Legion by Brandon Sanderson Read Free Book Online Page A

more important duty was to make sure no terrorist strikes happened in the church. He was extra security, not normal staff, hired for the holidays, when the government worried about violence and wanted a more visible presence in tourist sites. This church was, after all, in contested territory.
    A few minutes in, I started moving the conversation toward Razon. “ I’m sure you must see some interesting things, ” I said. “ Before we came here, we were at the Garden Tomb. There was this crazy Asian guy there, yelling at everybody. ”
    “ Yeah? ” Moshe asked.
    “ Yeah. Pretty sure he was American from his accent, but he had Asian features. Anyway, he had this big camera set up on a tripod—as if he were the most important person around, and nobody else deserved to take pictures. Got in this big argument with a guard who didn’t want him using his flash. ”
    Moshe laughed. “ He was here too. ”
    Kalyani chuckled after translating that. “Oh, you’re good , Mister Steve.”
    “ Really? ” I asked, casually.
    “ Sure was, ” Moshe said. “ Must be the same guy. He was here . . . oh, two days back. Kept cursing out everyone who jostled him, tried to bribe me to move them all away and give him space. Thing is, when he started taking pictures, he didn’t mind if anyone stepped in front of him. And he took shots all over the church, even outside, pointed at the dumbest locations! ”
    “ Real loon, eh? ”
    “ Yes, ” the guard said, chuckling. “ I see tourists like him all the time. Big fancy cameras that they spent a ridiculous amount on, but they don’t have a bit of photography training. This guy, he didn’t know when to turn off his flash, you know? Used it on every shot—even out in the sun, and on the altar over there, with all the lights on it! ”
    I laughed.
    “ I know! ” he said. “ Americans! ” Then he hesitated. “ Oh, uh, no offense meant. ”
    “ None taken, ” I said, relaying immediately what Kalyani said in response. “ I’m Indian. ”
    He hesitated, then cocked his head at me.
    “Oh!” Kalyani said. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mister Steve! I wasn’t thinking.”
    “It’s all right.”
    The guard laughed. “ You are good at Hebrew, but I do not think that means what you think! ”
    I laughed as well, and noticed a woman moving toward him, waving. I thanked him for the conversation, then inspected the church some more. Monica and her flunkies eventually found me, one of them tucking away some photos of Razon. “Nobody here has seen him, Leeds,” she said. “This is a dead end.”
    “Is that so?” I asked, strolling toward the exit.
    Tobias joined us, hands clasped behind his back. “Such a marvel, Stephen,” he said to me. He nodded toward an armed guard at the doorway. “Jerusalem, a city whose name literally means ‘peace.’ It is filled with islands of serenity like this one, which have seen the solemn worship of men for longer than most countries have existed. Yet here, violence is never more than a few steps away.”
    Violence . . .
    “Monica,” I said, frowning. “You said you’d searched for Razon on your own, before you came to me. Did that include checking to see if he was on any flights out of the States?”
    “Yeah,” she said. “We have some contacts in Homeland Security. Nobody by Razon’s name flew out of the country, but false IDs aren’t that hard to find.”
    “Could a fake passport get you into Israel? One of the most secure countries on the planet?”
    She frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
    “It seems risky,” I said.
    “Well, this is a fine time to bring it up, Leeds. Are you saying he’s not here after all? We’ve wasted—”
    “Oh, he’s here,” I said absently. “I found a guard who spoke to him. Razon took pictures all over the place.”
    “Nobody we talked to saw him.”
    “The guards and clergy in this place see thousands of visitors a day, Monica. You can’t show them a picture and expect them to remember. You