The Grail

CHAPTER 9

Simon Sherev believed in the sanctity of the state of Israel much more than he believed in God. In fifty-two years of service, he had conducted countless undercover operations as a member of the Mossad and fought in four wars as a reservist assigned to the paratroops. He had killed men, women, and children when it was called for in order to accomplish the mission, and the mission always supported the sanctity of the state.

Sherev was a realist, a man who saw the world for the brutal place it was. Power mattered. Nothing else. As a child his father had told him the story of Archimedes, the Greek who had claimed he could move the world if he had a fulcrum point and a long enough lever. Sherev never forgot that. He also never forgot that Archimedes, while coming up with a good theory, had been spitted on the end of a Roman sword while absorbed in his calculations. Ideas were never enough.

Sherev’s corner office on the top floor of the administration building inside the Dimona compound literally sat on top of Israeli’s ultimate power — two dozen nuclear warheads, safely ensconced in a bunker a half-mile underground. The existence of those warheads was one of the best-known “secrets” in the world. Sherev had been part of the team that had “leaked” information about the bombs — after all, there was no point in having such fearsome weapons if no one knew you had them. They were the reason — beyond the pressure of the Americans — that Saddam Hussein had never turned his tanks west toward Jerusalem, and Sherev was in charge of making sure those twenty-four reasons remained secure. Even a madman like Hussein understood the concept of power and leverage. In fact, Sherev often contemplated the advantage a man like Hussein — with no conscience — had in the world of power struggles. Nice guys did indeed finish last in Sherev’s experience.

The underground complex below the nuclear plant also contained the archives for the state of Israel. With Jerusalem such a volatile location and not far from the border with Jordan, those items deemed valuable in one way or another were sent to Dimona to be secured.

Now he was facing a situation that had just been presented to him by the man sitting on the other side of his desk concerning two items in the archives. Hasher Lekur was a powerful man in his own right, a member of the Parliament who had consolidated many of the right-wing groups into a powerful political movement. The fact that he had been granted access to see Sherev on such short notice, here in highly classified Dimona, said much about his connections.

“I don’t understand,” Sherev said. “What is the importance of these two stones, the thummin and urim?”

“They will help us get rid of a major problem.”

“What problem?” Sherev asked.

“Hussein.”

“How?”

“We give my contact the stones, he ensures Hussein dies. That is the deal.”

“When will this occur?”

“It is already occurring.”

“How are you sure your contact will keep his end of the bargain?”

“That is his business,” Lekur said. “He is a man of great means and his reach is long.”

“Who is this man?”

“I cannot tell you that.”

“Why does he want the stones?”

“That is not our concern.”

“It is my concern,” Sherev said. “I am responsible for the Archives.”

Lekur steepled his fingers. “The deal is already done. The Premier approved it two hours ago.”

“You made a deal, but you don’t know what you bargained away, do you?”

The daily intelligence briefing was a requirement, but ever since the Gulf War the time and the location were always changed, to keep the Western intelligence agencies from being able to pinpoint the President’s location.

Farik Hassid sat in the same spot for over three thousand of these briefings. As a member of the Tikrit Tribe, the same village where Saddam came from, he had a favored status on the intelligence council. As the chief of staff for intelligence, he had learned long ago to walk the fine line between giving actual intelligence and telling the President what he wanted to hear.

He focused most of his efforts on rooting out internal dissension than external threats to the country — after all, what more could the world do to Iraq that it had not already done?

He was irritated when his aide-de-camp, a young man also from the same village, the son of an old friend, entered the conference room while the head of the secret police was giving his daily assessment.

Hassid leaned back in his chair as the aide leaned, lips close to his ear, and whispered, “You have a call.”

Hassid turned in anger, but the next words froze his heart.

“It is a message from a man named Al-Iblis. The caller has the proper code.” Hassid swallowed, willing his heart to start. He stood, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, and followed his aide out the door. He took the cell phone the aide had hidden in a pocket.

“Yes?”

“Al-Iblis requires your services.” The voice on the other end was cold and flat.

“Verify that you speak for Al-Iblis.”

“Tark.”

The word hit Hassid’s chest like a knife. “Farm.”

The second code word was the twist of the knife. Abandonment and annihilation. The man spoke for Al-Iblis.

Hassid forced his throat to work, his lips to move. “What is required?”

The order was short and to the point. When the man was done, Hassid could no longer feel any part of his body. He was numb.

“You will comply.” It was not a question. The phone went dead.

Hassid slowly dialed the number he had been given. A voice answered in English.

“My name is Farik Hassid. I am the chief of staff for intelligence for the state of Iraq. Stay on the line. It will be worth your time, I assure you.”

The voice demanded to know if this was a joke, but Hassid ignored it and placed the phone in his dress uniform breast pocket, still on, facing outward. He turned to his aide. “You are dismissed.”

“Sir?”

Hassid ignored him as he walked to the conference room door. He pulled it open and entered. As he walked past his seat, every eye in the room turned to him, wondering what urgent matter could have pulled him out of the meeting.

Hassid went to the end of the table where the President leaned back in his seat, awaiting his report.

Hassid felt nothing. He was past feelings, past any concern of life. He lifted his left hand as if he had something to say, while his right jerked his pistol out of the holster. Hussein’s eyes grew wide, his bushy eyebrows raised in shock as Hassid pointed the gun directly at the President’s face. He pulled the trigger, a blossom of red appearing in Hussein’s left cheek. Hassid kept firing until all but one round was gone and there was nothing left of the President’s head.

“Saddam Hussein is dead!” Hassid yelled in English, then he placed the hot muzzle against his right temple and pulled the trigger as the rest of the staff rushed toward him.

Lekur checked his watch and pointed at the television mounted in the corner of the room. “Turn on CNN.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

Sherev bristled at being ordered about in his own office, but he pressed the button on the remote. It was the top of the hour. And the lead headline was the apparent assassination of Saddam Hussein in a suicide attack in Baghdad by a member of his inner military staff, less than two minutes ago. A tape of a phone call to CNN headquarters was played, the sound of gunfire, yells in Arabic, and a voice saying in English that Hussein was dead.

“How did this happen?” Sherev turned back to Lekur. He wondered how CNN could have received the report so quickly and if all of this was a setup. “I told you my contact’s reach is long. He has fulfilled his half of the bargain, trusting that we fulfill our part. Bring me the stones.”

Sherev leaned back in his hard chair. “The stones have been examined several times by scientists. They are not natural. Do you understand what that means?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “They were manufactured a long time ago. And now we know who made them — the Airlia. The United Nations Alien Oversight Committee has queried every government for Airlia artifacts. Of course, like us, no one has been forthcoming, willing to give up whatever pieces they have. Now you want us to turn these two stones over to some mysterious contact you have?”

“What can you do with the stones?” Lekur asked. “What have you done with them other than lock them in a vault and let them gather dust? Religious icons.” The politician shook his head. “What a waste. I am not concerned with the Airlia. I am concerned with the safety of my country, and the largest threat to that safety has just been killed. I consider the stones a small price to pay for that. I don’t care what my contact wants them for. They were worthless to us; now they have become valuable.”

Still, Sherev hesitated. He knew it was indeed a great coup for Hussein to have been killed. The Mossad had tried to accomplish the very same thing for two decades without success. So had the Americans. A powerful coalition of nations had not been enough to remove the one man who was the greatest threat to stability in the region. Now it was done.

Sherev turned it around. If this contact of Lekur’s could get to Hussein, then he could get to anyone. There was an underlying threat to this deal that Sherev felt sure Lekur had not seen yet.

“My assistant will take you to the Archives.” Sherev spun his chair about, looking out at the desert. He heard the door close behind Lekur. Then he turned back to his desk once more and picked up the secure line to Mossad headquarters.

“What is it?” Che Lu had just walked into the conference room and caught Mualama staring off into space.

Mualama was startled. He tapped the manuscript. “Burton discovered the truth about Ngorongoro.”

Che Lu sat down across from the African. “I noted that no one asked you what you were supposed to be covering when you were a Watcher. Was it Ngorongoro?”

Mualama nodded. “I told you we were second-echelon Watchers, recruited by Wedjat. So much was lost over the years. I think the core of the Watchers no longer trusted those in the second echelon. And—” he pointed at the screen “—now I know why they never contacted me, or my father, or those before us.”

“What do you mean?” Che Lu asked.

“What we were watching.” Mualama shook his head. “It is best if you read it.”

“My family was recruited by this Watcher to keep an eye on the remains of the base,” Mualama said. “But we weren’t told what it was. Just to watch and report.”

“Some of this base must still exist, though,” Che Lu said. “The dragon machine went there after getting the key from Turcotte.”

“It is possible, but neither I nor anyone else in my family saw anything for as long as could be remembered.”

“You did the right thing by leaving the Watchers,” Che Lu said.

“I didn’t leave them,” Mualama said. “I betrayed them. What if they are right? What if the course of action they have tried to follow for so long is the right one? To be neutral. To support neither Artad’s or Aspasia’s side. If they are right, then I may be the greatest traitor ever by giving the Watcher headquarters to Turcotte.”

“I think you overestimate your role and underestimate the active role the Watchers have played,” Che Lu said.

“Perhaps,” Mualama said.

“Are you all right?” Che Lu pointed at his ear.

Mualama reached up and his hand came away with several drops of blood on it. “An infection I picked up in Africa. Quite irritating.”

Popeye McGraw felt the sand on his belly. He lay in the surf and slowly looked from side to side. Nothing moving on the beach. The towering Moai statues on the slope of the volcano were all turned inland. He wondered why these looked to land, while ones on the beach at Anakena looked out to sea.

“Damn,” Popeye muttered to himself. He could feel the age of those statues. He’d grown up in Maine where old burial mounds existed, dating from the earliest inhabitants of that land. He knew these statues predated those. He’d always felt a shiver as a kid when he’d walked those mounds.

They’d left the zodiac offshore about five hundred meters, just inside the shield wall, held in place with the sea anchors. They had debated whether or not to beach the craft, but decided it was more secure leaving it offshore. The cruise around the west shore of the island to the southwest tip had been uneventful. Nothing moved along the rocky cliffs that made up the shore.

Olivetti was behind him. Popeye felt the tug as his partner pulled his fins off. Then Olivetti crawled next to him and slightly forward. Popeye returned the favor, removing his partner’s fins and looping the straps over his non-firing forearm. Olivetti glanced over his shoulder at Popeye, who nodded.

The two SEALs stood and dashed inland. They made it to the base that supported the Moai and stuffed their fins in their packs.

Popeye looked up the steep slope of the volcano. “Ready?”

“Born ready.”

Duncan realized her hands were shaking as she hooked up the wires from the Ark to the crown. She still had a headache from her first experience, but the draw was too great. She connected all three leads, then placed the crown on her head.

Immediately, she was no longer in the Hall. She was in a large, enclosed space. The floor was black metal. The walls curved to meet a hundred meters overhead. Bouncers rested in metal cradles. Eighteen of them.

She knew that she was in the hold of the mothership.

Airlia moved about, preparing the bouncers, moving equipment. She saw the Ark on a cart. An Airlia was carrying the Grail, placing it inside. Then rolling the Ark over to one of the bouncers. The Airlia was treating it as a piece of equipment, not an object of veneration.

Her attention was drawn to one side of the cargo bay as two large doors opened. She could see out, noting that the mothership was hovering about a mile above the planet’s surface. Bouncers began leaving the hold, going about their missions. Looking down, Duncan saw water extending to the horizon in all directions.

A Talon spacecraft passed by between the mothership and the ocean. Something about what she saw disturbed Duncan; something wasn’t right.

Duncan started, feeling a lance of pain in her temples. She grabbed the crown and pulled it off. She felt as if every ounce of energy had been drained from her body. She set the crownm down and sat with her back to the Ark’s stand. Her eyelids drooped, her mind shutting down. Just before she fell asleep, her mind replayed what she had seen. The Talon was racing toward the horizon, the sun glinting off its black skin — no, that was it, she realized with alarm. There were two suns in the sky, one large, like the one she knew, but there was a second smaller, red one close to it.