“I’ve got you,” he called to her.
He lifted her, allowing her toes to find the lip of the stone below them. Her free hand slapped the stone ledge by his face.
“Just one more,” he said.
He pulled again. She pushed with her free hand, swung her legs up, and collapsed on the ledge in front of him, their faces inches apart. Tears streamed from her eyes.
“You saved my life.” Her breath came in short gasps.
He brushed the tears from her cheek, moving the damp strands of hair from her face. He thought she’d never looked more beautiful. He kissed her. She eagerly returned the kiss, her mouth yielding to his.
Then she drew back and asked, “Did you mean what you said? You really love me?”
Peering into her eyes, he knew that words were inadequate to describe his true feelings. Any language he used would come from his head, not the energy vibrating in his heart.
“With all my soul,” he said. For the first time, he truly understood what that word meant.
CHAPTER 62
THE MONASTERY
Wolfe stared at the secure phone on his desk. Silent. He ran his hands through his silver hair. His last conversation with Deputy Director Richards had been hours earlier. It hadn’t gone well.
“Call off your men,” Richards had instructed. “I’m terminating Jericho.”
“Give me a half-hour, an hour tops.” He’d rolled up his shirtsleeves as he cradled the phone on his shoulder. The AC in the building was not functioning well since the explosion. “My men are on top of them as we speak. They’re trapped in the ruins of Karnak.”
Richards had paused as if contemplating whether to trust his latest assessment.
“I guarantee I can contain this,” he’d added, forcing a note of confidence into his baritone voice.
“Your guarantees so far have been worthless. I can’t risk any further exposure of the operation. I’m taking control of Jericho as of this moment.”
The matter-of-fact way that the Deputy Director delivered the news had caused Wolfe to flinch as if he’d been struck.
“But if we let them escape, our secrecy will be blown.” His voice had gone up an octave against his wishes. “I can contain this!”
“They’ve already made contact with the outside.” Richards’s voice had turned soft, almost comforting. “Allen, I appreciate your passion. Your vision for Jericho was compelling. Look, it even sucked me in, but we overreached.”
“It’s not too late!” Wolfe had known he was pleading, something he despised when others did it. But his life’s work was on the line: everything he’d desired since his graduate student days in the ’60s. The CIA had abandoned him then, and now they were getting cold feet again.
Then he’d made a decision out of desperation, something he hated to do. He’d spilled his plans for Phase II of Jericho. He’d planned to present to Richards the idea of churches with the Logos pews after the current difficulties were resolved, but he’d had no choice but to put his cards on the table. He’d explained his vision of what Jericho could really be. They would expand it from a covert operation to infiltrate terrorist cells to a program that could convert masses of Muslims into Christians. They would change the balance of power in these countries, not through military or economic means, but religious ones.
Silence had greeted his explanation.
“Before you make any decisions, I’d like you to fly out here and let me show you what we’ve done. We’ve already constructed enough pews for a test church.”
“You’ve already built them?”
“I used some of the money left over from the Monastery construction account. You really need to see how they work.”
After another long pause, Richards had said, “Come back to Washington. We’ll talk further here. Figure out our next steps. You’ll be fine.”
Wolfe stared again at the silent phone. The DD’s assurances that he would “be fine” made him nervous. Why say that unless he had thoughts that indicated otherwise?
Despite his instructions to call off the hunt for the professor, the girl, and the Jordanian, he’d done no such thing. Axe and his well-trained men could handle the three amateurs. Silencing them was the best, really the only, solution to their predicament. He would ask forgiveness after the fact from Richards. The Deputy Director would yell at him for not following orders but would be secretly happy he’d solved the problem. Then he’d repair the Monastery, install stricter security measures, and kick Project Jericho into full gear.
The ringing of the phone caused him to jump in his seat. He snatched the receiver from the cradle.
“Wolfe here,” he answered.
“Boss, it’s Dawkins.”
Finally, the update he’d been waiting for. “Do you have them?”
“Axe is dead,” the operative said in an emotionless tone.
Before he could ask what happened, Dawkins continued, “Egyptian security is swarming. We can’t reach the subjects.”
“They’re still free?”
“Sorry, Boss. We’re clearing out.”
He felt the blood drain from his head as if a stopper had been pulled where his skull joined his spine.
CHAPTER 63
CAIRO, EGYPT
“How can I take your money?” The Egyptian stepped in front of Ethan and Rachel, blocking their path between the crowded market stalls. Rachel jumped backward and Ethan shielded her with his body. They were still jittery from the previous day’s trauma in Luxor. The merchant thrust his hands toward them, displaying a plastic pyramid, a stuffed camel, and several colorful scarves.
“Not interested,” Ethan said, pushing past the man. Rachel clasped his arm, hugging his side.
The man’s face fell. “But I give best price in the Khan.” When they continued to walk away, he called after them, “Guaranteed! You come back to Mohammad when ready for souvenir!”
“This place is a zoo,” Rachel said.
“I’m not positive we’re even heading in the right direction.”
Ethan gazed at the hundreds of stalls wedged on the sidewalks in front of the three-story buildings. Merchants sold everything from spices to clothes and toys. The heavy scent of people and burning incense hung in the air. The Khan el-Khalili bazaar in the heart of Cairo had captured the essence of Egypt since it began in the fourteenth century. The swarms of people were just as diverse as the goods being sold. Egyptian men walked arm-in-arm with other men. Women dressed in Western fashion with silk scarves draped around their heads bargained with merchants over the rainbow of fabrics being sold, while others veiled in black burqas perused bins of silver bracelets. European tourists weaved in and out of the stalls, speaking a smorgasbord of languages.
“The driver said it would be on the corner there.” Rachel pointed ahead.
The car had taken them from their hotel overlooking the Nile through the bustling city of twelve million people down Al-Muski Street to the Khan. Traffic had been so heavy that an ambulance with its siren blazing had been stuck behind them for twenty minutes. No one, including their car, had made any attempt to move aside. Ethan had tried to ignore the chaos of Egyptian drivers, who paid no attention to lanes and came within inches of each other, and to focus instead on the European architecture of the city.
As they’d waited in the traffic, he’d thought back to their narrow escape the previous day in the temple of Karnak, and to the death of James Axelrod, which he’d confirmed after descending the wall.
He couldn’t explain the burst of strength that had allowed him to hold on to Rachel’s arm when the man intent on killing them grabbed her ankle. Nor could he make sense of the odd expression that had passed over the assassin’s face before he released her leg and fell: a look of pure terror. Ethan knew that the combination of a hormonal surge from the adrenal gland and the heightened awareness one experienced in life-or-death circumstances would affect each person differently, but he couldn’t help but think back to his experience on the river. The same int
erconnectedness he’d sensed then he felt with Rachel.
After searching for Axe’s nonexistent pulse, they’d raced through the maze of rubble back to the central area of the temple complex by the Hypostyle Hall of columns. The people they’d passed who had seen them climbing the wall had given them strange looks, but they hadn’t run into the Egyptian security forces. Ethan guessed that they’d gathered around Mousa. While they would have welcomed the authorities when Wolfe’s man was chasing them, once they were safe, they weren’t so sure. They didn’t know what kind of influence the CIA could exert. They made their way back to the main entrance, ducking in and out of tourist groups to avoid any other men Wolfe might have deployed there.
They’d jumped into the first free taxi near the entrance to the temple complex. “Take us to the airport, please,” Rachel had told the driver before turning to Ethan. Her face had been dusty from sand. She’d tucked a matted strand of hair behind her ear and grabbed his hands.
“We’re going to Cairo now,” she’d said.
“Your conversation with Houston?”
She’d nodded. “Flights leave Luxor every couple of hours. We’ll have open tickets waiting for us at the airport.”
“And then?”
“Tomorrow, we’re supposed to go to meet him in a restaurant in some marketplace.” She’d patted the pocket of her jeans. “Got the name written down.”
“Your dad will be in Cairo tomorrow?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Why a restaurant and not the embassy or the Cairo airport?”
She’d shrugged. “Those were his instructions. He was in a hurry to get to JFK himself.”
Ethan recalled her mentioning that Houston and the Yale president had been on the phone with someone in Washington. He didn’t know whether to be comforted by or nervous about the vague plans. Certainly Houston won’t do anything to put his daughter in any greater risk, he thought.
“I think it’s to the left.” Rachel’s voice brought him out of the memory of the previous day.
She stopped at the intersection of a narrow street that bisected the market stalls. A stray dog with a wiry beige coat and a long, jackal-looking face sniffed around their feet. She turned onto the cobblestone road.
Then he saw the two men.
They were standing in front of a sandstone wall with brass lanterns on each side of a heavy wood door. The El-Fishawi Café—the restaurant where they were to meet Houston. A bronze plaque on the wall under the sign for the café bore the name Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian, Nobel Prize–winning author who frequented the restaurant.
Although both men sported sunglasses, Ethan felt their stares. They wore dark pants, white shirts, and blue windbreakers. Americans. He debated whether they should run back into the crowded market. Rachel’s grip tightened on his arm. He was sure the men had weapons stashed under their jackets, but their open hands hung by their sides. Then the taller of the two nodded in the direction of the door.
“We can’t run forever,” Ethan said.
They had no passports and were running out of the cash Chris had given them. He squeezed Rachel’s hand and started for the door.
CHAPTER 64
DAR AL FOUAD HOSPITAL
CAIRO, EGYPT
The first sensation that returned to Mousa was touch: soft sheets caressed his body. The second was smell: something clean, but in an antiseptic way. He opened his eyes. His environment was white: the bed, the walls, even the vinyl tile floor. The single window in the room even let in a white light from the midday sun. Although the intensity of the light hurt his eyes, he resisted the temptation to close them and drift back to sleep.
I’m alive!
He tried to shift his body, but had trouble moving. Am I restrained? A shot of fear went through him.
On his second attempt, he was able to raise his left arm. While heavy, it was free. He noted the IV taped to the back of his hand and the clear tube that ran to the bag hanging over his head. He shifted his body and felt a soft lump on his back. He was lying on a wad of gauze.
Then the fog lifted from his brain. He was in a hospital. The events from the day before replayed in his mind: the stabbing from behind, the pain that had paralyzed his body, Ethan and Rachel by his side, the crowd of people who had gathered after he’d sent them away, and then the fleeting image of a paramedic laying a hand on his neck to take his pulse before he slipped into unconsciousness.
As if on cue for the next question that came to mind—Where am I?—the door to the room opened and a doctor in a white coat approached the bed. He looked up from the clipboard he was reviewing and asked, “So Dr. Ibrahim, how are we feeling today?”
“Where am I?”
“Dar Al Fouad. A helicopter brought you here yesterday.”
I’m in Cairo?
He’d been to the Dar Al Fouad Hospital several times for conferences with their renowned orthopedic department—the best in the Middle East. Then an uneasy feeling cut through the haze of the painkillers dripping through his IV.
This doctor is American, he realized. The man in the white coat approached his bed and checked the IV bag.
“Mousa, we need to talk.”
With the doctor hovering over him, he got a closer look. The man’s haircut was short and tidy, above the tops of his ears. Then he noticed that the white lab coat seemed to be too small for his frame, stretched over a broad physique. Mousa was now fully awake. This man had the look of one of the Bishop’s priests in the Monastery. He was CIA.
CHAPTER 65
EL-FISHAWI CAFÉ
CAIRO, EGYPT
The dimly lit restaurant was paneled in dark cherrywood, and the mirrors on the walls gave it a maze-like appearance. The animated Arabic chatter from lunchtime patrons reclining in plushly upholstered chairs filled the space. The smell of cooked lamb, garlic, and assorted spices Ethan couldn’t place filled his nostrils. A short, stout Egyptian in an immaculate charcoal suit led them to a doorway that opened into a private room containing two round tables.
He forgot about the smells and sounds when he saw the two men sitting at the table closest to the door. Neither spoke or ate. Only a solitary glass of water sat in front of each. Both were bulky Americans who could have been twins to the two stationed at the entrance to the restaurant. One stared at them with a penetrating gaze, while the other’s attention stayed focused on the restaurant. The maître d’ motioned for Ethan and Rachel to enter.
The second table in the corner of the room was larger and coated in a gold metallic finish. Multiple serving bowls and dishes overflowed with food: crispy broiled chicken, chunks of lamb in stew, warm flatbread, hummus drizzled with olive oil, dolmas, and steaming bowls of red, orange, and yellow vegetables.
“Ethan! Rachel!” Sam Houston stood from the table, while a second man remained seated.
A flood of emotions flowed through Ethan at the sight of the Yale administrator in his wire glasses, blue blazer, and gray slacks. On the one hand he was relieved to see a familiar face. On the other, he still didn’t know if he could trust him.
Rachel dropped his hand and ran to the table. Houston embraced his daughter, lifting her off her feet. Ethan was shocked to see tears flowing from his face. He’d never seen this side of the professor before. He turned his attention to the second man, who appeared to be a few years younger than Houston. Where Houston was mostly bald, with a circle of gray hair around his crown, this man’s head was shaved to a polish that reflected the light from the pair of iron sconces on the wall. Rather than Houston’s thin neck and long limbs, the other man was short and thick—not over-muscled like the four men guarding him, but solid. The man leaned back in his chair. Smoke from a cigarette curled upward from his fingertips.
Finally, the man spoke. “Have a seat, Ms. Riley and Dr. Lightman.” The tone of his voice indicated that they weren’t being invited but ordered. Both sat.
“You have us at a disadvantage.” Ethan attempted to keep his voice steady and confident. �
�You know us, but we’ve never met you.”
“Ethan, Rachel,” Houston said while fumbling with his own chair, “may I introduce you to Casey Richards.” The administrator lowered his voice. “He’s the Deputy Director of the NCS.”
“NCS?” Rachel asked.
“The National Clandestine Services,” Richards replied before taking a long drag.
Answering the confusion on her face, he explained, “The CIA. I’m in charge of the Agency’s covert operations.”
A sigh escaped Ethan’s lips. “He’s the one responsible for the Monastery. Wolfe works for him.”
Wolfe scurried about his office. He hadn’t heard from Nick Dawkins since the previous afternoon, when his operative had called back a few hours after he’d delivered the news from Karnak to tell him that he was going to the authorities to retrieve Axe’s body and to clean up the mess. Dawkins and the others should have returned last night. Now they wouldn’t answer his phone calls. The skeletal staff that had remained to make repairs and watch over the confused prisoners—monks, he corrected himself—had heard nothing either.
He bent over the aluminum briefcase on his desk. It contained a laptop and two identical hard drives, each loaded with the Logos’s programming. Although Professor Lightman hadn’t fixed the flaw, it still worked perfectly in 90 percent of the subjects. That would have to do for now. He opened the left door on his credenza, revealing a safe that had been bolted into the ground and the wall. He spun the combination lock. Opening the door, he fished under the file folders stamped “TOP SECRET EYES ONLY” until he found what he was looking for. He removed the three bundles of cash secured by rubber bands, each valued at ten thousand dollars in denominations of Egyptian pounds, euros, and US dollars. He pulled several bills from each of the bundles and stuffed them into his wallet. Then he tossed the remaining cash into the briefcase.
The Jericho Deception: A Novel Page 35