Exodus (2 page)
“Can I see Jake before I leave?” Morgan asked, hesitation in her voice.
The nurse smiled. “You can sneak in,” she whispered conspiratorially. “He’s still in an induced coma, but you can at least say goodbye.”
“Thank you.”
Morgan walked slowly down the corridor. She hated hospitals but this was a private wing and more like a hotel with attentive staff. The hushed white noise of machines and low hum of voices permeated the hallway and she wondered what news people were being told. How had their bodies betrayed them today? Her own was bruised and battered from the battle in the bone church of Sedlec, but she knew her limits. There was a margin of grace between physical collapse and a will driven by the need for revenge.
Her father had taught her that the warrior doesn’t only fight when he feels like it, when the stars are aligned and when his belly is full. The warrior fights because belief and passion in his cause stir the body to action, for physicality is a mere shell around what the will can achieve. Morgan smiled. Her father had hated hospitals too. She reached Jake’s room and paused, willing his eyes to be open when she entered. She turned the handle and walked in.
ARKANE agent Jake Timber was lying on his back with eyes closed, tubes twisting into his veins. His face was composed, the bruises there were only mustard shadows now, his cheekbones sharply defined by the liquid diet he was fed. Morgan knew that under the sheets his physical body was wracked by crushing injuries from the bone church. The coma gave him time to heal, but she could only see a shell of the vital man she knew. This body was not her partner, the man she had fought and killed with. Her Jake was in limbo, waiting for the eventual recombination of his mind and physical self.
Morgan sat down and put her hand next to Jake’s on the bed. It seemed strange to touch him now, even though she wanted to, but they had maintained such a professional distance when working together.
Jake was responsible for bringing her into the Arcane Religious Knowledge And Numinous Experience Institute from the dry world of academia, where she had studied the intersection of psychology and religion. Now she was part of the living, breathing mania that accompanied these subjects in the real world. For ARKANE had given her a glimpse into a world beyond the headlines, where what she studied revealed a truth in humanity, an edge where spirit and science collided. ARKANE worked in the shadow space, dealing with mysteries arising from religion, psychology, the supernatural and unexplained. And despite how battered her body was, and how torn apart the knowledge she possessed made her feel, Morgan now lived to solve those mysteries.
“There’s been an incident in Egypt,” she said to Jake, hoping he could hear her. “It’s Natasha El-Behery. She didn’t disappear after Sedlec but retreated to Egypt and now she’s committed a high profile murder at Cairo’s Museum of Antiquities. Marietti’s sending me because of our unfinished business with her.” She paused. “And because of you,” she whispered. Morgan took his hand and squeezed it, then laid it back on the bed and stood, walking towards the door. She glanced back. “I’ll get her, Jake. Be well.”
George Washington Masonic Memorial, Alexandria, Washington DC, USA. 5.47am
Maria Estes loved this time of day, when the streets were empty enough to walk freely, before tourists with clumsy maps thronged the city. As she walked, she gave thanks to God for her family and for America, for the new life she had here and for her job. She loved being part of the cleaning team for the Memorial. It made her feel connected to this land, where immigrants just like her had come to try and build something better for their lives. Although it wasn’t one of the most high profile monuments in Washington, it was still visited by tourists every day and she loved to think of her efforts being part of their experience.
Those who traveled out to the suburb of Alexandria were certainly devoted to learning more about one of their Founding Fathers. Maria hadn’t known much about the Masons before she had started this job but she had been slowly reading the information panels in the museum as she worked. She now understood that the Masons were a God-fearing, community-minded brotherhood who had acquired a bad reputation through scandalous rumor. For the great George Washington had been a lifelong Mason, as were many men of his time.
Maria had learned that at his inauguration, Washington took the oath of office on a Masonic Bible. He had sat for his official portrait in Masonic regalia and was eventually buried with full Masonic honors. And in 1793, as Acting Grand Master, he had even laid the cornerstone for the capital city of the United States, designed according to Masonic principles. Four US Presidents had since sworn their incoming oath on George Washington’s Inaugural Bible, and Masons still held positions of power in the US government.
Glancing at her watch, Maria increased her pace, pushing herself up the undulating path that traversed the grassy terraces leading to the Memorial. It bordered a huge plaque with square and compasses and the letter G in the middle that she knew stood for Geometry, representing the Architect, the great Creator. She sent up a quick prayer as she scurried past. ‘
My work for you, Lord
,’ she thought as she looked up at the Memorial.
Maria watched the sun touch the three storey tower, large bay windows reflecting its light. The classical facade was supported by six Doric pillars, fitting for the austere monument, the first of the three sections representing strength. Ionic columns in the middle section represented wisdom and the Corinthian columns near the top were for beauty. The cap of the tower was a pyramid with a flame inspired by the Egyptian Lighthouse at Pharos. It had guided ships through the Mediterranean into the port at Alexandria, for the Masonic Memorial was meant to light the way for the truth of the Masonic tenets.
Maria went in the back entrance, opening the heavy door with her key. She would be first here as usual but other cleaners and guards would arrive soon. She liked to get started early, preferring hard work to small talk, and she followed the same routine of cleaning every morning. Sometimes she found herself finished without even realizing the time had gone by, for the ritual had become automatic.
In the years she had worked at the Memorial, the place had become deeply wound into Maria’s core. She knew intimately the temperature changes of the seasons, how the wooden artifacts needed extra care in the damp weather. She knew the characteristic smell of the halls and today she sensed something was wrong. She couldn’t quite identify it but there was a hint of a dark atmosphere, resonant of fear and death. It hung in the air, a malevolent presence, and Maria shivered. Leaving her cleaning materials, she decided to walk around the memorial to see if she could find the source.
Maria checked the North Lodge and South Lodge rooms as well as the exhibit display areas, but they were empty and smelled fresh, as did the Replica Lodge where Washington’s own Masonic apron and trowel were kept. She walked into the Memorial Hall itself, the polished floor squeaking under her shoes. Green granite columns supported the soaring ceiling and at the end of the hall, the huge bronze statue of Washington in Masonic regalia gazed down at her. There was nothing wrong there, so she mounted the stairs to the second floor. The smell was stronger here and seemed to be coming from the Royal Arch Chapter Room.
Maria loved to clean that area, for it contained a golden replica of the Ark of the Covenant and a gold menorah, as well as murals depicting the ruins of the Jerusalem Temple. It always seemed to her that God wanted her to clean it with a special reverence and she often saved it until last. But now she was afraid of what she might find.
Gathering her strength, Maria walked through the marble archway that led into the room, and froze in horror at what she saw, her body shaking with fear. The head of a young man had been wedged between the two golden cherubim on top of the Ark, their wings outstretched over the mercy seat of the Lord. His dark curls were matted to his head, his eyes bulging open in horror. Blood dripped down the gold chest onto the floor where his decapitated body lay spreadeagled in a pool of gore and feces.
The stench was overpowering and Maria reached out to clutch the nearest pillar. Her stomach heaved and she managed to turn away, puking up her breakfast onto the marble floor. Over the mural of the destroyed Jerusalem temple were words written in blood ‘
Shoah to the Arabs. Say no to peace.
’ Down on her knees in the mess, Maria called out her prayers to God, asking for his strength to face this evil.
Oxford, England. 10.22am
Leaving the hospital, Morgan caught a taxi back to Jericho in the centre of Oxford, a combination of terraced houses on the edge of the canal squashed together against the stately homes of the old town. She passed the great gates of Oxford University Press, the entrance flanked with towering Corinthian columns, stone the color of liquid honey in the morning sun. It could have been one of the prestigious University colleges, the last bastion of old school publishing in the heart of the city.
The taxi pulled up in front of her little two-up-two-down house. The tiny garden out front was overrun and weeds were encroaching onto the short path up to the faded blue door. It wasn’t much, but this was her home here in England, far away from the craziness of Israel and her past. Morgan unlocked the door, walked into the small entrance hall and shut the door behind her. For a moment, she just stood and breathed, enjoying the sensation of being home in her retreat, her refuge.
She walked into the living room and put her bag down. The corners were cluttered with old books, for one of her passions was to hunt through antique shops finding knowledge by long-dead authors who had attempted immortality through the written word. Her eyes fell on a photo on the mantelpiece. It had been taken one summer day on Brighton Beach and showed her twin sister Faye and little Gemma, her niece, building a sand castle. The sun gave their hair a shining nimbus, as if their energy lit up the sky itself. Faye’s blue eyes sparkled, the violet slash in her left eye vivid in the image. Morgan had the same slash in her right, the only thing that really gave away the fact that they were twins. Faye and Gemma were her real family, but the people at ARKANE were beginning to feel like family too. Perhaps it had been the Israeli Defense Force that had done this to her. After so long, she hankered for somewhere to hang her loyalty.
A plaintive ‘meow’ broke the silence, as Morgan’s sometime cat, Lakshmi, came in to greet her. Morgan picked her up and pressed her face into the soft fur.
“I missed you too. Was Mrs Dawes good to you?”
Shmi’s rounded tummy was evidence that the kindly next door neighbor was doing more than was necessary. Shmi squirmed and meowed to be let down, for she would only allow a brief cuddle. Morgan knew that the pair of them were suited, each as prickly independent as the other. She looked at her watch. She had to be at the ARKANE office in the next hour which gave her just a little time to clean herself up.
Upstairs in her sparse, utilitarian bedroom, Morgan unbuttoned her shirt in front of the mirror. She gingerly pulled it away from the wound and examined herself in the reflection. The hospital diet and the craziness of the last few months had further streamlined her already slight figure. The lack of extra padding meant that the demon’s knife had cut deep, narrowly missing her vital organs. The wound was an angry red around the stitches and bruising spread across her back and around to her flat stomach. Even on her mediterranean skin the darker browns and purple stood out.
She touched the stitches gently, feeling the edges where her body could sense something other than pain. It would take a while to heal completely but that was comforting in a way. Her suffering would last as long as Jake’s, and when her body was healed, when Natasha had been stopped, then perhaps Jake would be ready to join her again.
Her phone buzzed with a text from Martin Klein at the ARKANE office. He was waiting for her at the Pitt Rivers Museum, so she had to hurry. Morgan looked back at herself in the mirror. Her dark curls were lank, her skin paler than usual and she needed a long bath and some recovery time. That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, so a quick shower would have to suffice, with plastic taped over the dressing. But first, there was something she needed to do.
Out on the landing, Morgan used a hooked stick to tug open a tiny loft trapdoor. She pulled down the ladder and climbed up awkwardly into the tight attic space. Putting on a head torch, she switched it on, then crawled along the main beam, wincing slightly from the pain in her side.
At the back of the attic space was a loose roll of old carpet. She reached inside the far end and pulled out the battered old suitcase hidden within. Kneeling before it, she opened it with care. For this was her external subconscious, containing memories she wanted to keep hidden but close, physical reminders of her life. Morgan touched the objects within, a sacred ritual she performed when she infrequently visited this confrontation with her past.
Her fingertips caressed two sets of dog-tags from the Israeli Defense Force, her own, removed after serving as a military psychologist on active duty, and Elian’s, taken from her husband’s bullet-ridden body. He had died embodying the leadership principle taught to the officers of the IDF, shouting, “Follow me” to his men as he had run headlong into a fatal ambush. Morgan touched the soft felt of her father’s yamulke and a tiny shoe, belonging to her niece Gemma. The actions were her reverence, her devotion, her remembrance.
