Cursed Days

by J. M. LeDuc

  The Colonel nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “I’m afraid to ask, but what is in The Medinat al-mawta that we need?”

  “According to Sarah, Joachim brought up ‘The City of the Dead’ often in their private conversations. We contacted SIA and from what they have been able to ascertain, it is not a place that you would boast about and certainly not a place where you would want to take your wife. The only reason that he would even mention it is because it must be where the next messenger is to be found. The ancient biblical records hint at the fact that the Ark was brought to Egypt and hidden in one of the tombs at Medinat al-mawta before continuing its trek down the Nile.”

  “What else have you discovered about the Ark?” the Bishop asked.

  “The leading theory points to the Ark being taken from Egypt to Ethiopia, back during the reign of King Solomon. But none of that will matter if we can’t find the messenger.”

  “I don’t suppose we have a name?” Seven asked.

  “I’m afraid not. Sarah was pretty definite that Joachim had never mentioned anybody’s name, just the cemetery.”

  “How do you suggest we find who we’re looking for?”

  Putting his hand on his teammate’s shoulder, Brent said, “Well, Bishop, that’s we’re you come in.”

  “Not again,” he yelled.

  The entire restaurant became dead quiet and stared at the three foreigners.

  “How to stay inconspicuous.”

  Bishop Jessup glared at Seven. “You know, you’re really starting to get on my nerves.”

  Seven chuckled under his breath.

  Breaking his stare, the Bishop shifted his attention to Brent.

  “Welcome to the club,” Brent said. “Now if you two are finished, I’ll explain the rest of the plan.”

  Realizing he had no choice, Bishop Jessup shrugged his shoulders. “Go ahead. It can’t be any worse than yesterday.” Hoping for a positive response by either Seven or Brent, the Bishop stopped speaking and again looked at both of them. When neither of them said a word, he shook his head, mumbling, “Great, just great. What are you going to do this time, shoot me out of a cannon?”

  “Hmm, not a bad idea, but let’s keep that for plan B,” Brent said. “We wait until nightfall to strike. It would be suicide to walk into ‘The City of the Dead’ in the light of day. In the meantime, we need to find a cyber-cafe. According to Joan, there should be one just a couple blocks away.

  “We need to get in touch with her so we can let Maddie know what transpired in Israel. The incidents of the past couple of days will put headquarters on a higher state of alert. We also need to find out if there has been any excess violence inside Medinat al-mawta. If there has, then we’re going to have to conduct this like a squad raid.”

  “What’s a squad raid?” Bishop Jessup asked.

  Brent hesitated before answering. He looked at Seven who nodded his go ahead to tell him. “It’s a kill mission. We’ll use the tranquilizer darts and knock-out gas where possible, but there are too many unknowns going in. Hopefully,” Brent said as he stood up from his chair, “Joan is going to be able to narrow down the variables when we reach her.”

  The three men walked out of the diner and into bright afternoon sunlight.

  CHAPTER 18

  Just after five a.m., Joan’s emergency e-mail alarm sounded. The piercing noise jolted her out of a good dream. Rolling over, still half asleep, she hit her alarm clock, mumbling, “I’m going to hurt whoever set this thing for five in the morning.” When the high pitched squeal still wouldn’t stop, her conscious mind began to realize where the sound was coming from.

  Before she could even get out of bed, Scarlet came stumbling into the room, blurry eyed and suffering a severe case of bed-head. Holding the laptop at arm’s length in order to get as far away from the noise as possible she yelled, “Do something before I shoot it.”

  Scarlet became fully awake when Joan jumped out of bed and grabbed it from her hands. She quickly placed it on the bed and started typing.

  “What is it? Is it something important?” Scarlet asked, climbing onto the bed and sitting next to Joan.

  “Do you think I would have programmed something that annoying it if wasn’t?” Joan answered as she kept on typing.

  “Ooo, not a morning person, are you?”

  “This isn’t morning, this is still the middle of the night,” Joan said, “but yeah, it’s something important. It’s Colonel Venturi e-mailing from Cairo. It seems they have run into some early trouble.”

  The word trouble got Scarlet’s adrenaline going, “What kind of trouble?” she asked moving closer to the computer.

  “He was right when he said that time was of the essence before they left. It seems whoever else is after the Ark arrived in Jerusalem before they did. He said the messenger was murdered, but before he was, he gave all of the next contact’s information to the wrong people.”

  Looking up from the computer, Joan stared at Scarlet with fear in her eyes. “They are walking into a trap. We need to get to headquarters as fast as we can. I need to tap into the SIA mainframe. It’s the only program I don’t have on this baby.”

  Fifteen minutes later the girls were in Joan’s car racing through the streets of Palm Cove. “Slow down Lead Foot,” Scarlet exclaimed. “We’ll be of no help if we don’t get there in one piece.”

  Joan peered down at the speedometer and eased her foot off the gas.

  Scarlet watched Joan biting her lower lip. A tic she had when she was nervous.

  “What did the colonel say that has you so freaked out?”

  “Nothing specific,” Joan said as they drove around the back of the abandoned building on First Street. “I just have a hunch.”

  “Hunch, my butt,” Scarlet replied. “I know how you and Brent’s minds work. It’s as if they are synced to the same computer or something. I’ve seen you two finish each other’s thoughts once too many times for this to be just a hunch.”

  “Yeah, maybe so,” Joan muttered as she clicked the remote which caused the back wall of the warehouse to ‘magically’ open up. She drove directly into the back of the building where there was an internal parking garage. Joan cut the engine and ran to the solid steel doors. Placing her right hand on a black glass panel next to the doors, the girls gained access to SIA headquarters using palmer recognition.

  There were no locks, door knobs or light switches inside headquarters. Access to all areas was gained by either palmer recognition or voice activation. It was just one of the many levels of security that made the headquarters so resistant to a hostile break-in.

  Once inside, they continued to use the same method of entrance over and over again until they reached the inner sanctum of the building. The area was only accessible to the SIA directorial staff and members of The Phantom Squad. As soon as Joan was in her office she booted the mainframe.

  Scarlet looked on while Joan’s fingers danced on the keyboard as deft as tap dancer’s feet upon a stage.

  “What are you looking for?” Scarlet asked.

  “Brent wants to know if there has been any unusual activity inside ‘The City of the Dead’ in the past forty-eight hours.”

  “So why are you going to a chat site?”

  “It’s the best place to get up-to-date information. ‘The City of the Dead’ is an extremely volatile area, so much so that even the Egyptian authorities don’t get involved when there is trouble. They just let the inhabitants work it out amongst themselves.”

  “By ‘working it out’, do you mean that they actually kill each other?”

  “Yep,” Joan replied. “It’s the closest thing there is to the old wild west. The only difference is that in the cemetery, there is no sheriff.”

  “I don’t want to seem naive, but again, why the chat site and not an official Egyptian governmental site?”

 
“Some of those who live there keep a blog about the goings on inside the city. It’s more of a warning for outsiders to stay out than it is a place for them to brag,” Joan said.

  Still looking a bit puzzled, Scarlet asked, “Who lives there, and why?”

  “All sorts of people you don’t want to meet, including a lot of terrorists who are on the run from the authorities. Members of Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad just to name a few. They live in the abandoned tombs of those who passed on long ago. And if the tombs aren’t empty, they just move in and nestle alongside the dead.”

  “Alongside?”

  “Yeah,” Joan huffed, “it seems that Islamic extremists don’t mind strapping a bomb to a child in order to kill hundreds of innocent people, but they find removing a corpse from its resting place a sin. Go figure.”

  Scarlet could tell that Joan was getting close to answering Colonel Venturi’s question. She always started fidgeting when she got close to finding what it was she was looking for, and right now, she was twirling a pen like a baton in one hand while the other manned the keyboard.

  Joan stopped all movement and stared at the screen. Finally, she muttered, “This isn’t good.” Looking up from the computer, she said, “I need you to contact Maddie and the rest of the directorate while I get this information to the colonel. Tell them they need to report for an emergency briefing.”

  “What do I tell them it’s about? You know that’s going to be Maddie’s first question,” Scarlet said.

  “Just tell them the team is in danger. The rest they’ll find out when they get here,” Joan said, as her fingers again began to dance over the keyboard.

  After encrypting the message, she sent the vital information to Brent’s e-mail address. Pacing back and forth, Joan waited for the colonel’s reply. The seconds ticked by like hours while she impatiently waited. Ten minutes later, she received her answer.

  “Damn it, Brent, do you always have to complete a mission? Just this once, couldn’t you just quit while you’re ahead and come home?”

  CHAPTER 19

  An hour later, the inner circle of the SIA was seated in the conference room. The atmosphere was so tense that the no one said a word. All eyes turned in unison to the door as they heard the pressure lock disengage. Maddie walked into the room with little or no facial expression and began to speak.

  “As some of you probably already surmised, this meeting was called because we have received news from the Covenant Team.”

  As she spoke, Joan made her way to the back of the room where she connected her laptop into the jack that was embedded into the conference table.

  “Apparently,” Maddie said, “Brent was correct when he told us how important time was concerning the mission. The others, who are hunting for the Ark of the Covenant are a step and a day ahead of them.”

  Nodding toward Joan, a screen deployed from the ceiling in the front of the room. So not to obstruct anyone’s view, Maddie sat down.

  “The man you see behind me is Joachim Cohen, the messenger in Kiryat Yearim, who was supposed to deliver the name and place of the second messenger to the team. Unfortunately, he was brutally murdered the day before they arrived. He was fooled by those who arrived earlier and he gave them the contact information.” Looking back at the screen, Maddie continued, “The woman you see here is his widow, Sarah. Even through her grief, she was able to recollect the place where Joachim had told her the next messenger could be found.

  “That place is Medinat al-mawta. A cemetery found in Cairo, Egypt. Translated, it means ‘The City of the Dead’. It is probably the most corrupt, morally bankrupt place left in the known world. Even the Egyptian authorities won’t venture inside its gates.” Again the picture changed, showing an aerial view of the cemetery. “Medinat al-mawta is home to some of the worst Islamic terrorists in the world.”

  “How come it hasn’t been raided before now?” Malcolm interrupted.

  “Because, Sergeant, it’s also home to many innocent families who have nowhere else to live. The terrorists allow them to live there and in fact, provide for their needs, knowing that the U.S. and other U.N. countries will not bomb or raid it because there would be such a high number of civilian casualties.”

  Joseph cleared his throat. “It was raided once before unsuccessfully.” Everyone’s attention shifted to Joseph. “During an early SIA mission, we tried to covertly gain access to the ‘City’ in order to extract a top ranking Hezbollah official.” Joseph lowered his head momentarily before continuing, “Of the twenty operatives that went in, only three of us made it out. Twelve men were killed instantly while making their way in. The other five were captured and tortured for information. We could hear their screams and cries for help,” his voice cracked, “but could do nothing to help them.”

  Joseph again paused. He closed his eyes and shook his head, as if to shake away the memory. “When the terrorists couldn’t get anything out of them, they beheaded them the next day in broad daylight. It was the worst thing I have ever witnessed. One of the worst days of my life.”

  The air in the room was thick with tension. Everyone stared in disbelief.

  “What made the cemetery so impenetrable?” Fitz asked.

  “The innocent people Maddie spoke of, are not so innocent,” Joseph answered. “They know their livelihood, their very existence, is due to the generosity of the terrorists. The strength of their allegiance was our downfall.”

  In a soft voice, Chloe asked, “How does this all relate to our husbands and Bishop Jessup?”

  Maddie again stood up in front of the room, just off to the side of the screen. “It seems that the false covenant hunters were able to ambush the second messenger who makes his home inside the cemetery gates. They got to him while he was outside the ‘city’ walls. After torturing him for the information, they hung him from a tree just outside the east gate.

  “I know it’s not pretty, but if I can get you to draw your attention to the next picture, you’ll see Abdul Salaam, the messenger seen hanging from the tree. On his chest you’ll see something carved into it. We believe this symbol may lead us to the identity of the terrorists. Joan has already begun to try to trace its origins.”

  Maddie looked away from the screen. She placed her palms on the table and leaned in emphasizing the importance of her next words. “The leaders of Medinat found him this morning and vowed vengeance on anyone connected. Joan was able to pass on these recognizance photos and all other pertinent information to the team. Brent sent an encrypted message back.”

  Maddie stood straight and poured herself a glass of water. Taking a sip, she replaced the glass. “The colonel said they are raiding Medinat al-mawta tonight, in order to try and find out the information the others were able to ascertain. He seems to think that a smaller squad of three will have a better chance of gaining access to the cemetery than a larger one.”

  “What type of mission is it?” Malcolm asked.

  Without emotion, she answered, “It will be conducted as a Squad Raid. A kill mission. The colonel seems to think that they have an ace up their sleeve with the Bishop accompanying them.”

  “What kind of ace?”

  Maddie looked over at Joseph and answered, “That I’m afraid we don’t know. Colonel Venturi gave no specifics. He just told Joan that he would be in touch by way of squad phone between nineteen hundred and twenty-two hundred hours, our time.”

  “Can’t you radio him and order them to stand down?” Chloe asked. “You are his superior. You have the authority.”

  “I already tried, Chloe. They have cut off all communication. I can’t reach any of them. Their satellite phones are dead and we have no other way of contact. All we can do now is hope and pray that Brent knows what he is doing.”

  Chloe stood up and ran out of the room crying, “Sometimes I swear I hate that man,” she said as she left the conference room.
r />   “If it’s alright with you Madame Director, I’d like to go after her,” Joan said.

  Maddie nodded. Joan thanked her and ran out after Chloe.

  The door to Brent’s office was open. Joan found her, exactly where she thought she would be, sitting behind his desk. She knocked on the door frame and asked if she could come in. Not waiting for an answer, Joan made her way towards her friend.

  Chloe looked up with red and puffy eyes. “These damn hormones,” she said. “They’re going to be the death of me. I have absolutely no rationalization. I just react with emotion to everything.”

  She was holding a picture from their wedding. Joan walked behind her and gave her a big hug. “I have something that is going to make you feel better.”

  “Unless you have my husband in your back pocket, I doubt that.”

  Reaching into the back pocket of her jeans, Joan said, “Not in flesh and blood, but in word. During his last communication he sent this to me. He said to make sure to give it to you. He knew you would be scared after the briefing. He said that after you read it, to pass it on to Maddie. It’s encrypted, so I haven’t read it, but if you’d like I can decipher it for you.”

  “Thanks,” Chloe said, wiping a tear from her face, “but that won’t be necessary.” Turning the picture frame over that held their wedding photo, Chloe opened the back and removed the picture. She then removed the glass and turned it one hundred and eighty degrees and flipped it front to back. She then placed the letter size piece of paper inside the frame and closed it up. Turning it back over, the encryption vanished.

  “What the. . . do you mean to tell me that the glass in that frame has qualities built into it that reverse squad encryption,” Joan said.

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No. That husband of yours used to make me decipher the messages manually. I wondered how he was able to do it so much faster than me. Ooo, when he gets back, I will get even. Mark my words, Mrs. Venturi, I will get even.”