Wareagle had a guide pole already in hand. “We won’t be using it.”
“We’re miles from anywhere,” she protested. “Without the engine, it’ll take us hours, even—” She stopped when a feeling of incredible stupidity swept over her. “I’m sorry. If we use the engine, of course, they’ll know where we are.”
“They already know where we are,” Wareagle told her. “I want to hear them if they come.”
Johnny pushed off with the guide pole and eased the boat out from beneath the house and whatever security it provided. A sea of still, black glass, blistered by the overgrowth from the shore and draped by the overhanging foliage, welcomed them. Johnny’s motions were smooth, and the boat rode the currents easily, his rhythm broken only when his guide pole lodged in the soft bottom.
Heydan was transfixed by the subtle power of his motions. She tried to speak several times but didn’t until the big Indian’s eyes at last met hers.
“You came down here for me.”
“Because I knew they would be returning.” Wareagle paused. “Because they must be stopped.”
“Who are they?”
“I do not know.”
“Yes, you do, warrior,” the Old One said suddenly. “Back in the house you saw something that told you.”
“On the arm of one of the killers,” Johnny acknowledged. “A letter.”
“What letter?”
“Tau, from the Greek alphabet.”
The Old One squeezed her face up tight in consternation. “These men represent a cause, the true scope of which is not yet clear to me. But there are many, many more of them. And what they seek stretches far beyond these dark waters. That much, warrior, is clear.”
Wareagle stiffened his grip on the guide pole. “And what of our route to them?”
“Where we head now is the right direction, warrior. Partly over land. Known by few. My home long ago.” She turned her dead eyes on Johnny. “The first stop in a journey that will reveal to you the answers you seek.”
Part Five
The Tau
Chapter 28
Melissa fought for sleep during the long journey through Friday night and into Saturday morning. It came in fits and starts, brief moments of repose inevitably broken by the need to switch to another mode of transportation. Both speed and security were taken into consideration by the woman who had gone from savior to escort.
The woman had said virtually nothing through the trip’s duration. Her few words were mechanical, instructions given and warnings handed down without benefit of explanation. That would come later, she assured, once they reached Israel and this place called Nineteen.
The last leg of the journey was made in the back of a truck that had picked them up at a small military airfield in Israel. Melissa had not thought that civilian air traffic was permitted to use such fields under any circumstances, which made her wonder exactly who it was she was being taken to see.
Rich in archaeological treasures, Israel was a country Melissa knew well. Not only had she accompanied her father on a number of digs here over the years, but part of her own schooling had been an internship with some of the team that had unearthed Jerusalem’s Christian relics.
Their truck’s rear flap had been tied down, yet her escort did not seem to mind Melissa peering out through what chinks she could fashion for herself. A half hour into the ride she knew exactly where they were:
The Golan Heights.
She could see numerous guard stations and missile batteries dotting the landscape as they made their way through. There was no sign announcing their arrival at the place called Nineteen. The truck simply rumbled through a guarded gate and into what Melissa recognized as a kibbutz. The truck came to a halt, and the back flap was thrown open. Her escort helped Melissa climb down.
The scene around her in the bright sunlight was much as she would have expected it to be in the late morning. People went about their chores, limited on this day, the Jewish Sabbath. Most others she saw were out strolling or lounging. Children ran and played in a nearby field. The scene spelled normalcy, except for one thing:
Melissa could not find a single man in the kibbutz’s population.
“She wants to see her immediately,” an armed, uniformed woman said to Melissa’s escort tersely. “I will take her.”
The armed woman grasped Melissa’s arm.
“Thank you,” Melissa called to the big woman who had saved her life back at the nursing home when they started off.
The woman didn’t so much as turn to acknowledge her, and her armed replacement led Melissa through the large expanse of the kibbutz in silence. Structurally it was comparable to any of the many others she had visited over the years. But she continued to be dumbstruck by the total lack of males other than among the children.
A clearing appeared, in which a small cabin stood by itself in the shade. Before it, beneath a vast leafed tree, an old woman in a wheelchair sat behind a wrought-iron table. She turned slightly as Melissa approached, but did not acknowledge her. Not far into the clearing, her armed escort stopped.
“Go on,” she instructed, after Melissa had also come to a halt.
Melissa moved toward the old woman slowly. The pounding of her heart had slowed, anxiety giving way to exasperation. She had been hoping, expecting, an audience with someone who could explain everything she did not understand about Ephesus, about her father’s death. Could it be this woman? Had she been the one responsible for having her life saved?
Melissa stopped just to the side of the wheelchair.
“Sit down,” the old woman instructed. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t stand up to greet you.”
Melissa sat in the chair opposite her and pulled it farther under the table. She noticed that a second chair rested against the table between hers and the old woman’s.
“Are we expecting someone else?” Melissa wondered.
“Yes, we are. Any minute now, I trust.” She leaned forward. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“Yes. Thirsty.”
“I have orange juice inside. Squeezed from our own oranges here.”
“Thank you.”
The old woman waved a hand back toward the small house. The wind blew, and patches of her scalp appeared when her hair parted. It settled so that the patches remained bare. Her skin was creased and wrinkled. Her legs were little more than withered sticks beneath her dress. Her hands trembled slightly on the sides of her wheelchair.
“Do you approve?” she asked. “Of this place, I mean.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do. You have a scholar’s eyes. You couldn’t possibly have missed the fact that our community is composed solely of women and children. War veterans or war widows. Women who are beaten and frustrated and want to withdraw. We let them withdraw here, where their lives can still be worth something, where they are never forced to prove anything to anyone, where they can rebuild themselves. Some leave after a time.” She looked down at her trembling, liver-spotted hands. “Some never leave.”
A young woman came with a tray containing a pitcher full of pulp-rich fresh-squeezed orange juice, a pair of tall glasses, and napkins. She left without saying a single word. Melissa poured herself a glass and then poured one for the old woman, which she placed within easy reach of her.
“You saved my life,” Melissa said after gulping some of the delicious juice.
The old woman nodded. “Yes, from Brandt. Wily devil he was. Doesn’t surprise me at all. We’ve been watching him for some time. We’ve been watching all those who bear any connection to the White Death.”