“Hello?”
“Creed’s in Egypt,” Ben said. “Toby spotted him.”
“Awwww.”
“He could have gone anywhere, Jordan. We needed the Temple covered. Good job.”
It would have been a better job if he’ d gotten Creed. “Okay.”
“Sebastian’s already booked your charter,” Ben said. “A car will pick you up in fifteen minutes.”
“Can I get some food?”
“Sure. We won’t be here when you get home.”
“I want to go with you.” He almost whined it and mentally kicked himself for doing so.
“We can’t wait for you.”
“Can I go straight to Egypt? Hello?”
Ben had hung up.
X I I I
Elias rages through the streets, following the other men, all of them roaring. Their fury has less to do with their enemy’s ageless enmity than with its being the only way they can get through what they have to do. Each of them is allowing the high emotion of war to swallow him, dulling all other feelings, severing all other thought. Countless men sweep over these perimeter dwellings like wildfire, spreading, growing, consuming. The soldier directly ahead swings toward a wooden door and, without pausing, kicks it open and rushes in.
In the street ahead of him, one of their own—Bale—grabs a woman by the throat and raises his blade. He turns a wicked grin toward Elias and laughs. He enjoys this, Elias thinks, his already sour stomach roiling with new distaste.
Elias runs past as screams rise up behind him. The next door is his. He arcs toward the center of the dirt street, then swoops into the door. His shoulder blasts it open, and he’s in. A man bellows obscenities and charges him, swinging a blade. Elias raises his forearm, and the blade sparks against the metal strapped to it. He decapitates the man with a single swing of his sword. He spins toward the sound of crying. A family cowers in the corner—a woman, two children, eyes huge and streaming. He hikes his sword over his shoulder and rushes toward them. The children first, he thinks, end it for them. His sword slices through the air.
Elias startled awake so violently, his foot struck the table, sending the Bible and lighter into the airplane cabin’s center aisle. A chirp sounded, but it hit his ears without sparking a thought. He hunched over and buried his face in his palms, pressing his fingers into his eyes. The chirp again, and this time he recognized it. He groaned and leaned across the aisle to grab his duffel bag. He shifted it to the table, pulled out the satellite phone, pushed a button. He took a deep breath before raising it to his ear.
Ben was already talking: “—my first call?”
“What?” Elias’s voice was gravelly and slurred by the remnants of sleep. “Say that again.”
“I asked why you didn’t answer my first call.”
“I was asleep.” Sunlight filled the cabin, and he leaned his face toward the window, blinking against the brightness. Clouds stretched out below him like the snowy plains of Antarctica.
“Where are you?” Ben said.
“Hold on.” Elias placed the phone on the table. A burled walnut ledge ran the length of each side wall of the cabin, into which the designers had crafted glass holders, ashtrays, and various controls. He poked a finger into one of the ashtrays, found two inches of a burnt cigarette, and put it into his mouth. He stood, then stooped to retrieve the Bible and lighter. Once he got the cig smoking, he sat again and examined a panel of buttons set into the ledge. He jabbed one, and a large plasma television at the front of the cabin came to life, showing a map and a little airplane icon. He grabbed the phone. “Almost there. We just passed New Delhi.”
“Toby located Creed,” Ben said.
“So, Horeb?”
“He’s at the monastery. Nevaeh, Phin, and I are heading there now.” In the background Elias heard Hannah or whatever she was calling herself these days. Ben said, “We’re taking Alexa. Sebastian will keep making arrangements for us from here.”
Jutting from the duffel, the handle of the falcata caught his eye. It was the same sword Elias had used in the dream. He turned his gaze to the dwindling cig, watched it burn for a moment. “I’ll meet you in Egypt.”
“No, we’ve got it covered.”
“Ben . . .” Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. “What about the Haven? If Creed’s holed up there—”
“We have to do this, Elias. We’ll make amends later.”
No, we won’t, Elias thought. Once they breached the sanctity of a Haven, there was no going back. No place would ever offer any of them sanctuary again.
When he didn’t say anything, Ben said, “Creed brought this on himself. This is the end for somebody, us or him.”
Maybe it should be us this time, Elias thought. Just let it happen. But that went against everything they believed in. Go down fighting: it wasn’t just machismo or stubbornness; it was a mandate that bore eternal consequences.
“You’re the boss,” he said. “Happy hunting.” He disconnected and pushed another button on the console.
“Yes, sir?” the pilot said through a speaker over Elias’s head.
“Turn this bird around. We’re going home.”
[ 32 ]
Jagger worked his tired legs, cursing the loose gravel under his feet. Away from the two paths that led from St. Catherine’s to the peak, Mount Sinai’s rocky, steep incline was grueling in the best of places. The gravel made it a Sisyphean challenge: every step forward resulted in a backward slide that reclaimed at least half his progress. He stopped and squinted up at the outcropping ahead of him, atop of which the teen had surveilled the excavation and St. Cath’s. From the front there was no obvious way to reach the spot without climbing equipment. He assumed the backside offered easier access.
He started up again, heading for a fissure between the target outcropping and another to its left. When he reached it, he took a minute to catch his breath, then stepped through the fissure and onto a flat area. In special ops fashion, his mind instantly analyzed it: the ground here was hard, granite with a dusting of sand—not enough to capture footprints. It was protected partly by mountain cliffs and partly by the large, jutting outcroppings. These cliff walls were pocked and serrated, as though God had raked his fingers down them.
Even grassless, the area would have made a decent picnic area; at least he knew Beth would think so. He pictured Tyler falling off one of the rocks and not stopping until he tumbled into the excavation site 1,500 feet below, and decided he wouldn’t tell her about it.
Back to operative mode. He stood in the clearing’s seven o’clock position; at eleven o’clock another fissure or opening—apparently leading uphill, judging by the ground’s steep incline there and the scree that spilled out into the clearing—and at two o’clock a third way out, leading to the right. At five o’clock, almost directly to his right, was the waist-high mouth of a cave. It couldn’t have been deep, given that it penetrated the outcropping on which the teen had stood, which was no more than ten feet thick at its base.
Still, it was a hiding place, and a good one at that: shaded, out of the way, near the boy’s stakeout location. Jagger pulled the baton from its scabbard and flicked his wrist to snap it into its full twenty-six inches. It was simply a precaution; he didn’t expect any real danger. Jagger would be fierce and demanding and he’d let the intruder know he was serious about protecting the excavation and monastery. Maybe it would be enough to dissuade whatever plans the boy or his cohorts had in mind. In law enforcement and security, the appearance of readiness and efficiency was as important as being ready and efficient.
“Hello?” he called. “I just want to talk.” He repeated the phrase in Arabic, which Hanif had told him. Jagger arced out into the clearing, eyeing the cave for a glimpse of a body part. When he was looking straight into it, he realized shadows cloaked its deepest reaches. He moved out of its line of sight—or, more accurately, a shooter’s line of fire—and approached from the side. He pressed himself against the cliff beside the cave’s mouth, to
ok a deep breath, and moved fast: he spun into the cave, dropping onto his knees to accommodate its low ceiling, and scampered toward the rear with the baton thrust out like a lance. First the baton, then his arm disappeared into blackness. The tip of the baton struck the rear wall.
Nothing. No one.
He realized that the rock at his knees was in fact a rolled sleeping bag, and he caught the glint of two eyes in the darkness, their moisture reflecting the light behind Jagger.
“Hello?” he whispered.
He shifted to sit back on his heels. As he pulled back on the baton, something seized it. A hand, gripping the baton, slipped out of the shadow and into the light.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Jagger said. “I—”
He froze. The boy’s face leaned into the light. He was a young teen. Fourteen? And he didn’t appear frightened. A pistol came into view. Its large muzzle stared at him.
“Don’t move,” the teen said.
Jagger let go of the baton and rammed his forearm into the boy’s wrist under the gun’s grip. At the same time, RoboHand grabbed the barrel and twisted it up and around, counter to the direction Jagger was forcing the teen’s wrist. It was a standard disarming technique, which—fortunately because of the confines of the cave—didn’t require feet and body movement. He wrenched the gun out of the boy’s hand. Jagger switched the pistol into his right hand and pointed it into the darkness.
Less than three seconds after first seeing the gun, Jagger possessed it. Under normal circumstances, in the open, Jagger would have quickly stepped back, out of the assailant’s reach. It was a luxury he didn’t have here, and the boy immediately took advantage of that.
The teen swung his forearm into Jagger’s wrist, grabbed the barrel, and took the firearm back. It wasn’t a matter of mimicking Jagger’s tactic; the kid’s movements were fast and sure. He had been taught and had practiced the maneuver.
Jagger acted before the teen could either fire, pull the gun away, or position himself more strategically. In a flash, he repeated the steps: slap and push the wrist . . . grab and twist the barrel. This time, when he had possession he swung his arm back and pitched the gun out of the cave, into the clearing. It had taken maybe eight seconds for them to exchange the weapon three times. He didn’t want to make it four.
With his right arm crossing his chest and dropping away from the teen’s wrist and RoboHand returning from its mission to rid the cave of the gun, Jagger was in no position to protect himself. So when the baton came off the ground and flashed toward his head, all he could do in that nanosecond of recognition was flinch. The hard molded-plastic grip struck his right temple, and he pitched left, slamming the other side of his head into the cave wall. He went down as the shadows engulfed him.
He was vaguely aware of the boy pummeling his body, kicking and punching it, but he couldn’t keep an eyelid open, let alone fend off the attack. Light cut into the shadows in dancing, jittering flashes, and Jagger realized that the boy had scrambled over him. Jagger rolled to see him scurry from the cave on all fours.
“Wait,” Jagger called, but the word came out on the weak breath of a whisper.
The boy grabbed the gun, and his black-khakied legs sprinted away.
[ 33 ]
Jagger remained in the cave until the exploding balls of green and purple light diminished from his vision. He rubbed his temple where the baton had made contact, feeling a big goose egg there. His brain pounded, and he laid his palm over his right eye, waiting for the drummer in his head to take a break. He found the baton, tossed it out of the cave, and backed out on all fours, dragging with him the sleeping bag and a backpack he’d found under it.
He wasn’t worried about the intruder coming back to hurt him. If that were his intention, he would have shot Jagger from the safety of the clearing while Jagger was incapacitated in the cave. He suspected the boy might have used the gun when they were playing hot potato with it, but he’d been cornered; the kid merely wanted his freedom and nothing to do with Jagger. Fair enough.
But everything about this boy bothered him: his brash helicopter entrance, his gun, his knowledge of hand-to-hand combat, his surveiling St. Cath’s at the precise moment the monks mysteriously took in a wounded stranger. It all pointed to trouble at the monastery, and there was nothing he could do but wait for it to play itself out and hope no one got hurt.
Crouching in front of the cave, he opened the backpack and rummaged through it. Clothes, energy bars, beef jerky, a small first-aid kit, a candle and lighter, a flashlight and spare batteries. He removed a tattered X-Men comic book and thumbed it open: Dobbiamo ottenerli da qui prima che Logan trovi che fuori è ancora viva. Looked Italian, but he wasn’t sure. The boy had spoken English—only two words, but Jagger hadn’t detected an accent.
He unrolled the sleeping bag and patted it down. If the boy had identification or a phone, it must be in those multipocketed pants. He pushed the unrolled bag and the backpack into the back of the cave—no sense denying the kid his food or a warm place to sleep. As he backed out, something in the sand glinted. He picked it up, exited the cave, and sat back on his heels to examine the object. It was a medallion or coin stamped with a human skull. Clutched between its teeth was a banner bearing an engraved word, almost worn away, nicked in spots. He thought the word could have been Choroutte. It appeared to be old, but what did Jagger know? Probably something an Egyptian fast-food chain handed out with its kid meals. He slipped it into his shirt pocket.
When he stood, the pounding in his head turned into something fast and loud: Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones. He closed his eyes, and after a few deep breaths felt a little better. He retrieved the baton, collapsed it, and returned it to the scabbard. He walked a dozen yards along each of the other paths leading away from the clearing and didn’t spot any sign of the boy, or anything else interesting. He returned to the camel—mostly sliding over the scree on his butt—and headed back to the monastery, all the way wondering if the boy was just a boy or an omen of more bad times ahead.
X I I I
Toby pulled the sleeping bag out of the cave and shook it, watching for anything that fell out of its folds. He got the backpack and dumped the contents on the clearing’s stone ground. He brushed his fingers over the objects, spreading them out. He crawled into the cave and sifted through the sand. The obol was gone. He’d kept it in his pants pocket with the Glock. When he’d drawn the gun, it must have fallen out, and the security guard must have taken it.
Should have killed him, he thought, sitting in the cave, feeling as gloomy as his surroundings. He’d had the obol for years and really liked it; it was both a lucky charm and sentimental memento. Nevaeh had tried all sorts of ways to get it from him, to add to her collection of death memorabilia, but he’d always resisted her wagers and appealed to Ben when she tried to claim the obol as his punishment for some misdeed or another.
The satphone in his pocket vibrated. “Yeah?” he said into it.
“No trouble with the man?” It was Ben.
“No.”
“He’s alive?”
“You said not to kill him, didn’t you?”
“Since when have you listened to me?”
“Since forever,” Toby said. “When are you getting here?”
“We’re en route. We’ll meet you at Deir Rahab. You know it?”
“Yeah.” Toby pulled a map and compass out of a pocket. Deir Rahab was an oasis—probably with a single farm—where the mountain met the plains about two miles north of his position.
“Sebastian’s arranged for someone to drop off a Jeep and supplies,” Ben said. “Can you be there by eight?”
“Tonight? I can crawl there by then.”
“As long as you’re there. We’ll arrive an hour or two later.”
After they disconnected, Toby wondered if Nev and Ben would let him participate in the night’s activities, and if he’d have a chance to get the obol back. He didn’t get a good look at the man who’d t
aken it—he was just a dark shape silhouetted by the light coming through the mouth of the cave—but how many security guards could St. Catherine’s have?
Guess they’d find out soon enough.
[ 34 ]
Three iron-clad doors—layered against each other like sliced bread—blocked the monastery’s main entrance. Inside the compound, Jagger pounded his fist on the one facing him. Solid as the stone walls around it. A single lamp bathed the courtyard in an amber glow. He turned in a circle, noting the few still-lighted windows scattered among the buildings. Most of the monastery’s twenty monks had gone to bed, and tonight only five other people called the place home: Jagger, Beth, and Tyler; Ollie, whose habit was to read in bed until about ten; and the stranger.
The 13th Tribe Page 14
