The Alexandria Link STEVE BERRY * History is the distillation of evidence surviving the past. --OSCAR HANDLIN, Truth in History (1979) Since the first Adam who beheld the night and the day and the shape of his own hand, men have made up stories and have fixed in stone, in metal, or on parchment whatever the world includes or dreams create. Here is the fruit of their labor: the Library...The faithless say that if it were to burn, history would burn with it. They are wrong. Unceasing human work gave birth to this infinity of books. If of them all not even one remained, man would again beget each page and every line. --JORGE LUIS BORGES, regarding the Library of Alexandria Libraries are the memory of mankind. --JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE PROLOGUE: PALESTINE APRIL 1948 GEORGE HADDAD'S PATIENCE ENDED AS HE GLARED AT THE MAN bound to the chair. Like himself, his prisoner possessed the swarthy skin, aquiline nose, and deep-set brown eyes of a Syrian or a Lebanese. But there was something about this man Haddad simply did not like. "I'll only ask one more time. Who are you?" Haddad's soldiers had caught the stranger three hours ago, just before dawn. He'd been walking alone, unarmed. Which was foolish. Ever since the British decided last November to partition Palestine into two states, one Arab, the other Jewish, war had raged between the two sides. Yet this fool had walked straight into an Arab stronghold, offering no resistance, and had not said anything since being bound to the chair. "Did you hear me, imbecile? I asked who you are." Haddad spoke in Arabic, which the man clearly understood. "I'm a Guardian." The answer meant nothing to him. "What's that?" "We're keepers of knowledge." He was not in the mood for riddles. Just yesterday the Jewish underground had attacked a nearby village. Forty Palestinian men and women had been herded into a quarry and shot. Nothing unusual. Arabs were being systematically murdered and expelled. Land that their families had occupied for sixteen hundred years was being confiscated. The nakba, the catastrophe, was happening. Haddad needed to be out fighting the enemy, not listening to nonsense. "We're all keepers of knowledge," he made clear. "Mine is how to wipe from the face of this earth every Zionist I can find." "Which is why I've come. War is not necessary." This man was an idiot. "Are you blind? Jews are flooding this place. We're being crushed. War is all we have left." "You underestimate Jewish resolve. They've survived for centuries and will continue." "This land is ours. We shall win." "There are things more powerful than bullets that can provide you victory." "That's right. Bombs. And we have plenty of those. We'll crush every one of you thieving Zionists." "I'm not a Zionist." The declaration came in a quiet tone, then the man went silent. Haddad realized that he needed to end this interrogation. No time for dead ends. "I've come from the library to speak with Kamal Haddad," the man finally said. His rage bowed to confusion. "That's my father." "I was told he lived in this village." His father had been an academic, schooled in Palestinian history, teaching at the college in Jerusalem. A man big in voice and laugh, body and heart, he'd recently acted as an emissary between the Arabs and the British, trying to stop the massive Jewish immigration and prevent the nakba. His efforts had failed. "My father is dead." For the first time he spied concern in the prisoner's barren eyes. "I was not aware." Haddad retrieved a memory he'd wanted to forever dismiss. "Two weeks ago he ate the end of a rifle and blew off the back of his head. He left a note that said he couldn't bear to watch the destruction of his homeland. He thought himself responsible for not stopping the Zionists." Haddad brought the revolver he now held close to the Guardian's face. "Why did you need my father?" "He's the one to whom my information must be passed. He's the invitee." Anger built. "What are you talking about?" "Your father was a man due great respect. He was learned, entitled to share in our knowledge. That's why I came, to invite him to share." The man's calm voice hit Haddad like a pail of water dousing a flame. "Share what?" The Guardian shook his head. "That's only for him." "He's dead." "Which means another invitee will be chosen." What was this man rambling about? Haddad had captured many Jewish prisoners--torturing them to learn what he could, then shooting what of them remained. Before the nakba Haddad had been an olive farmer, but like his father, he was drawn to academics and wanted to pursue further studies. That was now impossible. The state of Israel was being established, its borders carved from ancient Arab land, the Jews apparently being compensated by the world for the Holocaust. And all at the expense of the people of Palestine. He nestled the barrel of the gun between the man's eyes. "I just made myself the invitee. Speak your knowledge." The man's eyes seemed to penetrate him and, for a moment, a strange uneasiness overtook him. This emissary had clearly faced dilemmas before. Haddad admired courage. "You fight a war that is not necessary, against an enemy that is misinformed," the man said. "What in God's name are you talking about?" "That's for the next invitee to know." Midmorning was approaching. Haddad needed sleep. From this prisoner he'd hoped to learn the identity of some of the Jewish underground, perhaps even the monsters who'd slaughtered those people yesterday. The cursed British were supplying the Zionists with rifles and tanks. For years the British had made it illegal for Arabs to own weapons, which had placed them at a severe disadvantage. True, Arabs came with more numbers, but the Jews were better prepared, and Haddad feared the outcome of this war would be the legitimacy of the state of Israel. He stared back at a hard, unbending expression, into eyes that never drifted from his, and he knew that his prisoner was prepared to die. Killing had become much easier for him over the past few months. Jewish atrocities helped ease what little of his conscience remained. Only nineteen, and his heart had turned to stone. But war was war. So he pulled the trigger. Chapter One. COPENHAGEN, DENMARK TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, THE PRESENT 1:45 AM COTTON MALONE STARED STRAIGHT INTO THE FACE OF TROUBLE. Outside his bookshop's open front door stood his ex-wife, the last person on earth he'd expected to see. He quickly registered panic in her tired eyes, remembered the pounding that had awoken him a few minutes before, and instantly thought of his son. "Where's Gary?" he asked. "You son of a bitch. They took him. Because of you. They took him." She lunged forward, her closed fists crashing down onto his shoulders. "You sorry son of a bitch." He grabbed her wrists and stopped the attack as she started crying. "I left you because of this. I thought this kind of thing was over." "Who took Gary?" More sobs were his answer. He kept hold of her arms. "Pam. Listen to me. Who took Gary?" She stared at him. "How the hell am I supposed to know?" "What are you doing here? Why didn't you go to the police?" "Because they said not to. They said if I went anywhere near the police, Gary was dead. They said they would know, and I believed them." "Who's they?" She wrenched her arms free, her face flooded with anger. "I don't know. All they said was for me to wait two days, then come here and give you this." She rummaged through her shoulder bag and produced a phone. Tears continued to rain down her cheeks. "They said for you to go online and open your e-mail." Had he heard right? Go online and open your e-mail? He flipped open the phone and checked the frequency. Enough megahertz to make it world-capable. Which made him wonder. Suddenly he felt vulnerable. Hojbro Plads was quiet. At this late hour no one roamed the city square. His senses came alive. "Get inside." And he yanked her into the shop and closed the door. He hadn't switched on any lights. "What is it?" she asked, her voice shredded by fear. He faced her. "I don't know, Pam. You tell me. Our son has apparently been taken by God-knows-who, and you wait two days before telling a soul about it? That didn't strike you as insane?" "I wasn't going to jeopardize his life." "And I would? How have I ever done that?"