The Medusa stone (15 page)
Authors: Jack Du Brul
Dick smiled. "Fortunately, the kids I knew growing up weren't smart enough to make the connection." From his briefcase he withdrew a file crammed with pictures. "I want you to take a look through these and tell me if you recognize anrepresentation of the region. No time had been taken to accurately depict every geographical landmark. For all practical purposes, the map was worthless. Instead, he taped the drawing he had done of the valley entrance to the dashboard and used it to guide him.
The territory had been carved by wind and water over the past few million years, the mountains worn down to stubs of harder rock. Having no idea into which mountain the valley was cut, Mercer and Gibby drove around each of them completely, checking the terrain against the drawing and coming up blank every time. They spent three days doing this before Mercer decided to attempt a desperate shortcut.
"This isn't going to work," Mercer told Gibby around noon on the third day.
In frustration, he powered the Land Cruiser up the slope of one of the taller hills, a seven-hundred-foot ascent in low range that loaded down the engine so badly that they reached the summit at a walking pace and the motor was on the verge of an explosive overheat. He twisted the key angrily, and in the sudden silence he could hear engine fluids boiling like a cauldron.
He snatched a pair of binoculars from the backseat and jumped onto the precarious load strapped to the Toyota's roof. He turned slowly in place, the powerful Zeiss lenses pressed to his eyes.
"There's a valley about two miles to the east that looks like it was once the major waterway through this area. If the kimberlite pipe broke through the surface, erosion would have spilled some stones or at least trace elements into the streambed." Gibby didn't have Habte's command of English, so he looked at Mercer blankly. "Don't worry, my friend. We may be on to something."
It was just possible he could jump-start their search, he thought as he leapt back to the ground. He felt that same stirring of hope he'd experienced when the kidnappers mistakenly told him he was searching for a mine.
Surface topography had changed so much over the eons that the ancient river now appeared as if it had flowed uphill, but Mercer had no trouble telling in which direction the waters had once poured. He drove northward for nearly a mile and kept the Toyota canted at an angle as he guided it on one of the banks, suspecting that the streambed might be mined. They reached a sharp bend in the stream in the shadow of yet another mountain, a beige sandstone monument that offered little shade from the murderous sun. Gibby threw open his door as soon as Mercer braked.
"Don't!" Mercer shouted just seconds before the boy stepped onto the dusty soil.
Jesus,
he thought and opened his own door, his heart hammering from Gibby's near fatal mistake. He studied the ground intently, looking for a telltale depression that might indicate the presence of a landmine. Seeing nothing, he told Gibby to break off the Toyota's radio antenna and pass it over. He used it as a probe, pushing it firmly but gently into the friable dirt, twisting and working until it sank down about eight inches. Nothing.
he thought and opened his own door, his heart hammering from Gibby's near fatal mistake. He studied the ground intently, looking for a telltale depression that might indicate the presence of a landmine. Seeing nothing, he told Gibby to break off the Toyota's radio antenna and pass it over. He used it as a probe, pushing it firmly but gently into the friable dirt, twisting and working until it sank down about eight inches. Nothing.
The temperature in the vehicle skyrocketed past a hundred degrees. Sweat flowed freely from Mercer's pores, stinging his eyes and making his vision swim. Yet his concentration was total as he continued with the antenna probe. It took twenty minutes before he felt confident enough to step out of the truck and a further two long hours to ensure that the immediate area around the Land Cruiser was unspoiled.
"G his eyes fever bright as he looked at the stone.
Mercer didn't respond. He strode to the Toyota, pressed a sharp corner of the octahedral crystal to the front windshield, and drew the stone across the glass. The screech set his teeth on edge. There was a deep white scar on the safety glass.
He was grinning when he spun back to Gibby, tossing the stone to the startled young man.
"It's too rough to ever sit in an engagement ring, but you're holding about twelve carats of industrial diamond, my friend." Mercer whooped. Gibby looked at the stone, understanding at last, and added his own cries.
Mercer wanted to start backtracking down the old streambed to its source right away, but they had to wait until morning. He lay down in the Toyota, knowing sleep wouldn't come. This was it. He'd done it. The men holding Harry would be calling again tomorrow at midnight, and he thought about what he would tell them. He didn't want to disclose this find, but he had to give them something, just enough so they believed he was close. Finding diamonds this quickly was a huge advantage. He had four weeks left on his deadline and wanted that time to figure some way to end-run the kidnappers. If he had to, he would just give them the location, but he'd regained enough confidence to try and stop them first. They were going to pay for what they'd done.
He finally did sleep, and when he woke the next morning, his body had stiffened. Even the most minor movement brought a groan to his lips. "I'm getting too old for this shit."
He roused Gibby, and soon they were driving again. The streambed meandered in long, lazy bends, forming a huge oxbow once and rising up a cliff that had been a waterfall at some point in history. They needed the tow winch to clear the former falls. Mercer took the time to scout the area with his antenna probe, losing several hours in the process.
The river led more or less in a direct north-south course. It appeared they were heading toward the main bulk of the Hajer Plateau, a huge up-thrust that overshadowed everything in the region. Mercer thought about abandoning the serpentine streambed and driving straight for the mountain, but he knew caution was his only ally here and stayed with the winding path.
"Effendi!"
Gibby tore the pencil drawing from the dashboard, waving it like a talisman, and pointed to their immediate left.
Gibby tore the pencil drawing from the dashboard, waving it like a talisman, and pointed to their immediate left.
Mercer's drawing was nearly perfect. The Valley of Dead Children was there, cut into the side of a three-hundred-foot mountain, looking exactly as he had envisioned it, right down to a tumbling rock slide that had torn away one side of the steep valley wall near its entrance, partially filling the near vertical chasm. The mountain, with its inviting cleft, was about half a mile away.
The land between it and the riverbed was an open expanse pocked severely by impact craters, most likely from Ethiopian artillery. The churned-up ground near some of the scars was still blackened by explosives.
"Jesus," Mercer breathed. The devastated area looked like the pictures he had seen of No-Man's-Land during World War I.
He didn't want to think about the men who had probably been caught in the open when the big guns began to rain death on them. He looked around for a makeshift cemetery but recognized the gesture was pointless. There wouldn't be enough left of the men caught in the barrage to bury. Gibby was also affected by ter why it had been asked. "She's going to be put in the Virginia gas chamber if we get our hands on her. She murdered a top State Department official and his wife, burning their house to cover her tracks. Do you know anything about this?"
"Damn," Litvinoff muttered. The president could hear him swing himself out of bed, mumbling something to his wife. "Mr. President, I am going to my study. I will call you back in just a few minutes. I can clear this up for you, but it'll open a whole new set of problems."
"Well?" Henna asked when the president put down the phone.
"He's calling me back, but it sounds as though he'd been expecting me to call."
"He knows Selome Nagast?"
"Apparently. He said he would explain everything, but it's going to cause us trouble."
"Any idea what he means?"
The phone rang before Henna received his answer. The President put the phone on speaker mode. "David, Dick Henna of the FBI is with me, and we both want an explanation why one of your Mossad agents is going around killing members of my administration."
"It is fitting that he is there," Litvinoff replied. "Selome Nagast does not work for Mossad. She's a member of Shin Bet, our version of your Federal Bureau of Investigation, and she did not kill Prescott Hyde."
"How do you know I was talking about Hyde? I doubt his death made the Jerusalem newspapers."
"Mr. President, if you'll permit, I will explain," Litvinoff said. "This is going to take a few minutes, so please bear with me.
"You know that I am facing a vote of no-confidence in the Knesset that will dissolve my government and call for general elections. If this happens, Chaim Levine, my current defense minister, will probably become our new P.M. I don't need to remind you of his facist views and his plans to tear up the peace accords with our Arab neighbors. He also has this ridiculous idea about destroying the Dome of the Rock and rebuilding Solomon's Temple in its place. He has tremendous support since the Wailing Wall massacre two months ago. Even our moderate majority is leaning toward his camp."
"I don't need the political lesson, David. I have my own sources. Our prediction is that he'll defeat you by a five-to-three margin. We don't want to see it happen any more than you; the guy is a lunatic."
There was a new gravity to Litvinoff's voice. "What I'm about to tell you will damage relations between our two countries for many years to come. I would have rather not admit this, but I see no other way. The greater good must be considered." Henna and the president exchanged glances. "The Mossad has cultivated an asset in your National Reconnaissance Office, a highly placed photo interpreter. I would rather not reveal his name at this point. To do so would put his life in danger. However, he has been feeding us information gathered from your spy satellites, including the latest-generation Medusas."
Henna hated the idea of allies spying in the United States. Enemies he could understand, but Israelis using the U.S. in this way infuriated him. His hands clenched. He wondered if Admiral Morrison or Colonel Baines knew about this conduit and doubted they did.
"He started with the NRO two years after the first of those spy craft was launched and discovered a forgotten set of pictures taken during the ill-fated 1989 flight of the first Medusa. Beca can take care of himself."
"Yeah, but not when he's facing an ambush from two different fronts by people who have a very old score to settle." The phone was pressed tightly to his head, his knuckles whitening with the pressure.
Valley of Dead Children Northern Eritrea
Mercer fell asleep a few times during his vigil, jerking himself awake only seconds after nodding off. His eyes were red-rimmed and scratchy from the fine particles of dust that invaded the dilapidated camp building. At eleven, knowing that if he drifted off again he wouldn't wake until dawn, he walked out onto the lonely plain, taking the sat-phone with him. The temperature dipped only slightly as night smothered Africa. The Milky Way was like a great smear across the sky. Wind moved silently across the landscape. The loudest noise he heard was the sound of his own footfalls on the cracked desert floor.
With about ten minutes before his appointed contact time, he activated the satellite phone and it rang almost immediately. Startled and wondering why the contact had come early, he pressed the button for the receive mode. "Mercer."
"Dr. Mercer, it's good to hear your voice again." It was the man who'd spoken to him in Asmara. Mercer hoped he'd been killed in the Sudanese attack on the Ambasoira Hotel.
"Can't say the same," he replied bitterly.
The caller ignored Mercer's quip. "I've tried calling several times, but your phone was deactivated. We have a great deal to discuss. Much has happened since our last conversation."
Maybe it was that he was standing near the mine's entrance and had already done what was demanded of him or maybe it was because he'd been pushed too far, but Mercer couldn't hold back his anger, couching it only slightly in sarcasm when he spoke. "Yeah, like you getting your ass kicked by a couple of amateurs trying to steal my underwear. They'd tried the night before. Fortunately, the maid scared them off with her mop. Looks like kidnapping defenseless old men is about the limit of your abilities. Maybe you ought to practice a bit more. Try taking candy from babies for a while--I hear it's tougher than it sounds."
"Your humor is strained," the voice said. "Perhaps this will dry it up entirely. Listen very carefully."
There was a short pause and Mercer heard a new voice. Harry! He sounded distant, as though he had been recoize="3">"Understood," Mercer said, still thinking about Harry White. Boodles was a brand name of gin. What was he doing with gin if his captors were Muslim and thus forbidden alcohol? Obviously, Harry was trying to tell him something, but Mercer was too tired to put it together.
Mercer woke Gibby as soon as it was light enough to see. He'd gotten just enough sleep to satisfy his body's immediate needs, but he felt slow and lethargic in the mounting heat of the dawn. Gibby agreed that he could stay in the valley assisting Mercer until the following morning and still make the rendezvous with Habte, Selome, and the bulk of their equipment.
After a quick breakfast, Mercer inspected the head gear's framework while Gibby unpacked all the rope they had brought with them. The rust on the steel struts was only surface accumulation; the metal underneath still appeared strong. There were only three fifty-foot lengths of rope in the Toyota, but if they attached them to the tow cable on the Land Cruiser, they would have enough to get Mercer to the bottom of the shaft.
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