Maze Master

by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

  “We’ve got you on visual,” Colonel Logan’s voice informed through Micah’s ear. “Rustle your asses, boys. You’ve got pursuit beating feet right behind you.”

  Micah turned his goggles down the slope, seeing the two helicopters no more than two hundred meters below. Pilots were already spooling them up, the turbines whining as the blades began to spin.

  On rubbery legs, Micah started down the hill. He only looked back after Beter’s feet went out from under him. The soldier landed with an “oof!” and Hanson’s blanket-wrapped body tumbled, breaking the carry-pole they’d slung it from.

  “Shit!” Gembane cried as his grasp on the pole toppled him onto the body. Corpse and soldier slid down the loose gravel and onto Beter.

  “Sergeant, go!” Micah pointed to the helicopter and Ranken teetered past with Duclair’s body swaying.

  Micah forced himself to scramble back up the slope to where Beter pulled frantically at the blanket, struggling to get it untangled from the corpse.

  “Captain?” The tinny voice in his ear warned, “You’ve got hostiles topping the crest. Move it!”

  “You two,” Micah told his exhausted soldiers, “head for the chopper. I got Hanson.”

  He almost collapsed as Beter and Gembane wobbled to their feet, skating on the loose shale, and stumbled, fatigue-stupid, down the slope.

  “Come on, Sully, old buddy. I’m not leaving you,” Micah whispered, reaching down.

  It took three tries before Micah managed to toss the heavy body over his shoulder. A rock rolled under his foot, but he caught himself at the last moment.

  Then he was staggering down the hill.

  Just as the first of the pursuing Mufa Jihad fighters started down the ridge behind Micah, the door gunner opened up with the Dillon minigun, and streaks of tracers and bullets shredded the air no more than four feet over Micah’s head. With wooden resolve, he pounded down the slope, his knees ready to buckle.

  Lights glittered behind his eyes, as though he were about to pass out. His heart was beating the blood through his veins so fiercely that he could hear it in his ears.

  Ten meters to the UH-60’s door.

  Five.

  Hands were reaching for him, pulling Hanson’s body in.

  On the verge of collapse, Micah felt Gembane and Beter lift him by his body armor. The ground fell away as he was dragged onto the helo’s deck. The hollow pocking sound of rifle bullets hitting aluminum aircraft skin vied with the ear-splitting blat of the minigun shooting back.

  The next thing Micah knew, Colonel Logan was leaning over him, his wrinkled face coated with dust.

  “Hell of a good job, Captain,” the colonel barked over the helicopter’s roar.

  Micah blinked, took two tries to pull himself upright and into a sitting position. “Just get us back to the barn, Colonel. Wake us up sometime next week.”

  In the dim red light of the chopper’s interior, he saw Logan shake his head, a bitter smile on the colonel’s thin lips. The headphones were pressed down on his short gray hair. Red light had bleached all the color out of his blue eyes, leaving them washed out and pale. “No such luck, Captain.” Logan tapped his watch. “You’ve got twelve hours before they want you and your team on another bird.”

  “Another mission? Not possible, sir,” Micah said through a coughing fit. “We’re toast.”

  “Then you’d better turn yourselves into some goddamned frosty toast. This comes from JSOC, eyes only, highest priority. Don’t know who picked you, but they’ve got some pretty big cojones to do it without consulting me.”

  “What’s the op?” Micah whispered wearily, defeat and despair sucking the last of his energy dry.

  “Your team’s specialty. Religious extremists. You’re headed to some flyspeck village in Egypt. No other info at this time,” Logan told him. “You tell your guys to wrap their shit and get ready. You’re going back into the grinder.”

  Micah’s gaze fixed on Hanson’s body where it oozed blood onto the deck. His old friend’s ruined face seemed to be staring at him, as though to say, Christ, I’m glad it’s not me.

  He reached out to pat Hanson’s shoulder, and rasped through cracked lips, “I should have seen that sniper, buddy. My fault. All my fault. Too many goddamned mistakes.”

  CHAPTER 8

  SEPTEMBER 24. THE CHURCH OF SAINT THECLA, BIR BASHAN, EGYPT.

  Martin and Anna stood off to the side, waiting by the small stone church that perched on the rim of Black Canyon. A shallow gash in the earth, the canyon slithered through the desert like a gigantic serpent, cutting a wide swath on its way to the Nile.

  Martin wiped his sweating brow on his sleeve and looked around. In the distance, beyond the ancient village, heat waves blurred the vista. The expanse of sand dunes had become a shimmering apparition, dotted here and there by people on camelback. But the mud-plastered village seemed empty. Goats wandered the streets aimlessly, their bells clanking. Was there no one left to tend them? Anna had told him two hundred people lived in Bir Bashan. He looked around. There were no smiling children racing by with dogs barking at their heels and no booths set up for the festival. Martin knew Africa. On religious feast days, merchants ordinarily sold everything from dried dates to guns scavenged from the recent revolutions. But today only four young men stood in the village square. They seemed to be enjoying the slightly cooler temperatures of afternoon as they waited for the triumphant march that would conclude the sacred ritual.

  The men spoke in low ominous tones. Martin caught Egyptian phrases like “divine pestilence” and “Lord’s revenge.” One man quoted Zechariah: “… he shall pass through the sea with affliction.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Anna. Do you?”

  “Not really, except that there’s sickness in the village.”

  “I gathered that, too. You don’t think…”

  The heavy door of the church swung open.

  Martin watched the old priest step out swinging the thurible, the centuries-old brass incense burner. The man smiled at the faithful who filed out after him. Incense perfumed the air with the sweet fragrance of myrrh.

  Most of the people trotted down the steps past Martin and Anna with barely a glance and vanished into the labyrinth of dirt streets.

  Martin studied their clothing. The women wore brightly colored linen robes, and the men sported tawny shirts that hung to their knees over billowing pants. As best he could figure, some belonged to African tribes in Sudan. Others were Egyptian, and a few were Libyan.

  “All right, let’s go talk to this guy,” Martin said and started forward toward the priest.

  Anna gripped his arm and pulled him back. “Wait.”

  A young woman with swollen eyes had exited the church and stopped beside the priest. She had a classic patrician face with large black eyes. “Please, Abba Taran, come soon,” she pleaded in Egyptian. Abba meant “Father.”

  Taran took her hand in a strong grip. “I’ll be there just as soon as the ritual procession is over, Alia. I promise.”

  Tear-choked, she murmured, “Thank you, Abba,” and rushed away.

  The white-haired priest glanced at Martin and Anna, apparently dismissed them as tourists, and lifted a hand to the four young men in the square. He called, “Let us prepare the way of the Lord.”

  As the four walked forward, twenty novices of Taran’s religious order filed out of the church. Dressed in pure white, as he was, they ranged in age from around twelve to twenty. The two oldest youths carried a wooden box the size of a small coffin. The relic box. It contained the ancient bones of Saint Thecla of Iconium. Carved symbols adorned the oak. Some were unrecognizable; others were clearly Hebraic letters, or anchors and fish. Some of the carvings looked new. They’d been scratched into the wood with a heavy hand, not the careful script of the ancient scribes.

  The honored four positioned themselves at each corner of the box, took it from the novices, and, supporting it upon their shoulders, readied themselves for the fe
stival procession.

  Swinging the thurible, Taran led the procession down the main dusty street. The men carrying the box walked right behind Taran, and the twenty novices brought up the rear, chanting softly. Their combined voices made a beautiful, ethereal sound.

  Anna placed a light hand on Martin’s arm. “If you can, please try to keep up with me, Martin. You’re much better with ancient Coptic than I am. We need to read the inscription on the relic box.”

  “Aren’t you afraid we’re going to be exposed to this sickness? And how do you know there’s an inscription on the box?”

  “He told me there was. That’s the last message I had from him.”

  “Hakari?”

  Anna strode forward, weaving between people to catch up with the relic box.

  Martin stayed a pace behind her.

  Crumbling huts lined the narrow street. The same color as the sand, the buildings were almost invisible from a distance. As the bones of the virgin saint passed, several people stepped out to offer prayers to Saint Thecla of Iconium. She’d been forgotten by modern Christianity. But here, in the deserts of old, the young woman ordained by the Apostle Paul to teach and baptize continued to be revered. Thecla had gained fame by healing the sick. A fifth-century book called The Life and Miracles of Saint Thecla documented forty-six miraculous healings by Thecla. Over the next sixteen centuries, hundreds more would be accounted to her name. Her presence here in this village supposedly continued to heal.

  At least until recently.

  Dogs lounged around the doors, panting in the heat, observing the procession with half-lidded eyes. Occasionally, tails thumped the ground when the mongrels recognized someone in the march.

  Martin and Anna accompanied the procession around the corner and into the interior of the village where whimpers and sobs rose. As Martin looked around, he noted the signs in the businesses. Most were closed. Empty.

  Fly-encrusted corpses rested in rows outside the huts, awaiting burial. Mingled among them, sick people leaned against the walls. Every exposed arm showed an inoculation site.

  Martin’s heartbeat sped up. Vaccinated. Somebody tried to stop the disease. It didn’t work. Is Anna seeing this?

  Taran nodded to people as he walked past swinging the incense burner. The fragrance seemed to soothe the afflicted. They closed their eyes and extended their hands toward the sacred ossuary as it passed, silently pleading for the virgin martyr to heal them.

  As Anna continued along the path behind Taran, the sick mesmerized Martin. Fevered, many had thrown off their blankets and lay half clothed in the late afternoon sunlight. The pigment seemed to have been leached out of their skin, leaving only clear tissue behind. In horror, he stared at one shirtless man whose heart was visible, beating behind thin bars of ribs.

  Dear God, how was that possible?

  The man smiled at Taran, and whispered, “Saw an angel last night, Abba.”

  “Did you, Dodovah?” Taran knelt and placed a hand to the man’s burning forehead. “How are you today?”

  Dodovah blinked wearily. His breathing had dropped to short swift gasps. “Beautiful. Light. Shiny.”

  Martin glanced at Anna, but she was staring fixedly at the relic box, which had paused less than three feet away. Martin could see part of a more recent inscription, carved into the wood by a careless hand. Or maybe a rushed hand. The Coptic words just below had been slashed through the ancient geometric designs.

  Taran said, “We are praying very hard for you and your family.”

  “Grateful, Abba.”

  Taran stroked Dodovah’s dark hair and rose to his feet.

  Ten steps further, Martin saw a little boy lying naked in his mother’s arms. The child resembled a transparent acrylic doll, maybe a medical display designed to be see-through, so that a student could see the positions of the tiny liver and kidneys inside the body. When the sun descended in the west, light slanted through the hut’s crevices and shimmered in the child’s the arms.

  Horror had started to wind its way through Martin. The utter calm of the dying disturbed him in ways he could not express. Was this a new virus? Or the same virus that was spreading across France? The virus that the TV reporter said had escaped quarantine? The possibility was too terrible to believe. It couldn’t be. How could it have gotten all the way to Egypt so fast?

  With each breath, Martin might be inhaling the virus. Was it airborne? Or just acquired through touch or bodily fluids?

  Taran led the procession down another street and headed back to the stone church on the canyon rim.

  As they got closer, Anna marched beside Abba Taran. The priest gave her a pained look. Tourists were surely the last thing sick villagers needed right now.

  “Abba?” Anna said in Egyptian. “May I speak with you, please?”

  The priest gently replied in English, “You shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous. There is plague in this village.”

  “Forgive us, Father, I just need some information. I’m looking for a man, a foreigner. I’m supposed to meet him here.”

  “We see very few foreigners out here. In fact, you’re the first we’ve seen in three years. And look what the last one did to the relic box.” The priest wearily waved a hand at the lighter-colored gouges in the ancient wood. “The words are carved so deeply, we can’t get them out without destroying Saint Thecla’s coffin.”

  “I’m sorry, Father. Did you catch the man’s name?”

  Taran opened his mouth to respond, but then gestured to the church. “Please, come inside. I will answer your questions if I can. Though I do not know the villain’s name. I’m sorry. He appeared in the church, desecrated the sacred artifact, and vanished.”

  Martin and Anna politely waited while Taran entered the church, followed by the men carrying the relic box, and the twenty youths.

  “All right, let’s—”

  “Wait.” Anna gripped his arm hard. “Once we are inside, I want you to keep Taran busy. I need more time with the relic box. The words on the left side said the rim.”

  “The right side said just below.” His heart pounded. “How am I supposed to keep him busy?”

  “I don’t know. Think of something. You’re a paleographer. Strike up a conversation about some obscure religious text that says Saint Thecla never really existed.”

  “Ah.” Martin nodded. “I know just the one. In AD 200, the great Church theologian Tertullian wrote that the Acts of Paul, which document Thecla, were a forgery. Because of that, he said women had no right to teach or preach, and he—”

  “Don’t tell me. Tell Taran. Come on.”

  Anna hurried into the church.

  Martin trotted up the steps behind her.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, Martin and Anna exited the church into the flaming gleam of sunset. The buff-colored cliffs of Black Canyon had shaded lavender. As they passed through a small herd of wandering goats, Martin quietly asked, “Did you get what you came for?”

  “Partly.”

  “Good, let’s get out of this village. It’ll be a miracle if we don’t come down with the same thing that’s killing these people.”

  They started off at a brisk walk, heading southward along the canyon rim.

  When they were out of the village, Martin said, “Okay, tell me the truth. Who was the foreigner you were supposed to meet here? Who left that message on the relic box for you?”

  “James Hakari left the message on the box. Though I did not know for sure until today that he’d returned here three years ago.”

  “Then Hakari isn’t the guy you were supposed to meet here?”

  Anna fixed him with brilliant green eyes. Her auburn hair had purple highlights in the fading sunlight. “Concentrate, Martin. When we step out of the Cave of the Treasure of Light, we will enter his maze. It’s the starting point.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll explain later. For now, we have to find the trail that leads off the rim and down into the canyon
before it gets dark.”

  CHAPTER 9

  SEPTEMBER 24. 1800 HOURS.

  Wild thermals jostled the helicopter as it swooped above the dunes, savagely bucking it up and down in time to the swells of sand below.

  Captain Micah Hazor ran a hand over his sweating ebony face, then grabbed one of the handholds so he could lean to his left to peer outside as they flew over Egypt’s Lake Nasser. In the sunset gleam, the water appeared copper-colored, with vast golden swaths in the middle. Fishing boats crowded the shores around the villages. He could see the Aswan Dam to the north and beyond it the blue, serpentine expanse of the Nile River.

  The pilot tried in vain to evade the worst of the turbulence, but every time he used the cyclic to correct, the thermals shoved them in the opposite direction.

  “Jesus, I hate choppers,” Sergeant Luke Ranken said just before his stomach heaved again. He’d had his pug nose buried in an airsick bag for the past ten minutes. Sweat-soaked blond hair, shaved close to his scalp, framed his freckled face. He was an Iowa farm boy with an MA in Islamic Studies. He was also the best man Micah had ever seen when it came to explosive devices.

  The helicopter leaped into the air, hung weightless for a few seconds, then pitched sideways and ferociously lunged downward. In the distance, black dots of villages appeared in the lengthening shadows among the dunes. Whirlwinds, like tiny tornadoes, careened around the villages.

  Corporal John Gembane whooped when the bird soared upward again. Ranken groaned, “Shit,” and his best friend, Marcus Beter, burst out in laughter.

  Micah smiled. His team had been together for three years. They’d saved one another’s lives many times over; it created a special bond between men—a band closer than brothers.

  Micah straightened in his seat harness and stared across the chopper into the crystal-blue eyes of Colonel Joseph Logan. The old man wore desert camo. He had a face like a weather-beaten mountain: all crags and folds. An extreme pragmatist, he’d been known to sacrifice hundreds to achieve a minor military objective. As a result, he was not- so-affectionately known to his troops as Voldemort, the Darkest of the Dark Lords. Because Micah frequently challenged Logan’s orders, his team had nicknamed him Mr. Potter—which annoyed Micah to no end.