The Nostradamus File

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nick had Harker on the satellite phone. He told her what they'd figured out.

"Come home," she said. "Something like this needs planning."

"Then you're going to send us after it?" Nick asked.

"I'll think about it. Come home." She ended the call.

"Pack your bag," Nick said to Selena.

"She wants us back in the States? What about the Ark?"

"We need a mission plan. I'll call the desk and tell them we're leaving."

Ten minutes later they walked out of the entrance to the hotel. A taxi pulled up. They got into the back seat.

"The American Embassy," Nick said, "then the airport." They needed to leave their weapons behind before they got on a plane.

The cab pulled away. Nick and Selena were quiet in the back seat. Nick watched the streets of Amman roll by. After a few minutes he said, "This isn't the way to the Embassy."

"Are you sure? We don't know the city."

"I'm sure. Driver," Nick said. "Where are you going?"

The driver was middle eastern looking, which was no surprise. He wore a skullcap. He had black hair and dark brown, liquid eyes and a beard. He looked at Nick in his mirror. "American Embassy, no worry. I take short cut, save you money."

They entered a run-down district. The streets were narrow, the houses crowded close to the road. The walls were scrawled with graffiti and crude flags. There were no westerners about. The cab slowed for people in the street. Faces turned as they passed, peering in at the foreigners. Their expressions were unfriendly. Nick's ear began itching.

He leaned over to Selena and spoke in a low voice. "It's trouble. Get ready to bail out of the car. Don't shoot unless you have to."

She nodded and slipped her pistol from her belt pack.

The street opened onto a large square surrounded by low hills. A white mosque with a tall minaret dominated one of the slopes. Shops, houses and stalls lined the sides of the square. Yellow signs and green banners with Arabic writing hung from the buildings.

They moved into the square. The driver slammed on the brakes and had his door open and was out and running before Nick could react. A white Volkswagen burst into the square from the street on Selena's side of the car. A blue Toyota pickup came at them from the street ahead. A van entered the square behind them.

People began running away.

It wasn't a good sign.

"Out!" Nick yelled.

He rolled out of the car. The Volkswagen sped toward them. Someone leaned out and opened fire with a machine pistol. Selena ducked down. The bullets shattered the windows of the taxi and sprayed fragments of glass over the pavement. She wormed her way across the back seat and dropped onto the ground next to Nick. Someone with an AK reached out of the passenger window of the Toyota coming at them. Nick fired three quick rounds. The windshield starred and the man snapped back in his seat. His gun went flying. The Toyota kept coming.

Nick entered the zone.

Everything slowed to a crawl. He could hear Selena firing at the Volkswagen, the sound rhythmic, steady, muffled as if underwater. Nick aimed at the windshield of the Toyota coming at him and began squeezing off rounds. He watched the barrel of his pistol rise with each shot, the slide come back, the ejected case float through the air. He heard the flat sound as each bullet hit the windshield. The pistol locked open.

The Toyota veered left and plowed through a fruit stall and rammed into a house. The front end crumpled. A tongue of flame shot out from underneath. Then the gas tank exploded in a sudden orange cloud of flame. Bits of melon and wood and glass and metal rained down on the square.

Time sped up again. Selena slapped in a new magazine. Bursts of automatic fire came from the white Volkswagen, stopped fifty feet away. The taxi rocked from the impact, echoed with sharp, metallic sounds. Two tires blew out. The car dropped hard to the right. The van from behind bore down on them. Nick reached for a fresh magazine. They were out of time, with no place to hide.

Someone leaned out of the van and sent a long burst into the Volkswagen. The windows exploded. A red mist covered the inside of the windshield. The van braked next to them and a side door flew open. A man called Nick by name.

"Carter. Get in. Now." Another man inside the van fired past him at the Volkswagen.

"What…?"

"We're friends. Get in!"

Another truck with shouting gunmen entered the square. Nick jumped into the van, Selena right behind him. The driver pulled into a tight U turn and headed out of the square the way they'd come in.

The man who'd spoken said something in a foreign language to the driver. Then he turned to Nick. "They're coming after us. Stay down, we'll handle it."

The second man lifted an assault rifle with a grenade launcher under the barrel. Nick pulled Selena down on the floor. The rear doors banged open against the side of the van. The grenade shot out the back and straight at the front of the oncoming truck. Nick saw the driver's face go wide with fear as he saw it come straight at him. Then it exploded and the truck was in flames. The sound echoed along the narrow street.

They drove away, a column of black smoke rising behind them. One of the men leaned out and pulled the doors shut. Nick sat up against the side of the van.

"Jesus," he said.

"Maybe not," Selena said. "They're Israeli. That was Hebrew he spoke."

"You are correct, Doctor Connor." It was the man who had shouted at Nick. He wore a yellow shirt.

"You were at Mount Nebo," Nick said.

"Yes. Someone would like to talk with you."