Bellinger looked away, studying the faces around the bar. He felt a cold sweat rising through him, and his head throbbed with the strain of his confused, unsettling thoughts. “Did you watch the news today?”
“No, why?”
Bellinger nodded to himself, wondering how to go on.
“Vince, what’s going on?”
Just then, Bellinger’s BlackBerry beeped, alerting him to the receipt of a text message. Bellinger kept his hands on the table, ignoring it. He didn’t have the patience to deal with Jabba now.
He fixed on Matt and leaned in. “I think Danny may have been murdered.” He paused, letting the words sink in, then added, “Or worse.”
Matt’s expression curdled, and he looked like he’d been winded. “Murdered or worse? What could be worse?”
“Maybe he’s being held somewhere. Maybe they all are.”
“What?” His face was twisted with utter disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Bellinger motioned with his hand to keep it down and leaned in closer. “Maybe they killed Danny and the others and faked the chopper crash. Then again, maybe they’ve still got them locked up somewhere, working on it against their will.” His eyes were twitching left and right, scanning the bar. “I mean, think about it. If you got a bunch of geniuses to design something secret for you, wouldn’t you want to keep them around long enough to make sure nothing went wrong when you finally used it?”
His phone beeped again.
“To design what? You’re not making sense.”
Bellinger leaned in even closer and his voice dropped down almost to a whisper. “Something happened today, Matt. In Antarctica. There was this thing, in the sky. It’s all over the news. I think Danny had something to do with it.”
“Why would you think that?”
Bellinger was shaking visibly now, the words tumbling out of him nervously. His phone beeped again, but he ignored it. “Danny was working on something. He was playing around with distributed processing and he showed me some of his stuff and we talked about it and the possibilities were just mind-blowing, you know? I mean, he was brilliant, you know that. But then Reece showed up and whisked him away to work with him on that project of his, the biosensors, and—”
“Reece?”
“Dominic Reece. He taught him. He was his guru at MIT.” Bellinger shook his head, as if trying to block an unwelcome thought. “He was also in that chopper. With Danny.” He looked at Matt, as if to apologize for bringing it up. After a quiet beat, he added, “Anyway, it was a great project, the sensors would have saved thousands, tens of thousands of lives, and—”
His phone beeped for the fourth time.
Bellinger lost his train of thought and frowned. He ripped his concentration away from Matt and irritably fished out his phone. He grimaced as he fumbled to get to his inbox, and saw that three messages had come in from the same number.
Not Jabba’s. The messages were all from a number he didn’t recognize.
He punched up the last of the messages.
The words on the small screen hit him like a sledgehammer.
They simply read, “If you want to live, shut the fuck up and leave the bar now.”
Chapter 12
Boston, Massachusetts
“I think Danny may have been murdered.” The penny-sized mike tucked away under the lapel of Bellinger’s coat sucked in the words and rocketed them over to the earpieces of the three operatives who sat in the van that was parked outside the bar on Emerson.
The two other operatives—the ones inside the bar with the barely noticeable, clear earpieces—heard them too.
In the van, the operative leading the surveillance team looked up pointedly at his auburn-haired colleague. She had done well. Her hands had been lightning quick, the move fluidly executed, the tag unnoticed. It had also helped that her beguiling eyes and teasing smile had distracted Bellinger. He hadn’t been the first to fall under her spell.
But he now needed to be contained.
The voice of one of the men in the bar shot through their earpieces. “He’s not going for it.”
The lead operative scowled and brought up his wrist mike. “I’m giving him another prod. Get ready to move in if he still doesn’t take the hint.”
The harsh voice came back with, “Standing by.”
He hit the send button on his cell phone again.
THE WORDS on the screen seared Bellinger’s eyes. He glanced up, his alarmed gaze raking the bar, a tourniquet of dread choking the life out of his heart. Everyone around him suddenly looked suspicious, threatening, dangerous.
Matt noticed.
“What is it?” he asked.
Bellinger blinked repeatedly. He was having trouble focusing. For a confused moment, the faces in the bar all seemed to be staring at him with unbridled malevolence.
Matt’s voice broke through again. “Vince. What is it?”
Bellinger turned to him, his words catching in his throat. “This was a mistake. Forget I said anything.”
“What?”
Bellinger stumbled to his feet. He looked squarely at Matt, his eyes bristling with fear. “Forget I said anything, all right? I’ve got to go.”
Matt shot up to his feet from behind the table and reached out, just managing to grab hold of Bellinger’s arm. “Cut the crap, Vince. What’s going on?”
Bellinger spun around, yanking his arm free with rabid ferocity before pushing Matt back with both hands. His frenzied reaction surprised Matt, who fell back and landed heavily, jarring his head against the booth’s wooden edge and triggering a ripple of commotion that startled the drinkers closest to him and pushed them back a step.
Matt straightened up, his head throbbing from the knock, and staggered to his feet in time to glimpse Bellinger disappearing into the crowd, rushing for the door.
He bolted after him, ducking into his wake, into the clear path that snaked through the drinkers all the way to the bar’s entrance.
He burst out onto the pavement and stopped in his tracks at the sight of Bellinger being manhandled by two bulky men and getting dragged into the back of a van.
Matt shouted, “Hey,” and charged at them, only his feet had barely left the ground when he felt something heavy slam into him from behind, catching him at the base of the neck and across his back, pounding the breath out of him and sending him flying face-first onto the snow-speckled pavement.
He landed badly, his right elbow taking the brunt of his weight and lighting up with pain, and before he could push himself back onto his feet, two sets of strong arms grabbed him, pinned his arms behind his back, and shoved him toward the van before throwing him in through its open doors.
He landed—hard—on the van’s ribbed, bare-metal floor, heard the van’s doors slam shut somewhere behind him, and felt his weight slide back as the van took off. Jarring images and sensations were coming at him thick and fast and assaulting him from all angles. Still facedown, one eye squashed against the floor, he heard muffled shouts and angled his head up to glimpse Bellinger, the two bulky men over him, and the vague outline of—that couldn’t be right—a woman with a shoulder-length bob, seemingly attractive, looking back from the driver’s seat, her head silhouetted against the van’s windshield, backlit by the streaming lights from beyond. One of the men was sitting on Bellinger’s back, pinning him down, one hand covering Bellinger’s mouth and blocking his screams of protest. The other was bent down beside them and loomed over Bellinger. He held something that looked like an oversized electric shaver in his hand.
A vaguely familiar high-pitched whine, something powering up, pricked the edge of Matt’s hearing, but in his frazzled state, he couldn’t quite place it. He turned, trying to shift himself over and onto his back, but one of the men who had grabbed him stomped down heavily on his back and sent him splattering against the van’s floor again. A jolt of nausea rushed through Matt as the whine reached a fevered pitch, and his muscles seized up as he realized what it was.
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Straining to raise his head an inch, he caught sight of the second man bringing his hand down onto Bellinger and branding him with what Matt now realized was a pocket Taser. Bellinger screamed out in agony as a faint blue light flickered inside the van. A two-second burst was usually enough to bring a fit man down with major muscle spasms, three seconds was enough to turn most men into the sobbing equivalent of a fish flopping around on a dry dock. Bellinger’s hit lasted well over five seconds, and Matt knew what the effect on the scientist would be. He’d been at the receiving end of those prods. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, especially not when they were wielded by neolithic prison guards. His skin bristled at the memory, the buzzing noise dredging up the pain of what felt like thousands of needles being shoved simultaneously into every pore of his body.
The van made a left turn, the shift in momentum allowing Matt a brief respite from the weight pinning him down, and he spotted Bellinger’s tormentor finally putting down the Taser and bringing out something much smaller, something that glinted at him in the jagged lights cutting in and out of the van, a syringe, which he swiftly plunged into the stricken man’s back, just below the neck.
Bellinger’s flopping stopped.
“He’s done,” the man announced without a hint of exertion or discomfort in his voice, as if what he’d just accomplished was no more than a routine chore.
The bulldozer sitting on Matt asked, “What about this one?”
The man who’d dealt with Bellinger mulled the question for a moment. “Same deal,” he decided.
Not the answer Matt was hoping for. Then again, none of the likely answers held much appeal.
One thing he knew: He wasn’t about to sit back and let a million volts fry him inside out.
He glimpsed the man moving off Bellinger and making his way over to the back of the van, the pocket Taser in hand, the ominous whine cranking up again.
Just then, the van made another turn, a right one this time.
Time to be a killjoy.
The weight of the bulldozer sitting on top of him shifted slightly from the turn, lightening momentarily. Matt summoned up the furious energy in every corpuscle of his body and suddenly heaved back, as hard as he could. The move caught his captor by surprise, making him lose his balance and sending him flying against the wall of the van. Matt quickly managed to get both hands under him to increase his leverage, then followed through with a full twist, weaving his fingers together and locking them just as he swung around and used his extended arms as a baseball bat.
He caught the bulldozer flat across the nose, a loud, bone-crushing splat erupting in the van. The man’s head ricocheted against the van’s wall before he curled over, writhing with pain.
Matt didn’t pause to watch. There were three other thugs to deal with. The two who’d been busy with Bellinger could wait. The bulldozer’s partner, also at the back of the van, was the more immediate threat, and he was already leaping at Matt. Matt steadied himself on his elbow and bent down as he followed through with his roll, the move adding momentum to his leg which lashed out and hammered the incoming attacker across the neck. As the man’s head bounced heavily off the van’s rear doors, Matt pounced up, grabbed his head with both hands, and pulled it down, connecting it with his knee. Something in the man’s face cracked audibly and he went reeling backward, toward the front of the van, falling over the immobile body of Bellinger and interrupting the other two men’s advance.
Matt saw them clambering over Bellinger and knew he only had a second or two of clear air. He also knew he wasn’t likely to take them out as easily.
There was only one option, really, and he didn’t hesitate.
He grabbed the rear door handle, yanked it open, and despite the micro-glimpse of a car trailing not too far back, flung himself out of the moving van.
He didn’t have far to free-fall before hitting the asphalt. It was beyond brutal. His left shoulder and hip took the brunt of it, a lightning bolt of pain shooting through him as he landed. He rolled on himself several times, a cascade of confusing, alternating glimpses of streetlights and tarmac flooding his senses, every inch of his body getting its share of beating. A sudden, ear-piercing shriek hounded him, bearing down on him alarmingly fast, the sound of rubber scraping deliriously across asphalt, the hard-braking car’s front bumper only a few feet behind him and gaining fast.
They finally came to a rest together, as if in a synchronized performance, Matt inches away from the car that had fishtailed slightly and was now at a slight angle to the road. Through his dazed whiteout from the pain and the headlights, Matt could feel the heat radiating out from the car’s grille, and the air was thick with the smell of burned rubber and brake pads. His shoulder was alight with pain. He steeled himself and straightened up, and glanced down the road. The van was quickly receding, one of the men—it was already too far for anything more specific—looking back before reaching out and slamming the door shut.
Matt pushed himself to his feet. His left leg almost gave way, but he steadied himself against the car’s fender. He staggered over to the driver’s window. The driver—a man, old, sixties plus—was staring at Matt with a combination of trepidation and disbelief. Matt bent down to look in on him. The old man’s window was still closed. Matt gestured for him to open it, but the man just sat there, riven with fear.
Matt rapped his knuckles against the window. “Open the window, goddammit,” he shouted, gesturing frantically. “Open it.”
The man hesitated, then shook his head, his brow furrowed with confusion.
Matt jangled the door handle brusquely, but the doors were locked. He slammed the flat of his hand against the window again, scowling at the old man and yelling, “Open the goddamn door.”
The man did nervous little mini-shakes with his head again, darted an anxious glance into his rearview mirror, glanced over at Matt again, then turned to face ahead and just hit the gas. Matt reeled back and just watched, dumbstruck, as the car tore off and disappeared into the darkness.
Chapter 13
Deir Al-Suryan Monastery, Wadi Natrun, Egypt
A blossoming glint of golden light rose from behind the distant horizon as the three men climbed down the mountain.
They’d waited for close to an hour for Father Jerome to show up, and when he still hadn’t appeared, they’d finally given up and made their way back. They didn’t speak at all during the hike down or on the drive back. The abbot had simply nodded when asked by the younger monk if he’d been right about what they’d seen, and left it at that.
He needed to think.
Yusuf pulled up outside the monastery and offered to stick around should he be needed. The abbot told him he wasn’t, and thanked him, then his expression and his voice darkened.
“Yusuf,” he said gravely, “I need you to keep what you know about all this to yourself. No one else must be told. For now. Things could get out of hand very quickly if news of this came out. We need to handle this with great care. Do you understand?”
Yusuf nodded somberly, and kissed the abbot’s hand. “Bi amrak, abouna.” As you wish, Father.
The abbot studied him fervently for a beat, making sure his admonishment sank in, then nodded, giving him permission to leave. He and the monk watched as Yusuf climbed back into the Previa and drove away.
“What are we going to do?” Brother Ameen asked.
The abbot’s gaze followed the disappearing minivan. “First, I need to pray. This is all too . . . unsettling. Will you join me?”
“Of course.”
They entered the monastery through the small gate in the thick, forty-foot wall that surrounded it. Just inside the enclosure, to their right, the large qasr—the keep—a four-storied white cube punctured by tiny, irregular rectangular openings, squatted proudly in the dawn light, its timber drawbridge now permanently lowered and welcoming.
It hadn’t always been the case. The sixth-century monastery had been rebuilt several times during its turbulent history.
The valley of Wadi Natrun, which owed its name to the abundant natron in its soil, the sodium carbonate that was a key ingredient in mummification, was the birthplace of Christian monasticism. The tradition had started in the third and fourth centuries, when thousands of followers of Christ had fled there to escape from Roman persecution. Hundreds of years later, still more went there, this time to escape persecution at the hands of the Muslims. The valley held a special resonance for the faithful: It was there that Mary, Joseph, and their infant son had rested while escaping from King Herod’s men, before continuing on to Cairo.
At first, the small communities of early Christians had lived in the caves that dotted the low ridges overlooking the desert, surviving off the meager offerings of its scattered oases. Soon, they began to build monasteries where they hoped to worship in relative peace and safety, but the threats never went away, not for centuries. Desert tribes picked up the Romans’ baton of aggression and proved even more ruthless. The most vicious of those attacks, at the hands of Berbers in 817, decimated the monastery. When men didn’t threaten it, nature itself proved a willing understudy, with only one of the monastery’s monks surviving an outbreak of plague in the fourteenth century. And yet, time after time, the persistence and dedication of holy men kept on resurrecting it, and today, the monastery was home to over two hundred monks who followed in the footsteps of the desert fathers of the Old Testament and came here to escape from the distractions of daily life and the temptations of earthly desire to battle their own demons and pray for the salvation of mankind.
The valley had been an oasis of Christianity from the very first days of the movement. The monastic tradition was born there, long before it was eventually adopted by the Christians of Europe. For centuries, profoundly religious men had been drawn to its desolate wilderness. And on the dawn of this portentous day, the abbot thought, it seemed eminently possible that the valley hadn’t yet exhausted its relevance to the faithful.