They filed back down the passage and up to the kitchen and stood there while the old woman refilled the tin pot, fired up one of the gas rings on her cooker, and settled the pot on it. A loaded silence smothered the room. After a long moment, Tess broke it.
“So what do we do now?”
The woman weighed her words, then looked at Tess and said, “I don’t know.” She paused for a beat, then asked, “These killers. They’re still out there?”
Tess nodded.
“Then it has to be moved, doesn’t it?” the old woman said. “It can’t stay here.” She sighed heavily. “Can you get it somewhere safe?”
Tess had been mulling over various soft approaches to try and propose the very same thing, but for the old woman to offer it like that took her by complete surprise.
“Of course.”
The old woman’s shoulders hunched slightly under the weight of her decision. “I don’t have much choice, do I? And maybe that’s not a bad thing. You have to understand. This …” She waved her hands expansively, taking in the ground under their feet and the secret it held. “It’s much bigger than us. It always has been. It’s a burden that’s been handed down, generation after generation …” She shook her head ruefully. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t have a choice in the matter, just like my ancestors didn’t. But I did what was expected of me, as many others did before. And no doubt, if and when the day comes, my son will do the same. But to what end? What can we possibly do with it, from here? We’re a simple people, Miss Chaykin. We live simple lives. And this … this deserves some serious attention. The kind of attention someone like you can bring to it. You would be doing me and my descendants a favor. You’d be relieving us of this enormous weight—especially now that you’re telling me there are people out there willing to kill for it.” She put her hands on Tess’s arms. “It needs to be moved to safety. You need to take it from here and do what you think is best with it. Will you do that?”
“It would be a privilege.”
“And don’t worry,” Reilly added. “I’ll make sure you’re well protected until this thing’s over.”
The old woman’s face softened with a hint of relief, then knotted with a question. “What will you do with it?”
“It’ll need to be properly photographed and catalogued,” Tess said. “Then translated. Then we’ll need to figure out who to share it with and how to do that without stirring up too much of a fuss.”
The old woman didn’t seem convinced. “The Dead Sea Scrolls are still shrouded with suspicion. The Nag Hammadi gospels are barely known … What makes you think these will be received differently?”
“We have to try. These writings … they’re part of our evolution, as a civilization. They’ll help us gain in maturity and enlightenment. But it needs to be done slowly, carefully. It has to be timed right. And not everyone will be convinced, or even interested. Those who want to believe, those who really need to believe … none of this will matter to them. It’s not going to change things for them. They’ll always believe, no matter what. That’s what the word ‘faith’ means to them. It’s all about maintaining a solid, unwavering belief regardless of any proof that says otherwise. But for those who are more open-minded and who’d like to make up their own minds … they deserve to have all the necessary information at hand to help them make that decision. We owe it to them.”
The old woman nodded, seeming somewhat more at peace with her momentous decision—then a creak from the living room area caught her attention and made her frown. Reilly and Tess tensed up and went rigid. Reilly brought his hand up to his mouth in a stilling and silencing gesture.
He crept over to the edge of the kitchen and listened. Heard nothing. Kept his ear turned for a moment, just to be sure. Still heard nothing. Despite that, he wasn’t comfortable with just ignoring what they’d heard. He gestured again for the women to stay still, and his other hand reached instinctively to seek out his handgun—then he realized he didn’t have it on him. It was in the rucksack, in the living room.
He glanced around and spotted a large kitchen knife on the draining board by the sink. He grabbed it, then crept to the doorway and flicked off the kitchen’s overhead light, plunging the small space into darkness and casting them in the cold and flickering orange-blue glow of the gas flame.
The old woman sucked in a short and sharp intake of breath.
Tess tensed up even more.
She watched the shadowy contours of Reilly’s silhouette skulk out the door and disappear from view. She held her breath, waiting, listening, the euphoria of the last half hour now vaporized. For a few strung-out seconds, she heard nothing but the frantic bongo solo in her eardrums—then she heard a sharp snap followed by a grunt of pain, a clatter of something metallic, and a loud thump, like a hefty mass hitting the floor.
A fleshy, hefty mass.
The abrupt noise froze her solid. Then she heard it. The voice she had hoped never to hear again, the one she had planned to expunge from her memory with extreme prejudice. The one with the annoyingly smug tinge to it.
“Come on out, ladies,” the Iranian said before appearing at the kitchen door and flicking the light on. He smiled and casually waved them out of the room with his handgun. “Join us. The party’s just getting started.”
Chapter 58
Reilly’s vision was blurred and his skull was flooded with pain as he writhed on the floor of the living room. The hit had come in fast and hard, a rifle butt to the jaw that cut his legs out from under him and dropped him before he even saw who’d hit him.
He could see them now. Men he didn’t recognize, three of them, armed and efficient, slipping past him. Then he saw one he did recognize. The Iranian was herding Tess and the old woman into the living room, at gunpoint. Reilly’s angle of vision, low and oblique given that he was still down and had his head twisted to one side, made the sight look even more disturbing.
“Sit down,” the Iranian said as he nudged Tess with his silencer and prodded her toward the couch.
The two women set themselves down on the edge of the seat cushions, side by side. The Iranian then spat out some orders to his men in a language Reilly couldn’t understand and waved them off. The three men scurried out of the room, presumably to check out the rest of the house.
Reilly caught Tess’s eye. He gave her a slow blink and a tiny nod to try to reassure her. It didn’t do much to alleviate the fear in her eyes, but she still managed a slight nod back. Reilly then gave the rest of the room a quick sweep, from his low vantage point. He spotted Tess’s rucksack. The one with the gun in it. It was still where he’d left it, leaning against the side of the armchair, by the side of the couch. About eight feet away from him. A paltry distance to cover in a sprint, but a significant one given his current stance.
Reilly inhaled deeply and tried to flush the grogginess out of his head. He peered up at the Iranian. The Iranian, as if sensing him, looked down at him. He didn’t look great. His face was more sallow than Reilly remembered it, and he had a sheen of sweat across his forehead. More noticeable, though, was the rage that was seething in his glare. It seemed to Reilly that the man could barely contain the fury that was raging inside him. Reilly decided to keep quiet. The situation was too precarious, his position too weak to risk provoking the man any further. He decided to bide his time and play it submissive, and broke off eye contact and lowered his gaze.
He was surprised to find that the wound to the Iranian’s left hand looked like it had been properly tended to. The dressing was neat and tidy, though there were traces of blood seepage on it. Reilly ran a quick mental assessment of what was going on and who he was dealing with and decided the Iranian’s men were probably PKK—militant Kurdish separatists that Iran had funded and armed over the years. They undoubtedly had doctors on tap who had a wealth of experience in dealing with war injuries. They could also travel unchallenged throughout Turkey—being Turks—to lend a friendly fist to someone like the Iranian bomber when needed.
br /> Which wasn’t great news.
Reilly didn’t know how many men the Iranian had co-opted. He’d seen three of them. There had to be more outside.
Not great at all.
“So what’s going on?” the Iranian asked, spreading his arms out theatrically and looking around the room. “One minute you’re settling into your room for a nice, cozy night, then you’re running around the city’s backstreets like headless chickens. What could have possibly triggered this urgent late night get-together?”
A holler came from deep inside the house. The Iranian turned, acknowledged it with a curt reply, then turned to Tess and smiled. A moment later, one of his men appeared through the doorway. He had an AK-47 slung over his shoulder and in his hands were a few of the old books.
The Iranian took them from him and studied them for a moment, then he glanced up at Tess, his mouth arced with glee. “More gospels?” He held her gaze for a moment, then asked the man a question. The man’s reply seemed to really impress the Iranian. “A whole room of them?” he said to Tess. His grin broadened. “It sounds to me like your persistence has paid off handsomely.”
Tess didn’t reply.
The Iranian shrugged, rattled off some instructions to the man who’d brought him the books, threw one last glare at Reilly, then left the room. The man raised his Kalashnikov machine gun and held it firmly. He kept oscillating it slowly back and forth from Reilly to the two women while keeping an unblinking watch over them.
Reilly’s instincts flared. He knew this might well be his last opportunity to do something.
One man guarding them.
A gun in the rucksack.
A chance.
He waited until the man’s gaze swung away from him and made his move, pushing himself forward on his hands and knees toward the rucksack.
The move was clumsy.
The guard saw it. He freaked out and yelled at Reilly while charging to intercept him. Reilly saw the man’s booted legs hurtling toward him and heard Tess shriek as he reached out for the rucksack, but he couldn’t get to it fast enough—the guard cut him off with a massive kick to his left midsection. Reilly’s kidneys lit up as he flew back from the impact and rolled over, grunting with pain. The man kept pace with him, crab-stepping after him in a tense crouch while shouting out a torrent of warnings and curses, his gun barrel swinging from Reilly’s face and across to the two women and back.
Reilly came to a stop right by a side table across from the armchair. He was hunched over, groaning with pain, breathing hard. He peered up and, from the corner of his eye, glimpsed the guard looming over him. The man was all wild-eyed and jittery and standing less than two feet from him. Reilly caught his breath for a beat while his hand slithered silently under the side table. He knew he’d only get one chance to get it right, and the downside of getting it wrong was too horrific to imagine.
His fingers groped the floor tiles and found the fallen kitchen knife, the one he’d dropped when he’d been knocked down, the one he’d spotted when he was sprawled on the floor.
The fingers tightened around its handle.
The Iranian’s voice bellowed out questioningly from deep in the house.
The guard turned his attention to the doorway to answer him.
Reilly pounced.
He flipped over with lightning agility, raising his arm and plunging the knife straight down into the man’s booted foot. The blade cleaved right through leather, skin, and bone with a sickening sound, a combination of ripping and suction, and the man howled with pain, the pain that Reilly knew would distract him for a second, maybe two—either way, long enough for Reilly to launch himself at him.
He sprung up and clasped his left hand around the gun’s wood foregrip while swinging a ferocious right elbow straight into the man’s face. Bone and muscle trumped skin and cartilage easily as the guard’s nose imploded in a geyser of blood and the machine gun spat out a wild triple burst that bit through the old carpet and hammered the floor. Reilly pushed harder to make sure he kept the AK-47’s barrel aimed away from the women while he spun around, driving his other elbow into the man’s chest and putting his back to him, using the momentum to try to wrestle the gun out of his grasp just as another one of the Iranian’s men burst through the front door.
The damaged guard wasn’t letting go. He was hanging on to his gun tenaciously, his fingers clasped around it. Reilly saw the second gunman raise his weapon and did two things in quick succession. He flicked his head back, ramming the back of this skull into the guard’s already battered face, and he wrenched the guard around so he was now facing the man in the doorway, pulling his machine gun up as he did. The AK-47’s barrel lined up with the second man a split second before the gun facing back came up far enough, and Reilly squeezed the guard’s fingers against the trigger. Another triple-tap rang out and the man in the doorway staggered backward, dark red puffs erupting from his chest and shoulder.
Reilly saw Tess and the old woman, crouched low on the sofa, Tess with her arm around the woman. His eyes locked with hers.
“Get out,” he yelled to her as he fought with the guard, who still wasn’t letting go of his weapon. “Get out, that way,” he rasped, motioning with his head toward the glass doors that gave on to the backyard.
Tess didn’t move at first—then loud footfalls and shouts echoed from the hallway that led back from the kitchen.
“Go,” Reilly barked again he struggled against the guard’s vise-like grip. “Move.”
He saw Tess and the old woman get up and make for the French doors just as a third gunman emerged from the hall. The Iranian was right behind him. They both had their weapons raised.
The gunman turned and spotted Tess and the old woman just as they reached the garden doors and started fiddling with the doorknob. Reilly saw him shout something and spin his weapon around to face them. With one savage pull, Reilly yanked the Kalashnikov out of the guard’s grip and flung it at the gunman. The machine gun flew across the room, twirling around itself horizontally like a boomerang and clearing the couch before slamming into the gunman’s chest and deflecting the rounds his weapon was spitting out.
Reilly was now running on hyperdrive. There wasn’t a nanosecond to lose if he was going to buy Tess and the old woman enough time to get away. He was no longer thinking or moving consciously. Instincts hewn out of years of training and field work had taken over and were ordering his muscles to move. He felt himself twirl around as if caught in a sudden invisible vortex, felt his fist tighten up and watched it plow into the cheek of the man he was grappling with, then he was already following the flying machine gun across the room before his opponent hit the ground. He saw his legs take two long strides, vault over the couch, and leap at the gunman by the doorway, tackling both him and the Iranian and sending them crashing back against the door frame.
He heard the Iranian shriek with pain as his wounded hand hit the ground, and managed a couple of solid hits on the downed gunman, hurting him badly before the Iranian’s knee came out of the tangle of limbs and pummeled Reilly in the groin. It punched the air out of him. He staggered backward and his head snapped back against the floor. Through jarred vision, he caught a vague glimpse of Tess and the old woman. They had finally managed to pry open the French doors and were rushing out—
—but the Iranian had recovered his weapon and was now scrambling to his feet.
Reilly needed to buy the women a last reprieve.
He lunged forward and intercepted the Iranian, clasping both hands on to the man’s machine gun and shoving against it to slam him into the wall. The Iranian grunted hard as he plowed into it. Reilly had the advantage of two usable hands and pried the AK-47 out of the Iranian’s grip, twisting the machine gun upward as he did and ramming his opponent’s jaw with the butt of its folded metal stock. A spurt of blood spewed out of the Iranian’s mouth and splattered the wall behind him as his wounded hand came up to block another hit.
It was like a red rag to Reilly.
/> He turned the machine gun on its end and, using the gun’s folding metal stock as a battering ram, hammered the Iranian’s hand to the wall.
The Iranian let out an elemental howl as the gun’s metal stock pulverized the bones and tore apart the tendons in his hand. The excruciating pain caused his knees to buckle and he just rag-dolled to the floor, his eyes shut tight. Reilly felt his veins popping with bloodlust. He brought the gun back up, lining it up to pound the Iranian’s head this time, knowing the blow would crush the man’s skull and possibly end his life there and then—
—but before he could bring it down, something hard hit him from behind, battering him at the base of his neck and cutting off the power supply to his arms.
One of the other gunmen was back on his feet.
As Reilly tumbled to the ground, he saw that it was actually worse than that. Two of them were back up, the guard whose face he’d wrecked and the gunman who’d appeared with the Iranian.
The rest was a blur of fists, elbows, and kicks, raining down on him from all sides. With every blow, he felt his strength seep away, felt the blood from his cuts cloud his vision and choke his throat, felt the breath fighting to find its way into his lungs, felt his fingers and hands go numb from the lack of circulation. The last thing he saw was the Iranian’s face, glaring down at him fiercely through a fog of rabid sneers, his entire face just dripping with venom—then a final kick to the face cut out all the light and dumped him into a painless sleep.
Chapter 59
RHODES, GREECE
Endaxi, tower. Clear takeoff, runway two five, wilco. Request maintain fifteen hundred feet to alpha to take a good look at your beautiful island, Niner Mike Alpha.”
“Fifteen hundred feet to alpha is approved. Enjoy the view.”
Steyl smiled and throttled forward. “Roger. Efkharisto poli.”
He nursed the Cessna Conquest off the runway and into the early morning sky. It felt good to be airborne again. He had been getting antsy, sitting idle at Rhodes’s Diagoras International Airport, refueled and ready, unable to venture far from his aircraft while he waited for Zahed’s signal. He’d been fast asleep when the call had finally come in, late into the night. Then he’d gone back to sleep for a few hours before setting off at first light.