Mercer found that he was in a race to find the Ark of the Covenant. If he wasn’t so weak and tired, he would have been terrified. The desert trek had left him in a worse condition than Selome, and his mind was beginning to fade again. He couldn’t absorb any more information. “I bet the Sudanese don’t know anything about this. Their backers are after the diamonds while Harry’s kidnappers, Levine ultimately, want an archaeological artifact lost thousands of years ago.”
“Yes, and they’re both located in the Valley of Dead Children.”
Suddenly the meaning behind the valley’s name became shudderingly obvious.
“We should be thankful we still have time. Judging by the excavating we did before coming to the monastery, it’ll take weeks to reopen the mine.” And then Mercer remembered. “Oh shit! There are about two hundred refugees there right now. The Sudanese who attacked us are probably using them as forced labor as we speak. They might already have it opened!”
Mercer hadn’t told her about the displaced Eritreans he had coming from the camps in Sudan, and her expression registered her shock. “Where’d they come from?”
“When we were with the nomads in Badn getting fuel, I hired one of the headman’s sons to get them and bring them to the valley.” Guilt cracked Mercer’s voice, but beneath it was a grim determination to see them freed.
Selome spoke with Brother Ephraim for a few minutes, then turned back. “He says it’s impossible to reach any town until after the Adobha has subsided. The river is impassable for at least three weeks.”
“We have no choice. We have to cross it.”
Ephraim seemed to understand Mercer’s foul expression and his defiant outburst. Selome performed an almost simultaneous translation. “The river moves with the speed and force of a truck, and it’s littered with debris washed down from the highlands. The flood would destroy any raft we could build. Every year, dozens of people die trying to cross it. Be sensible.”
“I don’t have that luxury. People’s lives depend on us, not only those refugees but also Habte, the two drivers, and my friend Harry White. And if, somehow, the Ark really is in the mine, then maybe the rest of the world, too. I’ll be sensible when the Eritrean military arrives at the mine and arrests anyone holding a gun.”
Selome asked the monk a couple more questions, the priest’s response seeming to calm her anxiety. “He says the talisman spoken of in the
“Fifty,” Mercer said, beginning to understand what Selome was saying.
“Levine doesn’t have enough people to attack a force that size. They’ll have to wait until after the rebels leave before starting their own search. We have weeks or even months to warn the authorities.”
“More time to save the world?” Mercer sounded almost flippant, then his mood darkened. “That still leaves two hundred refugees. I’m leaving in the morning.”
“You can’t even stand right now,” she shot back. “Mercer, I’ve been to those refugee camps, and I can tell you that in the short term those people are going to be better off at the mine.”
“How can you say that?” He was surprised she’d put to words that he was just beginning to consider.
“They may be worked as slaves, but they’re going to be fed and provided with clean water. Whoever’s running the operation has to take care of the refugees if he expects them to work.”
In his condition, Mercer knew there was a good chance he wouldn’t make it to civilization. His effort would be a wasted, empty gesture that would help no one. It took just a second to come to the only logical option. “All right, we’ll rest up for a couple of days, but no more. Ask Ephraim if he can provide us with a guide to Ila Babu. Maybe someone there owns a two-way radio.”
“He says that Tedla will guide us. It’s about forty miles, but he says he knows of no one in town who has a radio.”
“We’ll worry about that when the time comes.”
Ephraim and Selome took him back to his room and saw him to bed. After the monk left, she sat with him, wiping his brow with a wet cloth. There was such tenderness in her motions that Mercer took her hand and kissed each of her fingertips.
“What’s that for?”
“Because I’ve wanted to do it since we met and couldn’t until I trusted you.”
She kissed his lips lightly, but there was a greater passion in her eyes. “So you trust me now?”
“No more secrets.” He tried to smile and then he was asleep.
Selome watched him a few minutes, her hand spread on his chest, fingers splayed as if to possess more of him. She kissed him again. “No more secrets.”
For the next two days Mercer rested and drank water more than he thought possible. His strength returned slowly but steadily. By the end of the afternoon on the second day, he felt strong enough to walk the grounds surrounding the monastery, careful to remain on the inside of the stakes that delineated land that had been cleared of mines. He saw little of Selome; she showed enough respect to the monks and their traditions to keep herself out of sight. He spent some of his waking hours thinking about the inhumanity described in the
It was well past sunset. Mercer was lying on his bed when he heard someone walking outside his window, which opened onto the monastery’s small cloister. It was too dark to see more than a shadowy form, so he threw on his pants and boots and slid from his room. The cloister’s entrance was off the refectory, and he was aware of the wooden floors creaking as he walked. He feared that he would wake the monks.
Selome stood at the center of the pillared cloister, her body barely illuminated by the moon and stars. She kept her eyes locked with his as he crossed to her slowly.
“I was hoping it would be you,” she whispered. “Despite his status as an acolyte, I’m afraid Tedla has taken a fancy to me.”
“I was hoping that it was you, too,” Mercer replied softly. “I want to say thanks. You were right. I’d never have made it to Ila Babu.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Much better, but I’m still as weak as a kitten.”
“How weak?” she asked with a huskiness that Mercer recognized immediately. She moved a few paces closer to him, the heat of her body soaking into his skin.
“As weak as a cat.” Mercer tried to keep the catch out of his voice. It had been a couple days since he’d seen her, and the sexual tension that they had sparked before their trip to the monastery returned with a fury.
Her arms went around his neck, one knee cocked forward so it slid between his legs. “How weak?”
“How about a tired lion?”
“Better,” she smiled. “We’ll be leaving the monastery tomorrow, and Tedla is going to be with us every step of the way. Once we contact the government, it’ll be a long time before we’ll have a moment to ourselves. I’m sorry, but if we are going to make love, it has to be tonight. Now.”
“Pretty forward of you.”
She placed a slim finger to his lips. “No jokes.”
“Selome, I—” His next words were cut off by her hungry kiss. She pressed herself to him, fitting almost perfectly, knees matching knees, hips to hips, chest to chest. He felt her breasts swell and harden against his naked chest, more and more heat pouring against him the longer they kissed.
“I was going to say,” Mercer muttered, “I think it would be a good idea if we found a more private place. This is a church, after all.”
That dam he’d felt cracking when Selome told him about her involvement with Shin Bet gave way completely. For the first time in months, since the split with Aggie, Mercer gave himself over to another human completely. It was liberating and frightening at the same time, but also very right.
He returned to his room for a shirt and his bedding, and they walked down the narrow path hacked into the cliff. With the moon reflecting off the sandy plain, they could clearly see the cave no more than a quarter mile south.
