Robert Liparulo - The 13 th tribe

Elias startled awake so violently, his foot struck the table, sending the Bible and lighter into the airplane cabin’s center aisle. A chirp sounded, but it hit his ears without sparking a thought. He hunched over and buried his face in his palms, pressing his fingers into his eyes. The chirp again, and this time he recognized it. He groaned and leaned across the aisle to grab his duffel bag. He shifted it to the table, pulled out the satellite phone, pushed a button. He took a deep breath before raising it to his ear.

Ben was already talking: “-my first call?”

“What?” Elias’s voice was gravelly and slurred by the remnants of sleep. “Say that again.”

“I asked why you didn’t answer my first call.”

“I was asleep.” Sunlight filled the cabin, and he leaned his face toward the window, blinking against the brightness. Clouds stretched out below him like the snowy plains of Antarctica.

“Where are you?” Ben said.

“Hold on.” Elias placed the phone on the table. A burled walnut ledge ran the length of each side wall of the cabin, into which the designers had crafted glass holders, ashtrays, and various controls. He poked a finger into one of the ashtrays, found two inches of a burnt cigarette, and put it into his mouth. He stood, then stooped to retrieve the Bible and lighter. Once he got the cig smoking, he sat again and examined a panel of buttons set into the ledge. He jabbed one, and a large plasma television at the front of the cabin came to life, showing a map and a little airplane icon. He grabbed the phone. “Almost there. We just passed New Delhi.”

“Toby located Creed,” Ben said.

“So, Horeb?”

“He’s at the monastery. Nevaeh, Phin, and I are heading there now.” In the background Elias heard Hannah or whatever she was calling herself these days. Ben said, “We’re taking Alexa. Sebastian will keep making arrangements for us from here.”

Jutting from the duffel, the handle of the falcata caught his eye. It was the same sword Elias had used in the dream. He turned his gaze to the dwindling cig, watched it burn for a moment. “I’ll meet you in Egypt.”

“No, we’ve got it covered.”

“Ben…” Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. “What about the Haven? If Creed’s holed up there-”

“We have to do this, Elias. We’ll make amends later.”

No, we won’t, Elias thought. Once they breached the sanctity of a Haven, there was no going back. No place would ever offer any of them sanctuary again.

When he didn’t say anything, Ben said, “Creed brought this on himself. This is the end for somebody, us or him.”

Maybe it should be us this time, Elias thought. Just let it happen. But that went against everything they believed in. Go down fighting: it wasn’t just machismo or stubbornness; it was a mandate that bore eternal consequences.

“You’re the boss,” he said. “Happy hunting.” He disconnected and pushed another button on the console.

“Yes, sir?” the pilot said through a speaker over Elias’s head.

“Turn this bird around. We’re going home.”

Jagger worked his tired legs, cursing the loose gravel under his feet. Away from the two paths that led from St. Catherine’s to the peak, Mount Sinai’s rocky, steep incline was grueling in the best of places. The gravel made it a Sisyphean challenge: every step forward resulted in a backward slide that reclaimed at least half his progress. He stopped and squinted up at the outcropping ahead of him, atop of which the teen had surveilled the excavation and St. Cath’s. From the front there was no obvious way to reach the spot without climbing equipment. He assumed the backside offered easier access.

He started up again, heading for a fissure between the target outcropping and another to its left. When he reached it, he took a minute to catch his breath, then stepped through the fissure and onto a flat area. In special ops fashion, his mind instantly analyzed it: the ground here was hard, granite with a dusting of sand-not enough to capture footprints. It was protected partly by mountain cliffs and partly by the large, jutting outcroppings. These cliff walls were pocked and serrated, as though God had raked his fingers down them.

Even grassless, the area would have made a decent picnic area; at least he knew Beth would think so. He pictured Tyler falling off one of the rocks and not stopping until he tumbled into the excavation site 1,500 feet below, and decided he wouldn’t tell her about it.

Back to operative mode. He stood in the clearing’s seven o’clock position; at eleven o’clock another fissure or opening-apparently leading uphill, judging by the ground’s steep incline there and the scree that spilled out into the clearing-and at two o’clock a third way out, leading to the right. At five o’clock, almost directly to his right, was the waist-high mouth of a cave. It couldn’t have been deep, given that it penetrated the outcropping on which the teen had stood, which was no more than ten feet thick at its base.

Still, it was a hiding place, and a good one at that: shaded, out of the way, near the boy’s stakeout location. Jagger pulled the baton from its scabbard and flicked his wrist to snap it into its full twenty-six inches. It was simply a precaution; he didn’t expect any real danger. Jagger would be fierce and demanding and he’d let the intruder know he was serious about protecting the excavation and monastery. Maybe it would be enough to dissuade whatever plans the boy or his cohorts had in mind. In law enforcement and security, the appearance of readiness and efficiency was as important as being ready and efficient.

“Hello?” he called. “I just want to talk.” He repeated the phrase in Arabic, which Hanif had told him. Jagger arced out into the clearing, eyeing the cave for a glimpse of a body part. When he was looking straight into it, he realized shadows cloaked its deepest reaches. He moved out of its line of sight-or, more accurately, a shooter’s line of fire-and approached from the side. He pressed himself against the cliff beside the cave’s mouth, took a deep breath, and moved fast: he spun into the cave, dropping onto his knees to accommodate its low ceiling, and scampered toward the rear with the baton thrust out like a lance. First the baton, then his arm disappeared into blackness. The tip of the baton struck the rear wall.

Nothing. No one.

He realized that the rock at his knees was in fact a rolled sleeping bag, and he caught the glint of two eyes in the darkness, their moisture reflecting the light behind Jagger.

“Hello?” he whispered.

He shifted to sit back on his heels. As he pulled back on the baton, something seized it. A hand, gripping the baton, slipped out of the shadow and into the light.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Jagger said. “I-”

He froze. The boy’s face leaned into the light. He was a young teen. Fourteen? And he didn’t appear frightened. A pistol came into view. Its large muzzle stared at him.

“Don’t move,” the teen said.

Jagger let go of the baton and rammed his forearm into the boy’s wrist under the gun’s grip. At the same time, RoboHand grabbed the barrel and twisted it up and around, counter to the direction Jagger was forcing the teen’s wrist. It was a standard disarming technique, which-fortunately because of the confines of the cave-didn’t require feet and body movement. He wrenched the gun out of the boy’s hand. Jagger switched the pistol into his right hand and pointed it into the darkness.

Less than three seconds after first seeing the gun, Jagger possessed it. Under normal circumstances, in the open, Jagger would have quickly stepped back, out of the assailant’s reach. It was a luxury he didn’t have here, and the boy immediately took advantage of that.