They’d had a brief, tense moment at Ascension, where they’d ducked out of sight and narrowly avoided being spotted by a British film crew headed in the opposite direction. They’d used the journey time to read up about the Coptic religion and, more specifically, the monastery’s history. They’d checked their phones for messages at each stop, now that they were back in GSM-land, but hadn’t replied to any of the messages that had been left for them. No one back in D.C., apart from Ogilvy, the network’s global news director—not even Roxberry, much to Gracie, Dalton, and Finch’s bemusement—had been told they’d left the ice continent, or where they were headed. Gracie and Ogilvy knew full well how ravenous their colleagues and competitors could be. The exclusivity of their story had to be ferociously guarded from the rest of the pack.
The new terminal, a gleaming, modern steel-and-glass structure, had surprised Gracie with its efficiency, even more so given that Egypt usually out-mañanaed the other countries of the region, no slouches themselves when it came to, well, slouching. The line through passport control had moved swiftly and courteously. The baggage had showed up on the carousel almost at the same time as they did. Even more surprisingly, people seemed to be observing the airport’s recently introduced no-smoking policy, no small feat in a country where laws were routinely ignored and where more than half the male population were smokers practically from birth.
More pressingly, Gracie, Dalton, and Finch were already aware of the new apparition over Greenland. Just after the 777 had landed, their BlackBerries had sprung to life almost in unison with urgent messages from the news desk and beyond. The bracing, electrifying news had shaken the tiredness out of their bones and injected them with renewed vigor. And as they sat in the back of Yusuf ’s Previa, inching their way through the bustling early evening traffic and into the city, they couldn’t get their questions in to the overwhelmed Brother Ameen fast enough.
He told them he’d seen it too, on the news, and confirmed that, as far as he could tell, it was identical to the one they’d seen over the ice shelf—and identical to the symbol lining the walls of Father Jerome’s cave. The ones he’d started drawing seven months earlier.
Gracie was now certain she’d made the right choice in heeding the monk’s call and coming to Egypt. Despite the continent hopping and its associated aches, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this energized. The rare, but coveted, sensation—the thrill of the exclusive scoop—was off the charts in this case, given the sheer scale and impact of what was unfolding. Still, there were many questions she needed answered. Starting with the reason for their trip, Father Jerome.
“How and why did he come here in the first place?” she asked the monk.
Brother Ameen hesitated. “The truth is,” he winced, “we’re not sure.”
Gracie and Finch exchanged a questioning glance. “He was working in Sudan, wasn’t he?” Finch queried.
“Yes. Over the last few years, as I’m sure you know, Father Jerome was very concerned with what was happening in Darfur. Earlier this year, he opened another orphanage there, his fourth, just inside Sudan, near the border with Egypt. And then, well . . . he doesn’t quite understand it himself. He left the orphanage one night, by himself, on foot, with no belongings, no food or drink. He just walked out, into the desert.”
“Just like that? He’d just been sick, hadn’t he? Weren’t they worried he’d be kidnapped or killed? He was very critical of what the warlords were doing out there,” Gracie pointed out. “He would have been a big prize for them.”
“The fighting, the massacres in Darfur . . . they affected him deeply. It weakened him, and he got very sick. It was a miracle he pulled through.” The monk nodded to himself, his tone heavy with sadness at the thought. “The night he left, he told a few of his aides there that he needed to go away for a while . . . to ‘find God.’ Those were his words. He said he might not return for a while and asked them to make sure their good work continued during his absence. And he just walked away. Five months later, some bedouins found him collapsed, in the desert, a few kilometers south of here. He was in a simple thawb—a robe, torn and filthy. The soles of his bare feet were all cut up and calloused; he was delirious, lost, barely alive. He didn’t have any water or food with him, and yet . . . it seemed that he’d crossed the desert. On his own. On foot.”
Gracie’s eyes flared up with puzzlement. “But it’s, what, five, six hundred miles from here to the border, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Brother Ameen confirmed, his voice unnervingly calm.
“But he couldn’t have . . . not in these conditions.” Gracie was struggling for words. “There’s nothing but desert out there. The sun alone, his skin . . . Wasn’t he badly sunburned? How did he survive?”
The monk turned out his palms quizzically and looked at her with an expression that mirrored her confusion, but said nothing.
Gracie’s mind raced ahead, processing his story. It was possible, maybe—but there were too many unknowns to his story. “What does Father Jerome say happened? He didn’t say he walked here all the way from Sudan, did he?”
“He doesn’t remember what happened,” the monk explained. He raised a finger, his eyebrows rising as his words took on a more pointed tone. “But he believes he was meant to come here, to our monastery, to our cave. He believes it was his calling. Part of God’s plan.” The monk paused, then a hint of remorse crinkled his face. “I really shouldn’t be speaking on his behalf,” he added. “You can ask him yourself, when you meet him.”
Gracie snatched a glance at Finch. He tilted his head in a discreet gesture that mirrored her bewilderment.
“What about the documentary?” she asked. “Tell us about that.”
“What do you want to know?”
“How it came about? Were you there, did you meet these guys?”
Brother Ameen shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. They contacted us. They said they were making a documentary, that they’d heard about Father Jerome’s being up in the cave, and could they come over and film him. The abbot wasn’t keen, none of us were. It’s not in our nature, it’s not what we’re used to. But they were coming from a very respectable network, and they were very courteous, and they kept on asking and insisting. Eventually, we accepted.”
“Lucky you did,” Finch told him. “We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Brother Ameen replied, a hint of a smile in his eyes. “God works in mysterious ways. I imagine he would have found another way to bring you here, don’t you?”
Chapter 29
Cambridge,Massachusetts
Csaba hesitated, then, without turning his back to Matt, he took a few steps back to his desk. It was a mess of piles of magazines and printouts. Coffee cups teetered over them like cardboard watchtowers. Clearly, he and Bellinger were far from twins on more than just the physical front. A large Apple flat screen rose out of the morass and dominated it. It too showed the light over the ice shelf. Flicking his eyes from Matt to a wireless keyboard, Csaba tapped in a few keys and brought up another website. He turned to Matt with an expression that straddled sheepish and terrified.
Matt joined him at the desk. The news report he’d pulled up was a brief crime report. Bellinger’s body had been found in an alleyway not far from the bar. The report featured two black-and-white shots from a security camera inside the bar. One was a wide shot, showing Matt and Vince in mid-tussle. The other was a close-up of Matt’s face, taken from another frame.
He was pretty recognizable.
Matt’s eyes ate up the text voraciously. He didn’t see his name anywhere in it, although he knew that wouldn’t last. The article mentioned several witnesses, including an “unnamed woman” who claimed she was outside the bar when she saw Matt chase Bellinger furiously down the street. Which he hadn’t done. They’d grabbed them right outside the bar. Matt frowned, his mind flashing back to the woman in the van. He could picture her profile, backlit against the streetlights, the shoulder
-length bob framing her face. One and the same, he was certain. He pictured the police showing up at his place, search warrant in hand. He also pictured them finding the murder weapon bob-girl and her buddies must have planted there.
He noticed Csaba scrutinizing him nervously.
“I know how this looks,” Matt told him, “but that’s not what happened. These guys came after Vince because of this thing in Antarctica.” He pointed angrily at the TV screen. “He thought my brother might have been murdered because of it. They killed Vince. I didn’t. You have to believe me.”
Which, reading Csaba’s jittery eyes, seemed like a tall order.
“You and Vince,” Matt asked. “You were talking about it, weren’t you? Before he bailed on you?”
Csaba nodded reluctantly.
It was all Matt had time for right now. “I need you to tell me what you guys said, but that can wait. They’re outside. We need to get out of here.”
“ ‘ We’ ? ” Csaba flinched, reaching for his phone. “Hey, I’m not going anywhere. You can do what you want. I’m calling the cops and—”
“We don’t have time for that,” Matt flared up fiercely as he grabbed the phone from him and slammed it back down close to its cradle. “They’re here. Now. Because of your little chat with Vince. Same deal. So if you want to live, you’re gonna have to trust me and come with me.” His gaze drilled into him, dead-committed.
Csaba hesitated, his eyes locked onto Matt’s, his breathing hard and fast—then he nodded.
“Do you have a car?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t matter. Come on.” Matt sprinted toward the door.
“Wait,” Csaba blurted, holding up one hand in a stalling gesture. He grabbed a backpack off the floor and started throwing things in it.
“We need to go,” Matt insisted.
“Just gimme a sec,” Csaba countered as he stuffed his Macbook laptop, charger, and iPhone into the backpack before flicking one last look around the room and joining Matt at the door.
Seeing the phone tripped something in Matt’s mind. “Your cell,” he told Csaba. “Switch it off.”
“Why?”
“They can track us with it. You must know that.”
Csaba’s mouth dropped an inch. Then the words clicked into place. “Yeah, right,” he said in a daze, and repeated “You’re right” as he fished out the phone and turned it off.
Matt glanced over at the screen for one last look—the blazing sign was still there, taunting him enigmatically—then he dashed out, with Csaba on his heels.
They took the elevator down to the garage. It was home to a dozen or so cars. Matt glanced around, not exactly spoiled for choice. Csaba’s neighbors seemed partial to Priuses and Japanese compacts, the Escalade owner notwithstanding. He settled on a marginally beefier Toyota RAV4, a car he was also pretty sure wouldn’t resist his charms.
He moved fast. He grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and smashed the driver’s window with it, then reached in and flung the door open. “Get in,” he ordered Csaba as he swept the tiny glass flakes off the seat with his hand.
The big man just stood there, slack-jawed. “That’s Mrs. Jooris’s car,” he said ruefully. “She’s gonna be seriously pissed, dude. She worships that car.”
“It’s just a window. Get in.”
In the time it took Csaba to relent and cram himself into the passenger seat, Matt had popped the hood, yanked out the transponder fuse from the power relay center, and got the engine running. He climbed back in, threw the car in gear, and screeched up to the garage door. An unseen sensor had already instructed it to open. As it rose, the ramp appeared ahead, unobstructed, curving to the left and hugging the building.
“Buckle up,” Matt said.
Csaba gave him a look and glanced down wryly at his bulging midsection. The buckle and its stalk were out of sight, smothered by his doughy thigh. “You wanna help me with that?”
“Maybe not,” Matt answered with a dry half grin. “Hang on.”
His fingers tightened against the steering wheel as the garage door rose enough to let them out. Matt nudged the RAV4 up the ramp, slowly at first—there was no point alerting the goons to their presence earlier than necessary. They’d see him soon enough—which happened the instant the small SUV cleared the side of the building.
Matt locked eyes with the two startled men facing him in the Chrysler, committing as much of their features to memory as he could in that nanosecond, his foot poised on the accelerator. He’d already played out his move in his mind’s eye. A quick charge across the street diagonally, right at the parked goons, aiming the Toyota’s left front bumper at the Chrysler’s right front wheel well, hitting it at a slight angle and with enough force to bend its wishbone and disable the car while allowing his own vehicle to keep going, bent but otherwise operational. It was a gamble, and a sacrifice he had to make. He’d lose the benefit of being able to track them, as they’d need to use another car from here on, but he had no choice. The Toyota was no match for the Chrysler. He wouldn’t be able to lose them.
He was about to floor the pedal when he sensed something coming from his right. He ripped his gaze off the Chrysler and spotted a car coming down the street toward him. Something clicked into place in his mind. He waited a second or so for the car to get nearer, Csaba watching, not understanding the wait and giving him a low, anxious “Dude, come on,” the killers in the Chrysler looking at them slightly perplexed now, not sure why they were still there, itching to bolt out of their car after them, probably pulling their weapons out of their holsters and ramming cartridges into their chambers—
—and just as the approaching car was almost at his level, Matt jammed his foot against the accelerator and charged into the street right in front of it, cutting it off. The car, a lumbering old Caprice from the bygone days of cheap and plentiful fuel and a blissful insouciance about destroying the planet, scraped against the Toyota and bounced off it, its driver—a nervy, ponytailed man wearing thick bone spectacles—swerving into the opposite lane evasively and screeching to a stop almost right alongside the Chrysler. Matt hit the gas and tore down the street, headed in the opposite direction to the one the Chrysler was facing. He watched in the rearview mirror as the Caprice’s hapless driver got out of his car and mouthed off at him angrily, and saw the goons climbing out of the Chrysler to get the man to move his car so they could get their car turned around to take up pursuit.
Matt dived into the first turning he saw, pulling a screaming left before charging down one empty street after another, changing directions often as he wove his way out of Cambridge and onto the expressway, all while keeping a wary eye on his mirrors for any sign of the Chrysler.
It was gone.
He relaxed a little and eased off the gas as he pointed the borrowed SUV north, heading out of the city, putting some much-needed miles between him and the streets that seemed determined to ensnare him in their deathly clutches.
He glanced sideways at Csaba. The round man’s face was still flushed and glistening with sweat, but his posture relaxed a touch as he gave Matt a pinched acknowledgment. And with a small shake of his head, he said, “Mrs. Jooris is gonna go mental when she sees this.”
“How you pronounce your name anyway?” Matt asked him.
“ ‘ Tchaba.’ But you can call me ‘Jabba,’ ” he replied without a hint of annoyance. “Everyone does.”
Which surprised Matt. “Really?”
Jabba nodded. “Sure.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
Jabba’s expression was one of laid-back, casual bewilderment. “Should it?”
Matt thought about it, then shrugged. “Okay then. Let’s ditch this car and find us a safe place, somewhere they won’t find us. Then I’m gonna need you to tell me exactly what you and Vince were talking about and help me figure out what the hell is going on.”
Chapter 30
Deir Al-Suryan Monastery, Wadi Natrun, Egypt
Before
long, the Previa had left the desert behind and was trudging through the snarled traffic leading into Cairo. There was no avoiding cutting across the sprawling city, as the new airport was east of it, with Wadi Natrun to its northwest. By now, it was early evening, and the low sun’s fading light punctuated the mist of exhaust fumes and dust that choked the overcrowded, run-down metropolis.
“Does he know what’s going on yet?” Gracie asked Brother Ameen. “Have you told him about the signs?”
“No,” the monk regretted. “Not yet.” He glanced back at her uneasily, his look signaling that it was something she’d soon be a part of. “Actually, he doesn’t know you’re coming. The abbot doesn’t know either.”
Gracie was about to ask him to clarify, but he beat her to it. “The abbot—he doesn’t know what to do. He didn’t want the outside world to know about it.”
“But you did,” Finch prompted.
The monk nodded. “Something miraculous is happening. We can’t keep it to ourselves. It’s not ours to keep.”
Gracie looked over at Finch. They’d been around such situations before: uninvited guests traveling into troubled spots to talk to reluctant interviewees, people whose first instinct was to shut themselves off from outside scrutiny. Sometimes, Gracie and Finch managed to get through; other times, they were locked out. In this case, they had to make it happen. They hadn’t flown halfway around the globe to leave empty-handed. Not when the whole world was waiting for an explanation.
The appearance of the tips of the pyramids at Giza told Gracie they were finally leaving the city behind. She’d seen them before, but the sight never failed to inspire awe, even in the most jaded observer. On this occasion, something else stirred inside her, the majestic, stone peaks that jutted out of the sand oddly reminiscent of the nunataks—the rocky crags that rose out of the fields of snow—that she’d looked down on only hours ago from the window of the chopper. The noisy, chaotic mess of Cairo quickly gave way to sleepier, scattered clusters of houses, and as they passed the small town of Bir Hooker, the last town before the desert and the monasteries, they lost the signals in their cell phones. The monk informed them that they’d be limited to the satphone from there on.
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