The Jerusalem Creed: A Sean Wyatt Thriller by Ernest Dempsey

Mount of Olives, the great mosques, and many other sacred locations.
    As the two Americans walked through the cafe and found a table, they couldn’t help but laugh at some of the attire worn by the tourists. They sat down at a table near the window and looked over the menu, deciding to eat light and order some fruit, bread, and cheese for breakfast.
    Tommy’s eyes wandered around the room and then returned to his friend. “You know what? I’m sorry I gave you crap about the khakis. These people are dressed way worse than you.”
    Sean laughed and pulled a water bottle out of the canvas messenger bag he’d brought along. He twisted the lid off and took a sip before replacing it. “Yeah,” he said, his eyes trailing around the cafe, “it’s like fanny pack central in here.”
    Tommy snorted a laugh and nodded.
    A minute later, a young man with a white button-up shirt and a black apron around his waist came by and took their order. He set a few glasses of water on the table and disappeared around the corner.
    “Karem is meeting us here in twenty minutes?” Sean asked the question he’d already asked earlier regarding their rendezvous with the Israeli.
    “Yes. And he’ll be here. Karem is extremely prompt. When he says he will be somewhere, you can count on it.”
    Sean nodded and pulled out his phone. He checked a few messages in his email inbox, one of which was from Adriana. She was investigating a shipwreck off the coast of Ibiza, near Spain, and was trying to figure out where the ship had gone. She claimed that someone, a treasure hunter, had unrightfully taken the booty from the ship and had detonated underwater explosives to dispose of the evidence. From the sound of it, she was dealing with dangerous people, but he knew better than to tell her what to do or how to do it. Adriana was her own woman. If she needed his help, she’d ask. And he knew she probably wouldn’t ask.
    She was planning on coming to the United States to visit at the end of the month, so he hoped that whatever shenanigans she was up to would reach closure soon.
    “Email from Adriana?” Tommy asked.
    “Yeah,” Sean said and put the phone back in his pocket. He didn’t sound happy. Probably because he wasn’t. He wished they could spend more time together, but he understood. She was a little younger than him, and was a wild, free spirit.
    Tommy folded his hands on the table and tried to look sympathetic. “Everything okay with you two?”
    “Yeah, we’re good. She’s just hunting down another lead right now. Sounds like she’s dealing with some potentially dangerous people. But you know how she likes to roll.”
    “You worry about her, don’t you?”
    Sean’s eyebrows lowered, but he couldn’t deny it. “Of course I worry about her. I know she’s good at what she does. Other than you and me, I’ve never met anyone more capable of handling the kinds of dangers we deal with. At the same time, you know as well as I do that eventually luck can run out.”
    Tommy leaned forward. “She’ll be fine, man. Don’t stress yourself out. Right now, we’ve got our own problems to worry about.”
    He was right. Sean knew it, too. They were about to embark on a path that would almost certainly be fraught with danger. The only advantage they had at the moment was the hope that whoever had tried to kill them still believed they were dead. If the would-be killers found out that they were still alive, the targets would be on their backs once more, and usually villains in Sean’s line of work didn’t make the same mistake twice.
    A few minutes later, the waiter returned with their plates. The two quickly scarfed down the dates, grapes, raisins, and figs. The flattened bread reminded them of sourdough from back home, and the cheese was a mild, white variety that tasted remarkably similar to Havarti.
    The little meal was surprisingly filling, and no sooner had they finished than Karem walked in through the entrance.
    His face sported a