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.”
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
