Moses & Mac, page 23
part #1 of Vatican Archaeological Service Series
Eoin stormed back covered in soot and sand. “You just blew up our only way out of hell!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I looked at the staff in my hand. Was this Moses’ rod? It was just a little shorter than Eoin but thick—my hand couldn’t go around it, but Rock Head’s could. It was gnarled and made of dark wood that I didn’t recognize. There was a little piece missing close to where I held it, just bigger than my twig. Otherwise, it looked intact, ancient and nondescript.
I had been expecting something bigger, more majestic, more…heavenly.
I stood up, somewhat wobbly and held the rod like a shepherd’s staff. Sophie, Adiva, Hassan and Eoin were standing a fair distance away with frightened expressions.
I remembered Eoin and stamped the rod. “You dumped me!”
He dashed behind a crag. “I didn’t dump you. I had to get intel. How the hell was I going to get us out of there without wheels or wings?”
Was he playing me for a fool again? “Then why didn’t you tell me?” My voice was still menacing…I hoped.
“Because you’ve too transparent, Mackenzie.” His hands went up as though to show me he wasn’t armed. He started walking toward me but slowly. “If you believed I was dumping you, then Zahira and Prince Khalid would, too.”
“I’m transparent?” I was insulted. I waved the rod around. Everyone took cover again.
“No! Don’t point that thing at us! We’re the good guys!” came the various cries.
“You didn’t sell your soul?”
Eoin poked his head out. “Do you really think they were going to let you go? Once you found the rod, there were so many other artifacts they wanted you to find. I, however, was expendable. They knew my history and I…went with it. I wanted us both to get out.”
I inserted the rod in the earth, my anger deflating. “So, you didn’t dump me?”
Eoin took one small step away from the rock. “How could I possibly dump the only woman who made me forget about airplanes and flying?”
I went all warm and mushy inside.
“That is so sweet,” Adiva said from somewhere behind a rock.
I raised the rod and Eoin raced back behind the crag.
“Don’t wave that! No! Take cover!” Adiva, Sophie and Hassan shouted, rushing for the crags again.
“Think happy thoughts,” Adiva shouted. “Really happy thoughts!”
Holding the staff, I sat on a rock. Eoin joined me. “My cockpit was my temple before you came along,” he whispered.
“You mean I defiled it?”
“You most certainly did.”
I was thrilled. I was…a femme fatale! “You made me forget about gastronomy in George Eliot, too!” I threw my arms around him, almost punching him with the rod.
He moved away. “Could we reserve these happy thoughts until that weapon isn’t in your hand anymore?”
“Sorry…”
“Is it safe for us to come out?” Hassan asked.
“It’s safe.”
They approached but looked ready to take flight again.
“What happened to me? I don’t remember much after I went down there and started grabbing tails.”
“I found you surrounded by hundreds of poisonous snakes,” Eoin said. “You want to tell me how you managed to survive that?”
I closed my eyes and took a very deep breath. I had believed. Thank you, Aunt Sara.
“How about I tell you another time? It’s a rather complicated story.”
Adiva was looking me over. “You would never believe it. I don’t, and I saw it with my own eyes. Utterly amazing. Miraculous, actually.”
Hassan shook his head. “I need to start praying again.”
Sophie took me by the chin and turned my face up and down and sideways. “Keep the shoes, Mackenzie. You deserve them.”
“How did you find us?” I asked Eoin.
“I heard over the air waves that a helicopter had been confiscated on Mount Nebo by a female Interpol agent, a Vatican State librarian, a cute Orthodox Jewish woman and a skinny soccer player.”
That pretty much summed us up.
Black swirling dots appeared in the sky. Several helicopters were coming our way.
Eoin jumped up, pulling me with him. “That’s Prince Khalid and his henchmen. He’s had a posse of men out looking for you. The burning plane is leading them to you. Get back into the helicopter and get out of here now. Go!”
“What about you?”
“You blew up my plane. I’m going to play dead and then call for help.”
“But you have no ride.”
“I’ve been in worse conditions in Afghanistan. I’ll get myself out. Now go!”
I grabbed his hand. “We left a van at the monastery on Mount Nebo. It’s got everything we found in the underground office at the Rafah cemetery and the seven bodies. Everything has to get to the Vatican. Those bodies were VAS agents who disappeared with my aunt.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Hassan threw him the key.
“Now, go. They won’t blow your helicopter up. You might have the rod.”
I kissed him and watched him race toward several caves. I had gotten my birthday present back. The birthday gods hadn’t played a mean trick on me.
Sophie, Adiva, Hassan and I scampered up the crag to the helicopter. But Prince Khalid’s helicopters were getting closer. We jumped inside but Sophie couldn’t do more than get the propellers going when a helicopter hovered over us. Two more boxed us in.
“Shoot them with the rod!” Sophie yelled.
I aimed but saw several red sparks on her, Adiva and Hassan. Prince Khalid’s guards were aiming their rifles at them. “I shoot and you’re all dead.”
The helicopter hovering above us landed. Steroid Man and Rock Head jumped out followed by Zahira and Prince Khalid.
“What do we do?” Adiva asked.
“Nothing.” My voice was small.
Steroid Man and Rock Head motioned for us to get out. The other two helicopters had landed, and an army of Prince Khalid’s guards were on the crag, their rifles still aimed at Adiva, Sophie and Hassan. Sophie turned off the helicopter and we obeyed. The instant I stepped out with the staff, Zahira and Prince Khalid’s eyes glowed with disbelief.
“Brava, Mackenzie.” Zahira applauded. “I knew you would lead us where we had to go.”
I stuck the staff into the ground. “Take the guns off my friends if you want the rod.”
“We will need to search them and you first.”
“We’re not armed.”
“My men will soon find out.”
Rock Head and Steroid Man searched us and then the helicopter and found nothing.
Zahira ran her hand over the staff. “Did you do that back there?”
“Do what?”
“Blow up Major Reilly’s little plane with him inside?”
I remained silent.
“You did,” Prince Khalid said. “You probably thought it was us. I’m sure you did it with this.” He put his hand around the staff. “Magnificent. I’ll take the rod now.”
I held on to it. “My friends. They don’t look good with those red lasers on their foreheads.”
He bellowed out a command and the guards lowered their rifles.
“Do I have assurance that nothing will happen to my friends?”
Prince Khalid called out another command and the guards went back into the helicopters but kept the doors opened.
“Can they get into our helicopter and leave? They have nothing to do with us.”
Another decree was issued by Prince Khalid. Red sparks turned back on Sophie, Adiva and Hassan, this time from Steroid Man’s and Rock Head’s rifles. “Now you’ve asked for too much.”
“Fine. Then they stay with me but no guns on them.”
The guns were lowered once again. Zahira called out a name and Goalie Face rushed to her. She indicated Eoin’s burning plane. He raced toward it, bounding down crags and jumping from one to the other like a real super spy. “He will check the plane for Major Reilly’s body.” Zahira moved closer to Sophie. “Do I have the pleasure of meeting my old friend Deena Kassab’s daughter?” Sophie lifted her chin defiantly, which gave her away. “You have all your father’s looks, but you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have your mother inside you.”
“You killed my mother.” Sophie tried to go for her, but a red target appeared on her forehead again, compliments of Steroid Man’s rifle.
Zahira called out a name and Rock Head appeared at her side. “Gag her. She’s as hot-headed as her mother.” Rock Head grabbed the scarf around my neck and gagged Sophie. She took in Adiva. “You must be one of Gideon’s children. You look very much like your eldest sister, Susannah. What number are you? Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five?”
“Number eleven…and the last.”
“Bless your father’s heart—bless your poor mother’s womb. Do I need to gag you like your tall friend here?” Adiva shook her head. “Brava. As compliant as your father used to be.” She turned to Hassan. “Now, unless you’re some long-lost VAS agent’s bastard son, I don’t know you.”
Hassan almost bowed. “Hassan Sabbagh.”
“Hassan Sabbagh… How do you find yourself among these three misfit VAS agents?”
“I’m their tour guide.”
“Well, Hassan Sabbagh, you’ve guided them well. Will you be annoying?”
“Not in the least. I do what people tell me and make money. It’s my job and no more. I shouldn’t be here—”
Zahira shook her head and Steroid Man knocked him out. Adiva, Sophie and I tried to go to him, but the red dots appeared on their foreheads again. Zahira took a few small steps toward the rod that Prince Khalid was gazing at like an enamored lover. She slid her arm through his and they kissed. “Do we proceed as planned?”
“By all means. Notify everyone that the auction will be held tomorrow afternoon.” He yanked the rod out of my hand. “My guards will have to tie you up. You understand, don’t you?” He was about to move to his helicopter when he stopped. “You and your colleagues have done some fine work here. You should at the very least witness how powerful this rod really is at our upcoming auction. Once our auction is completed, you will then become our new Sara. Welcome to the family, Mackenzie. We will get on fabulously well, just as we did with Sara.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sophie, Adiva, and Hassan got into one helicopter while I got into another. My travelling companions were the prince, Zahira, Steroid Man and Rock Head.
During the short flight, no one spoke. Prince Khalid and Zahira were too busy caressing the staff, probably thinking of all the wonderfully evil things they could do with it. Sometimes they mumbled what sounded like words of endearment in Arabic to the rod and then smooched away. At one point I thought they were going to go at each other hot and heavy. They didn’t care if they had an audience. Steroid Man and Rock Head must have been used to it. Their guard-dog expressions never changed.
I kept looking for Eoin and Goalie Face but didn’t see either. Hopefully, Eoin had managed to play dead and get help.
At Prince Khalid’s castle, Rock Head escorted me back to Aunt Sara’s office. I was relieved beyond any words to find Sophie, Adiva and Hassan there and unharmed. I had been afraid they might have been thrown out of their helicopter and into the Dead Sea. Rock Head removed my handcuffs, locked the door and stationed himself outside just like old times. The only difference now was that I had three live roommates instead of seven dead ones.
Adiva paced the room at marathon speed. “I am in so much trouble.”
Sophie jumped on a chair and tried to pull the bars off the windows. “That bitch is dead.”
Hassan opened and closed cabinets and doors. “I’m starving. The food must be really good here.” He found a drawer of tools and took them out for closer inspection. Twirly ones, straight ones, curved ones, ten-pronged ones and more. “I can use these, for something in the future.”
“My father must be beside himself.” Adiva threw herself into a chair. “I should have been home twelve hours ago—if he remembers, of course, how long I’ve been gone.”
“You wanted to be a VAS agent.” I dropped my saddle bag on the desk and slumped into a chair, too. “Welcome to one of its risks. Getting caught and imprisoned. Death may be next on the list.”
Sophie jumped off the chair and strode to the lab. “That bitch has got to go, and it needs to be from my hands!” She started to pull open drawers and cabinets, taking things out and throwing them wherever. “I don’t care if she bleeds all over her Chanel outfit and Salvatore Ferragamo shoes. She killed my mother. She needs to pay.”
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“Something to get us out of here and to kill her with. Adiva, you need to look through this lab stuff. Maybe you can make a lethal potion. Hassan, you’re the gadget man. Stop looking for food and make us a weapon. We need to get out of here.”
“Food first,” Hassan replied. “Do we tell that bald guy at the door we’re hungry?”
“He doesn’t deliver,” I said.
“Can you ask?”
“No. He has a machine that shoots out leady-things that could put all our hungry pangs to complete and utter rest.”
Sophie dumped whatever was in a drawer to the floor. “Adiva, stop whining and help me. Your father will be fine without you. He has your brother.”
“I’m not in the mood.” She twirled and twirled around in the chair and then came to an abrupt stop. “Mackenzie, that little twig really kept you safe. There aren’t any bites on you and when Eoin pulled you out, you had bites all over you. Your hands and face were swollen, and you were having difficulty breathing. You were hideous, but he didn’t care. It was so romantic! Eoin just pushed me aside and raced down to get you. He wasn’t afraid of those big bad snakes.”
I was aghast. “I looked ugly?”
“Atrocious-looking, but he didn’t care.”
“He’s a keeper, Mackenzie,” Sophie’s voice came muffled from inside a cabinet. “And great in the cockpit, too, but heartwarming tales of rescues aren’t going to get us out of here.”
I was thrilled that Eoin had seen me at my worse and hadn’t cared, but he hadn’t been the only man to help me. “There wasn’t anyone else down there with me, was there?”
Adiva began twirling in the chair again. “If you saw someone else, then you were probably delusional. You must have had massive amounts of venom in your system.”
Sophie yanked a lock off a cabinet. “Now, this is what I’m talking about. I’ve found chemicals.” She pulled something out. “Baking soda.” She threw it back. “Salt. Sugar. Flour.”
“We can make bread,” Adiva said.
Sophie slammed the cabinet shut. “There has to be something here or I’m just going to have to resort to sex.”
“Sex will work.” Hassan had found a package of crackers. He took one out, but it crumbled in his hand. “It would work for me.”
“Would you really have sex with a man on the wrong side of the law?” Adiva asked.
Sophie raced to another cabinet. “He’s wearing Hugo Boss.”
Well, that certainly made a difference.
“Adiva, are you going to help me here? You’re the chemistry genius. I’m sure you can whip something lethal up.”
“I don’t work well when I’m nervous.” Adiva fell with a thud to the floor. She had twirled the chair off its stand.
Hassan opened the fridge in the lab. “Can you ask Hugo Boss to bring food, Sophie, before you seduce him?” He pulled out a carton of milk. “This expired six months ago.” He threw it back and closed the door.
I folded my arms on the desk and put my head on them. I was starting to believe that the dead roommates were better than the live ones.
They continued arguing, fidgeting, and looking for food as I sat inert. Adiva had said that I had probably been hallucinating, but I hadn’t. There had been a man there, before Eoin. And, unless I really had been hallucinating he looked a lot like the homeless man at the university. He also reminded me of Rudy Mendelsohn.
Adiva fixed the chair and plopped herself on it again. “If that little piece of wood really did keep you safe, then it must be just as valuable as the rod.”
I pulled the twig out of my boot. “It’s part of the rod. I saw a little piece missing from it. I’m sure now more than ever that my aunt has the other part.”
“Do you think Chanel and Armani know about it?” Sophie asked.
“If they did, they’d have taken it from me by now.”
She raced to me, her eyes big and bright. “Point it at the window and blast us out!”
“What?”
“The rod blew up Eoin’s plane. That little twig kept you alive. It preserved my mother’s body. See if it will blow us out of here.”
I pointed it at the window and feeling like Harry Potter, I thought “blow the window.”
Nothing.
“Think harder…meaner…nastier!”
I pointed it again and thought as nasty as I could.
The window chipped like a stone hitting a windshield. We all jumped up in glee.
“Keep going!” Everyone shouted.
I continued thinking “crack the window,” “bend the bars,” “blast out a hole,” but nothing more happened.
Hassan threw himself on the bed. “It needs meaner and nastier to break those bars and crack that window.”
I sat down heavily. “This is nuts.”
“We need a plan B,” Adiva said.
“Then start looking around here for chemicals to make a plan B,” Sophie replied. “Let me have the twig, Mackenzie. Maybe I can bend the metal or break the window. I can do bad and nasty better than you.”
“Knock yourself out.” I gave her the twig and she moved to the window. She started screaming at it, demanding the bars to bend or the windows to crack. She became so obnoxious that Hassan covered his ears with a pillow while I l stuffed mine with tissue. Adiva finally told her it was time for a break. Sophie gave me back the twig, dropped into an armchair and fumed.
