The 13 th tribe

[26]

Ollie had convinced Gheronda to let him use the apartment below Jagger’s to catalog and store the site’s discoveries. It was there Jagger was headed, with Addison and a hand-carted crate, when a noise stopped him. Faint, almost not a sound at all. If it weren’t for its repetition- tap-tap-tap, like the bass beats of a distant lowrider-he never would have noticed. From his position in front of the outside wall of the monastery he could see out of the valley, past St. Catherine’s Village to the Plain of el-Raha stretching to the horizon. A black dot in the sky grew larger as it approached: a helicopter. The sound of its blades chopping the air rushed ahead of it and bounced off the valley walls.

“Isn’t this restricted air space?” Jagger said.

“This and almost every tourist site in Egypt,” Addison said. “Before the ban the things swarmed like flies, ruining the experience for everybody else.”

Jagger pulled a small notepad and pencil from his breast pocket and checked his watch: 10:07. He recorded this, then turned in a complete circle. Tourists in front of the monastery gate either watched the helicopter with mild interest or ignored it altogether. The excavation workers displayed slightly more intrigue, but nothing that signaled expectation, excitement, or nervousness.

The helicopter buzzed over the village a mile away. It resembled a black Plexiglas egg, what the military called Little Bird. Good for moving six people tops in and out of a hot zone fast.

“Any idea who it is?” he said.

“Rich tourists,” Addison said. “Probably kept slapping down Egyptian pounds until the pilot couldn’t say no.”

The helicopter slowed, then hovered over the gardens on the outside of the monastery’s east wall. It rotated to give the passenger a better view. Hard to tell at that distance, but Jagger thought the passenger was either a woman or teen. The person scoped the area with binoculars. Jagger reached behind him to a pouch hanging off his belt and pulled out his own binocs. As he raised them, the helicopter straightened and flew closer, putting the big outer wall between them. Its steady thumping told him it was hovering over the compound.

He ran toward the entrance gate, first dodging tourists, then pushing through them. He stumbled into the monastery’s courtyard. The helicopter floated above the center of the compound, slowly rotating. When it faced the Southwest Range Building, it paused. Gheronda faced it from the third-floor walkway, his long gray beard fluttering in the machine’s downdraft. The old man and the helicopter passenger seemed to be simply staring at each other. Jagger ran toward the proctor, cutting between the apartment complex and archive building. When he reached the courtyard of St. Stephen’s Well, the helicopter swooped over him and disappeared.

Toby was almost certain he’d beaten Creed to the monastery, if indeed this was his destination. Just before Toby had landed in Sharm el-Sheikh, Sebastian had called the helicopter charter companies and learned that no one had yet hired them for a trip to St. Cath’s. Just to make sure, Toby had instructed the pilot to give him a close look around. Nothing appeared suspicious: no furtive monks playing sentinel, no ambulances, no disruption of the tourists. Plus, the old monk had expressed surprise and anger at his presence. If Creed had arrived first, the monks would have expected someone to show up looking for him. They might have tried to shoo him off, but most likely they’d have avoided him.

Banking away from the monk, Toby had caught sight of a man running through the compound. It had not been Creed. The patch on his sleeve and his utility belt made Toby believe it was a guard; of course he would come running.

Toby pointed to an outcropping on the mountain above the monastery. “I want to end up there,” he told the pilot. “How close can you get me without anyone at the monastery seeing us?”

The pilot made a hand motion like a jumping dolphin, then gave Toby a thumbs-up.

Toby’s stomach dropped into his knees as the helicopter shot up toward the peaks.