Steve Berry - The Alexandria Link

At the tunnel’s end a sudden blaze of warmth embraced him, and he stared out into a curving farsh dotted with cypress trees. Soft white clouds chased one another, like tumbleweeds, across the clear sky. His eyes slit lizardlike against the glare.

Pressed against the face of the far mound, tucked into an angle of stupendous cliffs, arose walls and buildings that strained against one another as if they were part of the rock. Their colors-yellow, brown, and white-merged like camouflage. Watchtowers seemed to be floating. Slim green cones of cypresses added contrast to burnt-orange roof tiles. No real logic prevailed as to size and shape. The assemblage reminded Malone of the anarchic charm of a hillside Italian fishing village.

“A monastery?” Pam asked him.

“The map indicated that there are three in this region. None is a great secret.”

A path of boulder steps led the way down. The risers descended steeply, grouped three together between sloping stretches of smooth rock. At the bottom another path traversed the farsh, past a small lake nestled among the cypresses, and zigzagged up to the monastery’s entrance.

“This is the place.”

STEPHANIE WATCHED AS DALEY LEFT THE RESTAURANT. CASSIOPEIA came over, sat at the table, and asked, “Anything useful?”

“He says that Daniels knew everything he was doing.”

“What else could he say?”

“Daley never mentioned that we were at Camp David last night.”

“Nobody saw us but those agents and Daniels.”

Which was right. They’d slept in the cabin alone with two agents outside. Food had been in the oven waiting when they’d awoken. Daniels himself had called and told them to arrange the meeting with Daley. So Daley either didn’t know or refused to say.

“Why would the president want us to meet with him, knowing Daley might contradict what he’s told us?” she asked, more to herself than Cassiopeia.

“Add that question to the list.”

She watched through the front glass as Daley trudged through the gravelly parking lot toward his Land Rover. She’d never liked the man. When she’d finally confirmed that he was dirty, nothing had pleased her more.

Now she wasn’t so sure.

Daley found his car at the far side of the lot and climbed inside.

They needed to leave, too. Time to find Brent Green and see what he’d learned. Daniels had not mentioned them talking with Green, but she thought it best.

Particularly now.

An explosion rocked the building.

Her initial shock was replaced with an awareness that the restaurant was intact. Loud voices and a few screams subsided as others, too, began to realize that the building was still there.

Everything was fine.

Except outside.

She stared through the glass and saw Larry Daley’s Land Rover being consumed by flames.

SINAI PENINSULA

MALONE APPROACHED THE METAL-CLAD WOODEN GATE. SUNBAKED walls of red granite, their foundations resting on giant buttresses, sloped to a terraced foothold where cypress, orange, lemon, and olive trees stood guard. Grapevines protected the base. A warm wind kicked up sand.

No sign of anyone.

Above the gate, Malone spotted more Latin, this time Psalm 118, and he read the pronouncement.

THIS GATE OF THE LORD,

INTO WHICH THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL ENTER

“What do we do?” Pam asked. He’d noticed that the hostility of the terrain matched her rapidly deteriorating temperament.

“I assume that’s what the rope is for,” he said, motioning.

High above the gate, an iron bell rested inside an open tower. He walked over and yanked. The bell clanged several times. He was about to ring again when high up in the gate a window opened and a bearded young man sporting a straw hat leaned out.

“How may I assist you?” he asked in English.

“We’re here to visit the library,” McCollum said.

“This is but a monastery, a place of solitude. We have no library.”

Malone had wondered how the Guardians ensured that someone who appeared at the gate was an invitee. It could take a great deal of time to make the journey, and at no point in the quest had any constraints been imposed. So there must be a final challenge. One not stated in the quest.

“We’re invitees and have completed the quest,” he called out. “We seek entrance to the library.”

The door to the portal closed.

“That was rude,” Pam said.

Malone wiped the sweat from his brow. “They’re not just going to swing open the gates to anyone who shows up.”

The portal opened again and the young man asked, “Your name?”

McCollum was about to speak, but Malone grabbed his arm. “Let me,” he whispered. He stared up and said, “George Haddad.”

“Who are those with you?”

“My associates.”

The eyes that stared back were fixed, as if trying to determine if he was a man to be trusted.

“A question, if I may?”

“By all means.”

“Your route to here. Tell me.”

“First to Belém and the Jerónimos Monastery, then to Bethlehem.org, and finally here.”

The window closed.

Malone heard bars being removed from behind the gate, then the stout wooden panels inched open and the bearded young man strolled out. He wore baggy pants, tapered at the calf, a russet-colored cloak tucked into his waistband, and a rope belt. His feet were protected by sandals.

He stopped before Malone and bowed. “Welcome, George Haddad. You have completed your quest. Would you like to visit the library?”

“I would.”

The young man smiled. “Then enter and find what you seek.”

They followed him, single-file, through the gates into a dark corridor lined with towering stone that blocked the sun. Thirty paces, then around a right angle, and they again found daylight inside the walls, a flourishing space of greenery with cypress trees, palms, grapevines, flowers-even a peacock paraded about.

What sounded like a flute cast a soothing melody. Malone spotted the source, a musician perched on one of the balconies supported by thick wooden brackets. The buildings were crowded together, each one different in size and composition. He spotted courtyards, staircases, iron railings, vaulted arches, pointed roofs, and narrow walkways. A miniature aqueduct channeled water from one end to the other. Everything seemed to have sprung up by chance. He was reminded of a medieval village.

They followed Straw Hat.

Other than the flute player, Malone had seen no one, though the complex was clean and orderly. Sunbeams battled with curtains in the windows, but he spotted no movement beyond the panes. Terraced vegetable beds loaded with tomatoes stood hearty. One thing caught his attention. Solar panels discreetly fastened to the roofs and a number of dish antennae, each hidden behind either wooden or stone awnings that seemed to be parts of the buildings-like Disney World, Malone thought, where necessities went unnoticed in plain sight.

Straw Hat stopped before a wooden door and opened its lock with an oversized brass key. They entered a refectory, the cavernous dining hall decorated with religious murals of Moses. The air smelled of sausage and sour cabbage. Ceiling boards alternated between chocolate and butter yellow, interrupted by a diamond-shaped panel of powder blue dotted with gold stars.

“Your journey was surely long,” Straw Hat said. “We have food and drink.”

On one of the tables lay a tray of sand-brown loaves and bowls of tomatoes, onions, and oil. Dates were piled in another bowl. Still another held three huge pomegranates. A kettle emitted steam and he smelled tea.

“That’s kind of you,” Malone said.

“Real kind,” McCollum added. “But we’d like to see the library.”