Then he stood up, smirking. “You made my job far easier than I anticipated.”
With that, the killer strode toward the door.
Rabbi Köves’s lungs strained for air.
He had just given the performance of a lifetime.
Teetering near unconsciousness, he lay motionless and listened as his attacker’s footsteps retreated across the bathroom floor. The door creaked open and then clicked closed.
Silence.
Köves forced himself to wait another couple of seconds to ensure that his attacker had walked down the hall out of earshot. Then, unable to wait another instant, Köves exhaled and began pulling in deep life-giving breaths. Even the stale air of the bathroom tasted heaven-sent.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, his vision hazy from lack of oxygen. As Köves raised his throbbing head, his vision began to clear. To his bewilderment, he saw a dark figure standing just inside the closed door.
The man in the baseball cap was smiling down at him.
Köves froze. He never left the room.
The killer took two long strides to the rabbi, and with a viselike grip, he grabbed the rabbi’s neck and shoved his face back into the tile floor.
“You could stop your breathing,” snarled the killer, “but you couldn’t stop your heart.” He laughed. “Not to worry, I can help you with that.”
An instant later, a searing point of heat tore into the side of Köves’s neck. A molten fire seemed to flow down his throat and up over his skull. This time, when his heart seized, he knew it was for real.
After dedicating much of his life to the mysteries of Shamayim—the dwelling place of God and the righteous dead—Rabbi Yehuda Köves knew that all the answers were just a heartbeat away.
CHAPTER 44
ALONE IN THE spacious restroom of the G550 jet, Ambra Vidal stood at the sink and let warm water run gently over her hands as she stared into the mirror, barely recognizing herself in the reflection.
What have I done?
She took another sip of wine, longing for her old life of only a few months ago—anonymous, single, engrossed in her museum work—but all of that was gone now. It had evaporated the moment Julián proposed.
No, she chided herself. It evaporated the moment you said yes.
The horror of tonight’s assassination had settled in her gut, and now her logical mind was fearfully weighing the implications.
I invited Edmond’s assassin to the museum.
I was tricked by someone in the palace.
And now I know too much.
There was no proof that Prince Julián was behind the bloody killing, nor that he was even aware of the assassination plan. Even so, Ambra had seen enough of the palace’s inner workings to suspect that none of this could have happened without the prince’s knowledge, if not his blessing.
I told Julián too much.
In recent weeks, Ambra had felt the growing need to justify every second she spent away from her jealous fiancé, and so she had privately shared with Julián much of what she knew about Edmond’s upcoming presentation. Ambra now feared her openness might have been reckless.
Ambra turned off the water and dried her hands, reaching for her wine goblet and draining the last few drops. In the mirror before her she saw a stranger—a once confident professional who was now filled with regret and shame.
The mistakes I’ve made in a few short months …
As her mind reeled back in time, she wondered what she could possibly have done differently. Four months ago, on a rainy night in Madrid, Ambra was attending a fund-raiser at the Reina Sofía Museum of Modern Art …
Most of the guests had migrated to room 206.06 to view the museum’s most famous work—El Guernica—a sprawling twenty-five-foot-long Picasso that evoked the horrific bombing of a small Basque town during the Spanish Civil War. Ambra, however, found the painting too painful to view—a vivid reminder of the brutal oppression endured under Spain’s fascistic dictator General Francisco Franco between 1939 and 1975.
Instead, she had chosen to slip alone into a quiet gallery to enjoy the work of one of her favorite Spanish artists, Maruja Mallo, a female Surrealist from Galicia whose success in the 1930s had helped shatter the glass ceiling for female artists in Spain.
Ambra was standing alone admiring La Verbena—a political satire filled with complex symbols—when a deep voice spoke behind her.
“Es casi tan guapa como tú,” the man declared. It’s almost as beautiful as you are.
Seriously? Ambra stared straight ahead and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. At events like these, the museum sometimes felt more like an awkward pickup bar than a cultural center.
“¿Qué crees que significa?” the voice behind her pressed. What do you think it means?
“I have no idea,” she lied, hoping that speaking English might make the man move on. “I just like it.”
“I like it too,” the man replied in almost accentless English. “Mallo was ahead of her time. Sadly, for the untrained eye, this painting’s superficial beauty can camouflage the deeper substance within.” He paused. “I imagine a woman like you must face that problem all the time.”
Ambra groaned. Do lines like this really work on women? Affixing a polite smile to her face, she spun around to dispatch the man. “Sir, that’s very kind of you to say, but—”
Ambra Vidal froze midsentence.
The man facing her was someone she had seen on television and in magazines for her entire life.
“Oh,” Ambra stammered. “You’re …”
“Presumptuous?” the handsome man ventured. “Clumsily bold? I’m sorry, I live a sheltered life, and I’m not very good at this sort of thing.” He smiled and extended a polite hand. “My name is Julián.”