The Medusa stone Page 14

  Beyond the crusader walls, the new city of Jerusalem, too, was quiet. The presence of so many armed soldiers patrolling the streets and neighborhoods, harassing both Jew and Arab alike in their search for terrorists, had strained the patience of the inhabitants to the point where they no longer ventured out unless absolutely necessary.

  In the safe house within the old city, the strain of maintaining vigilance was also telling on the remainder of Yosef's team, those charged with guarding Harry White. These soldiers were the group's lowest ranks, those with minimal combat experience. The best of the organization had gone to Eritrea with Yosef, leaving the younger, less-trained zealots to hold their prisoner. Without Yosef's direct control, discipline had started falling and was now at its lowest ebb. While their belief in their cause and in Defense Minister Levine had not wavered, they'd lost interest in baby-sitting a cantankerous old man.

  The younger members chafed at the forced inactivity. A ` the new e preseel took the lead, an automatic pistol held discreetly against her thigh. They had to cover about three-quarters of a mile through the Jewish Quarter to reach the waiting van, and while she didn't like the exposure, she had no choice.

  Harry's mind worked furiously. He tried to recognize any landmark that might look familiar as they moved, but nothing came to him. He was in the Middle East, of that he was sure, but had no idea where. The one clue he had--Moshe drinking the gin with him--gave him nothing. And then he realized that a woman was now leading the team. A woman! Not in an Arab country. In a rush everything came clear. His kidnappers were Jewish! Some Israeli extremist group, no doubt.

  He should have seen it all along. Moshe was a Jewish name, the name of a former Israeli leader. "Shit," he cursed himself under his breath.

  But how to make this work to his advantage? This was his best opportunity to escape, and still he had no ideas. Muslim or Jew, it didn't matter as long as they were armed. He did sense the group's tension and wisely decided not to delay them by intentionally slowing his pace. He could tell they were all in danger.

  Rachel stiffened when she heard a group of men running toward them. She hid the pistol behind her leg just as a dozen soldiers rounded a corner a half block away, their equipment slapping against their uniforms. As soon as the security patrol spotted the four people breaking the curfew order, their weapons came up, twelve fingers tightening on the triggers.

  "No, please, wait!" Rachel cried in Hebrew. "We are Israeli citizens!"

  "What are you doing on the street?" the ranking soldier called back, his weapon centered on Rachel's head.

  "There was a shooting close to our apartment, my grandfather was frightened," Rachel improvised, pointing at Harry. "He demanded we leave immediately. He is very ill. The strain is bad for his heart."

  "Return to your home at once," the soldier ordered. "You should not be out here."

  "I know, but we cannot calm him." She lowered her voice to draw on the soldier's natural compassion. "His wife, my grandmother, was killed in the bombing at the Wall. He has not been himself."

  At that revelation, the leader of the patrol lowered his weapon, and his troops followed suit. The soldier looked at the group critically, deciding that a woman, two boys barely out of their teens, and a man who looked as though he would die at any moment did not pose a threat. The radio on his belt squawked, and he shifted his attention from Rachel to it.

  "A patrol has made contact," he said to his group. "Two men armed with automatic weapons. They've split up. I think one of the bastards is heading our way." He looked at Rachel again, but already his concentration was on the hunt for the renegades. "Clear the street as quickly as you can. There are two of them out here tonight."

  Harry watched the exchange, realized that the patrol was about to leave, and got a sickening inspiration. It was now or never. God forgive me for what I'm about to do. Then as loud as he could, he screamed, "Heil Hitler!"

  His shocking outburst had the desired effect. The patrol swung back toward the group of kidnappers, and in the split second of indecision, one of the young Israelis with Rachel was startled and drew his weapon. Harry dropped to the ground as the patrol's Galil assault rifles chattered, the street dancing with the fire of the muzzle flashes. Rachel dove out of the wayossible.

  Ten minutes trickled by, the Land Cruiser crawling blindly through the twisting slashes of wind and sand, Mercer's hand slick on the steering wheel, his body attuned to any attitude shifts that would signal a hill or a valley. Then as suddenly as it had started, the storm blew over them and they were in the clear. Even before his eyes could adjust to the sudden burst of sunlight, Mercer floored the accelerator, flinging Gibby and Selome back in their seats. They had a precious few minutes before the sand settled around their pursuers.

  "Selome, keep your eye out for that Fiat and tell me the instant you see it."

  There was a series of low hills a half mile ahead, and Mercer was hoping that they would be behind them before she saw the other vehicle. If the three of them were spotted first, it would all be over.

  "Anything?"

  "No, the storm is still hanging on back there. I can't see them. I think--"

  The Toyota catapulted in the air, throwing off smoking hunks of body work and bits of its undercarriage. The thunder of the explosion drowned out the screams of the passengers. Crashing on its three remaining tires, the Land Cruiser flipped on its side, its front fender plowing a deep furrow into the soil.

  A "perfect soldier" had waited decades to strike its deadly blow. Designed as an antipersonnel weapon, the Soviet-built landmine did not have the power to destroy the Toyota, and because of the vehicle's speed, much of the detonative force was released under the engine rather than below the wheel that had activated its primer. With most of its energy absorbed by the engine block, only a tenth of the charge blasted into the cab. It was more than enough.

  The last thing Mercer remembered clearly was the sound of Selome's voice. Then he was assaulted by a jumbled whirl of images, screams, and pain, the earth erupting under the Land Cruiser and the jarring crush as it slammed into the ground again.

  His ears ringing, Mercer wiped his face, and his trembling hand came away covered with blood. His whole body ached as his senses slowly returned. He couldn't feel the pain that would indicate a wound capable of producing the amount of blood splattered on his clothes. His first thought was Selome. He tried to turn and check on her, but he couldn't move from where he was wedged under the steering wheel. A heavy weight pressed on him, and he recognized it was Gibby. Or what was left of him.

  The explosion had been channeled into the passenger-side foot well, shredding the boy's legs so badly that only a few stringy bits of flesh kept them attached to his body. Massive tissue trauma had killed him immediately, but ropes of blood still drooled from the ragged wounds, pouring onto Mercer, saturating him. Seeing the dead Eritrean sharpened Mercer's mind, and vomit flooded his mouth. He choked it back painfully.

  "Selome?" he called.

  She was sobbing. Thank God! Slowly, he eased Gibby's body off him. When he stood on the smashed-in door, a wave of nausea nearly dropped him back on top of the corpse. He ignored any injuries he might have and concentrated on Selome. She lay curled on the driver's-side rear door, her face cupped in her hands, her shoulders heaving. Mercer called her name again and finally she looked up. Her face was filthy, her hair bushed around her head, but he saw no blood, and while her eyes were made enormous by fear, she didn't appear to be in shock.

  "Give me your hand." He hadn't forgotten the Fiat still behind them. "We have to get ot underhand into the pool of gasoline beneath the Toyota. In a continuous motion, he began shooting into the ground as a whooshing explosion engulfed the four-wheel-drive, masking the sharp cracks of the H&K. A wall of heat overwhelmed them as they stood in the open. Selome tried to move away from the raging flames, but Mercer held her wrist tightly. He fired off the entire magazine, walking his shots toward the boulders a short way off, each bullet plowing a small cr
ater in the dirt roughly five feet beyond the previous one. Had a round hit a mine, it would have carried the power to detonate the charge, but there was no secondary explosion.

  Mercer released Selome's hand and jumped into the first pock created by the 9mm bullets.

  "Land where I step," he cautioned and jumped again, leaping into the next shallow depression.

  It took every bit of his balance to land in the tiny craters, teetering on one foot for breathless seconds, his arms windmilling until he could center himself again. Then he would leap to the next, Selome at his heels. Unencumbered by the two knapsacks Mercer carried, Selome bounded easily, her long legs covering the distance with the grace of a gymnast. If her foot was bothering her, she didn't let it show.

  "Give me another clip," Mercer said when he reached the last impact hole.

  "That's what I wanted to go back for," Selome answered. "The rest of my ammo was in the Toyota. I don't have any more."

  Mercer's eyes went wide as he stared at the seventy-five feet of open space separating them from the safety of the rocks; seventy-five feet of mine-sown no-man's land with only one way across. He couldn't hear the engine noise of the approaching Fiat over the fiery eruption behind them, but he knew only a few seconds remained before the vehicle rumbled into view. Mercer took the deep, final breath of a man bent on suicide.

  Fighting an instinct to yell and vent some of the pent-up emotion, he started running. It took his entire will not to stretch his gait to its fullest. He had to leave footprints close enough for Selome to use as stepping stones.

  With every step, Mercer expected the detonation that would come like a sledgehammer at full swing; a shearing pain that at best would kill him and at worst would immobilize him for the pursuers to finish the job. He covered the first half of the distance without incident, but took no solace from this. The law of averages was working against him, and with every step, the ratio tipped more and more out of his favor. With just ten more feet to cover, he moaned aloud in frustration for not being able to leap those last few yards. He could have done it in a flying dive, but again he thought of Selome and took a step that cut the distance in half and made it safe for her.

  Click.

  He felt the dusty ground give just a tiny fraction of an inch. The sound was like a distant finger snap, muted by his own weight on the mine. It was the primer, and in the millimetric sliver of time before main charge blew, he could only hope that Selome would get clear.

  Working on instinct, with his weight barely pressing on the can-sized bomb, he shifted his body in mid-stride, heaving himself forward in an awkward lurch. But his desperate leap wasn't necessary. After lying dormant for fifteen years, the mine had been fouled by dirt and corrosion. The primer could not detonate the principal explosive. Mercer smashed into the rock with his shoulder, too stunned at being alive to roll with the impact. In his shock, he almost slid back off the tor and into the dirt. Scrambling, he turned and planted his heelson the stone, arresting his slide.

  "Selome, come on," he shouted.

  Like a sprinter in the blocks who reacts even as the gun fires, she was in motion, her face scrunched in concentration. She bounded from print to print, her arms pumping in perfect synch, and even in his wasted emotional state, Mercer appreciated the shifting play of her breasts as she moved. In seconds she was at his side.

  "Are you okay?" she panted.

  "Later." Mercer was on his feet again, leading her over the hill and across a flat table of stone toward the foothills of one of the region's numerous mountains.

  A quarter mile and five minutes after clearing the mine field, they heard a muffled explosion behind them. Mercer turned. A Fiat half-ton truck was parked directly behind their four-wheel drive. Two Africans, Sudanese no doubt, stood in its open rear bed, and he could just make out the shadow of two more in the cab. They were all looking at the rumpled figure lying doll-like a few dozen feet from the vehicles. There was a new crater in the desert, wisps of gray smoke blowing from it on the gentle breeze. The body leaked blood from the stump of his left leg, the severed member bleeding into the soil a few feet away. Mercer guessed that one of their pursuers had tried to chase on foot, trying to duplicate their feat, and paid the ultimate price for failure. He and Selome continued on without comment. Soon afterward, they had lost themselves in the rugged terrain, and Mercer slowed their pace, no longer concerned about being followed.

  Selome called a halt hours later, her face blistered with sweat and dark patches appearing beneath her arms. She lowered herself to a stone plateau, lying flat and stretching her arms luxuriously over her head. Mercer flopped next to her, his attention riveted to the cache of goods in the two knapsacks he'd taken from the Land Cruiser. One of them had been Selome's, and he dumped out the cosmetics and extra clothing. Selome ignored him and stared up into the hazy sky.

  "Selome?"

  She looked at him and her eyes widened. He held another full magazine for her Heckler and Koch. "Oops."

  "Oops is right." Mercer shook his head. He combined and consolidated the useful items into one pack, discarding stuff that had no value for the trek to come. Those things he did keep were pathetically few in number, some rope, a hammer, several lengths of fuse. He took the Medusa pictures from his vest and stuffed them in with the rest of the gear.

  "I feel so terrible about Gibby," she said after a few minutes. "Not only about his death, but the disrespect we showed his body. That wasn't right. He deserved a Christian burial."

  Gibby's death was one more on Mercer's conscience. The Fiat proved the Sudanese were in the area, and they would find the mine long before Mercer could warn away the refugees he'd asked Negga's son to bring to the valley. They would be arriving soon, and their plight was his responsibility too. "Please don't talk about religion for a while. I'm not in the mood."

  She was about to respond when Mercer leaned over and reached a hand to the wedge of skin showing between the collars of her bush shirt. A thin gold chain rested against her glossy skin and disappeared between her breasts. Mercer tugged it from its resting place, keeping his eyes locked with Selome's even as the necklace popped free, revealing a golden Star of David.

  "Mossad?" he asked quie like your FBI."

  Relief flooded through Mercer. He knew there would be no more lies. "I've heard of it. Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

  "I guess I owe you."

  "That's putting it mildly."

  She blew out a long breath. "A few months ago, the Medusa photographs came to the attention of an Israeli fanatic group."

  It was an answer Mercer was unprepared for. "Israeli? I thought Muslims were behind this."

  Selome shook her head. "Those Europeans Habte saw in Asmara are Jewish extremists headed by Defense Minister Chaim Levine. We've known about them for a while, but we didn't realize until recently how powerful they'd become."

  Mercer realized they'd all been duped. Dick Henna must have followed carefully placed false clues leading both of them to believe it was Arabs who had masterminded Harry's abduction. He was both stunned and impressed by how cleverly this had been worked out.

  So many things came clear as he studied her. That's what Harry had been trying to tell him when he said his captors had given him Boodles gin or something. Harry must have known that he'd been abducted to the Mideast, but recognized that his abductors weren't Muslims. Mercer should have made the connection, and that oversight rekindled his anger at himself. He wondered how many more mistakes he'd made and how much others had paid for them.

  Selome continued. "Levine and his followers want to make Israel a totalitarian theocracy. He recognized what the Medusa photos revealed and knew such a discovery, accredited to him, would ensure him the prime ministership. He tried to have them stolen from your National Reconnaissance Office, but instead they were sold to Prescott Hyde. Hyde, too, saw something in them, something that would bolster his shaky position within the State Department. We learned about all of this shortly after Hyde bought th
em, and I was sent to the United States to work with him. Shin Bet paid off a member of the Eritrean mission in Washington to vouch for me so Hyde never knew of my connection to Israel. My mission was to gather intelligence, especially if Levine's people tried to contact Hyde directly.

  "Unfortunately for Hyde, he called you soon after I arrived in D.C. and you joined his search for the mine, shutting down that option for Levine's agents. Hyde and his wife were killed the morning you and I left for Africa."

  Hyde dead too? Jesus, where was this going to end? "You left me in Rome to report your findings about Hyde to your control in Israel?"

  "Is that how you figured out I was Israeli?"

  "I was told by Dick Henna before we left Washington. Also, the night you came to Tiny's Bar, my best friend, Harry, was kidnapped to Beruit."

  It was obvious from her expression that this was new information. "The old guy who introduced himself as you?"

  "The same," Mercer replied. "The abductors appeared to have Middle Eastern connections, so I figured Israel would fit in eventually." He told her the whole story about Harry's kidnapping and about the assassination at da Vinci Airport. "I didn't know if you were on my side or not. Remember, you were working with Hyde when we met."

  "It must be Levine's people holding your friend. After you turned down Hyde, they must have grabbed him to compel you to come to Africa and find the mine. The man killed in Rome the1em">Mercer guessed Bein's warning in Rome about not harming Selome was because the Israeli feared a problem if Levine's plot had caused the death of a Shin Bet agent. They were already planning for the day they had Israel in their grasp.

  "Levine's a fascist," Selome said bitterly. "I know that sounds strange for one Jew to call another that, but he is. He believes in the purity of the Jewish people and wants all others out of Israel. He wants to build concentration camps and corral the Palestinians in fenced stockades.