Darkness had blackened the desert for a full hour before Ismael pulled up on the far side of the boulders. He stared forward into the night, blinking. A slight tremble shook his hands. She had escaped again.
The caravan’s tracks had been everywhere, but they hadn’t led anywhere. The troop had marched the perimeter once already, with the tracker, Hasam, searching in the failing light for the signs of a caravan’s exit into the desert. Nothing. Their horses were nearly dead; they had no choice but to stop for at least a few hours.
Ismael slid from his stallion. “We will camp here and leave at midnight. Water and bed the horses.”
“Should I send the Jeep back around the backside?” Captain Asid asked. “The tracks are everywhere on that side. They still could be hiding.”
“No. They couldn’t have hidden so quickly. They’re gone. We can’t afford to spend the fuel.”
The captain looked back into the night. “I could have sworn I saw—”
“You saw boulders, Captain. The desert plays tricks. The Jew is gone. Our objective now is the monastery. Get the horses watered.”
The captain turned his sweaty face away and barked the order to set camp.
Ismael slung his saddle from his horse and dumped it on a rock. If the Jew had left for the monastery with Caleb, he might miss them both. There was now the possibility that she could reach the monastery and be gone before he arrived. If the godforsaken horses had any more strength, he would make a run for it now.
The men dismounted and struck a quick camp. They had used nearly half of their water supply. Two more days and they would be out. They would have to swing by the springs he’d passed through nearly a week ago now.
Ismael spit into the darkness and closed his eyes. The anger had lodged in his gut like a bitter pill, refusing to budge. During his five years with the intifada he had been in a dozen situations that would make an ordinary man cry with frustration. But none had produced the heat that flowed through his veins now. He wasn’t sure how to deal with the devastation he felt. He only knew that he couldn’t allow the men behind him to see. They would never understand. To be Arab and Muslim was one thing. The Egyptians did a fine job of being Arab and Muslim. But to be Arab and Muslim and Palestinian and to see your own brother butchered like a cow by a Jew was another thing altogether. The Syrian Republican Guard had some of the Middle East’s best trained and best armed soldiers, but not even they had the fuel of hate driving them like the Palestinian forces did. Nothing could motivate like the death of a brother or the loss of a home.
Ismael took a deep settling breath. The Jew was killing him with this cancer of hate that ate at his gut. He would track Rebecca down until his own death if he had to.
He reached for his pack and pulled out the satellite phone. It was time to tell Abu the news.
Professor Zakkai paced in the monastery’s kitchen, their makeshift op-center. It had been four days since Rebecca’s last contact. Even Samuel, a trained soldier, had lost his steadfast patience judging by the sweat on his face. Avraham was the only one who didn’t seem too worried, and then only because the prospect of losing Rebecca obviously didn’t bother him.
Zakkai, on the other hand, was literally begging God for her return— she was not only a dear friend, but she might hold the key to the Ark. He felt like his stomach had been cinched into a small knot.
“We should send a search party after her,” he said to Samuel. “She’s obviously in trouble.”
“Or dead,” Avraham said.
“We can’t afford to send any men,” Samuel said. “Not only do we have no clue where to send them, but we can’t afford to weaken our defenses here.”
“Defenses for what?” Zakkai demanded. “There is no threat! We’re sitting here on our hands, while she’s out there, bleaching in the desert. How can we not send a team out?”
“To where? The desert is huge. She left nothing but tracks, Doctor. Tracks that are blown away by the wind. Don’t worry, if anybody knows how to survive, it’s Rebecca and Michael. I’ve served with a thousand men, and not a single one of them holds a candle to either of them. Rebecca’s alive, and the only reason she’s not here is because her mission requires her to be somewhere out there.”
“Ha.” Avraham wore a smile. “You hope to marry her someday, eh, Samuel? She’s gotten into your head with her pretty face. She’s a woman! If you hold her over any man in the army, you’re a fool!”
“Don’t be an idiot! She has a record that puts yours to shame. And she handled you nicely enough, didn’t she?”
Avraham scowled. “She did not handle me. I gave in to her authority for the sake of the mission—there’s a difference. One day you’ll see that. It’s been four days; our agreement called for only three days. We should have killed the hostages and left yesterday.”
“We’ll leave when I say,” Samuel said. “We wait.”
“We can’t kill the hostages,” Zakkai said.
Avraham looked at him with a raised brow. “On the contrary, Professor, we must kill the hostages. How long will it take for them to spread the word of our little exercise here? An hour? Two? We might never make it back to the Red Sea, much less Israel.”
“There’ll be no killing of hostages,” Samuel said. “We take our chances without the blood of innocents on our hands.”
“You can’t be serious. This is a military operation.”
“We’re here for the Ark, not for killing.”
They stared each other down for a few long seconds, and Zakkai wondered if Avraham would snap one of these times. The man wore a pistol— maybe they should remove it.
Avraham suddenly turned to Zakkai. “This mission is turning bad, Professor. The longer we wait, the higher the chance of our discovery. As long as we’re waiting, we should use the dynamite and begin excavations immediately.”
“Dynamite could harm the Ark,” Zakkai said.
“Not if it’s used carefully. In the service, we placed charges on bridges so that they would collapse only when used with a heavy load. We could blow only those walls and floors that wouldn’t compromise the structure of the building, and only with enough dynamite to make pickax work easy. No harm.”
Zakkai weighed the suggestion. In truth, he had already considered using dynamite, in spite of Rebecca’s order not to.
“And if we do happen to find the Ark,” Samuel said, “do we have the evacuation plan?”
Zakkai shook his head. “No, but Solomon has it. He told me this morning that he’s confident the prime minister will lend a submarine.”
The others looked at him, surprised.
“Yes, Ben Gurion is more of a friend than you might think. Goldstein, on the other hand, is not. He has evidently already started to form a coalition against the Ark being brought to Jerusalem, if it is found.”
“They know?” Avraham asked.
“They know we’re looking.”
“God help us if this gets out,” Samuel said.
“Either way, we should begin laying the explosives,” Avraham said.
Samuel hesitated. “No. We’ll give them another twenty-four hours. Then we’ll talk about alternatives.” He turned and walked out.