone directly to the luggage shop in Houmt Souk and bought a small leather case usually intended for men’s toiletries, about fifteen inches long and six inches deep, with a horizontal zipper. It was the perfect size for the ancient scroll, which Shimon had kept wrapped in modern baking parchment. Danny opened the bag and lifted the package out with reverence. The new

parchment was crinkled and ivory-colored, but inside it, the scroll was a faded tan, with the occasional dark stain across it. Unlike the Torah scrolls Danny had seen growing up, and in museum collections, it had no wooden spools with fancy finials to allow it to be turned, no velvet cover embroidered with Jewish symbols. “Holy shit,” Philip said, looking over Danny’s shoulder. “How old is that?” “That’s what I need you for. You can analyze this, can’t you?” Philip nodded. “I have a spectrometer in my lab. That’s the best tool for this, because it’s non-destructive and has a high spatial resolution.” He must have seen the confusion on Danny’s face because he added, “That means it has the greatest number of dots per inch, so the clearest view of the materials and the writing on them.” Philip kept his eyes on the manuscript and said, almost by rote, “There are two questions we want to ask. Number one: does the material of this scroll correspond to the kind normally occurring in objects originating in the given place and at the given time?” He looked at Danny to make sure he was understanding, then continued. “And number two, are the materials identical to various parts of the manuscript?” “So essentially you’re going to compare the parchment and the ink to what was used in other dated samples, and then make sure those materials are used consistently throughout the scroll.” “Excellent. You should be a graduate student.” Danny smirked. “The inks and pigments, and the material they’re written on, are generally organic, so they’re relatively simple to date. However, in the Middle Ages, as you know, they reused parchment because animal hide was scarce. And, of course, this could be a forgery, despite using the right materials.” He looked up. “Where did you get this?” “From a dealer in a souk in Tunisia,” Danny said, being deliberately vague. “He

said it was rescued from a synagogue’s genizah.” He explained what that was, and Philip nodded. “So probably not a fake, but still, it could date anywhere between hundreds of years ago to thousands of years ago. Can you read what’s written?” “I only took a quick look,” Danny said. “A lot of it is in ancient Aramaic, which is not my specialty. But I recognized a bunch of key words, like God and Moses and so on.” “You think this is a Torah scroll?” “Not making any assumptions until you tell me how old it is. Then I’ll find someone to help me translate it.” “All right. Bring this box to my lab tomorrow morning and we’ll see what we can figure out.” They drank a bottle of beer each, and then a second, and they were both so excited Danny forgot about Ivo and pushed aside his decision to remain friends with Philip, and they ended up on the narrow twin bed together. * * * When Danny woke in the morning, his brain was fuzzy and he was alone in bed. Philip was gone. He took a couple of aspirins, then stumbled into the shower. As he washed himself thoroughly the memory of the night before came back to him —a stickiness around his crotch, the presence of lube in his ass. God, what had he done? How was he going to face Philip at his lab? His head still ached as he climbed the stairs. Could he take a quick nap before heading out? He had nothing on his schedule that day except Philip. He walked into his study and looked for the leather shaving kit. He was sure he had put it back on the shelf, between volumes by Josephus, the first-century Romano-Jewish historian who was one of his favorites. But it wasn’t there. Nor was it on the table, the floor, or anywhere else in the study or the bedroom.

Philip had stolen it, the bastard. Danny threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater and slipped into his loafers. Then he rushed downstairs, out into the quad, where his bicycle was locked into a rack. He fumbled with the lock, then jumped on and cycled out through the main gate, under the rooms where Samuel Johnson had lived when he was a student there. It was a quick ride through the streets of Oxford, past the Carfax Tower and the Bodleian Library, darting along the cobblestones between cars and pedestrians, until he reached Mansfield Road, and then the Chemistry Research Laboratory. He had visited there once, months before, so he knew where the spectrometer Philip used was kept. He burst in the door of the lab to see his friend hard at work on the parchment. “Sleep late, did you?” Philip asked, without looking up. “I wondered how long it would take you to get here.” “You stole that!” Philip looked up. “I did not,” he said indignantly. “I wanted to get a head start on it.” Danny suddenly felt stupid. He was sweaty and his heart was racing. Of course his friend was curious—he was a graduate student just like Danny. A discovery like this might make his name as well. He might get a publishable paper out of it. He blew out a long breath. “What have you found?” “You have no idea how old this is, do you?” Danny shook his head. “The more I analyze, the more data points I’ll have and the closer I’ll get.” He looked up. “But as long as the dating of the ink matches, I’d say you’ve got yourself a real find. The middle section of this parchment dates somewhere between the fourth and the sixth century BC.”

7: Mercedes: Liam When Liam got home from his meeting with Louis, Aidan was in the garden tending the raised beds with Thierry, their next-door neighbor. Hayam rested on her side, her short legs outstretched, on one of the cool gray tiles in the shade. With the older man’s help, Aidan had developed into a serious gardener, raising heirloom varieties of tomatoes, sweet baby lettuce the size of a fist, and miniature cucumbers. Two large clay jars held strawberries. They had planted a row of fig trees along one side of the house, growing over trellises, but Aidan had notified him that it might be eight to ten years before they bore fruit. At the time, Liam had accepted that, because where else would they go? Now, looking at the trees, which were putting all their energy into growing roots, Liam was angry at them, as if they were holding him and Aidan back from a life of adventure. He took a deep breath. It wasn’t the fig trees’ fault. And they still did have the chance to travel now and then; since landing in Banneret they had been to Corsica, Turkey, New Jersey, the Bahamas—even spent a wintry week or so in Chechnya. Not exactly on most tourists’ bucket list. Never to Ethiopia or Tigray. Not that he’d want to visit either. As a SEAL he’d been to Djibouti for a covert mission across the Bab al-Mandab Strait to Perim Island, owned by Yemen, where intelligence had noted a buildup of arms that might disturb shipping crossing from the Gulf of Aden into the Red Sea. He’d never discussed that mission with Aidan, or with Louis for that matter. So he couldn’t criticize Louis for keeping government secrets from Hassan. Although that mission was twenty years in the past, and Louis was probably on his way to the airport in Nice, putting himself into danger. But that was what they did, wasn’t it? He and Aidan and Louis. The only difference was that Aidan knew every detail of current missions, every chance where something could go wrong, and also shared in the triumph when everything went well.

Hassan, on the other hand, lived in blissful ignorance. Then Liam bumped into the dining room table and stopped. Maybe Hassan did know, and Louis didn’t want to share that information with Aidan and Liam. The more people who knew a secret, the more chance it would be spilled. He looked outside. The only person he knew very well in this world was Aidan Greene. And even in their relationship, they each held back something, Liam refused to mention his occasional aches and pains to Aidan, who would encourage him to see a doctor, fret over him climbing ladders. While Aidan was occupied, Liam decided to go for a run. That would clear his head, help him revel in what his body could still do. He changed quickly, and was out the front door while Aidan was still examining the drip-line irrigation in the beds. He stretched, and then took off at a slow trot down the driveway. As he reached the road, he went into a sprint, then alternated jogging and sprinting until he reached the center of Banneret, where the Mercedes dealer sat on a corner, its large windows full of beautiful, shining cars. And there, in pride of place, was the C-Class Cabriolet, in brilliant red with a black fabric top. He longed to stop and run his hands over the sleek side s, the LED headlamps. He had nearly memorized the statistics from the website: its engine unleashed up to 255 horsepower, thanks to a twin-scroll turbo and camtronic valve adjustment. He could close his eyes and see the car nimbly taking the curves of the alpine foothills, Aidan beside him as they roared under the sunshine. The price, in bright red letters on the window, always stopped him. 64,470 euros. Close to eighty thousand dollars when you factored in all the taxes and dealer prep charges. He could feel it slip through his fingers like the well-worn rocks he’d struggled to grasp in SEAL training. So he ran on. When he got home, he was exhausted, every muscle and sinew in his body making itself felt. A hot shower eased his muscles, but his brain didn’t relax until he walked out into the living room, a towel over his head, and saw Aidan sitting there. “Liam! We have company. Put some clothes on, for Christ’s sake.”

“I am not company,” Thierry said. “And an old man like me can still enjoy the perfection of the male nude.” “He’s not perfect,” Aidan said dryly. “Look at that scar on his right leg.” “I prefer to look a little bit higher,” Thierry said. Liam shifted the towel from his head to his waist, and Thierry sighed. “Do you know, when Slava looks down to pee, he cannot see his penis? There is too much fat in the way.” “Too much information,” Aidan said. “Merely an observation. You know I love every inch of him.” Thierry closed his eyes for a moment, and Liam imagined Thierry worshipping at his husband’s most likely oversized cock. Slava was a big man, and in Liam’s experience… His cock stiffened beneath the towel. “I’ll get dressed,” he said, and when he returned a few minutes later Thierry was gone. “Did you enjoy the performance?” Aidan said, his smile wide. Aidan had often called him an exhibitionist. And why the hell not, when he had a body like his? Thierry’s appreciative gaze was enough to banish his depressing thoughts, at least for a while. After all, he still had his body and he had Aidan. Aidan’s body was much less muscular than his, but he could sure as hell look down and see his cock, which was Liam’s for the asking. Which he planned to go down on very soon. And he had an idea how he could get that Mercedes, too.

8: First Chapter: Danny Danny was full of nerves for the three days of intense analysis that it took Philip to confirm his thoughts about the manuscript. Then Philip had to involve his tutor, who reviewed his results and looked at several sections of parchment himself with the spectrometer, to confirm Philip’s findings. The Friday after he had handed the scroll over to Philip, Danny met him at the White Horse Pub, halfway between their two colleges. “First things first,” Philip said, when he walked in and found Danny waiting for him. “I’ll have a pint of real ale. On you.” Danny ordered the pints and brought them to Philip, who sat in a sheltered booth at the rear. The wood around them was scrawled with centuries’ worth of initials —though none of them were as old as the scroll in the leather case, which Philip had brought with him, and left on the wooden bench beside him to protect it from spilled ale. “So,” Philip began. “This is not one continuous scroll. Instead, it’s composed of four sections, sewn together with thread made of animal veins.” Danny nodded eagerly. “How old?” “The oldest and smallest section, in the middle, dates from the fifth century BC.” Danny wasn’t going to argue with him over the semantics of BC, used by nonJews to mean Before Christ, versus BCE, used by Jews as an abbreviation for Before the Common Era. They both meant the same thing – that as Danny had guessed, at least part of the scroll had been written before the destruction of the Second Temple. The fact that someone had preserved it, and then within another century created a new scroll using it, gave it additional authenticity as coming from the time of the Kingdom of Judah in Jerusalem, before its destruction by the NeoBabylonian Empire. “The first section was written about a hundred years later,” Philip continued.

“And some more bits were added at the end another two hundred years after that.” “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Danny asked. “It most certainly is. My tutor says it’s the oldest material he’s ever looked at. He wants me to write up my notes for a journal article, and then he’ll check it over for me.” Publication was the goal of anyone in a graduate program at Oxford. Having an article published in a peer-reviewed journal stood out on an academic resume and made it easier to get a job after graduation. “You should be buying me beer, not the other way around,” Danny said. “You’ll get your publication out of this, I’m sure. How are you going to decipher it?” “I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure it was written in ancient Aramaic, and I’ve only had one class in that. I’m going to need to find someone to help me.” “Well, Oxford is the place for that. It must be teeming with Bible scholars.” “Not as many as you’d think. The Oriental Studies department is small, compared to one like chemistry. But I’ll figure something out.” He lifted his glass to toast Philip. “To publication for both of us.” “You think this is a Torah scroll?” Philip asked, after the toast. “Can’t be the full five books of the Pentateuch,” Danny said. “It’s too short for that. A full Sefer Torah contains 304,805 letters.” “That precise?” Danny nodded. “It requires a ton of training to be a Sofer Setam, the kind of scribe who is qualified to write a new Torah scroll. The name comes from the initials of the three things the person is qualified to write: a Sefer Torah, tefillin, and mezuzot.”

“I know that a mezuzah is that case you put by your door, which has a scroll inside, right?” “Two verses from Deuteronomy. And tefillin is similar; there are two chunks from Exodus and two from Deuteronomy inside, basically the commands to wear those words between the hands and the eyes.” “Tefillin are those things the Orthodox Jews wrap around their arms?” Philip asked. “Yup. One leather box on the upper arm, the other on the forehead, all connected with strings.” “The things you learn in graduate school,” Philip said. “I’ve seen the Chabad guys on the street with those strings but I never stopped because I’m not Jewish.” “Believe me, you’re not missing anything. My father has a really old set from when he was a boy, but I’ve never seen him wear them.” “We’re wandering from the point,” Philip said. “Do you think this scroll was written by one of those Sofer Setam?” “Back in the day, yeah. Of course there are still contemporary people making new Torahs and scrolls.” “There are?” Danny nodded. “You pretty much have to be a rabbi to do it, because you have to be familiar with over 4,000 Jewish laws. And after you finish the manuscript you have to proofread carefully, because even a single missing, damaged or misshapen letter invalidates the entire scroll.” “Jesus,” Philip said. “All that work and you have to throw it away if you make one mistake?” “Well, sometimes you can fix letters with a razor blade, apparently.” Philip lifted his glass. “Here’s a toast to all those scholars who have it even harder than we do.”

Danny toasted. “It was probably even worse when this scroll was written. Today you just have to copy an existing scroll, letter for letter. But back then, rabbis were still arguing over everything. In Sunday school, I was taught that the Bible is the word of God, transcribed by Moses and presented to the Jewish people. As I got older, I learned that rabbis have spent centuries arguing over the meaning of even the least word.” He took a deep breath. “Imagine if the guy who wrote this out was debating the meaning of words or phrases with the scholars in the Second Temple. He could have been codifying the laws and the tenets of Moses as he inscribed them. It’s astonishing to think we could hold this scroll in our hands now. And that we’re still debating these words and meanings centuries later.” They talked excitedly about the manuscript, about publishing their findings, and about what that would mean for both of them. Philip had no interest in teaching —he wanted to be able to continue to do research in chemistry, particularly in spectroscopy. “A paper before I even graduate will give me a real leg up in the job market,” he said. “I’m beginning to worry that I don’t know what I want to do after graduate school,” Danny said. “I love the pure scholarship involved in research and translation, but there are hardly any jobs in that worldwide. I really enjoyed my classes in Jewish history and culture at Brandeis, so I came here with the idea that I’d be buying myself some time for travel and pure research before getting a PhD and a teaching job. But the more I talk to other students in my program the more worried I am that I’ll end up teaching endless sections of introduction to religion at some big land-grant university in the Midwest.” “Too bad there aren’t real life guys like Indiana Jones, traveling around the world as a big-time expert in ancient documents,” Philip said. “I can totally see you with a fedora and a whip.” “Don’t tempt me,” Danny said, but he didn’t mention that he already owned the fedora. He ordered another round of real ale, and they spent the next hour drinking and swapping stories. Saturday morning, Danny set up his workstation at his desk. To one side he had his copy of the Aramaic Hebrew English dictionary of the Babylonian Talmud, and a concordance, a list of all the words in the Bible referenced to the phrase

each was used in. To the other side he had his laptop open; it was usually quicker to use the online versions of those books to look up words, but he liked having the physical books there, too. He pulled on a pair of blue gloves and picked the scroll up carefully. Then he unrolled it so that the first full page of the oldest scroll was visible, and he touched the very edge of the parchment. How had this scroll traveled, over centuries, to reach him? He closed his eyes and imagined a Sofer Setam laboriously bent over his work in a back chamber of the Second Temple. He began to read, the way he had been taught, finding words he understood and then using the dictionary, or the concordance, to fill in the gaps between them. From the first few words of the scroll, he had the idea that it was a version of the Book of Leviticus, and he pulled up as many different versions of that as he could find in different iterations of his web browser. He looked at the first words, which matched what most translators read as “The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tabernacle.” That matched the introduction to Leviticus, the third book of the Old Testament. Often translators called the place where God spoke from “the tent of meeting,” or “the tabernacle” but from his research, Danny understood that tabernacle’s clearest meaning meant residence or dwelling place. In the period of the Exodus, the Jews carried with them a construction of wooden boards and curtains which held the Ark of the Covenant, and so previous translators used tabernacle to mean the portable earthly dwelling place of Yahweh. But the inner sanctuary of the tabernacle, called the Holy of Holies, was where God would have spoken from, so Danny decided to use that term. Leviticus was believed to be mostly written as the word of God transferred to Moses, and concerned ritual, legal and moral practices rather than beliefs. God wanted to create a cohesive people of the Jews, and wanted them to know exactly how He expected them to behave. It had developed over a long period of time, reaching its present form during the Persian Period between 538-332 BCE. That meant that the scroll Danny had before him was one of the earliest versions of the text. His hand shook as he hovered over the parchment.

Over the next week and half, he began to translate the scroll, in the time between reading textbooks and studying Hebrew. On a Friday night two weeks after he met Philip at the pub, he was startled by a rap on his door. “Just a minute,” he called. Quickly, he wrapped up the scroll and replaced it in its leather case. “Don’t go getting dressed on my ,” the voice called, and with a breath of relief Danny recognized it as Philip’s. He still pulled on a T-shirt before he opened the door. He didn’t want Philip to think he could stop by any time for sex—the last couple of times they’d met had ended in bed, and Danny couldn’t get over the uncomfortable sense that he was using Philip—giving him sex in exchange for help with the manuscript—when he didn’t have any romantic feelings for him. He opened the door and Philip held up a pair of bottles of Newcastle Brown. Newky Brown, he called it, and Danny would drink it, though it was far from his favorite. “Fancy a pint?” “Come on in,” Danny said. “I was working on the scroll and I had to put it away quickly.” “Have you figured out what’s in it?” “I think it’s the book of Leviticus. Third one in the Old Testament.” “Isn’t that the one that has all the bans on man-on-man sex?” He popped the cap on one bottle and handed it to Danny. “Yeah. There’s a bit in Genesis, when the angels come to Sodom, and the men of the town want to fuck them, and God isn’t happy about that. But there’s some dispute over whether God was specifically talking about gay sex there, or just treating your guests properly.” Philip leered. “Depends on what your guests want from you.” Danny pushed his shoulder. “Get on, you. The only other place in the Old Testament that comes anywhere close to dealing with gay sex is two chunks of

Leviticus.” “Have you looked at those parts in your scroll yet?” “I’ve barely got started. First chapter is all.” “If I were you, I’d jump right to the juicy part.” He reached over and stroked Danny’s thigh. “But that’s me, mate.” Danny debated pushing Philip’s hand away. But Philip had been helpful so far, and he was kind of cute, with that flop of hair over his forehead like a student version of Hugh Grant, who had always pushed Danny’s buttons. So when he moved Philip’s hand, it was up closer to his crotch, and then he put aside his beer and leaned forward. Better to have it on with Philip before getting to those buzz-kill verses against gay sex, right? At least that’s what he told himself.

9: Verse 21: Danny The next morning, Danny woke clear-headed, having only consumed half his beer before he and Philip got frisky. He had time before his Ancient Aramaic seminar met, so he pulled out the scroll. The sections were not numbered, but he had figured out that there was an extra line in the manuscript between chapters. He counted down to what he thought was the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus, the one where the famous “lie with a man as with a woman” section came. He checked the way that chapter began. Once again, the Lord was speaking to Moses. However, several chapters began that way, so Danny skimmed ahead, and when he recognized the words for Egypt and Canaan, he thought he was on the right track. Then he skipped forward until the word “Molek” jumped out at him. He flipped open one of his reference books and searched for that term. It appeared five times in Leviticus and was thought to reference a deity of the Ammonites, a tribe in sporadic conflict with the Hebrews. Yes! He pumped his fist. He was in the right place. The first mention of Molek in Leviticus was in verse 21—right before the one he was looking for. However, he was confused. The next verse, according to his version of the Bible, should have been a short one: Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is an abomination. Yet the verse he saw in front of him was much longer. What was going on? He opened his laptop and began to type. The first few words were easy; they were repeated often in the book, a general prohibition. Then, knowing what should come next, he matched word to word. He got as far as the semi-colon in the English, and then the words became unfamiliar. He skipped over them until he came to the last word, which he recognized as one that was regularly translated as abomination or sin. So he was in the right place. But there was something extra in the verse,

something that had not made it into the King James or any other translated version of Leviticus. What was it? He glanced at the clock. If he hurried, he could make it to his seminar in time. He looked at the scroll, then his computer screen. What to do? Stay there and fiddle with the unfamiliar words in the text, fall down the rabbit hole of research? Or go to the class that he’d come to Oxford for, that he had paid for, that he was ionate about? With a sigh, he closed his laptop, put away the scroll, and hurried to class. Language classes, like his in Ancient Aramaic, met regularly and were often a combination of lectures and practical work. The Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies was in the Clarendon Institute on Walton Street, only a five-minute bike ride from Pembroke College. That is, when the streets moved smoothly. Unfortunately, Oxford was usually clogged with a combination of tourists, locals and students. The first group moved slowly, stopping to take pictures of sights Danny had come to take for granted, like the Carfax Tower, all that remained of a 13th century church. A cluster of Asian tourists blocked his way as he tried to turn left onto Queen Street, and he had to ring his bell several times and step his bike through the crowd. Traffic eased as he rushed past the shallow green lawn in front of St. Peter’s College. Then he zigzagged his way until he reached the brick-fronted institute, with its oriel windows, masonry decoration, and Dutch-style gabled roof. That day’s seminar was a disappointment, though. Caswell barely greeted them, then handed out worksheets where they had to identify which consonants were ejective, formed with the upper vocal tract, and which were pharyngealized, created by constricting the pharynx. It was deadly dull and seemed completely irrelevant, since no one spoke those languages anymore. He fidgeted over the worksheet, regretting his choice to come to class instead of staying in his room with the scroll. As soon as Caswell dismissed them, he jumped on his bike and hurried back there, opening the scroll to the place where he’d stopped. He worked on the individual words, and then on the phrase, trying different English choices and looking for connotation. What he finally came up with, at

two o’clock in the morning, was this: “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman unless it is to create a blessing for the people; when it follows only lust, it is an abomination.” That interjection changed the whole meaning of the verse, though. What did it mean to create a blessing for the people via a sexual act? Certainly one could argue that the creation of new life via conjugal sex was “a blessing for the people.” But same-sex intercourse couldn’t make a child. What other kind of blessing could it mean? He had ed a number of online communities that studied Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and medieval Jewish history—always under a pseudonym, though, and using an email address he had created for that purpose. He was still a student, and he didn’t want something indiscreet or incorrect that he wrote or posted to come back to haunt him when he was ready to apply for jobs. There was a subreddit, a collection of forums online under the Reddit umbrella, for Academic Biblical study, and he logged in there, using the jew_24 ID he had used in the past. He used his phone to take a photograph of the verse in question, and then posted that picture along with his interpretation of the phrase. He wanted to know if other scholars agreed with his translation, and if anyone out there in cyberspace had an idea of what a blessing for the people meant in this case. Then he went to sleep. By the time he checked the subreddit in the morning, his comment had blown up. Dozens of people, mostly conservative Christians, had posted to deplore him for trying to change the word of God. He was accused of being a heretic, a betrayer and an apostate. One even called him a withersake, which he found defined as a “perfidious renegade.” Only a few people suggested what “a blessing for the people” might mean. Most of them felt that in a time when the Jews were not at war with other tribes, there might be a surplus of men. In that case, men coupling together would be a blessing, because they would not be encouraged to fight for the available women.

“Cain’s son Lamech had two wives,” one commenter wrote. “So did Moses, and Samuel’s father Elkanah. Gideon had multiple wives, and King David had eight. To avoid jealousy and rivalry, the men who could not find wives might find it a ‘blessing’ to live with another man instead.” Danny sat back in his chair. He was aware of men in the Bible who had multiple wives, or at least taken multiple women to bed, and were still considered righteous. Look no further back than Abraham and Sarah. When Sarah couldn’t conceive a child, Abraham slept with her handmaiden, Hagar, and fathered Ishmael. If that kind of behavior was okay, why not let men couple? Where had this Biblical prohibition come from – and why had it survived over the centuries? One of the politest responses came from a scholar whose name was Mehdi ibn Habib, a retired professor at the University of Tunis. He suggested that perhaps the scholar who wrote, or transcribed, that age, was gay himself, and he sought to insert his own views, in the hopes that his scroll would survive him, and influence others. It was quite possible that the scribe of this scroll was an outlier. Perhaps, like the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, he was a member of an all-male religious group. Because the group had no children, their ideas had died out with them. He answered the commenters who had made positive suggestions and ignored the rest. Then he went back to his studies. The subreddit thread kept going for a week or more, degenerating into namecalling and gay slurs. No one had any real idea what “a blessing for the people” meant in conjunction with the proscription against men lying with men, and after all, it was only one phrase in a whole scroll. Several of the bigots quoted Genesis 19. “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.” The one that really frightened him, though, was the one who added, “Desist in your apostasy, or your actions will rain fire and brimstone on you, your college, and the streets of Oxford.”

His heart began to race, and he sat back in his chair. He had never identified himself on the forums as a student at Oxford. How could they know? Could they track him to Pembroke College, to his very room? He quickly closed the Reddit window, and then cleared the cache on his computer. He turned off the overhead light and stared out the window into the darkened quad. A few shady figures moved quickly along the paths. Students coming home from a late study session? Or someone showing him how easy it was to slip past the bowler-hatted porter who sat just inside the massive wooden doors on Pembroke Square? He sat there in the dark, shivering and watching out the window, until there was no more movement in the quad.

10: Midlife Crisis: Aidan “You did what?” Aidan asked. “You took another job without asking me?” They were finishing dinner on the first warm evening in April, sitting at the table in the back yard, facing the foothills of the Alpes-Maritimes. The setting sun cast its rays on those hills, illuminating every crack and crag and casting deep shadows. “It’s not full-time,” Liam protested. “Just a few hours here and there. If we get any work from the Agence, I’ll adjust my hours.” Aidan lifted his wine glass and took a long drink. The pink Côtes de Provence glittered in the light. “You’ve never had any interest in teaching before. What brought this on?” “I need to keep active, Aidan. I’m getting bored with working out on my own. I could the gym and work out there, but I know from my experience in the Navy, I can’t help correcting what other guys are doing. If they’re not lifting properly, or if they’re putting too much emphasis on one body part. So why not get paid for that?” “So you’d be what, a personal trainer?” “Something like that. If I want to do it professionally I’d have to get trained and certified. But Bruno has more clients who need personal attention than he can handle right now, so he’s willing to mentor me for a while.” Aidan frowned. “Bruno?” “Bruno Geiger. He owns the gym. He’s Swiss-German, kind of a fanatic when it comes to working out.” “You and he should get along just fine, then.” Aidan had experienced Liam’s fanaticism firsthand. It was why he did his own training, on his own time, rather than ing his husband each morning. Lately Liam had become a lot more obsessed with his body, worrying about losing

muscle tone in his biceps, about an extra inch of fat around his waist. Sometimes it was cute, such a well-built man worrying about small details. Other times it was annoying. If Aidan baked a cake, he wanted Liam to enjoy a slice, not suggest they give it away to the neighbors. If they went out to a restaurant that made a fabulous chocolate raspberry torte, then Aidan wanted a piece, and he didn’t appreciate Liam telling him he didn’t need it. Well, actually Liam said that neither of them needed it, but it was the same thing. Liam began work at the CFB, the Centre Fitness de Banneret, the next morning, after his own workout in their back yard. Aidan was left alone in the house with Hayam and sat on the sofa with the dog in his lap. “What’s up with your daddy?” he asked, and the dog turned her lion face up to him. “He’s not behaving normally.” The dog had no answer, so Aidan picked up his laptop and tried to read the latest online edition of The Circuit Magazine, a publication for security and protection specialists, but he couldn’t concentrate on a case study of a kidnapping in London, or one on bodyguards in Kabul during the time of the Taliban. Instead he put the laptop down, clipped Hayam’s leash, and walked next door. “Perfect timing,” Thierry said, as he opened the door. “I have a tray of sugar cookies in the oven ready to come out in a few minutes. I’ll make tea.” His neighbor had such a warm personality that Aidan was endlessly grateful they had chosen to make their home in Banneret. Thierry was a trim man in his fifties, with perfectly groomed black hair that showed only a hint of gray. When they moved in, he had been in perpetual mourning for his late partner, but after Aidan and Liam had introduced him to the man they were protecting at the time, Russian oligarch Slava Vishinev, he had perked up. He and Slava had fallen in love, and Slava had moved into the house with Thierry, remodeling it and enlarging Thierry’s beloved gardens. “Where’s Slava?” Aidan asked. “He’s in Rome for a few days. Arseny screwed something up in his business and Papa has flown to the rescue.” Slava’s son Arseny was in his late twenties, struggling to emulate his father as a

successful businessman, and yet perennially falling short because his enthusiasm often overwhelmed his abilities. He lived in Rome with his boyfriend Giovanni, an officer in the Guardia di Finanza who loved and tolerated him, and Slava made regular visits, sometimes with Thierry and sometimes not. “You didn’t want to go? Seen enough of the Coliseum and the Spanish Steps?” “I put in a new line of roses the other day. I want to keep an eye on them for a while. Plus it’s good for a couple to spend some time apart. Too much Slava can be a little wearing, even for someone as even-tempered as I am.” That was true, Aidan thought, as Thierry served the tea. The kitchen already smelled like sugar and chocolate, and Aidan’s mouth watered. Slava was boisterous and loud and loved his vodka, while Thierry was quiet and mildmannered. “You and Liam, on the other hand, usually you work well together,” Thierry said, as he settled across from Aidan. He picked up his tea and sipped. “What is bothering you today?” “How can you tell?” “I have a sense for unhappiness. Perhaps because I lived with it so long myself before I found Slava.” “I’m worried about Liam,” Aidan said. Suddenly all his fears came together and rushed out of his mouth. “We don’t have sex that often anymore, and lately he’s been paying more attention to men on TV and online, bodybuilders and cute young twinks. And he took a job at the gym in Banneret without telling me. What if he’s having an affair?” “Oh, mon cher, I doubt that is happening. I see the way he still looks at you.” He sipped his tea. “Has he said anything about a sports car?” Aidan put his cup down with a clatter. “How did you know? He’s obsessed with this Mercedes convertible he saw at the dealer in Banneret. He talks about it every day.” Thierry stood up and grabbed a bright red oven mitt spangled with white polka dots and opened the oven door. The aroma of fresh-baked cookies filled the

kitchen as he deftly slid the tray out and placed it on the stove top. Then he fanned the cookies with the mitt. “What you are seeing, mon cher, is a mid-life crisis. It all makes sense, non? The obsession with physical fitness and the bodies of others, the desire for a new interest, even the sports car. Is it red?” Aidan’s eyes widened. “It is.” Suddenly it all made sense. “But how do I hold on to him? I don’t want him to meet some cute new guy at the gym and leave me.” “You don’t have to worry about that,” Thierry said, leaning against the counter. “That man loves you like no other. But maybe you can meet him halfway? Try something new yourself, and involve him? He just wants a change of pace, not a change of face.” He expertly slid a pair of lacy sugar cookies onto a plate and handed it to Aidan, and took a pair for himself. Then he sat down across from Aidan again. “You both like to hike, don’t you? Why don’t you pick a new place to explore, the two of you, this weekend?” “You think that will make a difference?” “I think anything you can do together, that breaks up your routine, will be good for you. When was the last time you traveled together?” “We went to Chicago in January. Our friend Joey’s fiancée was kidnapped and we had to find her.” “But you have not had any dangerous cases since then? A man like your husband needs constant danger to keep him going.” Constant danger. It reminded him of the song by k.d. lang, “Constant Craving.” Liam had a craving for danger, all right. It was like he was most alive when he was protecting someone. And there had been little of that since saving Cathy Beth. A series of businessmen and women who needed to be guarded during meetings, and wealthy shoppers like Madame de Jong. “Maybe you can distract him,” Thierry said. “And I don’t mean sex. Even for the

best of us, it is over quickly. A long hike, rough territory—you simulate those conditions that make your husband feel alive.” Aidan picked up a cookie, still warm from the oven, and fanned it to cool it down, then bit a piece off. “These are delicious, Thierry.” He tasted the sugar and vanilla on his tongue. “And your advice is good, too. I’ll plan a hike for this weekend.”

11: Fun with Ancient Aramaic: Danny As Danny walked out of his Ancient Aramaic class the day after the Reddit explosion, he checked his phone, and there were fifty new notifications from that morning alone. His right leg faltered on a cobblestone and his body sagged. “Hey, you okay?” An arm wrapped around his shoulder and steadied him. He looked over to see the arm belonged to Noah Schneider, a red-haired American from his seminar. Danny stood up straighter and Noah removed his arm. “Yeah, I’m good, just got some weird notifications on my phone.” On impulse he asked, “You ever go onto any of the Reddit forums?” “Dude, I practically live there,” Noah said. “It’s one of the requirements for my Modern Middle Eastern studies program. Pick a social media forum and analyze the attitudes of those in and out of the Arab world. What forum are you on?” “The academic Biblical one. You aren’t there?” Noah shook his head. “This Aramaic class is just a detour for me because I demonstrated proficiency in Arabic and Hebrew when I applied here. When I was a kid, my family did an ulpan course together, learning Hebrew before we went to Israel, where I had my bar mitzvah, at the Wailing Wall. After that I started tutoring kids who were having trouble in Hebrew School. Once I got fluent, I switched over to Arabic. I’m also doing the Global Opportunities & Threats program with a view to heading to Wall Street and managing investments in the Middle East.” “Wow. I wish I knew so clearly what I want.” “You want to get a coffee and talk?” Danny’s pulse raced with gratitude. “That would be great. I made a post on Reddit a week ago and it’s blown up into something like a global threat. Maybe you can help me with that.”

A young woman in a black academic gown, her mortarboard clasped under her right arm, sped by on a bicycle, probably on her way to a major public lecture where such attire was required. Danny had bought his regalia when he arrived in Oxford, and had been required to wear it at college collections -- the exams at the start of -- to a couple of lectures and a few formal dinners in the massive dining hall at Pembroke. He and Noah walked through a stone arch, down a few steps, and into a lively courtyard strung with the flags of all the Oxford colleges. They ordered coffees at the counter and took them out to a table in the corner, under a trellis of roses. Danny gave Noah a precis of how he’d gotten the scroll and what he’d translated. “Dude, it’s like you shot a salvo into the world of Biblical scholars,” Noah said, shaking his head. “Of course you’re going to get a response. I’ve seen people get apoplectic over minor boundaries. I did a paper last year on the Al Buraimi oasis, where Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Oman have been arguing about oil and gas rights since the nineteenth century, and my research was scary. I had to use a super-strength VPN any time I did anything online.” He looked at Danny. “I guess you didn’t.” Danny shook his head. “I had no idea people would get so upset.” “Let’s see, you took an ancient Biblical prohibition against gay sex, and turned it upside down into a blessing. You didn’t think that would upset a few apple carts?” “But it’s just a dumb social forum online,” Danny protested. “It’s not like I went before the National Association of Evangelicals or something.” “Where do you think those people hang out when they’re not preaching? And where do you think they get their ideas?” “Shit. What do you think I should do?” Noah gave him a list. Delete his old identity. Create a new one with a completely different name, and only access the forum through a strong VPN that would mask his location, IP address, and other relevant factors. “And most important, think before you write,” Noah said. “A professor drilled this into us last term. Write out what you want to post, and then put it aside. Come back to it twenty-

four hours later, after your emotions have cooled down. You’ll be a lot safer that way.” Danny nodded. “I can see why you’re aiming for business. That’s very logical.” “I majored in history at Yale, focused on the history of the Arab world. Spent summers in Morocco and Tunisia studying Arabic. Thought I was going to get my PhD and become a professor.” That sounded pretty close to what Danny wanted. “And?” “And I realized there aren’t many universities like Yale where a professor can dive into an arcane subject with students. Everyone I talked to said the best I could expect would be a job teaching huge lectures on American and European history, with maybe a seminar every couple of years on the Arab world. And that I’d be working my ass off to publish while struggling through all the prep I’d need to lecture.” He shook his head. “I decided that wasn’t for me. The business world looks a lot more interesting. I’m focusing on the historical basis of oil and gas exploration, the way the Europeans brought the concept of a nation-state to what had been migratory tribes. I plan to use that background to guide multinational companies on how and where to operate, or advise investment funds on the risks and rewards.” “I wish I could pivot like that,” Danny said. “I’m getting less and less interested in that kind of mass teaching myself.” “Who knows, maybe you’ll make a reputation for yourself with this scroll. Get an appointment to some think tank or research center.” “Would be nice,” Danny said. Over the next few weeks, because he had so much schoolwork to do as well as all the time he spent on the scroll, he pushed the subreddit thread out of his mind, though when he did check it he did as Noah had suggested, using a brandnew and a high-quality VPN. Several threads had shot off from the one where he’d originally posted, a couple in which people viciously debated homosexuality and one more civilized one

about the responsibilities of translators in the modern world. He didn’t post anything, but he read everything, always alert for any reference to him or his original post. Philip kept pestering Danny to go out, and one Saturday night he gave in. He dressed in his skinny jeans and a form-fitting designer T-shirt his cousin Daniel had sent him, a giveaway from a photo shoot. He put some product in his hair, slicking it into a casual curl over his forehead. He couldn’t help the strut in his gait as he walked up St. Aldate’s to the Carfax Tower, where his bank had a branch with a walk-up ATM. The area, in the center of Oxford, buzzed on a Saturday night with well-dressed couples on their way home from dinner at expensive restaurants, and teens from neighboring towns out for a bit of fun. Cash in hand, he turned down Queen Street, feeling the history that oozed from those ancient buildings, and how the ones there and on New Inn Hall Street clashed with the modern order of everyone on cell phones. As he neared the bus station, the crowd shifted to those returning from an evening of dinner and theatre in London. They were often older couples, people who looked like they taught or worked behind the scenes at the college. The men wore jackets and ties and the women little black dresses with a single statement necklace, the kind designed to draw attention to the throat. As befit an academic community, they ranged from chunky pendants of colored stone to African designs to a single drop of pearl or diamond. As he got close to his destination, a gay bar called The Boys’ School, the crowd shifted again to young and not-so-young men in tight clothes. Muscles, tattoos, and pushed up packages were evident everywhere, and male pheromones drifted past on the light breeze. The bar’s name was a veiled reference to the casual homosexuality that went on in a boys’ boarding school in England. Philip had gone to one of those, after transferring from his local school in Manchester, where he was reviled for gay mannerisms. In boarding school, however, he was welcomed. He had learned to give a great blow job, been snogged in isolated hallways, even dropped his tros and bent over for special boys who brought him expensive chocolate. It had been, he said, a wonderful experience.

Danny envied him that. His own high school experiences had been fitful and secretive, and it was only when he arrived at Brandeis and ed Shalem, the gay student group, that he’d met his first boyfriend and began to embrace his sexuality. “You look like shite, Danny. Getting enough sleep?” Philip said as he embraced him. Then he grinned. “Too much nooky?” “No, too much work. My Ancient Aramaic class is bogged down in linguistics right now. I hate all this crap about vocalization. It’s not like we’re going to meet someone and have a chat.” “You signed up for this class.” “I know. But I thought it was going to be more about the manuscripts that people have found in that language, and how to translate them.” “Well, you have your own scroll for that.” They pushed forward toward the bar, where there was a crush of handsome male bodies. Danny’s cock began to unfurl and he thought it was a good idea to come out tonight, even if he went home alone—or with Philip. The bar was crowded and noisy, and Danny envied Oxford students, who could drink at eighteen. He wished there had been this kind of convivial bar atmosphere when he was in college. “And what about your scroll?” Philip asked, as they inched forward toward the bartender, who seemed to be busy showing off by making fancy drinks rather than quickly pulling pints. “Making any progress there?” Danny groaned. “Oy. It’s incredibly time-consuming to decipher. I get caught up on a single word, and spend hours with my Aramaic text and searching online for the right meaning. I’m tempted to use the simplest translation but every now and then I find a word with a couple of different shades to it, and I go back and forth between which English word to use.” “For example?” “In Aramaic, there’s a word pronounced D'Kho eA. At least we think that’s the

way it was pronounced, since there aren’t a whole lot of native speakers of ancient Aramaic to tell us. It means sin. But there are a whole lot of shadings of the word sin—sin against God, sin against nature, sin against man. Which one did they mean? Should I use “sin” in my translation? Or abomination, or transgression?” “I’ll leave those problems to you. I like simple results. Chemical reactions that are predictable.” They finally made it to the bar and ordered their pints from the heavily tattooed bartender. The first set went down easily, and when Philip saw a group of men he knew, he and Danny ed them on the dance floor. They drank another round, and Danny and Philip even snogged for a bit in the corner of the room. But Danny’s heart wasn’t in it. He was worried about the scroll, and his exam in Biblical Hebrew. All he wanted to do was go back to his room and make sure the scroll was safe. He had left it on his study table, hadn’t he? The lock on his door was a crappy one, easily beaten by a stiff credit card. So anyone who broke in would see it right there. Suddenly he had to get out. Not only was the scroll a precious relic of his religious patrimony, he realized it was the key to his future. If there was anything new or interesting buried under layers of ancient Aramaic, and he could find it and translate it, he’d have a project for a DPhil, and then leverage that into a book, and a position in a Jewish think tank. There were at least a dozen people in Oxford who’d easily snatch away his scroll and use it for their own advancement. The streets of Oxford were filled with studious Americans with Marshall or Fulbright Scholarships, outstanding students from developing nations, as well the UK’s best and brightest. He had always thought the Rhodes scholarship was the most prestigious, but the athletic requirement led many at Oxford to think of them as dumb jocks. Then there were those on the Academic Biblical subreddit. Many of them would have been delighted to get their hands on the scroll, either to push forward their own ideas or hide the new debate that might arise. Though he hadn’t answered anyone for weeks, the occasional threat still popped up connected to his original post. He brushed them off, but couldn’t help worrying. In the far corner, people cheered a darts tournament. Danny drained the last of

his ale. “Back to work,” he said, and stood up. “Oh come on, Danny. It’s Saturday night. Don’t you want to have some fun?” “Fun with Ancient Aramaic,” he said, and walked out. He nearly ran all the way back to Pembroke College, nodding at the porter as he hurried under the gate below Johnson’s rooms. His right hand shook as he tried to insert his key in the lock, and he reached out his left and steadied himself against the door. Relief surged through him when he saw the scroll on the desk. Never again would he be so careless. Before he went to sleep, he moved his desk out a couple of inches from the wall and hid the scroll in its leather case behind it. He stood there for a moment, staring at the desk, and thought the scroll would be safe enough there.

12: Pirate Coast: Danny The following Monday, Danny decided he was ready to show his progress in translation to Oliver Caswell. His first term at Oxford, he’d taken Caswell’s Introduction to Semitic Languages and loved it so much he had signed up for a seminar with Caswell on Introduction to Translation in the Hilary term. Caswell, a legend in the department of Oriental Studies, was a rakish lecturer, occasionally appearing in class in a long-sleeved Arab thobe, similar to a kaftan. Other times he showed up in a leather jacket and jeans, with his shoulder-length white hair pulled back into a ponytail. He entertained the class with tales of his field research in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He had been sponsored for a year in Ras Al Khaimah by the sheik, and he told stories of 18th century pirates and the formation of the UAE in the 1970s. He had helped with a series of digs on the Saraya Islands, in the Emirate’s north, which had uncovered cargo from trading ships beset by pirates. He had taken charge of all the parchment found at the site and brought it back to Oxford, where he had made his career as its translator. In many ways, Danny’s work in the translation seminar overlapped with his work on the scroll. He learned to look at both the content and the form of what he was translating, and Caswell emphasized his disdain for an ad verbum, or word-for-word translation that paid little attention to the spirit behind the author’s language. He preferred the ad sensum approach, which looked at each phrase, each sentence, each verse (in the case of Biblical work) and tried to render it holistically, aiming for something that was both contemporary and yet redolent of its original language. When Danny was a boy in Hebrew school two afternoons a week, Thursday classes were cut short so students could attend a brief service. Over the course of years he memorized dozens of prayers and hymns, in English and in Hebrew. Back then, the Hebrew meant little to him; it was all in the rhythm of the language. The rolling highs and lows of the Amidah, blessing the patriarchs and the matriarchs with its pauses and emphases, had seeped into his soul.

The English of so many prayers had a majestic tone, ascribing greatness to the author of creation, who had made our portion different from the multitudes. He had been carried along by that language, connecting to the names he learned in Sunday school. Those hours in the high Romanesque sanctuary had made him a Jew. And that attention to language helped him in class. “Translation is an art, not a mere mechanical exercise,” Caswell thundered one day, when a student asked if artificial intelligence could help speed up the pace of translating the ancient manuscripts in Oxford’s Oxyrhynchus collection. Only about two percent of these fragments, found in a rubbish dump in Egypt, had been translated thus far. Caswell was himself a part of the translation team. “It’s true, we estimate that only about ten percent of the material is literary in nature, but that doesn’t mean we throw everything else into the maw of a machine and watch it churn out grocery lists of leeks, pomegranates and beer!” he said, as he strode around the high-ceilinged room where the seminar met, with many-paned windows overlooking Walton Street. “Every piece of parchment deserves to be treated with respect, because every word, or every collection of words, can inform our understanding of how people lived at the time it was written.” It was about a week before the end of Trinity term by then. He had already finished the essay for his tutorial on Medieval Jewish History with Dr. Rebecca Mansour, focusing on the representation of Jews in illuminated manuscripts. Oxford was the perfect place to write such a paper, because of the wealth of original material there, and he spent many hours in the Bodleian Library analyzing and thinking. For his exam in Biblical Hebrew, Danny had been memorizing the differences between the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, the Samaritan, and the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, which gradually displaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet for the Jews after their exile to Babylon. As the days ticked down, he anticipated the pride with which he’d present his scroll to Caswell, the praise that would flow as his lecturer read his beginning translations. He’d get Caswell’s advice on difficult words as well as his scholarly mentorship and advice on where to focus. That would put Danny on track to spend the long summer break working exclusively on the manuscript.

One afternoon he packed two pairs of blue rubber gloves into the lining of the leather case, in case Caswell didn’t have his own, and walked down along the quad to where Caswell had his lodgings, in a separate wing of one ancient building reserved for faculty and visiting scholars. He climbed a circular stair wrapped in polished wood, stepped into a narrow, carpeted hallway. Then he rapped on the door and heard Caswell call, “Enter!” Oliver Caswell had to be in his late sixties by then, but he had the vigor of a much younger man, despite the flow of white hair on his head. “Good afternoon, Mr. Cardozo. Have a seat. What can I do for you?” “I wanted to show you this,” Danny said shyly. He put the leather case on the huge oak desk, withdrew a pair of blue gloves and put them on. Caswell sat back in his armchair with a bemused expression on his face. Danny laid out a large piece of felt he’d bought at the Oxford Covered Market, and placed the scroll on it. Caswell shot forward. “What is this?” “Back at the end of Hilary you suggested I travel somewhere with a souk and look for parchment fragments to translate. I went to Tunis, and then to Houmt Souk on the island of Djerba, where I found this.” “Djerba? The El Ghriba synagogue?” Danny nodded. “I believe this was stored in the genizah there, and then buried. The bits of dirt on the scroll the idea that someone dug up the materials to sell.” “You are a sharp lad, Mr. Cardozo. May I take a look?” Caswell had his own clear rubber gloves, and he pulled them on and then turned the scroll to face him. He opened the first roll carefully, then used a magnifying glass to peer at the letters. “Ancient Aramaic,” he said. “I had a friend at the chemistry lab run it through his spectrometer to get an age.”

Caswell looked up. “And?” “The scroll consists of several different sheets of goat hide. The earliest dates approximately the fifth century BCE.” Caswell nearly dropped the magnifier. “Is he sure?” “He had his tutor the spectrometer results. He analyzed both the parchment and the ink and came up with the same results. Of course, that’s the smallest section. Another part is about a hundred years later, and there are a few other small sections at the end that are two hundred years later than that.” “You realize this is an amazing find,” Caswell said. “That single section could be as old as the Dead Sea Scrolls, or older.” “I have this hypothesis,” Danny said in a rush. “I haven’t got any way to test it. But legend says that when the Jews left Jerusalem, they took a doorway and a stone from the Second Temple with them, and they used them in El Ghriba. What if they also brought scrolls with them, and left them in the ark there? Over the centuries, they would have become too fragile to use, and placed in the genizah.” Caswell couldn’t take his eyes off the scroll. “That’s a fanciful story, and as you said, there isn’t any way to test it. You said there are three parts, correct? Do you know what they cover?” “The fifth century piece appears to be the book of Leviticus,” Danny said. He wasn’t about to reveal the secret that had exploded on Reddit to Caswell, at least not yet. “But I’ve only managed to translate the first fifty verses, and I have lots of questions. In the first verse, where the Lord calls to Moses, I chose to use ‘the Holy of Holies.’ But would you use ‘tent of meeting’ or ‘tabernacle’?” “That’s a minor point we can work out. You said there are other pieces at the beginning and the end, which are newer? What are they?” “The first one, the newest, seems to be an introduction to Leviticus, preparing the reader for what’s to come on the next scroll. I have only glanced at the last pieces and I haven’t figured out what they are yet.” “See, that’s where I can help you,” Caswell said. His voice was soft, almost like

the purring of a cat. “I can spend a few hours on this scroll, in the quiet of my office, and I can quickly discover what it might take you weeks to understand.” “But that’s the learning process,” Danny said. “You’ve said in class that there’s no substitute for getting your hands on a manuscript without any kind of concordance, and discovering the words as they reveal themselves.” “But this could be something extraordinary. A discovery on par with the Dead Sea Scrolls, or Oxyrhynchus. I would author the translation, of course, but with your help, and your name in second place. It could make your career, Mr. Cardozo.” He extended his hand. “Just leave the scroll with me for a while.” There was some undercurrent in Caswell’s speech that Danny didn’t trust. “I can’t leave it with you,” Danny said. “I’m planning to spend the summer term working on it and I don’t want to let go of it. After I finish, I’d be happy to let you take some time with it, and evaluate my translation.” “My boy, you don’t realize how valuable this is. It needs to be in safe keeping.” A gust of wind rattled the ancient glass s in the window behind Caswell, and an oak branch scratched its fingers in an eerie pattern. Danny reached over quickly and grabbed the scroll, too roughly, he knew, but he wanted to make sure he got it back. “I do realize that. And I’ll keep it safe.” His hands were shaking as he rolled the scroll up. “This could be an amazing discovery, Mr. Cardozo. Think of your career!” Think of yours, more likely, Danny thought. He placed the scroll reverently back in its leather case and pulled the case to his lap. “You really don’t know what you’re doing,” Caswell said. “Have you become an expert in ancient Aramaic since our last seminar meeting?” “I’ve been teaching myself. Taking my time with each word. Sometimes the ink is smudged or faded, or there’s a spot of dirt. It’s slow going, but I believe I can do it. Do you have any advice for me? Any particular sources for translation?”

“My advice,” Caswell said, ice in each word, “is to hand over the scroll to someone who knows what to do with it. Me.” Those pirates Caswell had researched, early in his career. They’d taken what they wanted, killing sailors and sinking ships to secure their ration of gold. Danny wasn’t going to be a pirate’s victim. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “I’ll take that into consideration, sir.” Then he walked out, his heart racing.

13: Workouts: Liam Sunday morning Liam came in from his regular workout to find Aidan in the kitchen packing lunches for them. “I thought we’d go for a hike,” he said, as Liam moved to the refrigerator for a fresh bottle of water. “Where?” “Mercantour park. We’ve never been there, and they say it’s a challenging but not overly difficult climb.” Liam thought there was an underlying motive to this decision, but he couldn’t figure it out, so he agreed. It was a gorgeous spring day anyway, cloudless blue skies and a cool breeze coming in from the foothills of the Alps. They opened the front and rear windows of the SUV as they climbed north along local roads. Gradually the palms and cypress of the coast were replaced by maples and birch, and the roads were lined with scree through which tiny blossoms emerged. By the time they reached the hillside town of Saint Martin Vesubie, the temperature had dropped ten degrees and all traces of automobile exhaust and salt water had vanished. “This town was a haven for Jews in World War II,” Aidan said, as they parked. “The Italian army looked the other way and over a thousand Jews were sheltered here, until the Germans moved in. And even then the townspeople protected the Jews and smuggled them over the border into Italy.” “Is that why you wanted to come up here?” Liam asked. “See some history?” “Perhaps. Isn’t it beautiful, though.” “It is.” Coral-tile roofs climbed the hillside to an ancient church with a Romanesque bell tower. They followed signs to a hiking trail and began to ascend. “You’re sure you want to do this?” Liam asked as the trail twisted and steepened.

“It looks like some tough hiking.” “It’s a gorgeous day. And we haven’t challenged ourselves in a while.” Liam was still suspicious of his husband’s motives, but he had to it he liked the landscape and was eager to tackle it. Each turn provided new vistas of larch trees, pasture, and the town below them. When the path became increasingly strewn with rubble, Liam had to stop thinking and focus on climbing, placing each foot carefully, trying to find the best path. They both had hiking sticks and he heard the solid thwack of Aidan’s behind him. It was a different kind of exercise, and Liam recognized that he was out of shape for climbing. They stopped with a gorgeous view below them and ate the picnic lunch Aidan had packed. “Louis got back yesterday from his trip,” Liam said. “Yes, I spoke to Hassan last night. Hassan saw him coming out of the shower and he had some bruises he didn’t want to talk about.” He looked at Liam. “You know anything about those?” “They’ve got a difficult tightrope to walk,” Liam said. “Because Louis is still a spy?” Liam looked at him. Aidan was often more insightful than Liam anticipated, especially when it came to people and their motives. “What makes you say that?” “Liam. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Whenever we need intelligence, he manages to find it for us. He works sporadically, often traveling. He never has a very good reason for where he’s going and he’s often very secretive. Two months ago he told Hassan he was flying to Geneva for a meeting, but he didn’t even take a jacket with him.” “And from that you deduced…” “That he wasn’t going to Switzerland, for one thing. Hassan and I often

speculate about where he goes, based on clues he leaves around the house.” “Where do you think he went this time?” “He printed out a sheaf of papers about Eritrea before he left. Read them, then burned them. But Hassan got a look in between. They were US government reports on fighting in the north.” Liam nodded. “Louis is fluent in Tigray. The language up there.” “So we were right.” “It’s hard to keep a secret from someone you live with,” Liam said. And yet he realized he was doing that himself, hiding the onset of mid-life, and the longing he had for that red Mercedes. He stood up. “We should start back down.” “Tired already?” Aidan said. “Careful. No one is paying us to climb this mountain, and no one is going to pay us for anything if either of us breaks an arm or a leg.” On the drive home, Liam thought about the secrets he and Aidan kept from each other. Mostly they were small ones that came out eventually—an odd crush Aidan had on a Latinx porn star who was fond of experimenting with toys, Liam’s purchases of pieces of exercise equipment he was suckered into by online ads. He hadn’t told Aidan much about his job at the gym. After all, it might last as long as the plank board that required weird dance moves, or the weighted dumbbell that looked like a telephone receiver, both of which had been returned almost immediately. Monday morning, Liam reported to the gym. Bruno had assigned him two clients to begin with, and they couldn’t have been more different. Liam figured it was a test to see how he could manage nearly opposing goals. Elise Verlaine was a chic real estate agent who wore color-coordinated T-shirts and yoga pants. She had turned forty a few months before and become obsessed with the extra flesh under her arms, the tiny roll of fat at her waist. “I am determined not to give in to my age,” she told Liam the first time they met.

She wore all pink that day, and with her brown curls pulled up in a short ponytail she reminded him of a poodle. She wasn’t interested in her overall health or muscle tone—she just wanted that extra flesh to disappear. “Diet and exercise will help you lose weight and build muscle.” “Diet! Do you know how little I eat already? I starve myself, and still I make no progress!” “We can talk about the kind of food you’re eating later. For now, let’s work on exercise. These muscles here are called the triceps,” he said, using his own body as a model. “And the best way to strengthen them is through pushups. You know how to do those, right?” “But of course.” “Show me, then.” “Vraiment?” He crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. With a deep sigh, she lowered herself to the floor and attempted a pushup, getting into the right pose but then hardly dipping her body toward the mat beneath her. “Let me show you.” Liam got down on the floor beside her and began doing pushups. He did five, then just for show did another five one-handed, and then another five clapping between drops. Her eyes widened. “You can do all that, too,” he said. “Watch my form and imitate me.” She managed to do five decent pushups with him prodding her on. “I cannot do any more,” she finally said, collapsing to the ground with another Gallic sigh. “You’ll improve the more you practice. I want you to do five of these each morning after you wake up. If you can manage, add another after a day or two, and then another.” She sat up and squeezed her arm muscles. “They are tense.”

“They’re supposed to be. You’re forcing them to grow.” He let her get her breath back, and then took her to the cable machine, and showed her how to do a push-down. “Your knees should be soft, and your abs tight. Grab the band and bend your arms up to ninety degrees. Where do you feel the pressure?” “My upper arms,” she said, with difficulty. “Good. Now release. Do five of those.” He took her through a couple of other exercises and explained how she could do them at home, with a dumbbell or even a full bottle of water. By the time they were finished she was glistening with sweat, but she seemed happy with her progress. His next client, Henri Billancourt, was a man in his sixties, hopelessly overweight and under-muscled. “What are your goals, monsieur?” Liam asked. “Not to die,” Billancourt said. “My wife set this up for me because my doctor says that I need to lose weight and improve my muscle tone.” He looked around the room, at the younger, more fit clients working out with weights or machines. “But I can’t do any of this.” “You can walk, though,” Liam said. “Walking is excellent exercise, and if you do it properly you can achieve your goals.” There was a circular track around a second-floor mezzanine, and Liam led Billancourt up the stairs, taking them slowly and talking the whole time. When they reached the rubber track, Liam began walking, with Billancourt beside him. “Look up, monsieur,” Liam said. “Your feet will find the way without you watching them. And relax your neck, your shoulders and your back.” Billancourt followed Liam’s advice, and they continued around the exterior of the track—both because it was longer than the interior, and to avoid the runners who took the center lanes. As they walked, Liam asked Billancourt questions—what he did for a living, how long he had been married, and so on. He kept up a simple conversation as they walked, occasionally reminding the older man to relax, to breathe deeply, to

swing his arms with a slight bend at his elbow. Before Billancourt realized, they had completed a circuit. “How are you feeling?” Liam asked when they came back to the stairs. “Not bad,” Billancourt said. “I could do another lap.” They did, and when they finished Liam told him that if he could walk that much every morning or evening, he would gradually see improvement in his blood pressure, and perhaps some small weight loss as well. They arranged for him to come back in three days for another walk and a look at some of the equipment, and Billancourt eagerly agreed. Liam wanted to talk with Bruno, but he was with a client, so Liam did a workout of his own, trying the different stations. It had been a long time since he’d worked out at a gym, and it was intriguing to try some of the newer machines, figure out how they operated and how he could master them. He was focused on lat pulldowns when he saw Bruno approaching. He stopped, wiped his forehead, and then cleaned the machine with his towel. “How do you like your clients?” Bruno asked. “Very different goals. It’s challenging to figure out what’s right for each one.” He couldn’t help noticing how fit Bruno was, the way his tank top, tucked in at the waist, emphasized his pecs and his flat stomach. I looked like that ten years ago, he thought. “I want to do some lifting before my next client comes in,” Bruno said. “Will you spot me?” “Of course.” Bruno turned and walked across the gym to the weight bench, and once again, Liam saw evidence of Bruno’s fitness—his butt was high and tight, and Liam had a momentary desire to push those cheeks apart and… He stopped himself. He was a married man, in love with his husband, who

provided him sexual stimulation mixed with deep affection. No random hookup could do the same. He stood behind Bruno as he rested flat on the bench, and while Bruno completed his early reps Liam did his best not to stare at the man’s package, which appeared to be amplified by the tight shorts he wore. It was only when Liam really paid attention that he realized he was seeing the rounded mound of a cup—not the outline of a dick and balls. Served him right for staring, he thought. He realized his own cock was stirring in his shorts, and he focused on Bruno’s sweating face beneath him. The effort brought out the sinews in his neck and emphasized the sharpness of his chin, and suddenly he wasn’t that attractive anymore. Bruno’s breathing became more labored, and Liam focused on his arms, making sure the trainer could complete his reps safely. When he finished, Bruno thanked him. “I’m going to take a quick shower.” He nodded toward the locker room. “I think I’ll jog home and shower there,” Liam said. “Shall I come back in three days for these same clients?” Did he catch a shadow of disappointment in Bruno’s face? If it had been there, Bruno covered it up well. “Yes, very good. And I will keep you in mind for new clients as well.” Liam said goodbye as Bruno headed to the shower, then ran through a quick series of stretching exercises before setting out for home at a trot. He ran down the Place de la Mairie, past where the Mercedes roadster gleamed in the window. “Bonjour, mon chér,” he said under his breath. As he turned on the Avenue de l’Eglise, en route to the hilly lane that would take him home, he thought about what he’d tell Aidan about his morning. His clients, for sure. Bruno’s behavior? Well, that would be his secret for now.

14: Encounters: Danny As he hurried back down the quad to his own lodgings, Danny was worried. If the manuscript really was as old as Philip thought, it was valuable. Clearly more valuable than Danny believed, based on Caswell’s reaction. For the next week, he carried the scroll with him everywhere, in his backpack. He kept the pack’s straps twined around his legs when he was studying. He stowed the leather case under his bed when he slept, protected by a series of boxes and chests that made it difficult to get out of bed. He kept his room locked, and the scroll hidden behind his desk when he used the shower or the toilet. He avoided looking at the subreddit anymore. It was just a distraction, and the help he’d hoped to find from other serious scholars had turned into a regular screed against him. He also spent a lot of time in the David Reading Room at the Weston Library, on Broad Street. The modern tables, chairs and bookshelves contrasted the ancient manuscripts, and through the windows he could see the dome of the Bodleian Library. He found it useful to look through the collection of Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts and compare phrases, words, even the formation of letters, between his manuscript and existing documents. There was something almost reverential about opening a book that was hundreds of years old, imagining who had transcribed it and how it had come to be in Oxford. The following Friday toward the end of term he was there until they closed at seven PM. It was about an hour before sunset, and the city streets basked in a light velvet twilight. Catte Street was crowded with students from All Soul’s College and tourists clustering around the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin to take photos of its baroque porch and 13th century spire. He darted through the crowd, but foot traffic was no easier on High Street. There was another cluster of tourists outside Brasenose College, iring its

magnificent dome, and he turned right, onto Oriel Square, a shortcut that would take him back to Pembroke College. The crowds dissipated, and by the time he turned on to Bear Lane, he was alone. He didn’t notice the two men approach him. “Faggot,” the tough one sneered. “Ponce.” He was bald though he was only in his late twenties, with muscular forearms, tattoos and a gold ring in his ear. The other hung back a bit. He had the coffee-colored skin of an Arab and wore a black T-shirt and baggy black track pants. Danny turned and hurried back toward Oriel Square, where there was sure to be traffic, but the bald man grabbed his arm. His heart raced and he thought desperately of any self-defense techniques. But his brain was in full panic mode and he couldn’t focus. “Jew faggot poofter,” the man said, with a northern English accent. “Think you know the Bible better than good Christians.” “I… I don’t,” Danny stuttered. “I’m just a student.” He wrapped his hands around the straps of his backpack, with the scroll inside it. “Then keep your faggot ideas to yourself. Got it?” Danny nodded rapidly, and the man released his arm. He and the Arab were gone in seconds. He slumped against at the back of a brick building where Bear Lane turned into Blue Boar Street, behind the Museum of Oxford, waiting for his heart to slow. Groups of students ed him on the street, heading toward the Bear Inn, with its traditional low-ceiling, creaky floorboards and large collection of cut-off ties. Watching them laugh together and elbow each other, he felt more secure. But the more he thought about the words the man had used, the more confused he became. Did he look that gay? He doubted it – he dressed like many other Oxford students, in T-shirts and battered khakis. That Jewish? Well, he had dark hair and dark eyes, and there was a slight hook to his nose. The classical Jewish look.

But the man had specifically accused Danny of knowing the Bible better than good Christians. What the hell did that mean? He puzzled over it as he walked back down St. Aldate’s to Pembroke College. Only when he walked through the massive arch and into the quad did he realize the man was referring to the subreddit post he’d made. But how? He’d used a pseudonym. He hadn’t talked about his translation with anyone other than Philip, and why would Philip organize thugs to threaten him? Had Philip told anyone else? Had someone connected him to his online ID? As he’d confessed to Noah Schneider, he had used his own computer and done nothing to mask his IP address. Oxford was full of nerds who could crack that in a minute. He hurried up the stairs to his room, opened his computer and went back to the academic Biblical subreddit. The main thread had continued to grow in his absence, though the posts were no longer academic in nature. Instead, they were all screeds against homosexuality, Jews, and those who sought to reinterpret the Bible according to their own . There were threats from four different names, though the repetition of certain phrases made him think they might have come from the same person using different names. But even one person was dangerous, especially if he or she could recruit thugs to carry out in-person threats. He paced around from one small room to the next, dodging his desk, chairs and bed. He kept the lights off, peered out the windows periodically, kept an ear alert for anyone in the hallway. Other students came and went as the evening drew on. He was hungry but too frightened to leave his room to get something to eat, turning to a half bag of sea salt and vinegar crisps, and then a sleeve of chocolate-covered Hobnobs he’d been meaning to take to the graduate student common room. After midnight, when it seemed like everyone around him was in for the night, he tried to sleep, but he couldn’t. He kept shifting position, trying to clear his mind, but nothing helped. When he finally heard the garbage trucks on Brewer Street and saw the first streaks of dawn through his window, he got up and took a shower, hoping that would clear his head.

Who could tell him how to analyze this threat? He thought of Noah Schneider, but they hardly knew each other, and it sounded like Noah was just beginning his program. There was only one person Danny knew in Oxford who could dive into the bowels of the internet and find out if any of the subredditors were in Oxford, or had the connections in the town to hire the two thugs who had menaced him. Ivo. He was sure that Ivo had been out partying the night before, so he waited until ten to leave. Ivo’s room was only across the quad, but he hid the scroll carefully before he walked out. The sun cast a deep shadow over the green lawn as Danny walked. A pair of gardeners were pruning hedges to the sound of American rap music. He followed the stone path, then climbed two floors. He paused before Ivo’s door and sniffed the air. Dunhill’s. That meant he wouldn’t interrupt Ivo in coitus. Then he heard the sound of a book slamming against the desk, and muttered cursing. He knocked. “A moment.” Danny heard a chair scratch, feet on the floor. Ivo opened it as he was in the midst of pulling on a black silk dressing gown. As he reached for the belt, one side flew open, giving Danny a full view of Ivo’s ample penis. He swallowed hard. “Morning, Ivo. I need your help.” Ivo yawned. “Maybe later. I’m knackered this morning. A librarian and his bus driver boyfriend last night.” “Not with that,” Danny said, and walked into the room, redolent with the scent of tobacco and sex. He crossed to the window and opened it, bringing a flood of fresh spring air inside. “Computer stuff.” “What kind?” Ivo said. He sat at his desk, and Danny took a chair across from him. He explained about the subreddits, and then the two thugs who’d approached him the night before. “I want to know if they’re connected.” Ivo turned to his computer. “Give me the name of the forum.”

Ivo logged in and began to read. “Bloody hell, they don’t like you much, do they?” “I never used my name,” Danny protested. “All I ever said was that I was a student.” “Did you use an IP blocker? Any kind of anonymizer when you made your posts?” The same questions Noah had asked. Danny shook his head. “It’s an academic forum,” he protested. “I didn’t think people would want to kill me for a simple post.” “Simple,” Ivo said. “That’s you in a nutshell.” He handed Danny a bright green thermos. “Fill this up with Colombian roast at the Missing Bean over on Turl Street, would you, there’s a good lad. I’ll see what I can find for you.” Danny took the thermos. Down the wood-ed staircase to the quad, where the bright spring sunshine had brought scholars out to the lawns with textbooks, headphones and all manner of other devices. He took his time walking to Turl Street, waited in line at the chi-chi café, and handed over his credit card for the high-octane fill-up. Then he hurried back to Pembroke College, eager to see what Ivo had turned up. “Lucky for you a lot of these chaps are as tech-useless as you are,” Ivo said, when Danny handed him the thermos. He took a deep drink and then sighed appreciatively. “Nectar of the gods, that.” He turned his screen so that Danny could see it, and Danny moved his chair close to Ivo. He sniffed the faint scent of Ivo’s bay rum cologne and his penis squirmed in his pants. “I did a rough sort based on the content of the posts, from innocuous to harmful,” Ivo said. “New technique I’ve been working on with Facebook, and it performed quite well here, too. Then I ran a couple of matches, for IP addresses and common phrases. I’ve got four results worth looking at. People so pissed off at you they’d be willing to come after you. Rasul Najjar is in Tunisia, though, while William Beckham is a retired lecturer at London University and Khalil Aziz is an imam in Birmingham.”

Then with a flourish he highlighted one entry. “And this chap. Jamal Cherif. First-year student in the MPhil in Islamic Studies and History program at St. Stephen’s House.” “I don’t know that college. Is it here in Oxford?” “It is. On the far side of the Magdalen Bridge, past St. Hilda’s. And it rests quite comfortably at the bottom of the Norrington Table. Lowest score based on examination results.” He hit a couple of keys, and a picture of Jamal Cherif popped up. He was wearing a somber gray suit jacket and matching tie, but the resemblance was unmistakable. “That’s the second guy!” Danny said. “He didn’t say anything, but he was right there while the other guy talked.” “Well, know you know who doesn’t like you,” Ivo said. “What are you going to do about it?” Danny resolved that the easiest thing to do until his exam in Biblical Hebrew two days later was simply to stay in his room. He hurried to the Sainsbury’s in the Westgate Commons shopping center. He filled a cart with croissants, jam, bottled water, ham and cheese and bags of popcorn, and hurried back to his room. He locked himself inside for the next two days. When he had to leave for his exam, he brought the case with him in his backpack. In the exam, he forced himself to concentrate. He believed Caswell would be marking his paper thoroughly, hoping to use a bad grade against him to leverage control of the manuscript. He worked extra hard, examining each response in detail, over and over again, until the proctor finally called time. He was exhausted when he got back to his room. He wanted nothing more than to collapse on his bed and sleep for days. But someone had been inside and torn the place apart. His bedding was on the floor, his books pulled from their shelves, his desk turned on its side. Had Oliver Caswell sent someone after the manuscript, knowing that Danny would be in his exam then? Or had someone else, like Jamal Cherif, come looking for him?

His adrenaline kicked in then. As an international student, he’d been able to pay for the room for a calendar year rather than just the three academic . That way he wouldn’t have to worry about moving all his books out for the summer. He packed everything he needed for a trip and then, as darkness fell, skulked out of the quad, looking right and left. He hurried down New Inn Hall Street, head bent down, meeting no one’s eyes. He paid cash for a ticket, to leave no trace of his name or his direction, and caught the last bus to London.

15: Fulfilled: Danny After leaving Oxford, Danny holed up in a small apartment in Croydon he found through Airbnb. He knew he needed to leave England, but he didn’t know where to go. He wanted to work with a mentor, a scholar of ancient Aramaic, but he didn’t want anyone who knew Oliver Caswell. That was exceedingly difficult; each person he found had some connection to Caswell, through hip in a scholarly society or even LinkedIn. Finally, buried in an acknowledgment at the end of a scholarly paper, he found the name Mehdi ibn Habib, which he recognized from the man’s positive comment on the subreddit when it first began. Ibn Habib was a retired scholar and former professor at the University of Tunis. There wasn’t much about him online, but he didn’t appear to belong to any of the same groups or societies that Caswell did. He lived in Tunis, which was both a plus and a minus. A plus because Danny already knew the city and spoke Arabic well enough to get by. A minus because Caswell knew Danny had found the scroll in Tunisia. It was worth the risk, he decided. He couldn’t find a phone number or email for Mehdi ibn Habib, though he did get an address in the La Marsa section of Tunis, near the Mediterranean coast. He booked himself a ticket to Rome, and then a second one from Rome to Tunis. He knew he was being paranoid, but Caswell had been determined to get that scroll, and Danny had heard rumors of the international s he had that had enabled him to study in the United Arab Emirates, and obtain the Oxyrhynchus materials for Oxford. He probably had s in government, and he had taught generations of Biblical scholars. His old boys’ network stretched to all echelons of government and scholarship. Look at Noah Schneider—Danny was sure that someday he’d be an important guy on Wall Street. The raid on his room reinforced that there was something larger at work here than just Caswell trying

to interfere with his potential thesis. He stayed overnight at a hotel near the Rome airport, his bag once again protected beneath his bed. The hotel had a hundred TV stations from around the world through a satellite, and as he scrolled through he stumbled on Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Though it was the first full movie, it wasn’t the first time he’d run across Professor Jones. When he was about ten, he recalled, he had watched reruns of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles on cable TV. The first episode began with an old man describing a trip to Cairo when he was ten years old—Danny’s very age. On an archaeological dig, a man was killed and a priceless artifact went missing. The idea that someone of his own age could be involved in such a thrilling adventure hooked Danny, and after he finished the two seasons of that show he went looking for the full-length movies starring Harrison Ford. He used his allowance to buy the VCR tapes of all four, and watched them over and over again. “Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?” became his personal catchphrase. Anyone who recognized it was itted to his inner circle of friends. He sat back on his bed and began watching, immersing himself in the movie. At first he worried that Indy wouldn’t have fled Oxford the way he did, that he’d have stayed and fought. But then he convinced himself that Oxford had just been the first step on his journey, and like Indy, he’d keep on fighting until he had his prize—whatever that was going to be. The next morning he took an early flight to Tunis. It was afternoon when the Bolt driver left him in front of an old building on the rue Kabadou, a few blocks inland from the coast and across from a restaurant called Ketchup Spicy Burger. Tugging his suitcase behind him, he walked up to the door and rang the bell marked Ibn Habib, then held his breath and waited. It took what seemed like an eternity until the speaker crackled, though it had probably only been a minute. “Mn hdha?” Who is it? In quick, halting Arabic, Danny explained that he was an American scholar, seeking the renowned translator Mehdi ibn Habib.

The door buzzed, and Danny pushed inside. A curving staircase faced him and from above he heard, “Alttabiq alththani,” second floor. He climbed, his suitcase banging behind him on the marble steps. As he turned at the landing, he saw an elderly man waiting for him. He was so small as to almost be gnomish, with creased skin the color of ancient parchment and a bald head that shone. Mehdi’s apartment was cluttered with books, so many that he had to move a pile to give Danny a place to sit, and that comforted him. A man who loved books so much would only want to see the scroll translated, not to profit from it. Or at least that’s what he hoped. Mehdi offered him tea, which came the same way that Shimon the hat-dealer had prepared it, with pine nuts on the bottom and a mint sprig. Danny was further reassured, though he knew intellectually he had no reason to be. As he drank the tea, Danny explained that he had tracked Mehdi down from his comment on the subreddit. “Interesting,” the old man said. “I it. An unusual idea. How did you find your source material?” Danny told about visiting the medina in Tunis, getting directed to Shimon in Houmt Souk, and then his discovery of the scroll. Fortunately Mehdi spoke English better than Danny spoke Arabic, so conversation was easier for him. “Do you have it with you?” Mehdi asked. Danny nodded. He repeated what he had done with Caswell, opening the felt oblong, donning his blue gloves, and then laying the scroll out. “Jamila,” Mehdi said, with reverence. Beautiful. Danny offered him a pair of gloves, which fit loosely over the elderly man’s small hands. He unrolled the scroll, bit by bit, peering down at it, often holding a plastic magnifier sheet over it. Danny sipped his tea while he waited. Finally Mehdi looked up. “This is very old.”

Danny repeated what he knew about the age of the manuscript. “The book of Leviticus,” Mehdi said. “You can read this?” “I’ve been trying. I have translated the first fifty verses. I posted a bit of 18 on Reddit.” “Can I see what you have done?” Danny fumbled in his pack for the printout he had done of his translation. “It may not be very good.” Mehdi went back to the beginning of the scroll and began to compare. “Hmm,” he said. “This word here.” He pointed with a delicate finger. “Most translations call this the tent of meeting or tabernacle? Why use Holy of Holies?” “Because of the connotations in English,” Danny said. “Some sects of Christian worshippers gather under a tent, for what they call a meeting. Tabernacle can mean home or dwelling, which has been expanded to refer to the place where the Ark of the Covenant dwells. But Holy of Holies only refers to this specific place. And I liked the resonance of beginning the book with the concept of holiness, because Leviticus is all about how the Israelites are to behave as a holy people.” “Interesting point.” Danny took a deep breath. This was the kind of back-and-forth conversation he’d hoped to initiate with Oliver Caswell. But Caswell had only been focused on getting his hands on the scroll, not on an opportunity to explore the deeper meanings of the messages it presented. Mehdi looked up. “What do you want from me?” “I want your help translating. I am still learning Aramaic, and the work is going very slowly. I think it would be good to have an expert help me. To be able to discuss multiple meanings of words, like the one we just talked about. I can pay you.” “At my age, what money do I need?” Mehdi waved his arms around the room. “I have shelter, I have food, I have books. I am more interested in the intellectual challenge.” He looked at Danny. “You know Leviticus can be a very boring

book. Full of laws and rules.” “But it’s also the book that formed the Hebrews as a people.” He thought for a moment. “It gave them rules to follow, a way to together, to connect with God.” Mehdi smiled. “That is what I believe as well. Good. We can begin tomorrow.” It was almost evening by the time he left Mehdi’s apartment, and he realized he had nowhere to go. He trudged to a bus stop, pulled out his phone, and opened a hotel locator app on his phone. The closest one was a guesthouse with three stars, very close to the La Marsa beach. He called the phone number, and after a brief conversation discovered that he could book a deluxe queen studio apartment with bathroom and kitchenette for the price of a burger and a beer in Oxford. Following the directions from his phone, he walked north three blocks on the rue des Rosas, then zigzagged around a couple of blocks to reach the guesthouse. It was clean and the proprietor was friendly, and Danny was pleased to see that he didn’t have an internet-connected reservation system, just a big book with names and dates. No one could hack a computer and find him. When he settled onto the bed, all the stress of traveling hit him. It had been four days since he left his room in Pembroke College, and he hadn’t slept well since then. He laid his head back, planning to take a quick nap, but awoke early the next morning, disheveled and starving. He showered, dressed in T-shirt and shorts, and set out to explore the area. He found a café around the corner where he had coffee and a couple of dry pastries, then discovered a grocery, a pizzeria and an Italian restaurant all within a few blocks. He was set. The guesthouse had a shaded patio where he could work in the mornings. He had brought his Aramaic dictionary and his Bible concordance with him, and he set up on a glass-topped table with his laptop. Instead of bringing the scroll outside, he took photos of it with his phone, and used that for reference. Pigeons cooed from the fronds of the palm trees, and occasional flocks of seagulls made their noisy way toward or away from the beach. He made rapid progress on his rough translation, marking any unusual word or

question for discussion with Mehdi. They met together Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from one o’clock in the afternoon until five. It was brain work, Mehdi explained to Danny, and at his age he could only expect so much from himself. Danny loved discussing the fine shadings of language with Mehdi. It was fascinating and he had never felt so fulfilled or so happy. Looking at the language word by word was so intriguing that sometimes he stopped in the middle of a sentence to go research a topic. Why, for example, was there to be no yeast in the bread brought for sacrifice? In Exodus, it was clear that the Hebrews didn’t have time to wait for their bread to rise, so they ate unleavened bread. But in Leviticus, there was a connection between yeast and sin. After some digging, he found an author who equated the way that a sinner puffed up with pride might resemble a risen loaf of bread. Then there were individual word choices that dogged him. Sometimes the priests were told to splash the blood of a sacrificial animal, while other times they were told to spray it. The Aramaic for splash was wə·zā·rə·qū, and for sprinkle it was wə·hiz·zāh, and Danny and Mehdi spent several hours discussing which best reflected the original intent. “Splash seems pretty messy,” Danny said. “Did they have the ability to clean up back then? It would be pretty disgusting to have splashes of blood all over your altar. That can’t have been hygienic. We were taught in Sunday School that pork was proscribed because it was easy to get sick from it before refrigeration. So God was looking out for his people, keeping them from getting sick.” “I am not a rabbi, Danny. I cannot interpret the word of God for you, only the languages of men.” Danny grew closer and closer to Mehdi on those afternoons. When he had studied with the cantor for his bar mitzvah, most of his work had been on getting the rhythm of the language correct, the ups and downs and pauses. He and the rabbi had discussed his Torah portion, Behaalotecha, in which God gives the Hebrews instructions on how to move on from the base of Mount Sinai, where they had been given the Ten Commandments. Danny’s speech had been based on that portion, how his parents and the congregation had given him the framework of Judaism in the same way, and that now he was preparing for his grand journey into the world.

Later, at Brandeis, he had done a deeper dive into that portion, learning how the people had complained about receiving manna, wanting beef instead, and how Miriam had doubted Moses and been punished with leprosy. Neither of them would have made a good basis for a bar mitzvah speech, though, so he understood why the rabbi had directed him in the way he had. But with Mehdi, he felt free to question and challenge everything, and loved the back and forth that resulted. After a few weeks, he began thinking of the hatmaker in the medina, the one who had sent him to Djerba. He wanted to thank the man for his help. One Thursday, he put aside his work in the early afternoon and caught a bus from the La Marsa station along the N9 into the center of the city. But after wandering the medina for an hour, he couldn’t find the stall. He resorted to asking people, and finally an old woman directed him to a street he recognized. The hatmaker’s stall was shuttered, however. He asked the young woman in the store to the right what had happened, but she shrugged and said she did not know. He saw a guy of about his age loitering across the street, and thought about asking him, but he looked threatening, He wore a tank top that showed off his muscular chest, and his shorts were so tight that Danny could see his dick pressed against the fabric. He knew that homosexuality was still against the law in Tunisia, and he was frightened that if he approached the man who made such an obvious display that he’d be called out, chased, beaten, maybe even arrested. He took a deep breath and turned to the stall on the other side, where an old woman refused to speak with him when he made it clear he didn’t want to buy a hat. “I don’t understand!” he said. “I have money. I will pay you to tell me!” By then, he had used almost all the Tunisian dinars he had changed at the airport, paying cash for everything to avoid leaving a paper trail. He pulled a sheaf of British pounds from his pocket and waved them. The muscular man crossed the street. “You are frightening alsayidat Samith. You

must leave or I will call the police.” “I just want to know what happened to the hatmaker,” Danny said. “He died.” The young man grabbed Danny’s arm and pulled him out of the store. “Now go.” Danny began to walk. He didn’t know where he was going, or why the man’s disappearance, and then presumed death, bothered him so much. They had barely spoken, after all. And he was an elderly man, the kind who had worked hard all his life. It wasn’t a surprise that he might have had a heart attack or a stroke. He hadn’t gone more than a few feet when the muscular man caught up with him. “You look for the hatmaker?” he asked. “Or you want this?” He grabbed his crotch, and Danny’s eyes widened. The man lowered his voice, but there was a hard edge to it. “You are American. With lots of money.” He imagined that Jamal Cherif had sent this man to find him in Tunis, to lure him somewhere isolated with a proposition, then kill him. Or that he had traced Danny’s purchase to the old hatmaker and had him killed, then had someone watching his stall to see who would come. He panicked and ran. The muscular man chased him for a block or more, until he darted into a ladies’ clothing store and hid behind the displays. An old lady there showed him a back door. The man did not follow him, and after dashing along a couple of streets he leaned against a wall, breathing heavily. This was the second time in as many months that he’d run away from attackers, and he didn’t like it. The men who’d come at him in Oxford were clearly connected to the subreddit—they’d said as much by mentioning the Bible. This man, though? Did he know the hatmaker, or was he just an opportunist who happened to be hanging around at that souk, looking for a wealthy mark? He ed how he’d shown that wad of cash to the woman. Had this man thought him an easy target because he was a young, wealthy foreigner?

He was too scared. He wanted to go to the police, but he knew they’d refuse to consider a connection to the hatmaker, an elderly man who’d probably died of old age, and caution him about waving around his money. Suddenly, he felt all alone in a very foreign city. The only person he knew in Tunis was Mehdi, and he didn’t want to do anything to endanger the old man. He bought a bottle of water from a street vendor and walked quickly, constantly checking his back, to the Bab el Bahr, where he called a Bolt to take him back to the guesthouse. Was he safe there? He had been careful to book the room under his mother’s maiden name, and paid in cash. So far the only tie he had to Tunis was the hostel where he had stayed before, the hatmaker’s souk, and his visits to Mehdi, when he had always been careful not to be followed. What else could he do?

16: Call from an Old Friend: Liam By June, Liam and Henri Billancourt had given up on the air-conditioned gym’s second-floor walking track in favor of hiking through the hills, despite the heat. There was almost always a breeze, and they were accompanied on their hikes by monarch butterflies, finches flitting through the trees and eagles soaring overheard. The older man had already lost several kilos and upped his endurance, and Liam liked climbing with him almost as much as with Aidan. They talked about a wide range of things from Liam’s experience in the SEALs to Billancourt’s twin daughters, who were as different as any two girls could ever be. Yet it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as he’d hoped it would be. He and Aidan had taken two more challenging hikes in the Parc Mercantour and spent another Sunday afternoon biking through the foothills of the Alps. He knew that Aidan sensed his discomfort and was trying to provide the physical challenge he needed, but there was still something missing. It was one thing to push your body to its limits in pursuit of a cause, or to keep someone safe, and something very different to work out just for the sake of working out. He had coaxed Elise Verlaine into a regular regime that was ever so gradually reducing the fat under her arms and around her waist, and he had guided her toward a healthier diet instead of pure abstinence from all the foods she loved. He had built up his client list, too, so that he was at the gym four and sometimes five days a week. He had to it that being away from Aidan helped; seeing his husband pottering around the house only reminded him of the more meaningful work they had done in the past. They had uncovered a secret terrorist training camp in the desert, fought their way through the crowds of the Jasmine revolution to save a child, and rescued men from imprisonment. Liam had climbed onto a speedboat in the dead of night and overwhelmed kidnappers, tracked assassins through a cemetery, defeated

villains who had come into his own home. And now? He was a companion to the undisciplined. Would he ever again feel that surge of adrenaline that came from facing danger? Make a difference in the life of someone who was being chased or threatened? The Agence de Securité provided occasional employment for them in personal protection, often glittering affairs in Nice and Cannes where women wanted to feel comfortable flaunting their jewels. It was all boring and at the same time unsettling. Until the day Aidan confronted him, as he prepared to meet Henri at the gym for their afternoon hike. Aidan blocked the door. “I never see you,” he complained. “You’re going on a hike, aren’t you? With one of your clients. You used to want to hike with me, and work out with me. Now it’s all clients.” “I still see plenty of you,” Liam said. “We had sex last night, if I recall correctly.” Aidan crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not talking about sex. We used to spend nearly all our time together.” “And that’s not normal. Most couples see each other in the morning, then go off to their own jobs all day. Even Slava and Thierry, who are both retired, have their own things. Slava’s inside on his computer while Thierry’s out in the garden.” “Are you having an affair?” Liam’s eyes widened. “Don’t be ridiculous. I love you. And who am I going to find for an affair in this town?” “Your boss at the gym.” Sure, he’d flirted with Bruno on occasion, but it had never gone farther than that. “You’re being a drama queen, Aidan. I love you, and I don’t want to fuck anyone other than you. Got that?”

He saw a stray tear in his husband’s eye and relented. He pulled Aidan into his arms for a deep hug, feeling the comfort and familiarity of Aidan’s body next to his, the way Aidan’s head rested so nicely at his shoulder, the familiar scent of his lavender soap. Liam had begun wearing his leather vest again, the one that showed off his pecs so well, as well as the two gold rings in his nipples. Aidan’s chest pushed those rings into his flesh. “You’re the man who taught me how to love, and you’re still the best part of my life,” he said into Aidan’s hair, which he noticed seemed to be thinning at an alarming rate. “I love you and I love working with you and living with you. I just need a little space on my own.” “I understand,” Aidan snuffled into his shoulder. “I ignored the warning signs that things were going wrong with Blake, and by the time I realized it was too late. I don’t want to do that with you.” “Nothing’s going wrong.” Aidan pulled back. “Are you having a mid-life crisis?” Busted, Liam thought. But his feelings were his alone, not ones that he was ready to share. “I’m fine. I’m forty-four years old and my body disappoints me sometimes, but you never do.” “As long as you tell me if something goes wrong. You know I hate secrets.” “I will certainly tell you if I start thinking of dumping you for a younger model.” He held up his hands. “Not that I would ever do that.” Aidan reached forward, grabbed a nipple ring and twisted. “Ow!” “Just so you what I’m capable of when I’m scorned,” Aidan said with a laugh. Liam pulled him forward until their mouths met, in a kiss that began hard and then softened as Aidan’s lips pressed into him. Their mouths opened without conscious thought, their tongues dueling, breathing the same air. Finally Liam pushed back. “And you see what I’m capable of.”

“As long as you keep that between us,” Aidan said. “, I’m an only child. I don’t like to share.” Liam laughed as he headed out toward the gym. Every living thing in Banneret seemed to be in bloom, from the purple bougainvillea lining the street to the very pregnant cow in the field at the end of the road. It was summer, and he was still in love, and he’d push away any feelings of getting old or feeling less useful as a bodyguard. When he returned from his hike that afternoon, he told Bruno he was taking the rest of the week off. He implied that he and Aidan had a last-minute client to look after, but in reality he recognized that he’d been ignoring his husband and that it would do both of them good to spend some time together. The next morning he was up at sunrise, leaving Aidan asleep in the bed, his eyes closed and his lips slightly parted in a way that made him look almost angelic. Liam gulped half a bottle of water and walked out to the back yard. At Liam’s direction, Thierry had created a perfect workout space. The shady area beneath a tall umbrella pine had been paved to provide a flat surface, and when he faced north, Liam saw the foothills of the Alpes Maritimes, white gulls with black beaks or black wings, and an endless array of clouds. He used a large rubber exercise mat to minimize the pressure on his ts, and his custom headphones allowed him to stream a music playlist from his phone that kept him motivated and on track, while never worrying about buds falling from his ears. Feeling a sense of joy at being in his own special place, he jumped into his regular workout routine. He was determined to keep his body in the condition he had strived to attain in the military. It was a Wednesday, so he began with a dozen sun salutations to loosen up his body. Then he performed thirty pushups, thirty sit-ups, and thirty jumping jacks. When that was finished, he repeated the process. Six times. It was grueling, and by the time he was finishing his last set of jumping jacks he was coated in sweat and it seemed like every muscle in his body cried out in

pain. But that was the price you had to pay to stay in shape once you ed forty. And especially if your life, your client’s life, and your husband’s life depended on your performing at your peak when working in close protection. As he lowered his head and his arms following his last jumping jack, his playlist was abruptly interrupted by an incoming call. He grabbed the phone from the lounge chair next to the pine tree and was surprised to see the name Faisal Qasim displayed. Back when Liam lived in Tunis, Faisal was a high-ranking detective in the Tunisian police force, and he occasionally ed a client who needed close protection to Liam, after advising the individual that the police could not provide that service. “Faisal, it’s good to hear from you,” Liam said in Arabic, stumbling over the last phrase. His Arabic, once fluent, had faded to some degree after years living in . “It’s been a long time.” He wrapped his towel around his shoulders and sprawled onto the lounge chair. “Yes it has, my friend,” Faisal said. “You are well?” “Very well. Aidan and I got married last year, and we’re working with personal protection clients, through a company based in Marseille.” A bright green African parakeet flew into the center of the umbrella pine and landed there. Though he knew the invasive birds were becoming a threat to native ones, he still loved to see their bright colors. They reminded him of the joy he had experienced when he came out of the closet for good, letting his true colors shine. “Good, so you are still protecting clients,” Faisal said. “I have someone who needs your help.” “In Tunis?” “Yes. But you can come back here, can’t you?” “I don’t know, Faisal. We’ve been trying to stick closer to home.” As he said it,

he felt old. A few years ago, he would have jumped at the chance to travel. But airlines had been making their seats smaller, causing trouble for his six-four, broad-shouldered frame. He had been spoiled by Aidan’s careful approach to cuisine, which kept the two of them healthy. And he had his clients at the gym in Banneret to think of as well. “Will you talk to this gentleman, please? I think you and Aidan will understand his dilemma and want to help him.” “Now you’re intriguing me. What’s name? What’s his problem?” “He is a young American named Daniel Cardozo. A Biblical scholar doing research in Tunis. He says he has been attacked in the past, in England where he studies. And now, in the medina in Tunis. He is very frightened.” Faisal sighed. “I counseled him to leave Tunis immediately and return to either America or Britain. But he insists that he must remain here for his research. He asked if I could assign a police officer to protect him.” Liam laughed. “He does not know how your department operates.” “And he is not a member of any royal family or any senior government. I had to tell him to look for someone private. And that reminded me of you. Are you interested?” A host of ideas ran through Liam’s head at the speed of an African gazelle. He missed Tunis, where he had spent so many years. The sound of Arabic in the souk, the smell of chickens roasting on outdoor grills, seasoned with caraway and coriander. The friends he had made there. So he made a quick decision. “Do you think we could set up a Skype call with this guy, get a better sense of him?” “I will email you his information. But move quickly, please. I believe he is in real danger.” Liam verified his email address with Faisal. Then Faisal said, “Kun hadhiraan.” Be careful, in Arabic. Liam sat back in the chair, feeling the rough cotton of the towel press into his neck. There were a whole host of reasons why they couldn’t pick up and run to

Tunis. Aidan had been nurturing his garden, for one thing. Every day he harvested a selection of glowing red tomatoes, small heads of lettuce, and other vegetables that made their way into their dinner. There was a promise of tiny Provençal melons as the summer wore on. He would miss the camaraderie of the gym, the sense of communal athletic effort that reminded him of the military. If he let himself it it, he’d miss the open showers, too, which gave him a chance to show off his body and take the occasional glance at other men. He’d miss the extra income of training clients, too. He had already amassed a tiny nest egg towards the Mercedes. The red one had left the showroom a month before, replaced by one in dark blue, but only a week before that one had been purchased, and a new red one had taken its place in the front window. An alert about the incoming email from Faisal pulled him back to the present. He went inside and roused Aidan, who was still in bed, with Hayam curled at his feet. “Wake up, sleepyhead. We may have a client.” Aidan sat up and yawned. He was only a few months younger than Liam, and though he did not work out as much as Liam did, he had remained fit and trim. His dark brown hair showed occasional strands of silver, though, and laugh lines were gathering around his mouth. “You heard from Jean-Luc?” Aidan asked. “Nope. Faisal Qasim.” Aidan’s eyes opened wide. “Wow, that’s a blast from the past. Have you been in touch with him since we left Tunis?” “Once or twice. He’s sent me a couple of articles in the past about stuff we worked on together.” Aidan stood up and stretched, and Hayam jumped off the bed and trotted away. “And now?” “Now he has a potential client for us, in Tunis, who needs protection quickly. Are you interested? Want to set up a Skype call this morning?”

“I’m more than interested,” Aidan said. “Our real estate taxes are due next month, and it would be nice to bring in a chunk of change to cover them.” Liam frowned. “I thought we were all right financially.” He’d been hoping to keep his Mercedes money to himself, but if taxes had to be paid… “We are. I like to have an extra cushion when we can.” Liam handed his phone to Aidan. “Here’s the guy’s email address. Apparently he can Skype.” “Let me put a shirt on, at least.” Aidan grabbed a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and slipped into them. “You’re sure you want to do this? In the past you’ve said travel is too annoying, and you’re happy to chaperon old ladies around because you’re getting ancient yourself.” “I didn’t use the word ancient,” Liam protested. “I’ve still got what it takes.” Aidan lifted his eyebrows. “You’ll have to prove that to me.”

17: The Third Book: Liam Liam followed Aidan to the kitchen, where his husband opened their laptop on the table. Liam was surprised that Cardozo was online and available for a Skype call so easily. He was a dark-haired guy in his mid-twenties, wearing an Oxford University Tshirt. “Good morning,” he said, with an American accent. “I’m Danny Cardozo. Faisal Qasim told me you might get in touch. Thank you.” Liam introduced himself and Aidan, then asked, “Why do you feel like you need protection?” “I came to Tunis in the spring to look for old manuscripts I could translate for my master’s thesis. A man in the hatmaker’s souk directed me to a very old scroll, and I took it back to Oxford with me and had it authenticated. Then I began translating it, and I found some controversial phrases. I mentioned them in a forum online, and that’s when people started threatening me.” “How?” Liam asked. “Before I left Oxford for the summer, I was assaulted coming home from the library and called some gay and Jewish slurs, but I assumed that was simply because I was in the wrong place at the right time. Then my room was ransacked, and I realized someone was looking for the scroll. I got out of there as soon as possible.” He took a deep breath. “I thought I had put all that trouble behind me, but then almost a week ago I was in the medina here in Tunis and I went back to the souk to look for the hatmaker and thank him. I tried to be very careful—I kept my port around my neck and my cash in a wallet under my belt. And I tried to dress like a poor student, in jeans and T-shirt. But at one point I was foolish and showed some British pounds, trying to get information, and a man came after me.” Aidan noticed that Danny’s right hand was shaking.

“I’m afraid that someone was watching that souk and that he, or someone he’s working for, knows about the manuscript I’m translating. It’s very old and very valuable. I’m worried that someone is going to come after me try and steal it. After worrying for several days, I spoke to the police and the only thing they could suggest was to hire someone to protect me.” Danny’s voice went in and out due to the poor connection, and Liam had to listen closely to understand. “What’s so important about this scroll?” “I think is one of the earliest written versions of Leviticus.” “The third book of the Hebrew Bible,” Aidan said to Liam. “I did go to Catholic School,” Liam grumbled. “I know the books of the Bible.” He frowned. “At least the Old Testament. There are way too many in the New.” “Your work sounds exciting,” Aidan said. “But are you sure all these attacks are connected to the scroll?” “I don’t know why else someone would come after me.” Liam wasn’t surprised at Aidan’s enthusiasm. He loved all kinds of weird scholarship, which had led them on several adventures in the past, including the tracking of a lost religious artifact that had once belonged to a member of his extended family. “Why don’t you leave Tunis and fly back to wherever you come from?” Liam asked. “Most of this text is in ancient Aramaic.” Cardozo looked away from the screen and coughed for a moment. Then he popped a cough drop in his mouth. “Sorry, it’s very dusty here and I’ve developed a cough. I can’t leave because I am working with an expert translator here in La Marsa on additional fragments. We need to work closely together because some parts of the scroll are in very poor condition and we have to brainstorm individual letters and words. I need to be here for at least another month.” Liam looked at Aidan, who resembled Hayam when they dangled a treat before her. “Can we put you on pause for a minute?” Liam asked, and when Danny

agreed, Liam reached over and minimized the window. Liam realized that he was still wearing his vest, his nipple rings visible, and he crossed his arms over his chest, at least partly in embarrassment. “What do you think?” “I’m intrigued. We haven’t been back to Tunis since we left. And I have to it Danny reminds me a little of myself at that age. Back when Coral and I were traveling around teaching, after I got my master’s and before I met Blake.” “And?” “And he’s cute, and Jewish, and the Bible stuff is interesting. What about you?” “What about your garden? We’ll miss all the stuff you’ve been struggling to grow.” “Seriously? Vegetables? We can buy vegetables in Tunis. And Thierry will be happy to take over the garden while we’re gone.” “I don’t want to leave my clients at the gym hanging for a month or more. I made a commitment to help them get healthy.” Aidan stared at him, his mouth open. “You’re more committed to your clients than you are to me?” “What does that mean?” “It means that we started this business nine years ago, so we could work together. I gave up teaching to be with you.” “I never asked you to do that.” “You didn’t have to. I wanted to be by your side in everything.” Aidan bunched his fists up as if he was preparing for a fight. “That’s what our marriage vows said.” “I never promised to spend the rest of my life in your pocket.” “You never minded it before.”

This was getting out of hand. Liam focused on relaxing his posture. “I love you, sweetheart. I love working by your side, the way you connect emotionally to our clients and the way you think outside the box when it comes to solutions. I don’t want to fight with you.” Liam saw Aidan’s shoulders sag as some of the stress went out of them. “I promise you I have not having an affair, though I it I’ve been having a bit of a midlife crisis. I’ve been saving up my gym money for the Mercedes roadster in the dealership in Banneret.” “I wondered where that money was going,” Aidan said. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” “Because I didn’t want to be a stereotype. And I didn’t want you to worry about me.” Aidan glanced at the screen. “Crap, we’ve had Danny Cardozo on hold for a while. I’ll bet he scared and worrying that we’ll say no.” Liam smiled. “We’re saying yes, aren’t we?” “Only if you really want to. I don’t want you to be all moody and sour for the next month.” Liam opened his mouth in surprise. “Me? Moody?” “Yes, you.” Aidan pointed at the laptop. “Yes or no?” Liam reached over and opened the call window again. Danny was nervously fidgeting with his hands. “We’re back,” Liam said. “Will you be paying the bills?” “I have a cousin I’m very close to. He’s pretty wealthy, and he’s worried about me, so he’s agreed to pay whatever it costs to have someone protect me while I finish up here.” Liam looked at Aidan and smiled. “We’ll have the security agency we work for send you a contract, which you can forward to the cousin who’ll be paying the

bills. Once that’s signed, we’ll be on the first flight to Tunis.” “Thank you,” Danny said, and Liam could see the relief in his posture. Aidan ended the call. “Thank you. I really think this job will be good for us.” “Your mouth to god’s ears.” “My mother used to say that. Have I repeated it so often that you’ve picked it up, too?” “Sweetheart, you have affected my life in too many ways to count.” Aidan smiled. “I’ll get an email out to Jean-Luc. You want to finish your exercises?” Liam shook his head. “I was done by the time Faisal called. I’ll hit the shower.” “Don’t hit it too hard. This house has to last us.” Liam pulled down his shorts and fisted his penis. “Suck my dick.” Aidan’s eyes lit up and he said, “With pleasure.” “Ha!” Liam pulled his shorts back up and walked out. “Cock tease!” Aidan called behind him. Liam smiled as he walked away. He’d missed the easy rhythm between them, too focused on his own problems to realize what he was ignoring. That was going to have to change.

18: The Two Daniels: Aidan As soon as Liam left the kitchen for the shower, Aidan followed a hunch about Daniel Cardozo. He Googled “The Two Daniels.” The first link took him to a site he vaguely ed, one that had made a splash a few years before. It was the entry page of a portfolio of artful nudes of two men who could have been twins. They were both named Daniel Cardozo, and both looked like the guy they’d been Skyping with. How had Daniel Cardozo gone from being a porn idol to an academic researcher? There had to be an interesting story there. It was a pay to play site—to see the whole portfolio of photos, you had to enter a credit card number. Aidan declined. He got enough of handsome nude male when he looked at Liam. He looked damned good for a man in his forties, and his naked body rarely failed to generate interest from Aidan’s nether regions. Instead he read the blurb that accompanied the portfolio. The Daniel Cardozo on the left, apparently a famous model, had grown up in the New York City suburbs near his first cousin, also named Daniel Cardozo. As kids they didn’t look particularly alike, but when they reached adulthood their similarities began to outweigh their differences, and people began to mistake them for each other. As a famous face, Daniel the model was often photographed by the paparazzi on photo shoots in Morocco, Sweden and Tahiti. He was also snapped in more casual encounters in places like New York and Miami Beach. That’s where the rumors began. In some places, he was seen canoodling with a woman, while in others he was acting romantically with a man. The tabloids had a field day wondering about his sexuality. Was he gay? Bi? Liam came out of the shower then, and Aidan showed him what he had discovered. “No wonder you were so eager to take this guy on as a client,” Liam said. “There’s more,” Aidan said.

He clicked through to an interview on the Ellen show. Ellen sat across from a guy the monitor identified as “Model Daniel Cardozo.” “You’ve been in the news a lot over the past year about your sexuality,” Ellen said. “You’ve been seen with both men and women, and the tabloids are hungry to know what the real story is. I understand you want to clear the air for us today.” Cardozo nodded. “To do that, I need to bring someone out with me.” He stood up and beckoned offstage, and a guy who looked enough like him to be his twin came out. They embraced, and Cardozo said, to Ellen and the audience, “My cousin. Danny Cardozo.” Ellen laughed. “I did not know this was who you were bringing on today. I expected you to bring a girlfriend or a boyfriend.” She looked off to the side, away from the camera. “My staff pranked me.” “And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing with the paparazzi for the last year,” Daniel-the-model said. “We’ve been playing with the idea that just because I’m a public figure the public has a right to know everything about my personal life.” “Intriguing. Explain,” Ellen said. “About a year ago, my cousin called to say that he was going to Miami with his boyfriend for spring break, and could I recommend a hotel,” Daniel-the-model said. “I told him to have my press agent make the reservation for him, and that he’d get upgraded because the hotel would think it was me.” “Did it work?” “More than we expected. Someone at the hotel tipped off a photographer, who took a bunch of pictures of Danny and his boyfriend, and published them as me.” Daniel-the-scholar, who apparently went by Danny, chimed in. “I was embarrassed for him, because the headlines teased that he had dumped his girlfriend and was now dating a man.” “I thought it was a riot,” his cousin said. “We started doing it every time Danny wanted to travel. The tabloids had a field day—one month I’d be somewhere with Giselle, my girlfriend, and the next month Danny would be cuddling with

some random guy.” “They weren’t random,” Danny protested. “I had a deep emotional attachment to each of them. And I only took two more trips—that first one was spring break junior year, then a summer vacation a few months later, and then the following spring break.” The audience laughed. “We decided it was time to clear the air,” Danny said. “Daniel has a big reason. Which involves another person.” Daniel nodded, and once again stood and motioned someone from offstage. This time it was a beautiful young woman in a slinky dress. “Giselle,” Ellen said, standing to greet her. “In case anyone in the audience doesn’t know, Giselle was Miss Florida a few years ago, and now she balances her modeling career with medical school at NYU.” The audience applauded and Giselle hugged her boyfriend, and then his cousin. She and Danny sat on the sofa, but Daniel went down on one knee. “No more fooling around, baby,” he said. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” He pulled out a ring box and showed it to her. Her eyes lit up and she gasped, along with the audience. “Yes!” she squealed, and lots of kissing and hugging ensued. The clip ended, and Aidan returned to the home page for the photo portfolio. The narration on the web page continued, “Shortly after our appearance on Ellen, a photographer approached us and suggested an erotic photo shoot.” Aidan pointed at the screen. “They look enough like twins to . And that’s a thing people like to see, naked twins.” Liam shrugged. “If you say so. But they’re not twins.” “No, they’re not. And Daniel Cardozo, the model, is straight but not narrow, if you get my meaning. Gay men also get off on gay men in sexual situations with straight guys.” “Again, if you say so.”

Aidan pushed lightly against his husband’s shoulder. “Liam. You are the most vanilla person I have ever met.” “That’s not what you say in bed.” Aidan laughed. “Moving on. The photographer offered them a lot of money for this shoot, and they took it. Mostly so that our Danny could finance a master’s degree at Oxford.” Aidan’s phone rang with a call from Jean-Luc Derain. “I received a request for your services from a man in Tunisia,” he said in rapid French. “I gather you have already spoken with him?” “Oui, oui,” Aidan answered him. “A referral from a man we knew back in Tunis. You can do the contract?” “I will. Standard ?” They talked for a few moments about air fare, hotel and billing, and Jean-Luc said, “I have emailed the contract. I will let you know as soon as it is signed.” He hung up, and Aidan said, “The cousin who’s the model must make good money.” “Let’s hope so,” Liam said. Aidan went into the shower. When he got out, he found that Liam had already begun preparing their electronic equipment. Everything from their tiny highbeam flashlights to Aidan’s Kindle had to be charged. Liam inventoried spare batteries and extra jump drives and photo cards. He made sure their iPhones, iPads and laptops had been updated to the last software versions and checked their walkie-talkies. Since they were going to a foreign country, he left their weapons and bullets stored in the gun safe in the office. Aidan threw a load of laundry into the washer and started assembling the rest of what they needed. Liam was much broader in the chest than Aidan, but he liked his shirts tight, and Aidan preferred his loose. That meant they could share those, as well as cargo shorts, with multiple pockets for phones, flashlights, pocketknives, and other necessary tools of their trade. Since Liam was several inches taller and had larger feet, the only clothes they couldn’t switch off were

slacks and shoes. They had a standard routine for packing their suitcases, one that Aidan had learned from Liam. Everything went in the same place each time, so that in a hurry, or in the dark, they could find what they needed. An hour or more ed quickly as they worked in sync, organizing and packing. The laundry moved from the washer to the dryer, and Jean-Luc texted that he had received a signed contract. There was a non-stop flight that evening from Nice to Tunis on Tunis Air, and Aidan booked tickets. The flight was only an hour and a half, and the time in Tunis was an hour earlier, so they’d be arriving at 7:45 that night. Then he texted Danny Cardozo when they would be landing and asked how to meet. Danny returned the message quickly. He was staying in a guest house in Tunis’s La Marsa neighborhood along the Mediterranean coast. He would get them a room, and they could take Bolt, the Uber of Tunisia, to get there. “That’s a resort area, not very close to the city center,” Liam said. “I wonder what he’s doing way out there, if he needs to get into the souk to look for manuscripts.” “He said that he’s working with a translator, so maybe he’s finished looking for fragments and concentrating on what he’s found.” “Well, we’ll discover that tonight.” “Along with why he thinks he needs protection,” Aidan said. “And what we can do to keep him safe while he finishes this translation.”

19: Ransacked: Danny Danny was relieved to know that the bodyguards would be arriving that evening. He hadn’t confided any of his encounters to Mehdi, worried about scaring the old man off, and he wasn’t sure how he’d introduce the idea of bodyguards. It was a Wednesday, and that meant he would spend the afternoon with Mehdi going over the work Danny had done. The section of manuscript he was working on had been by blemished by water somewhere in its journey. Some words were damaged beyond recognition, while others had letters missing or marred. It was a challenge to reconstruct the faded or damaged letters, and then the words they belonged to. By then, Danny had developed an intuitive feel for the scroll, and he was able to think ahead about what the next word or words would be. When he was baffled by what was in front of him, he went back to his English translation and his concordance, and worked from there. After he spoke to the bodyguards, he put in another two hours of work, then rolled the scroll carefully and replaced it its leather case. It was only about half a mile from his apartment to Mehdi’s, and he liked to detour over to the Avenue Taieb Mhiri, then duck out to the beachfront for part of the walk northbound. Why live by the Mediterranean if you weren’t going to see it as often as you could? It was a sunny day with a cool breeze coming in from offshore, bringing a white froth of small waves, and he felt better than he had in a while. His work was going well, and he’d have Liam and Aidan to prevent any further attacks. When he came to the Movenpick Hotel, he turned west on a tiny street with no name, in the shelter of a line of Aleppo pines. A truck was backing out of the hotel’s loading dock, and it came perilously close to running right into Danny. If he hadn’t jumped between a pair of trees, he might have been roadkill. He thought about yelling something to the driver, but he probably didn’t belong back there, and the driver was gone before he could think of a suitable insult in Arabic anyway.

He walked quickly past the hotel’s tennis courts and parking lot, then scurried across the avenue when there was a brief break in traffic. From there it was two short blocks to Tanit Road, where Mehdi lived in a second-floor apartment that had a view of the ocean from its narrow balcony. He pressed the buzzer outside the wrought-iron gate, and was surprised when Mehdi did not immediately answer. He checked his watch; it was Wednesday, at 1:00, his normal time. Perhaps Mehdi was in the bathroom. Danny forced himself to wait five minutes before ringing again. Still no answer, though. He buzzed the button for the nosy old lady on the first floor, and when she stuck her head out the window he explained in Arabic that he was there to see Mehdi. “He’s not answering his bell. Have you seen him today?” “I saw two men about an hour ago. They went upstairs and stayed for a while, and they just left. So I think he’s there.” She buzzed him in and Danny took the curving marble steps two at a time, as the woman waited in her doorway. Mehdi’s door was ajar, and Danny’s heart rate increased. “Mehdi?” he called as he pushed the door open. “Are you all right?” In answer he heard a low moan coming from the living room and saw Mehdi, lying on his side in a near-fetal position. His bookshelves had been toppled and the room ransacked. “Mehdi! What happened? Are you all right?” “They hit me,” the old man said. “With a club. They hit me behind the knees and knocked my legs out from under me.” He struggled up to a sitting position, with Danny’s arm around his shoulders. His white tunic was dirty and torn, and his loose cotton pants had rips at both knees. At least he wasn’t bleeding, and they hadn’t hit his head, Danny thought. “Did they want to rob you?” He couldn’t imagine why someone would attack an old man in his apartment. It wasn’t like he flashed a gold watch or chains.

“They wanted the scroll,” Mehdi said. “I told them I didn’t have it. They didn’t believe me, and they tore up my apartment looking for it. Finally they found a few old scrolls I have collected over the years, and I made them believe they were what you and I have been translating.” The old woman called from downstairs. “Should I call the police?” Mehdi shook his head. “No police. I don’t know who those men were, and they wore masks and gloves.” “No identification and no fingerprints.” Danny cleared a spot on Mehdi’s sofa and helped him up to sit there. He walked to the doorway and called down, “Mehdi is fine, sayidati. No need for police.” Then he closed the door. “It is not safe for you to stay here,” Mehdi said, nodding toward the leather case that Danny carried. “They may come back once they realize they have the wrong scroll.” “I can’t leave you here alone.” Danny looked around, at the desecration of Mehdi’s life work. Who could do this to a defenseless old man? What kind of animal would leave books and papers in such disarray? It went against all his beliefs as a scholar. “I suppose this is what a genizah looks like,” Mehdi said wryly. “At least what I have read of the Cairo Genizah. Books and papers scattered everywhere.” “A genizah is a graveyard of God’s name,” Danny said. “I can’t leave you in a graveyard, even if it is only of your own books and papers. You’ll have to come to my guest house. No one knows I’m there, and there is a clerk at the door who lets people in.” “No, no. I can’t leave my place like this.” “Then I will clean up for you. Would you like some tea while I work?” “I have everything ready for tea on the counter. But we cannot stay here while the door is broken.” “I can manage that.” Danny looked around the room and spotted one of Mehdi’s tall, heavy bookcases. With everything dumped out, it was easier to move, and

he pushed it in front of the door. He dusted his hands against his cargo shorts. He’d worn them specifically because of their deep pockets, deep enough to cover the scroll case if he left his shirt tails out. “If they were watching for me, they would have stopped me outside. So we are safe for a while.” He went into the kitchen and began boiling the water for the tea. While he was there he cleaned up the debris, replacing food and pots and pans. He winced at the wanton destruction of glasses and plates, but found two intact cups for tea. By the time the water had boiled and he had steeped the tea with pine nuts, the kitchen was clean. He helped Mehdi stand up and walk to the kitchen table. “Does anyone know where you are living?” the old man asked, as he cupped his tea. “I have been very careful,” Danny said. “I pay cash for everything, even my guesthouse, where I am ed under my mother’s maiden name.” “And you have told no one else? Family, friends?” “Everyone communicates by email and cell phone these days. No one has asked for my physical address, and I haven’t given it to anyone.” “Not even your university?” Danny shook his head. “All they have is my email address and my cell phone number. When I left I was worried that my seminar leader wanted to take the scroll from me.” He looked at Mehdi. He hadn’t mentioned Oliver Caswell before, but it seemed like now was the time. “Oliver Caswell. Do you know him? He’s a prominent scholar.” “I have seen his work, but I don’t know him,” Mehdi said. “I have heard rumors, though.” Danny drained the last of his tea. “You can talk while I clean up. What rumors?” “That he learned some piracy skills when he worked in Ras al Khaimah. Among his s around the world, his work is subsidized by a major American

foundation. , Sometimes he finds scrolls, papyri and other ephemera that go to them, rather than to the collection he supervises at Oxford.” “Really?” Danny began stacking books on the shelves, sorry that he didn’t have the time to look through each one or figure out how they should be organized. Was that why Caswell wanted his scroll? To sell it? “Is that illegal?” Mehdi shrugged. “It depends on who pays him. If he is paid by the university to research and acquire materials, and then he diverts them to this foundation in exchange for money, the university may have an ethical problem with him.” Danny finished one case and started on another. “I have taken two courses with him, and I’m doing my translation tutorial with him. We didn’t discuss his other business. But there is something about him I don’t trust.” Mehdi tried to stand, but groaned and sat back down. “You sit. I’ll keep working.” Danny picked up a pile of papers from the living room floor and deposited them on the kitchen table. “You may want to organize these.” They worked in tandem for an hour or more, Danny shelving books and bringing Mehdi papers, and the folders on the table multiplied. Finally the apartment took shape, and the books and papers had been organized. “I haven’t wanted to tell you, because I didn’t want you to worry,” Danny said, when he sat at the kitchen table with Mehdi again. “But I have had threats. In England, before I left. And then someone bothered me in the souk the other day, when I went looking for the hatmaker who told me about the scroll in the first place.” “Bothered?” “I got very frantic when I couldn’t find him, and I was showing American money around to see if anyone would tell me where he went. When I gave up and left, a man followed me.” “This man could have been watching for you to return. Someone told you the hatmaker was dead?”

Danny swallowed hard. Perhaps the muscular man who approached him in the souk had gone after the old hatmaker, and after he’d been beaten, he had died. Thank God Mehdi had survived. “A young man from one of the other stalls.” Suddenly he ed Shimon. How could he get a message to him to be careful? “The hatmaker here in Tunis sent me to his cousin in Djerba. What if these people have gone after him as well? I don’t know anything more than his first name, and that he runs a stall in the market in Houmt Souk.” “That is very worrying.” “I talked to my cousin Daniel,” Danny said. “You know, the one I told you about. The model.” Mehdi’s eyes twinkled for a brief moment. “Yes, you said that he is very handsome. And that he looks like you.” Danny felt himself blushing again. “Well, he’s making a lot of money, and when I told him about the situation here, he offered to pay for someone to watch out for me until I’m finished. The policeman I spoke with recommended two men, bodyguards. They have experience in things like this.” “Bodyguards?” Danny nodded. “They’re arriving tonight. I want you to come to my guesthouse, Mehdi. They can watch over both of us.” Mehdi argued that he could take care of himself, but Danny disagreed. “No, Mehdi. You said yourself you gave them false scrolls. Soon they will know that, or whoever hired them, and they will be back. If they can’t find me, they will come for you again.” He reached out and took the old man’s gnarled hand in his. “Please, Mehdi? I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Mehdi thought for a while. “All right, for a short time. We will work more on the scroll, yes? And when we are finished you will go, and take it with you, and there will be no more danger for me.”

“Thank you.” Danny looked at his watch. “We’d better call a Bolt to get to my guesthouse. The bodyguards should be there soon.” Mehdi was able to stand by then, and packed a bag to take with him. Danny called for the Bolt, then helped Mehdi down the stairs. The woman on the first floor opened her door and Mehdi said, “My nephew. I am going to stay with him for a while.” She agreed to accept any packages for him, and then went back into her apartment. Danny felt like Indiana Jones on a covert mission when he left Mehdi inside the lobby and carefully stepped out the front door. Before leaving its shelter, he looked left, and then right. A truck ed, bouncing noisily on the potholes in the street, and a woman pushed a baby carriage on the other sidewalk. Otherwise the area was empty. Mehdi had described the two men who attacked him as tall and broad, and there was no one like that on the street. When pressed, he had agreed that one man was very muscular, with tight pants. But that was the only connection Danny could make to the man who’d attacked him in the souk. His heart racing, he walked up to the driver of the sedan, a young woman, and asked to see her license. When he saw that she matched the name in the app, he helped Mehdi out of the building and into the back seat with his suitcase. Danny jumped into the front seat. He had given the app an address one street away from the guesthouse, just to be safe. And he could not help looking in the rear-view mirror as the woman drove off. It didn’t look like anyone was following them. He was relieved to think that once he was in the guesthouse, the bodyguards would take over his safety. As long as he felt he could trust them.

20: Threats: Aidan Even before they walked out of the airport terminal, Aidan was filled with a weird combination of memory and longing at being back in Tunisia. The Arabic signs were so familiar, and the sound system was even playing Karif al-Fulan’s newest song, “The Two Parts of Me.” Their first job as a team had been to protect Karif soon after he came out of the closet, when he was the subject of a death threat issued by a conservative Muslim cleric. They had looked after him until they were able to expose the bad guys who had pushed the cleric to impose the fatwa, and after their arrest it had been lifted. Karif had gone on to become a multi-platinum recording artist, singing in several different languages, though his most popular songs were all in English. The current hit explored the idea that any artist had two parts—a public face and a private one, and the challenges of traveling constantly to perform, yet trying to have a private life with his husband, a Brit named Gavin. Karif had met Gavin when he slipped away from Aidan and Liam one day, and they’d discovered Gavin giving Karif a blow job in an alley in Houmt Souk, on the island of Djerba where they were staying. Their relationship moved into true love. Gavin became Karif’s personal manager and traveled with him everywhere, shielding him from fans and giving him the chance at that second part of life. Liam obviously recognized the song, because he asked, “Heard from Gavin and Karif lately?” as they walked from their gate to the customs agent. “I hear from Gavin occasionally, when they have a weird encounter with a fan.” “They’re still happily in love?” “Liam. You just have to listen to the lyrics to this song to know that.” Aidan smiled. “Gavin told me that both of them think you and I are their role models.” “Sweet. As long as they take care of themselves.”

The heat that blasted Aidan as he and Liam walked out of the terminal was another reminder of their life together in Tunis. Had they really lived in a small house without air conditioning for years, in this inferno? He was glad to slip into the cool comfort of the Bolt driver’s sedan, and fanned himself as they took off. Even the airport roads were familiar, and he was momentarily startled when the driver made a complicated turn that took them away from the city rather than toward it. Then he ed they were no longer living in the tiny house behind the Bar Mamounia but heading instead to a client’s apartment in La Marsa, by the Mediterranean. “What do you know about this neighborhood where we’re going?” Liam shrugged. “Mostly apartments and hotels near the beach. Not the most secure area, but if I recall the crime is mostly petty, aimed at tourists who don’t secure their purses or wallets.” Aidan read the proliferation of Arabic signs with growing comfort, recognized the directions to the ancient port of Carthage, caught an occasional glimpse of a slice of dark blue sea. They hadn’t lived in Tunis for years, but still the place had the feel of home to him. Maybe it was because he had such happy memories of falling in love with Liam there. The Bolt driver pulled up in front of a whitewashed four-story building, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, though the gate was propped open. Aidan looked around. “We’ll have to ask the manager if that gate can stay locked. Otherwise it’s very easy for someone to get into the grounds.” “One step ahead of you, Tonto,” Liam said, and Aidan sneered at him. “The gate won’t do much, because anybody who wants to get in can shinny up that tree over there. And most of the rooms open to the outside, so there’s no central security.” “I should know I can’t beat you at your game. I’ll focus on getting to know the client.” “Preferably with his clothes on.”

Aidan didn’t answer that, just hopped out of the car. The driver had already popped the trunk, and he grabbed his rollaboard case and his backpack and strode forward, through the gate. Ahead of him he saw that no one was on duty at the reception desk, and he heard the sharp sounds of a video game battle coming from inside. He pulled out his phone and called Danny, who said he was in apartment three, to the right. Liam followed Aidan down a stone path, to where Danny Cardozo was waiting in the open doorway of his room. “First lesson,” Liam said. “You don’t put yourself in a position of vulnerability by walking outside when you don’t know who’s coming.” “But Aidan just called,” Danny said defensively. “Liam’s concerned for your safety,” Aidan said. “I am too.” He stuck his hand out and introduced himself and his husband. “Can we do this inside?” Liam asked. “Since we have no idea yet what kind of danger you’re in?” “Sure, sure,” Danny said, backing up into the apartment. Aidan and Liam followed him into a generously-sized room, with a sofa along one wall, where a gnomish elderly man sat, holding a cup of tea. A queen-sized bed was to their right, with a sink and a microwave to their left. “This is the translator I’ve been working with,” Danny said. “Mehdi ibn Habib.” Mehdi stood with some difficulty, and Danny introduced them. “Mehdi was assaulted this afternoon in his apartment, and I insisted he come here, where you can protect both of us.” “I don’t want to be an imposition,” the old man said. “Obviously we have some catching up to do since our conversation this morning,” Liam said. “What happened?” They left their bags by the front door when Danny motioned them all to sit. Mehdi sank back to the couch, and Danny sat beside him. Liam and Aidan sat in armchairs across from them.

“I was at my apartment this morning, looking over some phrases Danny translated in preparation for our regular meeting this afternoon,” Mehdi said, in accented but otherwise perfect English. “Someone knocked on my door and I assumed it was one of my neighbors, since there is a buzzer system downstairs for visitors.” Aidan ed a phrase Liam often used. When you assume, you make an ass of you and me. But he didn’t say anything. “Two tall, strong men pushed their way inside and then shut the door. One of them demanded al tamrir, the scroll.” “I told them I have many scrolls. They could take what they wanted as long as they didn’t hurt me.” The old man shivered, and Aidan tried to put care into his tone of voice. “That must have been very frightening for you.” “When I was a young man I fought with Neo Destour, the movement to gain Tunisian independence from . I was foolish and headstrong then.” He shook his head. “Not anymore. I simply don’t want to break any bones and end up in hospital.” “We’ll do our best to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Aidan said. “What happened after the men demanded this scroll?” “I have several old scrolls from different eras. None of them very valuable, only aids I use occasionally in my research. I opened a cabinet drawer and handed them to the man who spoke to me. He had a cultured accent, like someone who had gone to school. The other man, who was stronger and rougher, held me to one side.” Aidan shuddered, imagining how stressful this must have been for the old man. “He pulled a hand-held spectrometer from his bag. I have seen them used several times at the university here in Tunis. It looks like a strange sort of handgun, with a digital readout on a screen. He sat down at my table, opened the first scroll and pointed his machine at it. A few minutes ed, and I asked if I could sit, but the man beside me said no.”

Mehdi cradled his cup of tea. “Then the machine beeped, and the first man said, ‘Not old enough.’” “My friend Philip has a spectrometer like that in his lab at Oxford,” Danny said. “It’s not as accurate as the big machines but it can give you a quick idea of the age of an item.” Mehdi sighed. “I should have known then that I was in trouble.” He began to shake, and Danny put his arm around the old man. “The first man examined all the scrolls I had given him and announced that they were all wrong. Then he turned to me. ‘Where is the scroll of the American?’ he asked.” “They tore up his apartment looking for it,” Danny added. “When I got there, it was a mess.” Aidan nodded. “Let Mehdi finish, please.” Danny looked abashed and nodded. “I told them I didn’t have that scroll with me, that Danny kept it with him, but they didn’t believe me. They hit me with some kind of bar behind my knees, and I fell to the ground,” Mehdi said. “I stayed there while they hunted through my home. Eventually they gave up and took the scrolls I offered them.” “I arrived a short while later,” Danny said. “I helped Mehdi clean up and brought him here.” “Is this any safer than his place?” Liam asked. “Well, you’re here,” Danny said. “That’s not going to be enough,” Liam said.

21: Naïve: Aidan Aidan leaned forward. “Let’s think this through logically. Someone here in Tunis knows you have this very old scroll, but doesn’t know how to find you except through Mehdi. How is that possible? Have you told anyone he is helping you? Posted that anywhere online?” Danny shook his head. “I have been very careful. I didn’t want to go back to the hostel where I stayed before because someone could find me that way. That’s why I came here.” “Anyone from home know about the scrolls?’ “There are two,” Danny said. “An ex, and a good friend. But neither of them knows where I am now.” He sunk back against the sofa. “My friend Philip is studying chemistry, and he helped me authenticate the scroll. His advisor reviewed his work, but all Philip ever spoke about in the lab was the age of the manuscripts, not the material in them.” Aidan took out a notebook, and wrote down Philip’s details, as well as the name of his lab, and of his advisor. “After I left Oxford, I emailed Philip that I was going to a place in the Lake District where I could hike and concentrate on translation. He knows that I like getting out in the countryside, so I thought that was a good blind.” When Danny was finished Aidan said, “You said there were two.” “I had a boyfriend for a while, another grad student, this one in political economy. Ivo and I had a difference of opinion over monogamy, and we broke up. But when I started getting threats through a Reddit forum, I asked Ivo to see if any of those people who threatened me were in Oxford.” Aidan groaned. “There were threats on Reddit?” “I can tell you the whole story later. Ivo ran some analysis and found that of the four men who threatened me online, one was in Oxford. He pulled up a picture of the man and I recognized him one of the two who threatened me on my way

back to my room one evening.” He took a deep breath. “After someone tossed my room, I was too frightened to stay in Oxford, and I ran away. To London, first, then here.” Aidan looked at Liam. As usual, it seemed like they had jumped into the middle of a story, and were only finding out the details piecemeal. “Let me have Ivo’s details first,” Aidan said, and he wrote them all down, and then the information Danny had on Jamal Cherif, the other Oxford student who had threatened him. “I didn’t realize there were so many possible people who could be involved,” Danny said. “I’m so naïve.” “This is what we do,” Aidan said gently. “We tease out all these names and details and eventually construct a threat analysis.” “Anyone else who knows you might be here in Tunis?” Liam asked. “My cousin Daniel knows I am, and he may have told other people in the family, but no one knows this address. I communicate with everyone by cell phone or email.” Danny’s eyes opened wide. “One of the other people that Ivo found on the subreddit was in Tunisia. Hold on, I kept the names he gave me in a note file on my phone. He grabbed the phone and quickly hit a couple of buttons. “Rasul Najjar,” he said. “That’s the man in Tunisia. But I don’t know anything more about him.” “I do,” Mehdi said. Everyone turned to look at him. “He is an antiquities dealer in Tunis. I have only met him in ing, but I don’t trust him.” “Are there any other translators here in Tunis Danny could be working with?” Aidan asked Mehdi. “Specializing in the language of this scroll, and the time period?” “I am the only one,” Mehdi said. “Yes, there are other translators, some even with basic knowledge of ancient Aramaic. But I am the only one I know of who is fluent in English and could take on a pupil like Danny.”

“There you have it,” Aidan said. “Someone who knows of your skill put two and two together and came to you. Perhaps this Rasul Najjar, who already knew about the scroll and Danny’s ideas, from the subreddit.” Night was falling outside, and Aidan heard the faint cry of the muezzin calling the faithful to the Maghrib prayer. “I can tell we’ve got a lot to unpick,” Liam said. “But we can’t all stay here safely. I don’t like having us in three separate rooms, each of them with an exterior exit.” “Where can we go?” Danny asked. “I’m afraid to try another Airbnb who might want my name or credit card.” “I have an idea. Aidan, can I speak with you for a minute?” They stood up and walked outside. Dark had fallen, and the party lights hanging in the front courtyard cast eerie shadows down the hallway. In the distance they heard a motorcycle roar and a truck’s air brakes slam. “What are you thinking?” Aidan asked. “Didn’t you tell me a while ago that Karif bought that house in Djerba where we went with him?” Aidan nodded. “And he’s on tour somewhere, so I’m sure he’s not using it. Let me text Gavin and see what he says.” Aidan pulled out his phone and sent Gavin a brief message. They walked back into Danny’s room and took their seats again. “Let’s go back to the threat you experienced here in Tunis,” Aidan asked. “Tell us what happened.” After he listened to the story, he asked, “Can you describe this man?” “He was about my age, looked like a gym rat, you know, the tight white T-shirt over lots of muscles. A couple of gold chains around his neck. His shorts were tiny and very tight.” He looked at Liam. “Like you, maybe twenty years younger.”

Aidan repressed a smile. Liam would not like that reference, though he certainly liked to show off his body. Aidan turned to Mehdi. “Does he sound like one of the men who came to your apartment?” “Yes, I think so,” Mehdi said. He turned to Danny. “You did not mention the gold chains before. Do you if there was an emblem on one of them?” Danny nodded. “The word Allah, in a gold script, with rhinestones in the center.” “That resembles the pendant the muscular man wore.” “That is not good,” Liam said. “It sounds like the man who came after Danny at the souk found you and brought a friend to help ransack your apartment. We’ve made a about somewhere else we can go, and as soon as we hear back we’ll make some plans.” “I would like to go to my room,” Mehdi said. “It has been a difficult day.” Liam walked Mehdi to his room, and Aidan went to the one he and Liam would share, after cautioning Danny to lock up and not open for anyone other than them. Danny’s experience reminded Aidan of one of his first days in Tunis. He was coming off a terrible break up then, and not paying attention to where he was walking. He had ended up in a deserted street with a couple of young boys pestering him for money. Then he saw they had other, older boys, waiting, and like Daniel, he had run. Only he’d ended up in a bar, rather than a clothing store. Liam ed him after seeing Mehdi to his room and Aidan turned to him. “What do you think?” Aidan asked. “I think our boy is in some serious trouble. And it all comes back to that scroll he says he has. If it’s as old as he says, then it is very valuable.” “And he says there’s some controversial material in it. That could add another layer to the problem.” He pulled out his phone. “Nothing from Gavin yet. I hope he comes through.”

“If not, we’ll figure something else out,” Liam said. While Liam went into the bathroom, Aidan stood by the sliding glass door that led to a small balcony and looked out at the traffic moving past. Tunisia had always been among the more liberal of Arabic countries in its attitude toward homosexuality, though sodomy was illegal and punishable by imprisonment. When the protests of the Jasmine Revolution arose against corruption, poverty and political repression, Aidan hoped that social attitudes would also relax, and he’d be more comfortable on the streets as an American, a Jew and a homosexual. That hadn’t happened. Though things didn’t get worse, they didn’t get better either. Liam noticed Aidan’s unhappiness, and suggested that they move to . Aidan had welcomed the opportunity. Was escape always the right choice, though? Would it be best for Danny Cardozo?

22: A New Plan: Liam The next morning Liam woke at six and dressed in shorts, a T-shirts and running shoes. He slipped quietly out of the room while Aidan slept and walked through the narrow hallway to the courtyard. He stood in the pale sunshine there and did some stretching exercises, then took off at a run toward the oceanfront promenade. He had discovered that running was an excellent way to set his brain to work on a problem: in this case, how to protect Daniel Cardozo. The guesthouse was not an option. Security was erratic, and it was difficult to protect Danny and Mehdi when they were all in separate rooms. He did a circuit through the neighborhood, a mix of high-rise hotels and apartment buildings interspersed with single-family homes and stores. The buildings were mostly whitewashed in the typical Arab style, though there were a few of rough stone. It was a convenient area for visitors, close to the ocean. As he ran, he decided his first step was to look at the manuscript. And not that he doubted Danny, or whoever had authenticated it for him at Oxford. He liked to see things for himself. Maybe once he saw it, and they talked more, he’d have a better idea of who could be after it. He ran out to the promenade which paralleled the beach, with a gorgeous view of the vast ocean beyond, cleared his head, and ran to the far end, then back a full length to the other end, then returned to where he’d started. By the time he returned to guesthouse, Aidan and Danny were in his and Aidan’s room eating pita pockets slathered with a dark jam, with mugs of coffee beside them. “How much did Faisal Qasim tell you ?” Aidan asked Danny, as Liam opened grabbed a pita and a butter knife. “Just that you were a gay couple with experience protecting people in the Arab world,” Daniel said.

“I’m an ESL teacher by training. Ten years ago, I was living and working in Philadelphia when my partner kicked me to the curb. I wanted to get as far from him as I could, so I applied for a job here in Tunis.” “That’s certainly a long way from Philadelphia.” Liam slipped into the third chair at the table with his own plate and mug. It was always interesting to hear Aidan’s story of how they met. “The job didn’t work out, but I met Liam and we fell in love, and we became partners in close protection. We lived here in Tunis through the Jasmine Revolution in 2011, and by the time that was over I decided that I didn’t feel safe here, even with Liam by my side. We moved to a small town outside Nice, and we’ve been there ever since.” Liam added, “I still hear from Faisal now and then, which is why he thought of us.” “Now it’s your turn,” Aidan said. “The last we saw of you was on Ellen. And then the portfolio, of course.” Daniel’s face reddened. “Not the best calling card for a professional. But back then it seemed like a lark, and I made enough money to finance my move to England. Since then we still get small royalty checks, and the money has been enough to pay my living expenses while I was in Oxford, and then here.” “What made you decide to become a paphyrologist?” Aidan asked. He turned to Liam. “That’s someone who studies ancient papyrus.” “I’ve always been interested in history,” Danny said. “My family has been in the United States since the nineteenth century, and we have ties to a lot of highachievers. After a couple of courses in the Near Eastern Judaic Studies program at Brandeis I decided to major in that.” He looked sheepish. “I told my parents it was a fine major for law school, because I already spoke Hebrew and I could work for an international firm that did business in Israel.” “Let me guess. You were never really interested in law school,” Aidan said. “You’re right. Professor Caswell came to Brandeis my senior year and gave us a lecture on the Oxyrhynchus archive at Oxford, a group of parchment scraps

found in Egypt which he has been translating, and the opportunities for scholars.” Liam noticed a faraway look in their client’s eyes. “He was so charming, telling us stories about working on digs in the United Arab Emirates, smoking cigars with sheiks, standing guard at night against grave robbers.” “Sounds a bit like Indiana Jones,” Aidan said. Danny nodded eagerly. Liam thought that if Danny wanted to be a swashbuckling action figure like Jones, he had a long way to go. “Then I saw the course descriptions for the Master’s in Jewish Study program at Oxford. I nearly swooned and I really wanted to do it, but there was only so far I could push my parents. So when my cousin Daniel suggested the photo set and told me how much money we could make I jumped at the chance.” “What did you parents think?” Aidan asked. “We didn’t tell them the pictures were naked, and as far as I know they never looked. I mean, our families have a ton of photos of the two of us already. They were surprisingly okay about my going to Oxford. I guess my mother was willing to switch bragging about my son the lawyer to my son the Oxford graduate.” “Who suggested you come to Tunis?” Liam asked. “Professor Caswell told us that a lot of the cities in the Arab world might have bits of parchment squirreled away. I did my research and I decided on Tunis because of the trade between Tunis and Cairo in the 16th to the 19th century. I thought if they were shipping a lot of fragile items then, there might be cartonnage in Tunis – old bits of parchment used for packing. I never expected to stumble on a scroll this large or complex.” He sipped his coffee. “But I had no luck, until an elderly man, one of the hatmakers in the souk on the rue de la Kasbah, told me to see his cousin on the island of Djerba. Have you heard of it?”

“We spent a couple of weeks there a few years ago,” Aidan said. “It was beautiful.” Liam thought again about the house where they had hunkered down while protecting Karif. It was isolated down a long driveway, with a fence around the property and no neighbors to let bad guys in unknown. “There’s a very old synagogue there, the El Ghriba. I spoke to the hatmaker’s cousin, and he entrusted me with this scroll.” “Can we see it?” Liam asked. Danny had brought a bag with him, a leather case the size of a large shaving kit. The three of them knelt around the coffee table, as Danny put on a pair of rubber gloves, then withdrew the scroll. Very carefully, he opened the first roll, and showed them the meticulous printing inside. “This is amazing,” Aidan said, leaning forward. Liam looked at his husband, his eyes alight with fascination. Aidan had spent years in Sunday school and Hebrew school, and yet he was still eager to learn anything new about his Jewish heritage. Liam had been forced to learn a lot of it along the way, as they had done this very thing a few years before. Cousins of Aidan’s aunt still lived in Istanbul then, and they were custodians of an ancient Jewish artifact that had disappeared. Aidan and Liam had journeyed to Turkey to protect them from threats which ultimately had nothing to do with the artifact, and he had to it he’d felt a bit like Indiana Jones himself. It appeared that history was about to repeat itself. An idea sparked, and he grabbed his cell phone. “Danny, let me take a couple of shots of you with the scroll. You have any books you use?” “Sure, but most of the time I use my laptop.” “Set it up for me, will you?” As Danny pulled out his laptop and a couple of reference books, Aidan asked, “What are you planning?”

“A little subterfuge. I’ll take a few random shots of Danny at work and send them to Richard.” Richard was their hacker friend. “He can post them to Danny’s social media sites and time and date-stamp them so that anyone who’s looking will think Danny is somewhere far away.” “He told his friend he was out in the Lake District. I’ll bet Richard would have some fun putting in a couple of backgrounds to make it more convincing.” “Excellent idea.” They moved Danny around so that he was against a wall with only a single abstract painting on it, and Liam took a bunch of wide and close shots. Then Aidan’s phone rang, the shrill tone disrupting them. He answered as Danny rolled the scroll up. “Hey, Gavin. Thanks for answering. Let me give you to Liam, who can spell out the particulars.” Liam handed his phone, with the photos of Danny on it, to Aidan so that Aidan could send the photos to Richard with instructions. Then he took Aidan’s phone and walked out through the narrow hallway to a sheltered part of the garden. “We’re back in Tunis, and we have a client to protect for a few weeks,” Liam said. “I ed you guys bought that villa in Djerba. You think our client could rent it until we get his situation resolved?” “You’re welcome to use it,” Gavin said. “No rent necessary, after all you did for me and Karif. The same caretakers are there, Hakim and Alisa. I’ll let them know when you’re coming.” “Today, if we can get a flight. Thanks, Gavin. We appreciate it.” “Give that handsome husband of yours a special pounding for me,” Gavin said with a laugh, then rang off. Liam walked back into the room. “We’re a go for Djerba,” he said. He motioned Danny to sit, and Aidan ed them in the living room. “I hate to talk about money at a time like this but I want to be clear. Your cousin signed a contract agreeing to pay our salary, as well as all necessary expenses in protecting you. We have friends who own a villa a few miles outside of Houmt Souk that’s large enough to accommodate all of us as well as very secure. They’re agreeing to let

us stay there without charge, though of course we’ll be responsible for our own meals and so forth, and at some point we’ll have to tip the caretakers.” Danny nodded. “That’s very generous of them.” “We protected Karif when he was under a fatwa,” Aidan said. “He and his husband are understandably grateful.” “Karif? Do you mean Karif al-Fulan? I love his music!” “That’s the guy,” Liam said. “But here’s the part I want to reinforce. Your cousin will be paying for the four of us to fly to Djerba and rent a car, and that could start to mount up. You’re sure he’s up for it?” “He makes fifty thousand dollars for a single runway show, and he’s done two of them so far this year, as well as a bunch of print spreads. So I’m sure he’s good for it, but if you can put together some numbers for me I’ll confirm it with him.” Liam looked at Aidan, who said, “I’m on it. I’ll make all the reservations and then get Danny the numbers.” “In the meantime, Danny, why don’t you talk to Mehdi and make sure he’s willing to come with us.” “I will.” When Danny was out of the room, Aidan said, “We’ll have to use real names for the tickets. Which means that if whoever is after Danny has the right connections they’ll know where we are.” “Damn. Ideas?” “We rent a car in Tunis under your name or mine. And we drive. I think it’s about six and a half hours, including the ferry service over to Djerba. And we’d need the car in Djerba anyway.” “Make it happen.” “Yes, sir, Captain Picard.”

Liam laughed and turned away. It was barely nine o’clock, so if they could get on the road in an hour, they’d travel all the way along the Trans-African highway and its sub routes by day. That put them in Djerba by dinner. As long as everyone involved agreed to the plan. Danny returned to them a few minutes later, looking thoughtful. “Mehdi doesn’t like to fly.” “No problem,” Aidan said. “We’re driving.” Mehdi appeared in the doorway behind Danny. The night’s sleep had refreshed him, though he still had trouble standing. “It’s a very long way,” he said. Aidan hit a couple of keys on his laptop. “Six and half hours. We’ll get a big SUV so everyone will be comfortable.” “Are you sure this is necessary?” Mehdi asked. “You want those men to come back for you again?” Liam asked. Mehdi seemed to shrink down even farther into his gnomish body. “No.” “Then you’ll come with us, and we’ll protect you,” Liam said. “Do you need anything more from your apartment?” “I have very simple needs.” “I wish I could say the same for my husband,” Liam said. Aidan looked up. “Excuse me?” “Electric toothbrush. Macadamia nut oil shave cream. Your special silk pillowcase. I could go on and on.” “Why don’t you finish packing us up instead?” Aidan said, as Danny and Mehdi laughed. Liam left a few minutes later to walk to the rental car office, which was only a few blocks away. It was always surprising the way a case came together so quickly—the morning before he’d been working out in his own yard in Banneret

and thinking about his clients at the gym. Now he was more than six hundred miles away, in the place where he’d begun his business in close protection, where he’d met Aidan, which they’d left to be more secure. And he was on his way back to the scene of their first efforts as a team. He hoped Danny would be more cooperative, and less horny, than Karif alFulan. He didn’t want the aggravation of tracking down a runaway client. He still had his Tunisian driver’s license, which Faisal had helped him renew a year before, ed to Faisal’s home address. That made renting a big, comfortable SUV easy, and before he left the lot he checked the air conditioning. Aidan would expect it to be arctic, and it was. By the time he returned to the guesthouse, Aidan had shepherded Danny and Mehdi into readiness, and the three of them piled into the vehicle. As usual, Liam was left loading all the bags into the back. At least on this trip they didn’t have to worry about carrying Hayam and her retinue of toys and bowls and chow. “Have you spoken to Thierry or Slava today?” he asked Aidan, as he got back into the vehicle. “No, why?” “Hayam probably misses us.” “Hayam is being spoiled by her two favorite uncles. But I’ll check on her later.” Before he put the SUV in gear, Liam turned around to face Mehdi and Danny in the back seat. “I had an idea while I was waiting for the car. If Aidan accompanies you, Mehdi, would you be willing to make a brief stop in the hatmaker’s souk on the rue de la Kasbah?” “For what purpose?” “I don’t like leaving loose threads behind me, and right now the hatmaker who sent Aidan to Djerba is a loose thread. Where is he? What happened to him? All we know is what someone was willing to say to an American stranger.” “You want me to visit his stall and see if he has come back?”

“Or if something has happened to him.” Through the rear-view window Liam saw Danny turn to Mehdi. “You don’t have to do it if it scares you.” Mehdi frowned. “I stood up beside Habib Bourguiba to fight for independence,” he said. “I can walk through a souk and ask a few questions.” “Aidan will keep you in sight at all times,” Liam said. “So, Danny, you have an address for this stall?”

23: Safety: Aidan Aidan knew that it was a good idea to find out what happened to the hatmaker, but he wished Liam had run the question before him first. He didn’t like learning plans at the same time the clients did. Danny didn’t know the address of the hatmaker’s stall – both times he had found it by wandering through the souks. Aidan pulled out his phone and called Faisal Qasim. After greeting him and letting him know they were in Tunis, he asked if Faisal knew the souk where the hatmakers could be found. “We were told the rue de la Kasbah, but the Grand Souk des Chechias is not there.” “You are correct,” Faisal said. “There are three souks. Two are connected, and called the Grand Souk des Chechias. But there is a third one on the rue de la Kasbah.” Near the corner of the Rue Sidi Ben Arous.” Liam spoke toward the phone. “It has been too long. I hope we will see you before we return to .” “If Allah wills it,” Faisal said. When he hung up, Aidan put the intersection into the SUV’s GPS system. Liam followed the N9 alongside the Lake of Tunis, a large body of water beside the airport. The broad expanse of water shimmered a dark blue. A long causeway stretched through the lake to a tiny island, and it seemed to Aidan a metaphor to their own long journey to an island, though one considerably larger than Ile Chekli. Liam navigated the loop that connected to the A1, the Trans-African Highway, and ed the Tunisie Telecom building, with its rainbow-colored logo. They got off the highway and drove directly to the Bab el Bahr, the giant stone arch that marked the entrance to the old city, and then curved around an ancient domed mausoleum until they came to rue de la Kasbah. It was clogged with tourists, trucks, and the occasional donkey. Once they ed the entrance to the souk, he made a quick left and swerved into a no parking zone. “Go. If I have to leave I’ll call you.”

Aidan jumped out and helped Mehdi out of the back seat. The old man was still unsteady from the beating he’d gotten, and Aidan threaded his arm through Mehdi’s the way he would a father or uncle. The air was hot but a few clouds provided a bit of shade as they walked. They found the hatmaker’s stall quickly enough, but it was still closed. “I will go from here,” Mehdi said. “I’ll watch you.” Aidan went into a convenience store on the corner, keeping an eye on Mehdi through the big glass window, and bought them tall cold bottles of water. By the time he came out again, Mehdi was talking to an old woman in front of the store next to the closed stall. He spoke to her for a few minutes, as Aidan lingered under the store awning and sipped some water. Finally Mehdi nodded and began to walk back toward him. Aidan saw the old woman watching Mehdi, so he walked down to the cross street and turned the corner. The cloud cover had ed, and the sun was brilliant and hot, even though it was mid-morning. A moment later Mehdi was there. Aidan twisted the cap off the second bottle and handed it to him, and Mehdi drank deeply as they walked forward. They reached the SUV just as a police car was coming, ready to force Liam to move, and they jumped back inside. “Find anything out?” Liam asked, as he eased the SUV back into traffic. “I told the woman at the stall next door that I was looking for my old friend, the hatmaker, because I needed a new chechia and he’s the only one I trust to make them the right way.” The car’s GPS spoke periodically in a woman’s British-accented voice, directing them back to the highway, as Mehdi spoke. “The hatmaker here in Tunis is called Elkan Aboulafia. And he’s not dead.” “He’s not?”

Mehdi shook his head. “Frightened. Men came to the stall and threatened him, and he closed the shutters and left. She doesn’t know where he went.” “Were you able to find out about the men who threatened him?” Aidan asked. “I could not ask too much, because she was suspicious. She warned me, though, that there are thieves in the area who prey on old men. And even male prostitutes.” There was a gleam in his eye. “That sounds a lot like one of the young men who came to my apartment. I can easily see how he would be mistaken for one of those.” Aidan sat back in his seat and considered. Two men had frightened Elkan enough that he’d shut his souk down. Then at least one of them, the kind who might appear to be a male prostitute, lingered in the souk watching the stall, and came after Danny when he showed up. Who were they, though? They had to be associates of Rasul Najjar, who was based in Tunis. If the Aboulafia cousins knew about one scroll, they might know about other artifacts, which they could have offered to or sold to Najjar. Faisal would know if Najjar had a reputation for stealing in stolen goods, and he might even have police records on his associates. Aidan decided to wait until they reached Djerba, and Liam could call Faisal without Danny and Mehdi listening in. So he relaxed and watched the scenery . Once they reached the A1 they made excellent time. The road was clear and Aidan kept ing landmarks of his trip through the desert with Liam — first Sousse, then signs popped up announcing Sfax was ahead. “We should stop, get some lunch and stretch our legs,” Aidan said. “It’ll be another three hours to the ferry terminal at Jorf.” They didn’t go into the city of Sfax, stopping instead at a café by the highway. Danny walked Mehdi around the SUV a few times to stretch out his legs while Aidan and Liam bought thin turnovers called brik for them all, filled with an assortment of chicken, cheese and tuna. Then Danny and Mehdi sat on a bench

in the shade of a couple of tall date palms to eat. The sky was broad and blue, with masses of cumulous clouds on the horizon. Several square stone buildings stuck up in the distance, sentinels of the long human presence here at the edge of the Sahara. Liam and Aidan ate as they looked at the map and a timetable for the ferry from Jorf to Ajim on the island. “Did you notice we ed El Jem an hour ago?” Aidan asked. “I was driving. Yes, I noticed the signs.” He looked over at Aidan. “And yes, I El Jem. Going to look for that pharmacy, and then being chased through the amphitheater.” “Good times,” Aidan said with a smile. Though it hadn’t felt so good at the time, running for his life in the company of a relative stranger. Since then, he’d run through a lot of unusual places with Liam, but the old Roman amphitheater had been his first real chase. “And after Gabes, we stay along the coastal road.” Back on their first trip together, they had veered inland to Matmata, where they had stayed in a hotel with a Star Wars theme, and then continued into the desert. “So no more memory lane for you,” Liam said. He grinned wickedly. “Though when we settle in at the villa we might be able to make some new memories.” “I think there will be enough memories waiting for us there,” Aidan said. Then he returned the grin. “Though I’m not opposed to making a few new ones.” Danny and Mehdi both dozed for the run from Sfax to the ferry terminal. The road swayed up and down, like the humps of a camel, sometimes ed by hillocks of white scree. The farther they got from Tunis, the worse the roadway got, with cracks and chips in the concrete bollards. A motorcyclist ed them, standing up and leaning forward on his handlebars. For miles, the only thing Aidan could see from the highway was sand, wizened olive trees, and the paddles of prickly pear cactus, with yellow flowers blooming from their tops. They had managed to time it so that they didn’t have to wait long for the boat

across a strait of the Boughrara Gulf to Djerba, and Liam was able to drive on almost immediately. “I have never been on a boat like this before,” Mehdi said, looking around, though the craft was hardly larger than a commercial fisherman, with only room for a half-dozen vehicles at once. They got out of the SUV and climbed a short row of steps to stand by a railing looking out over the blue water. “There is a causeway over to the island as well, but there’s no easy way to get there from here,” Aidan said. “We’d have to drive inland to Medinine, and then from there curve around the body of the gulf.” “I want to know more about the first time you were attacked, back in Oxford,” Liam said to Danny. “The men who called you names. You said you believe they came from an online post you made?” “Do you know what Reddit is?” Danny asked. “Only what I know from the news. A bunch of discussion boards for nut cases?” Danny laughed. “Well, there’s a lot of that. But there is also a lot of serious discussion there, on boards they call subreddits. Many of those subreddits are scholarly-- a place where people put up ideas or photos or links to articles. There’s a subreddit called Academic Biblical study which in the past has been very interesting.” “Even an old man like me checks that occasionally,” Mehdi said. “I am still interested in knowing what other scholars are thinking about.” “Yes, that’s where I first saw Mehdi’s name,” Danny said. “And do you introduce yourself by name on this site?” Liam asked. “Everybody has a name. Some people are very transparent and include their real name and their degrees and affiliation. I was worried that I might make a mistake, or say the wrong thing, and it would get back to my professors, so I didn’t provide any personal information.” He shrugged. “There are a lot of trolls on there, too, who make personal attacks.” Aidan turned to him as the deckhands untied the ropes. “Did you say anything in

any post that would have indicated you’re an Oxford student?” “I really don’t think so. I might have repeated something a professor said in class and asked for opinions. But for sure I never mentioned my college, and I never gave anyone there my real name. I did use my real cake day, though.” Liam and Aidan both spoke at the same time. “Cake day?” Danny laughed. “Reddit for birthday.” As the ferry pulled out with the sound of a loud horn, Aidan leaned back against the rail. “I read your post, and most of the ones that followed, though eventually I couldn’t stomach anymore.” “It got pretty nasty,” Danny itted. “I didn’t see anywhere that you said you had this scroll you said you were translating. Who knew you had it in your real world?” Danny blew out a small breath. “My friend Philip. He’s the one who authenticated the age of the scroll for me. His supervisor at the Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, who looked over his results with him.” “Either of them have any radical religious leanings, that you know of?” “Not Philip, for sure. He’s not religious at all. And while I don’t know his supervisor at all, he’s a scientist, and if he’s anything like Philip he’s more interested in the object as a thing, not what it contains. Plus neither he nor Philip could have read what’s in there. You’d need a solid working knowledge of ancient Aramaic.” “Even I have trouble with some words,” Mehdi said. “At least the ones where the letters have been damaged.” Liam nodded. “Did you discuss the phrase you translated from Leviticus with Philip?” “Not really. He’s the one who suggested I jump to the interesting part of Leviticus, the part about same-sex relations. But I never told him what I had found.”

“You said one of the men who commented online was an Oxford student, too?” Aidan asked. Danny nodded. “Jamal Cherif. He’s a first year in the Islamic Studies program.” His eyes and mouth opened in a caricature of surprise. “OMG. He’s from Tunis.” “How do you know that?” “Ivo found his picture online and I recognized him. But that’s all I know.” “We have a friend who can find out more information,” Aidan said. “I’ll send him the name and the link to your subreddit and see what else he can find.” “Is there no one else at Oxford who knows about what you’ve found?” Liam asked. “My tutor. Oliver Caswell. He knows that I have a scroll that’s really old. But he got very grabby about it so I pulled it away from him before he could get a good idea of what’s in it.” “He knows that you’re a graduate student at Oxford, and he knows you have a really old scroll,” Aidan said. “It’s not a big leap to think he reads that subreddit, if it’s directly related to his field, and he recognized you.” “I didn’t put up my picture,” Danny protested. “But your name is jew_24, right? You have to understand the way bad guys put together pieces of information to connect to a whole picture. It’s not a big leap for Caswell to say, “Oh, I have a twenty-four-year-old Jewish student who found a very ancient scroll, and this guy online, jew_24, thinks the scroll he has contains important revelations about Leviticus.” “I guess I sound pretty stupid,” Danny said, slumping against the railing. “I know I should have been better about which computer I used and cloaking my IP address and stuff. But I thought I was safe because I was in a group of scholars.” “That is probably the least safe place in your situation,” Mehdi said.

24: Connections: Danny For the rest of the ferry ride, Danny couldn’t enjoy the view, or even think about anything other than how stupid he had been to leave his identity open to someone who might want to hurt him—or who did hurt Mehdi. He began to make connections. Caswell knew he had the scroll, and it was very likely that he followed the subreddit. He had been at Oxford forever and had s across the university. He might have found Jamal Cherif and arranged to have Danny threatened outside the David Reading Room, and to have his room ransacked. It made sense that Cherif would be involved. After all, Muslims revered the Old Testament as part of their religious heritage. He was angry at what Danny had posted, and even without Caswell’s help could have figured out he was a fellow student, and then come after him. And Cherif was Tunisian. He could be home for the break between . But how would he have known to send someone to watch the hatmaker’s souk? And why? Danny had gotten the scroll from the man’s cousin, in Djerba. He couldn’t recall saying anything specific about the man—hell, he hadn’t even known the man’s name until Mehdi discovered it that morning. Suppose Elkan Aboulafia had bragged about knowing where a scroll could be found to someone else, and Danny had stumbled into a plot completely unrelated to him or to Oliver Caswell? It made his head hurt to consider so many possibilities. He looked around. Could there be someone following them even now? He was confident that Aidan and Liam knew what they were doing, and he’d noticed them watching the road behind them on occasion. But there were several scruffy-looking men waiting by a truck on the lower level. They were unshaved, wearing stained T-shirts and smoking cigarettes. His teen years came back to him in a series of quick vignettes. Being pushed up against a locker by a bigger, older kid who didn’t like the way he walked. Being

called names at the bus dock. Fear of changing clothes in the locker room because he worried he’d get a hard-on among other naked boys, and they’d know his secret. He took a couple of deep breaths. He had outgrown those tormentors, moved on. He’d been savvy enough to escape Cherif in Oxford and the man who came after him at the souk, and smart enough to hire Aidan and Liam. He’d be all right. “What’s the matter?” Aidan asked. “You were shivering.” “Bad memories.” “How old were you when you came out?” “Nineteen. At Brandeis.” “I was twenty-three. A little later than you.” He nodded his head toward Liam, who was talking with Mehdi. “Liam didn’t come out to himself until he was thirty-four. But then, he was able to a lot easier than you and I probably could.” “Did you get beat up at school?” Aidan shook his head. “I was always too smart and sharp-tongued. I put guys down verbally and then made sure I was never alone anywhere. You?” Danny shrugged. “Just the ordinary stuff. Name-calling, tripping, getting my books knocked out of my arms.” “And you survived. Just like you’ll survive this.” “I’m not worried about me. What about all the other people involved? Somebody frightened Elkan the hatmaker and chased him away. Two guys attacked Mehdi. What if someone goes after my friend Philip, back in Oxford? Or my tutor, if he’s not involved in this. He’s an older man, too.” His eyes opened wide. “Shimon, the hatmaker in Djerba. I have to warn him.” Aidan motioned toward the sun setting behind them, over the Tunisian mainland. “It’ll be dark by the time we get to Houmt Souk and his shop will already be closed. We’ll go there tomorrow, all right?”

Danny nodded and Aidan turned away. He imagined Oliver Caswell, confronted by men similar to those who’d attacked Mehdi. But despite his age, Caswell was a man of the world, who’d fended off grave robbers and carried out other exploits. He’d be fine. Then he ed Caswell’s insistence that Danny hand over the scroll. As Aidan had pointed out, it would be easy for someone in Caswell’s position to put the pieces together. And what he hadn’t mentioned was that his room was searched at the very time he was taking the exam in Caswell’s course—so it was a time that his tutor knew Danny would be out. How could he or the bodyguards find out about Caswell’s connections in Tunis? Maybe he would look around the next day. Perhaps he’d even find something online connecting Caswell to Najjar. The ferry docked on the opposite side of the island from the airport. The twolane blacktop road was edged by short and tall palm trees, with sand and scrub stretching off in both directions. The land was flat, and the sky looked like it stretched on forever. They piled back into the SUV and Liam backed up until they were on land again. They drove through the bustling town of Djerba Ajim, past an electronics store called Hackerspace and signs for the Mos Eisley Star Wars Cantina. Then they were on a broad road that cut directly through the island. After checking on Shimon, he wanted to visit El Ghriba synagogue and find out what he could about the genizah. Though he had tracked his family back to their early roots in New York, there must have been other branches who left Spain for Arab countries such as Morocco and Turkey, where they were welcomed. He had done some reading when Elkan had first directed him to Djerba. The island had once had a significant Jewish population and he wondered if a few of his ancestors had ever ed through. What if he found his own name somewhere in the synagogue’s records? That would be wild, wouldn’t it? He was musing about that as they pulled up at the start of a long driveway that led to a white-washed stucco mini-mansion. The property was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence with a gate and an intercom. Liam stopped, pressed the button and spoke in Arabic. “Hakim? It’s Liam McCullough. Gavin was going to call you?”

Danny couldn’t understand the response, but the gate opened, and then closed again as Liam drove through. Aidan twisted around to address him and Mehdi in the back seat. “This is a lot better security than you had at the guesthouse.” “Who owns this place?” Mehdi asked. “A few years ago we were hired to protect a singer who had some death threats. His record company owned this house and put us up here. After he became successful he bought the place himself.” “Karif al-Fulan,” Danny said. Mehdi shrugged. “I do not listen to contemporary music.” “He’s very good,” Aidan said. “And very rich now.” They stopped under the porte-cochere, and a fifty-something Tunisian couple stepped out the front door. They were all smiles, which made Danny happy, and everyone was introduced. The husband, Hakim, took care of the property, while his wife Alisa cooked and cleaned. Aidan walked off with her to organize their meals, and Hakim carried in their bags. “As you can see, the property is well-protected,” Liam said, as he led them around. “When the record company owned it, they used to put up musicians here, and there were often groups of fans, so they upped the security systems. The fence is eight feet tall and surrounds the property. The only entrance is through the gate where we came in.” He pointed at cameras posted under the eaves that surveyed the property. “All of those can be viewed and controlled from a console inside.” “It feels like a prison,” Mehdi said. “If it is, it’s a very luxurious one,” Liam said. “Six bedrooms, each with an en suite bath. Swimming pool out back, long enough for laps. State of the art sound system inside, with a recording studio at the far end. Views of the Mediterranean from all levels.” “This is not where I expected to end up when I woke up two days ago and called my cousin for help,” Danny said. “I’ll have to email and thank him.”

He wandered through the house, peering at the recording studio and staring at the pool. He lifted his phone to take a picture, but then stopped. The bodyguards had said they were putting up doctored photos of him in the Lake District. He could just send the photo to Daniel—but who knew if someone was tapping his email? He shivered. He was probably being paranoid, but photos could wait. Maybe before they left Djerba he’d take a whole slew, to memorialize the event. The translation that made him famous! What would he do when he and Mehdi were finished? His father would tell him to put the scroll in a safe deposit box until he decided where it should go. But what about him? Could he face Oliver Caswell again? He was scheduled to have Caswell as tutor again in Hillary term. Caswell would want to see the actual scroll in order to vet anything Danny had translated. Should he drop out of Oxford, return to the States? How did you even go about getting a new translation of Leviticus published? Suppose there were no other revelations in the scroll, and all he could get out of it was a paper analyzing the single phrase? It was an explosive one, certainly, but nothing to build a career on. The smell of dinner snaked through the house and drew him back toward the kitchen. One day at a time, he thought. Get through the sticky bits of the translation with Mehdi, then see what he had. The housekeeper served them a delicious dinner of grilled fish and vegetables and cleaned the kitchen after them. During dinner, they only spoke about the villa, where he and Mehdi could work, Liam’s desire to swim every day. Then she left, and Mehdi retreated to his room to rest. “Suppose we go out to the pool,” Aidan suggested. “We could sit out there and do some planning.” Aidan poured them tall glasses of lemonade, and they trooped outside, where they sat on cushioned chairs that faced down toward the dark ocean, lit by a string of streetlights and hotel signs at its edge. “I forgot how beautiful it was here,” Aidan said. “The last time we were here we were so caught up in protecting Karif that I didn’t get a chance to notice.” “He was a handful,” Liam said. “Cute and sexy and horny as hell, but at the

same time scared out of his wits. It wasn’t until he revealed all his secrets that we knew how we could help him.” He sipped his lemonade. “So, Danny, what aren’t you telling us?” Danny looked at him, wide-eyed. “I’ve told you everything.” “That’s rarely the case with a client,” Liam said. “But as long as there isn’t anything major you’ve avoided…” Danny thought back over everything that had happened since his first conversation with Elkan Aboulafia at the souk in Tunis. It seemed so long ago. While they all sipped lemonade, and stars rose above them, Danny thought. “There is one thing,” he said finally. “I told you that my room was turned over, right?” Aidan and Liam nodded. “It was during my exam in ancient Aramaic. Oliver Caswell was my tutor in that class, so he knew that I’d be out of my room then.” He leaned forward. “Do you think that means he’s behind everything?” “It’s another piece of the puzzle,” Aidan said. “, we don’t want to jump to any conclusions until we know more. Lots of people at Oxford could have known you were taking that class, and when the exam was scheduled.” Danny nodded, and relaxed. “I was worried. He’s such an amazing scholar, but the way he insisted that he keep the scroll upset me. And I have heard some rumors about his ethics.” “I asked our hacker friend to do a deep dive into Professor Caswell,” Aidan said. “If there’s something sketchy in his background, Richard will find it.” They went up to their bedrooms soon after. Danny was delighted to find a big bed in his, piled with pillows the way he liked. Fresh towels in the bathroom, and a small balcony with a wrought-iron railing that matched the fence. He pulled open the sliding glass door and stepped through the floor-length curtains. This room, obviously intended for guests, looked out at the mosaic of roads and

tiny lights on the opposite side of the house from the Mediterranean. It was curiously more peaceful than looking out at the relentless waves. Each light represented a house or guarded a street. No one out there had any reason to hurt him, and he liked that. The next morning, he woke to a full breakfast of scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, and sliced tomatoes and mushrooms. “No bacon,” Aidan whispered to Danny as he sat down. “Muslim country and all that. You’re clearly not Orthodox; are you Reformed or Conservative?” “My family is Conservative, but lately our shul has taken an Orthodox tilt,” Danny said. “My mother would never stand for worshipping away from my father, but the shul had a big fight last year over gender-neutral pronouns.” “I go to a Liberal synagogue in Nice for my parents’ Yahrzeits and the High Holy Days,” Aidan said. “It’s very gender-equal. The first part of the Amidah includes Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, and God is always our Savior or Ruler—not the king anymore.” “I love it when you talk about stuff I have no understanding of,” Liam said dryly. Aidan turned to him. “Catholics still say Our Father Who Art in Heaven, right?” “Last time I went to church was when I was sixteen, so I wouldn’t know.” “That’s what we’re talking about,” Aidan said. “When I was a kid the Hebrew was translated into male pronouns. God was always a He, and He was called King and Lord and so on. Now the rabbis opt for more gender-neutral words like Ruler or Source of Life.” “And we have a prayer, called the Amidah, where we thank our fathers— Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” Danny added. “Now progressive congregations also thank our mothers—their wives. I read a lot about liturgy in my classes, and how it has evolved. Some Catholics are changing the Lord’s Prayer to things like “Our Creator in Heaven,” or “Our Father and Mother.” “I don’t think I’d like that,” Liam grumbled. Aidan elbowed him. “Then go to church sometime.”

Mehdi ed them then, and he spoke to Alisa in Arabic. A moment later she brough him a platter without tomatoes. “In English I believe you call it acid reflux,” he said. “I have found it best to avoid tomatoes.” “Have you guys thought about a translating schedule yet?” Aidan asked. “We’d like advance notice if you want to go outside the fence. We haven’t been back to Djerba in years, so we’ll want to scout out anywhere we take you before we go.” Danny looked at Mehdi. “What is your preference? To work in the morning or the afternoon?” “If we are to have such an excellent breakfast, we could work in the morning,” Mehdi said. “With coffee or tea, of course. Then perhaps I will take a nap in the afternoon while you work on your own, and then we can meet again before dinner.” “That’s fine.” Danny turned to Aidan and Liam. “This afternoon, could we go to the souk and speak to Shimon?” I want to make sure he knows about what happened to his cousin Elkan.” Danny shivered. It was not the kind of news he wanted to deliver to anyone, but it had to be done. If someone had threatened Elkan, then Shimon could be at risk as well.

25: Return to Houmt Souk: Danny “I’ll drive into Houmt Souk and refresh my memory with the city’s layout,” Liam said. “Aidan will stay here with you. This afternoon while Mehdi rests, the three of us will go look for your hatmaker.” “I saw a room with a pool table last night, as I was walking around,” Danny said. “We can spread the whole scroll out. And there’s a chess table where we can sit and I can put out my laptop.” When Mehdi was finished eating, he and Danny walked down the hall to the game room, where they used the pool cues to lay the entire scroll out flat. “Wow,” Danny said. “I’ve never had the chance to see the whole scroll at once like this.” Mehdi hovered his finger over the seam that connected the first part of the scroll to the book of Leviticus. “We have been focused on the Biblical text,” he said. “But perhaps we should step back to the beginning. When did your friend say this first part dates from? “Sometime in the seventh century BCE.” “Then the first question we must pose is why the two scrolls have been sewn together, and why Leviticus is here without its brethren.” “For at least six or seven hundred years after the first scroll was written, there was no halakhic rule prescribing that scrolls used for liturgical purposes had to contain the entire Pentateuch,” Danny said. “I learned that in one of my classes.” “Yes, that is something I have heard as well. But what is this first scroll, and why has it been attached here?” Mehdi picked up his magnifying sheet and began murmuring to himself. This scroll, because it was newer, and because it was inside all the other parts when the scroll had been stored rolled from left to right, had not undergone some of the damage the other, earlier scroll had.

Danny looked over his shoulder, but though many of the words were familiar, he couldn’t get an overall sense. Finally, Mehdi put down his magnifier. “This seems to be an introduction to Leviticus,” he said. “The language is a bit more modern, more like the language spoken by the Assyrians. Let me read a bit further.” While Mehdi moved forward, Danny began translating the first lines. Almost immediately, it felt to him like he was reading a section of the Mishna, a collection of originally oral laws supplementing scriptural laws. His pulse raced. What if the Mishna here ed the interpretation of the rules governing homosexual conduct, which in the scroll that followed were different from general interpretation? That made the scrolls even more valuable for study, and it made sense why the first parchment had been sewn with the second. Mehdi appeared to skip to the end of the first section, and he agreed with Danny that it was meant to serve as an introduction to the scroll that followed. “This is amazing, isn’t it?” Danny asked. He pulled one of the chairs from the chess table over and sat down. “Suppose it s my interpretation of Leviticus 18.” “It would require much study once the basic translation is complete,” Mehdi said. “But yes, that possibility exists.” And what a possibility it was! Danny envisioned the publication, the scholarly acclaim, a position with a foundation that would his research. Danny felt energized once more. “What about the parts at the end? Let’s look at those.” The last two parts were merely fragments, each only a piece of tanned hide that began in the middle of a sentence. It was impossible to tell without full examination what they were doing there. Danny took a quick look and was stunned to find his own name, Dan, there several times. “What does this mean?” Danny asked, pointing at the first mention. Mehdi leaned forward with his magnifier. Then he looked up with a smile. “I see why this attracted you. It is a part of the story of Samson, of the tribe of Dan,” he

said. “But the story is cut off very soon after. The next section also references the tribe of Dan, and the coastal section they were allotted when the twelve tribes arrived in the Holy Land.” “Why was it attached?” Mehdi shrugged. “This is much newer. Perhaps it was a way for whoever owned the scrolls to keep them together and protected.” He raised his head and sniffed the air. “I smell lunch. We have come up with some interesting questions. Let us think about them for a while.” Danny followed Mehdi to the dining room, where Alisa was laying out lunch for them, pita breads and fillings. Aidan and Liam came in a few minutes later. “Did you find anything interesting in Houmt Souk?” Danny asked. “I wasn’t looking for anything,” Liam said. “Just wanted to understand the important roads in and out of town, where the police station is and so on.” They finished eating and Danny asked Mehdi if he would come with them to town. “Please? If Shimon has any other manuscripts, perhaps he will give them to us when he sees the renowned translator I am working with.” “Your tongue is honey,” Mehdi grumbled, but he agreed. Then the four of them drove into the town of Houmt Souk under brilliantly sunny skies, with only the tiniest clouds floating in an unending expanse of bright blue. The buildings were similar to those Danny had seen elsewhere on the island, white-washed stucco ornamented with turquoise window frames. Many were surmounted by small white domes. Danny pulled up a map of the town in an effort to where he had found Shimon. Liam navigated the narrow streets of the town until he found a parking space a few blocks away. The heat was oppressive after the coolness of the car, and Danny hurried forward, following directions on phone. Aidan, Liam and Mehdi followed. Then he turned a corner and stopped short. “Oh, no!” Aidan came up behind him. “What?”

“His store is closed too. Look!” Danny pointed across the street at the sign. “Alqubeat aljamila,” lovely hats, was spelled out in Arabic script above a storefront. The last time he’d been there, fezzes and tarbooshes and chechias had spilled out onto the sidewalk in a riot of colors and fabrics. Now a roll-down metal grate with a scrawl of graffiti over it blocked the store. Mehdi sighed. “I will ask again. At least this time I know the man’s name.” The three of them waited in an arcade across the street from the hatmaker’s shop. Mehdi tried the first shop to the left, where he spoke briefly with an old man, who shrugged and seemed to have nothing to say. Then he went to the other side, where a dark-haired young woman wearing a beautiful necklace of gold coins stood before a round rack of postcards. That conversation seemed more fruitful, and Danny sweated and worried as Mehdi talked and nodded. Finally he said goodbye, and crossed the street back to them. “The girl, she says that Shimon was robbed on his way home two days ago. That he is in the hospital now.” Danny began to cry. “This is all my fault. Everyone connected with this scroll is getting hurt.” Aidan put his arm around Danny’s shoulders. “It’s going to be all right. We’re here, and we’ll find out what’s going on.” “But we can’t protect everyone you know,” Liam said. “All we can do is take care of you. And once we figure out who’s behind all this, everyone else will be safe.”

26: More Than a Hatmaker: Aidan Aidan noticed that Liam kept an eye on the rear-view mirror as they drove, and because he took no defensive measures he had to be sure no one was following them. They pulled up in front of a clean, modern building of several stories, with a sign out front proclaiming it the Polyclinique Djerba Arij Midoun. “Let’s sit in the car for a minute or two,” Liam said, he eyes on the mirror once again. When he was content that there was no one in the parking lot who intended them harm, they piled out and walked inside. The man at the front desk was older and Tunisian, so once again they sent Mehdi ahead to find out where Shimon was, and were directed to a room on the third floor. The setup was as professional as any Aidan had seen in the States or . Shimon slept in a hospital bed, with tubes out of his mouth and wires attached to sensors on various parts of his body. Beside him he heard Danny gulp. A man in his forties sat beside Shimon, intent on his cell phone. As the door opened, he looked up. “Who are you?” he asked in a British accent. Aidan nudged Danny forward. “My name is Danny Cardozo. I met your father a few months ago and he told me how proud he was of you, that you had gone to the Saïd Business School. I’m studying at Pembroke College myself.” He paused. “He gave me an old scroll to translate. I wanted to tell him of my progress. What happened to him?” “He was mugged leaving his business,” Moshe Aboulafia said. “He is not the first Jew to be attacked, nor will he be the last, though it has been a while since we had problems.” He nodded toward Liam, Aidan and Mehdi, who were crowded into the doorway. “And who are your friends?”

Aidan stepped forward and stuck out his hand, and Moshe had no choice but to shake it. “I’m Aidan Greene, and this is my partner, Liam McCullough. The scroll your father entrusted to Danny is very, very old and very valuable, and Danny was worried about its security, so he hired us to protect it until he can finish translating it and get it into a museum collection. This is Mehdi ibn Habib, a Biblical scholar who is helping Danny with the translation.” It took Moshe a moment to absorb everything. Aidan took that time to observe him. Gianni Versace polo shirt, crisply pressed dark slacks, and black calfskin sneakers that looked bespoke. The epitome of a City businessman on holiday. “The doctors have given my father some pretty strong pain relievers, and I don’t know how much he understands right now. There’s a café downstairs. Let’s continue this conversation there.” As the four of them turned to leave, Moshe’s cell phone rang, and he shut it off quickly. He didn’t say anything as they rode down in the elevator and then led them to a sunny room that overlooked a stone garden with a few stubby cabbage palms. “The coffee here is surprisingly good, though it’s not Costa.” They stepped up to the counter and placed their orders, and Liam said, “I’ll pick them up. You guys go get settled.” Moshe led them to a large round table by the windows, and as they sat, said, “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? How did you meet my father?” Danny related meeting Shimon’s cousin Elkan at the hatmaker’s souk in Tunis, then coming to Djerba. “He just pulled this ancient scroll out of a hat?” Moshe laughed. “No pun intended.” “Well, out of a cabinet in the back of his shop,” Danny said. “It had a lot of dirt on it and it looked like it had been buried somewhere.” Moshe nodded. “The genizah at El Ghriba, then.” Liam ed them and ed out of the coffees. “You think that’s where it came from?” Aidan asked.

“Where else? My family has been involved with the synagogue for centuries. The story is that they came here in 1492 after the Jews were expelled from Spain.” “My family left Spain then, too,” Danny said. “For Amsterdam, and then New York.” Moshe nodded. “I know a Cardozo in London.” He picked up his coffee and sipped. “My father was the president of the congregation for many years when I was a boy. My mother died when I was seventeen, and he was very depressed for a while after I left for college. It sounds like he became active again a few years ago.” Aidan was surprised to discover that Shimon was a lot more than just a hatmaker. “You knew about the genizah?” Danny asked. “Right now, there is a back room used for storage,” Moshe said. “It is a small congregation, so there is not much to put away. Occasionally a family will bring in an old collection of tefillin, or the mezuzah of a house being torn down.” He sipped his coffee again. “There are stories, though, of a burial plot somewhere on the synagogue grounds, where a few centuries ago the elders buried a lot of old materials. But to my knowledge, that’s just a legend.” “Could your father have uncovered its location?” Aidan asked. “How? He is a hatmaker, not a gravedigger.” Aidan leaned forward. “But he was the president, so if something was discovered it might have been entrusted to him.” Moshe nodded. “And where is this scroll now?” Danny held up the leather case, which he insisted on carrying with him everywhere. “May I see it?”

“I only have one pair of gloves with me,” Danny said. “But I can open it for you.” They cleared a place on the table, and Danny first unrolled the velvet cloth. Then he put on a pair of blue plastic gloves and carefully opened the scroll. “Amazing,” Moshe said, as he peered down at it. “What is that? Hebrew?” “Ancient Aramaic,” Danny said. He pointed at the first words of the oldest part. “This is pronounced AaLaH and it means God, or the Lord.” “Allah? So this is not a Jewish scroll?” “This is the ancient root word. Islam and Judaism grew up together, you know. So many words are similar between Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic.” Aidan was fascinated as Danny moved his finger to the next word. “This word, QaRYaA, means called, or spoke to. And this is your name, Moshe.” He sat back. “So I would translate this into English as The Lord spoke to Moses, which is the opening phrase of the book of Leviticus.” The rest of them watched as he rolled the scroll up and wrapped it in the velvet cloth, then replaced it in the leather case. “I have a friend who studies radioactive dating at Oxford. He used his spectrometer to examine the scroll. The central part of it dates back to the destruction of the Second Temple.” Moshe nodded, his mouth slightly open. “When they say El Ghriba was first built.” They were all quiet for a moment, the only sound the sipping of their coffee and the boisterous cry of a child across the room from them. “Why did my father give this to you?” Danny shrugged. “I don’t know. He said that he recognized something in me, that I was a scholar and would take care of the scroll. But I think maybe he was tired of hiding it and wanted to it on to someone else.” “Why not me, then? I have connections in the City.” Danny pulled back, looking unsure of what to say, then dove in. “He said you

were more interested in cotton futures, or something like that.” Moshe laughed. “Now I know you spoke with my father. That is exactly what he would say. Even though I have nothing to do with anything like that.” “What do you do?” Aidan asked. “I work in municipal finance. I help local governments in underdeveloped countries create and sell bonds to finance infrastructure like roads and dams.” “I would like to ask your father more about how he got the scroll when he feels better,” Danny said. “And if there are any others. They should be preserved for the education and betterment of mankind.” “Spoken like an Oxford man,” Moshe said dryly. “How long will you be in Djerba?” “At least a few weeks,” Danny said. “Mehdi and I are translating this scroll one word at a time, and sometimes there are different meanings we have to discuss. There are days when we only finish a single sentence.” Moshe handed Danny a pair of business cards. “Here is my number. Write yours on the back of the other one.” Danny did so, and handed the card back to Moshe. “I am staying here until my father wakes up, and I see what can be done with him. If he can go to his house in Hara Kebira, the Jewish neighborhood, or if he should come to England with me, where I can take care of him.” “Do you know anyone at El Ghriba I can talk to?” Danny asked. “While I wait for your father?” “There is a caretaker there. Arié Zakine. He is even older than Shimon and has worked at the synagogue his whole life. Tell him that I sent you.” Moshe stood up. “And now I will go back to my father. I will call you when he is able to talk.” He left, but the four of them remained in the café. “I feel terrible,” Danny said. “First Elkan was threatened, and now Shimon was attacked.”

“We don’t know when Elkan left his stall in Tunis. Maybe someone threatened him, and he told that person about Shimon,” Liam said. “And Shimon no longer had the scroll,” Aidan said. “Or it could have been the other way around,” Liam said. “Maybe someone came for Shimon first, and he didn’t have the scroll anymore. So they went after the rest of his family.” “It makes most sense that someone knew those legends Moshe mentioned about the genizah at El Ghriba,” Mehdi said. “And they sought out the synagogue elders for more information.” Aidan turned to Danny. “Did you tell anyone in England about Elkan or Moshe, or mention Djerba?” Danny pressed his lips together in concentration. “I can’t for sure. I might have said that I spoke to a man in the souk in Tunis. And maybe I said he was a hatmaker. I just don’t . And there must be more than one hatmaker in the souk in Tunis.” “There are three souks,” Liam said. “It wouldn’t have been hard for someone to start at one end of the souk and ask each of the hatmakers.” “And if Elkan heard from another hatmaker that someone was looking for old scrolls, he might have gotten frightened and shut down his shop,” Aidan said. “In which case he probably would have called his cousin to warn him.” “We can ask Shimon that when he wakes up.” Liam pushed his chair back. “Let’s head out to the synagogue before anyone else gets hurt.”

27: The Marvelous Girl: Aidan Aidan let Liam lead the way through the hospital’s corridor and hold them inside until he’d made sure it was safe to return to the SUV. They walked out once again into the blinding heat, and Aidan sweated until the SUV’s air conditioning kicked in. It was about a twenty-minute trip to the synagogue’s location, in the town of Erriadh in the center of the island, and no one spoke much in the car. Liam was focused on the two-lane road out of Houmt Souk, and then the intermittent traffic as they ed through the neighborhood of Hara Kebira, where Moshe had mentioned his father lived. It looked like a typical Arab town, houses of white stucco with blue shutters or awnings and narrow, unpaved streets. Aidan was surprised to see signs of Jewish life side by side with Arab ones. Little boys in skullcaps ran past old Arab men in chechias, and women in long skirts and head scarves gossiped in front of stores bearing Arabic script. Aidan recognized the synagogue as soon they neared it, from the time they had visited with Karif al-Fulan, who believed he had some Jewish roots. From the outside it was unassuming. A small tiled sign in blue and white tiled sign at the entrance was the only indication that this was an ancient, holy site. The entrance was a large central arch flanked by two smaller ones, with a series of white arches above them. The two side arches each had the star and crescent that reminded Aidan of Turkey’s flag, and which he knew was a symbol of the Ottoman empire. Perhaps calling back to the building’s ancient roots? They parked across from a mid-sized tour bus with Djerba Tours painted on the side, in both Arabic and a curly English script that matched it. Mehdi shook his head. “This synagogue is still a tourist attraction, despite the bombing in 1992, when nineteen people were killed, most of them German tourists.” “People care about faith,” Aidan said.

“Mehdi is reminding us that we have to be careful,” Liam said. “I’ll stay out here while you guys go inside.” Aidan, Danny and Mehdi walked into a large courtyard, where the arch motif was repeated all around the square. Covered loggias rested on arches and columns, and bright red pennants hung from one wing to the other. “Left over from the Lag B’Omer festival,” Danny said, pointing at them. “Last month. It’s a big pilgrimage when all the Tunisian Jews who have left return for the celebration.” “It’s funny how different communities put emphasis on certain holidays,” Aidan said. “For us, Lag B’Omer was one of the very minor festivals.” “The New Year of the Trees,” Danny said. “We used to raise money to plant trees in Israel. There was a joke—a tree has been planted in your name in the Holy Land. Your day to water it is Thursday.” Aidan laughed as a dark-skinned boy of about twelve walked out of the men’s bathroom at one corner of the square and adjusted his kippah. Mehdi hailed him and asked in Arabic where they could find Arié Zakine. “He’s in his office,” the boy replied in the same language. “I can take you there.” Mehdi bowed slightly. “Raja'.” Please. “I being that age,” Danny said, as they followed the boy, who moved quickly through the courtyard. “A little yeshiva bocher, with my yarmulke. It took two clips to keep mine on my head, because my friends and I were always in motion.” Fortunately they didn’t have to go far, because Mehdi could not have kept up the boy’s pace for long. He knocked on a wooden door and said, “Rabbeinu, ladayk duyuf.” Rabbi, you have guests. Then he ducked down the corridor. Mehdi pushed the door open and introduced himself, Danny and Aidan in Arabic. An elderly man, heavyset with a long gray beard and a tallit around his neck, sat at a desk. His office obviously doubled as the synagogue’s library, because the walls were lined with bookcases and each book had a white tab on the spine.

Aidan’s command of Arabic was decent, but he missed a lot of what went on next, apparently Mehdi explaining their mission and their referral by Shimon Aboulafia. The man stood up. “Your friends do not speak Arabic?” he asked Mehdi in British-accented English. “Our apologies,” Danny said, ducking his head a bit. “No problem. If you forgive my accent, I will speak in English. Come, I will give you a tour.” He led them into the corridor, and down the hall. “Originally, many of the rooms on the second floor were accommodations for pilgrims. But now we use them for school.” In the distance Aidan heard boys repeating Hebrew phrases and was surprised that he ed a few words and verb forms. “Aba v’ima holechet.” Father and mother walk. Funny how the religious education remained the same despite the difference in culture. “The other synagogues in Tunisia have an open-air praying hall, with a divider between men and women, but here at El Ghriba we have two separate halls,” Arié said, as he led them into the first room. “This is where the women pray. Originally it was open but later expanded and roofed so that more people could be accommodated.” He led them through a group of three arches to the main prayer hall. The bright blue color Aidan had seen on the exterior of many houses was repeated in elaborate arches and tiled walls. A clerestory of windows, surmounted by red and green fanlights, filled the room with light. There were elaborate details everywhere Aidan looked, from the rococo chandelier to the balcony railings. The whole place was a sensory orgy. “Originally there were twelve windows, one for each of the tribes of Israel,” Arié said. “My synagogue back home in the United States was the same,” Aidan said. “We used them to memorize the tribes when the rabbi’s sermon was boring.” Years later, he realized he could still recite them, in alphabetical order from Asher to Zebulon. How fascinating to see these same tribes referenced halfway across the world.

Arié laughed, showing rows of crooked teeth. “Sadly, later renovations mean there are more than twelve windows now.” He led them up to the ark, located beneath the clerestory at the west end of the hall. Aidan surveyed the room before him. Rows of wooden benches with elaborately turned columns faced the ark. The walls were covered with eight-sided tiles glazed in blue, white, and brown decorative patterns. “You can see from here that the room is divided into three aisles, however the last column to the east on the southern row is missing.” They looked where he pointed. “It was probably never built, as a remembrance of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem.” “The synagogue where I grew up on Long Island had an unfinished wall,” Danny said. “Our rabbi said that the building should never be finished, because nothing is perfect except God.” “Exactly.” Arié turned and pointed at the niche below the ark. “Do you know the story of the marvelous girl?” The three of them shook their heads. “The legend says that a young Jewish girl fled from Eretz Yisroel here to Djerba, with a stone from the Second Temple and a Torah scroll. That spot, below the ark, is called the Magrath Sibiya, the cave of the girl. It is said that is where she collapsed and died.” “Wow,” Danny said. “I didn’t know that part of the story.” “El Ghriba was built on top of that cave. And now, worshippers leave prayer messages on eggs that our children place inside.” Aidan stared around him awe. He knew of a few Jewish pilgrimage sites—the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and Masada, where the Jewish Zealots known as Sicarii had died after a siege by the Romans. But he’d never heard of El Ghriba before that first trip to Djerba, and had never known it had such a sacred past. Arié pointed to the three oil lamps that hung in front of the ark. “The one on the left is dedicated to her memory, the marvelous girl.” He was reminded of the conversation they’d had the night before, about

including the names of the matriarchs in the Amidah prayer. Here was yet another example of a woman who had done something miraculous in the name of her faith. “Can you show us your genizah?” Danny asked. Arié shook his head. “It is relatively modern, only a hundred years old or so, and there is nothing of interest there.” “But there must be an older place,” Danny persisted. “Where very old objects were stored.” “There are rumors,” Arié said. “That there is a section of our graveyard filled with old scrolls and books, anything that features God’s name. But I don’t know where it is.” Danny started to protest, but Aidan put his hand on the younger man’s arm. “Thank you for talking with us, Rabbeinu,” Aidan said. “May we walk around the grounds a bit?” “You are our guests,” the rabbi said, with a slight nod of his head. He pointed them toward the exit and then returned toward his office. “Why didn’t you press him?” Danny asked, when he was gone. “He must know something. He’s probably the one who gave the scroll to Shimon.” “Then let’s get Shimon to confirm that.” Aidan took a deep breath. “Danny, we’re strangers. Even though we used Shimon’s name, Arié doesn’t know who we are or whether he can trust us. Let’s take things slowly. We’re going to be here for a while.” “We should work on the translation soon,” Mehdi said. “All of this exploration is interesting, but we have a mission.” They walked outside and spotted Liam a few hundred feet away. He beckoned them forward. “It looks like Liam has a mission of his own,” Aidan said. “Let’s go.”

28: Dangerous Men: Liam Liam had forgotten how relentless the heat could be in Tunisia, especially where there was little shade and no ocean breeze. He had already sweated through his shirt when he found the graveyard. It was ancient, as so many of those places were, and he only recognized it by the regular pattern of slight depressions in the earth. He had visited enough such sites to know that long before gravestones were used to mark final resting places, people covered burial sites with a pile of rocks called a cairn. Over time, the stones of the cairn tumbled away or were worn down by wind, rain and sun, leaving only those slight depressions to mark the graves. He walked slowly between the rows, looking for signs that the earth had been disturbed in the recent past, and found none. When Aidan, Danny and Mehdi approached, he waved his arm to encom the area. “I’ve been around the whole property, and this is the only burial ground I found.” Danny’s mouth opened a bit in awe. “Wow. These graves must be centuries old.” Liam nodded. “And if your scroll was buried there, it was exhumed so long ago that there’s no indication of where it came from.” “That matches what Shimon said, that he had the scroll for a long time,” Danny said. “I can’t wait for him to wake up and tell us more.” Aidan fanned himself. “Can we get out of the heat? I hear a cold glass of lemonade calling my name from the house.” They walked slowly back to the SUV, accommodating Mehdi’s injured gait, though Liam went ahead to get the engine and the AC going. He leaned his head down in front of the vent like a dog before the other three arrived. By the time they got back to the villa, Alisa had cleaned up, and left them a pitcher of lemonade in the refrigerator. Aidan poured them all glasses, and Liam took his down the hall to the room that had been fitted out as an office, where he could call Richard in England.

“I was up very late snooping around through that subreddit and gathering snatches of information,” Richard said. Liam’s shirt was still damp, so he walked around the room as he talked, pulling the fabric away from his skin. “Anything interesting?” “Does the name Rasul Najjar mean anything to you?” “It does. Our client’s friend looked up the people who made threatening comments to him a few weeks ago, and came up with that name. At the time, our client was in Oxford and Najjar was in Tunis, so no one followed up.” “I did an analysis of all the people who viewed that discussion and a couple of names came up most frequently. A called Messenger45 was the most interested, checking sometimes twice a day. He also clicked on the names of many of the others in the discussion.” “You can track all that?” Liam kept walking around the small office, taking the occasional drink of his lemonade. A desk sat before the window that looked out at the long driveway. A decorator had probably come in and hung the couple of landscapes on the walls, and installed bookshelves that were mostly empty. “Mate. Who are you talking to?” “My apologies. So this Messenger45 popped up a lot. Is he Rasul Najjar?” “Yup.” “That makes sense. In Arabic rasul means a prophet or messenger from Allah. What did you find out about Najjar?” “He runs an antiquities business in the center of Tunis called Ancient Artifacts.” “No wonder he’s interested in this very old scroll.” “He also has a less legitimate operation,” Richard said. “I’ll send you the details, but basically he’s been arrested several times for shipping protected items out of Tunisia, though the charges never stuck.”

“Baksheesh,” Liam said. “You got it. I dug around and found a couple of his known associates – that is to say, henchmen—and sent you some photos. If you see any of those guys, you’re in trouble.” “Thanks, Richard. Anything else?” “An Oxford student of Tunisian origin called Jamal Cherif. Very active on lots of other subreddits, including one for incels in Britain.” “Incels?” “Involuntary celibates, they call themselves. Pissed off because they can’t find women to put up with them. Generally intolerant, especially of women who won’t date them and anyone who is sexually active. That includes gay men, who they think are degenerates with a ticket straight to hell.” “The world is full of strange people,” Liam said, shaking his head. “And this one’s among the strangest. Men like him have been responsible for all kinds of bad stuff, including mass murders. I did a little extra digging on him, because I knew you guys were in Tunisia.” Liam heard Richard’s fingers clicking on is keyboard. “I checked his immigration record, and he’s apparently headed home for the term break. He landed two days ago in Tunis, where his family has an address in the old city. His father is an imam at the Madrasa Al Habibia Al Kubr—basically an Islamic private school. So more like a teacher than a religious leader.” “Great. Anyone else?” “A couple more oddballs from other parts of Britain. And then one other guy who was very interested in what your client had to say. A Brit by the name of Oliver Caswell.” Liam sat at the desk. “Danny’s tutor at Oxford.” “Yup, you mentioned that. He’s another git with a dodgy reputation,” Richard

said. “Because your client knows him well I did a deep dive into his connections on Reddit—people he interacted with most frequently. Najjar popped up high on the list. And so did a bar bouncer in Oxford whose real name is Darren Ghostley, and who goes by the_big_ghost on Reddit. He’s not connected to any of the Biblical subreddits, but both of them are active on the Oxford subreddit, and they’ve exchanged messages a number of times.” “I’ll ask Danny if he knows him.” “More important, he knows your client’s tutor, and he knows Jamal Cherif. Small world, eh?” “It is indeed.” Liam ed that Danny had been accosted by two men in Oxford—one big and threatening, and another who didn’t speak. Ghostley and Cherif? “I couldn’t find any substantive connection beyond the subreddits between Ghostley and Caswell. But what’s a chav like him doing with the likes of an Oxford tutor?” “I could suggest a couple of things,” Liam said. Richard laughed. “Me as well, mate, but most of what I have in mind has nothing do with ancient languages.” “Danny was accosted one evening before he left Oxford, and then a few days later his room was searched. I wonder if Caswell sent a ghost after him.” “I’ll leave that speculation to you. All I do is provide the data.” Richard promised to send an email with everything he’d discovered, and Liam ended the call. He stared out at the long expanse of sand that separated the villa from the coast road. Then he found a piece of paper and began writing down names and drawing lines. Danny Cardozo was at the center, of course, with one line to the word Oxford. From there, he drew lines to Danny’s friend Philip, his ex Ivo, and his tutor Oliver Caswell. Another line went from Caswell to Darren Ghostley, the chav Richard had identified.

Then a line to the word Reddit. From there he connected lines to Caswell, Ghostley, and the Tunisian incel, Jamal Cherif, who were all in Oxford too. Then he wrote Tunisia, and added Rajjul Nassaf, the dodgy antiquities expert. A line linked him to the Reddit as well. Then he connected Cherif to Tunisia. It all looked like a big mess, and he wasn’t sure what he’d accomplished except confuse things. Which meant it was time to talk to Aidan. He was best at this kind of story, pulling together different threads to create a narrative that made sense. And then they would form an action plan, which was what Liam was most comfortable with. He found Aidan in the living room at the laptop. “Where are Danny and Mehdi?” “In the game room. With the scroll stretched all the way out on the pool table.” He looked up from the laptop. “Did you speak to Richard?” Liam sat down beside him. “Expect an email shortly. The short story is that Jamal Cherif, who can’t get a date, is home in Tunis now. And we need to pay more attention to Rasul Najjar, one of the guys Danny’s friend Ivo identified from the subreddit. Look up a store in Tunis called Ancient Artifacts.” Aidan’s fingers skipped across the keys. Liam envied him that ability to touch type so quickly—often he was forced to two-finger what he wanted to know, and the delay between his brain and his fingers irritated him. “Address on the Souk Trok? That’s right in the heart of the medina, isn’t it?” “What have you got on it?” Aidan read from the screen. “The owner’s careful appraisal of each item’s age, rarity, condition, utility, or other unique features, yadda, yadda.” He clicked a couple of buttons. “Lots of positive reviews on Yelp and other places.” “He also has a number of arrests for trying to ship protected artifacts out of the country.”

Aidan sat back. “Too bad we didn’t have this information before we left Tunis. We could have paid him a visit.” “I’ll call Faisal later and get his take. For now, it means that our suspect list is getting more crowded.” The screen beeped with an incoming email from Richard, and Aidan opened it. Liam sat beside him reading. “Who is Darren Ghostley?” Aidan asked, as a photo of the man popped up. “Potentially one of the guys who came at Danny in Oxford, or tossed his room. Also an acquaintance of Oliver Caswell.” “Do tell.” Aidan leaned forward. “Hard to tell from a mug shot, but I don’t get any gaydar from him. Hired thug rather than paramour?” “That’s my guess.” Aidan stood and picked up the laptop. “Let’s get Danny’s opinion.” Aidan carried the laptop down the hall to the game room, where the pool table stood in front tall glass windows that looked out at the swimming pool, glistening in the morning sunshine. Liam had exercised out there after waking, but he wanted to go for a good long swim in the pool, to try and wash away some of the dirt that seemed to be accumulating on this case rapidly. Aidan showed the picture on the laptop screen to Danny. “Recognize this fellow?” Danny stared at the screen, leaned in close, then sat back. “That’s the guy who threatened me on my way home from the library.” “Apparently he’s a pal of your tutor.” Danny sat on a padded chair by the wall, at the table where a chess game was set up. “Shit.” “And he was with Jamal Cherif, right? Our hacker friend found a number of connections between this guy, Darren Ghostley, Jamal Cherif, and your tutor.”

Then Aidan handed the laptop to Liam and pulled up a chair next to Danny. “I know this is a surprise.” “It’s not, really,” Danny said, blowing out a breath. “I had a bad feeling when Caswell wanted to take the scroll away from me.” Liam found the picture of Rasul Najjar and showed it to Mehdi. “How about this guy? You know him?” Mehdi looked like he’d been sucking on a lemon. “Yes. He owns a store in the medina. He has asked me to authenticate items from him in the past.” “Why the nasty face?” Aidan asked. “Because I don’t believe that items of Tunisian heritage should be sold. They should be in museums. That is what I have told Najjar in the past.” “And what did he say to that?” “That he paid me for my expertise, not my opinion.” Liam nodded. “Aidan, let’s head back to the living room.” Carrying the laptop, he led the way. As soon as they left the room, they heard Danny begin to talk to Mehdi, all in a rush. Liam was tempted to leave Aidan there to overhear, but as far as he knew the client wasn’t keeping any secrets. He was just reacting to what he’d learned. “What next?” Aidan said, as they entered the living room. “I’m going to call Faisal. You look back through everything Richard sent and see if you can pull together a pattern. I particularly want to know if Richard made any connection between Caswell and Najjar.” Liam walked back to the office. He was glad they’d come to Djerba; there was a lot more room to maneuver in the villa, as well as increased security. “You come to Tunis and you don’t even invite me for tea,” Faisal said in mock anger when he answered Liam’s call. “I thought we were friends.” “And we are,” Liam said. “But we had to get out of Tunis quickly.”

“Why?” Liam explained about the attack on Mehdi, and Danny’s room at the guesthouse. “We came back to Djerba, where Danny was given the scroll. We have some friends who lent us a house here.” His shirt had dried by then, so he sat by the desk. “What can you tell me about Rasul Najjar?” Faisal laughed. “That is a long conversation, over many glasses of tea.” “Give me the short version, then.” “He is a criminal who buys ancient artifacts on the black market and then sells them to unscrupulous collectors around the world. We have had him by the neck a few times, but he has always managed to bribe his way out of the charges.” Faisal sighed. “Sometimes I wonder why I bother. Am I the only honest man on the police force in this country?” “You’re the only one I know,” Liam said. “Do you have any photos you could share of Najjar’s associates? I’m looking in particular for two men, one young and one middle-aged. The younger one is very muscular and wears a gold and rhinestone pendant with Allah’s name on it.” “If I am correct, they work at Najjar’s store. One is called Bakr, the other Masood. I’ll send you their mug shots.” He hesitated, then said, “Be careful, Liam. These are dangerous men.”

29: A Blessing: Danny The next morning, after breakfast with the bodyguards, Danny paced around the game room, unable to concentrate on the faded letters on the scroll stretched out on the pool table. “We are only on chapter ten,” Mehdi said. “We have so much work to do, Danny. Please, concentrate. This word here, D'+aLeM, has so many meanings. And there is a modifier earlier in the sentence that I don’t recognize. What do you think it means in this context?” Danny forced himself to look where Mehdi pointed. The first phrase in the chapter referred to the deaths of Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu, when they used their censers to start a fire that was, in various translations, profane, strange, unauthorized and illegitimate. He turned to his laptop, where he had a site that compared the English translations of the King James, the American Standard, the Douay-Rheims, and a number of other editions. “Most translations agree that the reason why God kills Nadab and Abihu is because he didn’t authorize the fire,” Danny said after a while. He hit a key on the keyboard. “Let’s go back a bit. This is the point when Moses and Aaron are preparing Aaron’s sons for the priesthood, right?” “That is the point of the previous chapter.” “And then at the beginning of this chapter, Nadab and Abihu make a mistake. Instead of using the sacred fire from the altar to burn incense, they get fire from somewhere else. God gets pissed and burns them with holy fire.” “A fairly vindictive act,” Mehdi said. “The God of Leviticus is not exactly patient and loving.” “I won’t argue with that. But I think the Sofer Setam who copied out this scroll has been trying to make God kinder. We’ve seen that in a couple of places where our decision is at odds with what other translators have chosen.”

“What’s your point?” “The word we choose is going to impact the way people view this verse. I think our scribe deliberately added this word before D'+aLeM to make God’s meaning clearer.” Something sparked in his brain, and it took him a moment to put it into words. “What I don’t get from all these other translations is why Nadab and Abihu chose the wrong place to get their fire. If they’re right in front of the sacred fire, why not use it?” Mehdi nodded. “Some translations call it a mistake.” “But that makes God sound petty, don’t you think? Oops, you made a mistake. Blam! You’re dead.” Mehdi laughed. “I agree.” “So what if our scribe wanted to add some intentionality to what the brothers do. They deliberately disobeyed God, so they’re dead.” “I’m not sure I agree. The whole point of this section seems to be that the Hebrews must obey the word of the Lord. Exactly.” “Okay. So where exactly did the Lord tell them they had to use sacred fire?” Mehdi frowned. “In Chapter 9, God sends holy fire to consume the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. It seems logical that he wants Nadab and Abihu to use the fire that He gave them to worship Him. And the translations make it clear later on that there has to be a division between the sacred and the profane when you’re going to worship.” “What if we wrote something like, “Nadab and Abihu didn’t understand the distinction that God was making, that they must use only the sacred flame he had sent them in worship. To prove his point, God sent His holy flame to burn them, so that their sacrifice would be an instruction to the people.” “You are straying very far from a literal translation.” Danny crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t care. I don’t believe that the role

of the translator is simply to provide a word-for-word shift. I think it’s my responsibility to understand what the scribe means and bring it into contemporary language and culture.” “That is where we disagree.” It wasn’t the first time they had argued, but it did appear to be the first place where their disagreement was so distinct. “I don’t know what else to say,” Danny said. “Perhaps I should return to Tunis. You have your own ideas of what you wish to do with this translation, and you don’t need my advice.” “I know that we won’t have a finished, polished version by the time I have to go back to Oxford. If I work with Professor Caswell or someone else, I’ll have to make more of these fine distinctions, and argue for my ideas. I need your help not just to understand the literal translation of the words, but how to figure out my overall vision. You can understand that, can’t you?” Mehdi sighed and looked out the window. After a moment, he said, “I have never told you about my wife, have I?” “Your wife? I didn’t know you were ever married.” “That is because you and I have been so focused on our translation. You don’t really know me as a person, not yet.” Danny was embarrassed. It was true, he’d never quizzed Mehdi about his background other than the work he had done in translation. “I’m truly sorry, Mehdi. Please tell me.” “The fault is mine as well, Danny. Some stories are so painful they can only be brought out in private.” He turned to face Danny. “But you should know how things in my past affect my work today.” He patted the cushioned chair across from him. “Come, sit.” Danny did. “I met Zainab on the first day of my advanced studies at Tunis University, in a class comparing the Koran to the Hebrew Bible.” He smiled. “I can still see her,

in my mind’s eye. She was short, like me, but she had beautiful red hair that swirled around her shoulders when she walked. She had excelled in her studies at Damascus University, in her home country of Syria, and come to Tunis to become the scholar she knew she was destined to be.” Mehdi coughed. “Do you think you could get me a cup of tea, please?” “Of course. I’ll be right back.” Danny hurried to the kitchen, forcing himself to be slow in his preparation of the tea. As he let it steep, he thought of a much younger Mehdi. He must have had hair then, and walked easily, without a stoop. Once he added the pine nuts, Danny carried the tall glass of tea back to the game room, where it looked like Mehdi was napping. But as Danny stepped inside, Mehdi’s eyes snapped open. Mehdi accepted the tea with thanks, and took a small sip as Danny settled into the chair across from him again. “Zainab was very spirited, and unlike many Arab women, she was always eager to speak up and defend her positions in class. We began to study together because I found she could draw out so much meaning from everything we read.” “And because she was beautiful,” Danny said. Mehdi smiled. “Of course there was that. But it was her mind that drew me in first, and her ion. When we graduated, she should have been first in our class, but some of the professors were prejudiced against her because of her gender.” He looked down at his lap. “It is because of her help that I was first.” It was typical Mehdi, Danny thought, to brag quietly about his achievements and yet somehow attribute them to the influence of others. “I was offered a fellowship to continue my study in , but I knew that Zainab would not be happy to merely be my appendage, and that I could not leave her behind. So I took a job at what was then called the Archives générales du gouvernement. It was a very low-level position, but I had access to many old manuscripts, and I was happy.” “And Zainab?”

“We married, and she was hired to teach at a school run by the Association tunisienne des femmes démocrates, a group concerned with the status of women. Very quickly she rose to a position of authority in this organization.” He sighed. “We had many arguments. She wanted me to use my degree and my intelligence to take a position in the government, which she could not do by virtue of her gender. While I was comfortable interpreting the work of the past, she faced forward.” Mehdi sipped some more tea. “We are who we are, my young friend. From an early age, our destiny is drawn. The Quran says, ‘And whoever holds firmly to Allah has been guided to a straight path.’” Mehdi smiled sadly. “I believed that my destiny was to be a scholar of the past, and nothing Zainab said or did convinced me to change.” He put his tea down. “I suppose we should return to our work.” “Wait, Mehdi,” Danny said. “You can’t begin a story like that without ending it. What happened to Zainab?” “We existed in this truce for several years. I wanted Zainab to take a break from her work so that we could start a family. But she was approached by a branch of the United Nations, to take a position in Geneva where she could have a greater effect on the lives of women in the Arab world.” “Did you go with her?” Mehdi shook his head. “She went alone. We remained married, and she did marvelous things, writing documents, advocating for the rights of women. Her work was truly a blessing for the women of the world. But sadly, in 1970, after the Corrective Movement in Syria brought Assad to power, much of her writing was misinterpreted. Her father was imprisoned because of his connection to her, and she returned to Damascus to argue on his behalf.” Danny caught his breath. “What happened?” “She tried to argue that her writing was not blasphemous, and did not contradict Islam, but she too was taken to prison. And there she died.” Mehdi drained the last of his tea. “And now, shall we return to our work?”

30: The Very Old Man: Danny Danny and Mehdi were deep in the discussion of a nuanced word when Aidan knocked on the open door to the game room and walked in. “Moshe called and said that Shimon is awake and ready to talk.” Danny looked at Mehdi. “Can you come with us to the hospital?” “You don’t need me. I would rather stay here and look at the scroll and consider our discussion.” Liam followed Aidan in. “I have some photos to show you, Mehdi.” He brought his laptop over to where Mehdi stood by the pool table. “Do you recognize either of these men?” Danny could tell by the way Mehdi caught his breath that he did. “It’s hard to say, because of the masks they wore,” Mehdi said after a moment. “But the bigger man was bald, as this one is. And the chest matches the younger one.” Mehdi sank down into one of the padded chairs. “I… I need to rest for a while.” “I’ll stay here with you,” Liam said. “Aidan can drive Danny over to the hospital.” They left a few minutes later. “How are you holding up?” Aidan asked, as they paused to let the iron gates open. “I’m kind of freaked, to be honest,” Danny said. “It’s one thing to think that your tutor is trying to scam you, but another to realize it’s true.” “We’re getting to the bottom of this, I promise you,” Aidan said. “What about the men whose picture Liam showed Mehdi? Where did they come from?” Aidan explained about the hacker they’d hired to look into the backgrounds of the people who posted on the subreddit.

“Isn’t that illegal?” Aidan turned to look at Danny but didn’t say anything. “Oh,” Danny said. “Right. You’re doing this to protect me.” “And Mehdi, now. There’s an antique dealer in the medina in Tunis, Rasul Najjar. His business is called Ancient Artifacts. You know anything about it?” Danny shook his head. “When I originally told Caswell I was coming to Tunis, he told me not to bother with antique dealers. That they already knew what they had, and they’d see me as an American tourist and rip me off.” “I suppose it’s good you didn’t make with him personally. But he was reading your subreddit regularly and knows you have the scroll. He must know that Mehdi is the only tutor you could be working with, so he sent two guys who work for him over to search Mehdi’s apartment.” “How would he know that, though? I couldn’t find Mehdi’s phone number or email address, so I showed up at his door.” They slowed as they drove through Hara Kebira, wary of children and animals in the street. A sheep stood at the edge of a ruined building staring at them, then returned to nosing through the dirt for something to eat. “This is his business,” Aidan said. “And it looks like he’s been a criminal for a while as well. I’m sure he knows what there is to know about people in Tunis who are available to manuscripts and so on.” He turned to Aidan. “How did you hear of Mehdi in the first place?” “Through the…” Danny stopped. “He posted something on the subreddit, but I didn’t answer him. Then when I went looking for someone in Tunis to help me, I saw his name, and found his address online. I couldn’t find his email address or phone number, so I gave the Bolt driver the address as soon as we left the airport and just showed up. I was fortunate that he agreed to work with me.” “There’s more going on than we know,” Aidan said, as he pulled into the hospital parking lot. “But one thing you should understand about Liam and me. We’re relentless.”

They hurried through the hot sun to the cool hospital lobby, and then rode up to the fourth floor. This time when they reached Shimon’s room, he was sitting up in his bed talking to Moshe. “My American friend!” Shimon said. “My son said you were here when I was asleep. Thank you for coming back.” “I’m so sorry you were hurt,” Danny said. “Come, sit,” Shimon said. “Moshe, give Danny your chair.” “I want to talk to Danny’s bodyguard anyway,” Moshe said. “We’ll be outside.” Danny pulled the chair close to Shimon’s bed and sat. “None of this is your fault,” Shimon began. “I should have been more careful with the scroll for years now.” “Years?” “Let me tell you how this scroll came to me.” Shimon leaned back against his pillows. “It was thirty years ago, at least. Moshe was just a boy, and my dear Rebecca was still with us. I was the president of the congregation, full of ideas of how we could improve. We were losing young people to the city and to Eretz Yisroel. The synagogue roof was leaking. And Rebecca wanted us to educate our girls better.” “My father was the president of our congregation for a while,” Danny said. “I know it’s a big job.” Shimon nodded. “And we didn’t have much money. You have been through Hara Kebira?” Danny nodded. “So you see the way many of our people live. In America, perhaps, you can make a big fund-raising campaign, and have rich Jews who feel guilty about not worshipping regularly make contributions. But here?” He shook his head. “No.” “What did you do?”

“Ilan Betito came to my home one evening soon after I became the president. He was a very old man then, close to ninety, and known as very wise. When I found him at my door, hunched over and carrying a canvas bag, I thought for a moment he was a dybbuk, the spirt of someone dead. That is how he looked in the shadows.” Shimon smiled. “Then I recognized him, and immediately I ushered him inside, and gently criticized him for walking from his home to mine, so far, and after dark!” He motioned to the cup of water beside him, and Danny handed it to him. After a drink, he continued. “In reality, he was an angel, one of God’s messengers. He handed me the canvas bag, and told me to use what was inside to raise money for El Ghriba.” “The scroll was in there?” Danny prompted. “Along with several other items of ancient Judaica. A very old prayer book printed in Turkish. A pair of beautifully carved silver mezuzot. And the scroll.” “Did he say where they came from?” “At first, I believed they were his family heirlooms, and I told him that I could not deny his children their inheritance.” Shimon took a deep breath. “And then he told me about the genizah.” Danny leaned in close. This was the story he had been longing to hear, since the first time Oliver Caswell suggested he find a piece of parchment to translate. “Of course I knew what a genizah was. You have been to El Ghriba?” “Yesterday afternoon. We met with Arié Zakine.and he gave us a tour. But the genizah he told us about is a small room with only some old prayer books, or so he said.” “And that is what he knows.” Shimon sipped more water. “Ilan told me that when he was a small boy, the genizah was overflowing the building, and the synagogue fathers decided to bury the contents in the cemetery. You know that is what we do?”

Danny nodded, eager for the story to continue. “He watched his father and grandfather and the other men of the synagogue carry out the ritual burial. By the time he came to me, he was the only one living who had seen it. But all he could was that it was at the northwest corner of the cemetery.” He sighed. “His father was a greedy man, though, and he kept aside a few items from the genizah without anyone knowing.” “The items in the bag.” Shimon nodded. “Yes. But then Ilan’s father died before he was even thirteen, and he thought God was taking vengeance on his father for keeping back those items.” “That’s very sad.” “I looked up his father’s death later, and he died in 1919, from what they called the anflwnza al'asbania, the Spanish flu. Many, many people died then, and I don’t believe God singled out Ilan’s father.” “Ilan held the bag all those years?” Danny asked. “Yes. He was afraid even to look inside. When he brought the bag to me, he didn’t know what was there. He told me to take it all, sell it and use the money for the synagogue.” He smiled. “Then he left, and a month later he was dead. Of old age, I am sure, not a curse.” “I hope not,” Danny said. “Though look what happened to you.” “I opened the bag that night with Rebecca by my side. A week later I went to visit my cousin Elkan in Tunis, and I brought with me the prayer book and the mezuzot. I sold them to an antique store in the medina.” “Ancient Artifacts?” “Yes. An Arab man named Najjar. He gave me a fair price. But for some reason I didn’t want to sell the scroll. I had a feeling it was very, very old, and I wanted to find a scholar to review it.”

Danny found he was holding his breath, and he let it out. “I used the money from that sale for the purposes Ilan intended. We repaired the roof, bought computers for our school, and set up a program to educate our daughters a few hours a day.” He smiled. “Truly, God sent those items at the right time, to help El Ghriba. You heard about the miraculous girl?” “Yes. Arié told us and showed us the Magrath Sibiya.” “Ilan’s gift was just as miraculous as hers. And I held onto that scroll, even though Najjar knew I had something more, and every so often he would show up at my shop and ask if I had found anything else.” Shimon took a deep breath. “And I am afraid I told him about you.”

31: The Heat: Aidan Aidan and Moshe stood in the hallway outside Shimon’s room. “My father will be well enough to leave the hospital tomorrow,” Moshe said. “I am taking him back to London with me for a while.” “I think that’s probably a good idea.” “I was here last month for the Lag B’Omer festival, and he didn’t look well then. He is going to need some physical therapy, too, and someone to make sure he takes his pills.” He smiled. “And my children miss their Baba.” “You live somewhere safe?” “In a luxury high-rise at Canary Wharf, with twenty-four-hour security. I will hire someone to take care of my father for a few weeks.” “That’s good.” They heard Danny’s voice rise, and hurried back into Shimon’s room. “Me?” Danny was asking. “You told the antique dealer you had given the scroll to me?” “Hold on,” Aidan said. “I think we’ve missed something.” Danny turned to him. “Shimon told me how the scroll came into his possession, and that the antique dealer you were talking about in Tunis knew about some things from the genizah.” “The genizah?” Moshe asked. “The room behind the Rabbeinu’s office?” “I will tell you the story later,” Shimon said. “But let me pick up with Danny so he understands.” “Two weeks ago, this dealer from Tunis, Najjar, came to my shop on one of his regular buying trips. He pestered me about other items I might have, and I told

him there had only been one other item in the group from Ilan Betito, and that was a Torah scroll, which I had given to an American scholar to translate.” He turned sideways to look at Danny. “I didn’t tell him about you specifically. I didn’t even know your name then.” He smiled. “I thought that would be the end of it. But three days ago he sent two men to ask me again. Threaten me. They knocked me down, hit me and kicked me, trying to get me to give them anything else I had. But by then I had nothing to give them.” “You should never have told this man you had anything else,” Moshe said, taking his father’s hand. “I know. I was foolish. The men tore through my shop, and eventually they realized I had nothing to interest them. They left, and I dragged myself outside.” “That’s what you told the police, that you were mugged outside the shop,” Moshe said. “Why didn’t you tell them the truth?” “They would have done nothing. Two men from Tunis? The city is full of criminals.” Moshe shook his head. “That is why you are coming to London with me.” Aidan pulled out his phone and brought up the photos of the two men who worked with Rasul Najjar. “Are these the men who attacked you?” Shimon put on his glasses and stared at the small screen. “Yes. I have seen them before, with Najjar. The older one is called Bakr, which means camel in Arabic. It could be his name, but also a nickname.” He frowned. “The other one is called Masood.” Aidan said, “My partner and I know a high-ranking officer in the Tunisian police who has been trying to prosecute Najjar for a while. We’ll add this information to his file.” Shimon took off his glasses. “The scroll is safe?” “It’s at the place where we are staying,” Aidan said. “Mehdi is reviewing it, and my partner Liam is there to protect him.”

“Good.” He settled back against the pillows. “Now, I would like a nap.” “Sleep now, Aba,” Moshe said. “But later we will talk. I want to know all about this genizah, and why you waited this long to tell me.” Moshe, Danny, and Aidan walked out into the corridor together. “You are translating this scroll now?” Moshe asked Danny. “It is a Torah?” “An introductory scroll first, then one of the five. Leviticus. A few pieces of parchment at the end we haven’t translated yet.” Moshe frowned. “My Torah portion was from Leviticus. A very dull one, full of laws and rules, if I recall correctly.” “It is full of laws and rules, certainly,” Danny said. “But you have to that it is like a handbook for how this desert tribe should become God’s people. And since we live by many of those same rules today, it’s fascinating to see how the ancient scribes expressed them.” “I will leave that to you, then,” Moshe said. “Right now I am working with a town on the edge of the desert that needs to raise money to dig wells and provide water for their people.” Aidan was curious to ask where, in case he and Liam had been through there, but Danny looked overwhelmed, and his client was his first priority. “Let’s head back to the house,” Aidan said. They said goodbye to Moshe and rode the elevator downstairs. “How are you holding up? You’ve been through a lot already today and we haven’t even had lunch yet.” Danny’s stomach growled then, and Aidan laughed. “Lunch it is, then. We’ll head back to the villa and see what Alisa has for us.” They pulled out of the hospital driveway and started down route C117, which would take them back toward Houmt Souk. They ed through the small town of Ouled Amor and the very modern-looking Higher Institute of Technological Studies. Aidan noticed a brown van behind them, and when they ed the brilliant white arches of the Fadhloun Mosque, the van was still behind them. Aidan wanted to see if the van was really following them, so he turned onto a

narrow country road in the direction of the town of Sedghiane. Dry, arid country stretched around them, peppered only by occasional trees and houses. “This isn’t the way back to the villa, is it?” Danny asked. “We’re taking a detour.” Aidan checked his mirror and was unhappy to see that the brown van continued to follow them. He had taken a defensive driving course back in the States soon after he had decided to work with Liam, and he struggled to his lessons. Number one, don’t lead anyone to your principal. Well, he had the principal with him, but at least he could prevent whoever was in the van of learning the location of the villa. The road was bumpy, and Danny held onto the arm of the enger door. “Is someone after us?” “Yes. But don’t worry, I have everything under control.” Number two, lead your pursuer to a very populated and well-trafficked area, where it will be easier to lose them to a red light or turning vehicles. Well, he’d screwed that up, by heading out into the countryside. What else could he do? Number three, consult a map if possible to find alternate routes. “Danny, can you bring up a map of this area on your phone?” Aidan asked, trying to keep his tone conversational. “S-s-sure.” Danny took his phone from his pocket and tapped a few keys. “Geez, we’re in the middle of nowhere. The road we’re on is called Boulimen.” The timbre of his voice was rising as he spoke. “Wait, so’s the crossroads up ahead. All the roads seem to be called Boulimen.” “I think it’s the town we’re ing through,” Aidan said. “There’s a sign over there for the Mosque Boulimen. Does this road keep going?”

Danny moved his index finger over his phone’s screen. “Yes, all the way to a town called Sedghiane.” “Pretty straight road?” “Yes, for a while.” They ed a building called the Ecole Primaire Cedrian, with low concrete walls decorated with children’s drawings. “Okay, so what I’m going to want is for you to hold the steering wheel while I look at the map,” Aidan said. “Think you can do that?” Danny looked at him, his eyes wide and his mouth open. After a moment he swallowed and said, “Sure.” They swapped, Aidan leaning back so that Danny could control the wheel, and Aidan looked down at the phone. He pushed forward again and again—they had a long way to go before they returned to the C117. The nearest big town was called Tianest, and probably wasn’t big enough to lose the van. Number four, use the landscape to your advantage. He handed the phone back to Danny and took over control of the SUV. It had four-wheel drive, which meant he could drive through some of the sandy area if he wanted to. It was risky; he didn’t know the terrain at all. But it was worth a try. As they approached Tianest, he kept his eyes flickering between the van behind them, which made no move to overtake them, and the buildings ahead. At the last minute, he swerved behind a store called Commerce Chelba, raced through the parking lot, and turned out of it onto another side street, narrowly missing a young mother leading a brood of children out of the store’s back door. The side street ended abruptly, but a half mile ahead he saw another crossroad. He shifted to four-wheel drive and gunned the engine through the sandy dirt. It took a moment for the gears to catch, but they moved ahead quickly. The van was out of sight, but he was sure it was close behind. He steered onto the driveway of a farm, startling a clutch of chickens, and then around the corner

of the farmhouse. They were blocked by a row of olive trees, and he put the SUV in park and opened his door. He stepped onto the rail and looked behind him, through the screen of trees. He couldn’t make out any detail. “There should be a pair of binoculars in the glove compartment, Danny. Could you hand them to me?” He knew they ought to be there, because he’d placed them there himself once they’d unpacked at the villa. Danny handed them to him and he looked back. The dust trail behind them settled quickly to the ground, and he spotted the van, stopped at the side of Commerce Chelba. As he stood there and watched, the van backed up and he lost sight of it behind the building. But then he picked it up again, going the way they had been. He slid back into the SUV. “Can I see the map again?” He did some quick calculations. Whoever was in the van had clearly clocked them, and would have the plate number of the SUV. Number five, change vehicles as soon as possible. He mapped a route to the airport and set the narration to start. “Are we going back to the villa now?” Danny asked in a small voice. “The rental car company,” Aidan said. “We need a different vehicle.” “Oh.” The car seemed to get hotter as they drove, and Aidan put his hand against the AC vent. It was no longer blowing cool air. He had probably gotten sand into the ductwork somewhere when he drove off the road. But that would be an excellent reason to switch cars. He called Liam, and explained the problem without mentioning the brown van. “There’s an office at the Djerba airport,” Liam said. “, we got a car there the last time we were here? I’ll call and prime the pump for you.”

After he hung up, Danny said, “You’re not going to tell him?” “Not until we get back to the villa.” They were quiet for a while, as Aidan periodically checked the rear-view mirror. No brown vans. “You and Mehdi were arguing this morning, weren’t you?” Aidan asked. “We disagreed on a translation. He said that if I’m not going to listen to him, he wants to go back to Tunis.” “Was it that big a disagreement?” Danny leaned back against the seat. “I suppose so. Translation is a lot more complicated than I originally thought. He says we should just focus word for word, while I think that it’s our responsibility to interpret. The Torah is filled with inconsistencies, you know.” “I know.” Aidan was relieved to be able to swing onto the coast road, where they’d always be around other cars. “That’s what the Talmud is for, isn’t it? To interpret those inconsistencies? “Yes. And there are certain differences in this version of Leviticus that could have a big impact on the way we interpret Jewish law. I want to bring those out, while Mehdi wants to stay literal.” The car was like an inferno, even with the ocean breeze through the open windows, and Aidan sweated like mad. “Do you think you can keep working if you skip those parts for now? I know that when I was in college and graduate school and writing papers, I’d often have to go back and alter my thesis once I finished my research.” “That’s what I’d like. I really enjoy working with Mehdi, and I couldn’t do this on my own. The language is too complex and I need someone with more experience, and someone to bounce ideas off.” “Mehdi seems like a very intelligent man. I hope he’ll come around to your way of thinking.” They rounded the curve of the island, and the entrance to the airport came into view. They pulled into the parking lot and walked to the terminal. The air inside

was blessedly cool, and Aidan was glad that he wore a microfiber shirt that wicked the sweat away from his skin. The terminal was crowded with families on holiday, but Aidan steered clear of them and headed directly to the car rental desk. “This is about the time I landed here, when I flew from Tunis,” Danny said. “The morning plane.” “Flights come in here from as far as Moscow,” Aidan said. “Look at how diverse the crowd is.” Indeed, there were Africans and Europeans, Americans and Asians, though most of them were young and many were toting sports equipment of various shapes and sizes. Because Liam had already called, the clerk knew what the problem was, and after a brief exchange of paperwork, handed them the keys to a new vehicle. “That was easy,” Danny said, as they walked outside. “Let’s not say anything until we test the AC on the new car.” They crossed the parking lot to the series of marked spaces, and Aidan beeped the car unlocked. He was about to get in when Danny said, “Holy shit.” Aidan was immediately on alert. “What?” “Over there, by the terminal entrance. That’s Oliver Caswell.” “Get in the car, now,” Aidan said. Danny jumped in, and Aidan hopped into the driver’s seat and peered through the windshield. “The white guy with the white hair?” he asked. “Yes.” Danny sucked in a breath. The guy with him is the one who threatened me after I left the library. Do you think he’s the one that ransacked my rooms? Ghostley?” A tall, broad-shouldered man with a closely shaved head stood to one side of Caswell, a pair of roll-aboard suitcases between them. To the other side was a shorter, skinnier one who looked more like a student than a thug.

Danny leaned forward so that his face was almost pressed against the windshield. Then he began to cry. Aidan reached out and pulled Danny back from the windshield, and wrapped his arm around the younger man’s shoulders. “It’s okay. We’re going to take care of you. You don’t have to be frightened of Caswell or Ghostley.” “It’s not that,” Danny said, between sobs. “The third guy with them. That’s my friend. Or should I say my ex-friend. Philip. The one who authenticated the manuscript with his carbon dating machine.”

32: Indiana Jones: Danny Danny could not believe that Philip Crutcher had deserted him to work with Oliver Caswell. They were friends! Scholars on the same path. They’d even slept together. “I don’t get it.” Aidan pulled his arm away, and Danny slumped back against the seat. “Why is Philip here? Do they know each other back in Oxford?” “I don’t think so. But Philip knows Caswell is my tutor. And Caswell knows I had the scroll carbon dated at the Chemistry Research Laboratory. It wouldn’t be hard to figure out which grad student did the work.” Aidan started the engine and within a moment cool air was flowing through the vents. “I want to follow them,” Aidan said. “Will you be all right with that?” Danny nodded. “I want to know what Philip thinks he’s doing here.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m going to call him.” Aidan put his hand on Danny’s arm. “Hold on. Wait until he calls you. We don’t want to tip our hand so quickly. Right now Caswell doesn’t know that we know he’s here.” Danny clutched the phone and uttered a string of curses. “I can’t believe he’d do this to me.” They watched as Caswell pulled out his phone, then spoke into it. Fortunately, they had a good vantage point from their place in the parking lot. “Right now we don’t know what he’s done, or plans to do,” Aidan said. “We’ll tail him wherever he’s going, and then Liam or I can set up surveillance.” It gave him great satisfaction to know that he was doing just what the guys in the brown van had tried—only hopefully with more success. “I know what Philip’s trying to do,” Danny said. “He wants Caswell to get the manuscript.”

“Why?” Aidan asked. “What do you mean, why? Because Caswell wants it.” “But what’s in it for your friend?” Danny took a deep breath. He slid his phone back into his pocket. “Philip comes from a wealthy background, but his father was arrested a couple of years ago on a currency manipulation charge. Philip never spoke about it too much but apparently his family is broke now and he’s at Oxford on a scholarship.” “So maybe Caswell offered him money,” Aidan suggested. “Is your tutor wellconnected at Oxford? Could he push Philip forward for a fellowship or grant?” “Caswell’s the star of our department, for sure,” Danny said. “And he’s been at Pembroke College forever.” “You build up a network of friends and connections that way,” Aidan said. “Let’s hold back on too much anger against Philip until we find out what he gets out of this.” “He’s still a traitor,” Danny muttered. They watched as a bright blue SUV pulled up in front of where Caswell, his goon and Philip stood, and the three of them got in. Aidan backed out of the parking space and began following them down the airport road. As Aidan drove, Danny obsessively went over every interaction he’d had with Philip, from their first meeting to their last. He had told Philip he was going to the Lake District—but now Philip knew he had lied. Did Philip discover that, and resent him? Was that why he was working with Caswell? Aidan used the car’s speaker phone to call Liam. “Interesting news,” he said, when Liam answered. “Danny’s tutor Oliver Caswell just landed at the airport, with Darren Ghostley and Danny’s friend Philip.” “Did you get the new car?” “Yup. And we’re following the driver who picked the three of them up.”

“Give me Philip’s last name. We haven’t run a report on him.” “It’s Crutcher,” Danny said. “He’s a grad student in the chemistry lab specializing in spectroscopy.” “Find out where they’re staying and then get Danny back here, and we’ll strategize,” Liam said, then hung up. Aidan stayed two cars behind the blue SUV on the two-lane road that led away from the airport, lined with olive trees and dying palms, their fronds gray. All four stayed together at the turn into the town of Hachene, past a few stores and cafés and an ancient white mosque. At the intersection with Route C116, all three cars ahead of them entered the roundabout. The blue SUV and the two cars behind it all turned left, but very quickly the SUV took a right onto another two-lane road, and the two cars that had separated Aidan and Danny from it continued ahead. Aidan followed the SUV, and fortunately another car followed them. Danny relaxed, until Aidan put on his signal and pulled off the road in front of a convenience store. “What?” Danny asked. Aidan kept his eye on the rear-view mirror, and the car behind them continued on. Then Aidan pulled back out onto the road. “I wanted to make sure no one was trying to box us in.” Danny’s heart rate sped up. “You think they could do that?” “Just taking precautions,” Aidan said. “Nothing to get worried about.” They stayed on that local road another ten minutes, keeping the blue SUV in sight, with the sedan in front of them as a buffer. Danny spotted a weathered sign that read Erriadh. “Do you think they’re going to the synagogue?” he asked. “They’re heading in that direction.” “What will we do when we get there?”

“Once we see where they stop, I’ll call Liam.” He looked over at Danny. “Relax. Don’t worry about things that haven’t happened yet. That’s my job, and Liam’s.” They approached a neighborhood of hotels and cafés, and the blue SUV pulled into the entrance drive to a hotel called the Dar Dhiafa. They ed through an ancient-looking stone arch in the middle of a long white stucco wall, and a young man in a white shirt and loose white pants came out to help unload the luggage. Aidan pulled up across the street, in front of a low white building painted with a giant black octopus crawling over its side. “What the hell is that?” Danny asked, leaning forward. “I’m going to call Liam. See what you can find on your phone about this area.” While Aidan turned toward the window and spoke to his partner in a low voice, Danny used his phone to map the area. The weird building in front of them was part of an open-air museum called the Djerbahood. Otherworldly paintings of swimmers, horsemen and globes were supersized along the walls of otherwise ordinary buildings. Aidan ended his call. “He called Moshe and got the name of a retired police officer in Hara Kebira who would love to pick up some extra money doing surveillance, and he’ll fit in better than either of us will. We’re going to wait here until this guy gets in place.” Aidan left the engine running so the car would stay cool. “How are you handling all this?” “I’m kind of freaked out. I never thought there would be this much cloak and dagger stuff involved in translating an old piece of parchment.” “Never watched Indiana Jones, then?” Aidan asked. “I did, and I loved it. Now that I’m experiencing it for real I’m not so sure.” “Sometimes the line between fiction and reality gets blurry.” Aidan began asking questions about what Danny had liked in the movies, and he felt himself relaxing.

Until an older Tunisian man in a dirty white keffiyeh came up and rapped on Aidan’s window. He could tell Aidan was surprised as well. He rolled his window down slightly and said, “Salaam Alaikum.” The old man smiled. He was missing a tooth on the right side of his mouth, and had a gold one opposite the empty space. “Alaikum Salaam. I am Yonah Elfassi.” Danny saw Aidan relax, and he rolled the window down the rest of the way. “I’m Aidan, and this is our client, Danny.” Yonah nodded in greeting. “Liam texted me photos of the three men. I will watch them and let you know where they go.” “Thanks, Yonah. We’ll be in touch.” Yonah backed away from the SUV and they saw him mount a small motorcycle and buzz away behind the octopus building. “That was interesting,” Danny said. “Keep that attitude, and you’ll be fine,” Aidan said. They were about a mile from the villa when Danny’s phone rang and the sound of RuPaul’s voice filled the car. “Everything looks good on you, supermodel!” Danny grabbed the phone and thumbed to accept the call. “Daniel,” he said, and he started to cry again. “What’s the matter, bud?” his cousin asked. Danny willed himself to stop crying, even though it was so good to hear Daniel’s voice. “I’m OK. It’s just been a very bad day.” “What’s going on?” “I just discovered that my friend with benefits has gone over to the dark side,” Danny said. “But I’ll get over that. The bodyguards you hired for me have been

great. I really feel safe with them.” “I’m worried about your emotional state, though,” Daniel said. “I just finished a shoot in Paris, and I have a few days off. I was thinking of flying to Tunis to hang out with you when you’re not working.” “That would be awesome! We’re not actually in Tunis, we’re on this island called Djerba, and the house has a pool, and it’s right near the beach, so we could have some fun, at least when no one is getting beaten up.” “Someone beat you up?” Daniel was indignant. “What did the bodyguards do?” “It wasn’t me. It was the translator I’m working with. But he’s here with us now.” “All right. Let me see when I can get a flight. I’ll text you.” Danny ended the call, feeling happier than he had in a long time. He trusted Aidan and Liam, for sure, but there was nothing like having someone in your family there to you.

33: Many Meanings: Liam After Aidan and Danny left for the hospital, Liam went out for a long run. He wanted to put his conscious brain to work so that his subconscious could float to the top. There was something he was missing, and it had to do with why so many different people were eager to get their hands on Danny’s scroll. Was it greed? He was sure an old scroll like that was worth money. But what, a few thousand dollars? Academic prestige? Danny carried it around reverently, and Liam could see how translating something could create a scholarly reputation for him. Was that why his tutor wanted it? To cement his own academic prestige? There had to be something more. By the time he returned to the villa he had no better idea, so he went inside, showered, dressed, and then found Mehdi in the game room. The old man was seated in front of the scroll, but he was staring into space. “May I interrupt you for a moment?” Liam asked. Mehdi blinked and then focused on him. “Yes, of course. Sorry, I was miles away. Thinking about a word’s many meanings.” “Aidan does that sometimes,” Liam said. “He’s so smart that sometimes I wonder what he’s doing with me. I don’t even have a college degree, and he has two.” Mehdi smiled. “I have a doctoral degree, but I don’t need that to see the way you and your husband fit together. My late wife and I were like that.” Liam nodded. The man was elderly, and straight; therefore there had to be a dead wife in the picture somewhere. But that wasn’t what he’d come to talk about. “Can you explain to me why this scroll is so valuable? Why so many people want it? Is it monetary value? Scholarly interest?” “Both of those, certainly. A 15th century Torah came up at auction in Paris a few

years ago. The top bidder paid nearly four million dollars, if I recall.” “That much?” Mehdi nodded. “Now, that was a book, and a complete Torah. What Danny has in his possession is far, far older. Even scraps of parchment of comparable age can be worth millions. The fact that he has one entire book of the Old Testament, adds to its value.” “So it’s about the money.” “That, and as you said, scholarly interest. Were you raised in a religion?” “Irish Catholic. Baptized at birth, first communion at seven, confirmation at thirteen. Hundreds of hours spent in masses, bored out of my mind.” “Then you understand how much belief matters. Many people consider the Old Testament the word of God, delivered through his prophets. A scholar who comes up with a new interpretation of even the simplest phrases can be celebrated or reviled. Danny could launch his academic career with a translation of this scroll. So could any other scholar.” Liam stood up and walked to the windows. Far away by the water’s shore he saw the brilliant colors of kites pulling swimmers through the water. “I guess I understand.” “Ah, but there is one more part,” Mehdi said. “When you were a child, you were taught that homosexuality is wrong, weren’t you?” Liam nodded. “Screwed me up for years.” “Many religions have demonized homosexuals, simply because of a few lines scattered through the holy books. What if our interpretation of those lines changed, though?” Liam turned to face him. “What do you mean?” “Much of that prejudice comes from a few lines in Leviticus, the book Danny and I are studying. ‘Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination.’ Those few words have damned generations of men and women as

outcasts from a religion that would otherwise love them.” Mehdi stood up and pointed at the scroll. “But here, in this ancient scroll, the words are different. They imply that sexual acts between one man and another can be a blessing for the community, as long as they come from love.” “Really?” “That is one way to interpret the words. As with other writings that have survived centuries, it is sometimes difficult to create an exact meaning.” Liam sat on one of the padded chairs. His attraction to Aidan had begun in lust, a carnal desire to taste him, with him. But quickly that lust had evolved into love, even though much of the world around them disapproved. How much different their lives might have been if the few words Mehdi mentioned had made it into the Catholic liturgy? Or the Jewish, or the Muslim? Mehdi turned to face him. “So you see, there is the cash value for this scroll, millions of dollars. The effect it can have on one person’s scholarly reputation. But most important, in my opinion, is the way that if properly validated, it may make us reevaluate our opinions. The attitudes of millions of people could change, resulting in a better world for people like you, your husband, and Danny.” “Wow. I had no idea it could be that meaningful.” “There is much work still to be done. Danny and I argue sometimes, because he wishes to give his translation a more modern, more approachable feel. I believe that if we stick closely to the established translations, that particular age will stand out even more.” Liam stood. “Thank you. I feel like a missing piece of the puzzle has been slotted into place.” After he left Mehdi, Liam paced around the villa, eager for Aidan to get back so he could share what he had learned. As well, the chess pieces on this game were moving into place rapidly, which meant that a big play was going to happen soon. He wanted to get ahead of whatever that was. He was relieved when the phone from the gate rang, and he let Aidan and Danny

inside. Immediately he pulled Aidan into the office to discuss what had happened that morning. “After we left the hospital, I noticed a brown van following us. It took a while, but I managed to ditch them. I think going through the sand is what made the air conditioning in the SUV stop working.” “I wondered about that.” “Once they spotted us I knew I needed to switch out the SUV for a new one. It was just luck we were at the airport rental car place and saw Caswell arrive.” “They followed you, you followed them,” Liam said. “Turnabout’s fair play. You saw all three of them together? Caswell, Ghostley, and Danny’s friend Philip?” Aidan sat at the desk and nodded. “Philip didn’t look like he was there against his will. He was on Caswell’s other side from Ghostley, and they all got into the Bolt easily. I talked to Danny and he says that Philip’s family used to be rich, but his dad’s in prison and now he’s on a scholarship. I think maybe Caswell cut him a deal to help out here.” Liam stood by the door. “Makes sense. I spoke to Mehdi, and I did some research, and there’s a hot market for Biblical parchment. Even just a few fragments could go for half a million dollars. And a whole scroll like Danny has? We’re talking millions.” “But it doesn’t belong to him,” Aidan said. “Technically it’s the property of the synagogue.” “Technically won’t matter if Caswell gets his hands on it. There are evangelical Christians who would pay through the nose to own it, especially because of the content.” “The rules for being a Jew?” Aidan asked. “Really?” “I spoke to Mehdi while you were gone. Apparently there are extra bits in this scroll that could change the way religious people think about homosexuality. The fragments I mentioned? They’re from the same book, and the chapters dealing with gay sex. I read an article that hinted these evangelicals want to shut down any debate about that content.”

“Yeah, I got the feeling from Danny that it could be controversial material.” “There was something Mehdi said,” Liam said. Then he hesitated. Aidan looked up at him. The light was behind him, casting a bit of an aura around his head, and Liam’s body swelled with emotion. “He… he said that this scroll could change the way straight people feel about gays. That it could be easier.” “I agree.” Liam swung away to face the ocean. “But what if it had been easier for me. Suppose I fell in love with another boy in high school. Suppose I never met you.” “Oh, sweetheart.” Aidan stepped up next to Liam and rested his head on his husband’s upper arm. “I believe in fate, destiny. The Yiddish word is bashert.” He snaked his left arm around Liam’s back. “You are my destiny. If you’d been able to be open earlier, I still believe the world would have spun us together.” Maybe it was all that swimming earlier in the morning, but Liam’s body felt like jelly. He turned and leaned down to kiss Aidan. The words to a song drifted into his brain, and he pulled back from the kiss. “If I can go the distance, I’ll be right where I belong.” Aidan began to laugh. “Oh, my god, have I changed you. The big closeted SEAL I met years ago would never have quoted a sappy Disney song to me.” “Is it Disney? Really?” “The animated version of the story of Hercules.” “Have we ever seen that?” “Not that I can recall.” “Hercules was pretty buff, right?” Liam pulled back and struck a body-builder pose. “Kind of like me?” “I prefer the real version to anything animated,” Aidan said. “Although there are

these gay sex cartoons that are pretty realistic.” “TMI. And we need to focus on the case. There will be plenty of time for nooky later.” “If you promise.” Aidan grinned, and once again Liam felt his heart leap. He was right where he belonged, indeed.

34: Focus: Liam Liam forced himself to ignore the way his dick had pronged against his shorts. Aidan was having a similar problem, and Liam smiled to see his husband sit down and cross his legs. “That was a good idea to hire a local PI to shadow Caswell and his group,” Aidan said. “Eventually you or I would get made.” “It was Moshe’s. The ex-cop is an old friend of his father’s and he’s itching for something to do.” Aidan said, “He introduced himself at the hotel while Danny and I were watching. Looks like a generic old Tunisian. Which should make it easy for him to fit in.” “And Moshe says he knows everybody so he can get in places we couldn’t and ask questions.” Aidan’s stomach grumbled. “I promised Danny we could have lunch when we got back here. Let’s see how he and Mehdi are getting along.” They found the two of them in the kitchen, where Alisa was serving up salad, flatbread, and the savory pockets of brik, which Liam had come to love when he lived in Tunis. Layers of flaky dough were combined into pita-like shells, which were stuffed with chicken and then a raw egg, and the whole thing was fried. Heavenly. Mehdi and Danny were debating a word choice, so it seemed like they were getting along. The food was delicious, and they complimented Alisa. They were almost finished when Danny’s phone rang. “It’s Philip. Should I answer it?” “Put it on speaker,” Liam said. Danny did so, and said, “Hey, Philip. How’s Oxford?” “Don’t hang up, mate, please. I’m in Djerba.”

“Djerba? Wow. What a coincidence. That’s where I am.” “I know. I came here with Oliver Caswell.” Danny looked to Liam like he was channeling some inner theater geek as he said, “Caswell? What are you doing with him?” “He came to me the other day. With a kind of threat and a promise.” “What does that mean?” Philip lowered his voice. “It means that he threatened to get me kicked out of my program if I didn’t help him.” “And the promise?” “That he’ll get me a fellowship for next term. He says he knows people who give out awards.” “Philip. He’s in Biblical Studies, for Christ’s sake. What does he know about chemistry?” “He and various pals send lots of documents to the spectroscopy lab to be authenticated. He said he’ll get me personally discredited and refuse to send the lab any more work if they don’t fire me.” His voice became desperate. “Danny, I didn’t know what else to do.” Danny looked surprisingly cheerful to Liam, though maybe that was all part of his pose. “What does he want?” “He just wants to talk to you. Convince you to let him help translate the scroll. I told him what you said about that section in Leviticus and he’s very interested. He says he could co-author a paper with you and launch your career.” “This is a lot to take in, Philip. Let me call you back in a while, all right?” “Don’t take too long, Danny. Caswell is here with me and he’s really eager to get started.” He paused. “You should know he’s looking for you. He had me and this Tunisian guy, Bakr, out canvassing hotels and bed and breakfasts on one side of the island, and another British guy and a Tunisian on the other side.”

Danny ended the call, and his upper body seemed to cave in on itself. “Shit. That was hard. What if they find us?” “You did a great job, Danny,” Aidan said. “We’re staying at a private house, and the only people who know we’re here are Alisa and Hakim, and they’re accustomed to keeping their mouths shut. And now we know why Philip is here and what he gets out of this deal.” “Assuming Caswell does anything he promises. What if he takes the scroll and sells it to someone, screwing both Philip and me?” “Is he the kind of guy who would do that?” Liam asked. “Is he in this for the money or the prestige of making academic discoveries?” Aidan looked at him and nodded. “Good point.” “He used to be a very well-respected scholar,” Mehdi said. “But lately, I have heard bad rumors about him. He is an older man, of course, and by this stage in life sometimes you begin to value money more than your academic reputation.” “You don’t,” Danny said to him. “But I have a simple life,” Mehdi said gently. “I don’t need a fancy car or a big house, or even a well-funded retirement plan. I am content where I am.” “Not many people are,” Aidan said, and Liam looked at him. “I’d like to look over the information we have on Caswell again,” Liam said. “Aidan and I will be in the office.” As they walked down the hall, Aidan’s phone buzzed. “It’s Yonah Elfassi.” He answered, and Liam waited while his husband listened. “Thanks, Yonah, that’s good to know.” “What?” Liam asked, when Aidan hung up. “Yonah’s niece works at the Dar Dhiafa. This afternoon one of the Tunisian men, sounds like Bakr, asked her if there were private homes available for rent on the island.”

“Philip told Danny that he and the other guys were out canvassing hotels, looking for us. They must have finished and come up short.” Aidan said, “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Liam started to say something, but Aidan was already gone. He paced around the office. It was clear that Caswell and Najjar weren’t just waiting patiently to hear from Danny. They were making their own plans. At least Danny was safe in the villa for the time being. Aidan was back in the office a few minutes later, and his face was serious. “I asked Alisa if Gavin ever rented this place out.” Liam knew the answer already. “Shit.” “Exactly. So it’s only a matter of time before someone on the island tells them about this great villa near Houmt Souk.” “They won’t be able to place us here,” Liam said. “But anyone who’s watching from the street can tell someone is living here.” “That’s true. But Hakim and Alisa do live here, year-round. So it won’t be as much of a giveaway.” “Still. We’re running on a tighter and tighter timetable.” He took a deep breath. “We need to stay focused. We came in here to look up whatever we have on Oliver Caswell. Make your magic work.” Liam motioned toward the keyboard. Aidan sat at the desk and pulled up the file that Richard had sent. “Interesting. Two ex-wives, a vintage Jaguar, and a five-acre estate in a town called Sandfordon-Thames.” “Sounds expensive. And all that on a professor’s salary?” “Richard found a few snarky comments that indicate Caswell’s relationship with a Bible museum in the US may be more lucrative than professional.” Liam sat down on the chaise across from the desk. “I think we have to move forward thinking that Caswell is not interested in Danny as a scholar, or whether Philip gets a fellowship or not.”

“Agreed.” “But how do we get rid of him and his associates, whoever they are?” “That, my love, is an interesting question,” Aidan said. “It’s going to take some thought, and input from our various parties.” They left the office and followed the sound of voices to the game room, where Mehdi and Danny were once again working on their translation. Before they walked in, though, Liam stuck his arm in front of Aidan. “How would you feel about a swim?” he asked. “I need to focus on something else so these ideas in my head get a chance to percolate.” “I would be happy to you. The gate is locked and Alisa and Hakim are still here, working around the house. Caswell knows we’re in Djerba but I don’t think he has our address. And even if he does, I doubt he will do anything until Philip has had a chance to make his case with Danny. I think it’s safe for us to swim, and I agree—I need to focus on something else for a while, too.” They changed into bathing suits and went out to the pool as silently as they could. Liam was a bit guilty that he was swimming when he was supposed to be guarding, but he was also a firm believer in exercise as a way to focus the mind. Liam would have been happiest to skinny-dip; he was a bit vain about avoiding tan lines when he could. But there were too many other people around. He pulled on a black bikini that Aidan had packed for him, while Aidan put on a pair of tight-fitting swim trunks. The sun was brilliant, glittering off a metal roof somewhere inland of the villa, and the water was a clear, shimmering blue, reflecting the color of the floor and walls of the pool. Liam dove in at the deep end and began swimming laps, using the combat sidestroke he had learned in the Navy. His mind emptied quickly, focusing on the stroke and the turn at the end of the pool, and then the repetition, over and over again. He was vaguely aware that Aidan swam a few laps beside him, moving much more slowly than he did, but then all he felt was the deep satisfaction of exercise. When he finally quit, Aidan was there at the edge of the pool with a towel. An

iced pitcher of lemonade sat on a table in the shade of an umbrella, one glass empty and the other half-full. Liam filled the empty glass and then drained half of it in one long pull. “Ah,” he said, as he settled into the chair on the other side of the table from Aidan’s. “Any ideas pop into your head?” Aidan had two expressions Liam loved most to see. The first, of course, was when they were about to make love, and his husband’s face lit up from romantic expectation. Running a close second was the one he saw right then, when his husband had a plan in his mind and he was beginning to spell it out.

35: Connections: Aidan “I’ve been trying to make connections,” Aidan said. “Why is Caswell here in Djerba? He could have sent Philip to make his case and draw Danny back to Oxford.” “Because he knows the appeal won’t work,” Liam said. “So he brought a goon with him to provide further persuasion.” “What if it’s more than that, though?” Aidan turned sideways to face him, with his upper body in shade and the sun gleaming on his legs, which always maintained a light tan. “You know the term Aladdin’s cave, right?” “Isn’t that where he met the genie?” “There are lots of versions of the stories, but the bottom line is that there is this cave where the forty thieves stored their treasure, including the lamp the genie is trapped in. We can think of the genizah as an Aladdin’s cave full of ancient treasures. Only instead of gold and jewels, it’s filled with things carrying God’s name that people weren’t allowed to just throw away.” Liam nodded. “And this treasure is particularly valuable to someone like Caswell. He can either translate what he finds, and improve his standing as a scholar, or sell the most valuable pieces to collectors.” “Exactly. If he’s here in Djerba, it means that he believes there’s an Aladdin’s cave of treasure buried somewhere on the synagogue grounds.” Liam snapped his fingers. “He doesn’t just want Danny’s scroll, he wants to dig around and find more. And that, my friend, is against the law.” “Which is how we catch him. We have to lead him to the northwest corner of the cemetery, where that old guy… what was his name?” Aidan stared out at the back yard, where a light wind swirled through the long desert strip, and he could almost imagine Aladdin and his genie riding their magic carpet above the whirls of dust.

The name came back to him. “Ilan Betito,” Aidan said. “He witnessed the synagogue elders burying the books and papers from the synagogue genizah a hundred years ago. And he told Shimon that it was at the northwest corner of the cemetery.” Liam nodded. “If Danny can ‘accidentally’ reveal that to Caswell, then we hope Caswell takes the bait and tries a bit of grave robbery.” “And if we can get Faisal to come down here and catch Caswell in the act, Caswell gets arrested and the threat to Danny is lifted.” “I like it. But I’m not sure how we carry it all out. Caswell’s a foreigner. Maybe all Faisal can do is get him kicked out of Tunisia. Which might help Danny in the short term, but Caswell can still come after him when he goes back to finish his degree at Oxford.” Liam called Faisal and left him a message, and then he and Aidan went back over their ideas, adding and subtracting details. Finally Aidan said, “It’ll be dinner time soon, and I want to go in and take a shower. We can’t make any real plans until Faisal calls us back anyway.” Aidan went into the shower first, and when he came out Liam handed over his phone. “If Faisal calls, get me. Even if I’m full of shampoo and soap suds.” Aidan gave him a mock salute. “Yes, sir.” Liam dropped his bathing suit and fisted his dick. “Salute this, sailor.” Aidan laughed. “With pleasure.” Liam batted his hand away. “Later, horn dog.” Faisal still hadn’t called by the time Liam finished his shower. They dressed and went downstairs, reaching the phone connected to the gate just as it rang. It was Yonah Elfassi, and Liam buzzed him in. He and Aidan stepped outside as the old man pulled up on his motorbike. “I have been watching your targets,” Yonah said. “Right now they are eating a meal down at the harbor with a Tunisian man. I have someone watching them

while I am here.” “Come on in,” Liam said. “What’s going on?” Aidan led them into the living room, where he sat in front of the laptop. “My niece is a maid at the Dar Dhiafa,” he said. “She alerted me that your Mr. Caswell was meeting with another man in the courtyard beside one of the pools. This man, I believe his name is Najjar, and he is from Tunis.” Aidan opened the laptop and showed Yonah a picture of Rasul Najjar, and Yonah nodded. “Yes, he is the man.” “The plot thickens,” Aidan said. Yonah looked confused, and Liam frowned and motioned Yonah to continue. “They spoke for a long time about El Ghriba, and the genizah there. This Najjar, he says he can smuggle anything they find out of the country with ease.” He narrowed his eyes. “This is not right. I want to tell the police about them.” “Do they know where to dig?” Aidan asked. Yonah shook his head. “Najjar says he has asked many people, and no one can tell him. Do you know?” “We have an idea,” Liam said. “But we need to catch them digging or stealing in order to make the arrest stick.” “You will need better police than we have here,” Yonah said. “Here, the men will take money and let them go.” “I have a friend from Tunis,” Liam said. “He’s been trying to arrest Najjar for years.” Yonah laughed and rubbed his hands together. “Where are they now?” Aidan asked. “Caswell and Najjar?” “Najjar invited Caswell out to dinner, and I followed them to a restaurant near the harbor. My neighbor’s cousin waits tables there and he will notify me when they are ready to leave.”

“And the others?” Aidan asked. “The two British men?” “My niece recommended a restaurant only a few blocks’ walk, which her aunt owns.” “Was there anyone else with Najjar?” Liam asked. He nodded to Aidan, who swiveled the laptop once again and showed Yonah the picture of the two men who worked for Najjar in Tunis, who attacked Shimon and ransacked his shop. “Yes, I saw them. I did not know you wanted them followed as well.” “I doubt they will do anything until Caswell and Najjar have formulated their deal,” Liam said. “Good work, Yonah. You’ll let us know if they do anything unusual?” “Of course.” He left, and for the first time Aidan noticed the aroma of roasted meat coming from the kitchen. “Dinner smells good.” “Every time Alisa serves us a meal I realize how lucky we are to have landed here,” Liam said. Then Liam’s phone rang. “Let’s go outside. I’ll put Faisal on speaker.” Aidan was surprised. Usually Liam preferred to take his calls in private, and then relay the results. Liam spoke in English, probably for Aidan’s benefit, though Aidan had noticed that Liam’s Arabic had gotten rusty since they had moved to . “Interesting developments here in Djerba,” Liam said. “I’m hoping I can lure you down here to help us.” He told Faisal of Caswell’s arrival and his connection to Rasul Najjar. “We want to slip the knowledge of where the genizah is to Caswell, and then catch him and Najjar in the act.” “This plan only works if there is something in the graveyard,” Faisal said. Liam told him about Ilan Betito and his dying words to Shimon Aboulafia. “It’s the best chance we’ve got.”

“I can drive down tomorrow afternoon,” Faisal said. “I have to take a witness statement in Sousse, and I’ve been delaying because of the trip. 'Asqatat esfwryn birasasat sakhrat wahida.” Aidan was lost, and it took Liam a moment to translate that. “Oh, right. In English we’d say kill two birds with one stone.” “The old sayings often transcend cultures,” Faisal said. “Text me your address, and I will see you tomorrow.” While Liam texted, Aidan stared out at the sky, the way the darkness began at the horizon and then crept upward to wipe out the sun. There were so many colors, from black to navy blue, then the light blue of the sky and the orange of the sun. “We’re starting to move all our pieces into position,” Liam said. “Now we have to figure out how to get the information about the graveyard back to Caswell and Najjar.” “That’s going to be through Phillip,” Aidan said. “We can talk to Danny about that at dinner.” They walked inside and found Mehdi and Danny at the table, beginning with an aromatic chickpea soup with chilled sliced radishes on the side. “My cousin Daniel texted me that’s he’s flying into Djerba-Zarzis tomorrow morning at eleven,” Danny said, between sips. “I’d like to meet him and bring him here.” “I can drive you,” Aidan said. He looked at Liam, who nodded slightly. “Let’s talk about how you’re going to respond to Philip. We don’t want Caswell to get so impatient that he does something.” “I think they should meet at the synagogue,” Liam said. “Maybe Danny can even walk out to the northwest corner of the cemetery with Philip.” “The northwest corner?” Danny asked. “We have reason to believe that’s where the genizah is buried.” He explained the plan—to get Caswell and Najjar digging, and then arrest them.

“I have an idea,” Aidan said, and everyone turned to face him. “Danny, you know Philip pretty well. But do you think if your cousin went in your place, he’d be fooled?” “Daniel? Why?” “Because we don’t want Caswell to sabotage this plan and kidnap you,” Aidan said. “All Daniel has to do is meet Philip, lead him out to the corner of the cemetery, then reveal himself and get out.” “You make it sound so easy,” Danny grumbled. He was lost in thought for a minute or two, then said, “We’ve been able to fool people in the past. I’ll need a broad straw hat, though. When do you want me to call Philip?” “No time like the present,” Liam said. “As far as we know, Caswell and Najjar are at dinner together, so Philip should be on his own.”

36: Straw Hats: Danny Danny pulled out his cell phone and pressed the speed dial for Philip. When he answered, Danny heard noise and music in the background. “Hold on, let me get outside,” Philip said. Danny waited a moment, and the noise faded. “Jesus, there are a lot of stars here,” Philip said eventually. “Same ones over Oxford. We just can’t see them because of the ground light.” Philip sounded nervous. “Actually we’re close to the equator, so you can see the Big Dipper and the North Star as well as the Southern Cross.” “Philip, you’re babbling. You know why I called. I need to see you in person to talk about what Caswell wants.” “He’s not here. He went to dinner with a Tunisian guy.” “I don’t want to see him yet. Only you. Tomorrow at the synagogue, all right? I’ll show you the place where the genizah is buried, and we’ll talk through the details. Then I’ll want something in writing from Caswell about what he promises you and me both.” “That’s right, your dad is a lawyer, isn’t he?” “He is, and he’d kill me if he knew I was doing this all without getting his advice. But I don’t want Caswell breathing down my neck for next term, and I don’t want to see you lose your fellowship, either.” “Thank you, Danny. I know I haven’t been…” “Save it,” Danny interrupted. “We’re both in tough spots at the moment.” He calculated in his head. Daniel would arrive at 10:30, and they’d have to coordinate matching outfits and straw hats. “One o’clock tomorrow at the synagogue.”

“I’ll tell Caswell.” “Tell him to drop you off and then leave. My bodyguards can drive you back to the hotel.” He looked at Aidan and Liam. That hadn’t been part of the plan, but it seemed logical. They both nodded. “All right. Tomorrow at one.” Philip ended the call, and Danny felt like all the energy in his body had left at once. He had to sit down. “You’re sure this will work?” he asked. “We’re never sure about anything,” Liam said. “But we pray for the best and plan for the worst.” That night, in bed, Danny thought about what Liam had said. He very rarely prayed—he didn’t feel it was right to simply check in with the big guy upstairs only when he wanted something. But there was so much going on that he needed some spiritual guidance. He closed his eyes and repeated the first part of the most common brucha he knew, first in Hebrew, then in English. “Blessed art thou oh God, Ruler of the Universe. I have tried to live by Rabbi Hillel’s words. ‘That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah.’ I know that sometimes I have fallen down on this mission, and I have tried to make things right.” He recalled the rabbi’s words on Yom Kippur, that the holiday atoned for sins against God, but sins against men required apologies to those afflicted. After the morning service that day, his parents always sat down with him and the three of them apologized to each other and promised to do better in the coming year. “Savior, please keep safe all those involved in our adventures tomorrow. My goal is to translate this scroll and spread your words, and to do that I need your help and protection against those who would prevent that, or try and harm me or those I care about. I have faith in you and your love. Amen.” He closed his eyes, but he stayed awake for a while, worrying about the next day and how it might put Philip and Daniel in danger. He must have slept, though, because he awoke to light the color of egg yolks

streaming in through his window. It was like God had given him a sign that he would spread his protection over them all. And it gave him and Daniel both a chance to wear big straw hats which would shade their faces and make it easier for them to as each other. Danny couldn’t eat much at breakfast, even though the eggs were beautifully scrambled and the sautéed mushrooms with them smelled divine. He ate a single sweet roll and drank a cup of coffee, and then apologized to Mehdi. “I doubt we’ll get much work done today. I’m too full of… everything.” “That is fine,” Mehdi said. “There is a damaged portion of the scroll a few phrases ahead of us. I will spend the day trying to make out those individual letters. It is something I can do better than you can.” “Thank you,” Danny said. “For everything. I can’t believe what I’ve already put you through.” Mehdi’s eyes twinkled. “I have devoted my life to scholarship. Never did I expect I would work on such an important project as this. That is thanks enough.” Danny left the kitchen, pulled on a bathing suit, and swam a couple of laps in the pool, hoping that would work off his nervous energy. But it didn’t help. He had just gotten out of the shower when he got a text from Daniel. He tightened the towel around his waist and rushed downstairs. “Daniel’s flight just landed,” he said to Aidan, who was working at the laptop in the living room. “Then you’d better get dressed,” Aidan said. Danny looked down and saw the towel. “What should I wear?” “Ideally, something more than that. When Daniel gets here we’ll figure out how to dress you identically.” Danny rushed back upstairs and threw on boxers, shorts, and a polo shirt. By the time he got downstairs again, Aidan was waiting by the front door.

Danny was still a bundle of nerves as they drove. “When was the last time you saw your cousin?” Aidan asked. “Last year at Christmas. We had all of December off between Michaelmas and Hilary , so I flew home to Jersey and spent the month with my parents. Daniel and Giselle went to her parents for Christmas, but then spent the week between then and New Year’s with his parents, so we all went out a couple of times.” “Is she goyish?” Danny nodded. “But her family isn’t religious at all, and she’s interested in Judaism. I think she wants to convert, but she has to finish medical school first.” “And she’s still modeling?” “Just the occasional shoot she can fit between classes. Right now her plan is to delay her residency for a year so she can model and save up some money. Female models make so much more money than male ones do, you know. So even if Daniel works full time the whole time she’s a resident, they’ll barely break even. She could make enough in one year full-time as a model to pay all her med school costs and even put aside money for a house.” “How does Daniel feel about that?” Danny realized that Aidan was distracting him with his conversation, and it was working. He was less nervous as they got closer to the airport. “To be honest, he’s being kind of macho and traditional. Both our fathers are lawyers and both of them provided really well for their families. He wants to do the same thing. And of course he wants Giselle to finish her education without any interruptions.” Danny’s phone beeped. “He just got out of customs.” “Tell him to come out the front door and we’ll meet him.” Danny did, as Aidan ed a line of cars and taxis and Bolts moving forward. By the time they reached the main door, Daniel came out, tugging a big dufflesized rolling suitcase.

Without waiting for approval, Danny jumped out of the SUV and hugged his cousin. “So great to see you! Thank you so much for coming.” “I’m eager to do something more than stand around and look vacant,” Daniel said. “You look great, cuz. Is this your ride?” “Yup. I’ll throw your bag in the back.” Danny started to lift it. “Jeez, this is heavy.” “I wanted to bring two of everything so we could switch off easily.” Daniel got in the car then and introduced himself to Aidan, and Danny jumped in beside him in the back seat. “So tell me everything,” Daniel said, as they drove out of the airport. Danny did, in great detail, taking up the whole ride back to the villa with everything that had happened since his first trip to Tunisia. “You make me feel like a slacker,” Daniel said, as they waited to be buzzed into the villa. “All I’ve done is hang out and eat and drink and let people take pictures of me.” He leaned forward as the gate opened. “This looks really nice. I’m glad you’re using my money well.” “Uh, uh,” Danny began. “Don’t worry,” Aidan called from the front seat. “The villa’s owned by a couple of ex-clients who have become friends. They’re not charging us, though we’ll have to tip the couple who take care of the place.” Daniel elbowed Danny. “Just kidding, cuz. You know I want you to be safe, and this place looks like it can handle that.” After Daniel had been introduced to Liam, Alisa, and Mehdi, Danny dragged his cousin’s suitcase up to one of the guest rooms and they started sorting through what they could wear so they’d look the most alike. Before they knew it, Liam and Aidan were ready to head out. “You’re sure

you’re up to this?” Danny asked one last time. “I told you, cuz, I’m hoping to transition from modeling into acting before too long. I’ve been taking lessons. And if there’s one person I’m comfortable impersonating, it’s you.” He smiled. “I just lo-oo-ove studying my ancient manuscripts.” Danny elbowed him. “I do not sound like that.” “I think Daniel will do just fine,” Aidan said. They got to El Ghriba well before the rendezvous. Daniel was sent to wait inside, and then Danny stood by the main entrance as a busload of tourists ed. After a few minutes a sedan pulled up with a single enger, and Philip got out. “Good to see you, mate,” Philip said, and they hugged, as the sedan drove away. Danny realized he wasn’t angry with Philip for allying himself with Caswell; he didn’t have a choice, given Caswell’s power at Oxford. “What does Caswell propose?” Danny asked. Philip pulled a handwritten sheet of paper from his pocket. “Here’s his promise, signed and witnessed.” Danny unfolded it and scanned it quickly. In it, Caswell made two promises. First he agreed to work on the translation with Danny, and that any resulting publication would have both their names. And second, he wrote that he would not interfere with any existing fellowship that Philip held, and that he would do his best to ensure that the fellowship continued for the rest of Philip’s term. “Not the best deal for you,” Danny said, looking up. “I don’t want him to screw me over with my department. I can get my own fellowship, thank you very much, as long as he doesn’t interfere.” “Well, this looks good. Let me just run inside to the bathroom, and then I’ll show you the place where we believe the genizah is buried. Then you can go back and tell Caswell and…” He caught himself. He wasn’t supposed to know of Najjar’s existence. “And he can do whatever he pleases with that information.”

“You’re a good bloke, Danny,” Philip said. “I’m really chuffed that you’re my friend.” “Hold that thought while I empty my bladder. I’ve been kind of nervous about this meeting.” Danny hurried into the courtyard, where the tour group was hearing a lecture on the synagogue’s history. From the upper levels he heard faint sounds of classes in session. He hadn’t thought about all those kids. What if Caswell showed up and one of his goons had a gun? Oh, God, he hoped this plan worked. Daniel was waiting for him outside the men’s room. In the same brand-new khaki pants and matching blue polo shirts it would be easy to mistake them from a distance. Daniel had brought two pairs of gorgeous black suede loafers, and Danny’s feet fit them perfectly. “Pull the hat down over your face a little more,” Danny said, tugging on it. “Good luck, cousin.” “I can carry this off.” Daniel held his fist up for a bump, and then he walked out. Danny climbed to the second floor, where he could have a view of the synagogue entrance and the graveyard. He watched as Daniel walked out and motioned to Philip to follow him. They walked around the side of the building and out into the cemetery, and as directed, Daniel led him out to the northwest corner. Daniel was leading, not engaging in conversation with Philip, and it was all going to plan. Danny spotted Aidan by the SUV but couldn’t place Liam—he must have been lurking somewhere in the shadows. Daniel and Philip stopped by the edge of the cemetery, not far from the street, and Daniel was toeing the ground with his expensive loafer. Then a brown van, its sides stained with dust, roared up, almost out of nowhere. Two Tunisian men jumped out, and one of them grabbed Daniel by the arm. Danny was paralyzed with fear, watching without any way of acting. Then Daniel slipped the man’s grip, turned, and executed a perfect karate kick to the

man’s stomach. While the other man was trying to hold on to Philip, Daniel darted away, his hat flying back behind him. Their hair was the only thing that distinguished them at that time. Daniel’s hair was curlier than Danny’s, especially when it was long, and he’d piled it up in a man bun to fit under the straw hat. With the hat gone, the hair fell out of the bun and streamed behind him as he ran. Liam appeared out of nowhere, running beside Daniel, and Danny scurried back down the stairs and out into the courtyard, pushing past a couple of tourists to reach the gate. Their SUV was there waiting for him to jump in beside Daniel. “That was awesome,” Daniel said. “I didn’t I could kick that well.” “Muscle memory,” Danny said. “Didn’t you take karate for years?” “I did. But who knew this was how it would come in handy?” Daniel reached across and hugged Danny, who hugged him back. “Well done, both of you,” Liam said, from the front seat. “That went off perfectly according to plan.” “What happened to Philip?” Danny asked. He looked out the window toward the cemetery, and both Philip and the dusty van were gone. “He went off with the guys in the van,” Liam said. “Though when I glanced around, he was getting in on his own, not being forced.” “Now what happens?” Daniel asked. “This has already been my best vacation so far.” “Now we wait,” Liam said. “I have a friend from the Tunisian national police coming in this afternoon. In the meantime, you guys can relax.” “There’s an awesome pool at the villa,” Danny said. “Mehdi is busy reconstructing some damaged letters, so I have time to hang out with you.” “You should get some rest, too,” Aidan said. “If we’re right in our thinking, tonight is going to be a long one.”

37: Dead Zone: Liam Liam and Aidan walked back to the office, Aidan carrying the note from Caswell. As he sat by the desk to examine it, Liam walked over to the window and stared out at the pool and the back yard. How were they going to stage this operation? Would Caswell and Najjar show up, or would they wait a few days? And if they did, how long would Faisal wait to catch them? “This letter says exactly what Danny wants, but I don’t trust Caswell to carry it out,” Aidan said. Liam turned around to face him. “Why not? Read me the letter.” Aidan did. “Sounds reasonable,” Liam said. “Maybe we’ve been coming at this wrong. There won’t be any grave robbing tonight. Danny needs to sign the letter and head back to Oxford.” Aidan crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” Liam laughed. “No, but it is one scenario to consider. Why doesn’t it work?” He loved to see Aidan concentrate. His brows turned in, and his lips closed. “First of all, there’s Rasul Najjar,” Aidan said after a moment. “If Danny and Caswell go back to Oxford and translate the manuscript together, what does Najjar get out of this deal?” “He sells the scroll later?” “Can’t do that. It belongs to the synagogue. Best he could do is get an agent’s fee, and you don’t need to bring two thugs with you for that.” Aidan leaned forward. “And then there’s Caswell himself. We’ve heard rumors he’s selling artifacts under the table to rich evangelicals. And he lives well. He

doesn’t want to translate that scroll—he wants to sell it. Yeah, maybe once it’s in a museum somewhere he can work on it himself. But I don’t believe anything he’s written here, not even the part about Philip.” Liam leaned back against the windowsill. “So that brings us back to plan A. We’ve baited the hook, and given Caswell and Najjar the location of the genizah.” “The possible location,” Aidan said. “, all we have is the word of a very old, dying man. He might have been confused. It wouldn’t be unusual for him to the wrong area.” Liam frowned. “Grave digging isn’t that big an offense. We need them to actually find something to make trafficking charges stick, and put both Najjar and Caswell out of business.” “Could we salt the area? Buy something and bury it there ourselves?” “That’s called entrapment, Aidan. In addition to being morally wrong, if a defense attorney got hold of that information the whole case would fall apart, and we might end up in jail ourselves.” “We don’t want that. Not even if I get to share a cell with you.” “Aidan. Be serious.” Behind him, Liam heard the sounds of Danny and his cousin diving and splashing in the pool, and all he wanted was to them and put off any thoughts of planning. “We need to notify Arié that there may be people, and police, around the synagogue grounds tonight,” Aidan said. “If there’s a night watchman, we don’t want him to interfere.” “Let’s wait until we’ve figured out exactly what we need to do,” Liam said. He tried to focus, but he was distracted by those joyous sounds from the pool. Aidan turned to his laptop and hit a few keys, then gave up. “What?” “I wondered if you could use a metal detector in a graveyard. There might be

something metallic in tefillin, for example. But the average metal detector wouldn’t see deep enough into a grave. The most you’d be able to find is a lost coin or two.” “Are there any rules for burying a genizah?” “Good question.” Aidan turned back to his computer and began typing. “You love this kind of research, don’t you?” Liam asked. “I do. So be quiet and let me read.” Liam watched as he flipped quickly between screens, gathering scraps of knowledge. Finally he looked up. “Well, the good news is that nothing says you have to put the books and scrolls and so on into a pine box, and bury it six feet down.” “And that’s good news because…” “Because it will make the digging quicker. We don’t want them to spend hours digging a couple of six-foot-deep holes and finding nothing.” “Anything else?” “You have to cover everything with a white shroud. Of course, I wouldn’t expect a piece of cloth to last forever underground, but if they find a scrap or two of white fabric that will mean they’re on their way.” He looked up. “And no, I’m not suggesting we go out there and bury pillowcases. They’re going to look for an area that hasn’t been touched for a century or more.” “Do you think Arié will have any more precise idea of where to dig? Synagogue records, for example?” “I think if the location of the genizah was written down, Shimon or Arié or someone before them would have found it.” He pulled out his phone. “But I’ll call Arié anyway and let him know what we’re planning.”

“I’m going to walk,” Liam said. “I’ll be back.” He would have preferred to swim, but the boys were in the pool. So he walked down the driveway to the gate, and then walked the perimeter of the fence. It was a good idea, even if they weren’t worried about a direct attack on the villa. He ed the first time Gavin had visited the place, back when all he knew of Karif was that he gave a good blow job, and how the Brit had used a tree to leverage himself inside. The tree had been trimmed, Liam noted, but not enough. Karif had gained a lot of enthusiastic fans since that time, and the fence wasn’t good enough to keep them out if there was a way over it. He made a note to get Hakim to cut it back. By the time he returned to the house, he was sweaty and thirsty, but he hadn’t come up with any other ideas. He grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen and met Aidan in the hallway. “I was just coming to look for you,” Aidan said. “I called Arié and he said that he’d seen a group of men out in the graveyard an hour ago.” “Is that unusual? Isn’t that area open to the public?” “It is. But usually tour groups are larger, and they don’t spend quite so much time at the northwest corner of the cemetery.” “So Caswell and Najjar took the bait,” Liam said. He looked at his watch. “Faisal said he’d be here by dinner. We’ll work out our plan when he gets here.” Faisal was not there by the time they sat down to eat, and his cell phone went direct to voice mail. “He’s probably in a dead zone,” Aidan said. “I can’t imagine there is perfect cell service all the way from Tunis to here.” “I want him here,” Liam said, before they ed Mehdi, Daniel and Danny in the dining room for another one of Alisa’s amazing meals. “I can’t put together a full plan until I know what kind of resources he can add.” “Well, we know he’s coming on his own,” Aidan said. “And Yonah told us that the local cops are prone to accepting baksheesh.” “Then why are we wasting our time?” Liam exploded. He took a deep breath. “I

don’t mean to yell at you. But this whole operation depends on too many variables. Will Caswell and Najjar show up to dig tonight? Will they find anything? And will Faisal, on his own, be able to arrest them?” “And once arrested, will that remove the threat to Danny?” Aidan added. They ed the other three for dinner, and Daniel entertained everyone with stories of photo shoots gone horribly wrong. Makeup melting in the heat, shorts that were too revealing for mainstream publications, clandestine hook ups between models, photographers and make-up artists. “Not me, of course,” Daniel said. “Once I met Giselle, my hook-up days were behind me.” “I want to be able to say that someday,” Danny said. “Not your buddy Philip?” Daniel asked. “He just a friend with benefits?” “I don’t know if I’ll even see him back in Oxford,” Danny said. He turned to Liam and Aidan. “I will be able to go back to Oxford, won’t I?” Liam looked at Aidan, who said, “Right now there are too many variables in play to give you a definite answer.” Danny looked like someone had sucker-punched him, and Daniel wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “You can always bring your scroll back to the States and find someone else to mentor you.” “The plan is,” Aidan said, “to catch Caswell in the act of grave-robbing, and either get him arrested or at least discredited. That would clear the way for you to return to Oxford.” “And if you can’t?” Danny asked. “I can’t have bodyguards around for the rest of my life.” “If tonight doesn’t work out, we’ll shift to plan B,” Aidan said smoothly. Liam looked at him without expression, because there was no plan B, at least as far as he knew. After dinner, Mehdi went up to his room to read. “I want to watch a movie,” Danny said. “Preferable something with Indiana Jones in it.”

Daniel took his arm. “Come on, we’ll see what we can find through that satellite disk I spotted on the roof.” Aidan followed Liam to the office, where he tried Faisal’s cell. When there was no answer, Liam began pacing around the room again. “Maybe you should go watch that movie with the boys,” Aidan said. “You need to cool down.” Liam nodded. “I agree. I’m going to swim for a while. You keep an eye on the phone.” He looked out at the pool. A single light illuminated it, and if he shut that off, he could skinny-dip. But swimming in the dark in an unfamiliar pool was stupid. He went up to the room he shared with Aidan, pulled on a bikini and grabbed a towel, and went out to the pool. From the moment he dove into the cool water, his conscious brain shut down, and he went into SEAL mode, swimming back and forth. He was so engaged that it took him a moment to realize that Aidan was standing by the edge of the pool yelling at him. He pushed up with a splash, the water cascading down his head and shoulders. “What?” “Faisal is here. I just let him in the gate.”

38: No Standing: Aidan Aidan met Faisal at the front door. “I am sorry I am so late,” he said. “My witness statement took much longer than I expected.” He smiled. “He was able to implicate several unexpected perpetrators.” “We’re good. Liam was in the pool. He’ll be here a couple of minutes. Can I offer you anything to eat or drink?” “I did not have a chance to have supper.” “I’m sure we have some leftovers.” He led Faisal into the kitchen and put together a plate for him, along with a glass of Alisa’s lemonade. They were chatting about the changes in Tunis since Aidan and Liam had left when Liam came in fresh from a shower. “It’s good to see you, Faisal.” Liam reached out his hand. “Don’t get up, keep eating.” Faisal shook his hand and returned his attention to his plate. “Aidan, why don’t you check on Danny and Daniel,” Liam said. “Faisal and I can catch up on old times.” The two cousins were in the living room on the sofa, watching what was apparently their second Indiana Jones movie of the evening. “Don’t get any ideas,” Aidan said. “Neither of us has a bullwhip.” “Ah, but are you afraid of snakes?” Daniel asked. “Who wouldn’t be?” Aidan asked. By the time he returned to the kitchen, Faisal had finished eating and Liam had laid out the plan for the evening. “Do you believe it will be safe to leave your principal here?” Faisal asked. “All the attacks against him, or the hat-maker and his cousin, have been when they were vulnerable,” Liam said. “Here, he’s behind an iron fence, and his cousin Daniel has shown that he has some impressive defensive moves. I think they’ll be safe as long as they don’t open the gate to anyone.”

Aidan and Liam went up to their room to dress. They always brought a pair of black cargo pants and a black microfiber fishing shirt, stacked with pockets, for each of them. Aidan pulled off his khaki shorts and stood there in his boxer shorts for a moment while he checked the pockets of the slacks. “You’re not wearing those boxers, are you?” Liam asked. Aidan looked down. The pattern was an aquarium of tropical fish. “What’s wrong with them? I’m not taking my pants off this evening.” “They’re torn at the hem. You need to throw them away.” “I like this pattern.” “Whatever. I might have to rip them off you later.” Aidan knew he would like that, and quickly pulled on his slacks to cover his erection. It was nearly midnight by the time Aidan, Liam and Faisal got into the SUV to head for the synagogue. Aidan drove the last mile without headlights, using only the stars and the faint shine ahead of him for navigation. “Someone’s here,” Liam said. “Are we too late?” “They would not still be here if they had found what they are looking for,” Faisal said. Aidan turned on a side road that led behind the main gate to the synagogue, and they crept along it slowly until they could go no farther without risking being spotted. He parked the SUV behind a blue-roofed building that backed on the cemetery and they got out. Aidan spotted a ladder on the ground, and he and Liam lifted it carefully and positioned it against the side of the building, which had an Arabic sign on it that Aidan translated as takhzin almaqbara, cemetery storage. Liam climbed first, with his binoculars on a strap around his neck. Aidan followed, using one hand to hold the ladder and the other to keep his binoculars

from bouncing against his chest. He wished he had the comforting pressure of his GLOCK in a holster at his hip, but they’d had to leave their weapons behind in . Faisal chose to remain on the ground. Though they were only about ten feet high, the flatness of the land gave them a long perspective. Aidan heard an owl hoot and saw it shoot through toward the earth in search of prey. A three-quarter moon provided enough light that he could see the arches of the synagogue, and some of the smaller houses of Hara Kebira. Then he trained his binoculars on the group of men digging in the corner of the graveyard. “I don’t see Caswell or Najjar,” he whispered to Liam. “The guy standing at the far end,” Liam said. “I think that’s one of Najjar’s workers. The older one, Bakr.” Aidan peered closely. “Yup. Oh, and the guy who just looked up from digging? That’s Darren Ghostley.” “A ghost in a cemetery,” Liam said. “Who knew?” Aidan stifled a chuckle. His sense of humor had definitely infected his husband over the last nine years. He counted six diggers, including Bakr and Masood and a man he thought was Jamal Cherif, and they had begun digging a long narrow trench along the edge of the cemetery, then working inward. It didn’t look like they were going down low enough to disturb any bodies, yet deep enough to find a cache of books or scrolls. He and Liam took turns surveying the diggers over the next hour. Watching them was boring work, but Aidan had learned from Liam how to stand point and observe without tiring or losing focus. They traded off every ten minutes. Even as far away as they were, they could hear the clang of shovels on rock and see the piles of dirt accumulating along the dig site. It was Aidan’s lookout when he saw the muscular Masood, working in the ground, stop and call to Bakr. He trained his binoculars where the younger man pointed. “White cloth,” he said to Liam, who lifted his binoculars immediately. They watched closely as Darren Ghostley came over and he and Masood lifted

the edge of the cloth. They’d found a shallow grave, though, and the whiteness of a skull reflected off their lights. Ghostley dropped the cloth and backed away. He only got a few feet from the dig site before he hunched over and spilled out whatever he’d had for dinner. The Tunisian men simply shrugged and went back to digging. The night dragged on. The moon moved across the sky, and clouds darted above them, obscuring and then revealing stars. “How long do you think they’ll keep going?” Aidan asked. “Until Caswell or Najjar tells them to stop.” It was close to three AM by Aidan’s watch before the diggers uncovered another piece of white shroud. This time, though, when Najjar’s man pulled it back, it revealed a pile of books. “Bingo!” Aidan said. “But neither Najjar or Caswell are here. If we arrest their workers, they’ll deny any culpability.” “So we wait,” Liam said. “I’m betting that one or both of them will come out to see what’s been found.” Indeed, Ghostley pulled out his phone and made a call, though they were too far away to hear what was said. Then he stuck the phone back in the pocket of his jeans and opened a series of what looked like Styrofoam coolers next to the dig. Working quickly, the six men formed an assembly line to lift each book out and carefully place it into a cooler. Ghostley closed each cooler and stacked it by the side of the road. “I want to know what’s in there,” Aidan said. Liam put an arm on his shoulder. “I know. We won’t let them get away.” There was quite a haul. Most of what they pulled out looked to Aidan like prayer books and Bibles with frayed cloth covers. He spotted a couple of small sacks of what might be tefillin. And then he caught his breath. A scroll that might be a Torah, or a transcription of one or more books. He noticed that Ghostley handled it with care, leaving it on top of one of the coolers.

“We have to do something,” Aidan whispered to Liam. “What if that scroll is as valuable as the one Danny has?” “All we can do is wait. I’ll bet you both Caswell and Najjar show up quickly. And this is Faisal’s operation, after all. We have no standing here.” And yet we are standing here, Aidan wanted to say, but that was just his nerves. In the distance, he spotted a pair of headlights approaching. Would it be Caswell, or Najjar, or both? Aidan recognized the dirty brown van that had been used that afternoon to try and kidnap Daniel. Before stopping, the driver turned the van around so that the back door was closest to the site. Najjar jumped out of the driver’s seat, followed quickly by Caswell. They both hurried to the dig site and began looking through the bounty. If Aidan hadn’t been listening, he would not have heard the quiet sound of footsteps approaching from behind the storage building. He elbowed Liam, and they turned around. A group of about a dozen policemen were approaching on foot. They were already around the front side of the building before one of them pulled out a bullhorn and began shouting instructions in Arabic. The gravediggers dropped their instruments and put their hands up. But Najjar, Caswell, and Ghostley took off for the van, with Masood, Bakr and Jamal Cherif behind them. Fortunately they left behind all the coolers, though Najjar grabbed the scroll. One of the cops fired a warning shot, but they were too fast, and the six of them were inside the van, with the rear doors swinging, before the police could reach them. Najjar engaged the engine, hit the gas, and they were off down the bumpy road. “Well, doesn’t that screw up our plans?” Liam said. “Why did the police speak up so quickly?” “I’ll bet Faisal is not happy.” Aidan scrambled down the ladder and waited for

Liam. “What do we do?” “We get out of here,” Liam said. “All our presence would do is confuse things.” “But what about the books? And the scroll that Najjar took off with?” “We’ll have to trust Faisal to secure what’s there. With luck they can put out an APB on that van before it gets too far. Faisal knows the hotel where they were staying. And this is an island. They can’t get onto the ferry, or catch a plane, until morning. And the causeway is pretty far, and the police can set a roadblock there.” They walked back to where they’d left the SUV. “What about Faisal?” Aidan asked. “Are we leaving him here?” “I’m sure he can get a lift from the local police.” Neither of them spoke as Aidan drove back to the villa. He pulled up short a quarter of a mile before the gate, though. “Look up there. Is that us?” Liam pulled out his binoculars and leaned forward. “Son of a bastard dog,” he said. “It’s the brown van, and there’s a guy working at the gate with metal shears.”

39: Tropical Fish: Aidan Aidan pulled out his own binoculars. “The muscular guy with the shears is Bakr, Najjar’s man,” he said. “They must be after Danny and the scroll he has.” “Gavin’s tree,” Liam said, as he jumped out of the SUV. “I was going to get Hakim to trim it back. Fortunately I didn’t get around to that.” Aidan ed how Gavin had gotten over the fence long before by climbing a tree and jumping into the yard, but he didn’t where it was. “I’m right behind you.” “Call Danny and get him, Daniel and Mehdi into the recording studio,” Liam said. “That door locks from the inside and it’s probably the most secure spot in the house.” Aidan pulled out his phone while jogging along the outside of the fence, behind Liam. He pressed the speed dial for Danny’s cell and waited. The call went to voice mail. They reached the tree. “No answer,” Aidan said. “I have a number for Daniel. I’m going to try that next.” His hand was sweaty as he searched through his s. There was one Daniel Cardozo. Which one? The one he’d just tried, or his cousin? As the phone began dialing and the name displayed, Aidan realized it had to be the model he was calling. “Hello?” Daniel sounded groggy. “It’s Aidan. There are some bad guys trying to break through the gate. I need you to wake up and get Danny and Mehdi into the recording studio. Can you do that?” “I’m up. I’ll get them both and we’ll call you when we’re safe.” “Good man.”

Liam had already begun climbing the ancient olive tree that stretched a single branch over into the villa’s yard. Aidan had a momentary memory of Liam climbing a ladder at their house and then falling to the ground. They’d tempted fate once that evening, getting up to the roof of the blue building. Could they manage a second try? There was no stopping Liam, though. He was already crawling like a cat over the branch that spanned the fence. And then in a quick move, he grabbed the branch and swung down inside. “You call Faisal while I climb,” Aidan said though the fence. Then he grabbed a low branch and hoisted himself up, grateful for all the pull-downs and biceps curls he had done with Liam. While he steadied himself on the branch, he heard Liam call Faisal. “Take it easy, Aidan,” Liam said. “There’s a tricky part when you have to get over the fence but the rest is simple.” Yeah, Aidan thought. Making a ten-foot drop from an ancient branch and landing without breaking something. Simple if you were a goddamned ex SEAL. He inched over the branch. “Come on, Aidan, they could be through the gate by now.” Aidan lost his balance and began to fall. But he could barely get an expletive out of his mouth before he landed in Liam’s arms. “Good thing we’ve done this before,” Liam said. “Wouldn’t want to drop you.” He set Aidan down and took off for the house. “Liam! Wait! What’s our plan?” “Our plan is to get to the front door before they do and keep them out of the house,” Liam called behind him. They had almost reached the side of the house when a series of lights came on. Daniel leading the way to the recording studio? Then the burglar alarm ed its 30-second delay and set off a shrill noise that seemed even louder in the still air. As they rounded the corner, they saw the front door hanging loose. Had Danny, Daniel and Mehdi made it to the studio in time?

Liam grabbed Aidan’s arm as he raced past. “Stop. We need to evaluate for a minute. How many men did you see get into that van?” Aidan counted them off. “Caswell, Najjar, Ghostley, Bakr, Masood, and the Tunisian incel, Cherif. I’d expect Caswell to be the least dangerous.” “Unless he has a gun.” “Even if he does. Nothing we found online about him indicates he has any ability with firearms, and the British are notoriously strict on gun possession and training.” “What’s worse? A trained gunman in a confined space, or one who’s nervous and doesn’t know what he’s doing?” “That’s not a question I can answer,” Aidan said. “But it’s a situation we might have to face. We have to plan that all six of them have guns and aren’t afraid to use them.” The alarm continued its shrill siren. “Okay. Then what? We wait for the police to get here?” “That would work if we were sure our clients were locked securely in the recording studio.” “I told Daniel to call me when they got inside.” Liam shook his head. “That studio is soundproof. They won’t be able to get a signal out. The only way we’ll hear something is if they didn’t make it.” “Great. Then no news is good news.” “If you want to put it that way. Think, Aidan. Do we have any choice other than to storm the house and take them by surprise, or wait out here until the police arrive and hope Danny is safe?” “I know you’re not content to stand around,” Aidan said. “Let’s sneak up and try to isolate them. It’s a big house. With luck they’ve split up to explore it.”

He patted his lower pocket. “I have four sets of zip ties.” They were simple plastic ties that could be used as hand or leg cuffs, with the advantage of getting through metal detectors or airport sensors easily. “How many do you have?” Liam checked the same pocket on his shorts. “Four. That means we can put one set each on Najjar and Caswell, and then have hand and leg cuffs for the others.” “I’d say we’re in good shape then,” Aidan said. “Ready?” “Not quite. Look over at the olive tree by the front door.” “Who is that? Caswell, you think?” “Too bulky. I’d say that’s Darren Ghostley, protecting the flank.” “Ah, but who’ll protect his flank?” Aidan asked. “My feeling exactly,” Liam said. “Wait here.” He was by far the better of the two of them at moving soundlessly, and Aidan watched as Liam made a wide circle, coming up on Ghostley from behind. With a quick chop to the neck, he was on the ground, and a moment later Liam had both his wrists and his ankles tied with the straps. Aidan ed him at the front door. “You go upstairs, I’ll head toward the studio,” Liam said. Aidan crept up the broad staircase at the entry, putting his weight on the balls of his feet and then lowering his heels, the way Liam had taught him. He had no gun, but he had one set of zip ties in his right hand. He heard footsteps above him and flattened himself against the wall. The footsteps were followed by curses in Arabic. That meant either Najjar, Masood, Bakr or Cherif. Aidan hoped for Najjar or the older Masood. He wasn’t sure he was strong enough to take down the muscular Bakr. “Hal wajidatuhum?” the man asked. Did you find them? Another voice from the farther end of the house said, “La.” No.

Aidan crept up the last few stairs and found himself staring at Najjar’s back. With a quick knee up, he had Najjar on the ground and the cables clipped around his wrists. His face was pressed into the carpet and he was trying to speak, what sounded like either curses or warnings. Aidan glanced around for something he could use for a gag. There was nothing handy. Then he ed the torn boxers he was wearing. “I am making a sacrifice for you, pal,” he said into Najjar’s ear. Then he unzipped his slacks and grabbed a hunk of the worn boxer fabric and pulled. It split along the hemline, and he was able to tug out a hunk of fabric from the seat of the boxers. He wadded it up and shoved it in Najjar’s mouth as a makeshift gag. “I’d breathe through my nose if I were you.” Then he stood up, grabbed Najjar’s wrists, and tugged him into the spare, neat bedroom that Mehdi was using. He closed the door behind Najjar and took a deep breath. Najjar had been speaking to someone nearby. Who? “Rayiys?” The Arabic word for boss came from down the hall. Aidan channeled his knack for languages, and Najjar’s deep voice, and said, “Nem,” yes. Then he waited in a corner of the hallway. Crap. Bakr stepped out of the room Aidan and Liam had been sharing. Aidan wanted him to take the stairs, but couldn’t think of anything other than anzal, which he thought meant go down. At least that’s what Liam said when he wanted Aidan to suck him. Of course it could also have meant ‘blow me,’ but Aidan took his chance. “Anzal!” he said in as commanding a voice he could manage. “Nem, nem,” Bakr said. He muttered something else under his breath that Aidan couldn’t understand, but sounded a lot like curses. Aidan waited until the man had begun to descend the stairs to kick him squarely in the butt. Bakr’s legs went out from under him and he began to fall. Aidan was on top of him by the time he landed, cuffing his arms. Bakr said something that sounded like his leg was broken, but Aidan cuffed his ankles anyway.

“Shadh!” Bakr spit out. Faggot. “I guess I’m going commando for the rest of this mission,” Aidan said. He opened his slacks once again and Bakr’s eyes widened at the sight of Aidan’s penis. “Don’t worry, you don’t ring my bell.” He pulled at the torn fabric of his boxers, and brought up another clump, which he stuffed into Bakr’s mouth. Then he sighed and stood up. He closed his pants around the remnants of the boxers. “I really did like those shorts.”

40: Tender Mercies: Danny Danny woke in darkness to his cousin shaking his shoulder. “There are guys trying to break into the house,” Daniel said. “We need to get to the recording studio.” Daniel grabbed a pair of workout shorts from the top of the bureau. “Put these on and I’ll get Mehdi.” Danny shook his head to clear it, then stood up and grabbed the shorts. He needed to pee, but safety was more important. He found Daniel in the hall with Mehdi, who wore a long sleep shirt that made him look like a character from Charles Dickens. They each took one of Mehdi’s arms and helped him down the hallway. They climbed downstairs, going as fast as they could with Mehdi, who was still slow and sleepy. They ed through the main living room and Danny heard someone banging on the front door. His adrenaline was pumping and he wanted to run, but he couldn’t leave Mehdi behind. A moment after they were in the hallway that led to the studio, the front door slammed open. A short time later, the alarm went off with a high-pitched whooping noise. Daniel picked up Mehdi and began to run erratically toward the studio, Danny right behind him. The door was open, and they rushed through and then Danny slammed it behind them and locked it. Daniel lowered Mehdi to one of the plush chairs across from the sound board, and Danny squatted beside him. “Are you all right?” Mehdi nodded, his bald head flashing under one of the overhead lights. “I am not as young as I once was.” “Trust me, being young isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Danny said. “Jesus. What do you think is going on out there?”

“Those guys who were after you are probably looking for the scroll,” Daniel said. “Where did you hide it?” Danny’s eyes opened wide. “Fuck me. Mehdi was working on it this afternoon in the game room, and I got caught up with what Aidan and Liam were doing tonight, so I didn’t put it away.” “It is my fault,” Mehdi said. “I should have put it away when I finished, but I thought I would go back to it after dinner.” “I have to get it,” Danny said. He stood up and headed for the door. “Danny. Wait. You don’t know what’s going on out there. Leave it up to the bodyguards. That’s what they’re for.” Danny hesitated for a moment by the door. What would Indy do? He certainly wouldn’t stay locked up in a room while other people took all the risk. “The game room is just down the hall. I’ll be right back. Lock the door behind me, and I’ll knock three times when I get back.” “Danny,” Daniel said, but Danny was already out the door by then. He closed it gently behind him and stood in the dark hallway, listening. He heard footsteps above him, the sound of someone falling down the stairs. But the area ahead of him was clear. He crept slowly down the hallway, staying close to the right wall. The game room was on the other side of that wall, but he’d have to go all the way down to the living room in order to get into it. His heart thumped so loud he was afraid anyone in the darkness could hear it, but he channeled Harrison Ford’s performance in the movies he’d watched with Daniel, straightening his back and trying to even out his breathing. He reached the living room. Since he and Daniel and Mehdi had ed through it, someone had turned on the lights. He peered around the corner of the hallway, looking from one side of the room to the other, but he saw no one. He darted quickly from the hallway around the corner and into the game room. The lights were on there, too, and directly across from him was Jamal Cherif, who was staring down at the scroll on the pool table.

“Don’t touch it!” Danny said, and immediately regretted giving himself up. “You are filth,” Jamal said. “You cannot be allowed to continue with this translation.” He pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket. Danny shuddered, and looked around for anything he could use to stop the Tunisian from incinerating the scroll that had been entrusted to him. When he and Mehdi began working on the pool table, Danny had carefully racked all the balls in their triangular home and left it on a side table. He reached out and grabbed one of the balls and with a quick twist of his wrist threw it at Jamal’s chest. It hit him square in the stomach, and he reared back. Danny grabbed another ball and threw it, hitting Jamal in the shoulder. He kept throwing balls until he hit Jamal in the head. A bright red wound blossomed, and the Tunisian tumbled to the ground. Danny rushed over to the pool table. As fast as he could, he rolled the scroll up, grabbed it and its case, and turned to the door. “I’ll take that scroll now,” Caswell said. His tutor stood in the doorway, a streak of grime on his cheek, his white hair sticking up at odd angles. “Oh, no.” Danny experienced a moment of frustration. It was just like an Indiana Jones movie. As soon as you knocked out one opponent, another popped up. Well, he was as irritated as Indy ever was. He put down the scroll and the case, and grabbed one of the balls that had bounced off Cherif and landed on the table. He lobbed it at Caswell. He had gotten a good sense of the weight of the balls by then, and how they flew through the air. He hit the old man square in the shoulder, and he staggered and fell to the ground. Danny grabbed the scroll and case again. He darted around where Caswell had fallen to the floor, moaning in pain, and resisted the urge to kick his seminar leader where it would hurt the most.

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, he thought, and left Caswell to the Lord’s tender mercies.

41: It Takes Two: Liam Liam crept along the corridor toward the music studio. He had no idea where the other men were. Were they all on his level? On Aidan’s? He heard the sound of paper rustling, coming from the direction of the game room, and moved silently down the hall. He peered in the open door and saw Oliver Caswell standing over the pool table sorting through the papers Danny and Mehdi had been using. Caswell muttered, “Did he take the blasted thing with him?” as he worked with his left hand, while his right arm hung oddly from his shoulder. It was almost too easy. He crept up behind the elderly Brit, pushed him face down on the pool table, and then snap-tied Caswell’s wrists together. The man cried out in pain, and snarled, “Who the fuck are you?” “An avenging angel.” Liam kicked Caswell’s legs out from under him, and then realized that Cherif was knocked out on the ground on the far side of the pool table, blood streaming from a head wound. He dragged Cherif next to Caswell and left them both barricaded against the wall with a row of bar stools. From upstairs, he heard a crash, and he hurried out to the staircase, where he saw Aidan with his pants open, leaning over Bakr. “What the hell?” he said. Aidan stood up after gagging Bakr and zipped up his pants. “You’ll be happy to know I can’t wear those tropical fish boxers anymore.” He motioned upstairs. “I’ve got Najjar up there. Any luck on your end?” “Caswell and Cherif in the game room with bar stools,” Liam said. “Jeez, I’m starting to sound like you. As if this is all a game.” “I’m having fun,” Aidan said. “You tied up Ghostley outside. So that leaves us with Masood, right?” He looked out the window of the staircase, which faced toward the street. They heard a banging coming from the direction of the music studio, and Liam took off in that direction, with Aidan behind him. The studio was in a single-story separate wing of the house, heavily insulated for

sound. They rounded a corner of the game room and saw Masood holding a tire iron and bashing at the door. “It’s over, Masood,” Liam said in Arabic. “Drop the bar and put your hands up.” Masood turned around. “Where is Rasul?” “Tied up, upstairs. The police will be here soon.” “I can’t go to prison!” Masood advanced on them, waving the iron bar. “Let me go. I haven’t taken anything, and I haven’t hurt anyone.” “Tell that to the police,” Liam said. “I have a wife and children. Please!” He danced toward them, swinging the tire iron. “Just let me go!” Liam kept his voice calm. “You can cut a deal with the police. Tell them Najjar forced you.” “They won’t believe me. They will believe Rasul. And I am the one who will suffer.” He swung the bar at Liam, who caught it, and leveraged it against Masood, pushing him up against the wall. Aidan was quick to cuff Masood’s ankles. He wasn’t giving up, though. He let go of the bar and launched his head at Liam’s midsection. Aidan grabbed one arm but couldn’t get hold of the other. It should have been easy to knock Masood down when his ankles were cuffed, but he fought like a man, and it took both Aidan and Liam to subdue him and get the second set of cuffs around his wrists. “Hell,” Liam said, when Masood was on the ground. He was surprised when Aidan began to sing. “It takes two, baby, me and you.” And then he couldn’t help himself. He and Aidan were both laughing like crazed hyenas when the door to the music studio opened and Daniel peered out.

42: Police Nationale: Liam Faisal arrived a few minutes later in a police car with lights and sirens. Aidan and Liam were sitting on the front doorstep by then. Liam noticed Hakim standing back in the shadows. “All clear inside,” Liam said. “One on the second floor, one on the stairs, two in the game room and one outside the music studio. And Darren Ghostley is over there by the bushes.” Faisal stared at them for a moment, and then said, “Of course.” He directed the cops with him inside and then stood with Aidan and Liam. “I had a man I trust take custody of everything that was dug up. He called the of the synagogue to do an inventory with him to make sure nothing is misplaced.” “It’s been a long night, hasn’t it?” Liam asked. “It most certainly has. I will make sure these men are taken away. I suggest you get some sleep, because you will be needed at the police station in Houmt Souk in a few hours.” Hakim said he would handle getting the gate and the front door repaired, and Aidan, Liam, Daniel, Danny and Mehdi retreated to their bedrooms. Aidan went into the bathroom first, and when Liam finished, he found his husband sitting up in the bed. “I’m beat,” Liam said. “Aren’t you?” “Too many things swirling around in my head. How long do you think Caswell and Najjar have been working together?” Liam slid into the bed beside him. “A long time, if the accusations against Caswell are correct.” “And Ghostley and Cherif?” “Ghostley is Caswell’s hired muscle. I’m pretty sure he’s the one who tossed Danny’s room in Oxford. Cherif is an outlier. Do you think Caswell roped him in

after reading his Reddit posts?” Aidan yawned. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.” Liam turned on his side and immediately went to sleep. He didn’t wake until Aidan was tugging at his shoulder. “It’s eleven o’clock and Faisal needs us at the station.” Years as a SEAL had trained him to be aware and alert immediately, though he was sure that age was impairing that ability to some degree, as he stood in the shower and struggled to keep his eyes open. He was revived by a cup of aromatic coffee and a platter of Alisa’s briks, this time stuffed with mushrooms and fresh rigouta cheese, the Tunisian equivalent of ricotta. Danny, Daniel and Mehdi were there with Aidan, all of them in various stages of eating. “Faisal wants us to bring all three of you to the station with us this morning,” Liam said as he ate. “Do the police have any reason to arrest us?” Danny asked, nervously pushing his brik around on his plate with his fork. “They could charge me with possession of the scroll.” “Shimon would tell them he gave you the scroll willingly,” Aidan said. “They arrested all the bad guys last night. This morning’s meetings are just to fill in the blanks.” It was another bright, sunny day, and from the kitchen window Liam could see a strong breeze whipping the fronds of the palm trees, and a flock of white birds floating on the thermals. The beautiful weather continued as they drove into Houmt Souk, and it made Liam long to be back in Banneret. Tunisia was beautiful and dangerous but it represented a life he had left behind. Not close protection; it was clear that he and Aidan could still keep clients safe. But Tunisia was the past, no matter how many memories, good and bad, it held, and his future was with Aidan. Back home. At Faisal’s instruction, they brought Danny, Daniel and Mehdi with them to the

office of the Police Nationale in Houmt Souk, a collection of stark white twostory buildings interspersed with arches and the occasional square window jutting out. They had to park on the street and stop at a white-washed stone guard post before they could be itted. As they walked through the private parking lot to the front door, they spotted Yonah Elfassi coming out. “Thank you for an interesting way to occupy my days,” he said genially. “Where do I send my bill?” Aidan took it from him and promised to forward it to the Agence. When they walked inside, the air was almost as hot as outside, though at least it was dry. They were all kept in the lobby, and taken in one by one, beginning with Daniel, who knew the least about everything. And as Liam expected, he was back less than ten minutes later. Then it was Danny’s turn. “You’ll be all right,” Liam said as he stood up. “You know Faisal, and he knows almost everything already.” Danny returned a half hour later. “Most of their questions were about Caswell and Ghostley,” he said. “Apparently I really beaned Jamal Cherif with one of those pool balls. He’s in the hospital under observation for a concussion, but given the circumstances they’re not going to charge me with anything.” “That’s great,” Aidan said. “I’m glad. I didn’t want to hurt him, just keep him from setting fire to the scroll.” He sighed. “They want to speak to Mehdi next.” Mehdi went in, and Danny sat on the hard bench beside his cousin and leaned his head against Daniel’s shoulder. “Thank you again for coming here,” he said. “It meant a lot to me.” “I thought it was a kick,” Daniel said, “literally. It reinforces my decision to move into acting. You want to be my stand-in sometime?” “I’ll get back to you if this whole Biblical scholar thing doesn’t work out.” Daniel laughed, and Mehdi was only inside for ten minutes or so. Then Faisal appeared, looking as Aidan expected for a veteran officer after at least twenty-

four hours on duty. He wore a fresh uniform, which he must have brought with him, but his hair was mussed and his eyes looked tired. “Aidan, please,” he said. “Just answer the questions,” Liam said. “No embroidery.” “This is not my first time at the rodeo,” Aidan said. Liam was pleased that Aidan’s interrogation only took a half hour, and then he was inside a small room with Faisal and a man who was introduced as the chief of the station for Djerba. It was probably the easiest interrogation he’d experienced, because Faisal was his old friend and had already provided most of the information. All Liam had to do was repeat a few things he was sure that Aidan had said about how they’d come to be hired, and what they had witnessed and done the night before. “What will happen to Oliver Caswell?” Liam asked. Faisal shrugged. “He is a British citizen, and he has already spoken with his embassy. He will probably pull enough strings and pay enough baksheesh that he will be let go. But I have forwarded the evidence against him to a I have in London. I believe he will be watched very carefully from now on.” “And what about Rasul Najjar? You’ve wanted him for a long time.” “I have. Like his British connection, he has engaged an excellent attorney and hopes to be released on bail. His employees, Bakr and Masoud, will face charges for assault against the two hatmakers, and Mr. ibn Habib, if he chooses to press charges. And if they decide to implicate their boss… well, that may be the evidence I need to stop Najjar’s dealings.” “And Darren Ghostley and Jamal Cherif? Faisal looked like he had smelled something bad. “Ghostley is a common thug. The charges against him will most likely be dropped and he will be sent back to England. And Cherif’s father is here to take him back to Tunis as soon as he is well.”

Then it was over, and Faisal said they were all free to go. Liam’s mind was already on the swimming pool behind the house when he walked into the lobby and found Danny and Aidan with their heads together. “Danny has been in touch with Moshe and Shimon, and they want to meet us at the synagogue,” Aidan said. There went any idea of the swimming pool, Liam thought grimly.

43: Swimming: Aidan “It ain’t over til it’s over,” Aidan said to Liam, as they walked to the SUV. “But I’m thinking we might stay here an extra day or two, if that’s all right with you. Enjoy the beach and the pool.” “I thought we’d go home as soon as possible.” Liam held up his hand. “Not that I want to get back to the gym or see Bruno or even run my hand over that Mercedes convertible. Because that’s where our life is, together. But I could stand to spend some time in the pool. And maybe even try kitesurfing.” “Yes to the pool, no to the kitesurfing,” Aidan said. “We’re too old to take dumb risks.” Liam narrowed his eyes, but then shrugged. “I guess you’re right.” “Perfect response,” Aidan said. “Keep that up.” Liam leaned in so that only Aidan could hear. “I’ll keep you up.” Aidan shivered in pleasure and began making plans. If they could send Danny and Daniel to the beach, set Mehdi up in the game room with the scroll, and let Hakim and Alisa go for the afternoon, there might be some skinny-dipping in the pool for them, and some fun afterwards. It was only a short drive from Houmt Souk to El Ghriba, and they found Moshe, Shimon and Arié standing in the graveyard, casting long shadows against the sandy soil scattered with piles of stones that memorialized the dead. The three of them stood around the pit that had been opened the night before. A pile of books and other materials remained haphazardly stacked beside the opening, while more rested inside it, beside the crumpled cloth that had protected them. As they approached the group, a long lenticular cloud moved in, providing some shadow and a bit of relief from the heat.

A cordon of police tape had been stretched around the area of the night’s excavation, but Arié stepped over it and bent down to the open pit as they approached. “Good, you are here, my scholar,” Shimon said. “We are deciding what to do now.” Moshe said, “My father and I think we should continue what was done, and remove anything of value to the congregation, or the historical record.” “And I am not sure,” Arié said. “These items were buried here for a reason. I think we must respect the wishes of our ancestors.” “I thought the whole purpose of a genizah was to serve as a trash heap,” Aidan said. “For anything that the elders of the synagogue thought had no value but couldn’t be destroyed.” “That’s what I’ve always believed,” Danny said. “It’s only hundreds of years later that we find some of that old trash has great value.” “Which can be sold to further the programs of El Ghriba,” Shimon said. Danny looked at Mehdi. “What do you think?” “You and I can look through everything, very carefully, and replace everything in the ground that has only spiritual value.” “And the rest?” Arié asked. “The rest will belong to your congregation. If there are any things that should be venerated, you and your board can arrange that. And if you need money, there may be something you can sell, only to a museum, so that knowledge can be shared.” Shimon said, “Arié, you have the authority to let Danny and Mehdi finish the search.” Arié stood up. “You have persuaded me. I will help, and then the congregation will decide.” He nodded toward the single police car, parked few hundred feet away, and the sole officer, who was directing a group of tourists who had

descended from a bus. “And the police will keep the curious away until we are finished.” Liam pulled Aidan aside. “One of us should probably stay, too. You go home and take a nap, and I’ll stay here until Danny and Mehdi are finished.” “You need to rest too.” Aidan frowned, seeing his swimming pool fun with Liam evaporating in the hot sun. Arié retrieved a wheelbarrow from somewhere on the premises, and Liam loaded the Styrofoam containers into it and pushed it back toward the temple. Danny and Mehdi followed to begin evaluating the materials. Daniel helped Arié load the wheelbarrow, and Aidan and Liam took turns taking it back to the first-floor classroom Arié had commandeered for Mehdi and Daniel to use. The windows were shaded, and a ceiling fan gently moved the air around. The clouds were swept away by the ever-present wind, and Aidan sweated through his microfiber shirt quickly as he took a turn moving the materials inside. Daniel volunteered to stay with Mehdi and Danny, helping them organize, and Aidan and Liam promised to come back later in the afternoon and pick them up. When they returned to the villa, they found a note that Hakim and Alisa had gone on a long shopping trip, but would be back by five o’clock to prepare dinner. “The pool?” Aidan asked, after he’d read the note. Liam responded by stripping down right there in the foyer and dashing through the house. “Last one in is a rotten egg,” he called behind him, and Aidan didn’t even mind, because he got to watch those perfect buttocks in motion as his husband ran. ≈≈≈ Danny called at four to say they were finished at El Ghriba. By then Aidan and Liam had swum together, attempted sex on a lounge chair, then retreated to the comfort of the bedroom, where they had dozed together after satisfaction.

They showered quickly and drove back to the synagogue. A pair of Tunisian men were already covering up the returned books and materials as they drove past the graveyard. In the shadowy room, they found Arié, Daniel, Danny and Mehdi looking at the items they had decided to keep out: a few very old books, a pair of delicately carved silver mezuzot, and that single scroll that Najjar and Caswell had tried to make off with. Aidan asked, “Do you think there is anything of real value here?” “Honestly, no,” Danny said. “Mehdi?” “I agree with my young friend. A couple of those prayer books are quite old, and the congregation can sell them to a collector. Even if they don’t need the money desperately, it will be good for them to have an emergency fund.” “And the scroll?” Liam asked. “How old do you think that is?” “It looks like a full Torah,” Mehdi said. “It is written in a language called JudeoArabic, which is what Jews living under Islamic rule spoke beginning about twelve hundred years ago. The oldest known Torah still in use dates from about 1250, according to carbon testing. The scroll we unearthed is nowhere near that old. Perhaps three or four hundred years. I believe it was buried because it was damaged, perhaps in a fire or a flood. It’s hard to tell without careful analysis, but I don’t think it has any real value as an artifact or because of how it reads.” “You all have my deepest gratitude,” Arie said. “Your help has been yet another in a long line of miracles.” “The scroll that Mehdi and I are translating still belongs to El Ghriba,” Danny said. “With your permission, we’d like to finish work on it, and then we’ll turn it over to you to do what you will with it.” “Thank you. If it is as valuable as you say, I believe the congregation will vote to sell it and put the money toward renovations and repairs, and an endowment for our school.” They said goodbye and walked out to the parking lot. “There is something in the air here,” Danny said. “An aura? Some kind of sense of belief? Does anyone else feel it?”

Aidan closed his eyes for a moment and tried to open himself up. He felt the faintest tingle, somewhere deep inside him. Was that the influence of El Ghriba? Or just the satisfaction of a job completed? “This is a place of great history,” Mehdi said. “A testament to centuries of belief.” “Plus there’s that cave,” Daniel said. “The marvelous girl, right? A site of miracles?” “Indeed,” Danny said, as he climbed into the SUV and then extended his hand to help Mehdi in beside him. Palm trees beside the road danced in graceful unison as a strong wind swept sand against the sides of the SUV. They ed Erriadh, where Shimon lived, and Aidan was struck again by the harshness of the place, the unrelenting sand and wind, and the meager lives of the Jews who had remained for so many centuries. What if his tribe, if you could call it that, had chosen to head here after the destruction of the Second Temple? His ancestors had taken a turn that eventually led them to Russia, and then the United States. How different his life might have been, if he had grown up here, in this beautiful, savage, holy place? And yet Shimon had been successful enough to send Moshe to school in England, and Moshe seemed to have a prosperous life in London. There were so many variables to consider. They returned to the villa to find that Alisa had created a sumptuous feast for them, steamed artichokes, a huge grilled fish decorated with tiny tomatoes and shards of green peppers. As they ate, Liam asked Danny, “How long would you like to stay here in Djerba?” “It’s a beautiful place, but I can’t impose on the hospitality of your friends for too long. I would like to stay for a few days, though, to look through the materials at El Ghriba. And I would like to attend a service there, too.” “Do you think that Danny and I will be safe on our own?” Mehdi asked. “Could there be other people who want the scroll?”

“You’ll have to be careful,” Liam said. “No social media. Focus on finishing as soon as you can.” Aidan asked, “Will you go back to Oxford, Danny?” “I’d love to finish my degree, and write my thesis based on what Mehdi and I discover in all three of the parts of the scroll. But a lot depends on what happens to Oliver Caswell.” Liam turned to Mehdi. “How about you? Will you stay here in Djerba for a while? “I can stay as long as Danny does. And then we can continue our work back in Tunis.” “I have to leave on Sunday to make a photo shoot Tuesday in New York,” Daniel said. “Can we all stay until then? I love that pool.” Aidan looked at Liam. “I think you’ll have company swimming,” he said.

44: Kitesurfing: Danny They were finishing dinner that night when the phone rang from the gate. Danny was closest, so he answered it. He was stunned to hear Philip’s voice. “Can I come in and apologize?” Danny looked around. Mehdi had already gone upstairs to rest but the bodyguards were at the kitchen table with his cousin. He sighed. “Why not?” He pressed the number nine to open the gate, and when he heard the buzzing noise he hung up. “Philip’s here.” “For what reason?” Daniel demanded. “He says he wants to apologize.” Daniel accompanied him to the door. The sun was setting in stripes of red and orange, and the outside lights clicked on as they watched a blue sedan come up the driveway. It stopped in front of the house and Philip got out. He was already talking as he walked up the white crushed-stone sidewalk. “I’m so, so sorry, Danny. I never should have gotten involved with Caswell but he tracked me down and forced me and…” “I know, I’ve heard it,” Danny said. “You didn’t have to come all this way to tell me that.” Philip stopped. “There’s something more.” “What?” “After word came through that Caswell and Najjar were arrested, the hotel kicked me out. I can’t get a flight back to Tunis, and then to England, until tomorrow at the earliest, and I don’t have anywhere else to go.” A camera roll of images raced past Danny’s eyes. Hanging out with Philip, drinking those awful Newcastle brown ales, having sex. Philip so eager to date

the scroll, how much it might mean to his career. Danny sighed. “You might as well come in, then.” Philip rushed back to the Bolt and got his backpack, and the car drove away. “This is really awesome of you, mate,” Philip said as they walked inside. “I forgive you. You didn’t do anything that harmed me, and I know what it’s like to be stuck under Caswell’s thumb.” “Do you think they’ll let him go back to Oxford?” Philip asked. “I haven’t heard anything except from the hotel manager, telling me I had to leave.” Danny led him to the living room, where Daniel, Aidan and Liam were arrayed on sofas. “This is Philip.” He introduced everyone. “His hotel kicked him out. I said he could stay here until he can get a flight back to England.” Aidan stood. “Come sit down. Would you like a glass of lemonade?” “Yes, please,” Philip said. “There’s a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator,” Danny said. “Do you think our hosts will mind if we open it?” “We’ll replace it,” Daniel said. “I think this occasion deserves champagne.” Aidan and Danny went into the kitchen. “Are you all right with this?” Aidan asked. “He’s as much a victim as the rest of us,” Danny said. “Worse, because he’s stuck here on his own. I wonder if Caswell even bought him a round-trip ticket.” While Aidan uncorked the champagne, Danny found a set of flutes in the cupboard and put them out on a tray. Once in the living room, Aidan poured for everyone. “Danny? You want to make a toast?” “Sure. I have so many people to thank, starting with Oliver Caswell. If he hadn’t pushed me to find my own manuscript to translate, I’d never have come to Tunis. I know he’s turned out to be an asshole, but he also has had an amazing

career as a translator and tutor.” The faces around him were sour, so Danny hurried to continue. “To Philip, who has been a good friend, and with thanks for the authentication of the scroll. To Mehdi, who’s upstairs sleeping, and to Daniel for opening his wallet when I needed it, and for being a great cousin all my life.” They raised their glasses and toasted, and then Danny said, “And there are two more people I need to thank. Aidan and Liam, for protecting all of us.” He looked down shyly, but he continued. “Especially Liam. As many of you know I’ve had this Indiana Jones fixation for a long time. Liam has shown me the way an action hero behaves, and I hope to emulate him in the future.” Liam blushed, and Aidan said, “Aw,” and they all raised their glasses and drank. “You handled it very well,” Aidan said. “You took the high road, and that’s always better in the long run.” “I hope so,” Danny said. They finished the bottle of champagne, and Aidan volunteered to get Philip settled in one of the unoccupied bedrooms. Liam followed the two of them upstairs. Danny and Daniel lounged in the living room. “You treated Philip better than he deserved,” Daniel said. “But I think you did the right thing. When you’re back in Oxford, and you run into each other on the street, you’ll feel better. And you may need Philip’s help with more dating.” Danny looked at him. “My days of sleeping with him are over.” “I meant carbon dating, you goof,” Daniel said. They stayed up for a while longer, watching a movie with a young male modelturned-actor whose career Daniel wanted to emulate. By the time they stumbled up the stairs to their bedrooms, Danny was exhausted. But before he went to sleep, he looked out the window at all the stars. “Thank you, Baruch Ha-Shem,” he said. “For keeping everyone safe, and for all the blessing you have bestowed upon me.” ≈≈≈

The next morning at breakfast, Mehdi announced that he was still teasing out some of the faded letters, and wouldn’t need Danny’s help that day. Daniel looked at him and Philip. “You guys up for some kitesurfing?” “I should see about getting a flight,” Philip said. “Oh, come on, you can hang around here for a couple of days.” Danny turned to Daniel and fist-bumped him. “I’m with you.” Then he asked Aidan and Liam, “You guys want to us?” “We’ve already decided to stick to swimming,” Liam said, and there was something sweet and also devilish about the look he shared with his husband. They did some quick research, and chose a place called Global Kite, a few miles from Houmt Souk. Danny drove the rented SUV, and he and Daniel laughed and talked about their childhoods. There was a crowd at the kitesurfing place, people waiting for lessons, recovering from their own time in the water, and watching their friends. One of the girls pointed to Danny and said, “Aren’t you Daniel Cardozo?” He peered at her. She had a Dutch accent—could she be someone from one of his classes at Oxford? “Wait,” a cute boy with a British accent said. “There’s two of them. They’re the Two Daniels!” Danny and Daniel were immediately enveloped in the crowd, people ing them bottled water and giving them tips on how to surf. Eventually the three of them signed up for two four-hour days of training, beginning with a lecture on trainer kits and wind position. Then they got into the water, and the trainer got Daniel situated with board and helmet and helped him stand up. His kite caught a breeze and then off he went, yelling with glee. Danny was next, though he wasn’t as fit as his cousin, but he managed to catch a couple of waves before giving up, and he and Daniel enjoyed watching Philip flail for a while but eventually catch a wave. The three of them hung out with the group, and the cute Brit who had recognized the two of them latched onto Danny and they had fun swimming, flirting and playing in the ocean.

What the hell, Danny thought, the scroll had waited centuries to be found and translated. It could wait a little longer.

45: Rabbi Hillel: Danny Danny exchanged numbers with the cute Brit, who lived in London, and then drove Daniel and Philip back to the villa. “You’re not coming in?” Daniel asked. “I want to go back to El Ghriba, and then the souk,” he said. “Take some pictures. I know I’m looking way forward, but when the translation gets published I’d like to have some photos to illustrate any publicity or blogging.” “You want one of us to come with you?” Philip asked. Danny shook his head. “I can do it on my own. And I have a lot of thinking to do.” They went inside, and he drove back down the driveway, through the gate, and to the synagogue. It was quiet that late in the afternoon, no tour buses, and Danny took a lot of photos of the building, inside and out, and then the northwest corner of the cemetery. The plot had been filled in, with a fresh cairn of stones over it, and he placed a pebble on the top, as he did whenever he visited the graves of dead relatives. He felt connected to this place, even though he’d barely spent any time there. Partly it was the psychic vibrations he got from the grotto of the miraculous girl, but there was something else. A tie, perhaps, to the scroll, which he knew would have so much to do with his future. Then he drove into Houmt Souk and parked near the hatmaker’s stall. As he expected, it was closed, but he took a few pictures anyway. As he turned to go back to where he’d parked, he saw Oliver Caswell watching him from a few feet away. “I underestimated you, Mr. Cardozo,” Caswell said, as he closed the distance between them. Danny was frightened. “Why aren’t you in jail?” “I was released on bail,” Caswell said. “I had to pledge my house. And the

police kept my port, so I can’t leave Tunisia until this case is settled.” “Why did you do this?” Danny asked. “I would have brought you the scroll at the start of Michaelmas term, and we could have worked on it together all year. Your name would have been on any publication.” “It’s a long story, beginning with ex-wives and champagne tastes,” Caswell said. “I let the lure of money get ahead of my love for scholarship.” “What will happen to you now?” “If the university decides it has good cause to fire me, they will. A lot depends on the strength of this case here in Tunisia. Of course if I am sentenced to prison I will lose my job.” “But if not?” Caswell shrugged. “I may be censured. My finances may be investigated. If certain things I have done in the past come to light…” “You were a good teacher,” Danny said impulsively. “I enjoyed your lectures, and the tutorials we had. Up until…” “I don’t suppose you would take my side in any proceedings,” Caswell said. “A judicious word or two from you could help my case tremendously. And then we could work together again at Oxford. I really am anxious to see what your scroll contains, and the progress you’ve made on translating it.” Danny leaned one foot back against a stucco wall, and that reminded him of Rabbi Hillel’s definition of Judaism. ‘That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah.’ Caswell had acted despicably toward him, with greed and self-interest at the fore. Here was an opportunity for him to live the way he had always believed he should, to treat his neighbor with kindness. Caswell had committed crimes, he was certain. But was it up to him to see that he was punished? He thought Caswell was right, that by framing his words judiciously he could show both the good and the bad in the man. And honestly, he had no specific proof that Caswell had ever set out to harm him, or steal the

scroll. There were others who could provide that, if they chose. He looked up at Caswell, who looked older than his years, his face lined and his posture slumped. “I have no evidence that you ever set out to harm me, or steal the scroll from me. That’s the truth, and that’s what I’ll tell anyone who asks. If Darren Ghostley or Jamal Cherif or Rasul Najjar wants to testify differently, that’s up to them.” Caswell smiled. “I truly did underestimate you, in many ways, Mr. Cardozo. Thank you for that, and I hope we will be able to work together at Oxford in the future.” He held out his hand, and Danny shook it. It was an old man’s hand, dry and papery, and he could imagine from that brief how much Caswell had experienced in his life. “Take care,” he said, and he walked back to where he had parked the SUV.

46: Mercedes: Liam After Danny and Daniel left, Liam and Aidan swam for a while, then Liam became restless. “You want to go for a drive around the island?” he asked Aidan. “Danny and Daniel took the SUV.” “I know. I had something else in mind.” The night before he had checked out car rental operations in Houmt Souk. One by the airport had a Mercedes roadster, just like the one he’d been coveting back in Banneret. A quick Bolt ride would take them there, and they’d have the use of the roadster for as long as they were willing to pay. “What are you thinking of?” Aidan asked. “You’ll see. Come on, let’s get dressed.” Aidan was clearly curious, but he understood once they pulled into the rental car company’s lot. “This more of your mid-life crisis?” he asked. “More like a mid-life adventure. And I want you by my side the whole time.” A half hour later, they were in the car with the top down and the air conditioning blasting as they cruised along the ocean road, wrapping around the island in the opposite direction of the beaches where Danny, Daniel and Philip had gone. They stopped for lunch at a restaurant that was little more than a beach shack, with individual tables under umbrellas facing the brilliant sea. “The grilled wolf fish is fresh,” the waiter boasted. “Our chef comes from Nigeria, and he buys the fish fresh every morning. Then he seasons it with salt, cumin, turmeric and olive oil from orchards just across the water in Tunisia.” “We’ll have two platters of wolf fish, then,” Liam said. “Do you think Danny will be safe back at Oxford?” Aidan asked, as they stared at the sparkling water of the Gulf of Gabes.

“We figured out he was facing two threats,” Liam said, as he lifted a glass of white wine. “Oliver Caswell wanted his scroll, and Jamal Cherif was pressed by his online friends to threaten Danny to keep his mouth shut.” “Do you think Jamal’s father will shut him down?” Aidan asked. “I don’t know. But I hope so,” Liam said. “And Caswell will have bigger problems to address.” Aidan continued. “Tunisia will try to keep him here and convict him with Najjar. And even if he does go back to Britain, these allegations will trail him, and he’ll possibly lose his academic position. He’ll have bigger fish to fry than our Danny.” At that moment the waiter appeared with their platters of grilled wolf fish, the fragrance rising from the fish like a mist. It was accompanied by one bowl of steaming rice and another of the chef’s homemade harissa. “To a mid-life adventure,” Liam said, tipping his glass toward Aidan’s. Aidan raised his glass and clinked it against his husband’s. “Adventures, together,” he said.

Author’s Note I have chosen what I feel is the standard transliteration of some words in Arabic and ancient Aramaic, and in some references I have found different spellings for Erriadh and Houmt Souk. I am not a Biblical scholar, but like Aidan, I have a solid Jewish education and an endless curiosity. Alert readers may recognize some similarities to a recent scandal at Oxford, where a Biblical professor was accused of selling parchment from the Oxyrhynchus archive. This, along with an article on the Cairo Genizah, were inspirations for the book, but my book is not intended to be a legal document or a representation of actual individuals or events. Readers of the Mahu series may notice that Danny bears the same last name as Lieutenant Sampson’s step-daughter Kitty. Are they distant cousins? I don’t know, but Kitty has had her name for years, and it seemed like a great last name for Danny. As far as I know there is no online portfolio similar to The Two Daniels. But wouldn’t it be fun if there was?

Acknowledgments Broward College provided me with a sabbatical which enabled me to write a great deal, especially because that term off coincided with the middle months of the Covid-19 lockdown. I was able to spend a lot of quality time with Aidan and Liam while the world spun on its own. John Preston, whose Alex Kane books inspired this series, and Zoe Sharp whose Charlie Fox books continue to provide me with cool examples of the way bodyguards work. Dr. Zita Goldfinger, Dr. Jay Luger, and Amos Lassen provided help on Torah scrolls and the book of Leviticus in particular, and were willing to entertain my wild speculation about what the scroll Aidan finds might hold. Once again, Randall Klein provided superb editorial for this work, and

Kelly Nichols came up with a terrific cover. Beta readers. I appreciate Andrew Jackson, Christine Kling, Greg Lindeblom, Sally Huxley, Tim Brehme, and Ulysses Dietz for their . Thanks to the staff at Har Sinai Temple when it was located in Trenton, New Jersey, where I received my Jewish education, in years of Sunday School, Hebrew School, and Confirmation classes. And to all my Jewish ancestors and relatives, whose faith and struggles allowed me to grow up in the United States with a strong identity as Jewish man. My family is a mix of Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, and I think these combined strands make us stronger. Danielle de Santiago introduced me to Djerba in a story of his I edited for the Surfer Boys anthology. And of course, to all the readers who share my love of Aidan and Liam.

Further Reading Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole. Sacred Treasure-The Cairo Genizah: The Amazing Discoveries of Forgotten Jewish History in an Egyptian Synagogue Attic by Rabbi Mark S. Glickman. Oxyrhynchus: http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/ “A Scandal in Oxford: The Curious Case of the Stolen Gospel.” https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jan/09/a-scandal-in-oxford-thecurious-case-of-the-stolen-gospel El Ghriba: https://www.anumuseum.org.il/el-ghriba-synagogue-djerba-tunisia/

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