“Because our man is right with her.”
“On the plane?”
“That’s right. Under deep cover. She’s completely at his mercy.”
“Well then, why doesn’t he just harvest her now and be done with it?”
“It seems that would be too complicated. He would also have to kill the pilots and then be forced to fly the plane himself back across the Atlantic. Our man is an accomplished operative, but he’s not a pilot. Besides, I urge you to think of this as a massive opportunity rather than focusing on the risk. Think of the knowledge we can gain by letting her meet up with her side in Nigeria and having her die with them. That approach would produce massive intel on our enemies, and multiply the magnitude of the defeat already under way.”
“I see. We make certain she’s at the very same gathering when our forces attack, and that she dies along with the others.”
“Exactly.”
“Do we have real-time communication with our man?”
“No, we don’t. On the plane it’s only e-mail. But as soon as he’s on the ground, I’ll be in his ear and talking with him constantly.”
“Good work, Shadow Leader. You know I had my doubts about using someone not fully embraced into the Brotherhood. But your unconventional choice seems to be paying dividends. As usual, your thoughtful preparations trump my impetuous nature. You’ve turned a possible disaster into potentially our most decisive victory of all time.”
“Indeed. I am hoping for a death blow. Not only do we prevent the girl from igniting our opposition, but we wipe her out along with the heart of their strength. A masterstroke! Long live the Lord of the Air!”
“Long live! And speaking of strokes, let us celebrate. Come downstairs with me and pick out one of my best blades. I have a pair of fresh young victims waiting for us in my pantry.”
Shadow Leader laughed. He had heard the old man’s euphemism for a dungeon before, yet it never failed to tickle his funny bone. A dark soundproofed chamber used to warehouse stray human beings before their harvesting—to equate that with a room for storing dry goods struck him as the height of Scythian irony. Only a man drenched in the Brotherhood’s culture enough to have his very own oak-lined library featuring rare antique scythes—expertly sharpened, oiled, and ready for use—could have thought of such a thing.
He laughed a rich, cultured laugh and followed his host past the recessed, nearly invisible door frame custom-built into the library’s paneling.
He shivered with anticipation, for just then, standing very still and silencing his breaths, he had just barely made out the warbled crescendo of a scream.
THE MCQUEEN JET, MIDWAY ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
“I have good news and bad news,” announced Paula, Mara’s personal assistant, as she plucked headphones from around her head in the subdued light of the Gulfstream’s cabin. Mara herself had deplaned hours before in Atlanta, her home base, where the plane had been refueled. Her place had been taken by a cameraman in his late forties, who sat silently filming everything with amazing unobtrusiveness.
Mara was confident of the trip’s success, she’d reassured Abby, but her presence on the trip would have overshadowed and maybe even endangered this precarious mission. Besides, there was that persona non grata status to think about.
“Bad news first,” said Abby.
“Mara was right. The State Department has just issued a strongly worded traveler’s advisory, just short of an outright prohibition, against travel in Nigeria. Seems there’s a rash of roving gangs, not to mention the usual bunch of Islamic commandos, who have been making incursions deep into the Christian parts of the country. Their stock in trade is kidnapping Westerners for ransom. Anyone who looks vulnerable and possibly rich. Two American and three British tourists have been abducted and slaughtered in the last three weeks. Basically, venturing anywhere outside of Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, is deemed borderline illegal and suicidal at best.”
“Oh, great,” Abby said in mock relief. “Glad it wasn’t anything depressing.”
“I’ve already arranged for the services of the colonel,” Lloyd interjected. “A retired Nigerian officer who rents out his own private special forces squad. Just for Westerners rightfully concerned about their security on Nigerian back roads.”
“But you haven’t heard my good news,” Paula said. “We just happen to be coming right in the middle of a Believers Gathering. Six hundred thousand Nigerian believers are, well, gathering, just east of Lagos. Seventy percent of them will be women. It started yesterday and won’t end for another three days. They’ll send an emissary to meet our plane and guide you personally to the site.”
Abby’s face broke into a wide smile. “That’s exactly what I was hoping for. Six hundred thousand worshipers?”
“That’s what I hear. Don’t you know that the world’s largest church, numbering over a million members in a single service, takes place in Nigeria?”
Abby began to nod intensely. “This is it, I can feel it,” she said. “How long until we get there?”
Paula glanced down at her watch. “Only an hour and a half. Why don’t you try and get some rest before we arrive?”
Abby nodded, for that sounded like a most wise idea. Buoyed by the good news, she reclined on a long leather couch, pulled a wool blanket over her body, and within three minutes was snoring loudly.
SEVENTY MINUTES LATER
Abby’s in-flight nap ended with her shout and a fierce forward pitch of her torso, as violent as if her whole upper body had been propelled upward by a giant spring. Her eyes flew open and just as quickly met the alarmed stares of Paula and Lloyd. They had both whirled around in their captain’s chairs, anticipating the worst. Even the cameraman lurched forward in a far corner, comical in his attempts to steady the lens even while his body was pitching sideways.
Paula lunged forward onto her knees and snatched up Abby’s hands into both of her own. “Are you all right?” she pleaded.
Instead of replying at once, Abby caught her breath and swept the cabin with probing glances. “I’m not sure,” she answered at last. “Something’s happening. Something just tore me from my sleep. It doesn’t feel good.” She cast a quick look at Lloyd. “I’m scared. I just don’t know what I’m scared about.”
Then she looked out one of the plane’s oval windows beside her.
She screamed again. Then sprang backward so powerfully that if Lloyd had not thrown himself from his chair and caught her midair, the petite twenty-year-old would have struck the other side of the fuselage.
“What is it?” Lloyd asked, holding her now-quivering face in his hands.
“Look! Look!” she ranted, pointing to the window.
“All right.” Lloyd released her and moved over to peer closely. He turned back. “Abby, I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything but sky.”
Abby looked at him as though preparing for a reply, but her stare turned into a scowl. She reached out her hands toward him and began to knead the air in front of him like a suspended pile of Play-Doh.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” she said in a low, almost whispering voice. “But what is that in front of you?” She squinted harder and leaned forward. “I can’t quite . . . see . . .”
Bewildered and alarmed, Lloyd drew back, scowling himself now. He glanced at Paula to see if she was registering Abby’s strange behavior. Paula was also scowling at the scene.
And then, in a fraction of a second, Abby’s expression changed. The alarm fled her face and her muscles relaxed into a mixture of resignation and dread.
“Oh, I get it,” she muttered to herself. “It’s back. It’s back . . .”
“What’s back?” Paula asked loudly.
“The Sight,” Abby replied. “I’m starting to see again. I hoped it had left me forever, but it’s back.”
“What is she talking about?” Lloyd asked Paula with an exasperated tone.
Paula breathed in and out at great length. “Spirits. Angels. She sees through the veil. I
nto the spiritual world—”
“Angels,” interrupted Abby, still wide-eyed and speaking distractedly, as if talking to herself. “Demons. And everything in between.”
“Sounds like a real hoot,” Lloyd said with a hint of a grimace.
“No, actually it’s more like a curse,” Abby said.
“What did you see out the window?” he asked.
Abby only shuddered and turned even farther away from the aperture. “Are we flying over land?” she asked, and it was unclear whether she was clumsily changing the subject or merely pursuing the subject further.
“We’re overflying Cote d’Ivoire,” he told her, stumbling a bit over the French-pronounced country name. “We’re getting quite close to our destination.”
Abby shuddered and grasped Lloyd’s hand. “Even from this altitude, I can see carnage.”
“What do you mean, carnage?”
“I mean warfare. Bloody, vicious spiritual warfare.”
Lloyd grew still, and his eye movements suddenly became very controlled.
“You don’t believe in that,” Abby noted, staring at him.
“I am, for better or worse, a warrior,” he said carefully, unable to conceal the incredulity in his voice. “A fists and weapons, stuff-you-can-see kinda guy. What you’re talking about sounds like a lot of fairy dust.”
“I wish it were,” Abby said. “What’s happening out there is horrific. The whole atmosphere is filled with it. Every altitude.”
“Can you close your eyes and . . . spare yourself the sight of it?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s almost the only thing I can do. The problem is, the only reaction inside me stronger than my revulsion is my curiosity.”
“Why were you making those strange motions in front of my face?”
She did not answer right away, but just stared at him enigmatically. Then she shook her head in confusion. “I couldn’t make you out,” she said. “You were . . . fuzzy. There was something happening around you, but it was too fast. Too crazy. I couldn’t see clearly what was happening.”
“I guess that makes me a complex guy,” he said with a touch of sarcasm. “I am, after all, an ex-soldier and cop.”
Something about what she saw troubled her, except she couldn’t determine exactly what it was. Then she had an idea, looked up at Lloyd, and asked, “Have you killed . . . another person?”
He stared at her, hesitating with his response. When he finally nodded yes, it was so faint that Abby didn’t notice the motion at first. “I was in Desert Storm,” he finally said. “And Iraqi Freedom. So, yeah.”
She reached out to touch his arm. “It’s all right,” she murmured. “Most of us are in some kind of turmoil. I appreciate your service.”
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you, Lloyd,” she insisted.
“Yeah,” chimed in Paula. “Thank you for your service.”
He nodded absently, looking genuinely disoriented by the conversation’s odd turn.
“Howdy, folks,” came the pilot’s voice, jarring in its metallic loudness. “We’re now about to descend over Eastern Ghana, which means we’re only about fifteen minutes from Lagos Airport. Because of security concerns I’m going to make a pretty steep approach, so y’all may want to strap in tight. Thanks, and on behalf of my copilot and me, our best wishes on the mission at hand.”
“We’re flying straight into Lagos?” Abby said. “I would have thought we’d find some out-of-the-way place and avoid prying eyes.”
“I checked into that,” said Paula, “but it turns out we’ll attract less attention coming straight into the private aviation sector of the national airport. Believe me, there’re enough luxury jets in Lagos to match any strip in Aspen or Geneva. No one will even notice us.”
“Better strap in,” Lloyd warned Abby.
“Can I do that while I’m still lying down?” she asked in a frail voice. “All of a sudden I don’t feel so great.”
“Is it the pain?” Paula asked.
Abby nodded in the affirmative, holding her side and wincing. “First the Sight, now this pain. Something about reaching Nigeria doesn’t seem to agree with me.”
The last word of her sentence went largely unheard, because at that instant the entire cabin jerked forward and downward at a precipitous angle. Instead of response, all Abby received for her words were her companions’ respective groans.
CHAPTER
_ 24
LAGOS, NIGERIA, MURTULA MOHAMMED INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
At most of the world’s other commercial airports, the Gulfstream’s final approach would have provoked immediate alarm and even specific countermeasures. At a contemporary American airport, for instance, its dramatic plunge from a blue sky would have sparked several moments of heated speculation over whether the craft had been commandeered by hostile parties and possibly a frenzied warning to Homeland Security. The pilots would have been sharply queried over radio as to the meaning of their actions. At the very least, it would have earned them a warning from the FAA and a likely reprimand from their employers.
At Lagos Tower, however, the maneuver was nearly routine. On any given day, there might be a dozen reasons why a wealthy Nigerian’s airplane might attempt to evade potential hostile fire by shortening its final approach. They ranged from reprisals of a political, financial or even ethnic nature, to specific kidnapping or blackmail threats, to seething discontent among the earthbound class. Nowhere on the planet festered such a gigantic gap between the corrupt and wealthy—who collectively siphoned off enough oil from the world’s fourth-largest petroleum producer to match the wealth of Bill Gates every single day—and a starving, teeming underbelly. That resulted in plenty of reasons for the incoming jet-set to be careful, and plenty of ready pretexts for attacking them.
Inside the jet registered to Mara McQueen, however, the maneuver had one overriding effect on its most important passenger. Strapped in tight to a leather divan, Abby was pitched forward into an optimal position from which to view the Lagos panorama at a most acute angle. Even as she gripped the nearest arm with white knuckles and strained audibly to keep herself upright, she found her eyes riveted on the sight reeling outside the portholes beyond her perch.
“If you’re seeing more visions, please, just close your eyes!” offered Paula.
“No, it’s not that at the moment,” she answered. “The Sight seems to have dissipated for a second. I’m just looking at the city!”
Paula followed Abby’s gaze out a nearby window. Through ribbons of smoke and haze, it seemed the dingy brown re-creation of a third-world slum had flooded the horizon. A sea of hazy brown rooftops, punctuated by whitish hills, stretched as far as she could see.
“Why are those hills that strange pale color?” Abby asked.
Paula made a face. “Those aren’t hills. They’re junk piles. Lagos has no—”
She did not finish the sentence, for just as abruptly the plane leveled its exaggerated descent with a groan of engines, flaring off its approach for landing. The sudden shift and the pressure of the positive g’s sent an army of needles through Abby’s joints and midsection. Despite her continuing curiosity, she could only grit her teeth, close her eyes, and lean her head back against the couch.
There came a screech, and a jolt, and with a surge of cold reality came the sobering realization that she was here. Second thoughts, misgivings and all, she had irreversibly arrived on the next and scariest stage yet of her quest.
After the jet cycled through the familiar stages of reverse thrusting and hard braking, they began to taxi through a bewildering maze of aircraft—lumbering 747s, luxury business jets, and single-engine propeller planes scurrying haphazardly through the midst like a swarm of aeronautical gnats.
Despite her pain, Abby found herself fascinated by the crowd of planes, their sheer diversity of size and shapes, their exotic tail logos and country names, their deceptive appearance of taxiing without guidance. She peered intently through the portholes, her discom
fort momentarily forgotten.
She gasped loudly, unbuckled her strap, and fell to her knees.
The two others rushed to her side and stared along with her. Out on the tarmac less than fifty yards away weaved three camouflage-green Hummers, their hulking outlines punctured by the barrels of upraised automatic weapons, circling around nose cones as they sped straight in their direction.
“Oh no!” Abby cried. “They’re after us! They’re following our plane!”
Lloyd’s body tensed from head to foot and seemed to channel all its power to his eyes, which bore down on the pursuers with a calm intensity. The man seemed at home in this kind of situation. In fact, he looked more comfortable than he had appeared since Abby had met him.
“Abby, stay down,” Paula warned. “Just lie on the floor and take cover.”
“You too, Paula,” barked Lloyd, his eyes still riveted on the soldiers outside.
Abby couldn’t help but take one final peek. Soldiers—or she had to assume they were real soldiers as they wore no coherent uniform, just flapping clothes of a roughly similar green hue—were now waving their machine guns, signaling for the plane to stop.
Lloyd, now crouched down, pulled a large revolver from a previously unseen belt holster and began checking his ammo load. The cameraman swerved quickly between shots of each of them and the drama unfolding outside the plane.
The aircraft turned violently, tossing all three passengers to the left. The shadow of a towering 747 tail passed over them and left just as swiftly. An apparent near-miss. The wall of a huge hangar loomed on their left, and it seemed they had entered the airport version of a back alley.
Quite suddenly, they braked to a complete stop. The halt was so abrupt that the brakes screeched painfully and the entire plane slid forward on its wheels. It seemed to strain there, in a momentary shiver of inertia, before settling back again.
Lloyd stood up, his revolver now held against his chest, just as the main door whooshed open and filled the front of their cabin with harsh, menacing sunlight.
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