Something slammed against the man’s head. The blow brought him to his knees. Marcus stepped back, gulping in air. Alicia stood behind the man, a shattered object gripped in her hands. She saw the glint of the knife blade under the soft light. She reached for it, but the man grabbed her around the ankle and snatched the knife. He held it to her throat. Marcus ran to the rifle, picked it up and pointed the barrel straight at the man’s face. “Let her go!”
“Or what? You’ll shoot me?”
“Yes.”
He laughed. “Don’t you know I’m one of hundreds? You kill me and there will be another one in a few hours.”
“Who are you working for?”
“I’m just a soldier ant. You’ll never find the colony. But they’ll always find you. Right now I’d say you’re the most wanted man on earth. You give me the spear and the flash drive. I’ll leave. I’ll collect my bounty and tell them I killed you and the woman.”
“Tell who?”
The man said nothing.
“How’d they know about the drive?”
“Even the best plumbing will eventually leak. Where your drip happened, I don’t know. But these people have long taproots. The bounty: fifty million Euros for the spear and the flash drive. Now, put the rifle down or I’ll cut her from ear to ear.”
“Okay.” Marcus lowered the rifle to the floor of the cave. He stood, reached in his pockets and produced the spearhead and the flash dive. “You want these? Come and get them.”
“Kick the gun away from you!”
Marcus used his foot to kick the gun to the far right, parallel from where he stood. The man released Alicia, the knife in one hand, and he came closer.
Marcus held the drive in his left hand, the spear in his right. He stepped to his left a half foot, the open hole in the cave floor shrouded in dark and now directly between him and the approaching man.
“Stop!” Marcus ordered. “If you want to live, tell me who sent you. How’d you track us?”
“You think you can get to that rifle before I split your spinal cord with this knife? It won’t happen.” He took another step forward and fell into the center of the hole. The big man was quick. He reached out, grabbing the edge of the opening, his arms fully extended.
Alicia ran to the rifle. Marcus shoved the drive and spear back in his pockets. He stepped near the edge of the hole, the man struggling to pull himself up. “Gimme a hand!” yelled the frantic man. He fought to hold onto the damp rock, hands and fingers slipping. “Help me!”
Marcus stood over the hole. “Who sent you? Tell me!”
“Pull me up!”
Marcus reached out with a bloodied hand, the pain in his shoulder white-hot. He grabbed the man’s hand. “Who sent you?”
“If I don’t get outta here, you’re coming with me.”
Marcus couldn’t get a firm grip with his bloodied hand. His grip began slipping. The man’s eyes grew wider, his breathing fast. “You’ll never escape them!”
“Who!”
“The Circle. If I’m going to hell, I’m taking you with me.” The man let go of the edge of the hole and grabbed Marcus with both hands. He was dead weight. Marcus felt something pop in his wounded shoulder, pain searing, and the cave suddenly hot. His socked feet slid closer to the opening.
The man’s lips sneered in a demonic grin. Alicia slammed the rifle barrel into his teeth. The impact knocked him back and he fell.
The falling man’s screams seemed to go for a full minute before fading into a murmur, a whisper, and then silence.
NINETY-EIGHT
Fifteen minutes later, Marcus opened the trunk and found the first aid kit. He turned on the car’s headlights and set Alicia down in front of the light so he could better treat her injury. Marcus used sterile gauze to clean the wound. “I have to stop the bleeding and need to get that bullet or bullet fragment out of there, but I don’t have a knife.”
Alicia’s face dripped from perspiration. Her hair was damp in the cool desert air. “You’re hurt, too, Paul. Maybe we can find help…a clinic…maybe.”
Marcus pulled the spear from his pocket. He opened a plastic packet and removed gauze, damp with antiseptic. He folded a clean napkin. “Open your mouth and bite down hard on this. Look the other way.” He placed the napkin between Alicia’s teeth. Marcus used the tip of the spear to open the wound, causing blood to flow down her arm. Alicia’s nostrils flared. She stared at the moon, neck muscles knotting in pain. Marcus dug in flesh a half-inch, found and removed the bullet fragment. Then he saw something else. It was about twice the size of a grain of rice. It was black with a tiny red tip. He removed it. “Now I know how they’re tracking us. It’s a sub-dermal microchip, and it’s pinpointing our location via satellite to someone’s monitor. Who the hell implanted it in your arm?”
Alicia’s breathing was fast, her mind racing. “Oh my God…it was the mosquito bite that took a week for it to go away. I was drugged! That microchip had to have been injected into my arm a few days before I left to join you.”
“Who drugged you?”
“A guy from the state department I’d met. We had lunch twice and dinner once. It was after the dinner, at an outdoor restaurant on the water called Captain Nemo’s. I woke up in my bed and couldn’t remember how I’d got there. And I’d only had two glasses of wine. Paul, they set me up. They set us both up. I might as well have been sent here, but they did it so they could track you.” She turned her head to Marcus. “Jonathon Carlson has been watching everything we do.”
“And we’re going to let the world watch him.”
Marcus cleaned the wound. He found a needle and thread in the kit, sterilized the needle and began stitching the wound, closing it. “Just rest. The worst is over. Lay down.”
He ripped his blood-soaked shirt from his shoulder and used another piece of gauze to clean the deep knife wound. He applied pressure to stop the bleeding. A minute later, he closed his eyes and leaned against the bumper of the car, blood seeping through his fingertips.
Alicia turned her head toward Marcus. “We’ve got to stop your blood loss. She struggled to sit.
“No…you have to rest.” Marcus folded another small towel and held it against his shoulder. He set the microchip on a flat rock and looked at Alicia. “The assassin’s mission was to kill us. If this chip doesn’t move, they’ll believe he succeeded. If they don’t hear from him in a few hours, they’ll assume he didn’t and come looking for us. This chip discovery will buy us some time, and we need it. It’ll be dawn in a few hours. Let’s get some rest, make sure the bleeding has stopped, and move on.”
Alicia smiled. “You look like shit, Paul. Maybe an hour and we can get outta this place.”
Marcus nodded and leaned back against the car, his clothes damp with sweat. Then he lifted his eyes to the heavens, the stars now on fire — the vast land around him flooded with serenity, the hills pocketed in deep shadow. Marcus felt as if the dark blue universe had poured down from the deepest reaches of creation to flood the desert with its quiet strength. He watched a meteor arc through the sky, carving a rooster tail of light across the cosmos. Sleep encircled him.
He saw Tiffany walking her horse at sunrise. She was in a meadow, leading the horse by its reins. She’d been crying, a single tear rolling down her cheek. Marcus wanted to reach up and wipe it away. Wanted to hold her one more time.
Seven other horses appeared at the top of the hill. Seven riders, all in silhouette, sitting quietly on horseback, a blood red sun rising in the sky behind them.
NINETY-NINE
When Marcus opened his eyes again, it was still dark, the morning sun was only a smoldering ash buried in the horizon across the Sinai Desert. He looked to his left where Alicia was standing up. She said, “We have to go.”