Serpent of Moses (17 page)

He pushed on the release, hoping he wasn’t wrong about the door alarm and hearing the sounds of footsteps on the stairs behind him. The door opened with only a slight creak. Once in the stairwell, Duckey held the door handle as it closed, helping it to shut quietly.

He rushed down the single flight of stairs, his suitcase thumping against his knee. At the bottom was a small vestibule. He ran through it, pushed open the metal door leading outside. Stepping into an alley, Duckey stopped and took stock of his surroundings. The alley was empty, but the only way out led to the street where the sedan and SUV were parked. And he had no idea if other men had stayed behind and were waiting in the vehicles.

Still, he had no other choice. Sticking close to the wall of the hotel, he walked toward the street, slowing as he neared. Peering around the corner of the building, he saw the sedan and SUV, finding the vehicles unmoved. Because the vehicles’ windows were tinted, he couldn’t see if anyone had been left behind. Before stepping out onto the sidewalk, he took a half dozen steps back, then strode forward, giving the air of a man with every right to be walking out of a dead-end alley. Heading away from the parked cars, he resisted the urge to look behind him. He also avoided making the first left but instead proceeded through the intersection along with a few other pedestrians.

Only when he’d made it to the other side and had reclaimed the sidewalk did be begin to feel as if he’d gotten away cleanly, and he kept that feeling for as long as it took him to reach the next intersection. There, as he began making the turn that would take him out of sight, he chanced the glance he’d avoided earlier.

The sedan had pulled away from the curb and was passing through the first intersection, and although it wasn’t traveling at an excessive speed, Duckey’s gut told him they were on to him. He quickly disappeared around a corner, hoping that he was wrong. Once around the corner, he cast his eyes about for somewhere to go, someplace he could slip into and get off the street. The first thing he saw that looked promising was a block away. Behind him, he heard the sedan round the corner, its tires squealing on the pavement, removing any doubt that they’d seen him.

Duckey took off in a run. He heard the revving of an engine close behind him. Pushing himself harder, he tried to ignore the fact that his lungs felt as if they might burst. Then he heard the loud screech of brakes and cringed against the sensation of metal on flesh that he knew was coming. Except that the blow never came. When he looked back, he saw that the dark sedan had barely missed a truck that had lumbered by from the other direction.

The near-accident bought him the time he needed, and a few steps later he reached a retail establishment that he saw was a cellular-phone store. He swung open the door and stepped in as quickly as he could. He didn’t know if the agents behind him could have seen him enter with the obstacle of the truck.

As he looked around, he was glad to see there were other customers, which meant the one clerk on duty was too busy to do more than nod at him. Duckey moved toward a wall display of phones, searching for a back exit and finding one in a far corner of the store. That done, he turned so he could keep an eye on the street while not completely giving up on the ruse of considering a new phone.

It felt as if a long time had passed as he stood there, occasionally reaching for a phone and pretending to test some of its features. When he was on his fourth phone, Duckey was beginning to think that maybe he’d gotten away with it. He was about to set the phone back on the shelf when he saw the dark sedan come to a stop in front of the store.

Feeling a fresh rush of adrenaline, Duckey put the phone back and started for the rear exit, heading toward the sales counter, where the clerk was still busy with a customer. The clerk paid Duckey no notice until he saw the American pass by the counter. He called out something in Arabic that Duckey couldn’t translate on the fly. Duckey ignored him and pushed through the door, emerging in an open space that looked as if it served as both warehouse and break room.

He ran by a folding table and some metal shelves and in another few strides he’d reached the rear exit. As he pushed open the door, he couldn’t help but feel as if his entire escape attempt had been a series of door openings—as if, were he only to pick the right door, he would be home free. However, when he stepped through the newest door choice and into the sunlight, the blur of a man’s fist accelerating toward his face told Duckey that he’d picked the wrong one.

Although the blow caught him by surprise, exceptional reflexes allowed him to turn his head a few inches before impact, which meant that the man’s fist caught him in the cheek rather than flush on his nose. Even so, the pain was stunning and it was all that Duckey could do to keep his feet under him. But the ex-CIA agent was no stranger to a good fight, even if it had been a while since he’d had the opportunity to test his skills.

Forcing the stars away, Duckey raised his arm to block a second punch. Using his assailant’s momentum against him, he sent the Libyan into the wall. Duckey then initiated a series of kidney punches until the Libyan, in an effort at self-preservation, pulled away and moved along the wall, trying to get out of reach of Duckey’s large fists.

The American was not about to let his attacker off that easy, so he followed him. When he’d closed the distance, the other man delivered an elbow to Duckey’s midsection that, despite the American’s size and experience, took him to a knee—which meant he was unprepared when the Libyan agent used the same elbow to catch the nose Duckey had tried to protect at the outset.

Things went black for a while—how long, Duckey didn’t know—but when he came to, he was on his back and the Libyan was readying to deliver a kick that would have broken a few of Duckey’s ribs. As the man pulled his foot back, Duckey rolled into it, catching the kick before it could gain momentum. He pulled the agent to the ground. In a close quarters fight with a much smaller man, Duckey was in his element, pulling himself on top of him and delivering a series of brutal punches meant to end things before they escalated any further.

In seconds, the Libyan had stopped moving, and Duckey, after making sure he wouldn’t come to too quickly, straightened and tried to catch his breath. Except that he knew there were more of them, likely in the store behind him, ready to step out of the back door at any moment. And were those men to see what the American had done to one of their own, Duckey doubted they would bring him in intact.

With that in mind, he ran his hands over the unconscious man’s pockets, pulling out his wallet, phone, and a gun. Duckey took the first two without question, if for no other reason than to obtain information about the men who were after him. The gun, though, gave him pause. Because of his former profession, Duckey had used his share of firearms, and had taken a few lives in the process. Consequently, the feel of the gun in his hand was familiar; he could have slipped it into his pocket with ease.

Yet the fact that his current job—the one he practiced when he wasn’t hopping around the globe in search of a lost friend—was of the genteel variety gave him pause about returning to something he thought he’d left behind. What helped him make up his mind was that he was woefully short on resources. And there were men after him who most likely had the same type of weapon as the unconscious man, and they wouldn’t hesitate to use them.

Duckey pushed himself to his feet and slipped the wallet, phone, and gun into his pockets. Then he disappeared into the crowded city.

Once again, Jack found himself waiting. He’d woken up in his friend’s house on the outskirts of a Tunisian town, every muscle in his body hurting and no way to contact anyone without giving away his position to a government with an array of agents at their disposal who’d like nothing more than to hunt him down and kill him. He’d spent the morning in Medenine, feeling relatively secure surrounded by Marwen’s allies. The Tunisian had assured him that no one would get into or out of their community without him knowing. Jack was grateful for his friend’s help and knew that, for the moment at least, his best course was to stay put.

He had rid himself of Imolene and Templeton, he seemed to have temporarily deterred the Israelis, and so far he’d avoided bringing danger to his friends. The problem was that he couldn’t stay in Marwen’s home forever. And when he left, there was no way to know what might happen. Of one thing he was certain: Marwen would do what he could to facilitate Jack’s flight from the country, even if that meant using less than legal channels to secure that exit. Marwen wasn’t a well-connected man—he was but a simple trader—yet he knew enough of the right people to pull some strings that would help his American friend.

As Jack waited, he thought of Templeton. It wasn’t until he’d sent the man on his way, when he’d begun to feel some measure of safety within the walls of Marwen’s home, that he could consider what the Englishman had told him. Of all the things that had happened in Australia those years ago, the one he most tried to forget was what happened in the home of James Winfield. In one evening he’d lost a man who meant almost as much to him as had his father, and he’d been forced to kill two men. One of those men was the brother of Martin Templeton. It seemed the man had spent significant time and effort trying to uncover what really happened that night, only to be stymied by the Australian government. He’d only been certain of one thing, and that was that Jack was involved. Then fate went and dropped Jack right into his lap. It made Jack wonder what would have happened had he decided not to search for the Nehushtan. If he and Templeton had never crossed paths, would the Englishman have eventually come looking for him?

As he pondered this, Marwen returned from wherever he’d gone earlier that morning, leaving Jack to entertain himself for a few hours. He wasn’t long in the room before he picked up on Jack’s mood, though he didn’t know what had prompted it. He did, however, have a remedy. From a coat pocket, the Tunisian produced two cigars, offering one of them to his guest.

Jack smiled. “Thanks. Very kind of you.”

“Think nothing of it,” Marwen said, taking a seat next to Jack.

Neither man said a word as the cigars were clipped, lit, and savored. Some minutes later, Marwen cleared his throat.

“I hope you will forgive a curious old man,” he said, “but I took a look at the thing you have brought into my home.”

Jack used his cigar to wave off the apology. “I wouldn’t have expected otherwise.”

“Is it . . . ?”

Jack nodded. “It is.”

Marwen released a low whistle.

Jack knew that at one time, Romero had done business with the man and that such business had involved items that had passed through Romero’s shop. He knew that their history went back a long way, which meant he could trust Marwen with the knowledge that he had a priceless biblical artifact in his possession.

“I had wondered what sort of treasure is worth the danger in which you find yourself, and now I see.”

Marwen’s thoughts mirrored Jack’s own, which reminded him that he was still not out of that danger.

“So what will you do now?” the Tunisian asked, reading Jack’s expression.

“Not sure,” Jack admitted. “Normally I’d call someone who could give me a hand—either a friend or maybe even the embassy.”

“But your friends’ phones will be monitored,” Marwen said. “As for the embassy—”

“They might be reluctant to assist an American citizen attempting to smuggle an artifact out of the country,” Jack interrupted.

“Yes.”

“Technically I didn’t even find it in Tunisia, so I think the smuggling part is already done.”

“Nevertheless, I do not think your embassy would care to split those hairs.”

Jack was certain that what Marwen said was true. They were the reasons he hadn’t found the nearest police station and marched in and told them what was going on. Because doing so would mean having to give up the artifact. He understood that the thing hobbled him, that refusing to divest himself of it meant limiting his options. But until all his other choices were taken from him, he would
not
be giving it up.

“What made you think it had not been destroyed?” Marwen asked.

“You’re referring to Hezekiah,” Jack said, to which the Tunisian responded with a nod.

“I am not as versed in biblical history as I am sure you are,” Marwen said, “but I distinctly remember reading about how he had the thing destroyed so that the people would not worship it.”

Jack couldn’t speak to that part of the story as much as he might have liked. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I was only able to track it back to about 200 AD. Before that, there’s no record at all. At least none that I could find.”

Marwen thought about that as he took a long pull on his cigar.

“But what made you begin looking for it in the first place?” he asked. “If the Bible says it was destroyed, why search for it?”

It was a question Jack would have been happy leaving unanswered, because to tell the truth meant admitting to dumb luck—a commodity with which he was intimately familiar. Giving Marwen the answer he wanted meant telling him that he’d been searching for something else entirely and that only the accidental reading of the wrong book—he’d reached for a different tome and hadn’t realized he’d grabbed the wrong one—had set him on the Nehushtan’s path.

“Let’s just say that sometimes archaeology involves being open to opportunities when they present themselves,” he said.

Marwen fixed him with a look that told the American he knew obfuscation when he saw it, but he let it pass—a gesture that Jack was grateful for.

“I can get you a car,” Marwen said. “Or I can arrange transport anywhere you wish. There are several towns much larger than Medenine that would offer you the opportunity to leave the country. You could likely purchase transport out in either Gabès or Shkira, although I would recommend Sfax. It’s larger. And I have friends in the shipping industry.”

The thought of being packed up in a box and shipped somewhere made Jack smile, until he wondered if that was so far from the truth of his situation. Once again he lamented his inability to call someone like Duckey, who would have the whole thing figured out for him within an hour. Even talking with Romero or Espy would have been helpful, if only to improve his mood.

As he thought of Espy, he couldn’t help wondering what she’d done once he missed his flight to Caracas. If he were Espy, he knew what he would do: nothing. Jack knew that his years of being unable to keep a schedule, of eschewing the appearance of permanence, and in all other ways avoiding responsibility had left him in a position in which he could have probably gone missing for a month without anyone noticing.

On most days he would have found a thought like that amusing. At the moment, though, as he thought of how far away he was from Espy—in a relationship sense as well as in physical proximity—he found his mood growing even darker. For quite a while he’d known that she was dissatisfied with what he’d offered her. And she had every right to be, considering what they’d gone through together. He’d even suspected that she was coming close to ending things.

Had someone said that to him only a week ago, he would have returned with some flippant response, some statement filled with bravado. Now, as he sat in his friend’s house in Tunisia, he felt completely different—about everything.

He missed her greatly. He only hoped he would get the opportunity to let her know.

The real problem, as Duckey saw it, was trying to hide in a city where he stuck out like a sore thumb.

He’d spent the night in an Al Bayda hotel several blocks away from the one he’d run from and had exhausted a good portion of his cash to secure the room. He could not chance using a credit card, knowing that, even though the domestic surveillance infrastructure in the country was woefully behind compared to the technology and tactics employed by his own government, it would not take them long to track his credit card use. They would have been at the door of his hotel before he’d finished brushing his teeth.

And so he’d paid in cash, said little, and slept in his clothes, and when he awoke the next morning, it had been with the understanding that the quality of his sleep had left something to be desired. With the sun rising enough for him to see the street, he slid the shade aside and watched for several minutes, looking for any car that passed more than once, or a parked vehicle that looked as if it didn’t belong. But he saw nothing out of place and decided to take a shower.

Since the hotel didn’t see the need to supply a private shower, Duckey padded down the hall and entered the communal bathroom, grateful that the shower area had been separated into stalls. He washed quickly and dried himself as best he could with a clean shirt. After getting dressed and brushing his teeth, he regarded himself in the mirror. A few days’ worth of stubble begged for a razor, but it occurred to him that the face on his passport was clean-shaven and the facial hair might make him harder to identify if one did not look too closely.

Accepting that as a possibility, Duckey left the razor untouched and headed back to his room. Once there, he repacked the few things he’d removed from his bag and then sat down to plan his next move.

His primary focus had to be in getting out of the country. Had the Libyan authorities detained him at the airport, he would have undergone a few hours of questioning before they put him on a plane back to the States. The fact that he’d made it into the country, and that he’d successfully avoided a team meant to bring him in—or worse—meant that things would not go as pleasantly were he to allow himself to be picked up. In his experience, there would be no demands made on his government; he would simply be detained and questioned, and then either imprisoned or killed. His wife would never know what had happened to him. Indeed, aside from some unverifiable information that might make its way through clandestine channels to the ears of Duckey’s former associates, he would simply disappear.

The prospect did not frighten him; he’d long ago come to grips with the idea of losing his life in the field, and of the CIA’s need for plausible deniability. However, having been out of that line of work for a long time, he’d dismissed the idea that it might still come to pass.

As he considered the events of the last few days—events that had left him virtually stranded in Africa, with the forces of a small but vicious intelligence agency after him—he couldn’t help thinking about Jack. His friend had always taken pleasure in vexing him, and were he to know the straits to which his disappearance had consigned Duckey, he had no doubt that Jack would be sporting a grin.

He couldn’t think in those terms without also thinking of his wife, Stephanie. She would be expecting his call. Duckey hadn’t been married while he worked for the Company; he’d spent far too much time in the field to even consider the possibility. It wasn’t until he’d left government service and taken up vocational residence at Evanston that he’d considered his romantic future in anything but a transitory light.

He never took a trip without checking in with her, and even with the time difference between Libya and North Carolina that made connecting with her a challenge, he knew she was waiting for him to call. Long ago, he and Stephanie had come to an agreement that whenever he found himself away from home, he’d call her when he retired for the evening. In this case, that meant she would be expecting to hear from him somewhere between five and eight o’clock eastern standard time. When she hadn’t, she would have called him. And the fact that he couldn’t take that call—couldn’t even turn his phone on—left him with a feeling of guilt he hadn’t experienced in a long while.