Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition

  Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition

  Juan Gómez-Jurado

  "A true masterpiece. A brilliant thriller – sharp, suspenseful, and engrossing." – Brad Thor

  A lost treasure, a Nazi war criminal, and a lifelong quest to find a missing heirloom are the starting points for this new novel from the author of God's Spy. Father Anthony Fowler, CIA operative and member of the Vatican's secret service, the Holy Alliance, pays a visit to a war criminal living under a pseudonym because of the terrible experiments he performed on Jewish children. Fowler offers him a deal – he will not reveal the man's true identity in exchange for a huge candle covered in fine filigree gold. But it isn't the gold Fowler is after – it is the metallic object preserved within the wax, a missing fragment of an ancient map. Soon Fowler is involved in an expedition to Jordan set up by the enigmatic head of Kayn industries, a reclusive billionaire who has links to the highest levels of the Catholic Church. But there is a traitor in the group who has links to terrorist organisations back in the US, and who is patiently awaiting the moment to strike. From wartime Vienna to terrorist cells in New York and a lost valley in Jordan, Contract with God is a thrilling read about a quest for power and the secrets of an ancient world.

  Juan Gómez-Jurado

  Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition

  The second book in the Father Anthony Fowler series, 2009

  For Matthew Thomas, a greater hero than Father Fowler

  How to Create an Enemy

  Start with an empty canvas

  Sketch in broad outline the forms of

  men women and children

  Dip into the unconsciousness well of your own

  disowned darkness

  with a wide brush and

  strain the strangers with the sinister hue

  of the shadow

  Trace onto the face of the enemy the greed,

  Hatred, carelessness you dare not claim as

  Your own

  Obscure the sweet individuality of each face

  Erase all hints of the myriad loves, hopes,

  fears that play through the kaleidoscope of

  every infinite heart

  Twist the smile until it forms the downward

  arc of cruelty

  Strip flesh from bone until only the

  abstract skeleton of death remains

  Exaggerate each feature until man is

  metamorphosed into beast, vermin, insect

  Fill in the background with malignant

  figures from ancient nightmares – devils,

  demons, myrmidons of evil

  When your icon of the enemy is complete

  you will be able to kill without guilt,

  slaughter without shame

  The thing you destroy will have become

  merely an enemy of God, an impediment

  to the secret dialectic of history

  from Faces of the Enemy

  by Sam Keen

  The Ten Commandments

  I am the Lord thy God.

  Thou shalt have no other gods before me

  Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image

  Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain

  Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy

  Honour thy father and mother

  Thou shalt not kill

  Thou shalt not commit adultery

  Thou shalt not steal

  Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour

  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house

  Prologue

  AM SPIEGELGRUND CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL

  VIENNA

  February 1943

  Arriving at the building where a large flag with a swastika was flapping overhead, the woman could not suppress a shiver. Her companion misinterpreted and drew her closer to him in order to warm her. Her thin coat offered meagre protection against the sharp afternoon wind, which warned of an approaching blizzard.

  ‘Put this on, Odile,’ the man said, his fingers trembling as he unbuttoned his coat.

  She loosened herself from his grip and hugged the package closer to her chest. The six-mile walk through the snow had left her exhausted and numb from the cold. Three years ago they would have made the trip in their Daimler with a driver, and she would have been wearing her fur. But their car now belonged to a Brigadeführer and her fur coat was probably being shown off in a theatre box somewhere by some Nazi wife with painted eyelids. Odile composed herself and pressed the buzzer forcefully three times before answering him.

  ‘It’s not because of the cold, Josef. We don’t have much time before curfew. If we don’t return in time…’

  Before her husband could reply, a nurse suddenly opened the door. As soon as she took one look at the visitors, her smile disappeared. Several years under the Nazi regime had taught her to recognise a Jew immediately.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

  The woman made herself smile, even though her lips were painfully cracked.

  ‘We want to see Dr Graus.’

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘The doctor said he’d see us.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Josef and Odile Cohen, Fräulein.’

  ‘The nurse took a step back when their surname confirmed her suspicions.

  ‘You’re lying. You don’t have an appointment. Go away. Go back to the hole you came from. You know you’re not allowed here.’

  ‘Please. My son is inside. Please!’

  Her words were wasted as the door slammed shut.

  Josef and his wife looked helplessly at the huge building. As they turned away, Odile suddenly felt weak and stumbled, but Josef managed to catch her before she fell.

  ‘Come on, we’ll find another way to get in.’

  They headed over to one side of the hospital. As they turned the corner, Josef pulled his wife back. A door had just opened. A man wearing a thick coat was struggling to push a cart filled with rubbish towards the rear of the building. Keeping close to the wall, Josef and Odile slid up to the open doorway.

  Once inside, they found themselves standing in a service hall leading to a maze of stairs and other corridors. As they proceeded down the hallway, they could hear distant muffled cries that seemed to be coming from another world. The woman concentrated intently, listening for her son’s voice, but it was useless. They went through several corridors without running into anybody. Josef had to hurry to keep up with his wife who, compelled by sheer instinct, moved forward swiftly, stopping only for a second at each doorway.

  Before long they found themselves peering into a dark L-shaped ward. It was full of children, many of whom were strapped to their beds and whimpering like wet dogs. The acrid-smelling room was stifling and the woman began to sweat, feeling a tingling in her extremities as her body warmed up. She paid no attention to this, however, as her eyes raced from bed to bed, from one young face to the next, searching desperately for her son.

  ‘Here’s the report, Dr Graus.’

  Josef and his wife exchanged looks as they heard the name of the doctor they needed to see, the person who held their son’s life in his hands. They turned towards the far corner of the ward and saw a small group of people gathered around one of the beds. An attractive young doctor was seated at the bedside of a girl who looked about nine years old. Next to him an older nurse held a tray of surgical instruments while a bored-looking middle-aged doctor took notes.

  ‘Dr Graus…’ said Odile hesitantly, steeling herself as she approached the group.

  The young man gestured dismissively to the nurse without taking his eyes from what h
e was doing.

  ‘Not now, please.’

  The nurse and the other doctor stared at Odile in surprise, but said nothing.

  When she saw what was taking place, Odile had to grit her teeth in order not to scream. The young girl was deathly pale and appeared to be semi-conscious. Graus was holding her arm over a metal basin as he made small cuts with a scalpel. There was hardly a place on the girl’s arm that hadn’t been touched by the blade and the blood flowed slowly into the basin, which was almost full. Finally the girl’s head slumped to one side. Graus held two slender fingers to the girl’s neck.

  ‘Good, she has no pulse. The time, Dr Stroebel?’

  ‘Six thirty-seven.’

  ‘Almost ninety-three minutes. Exceptional! The subject remained awake although her level of consciousness was comparatively low, and she showed no signs of pain. The combination of laudanum and datura is undoubtedly better than anything we’ve tried up to now. Congratulations, Stroebel. Get the specimen ready for dissection.’

  ‘Thank you, Herr Doktor. Right away.’

  Only then did the young doctor turn towards Josef and Odile. In his eyes was a mixture of annoyance and disdain.

  ‘And who might you be?’

  Odile took a step forward and stood next to the bed, trying not to look at the dead girl.

  ‘My name is Odile Cohen, Dr Graus. I am Elan Cohen’s mother.’

  The physician looked at Odile coldly and then turned to the nurse.

  ‘Get these Jews out of here, Fräulein Ulrike.’

  The nurse grabbed Odile’s elbow and with a rough push positioned herself between the woman and the doctor. Josef rushed to help his wife and struggled with the hefty nurse. For moments they formed a bizarre trio, pushing in different directions without anyone gaining ground. Fräulein Ulrike’s face grew red from the effort.

  ‘Doctor, I’m sure there’s been a mistake,’ said Odile, fighting to get her head past the nurse’s broad shoulders. ‘My son is not mentally ill.’

  Odile managed to free herself from the nurse’s grip and turned to the doctor.

  ‘It’s true that he hasn’t talked much since we lost our house, but he’s not mad. He’s here because of a mistake. If you let him go… Please let me give you the only thing we have left.’

  She placed the package on the bed, making sure she didn’t touch the body of the dead girl as she carefully removed the newspaper wrapping. Despite the dimness of the ward, the golden object cast its glow on the surrounding walls.

  ‘It’s been in my husband’s family for generations, Dr Graus. I would rather have died than give this up. But my son, Doctor, my son…’

  Odile began to cry and fell to her knees. The younger doctor barely noticed since his eyes were transfixed by the object on the bed. However, he managed to open his mouth long enough to destroy any hope the couple had left.

  ‘Your son is dead. Go away.’

  As soon as the cold air outside hit her face Odile regained some strength. Holding on to her husband as they hurried away from the hospital, she was more fearful than ever of the curfew. Her mind was concentrated solely on getting back to the far side of the city, where their other son was waiting.

  ‘Hurry, Josef. Hurry.’

  They quickened their pace through the steadily falling snow.

  In his hospital office, Dr Graus hung up the phone with a distracted air and caressed the strange gold object on his desk. Minutes later, when the sirens from the SS vehicles reached him, he didn’t even look out of the window. His assistant said something about fleeing Jews, but Graus paid no attention.

  He was busy planning young Cohen’s operation.

  Main Characters

  Clergy

  FATHER ANTHONY FOWLER, agent working with both the CIA and the Holy Alliance.

  FATHER ALBERT, ex-hacker. Systems Analyst with the CIA and liaison with Vatican intelligence.

  BROTHER CESÁREO, Dominican. Curator of Antiquities at the Vatican.

  Security Corps for Vatican City

  CAMILO CIRIN, Inspector General. Also Head of the Holy Alliance, the Vatican’s secret intelligence service.

  Civilians

  ANDREA OTERO, reporter for the newspaper El Globo.

  RAYMOND KAYN, multimillionaire industrialist.

  JACOB RUSSELL, Kayn’s executive assistant.

  ORVILLE WATSON, terrorism consultant and owner of Netcatch.

  DR HEINRICH GRAUS, genocidal Nazi.

  Personnel on the Moses Expedition

  CECYL FORRESTER, biblical archaeologist.

  DAVID PAPPAS, GORDON DURWIN, KYRA LARSEN, STOWE ERLING and EZRA LEVINE, assistants to Cecyl Forrester

  MOGENS DEKKER, chief of security for the expedition.

  ALOIS GOTTLIEB, ALRYK GOTTLIEB, TEWI WAAKA, PACO TORRES, LOUIS MALONEY and MARLA JACKSON, Dekker’s soldiers.

  DR HAREL, physician on the excavation.

  TOMMY EICHBERG, head driver.

  ROBERT FRICK, BRIAN HANLEY, administration/technicians

  NURI ZAYIT, RANI PETERKE, cooks

  Terrorists

  NAZIM and KHAROUF, members of the Washington cell.

  O, D and W, members of the Syrian and Jordanian cells.

  HUQAN, head of the three cells.

  1

  RESIDENCE OF BALTHASAR HANDWURZ

  STEINFELDSTRAßE, 6

  KRIEGLACH, AUSTRIA

  Thursday, 15 December 2005. 11:42 a.m.

  The priest wiped his feet carefully on the welcome mat before knocking on the door. After tracking the man for the past four months, he had finally discovered his hiding place two weeks ago. He was now sure of Handwurz’s true identity. The moment had come to confront him.

  He waited patiently for a few minutes. It was noon and Graus would be having his customary midday nap on the sofa. There was hardly anyone in the narrow street at that hour. His neighbours on Steinfeldstraße were at work, unaware that at Number 6, in a small house with blue curtains at the windows, a genocidal monster was peacefully dozing in front of his TV set.

  Finally the sound of a key in the lock warned the priest that the door was about to open. The head of an elderly man with the venerable air of someone in an advertisement for medical insurance appeared from behind the door.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Good morning, Herr Doktor.’

  The old man looked the person who was addressing him up and down. The latter was tall, thin and bald, about fifty years of age, with a priest’s collar visible under his black coat. He stood on the doorstep with the rigid posture of a military guard, his green eyes observing the old man intently.

  ‘I think you’re mistaken, Father. I used to be a plumber, but now I’m retired. I’ve already contributed to the parish fund, so if you’ll excuse me…’

  ‘You aren’t by any chance Dr Heinrich Graus, the famous German neurosurgeon?’

  The old man held his breath for a second. Aside from that, he did nothing that might give him away. However, that small detail was enough for the priest: proof positive.

  ‘My name is Handwurz, Father.’

  ‘That’s not true and we both know it. Now if you’ll let me in, I’ll show you what I’ve brought with me.’ The priest raised his left hand, in which he held a black briefcase.

  The door swung open in response and the old man limped quickly towards the kitchen, the ancient floorboards protesting with each step. The priest followed but paid little attention to the surroundings. He had peered in through the windows on three separate occasions and already knew the location of each item of cheap furniture. He preferred keeping his eyes fixed on the old Nazi’s back. Even though the doctor walked with some difficulty, the priest had seen him lifting sacks of coal from the shed with an ease that a man decades younger might have envied. Heinrich Graus was still a dangerous man.

  The small kitchen was dark and smelled rancid. It had a gas stove, a counter on which sat a dried-up onion, a round table, and two unmatched chairs. Graus gestured for the priest to sit down.
The old man then rummaged through a cupboard, took out two glasses, filled them with water and set them on the table before taking a seat himself. The glasses remained untouched as the two men sat there, impassive, regarding each other for over a minute.

  The old man was dressed in a red flannel bathrobe, cotton shirt, and worn trousers. He had started going bald twenty years earlier, and the little hair he had left was completely white. His large round glasses had gone out of style before the fall of communism. The relaxed expression around his mouth lent him a good-natured air.

  None of this fooled the priest.

  Dust particles floated in the shaft of light created by the weak rays of the December sun. One of them landed on the priest’s sleeve. He flicked it away without taking his gaze from the old man.

  The smooth certainty of the gesture did not go unnoticed by the Nazi, but he’d had time to recover his composure.

  ‘Aren’t you going to have some water, Father?’

  ‘I’m not thirsty, Dr Graus.’

  ‘So you’re going to insist on calling me by that name. My name is Handwurz. Balthasar Handwurz.’

  The priest paid no heed.

  ‘I have to admit you’re pretty sharp. When you got your passport to leave for Argentina, no one imagined that you’d return to Vienna a few months later. Naturally it was the last place I looked for you. Only forty-five miles from Spiegelgrund Hospital. The Nazi hunter, Wiesenthal, searched for years in Argentina, unaware that you were a short ride away from his office. Ironic, don’t you think?’

  ‘I think it’s ridiculous. You’re American, aren’t you? You speak German well, but your accent gives you away.’