Kealey felt the breath leave his body as he waited to see what would happen next.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
JEBEL MUSA, SINAI PENINSULA
Adjo seemed to recover some of his strength as he lay in the back of the van. There were no seats, so he slid against the side, gun in hand, and pointed at the head of the wounded officer who was slid in perpendicular to him, his head facing the cab.
Carla had climbed in after him. She used a pocketknife from her backpack to cut away his shirt. She shredded the fabric and made a makeshift bandage.
Durst sat in the passenger’s seat studying a map of the compound and the surrounding area while Phair sat behind the wheel and, with uncertain fingers on the small keys, texted Kealey:
TEAM LEAVING MONASTERY. HAVE YOU MET BULANI?
Kealey replied:
YES.
Phair asked:
WHERE ARE YOU?
Kealey replied:
WITH PROPHET BEHIND CBS.
CBS was military shorthand for cargo bays. Phair texted:
WE ARE COMING.
Kealey typed back:
GO TO CHECKPOINT.
Phair wrote:
BULANI MAY NEED MY HELP.
He turned off the device so there could be no further discussion, tucked it away, and drove the van out the way he’d come. Using the map and a flashlight, Durst guided him from the road to a small side path that would take them around the garden and out to the plain.
Almost at once Phair encountered the edge of the mob, which was now clustered as far as the west side of the monastery. Some may have been late arrivals, and some may have come from neighboring villages from which the fire would have been visible. Perhaps that was part of the plan all along. Local Egyptians would not have needed the main road to get here, circumventing the MFO via shortcuts and footpaths.
Which is why the borders are so porous, he thought, empathizing with Adjo.
Cruising through the crowd proved slow, and then impossible. Going around them was not an option because it led to the foothills, away from where he could be of any use to Bulani and possibly where the van could not go.
“Let us turn around,” Durst said. “We don’t have a choice.”
“Your Staff is out there,” Phair said.
The German shot him a look. “How do you know this?”
“I had someone bring it.”
“You? You stole it?”
“I recovered it,” Phair said.
The van was completely stopped now. Phair suddenly felt deflated.
“How?” Durst asked.
“A man I know from the region.”
“Why?”
“Would these people have believed an American? Would Washington have allowed me to give it to an Iraqi?”
Phair thought he saw a half smile cross the German’s lips. Perhaps he admired the deception or the hubris. In any case, judging from the abrupt change in his expression, Durst was no longer complacent about the van being impeded.
“Die Idioten!” the German screamed at the windshield.
Two of the captured Egyptian weapons were on his lap. He cranked down the window and stuck a P228 out the window.
“Don’t!” Phair pleaded rather than warned. “Some of these people—”
Gunfire drowned out the rest of his words. “Verschieben Sie es!” Durst screamed as he fired over the heads of the crowd.
The throng of pilgrims parted to the right and left and as far ahead as the van’s headlights could see.
Almost at once, return gunfire raked the front of the van. Pieces of metal from the fender and hood ricocheted off the windshield, shattering it. Steam rose in angry puffs from a hole in the side. The tires hissed and died.
“Damn,” Phair muttered. “I was about to say that they have weapons, too. That is how they celebrate here.”
Opening the door and raising his hands, Phair stepped out and addressed the mob in Arabic. “We mean no harm!” he said. “We seek the Great and Holy Prophet to help a dying Egyptian in the back!”
“We all have needs!” shouted one. “It is said he will help us all with a wave of his Staff.”
Phair shook his head. It was like the game of telephone he played as a boy. In just a few days, this phenomenon had gone from a single man telling a BBC cameraman, without corroboration, that he had met the True Prophet. Now he faced a mob thousands deep, expecting that man to perform miracles. This had been a brilliant grassroots movement with virtually no input from the source other than to look the part. It became what everyone wanted it to be, without it actually being anything. That was both awe-inspiring and frightening.
“All right,” Phair said. “We will wait. Let us have no more gunplay.”
With a grumbling that seemed to signify agreement, accented by angry gestures from those without guns, Phair looked across the crowd. There was no way they were getting through, even on foot.
With a tremulous sigh, he stood by the door and considered his options. For a man who was big on preparedness, Kealey had brought them into a situation where everyone was busy improvising. One thought occurred to him, though. It could work. He reached into his pocket and went to the back of the van. Carla had opened the door to let in the night air.
The lieutenant was shaking and feverish. He was having trouble holding his weapon on the captive. Carla was beside him, not interfering—the task was helping Adjo to stay focused—but ready to move in case he faltered.
The captive looked at Phair. “Your efforts . . . have failed!” he laughed.
“Your efforts will fail, too,” Phair said in Arabic.
The man continued to laugh.
“Your helicopters will not be allowed to take off and infect the pilgrims,” Phair said.
“It is too late for the pilgrims,” the man said. “It is too late for all of you.”
“Why?”
The man continued to laugh weakly.
“You don’t have to tell me, I know,” Phair said. “The helicopters don’t have to take off to release their poison. Everyone who came here is going to die. And they will carry the plague to their homes and families.”
“You are all going to die like this one,” he said, indicating Adjo with a weak wave of his hand.
Phair snickered. “I don’t think so.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY
JEBEL MUSA, SINAI PENINSULA
The change happened quickly but decisively, so much so that even Kealey was unprepared for the shift. It was similar to the way animals in a field grow instantly still and attentive at the first crack of thunder.
The silence at the front of the gathering rippled back until it was nearly absolute. The quiet was broken only by the rotors and the distant rending of bundles containing bread. Crates of bottled water were also being unloaded. Even the wind seemed to have died.
Kealey could not understand what his newfound ally was saying, but he got the gist of it by his actions and the reactions of the crowd. He was telling them that he held the actual Staff of the prophet and that the man before them held a fake.
God help us all—and You can consider that a prayer—if he is asked to make it a serpent, Kealey thought.
The monks who stood near the prophet did not look to him for guidance. Two hoods turned together in conversation, obviously trying to decide what to do. One nodded and the other moved out, motioning for two others to join him. They were probably going to remove Bulani, usher him toward the helicopter.
But maybe not, if someone were to believe—
Kealey went to his knees beside Bulani and began to pray in silence. The monks continued to approach as Kealey motioned for those around him to pay respect to the Staff by kneeling. No one moved. The expressions he saw showed confusion, doubt, indecision, and all the many shadings thereof. But no one bent a knee.
The agent rose and approached Bulani just as one of the monks grabbed the Staff and tried to wrestle it away. Bulani refused to yield. A few pilgrims moved forward and seemed to urge
the monks away—their faces showed surprise at the clerical violence—but the remaining monks formed a line between them and Bulani, one which no one crossed.
Kealey was about to do just that when someone shouted from behind him. Kealey turned. The man was holding a cell phone and shouting. Soon, other cell phones began to glow among the bowed heads of the pilgrims. The lights swept backward, spotting the crowd here and there like emerging stars.
Kealey leaned toward the nearest phone. Someone was speaking in Arabic from a video image.
The monk fighting with Bulani stopped. Bulani was able to wrest himself free without difficulty. He stood where they had left him, facing the prophet and repeating “Musa saheeh” almost inaudibly, the Staff cradled to his chest. Kealey didn’t know whether he was speaking softly on purpose or not, but it was forcing those who hadn’t heard to come closer. And coming closer, they saw the Staff. Whether the relic would affect them or not, it had caused a hard stop to the proceedings.
Almost at once voices were raised, along with cell phones, demanding something—probably an explanation.
Wildfire burns both ways, Kealey thought hopefully as he felt the mood of the crowd shift. No wonder there had never been peace in the region. Each new idea was fanatically granted its moment in the sun. Kealey peered to his left to see what the prophet was doing.
He was standing there, mute and small, his staff diminished and the torch held uncertainly at his shoulder. He seemed confused.
What concerned Kealey, though, was that all the monks were departing. He wasn’t worried for the prophet’s safety—the mob could rip him apart, for all he cared. He was worried about the monks’ destination. The monks were weaving through the outskirts of the crowd, moving toward the helicopters, shouting instructions ahead of them. He had no doubt what they were going to do.
We’re back where we started, Kealey thought. All the team had accomplished was to accelerate the process.
The dishonored prophet did not seem to hear the multitude or the shouts of his own monks. He did not make any sign that he intended to go with them yet he wasn’t telling the people to run.
He doesn’t know about the bacteria, Kealey realized.
This man was serious about what he was doing. No doubt he believed he had been given the Staff of Moses by God. Perhaps it had been planted in the monastery by the false monks so he could discover it. It may not even have been the prophet who had cast the rigged staff to the ground, turning it to a serpent. He had been kept in isolation, praying and planning for his ministry. That meant he probably didn’t know his fellow monks were dead. No doubt he thought these monks were real and were running to save themselves from the wrath of the mob—a fate to which he himself was apparently resigned.
Kealey swung around Bulani and ran toward the prophet. He hoped the prophet knew some English or maybe French. Kealey could get by in French.
The agent slowed as he neared the prophet. The man looked like a church statue, frozen in his robes where he was standing. The only movement was provided by the dancing shadows created by the torch. Kealey approached slowly.
“Your eminence,” he said, trying to be respectful. “Father Kusturica—I need to talk with you. Do you speak English?”
The man didn’t move. He continued to stare ahead.
“You must believe me,” Kealey went on. “Your aides are going to poison these people.”
The monk looked over warily. His face was a shallow, ruddy mask from which life and faith seemed to have fled.
“What are you talking about?” the man asked, his English inflected with a Mediterranean accent.
“The whole of this mission was not to promote peace through faith, but security through mass murder,” Kealey said, reaching for his phone. “Those helicopters contain bacteriological agents. The bread, the water, was to draw the people together—the gas was to be dropped when they left.”
Kealey had kept Phair’s photograph on his cell phone. He approached cautiously, holding the phone before him, face out. He was unsure how the monk—no longer a prophet—would react.
“These are your colleagues at the monastery,” Kealey said. “They were all infected to test the germ. They are all dead.”
The monk stepped from the mound as if in a trance. He came forward, transfixed by the photograph. He held the torch toward it, as though that would help illuminate the image. Around him the crowd of pilgrims watched expectantly, their gaze shifting from the monk to Bulani, waiting to see whom to rally behind. They had to get behind someone, Kealey knew. Otherwise, their journey would have been for nothing.
“This is so?” the monk asked, his voice catching.
“It is, your eminence,” Kealey said.
“They told me my brothers had been sent elsewhere.”
“They have,” Kealey said.
The monk looked for another moment before lowering his eyes and turning away. Kealey couldn’t leave it at that. There wasn’t time.
“Sir, I fear that the men who posed as monks are simply going to open the tanks that are filled with plague germs. You must tell the people to disperse in the hopes that some will survive.”
The monk stopped and half turned. “The others who were with me. Will they not die as well?”
“They took medicine.”
“And you?”
“No, sir. I didn’t know what was happening. I came from Washington to help the Egyptians.”
The monk looked from Kealey to Bulani. “That—that is the genuine Staff of the Prophet?”
“It is, found many years ago and hidden in the desert.”
Tears fell along the man’s red cheeks. “Lord,” he said, “what have I brought them to?”
“Please, if you tell them to go now, there may be hope—”
He looked across the bobbing sea of confusion and outrage. “I see their expressions. They will not listen to me. Will anything stop this contagion?”
“We are studying it now,” Kealey told him. “They burned the evidence in Sharm el-Sheikh—”
“Fire?”
Kealey looked from the monk to the torch. “Intense heat, yes.”
“Thank you,” the monk said. “Thank you for giving me the chance to redeem my soul.”
Kusturica looked toward the helicopters, his body following his head around as he held the torch with renewed purpose, tightly gripping the staff in his right. If it had no power until now, he would give it some. The monk walked away briskly, the sudden wind lifting his robe like angels’ wings, his dark form shrinking rapidly in the glare of lights from the helicopters.
There was a great deal of activity in front of him as the men rushed to finish what they had begun. Even though they had been discovered, they still had an advantage. They knew it would be difficult to evacuate so many people and, even if that were done, to administer sufficient antibiotics in time. All it would take for the plan to succeed was a few people on the fringe of the gathering to depart over the mountain, along their secret paths in the dark.
As he stood there, Kealey suddenly realized that the contagion was not the only thing they had to worry about. The monk’s cure posed dangers as well.
“Bulani!” he cried, and ran back to where he had left the Iraqi. With the departure of the monk, dozens of people had gathered around Bulani, obviously moved by his own devout expressions and manner.
The Iraqi looked over.
“Get them away!” Kealey was shouting, motioning with big, sweeping, pushing waves of his arms. “Get them away now!”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
JEBEL MUSA, SINAI PENINSULA
“What are you doing?”
The crewman shouted down from the top of the ramp of the open cargo bay as the monk approached. He repeated the question, this time more insistently.
The monk did not reply. He stopped beside the helicopter to the left of the ramp, his eyes taking in the surroundings. Several of the monks were there, opening crates. He recognized Ngozi, Badru, and Qeb, all of whom had
shed their robes. When they saw him they stopped what they were doing. The nearest of the men came toward him tentatively.
“What are you doing, my brother?” Ngozi asked him. “Go back to the others. They need you.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m finishing the job you began,” he replied. “I’m protecting the homeland, the monastery.”
“From what?”
“Poison,” he replied. “Foreign influence, Islamic extremists, destruction of a culture as old as civilization itself.”
The monk shook his head slowly, unhappily, his eyes glazed with sadness. “This is not the way.”
“It is our way,” the man replied. “It is God’s way.”
Another man strode over from deep within the belly of the helicopter.
“Go about your work, I’ll deal with this!” Badru ordered Ngozi. His eyes were fixed on Kusturica.
“What you do is against God’s law!” Kusturica said, gesturing behind him. “A law that was given to us here!”
Badru withdrew a gun from his waistband. He leveled it at the chest of his former partner. “Leave or die!”
The monk, the would-be prophet, the holy man who had been deceived by men of dark vision, stood as though he were a mountain himself. He glanced to his right. On the side of the airframe, written in slightly peeled black letters on white metal skin, was the word banzeen. Gripping the staff and torch tightly, the monk walked to the fuel tank and dipped the torch to the metal covering.
“Get back!” Ngozi yelled, even as he turned to run.
“For the peace of God and the salvation of our souls I pray, oh Lord,” said the monk. “For the peace of the whole world, for the stability of all the holy churches of God . . .”
Badru fired at him from the middle of the cargo bay. It was an awkward shot, but he was able to catch his target in the belly.
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