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Overview
How are the shocking murders of elderly Holocaust survivors connected to the deaths of high school students in Israel and the West Bank?
Palestinian-American detective Ben Kamal and Israeli detective Danielle Barnea soon discover that the answer to this blood-drenched puzzle lies as much in the past as in the present, with the clues leading from a Nazi labor camp to the forefront of modern biotech research, while leaving a trail of deception and death behind.
At the center of the mystery lies Paul Hessler, a labor camp escapee and New York billionaire with secrets that stretch back over sixty years. Hessler is also in possession of a miraculous medical discovery that could affect the lives of thousands--including Ben and Danielle's unborn child.
To protect this discovery, and to rescue the future form the hidden evils of the past, Ben and Danielle must come face-to-face with the Keepers of the Gate.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429976633 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tor Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 04/29/2008 |
| Series: | Ben and Danielle , #4 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| Sales rank: | 432,789 |
| File size: | 457 KB |
About the Author
Jon Land is the acclaimed author of many bestsellers, including The Last Prophecy, Blood Diamonds, The Walls of Jericho, The Pillars of Solomon, A Walk in the Darkness, Keepers of the Gate, and The Blue Widows. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Jon Land is the USA Today bestselling author of more than fifty books, over ten of which feature Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong. The critically acclaimed series has won more than a dozen awards, including the 2019 International Book Award for Best Thriller for Strong as Steel. He is also the author of Chasing the Dragon, a detailed account of the War on Drugs written with one of the most celebrated DEA agents of all time. A graduate of Brown University, Land lives in Providence, Rhode Island and received the 2019 Rhode Island Authors Legacy Award for his lifetime of literary achievements.
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
"I'm sorry for the intrusion," Danielle Barnea said to thewoman seated on the couch before her. "This won't take very long."
Layla Saltzman nodded stiffly, as if it were something she had gotten quiteused to doing in recent weeks. Her face was expressionless, her eyes dry andcried out. Dull brown hair hung over her face in stray locks she had given upcaring about. The house, squeezed amidst other modest one- and two-storystucco-finished homes in the Jerusalem suburb of Har Adar, smelled of stalecoffee and burned pastry.
Six days before, Layla Saltzman's seventeen-year-old son Michael had committedsuicide. Before the case could be officially closed, a final interview wasrequired to make sure the facts in question were all in order. Normally thiswould have been a matter for local authorities—in this instance the Jerusalempolice—but all cases involving a firearm were automatically referred to NationalPolice. And Danielle's superior, the commissioner or Rav nitzav Moshe Baruch,had elected not to refer it back even after suicide became apparent.
Now, seated in the suicide victim's living room, Danielle found her eyeswandering to the framed pictures adorning the coffee table between her chairand the couch on which the boy's mother sat. All showed Michael Saltzmanin various poses through the years. Tennis racquet in his left hand, wearing asummer camp T-shirt. Baseball glove and uniform. His Bar Mitzvah. Therewas still plenty of space atop the table, but there would be no more picturesto fill it.
Her gaze lingered for a time on one shot that pictured Michael betweenhis parents, an arm tossed casually around both their shoulders. The angle ofthe room's light gave Danielle a clear view of her own face, in effect projectingherself into the picture. Now that she was pregnant once again, she foundcomfort in the thought she might fill her own coffee table with photos someday. The comfort was short lived, though, as she reflected that the child's fatherin her pictures would be missing.
Danielle studied herself in the glass, seeing a youngish thirty-five year old,her face unlined by wrinkles, athletic and robust. She wore her wavy brownhair the same way she had in college, because it framed her full face better thanany of the more contemporary styles would. How strange. Despite her professionalreputation as a progressive innovator, she was, in this respect anyway,truly a creature of the past.
"Chief Inspector?"
Distracted, Danielle shuffled the folder on her lap and the forensics photosspilled out onto the living room rug. She stooped to retrieve them and watchedLayla Saltzman's expression waver as she peered at the pictures through thecoffee table's glass top. Danielle noticed she was wearing on her wrist a man'swatch with a broken face.
"I'm sorry," Danielle said, sticking the photos in the rear of the folder."Just a few more questions, I promise."
Layla Saltzman nodded.
"You were away the day of ... the incident."
"I was at work."
Danielle gazed again at the picture of Michael standing between his twoparents, everybody smiling. "And your husband?"
"We're divorced. He moved back to the United States. Remarried awoman with three young children. He returned to them the day after thefuneral."
"I'm sorry."
Layla Saltzman shrugged as if she were tired of hearing that.
Danielle continued scanning the case report. "So the last time you spoketo your son ..."
"At breakfast the day he ..." Layla Saltzman's voice trailed off and shecleared her throat. "He seemed fine."
Danielle nodded, returning her focus to the case.
"I need to ask you about the gun, Mrs. Saltzman."
"He knew where it was kept, how to use it. Just in case. My husbandwanted him to know. With the crime rates what they are here now, well ... Iforgot we even had it. Maybe if I had remembered and gotten rid of thedamn thing ..."
Layla Saltzman laced her hands together and wrung them raw. Daniellelooked at her, trying to relate. She would have been a single mother now too,had she not miscarried her first pregnancy. And she fully intended to raise hernew baby by herself. But the sight of the woman on the couch across from herstarted Danielle thinking. Layla Saltzman was alone now and would more thanlikely stay that way. Her child's father had been six thousand miles away whenthe boy died.
The father of Danielle's unborn child lived barely thirty miles from Jerusalem,yet she had decided to keep him out of the child's life. She tried toimagine herself on the other side of an interview like this. Alone, with nothingbut photos to remind her it had not always been that way.
Layla Saltzman raised her arm and twisted it around to show Danielle thewatch with the broken face. "This was Michael's watch. A present from hisgirlfriend last year. I was thinking about giving it back to her. Do you think Ishould?"
"If it makes you feel better," Danielle tried lamely.
"Nothing makes me feel better, Chief Inspector. That's the point." LaylaSaltzman's eyes gestured toward Danielle's folder. "Does it say in there what awonderful student Michael was? Does it say he spent a semester at a specialcooperative school for Israelis and Palestinians outside of Jerusalem in AbuGosh? Does it say what a tremendous soccer player he was, that Americanuniversities were sending him letters to recruit him? I didn't want him to gobecause that meant he'd be closer to his father than to me. Does it say that inthere?"
Danielle remembered her preliminary study of Michael Saltzman's file."There was mention of the incident involving your son's friend," she said,imagining herself having to live in a world of stale coffee and forced smiles ineighteen years time. No one to sit next to her, thanks to the decision shethought she had finally put behind her.
Layla Saltzman nodded. "Yes, a girl named Beth Jacober from Tel Aviv.They were close. I don't know how close, you understand." Her voice brokeslightly. "Michael met her at his new school, the cooperative. She was killedin a car accident a week before he ..."
"Mrs. Saltzman, you don't have to—"
"Everyone thinks Michael did it because he was depressed about Beth. Iguess the two of them could have been closer than I thought. Who can tellwith kids these days?" She balled her hands into tight fists and cradled them inher lap. "I—I didn't go to Beth's funeral with him; he didn't want me to.Michael wasn't depressed. He was dealing with Beth's death, he was coping."She flashed her son's watch with the broken face again. "It doesn't work anymore,but I still wear it."
Danielle looked at Michael Saltzman's watch, at the pictures of him on thecoffee table featuring a family that would never be together again, that hadsquandered its chances.
Was this the kind of life she wanted for herself and her child?
Danielle flipped through the folder once more, finding the crime scenephotos and the report filed in obligatory fashion by the case officers. Studiedthe photo picturing the nine millimeter pistol just out of the grasp of the deadboy's fingers.
"He wasn't wearing the watch when he died," she said vacantly.
Layla Saltzman shook her head. "No. It was on his dresser. I forgot to putit on his wrist for the funeral, then threw it across the room when I got home.That's when it broke." Something that passed for serenity spread briefly overher expression. "No one asked me about that before."
Danielle felt a jolt of recognition as she realized something no one elsemust have. She looked back at the collection of pictures on the glass coffeetable, past the one of Michael with his arms around both his parents' shoulders,to the picture of the boy tossing a tennis ball into the air for the serve. Focusedon him holding his racquet, ready to swipe it down in a wide booming are.
"Is something wrong, Chief Inspector?" Layla Saltzman asked her.
"No," Danielle said, knowing no sense lay in saying anything to thewoman yet, not until she was sure. "Nothing at all."
Excerpted from Keepers of the Gate by JON LAND. Copyright © 2001 by Jon Land. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
