Covenant (25 page)

An unexpected void of calm descended upon Ethan’s shoulders, the fear suddenly purged from his veins as he realized that he meant every word. The Palestinian held the blade still, his expression riveted on Ethan, and then from the deep silence another voice spoke softly.

“That is enough, let him be.”

The Palestinian looked past Ethan, then lowered the blade and stood back without another word.

Ethan struggled to look over his shoulder and saw that another narrow tunnel led away from the chamber into some unknown darkness. A figure moved out of the shadows, thin and bespectacled, his features drawn and lightly touched with graying stubble. He moved to stand before Ethan.

“Who are you?” Ethan rasped, his throat parched.

“My name is Dr. Hassim Khan. I was working with Lucy before she disappeared. I am truly sorry for your suffering, Mr. Warner, but these men had to be sure you were who you said you were. Rachel has told us everything.” He turned to Ethan’s captor. “Release him; he is telling the truth.”

Ethan blinked in confusion as the Palestinian moved behind him and began loosening the restraints from his wrists.

“We thought that you’d been abducted by insurgents,” Ethan said to Hassim.

The doctor shook his head. “No, Mr. Warner. These men are not insurgents. They are protecting me.”

Ethan’s mind reeled as he tried to assimilate what he’d heard.

“Protecting you from what?”

BEN GURION INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
ISRAEL

B
yron Stone stepped out of the sleek Gulfstream V550 jet and onto the tarmac, catching the commingled odors of aviation fuel and distant deserts on the night air. He might have briefly reveled in the unmistakable, aromatic scent of the Middle East, were it not for the pall of displeasure that enveloped him. A ring of uniformed soldiers surrounded the aircraft as Spencer Malik strode out to greet him.

“Good trip?” Malik saluted Stone, his back ramrod straight and his expression unreadable.

“What news?” Stone asked without preamble. Malik dropped the salute and joined him as they walked toward a parked car nearby.

“The preparations are continuing as planned, and the remains will be here by tomorrow and flown back to the States. Customs won’t be a problem, I’ve handled that.”

“What else?” Stone demanded.

Malik squirmed uneasily.

“Our site in the Negev was compromised earlier today by a journalist.” Stone ground his teeth but remained silent as Malik spoke. “The man’s name is Ethan Warner. He’s got history in Gaza going back a few years.”

“So I’ve heard. What was he doing at the site?”

“We’re not sure, but he wasn’t alone. He was led in by a Bedouin guide whom we captured but who subsequently escaped. Warner also escaped, along with Rachel Morgan.”

Stone hissed a breath from his lungs as he stopped beside the car.

“Go on.”

“The pair fled in a private aircraft that was intercepted by the IDF at Ben Gurion. Warner was not on board, nor was the woman. The owners of the aircraft claim they took off alone and were then harassed by a MACE helicopter in a case of mistaken identity, a story that the IDF appears to believe, and they have no apparent interest in Warner or the woman. The pair must have jumped out over the Gaza Strip, in which case they’re now almost certainly trying to return to Israel with the evidence.”

Stone cast a fearsome glare in Malik’s direction. “Evidence?”

Malik carefully formulated his response.

“The Bedouin guide was involved in an altercation with the guards at the site that resulted in an unfortunate incident. It would appear that Warner was able to film part of the altercation and escape with the footage.”

“Your purpose was to ensure that MACE maintained a low but professional profile,” Stone growled. “What kind of imbecilic morons have you employed here?”

“My men were guarding a site on the border of the Negev’s training area,” Malik replied quickly. “They had no knowledge of what the site contained, as we agreed. Our people are told only that which they absolutely need to know.”

“What happened to the soldiers at the site?” Stone snapped.

“One was killed, another two injured. They’re being treated in a field hospital in Jerusalem. The dead man’s family have been informed. We can use his demise to illustrate the aggression faced by our team at the site.”

Stone forced his chest to expand and suck in air, calming himself by force of will.

“How long ago did this man Warner infiltrate Gaza?”

“Two hours at most,” Malik said. “We have narrowed their position down to a small area of Jabaliya.”

“What of the IDF?”

“They remain convinced that we were pursuing terrorists of one kind or another. The pilots of the civilian aircraft have not made any statement to the effect that they flew by choice over Gaza or allowed people to parachute into the territory: to do so would render them liable to prosecution for violating any number of Israeli aviation laws.”

Stone thought for a moment.

“Then we must ensure that Warner does not make it back into Israel with this evidence of his. MACE cannot afford an investigation here in Israel, financially nor professionally, especially at this time. We’ve only just closed the litigation against us in Iraq.”

Malik nodded. “I will deal with it personally.”

“You will do no such thing,” Stone snapped, and glanced over his shoulder.

Rafael walked slowly across the tarmac toward them, dressed in a traditional Arab shawl that couldn’t conceal his powerful frame.

“We don’t need Rafael,” Malik uttered quickly, his authority suddenly under threat. “If he learns of our activities in Gaza, he could become a liability and—”

“Right now, you’re the goddamn liability,” Stone snapped.

“This way,” Stone gestured toward a SUV parked nearby as Rafael joined them.

The three men climbed aboard and closed the doors. Rafael regarded Stone for a moment before speaking. “What would you have me do?”

Spencer Malik sat in frigid silence as Stone spoke.

“I require you to infiltrate the Gaza Strip, locate and retrieve explosives and a camera stolen from one of our encampments, and ensure that you are not identified.”

Rafael nodded silently in response. Malik, mastering his humiliation, spoke up.

“When should we implement this?”

“Immediately,” Stone said. “I will speak to the IDF in Jerusalem. You will provide me with any and all evidence supporting the infiltration of the Negev site by insurgents crossing the Sinai. Provide tracking evidence and have it ready for presentation within the hour. I will then request clearance from Israel’s Northern Command to use Gazan airspace. Once Rafael has located and recovered the evidence, we will use one of our Valkyrie drones to vaporize the problem. Understood?”

Malik twisted his features into a crooked smile as he glanced suspiciously at Rafael.

“I know that we need this situation contained, but the more people we bring into this the more complicated everything becomes. This should remain an internal affair and—”

“If you’d done your job, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Stone snapped.

“What evidence am I looking for?” Rafael asked Stone.

“Photographic evidence,” the Texan drawled. “A camera and film.”

Malik looked at the Arab. “You don’t need to know any more than that,
Araboosh.
” He took the word, twisted it, and shoved it into Rafael’s face.

Rafael regarded the soldier in stony silence, not rising to the provocation.

“Do whatever you feel necessary to obtain that equipment,” Stone said to Rafael, then looked directly at Malik. “Let me down again and I’ll have you guarding illiterate drug dealers queuing for bread in Chechnya, understood?”

Malik winced but said nothing as Rafael climbed out of the vehicle. Stone waited until he was out of sight before leaning closer to Malik.

“I would prefer that the evidence is destroyed rather than recovered during this mission, along with all witnesses.”

In the darkness, Malik’s grimace twisted into a cruel smile.

M STREET SW, WASHINGTON DC

W
hat do we got?”

Tyrell drove out of the MPD Headquarters onto Delaware Avenue, his headlights illuminating the colorful murals painted on the walls of the station claiming “We can” and “We will” as Nicola Lopez read the files she had downloaded from the Metropolitan Police Department’s servers.

“Kelvin Patterson, born 1954, Huntsville, Alabama. Married to Julie, no fewer than six kids. The guy’s an evangelical fruit loop, the type who appears on TV after every disaster and claims it was the hand of God. Last time he got major news coverage was after Hurricane Katrina, claiming the storm was God’s wrath for the American tolerance of homosexual marriages and abortions.”

“Criminal activity?”

“The guy’s as clean as a pastor could be. Earned a degree in theology from the University of Phoenix in Austin, Texas, before joining a revolution in political religious activism in the early eighties. Moved to the District and attached himself to the hard-right political parties before starting his own ministry. Was a millionaire within five years and now heads a congregation of around thirty million Americans gathered under a federation of evangelical churches across several states. He has his headquarters in the District in a purpose-built megachurch he had constructed four years ago.”

Tyrell changed lanes.

“What about these radio and TV shows that the kid mentioned?”

“Patterson does a weekly radio piece called
This Bread,
an ad for various faith leaders pushing the boat out for bringing God into the public sphere. Apparently, they either don’t know or don’t care that to do so would be against the Constitution. The TV show is the vehicle that made him a millionaire, with regular tithing events and requests for viewers’ money donated for charitable causes.”

“Like the hospital?”

“Among other things,” Lopez noted, scanning through the files. “It would seem that the good pastor manages to cream off a holy slice for himself. Three houses, plenty of cars. This guy’s big and he’s well connected. He’s allied to the current opposition front runner for the primaries, Senator Isaiah Black. They were college friends, apparently.” Lopez put the file down. “It’s hardly a lead, though. This guy recruits from prison populations through his charities and hospitals, but he has no direct contact with them.”

Tyrell massaged his temples with his free hand, wiping the sweat from his forehead. The car was hot but his skin felt cold to the touch and a dull nausea infected his stomach.

“There’ll be something,” he said. “We’ve got enough here to at least make some inquiries, provided I can get it past Powell.”

“There’s no way he’s gonna let you harass this guy. Everything we’ve got is circumstantial and none of it actually points to a homicide. Where are we goin’ anyway?”

“General Hospital Southeast. I’ve got an appointment with a doctor there.”

“Great.” Lopez smiled brightly. “It’s about damned time.”

“The appointment’s not for me,” Tyrell countered. “Suppose that Claretta’s recollections were all correct. This kid was pulled from the AEA’s institute and subjected to medical experiments. What the hell do you think would be the point of that?”

Lopez shrugged.

“There’s no point in killing someone just to bring ’em back. You want a mark to stay down, not get up and start wanderin’ around looking for the cops.”

“Unless there was some reason for keeping them dead,” Tyrell said quietly, “even just for a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

Tyrell found a space in the hospital’s parking lot before he and Lopez entered the crowded ER. Tyrell was directed to a small room overlooking one of the operating theaters.

The windows were of smoked glass, allowing people to look in from the viewing platform without distracting the attention of the surgeons below. A man stood on the platform with his arms folded, observing the surgery going on within the theater below as Tyrell and Lopez joined him.