A feeling of warmth spread from the core of his body outward to his fingers and toes. The memories of those he’d lost in his life—his father, Natalie, Elijah, Chris—wove through this warmth like threads through a tapestry. Their deaths had brought him pain, but now he saw that these people were each part of a timeless reality, a reality still present. Their lives, while finite, were part of the Source he now saw so clearly. The essence that was each of his friends was still connected with the energy that made him who he was. The ripples in the river would die out, but the river remained.
For the first time in his life, he felt true peace.
“Hello.” The voice seemed to come from inside his head.
“Is anyone there?”
There it is again, he thought.
He struggled to focus on the words, but his body longed to remain in its state of connectedness with being.
“Ethan, is that you?”
His eyes fluttered open. His vision flickered off, as if the plug had been pulled. The sunlight that replaced it was almost painful. He was still in the boat. His surroundings appeared normal. The river was just a river. He blinked again, feeling like he’d just woken from a long nap: sleepy yet relaxed.
Then he recognized the disembodied voice calling to him. “Professor Houston?”
“Where are you, Son?”
He pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it. The haze in his mind cleared instantly. He’d just had a mystical vision, similar in nature to the one he’d experienced as a teenager, only this time the vision had been deeper, more vivid.
Did I just have a seizure?
Then he noticed that the phone in his hand was vibrating.
Is it possible?
“Ethan?” Houston called.
He stared at the phone a second longer. Then he tossed it into the river.
“We got him!” Dawkins bent closer to his screen.
“Where?” Wolfe put the receiver to the scrambled satellite phone down on his desk. He was starting to dial Langley to report that he had nothing to report.
“On the Nile. Over a hundred clicks north of here.”
“Can you pinpoint him?”
“The protocol worked?” Axe asked. Wolfe’s idea was pure genius, he thought. Who else but Wolfe would have thought of inserting a tiny solenoid into a phone? The magnetic field wasn’t very strong—nothing like the actual Logos machine—but for someone who had already been conditioned in the cathedra, even a weak field might induce a feeling of being present with God. The Logos-phone was a way of keeping the subjects they sent out into the world in tune. They planned on giving each of the brothers a cell phone so their priests could keep in touch once a week. They would say a quiet prayer together over the phone while the Logos protocol was sent remotely to the handset. They’d already configured a dozen Logos-phones; they’d been planning on testing them that week on a few of the men.
Although the professor hadn’t used his machine on himself—as far as they knew—they’d hoped that the phone would at least disorient him a bit so that they could track him. Earlier that morning the phone had powered on for just a few seconds; this time it stayed on for over a minute.
“Damn! We lost the signal.”
“Was it long enough?” Wolfe asked.
“He’s either on one of the roads bordering the river or on a boat. And he’s heading north.
Luxor, Axe thought. He stood from the sofa. The drugs were finally out of his system. He would clean up his mess, just as he’d done with Chris Sligh. “Dawkins, inform the team in the Suburbans.” He’d already scrambled the men based on his earlier hunch. “Then join me in the Black Hawk.”
Wolfe turned to him. “We have one chance at this, James.”
Axe met his boss’s stare. The look of reproach fed the darkness within him.
CHAPTER 58
LUXOR, EGYPT
Ethan rubbed his neck. He was sore from the night on the boat’s hard wooden bench, his second night in a row of little sleep. He hadn’t been this tired since his residency. The Nubians had given him a mildew-infused blanket to ward off the cold, but he’d popped up his head to survey their surroundings at every unfamiliar noise.
A helicopter had passed overhead three times. He’d been careful to neither look up into the sky nor stare at the banks, where Wolfe’s men might be scanning the river with binoculars. He kept the scarf covering his face while he pretended to work on the fishing nets with the Nubians. The principle thought that ran through his head, however, was not the danger of being caught on the river, but rather, How did they do it?
Somehow Wolfe had managed to miniaturize the Logos technology and conceal it in the cell phone. That was the only explanation for what had happened. Ethan’s instinct to throw the phone away was probably the right one, but now he wished he’d just powered it off so that he could dismantle it.
He guessed that Wolfe had installed a small solenoid in the top of the phone and then triggered the Logos protocol remotely. But how much of a magnetic field could be produced by such a small coil? As impressed as Ethan was with the engineering feat, he was also curious about his response. He’d had a powerful dissociative experience, one even more powerful than his epileptic vision as a child. Had his earlier experience preconditioned him to react to the Logos protocol more readily, even at a weaker level?
Then another realization occurred to him: I had a mystical vision but not a seizure. Although he hadn’t thought that his protocol would cause a seizure because of the way he’d targeted the magnetic pulses on the temporal lobes, his past history of epilepsy would have excluded him from his and Elijah’s tests. After his failure to account for left-handed subjects in his programming, he had to admit a certain satisfaction at having gotten part of the protocol right.
What spoke to him most about the experience, however, was the reality of it. He knew that schizophrenics were often unable to distinguish their hallucinations from concrete reality, but something felt different about what he’d just seen. It wasn’t the visual nature of his vision that struck him as real as much as his own intuition of the revelation. He felt in his core that he’d glimpsed an essence of reality that had always been there. But what do I do with this knowledge? As profound as the insight seemed, the more time that passed, the more difficult it was to remember the feeling of unity and connectedness the experience had inspired.
“Luxor!” One of the two Nubians pointed ahead and to the right, pulling Ethan out of his head.
He followed the man’s finger. He could ponder the nature of existence at a time when his and Rachel’s lives were not in danger. At the horizon, he saw, the landscape began to transform. The fields of crops transitioned into a city. He could just discern sand-colored concrete buildings and the tall minarets of mosques. As they sailed closer, he marveled at how tropical the famous city was: palm trees lined the streets and flowering plants of magenta grew everywhere.
In contrast to the city of Luxor, which was on the east bank of the Nile, the left bank was verdant cropland that became desert rising to mountains that were as barren as anything Ethan had seen. He imagined that the red, rough terrain was what the surface of Mars must look like. Although the air was dry, a haze hung over the mountains. Maybe dust? Then he noticed the traffic jam on the river. At least eight ferry-sized tourist boats were tied up at docks on the Luxor side of the river. Many spewed black exhaust.
As the Nubians readied their lines, he picked up the bag that contained his Western wear. He was grateful for the galabeya the Bedouins had given him—the disguise had worked. But in a few minutes he would be stepping off into the middle of one of the largest tourist sites in the country. He began to change back into his own clothes. Looking like a tourist would be the best way to blend in.
Ten minutes later, they drifted toward a low dock just behind the tourist ships. Ethan slung his bag over his shoulder and shook hands with the Nubians. When they both continued to stare at him, he reached into his pocket and pulled out anoth
er twenty-dollar bill. Grins spread across their faces. They nodded and helped him off the boat. From the dock, he climbed stone stairs set into the concrete retaining wall that led to street level. As soon as he reached the sidewalk along the top of the wall, his heart rate accelerated.
Staring at him from no more than fifteen feet away were three Egyptian military officers. Dressed in black wool pants and button coats with black berets on their heads, each carried a Kalashnikov rifle with a collapsible stock. In addition to the curved ammunition magazine stuck in each rifle, they all had a second magazine taped with duct tape to the first, but upside down. Ethan had seen this in movies before. In the event of a firefight, all one had to do when the first clip ran out was to eject it and flip it around to start shooting again. These men were ready for a serious battle. He looked away, trying to appear casual despite the tightness in his chest.
One of the guards moved a hand to the butt of his rifle and strode toward him. He managed a smile he hoped wouldn’t look forced. The guard stopped inches from him, eyeing him up and down. His eyes lingered on his hand-woven bag.
“Hello,” Ethan managed.
“Why are you nervous?”
Do I look nervous?
“Not nervous at all. Just hot.” He tugged at the collar of his oxford shirt. “Took a sail on a felucca.” He pointed to the Nubians, who had already cast off. “But now I’m late to meet my group.” He nodded toward the sea of people streaming from a line of waiting tour buses along the street. The words spilled out of his mouth faster than he wanted.
“British?”
“Me, uh, yeah.”
As soon as he went along with the mistaken nationality, he wondered whether the Egyptians could distinguish an American from a British accent. If Wolfe had alerted the local authorities to keep an eye out for any Americans, appearing British might help him go undetected.
“You like Beatles?”
“The Beatles?” His father was an obsessive fan. He smiled. “Abbey Road—a classic.”
The guard shook his head. “Sergeant Pepper is best.” He laughed and turned back to the other officers.
Ethan tried to be subtle as he wiped his palms on his khakis. He didn’t breathe again until he’d crossed the street and entered the maze of sidewalk stalls selling souvenirs. Tourists, mostly European, milled about the tables. The universal cry of “Good price, Mister!” rang out from the merchants selling tour books, postcards, T-shirts, and hats.
When a short man in a white galabeya stepped in front of him with a fistful of baseball caps, Ethan started to sidestep him but then paused. He selected a tan hat with the word “Luxor” stitched in gold across the front.
“How much?”
“Dollars or pounds?”
“US dollars.”
“Five.”
Not bothering to bargain, he produced a five and handed it to the man. He pulled the cap low across his forehead. Just as he started down the sidewalk, he spotted the man. He was perusing tour books about fifty feet to Ethan’s right. He picked one up and flipped through it, then returned it and did the same with another. He never looked at Ethan, but his presence squeezed the air out of his lungs. He’d never seen the man before, but the creased black pants, the pressed white shirt, the sunglasses that hid his eyes, and the close-cropped haircut told him all he needed to know.
Ethan turned and walked in the opposite direction. After a few steps he stopped at a T-shirt vendor’s stall and pretended to study the selection. He never even heard the sales pitch from the woman with a colorful scarf around her head; his entire attention was focused on his peripheral vision. The man hadn’t moved.
He dropped the T-shirt he’d been pretending to admire and kept walking. He kept his pace brisk, but not so fast that he looked as if he was trying to avoid someone.
Maybe I’m just being paranoid, he thought.
“Hurry up, Durward,” called a mid-sixties woman in a loud British accent. “The bus is leaving.”
“They won’t leave for Karnak without us, Dear,” replied the man a step ahead of him. He wore a safari hat over pink skin and white hair.
When the two stopped at the next intersection, Ethan glanced across the street. Tourists were loading onto a bus. He had an idea. He vaguely recalled from his undergraduate days that the temple of Karnak was the largest archeological site in Egypt after the pyramids of Giza. He crossed the street with the British couple, resisting the temptation to look behind him to see if the man with the crew cut was following. A mid-thirties woman with her hair pulled into a bun on top of her head, a Burberry umbrella in one hand, and a clipboard in the other counted off the group as they boarded.
“Excuse me,” he said to the guide after the English couple stepped on, “I’m John Stevens”—the fictitious name was the first that came to his mind—“and my tour group left without me. You wouldn’t be heading to Karnak, would you?”
The woman looked him up and down; her eyes seemed to linger on his shoulders. “You Yanks have a history of independence, don’t you? Always wandering off on your own as if everyone will wait around for you.” Then she broke into a grin.
He shrugged and returned the smile. “I feel really stupid. If you have any room on your bus—”
“We have two extra seats. Take the one in the front row”—her eyes dropped down his torso again—“next to me.” She reached out and touched his elbow. “I’m Robin.”
He stepped onto the bus. “Thanks, Robin.” As he ducked his head in the doorway, he caught a glimpse of the other side of the street. Standing on the sidewalk was the man, watching him.
CHAPTER 59
STEIGENBERGER NILE PALACE HOTEL
LUXOR, EGYPT
Rachel snatched the ringing phone from the bedside table.
“Hello.”
“Rachel?”
“Ethan, is that you?”
She collapsed on the hotel bed at the sound of his voice. He and Chris should have been there yesterday. She’d been terrified that Axe had killed them. The last image she and Mousa had seen as they disappeared over the dune was Ethan hunkered behind the other SUV while sparks of gunfire exploded around him.
“Thank God you made it,” he whispered over the sound of other voices in the background.
“Where are you?” She longed for his touch.
“Tour bus, heading to Karnak.”
“The ancient temple site?”
“Long story. One of Wolfe’s men may have spotted me. I’ll try to lose him in the crowds there.”
She turned to Mousa, who had just entered through the connecting door to his room. “They’re at the temple of Karnak.”
“That’s close.” The Jordanian sat on the twin bed opposite her. “We could be there in ten minutes.”
“Mousa and I will come meet you guys!” She had a difficult time containing the enthusiasm in her voice.
When he didn’t immediately respond, a disturbing thought crept into her head. “Ethan, Chris is with you, right?”
“Chris”—his voice faltered—“didn’t make it.”
“He didn’t make it?” The phone trembled in her hand. “You mean—”
“I . . . I can’t believe it either. Chris is dead.”
Tears began to roll down Rachel’s cheeks. At Yale she’d found the graduate student smart and funny, although she’d never felt romantic about him despite his open flirtation. After her initial shock at waking up in the Monastery, she’d believed his naivety about Wolfe’s plans. He would never have knowingly put her or Ethan in harm’s way. And now he’d given up his life to help them escape. She tried to speak, but the burning in her throat prevented the words from coming out.
Mousa rested a hand on her shoulder and took the phone. “Hello, Ethan.”
“Mousa, I’m relieved to hear your voice.”
“Likewise. We’ll get a car and a driver from the hotel and pick you up at Karnak. That will be safer than you wandering around the open parking lot looking for a taxi.”
&
nbsp; “Where should we meet?”
“Go inside the main temple. You’ll pass two giant statues of Ramses the Second. We’ll meet you there. Hundreds of tourists will be milling around. You’ll be safe in the crowds.” He handed the phone back to Rachel.
“Hi again,” she managed.
“I spoke to your dad.”
“What did he say?” She wiped the tears from her face.
“I texted him a summary of what’s happened, but”—he paused—“our conversation was cut off before I could explain more. Will you call him?”
“Yeah, I’ll do it now, before we come meet you.”
When they hung up, she sat on the bed and stared into Mousa’s kind face. She struggled with the conflicting emotions flowing through her body. Her sadness at learning of Chris’s death battled her joy at hearing Ethan’s voice. More than anything she wanted to throw herself into his arms and feel his lips against hers.
For the first time in two days, Ethan felt hopeful. Talking to Rachel made him forget how tired he was. He passed the phone he’d borrowed back to Robin.
“Thanks. My friends are going to meet me at the temple.”
“Well, you can tag along with us as long as you’d like.” She leaned in close and whispered in his ear, “It’s nice having someone my own age around.”
She winked at him, picked up the microphone clipped to the back of the driver’s seat, and stood to address the busload of seniors.
“I hope everyone enjoyed the last five days on the boat, but today is sure to be one of the highlights of your trip. In just a few minutes we’ll be arriving at the temple of Karnak. The ancient Egyptians began construction on the temple complex approximately four thousand years ago in the heart of the city of Thebes.”
The Jericho Deception: A Novel Page 31
