The Solomon Scroll (25 page)

"That's tricky," Elizabeth said.

"Lucas could set it up," Nick said. "He's itching to get even for what happened to Steph. Hood will okay it. Langley has to have something in the area. That way everything stays in house and nothing goes public. The only other option I can see is to let SOCOM in on it. Without a chopper to take us out of there it's a suicide mission."

"The last thing I want is Special Operations Command involved. Rice wouldn't like that."

"So you'll talk to Lucas?"

"I will. This will take a little time to set up. How are your quarters?"

"Impressive, if you like this sort of thing. The bed is big enough to sail to France in."

Elizabeth laughed.

Nick got serious. "When is Diego going home?"

"The plane is due at Andrews tomorrow morning. Rice had his family flown here to meet him. They're taking him to Colorado."

"He ought to be in Arlington."

"It's what his parents wanted."

"Al-Bayati has a lot to answer for," Nick said.

"I expect you to take care of that," Elizabeth said. "Out."

CHAPTER 52

The Al Jazeera van was painted with the iconic logo of the network and sported a satellite dish on the roof. Nick drove. If they were stopped it could be a problem because of his lack of Arabic but it would look suspicious if Selena was behind the wheel. She sat next to him, wearing modest clothes and a brown headscarf.

Nick had darkened his skin and applied a false beard. It was good enough to pass a quick glance. His clothes were Beirut casual He wore a cheap striped shirt open at the collar, jeans and a shapeless jacket that concealed his pistol. An unspoken attitude completed the disguise. Ronnie and Lamont rode in the back of the van, crammed in next to a built in console used for television broadcasts.

Late afternoon sun shone through gleaming rolls of razor wire lining the top of Al-Bayati's walls, throwing twisted shadows onto the dusty street below. The street was almost empty. Whatever was happening in Syria had drawn off the Hezbollah terrorists that usually frequented the area.

Nick slowed as they approached the compound and stopped in front of the massive iron gate. One of Al-Bayati's men emerged from the guardhouse on the other side. He looked like something that had escaped from the primate cage at the zoo. He had a sloping forehead with thick black eyebrows that met in the middle and a chest that looked like something you could ride over Niagara Falls.

"Maybe we should have brought a battering ram," Lamont said.

"Or a tank," Nick said. "You ready, Selena?"

"Alihya Kalil, budding journalist, at your service."

"What's Alihya mean?"

"The exalted, of the highest social standing, so watch your manners."

"Yes, your Majesty."

Selena got out of the van and walked over to the gate

"As-salamu alayka,"
she said
.

"
As-salamu alayki
," the guard responded. "You are the journalist here to interview? You are not expected until this afternoon." He regarded Selena with suspicion. "I watch Al Jazeera all the time. I haven't seen you before."

Selena handed a card through the gate with her name and the Al Jazeera logo on it. A white plastic ID card with her picture and official seal hung on a chain around her neck. She held it up for him to see.

"I'm new. This is my first big assignment." She turned to the van and gestured. Ronnie got out of the back with a camera. He was dressed like Nick.

"I'd like to start the piece with some background shots with you in them," Selena said. "Then I'd like to ask you a few questions. Is that all right? It's a responsible position, protecting such an important man."

"Yes, it is." The guard puffed himself up. "An important post. Al-Bayati relies on me."

Ronnie put the camera to his shoulder and aimed it at the guard. He looked through the lens and turned it on. The guard looked through the grill work of the gate at the red light, thinking how his image would soon be seen by millions.

Selena turned to Ronnie and held up her hand to stop, telling him in Arabic that the gate was in the way of the shot. He had no idea what she'd said but the hand signal was clear enough. He lowered the camera.

"Could you please open the gate for us?"

She smiled at the guard.

He retreated to the shack and threw a switch. The gate rolled slowly to the side. Nick put the van in gear and drove into the compound. Once they were clear, the guard toggled the switch and the gate closed behind them.

Showtime,
Nick thought.

He reached down by the seat, laid an MP5 across his lap and clicked off the safety. All his senses were on high alert. He looked through the cracked windshield of the van and took in the large courtyard, the steps to the entrance of the villa, the lethal shape of the half track with the Quad .50. The weapon was unmanned, the four deadly barrels at rest and pointed toward the sky. Several guards lounged in the shade at the front of the villa. He cracked his door open.

Nick watched Selena and the guard in his mirror.

"I need to look inside your van," the guard said. He began walking toward the truck.

"Get ready," Nick said to Lamont. "When I go out the door. One talking to Selena and heading this way. Three in front of the house. They're watching to see what's happening. No one's on the Quad."

"One piece of good news."

"Now."

Nick kicked the door open with his foot and came out facing the villa. Behind him,  the back doors of the van banged open as Lamont piled out. The men at the villa started to stand. Nick fired a quick three round burst, then a second. Ronnie dropped the camera, took an MP5 from under his jacket and shot the guard.

Nick's first burst had taken down one of the men in front of the villa. The other two scrambled for their weapons. One of them brought up an AK and got off a burst. The bullets racketed against the metal side of the van, punching holes through the Al Jazeera logo. Lamont shot him. The last man never made it to his weapon before Ronnie put two rounds in him.

Selena reached into the truck and took another MP5 from the back. The four of them ran toward the villa entrance. A man appeared in the doorway. Lamont and Nick fired and he fell away out of sight.

Then they were through the door and inside the house. They found themselves in a large atrium with a tiled floor and a tiered fountain in the middle. Streams of clear water spouted up and fell back into the basins with a pleasant sound. After the heat outside, the room was cool and comfortable. Seven lamps with elaborate metal shades hung from the ceiling far overhead. A staircase made of flowery white and yellow tiles rose to the second floor and a balcony held up by columns of white stone. A carved stone railing followed the balcony around the sides of the atrium. Doors to more rooms were visible on the second story. Huge painted urns holding flowering trees were spaced at intervals around the ground floor of the atrium.

Two men came out of a side room firing AKs on full auto. Nick dove for cover behind one of the planters. The bullets smashed into the pot, shaking loose a rain of red blossoms and showering him with dirt. More AK rounds went by, sounding their distinctive, deadly whine. Guards emerged on the balcony above and began shooting down into the atrium.

The air filled with chips of tile and spent bullets ricocheting around the open space. The atrium echoed with the harsh explosions of the guns and the clatter of empty shell casings bouncing on the hard floor.

At a brief pause in the firing Nick leaned around the pot and shot one of the men on the balcony. The body fell over the railing and landed headfirst with a dull sound like a watermelon breaking.

Nick ducked back. "The ones on the ground floor are dead."

Selena crouched behind one of the urns. She tore the scarf from her head and dropped it on the floor. Her expression was tightlipped, grim.

He called over the noise of the gunfire. "Lamont, you and Selena cover. Ronnie, you and me, up the stair."

Ronnie nodded.

"Go."

Lamont and Selena knelt and began a steady rain of fire at the men on the second floor. The value of automatic weapons wasn't in their accuracy. It was in keeping enemies from shooting back while someone else closed on them. Nick ran for the stair with Ronnie on his heels, firing up as he went. Pieces of stone chipped away from the balustrade. A bullet grazed his thigh like a quick razor burn. He tripped and went down. Ronnie went past him on the stair. Nick ejected, jammed in a new magazine and shot another man on the balcony.

Suddenly it was quiet. After the racket of the guns, the stillness felt alien. Nick climbed to his feet.

"You all right?" Ronnie stood next to him.

"Yeah." He looked down at the bloody rip on his jeans. "Just a scratch."

Selena and Lamont came up the stairs.

"We have to clear the second floor," Nick said. "I don't want any surprises. Selena, close the front doors and watch the entrance. We don't have much time. All that noise is going to bring someone."

"The gate is closed," Selena said. "That will slow them up."

"For a while."

A few minutes later Nick, Ronnie and Lamont came back down the steps.

"Nobody there."

"The front entrance is barred and the doors are solid," Selena said. "No one's getting through without us knowing about it."

They looked through the rooms on the ground floor. There was no sign of Al-Bayati.

"He has to be here," Selena said.

They found one more door at the end of a hall.

"The other side of that door is the only place left," Lamont said.

"Then let's go find the son of a bitch."

Nick opened the door.

CHAPTER 53

The door was heavy, thick, like a bank vault door. Beyond it, a flight of stairs descended to a passage below. Yellow light flickered from somewhere beyond.

"Kind of overkill for a house door," Lamont said. "It looks like it belongs in a bank."

"Soundproof," Selena said. "You could set off a bomb behind that and no one would hear it."

Nick rubbed his ear. "If Al-Bayati is down there, he might not know we're here. I don't think he could have heard the guns."

A stale odor hung in the air.

"What's that smell?" Selena said.

Ronnie sniffed. "Fire. Something else."

"Like someone's been barbecuing," Lamont said.

They went down the stairs without seeing anyone. The light grew brighter as they neared the bottom. A short hallway led from the last step into a large room. It took a few seconds for Nick to realize what he was looking at. When the meaning sank in he knew he would carry the sight with him for the rest of his life.

The room was lit with tall wax candles. Fire leapt from a large, round brazier of black iron mounted on a tripod. The floor of the chamber was made of polished cedar. The flames from the brazier and the candles filled the room with a fiery glow. Beyond the brazier was a fat, gilded statue depicting a standing horned god with an erect phallus. He had the body of a man and the head of a bull. The animal face was contorted with a terrible smile. The arms were held out on the other side of the flaming brazier, with the palms up and the hands slanted down.

Al-Bayati stood to the side of the flames, his back toward them. He was dressed in a floor length robe of deep blue. A shawl of the same material covered his head. His hands were raised in supplication toward the statue and he was chanting, the words like snakes slithering through dry grass. On his left hand he wore the ring of Solomon. In his right he held a bundle of herbs.

Next to Al-Bayati was the ugly man, Badr. Neither of the two had seen them. Nick would have shot them both from where he stood except that Badr held a child in his arms, a girl of about nine or ten years. Her body was limp, unconscious. Her hair hung perilously close to the flames.

Selena grasped Nick's arm. "That's Moloch. They're going to sacrifice that child to Moloch."

At the sound of her voice, Al-Bayati and Badr turned toward them. Bayati's face was strangely calm. He smiled and threw the bundle of herbs onto the brazier. A cloud of black and white smoke rose like a poisonous mushroom, releasing a thick, sweet scent.

His eyes glittered.

"He's stoned out of his mind," Lamont said.

"Carter," Al-Bayati said. "I wouldn't come any closer if I were you."

Nick gestured with his MP5. "Away from the fire. You too, big man."

"Take a step and the child dies," Al-Bayati said. "Badr."

Badr handed the girl to him. Al-Bayati moved close and held the child over the hands of the idol.

"It's simple," he said. "I put the child into the hands of the god and she slides off into the flames. The body contracts and creates the most wonderful smile as he welcomes her."

"You're sick," Nick said.

Bayati's expression changed. "I am the high priest of Moloch, as my ancestors have been before me for centuries. Even Solomon built a Temple to him when he recognized his power. Be careful how you speak in the presence of the god."

Ronnie was moving slowly to the side. Badr watched him.

"Did Solomon use that ring when he built it?" Selena asked.

She was trying to buy time. Nick couldn't see how he could get the child away from Al-Bayati before the girl went into the fire.

"You begin to understand. Yes, he invoked the jinn to help him."

"I would like to see that," Selena said, "the jinn."

"Oh, I doubt that. Besides, they seldom make themselves visible in our dimension."

"You've seen them. Tell me, what do they look like?"

For the first time, Al-Bayati seemed uncertain.

"They have not yet chosen to appear for me. After the sacrifice they will come."

"They only come if they are summoned by the ring," Selena said. "It won't work if you don't pronounce the incantations correctly."

"How would you know about these things?"

"Don't you know who I am? I'm an expert in these languages. I may be the only person alive who can speak them with the right inflection. Just now you were chanting in one of the Western Punic dialects from ancient Carthage. I could tell that it wasn't right."