Protocol-17

An ancient secret society. An ancient target: The Vatican. An ancient book that brings madness to all who look upon its pages. In a city paralyzed by a blizzard, something watches, something stalks, and the clock is ticking.... Detective Sam Goldstein confronts terror in the form of two eviscerated bodies: a nun and a priest. Meanwhile, halfway across the world, a beautiful Mossad agent called Josey Schulman confronts an older and far more menacing evil. A book "The Black Rose Notebook" holds forbidden knowledge and secrets. Secrets worth dying for. Secrets worth killing for. The diabolical secrets of a world-wide conspiracy... Protocol-17. Brought together by fate, Sam and Josey elude the Brotherhood and follow a trail that leads them from the Vatican to an orphanage in Chicago and a twelve-year-old boy who holds the key. Together with the boy's aunt and a Rabbi, Sam and Josey learn that they are the only thing standing between the Brotherhood and its perverted agenda for a New World Order. But for these two warriors time is running out... their world is at the brink.

PROTOCOL-17:A

Josey sat chain-smoking. She crossed one leg over the other, counting away the minutes with each flex of her ankle.

After awhile, a feeling of dread leached into her. Fragmented thoughts ran across her mind like fire ants. She bolted from her chair and into the outer hallway. Empty . . . Nobody . . . Zip.

At first, walking hurriedly, searching, listening and then, she heard it, the ding of the elevator. A muffled cry.

She broke into a dead run, screeching to a halt at the elevator door just as it closed.

"Damn it!"

Somehow she knew it, knew it in her gut, her father was in danger and in that elevator. Glancing up at the floor indicator, watching the numbers change as it rose steadily upward, she pounded the call button.

First floor.

Second.

She ran for the stairwell, crashed through the door and bounded up the stairs. Her Doc Martins slapping the concrete steps, layered echoes, intertwined in a chorus that followed her up the stairwell, barking at her heels.

She climbed two floors and realized this was hopeless (ten more floors to her father s office). She rammed the emergency bar of the exit door and tumbled sideways as she rounded the corridor back to the elevator door.

She heard it. Ding.

Standing at the door, lungs burning, she saw the doors begin to slide open. She took a step, hesitated and willed herself to move. Claustrophobia was her Achilles heel. She steeled herself and entered the elevator. Eyes searching everywhere, she strode to the rear, and turned sharply. The elevator became sweltering; the air so thick Josey could hardly breathe. Beads of perspiration dappled her forehead. Her blouse, equally damp with sweat, matted against the small of her back.

The devil was in the details and in an instant her world became obsessed with details: the sibilant hiss of the closing elevator door, the blinding-harsh overhead lighting, the jolt of the compartment and the creak of cables as it rose.

Third floor. Fourth floor . . . Sixth floor

The soft hum of the ventilation fan.

She wasn t alone after all. There in the corner, next to the control panel, stood a dignified little man. She took him in with a glance. His black overcoat was tailored; his complexion was pasty with a trace of pink like a baby s cheeks no, more like an elf, with gray wisps of fine hair. His hands rested upon an ebony walking stick with an ornate silver handle. As he rocked on the balls of his tiny feet, he whistled the Disney song Heigh-Ho.

"Floor please?" he said, turning with an innocuous but naughty smile.

"Twelfth floor, please?" she replied calmly, returning his grin. Two can play this game, she thought.

The surrounding walls seemed to crush in toward her like the plates of a hydraulic press.

Ninth floor.

Tenth.

Shrugging his diminutive shoulders, he lisped, "These old buildings and old elevators require patience." His watery little eyes stared, studying her, drinking her in.

... Are you a patient person, young lady? You appear somewhat distraught. Can you relish this moment, the ecstasy of doubt? The intensity of the unknown? Can you? You little Hmeshe Kurve(hometown whore)!...

She heard the words, but couldn t believe her eyes. His lips never moved. No just that impish little smile. It must be my nerves, she thought. Then her eyes zoomed in on the walking stick. Yes, it was the same. Just like the one the old man had carried when he brushed past her in the doorway to Tateh s office. Same man, same stick?

Just as she was about to answer the elevator shuddered to a stop. The doors opened and in walked a bosomy dowager with her consort tucked beneath her arm: a miniature French poodle, followed by a gaggle of students. The room shrunk around Josey now. The thought of sharing this tiny compartment with this press of bodies terrified her.

She peered over the top of the old dame s wide-brim hat, stealing a glimpse of the little man. He no longer looked old and fragile but her instincts told her it was defiantly somehow the same man. Had to be. Her hand moved to the fanny pack around her waist; she slid her hand into the Velcro pouch that held her weapon. The cold gunmetal bolstered her courage and bridled her phobia.

Eleventh floor.

She felt something on her wrist, something wet.

Plop . . .

She glanced down. There, against her skin, a tiny blotch of red, and then another. Josey shook as the honed point of a blade ran between her shoulder blades. She looked up. A dark stain was flowering on the ceiling tile of the elevator cab.

Plop . . .

A droplet landed on a young, female student s nose. She raised her hand to wipe it away. The girl looked down and screamed.

Twelfth floor.

Like toppling dominos, the first the students, then the dowager, and finally her poodle, fell into panic. A chorus of screams erupted, the poodle threw back its head howling . . . bodies pushing and shoving each other . . . moving in a wave toward the door. Frenzy.

Ding.

Thirteenth floor.

Josey pushed and scrambled upward. Using the cab s handrail as a foothold, she reached up, and pulled open the overhead trap-door. There, suspended from the steel cables a body ....