Covenant

72

A bright flash of light burst from the room as the IDF troopers tossed in a flash-bang to blind Sheviz. Ethan, his arms trembling, shifted position and peered through the doorway.

A man in a white coat lay beneath the writhing bodies of two IDF troopers, one of whom had wrestled a pistol from the man’s hands. Ethan glanced up as Lieutenant Ash reappeared in the doorway.

“God knows how but Sheviz is down and Lucy’s okay,” he said quickly.

Ethan felt a flood of relief as he lowered his pistol. Damon Sheviz glared at him with a fanatical expression, thick blood staining his shoulder.

“This is God’s work!” he spat in fury.

“We need him to tell us everything he knows and then get back to Jerusalem,” Ethan said.

Sheviz shook his head, his teeth gritted against the pain of his wound.

“I’ll die before I’ll tell you anything.”

Ethan watched as Lucy Morgan was carefully lifted from the gurney by two soldiers who set her onto unsteady legs in time for Rachel to fold her arms around her daughter. From somewhere deep within, Ethan felt a warmth radiate from the abscess of pain he harbored, and his shoulders sagged with relief as his eyes closed.

A hand clapped him on the shoulder, jolting him alert.

“I never thought I’d say this, but good work,” Lieutenant Ash said. “That was a hell of a shot.”

Rachel looked at him as she held her daughter and smiled as tears flowed like rivers from her eyes. Ethan could see that the spark of life had returned within them, glowing brightly once more.

He turned his attention to Sheviz.

“This man,” he said to Jerah Ash. “What do we do with him?”

Lieutenant Ash considered the surgeon before them.

“I want to know everything,” he said. “Now.”

“Go to hell,” Sheviz shot back.

The lieutenant took a pace toward him and slammed his hand around the surgeon’s neck, lifting him off the floor.

“Now.”

Sheviz choked for a moment until the soldier released him. Coughing, Sheviz shook his head.

“My allegiance is to God,” he rasped. “Anything you do I’ll report to the Court of Human Rights.”

“Like your victims could?” Ethan snapped. “What is MACE’s connection to all of this?”

Sheviz remained silent. Ethan turned to Lieutenant Ash.

“You’re answerable to the Court of Human Rights, as a soldier,” Ethan said. “But I was never here.”

Ash thought for a moment, and then looked at his fellow soldiers.

“Didn’t see a thing,” one of them said.

Sheviz looked at the troops, and his defiance crumbled into panic.

“You’ll never get away with it!” he stammered.

The soldiers silently filtered out of the laboratory, leaving Sheviz, Lucy Morgan, Ethan, and Rachel. Lieutenant Ash remained, glancing at a pile of videotapes stacked on a counter nearby.

“What are those?” he demanded.

“We taped the procedures,” Sheviz said.

“Did you tape what you did to Ahmed Khan?” Ethan asked.

The surgeon’s eyes widened briefly.

Ethan moved to stand in front of him, reaching down beside him and picking up a scalpel that lay on a bench. He examined the cruel little blade as he spoke.

“If you fail to tell us everything, then I’ll make damned sure you lose your life. But I won’t have you killed, Sheviz. I won’t let them put you on trial or go through any legal process. I have a friend — Ayeem Khan — a Bedouin man who lives out in the deserts near Bar Yehuda. His son disappeared at the same time as Lucy, and from the same place. His name was Ahmed. You remember him, don’t you, Damon?”

Sheviz’s eyelid twitched. “I remember him.”

“Good,” Ethan said softly. “Ayeem is a popular man, with friends among the best and the worst of all Palestine. I promise that these soldiers and I will take you to Ayeem and show them that video, and he will take you to his Bedouin family.” Ethan paused for a long moment, letting the information sink in. “What they will do to you for weeks and months and years will be worse than a thousand deaths. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Sheviz stared at Ethan, taking in his uncompromising expression before speaking.

“I will help,” he said quietly.

Ethan nodded slowly. “Start talking.”

“I work for an organization in the United States called the American Evangelical Alliance. They called me some months ago to conduct experiments in America using DNA extracted from the fragmentary remains of a Nephilim, a fallen angel, that I discovered in Iraq three years ago. I had tried in the past to conduct genetic transfer studies, requesting through normal channels permission to conduct the procedures, but the Ethics Board of the American Medical Association refused me. I was due to return to Israel when the AEA stepped in and provided me with a cover for my work.”

“What connection does MACE have to all of this?”

“MACE provided me with security and equipment under the guise of experiments in battlefield trauma prevention. They did so in Washington DC at first and then here in Israel after it became too difficult to maintain secrecy.”

“The reason why scientists like Lucy disappeared from the Negev,” Ethan realized. “You abducted them when they found useful remains. What’s MACE’s endgame?”

Sheviz’s features screwed up in distaste as he spoke.

“They are bent on procuring the profits of war. MACE is here to sell their unmanned aerial drones to Israel. In order to assure their success, they are supplying explosives to the insurgent groups here to continue the war.”

“And the church provides the finance for your gruesome little experiments?” Ethan asked.

“Money,” Sheviz agreed, “equipment and premises from which to operate. We conducted several tests in America on drug addicts who were less likely to be reported missing, but they were unsuccessful. Only one subject survived but he was severely impaired afterward.”

Ethan felt himself recoil inwardly at the surgeon’s choice of clinical words. Tests. Subjects. Impaired.

“Go on.”

Sheviz spoke quietly.

“After the fourth patient succumbed it was decided that we could no longer use drug addicts and so I was secretly flown here by MACE in their private jet. We needed new material from which to extract fresh DNA. I had heard from contacts at the Hebrew University about Lucy Morgan working in the Negev and had followed her work closely. I advised that she might find fresh remains near Masada, where once Neolithic villages had existed. When she succeeded, I called in MACE to abduct her and secure the remains. I then used the finds as leverage to effect further abductions and obtain clean bodies.”

“And killed them in the process,” Lieutenant Ash snarled.

“What about the remains that Lucy found?” Ethan asked.

“Ah, yes,” Sheviz said, “a fine specimen of a Nephilim, a fallen son of God. I’ve found fragmentary remains in Iraq and India before now, but never a complete specimen. They are aboard a MACE jet at Ben Gurion airport, bound for the United States.”

Lucy Morgan eased herself away from her mother.

“You’ve found other remains?” she stammered.

Sheviz smirked at her despite his pain.

“You scientists, you think you know everything but you miss so much. Remains of Nephilim have been found before but discounted by science as aberrations or lost to history. My team and I have excavated such remains in the ruins of ancient cities several times in the past. We searched for years in the deserts, the jungles, and the mountains, only ever discovering fragmentary bones, but the DNA we extracted from them was unlike any terrestrial signature, the genetic code of God locked into them for all eternity. The evidence of angels, of the Nephilim on Earth, litters our earliest civilizations. They are out there right now, just waiting to be found by those of sufficient faith to locate them.”

“Those remains aren’t the result of some biblical fantasy, no matter how much you want to believe it,” Lucy snapped. “That’s why your sick little experiments don’t work.”

“What’s a Nephilim?” Lieutenant Ash asked. “What’s this about?”

Ethan answered before Sheviz could speak.

“It’s just a fossil that has black-market value,” he said quickly. “These lunatics think it’s the remains of an angel. How were you doing this, Sheviz?”

“We used stem cells extracted from the Nephilim, reverse engineered to their embryonic state, to replace the nucleus of egg cells provided by Lucy Morgan. Our intention was to place those fertilized eggs in vitro into Lucy, inducing a viable pregnancy. She would carry the son of God in her womb, launching the Second Coming and the final solution to the covenant between man and God.”

“What the hell would MACE have to do with all of this?” the lieutenant asked.

Sheviz sneered at Lieutenant Ash as he spoke.

“MACE has been abducting people for years and hiding them away, before negotiating their release for ransom. They’ve made a tidy sum for themselves all over the world, mimicking insurgent groups and corrupt police forces, and use an assassin to erase any trace of their deception. I have heard them refer to him as Rafael.”

Ethan shook his head in disbelief. “I might have known.”

“That’s insane,” Lieutenant Ash said. “They’d never have gotten away with it.”

“Yes, they could,” Ethan said. “Desperate, wealthy parents make an easy target for predatory companies like MACE. They needed the extra income when the supply of arms contracts dried up in the United States after the Iraq War fiasco.” Ethan shook his head, amazed that he hadn’t thought of it before. “They wouldn’t have to worry about a damn thing unless someone looked into it and got too close, and then they’d have to …”

Ethan’s voice trailed off.

“Ethan?”

Rachel’s voice reached him as though from the other side of the universe. Ethan stared vacantly as an image of Joanna appeared in his mind’s eye, clearer and sharper than ever before, her face watching him from a crowded but blurred street. Her gaze was boring into his, driving into and through him with an unshakable, unbearable certainty.

The world shifted beneath his feet and he collapsed sideways, grabbing the edge of the gurney for support as his legs quivered beneath him. Rachel jumped up to his side, holding his shoulders.

“How long has MACE been working in Gaza and Israel?” Ethan asked Lieutenant Ash in a feeble voice.

“Four years, maybe five.”

Ethan looked at Damon Sheviz.

“Where else has MACE done this?”

“South America, maybe North America too.”

The doctor’s voice trailed off as Ethan spoke.

“Joanna was tracking the movements of hostage takers and guerrilla groups in Colombia, writing reports on the corruption of governments and police forces. We barely got out of the country after receiving anonymous death threats. Shortly afterward we came to Israel and Joanna began working on the same thing in Gaza and the West Bank.” Ethan looked at Lieutenant Ash. “She was sure that someone was behind the abductions, but she never got to the bottom of it.”

Rachel put her hand on his shoulder. “Maybe she did but never got the chance to tell you.”

Ethan’s voice was a whisper in his own ears as he looked at her.

“MACE. The Defense Intelligence Agency must have suspected them before we even left Washington. You were right. They weren’t interested in finding Lucy or Joanna, they just wanted the remains found and MACE investigated without arousing the suspicions of Congress.”

Rachel nodded slowly.

“MACE has strong connections with the administration,” she said. “The encumbent president’s campaign could be derailed if any evidence of MACE’s activities here were leaked to the press.”

“All lies lead to the truth,” Ethan murmured. He looked up, shaking himself from his sudden torpor. “We need to stop them, now.”

Lieutenant Ash nodded.

“We were tipped off,” he said to Ethan. “Someone let us know where Lucy was.”

“If that’s so,” Ethan said, “then MACE’s operation may be collapsing. We need to find Byron Stone.”

“I’ll radio General Aydan and let him know about this,” Lieutenant Ash replied. “Do we know where he is?”

Ethan looked at Bill Griffiths, who had walked into the room with Aaron Luckov.

“MACE has a private jet, a Gulfstream V550, waiting to leave Ben Gurion International.”

“Then let’s get out of here,” Ethan said. “I need to stop that jet from taking off.”

“What about him?” Lieutenant Ash asked, jabbing a finger at Sheviz.

Ethan turned to the lieutenant and whispered in his ear.

“Ayeem Khan lives near Bar Yehuda,” he said simply. “Don’t forget the videotape.”

Lieutenant Ash turned and called to his men.

“Time to move out!”

Lucy Morgan moved to stand before Ethan.

“I’m coming too,” she said.

“This could be dangerous,” Ethan said, “and I don’t know if—”

“I wasn’t asking,” Lucy snapped. “I want to see these bastards go down, understood?”