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Authors: Jack Du Brul

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BOOK: The Medusa stone
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"Do you recognize this place?"
"Yes, of course." The headman tried to draw himself straight, but the prodigious amount of alcohol made his spine rebel and he slumped against his neighbor. "My father's mother was born near that place. It is on the western flank of Hajer. We call it the Valley of Dead Children."
"Why is that?"
"Because that is its name," the old man pointed out logically.
"But why that name?" Mercer persisted.
"Who knows? That's what it's been called since long before time was recorded." He was starting to fade away from the conversation, his eyes rolling back into his skull and his lips going rubbery around the last few words. "Even before the war, no one went to this place. Evil spirits live in the hills. My father told me that even animals refuse to enter the valley. They could feel the ghosts. Now the area around the Valley of Dead Children is full of mines. A cousin lost his eldest son there two rains ago when the boy went looking for a young goat that wandered away from his herd."
"Have you been to this valley?"
"No." And the headman started to snore.
Years of friendship with Harry White should have prepared Mercer for the next morning's hangover, but his previous experiences couldn't have possibly readied him for the pounding in his skull or the maelstrom that churned his gut. Everyone was still in the tent, most snoring loudly where they'd passed out the night before. One clansmen lying in the platter was dangerously close to drowning in the grease pooled at its bottom. Mercer came awake in slow, painful stages, dimly aware that it was still dark outside and the tent was lit with only a single guttering oil lamp.
Selome was curled up in the crook of his arm, her head resting lightly on the pads of muscle. Her face was toward him, her mouth parted and her lips shining in the murky light. Mercer recalled the surprising kiss she had given him the night before and passed it off as alcohol-induced affection. He kissed her forehead and carefully disentangled her limbs from his.
By the luminous dial of his watch, dawn was half an hour away. The moon hung near the horizon in its own bright corona. Mercer shuffled unsteadily to the Toyota. He retrieved a bundle from under the truck and returned to the low stools placed just outside the tent's entrance. Mercer recalled that the headman's name was Negga, and he was already sitting, his head hanging limply between his hands. Mercer tapped him on the shoulder and offered one of the Milotti beers he had left overnight in a sodden towel. The beer was refreshingly cold.
"Little hair of the hyena for you." If Mercer was going to make it through the day, he'd need a beer to push back the effects of the
tej.
Harry called it the "deferred hangover plan. Party now and pay later."
Habte and Gibby
"Habte, ask our host if he would give us a man to guide us to the Valley of Dead Children."
"I am taking my family farther east to catch the rains," Habte translated for the nomad leader. "My herds and flocks have been months without good pasturage. I want to help you, but I can't delay. But heed my words. You don't want to go up there. Not only do you have to worry about the mines, but I've heard there's an army stationed on the Sudan side of the border. They arrived about six days ago."
"Who are they?"
"I don't know. They're not regular soldiers, and it was said that there are at least fifty of them, all well armed. A force that size is too big for one of the
shifta
gangs." The chieftain shrugged his shoulders. "Their presence is a mystery."
Mercer retrieved his topographical map of Eritrea and spread it on the ground in front of Negga. "Can you at least show me where on the Hajer Plateau the valley lies?"
Negga stared at the map with incomprehension. Like most nomads, he relied on the accumulated knowledge of generations of wanderers to know his territory. Even after Mercer pointed to the Adobha River as a reference, Negga still couldn't understand how the compressed lines on the flat projection represented the rugged northern mountains. "I don't know what this paper means. The valley is on the west flank of the plateau, a long day's ride on a swift camel from Ila Babu. That is all I can tell you."
"Would you at least guide my people to Nacfa so they can get another truck I have waiting and then take them to Ila Babu?" There were no roads connecting the two towns.
"We have drunk from the same bottle. Of course, I will do this thing for you. But I will not permit my people to go beyond Ila Babu. I won't lose any of my family for your search."
"Fair enough."
Negga's expression brightened. "It will cost you only two hundred American dollars."
In their debilitated state, it took Habte and Gibby a half hour to transfer the fuel from the jerry cans into the Toyota, lashing the spares onto the cargo rack under the stores already there. Mercer went to talk to Negga's son, who spoke passable English, shook hands when they came to an agreement, and passed over some money.
"It sounds like we are not going with you," Habte said when Mercer returned to the truck.
"You're not. I don't want Selome with us if I run into any trouble, and I can't trust her alone with Negga's guides." Mercer paused. "There's something else. Yesterday when we were talking about returning here, Selome asked if I thought I had discovered the mine's location. Do you remember?"
Habte nodded slowly.
"As far as I know, she thinks we're only looking for a kimberlite
pipe,
not a mine. It's the same thing the kidnappers said. Unless she has outside knowledge, she shouldn't know anything about the mine. I haven't told her."
Habte accepted this without a change of expression. "I'll keep my eye on her, see if she tries to contact anyone in Nacfa."
"Good. Thank you."
"What about Gibby?"
"He stays with me." Mercer secured the last corner of a cargo net. "I can use the help, and I'll ut?" Habte asked.
"Contingency plan B," Mercer said and handed over his spare sat-phone with instructions on how and when to use it.
At last they were ready. Negga assured Mercer that two of his sons would take Selome and Habte to Nacfa the following morning. Selome was still asleep, and while Mercer felt a twinge of guilt leaving her without an explanation, he didn't let it show. He swallowed three ibuprofin tablets, drank a full liter of purified water, then mounted the truck. Gibby was already strapped into the passenger seat, his head lolling as if its weight was too great a burden for his neck.
"Selome won't be happy that you are leaving her behind," Habte teased.
Mercer ignored the jibe. "I'll call you after my next contact from the kidnappers. If I haven't located the mine by then, plan on coming to meet us anyway and we can continue the search together." When he saw Selome again, Mercer promised himself that they would have a long talk about what she already knew. The men holding Harry White were playing for keeps, and it was time for Mercer to do likewise.
Fairfax, Virginia
The first break in solving the murders of Prescott Hyde and his wife came about through sheer persistence.
On the day of the fire, the Fairfax police had canvassed Hyde's neighborhood for anyone who may have seen the arsonist, but they came up empty. The only glimmer of hope remaining for the investigation were a certain Dr. and Mrs. Grady, who lived adjacent to the Hydes. They had left town only an hour before the fire was first noticed. Dr. Grady was an oral surgeon who donated two weeks of his time and skills every year to a charity clinic in Peru. Despite repeated attempts to contact them at the remote clinic, they had not responded.
Dick Henna himself was waiting in a government car when the Gradys finally returned to the country, arriving from the airport in a boxy Mercury Mountaineer. Normally, the director of the FBI wouldn't have been involved with an individual case, but there were two factors that demanded his personal attention. One was the president's interest in the murder of one of his appointed sub-Cabinet level officials and the implications for the missing Medusa photographs. Henna had briefed the chief executive soon after Admiral Morrison dumped the entire mess on his lap. While much of the evidence was destroyed by the fire, the twin bullet holes in the charred skulls of both Prescott Hyde and his wife, Jacqueline, had galvanized the Administration. Henna's other reason was his friendship with Mercer.
Soon after the story of the fire and execution-style murders reached the press, the
Washington Post
had reported the details of the Justice Department's investigation into Hyde's life, including rumors of a sale of highly classified documents to unknown parties. The
Post
didn't have anything concrete on this last piece of information, but they were leaning heavily on their sources and it was only a matter of time before someone disclosed the existence of the Medusa satellite and the missing pictures.
The president wanted this solved quickly, faces put on the unknown killers and names to go with the faces. If the scandal broke, the president had already primed his pointing finger and wanted a direction in which to aim it. His Administration was still reeling over last year's Alaska debacle, and was not yet strong enough to handle another embarrassment. The president told Henna to sew the murders up tight, deflect any inquirieers reacheldn't return to bite them all on the ass.
The candy-apple red sport utility vehicle eased up the Gradys' driveway. Both appeared to be in their late forties or early fifties. His gray hair was thinning while hers was dyed blonde. They were tanned and appeared worn by their work in South America. Henna gave them a minute to gape at the blackened pit that had been the Hydes' house before approaching the couple.
"It was arson," Henna said bluntly. Both Gradys turned in unison and looked at him blankly. "And I'm sorry to tell you this, but Prescott and Jacqueline were shot in the head before the arsonist torched their house." Now that he had their full attention, he introduced himself. "I'm Dick Henna, the director of the FBI, and I have a couple of questions for you."
Five minutes later, they were seated in the Gradys' living room. There were dozens of mementos on the walls from their children's lives, culminating in framed diplomas from Georgetown set on a baby grand piano. Meredeth Grady was still weeping, for she and Jacqueline Hyde had been friends and golfing partners. John Grady had taken the news much more calmly, certainly not immune from the horrors of death, but as a doctor better able to hide it.
"As you can understand," Henna said when he gauged Meredith ready to handle his questions, "the president is very interested in solving this case. He and Prescott had been close, as I'm sure Undersecretary Hyde had told you."
"Oh, yes, Jackie was so excited when they were invited to the Inaugural Ball. I remember she talked of nothing else for months before and after."
Henna had gone to one of the Inaugural Balls himself. He and Fay had decided after only an hour that they couldn't tolerate the pretension and had gone to Tiny's Bar on a lark, still in their evening wear. He remembered Harry White dancing gallantly with Fay to the tuneless music squawking from the jukebox's blown speakers.
"The FBI and the Fairfax police have talked to everyone in the neighborhood except the two of you. We're hoping you can shed some light on what happened." Ballistics had come up empty on the slugs recovered with the bodies. "Did either of you see or hear anything the morning you left for your trip?"
Meredith leaned forward. "I saw a woman go into the Hydes' house shortly before I left. I had never seen her before, but Jackie and Bill knew so many people I couldn't keep track."
"Could you describe her?"
"It was very early, still dark, but I remember she was young, early thirties I would say, and very pretty, dressed casually. I don't remember what kind of car she was driving. She drove right up to the house, knocked at the door, and went in immediately. She left after just a few minutes. You don't think she was the one? She didn't look like a killer."
Thank God for curious neighbors. "Would you recognize her again if I showed you some pictures?"
Meredith hesitated, and Henna knew why. In the age of political correctness, people felt obligated not to mention one thing when they described another person. "Was she black?"
"Yes, she was," Meredith Grady breathed. "It's not all that unusual. African-Americans showed up at the Hydes' house all the time, you know, with his job and all."
"Not all blacks are Americans. She could have been a real African," Henna said. Meredith looked as if she'd never even considered a difference. "Would you recognize her?"
"I don't know, maybe." Meredarlyith Grady didn't have to say that most blacks looked the same to her. It was evident in her uncomfortable expression.
"Dr. Grady, did you see this woman?"
"No, I was at the airport already, clearing medical supplies through customs. Meredith met me just before our flight."
Henna turned back to Mrs. Grady, "Well?"
"Maybe. I'd have to see a good picture of her. The only thing I remember distinctly was her hair. I saw it under the porch light before she entered the house. It wasn't like most African-American women's. It was longer and not extensions either; I can tell the difference. And it was tinted with henna to give it red highlights. Hey, your name and the dye, it's the same word."
BOOK: The Medusa stone
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