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architecture, and the materials. The interior walls were lined with cedar and juniper. The inner sanctuary for the Ark of the Covenant was lined with cedar and gold. And in this sanctuary, Solomon placed a pair of cherubs made of olive wood.
    “Undoubtedly, the intendant was addressing the leader of an outgoing caravan.”
    Marek put the Bible down. Many of the ancient writings focused on administration: accounting, bills, laws, decrees, orders, counterorders. Clearly, humans had always fallen prey to two major demons: organization and hierarchy. The Tebah Stone would have been no exception, were it not for that one sentence.
    Three lines before the traditional closing lines, the intendant added a final instruction: “Watch over your men. Make sure that they do not buy or bring back that demon bvitti that seeds the mind with prophesies.”
    He hadn’t been able to find the word in any of his reference works on Semitic language and scripture. It was as if the word had not survived the torrents of time and the tribulations of the Jewish people. Now Marek was seeing it long after some obscure functionary had struck it with an official curse.
    The phone rang.
    “Professor, you have a visitor. The man says you’re waiting for a package. I’ve searched him.”
    “It’s fine, Isaac. Let him up. I’m expecting him.”
    “As you wish.”
    The professor hung up and headed into the hallway to wait for the messenger. The elevator doors opened with a whish. A man in a djellaba stepped out. He had a thin face and piercing eyes, and he was carrying a beige canvas bag. He smiled at Marek.
    “Professor, I give you respects from my master.”
    “Thank you. I’ll take the package. Then you can go home. It’s late.”
    The man’s smile broadened.
    “Thank you, professor. Would you be kind enough to offer me some water? I am thirsty.”
    Marek wanted to yank the bag from the man’s hand, but he took a deep breath instead. “Of course. Follow me. There’s a water fountain near my office.”
    The two men walked down the hallway, past classrooms and research labs, until they reached Marek’s office.
    “Help yourself,” Marek said, motioning to the fountain in the hallway.
    He didn’t wait a second longer to take the bag. Marek stepped into his office and opened it. He removed a dark stone, set it on his desk, and examined its shape, hoping it would contain some clues about that unknown word. After a few seconds, he shook his head. He took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.
    “Is this some kind of joke?” he asked the man, who had come into his office. “This is a fake, and a bad one at that. It wouldn’t even fool tourists. Has Perillian lost his mind? I’m warning you—”
    Before Marek could finish his sentence a sharp blow broke his shoulder blade. He fell to the floor, gasping in pain.
    “You don’t have to warn me, Jew,” the messenger said in a silken voice. “The problem with all you sons of Israel is that you still think you’re the masters of my land. Now I’m the one warning you. Your death is imminent. I was asked to kill you with a stick.”
    The man struck Marek again, this time on the neck. He was barely conscious now, but he remembered every detail of Henri’s execution sixty years earlier in Dachau.
    He knew the third blow would kill him.
    Marek stared his killer in the eye and managed to say the one sentence from the Masonic ritual. “The flesh falls from the bones.”
    ~ ~ ~
    Bashir brought the stick down on Marek’s head. “Another damned Jewish ritual,” he muttered.
    Blood flowed down the researcher’s face.
    Bashir put the walking stick in the stand where he had found it and looked around the man’s office.
    There it was, on the cluttered desk—the Tebah Stone. He slipped it into his bag, along with the papers next to it. He looked at the computer screen, printed the page with the professor’s comments, and erased the file. He removed his djellaba, stuffed it into the bag, and