away. The next morning, I went to the church at the appropriate time, but it was hard to step inside. This being the Holy City and all, I expected lightning to strike me dead at any moment.
Well, I went in and the group looked at me like they’d been expecting me. I sat quiet for a while and listened to the men and women, most of ’em were Americans or British. After twenty minutes of waiting for God’s wrath for desecrating the meeting. I stood up and told the group that my name was Harry and with my fingers crossed behind my back told them that I was an alcoholic. I said I’d been sober for a couple of hours now, having come down from a thirty-seven-day binge that started in De Moines, Iowa, and ended in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I told them that most of the details in between were still a bit fuzzy.
I know what I was doing was wrong, you understand. I think AA is one hell of a fine program, and it does some amazing things for folks who want to get their lives back together but I needed help pretty badly and I figured these people, seeing me in the state I was, would have a little pity. They all listened, actually they were hanging on my every word. They seemed to know each other’s stories pretty well, and I was laying something entirely new on them. They fell all over themselves offering support and advice. Well anyway, after the meeting, a guy came up, told me his name was Walt Hayes from Missouri, and that he was a reporter for Newsweek.
Walt said he’d help me figure out how to get home. Said he had some friends at the American embassy. Later that day he took me to the embassy, introduced me to some attache or other, and after I told her the true story, she sicced all you CIA flunkies on me. Hey, how about that drink now?
Interviewer: In just a little while, Mr. White. Tell us again about the woman holding you who you thought was a nurse.
For the rest of the details of Harry’s adventure, Jessica had broken a few security protocols and listened to the old man’s ramblings when she spent dinners with him at the embassy cafeteria, including his dim recollections about the shoot-out at Dulles Airport and the names of a few of his captors.
Her superiors had acquiesced only partially to Harry’s continuous entreaties for alcohol and allowed him a drink after each day’s debriefing, saying they wanted him fresh for the next session. But now that Harry was finally being returned to the United States, he had bolted from the car transporting him from the embassy to a hotel in Tel Aviv prior to his flight. Because Harry wasn’t in any sort of custody, and those that had taken him had gone deep underground, the CIA had agreed to give him a few hours of free time provided that he was under constant surveillance. This also gave the operatives a convenient place away from prying eyes to hand Harry over to agents of the FBI, who would actually be accompanying him on his flight home.
Hot on Jessica’s heels into the bar were two additional CIA minders, both men wearing lightweight jackets to conceal their weapons. They too were breathing heavily and looked at Harry with mild shock, for he had managed to outrun them all.
“Mr. White, you weren’t supposed to do that,” Jessica chided. She moved close so only he could hear when she continued. “We’re here for your protection.”
Harry turned and pinned her with his stare. “It’s not my fault you guys can’t keep up. If there had been something to drink in that car of yours, I wouldn’t have needed to get in here so quickly. I told you to get me one with a mini-bar.” He shot a smile toward Danny. “How about a little ginger ale?”
“Harry, you are still in danger,” Jessica Michaelson whispered. “You should stick by us until we have you safely in the FBI’s care.”
“Or what? I’ll be in trouble?”
“No, Mr. White. You might be dead.”
“Ehh!” Harry dismissed the comment with a wave, a lit cigarette magically appearing in his claw-like hand.
One of the male agents tapped Jessica on the shoulder and pointed toward the ceiling. “Harry, let’s go up to the room we have waiting,” she said. “The FBI should be here in a few minutes, and it would be best if we all met upstairs.”
“Okay,” Harry agreed, pouring more bourbon into his nearly finished drink. “Let me just freshen this last one and we’ll go and see what room service can do for us.”
“Mr. White. Harry. Do you really think it’s wise to get drunk before your flight?” Jessica Michaelson had no children, yet she had the “mother voice” down perfectly.
Harry had been playing up his situation a bit, he admitted. But he’d done what everyone had asked of him and wanted very little in return, and now his patience was about gone. “Listen, sweetheart,” he deliberately taunted. “I’ve been through hell in the past few weeks and I managed to get myself out of it without your assistance. Indeed, I’ve managed to survive eighty years without your help, for what that’s worth, and I’ve been in worse scrapes than this. You may recall World War Two from your history books — the chapter usually ends with a picture of a mushroom cloud. I appreciate your concern, it’s touching really, but you’re a few weeks too late.
“Now, I promised your superiors that I would keep this affair quiet when I get home. But so help me God, if you say one more word, I’m going to sell my story to the nearest magazine and let the chips fall where they may. Everyone says that the Middle East is a powder keg. Well, I just spent a few weeks with the bastards who made the fuse and are currently standing over it with a lit match.”
Jessica looked chastened. She wasn’t expecting an eloquent outburst from her charge.
Harry continued. “I’m going up to the room with you and I’m going to allow myself to be passed off to the FBI and I’m going back to Washington to let Dick Henna’s boys debrief me again. But if you think for one second that I’m going to spend the few hours I have between you and them in any kind of sober state, then you have a lot to learn about me, Ms. Michaelson. I’ll do my patriotic duty, honey, but right now I’m on my time.”
He lifted himself from his bar stool and glanced at Danny. “She’ll be paying my tab and make sure she gives you a good tip.”
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
