The Medusa Stone

Monastery of Debre Amlak

Mercer identified the sound of a machine gun a fraction of a second quicker than Selome. He’d heard that noise many times before. He dropped the bundle of bedding and ducked his head out of the cave. The sound had originated above them on the cliff, near the monastery, but he kept his gaze at ground level, searching for a rear picket or a scout party. The open desert was still.

“Who is it?” Selome whispered.

Mercer didn’t answer. It wasn’t possible that Levine’s agents could have found them here, so the gunmen were undoubtedly connected to the Sudanese who’d chased them from the Valley of Dead Children. Mercer hated to think what they’d done to Habte to get this location from him. However, identifying the terrorists didn’t help. Another burst of gunfire echoed down from the monastery.

Mercer quickly ran through his options and found he had only one. He couldn’t let the monks pay for his blundering into their sanctuary. His presence had attracted the Sudanese, and it was up to him to force them out. If he couldn’t, he would surrender and trade himself for the lives of the priests. Once captured, he was certain the rebels would take him to the mine. He’d just have to hope he’d find a way to escape again so he could derail the Israelis.

“Stay here,” he ordered, his voice calm but forceful. He turned left once outside the cave.

“Mercer, the path to the monastery is the other direction.”

“I know, but we approached from the south, and that’s where I dumped the pack. I’ll be right back.”

He kept to the irregular cliff wall, moving slowly and deliberately, his khaki clothes blending with the sandstone. He expected to search for at least half a mile but he came upon the pack after only three hundred yards. He thought of that last push before he had stumbled into the cave with Selome on his back. He’d made it on will alone, his strength totally depleted, his mind all but gone. But three hundred yards? He was positive he’d carried Selome farther than that. That short distance represented an hour of agonizing labor, perhaps the most difficult hour of his life, and he realized that had the cave been even a few yards farther, they would have died huddled against the cliff.

There was enough moonlight for Mercer to familiarize himself with everything in the satchel. Much of it was worthless, but there was Selome’s pistol charged with a full clip of ammunition. He grabbed up the pack and tramped back to the cave, keeping alert for a flash of light reflecting off a weapon or an upturned face on the open plain. Selome was waiting for him at the cave’s entrance.

“How’d you find it so quickly?”

“I’m not the superman I thought I was. The pack was only a couple hundred yards away.” He secreted items from the bag into his pockets. “I’m going up to the monastery. If I can’t draw the terrorists away from the priests, I’m going to give myself over to them.”

“And what about me?”

“I don’t think they want you. Just me. Remember, I’m the geologist.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Selome said sharply. “What am I supposed to do while you’re off playing hero?”

“I’m not doing this to prove how tough I am.” That’s an understatement. Mercer’s fear made it difficult for him to swallow. “I have to go, and you have to warn the authorities about what’s been happening. I want you to head south again. Stay along the cliff and drag our blanket behind you to sweep away your tracks. Find somewhere to hide for the day. If I don’t come down looking for you in a couple of hours, it means I probably won’t. Wait until sunset before returning to the monastery. I’m willing to bet the Sudanese will be gone by then.”

Her eyes glared. “Don’t even consider leaving me out of this, Mercer. I’m even more responsible than you. If you have a plan, count me in.”

“Selome, I—”

She cut him off, her voice raised dangerously loud. “I said don’t think about it and I mean it. I am coming with you. Like you said, you’re the geologist — well, I’m the trained agent. You did pretty well in Asmara, but I have more experience in situations like this.”

He was about to list a few of the gunfights he’d been in, but before he could, an unholy scream pierced the night, a sharp keening wail that dropped down the cliff, growing louder and louder until it was suddenly cut off. The silence that followed was more terrible than the scream.

There was no more time to argue.

Mercer led Selome back toward the trail leading up to the monastery. About thirty feet from where the path rose into the rock, a dark shape revealed itself on the ground. They both knew that it was a body. A spray radiated from the corpse like a diffused shadow. The sheer volume of the bloody splashes made it unnecessary to check if the victim had survived the fall.

They crossed the narrow entrance to the ascending path and continued along the cliff, the monastery now behind and above them. Mercer could feel Selome’s questioning stare at his back, but he didn’t take the time to explain his plan. Keeping a sharp eye for a place they could climb the hundred feet to the plateau above, Mercer considered what he’d do once they were in sight of the monastery. He had no idea how many gunmen had come here, nor how they were positioned. His only advantage was surprise and even that was relatively worthless. By throwing one of the priests off the cliff, the terrorists were telling him they knew he was here. They were expecting him. He could only hope that by coming up behind them rather than climbing the established path, he could gain something.

A quarter mile farther, Mercer found a suitable spot to make their climb. The cliff still soared in a near vertical massif, but its face was scarred with deep fissures and scaly projections that would act as hand and foot holds. And most important, they were out of earshot of the monastery.

“Wait here.” He moved away from the cliff so he could study the whole wall, mapping a route to avoid climbing into a dead end. A more experienced climber would have been able to judge the features of the stone in the moonlight and possibly pick a safe route, but Mercer was, at best, a climber by necessity. He’d never had a burning desire to hang hundreds of feet above his death. He allowed himself only a few minutes, his mind absorbing every possible detail before rejoining Selome.

“Well?”

“Have you ever climbed before?”

“No.”

“All right, you’ll lead. I’m going to be right behind you so I can give you directions.” He couldn’t afford to have her freeze below him. “It looks a lot worse than it is, so just move where I tell you and everything will be fine.”

“I have to tell you that I’m afraid of heights,” she said in a small voice.

“Well, I’m afraid of spiders and that’s the real reason you’re going first. You get them for me and I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. Okay?” His grin seemed to give her that last bit of confidence she needed.

“Okay.”

Their progress was smooth at first. The base of the cliff had a shallower pitch than what lay ahead, and the stone had been cleaved by erosion. They kept three points on the rock at all times, cautious but moving well. After thirty feet the face steepened, and they could no longer climb in a stooped position. Forced to stand upright, they pressed themselves to the cool stone, the void sucking at them from below. Mercer could sense Selome’s panic rising, and he touched her ankle gently, reassuring her that he was still with her.

“Veer to the left more,” he whispered. “There’s a natural chimney that should take us up another twenty feet. It leads to a shelf where we can take our first break.” He didn’t add that after the shelf, the climb would become more difficult.

The chimney was wide enough for Mercer to jam his shoulders against both sides and wriggle his way upward. Selome had a better strength-to-weight ratio, so she could climb even faster. They reached the shelf a half hour after beginning their assault and lay side by side, both panting from the exertion. “Keep moving your fingers or they’ll stiffen,” Mercer warned as he sucked the blood from where he had scraped two of his knuckles.

“How am I doing?”

“You’re wonderful.”

“You aren’t so bad yourself.” Selome kissed him. “Ready?”

“You bet,” he replied, heartened by her positive attitude. “You’ll want to move to the right. There’s a thin lip of stone about six feet above us. It’ll be tricky getting to it, but we’ll be able to walk along it until we reach another vertical fissure.”

She looked above them to see the features Mercer was describing, but a rocky bulge blocked her view.

“You’re going to have to trust me on this one.”

She placed her hands on the wall, toed her boot into a shallow cup in the stone, and lifted herself. The rock brow pushed her out over empty space, and her balance shifted almost too far. Mercer could hear her nails digging into the stone and his heart raced, fearing she would panic. Seconds trickled by. The only sounds were a caressing breeze, Selome’s labored breathing, and the rasp of her clothes against the stone.

“I’ve got it,” she finally wheezed.

Mercer followed and in a moment he was beside her, a ten-inch-wide strip of stone under his feet. Immediately, Mercer saw his miscalculation. From the ground, the narrow ledge looked as if it continued for a dozen yards to the next crack, but it narrowed after just a couple of feet until it was nothing more than a band of shadow against the cliff. It vanished completely for about four feet before reappearing again, if anything even narrower than where they now stood.

He saw nothing but glass-smooth stone for twenty feet above them. They couldn’t climb up from here, and backing down was next to impossible. They were trapped.

“What are we going to do?” Selome saw their predicament reflected in Mercer’s eyes.

He stared at the problem before answering. “We’re going to have to jump to the next ledge. Do you see that knob of stone at chest height in the middle of where the ledge disappears? You have to lean out and grab it with your left hand and then swing across. You’re tall enough so your feet will land on the other side.”

“No way!” she cried.

“If you see a better option, I’m open to it.”

She looked around. The stone protrusion Mercer had seen was fist-sized, jutting from the wall no more than four inches, but it could provide an anchor point for them to pendulum across to the remainder of the ledge.

She kept her shoulder pressed tightly to the stone, her eyes fixed on the knob rather than the sixty feet of nothing beneath them, then reached out, her palm encircling the knob completely. Without allowing herself even a second to think, she eased her weight further onto her hand until her body was bowed backward. She kicked off gently, swinging smoothly, her clothes hissing against the rock. Her right foot landed on the ledge first, and she quickly shifted her weight, twisting so her left knee touched down next to her foot, her free hand clutching the wall. She let go of the knob and grinned over at Mercer.

He smiled back and was readying himself to repeat her feat when a stone sailed past his head. He looked up. A dark figure loomed at the top of the cliff, silhouetted against the night sky. Mercer could see another stone in the man’s hand and the outline of an automatic weapon over his shoulder. The man saw Mercer’s gaze and waved him up eagerly, taunting him by tossing the stone from hand to hand. Mercer lunged for the stone protrusion, arcing violently through the air.

The stone thrower was a moment too late. Mercer landed on the narrow ledge just as the other rock sailed behind him. He hustled Selome along the ledge, only his toes and the balls of his feet finding purchase on the lip. The next vertical fissure was wide and angled into the cliff. Once they had climbed high enough into it, it was possible to move up it like a ramp. There was no way they could reach the top before the gunman saw them again, but Mercer hoped to get high enough to give him a nasty surprise.

Fifteen feet from the top, Mercer grabbed Selome’s leg. “Duck.”

He climbed over her so he could take the lead. He saw the gunman waiting at the head of the eroded fissure, his gun now cradled in his hands. Had the man wanted to, he could have shot them both, but Mercer suspected his orders were to capture, not kill. The stone throws had been intentional misses. Mercer had prepared for this contingency by making sure their climb was far enough from the monastery to prevent a guard from shouting for reinforcements. If the Sudanese rebel wanted backup, he would be forced to run back to the church, giving Mercer and Selome a chance to escape.

“Stay flat and hold on tight,” Mercer whispered.

He was climbing up the steep defile like a machine, his legs pistoning, propelling him forward deceptively fast. Mercer wished he could use Selome’s pistol, but a shot would alert everyone within a mile. He was ready to implement a plan born in desperation. The lighting was poor enough for him to get closer to the Sudanese than the rebel suspected. The soldier didn’t recognize the danger until it was too late.

Before leaving the cave, Mercer had secured a geologist’s rock hammer to a fifteen-foot length of nylon rope and kept it coiled under his arm, its handle sticking from his unbuttoned shirt. The angle was nearly impossible, but he yanked the tool from its hiding place, twisted to allow for a side-armed throw, and let loose, holding on to the rope’s free end. The hammer sailed cleanly, the tether trailing it like the exhaust of a rocket. At full stretch, the nylon line wrapped around the terrorist’s neck and arced back again, the tool neatly returning to Mercer’s waiting left hand. He heaved with all of his strength, yanking the man off his feet. Torquing his body, Mercer jerked the man up and over himself, releasing his grip on the rope and sending the soldier crashing into the defile a few paces from Selome. The African bounced once and then flew right over her, tumbling down the crevasse until he fell into empty space. His scream lasted less than two seconds.

His AK-47 had become wedged behind a rock just a few feet from where Mercer lay.

Mercer waited for several minutes, but no alarm was raised, and when he peeked over the top of the cliff, he could see nothing but more desert. Selome joined him a few seconds later. “Now what?”

“I’m afraid this is as far as I’ve taken the plan,” Mercer admitted, and handed Selome her pistol, keeping the assault rifle for himself. He tucked the hammer into his belt.

In the far distance, the fortress-like walls of the monastery were washed by the headlights of several vehicles. Occasionally, a figure would bisect the shafts of light and cast shadows against the building. There were at least three trucks that he could see, and Mercer estimated at least a dozen terrorists. The AK held thirty rounds in its banana magazine. He would have to make every one count.

“I guess the best thing to do is sneak up to them and take the rebels as opportunities present themselves.”

“Mercer, the first time we fire, they’ll be on us in seconds,” Selome reminded him grimly.

“Well, whatever we do, we need to get closer.”

He led Selome along the edge of the cliff, using the sheer drop to ensure that they couldn’t be outflanked. The craggy lip also provided a scant amount of cover for their approach. Thirty yards from the complex of buildings, they could see at least ten armed Sudanese milling around the trucks. Several monks were lined up against the monastery wall, their dark faces shining with sweat and their eyes bright and frightened in the headlights’ glow. Mercer watched for several minutes, waiting to see what would happen next and fearful that he already knew. Suddenly the rebels stiffened to attention. Another party entered the circle of light, four men, three of them cradling weapons. The fourth was unarmed and walked with the relaxed arm-swinging gait of a natural leader. The fourth man was white! One of Levine’s?

Confused, Mercer watched as the white man spoke to one of the blacks and waited for his orders to be translated to the others. Several men hopped into one of the idling trucks and drove off. Mercer assumed they were heading for the base of the cliff to try tracking where he and Selome had gone. The white and several rebels went into the monastery, herding the monks ahead of them. Another soldier walked to the cliff, casting along the escarpment with a powerful flashlight in hopes of spotting their quarry. He turned and started straight for where Mercer and Selome lay hidden. They had only moments before the rebel found them huddled in the darkness.

Mercer pressed his mouth to Selome’s ear so his whisper was almost unaudible. “Stay behind me.”

He moved forward on his stomach to get closer to the approaching Sudanese, then eased into a shallow depression, the sharp hammer in his right hand, the AK clamped under his body. His mouth had gone dry as the soldier came nearer.

The flashlight beam shone along the ground with an untutored randomness. Mercer knew that if the soldier turned it on him, he would have to surrender, but the African seemed more interested in what lay below the cliff edge. The soldier studying the drop was ten paces away when Mercer made his move, hoisting himself into a crouch and rushing forward faster than the startled soldier could react. One swift blow from the hammer was enough to kill, and Mercer dragged the African back into the dust. The entire maneuver had been silent.

He went back to Selome and led her away from the cliff, circling wide around the monastery so they could approach from a less likely direction. If the white man was an Israeli agent, that meant they’d put aside their differences with the Sudanese and pooled their resources. It was an option that he didn’t want to consider.

But what if he’s the rebels’ original backer, the moneyman behind their operation? And then the answer came to him. Italian! Someone with a connection to the mine shaft Mercer had explored had returned to carry on that work. An Italian with ties to Eritrea’s colonial past would never be allowed back into the country, but using Sudanese mercenaries would allow him to secretly work the old mine with minimal direct involvement. Shit, I led them right to it and provided the labor.

He thought about the African who had opened fire in the Rome airport. The gunman must have worked for the Italian. He had seen the Israeli agent shadowing Mercer, perceived him as a threat to Mercer’s life, and murdered him. That would have been the beginning of the struggle between the Sudanese and the Israelis, a battle that had continued outside of Mercer’s hotel room in Asmara.

Mercer was still left with the question of how the Sudanese and their Italian backer knew about his coming to Eritrea and the purpose behind it, but that would have to wait.

After walking a wide circle, he led Selome back toward the compound, one hand gripping hers, the other holding the AK. Hunkering down a short distance from the buildings, he watched the back of the monastery, waiting to see any sign that there were Sudanese guarding the flank — there was nothing. He guided Selome to the compound, dashing the final hundred yards in a dead run, the sound of their feet absorbed by the tilled soil of the monks’ garden. It took only a second to find a window with an unlocked shutter. He hefted Selome through the opening and scrambled in after her.

They were in a monk’s cell, similar to the one in which Mercer first awoke, same plain bed and desk and the ubiquitous crucifix. He cracked open the door and listened. Voices reverberated throughout the monastery, angry shouts and an occasional grunt, as if someone had just been struck. The voices were too distorted to hear clearly, but Mercer recognized the language as Italian. He waved Selome closer so she too could listen.

“Can you understand what they’re saying?”

Selome concentrated, tucking her hair away from her small ear. “Father Ephraim is being questioned about us. He’s being asked where we are. The man speaking has a Venetian accent, and sounds like he’s used to getting his way. I think that it’s another monk who’s getting hit every time Ephraim says he doesn’t know where we’ve gone. What are we going to do?”

Mercer’s expression matched the desperate look in Selome’s eyes. They couldn’t allow the interrogation to continue. Already tonight one priest was dead.

“You’re going to have to cover me. Stay close.” He opened the door before Selome could say anything.

Mercer’s sudden appearance in the hallway startled a Sudanese who was walking past. Mercer reacted instinctively and struck out with the butt of the AK-47. The wood cracked against the rebel’s jaw, shattering bones and spraying blood and teeth against the wall. Before the unconscious man hit the floor, Mercer was in motion. Easing into the dining room, he could feel Selome at his shoulder.

Father Ephraim was stooped over the prone form of one of his brothers, blood pooled around the ruined mouth of the other priest. Three more monks stood against one wall, guarded by several soldiers. The Italian stood close to where Mercer remained partially hidden. He faced away from Mercer, and in the fraction of a second it took a Sudanese to spot him, Mercer raised the AK by its pistol grip, grabbed a handful of the Italian’s bush shirt, and rammed the barrel of the assault rifle into the man’s lower spine, nearly bringing him to his knees with the force.

The Italian shouted a name. “Mahdi!”

One of the Sudanese raised his own pistol, locked back the hammer with his thumb, and leveled it at Mercer’s head.

“Selome!” Mercer shouted, and she came into the room, her weapon covering Mahdi with chilling calm. “One more gun goes up, friend, and your guts are going to decorate the walls,” Mercer said.

Mercer suspected that his prisoner spoke English, but he twisted the barrel of the AK further into the man’s spine for emphasis.

“I think you call this a standoff, yes?” Giancarlo Gianelli said casually, not a trace of fear in his voice. “Let me end it for us now, Dr. Mercer.”

A shot rang out, a sharp crack that split the air, and Brother Ephraim was slammed backward against the wall. A tendril of smoke coiled from the pistol Gianelli had kept in front of him, out of Mercer’s view. “Go ahead and shoot, Doctor. None of us have anything to gain by standing around.”

Ephraim breathed in shallow gulps, his face drained to an unnatural gray. He held his hands over the massive wound in his belly, blood cascading over his fingers.

“There are another dozen priests here,” Gianelli continued conversationally. “I give you my word that they will not live five seconds after you kill me.”

Gianelli had played the end-game so quickly that Mercer had no choice. He could kill the Italian and would end up killing himself and Selome as well, gaining nothing. Or he could lower his weapon and hope for another opportunity. Since the beginning, he’d felt he was one step behind the other players, and true to form, he was behind again now.

Mahdi sneered when Mercer released Gianelli, a contemptuous twist of his mouth that told Mercer he would have welcomed the suicidal gunfight. Selome lowered her own pistol, letting it drop with a metallic clatter. She moved to Ephraim’s side, settling herself so that the priest’s limp head lay in her lap. Gianelli showed no interest in restraining Mercer as he joined her on the floor. One of the Sudanese retrieved Selome’s gun and the AK.

“I’m sorry,” Mercer whispered to the dying man, knowing how empty the apology sounded.

Ephraim was losing his fight as they watched. When he spoke, it was a wet wheeze that brought blood to his lips.

“The children,” Selome translated softly. “The children who died in the mine. They were killed by…” His last word was not even loud enough to be a whisper.

“What did he say?”

“I’m not sure. It sounded like he said the children were killed by sin.”

“We’ve wasted enough time tonight,” Giancarlo said. Mahdi and another rebel hauled Selome and Mercer to their feet. “Dr. Mercer, we’ve been looking for you for the past couple days. You have some questions to answer for me about that ancient mine.”

Mercer guessed that the Italian had completed the work he and Habte had started. They had opened King Solomon’s mine but probably didn’t recognize the find. That was his only advantage if he hoped to stop Levine. He knew if he expected to keep himself and Selome alive, he was going to have to make himself indispensable.

“I’ll tell you what you want to know.” It wasn’t hard to let defeat creep into his voice.

“I know you will.”

“Tell me first, who are you?”

“My name is Giancarlo Gianelli, and it was my uncle who opened the barren shaft you discovered.” Gianelli shook his head. “Poor Enrique knew there were diamonds in the region, but he was apparently off by a couple of miles, sinking his mine in the wrong place. But someone long ago discovered the kimberlite pipe and, judging by the depths we explored before coming to find you, had worked it for many years. And now it’s time for me to take up where my uncle failed and you, good doctor, are going to help.”

Mercer knew what Ephraim meant about the children being killed by sin. He saw it in every fiber of Giancarlo Gianelli; it lurked behind his urbane veneer like a monster. The sin that Ephraim spoke of was one of the original deadly seven. Greed.