Just then, several flashlight beams converged on Phoebe and Aria. Shouts and screams. In Arabic from the left, English from the right.
Phoebe pushed Aria ahead, toward Orlando and into the branching tunnel just as gunshots erupted. Rushing forward, Orlando met them both and Phoebe threw her arms around him and pushed him against the wall. The gunfire continued. Men screamed and screamed and then…
Silence.
Lights filled the hallway.
Phoebe pressed her lips against Orlando’s ear. “It’s okay, I think…”
“Hi there,” said the little girl, stepping back into the corridor and waving into the light. “My dad said you’ve been looking for me.”
The lights dimmed, moved away, and Orlando saw a half-dozen men, their khakis torn and filthy, some limping and nursing wounds, but alive. Temple lowered his light.
“That I have, little one, that I have.” He looked at Phoebe and Orlando, then at the mess in the center of the tunnel. “Good work, you two. Now come on, let’s get this one’s father, and then get out of here.”
Aria reached back and took Phoebe’s hand and Orlando’s arm and walked between them. She looked up at them both, smiling. “We’re going to the snow mountain where the wizards live.”
Phoebe and Orlando glanced at each other, then shrugged.
Temple shook his head in wonder. “Damn, she’s good. Glad she’s going to be on our team.”
9.
Egypt
Nina strapped the MP5 submachine gun over her shoulder as she climbed the ancient steps out of the Sphinx’s lower chamber. She headed back outside, into the winds and the sound of the helicopter engine. She ascended and moved into the semicircle of soldiers awaiting Senator Calderon and his guests.
As the seconds dragged on and the door still didn’t open, she was surprised to feel so calm. Here it was, finally she was going to meet her boys. Her children. After all those years apart. All that time, did they even know she was alive and sedated? Did they visit? Did they care, or did Calderon shape their minds to one single purpose, stoking their egos and building them up as… what were they to him? Messiahs, or merely tools to his own ascension?
She clenched her teeth and fought a renewed pain from the shoulder wound she’d received back on the Mongolian steppes. She’d have to get the dressings changed and have that looked at soon, but so far she’d been running on adrenaline, purpose fueling her every step of the way. She’d come too far, and now she had a new purpose. A responsibility.
Suddenly she was very jealous, bitter at Calderon for depriving her of the chance to mold these children, to shape them into the future leaders the way she would have wanted. And what about Caleb? She struggled with that the most. Two hours ago she would have gladly stuck a knife in his heart and twisted it slowly. He had left her, presumed she was dead and left her without so much as an RV attempt to check on her. But if he had seen her, lying there helpless in a coma, would he have even come to her aid?
Maybe, she thought, if he had seen she was pregnant.
But none of that mattered now.
Now, the door was opening. Two small forms leapt out in unison. They both set flashy skateboards on the paveway and pushed off together, gliding toward her.
They executed a sharp inward turns, skidded to a stop several feet away, then kicked up their boards into their hands.
The one on the left stretched out his arms. “Hello, mother.”
The other one, his head lowered in slight show of respect, said: “It’s good to see you. And for real this time.”
“Catch up later, boys.” Mason Calderon walked behind them, twirling his cane. “Let’s get down there and get what we came for.” He beamed at Nina. “Good to finally meet in person, Ms. Osseni. May I please have it?”
She nodded, drawn to something about him. The power in his shoulders and in his walk, the dazzling hint in his eyes revealing his utter belief in himself. Without hesitation she lowered the satchel, zipped it open and held it out for him. For some reason she thought she should bow her head, as if offering a grand gift to her king.
He reached inside and reverently took hold of the Emerald Tablet. Pulled it out with trembling hands. It was glowing, brighter now, dazzling in his eyes, swallowing up their blackness, substituting a throbbing green aura. He wobbled and Nina thought he might collapse under the thing’s power. But then it seemed to rejuvenate him. His mouth opened, almost in an ecstatic silent cry. “At last…”
And then he was walking past her without another look, and the boys were in his place.
Nina’s eyes darted back and forth. One child to the other. Both so similar and yet she also saw them with other senses. She saw their differences, little nuances. And she knew, from her glimpses into their pasts, which was which. Jacob on the right: a streak of something… different in him. So different than the cold-heartedness they both chose to portray. A little smoother, Jacob was, his edges not as sharp as Isaac’s. His thoughts more deliberate, his words more carefully chosen. He… he was the reader, when occasion allowed. He did it in secret, when Isaac was asleep. Jacob… he’s more like Caleb, I can see it…
Isaac… Nina smiled at him, and the boy grinned back, taking the attention as a selfish compliment proving he had been singled out over his brother. Competitive from the start. Isaac was definitely hers. She continued smiling, thinking about the contrast that no one else could see.
“Move,” Calderon said, nodding to her and to the troops. “I’m back in charge. Let’s get what we came here for and get out. I don’t like all the attention that’s coming our way.” Beyond the perimeter, news vans struggled to get close enough to see, but were kept back by more Egyptian troops. Bright lights stabbed out, away from the Sphinx so no one could get a clear look at what they’d found.
The boys hurried past Nina, and each grabbed a hand as they passed, turning her around and bringing her with them. She clasped their hands, and she was surprised at how normal this felt. How good. Like it was just another day, and they’d been together all this time.
On her way down, she glanced back and saw two guards leading a red-haired man out of the helicopter, moving him along towards them.
Ah, Xavier. Coming to join the party. I wonder…
But that was when she felt the surge, jolting up her arms from where she held her children. As if they were each live wires, and she was caught in the middle, unable to let go as the currents ripped through her psyche.
It was as if there was a split screen in her mind. On the right, from Isaac came a flood of unrelenting visions, bombarding her with their brazen ferocity:
A younger boy with a mop of curly brown hair stands over a writhing frog, its legs and lower torso flattened. A streak of gore leading to the skateboard a few feet away. The boy has a screwdriver in hand, angling its sharp tip toward the frog’s blinking eyes…
Another shift and he’s a bit older, sitting before a large screen, sipping lemonade while watching scenes of desert warfare: anonymous planes bombarding villages, cluster bombs decimating ground forces, sniper rounds exploding soldiers one after another… Isaac giggling, eating popcorn.
On the seat beside him, Jacob is watching, no less rapt, but seems to wince at every scene of escalating violence. In the shadows near the back, a man stands leaning on a golden-tipped cane.
All this Nina saw in only a few seconds, but what she found herself focusing on was the left-most panel, the one showing only a single image…