Serpent of Moses

25



Jack could have made the call from Marwen’s home, but his presence had already put the man in enough danger, regardless of the Tunisian’s protests to the contrary. So he’d borrowed a car and driven to Sfax, into a city center of clean-lined white buildings and stone streets that made much of the city look like an angled chessboard.

As he drove, Jack had the feeling of being in any coastal city on the other side of the Mediterranean, with the palm trees, open layout, and the lights that came on outside the restaurants, clubs, and shops that made up the city’s nightlife. It didn’t take him long to find a place that looked as good as any in which to pull over.

One of the benefits of making a call like the one he was about to attempt while in a populated area was that if it didn’t go as well as he hoped, he had some time to find a place to hide. Too, he assumed that the people whose work he witnessed in the decimated village just two scant days ago would be less inclined to conduct the same sort of operation in a thriving metropolis.

With the car parked, Jack exited and indulged in a long stretch before pulling Templeton’s phone from his pocket. Neither his nor the Englishman’s phones had been switched on since the moment Templeton determined that the Israelis were tracking them, and he knew that pressing the power button was a gamble now.

He looked at the phone for a few seconds as people walked by, singles and groups of various ages and ethnicities. Then he shrugged and turned the thing on. He went to the menu and, while there was no way to tie a listed number to Templeton’s former employers, he guessed that the number called most over the last several weeks would be the one.

It rang twice before it was picked up.

“This must be Dr. Hawthorne,” a voice on the other end said.

Jack was surprised at that but then supposed he shouldn’t have been. The Israelis might well have known that the pair was no longer traveling together and that Jack had taken the man’s phone.

“And you are?”

“Someone who wants what you found in the cave” was the answer. Jack didn’t know an Israeli accent from a Jordanian one, but he guessed the former.

“And yet you’ve not once asked nicely,” Jack said. “It’s all angry Egyptian giants and covert teams.”

There was a pause from the other end.

“We acknowledge that things have gotten a bit out of hand,” the Israeli said. “But the quickest way to end all this unpleasantness is to bring us the staff.”

“You’ll forgive me for not being as assured by that as I might be,” Jack said.

He was enjoying himself, despite the fact that he was ticking off someone who worked for a government that had shown no qualms about killing those that got in their way. But when the Israeli responded, his voice didn’t harbor any animosity.

“You must understand, Dr. Hawthorne, that when we send our people in to retrieve something important to us, it can be exceptionally dangerous. We have lost a number of men and women.”

That might have been the one thing he could have said that would make Jack feel anything other than cool resolve.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“And so when we send in other people to do something we are not able to do, and when the ones we send appear to betray us, there can be a heavy-handed response.”

Jack wasn’t sure he bought that, but in the end he didn’t suppose it mattered. “I want to make a deal.”

“What sort of deal?”

“A trade. The Nehushtan for my life and the lives of my friends.”

Jack was sure that this representative of the Israeli government, or at least a faction within that government, had been expecting such an offer, which made the long pause before his replying seem contrived.

“Agreed. Tell me where you are and I will send someone to you.”

Jack was smiling before the man finished. “Do you read the Torah?”

“Of course.”

“Then you know that Hezekiah was to have destroyed the Nehushtan.”

“Obviously that did not happen.”

As Jack talked, the sea of people passing in front of him had increased.

“I’m telling you that it did happen,” he said. “Just not in the way we’re made to think when we read the story. We have this vision of him destroying it completely—burning the staff, melting down the serpent. But what if the word destroy meant something else?”

“What are you getting at, Dr. Hawthorne?”

“The Nehushtan is in two pieces. I have one of those pieces.” He could hear the man’s breathing through the phone—the sound of exasperation.

“Why should I believe you?”

Jack had been expecting that question. “Give me a minute.” Pulling the phone away from his ear, he opened the car door and removed just enough of the bed sheet to see the tail. He snapped a photo and sent the image along. “You’ll be getting a picture soon. I want you to notice the tail.”

He waited for what seemed a long while for the Israeli to speak.

“I see it,” the man said.

“Good. Then you’ll notice the very end—the way it looks like there’s something missing?”

After several seconds, his adversary said, “I will send you a team. They will support you as you search for the missing piece.”

“That’s not how this is going to work,” Jack said. “Instead, I’m going to the airport tomorrow, where there will be a voucher waiting for me and an exemption to transport antiquities. I’ll use that voucher to fly wherever I want. I’ll find the missing piece and then I’ll turn both pieces over to you. After which we’ll part ways and never see each other again.”

He understood that he didn’t hold many cards. If the Israelis really wanted the staff, and if they were unwilling to trust him, they could come for him, claim the artifact, and then expend whatever resources were necessary in order to find the missing piece. After all, Jack was confident he could find it if given the time and resources. He had to think a well-funded government research unit could do the same.

“And if we refuse?”

“Then I destroy it,” Jack said.

“You would not do that,” the Israeli replied, but Jack heard the question in the statement.

“If it’s a choice between a biblical artifact and the lives of my friends, I wouldn’t think twice about it.”

He ended the call without waiting for a response. Then, for good measure, he powered the phone down.

He stood on the busy street, pondering what he’d just done. He was taking a huge chance, but most end games were not without risk. The real risk would come if he did find the second piece, and if he failed to turn the pieces over to the Israelis. They had killed people just to add something to their collection. As far as he was concerned, that made them unworthy to have it. Making the deal bought him a ticket out of the country. More important, it got him someplace in the Western world, where he stood a chance of finding a way out of the mess he was in—and perhaps keeping the artifact in the process.

With that in mind, he got back into the car, relocating so that if they had tracked Templeton’s phone, he wouldn’t be there when they arrived. After that, he had another call to make, a call he’d wanted to make for days.



“Hello?” said the most beautiful voice he’d ever heard in his life, with an understandably hesitant inflection.

“Have you missed me?” Jack asked.

Perhaps two seconds passed before it clicked for Esperanza, and Jack had to pull the phone away from his ear to survive the scream.

“It’s nice to talk to you too,” he said.

And then Espy had the floor, talking in that rapid-fire way that only she could do, regardless of the language. Jack couldn’t follow all of it but understood a number of the key words, as well as the general sentiment.

“Wait a minute,” he said when she took a breath. “One question at a time.”

Jack spent the next couple of minutes sharing the events of the last week in broad strokes with Espy, and while Jack’s story required more than a little suspension of disbelief, the benefit of the things they’d been through over the years was that there were few things that could happen to either of them that the other wouldn’t in the end believe.

When he’d finished, Espy chuckled. For Jack, hearing her laughter through the phone was the best thing to happen to him in a long time. And as he extended that thought, he realized that this also included the discovery of the staff. It was a revelation that surprised and pleased him at the same time.

“Do you think things like this happen to normal couples?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said with a laugh that mirrored hers.

“So where are you now?”

“Sfax. A coastal city on the other side of the Mediterranean.”

“And you have the Nehushtan.”

He knew how Espy would view that. Once again he’d put his life in danger to procure something he thought was valuable. Inadvertently he’d also put the lives of her and her brother in danger, though he didn’t expect her to know that. What he wasn’t prepared for, though, was the somber tone in her voice.

“There’s a lot going on that you don’t know about,” she said, and then she proceeded to share with him everything that had been done on his behalf. When she’d finished, Jack was dumbfounded.

“You got Duckey to go to Libya?” was all he could think to say.

“Jack, he’s in trouble.”

Jack ran a hand through his hair, considering all that Espy had told him.

“Have you called his wife?” he asked.

Espy admitted that she hadn’t.

“As soon as I get off the phone with you, I’ll call her and see if he’s checked in.” He shook his head and added, “Duckey knows what he’s doing. He’ll get himself out of whatever he’s gotten himself into.”

He said it because he had to, and Espy understood that, but Jack couldn’t help but feel tremendous guilt that, once again, his actions had caused harm to people he cared about. And in light of what Espy had just shared with him, the staff had lost some of its draw.

He was about to offer additional encouragement when Espy, a note of panic in her voice, spoke first.

“Jack, he said my phone was compromised.”

“He what?”

“I’m sorry, Jack. With all the excitement I forgot. They’ve probably heard everything.”

“Who has?”

“I don’t know.”

Jack blew out a breath. “Okay, I’m going to hang up and call Stephanie. Then I’ll find a way to call your brother’s phone. It’ll be from a different number.”

Seconds later, the phone was off and Jack was left wondering how a single phone call could turn a man’s world on its head.



It took three tries before he remembered Romero’s number, and the Venezuelan answered on the first ring.

“You’ve alternately upset my sister and made her extremely happy, so I am undecided regarding whether I should injure you or hug you when I see you next,” Romero said.

“I’ve had a few of your hugs,” Jack said, “and I think you could go either way and it wouldn’t matter too much.”

He knew that if he was in Romero’s presence at that moment, the man would have wrapped him in an embrace that would have squeezed the air from his lungs.

“It’s good to hear from you, my friend,” Romero said.

“Same here,” Jack said.

He paused as someone passed behind him. Jack had convinced the lobby desk clerk of a hotel he wasn’t staying at to let him use the desk phone. He’d told the man that he couldn’t get a dial tone on the phone in his room, and while he felt bad about the lie—which he hoped indicated spiritual growth of some kind—he reasoned that it was for the greater good.

“I’m in a bad spot here so I have to be quick,” Jack said.

“Understood,” Romero returned.

“I spoke with Duckey’s wife and she told me in a roundabout way that an old friend of his at the Company is going to pull him out of Libya.”

“That’s good news,” Romero said. “Can I take it from his bride’s circumspectness that she believes her phone is also being monitored?”

“I think that’s a valid assumption.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw the desk clerk growing impatient. He would know the call was long distance, and good customer service only went so far.

“That’s why I think we need to listen to him and not try to find him ourselves. He’s right—we’d get picked up the minute we got off the plane.”

“So what do we do in lieu of that?” Romero asked.

“That’s the million dollar question,” Jack said and he heard Romero snort in response.

“Esperanza said you won’t leave Tunisia without the staff and that you have brokered some deal to make that happen. And if you do not mind my being frank, I think that cheapens what has been done on your behalf.”

It wasn’t the comment that struck Jack so much as the man who’d made it. In years past, Romero had accompanied him on many an outing, and while danger hadn’t become an element in Jack’s work until the last few years, the Venezuelan had always possessed a sense of adventure that made him the equal to any challenge. He wondered, as he considered his response, if Romero’s stance indicated that he too was entering a more mature phase.

The clerk was looking at him again—a more pointed look now. Jack ignored him.

“I understand what you’re saying,” he said. “But even you have to admit that this isn’t just a treasure hunt anymore. I’ve seen men killed for this thing and now we have someone tapping our phones and sending Duckey on the run. Are you going to tell me that you just want to walk away without seeing this through?”

While pleading his case, he’d turned away from the clerk to avoid seeing the man’s dour expression. But when he turned back, he saw that the look on the Tunisian’s face had changed. He seemed to be hanging on Jack’s every word.

“Except that you are ready to risk your life for something that is not even whole,” Romero said.

“What . . . ? How did you know the staff was separated into pieces?”

“Surely Espy told you about Cyme.”

Confused, Jack said, “I’m not following. What about Cyme?”

He heard fumbling on the other side of the line and the next voice he heard was Espy’s.

“There are two pieces,” she said.

“I know,” Jack said. “It’s missing part of its tail.”

“The other piece is in Cyme.”

Jack paused. “That, I didn’t know,” he finally said.

“Which is what you get when you decide to travel without a linguist,” she chided.

“Believe me. If I have the opportunity to make a choice like that again, I’ll think it through a little better. Now, do you want to explain?”

Espy did, beginning with their discovery of the Gafat text around the symbols and the subsequent discovery of the second destination. By the time she finished, Jack felt thrilled for the discovery and irritated that he hadn’t made it himself.

“Al-Idrisi was a crafty one,” he said with admiration. “I never would have known about the location of the second piece.” At the clerk’s puzzled look, he put a hand over the phone and said, “Al-Idrisi hid one of the symbols we need in order to find the second part of the staff, using a language that no one’s spoken in hundreds of years. But an associate of mine just so happens to speak practically every language known to man, so she was able to figure it out. Are you with me?”

The clerk nodded to indicate he was on board, but judging by his expression Jack thought he was just saving face.

“Good. Try to keep up,” Jack said before turning his attention back to Espy. “So we head to Cyme,” he said, and despite the fact that he thought she shared his enthusiasm, her silence suggested she wasn’t ready to head to Turkey just yet.

“What about Duckey?” she asked.

It was a legitimate question—probably the only question she could have asked that stood a chance of derailing the train.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told your brother. There’s no way any of us are getting into Libya—at least not quickly. Yeah, we could probably sneak in across the border, but what would we do after we got there?”

“I don’t know,” Espy admitted. “But it just doesn’t feel right to look for the second piece of the staff when we don’t know what’s happened to him.”

Jack didn’t begrudge her those feelings, because he shared them. Duckey was a close friend, and the thought of anything happening to him because of something Jack had done sickened him. He’d watched friends die before and would give anything to never have something like it happen again. Yet he knew there was nothing he could do to help the man. The CIA had sent help and the U.S. government was in a significantly better position from which to render aid. Too, the thought that kept coming to his mind was that finding the rest of the staff would put an end to all of it.

He shared this with Espy, the only person in the world who could understand, because she’d lived through so much with him.

“Alright,” she said after Jack had given her time to consider. “How are you going to get to Turkey? I know you said you’ve worked something out, but they’re not going to let you take a rare artifact out of the country.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered. I’ll find some way of getting into Turkey. Why don’t you and your brother go and I’ll call you when I get to Istanbul.”

He could sense Espy’s hesitation.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I’ll meet you in Istanbul within two days.”

He knew there was no certainty he could offer her, and Espy was strong enough not to require any. What was becoming clear to Jack—and it was something that should have been clear to him long ago—was that she required him. And he was starting to remember that it was a shared need.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“For what?” she asked, although she needn’t have.

“For walking away again.”

She could have told him that he hadn’t done that—that they were still together these three years later. But it wouldn’t have been the truth and both of them knew it.

“I love you,” he said, meaning every word.

“I’ll see you in Istanbul,” she replied quietly and then the line went dead.

Jack stood holding the phone to his ear for a long while. When he finally came back from where he’d been, he turned to hang up the phone and found the desk clerk waiting with expectation.

“She said she’d see me in Istanbul,” Jack said.

He couldn’t tell if that answer satisfied the man. He didn’t even know if it satisfied him.

He left it at that, offering the clerk a tired smile and walking away.



When Boufayed walked into the room, he was already in a poor mood, having made no gains in locating the hidden American agent. He’d taken his frustration out on those around him and he could see that knowledge on the face of the technician who turned in his direction.

He was less familiar with the Al Bayda office than he was with the one in Tripoli, but he could see that the technical analysis unit was almost as advanced as the one in the capital. Even in Tripoli, though, he rarely visited this room, even if he appreciated the information it provided. He knew that the hum of the servers, the clicks of multiple fingers dancing over keyboards, and the playback of recorded conversations were a music of sorts that, when worked over by those with the proper skill set, produced a symphony. Simply put, he had too much to do to spend time observing the accumulation and analysis of raw data—data that would make it to his desk at some point if the men and women studying it determined it was worth his review.

At present, the data that had come in—that continued to come in—was worth the personal touch.

The room he entered was sealed off from the rest of the floor, and the entire ten-meter length of the far wall was lined with flat-screen monitors. Below the monitors ran a large table with keyboards spaced evenly along its length. In front of each keyboard sat a technician, wearing headphones and watching the screen in front of them with clinical interest. Some of them looked back as Boufayed entered, but only one gestured for him to approach.

Boufayed stood behind the technician, watching the dark image on the screen. He could see a bed, and someone beneath the blankets, although it was too dark in the room for Boufayed to tell much more than that. After watching for a time and seeing no movement, not even the rise and fall of a blanket to tell him that the man was breathing, he addressed the technician.

“Let me hear the call,” he said.

The technician’s hands flew over the keys and the image on the monitor changed. The room was lighter and he could see a man sitting at a desk near the wall opposite the camera. He could see only the man’s back.

Freezing the image, the tech handed back his headphones and, once Boufayed was ready, set the scene in motion. Boufayed listened to the entire exchange, though he could only hear one side of the conversation. As much as they’d tried to procure the technology that would allow them to crack the security protocols used on the phones the Americans issued to their agents, they had been unsuccessful. And for calls such as the one he was watching and listening in on, the people who worked in this office were tasked with filling in the part of the conversation that went unheard.

As Boufayed listened a second time, he tried to forget about what he’d been told by his analyst. But willful ignorance was a difficult skill to master. Still, even with his attempts to prejudice what he’d heard, he found himself agreeing with the analyst’s assessment.

He returned the headphones to the technician.

“It’s not much,” the young man said, “but there are a few phrases that make me believe he’s about to try to help someone get out of the country.”

Boufayed nodded. He’d heard the tells as well. Again, he thought his analyst was correct: an extraction attempt was in the works and he could think of no one who needed that service more than a missing CIA agent.

What gave him pause, however, was the conversation he’d heard between Esperanza Habilla and a man named Jack. He assumed he was the missing archaeologist who’d been referenced in other calls. Boufayed was still amazed that she’d spoken so freely on a phone that she should have suspected was no longer useful for private conversations. Her slip had been a boon to the Libyan, for it had provided information he would never have been able to get otherwise. It almost convinced him to suspend the hunt for Jim Duckett. He wondered how much more he could hope to learn from the man, and what that information would cost him in resources. More often than not, though, good information was worth considerably more than the cost to obtain it.

Even so, the decision to use the new information to apprehend Jim Duckett was not an easy one. The man who appeared on the monitor, the picture having switched back to a real-time feed, had cost them a great deal of time and money, which had been spent toward the development of a surveillance system that could track his every move. It wasn’t often that an intelligence agency had the opportunity to monitor the movements of another nation’s agent working in the field. One did not make the decision to burn that resource without good reason.

What tipped the scales for Boufayed was Agent Robert Ingersoll, whose handlers felt that Jim Duckett was worth the risk to Ingersoll’s painstakingly cultivated placement. If they valued Duckett that highly, how could he not?

“He will have to make contact with Duckett in order to arrange the extraction,” Boufayed said.

“Of course, sir,” said the technician, but he was speaking to Boufayed’s retreating back.