The Jericho Deception: A Novel

by Jeffrey Small

  “Praise Allah,” Mousa muttered under his breath.

  “I can’t believe it.” Rachel wiped the moisture from her eyes as she craned her head upward.

  “It actually worked,” Chris said.

  Ethan stepped into the opening. The tank hadn’t simply exploded like a bomb. With its electronic thermostat disabled, the heating element had heated the water past its safety cutoff, and since the pressure relief valve could no longer open, the pressure inside the tank had built as the temperature rose. The normal boiling point of water was two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit, or one hundred Celsius, but those numbers assumed that the water was at sea level. The higher the pressure of the water, the higher the temperature it took to turn it into steam. Just what had happened to a number of unlucky homeowners across the US when their water heaters failed had happened here: the pressure building inside the tank hadn’t affected the steel structure uniformly. The weakest link was the weld that joined the bottom of the tank to the sides. When the weld failed, the bottom blew off. As the pent-up pressure was released, the superheated water had instantly turned into steam, converting the one-hundred-and-twenty-gallon tank into a rocket.

  Ethan gazed upward through the shredded drywall and the broken wood and steel supports that had formed the floor system. Beyond a tangled mass of wires that twisted through the empty space like red and black spaghetti, he saw stars. The water heater had blown through two stories and out the building’s metal roof. He realized with satisfaction that the wires dangling above his head belonged to the server room that stored the security equipment and the brains of the Logos machines. The room was destroyed.

  “We’ve got to keep moving,” Chris called.

  “What about the other monks?” Mousa asked.

  “Their best chance is for you to get out of here safely.”

  Ethan felt Rachel at his side, but his attention was still transfixed by the sight above him. She took his hand and interlaced her fingers in his. He turned to her and met her eyes. She nodded, and they ran down the hall.

  The desire to sleep was overwhelming. Axe wanted nothing more than to drift off into the warm comfort of unconsciousness. His senses felt dulled, like he was suspended in an endless ocean. The voices and footsteps had faded into the distance. He was alone.

  Fighting the impulse to sleep, he blinked. His mind scrambled to piece together what had happened. With the effort required to push out the last rep of a final set, he rose to a seated position and surveyed the room.

  An explosion.

  The events began to return to him, as did the realization that the professor, the Arab, and the girl were attempting to escape. Angering him even more was the thought of Christian Sligh, one of Wolfe’s favored operatives: a traitor. The professor had stuck him with the Ativan. That explained the vertigo causing the room to spin. Fortunately, he’d juiced earlier that day. His pulse and blood pressure were both running higher than normal.

  He grabbed the leg of the cathedra and hoisted himself to his feet. He kept a hand on the chair as he waited for the room to stop spinning.

  He would snap the professor’s neck first. Then he would take great pleasure in killing the others one by one, especially the traitor Chris. He’d never liked the student; he thought he was so smart. Wolfe hadn’t appreciated the dangers of sending someone undercover, especially someone of Sligh’s young age and limited experience. The temptation to be seduced by those one was spying on was too great for most, and the longer one was embedded, the greater the chances of becoming loyal to the subjects over the mission itself.

  He lurched toward the opening of the chapel, focusing his attention on his unsteady feet.

  “Keep your heads down,” Chris said as he reached for the doorknob at the top of the emergency staircase. “We’re turning left. Don’t look behind you. The heater blasted through the floor about forty feet back. The guards’ quarters are at the end of the hall past there. They’ll be spilling out, trying to figure out what happened. We’ll go through two doors. The first leads to the reception room; the second leads outside. Nick Dawkins is on guard tonight.” He reached under his robe and produced a semi-automatic pistol.

  “Chris,” Ethan said, surprised at the sight of his student handling a firearm with such ease, “I don’t want you to use that unless you have to.”

  “Look, these guys play for keeps.” He pulled the slide on the top of the gun backward, chambering a bullet from the gun’s magazine, and then released it with a metallic clunk and replaced the gun under his robes. “But I don’t want to shoot anyone either.”

  “How do we get past this Nick guy?” Rachel asked.

  “I’ll handle him. Just keep your faces averted,” Chris replied. “Once outside, turn right and take the second SUV—that’s the one whose GPS I programmed to take you to Luxor.”

  “And you?” Ethan asked. “Axe knows you’re helping us now. You can’t stay behind.”

  “I’ll drive the first car into Aswan. That’s where they’ll expect you to go to catch the first plane or train in the morning. I’ll try to lead them off your trail.”

  “If they find you?”

  “I’ll ditch the car on a side road and hide out until daylight. I know the town well. Then I’ll hire a taxi to drive me to Luxor and I’ll meet up with you there.”

  “How long’s our drive?” Rachel asked.

  “With your desert detour, about a hundred and forty miles. It’ll be rough going at first, but you’ll reach Luxor by morning. Get to the hotel and stay there until I arrive in the afternoon. Then we’ll figure out how to get out of the country without passports.”

  The sound of a door opening echoed up from the stairwell below. Ethan shot a glance at his student, who mouthed the name Axe. He thought of the sedative he’d injected into the man. How’s he on his feet?

  Chris turned the knob and swung the door open. They rushed into the hallway, which was heavy with humidity and smelling of burning plastic. They raced to their left. Confused voices echoed through the hall from behind the walls.

  Chris swiped his key in the reader at the end of the corridor, but the light on the lock remained a solid red. Ethan tried to swallow back the fluttering in his stomach, but his mouth had gone dry. Chris tried a second time and the lock still didn’t open. Ethan glanced over his shoulder, even though he knew that he wasn’t supposed to. Wolfe’s head of security was less than a minute behind them, and they were trapped at a dead end if they couldn’t open the door.

  “Damn!” Chris said. He held up his card, examined the magnetic strip, and wiped it off on his cloak. On the third try the lock clicked green and opened. They pushed into the reception area.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Chris turned toward the voice coming from behind the Plexiglas window. A man in a black suit with a dark crew cut stood on the other side of the window. Ethan moved beside Chris so that Nick Dawkins couldn’t get a good look at either Rachel or Mousa.

  “An explosion!” Chris shouted. “The gas stove in the kitchen.”

  Ethan jabbed a finger toward the outside door. “Get this open! We have to shut off the gas valve at the tank before the whole damn building blows.”

  Nick’s eyes went wide, but he hesitated a moment, looking back and forth between the two men.

  “Now, damn it!” Chris stepped toward the window. Ethan had never seen his student so in control before.

  “Hurry,” he added, “or we’re all gonna die!”

  The idea of dying must have motivated the guard because he hit a button on the desk. As soon as the click from the door lock sounded, Mousa pushed the door open. The cool, dry desert air beckoned to them.

  When the door closed behind them, the silence of the still night calmed the pounding in Ethan’s head. Without the footsteps of their pursuer behind him or the heavy air in his lungs, he felt his headache dissipating. They were almost free.

  They ran across the drive, gravel crunching underneath their shoes. Rachel and
Mousa rounded the side of the first black SUV.

  That’s when the gunshots rang out.

  CHAPTER 51

  THE MONASTERY

  “Get down!” Chris shouted.

  Ethan’s brain took a moment to process what was occurring. Gunshots in real life were much louder than depicted in movies. Rather than drop to the ground, his instinct was to turn toward the explosions. Axe staggered out of the open door of the building thirty yards away. Somehow the security chief was still conscious, but judging from the way his body lurched with each step and how his arm—which was holding a short, black submachine gun—was wavering, the Ativan was having an effect on him. The vision of the gun pointed in Ethan’s direction finally registered.

  He’s shooting at us!

  “Take cover!” Chris reached underneath his black robe for his weapon. Ethan hit the ground, grinding his knees and palms into the gravel. The first SUV was only a few feet in front of him. He wriggled on his belly toward it.

  “Hurry!” Rachel called. She and Mousa had taken refuge on the other side of the car.

  Crawling while remaining flat to the ground was difficult. Ethan’s elbows scraped across the small pebbles; the taste of dust spread through his mouth.

  As he reached the car’s bumper, the shots exploded again. He cut his eyes toward Chris and saw him raise his weapon. The scene unfolded in slow motion. Axe had closed the gap by about a third and was standing with his feet shoulder-width apart, his body angled sideways toward them. The submachine gun’s collapsible metal stock was extended and resting against his shoulder. Sparks of flame spat from the gun’s barrel.

  Chris seemed to take an eternity to sight his gun on his target. Ethan willed him to move faster. His own body convulsed as he watched Chris jerk backward twice. Oh God! But Chris didn’t fall. Instead he began to return fire.

  Axe dropped to the ground and rolled to his left. A small grouping of boulders outlined the walkway to the front door. Puffs of dirt and rock flew up from the ground as Chris continued shooting. Axe threw himself over the two-foot-tall rocks.

  For a moment, the nighttime silence returned to the desert. Then he heard a metal clicking sound from the other side of the rocks. He guessed that Axe was swapping magazines in his gun. They had seconds left. Even in his drugged state, the trained killer would be able to pick them off from behind the cover of the rocks.

  “Come on, Chris!” he yelled.

  His student turned toward him. His face was pale. Ethan’s stomach lurched when he saw the two red circles on his upper torso. Chris sank to his knees, turned his attention back to their adversary, and squeezed off two more shots, blasting chips off the top of the rocks. The top of Axe’s head, which was just starting to poke above the cover, disappeared again. Chris’s free hand swept his priestly robes aside and produced the keys to the SUV. He tossed the keys toward Ethan without taking his eyes off the boulders.

  “Get out of here. I’ll see how long I can delay him.”

  “You’re coming with us!”

  “There’s no time. The others will be out here soon with more firepower. This is your only chance.”

  Ethan lunged for the keys in the dirt in front of him. Then, crouching, he ran around the side of the car.

  How can I leave him here to die?

  Chris had betrayed him and Elijah, but he was young and he had believed he was doing the right thing, serving their country. He’d had no idea the extremes to which Wolfe would take things. And now he’d risked his life to save them.

  “Go now!” the grad student yelled.

  He peered around the bumper. Chris still held the gun pointed in Axe’s direction, but his other hand was now resting on the ground, supporting his weight. He was losing blood rapidly. Ethan knew what would happen if they didn’t get him to a hospital soon. Chris was in hypovolemic shock. Soon his body would go into a baroreflex response as it detected a decrease in blood pressure from the loss of blood. His vascular system would restrict and his heart rate would increase in an attempt to maintain pressure. As the bleeding from the wounds continued, his heart would go tachycardic, sending his pulse over one hundred and twenty beats per minute. The pallor he saw in his student’s face would increase even further then, and as the shock progressed he would start to lose consciousness.

  But Ethan could save him. Surely Aswan had a hospital. One of the shots had struck him in the shoulder and the other in the chest—probably puncturing a lung, judging by the way he was struggling for breath. But neither wound was necessarily fatal.

  “Doctor.” He felt a hand on his arm. Mousa knelt beside him. “We have to leave.”

  Rachel crouched just behind the Jordanian. Her eyes were wide. Ethan realized that Chris was right. The others might come any second, and Axe still had the strategic advantage. He made his decision. The only true innocents there were Rachel and Mousa. He had to save them. He handed the keys—now damp with the sweat from his hand—to Mousa.

  “Get her to Luxor.”

  Mousa nodded, moved to the second SUV, and opened the door. “Come with me, Ms. Riley.”

  She hesitated. “Ethan, you can’t stay. You’ll be killed. You have to come with us.”

  “I’ll be a minute behind you. I can’t leave Chris. I’m going to get him into the other car, drop him at the hospital, and then meet you in Luxor.”

  “But Axe has a machine gun.”

  “He’s fighting the Ativan in his system as much as us now. We’ll make it.”

  “But—”

  “I grabbed a cell phone.”

  “You have a cell phone?”

  “I’ll leave you a message at the hotel in Luxor under the name”—he paused for a second—“Anakin Skywalker.”

  “Let me see the phone!”

  He snatched it from his pocket and handed it to her. Her fingers flew over the keys. “I put my dad’s cell phone number in it. He can help us.”

  “Ms. Riley!” Mousa called from the driver’s seat. He cranked the engine.

  “Go!”

  Rachel pressed the phone into Ethan’s hand, threw her arms around his neck, and squeezed. Her damp priest’s robes clung to his skin. She kissed him hard. Then she pulled away and jumped into the car.

  “You better not die,” she said before swinging the door closed.

  Mousa gunned the engine. Gravel spat from the tires as they shot away.

  Ethan crouched behind the rear tire well of the remaining SUV. “Chris, get over here,” he whispered.

  Chris glanced over his shoulder. His face fell when he saw Ethan peek around the car. He turned back to the boulders, fired three more shots, and then ran for the car. Machine gun fire followed him. Ethan ducked his head into his arms, hoping the car would protect him. The bullets sounded like metallic popcorn as they struck the SUV.

  “Why didn’t you go?”

  Chris fell beside him. His breath came in rapid bursts.

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  He opened Chris’s robe and felt for the entry wounds. As he expected, one was in his right chest, missing his heart, but puncturing a lung. The other was just below his left clavicle. “You have to put pressure on these to stop the bleeding.” He began to remove the cassock from Chris’s shoulders, causing him to wince. “I’ll tear this into sections that we can use as a compress.”

  “You don’t have time. You have to go.”

  Another round of bullets rocked the SUV. “I’ll drive us into Aswan while you hold the compresses. I’ll drop you at a hospital and then disappear.”

  With his robe off, Chris reached into his pants pocket and produced a slender magazine. His right thumb depressed a lever on the side of the handgun that caused the spent magazine to drop to the ground. He slammed the fresh one in and chambered the first round.

  “You shouldn’t have done this.”

  Chris maneuvered himself so that he could see around the bumper of the car. Axe unleashed another volley of bullets.

  Ethan reached up and opened the
door. “Hand me the keys. I’ll start the engine while you keep his head down.”

  They both noticed the hissing sound at the same time. Ethan felt his heart sink as he realized where the noise came from. The SUV listed to the side away from them. He felt the pressure of panic rise in his chest.

  “He’s shot the tires,” Chris said without any emotion.

  “We can still drive on the rims. Town’s not that far away.”

  Chris stuck his gun around the car and fired off two rounds. Then he turned toward Ethan. His face had grown even more pallid, his breathing more labored. He stuck his hand into his pocket, but instead of pulling out the keys, he retrieved his wallet. Thrusting it into Ethan’s chest, he said, “Use the cash, but be careful with the credit cards unless you absolutely need to use them. They can track you that way.”

  “But—”

  “The car will never make it. They’ll gun you down.” He leaned into his professor. “Axe thinks you’re in the car with the others.” He pointed into the desert, where dunes rose and fell like waves on a dark ocean. “Run straight. The SUV will block you from view. When you’ve crested the dunes and are sure you can’t be seen, turn southwest—that’ll be to your left. We’re two or three miles from Lake Nasser. These warehouses were built in the ’60s to store supplies for the construction of the lake. Follow the shoreline west—away from Aswan. Eventually you’ll come across some small fishing villages. You can pay someone there to drive you to Luxor.”

  “What about you?”

  “If I can kill Axe before the others come outside, I’ll tell them you guys shot both of us in your escape attempt.”

  He looked at his student. He knew the odds weren’t good. But they were out of options, and the frequency of gunshots coming from Axe had decreased. The Ativan was winning the battle for his consciousness. He would pass out soon. Maybe Chris could finish him off. He took the wallet.