“If I can’t, no one can.” He grimaced, perhaps realizing it was the wrong thing to say. “Yes. We can do it.”
“Cintia, you can deal with the hacker? Keep him off our backs long enough to do this?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I guess that’s all any of us can do,” Carter said with sigh. “All right, let’s load up. We’re going to Tomorrowland.”
NINETEEN
Pierce stared at his phone in frustration. “Call ended?” he grumbled. “Call didn’t even start.”
“Was that Cintia?” Gallo asked. She had to shout to be heard over the throaty roar of the helicopter’s engine. “What did she say?”
“Don’t know. The call dropped.”
“I hope everything’s okay.”
Me too, Pierce thought. Dourado had called earlier to let him know about her decision to leave Cerberus Headquarters to join Carter and Lazarus in Geneva. Her expertise would give them an edge in dealing with the situation there and perhaps unmask the enemy that now seemed intent on turning the ancient Black Knight satellite into a weapon of mass destruction. Her decision surprised Pierce — she wasn’t exaggerating her agoraphobia — but he had given her the go-ahead. Dourado was a lot tougher than she believed. Now he wondered if she was regretting the decision.
“If it’s important, she’ll try again,” he shouted. “Probably just checking up on us.”
They had come a long way in just a few short hours, from Kazakhstan to Istanbul, and then on to Sharm El-Sheikh on the tip of the Sinai Peninsula, where Pierce had used his UNESCO credentials to wrangle a military helicopter flight to Saint Catherine’s Monastery — a World Heritage Site — on the slopes of Mount Sinai.
This was not Pierce’s first visit to Egypt, but the world had changed since his last visit. The rising influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and of ISIS on the world stage had not only brought the specter of terrorism to the reliably tourist-friendly Arab nation, but also a threat to the ancient monuments for which the nation was most famous. Islamic militants had called for the destruction of the pyramids and the Sphinx, which they condemned as temples to false gods. Pierce did not consider it to be an idle threat. A similar declaration made by the Taliban government in Afghanistan had resulted in the destruction of the fifteen-hundred-year-old Bamiyan Buddha statues in 2001, and more recently, ISIS fighters had destroyed ancient Roman temples in Palmyra, Syria. Pierce was a little apprehensive about traveling to Egypt, especially without Lazarus present to advise him on matters of security, but recent attacks in Paris and Brussels had demonstrated that nowhere was truly safe. And right now, the looming solar crisis trumped all other considerations.
Saint Catherine’s — its official name was ‘Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai’—built in the sixth century, was one of the oldest Christian monasteries in existence. It housed the world’s oldest continually operating library, which contained, among its many other treasures, the Syriac Sinaiticus, a fourth century copy of the Gospels — the oldest copy in existence. Of course, the significance of Mount Sinai to all three of the world’s major monotheistic faiths went back much further.
According to the Bible, Mount Sinai was the place where God had first called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, and then later presented him with the Ten Commandments. Whether this particular mountain was the same mountain recorded in the Biblical account was a matter of some debate, though. There were at least thirteen other sites believed by Biblical scholars to be the actual site of the divine encounter.
Pierce had been drawn to archaeology after watching the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark as a young boy. From the moment he walked out of the theater, he had dreamed of searching for the lost Ark of the Covenant — an artifact straight out of the Bible — just like his hero Indiana Jones. Now that he was the caretaker of the Herculean Society, he found himself crossing paths with those larger than life stories in ways that would make Indiana Jones jealous of him.
The helicopter landed just beyond a large garden, a few hundred yards from the monastery’s fortress-like walls, which sat at the base of the mountain, as if guarding the approach. Pierce couldn’t make out many details. They had seen a few scattered lights in the nearby tourist village as they made their approach, but the monastery appeared to be in a total blackout. Pierce was afraid that it might be deserted, but as the helicopter’s rotor blades began to wind down, a tiny light appeared in front of the monastery gates. It began moving down the path toward them.
“Here comes the welcoming committee,” Pierce said.
He threw open the side door and stepped out into the brisk night air as the light drew closer. He could now see that it was a handheld electric lantern, and the hand that held it protruded from the voluminous black sleeve of an exorasson—the robe worn by Orthodox monks. Pierce couldn’t quite distinguish the monk’s face, but the ambient glow from the lantern did reveal a prodigious beard spilling half-way down the man’s chest.
Pierce stuck out his hand. “Are you Father Justin? I’m Dr. George Pierce, from the World Heritage Committee. We spoke on the phone.”
“Yes.” The man held the lantern higher and gave a slight bow.
Pierce sensed the monk wasn’t going to accept the offered hand, so he drew it back before things got awkward. “Sorry about the late hour, but as you can imagine, we’ve got our work cut out for us.” When the man didn’t reply, Pierce added, “You know, because of the earthquakes. Lots of damage to survey.”
“Please don’t think us ungrateful.” Father Justin’s English was perfect, without any trace of an accent. But there was more than a trace of irritation. “Surely there are others whose need is greater than ours. Would not your time and resources be better spent helping those who have lost everything?”
Pierce spread his hands in a show of helplessness. “That may be true, but I’m a cultural preservation expert, not a rescue worker. This is what I do, and I take it very seriously.”
“As do we. For seventeen centuries we have tended to this holy place. This is not the first time an earthquake has shaken our walls. We will repair the damage as we always have. That is what we do.”
Pierce managed a diplomatic smile. He was receiving the message—We don’t want you here—loud and clear, but he had no intention of slinking away. He was prepared to wave the UN flag in the monk’s face all night if he had to. He was pretty sure that Father Justin wasn’t going to call and check his bona fides like Zdanovich, the Russian administrator at Arkaim. Even if he did, St. Catherine’s Monastery was a World Heritage Site, and Pierce, as an inspector-at-large, was justified in paying the place a visit, even if he wasn’t being honest about his motive.
“We just need to look around for a little while, take a few pictures for our report, and then we’ll be out of your hair. We’ll be very discreet. You won’t even know we’re here.”
Father Justin wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel. “It may take several hours for you to document everything. I’m afraid we can’t accommodate you overnight, and I doubt that you will be able to find lodging in the village. The damage was quite extensive there as well. Perhaps it would be wiser for you to return in the morning.”
“We’re prepared to work through the night.”
The monk gave a heavy sigh. “Very well.”
“Great. Let me just grab my team.”
Pierce returned to the aircraft to give Gallo and Fiona the news, and to update the pilot, a cocky young Egyptian army officer, who looked barely older than Fiona. Pierce had no idea how long the search would take. If Fiona could make the memory-metal sphere work like a dowsing rod, they might find the sun chariot in a matter of minutes. So for the moment it seemed prudent to have the aircraft standing by.