Serpent of Moses

17



They had secured Templeton in the back room, and Jack couldn’t help but ponder the similarities to his own confinement a few days before. He’d had nothing to do with Templeton’s treatment, however. The men of the village had taken the initiative to take him into their custody the moment he began asking them questions about a lone American they might have discovered wandering in the desert. It hadn’t taken Jack long to become something of a local celebrity and it seemed the villagers had something of a communal interest in protecting him.

Many of the men who had spoken with Jack earlier in the day had returned and they conversed in earnest tones while Jack simply watched, picking up some of what they said. Every once in a while Jack would see Nadia poke her head around the corner, glance over the men, fix Jack with a look just short of malevolence, and then leave. He did not begrudge her the thinly veiled animosity. He had entered her home and had possibly placed her and her family at risk.

Jack had shared with these men what little he knew of Martin Templeton and then left them to their deliberations. Someone had brought Jack his phone, recovered from the jeep, but when he tried it he couldn’t get a signal, which, he supposed, was the reason none of the locals had cellphones. He suspected he would have to reach a more populated area before he would be able to contact anyone. That left him with few options, save for allowing these men to help him or taking the jeep Templeton had driven into the village and proceeding on to Raballah on his own.

The longer he listened, though, the more he began to wonder if driving off with the staff was even an option. Over the last few minutes, the tenor of the conversation around him had changed and he had only recently started to pick up on it, cued by a slow rise in the volume of the conversation that told him a disagreement was brewing. Concentrating, he tried to listen in, but it was more difficult to make sense of the Arabic with multiple simultaneous speakers than it was talking to a single person. Still, he picked up on key phrases, and when these began to arrange themselves in his brain, he understood that these men were starting to talk of taking the staff from him.

When that realization came to him, Khamel looked at him from across the table as if he’d known the precise moment when Jack would understand. The Tunisian said something to the other men and all conversation stopped, all eyes turning to the American. Silence settled over the room, broken a few moments later by what looked to be the oldest among them.

Staring at Jack, he said in a strong voice, “We believe Allah may have brought you here so that you could deliver his staff to us.”

Jack had no good response to that. To these people, he was an infidel, unworthy to carry such a sacred object. He was only amazed that they hadn’t taken it from him the moment they’d discovered it.

“For what reason?” he thought to ask.

“To protect it, of course,” the elder said.

“From whom?”

“From whoever would see the power of the Staff of Allah abused.”

Again, it wasn’t a statement Jack could rightly argue with. His own experience had shown him the truth of it. Consequently he chose not to go down that path.

“No one’s coming after it,” Jack said, looking around at all the solemn faces.

“Except for the man who already has,” one of the other elders said. “And who knows how many more.”

“There aren’t any more,” Jack argued, though he knew it was a lie. Imolene was still out there somewhere—as well as whoever had hired the Egyptian to tie up loose ends. He decided to try another tack. “What if I was given the Staff of Allah for a reason?” he asked, resolving, as soon as the words left his mouth, to ask Khamel about that name. In his studies he hadn’t come across it and wondered about its origin.

He saw that there were some with whom his reference to being God’s instrument did not sit well, but the oldest offered a half smile.

“If that is true,” he said, “how do you know that your purpose was not fulfilled when you delivered the staff to those who could properly care for it?”

Rather than attempt to answer the question, Jack gave the elder a respectful nod, asked if he could be excused for a few minutes, then rose and left the room. He headed for the back room, where two men had been posted, each armed with an automatic weapon. For a moment, Jack wondered if they would allow him entrance, but as he approached the doorway they moved aside.

The lamp was low when he entered and saw Templeton sprawled on the bed. The Englishman sat up when Jack stepped into the room.

“Turnabout is fair play,” Templeton said.

Jack didn’t respond. Instead, after regarding the Englishman for a time, he settled himself in the room’s only other piece of furniture, a much-abused wooden chair.

“It’s time for some answers,” he said.

After what seemed a long while, Templeton said, “In order to receive answers, you have to ask the right questions.”

Jack took a deep breath and let it out explosively. “For starters, how about you telling me, once and for all, why you took me out of that cave. What possible reason did you have to take me prisoner and then drag me through two countries?”

“Aside from keeping Imolene from killing you?” Templeton asked.

“Aside from that, yes.”

It was Templeton’s turn to let out a deep sigh. “You’re something of a mystery in certain circles, Dr. Hawthorne.” When Jack didn’t respond, he continued. “You had a promising career ahead of you, and then you threw it all away after what happened in Egypt. I understand, of course, that your brother’s death must have been difficult to deal with, but from everything I’ve heard about you, you were one of the shining stars in our shared field.”

“We don’t have a shared field,” Jack said, more sharply than he’d intended. “I don’t know what you call what it is you do, but it sure isn’t archaeology.”

Even as he said it, he understood the hypocrisy of the statement. Over the last few years, the field he himself had practiced bore little similarity to what he’d learned at Cambridge and in legitimate work for years after that. Still, he’d never kidnapped anyone.

“But then after several years of teaching, you seem to be back doing what you’re supposed to be doing, and I can’t help but be curious as to the reason why,” Templeton said, ignoring the insult.

Jack remained silent.

“And interestingly enough, your return comes on the heels of that incident in Australia we discussed the other evening. But one of the things we didn’t discuss—one of the things I found most curious about the whole affair—was the number of esteemed archaeologists who seem to have lost their lives at about the same time. One of them in Australia, a Dr. James Winfield. Now, wasn’t he a mentor of yours?”

Jack knew he was being baited, even if he didn’t know the reason for it. He could feel the other man’s probing questions do their work, a slow anger beginning to build. He knew, though, that he had to keep a level head.

“Of course, that was also about the time that Dr. Brown Billings was killed in Ethiopia, wasn’t it?” Templeton pressed.

He gave Jack a sidelong glance.

“Wasn’t Dr. Billings a colleague of yours as well? He and that other young woman who died?” He adopted a thoughtful look, as if considering the professional connections. Then he shrugged. “What was it the Ethiopian authorities said? That they walked into the middle of a gang altercation?”

“You of all people should know that archaeology can be a dangerous business,” Jack said.

“I would think the more appropriate statement would be that knowing you can be a dangerous business.”

At that point, the anger that Jack had worked to keep from manifesting could no longer be contained, although he restricted its appearance to his face, forcing his teeth together to keep from saying something that would only serve to validate whatever Templeton was working to prove. Along with the anger was a growing puzzlement at Templeton being able to throw out those names. Which meant he knew a great deal more about Jack than Jack knew about him. It hinted that, whatever else Templeton was, he and Jack seemed to have traveled in some of the same circles.

“I told you,” Templeton said, again one step ahead of Jack’s thoughts. “I took my degree at Oxford and your Dr. Winfield was a frequent guest lecturer. I was saddened to hear that he’d passed on.”

The only thing that kept Jack from trying to hit Templeton was that the Englishman’s words sounded sincere.

“I have to tell you, Dr. Hawthorne . . . I spent a great deal of time wondering about what happened to you three years ago.”

“Why should you have any interest at all in me?”

That question did something Jack hadn’t expected. It briefly removed the smug smile from Templeton’s face, and for just a few seconds he saw something else. Anger perhaps? However, the look was gone almost immediately.

“After you left Australia, and after word began to trickle in that a number of archaeologists had died within a short time frame, I found the whole thing too intriguing to forget. Because while you mentioned that archaeology is a dangerous business, in reality nothing could be further from the truth. It’s an exceptionally safe line of work.”

“Coincidence is a very real thing,” Jack said.

“A belief in coincidence denotes a man who refuses to do the legwork necessary to make the connections,” Templeton rebutted. “No, something had gone on in Australia—something that had made its mark in Ethiopia and who knows where else. Perhaps even Egypt.”

Whatever Templeton’s game, he had succeeded in putting Jack back on his heels, because much of what the man said was correct, even if lacking in particulars.

“Do you know when I made sense of it, Dr. Hawthorne?”

Jack said nothing.

“The pieces started falling in place when I caught you trying to steal the Nehushtan from me,” he said. “You see, Jack, what occurred to me when I saw you sitting on the cavern floor was that the two of us were fighting over the same thing—a priceless artifact with a rich tradition. In fact, you almost died for it.”

“We all still might,” Jack reminded him.

“Indeed. But that’s all quite incidental to my theory.”

“Which is?”

“That if a find like the Nehushtan—admittedly a glorious item—could put two decent men at each other’s throats, then what kind of treasure would have pulled one archaeologist out of retirement and led three more to their deaths?”

The silence that settled over the room as the question hung in the air was something that Jack could nearly feel, and he was several seconds into it before he understood what Templeton had intimated. When it came to him, he felt the weariness of days of hard travel come over him.

“There’s something remarkable out there, Dr. Hawthorne,” Templeton added. “Something worth dying for. And apparently something worth killing for.”

“So it’s about a score,” Jack said after a long while.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Templeton said, and the look in his eyes sent a chill down Jack’s spine.

But any response he might have made to Templeton was cut off by the sounds of small-arms fire coming from outside. Popping up out of the chair, he started for the door.

“That would be the Israelis,” Templeton said.

The remark caught Jack with his hand on the doorknob. He thought he’d misheard, because of all the things Templeton might have said in that moment, what Jack had heard seemed completely out of place. Releasing the doorknob, he turned back toward Templeton. Yet before he could say a word, the wall behind the Englishman’s bed exploded inward and Jack had only an instant to see a large piece of cement hurtling toward him before everything went dark.



When Jack’s eyes opened, he knew he hadn’t been out long because the dust and debris from the blast hadn’t yet settled. With a groan he forced himself up and, holding himself steady on one knee, blinked until his vision cleared enough to allow him to see a gap in the wall large enough to walk through. Beyond the hole he saw tracers cutting through the darkness and a glow that had to come from something on fire.

As he pushed himself to his feet, he heard moaning from off to his left. He turned and saw Templeton lying on the floor near the opposite wall. The blast must have lifted him and tossed him through the air like a child’s doll. Instinct caused him to take a step toward the injured man, but he overruled the impulse, theorizing that if he could make a noise at all, he wasn’t badly injured.

Instead, Jack crossed the room until he was close enough to the hole that he could lean out, although he did so carefully, staying to the side and positioning himself so he could see a good portion of the village without clearing the cement wall. Despite the light from whatever was burning, it was difficult to see anything clearly. As he stood there, though, he began to see people resolve in the darkness, their movements punctuated by gunfire. What he didn’t see was anyone paying any attention to the building he was in—a realization that urged him to action.

As he moved away from the wall, he realized he knew too little about local politics to understand who was attacking and why. But neither could he shake from his mind Templeton’s mention of the Israelis. From what Jack could recall about the political situation in the larger region, an Israeli military presence in Libya didn’t make any sense. Still, there were appropriate times to ponder such questions, and alone in a room with a newly formed window was definitely not that time.

Except, he had to remind himself, he wasn’t alone.

The Englishman had stopped his moaning, and from where he stood Jack couldn’t tell if the man was breathing. Jack had reached the door again and thought about leaving Templeton to whatever fate awaited him. It was what he would have done years ago; he would have walked out of the room, retrieved the staff if he could, and fled the village without a second thought. But then Jack wasn’t the man he once was, even if his inner growth didn’t seem to be happening fast enough for Espy.

Releasing a sigh, he turned away from the door and went to check on Templeton. A quick examination revealed a large discolored knot on the man’s forehead. Jack winced in sympathy, put a hand on the Englishman’s shoulder, and gave him a rough shake that pulled the man up from the depths. When Templeton’s eyes fluttered open, Jack leaned in close.

“I’m getting out of here,” he said. “Do you think you can walk on your own?”

To his credit, Templeton began to move immediately, and Jack put an arm under his shoulder and helped him to his feet. The Englishman caught sight of the large hole in the wall but did not linger, instead following Jack to the door.

When they entered the hallway, the two guards were gone, the house silent save for the continuing echo of gunfire. Jack proceeded to the front room, Templeton in tow, and found it empty. He turned to the wall against which he’d propped the staff, already knowing what he would find and thinking dark thoughts when his suspicion proved true. But pragmatism forced any brooding from his mind and he went to the table. Still lying there were his phone and the keys to the jeep. Then, without a glance at Templeton, he hurried to the front door, convinced that the sounds of conflict were growing louder.

Opening the door just enough to see out, he scanned the space in front of the cluster of buildings, spotting a sprawled form not far from the nearest home, as if the man had been cut down the moment he’d stepped outside. On the ground next to the unmoving villager Jack saw what looked like an assault rifle.

The body gave him pause, but Jack understood that he couldn’t stay in the house. Whatever was happening around him, he knew his best chance of escaping it rested in getting to the jeep. He was outside an instant later, not caring if Templeton followed.

Jack ran to the villager’s side and rolled the man over just enough to see the bloodstained hole in his chest. Jack released him and grabbed the assault rifle lying a few feet away. He didn’t see any movement around him, but he disliked being in an open space and so took off running again, slipping into the narrow alley between two of the buildings. He looked back to take in the terrain: the well directly ahead and the line of structures on the other side.

By then, Templeton had caught up to Jack and was by his side in the alley.

“Where did you park?” he asked Templeton.

The Englishman shrugged. “We should be looking at it. I stopped in that open space past the well. That’s where your friends and I made our acquaintance.”

So the jeep had been moved.

As Jack pondered his next step, he caught sight of two figures stepping out into the village center on the other side of the well. They were dressed in black, head to toe, and with their faces covered. Each held a weapon, and Jack could pick out more ordnance on belts and vests. While there were no obvious markings on their clothes, Jack had no doubt that they were military. He pulled back deeper into the shadow of the alley and exchanged a look with Templeton, who appeared uncharacteristically grim. With a nod for Jack to follow, the Englishman turned and headed in the other direction. Both men moved to where the alley ended and surveyed the scene.

While the village center had been largely still, the area beyond the first line of buildings was awash with people and noise. As Jack took it in, he realized his original estimation of the village’s size had been incorrect; it was in fact much larger. From his position he could make out more of the black-clad figures, perhaps a dozen, engaged in firefights with armed villagers. At first, Jack was surprised to see so many of the locals armed with such firepower. But then he remembered that this part of the world required a citizenry ready for any contingency.

“There’s the jeep,” Templeton said, pointing, and Jack followed the line of the man’s index finger until he saw the much-abused vehicle. It was parked next to a house that was much larger than the others. Jack could see several still forms on the ground in the immediate vicinity. The problem was getting to it without being cut down. He took another long look at his surroundings.

“Nothing ventured,” he said, and with the gun in his hands he stepped out into the open, aiming for the jeep. There was no way to tell if it was the darkness that covered their flight or if anyone who might have shot at them was otherwise engaged, but they crossed the distance without incident, the keys jingling in Jack’s pocket. As they neared their means of escape, though, he chanced a glance at the trio of dead men at the doorstep of the large home. It was just a passing glance and yet it was enough that a thought sprang up in his head.

When he veered off course and headed for the front door, he could feel more than hear Templeton’s surprise. Jack didn’t spend any time checking on the fallen men except to note that he’d sat at a table with at least two of them not long ago.

He entered the home with the gun ready, but the only thing that greeted him was silence. Templeton followed him in. Advancing past the front room, Jack continued down the hallway, seeing that the home had several more rooms than the one in which his hosts lived. Jack performed a quick check on each of the rooms, wishing for more time yet anxious to get away from there. When he reached the end of the hall, approaching the last room, its door ajar, he found what he’d hoped he wouldn’t.

Going by the spray of blood on the back wall, the old man had been shot as he stood between the bed and the wall. Apparently he was then dragged to the center of the room. Before moving to him, Jack glanced around the room but suspected that if the men who had attacked the village were after the staff and had found it, they would no longer be fighting in the streets.

When he reached the elder’s side, he almost jumped when the man opened his eyes. They were clouded and feverish, and Jack knew he would be gone in moments. The man looked up at Jack, a weak smile on his face. He reached for Jack’s arm, wrapping thin fingers around his wrist. He looked as if he would speak, so Jack leaned in closer.

“The lights . . .” the old man whispered. It looked as if he would say more, but then his eyes closed. Jack placed a hand on the man’s chest, felt it rising and falling but struggling to do so. He tried to rouse the man without success.

Seeing there was nothing more he could do, Jack stood.

“The lights—what did he mean by that?” Templeton asked.

Jack didn’t reply, but he supposed it most likely meant nothing. Just the delirium of a dying man. Except that the look in the old man’s eyes as he’d said it made Jack think there was some importance attached to it. As he pondered this—aware that he was playing a dangerous game with time—he looked up. It was then that he noticed the ceiling-mounted light fixture. It was simple, with a wide base and a trio of bulbs . . . and yet the light fixture tugged at something in the back of his mind.

“I hate to question the decisions of a man who could have left me for dead,” Templeton said, “but I’m reasonably confident that remaining in this village is a death sentence.”

Jack ignored Templeton while the image of the light kept tugging at his brain.

Finally it came to him. He shook his head and said, “The village doesn’t have electricity.”

He hurried into the front room to find a chair. When he returned, he set the chair beneath the light fixture. After reluctantly handing the gun to Templeton, he went about the work of figuring out how the thing was attached to the ceiling. It took a few minutes of pulling and twisting, but eventually he had the fixture off, the separation from the ceiling revealing no wires.

He handed the fixture to Templeton and then reached his hand into the hole, feeling the cool air above the ceiling. There seemed to be a good bit of space up there. Jack moved his hand around until he nudged something solid. He closed his hand around it and after a bit of finagling had the staff positioned so he could pull it from the hole. When he was finished and had climbed down from the chair, he saw the old man’s eyes open again. Jack knelt down beside him. The elder’s eyes moved from Jack to the Nehushtan.

“Perhaps Allah did choose you to keep it safe,” the old man said, his voice throaty, fading.

Jack nodded solemnly.

“I’ll certainly try,” he said, but the elder had already passed.

When Jack and Templeton stepped outside, it seemed that the action had waned. What little of it Jack could hear seemed to have moved farther away. Thankful for good timing, Jack started for the jeep, the staff in one hand, the reclaimed gun in the other. Despite the circumstances, he found that his mood had improved and with that altered disposition he found himself harboring no more doubt of a successful escape from the besieged village. He put the staff in the jeep’s open back and, leaning the gun between the seats, reached for the door handle.

He sensed the movement off to his left a second later—a figure in black stepping out of the shadows. Jack saw the man’s gun rising even as he turned, as he tried to snatch up his own weapon that suddenly wasn’t there anymore. He heard the shot, a deafening boom that seemed too near his left ear. He felt his body spasm but knew almost immediately that he hadn’t been hit. He looked down to confirm the fact and then back up where, strangely, he saw the masked soldier swaying drunkenly.

As the man fell to the ground, gone before he finished his descent, Jack turned to see a shaking Martin Templeton. The Englishman was still holding the gun out, as if he would shoot again if the dead man twitched. He was breathing heavily, a wild look in his eyes.