The Medusa stone (8 page)
Authors: Jack Du Brul
Soon after taking power and long before the war that preluded World War Two, Mussolin. Just keet about creating a modern nation in the hardscrabble desert. For decades there were fortunes made in Eritrea, and it happened that Gianelli's family made most of them. Such was their interest in Eritrea that Giancarlo's great-uncle, Enrico, had lived in a villa outside Asmara and ran much of the country as a virtual slave state.
Enrico was not as shrewd as his older brother, who ran the entire corporation, but he was a Gianelli and knew how to wring profits from every venture: plantations of fruit trees and coffee, timber, salt production, and the importation of amenities for Eritrea's growing Italian population. However, Enrico did have one interest outside the family's traditional spheres that he pursued vigorously. He was an amateur geologist and spent countless months casting about the countryside in search of raw minerals.
He'd convinced himself, and to a much lesser extent, his older brother, that there was gold in the mountains near the border with Sudan. Enrico spent a fortune digging into nearly every mountain that looked interesting. He kept poor records of his work, and most mines were abandoned and forgotten the day they proved barren. Frustrated, his elder brother finally ordered Enrico to stop wasting money and resources on his foolish hobby, but this j Frustrated the unclean work. "On the sanctity of your confession in the eyes of God, I will never again look at this book."
It now lay just inches from his hands, bathed in eerie moonlight. Ephraim knew he had to read it. A cold wind rattled the fragile windowpane and flickered the nearly spent candle sitting in a pool of its own wax. The weak flame cast bizarre shadows on the raw stone walls, familiar shapes in the room taking on ominous dimensions. He felt a chill run the length of his spine.
Why do you test me so, Lord? Am I to be like Job, forced to endure hardships so you can prove to Lucifer that man's love for you can not be corrupted? I fear that I am not strong enough. Is my test not to read this book? Is it Your will that these words are never again seen by the eyes of man? Or is your mission for me to read it and bring its truths to light?
The night wore on, Ephraim lighting another candle from the embers of the last, filling his room with fresh light. The moon tracked across the sky so that it no longer beamed onto the table but instead rested on the simple crucifix hanging over Ephraim's bed. He stared at the image intently, feeling His suffering on the cross, and for the first time in days, Ephraim felt a lightness in his chest. The answer to his dilemma was before him. Christ had died for our failures and to knowingly fail Him was sinful, but it was still to be forgiven, the deed condemned, not the man.
At almost the same instant he turned back to his desk and undid the book's clasp, Brother Dawit cried out in his sleep and died in his own room. But by the time Ephraim learned of this the following morning, he had read the book, and the death of the aged monk was no longer such a tremendous concern.
Somewhere over the Atlantic
Mercer sprawled across two first-class seats, his mouth agape and his jaw covered by a thin shadow of beard. His flight to Rome, Europe's only major hub with connecting flights to Asmara, had left early, so he'd shaved and showered the night before. He desperately needed to review his work and correlate his findings with the Medusa photographs Prescott Hyde had finally sent him, but his eyes had refused to stay open. He had purchased two adjoining seats, planning on using the extra space to spread the material, but best intentions are just that: intentions. He fell asleep even before the jetliner took off.
Mercer's sleep was troubled, and every once in a while a flight attendant would check on him as he muttered aloud in his dark dreams. There was a sheen of clammy sweat on his forehead. When he woke, his eyes were red-rimmed and gummy, and his mouth tasted awful. He looked around the quietly humming cabin, momentarily dazed, trying to clear the cobwebs of sleep from his brain. He was thankful to be released from his nightmares, but a thought had come to him in his sleep, something buried deep in his mind that vanished when he came awake. Once again he thought there was an inconsistency somewhere, something either Hyde or Selome or the kidnappers had said that didn't make sense. Something, but he didn't know what.
Damn.
Damn.
He caught the attention of a stewardess and ordered two black coffees and a glass of orange juice. They were waiting for him when he returned from the rest room, where he'd cleaned himself up. Selome Nagast was waiting for him as well, an enigmatic smile on her face.
"I hope you don't mind?" She batted her eyes playfully. "I don't have your expense account to enjoy myself with. I'm sitting in the back with the rest of the sardines, and I knew from Bill that you have two first-ting to pull us apart. Religion will be the curse of Eritrea, not the tribalism that has torn apart a lot of other African nations. But the outcome will be the same. Devastation.
"Muslims and Christians are already rattling their sabers from church and mosque alike, calling for the elimination of the other. Sudan's Muslim government isn't helping, exporting their version of fanaticism. Bandits raid us constantly, killing those who don't believe in Allah. Have you ever been to the Sudan?"
"No."
"Pray you never go. I've been to the refugee camps a number of times. In fact, I was on the trip where those photographs Bill Hyde showed you were taken."
Mercer winced, remembering.
"When we finally ousted the Ethiopians, they practiced a scorched-earth policy during their retreat," Selome explained. "They burned villages, destroyed roads and bridges and irrigation dams. They even cut down nearly every tree in the country in an effort to demoralize us. The trees lining the streets in Asmara are the tallest in Eritrea because all others were hauled back to Ethiopia. No matter how bad off we were when the Ethiopians withdrew, it is nothing compared to the ruin found in the Sudan. There are roving bands of guerrillas, terrorizing everyone, some allied to the government, others to the Sudan People's Liberation Army, and still others that are just mercenaries looking to capitalize on the bloodshed. Slavery is rampant and some say government sanctioned."
"What's the reason for their war?"
"Religion. The government in Khartoum is Islamic and has made life unbearable for those in the south who are mostly Christian and animists. If this war is allowed to spread, we will see the same thing in Eritrea. And you are the key for preventing this from happening. It's an old axiom that hatred is the fuel of the hopeless and peace the progeny of the satisfied."
Watching her face, Mercer felt confident that Selome Nagast's loyalties lay in her native Eritrea. He didn't doubt that she also worked for the Israeli secret police, but for this mission her only goal was the welfare of her people in Africa. Knowing this peeled away only one layer of complication, however. He felt there were still depths here that he didn't know.
Before leaving home, Mercer had spoken extensively with Dick Henna about the preliminary findings of Harry's abduction. The private jet that had spirited him out of Washington had been chartered by a corporation in Delaware, but the company was just a post office box, a front. They had been unable to track the fleeing Gulfstream except for a report that it was seen flying over Maryland's eastern shore low enough to burn leaves off trees. They also had a sighting in Liberia, where it landed to refuel before continuing east. The plane's final destination was Lebanon. A CIA agent arrived at the airport in Beruit just in time to see an older man bundled into a van and taken away. He'd lost the vehicle in traffic near the city's Christian Quarter.
A Mideastern connection was further confirmed by Harry's few neighbors who had heard the abduction. The language they described spoken by the kidnappers sounded like Arabic. The only neighbor to see anything reported that the four men all wore black coats and jeans and had dark complexions and dark hair.
All this matched with what Mercer and Henna had seen at the airport. Henna still didn't have any identification of the one kidnapper's body, but he assured it was only a matter of timev width="1em">
His need for a drink was an overpowering craving that was driving his mind beyond the realm of sanity.
His need for a drink was an overpowering craving that was driving his mind beyond the realm of sanity.
He used the blanket not only to ward off the chills, but also to protect him from the flying monkeys that circled the room with the maddening persistence of hornets. He knew they were a DT-created hallucination, but they were terrifying nevertheless.
He'd seen the first one only an hour after waking and had called out in horror. The rational part of his mind told him it wasn't real, but he was too weak to prevent its wheeling attack. A guard had come to check on him, a red and white
kefflaya
headdress covering his features. As Harry cowered, the man determined that nothing was wrong and left. The monkey clung to the wall near where it joined the ceiling and winked.
kefflaya
headdress covering his features. As Harry cowered, the man determined that nothing was wrong and left. The monkey clung to the wall near where it joined the ceiling and winked.
Two more appeared to terrorize him. They flew at him without mercy, breaking off their aerial charges just inches from his face. He could feel the air move from their swift passage, and their unearthly screeches were like nails drawn across a chalkboard. They would swoop by briefly and then land on the walls, their sharp little claws digging into the stone.
None of the monkeys had touched him yet, but it was only a matter of time.
"There's no place like Tiny's," he moaned aloud, praying the invocation would transport him away from here.
After three long hours his hallucinations ended, and Harry fell into a nightmarish sleep more haunting than his periods of wakefulness. Demons more cunning than the monkeys were after him, chasing him down an endless hallway. They carried bottles of Jack Daniel's, which they tried to pass to him like relay runners, but the bottles slipped out of Harry's hands.
When he woke, his mind had cleared some. A breakfast tray lay on the floor near the bed, the coffee still steaming. His stomach was too knotted to eat the fruit or the jam-smeared bread, but he drank the coffee quickly. And then his lungs reminded him that he'd smoked a couple packs a day for the past six decades and he wanted a cigarette. Needed one.
"For the love of God, you sadistic sons of bitches, give me a smoke," he yelled.
The guard appeared again, and Harry repeated his request with a little more civility, shouting just a few decibels quieter. The guard didn't seem to understand the words, so the octogenarian pantomimed smoking a cigarette. With a sympathy known by smokers the world over, the guard pulled a half-empty pack from his pocket and tossed them on the floor with a book of matches.
"How about some booze, you bastard," Harry said halfheartedly as he scooped up the rumpled pack. The splint made it difficult to light one of the cigarettes, and it took him several tries.
As the nicotine coursed through his system, he looked at the monkey that had appeared on the wall again, its teeth bared in an aggressive display.
"Screw you, too," Harry said to the apparition, a filterless cigarette hanging from his lips. He knew from experience that the DTs would pass quickly and the monkeys wouldn't bother him much longer.
He sat back on the bed, keeping one eye on the monkey just in case, and massaged his injured hand. He didn't know where he was or who had grabbed him, or even why. He hadn't seen the guard's face, but the colorful headdress made him pretty sure they were Arabs and that his abduction involved Mercer and his search for the diamond vent.
"No, not really," Morrison admitted. "The bird hadn't been calibrated when we lost her. The pics looked like a bunch of junk to our people."
"Well, they're not junk to the group who perpetrated that attack at Dulles."
"We need to get that material back. Not only is it highly classified, but it's also evidence," Baines said.
"No. What we need to do is haul in Prescott Hyde, I mean today, right now and then let Mercer figure out just what the hell is going on."
"Dick, we can help Eritrea later. Dig up the diamonds in a few months or something. We have to get those pictures back." Morrison's voice was backed with every ounce of command in his body but Henna didn't even blink.
"Tom, if you want to pick up Hyde on your own authority and have this make the six o'clock news tonight, be my guest. But if you want the help of this office, then we do it my way."
A tense minute passed, the gleaming pendulum of the wall clock knifing through the time, carving the seconds away.
"All right," Morrison relented. "If we do it your way, what happens now?"
"I get an arrest warrant from Justice and we all go over to pay Hyde the worst visit of his life."
Morrison looked over at the still quiet Baines. "What do you think, counselor?"
"Once we have Hyde, we can send someone to Africa to get the photographs from the man Mercer."
"Ass covering, Tom?"
"Mine's on the line. Goddamn right I'm going to cover it. Let's get it over with."
Henna rode with Morrison in the back of a Bureau car, Baines sitting in the front with the driver. Three other dark sedans followed them in convoy as they headed toward Fairfax, Virginia. Before leaving FBI headquarters, Henna phoned Hyde's office and determined the undersecretary wasn't at work and hadn't shown up all morning. He then called Hyde's home but the line was disconnected. Fearing that Hyde had already fled, Henna fast-tracked a warrant through the Justice Department and put together a small team to make the arrest.
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