“Harry, you are still in danger,” Jessica Michaelson whispered. “You should stick by us until we have you safely in the FBI’s care.”
“Or what? I’ll be in trouble?”
“No, Mr. White. You might be dead.”
“Ehh!” Harry dismissed the comment with a wave, a lit cigarette magically appearing in his claw-like hand.
One of the male agents tapped Jessica on the shoulder and pointed toward the ceiling. “Harry, let’s go up to the room we have waiting,” she said. “The FBI should be here in a few minutes, and it would be best if we all met upstairs.”
“Okay,” Harry agreed, pouring more bourbon into his nearly finished drink. “Let me just freshen this last one and we’ll go and see what room service can do for us.”
“Mr. White. Harry. Do you really think it’s wise to get drunk before your flight?” Jessica Michaelson had no children, yet she had the “mother voice” down perfectly.
Harry had been playing up his situation a bit, he admitted. But he’d done what everyone had asked of him and wanted very little in return, and now his patience was about gone. “Listen, sweetheart,” he deliberately taunted. “I’ve been through hell in the past few weeks and I managed to get myself out of it without your assistance. Indeed, I’ve managed to survive eighty years without your help, for what that’s worth, and I’ve been in worse scrapes than this. You may recall World War Two from your history books — the chapter usually ends with a picture of a mushroom cloud. I appreciate your concern, it’s touching really, but you’re a few weeks too late.
“Now, I promised your superiors that I would keep this affair quiet when I get home. But so help me God, if you say one more word, I’m going to sell my story to the nearest magazine and let the chips fall where they may. Everyone says that the Middle East is a powder keg. Well, I just spent a few weeks with the bastards who made the fuse and are currently standing over it with a lit match.”
Jessica looked chastened. She wasn’t expecting an eloquent outburst from her charge.
Harry continued. “I’m going up to the room with you and I’m going to allow myself to be passed off to the FBI and I’m going back to Washington to let Dick Henna’s boys debrief me again. But if you think for one second that I’m going to spend the few hours I have between you and them in any kind of sober state, then you have a lot to learn about me, Ms. Michaelson. I’ll do my patriotic duty, honey, but right now I’m on my time.”
He lifted himself from his bar stool and glanced at Danny. “She’ll be paying my tab and make sure she gives you a good tip.”
Monastery of Debre Amlak
Mercer identified the sound of a machine gun a fraction of a second quicker than Selome. He’d heard that noise many times before. He dropped the bundle of bedding and ducked his head out of the cave. The sound had originated above them on the cliff, near the monastery, but he kept his gaze at ground level, searching for a rear picket or a scout party. The open desert was still.
“Who is it?” Selome whispered.
Mercer didn’t answer. It wasn’t possible that Levine’s agents could have found them here, so the gunmen were undoubtedly connected to the Sudanese who’d chased them from the Valley of Dead Children. Mercer hated to think what they’d done to Habte to get this location from him. However, identifying the terrorists didn’t help. Another burst of gunfire echoed down from the monastery.
Mercer quickly ran through his options and found he had only one. He couldn’t let the monks pay for his blundering into their sanctuary. His presence had attracted the Sudanese, and it was up to him to force them out. If he couldn’t, he would surrender and trade himself for the lives of the priests. Once captured, he was certain the rebels would take him to the mine. He’d just have to hope he’d find a way to escape again so he could derail the Israelis.
“Stay here,” he ordered, his voice calm but forceful. He turned left once outside the cave.
“Mercer, the path to the monastery is the other direction.”
“I know, but we approached from the south, and that’s where I dumped the pack. I’ll be right back.”
He kept to the irregular cliff wall, moving slowly and deliberately, his khaki clothes blending with the sandstone. He expected to search for at least half a mile but he came upon the pack after only three hundred yards. He thought of that last push before he had stumbled into the cave with Selome on his back. He’d made it on will alone, his strength totally depleted, his mind all but gone. But three hundred yards? He was positive he’d carried Selome farther than that. That short distance represented an hour of agonizing labor, perhaps the most difficult hour of his life, and he realized that had the cave been even a few yards farther, they would have died huddled against the cliff.
There was enough moonlight for Mercer to familiarize himself with everything in the satchel. Much of it was worthless, but there was Selome’s pistol charged with a full clip of ammunition. He grabbed up the pack and tramped back to the cave, keeping alert for a flash of light reflecting off a weapon or an upturned face on the open plain. Selome was waiting for him at the cave’s entrance.
“How’d you find it so quickly?”
“I’m not the superman I thought I was. The pack was only a couple hundred yards away.” He secreted items from the bag into his pockets. “I’m going up to the monastery. If I can’t draw the terrorists away from the priests, I’m going to give myself over to them.”
“And what about me?”
“I don’t think they want you. Just me. Remember, I’m the geologist.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Selome said sharply. “What am I supposed to do while you’re off playing hero?”
“I’m not doing this to prove how tough I am.” That’s an understatement. Mercer’s fear made it difficult for him to swallow. “I have to go, and you have to warn the authorities about what’s been happening. I want you to head south again. Stay along the cliff and drag our blanket behind you to sweep away your tracks. Find somewhere to hide for the day. If I don’t come down looking for you in a couple of hours, it means I probably won’t. Wait until sunset before returning to the monastery. I’m willing to bet the Sudanese will be gone by then.”
Her eyes glared. “Don’t even consider leaving me out of this, Mercer. I’m even more responsible than you. If you have a plan, count me in.”
“Selome, I—”
She cut him off, her voice raised dangerously loud. “I said don’t think about it and I mean it. I am coming with you. Like you said, you’re the geologist — well, I’m the trained agent. You did pretty well in Asmara, but I have more experience in situations like this.”
He was about to list a few of the gunfights he’d been in, but before he could, an unholy scream pierced the night, a sharp keening wail that dropped down the cliff, growing louder and louder until it was suddenly cut off. The silence that followed was more terrible than the scream.
There was no more time to argue.
Mercer led Selome back toward the trail leading up to the monastery. About thirty feet from where the path rose into the rock, a dark shape revealed itself on the ground. They both knew that it was a body. A spray radiated from the corpse like a diffused shadow. The sheer volume of the bloody splashes made it unnecessary to check if the victim had survived the fall.
They crossed the narrow entrance to the ascending path and continued along the cliff, the monastery now behind and above them. Mercer could feel Selome’s questioning stare at his back, but he didn’t take the time to explain his plan. Keeping a sharp eye for a place they could climb the hundred feet to the plateau above, Mercer considered what he’d do once they were in sight of the monastery. He had no idea how many gunmen had come here, nor how they were positioned. His only advantage was surprise and even that was relatively worthless. By throwing one of the priests off the cliff, the terrorists were telling him they knew he was here. They were expecting him. He could only hope that by coming up behind them rather than climbing the established path, he could gain something.