Jack Du Brul - The Medusa Stone

“Wait here.” Litvinoff ignored the expression on his guard’s face. “He wants to meet me alone at the upper terrace of Herod’s villa. I’ll be back shortly.”

He was quickly swallowed by the night, the beam of his flashlight jerking as he walked north. Litvinoff tried to keep his mind blank as he rounded the walls of the ancient store-rooms and the crumbling foundations of the Roman administration building. The night was warm, but the salty breeze was cooling. His sparse hair blew around his eyes and the wind whipped dust from the ground.

Passing the stairs that led to the lower terraces of the villa, Litvinoff continued through a stone maze until he came to a semicircular wall that hung over the northern tip of Masada like the prow of a great ship. It was too dark to see anything below him, but Litvinoff could feel the emptiness reaching out from just a few feet away.

“I knew you’d come,” a voice called from the darkness.

Litvinoff turned to face the voice, his back to the starless void. “How dare you desecrate this place by coming here. You almost destroyed everything Masada stands for.” He didn’t want to get into this with Levine, but his emotions were too much. His hate. His outrage.

“Destroyed, David? No, I almost made everything worthwhile. I almost succeeded returning to Israel its most coveted artifact.” Levine stepped into the flashlight’s beam. Nothing about his posture looked like he was sorry about what he’d done. He even wore his uniform. In comparison to his striking figure, Litvinoff was short and gray, a tired old man who looked out of place anywhere other than an office.

“Well, it’s over.”

Levine laughed. “Do you really think it’s over? Are you that naive? This wasn’t all my doing, you know. There are others working with me, powerful men and women, many of them in your own government. We failed this time, but that doesn’t mean we won’t continue. We will find the Ark and restore the Temple and then we will do away with the Palestinians. You can’t stop us.”

“Maybe I can’t, but that doesn’t matter,” Litvinoff said and saw that his words confused his Defense Minister. “Symbols can be powerful, Chaim, but only if people give them power. Even if you had found the Ark, do you think you would’ve been able to do all the other things you wanted? The excitement about its discovery would last only as long as the next scandal or the next war. No one cares anymore. They don’t want symbols.”

“You’re wrong,” Levine snapped. “Symbols are needed more than ever. The world is falling apart. America is turning our planet into a homogenized strip mall. We need to maintain our differences. We need something to remind us all that we are Jews first and foremost, then Israelis or Americans or Europeans. It’s all we have left.”

“I won’t disagree with you, but this isn’t the way.”

“David, we’ve been friends for a long time-”

“We’ve never been friends,” Livtinoff said evenly. “You were nothing but a political necessity to me, a way to keep a coalition government going. Don’t mistake that for friendship.”

Levine nodded slowly, surprised by the frank declaration. “Very well, we have worked together for many years. You know I would do nothing to harm Israel. That is why we are out here tonight. I failed at my quest and I know that my continued involvement in politics will only harm your government.”

“How kind.”

“Don’t think it’s for your sake. I told you before, the people working with me will continue. I’ve been exposed and I can’t let that jeopardize their efforts.” A gun appeared in Levine’s hand. He’d kept it in a holster behind his back. “This is the only way.”

The shot was brutally loud, a crashing explosion of light and sound that assaulted Litvinoff’s ears like thunder. He hadn’t fired a pistol since the Six Day War and his hand stung.

He’d fired his own weapon, pulling it from his pocket in front of Levine, but the Defense Minister hadn’t seen the action because of the flashlight beaming in his face. Chaim Levine looked at the wound in his chest even as he struggled to raise his own pistol to his temple. Litvinoff fired again and Levine fell back, hitting the stone wall and slumping to the ground, his automatic slipping from his fingers.

“You won’t become a symbol, Chaim,” Litvinoff said to the corpse. “I won’t let you martyr yourself and add your ghost to the spirits that haunt Masada. You don’t deserve it, and despite what you thought, you never did.”

Many factors made it inevitable that the Nile River would become one of civilization’s cradles. There were the yearly floods that deluged the river valley with such fertile soil that farming could continue year-round. And then there was the quirky fact that while the river flowed northward, the prevailing winds blew south, guaranteeing easy passage in either direction. It was this wind that gently moved across the wooden deck of the luxury barge, flicking at the canvas awning over the upper salon and drying beads of sweat dotting Philip Mercer’s face and bare chest, soaking into the waistband of his shorts.

His upper body was still bruised multiple shades of purple and deep breaths bothered him, but he was healing well and the physician who had visited the boat in Luxor a week ago said that he’d make a full recovery. Thankfully, neither he nor Selome had any lasting effects from their exposure to mercury, and Mercer’s fears about cryptococcus had been unfounded.

He and Selome had been on the barge for three weeks, cruising up the river from the bustle of Cairo. The boat belonged to a former client of Mercer’s who’d made a fortune after contracting his geologic services and was more than willing to allow the use of his vessel. From the shore she looked unremarkable, sixty-eight feet long and nearly twenty wide, with a flat bottom and squared bow and stern. Her pilot house was a square block haphazardly placed too far forward to be aesthetically pleasing. It was only when one stepped onto her decks that she revealed her true beauty and luxury appointments.

The upper deck was mahogany, sanded so smooth that it shimmered in the desert sun. The small swimming pool and the Jaccuzi looked like miniature oases. Amid the palm planters, a wet bar beckoned. Apart from the crew, Mercer and Selome had the barge to themselves. Below decks were six cabins, including the master’s suite with a bed big enough for a polo match and a gold and marble bath. The dining room and main salon were equally lavish, and while the decor wasn’t Mercer’s style, he appreciated its beauty.

He wiped perspiration from his eyes and opened them slowly, enjoying the sight that lay before him. Selome Nagast was stretched out on a wicker chaise longue, her dusky skin like oiled stone in both firmness and gloss. Her hair was bunched atop her head, but still cascaded around her shoulders, the henna dye glinting like a pillow of rubies. The only other color on her body was a wisp of a bikini bottom that vanished in cords around her narrow hips and flashed just a tiny triangle between her legs. Her breasts, perfect in any position, were spread by her relaxed pose, riding high and peaked so delicately that Mercer felt his lower body shift as he studied them.

Moving only a hand, for he did not want to disturb her sleep, he plucked a gimlet from the table behind him. He estimated, sipping the biting lime and vodka mixture, that this was his third and it wasn’t yet noon. Mercer knew some people searched for excitement to escape the doldrums of their lives while on vacation. He wanted just the opposite.

On the river side of the anchored luxury barge, called Aga Khan , a steady procession of tourist cruise ships paraded in both directions, loaded with Americans, Japanese, and Europeans. Opposite sat the temple of Kom Ombo, a sandstone complex dedicated to Horus and Sobek, the crocodile god. The temple looked similar to the Acropolis in Athens with sturdy columns in the shape of lotus plants and crowned with massive rock lintels. Mercer and Selome had spent the day before walking through the ruins, admiring the Ptolemaic hieroglyphics and the mummified remains of sacred crocodiles. The temple had once been a pilgrimage destination for the lame and injured, and many of the pictographs depicted medical procedures and prayers.