The Lafayette Sword by Eric Giacometti

businessman’s trust. After a year and a half, the man told him about the Aurora group. It had about two dozen members around the world who invested in gold. They were high-rollers—specialized traders, mining managers, and central bank officials who believed the precious metal was the only guarantee of financial and political stability in the world.
    The members shared information about gold markets and potentially lucrative opportunities and transactions. The Swiss banker, known as Aurora Source, centralized the information and shared it with the community.
    Two days earlier, Aurora Source had given him the details of the mission in Kuwait.
    During reconstruction of the Al Ahmadi oil refineries, an engineer had discovered fifteen standard 12.5-kilo bars of gold stolen by Saddam Hussein’s army in 1990. Decades later, Aurora’s undercover operatives were still finding hiding spots fashioned by Iraqis on the run. To discreetly fence the supply, Aurora operatives were relying on a Lebanese trader in Kuwait. Winthrop’s job was to ensure the safe pickup and delivery of the most recent find. Aurora Source didn’t want his own bodyguards involved, as they were too close to the royal family’s secre t service.
    Winthrop parked the van, and the Kuwaiti picked up the large white sack at his feet.
    Without saying a word, the driver and passenger got out of the air-conditioned vehicle. A wave of burning heat struck Winthrop. The hangar was only a few yards away, but the heat was unbearable. The air was saturated with the acrid and sticky smell of petroleum.
    The door opened before they even knocked. The armed men ushered them in. The job was finally under way.

33
    ÃŽle de la Cité Nighttime
    March 15, 1355
    H er voice, like her body, was frail and shaking. But she didn’t stop talking. She revealed the life of a young woman overwhelmed by a mystery. She had been fascinated with a man whose quest escaped her and whose strangeness she had taken for love.
    Flamel wrote it all down. He would look at her when she paused to catch her breath or weep. What he saw sent him quickly back to his task.
    The torturer showed no emotion as he held his breast rippers over her and stared at her body drenched in sweat. Perhaps he was contemplating the curves of her wounds or the black blood flowing over her skin. Perhaps he saw in this geography of evil some other world opened by the doors of suffering. What could a torturer be thinking as he meditated on his work engraved in flesh?
    A second later Flamel knew exactly what he was thinking.
    â€œEnough,” the torturer shouted. “This is nothing but a waste of time. And time is de ar to us.”
    Flore went quiet. Her raspy breathing was all that could be heard.
    â€œBut I’m telling t he truth.”
    â€œYou are lost in your memories, in the meandering path of your miserable life. That doesn’t interest me. Tell me about th is Isaac.”
    She began again, breaking down in sobs as she w ent along.
    As Flamel wrote, Isaac Benserade’s portrait became clearer. He had been born and raised in the Jewish kahal of Girona, Spain, a beautiful city on the banks of the Onyar River. It was a religious community that hadn’t changed since ancient times. But for a few Jewish residents, all of them scholars, this way of life, paced by ancient rites, wasn’t sufficient. They sought more enli ghtenment.
    Among them, Isaac was the most tormented. He had studied medicine to follow in his father’s footsteps, but his thirst for knowledge hadn’t been quenched. He attended rabbinical schools, studied sacred texts late into the night, and endlessly questioned Jewish outsiders who were traveling through the city. He even spent time with Christians—mostly monks, who were said to hold the ancient world’s wisdom in their libraries. He also met with Arab Muslims. And the more he opened his heart to the vast world, the less he understood the