None of them-including the old man at St. Cath’s-wanted anything to do with him. Apparently they felt it was a sacred calling to protect the Tribe any way they could; what the immortals did was between them and God.
Creed continued: “Owen, either they’ll get me and the microchip or find a way to replace it-only Ben knows if that’s possible. I need you now. Promise me you’ll come now.”
“I’m on my way.”
Roos stripped off the gloves and retrieved the phone.
“I have to go,” he told her.
She looked stunned. “When?”
“Now, this second.”
“But, Doctor…” She indicated the girl in his arms.
“I’m taking her. You too. I’ll drop both of you off in Betou.” It was in neighboring Republic of Congo, where many refugees were now located. He started for the clinic. “We need to ABORh her.”
The ABORh card, designed for battlefield use, would type her blood in two minutes.
“And take blood with us. Pack a bag for yourself and one with everything we’ll need to stabilize her until we get to Betou. We should be there in fifty minutes on the outside.”
“Doctor, I really don’t think-”
He stopped her with a look. “I don’t have a choice, and I’m not leaving you here.” As if to punctuate his point, a fresh burst of sustained gunfire rang out from the town. He looked back at a thick column of black smoke rising from the other side of the hill, then sidestepped through the open door of the clinic. He laid the girl down on a table and stepped back. The gauze was already soaked through, but the flow out of the wound had diminished substantially. When he pressed his fingers to her neck, he felt a pulse in her carotid artery. It was weak, but any measurable pulse meant a blood pressure of at least sixty; he suspected that most of her blood loss was exiting from the wound and not leaking into her body cavity, a good sign.
He sighed and pushed his fingers into the rat’s nest that was his hair. Two days of walking through smoke, rolling in dirt, and being spattered by blood had taken their toll on his already shaggy and perpetually mussed hair. He took the phone from Roos and dropped it into a backpack, which he carried to the door.
“I’ll be back in ten.” He left and jogged around the building toward the jungle behind it. The stench of animal carcasses, fish entrails, and other refuse assailed him forty yards before he reached the offal-filled trench. The Dongo men he’d enlisted to help him keep visitors out of the forest had suggested it, and not a month had passed before it proved worthwhile: a group of soldiers from the Republic’s army looking for God-knew-what had ventured that way, caught a whiff, and turned around.
Owen arced around it and entered the forest. He pushed through a fencelike line of foliage and into the shadow of a dilapidated barn. One side angled in, and the crumbling roof drooped toward the ground, a collapse waiting to happen. In truth, Owen had forced the look and stabilized both the wall and roof in that precarious- looking position.
The clearing in front was hemmed in by tall trees. At one of these trees, he used a pocket knife to saw through a thick rope, which sprang away, pulled by a falling tree. The dead sapele tree in turn yanked away a wide rectangle of chain-link fence that had been foliated with vines and branches. The new gap was directly in front of the barn doors and opened onto a grassy field.
Moving to the side of the barn, he located the end of a square wooden beam eight inches from the front wall. Gripping it, he hefted back and tugged it out slowly. When ten feet of beam jutted from the barn, he stopped. The huge front doors were now effectively unlocked. When he pulled them open, sunlight fell on a monstrous pile of dried straw, leaves, and tree limbs. He reached into this mess and pulled. A section of shrimp netting and all the agriculture glued to it flowed toward him and fell to the ground. He did this five more times and stepped back.
Resting in the center of the barn, gleaming despite the dirt and dust, the bits of straw and leaves clinging to it, was a sleek white Cessna 501 corporate jet.
[31]
Toby held the satellite phone to his face and waited for it to connect. He stood outside a shallow cave on a flat area of ground, which if it were not so far off the beaten path would make a perfect rest stop for trekkers on their way to the peak. Spires of stone rose all around, giving him the impression of standing at the bottom of an ice-cream cone. There were three gaps in the spires: one leading down the mountain, another up, and the third heading in a slightly upward but more lateral direction.
He stared straight up and hoped the oval of bleached sky was enough for the phone to find an up-linkable satellite. The Iridium service the Tribe subscribed to kept sixty-six satellites in low earth orbit, constantly zipping around 600 miles overhead-supposedly covering every inch of land.
Except here, he thought, listening to dead air. Just my luck.
He had just lowered the phone to looked at its screen when it beeped and displayed a single word: Connected. Ben’s voice came through the small speaker.
“Toby, is that you?”
He raised the phone and said excitedly, “He’s here. I just saw him.”
“At the monastery?”
“Yeah. He’s got bandages around his head. He must’ve got medical help before leaving, ’cause I got here a few hours before him.”
“He only now arrived?” Nevaeh said, and Toby realized Ben had put him on speakerphone.
“A helicopter brought him about forty minutes ago. I watched for a while to make sure he was staying.”
“Don’t tip them off that you’re there,” Nevaeh said.
“Uh…” As soon as he said it, Toby knew he should have said Sure or No problem — anything but Uh.
“What?” Nevaeh said. “They saw you?”
“Like they wouldn’t have guessed we’d be coming for him after they find out he stole our stuff.”
“Great…,” Nevaeh said, and she and Ben began arguing about the consequences of losing the element of surprise. Toby crouched in front of the cave-more of a finger-poke, really, but large enough to keep his backpack and sleeping bag out of the weather and out of sight.
“It’s a Haven, Nev,” Ben said, as if explaining manners to a child. His voice, even over the satphone, was deep and soothing. “They’ll expect us to respect that. If they anticipate we won’t, they’ll have no idea of our timing. That’ll be our advantage.”
Toby said, “I thought you liked challenges, Nevaeh?”
“Shut up, Toby. Okay, here’s what we’ll do-”
“Wait, wait,” Toby interrupted. He listened, and the sound reached him again: rocks, tumbling down the mountain, scree sliding with them. “I gotta check on something.”
“Toby…,” Ben started, but Toby set down the phone and didn’t hear the rest. He stood and turned toward the closest opening in the ice-cream-cone cliffs, the one that led down the mountain. More tumbling rocks… and the crunching of footsteps. He edged up to the opening and peered around. A man was hiking up the gravelly slope. He was leaning forward and scanning the ground for decent footing, giving Toby a clear view of the top of his hat. Despite the angle, Toby could tell he was muscular and fit. No one he wanted to tangle with. The sun sparkled on something in the man’s hand, then he realized it was the man’s hand: a black hook poking out from a long shirtsleeve. He wondered what kind of damage it could do in a fight. It seemed like an unfair advantage. Behind the guy, where the mountain leveled off for a few feet, a camel was tethered to a rock. The hat tilted back, and as the man’s face began to appear, Toby ducked behind the slab of rock.
He crept back to the satphone. “I have to go,” he said quietly.
“What’s happening?” Nevaeh said.
“A man’s coming,” he said. “He’s wearing a security guard’s uniform.”
“Get out of there, son,” Ben said. “Do not kill-”
“I have to!” A firm whisper. He could hear the man’s heavy breathing now.
“No, Toby, listen-”
Toby disconnected.
