Hadassah Covenant, The Read Online Free PDF

with discreet and respectful inquiries about my evening.
    I’m sure I looked as embarrassed as I felt as I hinted to them I might be their next queen. The two deflected glances to each other and shrugged to pass off the comment. Yet I felt my fear suddenly leave me; I knew the truth of what had transpired that night with the King. He loved me, of this I was certain. While my head did fear, my heart felt the truth of what had transpired that night.
    So, my beloved Esther, we come to the one thing for which your cherished letter did not prepare me—nor could it have. The arrival of Mordecai on the fourth morning after my night with the King, a stricken and unhealthy pall upon his face. He sat beside me and informed me, in a level and grave voice, that I had been summarily rejected as queen.
    The chill of my fear returned like a vengeful flood. I really have no idea what to do, which is why I await your response, my dear Queen Esther . . .

    M OSSAD H EADQUARTERS , B AGHDAD—LATER THAT AFTERNOON
    Meyer backed up abruptly and knocked over his stool with a clatter.
    For a long moment, he simply stood and stared at the last two words of his translation, then back at the Hebrew letters signifying the name and title.
    Queen Esther !
    His mind began to connect the dots. To run across the name Esther , a derivative of the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar , could be coincidental, even within the Royal Records. But Queen Esther?
    Without moving his gaze from the manuscript, he reached over to the desk’s edge and fumbled for the phone amidst the jumble of papers and personal effects.
    He should have seen it coming. Hints at the royal personage to whom the letter was addressed lay scattered throughout the document. But to find these comments, along with references to the Exilarch, ruler of the Jews in exile, on the same page together—it took his breath away.
    He tried to calm the heaving of his chest and slow the frantic darting of his eyes but found his shock simply too powerful to suppress. He had to get out of there, he told himself, but without arousing suspicion. He knew that cameras and monitoring devices were everywhere—far more than what was needed to merely protect him. And the multitude of cameras he could detect were only a fraction of the total.
    He made himself look away from the two documents on the desk and glanced around him again, as though someone might havesneaked in behind him during the preceding seconds. Frowning, he picked up the phone as casually as he could, yanked off his skullcap, and exited the room through a back door. He returned a moment later carrying a case, into which he slid the documents with a studied casualness, then left for good.
    The only observer of his exit was an old street beggar who had taken up permanent residence in the alley. The rag-swathed body did not budge from its grimy crossed-legged position on the ground, but its oddly young eyes locked on to Ari’s immediately, far more alert than an old man’s drunken gaze should have been.
    Ari nodded and, after a moment’s flicker of recognition, so did the “beggar.” Ari turned away from the safehouse’s outermost and most cunningly disguised security layer, then launched himself into the street.
    A wild blend of car horns, racing engines, and human shouts engulfed him at once. Without expression, the bearded “Osborn” elbowed his way through the Arab crowd to his car, a carefully disheveled Toyota truck, placed the case on the seat, started the engine with a long crank of the key, slammed it into gear, and sped into the streets of southern Baghdad like the proverbial drunken sheikh.
    Through the crowded, claustrophobic lanes of the southern Aalam district he raced, crazily fighting a combination of shock, relief, and panic. He weaved and ducked into a side street, peering anxiously into his rearview mirror to make sure he was not being followed, finally south onto the broad lanes of Yafa Street, then into the lawns of Zawra Park,