“I never thought of that,” Saxon said. “Religious artifacts have a way of stirring people up.”

“My point exactly,” Austin said in a flat tone that caused Saxon’s brow to crease. “Solomon might have been a lot wiser hiding this thing than we are looking for it.”

Chapter 43

CARINA WAS STRETCHED OUT on the bed, staring at the ceiling for lack of anything better to do, when she heard a soft knock. She investigated and found that someone had left a wicker basket with her clothes outside the door. She picked up the note from on top of the neatly folded pile.

Dear Miss Mechadi. Please join me for dinner at your convenience. VB

“How absolutely civilized,” she murmured as she shut the door.

Carina couldn’t get the white dress off fast enough. Wearing her own clothes gave her a sense of control. She knew that it was only an illusion, but it felt good anyhow. She reread the note. She would have preferred not to spend another second with Baltazar, but she knew that he held the key to her fate.

She threw her shoulders back and marched down the deserted hall to the courtyard. A guard was waiting to escort her to the other wing. She was ushered into a spacious dining room done in a Spanish motif. The walls were pale stucco, edged with colorful tile, and decorated with wall hangings. Tall terra-cotta urns were tucked into the corners.

The valet appeared and seated Carina at a leather-topped table with wrought-iron legs. The table was set for two, and illuminated with ornate iron candelabra.

Baltazar arrived a minute later, dressed in black tie, as if for a formal ball.

“Miss Mechadi, how nice of you to join me,” he said with the warmth of old acquaintance.

Carina smiled without humor. “Did I have a choice?”

“We all have choices, Miss Mechadi.”

Baltazar snapped his fingers, and the valet filled their wineglasses with a hearty rioja. He raised his glass in a silent toast and didn’t seem bothered when she ignored the gesture. She picked at her salad and the fragrant paella that was the main course. She pushed away the flan dessert but sipped at her espresso.

They ate their meal in silence, like an old married couple with nothing left to say to each other. Baltazar asked how she had enjoyed the meal and the wine. Carina answered with a grunt.

“Good,” he said. He produced a thin cigar, which he lit, keeping his eyes on Carina the whole time. “I have a question,” Baltazar said, his head hidden behind a cloud of purple smoke. “Do you believe in divine destiny?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m talking about the concept that the course of our lives is dictated not so much by our acts but by our fate.”

“Predestination is not a philosophy that is original with you.” She looked him straight in the eye. “I believe that we are all responsible for the consequences of our behavior. If you jump out of a window of a tall building, the consequence will be your death.”

“You are quite correct. Our acts do affect our lives. But I must ask you to ponder the unfathomable forces that would make me want to jump out of a window.”

“What are you getting at?” Carina said.

“It’s very difficult to put into words. I can show you better than tell you.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“In this case, no,” he said, rising from his seat. He snuffed the cigar out in an ashtray and came around to pull her chair back. Then he escorted her to the portrait gallery.

“These are some of my forebears,” Baltazar said. “Do you see the family resemblance?”

Carina gazed at the dozens of paintings that hung on the walls of the large room. Most of the men had been painted wearing decorative armor. While the faces in the portraits often differed physically, many, including the women, possessed Baltazar’s wolfish gleam in their eyes, as if predatory instincts had been passed on in their genes.

“Yes,” she said. “There are definite family characteristics.”

“This lovely lass was a countess,” he said, going over to the eighteenth-century oil of the young matron. “She’s quite special.”

He put his face inches from the portrait and pressed the carved panels to either side. Carina thought he was kissing the painting. Noting the bewildered expression on Carina’s face, he explained about the eye and hand scans. He guided her down the stairway to the steel door, with its combination lock.

The door swung open. Carina was surprised to see the glass-enclosed cabinets that lined the walls. “It looks like a library,” she said.

“This room holds the family archives of the Baltazars. These volumes contain our history going back for more than two thousand years. This is a treasure trove of intrigue in Europe and Asia during that time.”

He went to the far end of the library and opened another door. He removed a torch from a wall sconce and lit it with his cigarette lighter. The flare from the torch illuminated the curved stone walls of a circular room. Carina stepped into the room and saw the statue beckoning at her with outstretched arms.

“Dear God! What is that thing?”

“It’s an ancient offering statue. It has been in my family for thousands of years.”

Her eyes took in the pointed nose and chin and the leering mouth, features made even more prominent by the leaping shadows from the fluttering torch.

“It’s hideous.”

“Some people might think so. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s not the statue I wanted to show you; it’s this volume.”

Baltazar stuck the torch into a tall metal stand and went up to the altar. He lifted the lid of the gem-studded chest and opened the wooden box inside it. Then he removed the bound sheets of parchment.

Carina didn’t want to satisfy Baltazar by showing interest, but she couldn’t contain her curiosity.

“They look very old,” she said.

“Nearly three thousand years old. The language is Aramaic. The pages were written in the time of King Solomon.”

“Who was the author?” Carina said.

“The founding matriarch of the Baltazar family. Her name is lost in time. She refers to herself, and is referred to by others, as ‘Priestess.’ Would you like to hear what she wrote?”

Carina shrugged. “I have nothing better to do.”

“I can recite the contents by heart. She introduces herself here on the first page. She was a pagan priestess who was a favored concubine to Solomon. They gave birth to a boy child who was named Melqart. As I said before, Solomon was a fickle man. He became smitten with Sheba.”

“My ancestor,” Carina said.

“That’s right. They had a boy whom they named Menelik. Solomon gave the priestess to Sheba to be her handmaiden. She had little choice but to obey. The boys grew up together, but Menelik remained the favored son. When they were teenagers, Melqart, at the bidding of his mother, persuaded his half brother to steal a treasured object from the Temple. Menelik eventually returned it, and both boys were forgiven by their father, but he enlisted them into the Phoenician navy through his friend Hiram.”

“What was this treasured object?”

“The Ark of the Covenant. More important, the original Ten Commandments that were contained in the Ark.”

“The clay tablets Moses brought down from the Mount?”

“No. These were of gold. In the Bible they are referred to as the Golden Calf. Moses is said to have destroyed them, but that was not the case.”

“Why would he want them destroyed?”

“The tablets were written when the old religions were in flux. The tablets would have caught people’s attention before Moses could sway them in the direction of the religion he was preaching.”

“Apparently, the tablets were not destroyed.”

“They were hidden until the time of Solomon. He saw them as potential trouble but feared destroying such sacred objects. He worried that the tablets might be stolen again. He told Menelik to take the Ten Commandments to Ophir and hide them. The priestess sent Melqart to retrieve the golden tablets. The half brothers fought. Menelik killed his half brother, took over his ship, and made it home to tell his father of the battle. Solomon banished Melqart’s mother, whom he suspected of stirring up his subjects against him and reviving the old pagan religion.”