The Jericho Deception: A Novel (20 page)

The squeaking of sneakers echoed through the stacks below them. “That doesn’t sound like how that ancient guard would walk,” she whispered.

She’s right
, he thought; the steps were quick and deliberate. “Maybe another student. I’ll check.” The image of his mentor and Wolfe working for the CIA burned in his mind. Careful not to scrape his chair against the floor, he stood and made his way to the staircase.

M
ousa blinked rapidly. His eyes had been accustomed to the cloister’s flickering candelabras when the intense light from the chapel hit him. As his pupils constricted, he realized that the light shone from a monumental stained glass window at the far end of the chapel opposite the doorway in which he stood. He felt the young priest’s hand on his lower back, urging him into the room. He cast his eyes to the floor, whose polished white marble contrasted the textured, sand-colored stone of the rest of the monastery. His sandals slid across the smooth finish as he shuffled toward the light.

The stained glass was in the form of a cross over five meters in height. The glass was divided into various triangles of brilliant color, except for the center, which held no color and radiated a brilliant white light that seemed to pierce through to the innermost core of his brain.

“Welcome, Brother Mousa,” a baritone voice called from the light.

Mousa shielded his eyes and walked the twenty paces to the far end of the chapel. The voice, he discovered, did not come from the light but from a regally appointed man sitting on an elevated golden throne underneath the stained glass.

The Bishop.

He had heard rumors of the Bishop. The priests spoke about him in reverent tones. He had the power of God within him, they said with a note of awe.

The Bishop beckoned to him. Mousa approached the throne, stepping onto a lush burgundy carpet that stretched out from the platform upon which the
throne sat, raised above the marble floor. When they reached the base of the platform, the priest kneeled, bowing his head. Mousa followed his lead, kneeling also but looking up at the man on the throne. Embroidered silver silk robes hung from his shoulders to his feet, which were dressed in polished Italian wingtips. Adorning the man’s head like a crown was a tall pointed hat made from the same silk as the robes.

The Bishop smiled in a fatherly way. “We are so happy to have you here with us, Mousa. Seeing you recover from such a great injustice brings joy to my heart.”

“And I appreciate your hospitality”—he stood while the young priest remained kneeling—“but now that I am better, I’m ready to return to my family.”

“That day is coming soon. We are working out the details with the local government. Because of the way you were treated, these things can take some time.”

“All I want is to go home. I’m not looking to hold anyone responsible for my imprisonment.”

“We know that, Son. Soon, very soon.” The Bishop beamed a white smile at him. “But today we have something wonderful for you.”

He raised his eyebrows but waited to hear what this “something” was.

“Have you ever truly experienced God?”

He glanced at the priest beside him, thinking of the conversation they’d just had. His understanding of Allah had deepened over the years, and he performed the
Salat
, praying five times a day while facing Mecca, but he was neither a Sufi nor a mullah.

“In what way?”

“When you accept that Jesus Christ is the one and only Son of God, you can experience through Him the power of the Holy Spirit.” The Bishop’s smile vanished, and his eyes narrowed. “Brother Mousa, I’m offering you the opportunity to accept Jesus into your life. Are you ready to confess your sins and give yourself to Christ in exchange for eternal life?”

The first thought that came to Mousa was to ask why it was necessary to accept Jesus as the
only
Son of God. Contrary to what the more radical mem
bers of his religion claimed, the Prophet Mohammad taught that Allah sent different prophets to speak to different peoples. Allah sent Moses to the Hebrews, Jesus to the Christians, and Mohammad to the Arabs. Mousa already understood that Jesus was the Son of God, but then again all of humanity were children of God. Since there was no truth but Allah, the spark of Allah was in everyone. Certain figures in history, however—Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, even the Buddha—lived a life more centered on this divine spark, lighting the way for others to follow their paths. The mistake Christians made, he thought, was in their deification of Jesus from a child of Allah and a great prophet into an idol rivaling Allah himself.

While these thoughts raced through his mind, he bowed his head and said in as heartfelt a tone as he could muster, “I accept Jesus as my Christ and Savior.”

He had said these words many times before to the various priests who sat by his bed. They were just words, and they made his caring hosts happy. He figured that anything that made the priests happy brought him closer to his family.

The beaming smile returned to the Bishop’s tanned face.

“Brother Mousa, our order here is unique. While we do have a simple hierarchy—Bishop, Fathers, Brothers—we recognize that in God’s eyes we are all the same.”

Mousa nodded. As different as their religions were, their teachings shared many similarities.

The Bishop rose from his throne. “In the Church, the
cathedra
, the bishop’s chair, is a symbol of my authority and power, a power that comes from God through Jesus, passing to his apostles and then through a line of succession over history to me today.”

The Bishop stepped aside and motioned to the chair. “Please, take a seat.”

He glanced to the priest now standing beside him. The priest shared the same smile as the Bishop. Mousa stepped onto the platform and placed a hand on the smooth curved wood of the armrest. It felt luxurious. He turned and lowered himself onto the purple cushioned seat. Although the seatback was wood, it was contoured to his back and felt as comfortable as any recliner. The
sides of the back were covered in gold leaf and swept up into a spiral decoration that swirled by his head.

“Close your eyes and relax,” the Bishop said. “We will pray together for the Holy Spirit to come to you.”

The baritone voice had a soothing effect. He’d enjoyed praying with the priests, and he admired their piety and their respect for Allah. He relaxed into the throne, resting his head on a cushion embedded in the wood. He closed his eyes. His lids felt heavy.

“Our Father, who art in heaven . . .” The baritone voice was joined by the blond-haired priest.

Mousa took up the prayer as well, his lips repeating the words he’d been taught during his stay in the monastery. His mind, however, began a different prayer: “In the name of Allah, the most beneficent, the most merciful, all appreciation, gratefulness, and thankfulness are to Allah alone, Lord of the World . . . ” He didn’t have anything against the Christian prayer, but the
Sura Al-Fatiha
felt more comfortable to him.

He didn’t know how long he sat in the chair before he noticed the change. The rhythmic voices of the priests, along with the repetition of his prayer, obscured the passage of time. The change started as a subtle awareness. He felt or heard—he wasn’t sure which—a slight hum. When he turned his attention to the sensation, he thought he detected a slight vibration. Maybe it was the powerful air conditioners that kept the monastery cool. Before he explored the sensation further, a new feeling arose. This feeling, however, didn’t seem to come from outside of him but from a distant corner of his mind.

There is no god but Allah, and Mohammad is his messenger
. The words rolled across the back of his eyelids. Then he felt as if a door opened in the dark recesses of his mind. The door didn’t lead to any particular place, but rather it seemed to lead to space itself, as if the physical boundaries of his skull began to open. This space called to him like the distant light of an entrance to a cave beckoned to one lost inside. His prayer trailed off while the voices of the Bishop and priest faded into the darkness. He drifted toward the light. His body warmed as the cool air of the cave gave way to the heat of the sun. The desire to reach the light became irresistible, as if his very existence depended
on it. The warmth spread from his skin inward, embracing his heart and eclipsing his fears and doubts about his future—even those about his family.

Suddenly the darkness vanished.

The feeling was overwhelming and indescribable. He surrendered to the warmth and the light that now bathed his body from the outside, and yet at the same time radiated outward from his very core. All words but one faded from his mind:
Islam
. For the first time in his life, he truly understood the teachings of his faith. The meaning of Allah went beyond doctrine, beyond history, beyond mythology, even beyond the prophets.

He experienced truth.

E
than stood at the top of the metal staircase listening to the sound of sneakers on the floor below him. The thought of Elijah’s mysterious death popped into his head. He imagined that he could hear his heart beating louder as the steps seemed to get closer.

Stop it
, he told himself.

He was being ridiculous—or rather, his limbic system was. He knew that from an evolutionary standpoint the body was wired to respond to danger. His brain was producing neurochemicals that dilated his vessels and increased his heart rate. His muscles were primed to react in an instant. That the danger was only imagined didn’t matter. The same physiological response happened when one was watching a scary movie or being chased by a lion in the African savannah. For survival, it was better to be mistaken about the danger than to be eaten by a predator. The dark gothic library was playing with his mind.

Then another sound caught his attention. Every few seconds the footsteps below him paused, and he heard a click. His curiosity aroused, he descended the steps.

A librarian shelving books?

He reached the third step from the bottom and bent to peer around the metal banister. A movement to his left caught his eye. A man walked down the main aisle about five rows past the stairs. It wasn’t the security guard but rather a man dressed in sweats. He paused at each row and flicked on the light switch before moving to the next one. He was methodically searching for
something.
Or someone
. Although he couldn’t be sure, he thought the man looked familiar. At the next row, he caught a glimpse of his profile.

I’ve seen him
.

There was no mistaking the size of the man. Massive shoulders sloped away from a sunburned neck while his latissimus dorsi muscles formed a broad V shape down to a waist that seemed proportionately too small for the rest of the frame. Perched on top of the man’s head was a pair of orange-tinted sunglasses.

My classroom
.

This same hypertrophied man had been staring at him from the balcony during his lecture just over a week ago. Then he remembered seeing someone he thought was an athlete jogging on the sidewalk outside his office window earlier that evening. Next, an even more disturbing image flashed through his mind: Elijah strangled to death in their lab. The realization that this man was following him sent his limbic system into full fight-or-flight mode. He had no question as to which of these options he would take. But first he had to get Rachel. He inched back up the steps, careful not to strike his heels against the metal treads. In under a minute Muscleman would reach the end of the aisle, and then he would come up to the mezzanine.

When Ethan reached the mezzanine, he saw that Rachel had stepped out of the aisle and was looking at him with a quizzical expression. He put a finger to his lips, started toward her, and then had another idea. They had turned the lights on, which Muscleman would see as soon as he started climbing the stairs, but the stacks on the fourth floor above them were dark. Keeping his finger to his lips, he motioned with his free hand for her to join him at the steps. Her brow still scrunched, she walked on the balls of her feet toward him.

“Who?” she whispered. She handed him the book.

“We have to go now,” he said into her ear. He tucked the book under his arm, took her hand, and led her up to the fourth floor. The aisle ahead of them was dark, as he expected, but he could see the line of light underneath the door about fifty feet ahead.

The squeaking of sneakers against metal sounded behind them. He turned his head, his breath coming quicker. Rachel’s hand tightened around his. Muscleman
was climbing the stairs. Ethan hoped he would take his time searching the mezzanine level, giving them the opportunity to sneak out the door and back down the elevator. He sped up the pace, remaining on his toes, his eyes focused on the thin line of light that was their destination.

The steel edge of a mobile shelving cart bit into his pelvic bone as he hit it hard. Although it was dark, he knew what the waist-high metal cart looked like: the librarians rolled the shelves that sat atop metal casters down the rows to replace books. He stumbled over his size thirteen feet, but Rachel’s grip kept him from falling. The empty cart, however, shot forward and rammed into the nearest row of bookshelves. The noise couldn’t have been louder if he’d taken a hammer to the metal shelf.

To make matters worse, his free arm flailed in front of him to steady his balance, causing the book tucked under it to fly out. He heard it hit the floor. He didn’t waste time picking it up. Instead, he lunged for the door. Rachel didn’t need encouragement either.

No longer trying to be stealthy, they let the door clang shut behind them just as the lights in the stacks flickered on. They broke into a sprint down the hallway, turned the corner, and skidded to a stop by the double elevators. His breath came in short deep gasps. Rachel’s eyes were wide, her pupils dilated. He hit the down button and glanced up. Both elevators were on the third floor. Muscleman must have followed them by watching the indicator from the main floor. The hydraulic cables creaked as the old elevator started its ascent. He stabbed at the button three more times, willing it to move faster.
We’re not going to make it
, he thought. His mind raced through the possibilities of what Muscleman had in store for them. Whatever it was, maybe he could delay the man long enough for Rachel to escape. Then he felt her tug on his arm.