The 13 th tribe

[31]

Toby held the satellite phone to his face and waited for it to connect. He stood outside a shallow cave on a flat area of ground, which if it were not so far off the beaten path would make a perfect rest stop for trekkers on their way to the peak. Spires of stone rose all around, giving him the impression of standing at the bottom of an ice-cream cone. There were three gaps in the spires: one leading down the mountain, another up, and the third heading in a slightly upward but more lateral direction.

He stared straight up and hoped the oval of bleached sky was enough for the phone to find an up-linkable satellite. The Iridium service the Tribe subscribed to kept sixty-six satellites in low earth orbit, constantly zipping around 600 miles overhead-supposedly covering every inch of land.

Except here, he thought, listening to dead air. Just my luck.

He had just lowered the phone to looked at its screen when it beeped and displayed a single word: Connected. Ben’s voice came through the small speaker.

“Toby, is that you?”

He raised the phone and said excitedly, “He’s here. I just saw him.”

“At the monastery?”

“Yeah. He’s got bandages around his head. He must’ve got medical help before leaving, ’cause I got here a few hours before him.”

“He only now arrived?” Nevaeh said, and Toby realized Ben had put him on speakerphone.

“A helicopter brought him about forty minutes ago. I watched for a while to make sure he was staying.”

“Don’t tip them off that you’re there,” Nevaeh said.

“Uh…” As soon as he said it, Toby knew he should have said Sure or No problem — anything but Uh.

“What?” Nevaeh said. “They saw you?”

“Like they wouldn’t have guessed we’d be coming for him after they find out he stole our stuff.”

“Great…,” Nevaeh said, and she and Ben began arguing about the consequences of losing the element of surprise. Toby crouched in front of the cave-more of a finger-poke, really, but large enough to keep his backpack and sleeping bag out of the weather and out of sight.

“It’s a Haven, Nev,” Ben said, as if explaining manners to a child. His voice, even over the satphone, was deep and soothing. “They’ll expect us to respect that. If they anticipate we won’t, they’ll have no idea of our timing. That’ll be our advantage.”

Toby said, “I thought you liked challenges, Nevaeh?”

“Shut up, Toby. Okay, here’s what we’ll do-”

“Wait, wait,” Toby interrupted. He listened, and the sound reached him again: rocks, tumbling down the mountain, scree sliding with them. “I gotta check on something.”

“Toby…,” Ben started, but Toby set down the phone and didn’t hear the rest. He stood and turned toward the closest opening in the ice-cream-cone cliffs, the one that led down the mountain. More tumbling rocks… and the crunching of footsteps. He edged up to the opening and peered around. A man was hiking up the gravelly slope. He was leaning forward and scanning the ground for decent footing, giving Toby a clear view of the top of his hat. Despite the angle, Toby could tell he was muscular and fit. No one he wanted to tangle with. The sun sparkled on something in the man’s hand, then he realized it was the man’s hand: a black hook poking out from a long shirtsleeve. He wondered what kind of damage it could do in a fight. It seemed like an unfair advantage. Behind the guy, where the mountain leveled off for a few feet, a camel was tethered to a rock. The hat tilted back, and as the man’s face began to appear, Toby ducked behind the slab of rock.

He crept back to the satphone. “I have to go,” he said quietly.

“What’s happening?” Nevaeh said.

“A man’s coming,” he said. “He’s wearing a security guard’s uniform.”

“Get out of there, son,” Ben said. “Do not kill-”

“I have to!” A firm whisper. He could hear the man’s heavy breathing now.

“No, Toby, listen-”

Toby disconnected.

Jordan had been kicking the ball around the courtyard in front of Temple Church with three other boys, fresh out of school, when two bobbies shooed them away. It had taken him less than a minute to circle the buildings. When he returned, the cops were gone. So now he stood on the east end of the court, where he could see the front of the Master’s house-only the front, but he’d decided that’s where Creed would show up-and juggled the soccer ball with his knees. His stomach growled. He was out of candy and energy bars, and he wondered if it would be so terrible for him to slip away for twenty minutes to grab some food. Just the thought of a basket of fish and chips made his stomach noisy again.

No, no, I can’t. The Tribe’s depending on me.

Maybe he could pay a kid to get something for him, tell him his mum said he couldn’t leave the courtyard. But no local lads were there now, just a few tourists and businesspeople hurrying past.

Okay, think of something else, take your mind off your stomach.

He started counting the number of times the ball shot up from his knee without going astray. But he’d practiced so long he could do it in his sleep. It was instinctive, thoughtless, no distraction at all.

He kicked the ball as high as the church’s window tops, and a tingling shot up his spine. He froze, wondering what crazy thing his body was up to. Then he remembered that he’d taken the satellite phone out of his shirt and shoved it into his waistband at the small of his back so he could kick the ball around. It’d been there so long, he’d forgotten about its bulk and how it pulled his belt too tight in front. The ball hit the stone ground and bounced away as he struggled to get the phone out.

“Hello?”

“Creed’s in Egypt,” Ben said. “Toby spotted him.”

“Awwww.”

“He could have gone anywhere, Jordan. We needed the Temple covered. Good job.”

It would have been a better job if he’ d gotten Creed. “Okay.”

“Sebastian’s already booked your charter,” Ben said. “A car will pick you up in fifteen minutes.”

“Can I get some food?”

“Sure. We won’t be here when you get home.”

“I want to go with you.” He almost whined it and mentally kicked himself for doing so.

“We can’t wait for you.”

“Can I go straight to Egypt? Hello?”

Ben had hung up.

Elias rages through the streets, following the other men, all of them roaring. Their fury has less to do with their enemy’s ageless enmity than with its being the only way they can get through what they have to do. Each of them is allowing the high emotion of war to swallow him, dulling all other feelings, severing all other thought. Countless men sweep over these perimeter dwellings like wildfire, spreading, growing, consuming. The soldier directly ahead swings toward a wooden door and, without pausing, kicks it open and rushes in.

In the street ahead of him, one of their own-Bale-grabs a woman by the throat and raises his blade. He turns a wicked grin toward Elias and laughs. He enjoys this, Elias thinks, his already sour stomach roiling with new distaste.

Elias runs past as screams rise up behind him. The next door is his. He arcs toward the center of the dirt street, then swoops into the door. His shoulder blasts it open, and he’s in. A man bellows obscenities and charges him, swinging a blade. Elias raises his forearm, and the blade sparks against the metal strapped to it. He decapitates the man with a single swing of his sword. He spins toward the sound of crying. A family cowers in the corner-a woman, two children, eyes huge and streaming. He hikes his sword over his shoulder and rushes toward them. The children first, he thinks, end it for them. His sword slices through the air.

Elias startled awake so violently, his foot struck the table, sending the Bible and lighter into the airplane cabin’s center aisle. A chirp sounded, but it hit his ears without sparking a thought. He hunched over and buried his face in his palms, pressing his fingers into his eyes. The chirp again, and this time he recognized it. He groaned and leaned across the aisle to grab his duffel bag. He shifted it to the table, pulled out the satellite phone, pushed a button. He took a deep breath before raising it to his ear.

Ben was already talking: “-my first call?”

“What?” Elias’s voice was gravelly and slurred by the remnants of sleep. “Say that again.”

“I asked why you didn’t answer my first call.”

“I was asleep.” Sunlight filled the cabin, and he leaned his face toward the window, blinking against the brightness. Clouds stretched out below him like the snowy plains of Antarctica.

“Where are you?” Ben said.

“Hold on.” Elias placed the phone on the table. A burled walnut ledge ran the length of each side wall of the cabin, into which the designers had crafted glass holders, ashtrays, and various controls. He poked a finger into one of the ashtrays, found two inches of a burnt cigarette, and put it into his mouth. He stood, then stooped to retrieve the Bible and lighter. Once he got the cig smoking, he sat again and examined a panel of buttons set into the ledge. He jabbed one, and a large plasma television at the front of the cabin came to life, showing a map and a little airplane icon. He grabbed the phone. “Almost there. We just passed New Delhi.”

“Toby located Creed,” Ben said.

“So, Horeb?”

“He’s at the monastery. Nevaeh, Phin, and I are heading there now.” In the background Elias heard Hannah or whatever she was calling herself these days. Ben said, “We’re taking Alexa. Sebastian will keep making arrangements for us from here.”

Jutting from the duffel, the handle of the falcata caught his eye. It was the same sword Elias had used in the dream. He turned his gaze to the dwindling cig, watched it burn for a moment. “I’ll meet you in Egypt.”

“No, we’ve got it covered.”

“Ben…” Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. “What about the Haven? If Creed’s holed up there-”

“We have to do this, Elias. We’ll make amends later.”

No, we won’t, Elias thought. Once they breached the sanctity of a Haven, there was no going back. No place would ever offer any of them sanctuary again.

When he didn’t say anything, Ben said, “Creed brought this on himself. This is the end for somebody, us or him.”

Maybe it should be us this time, Elias thought. Just let it happen. But that went against everything they believed in. Go down fighting: it wasn’t just machismo or stubbornness; it was a mandate that bore eternal consequences.

“You’re the boss,” he said. “Happy hunting.” He disconnected and pushed another button on the console.

“Yes, sir?” the pilot said through a speaker over Elias’s head.

“Turn this bird around. We’re going home.”