Rebecca crouched in the rock formation and peered down at the monks’ camp through her binoculars.
The sun had already dipped into the western sky when she first saw their camp. She’d circled around the large field of boulders, secured her camel at the base of a small rock mountain, and climbed up to her position an hour ago. Judging by the shadows, it would be dark in about three hours. She had already decided to wait for nightfall to make her move. But she hadn’t decided what that move would be.
The tents were little more than squared canvas drapes, simple and effective in this environment. They were white, like most everything in the camp. The only exceptions were a few large blankets that they gathered on at the tents’ entrances.
Rebecca slowly scanned the camp for the hundredth time. A light breeze moved the tent walls like sails. Children romped at the base of the rocks, sixty meters from where she hid in her perch. Most of the people had retreated to the shade of their tents. But the two she was interested in sat by the southernmost tent, cross-legged, talking.
She knew that the man was Caleb—his tunic was different from the others’ and his feet were bandaged. What he could possibly have to say to the pretty young woman, Rebecca had no clue. She’d have thought he would be making a fuss about the monastery, not loitering in the afternoon heat, talking with a woman.
The woman was in her twenties, Rebecca guessed, with long dark hair, not unlike her own. Her skin was darker, a deep tan, and her eyes were brown, like her skin. She laughed and engaged Caleb without a care, it seemed.
She’d never seen Caleb before now, and what she saw was nothing like she had expected. Somehow this man sitting on the desert did not meet her image of someone who’d hidden from the world in an Ethiopian monastery, serving lepers. For starters, he wasn’t Ethiopian. In fact, his skin was lighter than the woman’s. His hair was dark and hung nearly to his shoulders, which were square and strong.
But it was his eyes that had arrested her attention. Even from where she sat, eighty meters away, their green hue shone in her magnified lenses like twin emeralds.
Know thine enemy. It was the first rule of engagement. And what exactly was the purpose of her engagement here? It was to gather information from this man named Caleb. He knew the location of the Ark, and it was her objective to get that information from him.
Rebecca thought about that as she studied him, listening intently to the woman. The woman’s a desert wanderer, Caleb. What does she have that interests you so?
There would be two ways to take information from the man. The first was by force. The second was to try to coax it from him. The two alternatives seesawed in her mind, and the longer she looked at him the less clarity she felt about which course would be best.
Forcing information from a man who was not eager to give it could be an unpleasant task. She could only assume that he wasn’t ready to spill his guts, or he wouldn’t have crossed this inferno to escape her. And any man who had the fortitude to walk as Caleb had walked, bleeding from his feet, was a man of unusual character. Even if she was willing to threaten him for the information, she doubted he would respond to threats. For that matter, she wasn’t sure she could effectively threaten any man, much less this one with green eyes. Perhaps her heart was growing soft.
From the start, she and Michael had agreed that once they caught up to Caleb, they would simply force him back to the monastery and deal with him there. But now the game had changed. She could take Caleb by gunpoint, but without a radio or a GPS, heading into the desert might be the end of both of them. She needed assistance, and she doubted the monks would be eager to help in a kidnapping.
She watched Caleb stand and walk in a circle, as if deep in thought. His lips moved and he brought a hand to his chin. What was he saying?
Rebecca watched the woman for a few moments—she was using her hands to explain something as she talked. Caleb was asking questions. But not the animated questions she would have expected. He seemed more introspective. If he’d come for help, he had a strange way of asking. If he’d come to escape, he had come to the wrong place. This desert was a hell, not the local sheriff ’s office.
A bead of sweat trickled past Rebecca’s ear and down her cheek. The sun was taking its time, crawling down the sky. Regardless of what she did, she would do it in the dark.
The second alternative, coaxing the information from Caleb, had its challenges as well. It might take time. She didn’t have time.
She looked at his face in the setting sun. Are you the kind of man who can be coaxed, Caleb? Or is your skin too thick?
He suddenly spread his arms wide and turned in a circle, with his chin lifted to the sky, as if crying out. Rebecca blinked at the sight. She could hear the soft murmur of his voice on the breeze, and it wasn’t a cry.
Caleb sank to his knees and gripped his hands to fists. His face wrinkled in a kind of remorse. For several long seconds he remained in the posture, hands flung wide. And then he bowed to the earth, slumped to one side, and rolled onto his back.
It occurred to Rebecca that she had stopped breathing. She could feel the man’s desperation through her glasses. What a strange thing to do.
The woman touched his forehead, as if taking his temperature. She stood and walked away nonchalantly, leaving Caleb spread on his back. He lay unmoving, eyes closed. They were a roving band of lunatics down there.
After a few minutes, Caleb pushed himself to his seat and sat, staring out at the endless white flats in a stupor. She could still see his eyes, green and unblinking, lost in deep thought.
What secrets are you hiding, dear Caleb? Hmm? Would you open your heart to me?
The notion of engaging this man suddenly struck her as appealing. He was a man; she was a woman. A gun wasn’t the only weapon in her arsenal. She would see what this strange man was made of. In the end, if she failed to lure the key from him, she could always resort to some form of force.
Rebecca turned away and leaned back against the rock. As soon as the sun went down she would wander into the camp, a lost soul in desperate need of water. They would take her in because they were monks, and then she would find Caleb.
“You may call me Delilah,” Rebecca whispered.