“When can you get me to Eilat?
“I’ll be smarter tomorrow once
I’m there. My contact will help. You must keep a very low profile
for a couple of days until we figure out what to do.”
Christine flashed a grateful
smile and the two women hugged.
“I should be back in two
days,” Kasuma said as she picked up her bag and set off across the sand, among
the huts, toward the black asphalt road that would take her to the
border.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
Mai-Li received the call in
the Intelligence bunker
.
It was Elena who introduced
herself and gave her Sam’s hotel and cell phone numbers in Israel. She
got through to Sam an hour later
.
“
Who’s Elena?”
she
blurted nervously
.
“
Sorry Mai-Li,” he apologized for not informing
her of Elena, “but things down here have turned ugly
.”
Mai-Li remained suspicious and
uncertain
.
“
Sam, we can’t have unknown people call this
place
.”
“
My mistake, Mai-Li. I wasn’t thinking
.”
“
We can’t compromise Harley. He’ll never
help us again
.”
“
Mai-Li, you’re right but what’s done I can’t
change. Now you have to listen
.”
“
Go on,” she finally said after long
contemplation
.
“
El Chino’s dead,” Sam said and drew a muffled
cry from Mai-Li
.
“
He went looking for Chris and Jack in the
Sinai, and the Egyptians killed him
.”
“
Why, how?” Mai-Li managed to squeal, shuddering
.
“
The Frenchwoman, Clair, was put in jail
there. Her boy was held by the father. Chris and Jack went after
her, released her then took the boy and had to flee the raging father and the
Egyptians
.
“
When they didn’t show up, I sent Ortega in
after them. He was caught and charged with assisting in the kidnapping of
the boy. He tried to escape and they shot him. Now it’s all being
covered up
.”
“
My God,” Mai-Li whispered, tears welling up in
her eyes
.
Sam went on
.
“
Now we have Jack escaping up in the treacherous
mountains with Clair and the boy and Chris down in Nueba by the Red Sea.
She managed to send word to us
.”
“
What do we do?” Mai-Li beseeched
.
“
We can probably get Chris out to Eilat with a
little help from the Bedouins and the Israelis. Ortega’s remains will
have to be extracted diplomatically. The major hurdle is getting Jack,
Clair, and the boy out
.”
Mai-Li
remained silent, unbelieving.
Sam went on
.
“
We can’t do it diplomatically because the
Egyptians will claim kidnapping and want to try Jack and Chris. The
Israelis will help only on their side of the fence. They need to be
extremely careful not to start up a war
.”
“
The only qualified people I can think of who
can help us in real time are Harley’s
.”
“
You want me to have Harley’s crew extract Black
Jack, Clair and her boy from Egypt? Am I getting this right?” Mai-Li
asked, suddenly alert
.
“
What other choices do we have?” Sam
argued
.
“
I don’t know,” Mai-Li retorted, nervously.
“What do I tell Harley? He’s all fired up getting ready for Kashmir
.”
“
Ask for his help. It’s all we can
do. We have six days
.”
“
And if he refuses? He could get his
employers, his own government in diplomatic trouble, you know. And he’ll
want to be paid
.”
“
He’ll have to risk it. It will have to be
covert. We’ve got money to pay him if that’s his problem
.”
“
Oh, God,” Mai-Li sighed, realizing the load
that has been put on her shoulders. “It may compromise Kashmir
.”
“
We must get them out, Mai-Li. We can’t
desert Jack
.”
There was silence on the
line. Mai-Li looked around the Intelligence bunker as if for the first
time. It was empty except for Corporal “Long-John” Evans who was
plastered to the monitors adjusting the tapes from the successful exercise of
the previous night
.
Mike Devlin had led “Scorpion”
with additional men and managed to seize the camp and free the prisoners
without any hiccups
.
Harley was pleased. Now
she would ruin it for him. Put him on the spot
.
“
I’ll talk to him,” she finally said. “Wait for
my call
.”
“
I will,” Sam said, anxiously. “Please hurry
.”
Mai-Li hung up the phone
.
*****
The goat path off the cliff
had proved quite a challenge. It was a narrow path on which Faraj could
barely balance himself. Jack, Clair and Ibrahim had all watched as the
Bedouin guide strained to get a grip
.
They had all filled their
leather water packs and taken last sips from trickles of spring water that were
coming down the rock face into the secluded pool of the enclosed alcove among
the granite walls they had slept in, high above the desert ground below
.
Then they followed Faraj
.
At a certain point, to
maintain their balance, they had to spread their legs wide on the narrow ledge,
straddle the rock face and proceed with hundreds of meters of empty space
below. They had to climb invisible steps only Faraj could discern and
crawl up three narrow chutes before they reached the safety of the plateau
.
Once there, they worried about their pursuers
but none seem to materialize. They waited for nightfall among the rocky
outer edge of the plateau and dared proceed only then
.
They travelled for two nights
not seeing a soul. Jack’s tongue was quite swollen still and he barely
uttered a word, until on the third night they reached an oasis high in the
mountains. It was a Tarrabin site nestled amongst palm trees, grapevines, date
and banana trees flanked by a deep flowing stream that made a welcome noise
they heard quite a ways away
.
The head tribesman, a wrinkled
old Bedouin whose wives and children kept fussing about, invited them to his
tent and offered food and drink. Exhausted, they fell upon the straw mats,
drank thirstily and gulped down whatever food they were offered.
The fresh spring water, pita bread, goat’s cheese and an assortment of fruits
seemed items made in heaven and after a half day of rest they slowly recovered
.
Jack allowed the tribe’s woman
healer to tend to his wounds. She boiled some plants and bushes in a
teapot and forced him to drink, then produced a brown ointment with a pungent
odor and carefully smeared it on his ailing tongue. It might have been
the healer’s medicine, the elapsed time, or both that had made the difference,
but Black Jack was able to talk soon after
.
After some discussion with the
chief and two of his sons, Faraj explained they needed to cross close to an
Egyptian military facility with fenced roads and patrols. It was an air
traffic radar facility built high up on the mountains. The road leading
to it was fenced on both sides with military vehicles patrolling it
intermittently
.
The few places where the road
was fenceless bordered sheer rock face canyons quite difficult to climb. The Bedouins
had two primary places where they would normally cross the road but the
Egyptians were aware of them and would keep a watchful eye. The Bedouins
who would normally cross were goatherds with their flocks so a group of more
than two people could very well alert someone
.
The Egyptians were presumably
still looking for them and if they were expecting them to be heading this way,
the road would be an ideal place to spot them and trap them
.
With Clair and Ibrahim
translating, they queried the Bedouins trying to determine the best possible
action
.
“
Could we bypass the road?” Black Jack asked
.
“
That would mean descending east for two days,
approaching the lower areas nearer the sea where it would be harder to hide and
more Egyptian patrols,” Faraj explained. “Then we would have to climb
back up for at least another two days
.”
Black Jack nodded his
head. That option was out of the question. They could not afford to take
four days and expect to make it in time to the rendezvous location they had
established with Christine
.
“
We can try and cross it one or two at a time in
the two locations,” Clair suggested
.
The head tribesman added
something and nodded at her. Faraj explained
.
“
He says you are smart. He thought the
same and that we should take along some goats for show
.”
“
I might be too big to pass for a Bedouin,”
Black Jack offered
.
Faraj nodded
.
“
Ibrahim should have no problem and Clair could
hide her feminine features. They could pass together with some goats
during daytime. You and I will need to follow at night and avoid the
patrols
.”
Jack looked at his two
companions. “Is it agreed
?”
They both nodded. He
looked at Faraj. “We pass at the same point or at the two different ones
?”
“
They are too far apart,” Faraj said
.
“
Ahmed could go,” the chief said, referring to
one of his sons
.
“
You are very generous,” Faraj addressed the
chief, “but it will be an extra day
.”
“
It’s your decision. I will send Ahmed
with you to show you the best way
.”
If they split up, Faraj later explained,
they would have to take different routes, one being quite longer than the
other, then they would need to converge and if something happened to either,
neither would be able to know
.
They spent the rest of the day
relaxing. Clair went to bathe in the lower part of the stream where a
small hidden pool with a small waterfall provided a natural shower and
bath. Ignoring the young children who were splashing about, she stripped
naked and immersed in the cool lucid water. She had her eyes shut for a
while as she floated underneath the waterfall, then she looked around and
thought she could live there. The mixture of brownish yellow arid
landscape with blue sparkling spring water and desert vegetation seemed godly
to her
.
Such contrast, she thought. It
was down to day and night, hot and cold,
dry
and
wet. Water meant life; the rest was ancillary. She marveled at the
quiet, relaxed way of the inhabitants. They were part of nature with no
reason to hurry. Time lost all meaning in a place like this
.
She splashed about, like the
children, who had gathered on the banks to watch her, noticing her pale body
with tanned arms and legs. She thought of
Jack,
and what it would be like if he joined her, naked in the pool. What would
it be like if the two of them decided to stay there together? Jack was
her age, thirty-six, and unmarried. She wondered why he never
married. She liked him, even fancied him a little. He had told her
little about himself but what she heard, she liked
.
Then she recalled Hussni, her
husband who she met in university in Paris. How romantic he had been
then. The trips he had taken her on. The Alps, Annecy, Nice,
Marseilles. Dinners at the finest restaurants; picnics in the
country. For a student, he was well off and it blinded her. Before
she knew it, they were married, on the steps of Hotel de Ville. Then she
had Ibrahim and had to quit school. Hussni would not have her study, work
or do anything a woman was not “supposed” to do. Suddenly his religious
beliefs, Islam, the Koran, and his Arabic chauvinist habits took
precedence. Romance was out the door. Hussni went on to complete
his degree in Political Science then demanded they move to Egypt
.
That was when she had had
enough. She stood her ground and it ended in a bitter divorce
.
What followed was fate, and it
brought her to this magical pool, together with her son, chased by her
husband. The prominent setting and ambience gave a rare aura to the place
near where man proclaimed to see God. She did not believe in God, not
through her ordeal, but from that vantage point, nature sure looked powerful
.