”
“Roman State Archives,” Fiorello mused. “And you saw another inscription on the fragments?”
“Sharif—Dr. Lebag, I’m sorry—identified the inscription running along the underside.”
“Which was?”
“The same inscription present on these fragments. ‘ Tropaeum Josepho Illumina .’ ”
“And then what happened, Dr. Travia?”
“From the market above us, there was the sound of a gunshot. A single blast. Through the street grate overhead, we could see the spice market was in chaos. Sharif and I returned to where we had roped in, and, using the pulley we’d fixed to the drain, he belayed me back up to the market stall.” Emili swallowed, willing herself to stay calm. “I climbed out of the drain, and saw the shopkeeper’s legs, just as he had been, sitting at the table. I climbed out from under the table and”—Emili paused, and then continued—“saw him seated, folded over the table, eyes wide open.” Emili closed her eyes, picturing the image, how the blood from the middle of his forehead streamed down into the yellow mound of ground mustard. Emili looked up at Fiorello. “That is the last I remember before being knocked unconscious.”
“When did you wake up?”
“An hour later. In a Catholic hospital outside the Damascus Gate. I had suffered a severe concussion, and the attending nun would not let me leave until an official from the Israel Antiquities Authority signed me out. No one had heard from Dr. Lebag. Immediately, we returned to the Muslim Quarter in search of him.”
“You returned to the stall?”
“Yes, but there was no trace of the dead vendor or his table. The stall where Sharif and I descended was empty. Neighboring shopkeepers insisted it had been empty for days. I showed the official the rusted door but the silicon sensors were gone. In fact, the door now hung slightly off its hinges and you could step right through.” Emili remembered the muscles in her legs tightening as she opened the door and hurried down a long flight of steep stone steps. Fueled by a headlong rush of fear, she ran into the cavern they had entered only hours before. She remembered the shrill echo from screaming Sharif’s name.
“And what did you find, Dr. Travia?”
“The room was empty. The long steel tables were gone, so were the copies of manuscripts papering the walls. No cabinets. No marble fragments. It was all gone; the room was completely stripped—” Emili stopped. She remembered seeing a gruesome broom stroke of blood, thick on the floor like a brush of red paint. The street grate in the ceiling high above allowed in enough light to see a small, dice-sized fragment resembling a piece of white marble on the floor.
“There was a small fragment,” she said, remembering the shard glistening at her feet as if it had been cleaned with a pink protective resin. Moved by a force outside herself, she picked it up and held it in her hand. Turning the piece over, she saw a tuft of black hair. She felt a stab of shock and then convulsive dry heaves seized her. Her legs gave way and she fell to the floor.
“The UN investigation,” Emili said, breaking her silence, “concluded it was from Sharif’s skull, the back of his head and brain, carried away by the exit of a single bullet.”
9
T he headquarters of the carabinieri’s Cultural Heritage Guard once housed an ecclesiastical college in the early 1700s, but the late-baroque building was now known to the officers of this elite unit as “the Command.” The morning sun slanted into the dim conference room on the sixth floor, and the lieutenants watched Comandante Profeta step into the blue blaze of a projector’s light. His hand was bandaged—cut by a flying wood plank in last night’s blast. The officers sat silently around the table, their uniforms still darkened from ash.
Profeta massaged his shoulder. The paramedics had brought him to the hospital and, throughout the night, doctors X-rayed him up and down like a Greek
“Roman State Archives,” Fiorello mused. “And you saw another inscription on the fragments?”
“Sharif—Dr. Lebag, I’m sorry—identified the inscription running along the underside.”
“Which was?”
“The same inscription present on these fragments. ‘ Tropaeum Josepho Illumina .’ ”
“And then what happened, Dr. Travia?”
“From the market above us, there was the sound of a gunshot. A single blast. Through the street grate overhead, we could see the spice market was in chaos. Sharif and I returned to where we had roped in, and, using the pulley we’d fixed to the drain, he belayed me back up to the market stall.” Emili swallowed, willing herself to stay calm. “I climbed out of the drain, and saw the shopkeeper’s legs, just as he had been, sitting at the table. I climbed out from under the table and”—Emili paused, and then continued—“saw him seated, folded over the table, eyes wide open.” Emili closed her eyes, picturing the image, how the blood from the middle of his forehead streamed down into the yellow mound of ground mustard. Emili looked up at Fiorello. “That is the last I remember before being knocked unconscious.”
“When did you wake up?”
“An hour later. In a Catholic hospital outside the Damascus Gate. I had suffered a severe concussion, and the attending nun would not let me leave until an official from the Israel Antiquities Authority signed me out. No one had heard from Dr. Lebag. Immediately, we returned to the Muslim Quarter in search of him.”
“You returned to the stall?”
“Yes, but there was no trace of the dead vendor or his table. The stall where Sharif and I descended was empty. Neighboring shopkeepers insisted it had been empty for days. I showed the official the rusted door but the silicon sensors were gone. In fact, the door now hung slightly off its hinges and you could step right through.” Emili remembered the muscles in her legs tightening as she opened the door and hurried down a long flight of steep stone steps. Fueled by a headlong rush of fear, she ran into the cavern they had entered only hours before. She remembered the shrill echo from screaming Sharif’s name.
“And what did you find, Dr. Travia?”
“The room was empty. The long steel tables were gone, so were the copies of manuscripts papering the walls. No cabinets. No marble fragments. It was all gone; the room was completely stripped—” Emili stopped. She remembered seeing a gruesome broom stroke of blood, thick on the floor like a brush of red paint. The street grate in the ceiling high above allowed in enough light to see a small, dice-sized fragment resembling a piece of white marble on the floor.
“There was a small fragment,” she said, remembering the shard glistening at her feet as if it had been cleaned with a pink protective resin. Moved by a force outside herself, she picked it up and held it in her hand. Turning the piece over, she saw a tuft of black hair. She felt a stab of shock and then convulsive dry heaves seized her. Her legs gave way and she fell to the floor.
“The UN investigation,” Emili said, breaking her silence, “concluded it was from Sharif’s skull, the back of his head and brain, carried away by the exit of a single bullet.”
9
T he headquarters of the carabinieri’s Cultural Heritage Guard once housed an ecclesiastical college in the early 1700s, but the late-baroque building was now known to the officers of this elite unit as “the Command.” The morning sun slanted into the dim conference room on the sixth floor, and the lieutenants watched Comandante Profeta step into the blue blaze of a projector’s light. His hand was bandaged—cut by a flying wood plank in last night’s blast. The officers sat silently around the table, their uniforms still darkened from ash.
Profeta massaged his shoulder. The paramedics had brought him to the hospital and, throughout the night, doctors X-rayed him up and down like a Greek
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