The Cup

by Alex Lukeman

  Omar staggered as a half-dozen .40 caliber hollow points hit him. He spun and fell, firing wildly as he went down. Selena's last round took Kamal in the throat. Her slide locked open. Only Nawabi was left. Nick slammed in another magazine.

  "Allahhu Akbar! Allahhu Akbar! "

  Nawabi ran toward the front of the chapel, his mind crazed by rage, firing as he came. Nick leaned around the end of the pew and shot him four times. Nawabi took two steps forward. Blood spewed from his mouth. He collapsed, his rifle clattering across the floor.

  The sudden silence was heavy as a stone.

  Mercurio lay on his back near the altar. He'd taken two rounds, one on the right side of his chest and one through the center of his gut. His face was white with pain. Blood dribbled from his mouth. Selena knelt over him, pressing her hands on his wounds. Blood welled up between her fingers.

  "I...can't feel...my legs..."

  "Sshh, don't try to talk," Selena said.

  Nick came over.

  "How is he?"

  She looked up and shook her head. Then she turned back to Mercurio.

  "You saved my life," she said.

  "You must...find it," Mercurio said. "All my life..."

  His voice trailed off and his eyes opened wide as though he were looking at something. He smiled.

  "Oh," he said. "I see it. I see..."

  Then he died.

  Selena stood.

  "He's gone."

  "So is Brother Jacob," Nick said.

  Ronnie and Lamont were checking the bodies at the other end of the chapel. Lamont had a ragged gash on his cheek where a splinter had ripped into it.

  "They're all dead," he said.

  "Good riddance." Nick holstered his pistol. "How the hell did they know we were here?"

  Lamont moved over to Nawabi's body and began going through his pockets. He held up a cell phone.

  "Might be something on this to tell us."

  "We'll let Stephanie look at it."

  "Better call Harker," Ronnie said.

  CHAPTER 39

  Elizabeth was reading an intelligence brief on dissident activity in Russia when Nick called.

  "Director, we ran into trouble."

  "What happened?"

  "We were at the monastery. ISIS showed up and everything went bad from there. They have four new martyrs but one of the Syriac monks is dead. So is Count Mercurio."

  "Mercurio? What was he doing there?"

  "Same thing we were. Chasing down the Grail."

  "Are any of you hurt?"

  "Lamont has a splinter wound but that's it. We were lucky."

  "A splinter wound?"

  "From a wooden pew. We were in a chapel. They had AKs."

  "Are the police there yet?"

  "No."

  "Was the Grail there?"

  "No."

  "Can you get back to Incirlik?"

  "I don't think there's time. People will have noticed our car and someone will put it together. Every cop in Turkey is going to be looking for us."

  Elizabeth's fingers sped across her keyboard. A live satellite view of the monastery appeared on the wall monitor. She could see Nick's blue Toyota in the parking lot.

  "Leave now and start driving back toward the base. I'll task a helicopter to pick you up, but it will take time to reach you. I have a visual of the monastery and I can see your car. I'll track your GPS."

  "Copy that, Director."

  "If you get stopped, stall them. Do not engage in any hostile action with Turkish forces, understood?"

  "They may not give us a choice."

  "I mean it, Nick. Turkey is still technically an ally. You shoot a cop and I've got an international incident to explain to the president."

  "I'll do my best, Director. But they start shooting at us, we're going to shoot back."

  "Nick..."

  Stephanie came into the room as Nick broke the connection.

  "What's up?"

  "Trouble. ISIS followed the team to Mor Gabriel and they got into a firefight. Count Mercurio is dead and so is one of the Syriac monks."

  "Mercurio? What was he doing there?"

  "That's what I said. He was looking for the Grail, what else?"

  "Did Nick find it?"

  "No."

  "Maybe it's time to give this up," Stephanie said. "It feels like we're running after a myth."

  "You may be right. Nick didn't say whether or not he found out anything else. If he didn't, we've reached a dead end."

  Elizabeth made the call that would send a helicopter to pick up the team. On the monitor, the red dot of Nick's GPS moved away from the monastery.

  "Unless they have new information, I'm bringing them home," Elizabeth said.

  "Did King Arthur's Knights ever find the Grail?" Stephanie asked.

  "It depends on what version you're looking at. There's a movie by John Boorman called Excalibur, where Percival brings back the Grail and heals the King so he can go fight Mordred in the final battle. But I don't think anyone ever brought it back in the original stories. A few of Arthur's Knights saw it. That was a big deal."

  "Didn't most of them die?"

  "All except one, as I recall."

  "Seems like it's worth your life to go looking for it."

  "I never believed it existed," Elizabeth said. "I'm not sure I believe it now."

  "What about that manuscript Selena found? The Book of Simon?"

  "Even if it's real, that doesn't mean the cup has magical powers."

  "That doesn't matter," Stephanie said. "What matters is what people believe. And if there really is a cup that caught Christ's blood, it's the most important Christian artifact in existence."

  Elizabeth watched the GPS signal on the screen.

  "It's important to Muslims, too. For them, it's a relic of one of their prophets. They believe Christ will come back and convert all the Christians to Islam. That's the signal for the Mahdi to appear. Then comes the Day of Retribution, what we call the Last Judgment."

  "Convert the Christians to Islam? Good luck with that," Stephanie said.

  CHAPTER 40

  They'd been driving for several hours. Nick had been waiting to see flashing lights in his mirrors. They'd passed a large town called Viransehir. Now they were back in open country, all fields and orchards.

  "I'm sorry about Mercurio," Selena said. "He was a good man. There aren't many of those left these days. At least we don't meet many of them."

  "The people we tend to meet are anything but good," Nick said.

  "How did those assholes find us?" Lamont asked.

  Nick swerved to avoid a pothole.

  "Good question. Someone in ISIS is good at what he's doing. A better question might be why do they keep showing up?"

  "That's easy," Selena said. "They think we'll lead them to the Grail."

  Ronnie sat next to Lamont in the back, behind Nick. "How did they get on to Mercurio in the first place?"

  Selena turned in her seat to look at him. "Probably their contact in the Swedish police. I wonder if they caught him yet?"

  She turned back and looked out at the flat, Anatolian plain passing by.

  "What are we going to do next, Nick?"

  "It depends on Harker. She'll probably send us to Malta."

  "There's no proof it went to Malta."

  "No, but there's a pattern here."

  "What pattern?" Ronnie asked.

  "Each time the Grail is about to fall into the wrong hands, it's moved somewhere else. Theodosius gave it to Anastasius as he was dying. Anastasius gave it to the monk at Mor Gabriel, so he must've been worried about its safety. Then it was handed over to the Hospitallers when the monastery was going to be overrun by the Mongols. The Hospitallers took it to Rhodes. Then Sulemein shows up with an overwhelming force."

  "It's like trouble follows it," Lamont said.

  "Right. If I were protecting the cup and I saw Sulemein coming, you can bet your ass I'd find a safer place for it. It makes sense it would be sen
t on to Malta. The Knights held out there, so they wouldn't need to move it again. If it's anywhere, it's likely to be hidden somewhere on the island. Malta is our best bet."

  "What if we don't find anything there?"

  "Then we're done."

  They came around a sweeping curve. Straight ahead police blocked the road with two cars nose to nose across the highway, leaving only a narrow space between.

  A policeman stepped out from the cars and held up his hand. He was armed with a pistol in a holster. Two more cops waited beside him with M-14s held at port arms. They looked unfriendly. Two others were stationed behind the cars, taking aim at the Toyota with their rifles.

  Ronnie said. "We try to run that, we're toast."

  "Get your diplomatic passports out," Nick said. "We'll try to bluff our way through."

  He turned to Selena. "You do the talking."

  He slowed the Toyota and stopped.

  The cop with the pistol kept his hand on the butt of his gun and approached the car.

  "What's the trouble, Officer?" Selena asked in Turkish.

  "Passports," the cop said. He had a sergeant's stripes on his sleeve. He held out his hand.

  "He wants to see our passports," Selena said.

  "Give them to him."

  They handed their passports to Selena. She gave them to the cop. The Turk looked at the passports.

  "Get out," he said in English.

  Selena switched to English. "We're on a special fact-finding mission for our government. You can see we have diplomatic immunity. "

  The cop stepped back from the car and took out his pistol.

  "Get out. Now."

  "Do as he says," Nick said.

  They got out of the car.

  "Raise your hands."

  As they put up their hands, the other cops closed in.

  "We have immunity," Nick said. "This is harassment. You're making a mistake."

  One of the policeman with an M-14 had come up beside the sergeant.

  "Shut up," the cop said.

  He swung his rifle, aiming the butt at Nick's head. Nick grabbed the rifle as it came around, pulled it from the man's hands and kicked his leg out from under him. As the cop fell, Nick leveled the rifle at the sergeant.

  Safeties clicked off. Everyone stopped moving. Nick heard the sound of a helicopter approaching.

  I hope that's ours.

  "Listen up, Sergeant. You tell your men to fire and you'll be dead before the words are out of your mouth. You hear that helicopter? It's coming for us and there are Marines on board or I miss my guess. Even if you take us down, you won't live to talk about it. Put your pistol on the ground. Tell your men to lower their guns."

  "You are murderers," the cop said. He was red in the face.

  "ISIS are the murderers. Tell your men to put down their guns."

  The helicopter came into sight, a Sikorsky Blackhawk painted in desert camouflage.

  The Turkish policeman's eyes darted toward the helicopter and back towards the rifle pointed at him. Nick hoped the man wouldn't do anything stupid.

  "Silahlarinizi indirin," the sergeant said in a loud voice. He bent and put his pistol on the ground. His men lowered their rifles and laid them down.

  "What did he say?" Nick asked Selena. He kept his rifle leveled at the sergeant.

  "He told them to put down their weapons."

  The sound of the rotors grew loud as the Blackhawk settled on the road nearby. The wind from the blades whipped dust and bits of debris into the air. The compartment door slid open and a half dozen Marines in battle dress poured out, weapons at the ready. They deployed and aimed their rifles at the cops.

  A tall, young Marine with lieutenant's insignia sewn on his collar walked over to Nick and saluted. His name tag read Williams.

  "Major Carter?"

  It was strange to hear the familiar title again.

  "In person. Lieutenant, I'm glad to see you."

  "Any trouble here, sir?"

  He eyed the Turkish police.

  "Not anymore." Nick set the rifle he'd taken from the cop down on the ground. "Let's go."

  The Turkish police sergeant looked as though he was about to have a stroke. Nick and the others ducked under the whirling blades of the chopper and climbed aboard. The Marines followed, keeping the Turks covered. Williams was the last to board. They lifted away as he pulled the compartment door shut.

  Below, Nick saw the Turkish sergeant shaking his fist at them.

  CHAPTER 41

  Swearing was Haram, forbidden.

  Haddad took out his rage by throwing his cell phone against the wall. Nawabi, dead, along with three good fighters, and they were no closer to finding the relic of Isa. His trusted lieutenant was now in paradise, but Haddad would have preferred to see him alive and working for the victory of the caliphate.

  All because of the accursed Americans. Surely Allah was testing him. Recovering the cup would bring in thousands of recruits and cause great distress among the infidels. It would show everyone that Allah was preparing the world for the coming of the Mahdi. It would strengthen the believers and reveal those whose faith was weak.

  He would not give up. But what would the Americans do now? Had they learned anything at the monastery? Were they still looking for the cup? All he knew was that they had gone back to Incirlik. They'd been seen there, getting out of a helicopter. If they continued their search they would have to leave the base. Haddad had informants at Incirlik. Someone would discover where the Americans had gone.

  One of Haddad's guards knocked on the open door of his temporary office, a room on the ground floor of a house in a crowded residential area of Raqqa. Haddad never stayed in one place for long. Hiding in the midst of women and children helped keep him alive. The Americans were uncomfortable about bombing civilians. It was one of their weaknesses. He had given up wearing the traditional robe he preferred for the garb of an average fighter to help confuse the American satellites. One fighter wasn't worth a strike.

  "The bomb maker is here," the guard said.

  "Which one? We have many."

  "The one they call The Scorpion."

  Jaffari. Is it time? Haddad thought.

  "Send him in."

  Rashid Jaffari placed his hand over his heart and greeted Haddad.

  "Salaam Aleikum."

  "As Aleikum Salaam. Welcome, brother."

  "We can talk?"

  "Yes. This room is protected."

  "The bomb is ready."

  Haddad's face broke into a huge smile. He clapped his hands together in excitement.

  "This is wonderful news, my friend. I knew you could do it."

  "When do I leave?"

  "Once I am sure our arrangements in Turkey are secure. Prepare two vehicles and load the bomb into one of them. The other will serve as backup."

  "I am ready whenever you say."

  Haddad opened a drawer in his desk. He took out a map of Turkey and Syria and spread it out on the desktop. Jaffari came around the desk to look at it.

  "You will cross the border here, at Ayn al Arab." Haddad tapped the map with his finger. "The crossing has been arranged. Travel at night to avoid the aircraft and drones patrolling the area. You will have the right papers and permissions when you are in Turkey. You have drivers who can speak Turkish?"

  "I have the perfect men," Jaffari said. "They are brothers, from Istanbul."

  "Good. After you cross the border, it is a straightforward drive to the Gulf of Iskenderun. Turn south until you come to a village called Iznik." He tapped the map again. "A fishing boat will be there to take you to a ship waiting offshore. Once on board, it will take about two weeks to reach America."

  "What is the name of the ship?"

  "She is under Greek registry. Her name is the Athena."

  Haddad wrote the name on a piece of paper and offered it. Jafarri waved it away.

  "I'll remember. What if we are stopped and searched before we reach our destination?"

  Hadda
d put the paper in his pocket. "Be ready to detonate the bomb but, God willing, you will reach your target without trouble."

  Haddad paused.

  "Rashid, my brother. You know what this mission means. You will not return. Your name will be remembered forever."

  Jaffari placed his hand over his heart and bowed.

  "Insh’allah. I am only His instrument."

  "If you are discovered once you arrive in America, detonate the bomb. It doesn't really matter where you are."

  "What will happen, after?"

  "The Americans will discover intelligence implicating the Shia apostates in Tehran. They will blame the Iranians and retaliate. War will begin. The Day of Retribution will be brought closer."

  Jaffari smiled.

  CHAPTER 42

  Elizabeth was on the satellite link to Nick at Incirlik. She'd put the call on speaker. Stephanie sat nearby, listening. Nick briefed them on what had happened at the roadblock and what they'd learned at the monastery.

  "There's already been a protest from the Turkish government," Elizabeth said. "President Rice is not happy."

  "He'd be a lot less happy if those cops had opened fire," Nick said. "It's a good thing that Turkish sergeant had more brains than balls."

  "You have a gift for words, Nick."

  "Selena thinks ISIS is hoping we'll lead them to the Grail. I think she's right. They're following us, that's why they keep showing up. Someone smart is directing them. If we could figure out who that was and take him out, it would make things a lot simpler."

  "There aren't many in ISIS with the authority to send these men after you. But pinning down who it is and where he is might be difficult."

  "We recovered a phone at the monastery. Maybe there's something on it that will help."

  "Give me a minute," Steph said. She entered commands on her keyboard. "Go ahead. I'm ready for transfer."

  "Stand by."

  They waited for Nick to connect the phone to his unit.

  "Transferring now."