Manhattan
NYPD Crime Scene Unit forensic technician Pranav Chakrabarti swung the unmarked squad car into the Emergency entrance at Mount Sinai. “Let me walk you to the door, Dr. Berman.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Nicole said, touched by his courtliness.
“Yeah, Pranav,” Wojciechowski said. “What’re ya doin’? This is the twenty-first century and she’s a grown woman! Anyway, they’re on their way to pick up the housekeeper too. We got to get goin’.”
“I’ll be right back, George,” he said. “Won’t be a minute.”
“This is kind of you, Detective,” Nicole said as he hurried to her side.
“I confess I have an ulterior motive,” he said as they walked. “I need you to tell me how I can join one of your digs.”
“Oh, Detective, I don’t know …”
“Please, I know it’s for young people and retired people mostly, but it’s long been my dream. I have the education and the interest, and I would love—”
“You’re way overqualified, and you know it would have to be entirely at your own expense. I mean, volunteers get some food and lodging, but the big-ticket stuff would be all on you.”
“Doctor, I have been with the department long enough that I now enjoy a six-figure income and—”
“We dig in the summer so we can accommodate the college kids.”
“The summer would work for me!”
“Typically we dig five hours a day for twenty days …”
“I get twenty-seven paid days off!”
“And you can take them all at once?”
“If I plan ahead. If it’s next summer, I would put in for the time now.”
“You know there’s no glamour in it. Volunteers get the grunt work, carrying buckets of dirt and rocks, that kind of thing.”
“I’m already imagining it.”
“Well, don’t get your hopes up. You’d have a lot of competition and we can take only so many. Even if you made my list, you would have to be vetted by the host country.”
“You have my card. And if I may say, Ms. Berman, as a fellow believer, I know you understand when I say I will be praying it happens.”
Nicole couldn’t help but picture him as a delightful team member.
But as of now, there was no dig.
The two uniformed officers outside her mother’s door had been replaced, so Nicole had to prove who she was yet again. “Okay,” one said after checking her ID. “And we’re to inform Ms. Jefferson when you arrive.”
“You are? What does Kayla want?”
“No idea, ma’am.”
They must go to school for this. Do what you’re told, but never explain.
She found her mother sleeping, her father sitting with a book in his lap. “You look haggard, Dad. Still jet-lagged?”
“Of course, and thanks.”
“I’m just worried about you.”
“I know, and I’m worried about your mom.”
“She’s going to be fine now, isn’t she?”
“I hope.”
“She’s out of the woods,” Nicole said. “We just need to worry about whoever did this. If anyone can get them, it’ll be Wojciechowski, don’t you think?”
Her dad nodded. “What’s the news from the Saudis?”
“Would you believe I still haven’t heard?”
He set his book down. “You opened the letter, right?”
“You’re not going to believe this.” She brought up the photo of it on her phone and handed it to him.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he said, standing. “Wojciechowski has to see this.”
“He just dropped me off, Dad. I called him right away. They took it into evidence.”
“What in the world? ‘Watch your own back’? Like they knew about your mother’s back? What are we into here, Nic?’”
A knock came on the door. “Sorry to interrupt,” Kayla said. “If you’re in the middle of something, I can come b—”
“We kind of are,” her dad said.
“No problem! You both have my card. Just call me when it’s conv—”
“No,” Nicole said. “You’re here now. What is it?” Kayla looked to Nicole’s dad, who shrugged.
“Well, it’s just such a privilege to have all three principals of The Berman Foundation in one place, even if our patient is sleeping. The administration wanted me to express their thanks for everything you’ve done and continue to do for Sinai, and just what you mean to all of us.”
“Appreciate that, Ms. Jefferson,” her father said. “Do you know if there’s any official update on Ginny’s condition?”
“I don’t,” Kayla said, “but I’m more than happy to find out. How about I check with her case manager Monday morning and—”
“Monday morning?!” he exclaimed. “Nobody can tell us now?”
“I’ll see what I can find out and get right back to you.”
The phone in Nicole’s dad’s hand buzzed. “Sorry, I need to take this,” he said and hurried out.
“Thanks for taking the time,” Kayla told Nicole. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything, but I understand everything is on pace for now.”
“You’re here after hours again, Kayla. Why’s that?”
The young woman smiled, perfect teeth gleaming. “The last line on my job description says, ‘Miscellaneous related duties as assigned.’ When they call me, I come in.”
“Did they call you in tonight?”
“Not specifically, but I am often asked to work after hours when we have VIP patients, and they don’t come any more important than her. So, if you need anything …”
“I just hate causing you extra, and unnecessary, work.”
“Glad to do it. And I’m also grateful for the chance to tell you again that I was serious about joining one of your dig teams some day.”
“I know you were, but that’s strange.”
“Just didn’t want you to forget or think I was merely saying it to be polite. And what’s strange?”
“You’re the second person who’s said that in the last few minutes. I can go a month without someone doing that.”
“Who was that?”
“You wouldn’t know him.”
“Well, maybe I’ll meet him on the dig.”
“Ha! Maybe you will.” Having a native Indian and an African American woman on her volunteer team would check off a lot of boxes.
When Kayla was gone, Nicole tiptoed to her mother. Her vitals all read normal on the monitors, and she seemed peaceful. Nicole glanced at her chart at the end of the bed and noticed a nurse had been in to check on her about a half hour before. Nicole decided she could leave her briefly, just to see what was up with her dad.
She found him about a hundred feet down the corridor, studying his phone. He was ashen. “Dad, what is it?” she whispered.
He looked both ways, slipped the phone into his pocket, and said, “Tell me about Mustafa.”
“What do you mean tell you about him? You introduced him to me twenty years ago, and getting to be his trench supervisor in ’16 was a dream. He was great. He always was.”
“You get much time with him?”
“Almost as much as Moshe did, and he was the assistant.”
“You mean Greenblatt from Israel?”
“Yeah, I’d been his trench super at Hazor in 2010. The three of us made a good team at Mada’in.”
“Mustafa knew what you’d found and why you wanted to go back?”
“Of course, but I figured it would be under Moshe and him again. Who knew? I just wish I could’ve been there for his funeral.”
Ben nodded, his gaze miles away.
“What’s going on, Dad?”
He pulled the phone out. “You need to see this.”
“Dad! That’s my phone!”
“Oh, so it is. Then this was to you, not me.”
It was a text in Arabic from a number she didn’t recognize—in fact, a number that didn’t resemble a phone number, international or not.
هل كنت حقاً تعتقد أن مغادرة مصطفى بن علوي للحديقة كانت عرضية؟
Nicole translated. “‘Did you really think Mustafa bin-Alawi’s departure for the garden was accidental?’ It has to mean the Islam afterlife, Jannah, right? Doesn’t that literally mean ‘garden.’”
Her father nodded. “Nicole, do not let this make you withdraw your application from the Saudis.”
“Are you kidding? And let whoever this is win? This has to be the same person who told me to watch my back. I’m tempted to answer it.”
“And say what?”
“Either ‘No, tell me more,’ or ‘Yes, I knew.’”
“You’d be playing right into their hands.”
“But whose hands, Dad?”
“Whoever doesn’t want you digging in Saudi Arabia again—enough to attack your mother and threaten you. We’ve got to get this to Wojciechowski.”
“What’s he going to do with it?” Nicole said.
“They’ve got phone techies who can work miracles.”
“And you know this how?”
“Crime shows on TV.”