Chase Baker and the Seventh Seal (A Chase Baker Thriller Book 9) (17 page)

“I hope you know how to use those things,” I say, my eyes on the two Orthodox girls. “We’re going up against some pretty bad people.”

“Trust me, Chase,” Abba says. “Both women were in the Israeli army and can shoot the Lincoln out of an American penny at one hundred paces.”

“Good to know,” I say.

James looks at his watch.

“It’s dark,” he says. “We should get this show on the road before Mahdi decides to transfer the codices to some place where we’ll never find them. If he hasn’t already done it.”

Magda looks at me, smiles. It’s a smile that has love in it. I smile back. Pulling out my .45, I rack the slide, and a live round enters the chamber. Thumbing the safety on, I holster the weapon.

“Ready when you are,” I say.

Abba opens the door, and our army of irregulars exits the trailer on our way to save humanity from the end of days.

CHAPTER 31

Our weapons concealed entirely under our clothing, we casually enter back into the Old City through the Damascus Gate just like we did the first time around early this morning. The difference, this time, besides the darkness and the revelers who occupy some of the Arab open-air restaurants, is that as soon as we come to the Via Dolorosa, James, Abba, and the two young Orthodox girls hook a left in order to access the shop from the back. Meanwhile, Magda and I will make our way in through the front door.

We proceed along Al-Wad Street, past the vendors still operating in the darkness under strings of halogen bulbs or overhead lamplights. If I had to guess, I’d say the market has been operating nonstop for three thousand years and will continue to do so for another three thousand. Or, until the end of the world, which could come a hell of a lot sooner than later if we don’t get at those codices.

At one shop that sells cheap trinkets, jewelry, and tourist souvenirs, I purchase a full facial Burka for Magda, and, for me, a Fez and a pair of cheap sunglasses. I pay the man, and we carry the junk back out onto the road.

“Put this on,” I say.

Magda looks at the black burka. “This is an insult to all good Muslims,” she says.

“If Mahdi recognizes you and shoots you in the face,” I say, “that would be an insult to me. Now, please, drop the political correctness and pretty please, double pretty please, put it on.”

I put on the sunglasses, despite the dark of night, and the red fez.

Magda looks at me through the slit in the fabric and laughs. “Now you look dumber than I must look.”

“Good,” I say. “Now that we have all that established let’s go steal the seven codices and get the hell out of Dodge.” 

We walk on for another five minutes until we come to the bookshop.

The shelves of books that had been set outside the door have now been placed back inside the store. The sign attached to the now repaired wood door says
Closed
. But the opaque glass in the door reveals the light that’s on in the back spaces of the operation. I could be wrong, but my built in shit-detector tells me Mahdi is inside. And if he’s inside, so are his Soldiers of the Expected One.

Carefully, I set my hand on the door latch, press down on it.

The door is locked.

I pull out my smartphone, open the texting app.

I thumb-tap a message for James:
Front door locked

We wait until a response comes through.

At the back now. Can see Mahdi through the window in the back room. Maybe six bandits with him. Knock on front door.

Return the smartphone to my pocket. “James wants us to knock on the door.”

“That’s the plan?” Magda questions. “Just knock on the door like we’re two tourists looking to buy books about Jerusalem.”

“You got a better idea?”

The rich, smooth, tan skin on her face is made all the richer by the dim, overhead electric lighting. She might be wearing a burka, but I know her thick hair is clean and parted over her eye, her eyes deep and wet, lips thick and succulent, and it’s all I can do to not take her back in my arms right this very moment. But we have a job to accomplish, and we need to do it safely and quickly. We need to do it now.

I raise my right hand, make a fist, pound it on the door.

Nothing.

I pound again. Footsteps across the wood floor. I slip my hand into my jacket, pull out the .45, hold it so the barrel is pointed at the ground. A face appears in the glass. It’s not Mahdi’s. Instead, it belongs to someone I do not recognize.

“We are closed,” the man says through the glass. Magda is standing out in the middle of the road, the burka covering her face. I’m standing off to the side in the shadows, the sunglasses masking my eyes, the Fez covering my head. The bearded man doesn’t recognize us. So far, so good.

“I won’t take up much time,” I say. “I’m looking for a rare book, and I am told you have it.”

“We are closed.”

“But I’m leaving for the US early in the morning, and this is my only chance.”

“We are closed. Now please, go away.”

Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the generous wad of America greenbacks Cross provided me back in New York.

“I’m willing to pay,” I say.

The face pauses. I can tell the brain behind the skin and facial hair is thinking it over. Then, a bolt unlocking, and the door opens.

Returning the cash to my pocket, I step inside, jam the barrel of the .45 into the bearded man’s belly, just as rapid automatic gunfire erupts from the back room.

CHAPTER 32

The bearded man falls onto his back. But he pulls out a semi-automatic, plants a bead on me. The gunshot that explodes beside me takes me by complete surprise. Magda, with her pistol in hand, the barrel aimed at the bearded man’s chest which is now pulsing arterial blood.

“In back,” I shout. “Stay low.”

I spot Mahdi and a half dozen of his soldiers. Rather, I spot their backs while they fire through the open windows at James, Abba, and the Orthodox girls up on the exterior wall of the courtyard.

“Hands where I can seem them, Mahdi,” I say.

He turns. So do two of his men, aiming their rifles at us. I take out the one on the right and Magda takes out the one on the left. The other four turn. Magda and I manage to take them all down, which leaves only Mahdi.

“Put your hands up, Mahdi,” Magda screams. “This ends here. Now.”

She pulls off the Burka, and I remove my fez and sunglasses, tossing them into the corner. James and the crew pile into the back room off the rear courtyard.

“We’ve got maybe three minutes before the Israeli army and the police pounce on this place,” James warns. Then, his eyes on Abba. “The explosives.”

Abba reaches into his bag, pulls out two sticks of TNT and two fuses.

“You cannot possibly get away with this,” Mahdi says, as the Orthodox girls proceed to duct tape his hands behind his back while, at the same time, holding the barrels of their Uzis on him.

Mahdi is wearing a long robe, but underneath it all, he’s got on trousers and a shirt. James pats him down for weapons. He finds a smartphone, which he sets on the desk. He also pulls out his billfold, goes through it, tossing bills, photos, credit cards, and other detritus onto the floor.

“No safe combo in here, Abba,” he says. “Blow the damned thing.”

Abba steps up to the safe under the framed painting of Ansar-Al Mahdi, our present-and-accounted-for prisoner’s namesake. He thrusts the fuses into the two sticks and then, cutting several pieces of duct tape from the same roll the girls used on Mahdi, tapes the sticks to the safe, right beside the old brass opener.

Pulling a lighter from his pocket, he lights both fuses.

“Gentlemen and ladies,” Abba says, “I suggest we head back outside for a moment while the dynamite does the job for which it is intended.”

We all pile out back in the four-sided courtyard, Mahdi struggling every bit of the way.

Locking eyes on me, he says, “May Allah curse the very soil you occupy,” in a growling voice.

“That’s not very nice, Mahdi,” I chide. “That’s the kind of bad karma that can come back and bite you on the ass one day.”

“Everyone duck down against the far wall and cover your faces,” Abba warns. We do as we’re told.

The TNT explodes. Two rapid, back to back blasts that light the entire store up for an instant like it’s mid-day.

We run back inside and see that the safe door has been thrust open, the opener shattered. I pull out my Maglite, flick it on. The closer I come to the open safe, I can see that only one item occupies its dark space. Rather, seven items.

The ancient codices.

I know it’s the codices even from a distance of maybe a dozen feet just by the way they glow. I turn the Maglite off. Even with no light shining on them, they glow nonetheless, as if their very properties, or holiness, produces an energy that emanates from within their metal construction.

My eyes shift from the codices to Mahdi’s face, and I can see how pale he has become. So angry and defiant. He might be bound with duct tape and our prisoner, but I can tell he’ll stop at nothing to regain control of the books. They are the means to his destructive end. Which means, the faster we get them out of here and loaded onto our plane for New York, the better. Which is exactly how I put it to Magda.

“I agree,” she says, approaching the safe.

I also approach it. When we’re mere inches from the codices, I raise both hands as though to grab them. But then I take a step back.

“You do the honors,” I say.

Magda presses her lips together, then reaches into the safe, and one by one, takes possession of the ancient books. When she comes to the seventh one, she hands it to me. It’s far heavier than I expected for an object of its size and dimensions. It’s the only one that’s bound by a thick strip of metal. The metal is thin but wide like a band. I can’t help but pull on it with my index finger. But the band is so tightly applied that I find it impossible even to stick my fingernail in the space between the band and the metal book. That’s because there is no space. No matter where you look, the book is sealed tightly on all four sides with no seam in the strange metal.

Sirens can now be heard coming from out of the west.

“Chase,” James says, “we gotta move.”

I open the flap on the bag that’s strapped around my shoulder, shove the seventh codice inside. Magda hands me the other six, unsealed texts, and I place them inside along with it. Spotting Mahdi’s smartphone, I also toss that into the bag, then replace the flap.

The sirens are getting louder by the second.

“How do you wanna do this, James?” I say.

Abba steps forward. “We can’t very well carry Mahdi up onto the wall, my friends.”

“Abba is right,” I say. “It’s the front door or nothing.”

“Nothing’s not an option, Chase,” Magda says.

“Front door,” I say. Then, eyeing the Fez and sunglasses I tossed in the corner, I retrieve them and place them on Mahdi. He attempts to spit at me, but I shift my head at just the right moment.

“Ladies,” I say to the Orthodox girls. “If you wouldn’t mind gagging Mr. Mahdi here.”

“Gladly,” one of them says, a smile on her face as she rips a long piece of the thick gray tape from the roll, wraps it around Mahdi’s mouth.

“Magda,” I say. “Your burka.”

She pulls the black facial cover out of her cargo pants pocket, hands it to me. I remove Mahdi’s fez and sunglasses and instead shove the burka over his head.

“Now, how about that,” I say. “The robes and burka make you look just like a woman. An overweight, old, ugly woman with a foul mouth. But a woman just the same.”

Mahdi struggles to free his hands. I can hear him shouting at me through the duct tape. But the Orthodox girls press the barrels of the Uzis against both racks of his ribs and that’s enough to quiet him down.

The sirens sound like they are right outside the back courtyard now, which means the vehicles are on the Via Dolorosa.