Hollis and Mother Blessing lay next to each other on the concrete. A small amount of light came from the glowing red switches on the power generator. Hollis could see the dark shape of Mother Blessing’s body as she sat up and grabbed the equipment bag.
“The stairs are a hundred feet away,” Hollis whispered. “Let’s run for it.”
“They turned off the lights,” Mother Blessing said. “That means they probably have infrared devices. We’re blind, and they can see.”
“So what do you want to do?” Hollis asked. “Stand here and fight?”
“Make me cold,” the Harlequin said, and she gave Hollis the flashlight and a small metal canister. It took him a few seconds to realize that it was the liquid nitrogen they had brought along to disable motion detectors.
“You want me to spray this on you?”
“Not on the skin. Spray my clothes and hair. I’ll be too cold to be seen.”
Hollis switched on the flashlight and held it in his hand so that light leaked through the gaps between his fingers. Mother Blessing lay on her stomach, and Hollis sprayed the liquid nitrogen on her pants, boots, and jacket. When she turned over on her back, he tried not to spray her hands and eyes. The canister made a faint sputtering sound when it was empty.
The Harlequin sat up and her lips trembled. He touched her upper arm and felt a burning coldness. “Do you want the submachine gun?” he asked.
“No. The muzzle flash would show my location. I’ll carry the sword.”
“But how are you going to find them?”
“Use your senses, Mr. Wilson. They’re frightened, so they’ll be breathing hard and firing at shadows. Most of the time, your enemy defeats himself.”
“What can I do?”
“Give me five seconds, then start firing on the right.”
She moved to the left and disappeared into the shadows. Hollis stood up and fired the submachine gun until the clip was empty. The mercenaries returned fire-from three points on the left side of the room. A second later, he heard a man screaming, and then more gunfire.
Hollis drew the semiautomatic pistol, then pulled back and released the slide mechanism, forcing a round into the firing chamber. He heard an ammunition clip being loaded into a rifle and ran toward the sound. Light came from the open elevator at the end of the room, and he fired at a dark shape standing beside one of the machines.
Another burst of firing. And then silence. Hollis switched on the flashlight and found a dead man lying six feet in front of him. Cautiously, he moved across the basement and almost tripped over another body near the air-conditioning unit. The mercenary’s right arm had been separated from his shoulder.
Hollis swept the flashlight beam across the room and spotted another dead man near the far wall and a fourth body near the elevator. A crumpled figure was a few feet away, and when Hollis ran forward he saw it was Mother Blessing. The Harlequin had been shot in the chest and her sweater was soaked with blood. She still gripped the handle of her sword as if it could save her life.
“He got lucky,” she said. “A random shot.” Mother Blessing’s voice had lost its usual harshness, and it sounded as if she were trying to catch her breath. “It seems right that death comes from randomness.”
“You’re not going to die,” Hollis said. “I’m going to get you out of this place.”
Her head rolled toward him. “Don’t be foolish. Take this.” Mother Blessing extended her hand and forced him to accept the sword. “Make sure you pick the right Harlequin name, Mr. Wilson. My mother chose my name. I’ve always hated it.”
Hollis placed the sword on the ground and reached down to pick her up. With her remaining strength, Mother Blessing pushed him away.
“I was a beautiful child. Everyone said so.” Her speech became slurred as blood trickled from her mouth. “A beautiful little girl…”
40
When she was eighteen, Maya was sent to Nigeria to retrieve the contents of a safe-deposit box kept at a bank in downtown Lagos. A dead British Harlequin named Greenman had left a packet of diamonds there, and Thorn needed the money.
There was a power failure at the Lagos airport, and none of the conveyer belts was working. It started to rain as she was waiting for her luggage. Dirty water poured through holes in the ceiling. After paying bribes to everyone wearing a uniform, Maya entered the airport’s main lobby and was surrounded by a crowd of Nigerians. Taxi drivers fought for her suitcase, screaming and waving their fists. As Maya pushed toward the exit, she felt someone tugging at her purse. An eight-year-old thief was trying to cut the leather strap, and she had to twist a knife out of his hand.
IT WAS A different experience to fly into Bole International Airport in Ethiopia. Maya and Lumbroso arrived about an hour before dawn. The terminal was clean and quiet, and the passport officials kept saying tenastëllën-an Amharic word that meant “May you be given health.”
“Ethiopia is a conservative country,” Simon Lumbroso explained. “Don’t raise your voice and always be polite. Ethiopians usually call one another by their first names. For men, it is respectful to add Ato-which means ‘Mister.’ Because you’re unmarried you’ll be called Weyzerit Maya.”
“How do they treat women in this culture?”
“Women vote, run businesses, and attend the university in Addis. You’re a faranji-a foreigner-so you’re in a special category.” Lumbroso glanced at Maya’s travel clothes and nodded with approval. She was wearing loose linen pants and a long-sleeved white shirt. “You’re dressed modestly, and that’s important. It’s considered vulgar for women to display bare shoulders or knees.”
They passed through customs to the welcome area, where Petros Semo was waiting for them. The Ethiopian was a small, delicate man with dark brown eyes. Lumbroso towered over his old friend. They shook hands for almost a minute as they spoke Hebrew to each other.
“Welcome to my country,” Petros said to Maya. “I’ve hired a Land Rover for our journey to Axum.”
“Did you talk to the church officials?” Lumbroso asked.
“Of course, Ato Simon. All the priests know me quite well.”
“Does this mean that I can see the Ark?” Maya asked.
“I can’t promise that. In Ethiopia we say Egziabher Kale-if God wills it.”
They left the terminal and got into a white Land Rover that still showed the emblem of a Norwegian aid organization. Maya sat up front with Petros while Lumbroso took the backseat. Before leaving Rome, Maya had sent Gabriel’s Japanese sword to Addis Ababa. The weapon was still in its shipping container, and Petros handed the cardboard box to Maya as if it were a bomb.
“Forgive me for asking, Weyzerit Maya. Is this your weapon?”
“It’s a talisman sword forged in thirteenth-century Japan. It’s said that a Traveler can take talisman objects into different realms. I don’t know about the rest of us.”
“I think you are the first Tekelakai to be in Ethiopia for many years. A Tekelakai is the defender of a prophet. We used to have many of these people in Ethiopia, but they were hunted down and killed during our political troubles.”
In order to reach the northern road they had to pass through Addis Ababa-Ethiopia’s largest city. It was early in the morning, but the streets were already clogged with blue-and-white taxi vans, pickup trucks, and yellow public buses covered with dust. Addis had a core of modern hotels and government buildings surrounded by thousands of two-room houses with sheet-metal roofs.
The main streets were like rivers fed by dirt roads and muddy pathways. Along the sidewalk, the Ethiopians had put up brightly painted booths that sold everything from raw meat to pirated Hollywood movies. Most of the men on the street wore Western clothes. They carried an umbrella or a short walking staff called a dula. The women wore sandals, full skirts, and white shawls wrapped tightly around the upper body.