gently, swinging smoothly, her clothes hissing against the rock. Her right foot landed on the ledge first, and she quickly shifted her weight, twisting so her left knee touched down next to her foot, her free hand clutching the wall. She let go of the knob and grinned over at Mercer.
He smiled back and was readying himself to repeat her feat when a stone sailed past his head. He looked up. A dark figure loomed at the top of the cliff, silhouetted against the night sky. Mercer could see another stone in the man’s hand and the outline of an automatic weapon over his shoulder. The man saw Mercer’s gaze and waved him up eagerly, taunting him by tossing the stone from hand to hand. Mercer lunged for the stone protrusion, arcing violently through the air.
The stone thrower was a moment too late. Mercer landed on the narrow ledge just as the other rock sailed behind him. He hustled Selome along the ledge, only his toes and the balls of his feet finding purchase on the lip. The next vertical fissure was wide and angled into the cliff. Once they had climbed high enough into it, it was possible to move up it like a ramp. There was no way they could reach the top before the gunman saw them again, but Mercer hoped to get high enough to give him a nasty surprise.
Fifteen feet from the top, Mercer grabbed Selome’s leg. “Duck.”
He climbed over her so he could take the lead. He saw the gunman waiting at the head of the eroded fissure, his gun now cradled in his hands. Had the man wanted to, he could have shot them both, but Mercer suspected his orders were to capture, not kill. The stone throws had been intentional misses. Mercer had prepared for this contingency by making sure their climb was far enough from the monastery to prevent a guard from shouting for reinforcements. If the Sudanese rebel wanted backup, he would be forced to run back to the church, giving Mercer and Selome a chance to escape.
“Stay flat and hold on tight,” Mercer whispered.
He was climbing up the steep defile like a machine, his legs pistoning, propelling him forward deceptively fast. Mercer wished he could use Selome’s pistol, but a shot would alert everyone within a mile. He was ready to implement a plan born in desperation. The lighting was poor enough for him to get closer to the Sudanese than the rebel suspected. The soldier didn’t recognize the danger until it was too late.
Before leaving the cave, Mercer had secured a geologist’s rock hammer to a fifteen-foot length of nylon rope and kept it coiled under his arm, its handle sticking from his unbuttoned shirt. The angle was nearly impossible, but he yanked the tool from its hiding place, twisted to allow for a side-armed throw, and let loose, holding on to the rope’s free end. The hammer sailed cleanly, the tether trailing it like the exhaust of a rocket. At full stretch, the nylon line wrapped around the terrorist’s neck and arced back again, the tool neatly returning to Mercer’s waiting left hand. He heaved with all of his strength, yanking the man off his feet. Torquing his body, Mercer jerked the man up and over himself, releasing his grip on the rope and sending the soldier crashing into the defile a few paces from Selome. The African bounced once and then flew right over her, tumbling down the crevasse until he fell into empty space. His scream lasted less than two seconds.
His AK-47 had become wedged behind a rock just a few feet from where Mercer lay.
Mercer waited for several minutes, but no alarm was raised, and when he peeked over the top of the cliff, he could see nothing but more desert. Selome joined him a few seconds later. “Now what?”
“I’m afraid this is as far as I’ve taken the plan,” Mercer admitted, and handed Selome her pistol, keeping the assault rifle for himself. He tucked the hammer into his belt.
In the far distance, the fortress-like walls of the monastery were washed by the headlights of several vehicles. Occasionally, a figure would bisect the shafts of light and cast shadows against the building. There were at least three trucks that he could see, and Mercer estimated at least a dozen terrorists. The AK held thirty rounds in its banana magazine. He would have to make every one count.
“I guess the best thing to do is sneak up to them and take the rebels as opportunities present themselves.”
“Mercer, the first time we fire, they’ll be on us in seconds,” Selome reminded him grimly.
“Well, whatever we do, we need to get closer.”
He led Selome along the edge of the cliff, using the sheer drop to ensure that they couldn’t be outflanked. The craggy lip also provided a scant amount of cover for their approach. Thirty yards from the complex of buildings, they could see at least ten armed Sudanese milling around the trucks. Several monks were lined up against the monastery wall, their dark faces shining with sweat and their eyes bright and frightened in the headlights’ glow. Mercer watched for several minutes, waiting to see what would happen next and fearful that he already knew. Suddenly the rebels stiffened to attention. Another party entered the circle of light, four men, three of them cradling weapons. The fourth was unarmed and walked with the relaxed arm-swinging gait of a natural leader. The fourth man was white!
Confused, Mercer watched as the white man spoke to one of the blacks and waited for his orders to be translated to the others. Several men hopped into one of the idling trucks and drove off. Mercer assumed they were heading for the base of the cliff to try tracking where he and Selome had gone. The white and several rebels went into the monastery, herding the monks ahead of them. Another soldier walked to the cliff, casting along the escarpment with a powerful flashlight in hopes of spotting their quarry. He turned and started straight for where Mercer and Selome lay hidden. They had only moments before the rebel found them huddled in the darkness.
Mercer pressed his mouth to Selome’s ear so his whisper was almost unaudible. “Stay behind me.”
He moved forward on his stomach to get closer to the approaching Sudanese, then eased into a shallow depression, the sharp hammer in his right hand, the AK clamped under his body. His mouth had gone dry as the soldier came nearer.
The flashlight beam shone along the ground with an untutored randomness. Mercer knew that if the soldier turned it on him, he would have to surrender, but the African seemed more interested in what lay below the cliff edge. The soldier studying the drop was ten paces away when Mercer made his move, hoisting himself into a crouch and rushing forward faster than the startled soldier could react. One swift blow from the hammer was enough to kill, and Mercer dragged the African back into the dust. The entire maneuver had been silent.
He went back to Selome and led her away from the cliff, circling wide around the monastery so they could approach from a less likely direction. If the white man was an Israeli agent, that meant they’d put aside their differences with the Sudanese and pooled their resources. It was an option that he didn’t want to consider.
He thought about the African who had opened fire in the Rome airport. The gunman must have worked for the Italian. He had seen the Israeli agent shadowing Mercer, perceived him as a threat to Mercer’s life, and murdered him. That would have been the beginning of the struggle between the Sudanese and the Israelis, a battle that had continued outside of Mercer’s hotel room in Asmara.
Mercer was still left with the question of how the Sudanese and their Italian backer knew about his coming to Eritrea and the purpose behind it, but that would have to wait.
After walking a wide circle, he led Selome back toward the compound, one hand gripping hers, the other holding the AK. Hunkering down a short distance from the buildings, he watched the back of the monastery, waiting to see any sign that there were Sudanese guarding the flank — there was nothing. He guided Selome to the compound, dashing the final hundred yards in a dead run, the sound of their feet absorbed by the tilled soil of the monks’ garden. It took only a second to find a window with an unlocked shutter. He hefted Selome through the opening and scrambled in after her.
They were in a monk’s cell, similar to the one in which Mercer first awoke, same plain bed and desk and the ubiquitous crucifix. He cracked open the door and listened. Voices reverberated throughout the monastery, angry shouts and an occasional grunt, as if someone had just been struck. The voices were too distorted to hear clearly, but Mercer recognized the language as Italian. He waved Selome closer so she too could listen.
“Can you understand what they’re saying?”
Selome concentrated, tucking her hair away from her small ear. “Father Ephraim is being questioned about us. He’s being asked where we are. The man speaking has a Venetian accent, and sounds like he’s used to getting his way. I think that it’s another monk who’s getting hit every time Ephraim says he doesn’t know where we’ve gone. What are we going to do?”
