Hot tears stung Lucy’s eyes.
“Leave her alone,” she hissed.
“Then tell me what I need to know.”
Lucy squeezed her eyes shut, struggling against the tide of despair that washed over her.
“It’s not just about blood groups,” she uttered. “The species you’ve cloned has evolved on a different planet. It isn’t a Nephilim, it’s an alien species and its tissue cannot be grafted onto any species on Earth. There is no way to do it without killing the patient!”
Sheviz slowly shook his head, tutting as he slipped the needle into her arm.
“One more time, Lucy. I want you to imagine this needle slipping into your mother’s body. Now, tell me how to overcome the cellular rejection.”
Lucy swallowed, blinking away tears and with them her resolve.
“You need to induce donor nonresponsiveness using hematopoietic chimerism,” she whispered harshly. “That’s how real scientists have cloned donor cells in the past.”
“Go on,” Sheviz said.
“Introduce the donor stem cells into the bone marrow of the recipient, where they will coexist with the recipient’s stem cells. Bone marrow stem cells give rise to cells of all hematopoietic lineages.”
Sheviz gasped, slapping his forehead with his spare hand.
“Of course,” he uttered. “Through the process of hematopoiesis. We were using leukodepletion of the blood to remove the recipient’s white blood cells to reduce alloimmunization, but it wasn’t enough to prevent immunoshock.”
“Lymphoid progenitor cells are created,” Lucy continued in a whisper of self-loathing, “and move to the thymus where negative selection eliminates the reactive killer T cells. The existence of the donor stem cells in the bone marrow causes donor reactive T cells to be considered native to the body and undergo apoptosis, or programmed cell death. There is no further rejection of the new genetic material.”
Damon Sheviz smiled down at Lucy as she looked away in disgust.
“Congratulations, my dear,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ve solved the mystery of why one of my patients in Washington DC survived: his lineage came from Ethiopia, and there are some tribes living there who originated in the Levant. He was already carrying native T cells, and they protected him long enough for the genetic material we inserted to begin taking effect. Now the next subject will not die from the procedure, but shall be our crowning glory.”
A sudden crackling noise erupted from beyond the darkness of the room, like hailstones hammering on a tin roof. It was a moment before Lucy realized that it was the sound of gunfire coming from outside.
Sheviz withdrew the needle from her arm, and Lucy realized that perhaps someone had finally found her.
WADI AL-JOZ
WEST BANK, PALESTINE
Keep low and stay behind me,” Ethan said to Griffiths.
The fossil hunter grunted in reply as they hugged the side of a low wall. Aaron Luckov, the sawed-off shotgun cradled in his grasp, led the way.
Even as they were coming within firing distance of the two MACE guards, Ethan saw one of them press his finger to his ear and frown in concentration as he listened to a message presumably coming through an earpiece he was wearing. Ahead, Aaron Luckov moved out to the right as Ethan saw the two guards suddenly reach for their weapons.
“They’ve made us!” Luckov hissed.
Ethan saw the guards turn to face them, both handling machine pistols with military efficiency as a burst of semiautomatic fire shattered the hot morning air. Ethan flinched and ducked aside as from the corner of his eye he saw a parked vehicle’s windshield smashed into a web of cracked glass.
“Aaron, covering fire!”
Luckov popped up from behind the parked car and unloaded two rounds in the general direction of the MACE troops, who leaped desperately down into cover as a hail of buckshot hammered the warehouse doors.
Ethan lunged forward, reaching a low wall no more than twenty feet from the warehouse before he took aim and fired off four rounds at the brickwork behind which the guards had disappeared. Bullets whipped past in response, zipping and twanging as they ricocheted off the car beside him.
“Keep them down!” Ethan shouted to Aaron.
The Israeli popped up again, letting both barrels fly this time before rushing forward and ducking into a narrow alley almost opposite the warehouse. Firing by sections, Ethan and Aaron edged closer to the two men, flanking and pinning them down.
Aaron fired again, causing both guards to remain out of sight. Ethan was about to fire and advance when the doors to the warehouse suddenly burst open and four suited figures rushed out into the sunlight, firing as they moved. Ethan cursed, ducking back down as bullets shattered masonry all around him.
“Balls.”
Griffiths shot Ethan a dirty look.
“Cover Aaron!” Ethan shouted. “Try pulling the trigger!”
Griffiths angrily let fly a half-dozen rounds in the general direction of the warehouse as they began falling back.
“We’re outnumbered.”
Ethan cursed, retreating alongside Griffiths and firing as he went. Aaron Luckov was coming back toward them between bursts of automatic fire when the MACE vehicle appeared behind them, tires screeching as it pulled into the street.
“Enemy rear!”
Luckov’s warning was audible even above the clattering automatic fire.
Ethan whirled, firing off three rounds at the vehicle as it skidded to a halt and a half-dozen MACE troops dispersed from within and took up firing positions on either side of the street.
“We’re surrounded!” Griffiths shouted, his voice high in alarm.
“Stay low!” Ethan countered, shouting out across the street to Luckov. “Where does that alley go?”
Luckov fired a single shot that burst one of the front tires of the MACE vehicle before shaking his head at Ethan. Clearly, there was no escape to be had down the alleyway.
“Glad you thought this through!” Griffiths shouted.
Another hail of raking fire swept the street, and then suddenly everything fell silent. Ethan, crouched with Griffiths behind the crumbling bricks of a low wall, heard a voice call out.
“You’re outgunned and outnumbered. Step into sight with your hands where we can see them!”
Ethan looked across the street at Luckov, who held his gaze for a moment and then nodded slowly.
“They’ll kill us if we give ourselves up now,” Griffiths hissed.
“They’ll kill us if we don’t.”
Slowly, with one hand holding his pistol high for the MACE troops to see, Ethan stood up from the wall in plain view. One of the MACE guards shouted out again.
“And the other one, the bastard with the shotgun!”
Reluctantly, Luckov stepped out, his shotgun held above his head. As Ethan stepped out into the street, Griffiths stood and followed him until the three of them were standing in a row.
“Drop your weapons, slowly!”
The MACE guards came out into view, machine pistols pointed at the three men standing before them. Ethan recognized Cooper and Flint, the MACE guards he’d incapacitated the previous day, as he laid his pistol down, Luckov and Griffiths doing the same on either side of him.
“Now stand back three paces!”
Ethan and his companions did as they were ordered, acutely aware of the four MACE guards now standing behind them, having moved out of cover from the warehouse.
Agent Cooper walked forward, and a brittle smile cracked his jaw as he reached up and keyed his earpiece microphone.
“We’ve got them. What do you want us to do?”
There was a short pause, and then Cooper’s smile grew broader. He nodded, and then raised his machine pistol once again and pointed it at Ethan. His next order went out to the men standing behind Ethan.
“You four, get back into that warehouse and kill the surgeon and everyone else in there.”
Ethan felt a sudden chill as the MACE soldiers dash
ed back toward the warehouse. He watched as Cooper and Flint raised their weapons to point directly at him, hungry for revenge.
Ethan inhaled once and closed his eyes.
A second passed.
Then another. Ethan felt himself drift into a weary oblivion, asleep on his feet.
“Hands in the air, nobody move!”
Ethan flinched and his eyes jolted open as the bellowed voice echoed loudly off the walls around him, and saw Cooper and Flint standing with their hands and weapons in the air, staring wide-eyed past Ethan. Ethan turned to see dozens of IDF troops tumbling down the street toward them, weapons trained on the MACE soldiers. Farther back, a huge troop transporter thundered into view.
The four soldiers running back to the warehouse dashed for the door and opened fire in unison at the massed Israeli soldiers. Ethan, Griffiths, and Luckov instinctively dove to the ground as the Israeli troops opened fire. Ethan watched as Cooper, Flint, and their companions flailed and jerked as bullets tore into their bodies, hurling them onto the road.
Ethan grabbed his pistol, rolling over and firing at the retreating MACE troops as they vanished into the warehouse. He sat up and shouted at the advancing Israeli soldiers.
“There are civilians inside the warehouse!”
The troops veered off en masse and plunged into the building in pursuit. To his surprise and horror, Ethan saw Rachel sprinting behind them as he struggled to his feet and rushed in after her.
“Rachel, get down!”
The bright sunlight vanished as Ethan plunged into the darkened warehouse.
Flashes of gunfire illuminated the shadows as though Ethan was trapped in a Hadean catacomb filled with warring demons. Figures ran with juddering strides in the muzzle flashes, weapons spitting flames and crashing like thunder around them.
Ethan glimpsed an IDF trooper toss something small between partitions of thin wood being shredded by the passage of supersonic bullets. He covered his eyes and saw a brief but brilliant flash of light that glowed red across his retinas, accompanied by a crack like a firework. He opened his eyes again and saw the IDF soldiers lunging between the partition walls, the flash-bang grenade having stunned the MACE troops. A single round burst through the splintered wooden partition and caught an IDF soldier clean in the center of his chest, hurling him backward into his companions.
The rest of the troops plowed onward. Ethan heard a scream of agony as a hail of bullets thudded into a MACE soldier’s body, his arms flailing like a grotesque puppet as he was hurled sideways into discarded pallets to lie with his limbs contorted at impossible angles. Ethan looked desperately about for Rachel, unable to pick her out in the confusion.
Suddenly, like the last rumble of a passing storm, the firing stopped. Ethan’s ears hummed in the silence as a high-pitched whistling echoed through his skull.
He looked ahead toward where a narrow doorway separated another partition wall, light that glowed from beyond spilling through the warehouse in a shaft filled with whorls of smoke and dust. Then a woman’s voice called out.
“Lucy?”
Ethan rushed through the darkness and dropped down behind Rachel, keeping a grip on her body armor as a determined-looking officer hurried to their side.
“All contacts down except one male in that room,” he whispered into his microphone before looking at Ethan. “Ethan Warner?”
Ethan nodded once.
“Lieutenant Jerah Ash,” the officer said by way of an introduction. “Thanks for starting World War III out here.”
A sudden cascade of bullets clattered all around the partition walls, leaving holes through which light beamed into the darkness surrounding them.
“Stay out of here!” a frail-sounding voice shouted out.
“Kill him!” screamed another, female voice.
“That’s Lucy!” Rachel cried out. “Don’t shoot!”
From the corner of his eye Ethan saw one of the IDF troopers train his weapon through the open doorway and take aim. A single round shattered the silence as it passed through his skull, flicking his head at right angles to his shoulders and snapping the spinal column like a twig.
“Stay the hell out of here! Get out of my laboratory!”
Rachel tugged at Ethan’s hand. “Let me go.”
“He’ll shoot you too,” Ethan hissed.
Lieutenant Ash called out toward Sheviz.
“You’re surrounded, it’s over. Come out with your hands up and we can talk about this.”
“You’re here to kill us both,” Sheviz hissed. “Do you take me for a fool?”
Rachel looked at Lieutenant Ash. “Let me go, he’ll know who I am.”
The lieutenant glanced at the doorway and reluctantly nodded.
Ethan let go of Rachel’s body armor as she stood and walked into the light, her arms outstretched. As she moved, Ethan edged along beside her, careful to keep out of the surgeon’s field of vision.
“Mr. Sheviz, my name is Rachel Morgan. I’m Lucy’s mother, and these men are not here to kill you. Please, we need to talk.”
“Mom?” A frantic and disbelieving voice called.
A long silence ensued. Ethan listened intently as Damon Sheviz replied from somewhere within the room beyond.
“I want immunity,” he demanded. “I want a written letter signed by the prime minister.”
“You’re in no position to make demands!” Lieutenant Ash snapped.
“You’re in no position to give me orders!”
Rachel stood in front of the doorway, her arms outstretched.
“At least take me instead,” she called to Sheviz. “Whatever you’re doing will work just as well on me as it would on Lucy. Just let my daughter go!”
Ethan shifted position, raising his pistol as he heard Lucy shouting.
“Like hell! Shoot this bastard!”
Ethan, his hands trembling with fatigue, took a chance.
“You can’t win, Sheviz, it’s over,” he shouted. “If you don’t surrender now, you’ll die here.”
“Who is that?” Sheviz shouted back. “Who do you think you are to—”
Ethan fired three shots straight at the sound of the voice through the chipboard wall in front of him as Rachel dropped to her knees and covered her ears. He heard a sudden burst of automatic fire and a female scream coming from within the room as Lieutenant Ash thundered past with his troops, and he realized that he had missed.
A bright flash of light burst from the room as the IDF troopers tossed in a flash-bang to blind Sheviz. Ethan, his arms trembling, shifted position and peered through the doorway.
A man in a white coat lay beneath the writhing bodies of two IDF troopers, one of whom had wrestled a pistol from the man’s hands. Ethan glanced up as Lieutenant Ash reappeared in the doorway.
“God knows how but Sheviz is down and Lucy’s okay,” he said quickly.
Ethan felt a flood of relief as he lowered his pistol. Damon Sheviz glared at him with a fanatical expression, thick blood staining his shoulder.
“This is God’s work!” he spat in fury.
“We need him to tell us everything he knows and then get back to Jerusalem,” Ethan said.
Sheviz shook his head, his teeth gritted against the pain of his wound.
“I’ll die before I’ll tell you anything.”
Ethan watched as Lucy Morgan was carefully lifted from the gurney by two soldiers who set her onto unsteady legs in time for Rachel to fold her arms around her daughter. From somewhere deep within, Ethan felt a warmth radiate from the abscess of pain he harbored, and his shoulders sagged with relief as his eyes closed.
A hand clapped him on the shoulder, jolting him alert.
“I never thought I’d say this, but good work,” Lieutenant Ash said. “That was a hell of a shot.”
Rachel looked at him as she held her daughter and smiled as tears flowed like rivers from her eyes. Ethan could see that the spark of life had returned within them, glowing brightly once more.
He turn
ed his attention to Sheviz.
“This man,” he said to Jerah Ash. “What do we do with him?”
Lieutenant Ash considered the surgeon before them.
“I want to know everything,” he said. “Now.”
“Go to hell,” Sheviz shot back.
The lieutenant took a pace toward him and slammed his hand around the surgeon’s neck, lifting him off the floor.
“Now.”
Sheviz choked for a moment until the soldier released him. Coughing, Sheviz shook his head.
“My allegiance is to God,” he rasped. “Anything you do I’ll report to the Court of Human Rights.”
“Like your victims could?” Ethan snapped. “What is MACE’s connection to all of this?”
Sheviz remained silent. Ethan turned to Lieutenant Ash.
“You’re answerable to the Court of Human Rights, as a soldier,” Ethan said. “But I was never here.”
Ash thought for a moment, and then looked at his fellow soldiers.
“Didn’t see a thing,” one of them said.
Sheviz looked at the troops, and his defiance crumbled into panic.
“You’ll never get away with it!” he stammered.
The soldiers silently filtered out of the laboratory, leaving Sheviz, Lucy Morgan, Ethan, and Rachel. Lieutenant Ash remained, glancing at a pile of videotapes stacked on a counter nearby.
“What are those?” he demanded.
“We taped the procedures,” Sheviz said.
“Did you tape what you did to Ahmed Khan?” Ethan asked.
The surgeon’s eyes widened briefly.
Ethan moved to stand in front of him, reaching down beside him and picking up a scalpel that lay on a bench. He examined the cruel little blade as he spoke.
“If you fail to tell us everything, then I’ll make damned sure you lose your life. But I won’t have you killed, Sheviz. I won’t let them put you on trial or go through any legal process. I have a friend—Ayeem Khan—a Bedouin man who lives out in the deserts near Bar Yehuda. His son disappeared at the same time as Lucy, and from the same place. His name was Ahmed. You remember him, don’t you, Damon?”
Sheviz’s eyelid twitched. “I remember him.”
Covenant Page 31
