Guardian (17 page)

“You look sick,” Kitra said.

Abu shook his head. “It is done. My condition matters not.”

Kitra nodded, straightening up, happy to know at least this chapter was over. “You are free to go.”

Abu blinked hard. “Excuse me?”

“Once you are well enough to travel, you are free. I see no reason for you to remain in Israel any longer.”

“I can leave?” Abu snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”

“Well, I would insist on a ­couple of arrangements.”

“Such as?”

“I do not know yet.” Kitra smirked. “But I want to keep you close.”

“Because of our friendship?”

“Because of your order.”

Abu nodded. “You are starting to believe.”

“I do not know what I believe anymore. However, I am smart enough to keep those with knowledge of the impossible and absurd within shouting distance.”

Before Abu could reply, Ehud walked up to them. “I am sorry to interrupt but we have him.”

Kitra straightened. “You have him?”

“On GPS. He just popped. Moving north.”

“I want a UAV in the air now and constant updates.” Ehud nodded and walked off. Joseph turned to Abu. “You can stay, if you wish.”

“I thought I had my freedom.”

“You do. But you also can see this through. I am giving you a choice.”

“You know I will stay.”

Kitra shrugged. “I do not pretend to know you that well. But it is hard to pass up, yes?”

“Perhaps.”

“Besides, I could use your knowledge of all things insane.”

“It only goes so far.”

“Well, we shall see. If you will excuse me, though, I have to follow up on this.”

 

Chapter Twenty-­Six

M
ike sat in a pew to the left, facing the altar in Saint Peter's Church in Old Jaffa, now part of Tel Aviv. He was a few rows back, staring up at the corpus of Christ on the cross. He was alone.

He didn't know what motivated him to come. The last time he'd entered a church he was seventeen. Even after confronting Semyaza, he hadn't been tempted to poke his head in one. Yet here he was, searching for . . . something.

Before he entered, nervous tingles stretched up from his feet into his stomach. But when he crossed the threshold, a strange warmth spread through him. He didn't know quite how to make sense of it. The words refused to reveal themselves. He did know one thing, though. For the first time in a long time he felt at home somewhere.

After he sat down, however, he didn't know what to do next. Most of the prayers he'd known as a kid he'd forgotten. And what prayer was appropriate? Mike figured it was better to sit and remain silent and reflect.

“You continue to surprise me.”

Mike closed his eyes. He was dreaming again. He realized he had no memory of how he'd gotten to the church. It made sense. He'd never come.

He turned his head and found Uriel. “How so?”

Uriel took in the ceiling of the church. “Not the place I would expect you to visit in a dream.”

“Things change.”

“Yes, they do.” Uriel looked around. “Have you been to this church?”

“No. Yet I know every detail. How's that possible?”

Uriel winked. “Power of God.” He focused on Mike, his eyes dark as coal. “Do you remember what happened?”

Mike thought about it a moment, trying to reconstruct the event before he showed up here. Memories evaded him, though. They were there, within reach, but just out of his grasp.

“You found Kharija,” Uriel said.

Kharija? Yes. In a hotel room. In a bed. Flayed and mutilated.

The black cloud. Oh, God, the cloud had swallowed him.

“You remember now, do you not?” Uriel leaned close. “The demon?”

“That's what it was?”

Uriel nodded. “A type of demon. Aiding Nassir.”

“So where am I?”

“Your body is probably in transit to Nassir. Your consciousness is here. I cannot see your corporeal self but I can see your spiritual self.”

“But where is here?”

“When ­people dream, they travel. They are closer to the Firmament than the earth, if that makes any sense.”

Mike held up his hands. “Nope, but what's new?”

“Apparently your situation.”

“How did you know about the demon? I thought you couldn't see things cut off from God.”

“Demons are not cut off. Like Semyaza, they are separated from God but they have not been stripped of their spirit. Nassir and his kind have. At one time they tried to change their nature, to create abominations, so now they are what they wanted to become, only not the way the wanted it. They have been cut off and made flesh. They cannot feel the heat of the Firmament anymore nor can we see them.”

“You can't see them at all?”

“Well, if Nassir were here, I would be able to deduce who it was dwelling in the flesh. What I mean is, I cannot see them from afar. I cannot go find them and talk to them as I'm doing with you. They are completely cut-­off from the spirit realm. They are, essentially, nothing.”

“So no chance at redemption for them.”

“That is correct. They made a very grave choice a long time ago.”

“So did Semyaza and his buddy Satan. You could see them, though.”

“Different forms of disobedience require different forms of chastisements. Look, I don't make the rules.”

“Yeah, but why would God want to make them so angels can't see them?”

Uriel smirked. “We have our challenges, too.”

“Ah. Got to keep you on your toes, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“. So first I get Semyaza and now I get a whole different animal thrown at me? Feel like I'm being forced to play a game without a firm set of rules.”

“A remedial way of looking at it. Semyaza was also a call to conversion. To prepare you. To sharpen you like a spear.”

“The mark is not a curse.”

“Yes, the mark is not a curse. Semyaza escaped and you pursued and learned and he repented and you were marked. And you weren't forced into anything.”

“Sure feels like I was.” Mike shook his head. “I thought all this was built on the fact man had free will.”

“You do.”

“Yet I have a prechosen path.”

“You chose your path and continue to.”

“That doesn't make any sense. How can you have free will and a destiny? That's a paradox.”

“Paradox's happen everywhere in existence.” He pointed at Christ on the cross. “Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Three persons but one entity. The Word made flesh. You choose your path. Remember, though, God already knows the choices you will make.”

“Because time is a human invention.”

“As is destiny.” Uriel nodded. “I am privy to some things that have not happened yet in your time because they have already happened. For me, though, I cannot see all the details. I know you have an important role to play down the road. Yet I do not know what it is. I did not know when Semyaza would escape but knew he would be stopped by a man when he did. I can see part of the elephant, just not the whole thing, remember.”

Wonderful
. “So what now?”

“Soon you will be delivered to Nassir. But do not fear.”

“Did you see what happened to Kharija?”

“I have an idea.”

“What's not to fear, then?”

“You have a great part to play. Find strength in that.”

“But you don't know what that part is.”

“Not yet.”

“What do you know that you can tell me?”

Uriel hesitated a moment, looking up at the cross. Then he shifted back to Mike and fixed him with his black eyes. “I know when you die, Mike.”

M
ike opened his eyes and sucked in a big gasp of air. He stared at darkness and for a moment thought he was still in the belly of the black cloud. Only the cloud smelled like sweat and had what sounded like a V-­8 powering it. Another few seconds passed. He figured he had a black sack over his head and rode in the back of a van.

“He is awake,” someone said in Arabic. The guy's breath smelled like he'd just consumed a ­couple of cloves of garlic. Definitely not the black cloud. “Get him up.”

A ­couple of hands grasped under Mike's arms, yanked him up and slammed him against the metal bulkhead. His head bounced off it with a thud. His hands, secured at the wrists behind his back, also hit it, bending a few fingers in odd directions. He grunted as the foreign hands forced him onto what felt like a bench seat.

“Stay still and quiet,” Garlic Breath said.

Mike swayed as the van rocked and bounced. The black sack kept him from taking in his surroundings. He could still smell Garlic Breath near him. He felt a guy on either side of him as he moved with the van. His wrists were probably secured with Flex-­Cuffs, forcing him to lean forward to keep from cutting off circulation to his hands.

“So, where are we heading?” Mike said in Arabic.

“Keep your mouth shut,” Garlic Breath said. He was the only one who had spoken so far.

“What happened to the black cloud? You know, the one filled with flies and locusts? Think it was a demon. No offense but I don't think you guys are demons. Dipshits, maybe. But not demons.”

“I said keep your mouth shut.”

“Well, this is going to be a boring ride if I can't see or speak—­”

The guy on his right hit him in the ribs with an elbow and cut the words off in his throat. He wheezed and forced air back into his lungs.
Fucker.

“This is what happens to you when you talk, understand?” Garlic Breath said.

“Can I just say one thing?” Mike asked. “Your breath really fucking stinks.”

Someone punched him in the face. He grunted and started to say something else but the electrical shock from a Taser incapacitated his muscles and his ability to speak. He fell forward, hit the deck of the van with his forehead and passed out.

“W
here are they going?” Ehud asked.

Kitra stood in the Mossad Operations Center, Ehud next to her, monitoring the GPS track on Mike. When he popped up back on the grid, he was north, near Haifa, heading east into the mountains. Kitra mobilized her team and had the helicopters standing by. Meantime, she had sent up UAVs to put eyes on the target.

It did not make sense. The better play would have been to take Mike to the West Bank or Gaza. They could have taken any number of smuggling routes out of Israel to Nassir. Instead, they headed into the mountains, like they would be able to head out of the country simply by crossing the border.

“No, it does not make sense,” Kitra said aloud. “But neither does a sentient black cloud.”

She returned to the map, wondering what they were up to. How were they planning to move Mike out of the country? Perhaps a Hezbollah tunnel in the mountains? Perhaps.

The Golan Heights,
she thought.
That is where they are going.

They would use a Syrian tunnel to move Mike out of Israel. It was a risky move by Nassir. If caught, it would directly implicate Syria. That is why proxies were always used. Deniability was a coveted card by the players in this type of game. Yet Nassir did not seem to care about that. No, he had more supernatural things on his mind.

He is in a hurry. He wants Mike as quickly as possible. He wants to execute his plan now.

Kitra's vision blurred from staring at the map. She blinked and shook her head. A headache started to form behind her eyes.

She lifted her cell phone and speed-­dialed a number. “We are leaving now. Full gunship support.”

She hung up and dialed another number, to the director of the Mossad. “Sir, we have a possible situation that needs the attention of the prime minister.”

“What sort of situation?”

Kitra chose her words carefully. She had to warn them that something disastrous might happen within Israel's border soon, something that could result in catastrophic loss of life. But she could not mention angelic prisons or demonic clouds.
How to alert them without coming across as insane?

Lie.

“We have reason to believe, based on recent intelligence, Syria may attempt some kind of terrorist attack in the northern part of the country.”

“What kind of intelligence?”

“Human. A source within. I prefer not to reveal further details over the phone.”

“Yes, yes. And the threat?”

“Inconclusive, so far. Based on the intelligence, it looks like it may be an attempt to target civilians and sow panic. We are studying Syrian military movement right now.”

“Recommendation?”

“Place the security forces in northern and central Israel on full alert. Also inform first responders of a credible threat.”

“I will speak to the prime minister. In the meantime, get me more specifics.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kitra hung up and looked at the map again. Time to move.

 

Chapter Twenty-­Seven

“I
t seems you have reappeared among the living.”

Mike fluttered his eyes. The sack was gone. He sat once again in the van. But it no longer bounced and swayed. His hands were at his sides, not secured behind him. And across from him was Uriel.

“Guess I'm still knocked out on the floor of the van.”

“That you are.”

“Why did the demon hand me over to a bunch of stooges?”

“They have limits to what they can and cannot do.”

“Such as?”

“Distances they can travel carrying a human.”

“Because they're weak?”

“Because it hurts them.”

“Why?”

“The Firmament burns them the closer they are to it. And since humans are body and soul, it burns them a hell of a lot.”

“Like Semyaza.”

“Yes, battling the souls of his vessels took a great toll on him, as it did on the demon that caught you. However, in your case it probably took an even greater toll.”

Mike's brow furrowed. “How so?”

“The mark is not a curse.”

“What, is it like demon repellant?”

Uriel didn't say anything in response.
Don't have an answer for that one, do you?
Mike thought.

“A reasonable deduction,” Uriel said.

“What? I was joking.”

“And I am not. I do not know fully what the mark bestowed upon you, but it seems clear it does have a . . . how did you put it, repellant nature.”

Mike thought back to Kharija's hotel room when he threw the backhand at the cloud. It backpedaled, so to speak. And it stared at him as if it waited for his next move.

Did I really repel it?
Maybe the mark isn't a curse.

“Remain observant, Mike. You will see things, hear things, which will make little to no sense to you.”

“What's new?”

“But they are important,” Uriel said, ignoring his smart-­ass comment. “Commit them to memory. Fuse them to your soul because this is the beginning.”

“Beginning of what?”

“What is to come.”

“I thought you didn't know what was going to happen.”

“I do not.”

“Then how do you know I will see these crazy things?”

“Because I know who will end it tonight.”

“I take it it's not me.”

“No, it is me.”

“W
ake up.”

Mike opened his eyes but saw only black. The sack still covered his head.

“Wake up.”

His old friend Garlic Breath again. He wondered if the guy carried cloves in his pockets. Maybe he had an irrational fear of vampires.

“I'm awake,” Mike said. “Someone want to help me up?”

Hands grasped him underneath his armpits, yanked him up and slammed him into the seat, his back smacking the bulkhead and knocking the wind out of him. It took Mike a few seconds to retrieve it.

“Thanks.”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Garlic Breath said.

“You wanted me awake.”

“Awake, yes. Not talking.”

“Why'd you wake me up, then?”

Someone smacked him across the face. Mike licked his bottom lip and tasted blood.

“We are almost there. Now stay quiet.”

Mike did, swaying and bouncing with the van. As he breathed, he noticed the air was thinner. The temperature was also a hell of a lot cooler. His stomach hurt. He felt nauseous.

Somewhere in the mountains. How long have I been out?

He gagged and dry heaved. Someone smacked the back of his head.

“Do not puke in the van.”

Mike swallowed the bile in his mouth. Fuck the van. He didn't want to puke in the sack around his face.

The van slowed and the brakes squealed. Mike rocked, adjusting to the motion. A second later the van stopped. Doors opened and slammed up front. Then the doors to the back squeaked open.

“Bring him out.” Mike did not recognize the voice. Someone new. Maybe from the front of the van. Authoritative, whoever it was.

The arms yanked Mike up again by the armpits and dragged him and threw him. Next thing he knew his chest hit dirt and the wind was again knocked out of him. Something jagged stabbed at his sternum. Probably a rock. Or broken glass.

“That is enough,” the authority said. “And take the hood off his head.”

“But you said—­”

“To keep him covered until you arrived. Well, you are here. Now take it off.”

You are here,
Mike thought.
Not from the front of the van, then. Probably waiting here for them. For him.

That eliminated all but one person.

Mike retched and dry heaved again. Something in his gut bubbled. Something deep.

“How long has he been reacting?” the authority said.

“A few minutes,” Garlic Breath said. “Before we stopped.”

They rolled him over and the hood came off, but Mike still saw darkness. It took him a moment to orient himself and realize he was on his back looking at a black sky. Then he noticed the stars and a sliver of a moon.

Mike sat up. A man with slicked-­back hair and a neatly trimmed beard stood across from him, gun in hand. The rest of the team surrounded him, all packing heat, too. Most had Glocks. Two had H&Ks. MP-­5s. All pointed at him.

“You don't have to point those at me,” Mike said. “Last time I checked, my hands were tied behind my back.”

As he spoke he saw vapor. He felt the chill a second later. Cool but not cold. Rocks. Trees. Definitely in the mountains. Probably north near Galilee.

He retched and spat a mouthful of bile. Christ, something was worming through his guts big-­time.

“Keep your mouth shut,” one of them said. He had curly hair and a goatee. Mike matched the voice with the face: Garlic Breath.

Have to still be in Israel.
No way would they make it across the border in the van. No way would they even try.

So they were in northern Israel, in the mountains, near—­

The Golan Heights.

“Hello, Mr. Caldwell,” the man with the authoritative voice and neat beard said. “I am Nassir Fahd.”

Mike smirked, suppressing another gag. “I know.”

T
he UH-­60L Yanshuf banked low, hugging the floor of the mountain range. The helicopter's fuselage bounced as another gust of wind screamed down the rift valley. Kitra looked out the window from her seat to see how the two AH-­64 gunships fared in the wind but she could only make out their running lights in the dark.

She returned to the laptop resting on her thighs and checked the latest GPS update on Mike. The van had entered the Naftali Mountains in Upper Galilee. They were heading toward the Golan Heights. No doubt about it. Nassir had an escape route planned for them into Syrian occupied territory.

He knew they had to get Mike before the group they were monitoring headed to ground. Finding them on foot in the mountains would be a great deal tougher than in the van. They should have already had him, but engine trouble with the helicopter delayed their departure back in Tel Aviv.

“They have stopped.”

Kitra looked at Abu, sitting next to him. “What did you say?” She had trouble hearing over the rotor blades, even with the headset on.

Abu pointed at the laptop screen. “They have stopped.”

Kitra swore. They were on foot. The chances of recovering Mike just grew slimmer. Kitra was thankful, at least, she had seen reason and convinced the prime minister to put the defense forces on alert.

She keyed her headset to talk to the pilot. “Captain, do you see the current GPS coordinates on your chart?”

“I see them.”

“What does it look like for an ETA?”

“Twenty minutes. If they remain stationary.”

“Roger.” Kitra switched the key from the pilot to her ­people sitting with her. Ehud, Isaac, Simon, and Abu all looked at him with steady eyes. “Twenty minutes. They are on foot. Expect to do some hiking.”

“Director,” Ehud said, “if we are going to be pursuing them in the mountains on foot, we need more men.”

“I know but there is no time for that. If we cannot make a clean grab we will have to level the mountain.”

Ehud's and Isaac's eyes widened. Simon's remained unchanged. Abu seemed to be thinking about something else.

“What about the American?” Simon asked.

Kitra shook her head. “I will take full responsibility. It was my mistake to keep him around.”

“So you are just going to take them all out?” Abu said.

“If I have to.” Kitra rubbed her face. “If I have to.”

“Perhaps it is for the best.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Abu shrugged. “The American will be a marked man for the rest of his life, so to speak. Nassir will not stop hunting him. There are others out there, too, who will chase him if they find out what he possesses.”

“Like your order, Abu?”

“He is dangerous to the whole world.”

“And as a guardian, you need to protect it.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I guess you will have to wait and see what happens. But remember, you are here for your knowledge, not the American. Do not make me regret bringing you.”

“Of course. I am not rude.”