Blink of an Eye

by Ted Dekker

  Clive had reviewed the sequence of events in the alley a hundred times, retracing each step by aggravating step. They scoured the streets and alleys surrounding the motel. Nothing. The search extended to the limits of Johannesburg. Still nothing. Seth and Miriam had simply vanished.

  Clive had perfected the art of chasing down criminals by adhering to a simple principle: Follow the path of least resistance. Almost without exception, criminals took this path. They were not the most brilliant lot. If common sense dictated that they should duck behind a building instead of running out into the open with flailing hands, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that’s where they could be found: behind the building.

  Standing in the middle of the alley, waiting for the adversary as Seth had done, was not a move brimming with common sense. It was, in fact, downright idiotic. But Seth wasn’t an idiot.

  “AK-47,” a voice said.

  Whitlow, the LAPD detective in charge of the physical search, approached from Clive’s left. The officer held a small, clear evidence bag containing one of the shell casings from the roof between his thumb and forefinger.

  The detective was a city chump used to back-alley chops and drug deals. Not a bad man, just a bit far from home in Clive’s judgment. Whitlow removed a Dodgers baseball cap and scratched his head. “Common enough rifle around here. No telling where he got it.”

  “He wasn’t the shooter,” Clive said. “We have another interested party.”

  Whitlow forced a grin, replaced his cap, and put his hands on his hips. “So says the detective from the NSA.”

  “So says common sense,” Clive said. “You find a weapon? No. And he didn’t have one. Someone else took that weapon.”

  Whitlow studied him for a moment. He looked at the roof. “How exactly did this guy get away from you? He was unarmed—or so you say—and with a girl.” He glanced at Clive without turning his head. “Seems kinda odd.”

  Odd? Clive hardly believed it himself. Only one explanation made any sense at all: Seth’s explanation. He knew what was going to happen before it happened. He knew exactly which course of events would allow him to escape, exactly when to tip the barrel, exactly where to run to avoid detection.

  “Let’s just say that our man is pretty clever, Detective. You know who he is?”

  “Seth Border. Some student from Berkeley.”

  Clive smiled. “A student from Berkeley with an IQ of 193.”

  Whitlow whistled.

  “The man we’re after just happens to be one of the most intelligent human beings on this planet, my friend.”

  Whitlow nodded, smirking slightly. “He’s still flesh and blood, right? As long as he bleeds, we’ll get him.”

  Clive considered the man’s statement. They had managed to approach the hotel with Seth inside, hadn’t they? While Seth slept. Every man had his weakness, and if Seth had by some strange act of God been doused with precognition, then sleep might very well be his Achilles’ heel. He couldn’t know the future while he slept. Even if he could, he couldn’t run.

  They had to exhaust Seth. A man couldn’t stay awake much longer than two days, maybe three, without help from doctors. According to the hotel office, Seth’s light hadn’t gone off until after two. He might be wide awake now, pushed by adrenaline, but what goes up must come down.

  “And how would you get him?” Clive asked Whitlow.

  “They can’t be far. We’re setting up a perimeter now—there aren’t a heck of a lot of choices out here. The highway south is sealed off. That leaves twelve possible roads out. Shouldn’t be impossible to find a yellow Ford Pinto on one of twelve roads.” Whitlow grinned at Clive’s surprise. “The car was reported stolen a few minutes ago. Like I said, we’ll get him.”

  Clive knew it all except for the report of the stolen Pinto. He’d ordered the checkpoint plan himself. A yellow Pinto. Like renting a neon sign that read Come and Get Me. Didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense.

  “If someone else doesn’t get him first,” Clive said. He shoved the walnut into his pocket and straightened to leave. “I want the entire grid blanketed, not just the roads. He may try to hole up, and we can’t let him do that. Any sign of them and I want to be informed. We go in quiet. You got that? I want this guy smothered.”

  “You got it. Where you going?”

  “To talk to our Saudi friends.” Clive stepped away. “Don’t forget about the other shooter.”

  “We look like a giant lemon,” Miriam said. “They’ll spot us from Saudi Arabia.”

  “Hold on.”

  The Pinto’s tires ground over a dirt road ten miles north of the hotel. Seth turned into a deserted driveway, rumbled over a knoll, and angled for a rickety barn that looked as if it had been abandoned for a century. Two large doors hung cockeyed off rusted hinges and baling wire. He threw the car into park, managed to pull open the left door, and plopping down behind the wheel again, drove the car into the barn. He turned off the ignition.

  “We had to get off the road,” he said. “They’re clamping down pretty hard.”

  She looked around at the dim interior. Dilapidated bales of hay leaned against what had once been a stall. An old tractor sat rusting, cocooned in cobwebs. Smells of mildew and oil laced the air.

  Seth’s door banged, and she turned to see that he’d gone to close the barn. She climbed out. It wasn’t so different from a stable at home, she thought, at least in the smell, which was enough to momentarily pull her mind back to Saudi Arabia. Straw covered the floor. At one time someone had kept animals in this place. Horses and cows. No camels.

  She turned to Seth, who sagged by the car. “So we’re safe here?”

  “For a while.” He walked over to the stall and wiped his hand along the rotting wood.

  “How far are you seeing?”

  “I’m not sure. Longer. Half hour maybe.”

  They’d stolen through the sleeping town, cutting this way and that, sometimes hiding in the shadows for a few minutes before darting across streets. The yellow car came from a house on the edge of town, and Seth had taken it for the simple reason that it was unlocked with keys in the ignition. Rust had nearly consumed the right rear fender, and the tailpipe hung precariously low, but none of this seemed to bother him.

  They’d passed the first hour doubling back and driving virtual circles in the deathtrap. She’d seen a new side of Seth, a brooding brought on by the death of the police officers. It was tragic to be sure, but she’d seen much worse. He evidently had not. Americans were not as accustomed to death, she thought. This was a good thing—one of the reasons she had come here.

  With the dawning of the sun, exhaustion overtook Seth’s brooding. He’d slept less than an hour, he’d said. This was not good.

  She had no idea where they were now, and she doubted he knew either. He was simply playing cat and mouse, driving where he knew they wouldn’t be.

  A shaft of light cut through two loose planks on the wall, illuminating a fog of floating dust particles. Seth looked at her with his pretty green eyes, now darkened with sadness and fatigue, and for a moment she felt sorry for him. She had led him into this. Apart from the next half hour’s myriad futures, he was as lost as she. An enigma, to be sure. A stunning creature with that mind of his—American to the bone and yet so different from any man she’d ever met. The only man other than Samir who had kissed her. She was no longer sure if she wanted to slap him or thank him.

  Seth lifted his eyes to the rafters, but she kept her gaze on him. He was still shirtless. She let herself look at his chest and belly. He was as strong as Samir, she thought. Taller and perhaps broader in the shoulders.

  Samir, my love, where are you?

  “I think they’re using their manpower to cut off the roads,” he said. “They’ll get around to searching this place, but for now they’ll assume we’re on the run. We have some time.”

  “You think they’re cutting off the roads? You can’t see it?”

  “Well, things are a bit fuzzy right n
ow. I’m not exactly at my best.” He sighed and squatted by some hay bales. “My mind’s wasted.”

  “And you can only see half an hour out. That’s not exactly comforting.”

  He looked up at her and caught her stare. “But I’m seeing all the possible futures of the next half hour. At least to the extent I can wrap my mind around them. I’d say we have a definite advantage.”

  Miriam sat next to him. To their right, the old tractor sat, discolored by the gray cobwebs. To their left, the Pinto sat, pale like a ghost. The silence hollowed out her chest.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For saving my life. Four times now. I’m indebted to you.”

  “You’re not indebted to me,” Seth said. “I’m here because I need to be here. I want to be here.”

  “I’m scared, Seth.” She was. The last few days had flown by with such speed, filled with so many new sights and mysteries, that adrenaline overrode her fear. Now, the adventure of it all was giving way to terror. An army of American police had them surrounded, and now that one of their own had been killed . . . How would Seth and she ever escape?

  She hadn’t prayed in two days.

  “You’re a long way from home,” Seth murmured.

  She knew he meant to comfort her, but a lump rose through her throat. If Seth were a Muslim, they could take solace in God together.

  Her vision blurred and she looked away. What did they have in common? Funny, she’d always thought of Americans as fundamentalists set out to destroy Muslims. Maybe in the same way that most Americans thought of Arabs as Islamic extremists committed to burning down their cities.

  Seth leaned his head back onto the hay and closed his eyes.

  She needed Samir, a strong man to hold and comfort her. She gritted her teeth, swinging from terror to fury. She should be free to be loved by a man and free to love a man of her choosing. Yet she’d been forced to abandon the only man she ever loved, because of an extremist’s madness. Because of Sita’s death and because of Omar.

  I am lost.

  Seth cleared his throat. “When my father used to beat my mother, she and I would run into this closet we had in the hall. I sat in there and cried with her. There was nothing I could do. I was too small. But a week after I turned thirteen I hit him hard enough to break his jaw. That’s when he left.”

  He lifted his head and looked at her.

  “In some ways I feel like that boy again. I know what you mean; I feel lost too. Powerless.”

  It occurred to her that he was seeing into her heart. He couldn’t read her mind, but he could see what she might say in the next half hour. It was enough to lift her burden.

  She swallowed. “You aren’t powerless,” she said. “You might be the most powerful man alive right now.”

  He nodded slowly.

  “You’ve been a gift to me,” she said.

  “But I’m as powerless to heal your wounds as I was my mother’s.”

  She understood. He cared for her, didn’t he? When had this mad scramble become more than an effort to deliver her to safety? When had the bond begun to develop between their hearts? It was unlike the bond between Samir and her, another kind, perhaps as strong. A friendship. And yet he was a man.

  The thought of friendship flooded her with warmth and worry at once. Something had been pulled from her eyes—a veil that once distorted her vision. But what she saw now wasn’t what she wanted to see.

  “You’re a special man, Seth. I would be desperate without you.”

  They looked into each other’s eyes and she felt the unreasonable impulse to embrace him. Not in a romantic way, but as a friend. But she resisted. He was a man!

  He settled the issue for her. His arm reached around her shoulders. He pulled her to him and kissed her hair. “I’ll take care of you,” he said. “I promise.”

  They smiled at each other. “No woman deserves the life you’ve been dealt,” he said. “Don’t ask me how, but one way or another we’re going to have to change that.”

  His eyes held a subtle light that she could not mistake for anything other than true attraction. The kind that mere friends did not share. She hated it. She loved it. She hated that she loved it. So she said the only thing that came to mind.

  “Thank you. I owe you my life. And I can promise you that Samir will be as indebted.”

  He nodded, lowered his arm, sighed.

  “I have to get some sleep while I can,” he said. “You think you can stay awake?”

  “Won’t that put us in danger?”

  “I’ve got to sleep at some point or I’ll be no good at all, and I know I have at least thirty minutes now. I might as well take advantage of it.” He shifted his weight and settled back. “Wake me in thirty minutes.”

  Miriam stood and walked for the tractor. She could use the time to pray, she thought. Maybe she could find some old clothes around this barn.

  “Sleep,” she said.

  “An old barn,” the pilot’s voice crackled. “There are marks on the grass that I can swear were not there twenty minutes ago when I made my last pass.”

  Clive’s Lincoln ground to a stop on the graveled shoulder. “Do not, I repeat, do not approach. Are you close enough for any occupant to hear you?”

  Static. “Ash . . . negative, sir. I don’t think so.”

  “How far north?”

  “Ten miles, give or take.”

  A barn was just the kind of place Clive himself would choose to hole up in for a couple hours of sleep. He hadn’t expected a break this soon—for that matter, this might not be a break at all. But in the absence of any other affirmative ID, the chopper pilot’s claim would do. If Seth was there, he would be asleep. Otherwise his precognition would have alerted him already.

  “Okay, we go in quick and we go in quiet. I want ten cars on the main road ASAP. Stay high and out of their sight. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Copy that.”

  Clive dropped the mike and pulled the car through a U-turn. “Sleep on, my friend. Sleep like a baby.”

  chapter 22

  khalid bin Mishal sat in the elaborate Bedouin tent, studying his host. A silver teapot steamed between them, spreading a pleasant herbal aroma.

  Sheik Abu Ali al-Asamm nodded. “We walk a fine line, my friend. If the king doesn’t already know of my involvement, he at least suspects it. There is a reason Abdullah has survived so long, and it has nothing to do with good fortune.”

  “We assume he suspects your involvement. You’ve made no secret about your leanings.”

  “There’s a significant difference between ‘leanings’ and a coup attempt.”

  Khalid took a sip of the hot tea and felt the liquid hit his stomach. “Regardless, he knows you represent the sentiments of a large group of people. The streets would erupt if he detained you.”

  “Don’t you mean kill me?” the sheik said, lifting one corner of his mouth.

  “My identity,” Khalid said, “is the king’s more pressing question. If he discovers I am behind a plot to dethrone him, I will receive my death sentence.”

  “And he would learn this from whom? He would need proof to move against a prince of your stature.”

  “Miriam. She’s demonstrated her evil nature plainly enough.”

  The sheik flashed a stern glare. “Don’t mistake a strong will for an evil nature. You are talking about my blood.”

  “I mean no insult. I would say the same about my own son. We all have our weaknesses.” They were cut from the same cloth, father and daughter. Today, Miriam was the problem; tomorrow, this man could be the problem. Khalid would keep that in mind when he became king. “The point is, Miriam has become a problem. I would like to propose that we continue without her,” Khalid said.

  “No,” the sheik said. Then he seemed to remember the need for diplomacy. “I may be a pliable man when the time calls for it, but I can’t change a hundred years of history and tradition in a single stroke. Without t
he bond of marriage, my people won’t join me in support of you. You need the support of several million Shia.”

  Khalid knew as much. The desert was built as much on tradition as sand. “And we will have our marriage. But let’s be reasonable. The time to strike is now, before the king expects it. We will claim that your daughter has married my son in the United States. We both know that your daughter will return wed.” Or dead, but that went without saying.

  “If my people discover I have deceived them, even I will lose their trust,” the sheik said. “No.”

  Khalid sighed. “Very well. But your decision places us in a dangerous position.” He paused and delivered his final thrust. “I’m afraid that the king’s men will attempt to kill Miriam.”

  “And risk losing my loyalty? I don’t think so.”

  “Unless he was to blame it on me.”

  The sheik lowered his teacup, unprepared for this thought.

  “If the king wouldn’t do it, then Hilal would,” Khalid said.

  “Then you will have to find her before Hilal does.” The sheik stood and walked toward a bowl of fruit at the side of the tent. “What is the latest word from your son?”

  “If not for the Americans’ interference, he would have her already.”

  “Will he succeed?”

  Khalid hesitated. His son was a ruthless warrior, even a wise one. His quick decision to shoot the policeman was a brilliant stroke. He had forced Hilal to make an accounting of himself, freeing Omar to close in undetected. But the man who’d abducted Miriam was proving to be a challenge for everyone. Local authorities had brought dozens of officers into the search, which lessened the likelihood that Omar would bring the woman out alive. If he could not take Miriam into custody, neither could Hilal.

  “Yes, I believe he will.” Khalid smiled. “Your daughter is proving to be quite smart for a woman. She has your blood.”

  The sheik turned around. “Of course she does. I wasn’t aware that gender was a factor when it came to intelligence.”