The Solomon Scroll (14 page)

He ran his fingers along the edge of the console and looked at the computers.

Elizabeth saw that he was hooked. It was the kind of look she'd seen Stephanie get from time to time, as if she was in the presence of an all-knowing entity that could tell her anything she wanted to know.

"Take a day to get familiar with everything. Do you think you can run the communications gear?"

Eggleston looked at the array. "No problem. I've had a radio license since I was eleven. This is nice stuff. It will be easy to work with."

"Excellent."

Eggleston gestured at the console. "What would you like me to do first?"

"There was a recent theft and murder at the British Museum. I want you to access the CCTV recordings at the museum and cross-reference them with our database of known undesirables. It's possible someone we recognize will turn up. Can you handle that?"

"Hack into the British Museum?"

"Yes."

"What about legal issues?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, accessing confidential information in another country."

"Are you sure you work at Langley?" Elizabeth said.

"Just asking," Eggleston said.

"There's a coffee maker over there. The bathroom is in the ops center."

"Ops center?"

"The big room we passed near the pool. If you run into any of the others on the team, introduce yourself. Any other questions?"

"I don't think so. If I come up with something, I'll ask."

"Then I'll leave you to it."

Back upstairs, Elizabeth poured a cup of coffee and sat down at her desk. She missed Stephanie. Eggleston would have to do until Steph came back. At least he seemed to know what he was doing.

By late afternoon, he'd proved it.

CHAPTER 28

Eggleston sat apart from the others at the morning briefing. He'd been a little intimidated at first. They all had guns, even the women.

Who are these people? The security here is as good as Langley's, except the place looks like somebody's house in the country. The kind of place where the owner is probably out on a golf course somewhere, hitting a few balls.

They'd been polite, keeping their distance. It didn't bother him. He was used to being an outsider. The truth was that he preferred his cubicle at Langley and his computers to interacting with his peers and the rest of the world. For Joe Eggleston, heaven was a comfortable chair and a console hooked into the biggest computer he could find. This temporary assignment to Harker's group was the closest thing to heaven he'd found in a long time.

"You've all met Joe," Elizabeth said. "I asked him to look at surveillance tapes from the British Museum on the day of the murder. Joe, show them what you found."

Eggleston tapped a key on his laptop. A black and white picture of the front of the British Museum appeared on the wall monitor. It showed Selena and Nick starting to leave the museum.

"You guys look like tourists," Diego said.

"That's kind of the point," Nick said. "How do you think we should look?"

"I don't know. James Bond never looks like a tourist."

"James Bond is a character in a movie."

"Yeah, but you gotta set a standard somewhere."

Elizabeth rapped her pen on the desk. "That's enough. Let's focus."

"Sorry," Diego said.

Eggleston was shocked. Comments like that at a high level briefing at Langley would have gotten somebody in real trouble.

The picture changed and began rolling in real time. Nick and Selena started down the steps. A tall, lanky man walked past them going the other way. As he passed, he turned and looked at Selena. Eggleston froze the video. The man's face was fully visible.

"This man's name is Addison Rhoades," Elizabeth said. "He's the one who interrogated O'Malley at the prison. He used to work for MI6. Now he works for Nazar Al-Bayati."

"You think he's the one who killed Sir Peter?" Selena asked.

"I do."

"What about tapes inside the building? Do they show anything?"

"The coverage in the museum is minimal. The only extensive coverage is in sections where valuables like gold and jewelry are displayed. Rhoades avoided the cameras. There was no camera in the storage room where the scroll was kept and where Sir Peter was killed. You don't see Rhoades again until he comes out. There's no sign of the scroll but that doesn't mean anything. It would be easy enough to hide it under his coat."

Nick said, "Rhoades knew O'Malley and works for Al-Bayati?"

"That's right."

"And you think Abidi sold Semtex to Al-Bayati, who used it to cover his tracks after stealing the scroll in France."

"Right."

"Tell me if I've got this figured out." Nick ticked off points on his fingers. "We go looking for Abidi to ask him about the Semtex. He dies. Al-Bayati gets nervous about what he might have told us and tells Rhoades to find out who went after him. Rhoades uses his connections to ID Selena and Al-Bayati tells Rhoades to get us out of the way. He sends a hit team that includes O'Malley. They're after us. Steph and Lucas get caught in the crossfire. That about it, Director?"

"That's what I think."

"Son of a bitch," Nick said. "What are we going to do about it?"

"I want you to go back to Lebanon and have a heart-to-heart talk with Al-Bayati. Recover the scrolls if you can. That's not a priority."

"I don't think we can take Bayati at his house, Director," Ronnie said. "You asked us to check it out. Diego and I looked at the satellite shots for a long time and thought it through, how we'd do it. We both think it's a high failure mission."

Diego nodded his head in agreement.

Nick scratched his head. "We've taken walled compounds before."

"Not like this one," Ronnie said. "This one has all the bells and whistles. There are rolls of razor wire on top of the wall. It's electrified and I'll bet it's alarmed. There are cameras and guards everywhere and the whole place is lit up like Yankee Stadium at night. We'd have to go up the cliff on the water side to avoid being seen and there's more wire at the top. Once we're in the compound there are a couple of dozen men to go through before we make it to the house. Every one of them carries an AK. The gate would take a tank to break through it."

"Okay. Then we'll get him when he's not in the villa."

"That's a problem," Elizabeth said. "He almost never leaves his villa."

"We could wait."

"You might wait a long time."

"Everyone can be gotten to, sooner or later. There has to be a way."

Selena had been quiet. Now she said, "We're mad about what happened to Stephanie. It won't do her or us any good to go after Al-Bayati if it gets us killed. Suppose we did get into the compound? What then? What would we gain by that?"

"What are you getting at?" Elizabeth asked.

"It's not as though we have to retrieve the scrolls. We know what's on them and we can assume Al-Bayati does too. He's gone to a lot of trouble to get his hands on them. He's after the treasure, if it can be found. The second scroll tells everybody where it is. What would you do if you were him?"

"Go after it," Diego said.

Selena nodded. "Right. We should be patient. Put a satellite or a drone on him. Wait for him to make his move. If I were him, I'd make it soon. Once he's out of his compound we can get him."

"He might just send a team," Elizabeth said.

"I don't think so. He wants to find that tomb. I don't think his ego would let somebody else do it for him. If that gold is there, it's too much of a temptation. Al-Bayati doesn't strike me as the trusting type. He isn't going to let someone else do it for him."

"If he leaves the villa he'll be traveling in an armored vehicle with an escort," Nick said. "It's how I'd do it if I were him. Same problem as the villa. It needs more than we've got to take him down."

"It needs more than we've got if we go after him in Lebanon," Selena said. "Not in the Habala Valley. Not unless he's got a military escort."

"Al-Bayati's dealings with Tehran have made him unpopular with the Saudis," Elizabeth said. "He's not going to be welcome. He'll make it as low-profile as he can."

"He's got millions. Money buys a lot of low-profile," Nick said. "It can get him in and out of the country without much of a problem."

"So we wait?" Selena asked.

"Until we have a clean shot at him," Elizabeth said. "Meanwhile I want you to go find that tomb. I asked Joe to try and locate those three pillars mentioned in the scroll. Joe?"

"These are satellite shots of the only possibility," Eggleston said.

The pictures on the monitor showed a long valley in an area of low mountains, bounded on both sides by hills and cliffs. Eggleston zoomed in on a hilltop where three columns of stone were visible. One of them was needle shaped, the other two flat on top.

"This is the Habala Valley in southern Saudi Arabia. Those three columns are a well-known landmark in the area."

"Looks deserted," Diego said.

"It is. The nearest town is some distance away. Nobody lives out that way. It's pretty desolate, almost a desert. It's the only thing in Saudi Arabia that fits with the description Director Harker gave me ."

"I knew this was coming," Nick said. "It's hot as hell in that part of Saudi Arabia this time of year."

"Then I guess you'd better take a lot of sun block," Elizabeth said. "Put together the mission."

"Getting in could be a problem."

"I'll talk to the president, he'll give us what we need."

"You want us to try and recover anything if it's there?"

"Pictures would be enough. If there's a small object you can take with you, fine, physical proof is always good."

"How soon do you want us to leave?"

"As soon as you can study the surveillance shots and get your gear together. I'll talk to the president. This won't be the first time we've inserted a team into the kingdom. I can get you there. Once you're in country you're on your own until extraction."

"Some things never change," Ronnie said.

"That's all," Elizabeth said.

Eggleston waited until the others had gone.

"Director, have you got a couple minutes to bring me up to speed on what's happening here? It would help if I knew more about the situation."

"Sorry, Joe, there hasn't been time to fill you in. You're right, of course."

Elizabeth spent the next ten minutes telling Eggleston what had happened. About the scrolls, Al-Bayati, the nightclub in Lebanon, the attack on the cars that had injured Lucas and put Stephanie in a hospital. The reason she was sending the team to Saudi Arabia.

"That's quite a story," Joe said.

"I'm afraid it's only the beginning. We have to make sure Al-Bayati doesn't loot that tomb, assuming it exists. We won't know if it does unless we check the location given on the scroll for ourselves. If Nick finds the tomb things will get complicated fast. Any relics from the Jewish Temple have to go back to Israel. The same for the body of Solomon if it's there."

"Aren't the Arabs going to have something to say about all this?"

"They'll have plenty to say if they find out about it. So far it doesn't look as if they have. We'll get in and out before they know we're there. If we can verify that the tomb exists, I'll hand the whole thing over to the president and let him worry about it."

"Is this what you do all the time?"

"Pretty much." She paused. "On a high risk mission like this I rely on real-time communication with the team. It's what gives a small unit like us the edge. What I see on the satellites can make the difference between success and failure. It can make the difference between living and dying for them. It's going to be your job to keep that online and functioning as it should. If you're not up to it, I want you to tell me now."

"I can handle it, Director."

Elizabeth looked at him and hoped that he could.

"Very well."

She reached into her desk and took out a sheet of paper.

"I'm told you have an eidetic memory. Is that true?"

"Yes. I never forget anything. Sometimes I wish I could."

She handed him the paper. "This is a list of current access codes for our military and communications satellites. Memorize it now and give it back to me."

She waited while Eggleston scanned the paper. His lips moved silently as he read.

"All right." He handed it back to her.

"What's the code combination on line four?"

Eggleston read it back to her.

"Good. I just wanted to make sure. Set up full surveillance on Al-Bayati's villa in Lebanon. Keep a visual on it 24/7. If you want to use a military unit, tell me and I'll get it authorized. I want to know if Al-Bayati goes anywhere. It shouldn't be hard to spot him. Pull up his files and familiarize yourself with what he looks like."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Director."

"Yes, Director."

"After you cover Al-Bayati program surveillance over the target area in Saudi Arabia. Any other questions?"

"No."

"Once the team is in Saudi Arabia they're at high risk. Nobody's playing games here. If this goes wrong they could all be killed. Don't let me down."

"Don't worry, Director. I can do this."

"Good. Go set up the surveillance."

Eggleston went down to the computer room thinking about what Harker had told him. He was beginning to understand why they all carried weapons.

CHAPTER 30

Major Dov Yosef brushed a speck of dirt from his uniform and cursed the faulty air-conditioning that had turned his office into a sauna. He contemplated a plaque on the wall with the motto and winged sword of the Israeli
Duvdevan.

כִּי בְתַחְבֻּלוֹת, תַּעֲשֶׂה-לְּךָ מִלְחָמָה

"For by wise counsel thou shalt make war."

The quotation was from Proverbs. Once it had been the official motto of The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, better known as Mossad. That had been changed to a different proverb reflecting the idea that many counselors were needed. Dov thought it suited the officious bureaucracy of Mossad perfectly. He was of the opinion that the fewer counselors the better, particularly when it was time to mount a mission. As often as not Dov's orders came from Mossad's headquarters in Tel Aviv. Sometimes too many cooks had been stirring the operational soup.