The Sinai Secret

by Gregg Loomis

  "So what?" Jacob asked. "We're not here to steal effing dates."

  "Maybe not," Lang conceded, "but let's see."

  Keeping low to prevent presenting a silhouette, they skirted the fence line as it turned a corner. Minutes later they could see the stately palm trees against the night sky. As they got closer it became clear the palms would be on their left and the fence to the right.

  "Now what?" Jacob asked. "You planning to climb a tree like some sodding monkey?"

  Lang was moving along the fence line. "Exactly."

  "And do what, jump? Fit to fight wed be, what with broken legs."

  "I don't think that's necessary if we can—"

  Lang stopped so suddenly Jacob almost collided with his back in the dark.

  "There!"

  A number of the date palms, pushed by years of sea breeze, were leaning drunkenly toward the fence.

  Lang selected one bent almost horizontal. "This should do."

  "Do what?" Jacob protested. "We can't even see how far it is off the ground where it crosses the fence."

  "I doubt it gets any farther off the ground than we see here. Besides, feel how soft this sand is? Makes a great landing surface."

  Jacob mumbled something before inhaling noisily. "I suppose this is the only way in."

  "Unless you have another idea."

  Jacob shook off his backpack and tossed it over the fence. "If I can't find that in the dark, we've made a fruitless trip."

  Lang held out a hand. "Need a boost up?"

  "Keep yer sodding boost to yerself. I may not be as young as I used to be, but I bloody well can still climb a tree."

  Two attempts later he was breathing hard. "Well, okay, then, perhaps a wee boost would be in order."

  With Lang behind pushing, Jacob made the ten to twelve! vertical feet before the tree bent toward the fence. The trunk was wide enough to permit easy movement along it.

  "This should do," Lang announced, swinging over the side. He hung by his arms for a moment before dropping with a barely audible thud onto the sand below. "Softer than I thought," he whispered up.

  It took perhaps a full minute to locate Jacob's backpack.

  "Okay," Lang said. "I'll wait for you to do your thing. Try to get to where they're holding her. We'll take one of the cars outside to get out of here once we have her."

  Without a reply, Jacob disappeared into the darkness.

  Using the lights from the buildings, Lang navigated to the one from which he had seen Alicia exit that morning. There were three vehicles in front, a Range Rover, Mercedes's boxy version of the same automobile, and a Toyota pickup.

  Lang waited in deep shadow until he was certain no one else was in the area. Keeping the cars between him and the building, he crawled to the pickup, knelt to open the door, and popped the hood latch. Seconds later he had the distributer cap in hand, which he threw as far away as he could. He repeated the process with the Range Rover before withdrawing again to the shadows to wait.

  He was never sure of how long it took, only that the explosion came much quicker than he had anticipated.

  He saw a flash, an orange cloud limning the water tower as its two front legs buckled like an animal kneeling to drink. He felt a blast of hot air, and only then did he hear the sound, a noise that cracked like a roll of thunder, followed by the diluvial slosh as the toppling tank ruptured when it hit the ground, releasing thousands of gallons of water.

  He watched as figures jammed the mess hall's doorway just in time to watch the pyrotechnic display of what Lang guessed had been a fuel storage facility erupting in a greasy orange-and-black firestorm.

  Men were outside the mess hall now, some firing Uzis blindly toward the conflagration, believing they were under attack by their Arab neighbors. Others screamed for firefighting equipment, which, Lang guessed, would be quite useless with the loss of the water supply.

  The general impression was like kicking over an anthill.

  Lang positioned himself beside the door of the building in whose shadows he had been waiting.

  Two men carrying Uzis, Alicia's guards, stepped outside. The noise of general pandemonium as well as the roar of the flames devouring the shed made it impossible to hear what was said, but it was obvious they were as surprised as their comrades in the mess hall.

  Lang stepped into the doorway behind them so that, should anyone look this way, the two would block sight of him. The SIG Sauer was in his hand. "This way, gentlemen."

  They whirled, one beginning to raise his weapon until he saw the muzzle of Lang's pistol only inches from his forehead.

  This sect might well be fanatics but they weren't suicidal.

  Both men slowly raised their hands, and Lang took both Uzis before returning his automatic to the holster in the small of his back.

  With one machine gun under his left arm, he pulled the bolt back on the other just far enough to make sure the weapon had a shell in the chamber and was ready to fire.

  He gestured inside. "If you will, gentlemen, please. After you."

  What he saw stopped him cold.

  He had entered what he supposed was the main room, off of which there were one or two smaller ones. It was bare except for a rough wooden table and a pair of bentwood chairs. Alicia sat in one. Next to her was a small man with the side curls and beard of the orthodox Jew, like the men Lang had seen at the kibbutz. He held one of those massive Desert Eagles to her head.

  "Lang!" She gasped in surprise.

  "Ah, Mr. Reilly! I've been waiting for you," the man with the pistol said in slightly accented English. "I was beginning to fear you were unable to put all the clues together and were not coming."

  The Uzi relied more on rate of fire than accuracy. Trying to shoot the man with the gun to Alicia's head, he: was just as likely to hit her. Even if not, there was no guarantee the man couldn't pull the trigger before he died.

  Lang put both Uzis down on the table. "Sorry to keep you waiting. You are Mr. Zwelk?"

  The man nodded as he gestured to the two guards, who began a none-too-gentle search of Lang's person. "Quite correct. I must confess a small disappointment you didn't find me sooner."

  Lang held up his arms as he was patted down. One man tugged the SIG Sauer free and placed it on the table. "Trust me, I came as quickly as I could."

  "Lang," Alicia began, "this man—"

  Zwelk silenced her with a glare. "If you want out of this alive, you would be wise to remain quiet."

  "You have no intent of either of us leaving here," Lang stated.

  Zwelk gave a chilly smile, nodding his head toward the flickering shadows caused by the flames outside. "I certainly have just cause if I choose not to let you live."

  "But why...?" Alicia asked.

  "Because Mr. Reilly is in a position to release a secret, one that could do my people great harm."

  "Why don't you let your government decide that?" Lang asked.

  Zwelk wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Government!" he spit. "The government is nothing but a harlot, prostituting itself for this interest and that. The government of the state of Israel was originally intended to be of the Jewish state. But what has it become? A society of material greed rather than Zionism!"

  "I thought all Jews are welcome—the zealot, the conservative, as well as those who are Jewish by birth, if not particularly religious."

  Zwelk curled a lip in disgust. "Not religious? Israel was to be a nation of religion!"

  "Like your friends the Arabs? You would have a clerical rather than secular state?"

  Agency training: Keep your opponent talking; delay as long as possible.

  Zwelk snorted. "Like the ever-materialistic, antireligious United States? No, Mr. Reilly, there are those of us who have higher hopes for our nation. A nation, by the way, to which you pose a great danger. The force your institution has found could be the ultimate weapon."

  "I'd guess it already is—was long before I came along. Besides, you're not referring to the powers of the Ark," L
ang said. "You know that as well as I do."

  Alicia's puzzled voice interrupted. "Lang, what are you two talking about?"

  Zwelk paid her no attention. "Ignoring the weapon's potential? Really? He stroked his beard, a gesture that Lang guessed was more habit than conscious gesture. "Then what exactly do you think I'm talking about?"

  "The Book of Jereb, those scrolls you took after you had Professor Shaffer murdered in Vienna. It wasn't what was said about the Ark; it was what was said about Moses and the Israelites. That's what you want to remain a secret."

  Alicia had been turning her head as each man spoke. "What power? What Book of Jereb?"

  This time it was Lang who didn't respond to her question for the moment. "How did you know the copy of Jereb had been found?"

  "We knew it was buried somewhere among the medieval manuscripts at Melk. We couldn't just walk in and rummage through them. So, when the abbey decided to sort them out, create a computer index, we simply hired someone to keep a close watch. We never dreamed that man Steinburg would actually reproduce a copy of the book and send it to his cousin. By the time our man at Melk told us what had happened, it was too late."

  "You kidnapped me and are threatening to kill us over some medieval manuscript?" Alicia asked incredulously.

  Lang didn't break eye contact with Zwelk. "Not just any manuscript. This was a copy of a much older one, an alternative to the Book of Exodus."

  "I still don't understand."

  "This book, like Exodus, states that Moses was an Egyptian. It went further, telling of a king deposed because he was monotheistic—put the priests of the various gods out of work, as it were. But it went on. The Israelites were Egyptians, too, Egyptian believers in a single god, not Jews. Mr. Zwelk figured that anyone researching superconductors similar to the Ark might be lead to the Book of Jereb or come across the real story: that Egyptians, not Jews, wandered in the desert and settled in what is now Israel. He couldn't take that risk, so he had everyone connected to that research killed."

  Alicia was clearly perplexed. "So, what does that have to do with ...?"

  "Our friend Zwelk here wants to make sure no word of the Israelites'true origins gets out to the world at large. See, if the Israelites were not Jews, but Egyptians, Arabs—"

  Zwelk interrupted. "The state of Israel cannot afford to have the legitimacy of its claim to Palestine disputed, particularly by the Muslim world. It is the land promised to my people by their God." "Not unless your people happen to be Egyptians," Lang observed.

  Zwelk's face screwed into a scowl. 'And that, Mr. Reilly, is why you won't be leaving."

  Alicia gave Lang a frightened look.

  "Don't worry," he said. "He isn't going to—"

  He stopped in midsentence.

  The three men in the room had heard it, too: the distinctive thump of helicopters in flight.

  "Whoever that is," Zwelk announced, "I assure you they are too late to be of help to you." He reached for Lang's SIG Sauer on the table. "They will find that you shot your lady friend here in an attempt to kidnap her from the hospitality of our community."

  "Won't work, Zwelk," Lang said, mentally measuring his chances of successfully lunging across the table. "Nobody is going to believe she was here by her own will."

  Zwelk stepped back, gun arm extended. "Why not? Neither of you will be alive to contradict it. In any event, I will not be here by the time whoever is in those helicopters arrives. I have known for a long time that my devotion to the purity of the Jewish religion would provoke the authorities and planned accordingly."

  "Reminds me of rats and sinking ships," Lang said.

  Lang took a deep breath as he watched Zwelk's trigger finger tighten.

  He could only hope Jacob had known what the hell he was doing.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Three Kilometers from Kibbutz Zion

  At the Same Time

  Another few minutes of bouncing around like a cork in rough water and Inspector Rauch would have embarrassed himself by getting sick, loosing his last meal all over the other five men in this infernal device, including the Israeli policeman, Zaltov. The bastard actually seemed to be enjoying the flight. The security man, Gruber, had explained that the cooling of the night air over the sun-warmed desert caused irregular heating and, therefore, the updrafts—thermals, he called them—that had rocked the Bell helicopter. The meteorological information had not made the ride any less terrifying.

  For the first time in years, Inspector Rauch thanked God. They were descending, and this ride from hell was about over. He risked a peek through the Plexiglas. The aircraft's spotlight showed what looked like a small village with what might have been a pond in the middle. No, not a lake, but the smashed remains of some kind of huge container in the middle of whatever liquid it had contained. A water tower, he could now see. He could almost hear the desert sand greedily drinking up the available moisture.

  And there was a fire; one of the buildings was burning. He could smell smoke.

  The light moved to an open space, and the helicopter began a vertical descent that left Rauch's stomach somewhere above. On either side the other two machines were also settling.

  Now he was close enough to the ground to see a group of men and women. The men wore hats and were all bearded, with the side curls of Hasidim. Several were pointing upward.

  Rauch swallowed hard and spoke for the first time during the trip, asking Zaltov, "How do we know this man Reilly won't escape before we land?"

  The policeman gave what Rauch supposed was a laugh had he been able to hear it over the clatter of rotor blades. "Escape? Where? This kibbutz is sealed off from the sea by the wall along the Gaza border and is in the middle of the desert. No one in his right mind would want to wander around out there."

  Rauch was tempted to point out that Zaltov's ancestors had, according to their own tradition, done just that. And not just "wandered." After forty years of meandering, they had managed to select one of the few places in this area of the world that had no oil under it.

  Instead he concentrated on mastering his heaving stomach for a few more minutes.

  Rauch was surprised when the helicopter touched down with the lightness of a ballerina. In seconds Gruber was standing at his elbow, shouting orders over the dying whine of turbine engines and slowing rotor blades. The dozen or so uniformed and armed men fanned out, knocking on doors before opening them, while two of their number disappeared into the darkness, presumably to cover any exit. To the Austrian it looked like a military maneuver by well-trained troops. He was a little surprised that none of the residents seemed either surprised or upset that their kibbutz had been invaded. He supposed that, this close to hostile territory, the appearance of friendly forces at any time was welcome.

  One of the soldiers had an old man by the arm, gently leading the white-bearded elder toward the place Rauch and Gruber stood. It was clear to Rauch that more respect than coercion was involved. Although the Austrian policeman could not understand the language, the tone indicated polite questioning rather than harsh interrogation. Finally the old man pointed toward one of several bungalow-like buildings just beyond the shrinking perimeter of light from the waning fire.

  Gruber pointed to the same place. "He says he knows of no strangers here other than a red-haired woman who is visiting the chairman of the kibbutz and his wife. That's their house." The security man took off at a trot. "Come on!"

  Rauch had not taken his second step when he heard shots. They seemed to come from the very house to which he was headed.

  SIXTY

  The SIG Sauer exploded in Zwelk's hand, sending shrapnellike fragments into his face.

  For an instant his eyes protruded from a blood-splattered face as he contemplated the shreds of flesh that had been his hand moments before.

  Then he grunted with shock and grabbed for the stump at the end of his arm as though he might stop the geysers of red his ulnar and palmar arteries were pumping.

  Lang doubted Zwelk h
ad even begun to feel pain as he heard the first note of a scream from Alicia.

  The shock that had frozen the two guards passed. They both lunged for their weapons on the table, but Lang was closer.

  Shoving Alicia aside, he dove across the table, sweeping up both weapons. He brought his hands up, the Uzi in each spitting bullets that stitched both men across the chest with ragged red flowers blooming larger and larger until they merged into a single crimson stain.

  It had all taken perhaps three seconds, three ticks of a clock. The small room so stank of cordite, blood, and death that Lang nearly gagged. He was deaf from the shots in such close quarters, and his eyes wept from acrid wisps of burned gunpowder.

  He dropped the Uzis and turned to pull Alicia to her feet. She looked straight at him without seeing, a catatonic stare of stunned fright.

  Holding one Uzi, Lang took her hand in the other, speaking words he himself could not hear. "Come on, Alicia; we can't stay here."

  On legs as uncertain as those of a newborn colt, she stood and transferred her stare to someplace over Lang's shoulder.

  At first he thought he might be hallucinating.

  Blocking the doorway was a tall man in his mid- thirties, clean-shaven and with a recent haircut.

  Witherspoon.

  The would-be FBI man spoke words Lang's ringing ears could only partially hear, but there was no mistaking the Desert Eagle he held in his hand.

  With a shove Lang pushed Alicia out of the line of fire, a motion that diverted Witherspoon's eyes just long enough for Lang to raise one of the Uzis.

  He felt, rather than heard, the dull click of the hammer on an empty chamber. The damn clip had been half- empty when he grabbed the gun.

  Shit.

  Witherspoon had heard it. Lowering his weapon, he moved with the grace of a professional fighter. He smashed his Desert Eagle against the side of Lang's head, sending him slipping across the blood-slicked floor. The force of impact with the far wall knocked the second Uzi from his grasp.

  Ears ringing both from the gunshots and the blow, Lang did not have to hear all the man's words as he stuck his own weapon into his belt and charged. The murderous gleam in his eye said it all: Witherspoon intended to literally kill Lang with his bare hands.