Covenant

49

The cool caress of the night air was the sweetest thing that Ethan had ever experienced as he clambered from the tunnel. As he stood in the center of a shattered apartment block and sucked in a lungful of that air, surrounded by ragged towers of masonry that had once been the home of Palestinian families, he noticed a vast panorama of stars glittering in the heavens above him.

For the first time in his life, Ethan realized he was looking at those stars in a totally different way. The ancient pagan cults had got it right after all, worshipping nature and the heavens without ever realizing how close to the truth they’d actually been. Mankind was not alone.

“You can make your call from there.”

Ethan turned in the direction Mahmoud indicated, toward a concrete ramp that had once been the upper floor of the apartment block and now lay at a steep angle against the surface of the last remaining upright wall.

Ethan picked his way between blocks of rubble that littered the earth around him. He stepped up onto the ramp, climbing until he was some ten feet above the ground. He looked at his cell phone and glanced back at Mahmoud, giving him a thumbs-up. Mahmoud made no response, simply standing guard in the darkness.

Ethan sat down on the ramp and dialed a number into his cell phone, waiting for the line to connect. From his elevated viewpoint he could see the low roofs and haphazard streets of Gaza stretching away to the south between the skeletal remains of the building.

“Hello?”

“Doug? It’s Ethan.”

“Ethan!” It sounded as though Doug Jarvis had fallen out of bed. “Where the hell have you been? What happened to the daily call?”

“Things got complicated and we were compromised before I could contact you,” Ethan said quickly. “I don’t have much time, so just listen.”

“Go ahead,” Jarvis replied.

“Lucy’s disappearance isn’t just to do with fossil hunters: it’s got something to do with an American security company called MACE: Munitions for Advanced Combat Environments. They’ve been operating out here for some time and have the ear of the Israeli Defense Ministry. It was their people who stole Lucy’s discovery and they presumably know what happened to her and her team.”

“MACE,” Doug echoed. “Haven’t heard of them.”

“There’s more,” Ethan said quickly. “They’re responsible for atrocities against the indigenous population of Bedouin in the Negev and I have it on film. Unfortunately, they know this and have been trying to recover the incriminating evidence, and they’re not shy of shooting first and asking questions later.”

“Christ, Ethan! Is Rachel okay? Where are you?”

“Rachel’s fine,” Ethan assured him. “We’re in Gaza. We were chased here by MACE operatives and we’re trying to get back into Israel. I need you to contact the IDF and clear us a passage through the Erez crossing by dawn our time.”

“You’re in Gaza?” Ethan could hear the concern in Doug’s voice. “Who are you with?”

“It’s a long story,” Ethan replied. “Let’s just say that we know that insurgents did not abduct Lucy or anyone else in her team.”

There was a pause on the line before Jarvis spoke again. “Look after my daughter, Ethan.”

“I’ll have her out of Gaza by dawn, I promise. I need you to look into MACE, see if you can find out what connections they have to the fossil black market, or anything that might give us some perspective on what the hell they’re really doing out here. Look for any connection that you can find with something called the American Evangelical Alliance, a church in DC that owns the company.”

“Consider it done,” Jarvis said.

Ethan was about to speak when he noticed Mahmoud leap with feline agility onto the edge of the ramp and stare up into the night sky. The Palestinian’s face contorted as though he was straining to hear something, and then with an urgent grimace he waved at Ethan to follow him.

“Doug, I’ve got to go,” Ethan said, standing and running down the ramp.

“Why, what’s happenin—”

Ethan had barely managed to shut the phone off when Mahmoud grabbed him and hurled him toward the tunnel entrance. For a brief moment Ethan heard a strange humming noise.

“What’s happening?”

“Get down!”

In an instant the entire area around Ethan lit up in a blinding flare of unimaginable brightness. His eyes automatically shut, an image of ruined buildings seared onto his retina amid blazing light as a blast of superheated air slammed into him like a freight train.