continued in pursuit of Tiny’s Plymouth.
Mercer checked the luminous dial of his stainless watch and found that he only had a few minutes to wait. Standing at the side of the road, he massaged his sore shoulder with his free hand, the helmet dangling negligently from his other. There was a low moon, a pale glow hidden behind tumbling clouds, and the night insects made a steady, soothing rhythm.
Five minutes later, Mercer saw the approach of another set of headlights. He eased back into the woods, watching. The car stopped no more than twenty paces from where he was crouched.
“Come on, I haven’t got all night. Fay is pissed enough that I’m out here at all.” Dick Henna was behind the wheel of his wife’s car, a light blue Ford Taurus that had been brutalized by too many Washington rush hours. “I’ve been in New York for the past few days, and I’m leaving tomorrow for Los Angeles. I promised her that I’d be home for tonight, at least.”
Mercer broke away from the shadows and hopped into the passenger seat. Henna backed the car around and started toward the nation’s capital. “You’re lucky she likes you or I wouldn’t be out in the middle of nowhere playing cloak and dagger. She wanted to talk about buying another dog, a corgi of all things, and she’s not too pleased you called. This is worth it, right?”
“Harry’s been kidnapped,” Mercer said flatly.
“Jesus, Mercer, why didn’t you tell me on the phone.” Henna had swerved the car dangerously. “What happened?”
Dick Henna wasn’t an imposing man, just below average height, with a rounded stomach and a heavily jowled face. While Henna had achieved the highest position in the FBI, he hadn’t forgotten what it was like to be a field agent. He’d been on the streets for thirty years before being tapped to head the Bureau. His mind was sharp and he had instincts better than nearly anyone Mercer had ever met. It had been Henna’s recommendation during the Hawaii crisis that allowed Mercer to stop a secret operation code-named Vulcan’s Forge. The two had been friends ever since.
Mercer related the whole story, his narrative coming in a rush, for it was the first time he was able to speak about the horror he felt. He’d told Tiny the dry facts, but with Dick, he talked about his own feelings of responsibility.
“Marge Doyle mentioned you’d been in touch about Prescott Hyde,” Henna remarked when Mercer was done. “I can tell you right now, his days are numbered. Justice has a file on him about four inches thick. Nothing to indict him on, but certainly enough to get him out of State.”
“Pursue that, but I don’t think Hyde is behind Harry’s kidnapping.”
“Christ, Mercer! Of course he’s not.” Henna was startled that Mercer would so nonchalantly suspect an undersecretary of state. “The guy may be shady, but he’s not a violent criminal.”
Mercer’s voice was hard-edged, his emotions barely contained. “I’m talking about the abduction of my best friend, a total innocent, and right now I suspect everything and everyone. For now, I’ve got to believe it has a connection to a woman named Selome Nagast. She’s lied to me at least once, claiming to be affiliated with the Eritrean embassy when she’s not, yet she and Hyde are working together.”
“Is she Eritrean?”
“Either Eritrean or Ethiopian. Almost six feet tall, great body and a face that should be on the cover of fashion magazines. I’d like you to check her out. If she isn’t with the Eritreans, then who does she belong to?”
“And if that’s a blind alley?”
“I don’t know,” Mercer admitted. “I don’t have a Suspect B.”
“I’ll get a team into Harry’s place first thing in the morning, in case whoever grabbed him left physical evidence.”
“Don’t. The video made it clear that if I went to the authorities, they’d kill Harry immediately. I’m sure his place is being watched for just that reason.” There was something else on the tape that bothered Mercer, something either Harry or the kidnappers had said that didn’t make sense, but the answer wouldn’t come.
“I think we know what we’re doing.”
Mercer handed the videotape to Henna. He’d made a copy for himself but felt the FBI could do more with the original. “This is the tape. I’m sure I destroyed crucial evidence by handling it.”
“Don’t sweat it. Today’s technology can do wonders.”
“Listen, Dick, I’m responsible for what happened to Harry. He’s just a tool to get to me, and I’m afraid I’m using you to get him back. I’ve never tried to presume on our friendship until now. But every day Harry’s being held is a day I feel like I’ve failed. Can you understand that?”
“Yeah, I can. As a field agent, a lot of my cases became more personal than was healthy, and I know Harry too, don’t forget. I’ll get our A-Team into action for his sake.” Henna clasped a hand on Mercer’s forearm. “What are you going to do?”
“I called Chuck Lowry. Do you remember him? He used to be the computer archivist at the U.S. Geological Survey.” Henna nodded. “I’ve got him hacking airline reservations. If the group that took Harry are foreign, they’ll want out of the country but won’t have had the time to make an earlier booking. Chuck’s checking on reservations made since yesterday for a flight out of Washington in the next day or two. Long shot at best, but it’s something.” Mercer had seen Dick bend the laws a few times and didn’t worry about his disapproving frown. “And I’m going to Eritrea to find the pipe.”
“In these situations, we tell people not to give in to demands,” Henna said quietly, expecting an explosion from Mercer.
“These situations,” Mercer emphasized the words, “don’t usually include eighty-year-old victims and they never include me.”
Henna pulled into a gas station just moments before Tiny’s Plymouth arrived from the opposite direction. The FBI director promised Mercer that he would call the next evening at Tiny’s with any information. Mercer dodged unobserved from Henna’s car to Paul Gordon’s before the sedan trailing Tiny came into view. Tiny put a couple of gallons into his tank, paid at the pump with a debit card, and the two were on their way quickly.
“Any problems?” Mercer asked as they sped back to Arlington.
“They never got close enough to see I was alone.”
“Great,” Mercer said with relief. “Thanks, Paul. I owe you big for this.”
“If it was for anyone other than Harry, I’d agree. But for him, it’s a wash.” Tiny kept his eyes on the road as he spoke. “Is Henna going to help?”
“Yeah, he’s in. They’re going over Harry’s place tomorrow. He’s going to call me at your bar and tell me if they turned up anything.”
“You’re still going to go to Africa, aren’t you?”
“I’m covering my bets, so yeah, I’m going.”
Monastery of Debre Amlak
Northern Eritrea
Morning prayers were long over, but the sun was still an hour from rising. The moon hung shining and fat, three-quarters full and bright enough to wash away the glow from Venus, the morning star. April was rainy season, yet the downpours had not come to the lowlands; the desert stretching into the interior of Africa had not seen a drop. However, the air was chilled with humidity, forcing the twelve monks and their abbot inhabiting the ancient monastery to wear heavy woolen mantles. With their legs bare and their feet in leather sandals, they shivered in the pre-dawn light as they prepared to break evening fast at the long table in the dining hall.
Situated along a razor crest of mountains that cleaved across the desert floor and afforded the monastery some reprieve from the worst of the summer heat, the retreat had a commanding view of the surrounding flats, as if its original builders had an eye for defensive positions rather than the sequestration of its inhabitants. Constructed in the twelfth century as an outpost of Christianity and expanded once during the 1600s, the abbey had enjoyed continuous occupancy until the latter part of the twentieth century, when the intense fighting between Eritrean freedom fighters and the occupying Ethiopian army forced the brothers to evacuate to another monastery in Ethiopia. Contrary to the “scorched earth” policy practiced by the Ethiopians at the close of the conflict, when they
