Destiny

NINETY-SIX

Marcus tore off a piece of duct tape to secure the spearhead to the underside of the car’s dashboard. Then he used a small screwdriver to remove the door panel from the driver’s side. He taped the Beretta inside the open cavity and replaced the panel. As he tightened the last screw, a text arrived on his phone with the number to Andrew Jenkins mobile phone.

Nathan Levy called immediately. “I just sent Jenkins number to you. I have made arrangements for you and the woman to have safe passage out of Ben Gurion. Now, where are the operatives?”

Marcus glanced down at the laptop screen. “I’d say they’re about thirty miles east of the airport. I’m sending the coordinates to you as we speak.”

“You said these men believe the drives they carry contain coding to disengage the Myrtus worm. What do you mean?”

“The worm has already been programmed to eat itself alive, rendering the Natnaz centrifuges harmless. It doesn’t require a key. I used that tactic for leverage, a bargaining chip to ensure Brandi Hirsh’s safe exit from Iran.”

Alicia turned her head to Marcus. He continued. “That has happened.”

“How do we know what you say about sabotage on the worm is true?”

“Because it’s programmed to happen in three days. Again, Levy, this is where you’ll need to have a little faith. I’m sure your boys will know when it happens. I’m sending the GPS coordinates to you now. Happy hunting.” Marcus disconnected.

Alicia said, “You actually preprogrammed that worm when we were holed up in the hotel working under the scrutiny of the Iranians — was that when you created the self-destruct coding?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you know when to encode the shutdown to three days after Brandi was released?”

“I didn’t know for sure. I felt it, and I tried to make Brandi’s release happen.”

“Paul, you guessed! What if you were wrong and Brandi had—”

“Had what? She’d still be sitting in the damn prison!” He exhaled and touched her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.”

Alicia said nothing.

Marcus glanced out the front windshield. “The border’s a long drive. The air conditioner in this car isn’t working. Maybe you can get some rest in spite of the heat.”

Five hours later, Marcus and Alicia arrived at the Rafah border crossing south of the Gaza Strip. Dozens of buses, old vans and cars lined up to cross into Egypt. Some people camped in small lean-tos made of discarded aluminum and attached to palm trees. The anxiety in the air was as visible as the heat inside the Honda. Marcus lowered all four windows, trying to catch a breeze. The hot, dry air across the Sinai Peninsula seemed to crawl inside the small car.

Alicia watched the crowds, a few people holding up signs written in Arabic. “Wonder what they’re protesting?”

“It looks like it has something to do with not getting across the border.” Marcus inched the car closer, the smell of diesel fumes heavy, buses idling and belching dark smoke in the heat of the afternoon. He watched Egyptian border guards approach the cars, vans, and buses. The guards were dressed in black. They wore black berets, and some carried clipboards. All carried guns. Two men stood to either side of the entranceway, rifles slung over their shoulders, dark glasses on their faces. Eye movement undetected.

Alicia said, “God help us if they find that gun. If they find the spearhead, it might wind up in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood and whoever is leading Egypt.”

“Give me your passport.” Marcus licked his parched lips, his shirt damp from sweat. He eased the Honda up to the crossing. A stoic guard approached, leaned down closer to Marcus’s open window.

“Passports.”

“No problem,” Marcus said, handing the man two passports.

Alicia smiled. After a half minute, the guard returned the passports. “What is the nature of your visit to Egypt?”

“Sightseeing. My girlfriend and I have always wanted to see the Great Pyramids. Maybe take in a camel ride, too.” Marcus saw him gesture to another guard who approached the car.

“Open the trunk and step out of the vehicle.” He leaned further in the open window. “You, too, miss.”

Marcus thought about the Beretta behind the door panel. The Spear of Destiny taped under the dash — the flash drive in his pocket.

Too late.

“Get out of the vehicle,” ordered the guard a second time.

“No problem,” Marcus said, opening the door and standing next to the car. Alicia did the same. Another guard used a metal pole with a round mirror on the end to look under the car. He walked around it, slowly, stopping and then continuing. The guard next to Marcus used a hand-held metal detector wand.

“Spread your legs and raise your arms.”

Marcus did as ordered. The guard moved the wand across Marcus’s pant legs, along his arms and across his chest.

Beep — beep — beep.

He stopped the wand, moved back over Marcus’s shirt pocket.

Beep — beep — beep.

“What’s in the pocket?”

“It’s just a flash drive. Harmless.”

“Let me see it.”

Alicia glanced at Marcus while the second guard patted her down and then looked in the trunk of the car.

“Sir, let me see what is in your pocket.”

Marcus nodded. “Sure.” He lifted the flash drive from his shirt pocket. The guard took it and studied the small drive for a few seconds. Marcus felt a drop of sweat inch down his right side over his rib cage, the scar on his chest tightening.

“What is on this?”

“It’s just a back-up for my computer. Never know when a computer will crash and all your work goes down the tubes with it.” Marcus smiled. The guard held the drive in his fingers.

“No! Nooooo…” came a wail from the bus behind them. The men turned to see a woman being dragged from the bus by another guard. A large man and a frightened boy were behind her. “Please!” She shouted. “Our son needs medicine! He’s sick, diabetic. We must go to Cairo!”

The guard next to Marcus handed him the flash drive. “Enter! Move on!” he ordered. The men hustled back to assist the guard with the screaming woman and her family.

Marcus got in the car and pulled away, glancing in the rearview mirror, his mouth dry, back muscles knotted. Alicia let out a chest full of pent up air. “Paul! What the hell were you thinking? That flash drive tucked away in your freakin’ pocket. Imagine if he’d taken it.”

“But he didn’t.”

“You couldn’t have known that. A twenty-something Egyptian border guard was patting me down while the other held the future of the world in the palm of his hands for a few seconds.”

“If he knew what it was…what would he do?”

“What could he do?”

“The right thing.”

Alicia said nothing for a minute. She looked out the window. “How long do you think it’ll take us to cross the Sinai Peninsula?”

“I’m hoping that when the sun comes up in the morning, we’ll be across the Suez Canal.”

An hour later, Marcus drove west into the heart of the Sinai Peninsula. The sun crept low over the horizon and highlighted the weathered, treeless hills with a reddish glow. Marcus gazed at the vast land, bleak — life long since herded from its deserts and bare mountains. The land seemed tired, as if it harbored an old soul. It had the odd feel of something foreign, similar to the abstract desolation of the moon. It was romantic from afar, but up close it had the harsh and craggy face of a landscape plowed from thousands of years of painful history.

“Look at that,” Alicia said, pointing toward a camp less than fifty feet off the road.

“They’re Bedouins. Dinner time, maybe.”

There were tents scattered in the midst of small clapboard homes of plywood and corrugated steel. Three camels knelt and ate grass piled beside them. Bedouin men, women, and small children sat around a fire. They ate, drank tea and talked, wood smoke curling into a dark, cherry-colored sky.

Marcus looked at the smoke and thought about the history of the region, the burning bush, wandering tribes of Israel, the plagues of Egypt, a divine covenant of a promised land, and an Exodus led by Moses. Now the old earth, the miles of rocks and sand, was a place gone astray in a fracture of time, covered by rust left over from the Iron Age. The sand was saturated in the soft glow of embers renewed in twilight from the fading burgundy sun.

Alicia looked at the immensity of the desert, the terrain now the reddish color of a robin’s breast. She glanced over at Marcus. “You’ve been very quiet. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Thanks, again, for what you did for Brandi. Paul, what we’re going through…it’s mysterious and it’s powerful. I’m not sure how and why I’m with you at this moment, but I just want you to know how honored I am to be with you.”

Marcus looked at her for a second. “I’m glad you’re here, too. I just want to keep you safe, and that seems harder and harder to do.”

“I imagine we’re driving through some of the area where Moses led his people to the Promised Land.”

“Probably. Maybe it’s that covenant, that promissory inference that has led to the lines drawn in the sand.”

“What do you mean?”

“The other message we’re carrying on the flash drive is from what Daniel wrote. The information gleaned by Newton, it’s the exact opposite of so much today. Its message is opposite from a divided Jerusalem. It’s contrary to the gluttony and greed in much of the world — the evil built through the centuries by the heirs of those who call themselves the Circle of 13.”

“Yeah, but for people like Jonathon Carlson, he can pretend to hear, speak and see no evil. But if you’re doing all three, you can’t play a shell game when electrons move your money and messages. Give me a few hours of quiet time, and I can turn the tables on more than one of Carlson’s off-shore accounts.”

“Maybe Robin Hood had it right.”

“After we get to Stockholm…what then, Paul? We’re seeing a seismic movement in world events, ones that seem to be prophesies…but we don’t know…I’ll just say it. We don’t know when the final days will occur.”

Marcus said nothing. He glanced at his rearview mirror.

Alicia said, “Do you know something, have you seen…something you aren’t telling me?”

“There’s a missing link. If we get lucky, and if I’m right, we might find it.”