Contract With God (41 page)

‘Relax, Ms Otero. We’ll be here for at least twenty minutes. This wind is deadly, but luckily it doesn’t last too long.’

‘You’ve been in a sandstorm before, haven’t you, Father?’

‘A few times. But I’ve never seen a simoon. I’ve only read about it in a Rand McNally atlas.’

Andrea went quiet for a while, trying to catch her breath. Luckily, the sand that was blowing through the canyon barely penetrated their refuge, even though the temperature rose dramatically and Andrea was finding it difficult to breathe.

‘Talk to me, Father. I feel like I’m going to faint.’

Fowler tried to shift his position so he could rub the pain in his legs. The bites needed disinfectants and antibiotics as soon as possible, although that wasn’t a priority. Getting Andrea out of there was.

‘As soon as the wind dies down we’ll run over to the H3s and create a distraction so that you can get out of here and head for Aqaba before anyone starts shooting. You know how to drive, don’t you?’

‘I’d be in Aqaba already if I’d been able to find a jack in that damn Hummer,’ Andrea lied. ‘Somebody took it.’

‘It’s under the spare tyre in that kind of vehicle.’

Which is where I didn’t look, of course
.

‘Don’t change the subject. You used the singular. Aren’t you coming with me?’

‘I have to complete my mission, Andrea.’

‘You came here because of me, didn’t you? Well, now you can leave with me.’

The priest took a few seconds before answering. Finally he decided that the young reporter should know the truth.

‘No, Andrea. I was sent here to bring back the Ark, no matter what, but it was an order I never planned on carrying out. There’s a reason why I had explosives in my briefcase. And that reason is inside that cave. I never really believed it existed and I never would have accepted the mission if you hadn’t been involved in it. My superior used us both.’

‘Why, Father?’

‘It’s very complicated, but I’ll try to explain as briefly as I can. The Vatican has thought through the possibilities of what might happen if the Ark of the Covenant was returned to Jerusalem. People would see it as a sign. In other words, as a sign that the Temple of Solomon should be reconstructed in its original place.’

‘Where the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque are located.’

‘Exactly. The religious tension in the region would increase a hundredfold. It would provoke the Palestinians. The Al Aqsa Mosque would end up being knocked down so that the original temple could be rebuilt. This isn’t just speculation, Andrea. It is a fundamental idea. If one group has the power to crush another and they believe they have justification, eventually they do it.’

Andrea remembered one of the stories she had worked on towards the beginning of her professional career, seven years earlier. It was September 2000, and she was working on the international section of a newspaper. The news came that Ariel Sharon was going for a walk, surrounded by hundreds of anti-riot police, on the Temple Mount - on the border between the Jewish and Arab sectors, in the heart of Jerusalem, one of the most sacred and disputed territories in history, site of the Temple of the Rock, the third most important place in the Islamic world.

That simple walk had led to the Second Intifada, which was still going on. To thousands of dead and wounded; to suicide bombings on one side and military attacks on the other. To a never-ending spiral of hatred that promised little chance of reconciliation. If discovering the Ark of the Covenant meant rebuilding the Temple of Solomon on the spot where the Al Aqsa Mosque now stood, every Islamic country in the world would rise up against Israel, unleashing a conflict with unimaginable consequences. With Iran on the verge of realising its nuclear capacity, there would be no limit to what might happen.

‘Is that the justification?’ Andrea said, her voice cracking with emotion. ‘The holy commandments of the God of Love?’

‘No, Andrea. It is the right of ownership to the Promised Land.’

The reporter shifted uncomfortably.

‘Now I remember what Forrester called it . . . the people’s contract with God. And what Kyra Larsen said about the original meaning and power of the Ark. But what I don’t understand is what Kayn has to do with all this.’

‘Mr Kayn has a mind that is obviously disturbed but at the same time is deeply religious. From what I understand, his father left him a letter asking him to fulfil his family’s mission. That’s all I know.’

Andrea, who knew the whole story in greater detail because of her interview with Kayn, didn’t interrupt.

If Fowler wants to know the rest, let him buy the book I’m planning to write as soon as I get out of here
, she thought.

‘Kayn made it clear ever since his son was born,’ Fowler continued, ‘that he would put all of his resources into finding the Ark, so that his son . . .’

‘Isaac.’

‘. . . so that Isaac could fulfil his family’s destiny.’

‘To restore the Ark to the Temple?’

‘Not quite, Andrea. According to a certain interpretation of the Torah, the one who is able to recover the Ark and rebuild the Temple - the latter being relatively easy given Kayn’s fortune - would be the Promised One: the Messiah.’

‘Oh, God!’

Andrea’s face was completely transformed as the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. It explained everything. The hallucinations. The obsessive behaviour. The terrible trauma of having grown up locked away in that narrow space. Religion as absolute fact.

‘Exactly,’ said Fowler. ‘Additionally, he saw the death of his own son, Isaac, as the sacrifice required by God so that he himself could achieve that destiny.’

‘But Father . . . if Kayn knew who you were, why the hell did he allow you to come on the expedition?’

‘You know, it’s ironic. Kayn couldn’t carry out this mission without the blessing of Rome, a seal of approval that the Ark was real. That’s how they were able to get me involved in the expedition. But someone else infiltrated the expedition too. Someone with a lot of power who decided to work for Kayn after Isaac told him about his father’s obsession with the Ark. I’m only guessing, but at first he probably just took the job to gain access to confidential information. Later, when Kayn’s obsession changed into something more concrete, he made his own plans.’

‘Russell!’ Andrea gasped.

‘That’s right. The man who threw you into the sea and killed Stowe Erling in a clumsy attempt to hide his discovery. Maybe he planned to dig up the Ark himself later on. And either he or Kayn - or both - is responsible for the Ypsilon protocol.’

‘
And
he put the scorpions in my sleeping bag, the bastard.’

‘No, that was Torres. You have a very select fan club.’

‘Only since you and I have known each other, Father. But I still don’t understand why Russell wants the Ark.’

‘Perhaps to destroy it. If that’s the case, although I doubt it, I’m not going to stop him. I think he may want to get it out of here to use it in some crazy scheme to blackmail the government of Israel. I still haven’t figured out that part, but one thing is clear: nothing is going to stop me from carrying out my decision.’

Andrea tried to scrutinise the priest’s face. What she saw left her frozen.

‘You’re really going to blow up the Ark, Father? Such a sacred object?’

‘I thought you didn’t believe in God,’ said Fowler with an ironic smile.

‘My life has taken a lot of strange turns lately,’ Andrea replied sadly.

‘God’s law is engraved here and here,’ said the priest, touching his forehead and then his chest. ‘The Ark is only a wood and metal box that would cause the death of millions of people and a hundred years of war if it resurfaces. What we’ve seen in Afghanistan and Iraq is only a pale shadow of what might happen then. That’s the reason it’s not leaving that cave.’

Andrea didn’t reply. Suddenly there was silence. The wailing of the wind among the rocks in the canyon had finally ceased.

The simoon was over.

AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN

 

 

Cautiously they stepped out from their hiding place and entered the canyon. The landscape before them was a scene of devastation. The tents had been ripped from their platforms and what had been inside was now scattered throughout the surrounding area. The windscreens on the Hummers had been cracked by small rocks that had come loose from the canyon’s cliffs. Fowler and Andrea were walking towards the vehicles when suddenly they heard the motor of one of the Hummers roar into life.

Without warning, an H3 was heading for them at full speed.

Fowler shoved Andrea out of the way and jumped aside. For a fraction of a second he saw Marla Jackson behind the wheel, her teeth gritted in anger. The huge rear tyre of the Hummer passed inches in front of Andrea’s face, spraying her with sand.

Before the two of them could get up, the H3 had rounded the curve out of the canyon and disappeared.

‘I think there’s just us,’ the priest said as he helped Andrea to her feet. ‘That was Jackson and Dekker leaving like the devil himself was after them. I don’t think many of their companions are left.’

‘Father, I don’t think they’re the only things to have disappeared. It looks like your plan to get me out of here has gone up in smoke,’ said the reporter, pointing to the three remaining all-purpose vehicles.

All twelve tyres had been slashed.

They walked around the wreckage of the tents for a couple of minutes, looking for water. They found three half-full canteens and a surprise: Andrea’s backpack with her hard disk, almost buried in the sand.

‘Everything’s changed,’ Fowler said, looking around suspiciously. He seemed unsure of himself and was creeping about as if an assassin on the cliffs might mow them down at any moment.

Andrea followed him, crouched down in fear.

‘I can’t get you out of here, so stay close until we work something out.’

The BA-609 was turned on its left side like a bird with a broken wing. Fowler entered the cabin and reappeared thirty seconds later holding a few cables.

‘Russell won’t be able to use the plane to carry the Ark,’ he said, throwing the cables far away then jumping back down. He grimaced as his feet hit the sand.

He’s still in pain. This is crazy
, Andrea thought.

‘Do you have any idea where he could be?’

Fowler was about to answer but instead he stopped and went around to the back of the plane. Next to the wheels sat a dull black object. The priest picked it up.

It was his briefcase.

The top cover looked as if it had been sliced open so you could see the space where the plastic explosives that Fowler had used to blow up the water tank had been. He touched the briefcase in two places and the secret compartment opened.

‘It’s a shame they ruined the leather. This briefcase has been with me for a long time,’ the priest said as he collected the four remaining packages of explosives and another object, which was about the size of a watch face with two metal clasps.

Fowler wrapped the explosives up in the nearest piece of clothing that had been blown out of the tents during the sandstorm.

‘Put this in your backpack, OK?’

‘No way,’ Andrea said, taking a step back. ‘Those things scare the hell out of me.’

‘Without the detonator connected, it’s harmless.’

Andrea conceded, reluctantly.

As they headed towards the platform, they saw the bodies of the terrorists who had surrounded Marla Jackson and Dekker before the simoon hit. Andrea’s first reaction was to panic, until she realised that they were dead. When they reached the corpses Andrea couldn’t help gasping. The bodies were laid out in strange positions. One of them seemed to be trying to get up - one of his arms was in the air, and his eyes were opened wide
as if he was looking into Hell
, Andrea thought, with an expression of disbelief.

Except that he didn’t have any eyes.

The eye sockets of the corpses were all empty, their open mouths were nothing but black holes, and their skin was grey like cardboard. Andrea pulled her camera out of the backpack and took some photos of the mummies.

Andrea turned around and her backpack grazed the head of one of the men. Before her very eyes the man’s body suddenly disintegrated, leaving only a mixture of grey dust, clothes and bones.

Feeling nauseous, Andrea turned to the priest. She saw that he didn’t suffer from the same scruples when it came to the dead. Fowler had noticed that at least one of the bodies served a more utilitarian purpose, and had pulled out from under it a clean Kalashnikov. He checked the weapon and saw that it was still in good working order. He took some extra clips from the terrorist’s clothes and put them in his pockets.

With the muzzle of the rifle he pointed at the platform leading to the cave entrance.

‘Russell’s up there.’

‘How do you know?’

‘When he decided to reveal himself, he clearly called his friends,’ Fowler said, inclining his head towards the bodies. ‘These are the people you spotted when we first arrived. I don’t know if there are others or how many there could be, but it’s fairly clear that Russell is still around because there are no tracks in the sand leading away from the platform. The simoon has covered everything. If they had come out, we’d be able to see tracks. He’s in there and so is the Ark.’

‘What are we going to do?’

Fowler thought for a few seconds, his head bowed.

‘If I were smart I’d blow up the entrance to the cave and let them starve to death. But I’m afraid there might be others in there. Eichberg, Kayn, David Pappas . . .’