Munich Signature (Zion Covenant) Read online

  THE ZION COVENANT BOOK 3

  MUNICH SIGNATURE

  The Zion Covenant Book 3

  Bodie & Brock Thoene

  www.FamilyAudioLibrary.com

  ThoenE-Books

  Visit the Thoenes’ exciting Web site at www.thoenebooks.com

  Copyright © 1990 by Bodie Thoene. All rights reserved.

  Cover illustration copyright © 2005 by Cliff Nielsen. All rights reserved.

  Edited by Ramona Cramer Tucker

  Designed by Julie Chen

  Published in 1990 as Munich Signature by Bethany House Publishers under ISBN 1-55661-079-3.

  First printing by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. in 2005.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version or the Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the authors or publisher.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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  Printed in the United States of America

  11 10 09 08 07 06 05

  7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  With love

  this story is dedicated

  to our son Jake—

  a wrestler who, like Jacob of old,

  has hands like hammers

  and a heart for God that inspires us all!

  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

  --Jeremiah 29:11

  Acknowledgments

  August 8, 1989, marked the remembrance of Tishrei B’Av, the day the temple was destroyed in Jerusalem. It also marked the Yahrzeit of our own bubbe, Naomi Samuels. Her life and work and wonderful personality are much missed in this world. With hearts full of hope we look forward to the certain day when we will all break bread together in the courts of the temple that will stand into eternity!

  Until that day, our work continues. With much love, we thank Joseph Samuels, who continues Naomi’s research with such dedication! Our gratitude also to Linda Gerber, who has made the typing of volumes of research a labor of love.

  Prologue

  San Francisco

  1984

  Tikki Thurston crossed her arms and glared angrily at the bright cherry-red BMW parked in the garage of Embarcadero Motors. The hood of the automobile, propped open like a giant mouth, swallowed the mechanic as he leaned in over the engine and muttered, “Uh-oh. Hmm. Hmm. Too bad.”

  Mark had often told her that this was the best BMW mechanic in San Francisco. That fact alone made words like uh-oh seem even more ominous. She felt as if she had gone to the dentist for a checkup and found out that every tooth needed a root canal and a crown. Mark had always taken care of details concerning auto repair and maintenance. Tikki had never even spoken to the mechanic before today. When the tow truck had arrived she had simply repeated the only name she had ever heard in connection with car repair. “Embarcadero Motors, please.” That was where Mark would have had the little BMW towed—if Mark had been there.

  But Mark was not around. He had left her five months ago for a young woman who worked as a paralegal assistant in his law firm. He did not like being married to a musician, he had said. He needed intellectual stimulation in his life. A thinking woman. He wanted to talk about politics and court cases and issues that really mattered. Bach and Mozart put him to sleep, not to mention Tikki and her drivel about concerts and auditions and matters in the orchestra. In the end, he claimed, it had destroyed whatever interest he might have had in her.

  She glanced at her watch. It was already a quarter past six. Past closing time. She stared at the mechanic’s back and wondered if he would charge her overtime, double time, or time and a half. She could tell this was going to be expensive, whatever was wrong.

  “Uh-oh,” the mechanic said again. He clucked his tongue like a doctor studying the X-rays of a terminal patient.

  “It’s bad, then?” Tikki asked timidly.

  “Bad.” He eased himself out from under the hood, pulled a rag from his back pocket, and wiped his hands.

  He sniffed. “This car is twelve years old. Even a BMW has to throw in the towel eventually.” He shrugged.

  “That bad?” Tikki wanted to cry. She did not need this now. Not tonight. She remembered the letter in her purse. That man was coming to the concert tonight! She might need her car for a fast getaway!

  “How many miles have you put on the old girl?” The mechanic leaned in the window and peered at the odometer. He gave a low whistle. “A hundred seventy-two thousand. An honorable life.”

  Tikki did not tell him that the odometer had broken eight months before. “Isn’t there some way to fix it?”

  “Sure. Rebuild the engine. Why don’t you tell that rich husband of yours that you need a new car? Better yet, I’ll tell him!”

  The mechanic didn’t know. Of course, there was no reason for him to know. He was not in their circle of friends. “Mark and I are . . . not together anymore,” she answered.

  The mechanic did not seem surprised. Hardly anyone stayed married anymore. It was unlikely that Tikki would get a new car out of the divorce settlement. After all, Mark Thurston was an attorney. He had figured out all the angles long ago. “Mark took the new Porsche and left you with a twelve-year-old BMW?” The mechanic looked amused. She did not see the humor of it.

  “How much will it cost to fix the engine?” she asked wearily as she opened the trunk and pulled out her cello.

  “Several thousand. You might want to consider buying a new one.”

  “Traitor,” Tikki muttered to the little auto as she slammed the trunk down hard. “I’ll need to know exactly what will it cost,” she replied curtly to the mechanic.

  “Sure, I can give you an estimate.” His face still registered amusement.

  An estimate. It could not possibly cost more than a new BMW, and right now she was in no position to buy anything. Tears stung her eyes as she fished the plastic bag containing her long black concert dress out of the backseat. This mess with the car was just one more thing. Insult to injury. A hundred times she had considered quitting her job and going back to her family in Israel. She had called Jerusalem twice at a cost of seventeen dollars for three minutes of homesick conversation with Rachel and Moshe Sachar. There were no positions at all in either of the major orchestras in Israel. There were no prospects of openings in the foreseeable future. As tough as things might seem for her in San Francisco right now, life in Jerusalem would be impossible—except for the fact that Tikvah would be home again, surrounded by the love of her mother and father.

  In that instant she thought about the letter in her handbag. “I knew your mother,” the man had written, “a long time ago in Austria.” The stranger did not mean that he knew Rachel. He was speaking of Tikvah’s real mother, the mother she had never known. He wrote about Leah Feldstein, the great cellist who had once enthralled all Vienna with her music. Occasionally over the years Tikki had run across people who still remembered the genius of Leah Feldstein. In Jerusalem Tikki had grown up in the shadow of that great talent. She had studied and practiced and played with the knowledge that she would never match the level of talent her biolo
gical mother had possessed. Tikvah would never be the principal cellist with the orchestra, and long ago she had given up the dream of performing as a soloist. Yet tonight, once again, as third chair cellist in the section, she would perform for an old fan of Leah Feldstein’s. “I knew your mother a long time ago in Austria . . . ”

  The old ones who came brought their memories of Leah, hoping to hear some fragment of that talent that had been lost forever at the birth of Tikvah. They were looking for Leah. Instead they found only Tikvah. Third chair cellist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Failed wife. Migrant musician forced to live far from her home and family because of job availability. Tikvah Feldstein Sachar Thurston, who now did not even have a car of her own in which she could flee from the probing questions and wistful memories of her mother’s old admirers.

  Tonight this old man—recently widowed, he wrote—would come searching for his youth, for a part of Vienna that had died when Hitler had marched in. He would look at Tikvah and comment that she was very much like her mother except for the blue eyes. Leah’s eyes had been brown, warm and rich like chocolate. They all remembered that. Brown bobbed hair. Bright smile. Slight build. Strong hands. The similarity stopped there. Leah had been everything her daughter Tikvah was not. No doubt Leah would have been able to captivate a man like Mark. Mark would never have left a woman as confident and brilliant as Leah.

  Tonight, no doubt, Tikvah would again be weighed in the balance of an old man’s memory and be found wanting. With that thought clanging in her ears like the bell of a trolley car, Tikvah hailed a taxi to take her to the concert hall. The taxi driver was Iranian—a fact which almost amused Tikvah, considering the terrible news blaring over his radio of Iran’s latest threats against Israel. Only in America would an Israeli cellist place her life and her instrument in the backseat of a cab driven by an Iranian. Even without knowing her origins, the man drove as though he wanted to kill her. He swooped over the San Francisco hills and darted among the fleet of other taxis, honking his horn and swearing loudly at the foreign infidels who had taken to the roads. Tikvah determined that from now on she would ride the rapid transit system until her car was fixed. Better to brave a possible mugging in the Bay Area subway system than to be locked in a four-wheeled Roman candle with an Iranian driver.

  She paid the fare and tipped the man extra in a subconscious attempt to placate his madness. It was still an hour and a half before the concert, but Tikki hurried toward the light that emanated from the glass door of the musician’s entrance of the concert hall. She felt pursued somehow, and the auditorium seemed like a beacon of safety to her. Awkwardly wielding the cello and the dress, she slipped in from the cold of the San Francisco evening. Up a short flight of a dozen steps the security guard sat reading the Chronicle at his desk. He glanced up as she hefted her instrument up the stairway. His normally pleasant black face reflected some concern, and he lifted a hand as if to stop her. She paused two steps from the top of the landing.

  “Hi, Freddy,” she said, puzzled by his gesture.

  “You’re early,” Freddy replied, looking down the hall beyond her vision. “I told him you wouldn’t be here till nearly eight. I told him he oughta wait till after the performance.”

  “Who?”

  At her question, a tall, powerfully built man stepped out of the corridor. He was about six foot two, his sandy hair sprinkled with gray. He was dressed in a three-piece pin-striped suit. Looks like an attorney, Tikvah thought. Mark had an entire closet full of suits like that. The man’s shoes were impeccably shined in spite of the rainy weather, and he carried a trench coat over one arm and held a cup of coffee in his other hand. His face was rugged, etched rather handsomely with lines of concern. He had a thick mustache that concealed his upper lip. His nose had evidently been broken in the past, but the slight bend added to the air of masculinity. He appeared to be in his mid-forties.

  “I told him you weren’t goin’ t’be here till later,” Freddy said irritably as he glared at the man.

  “I wanted to wait,” the man explained, setting his coffee cup on the desk and then extending his hand to Tikvah.

  She did not move from the step. Cello in one hand, dress in the other, she could not accept his handshake. She was not sure she wanted to. She was in no frame of mind to talk to a lawyer. No doubt Mark had sent him over here for some detail in the divorce settlement.

  “If you’re here on behalf of Mark . . . ” She stepped past him, avoiding his hand.

  “Mark?” the unknown man asked, inclining his head slightly, then letting his eyes slide from her face to the cello case. “You didn’t get my letter?” His expression was clear, but his voice was slightly slurred.

  “Your letter?”

  “Yes. I wrote you.” He let his eyes flit from her face to the cello, then back again eagerly. “You are Tikvah?”

  Tikvah looked toward Freddy, who rolled his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “And you have brought Vitorio along with you?” Now the man stepped toward her.

  “Vitorio?” How could this young stranger know the name of her instrument, the name Leah had given the old Pedronelli cello?

  “You look so much like Leah!” He was almost bubbling with excitement. “I would have known that you were her daughter even if I had only seen you passing in the street.” He reached out and touched the cello case with a familiarity that made Tikki step back. It was as if he had touched her!

  “But—” She tried to clear her mind of all the concerns she had lugged into the hall with her. “Are you . . . ?” She could not remember the name of the man who had written her. In any case, the fellow blocking the hall appeared far too young to have known her mother in Austria.

  “Yes.” He nodded and crossed his arms almost shyly. Gentle emotion softened his eyes as they searched Tikvah’s face. “So much alike,” he whispered. “Only her eyes were brown.”

  Yes, this was the man who had written the letter. This was the doctor from UCLA who had traced the daughter of Leah Feldstein through the Israeli government and had come to San Francisco to hear her play. “Yes. My mother had brown eyes, I am told. I never saw them myself.” There was resentment in her voice. This man had come here on some sort of pilgrimage. There was nothing to pay homage to. He would leave disappointed.

  “I remember her eyes. Brown eyes. Warm, and full of love.” He ignored the stiff comment of Tikvah. “And old Vitorio . . . ” He touched the case gain. “He was a friend. He sang to me. Do you mind?” He was eager again. “May I have a look?”

  Tikki let her breath out in slow resignation. She would let him see the instrument. Then he would go away and she could get back to her life. What was it with these people? These old friends of Leah Feldstein? “Doctor—” She could not remember the man’s name.

  At this moment Freddy, the security guard, rose to his full height of six foot four. “You want me t’ throw this fella out, Miz Thurston?” His hands were open and his arms poised for the grab. “If you don’t want t’, you don’t have t’ show him nuthin’,” he growled.

  The stranger’s expression changed to one of hurt astonishment. His smile faded and he looked quickly at Tikvah to see if her level of hostility matched that of the enormous black man. “I assure you—,” he stammered, as if suddenly aware of the quiet misery in Tikvah’s eyes— “I didn’t mean to—”

  Freddy lowered his chin in an officially threatening glare. “If you want t’ see the instr’ments, that’s what we got the ticket office for. You can buy a ticket like anybody.” Then Freddy muttered in Tikvah’s direction, “Jus’ say the word, Miz Thurston, and this guy is on the pavement!”

  “No, no, Freddy.” Tikki put a hand on the massive arm. “It’s all right.”

  “If I’d a know’d you didn’t know this dude, I wouldn’a let him in here!” Freddy seemed disappointed that he would not be permitted to thrash the man in the three-piece suit. There had not been much opportunity for him to display his prowess in a place haunted b
y these classical musician types. Not like the rock concerts down at Moscone Center where he had regularly been called upon to bash the heads of groupies and drug addicts.

  “No, really,” she said in a soothing, almost worried voice as the stranger straightened his tie and ran his finger over his mustache nervously. “He’s all right. An old friend of my mother’s.” She wished she could remember the signature on the letter. Doctor . . . something.

  “I’m sorry, really. I shouldn’t have bothered you before.” The stranger started to reach into his coat pocket, but when Freddy stepped forward, he hesitated and held his hands up briefly. “I am just reaching for my ticket. You see, I already bought a ticket.” With thumb and index finger, he gingerly pulled out an envelope emblazoned with the logo of the symphony hall. The words KRONENBERGER and WILL CALL were scrawled across it.

  Kronenberger! That was the name!

  It’s okay, Freddy,” Tikvah smiled now. “Dr. Kronenberger wrote me beforehand. I just wasn’t expecting him before the concert. And I was expecting someone quite . . . different.” She didn’t say that she had been expecting someone quite old. An old widower. Retired-type doctor.

  Freddy’s mouth was a perfect upside-down U of suspicion and disapproval. He sat down slowly and reluctantly. He was just doing his job.

  The tall Dr. Kronenberger laughed with relief now and waved the envelope slightly. “As a matter of fact, I purchased several tickets. I’ll be here for a week, you see. Interviewing for a position in the pediatrics department at the University Medical Center, and I . . . well, I bought tickets for several performances. I was hoping—” he was bubbling again—“hoping I might . . . ”

  “I am not Leah Feldstein,” Tikvah replied softly, almost apologetically. “She was a virtuoso. Like Yo-Yo Ma.”