Click.
He felt the dusty ground give just a tiny fraction of an inch. The sound was like a distant finger snap, muted by his own weight on the mine. It was the primer, and in the millimetric sliver of time before main charge blew, he could only hope that Selome would get clear.
Working on instinct, with his weight barely pressing on the can-sized bomb, he shifted his body in mid-stride, heaving himself forward in an awkward lurch. But his desperate leap wasn’t necessary. After lying dormant for fifteen years, the mine had been fouled by dirt and corrosion. The primer could not detonate the principal explosive. Mercer smashed into the rock with his shoulder, too stunned at being alive to roll with the impact. In his shock, he almost slid back off the tor and into the dirt. Scrambling, he turned and planted his heels on the stone, arresting his slide.
“Selome, come on,” he shouted.
Like a sprinter in the blocks who reacts even as the gun fires, she was in motion, her face scrunched in concentration. She bounded from print to print, her arms pumping in perfect synch, and even in his wasted emotional state, Mercer appreciated the shifting play of her breasts as she moved. In seconds she was at his side.
“Are you okay?” she panted.
“Later.” Mercer was on his feet again, leading her over the hill and across a flat table of stone toward the foothills of one of the region’s numerous mountains.
A quarter mile and five minutes after clearing the mine field, they heard a muffled explosion behind them. Mercer turned. A Fiat half-ton truck was parked directly behind their four-wheel drive. Two Africans, Sudanese no doubt, stood in its open rear bed, and he could just make out the shadow of two more in the cab. They were all looking at the rumpled figure lying doll-like a few dozen feet from the vehicles. There was a new crater in the desert, wisps of gray smoke blowing from it on the gentle breeze. The body leaked blood from the stump of his left leg, the severed member bleeding into the soil a few feet away. Mercer guessed that one of their pursuers had tried to chase on foot, trying to duplicate their feat, and paid the ultimate price for failure. He and Selome continued on without comment. Soon afterward, they had lost themselves in the rugged terrain, and Mercer slowed their pace, no longer concerned about being followed.
Selome called a halt hours later, her face blistered with sweat and dark patches appearing beneath her arms. She lowered herself to a stone plateau, lying flat and stretching her arms luxuriously over her head. Mercer flopped next to her, his attention riveted to the cache of goods in the two knapsacks he’d taken from the Land Cruiser. One of them had been Selome’s, and he dumped out the cosmetics and extra clothing. Selome ignored him and stared up into the hazy sky.
“Selome?”
She looked at him and her eyes widened. He held another full magazine for her Heckler and Koch. “Oops.”
“Oops is right.” Mercer shook his head. He combined and consolidated the useful items into one pack, discarding stuff that had no value for the trek to come. Those things he did keep were pathetically few in number, some rope, a hammer, several lengths of fuse. He took the Medusa pictures from his vest and stuffed them in with the rest of the gear.
“I feel so terrible about Gibby,” she said after a few minutes. “Not only about his death, but the disrespect we showed his body. That wasn’t right. He deserved a Christian burial.”
Gibby’s death was one more on Mercer’s conscience. The Fiat proved the Sudanese were in the area, and they would find the mine long before Mercer could warn away the refugees he’d asked Negga’s son to bring to the valley. They would be arriving soon, and their plight was his responsibility too. “Please don’t talk about religion for a while. I’m not in the mood.”
She was about to respond when Mercer leaned over and reached a hand to the wedge of skin showing between the collars of her bush shirt. A thin gold chain rested against her glossy skin and disappeared between her breasts. Mercer tugged it from its resting place, keeping his eyes locked with Selome’s even as the necklace popped free, revealing a golden Star of David.
“Mossad?” he asked quietly.
“No. Shin Bet.” There was a defiance in her voice. “It’s like your FBI.”
Relief flooded through Mercer. He knew there would be no more lies. “I’ve heard of it. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“I guess I owe you.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
She blew out a long breath. “A few months ago, the Medusa photographs came to the attention of an Israeli fanatic group.”
It was an answer Mercer was unprepared for. “Israeli? I thought Muslims were behind this.”
Selome shook her head. “Those Europeans Habte saw in Asmara are Jewish extremists headed by Defense Minister Chaim Levine. We’ve known about them for a while, but we didn’t realize until recently how powerful they’d become.”
Mercer realized they’d all been duped. Dick Henna must have followed carefully placed false clues leading both of them to believe it was Arabs who had masterminded Harry’s abduction. He was both stunned and impressed by how cleverly this had been worked out.
So many things came clear as he studied her. That’s what Harry had been trying to tell him when he said his captors had given him Boodles gin or something. Harry must have known that he’d been abducted to the Mideast, but recognized that his abductors weren’t Muslims. Mercer should have made the connection, and that oversight rekindled his anger at himself. He wondered how many more mistakes he’d made and how much others had paid for them.
Selome continued. “Levine and his followers want to make Israel a totalitarian theocracy. He recognized what the Medusa photos revealed and knew such a discovery, accredited to him, would ensure him the prime ministership. He tried to have them stolen from your National Reconnaissance Office, but instead they were sold to Prescott Hyde. Hyde, too, saw something in them, something that would bolster his shaky position within the State Department. We learned about all of this shortly after Hyde bought them, and I was sent to the United States to work with him. Shin Bet paid off a member of the Eritrean mission in Washington to vouch for me so Hyde never knew of my connection to Israel. My mission was to gather intelligence, especially if Levine’s people tried to contact Hyde directly.
“Unfortunately for Hyde, he called you soon after I arrived in D.C. and you joined his search for the mine, shutting down that option for Levine’s agents. Hyde and his wife were killed the morning you and I left for Africa.”
Hyde dead too? Jesus, where was this going to end? “You left me in Rome to report your findings about Hyde to your control in Israel?”
“Is that how you figured out I was Israeli?”
“I was told by Dick Henna before we left Washington. Also, the night you came to Tiny’s Bar, my best friend, Harry, was kidnapped to Beruit.”
It was obvious from her expression that this was new information. “The old guy who introduced himself as you?”
“The same,” Mercer replied. “The abductors appeared to have Middle Eastern connections, so I figured Israel would fit in eventually.” He told her the whole story about Harry’s kidnapping and about the assassination at da Vinci Airport. “I didn’t know if you were on my side or not. Remember, you were working with Hyde when we met.”
“It must be Levine’s people holding your friend. After you turned down Hyde, they must have grabbed him to compel you to come to Africa and find the mine. The man killed in Rome was undoubtedly Ibriham Bein, Levine’s top agent.”
Mercer guessed Bein’s warning in Rome about not harming Selome was because the Israeli feared a problem if Levine’s plot had caused the death of a Shin Bet agent. They were already planning for the day they had Israel in their grasp.