The Republican Guard team made excellent time through the cool hours of the night, covering more than half the distance to the boulders before the sun began to warm the desert.
Ismael rode in one of the Jeeps, leading the horses at a steady fifteen-kilometer-an-hour clip. The animals wouldn’t be able to maintain the pace in the heat, but with an hour’s rest and a good watering at dawn, they would have the strength to continue through the day. It all came down to water, and they carried two hundred liters of it between the Jeeps and all the horses.
Now the sun was halfway up the sky, and the captain was sweating profusely. “This heat is as bad as I was told,” he said. “The faster we move the worse it feels. It’s like a blast furnace. God has given Ethiopia a corner of hell.”
Ismael ignored the comment. They rode for another few minutes in silence.
“We will come into their camp at dusk, on horses only,” Ismael said.
“The vehicles are too loud. Tell the tracker to halt us two kilometers before the camp.”
“Reasonable,” the captain agreed.
They rode on.
“Tell him,” Ismael said.
“Yes, I will.”
“Now.”
“Now? He’s behind us, with the horses.”
“You don’t know how to walk? Get out.”
Captain Asid hesitated for a moment and then stepped out onto the sand. The Jeep rolled on, a steady five kilometers per hour now. Ismael closed his eyes and let his mind wander to the killing ahead. They had the firepower to wipe out a small army. Whatever lay before would soon be dead. If they were lucky, they would find both Caleb and Rebecca. And if not, they would level the monastery anyway. The thought made the heat bearable.
Caleb missed the midday meal, and Rebecca began to worry. She might not have so much experience handling a man without a knife or gun in hand, but she could’ve sworn that she had moved him this time.
Elijah had informed her that the camp would leave for a watering hole in the morning. One way or another she would take Caleb with her tonight— she couldn’t afford to travel further from the monastery.
She waited another hour, expecting him to walk into camp at any moment. But the desert lay still and hot. No sign of life, much less Caleb. If he had come to his senses, he would have done it by now.
Rebecca grunted and walked for the boulders. Maybe he had fallen and hurt himself, or lost himself in the square kilometer or so of rock, though the latter seemed unlikely. Then again, with Caleb, nothing was really that unlikely. She decided to return to the spot where she’d discovered him this morning. From there she would follow his tracks—with some luck he hadn’t run a marathon out here.
Rebecca entered the small sandy enclave overlooking the camp and pulled up, startled. Caleb stood with his back to her, on the rock’s edge, in nearly the same position she’d left him. He even had his arms spread, as if he were trying to calm this desert he called an ocean.
She pressed into the rock on her right and watched him. A light breeze pushed his cotton robe around his ankles. His wavy hair curled at his shoulders; from behind he reminded Rebecca of a picture she’d once seen of the prophet Elijah being fed by ravens.
She saw that he held a stone in his right hand.
“Have you ever ridden a bicycle, Rebecca?”
His voice seemed lower than she remembered.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked, stepping out.
“Do you remember the first time you rode a bicycle?” he asked, still facing away.
She had no intention of following him on one of his crazy lines of thinking. “What are you doing out here, Caleb? I’ve been waiting. The camp is moving in the morning.”
He turned around. He looked different, again. Not as though he had actually changed, but different, in the subtle lines around his smile and in the color of his skin. And in his eyes. Everything seemed brighter—his cheeks redder and his eyes greener.
But it was more than the color. Caleb was staring at her and she was feeling her heart pound without understanding exactly why.
“I am learning to ride my bike,” he said.
“I . . . I’m not sure I understand.”
“It’s something Father Hadane told me, and I’m beginning to comprehend. When you learn to ride a bike, you don’t just learn that you ought to ride it; you actually attempt to ride it and then you do ride it. Belief works the same way. I am learning to believe; I am riding my bike.”
He said it with a delightful awe—you’d think he had just mastered the secret to atomic power. And the way he was looking at her, with such compassion, eyes swimming in an innocence she could not grasp, Rebecca wasn’t sure he hadn’t.
It was her turn to speak, she knew that, but the words weren’t bubbling out. She spoke anyway, and it sounded stupid.
“What is the stone for?”
“My bicycle,” he said. “I was attempting to float it.”
She swallowed.
Caleb shrugged and dropped the stone to the sand. “Not really. I don’t think this bicycle has wheels.” He grinned. “Even if it did have wheels, there’s no place for it to go. I think a bicycle has to have a place to go, don’t you?”
“Makes sense.” Actually it didn’t. She broke eye contact and walked towards the edge. “Did you talk to Hadane today?”
“No. I’m sorry. I haven’t had the time yet.”
No, you’re too busy staring into the eyes of God and floating rocks to concern yourself with saving Israel. She wondered if that constituted a fall from grace. She had tested him and he had failed. Hadane would never buy it.
“Have you thought about our conversation?”
“The Ark. Yes.”
“And?”
“And I would like to go with you, back to the monastery.”
She spun to him. “You would?”
“Yes, but I don’t think I’m finished here. And I really don’t think I can help you find the Ark. If it is in the Debra Damarro, Father Matthew would have told me.”
“He did! In the letter.”
“No. My father often referred to the human heart as the Ark of God, Rebecca. The Spirit of God dwells in the heart, not in a golden Ark. That is the answer to your riddle. The oil and the brine mix in the heart. The oil is the presence of God and the brine is sin. I’m very sorry, but you’re mistaken about the Ark.”
Rebecca felt her face drain as his words sunk in. The heart! What if he was right? But no, there was other evidence. Too much corroborating evidence. “What about Raphael Hadane’s story? He said that Father Matthew told of the Ark.”
Caleb smiled politely. “Again, the heart. In Father Matthew’s mind, I was the Ark. He was the Ark. But I can understand him using the term in speaking about me. I was very special to him, and I was hidden in the monastery, wasn’t I? In the letter you found, he’s reminding me. Father Matthew was very creative.”
Rebecca felt her heart sink, but she refused to dismiss Zakkai’s evaluation outright. There had to be more to the blind priest’s story than imaginary hearts.
“I could be mistaken, of course.” Caleb must have seen her disappointment. He crossed his arms and stared out to the west. “Either way, the Ark isn’t what you think it is. If you will wait another week with me, I will take you back to the monastery.”
“A week? Your parents are back there!”
“And they are safe. You may want the Ark, but you’re not a killer, Rebecca. I was meant to be here and I don’t think I’m ready to leave yet.”
“You have no idea what I am! Not a killer? If you knew, you might not be sitting around with rocks in your hands.”
He looked at her without a shred of concern, still smiling softly. “How could someone who tried to kiss me yesterday try to kill me today?”
Rebecca suddenly wanted to slap him. “Uhh!” She gritted her teeth. “You’re clueless!”
He arched a brow. “Am I?”
“I don’t know what kind of woman you think I am, but I’m not her,” she said. “I’m fighting for my life! For my country’s life—not some relic you think of as a simple golden box. Just because our beliefs differ doesn’t mean you don’t have an obligation to respect mine. How dare you claim to possess the presence of God’s power while dismissing the true resting place of his power!”
“I only believe—”
“I don’t care what you believe!” she interrupted. “I don’t see any stones floating, and I sure don’t see any bicycles wheeling around. You’re living in a fantasy world, and it’s time you joined the real one. Whether you like it or not, the Ark is in that monastery, and you’re going to help us find it.”
She spun and walked away.
It was time to retrieve her guns.