The Medusa stone Read online

  "He's been planning this for years. I don't know if you remember the airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in the eighties, but he was a major supporter of the operation. He said it was for humanitarian reasons, but even then he wanted to do away with the Palestinians who perform many of the menial jobs in Israel and replace them with African refugees."

  So, Mercer thought, he and Harry had gotten in the middle of an internal Israeli problem and not some international terrorist plot. Selome was trying to stop Levine from using the Medusa photographs to give himself unfair advantage in the elections. All of his suspicions about her ebbed away. For the first time he felt that he could trust her. A dam was breaking inside of him. He'd been on his own for too long and now he had an ally. He felt like hugging her. "So your job was to keep an eye on this group and report their activities?"

  "And to stop them if I could. But we came to Eritrea before I got close."

  Suddenly something didn't make sense. "I understand Levine is a maniac, but I also read that his election was all but guaranteed even before we left Washington. Why is he willing to ruin his chances by going after a worthless fifty-year-old diamond mine?"

  "He's not." Selome laughed for the first time in a long time. "You already know we have no interest in the Italian facility. I think the Sudanese and their backers are looking for that one. That's how they stumbled on us. Our two missions come from different directions but end at the same location."

  Mercer matched her smile, the horrors of the morning sloughing off at least for a few seconds. "Before you'd arrived in the valley, when I was exploring for the older workings, I'd already guessed that you were aware of another mine in the area."

  Mercer's expression suddenly changed as a new thought struck him. The white rock he'd found in the kimberlite tailings was a stone-aged tool, a hammer used thousands of years ago to crush the ore to get at the precious gems. Suddenly everything tied together: Jews, ancient mines, religious fanatics. He finally realized why the stakes were so high, and it had nothing to do with diamonds. Oh, my God! He tried to repress the wild thought but couldn't. "Is that mine what I think it is?" He could barely speak.

  "We're on our way to talk to some priests who will confirm it, but yes, it is." Selome smiled at his breathless wonderment. "It'll be the greatest find of your life. The stuff of legend."

  When he said it, it came out as a whisper. "King Solomon's Mine."

  The Eritrea-Sudan Border

  Gianelli felt like a conquering Caesar as his trucks rumbled into Eritrea. He sat in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle, the windows rolled down so he could smell the dry desert and hear the bellowing of the big twelve-cylinder turbo-diesels. Chuckling, he realized that the heavy-duty transporters loaded with mining gear and provisions weighed twic smile,myths surrounding it had spread as far as Sudan and Ethiopia.

  "Rubbish," Giancarlo said dismissively.

  His expression was fevered with anticipation, a sense of history weighing on his shoulders. The valley looked nothing like what he'd thought as a child, but now that he was here, he could imagine it no other way.

  Across the open pan, he saw the skeleton of the head gear rising out of a watery heat mirage, recognized the support buildings next to it, and after a few minutes, saw the open Fiat his advance scouts had driven. His heart pounded with eagerness.

  The trucks lumbered to the abandoned mine, wheezing as their overworked engines spooled to silence, air brakes hissing. Gianelli launched himself from the cab, running across the desert to the rim of the open shaft.

  Joppi Hofmyer was the first to join him.

  "This is it," Giancarlo gasped. "Two lifetimes of work, mine and my uncle's, and here it is." He gave no consideration to the earlier news that the mine was empty. It was a possibility he would not allow.

  There was no way the mine could be worthless, he thought. Enrico had been sure there were diamonds in the area, had died believing it. Gianelli had always felt that if his uncle's plane hadn't been shot down during the war, he would have given the family proof. Mercer hadn't taken enough time to properly explore the subterranean tunnels, he told himself, nor did he have the proper equipment for a thorough search. The diamonds were here.

  "Yes, sir," the South African replied uneasily. "Ah, Mr. Gianelli, I'd like to know how you want to handle this?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Now that we're here, do you want me to take charge of the men, or are you going to be issuing the orders?"

  Gianelli's laugh was a quick barking sound. "Joppi, my friend, I am one of those people who knows how to hire others for their knowledge and abilities. I'm paying you because you know how to extract minerals from the ground, an art that I know nothing about. From now on, you are in complete control. However you want to handle this operation, whatever steps you feel necessary, are fine. Consider me nothing more than an interested observer."

  Hofmyer turned away, more disturbed by Gianelli's sudden bonhomie than he cared to admit. "Okay, you fookin' kaffirs," he bellowed at the Sudanese troopers clustered near the trucks. "Until those refugees get here, you bastards are going to be miners. You take orders from Mahdi, and as of this moment Mahdi takes orders from me. Once I get the checklist, I want ten men unloading the camp stores and setting up the tents.

  "I want the rest of you unloading the mining gear, separating underground equipment from surface stuff. If you don't know what something is, ask either me or one of the other white miners and don't forget to call him Baas." The four other South Africans grinned at this. "You boys," he said to the whites, "I want the explosives off-loaded and placed in a protective redoubtment no closer than five hundred yards from the mine or the camp. Now, someone bring me the three kaffirs who were already here when the scouts arrived."

  Habte sat handcuffed in the shade of the scout's Fiat with the two Eritrean equipment operators. Neither of the hired workers understood what was happening. Their market square. As of yet, the Caucasians he had seen at the Ambasoira Hotel had not made their appearance. When they did, he knew that he could expect little help from them. This time the enemy of his enemy was not his friend.

  Two Sudanese rebels approached and gestured with their rifles for the trio to follow. Led back to the open mine shaft, Abebe began praying aloud. Habte had faced death many, many times before, and he would not let his own fear show.

  Joppi sauntered over a few moments later, his gut sagging over his belt. With an expert eye he looked over the three captives, fixing his gaze on Habte, recognizing him as their leader. With a casualness that belied the brutality of the act, he stepped forward, planted his hands on Abebe's shoulders, and shoved him into the pit.

  Abebe's scream echoed up from the shaft, diminishing like a siren until it was cut off with an undeniable finality. Habte didn't so much as blink when Joppi's eyes bored into his, waiting for a reaction that the Eritream refused to give. They were locked in this frozen tableau for several breaths.

  "Oh, you're an uppity nigger, aren't you?" Hofmyer finally said. "You want me to push your other friend in as well, or do you want to start answering some questions?"

  Habte willed himself not to say that the South African hadn't asked any, knowing such a retort would cause the murder of the other equipment operator. He allowed his eyes to drop in a pose of submission that Joppi interpreted as a victory. Like many others from his country who hadn't taken the time to understand traditional African ways, Joppi believed Habte's silence connoted acceptance. "That's better, now. Why don't you tell me what you were doing at the far end of the valley?"

  Balancing his desire to defy the Boer and his realization that the longer he was alive the better his chances were for escape, Habte told Hofmyer everything.

  An hour later, the trucks rumbled away from the Italian mine so they could set up their camp a short distance from the ancient one.

  The Open Desert

  In hindsight, Mercer felt he should have chanced the mine field again after the Sudanese had withdrawn in order to r
ecover any useful equipment from the burned-out Land Cruiser, especially canteens. Or his sat-phone. Though he continued to carry the single backpack, everything in it was worthless for the ordeal to come. With nightfall only an hour away and their bodies ravaged by thirst, those short few yards through the mines could have made the difference between survival or perishing in the desert.

  Without food, they could last for a couple of weeks, but a lack of water would kill them long before starvation. Mercer's mouth was beyond dry. His tongue felt like the scaly body of some desert reptile. The last time he was able to swallow, hours ago it seemed, his throat screamed in desiccated protest, as if lined with ground glass. While a woman's body was better suited to survival situations, Selome wasn't faring well either as they trudged under the unrelenting African sun. Inventorying their condition, Mercer judged that they would be dead in twenty-four to thirty-six hours if they couldn't find water. Selome's revelations, about herself, her mission, and the King Solomon mine had buoyed him for a while, but now his mind focused only on the miles.

  With the setting sun at their backs, the desert bloomed crimson, painted in shades and shadows that made the steep mountains look like fairy-tale castles, heavily t them pause under normal circumstances, but as night deepened, they simply continued to walk, their pace slowing with each footfall.

  Selome and Mercer used scraps from their clothing to fashion rudimentary sun protection for their heads and breathed through their noses to reduce fluid loss. They tried every survival trick either had ever learned, and still their efforts were falling far short. Had either of them carried a compass or knew celestial navigation, they could have walked in the coolness of the night. As it was, they were forced to march in the daylight, the sun as their only guide. And after just one day, with an unknown number more to go, it was clear that they would die.

  "The sun's almost behind the horizon." Mercer spoke for the first time in nearly six hours. "It'll be cooler in just a little while."

  "And I'll be dead in just a little while, too." Selome managed a smile, though her voice scratched like an old phonograph record.

  "That's the spirit," Mercer rasped. "Nothing like a positive attitude."

  His grin cracked his dry lips and a tiny bead of blood quivered at the corner of his mouth. He surveyed the terrain around them. The landscape was spiked by mountainous ramparts that grew from the desert floor with brutal regularity, forcing them to follow a meandering route as they tracked eastward toward the Adobha River.

  They continued on, their steps less sure, fatigue and dehydration taking their toll. Just before total darkness set in, Mercer steered Selome to one of the countless kopjes, rocky hillocks similar to the buttes that dot the American Southwest, and led her into one of the hundreds of caves that pocked the cliff, riven out of the stone by eons of erosion. Too exhausted to speak, they tumbled to the floor and soaked up the cave's chilled air. A full half hour passed before Mercer felt he had the energy to sit up and press his aching back against the rock wall. He tried to use his pack as a pillow but its contents were even harder and more jagged than the stone.

  Neither dared remove their boots. Their feet would have swollen immediately and they wouldn't be able to don them again in the morning. Mercer did loosen his laces to ease the pressure against his tender skin.

  "Try it," he prompted Selome. "It feels better than sex."

  "You must not be very good," she teased. "How far do you think we've come?"

  "I'd guess about twenty-five to thirty miles."

  "Then we're halfway to the Adobha River."

  "Unfortunately no. Because of the terrain and our need to go around these damned hills, I estimate we've only walked about fifteen miles due east." Though he wanted to protect her from their reality, she had a right to know.

  "So the river is . . ."

  "Another forty-five miles. If the ground doesn't flatten out soon, we'll actually have to cover seventy. And our bodies are going to weaken even more during the night. Our pace will be slower tomorrow, and every second we're out in the sun, we're going to dehydrate further. I'm sorry to tell you this, but these are the facts."

  Selome's body slumped in defeat. "Can we go back and take our chances with the Sudanese?"

  Mercer couldn't specifically recall facing a more desperate situation but Selome took comfort from his words. She crawled to him, laying her head on the hard pads of his stomach muscles. He stroked her hair softly and she mewed before drifting into an exhausted sleep. For Mercer, the respite of oblivion was a long time in coming.

  He was almost too tired and sore to sleep. Something about what Selome had told him nagged at the back of his mind, something about Levine's quest to find King Solomon's mine. It was an archaeological treasure, the find of the century, but Mercer couldn't figure out how the Israeli minister planned to use it to gain power or to help him hold it once he'd won the elections. Something didn't fit. There was another piece to this puzzle that Selome hadn't mentioned.

  Had he not been so exhausted and his mind tortured by the dry thirst, he would have demanded an explanation, but until they were safe again, neither could afford to waste the energy talking about something that was, for the moment, out of their control. Just before sleep claimed him, Mercer had one more thought: the Eritrean refugees he had sent for from Sudan. They were leaving one hell and heading straight into another. He knew their labor would be eagerly accepted by the rebel soldiers who were undoubtedly at the mine at this very moment. Mercer realized that his and Selome's struggle for survival was also a race against time.

  At dawn the next day, Selome woke before Mercer and her feeble stirrings brought him awake. They had snuggled together during the night, their legs twined. It was a position of intimate trust, the nocturnal pose of lovers, and for several seconds they silently enjoyed the touch. It was only when Selome tried to lift herself that they realized how much their muscles had stiffened. She whimpered, her face screwed up with pain.

  "Oh, Christ," Mercer said, his voice barely a hoarse croak.

  Moving like arthritics, Mercer followed Selome's lead as she began stretching her tensed limbs. His joints popped and creaked in the confines of the cave and he knew intimately how Harry White felt every morning of every day.

  Thinking of his old friend brought a burst of adrenaline to Mercer's heart, the natural drug giving him just enough strength to motion for Selome that it was time to continue. It was almost six in the morning, and they would have a couple of hours before the sun's heat began searing the desert floor.

  "Last one in the swimming pool is a rotten egg," Mercer tried to joke. Selome was too exhausted to respond.

  The vastness of the wasteland made their progress seem like that of insects crawling across a huge table. Yet for them, every step was a personal triumph against the ravages of thirst and exhaustion. Selome called for a break after two hours, but Mercer urged her on with just a touch of her shoulder. She moved like an automaton, her gait mechanical, her arms no longer swinging because the effort was too great. After two more hours, Mercer could not dissuade her from stopping, and she plopped to the ground in the shade of a small granite outcropping. Mercer slumped next to her, watching fifteen minutes ratchet by on his Tag Heuer before staggering to his feet and extending his hand. Gamely, she reached up and allowed him to haul her up.

  Trying to maintain some sort of mile, but when he reached the number, he knew they had walked half that distance. He abandoned the counting and continued to put one foot before the other, thinking their next rest would come when Selome could go no farther. Yet it was he who needed the break first.

  Just after noon, at the edge of one more nameless mountain, Mercer saw a cave similar to the one in which they had spent the previous night and he led Selome to it, intending to wait out the hottest part of the day. The remorseless sun gave him a headache like a thousand migraines, an all-consuming agony that left him dizzy and nauseous. "We'll get moving again at three," he managed to say before drifting into an em
pty torpor that was neither sleep nor wakefulness, but a vacant zone somewhere in between.

  Neither was able to stir at their three o'clock goal, so they didn't start out again until it was nearly dark, their pace so slow that they would have trouble making it to the next sheltering mountain before their strength gave out completely. Death by dehydration would still be another torturous day away. But no amount of determination or will could lessen the possibility that when they stopped for the night, they might never rise again.

  "Do you think you can keep going after sunset?"

  Selome nodded, then asked after a pause, "Won't we get lost?"

  "We already are," Mercer admitted, and they walked on in silence. They could cover more ground in the dark, regardless of direction. He had to keep them moving--simply sitting and waiting for the end just was not an option. An hour elapsed before Mercer continued their exchange, not realizing so much time had passed. "We can rest again tomorrow and maybe make it a few more miles the next night, but that'll be our last."

  Selome's half-hour delay in her reply went unnoticed in their misery. "Isn't the monastery on this side of the river?"

  A quarter mile later. "That's what Habte and Gibby said. I don't know how much closer it is."

  Twenty minutes: "Let's hope it's a lot closer."

  Darkness came swiftly, sucking the heat from the desert with a welcome suddenness. When the stars showed, they shone with a cold, indifferent brilliance. With the temperature down twenty degrees, Mercer and Selome found they could cover a greater distance between rest stops, and even those stops were shorter. For the first part of the night, they felt a small degree of hope.

  But by midnight what little strength they'd managed to hold in reserve had burned away, and as suddenly as night had stolen the day, exhaustion stole their will. From a starting average of two miles per hour, they were down to just half and every hour slowed them even further. Their thirst was no longer a simple agonizing craving. Every second brought greater and greater damage to their bodies. Another twelve hours would lead to severe and possible irreversible kidney damage. After that, death would be quick.