think we could figure this out. What makes you think you can? I mean, what are you, an ex-cop or something? Ex- FBI? Some kind of ex-SEAL special ops hard-ass maybe?”
Matt shook his head. “You’ve got me pegged on the wrong side of that fence.”
“Oh, well that’s just wonderful,” Jabba groaned. He shook his head again, then his tone turned serious. “Dude, seriously. These are bad people. We’re talking about guys who kill people by the chopper-load.”
Matt’s mind was elsewhere.
Jabba could see it. “You’re not listening to me, are you?”
Matt shook his head.
Jabba’s face sank again in exasperation. “We’re screwed, aren’t we?”
Matt ignored the question. “Can you find out who else was on that chopper? What their specialties were? And also . . . who was funding them?”
Jabba sighed. “Like I have a choice?” He reached into his backpack and pulled out his laptop.
Matt pointed at it. “Think you can get an Internet connection in this dump?”
“I seriously doubt they have wi-fi here, but . . .” Jabba held up his iPhone and flashed Matt a cheesy, knowing look. Then he remembered and his face clouded. “Forgot. Can’t use this. Dammit.” He rubbed his face with his meaty fingers, thought about it, then looked up. “Depends on what you need. I can fire it up for forty seconds max. Any longer than that and they’ll get a fix on where we are.”
Matt grimaced. “You get that from watching
Jabba held up the phone. “Dude. First thing I did when I bought this thing? I took it apart to jailbreak it. Just to piss off AT&T.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I’ve set it free. I can hook up its Edge data connection to my laptop.”
“Okay. But just to play it safe, maybe the guy at reception’ll let you use his computer.”
Jabba frowned. “Why? What else do you need?”
“A little update,” Matt said. “On where our friends with the Chrysler are hanging out.”
Chapter 32
Mountains of Wadi Natrun,Egypt
Father Jerome looked very different than Gracie had imagined. That didn’t surprise her. In her experience, people often looked different in the flesh than they did in pictures or on film. Occasionally, the change was for the better, though mostly—and more commonly these days, given the amount of Photoshopping that went on—it led to disappointment. In this case, Gracie had expected him to look different, given what he’d been through since the last coverage she’d seen of him. And he was: thinner, more gaunt-faced, seemingly more fragile than she remembered. But even here, in the light of three gas lanterns and a few scattered candles in the oppressively dark cave, his eyes, a piercing green-gray that blazed out of the tanned corona of his face, were more captivating than on film and made up for any frailty his recent ordeal had exacerbated.
“So you don’t remember anything at all of your journey?” Gracie asked him. “You were out there for weeks, weren’t you?”
“Three months,” the old man answered, his eyes never leaving hers. Gracie, Finch, and Dalton had been pleasantly surprised by the fact that he hadn’t refused to see them. Far from it, he’d been warm and welcoming. He was unperturbed, his voice unwavering and soothing, his words clear and slow. He hadn’t lost the trace of Spanish that colored his words. Gracie had immediately warmed to him, no doubt predisposed by her great admiration for the man and the selflessness and humility he inspired.
“And it’s just . . . blank,” she added.
“It’s not something I’ve ever experienced. I have vague recollections, fleeting images in my mind . . . Walking, alone. I can see the sandals on my feet, walking in the sand, the endless landscape surrounding me. The blue sky, the burning sun, the hot air . . . I can smell it, I can feel the heat on my face, the hot air in my lungs. But that’s all they are. Snippets. Momentary flashes of consciousness in an otherwise blank slate.” He shook his head in despair, slightly, to himself, as if chiding himself for that failing.
Although Dalton and Finch were sitting there with her in the cave, along with the abbot and Brother Ameen, Gracie had decided not to ask for this first interview to be filmed. It hadn’t been an easy decision. Although she felt it was best to spend a bit of time with Father Jerome first, to get to know him, to get him comfortable with them, she also wasn’t sure how he’d react to seeing the footage of the signs in the sky. And she felt uneasy and disingenuous at the thought of springing the news on him with a camera rolling.
She glanced up at the roof of the cavern. The white swirls, unsettling representations of the sign she’d witnessed over the ice shelf, were all over it.
“Tell me about these,” she asked him, waving her hand across the ceiling.
The priest looked upward thoughtfully, studying the painted symbols above their heads, and thought about her question for a brief moment, before letting his eyes settle on her again. “Shortly after I arrived here,” he told her, “a clarity that I’d never experienced came over me. I began to understand things more clearly. It was as if my mind were suddenly liberated of its clutter and freed to see life for what it really was. And these thoughts, these ideas . . . they started coming to me with such clarity, and such power. I just need to close my eyes and they start flowing through me. It’s beyond my control. I’ve been writing them down, there.” He pointed at his desk. A few notebooks sat on its worn surface, some others on the ledge by the window. “Like a faithful scribe,” he added with a faint smile.
Gracie couldn’t take her eyes off him as he spoke. Most unsettling was how steady his voice was, how utterly normal he sounded, how casual his tone was. It was as if he were describing nothing more than the most mundane of experiences. “And this symbol?” she reminded him, pointing upward again. “You painted these, didn’t you?”
He nodded slowly, his face slightly pinched in confusion. “It’s something I can’t quite explain. When the thoughts come to me, when I hear the words in my head just as I hear you, I also see that,” he explained, pointing at the sign. “It’s just there, burning brightly in my consciousness. And after a while, I found myself drawing it, over and over. I’m not sure what it means, but . . . it’s there, in my head. I can see it, clearly. And it’s . . . it’s more than this,” he added almost ruefully as he gestured at the roof of the cavern. “It’s . . . clearer. Richer. More resplendent. More . . . alive.” He glanced away, hesitating to go further. “It’s hard to explain. Forgive me if this sounds too vague, but . . . it’s really beyond my understanding. Or control.”
“Could it be something you saw in your dreams?”
Father Jerome shook his head and smiled. “No. It’s there. I just need to close my eyes and I can see it. Anytime.”
Gracie felt a shiver at the base of her neck. “So you’ve never actually seen it? I mean, physically?” she specified, weighing her words—then an idea swooped into her mind. “Could it be something you saw while you were out in the desert? Something you saw but don’t remember?”
“Saw? Where?” he asked.
She hesitated, then said, “In the sky?”
The priest tilted his head slightly, his eyebrows raised, as he mulled her suggestion for a moment. “I suppose it’s possible,” he finally conceded. “Anything’s possible, given how those weeks are nothing but a blur.”
Gracie glanced over at Finch, then at the abbot. With the slightest nods, they seemed to agree with what she was thinking. She turned to Dalton, who had cottoned on and was already keying in the commands on his laptop.
She felt a tightening in her throat as she coaxed the words out. “I’d like to show you something, Father. It’s something we just filmed, something we saw in Antarctica, just before coming here to see you. I’m a bit wary of showing it to you like this, without preparation, but I really think you need to see this. It has to do with this symbol you’ve been drawing.” She paused, scrutinizing his face for signs of discomfort. She didn’t find any. She swallowed hard and asked, “Would you like to see it?”
