Destiny

NINETY-NINE

When Marcus opened his eyes again, it was still dark, the morning sun was only a smoldering ash buried in the horizon across the Sinai Desert. He looked to his left where Alicia was standing up. She said, “We have to go.”

Marcus glanced down at his shoulder, dried blood on the gauze. He touched the bandage, looked under it. The bleeding had stopped and the wound appeared better. The taste in his dry mouth was like copper, metal, and sand.

She glanced at her arm and lifted the gauze. “Paul, my arm…it’s healed. I need to process this.” She lifted her eyes to Marcus, her face filled with awe. “I need to wrap my mind around this.”

“You can’t process it in human terms. It’s larger than anything we can even hope to understand.” Marcus touched his injured shoulder. “Let’s go.”

He walked back to the car, sat in the driver’s side and turned the ignition. Nothing. Marcus tried again. Nothing. “Battery’s dead.”

“Maybe we can hitch a ride.”

“Look at us, Alicia. It looks like we’ve been through a war. Also, we’re in the middle of the Sinai Peninsula. No one would stop.” He pointed to the car the men used to chase them into the desert. “Let’s see if we can find their keys.” They walked to the abandoned car, stepping around the body of the man Marcus had shot. The dead man looked Middle Eastern. His chest was soaked with dried blood, eyes open, the corneas clouded, and a fly crawling near crusted blood in the corner of his mouth.

“Let’s hope the car keys are on that guy and not on the one down the hole in the cave,” Alicia said, bending down to search the body. “Bingo.” She found car keys, a Jordanian passport and a cell phone. A wad of Egyptian cash was money-clipped to an America Express card. Alicia opened the passport and read. “Name’s Amal Nasar, from Jordan.”

“Let me see his phone.” She handed it to him, and he scrolled through the last few numbers on the man’s mobile phone. “Look, at this.”

“What?”

“One of the last numbers this guy called was the same one Nathan Levy texted to me — the number of Andy Jenkins. What if Jenkins is the Lion?”

Alicia reached for the phone. She quickly removed the sim card, waving away a fly from her face. “Let’s get our laptops and get the hell out of here.”

On the outskirts of Cairo, Marcus and Alicia bought new clothes. He purchased a small box and packaging material. Then he placed the spear inside. They abandoned the car and took a bus to the airport.

They approached the gate and paid cash to ship the small package counter-to-counter from Cairo to Stockholm. Marcus used the rest of the dead man’s cash to buy one-way passenger tickets to Stockholm.