The Jerusalem Creed: A Sean Wyatt Thriller (16 page)

Atlanta

Emily stared at the computer screen, her mind fighting through a fog of fatigue. She’d spent the last several hours trying to dig up whatever she could on Mamoud Al Najaar but with few results. The young Arab didn’t have a lot of dirt to dig up. Sure, he had a questionable lifestyle, especially considering his Muslim upbringing. Finding anything criminal, however, was another matter altogether. Emily was surprised to learn that Al Najaar had attended Western schools, though the more she read, the more she realized that was far more common than she was aware. Although she did know that the king of Jordan had been educated in the West and seemed to love Western culture.

The more she stared at the computer screen and flipped through pages of notes, the more confusing the issue with Al Najaar became.

Was he working for someone? A terrorist organization perhaps? Or was he just an arms dealer trying to make a few million?

The latter didn’t make sense. The guy was beyond rich. The money he’d inherited from his father was more than some small countries had in their reserves.
No,
she thought.
It definitely wasn’t for the money.

Al Najaar didn’t seem like the type to support a terrorist organization. Then again, a person really never could tell. She doubted that he was a middleman for another country. Unfortunately, there were more questions than answers at the moment — and the few answers she could muster simply didn’t add up.

It was difficult to move large quantities of anything anymore, especially weapons. Al Najaar had been trying to relocate a volume of weapons that made the word
large
vastly inadequate. Every few days, Emily received reports from her agent on the scene. Al Najaar was moving guns, ammunition, standard military explosive devices, and even some heavy machinery. There were some things, however, that he’d not been able to access.

Emily was most curious about what Al Najaar was storing in the forty-foot shipping containers. Her asset had been unable to gain access up until that point. He'd even tried breaking into one of the containers by picking the lock. Each time he tried, though, another guard always seemed to rear his head at the most inopportune moments. Then there were the cameras constantly watching the area. Even if he could disguise his motives, it would only be a matter of time until he was discovered.

The agent had basically told her there was nothing else he could do except wait.

“What are you up to?” Emily said to the screen. She enlarged one of the images and cropped out the others to get better resolution on the one she wanted.

It was a surveillance photo of Al Najaar, taken just a few days ago from one of the neighboring homes. He was standing on his rooftop patio looking out over the gulf. He didn’t have a care in the world, from the looks of it anyway, but that could have been a farce. Emily knew people like Al Najaar were snakes. They could sit there, hiding in the grass in plain sight, waiting for some unsuspecting person to come by, then suddenly snap and bite the intruder when they got too close to escape.

She stared at the screen a few seconds too long and was forced to pull back for a second, rubbing her burning eyes. When they felt better, she closed the image and opened another one. This particular photo featured Al Najaar speaking to one of his men, a guy named Sharouf Al Nasir. Finding information on Al Nasir had been somewhat difficult, even for a person in Emily’s position. She’d pulled in a few extra resources to get the information she needed, and even then, details were sketchy. There were a few items regarding some mercenary work, but for the most part, the guy was a ghost. Two accounts mentioned that he was an expert assassin, used by several governments in the Middle East for missions that required a certain level of discretion. Again, there was little evidence as to what exactly happened.

Emily rubbed both sides of her face and leaned back again. She looked up at the ceiling.
What is this guy up to?
In less than a day, she could have MI6, the CIA, and half a dozen other resources on the scene in Dubai to take down Al Najaar and shut down whatever it was he was doing. She needed more evidence, though. The guns and other items weren’t enough. Al Najaar could easily disavow all of it and pin it on one of his underlings. It was a game she’d seen play out more times than she cared to recall. Whenever the king was about to be taken, a pawn reared its head and took the fall.

With most of her resources exhausted, she picked up her cell phone and snapped a picture of the screen. She then sent a quick text message with the image attached. It was a short question, and one she doubted the recipient would have an answer for, but it was worth a shot.

She set the phone back down on the desk and resumed scanning the files. Someone had to have something on these guys.

Yogyakarta

Sharouf waited patiently for the other to arrive. He’d parked the stolen vehicle in the middle of a patch of tall grass in case the authorities happened to come by. There’d been little trouble getting back to the temple. Traffic was light at this time of day, as most of the tourists came during high visitation hours. The hotter the temperatures got, the more people retreated to cooler places.

He’d only been there for thirty minutes when he saw the black Mercedes SUV appear on the horizon. It was hardly an inconspicuous vehicle, especially considering the poverty that surrounded the city of Yogyakarta. In spite of that, their employer insisted on using luxury cars for transportation. Sharouf guessed it was to make some kind of a statement.

The SUV’s driver saw Sharouf standing alone in the shade, leaning against a tree, and steered the vehicle into the parking lot. The tires crunched on the gravel and came to a sudden stop. Sharouf quickly stepped over to the passenger-side rear door and flung it open.

Nehem looked out at him with an expression of irritation. “Where are the rest of your men?” he asked.

Sharouf didn’t appreciate the sarcasm and instantly responded, striking Nehem across the face with his palm.

The slap stung and sent a surge of anger through Nehem’s body, but he restrained himself. These men could kill him in seconds, no matter how hard he struggled and fought.

A fire blazed in Sharouf’s eyes. A dried trickle of blood stuck out on the side of his head, and the left side of his forehead had turned purple. Nehem thought better of mentioning whatever had happened to the man and instead asked as to the purpose of their little rendezvous.

“What am I doing here?”

Sharouf said nothing, instead grabbing the man by the wrist and yanking him out of the vehicle. The two men in the front seat got out as well and closed the doors, following the others toward the temple.

Nehem felt like a schoolboy being chastised by a teacher as Sharouf dragged him across the knoll. When they reached the stairs, the Arab continued up with Nehem in tow.

“Why are you taking me up there?” Nehem asked. There was a twinge of fear in his voice.

Sharouf motioned to his two men. One of them withdrew a pistol and shoved it into Nehem’s back.

“Do not make me carry you up these stairs. I am not in the mood.”

The cold, calculating tone of Sharouf’s voice sent a chill through Nehem’s spine. He nodded twice and obeyed, carefully making his way up the steps one at a time.

At the top, Nehem put his hand against one of the stupas and tried to catch his breath. Sharouf did not intend to let him do so. He grabbed the Israeli by the elbow again and pulled him along until they reached the central stupa. Sharouf gave a sweeping check of the area to make sure no one was looking before shoving Nehem into the big stupa’s entryway. The door was as he’d left it less than an hour ago. In their hurry, Sharouf and his men had barely made an effort to close the door on the way out.

“We can’t go in there,” Nehem protested.

Sharouf answered by opening the door and pushing him inside. “Look at that. We
can
go in. Now walk around to the back of the statue’s base.”

Nehem saw the mess: the Buddha sculpture lying facedown with pieces broken off, candles and urns scattered on the floor. “What happened here?” He turned to face his captor, but the only answer he received was Sharouf pulling the weapon from his belt and pointing it at Nehem’s face.

“I said go over there.” He motioned with a nod of his head.

Nehem had been living in fear for the last several days. Having a gun pointed at him right now didn’t change much of anything. It simply reinforced those fears. He kept his hands out to the side and slowly shuffled through the disarray. Sharouf followed closely, keeping the pistol trained on his prisoner. When Nehem arrived at the far wall, he stared down at the cavity next to the drawer.

His eyes widened. “You want me to go down there? Where does it go?”

“No.” Sharouf shook his head. “Tell me what the inscription on the drawer says.”

Nehem hadn’t even noticed the engraving. His focus had been on the hole. Now that Sharouf mentioned it, he was surprised he’d missed it. He kneeled down on both knees and leaned over, bracing himself with one palm on the floor. He ran his index finger across the ancient lettering, slow and deliberate to make sure he was translating everything correctly. It didn’t say much, but Nehem knew what it meant right away.

“What does it say, old man?” Sharouf pressed the barrel to the back of the Israeli’s head.

Nehem took a long, slow breath. He dared not turn around. The slightest twitch could provoke this maniac. “It’s Sudanese. It says that whatever was here before is gone.”

“I know it’s gone!” Sharouf shouted. “Where is it now?”

Nehem could see the man had become desperate. And desperate people did rash things. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that his captor would shoot him in the face and dump his body in the underground passage. Nehem swallowed hard. “It would appear that whoever took it relocated the relic to the mountains of Bhutan. To the Tiger’s Nest.”

Sharouf’s right eye twitched a second before he squinted at the answer. “What do you mean, the tiger’s nest?”

“There is a monastery in Bhutan. It’s the only logical conclusion. This inscription says that the relic was taken to the Tiger’s Nest. I know of no other place that goes by that name. Someone must have feared it would fall into the wrong hands and taken it to the monastery. It would surely be kept safe there.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The Tiger’s Nest is difficult to reach. It was built on the side of a steep cliff nearly five hundred years ago. The monks there are holy men. If someone entrusted them with a secret, it would be well kept and passed down through the centuries to a select few.”

Sharouf pulled the weapon away from his prisoner’s head for a moment and pondered the answer. “If you’re lying to us, you will die.”

Nehem laughed. He was beyond fear at this point. “We both know I’m going to die anyway, young man. It’s only a question of when. My helping you will only extend my life so far. The moment we find what you’re looking for is the moment you will kill me. I know this, so let’s not pretend, shall we?”

Sharouf eyed him suspiciously. “Then why would you help us at all?”

Nehem drew in another deep breath and sighed. “Because I know that good will always triumph over evil. Whatever it is that you and your employer have planned will fail no matter what I do.” He paused for a second then said, “Not to mention that I have dreamed all my life of seeing these artifacts. Would be a shame to come so close and not have that chance.” Nehem didn’t tell his captor that he hoped someone else would beat them to it, and that perhaps that someone could also be his savior.

Sharouf wasn’t sure he believed the explanation, but it didn’t matter. As long as the prisoner wasn’t lying about the location, that was all he cared about. If the Americans had translated the inscription, they would be heading to the monastery as well. He relished the chance to face Wyatt again. This time, it would end differently. This time, he would be ready.

Paro, Bhutan

The drive west to Jakarta took nearly three hours. Sean only stopped once along the way to fill up the gas tank and check under the hood to make sure the little rental car hadn’t taken on any damage during the chase that might strand them in the middle of nowhere. Bullet holes riddled the panels on the back and sides. The windows were basically destroyed, though they could still see through the severely cracked windshield.

Along the way, Tommy called the pilot to let him know there’d been a change of plans. Fortunately, the man had grown accustomed to the sudden changes his employer sometimes required. Tommy informed him they would need to fly to Bhutan, and based on a best guess from a quick Internet search, the city of Paro would probably be their best option as a port of entry. The pilot concurred.

Upon arriving at the airport, Sean glanced at his phone and saw he’d received a text message from Emily.

Tommy looked over as Sean was reading the screen. “Who’s it from?” he asked as he opened his door and started to get out.

“Emily,” Sean said, his voice distant.

He pressed his thumb and index finger against the screen and then pulled them apart, zooming in on an image. Emily had asked if he knew anything about the guy in the picture. She said his name was Sharouf Al Nasir, but nothing else. Emily’s inability to get information on a target could only mean one thing: they were trying to keep their past a secret.

Odd thing was, the guy in the picture was one of the men in the car he’d just destroyed a few hours before.

His fingers flew across the screen until he found her name in his contact list. He tapped the phone symbol and waited. Six seconds later, Emily answered.

“Took you long enough. I was actually starting to worry.”

He snorted. “Sorry, I don’t like to text and drive. Why are you asking about that guy in the picture?”

“Do you know him?”

“No, but he and his goons did just try to kill me and Tommy. If you asked me to put money on it, I’d say he’s dead now.”

“Dead?”

“I’m not completely sure. They chased us from a temple here in Indonesia, tried to run us off the road, shot at us, the whole nine. It did not go well for them.”

“Sean, I need to know, did you kill this man or not?”

He scratched his head for a moment and looked around the area. The sun shone brightly in the sky, making him thankful for his sunglasses. “I don’t know, Em. Killed the guy’s driver and one other gunman that was with them. He was on the other side of the car when it crashed.”

“What do you mean, it crashed?”

A taxi honked, the driver behind the wheel frantically waving his hand at Tommy. He shook his head and motioned the driver on.

“I mean I shot the driver in the head and sped up. When I looked back, the car was flipping down the road. If I had to guess, everyone inside was dead, including the one in your photo. Where’d you get that anyway, and why are you watching him?”

Emily sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you can find out if he was killed, could you?”

“Not a chance. Tommy and I are about to hop out of this country. We’re chasing down a lead, and a very important Israeli’s life is at stake. If you do a quick sniff around, you’ll find out who was killed in the wreck.” He thought for a second then added, “You still haven’t answered my question.”

She paused for a moment and then responded. “His name is Sharouf Al Nasir. We believe he works for a man out of Dubai by the name of Mamoud Al Najaar. Thing is, the guy’s basically a ghost. Other than his name, we don’t know much. Heck, even the name might be an alias of some kind. We aren’t sure.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“Nothing…yet. I’ll let you know if I need you, but from the sounds of it, you’re already involved.”

“So it would seem. A few days ago, someone tried to kill me and Tommy. They burned our houses down, thinking we were still inside. I barely got Tommy out. Now we know who did it. My question is: Why are they coming after us?”

“Axis has been running a sting on Al Najaar for a while now. Another agent is working on it. So far, he’s found that Al Najaar seems to be importing a ton of weapons and ammunitions.”

“What for?” Sean asked.

“That’s just it. We don’t know. Al Najaar can’t be doing it for the money.”

“So he’s a sympathizer.”

“Or an egomaniac,” she offered.

“Could be both.”

Tommy motioned that they needed to get going by waving his hand around in a circle.

“Em, I gotta let you go. I have a plane to catch. Let me know if you hear anything about Al Nasir. If you keep an eye on the news down in Yogyakarta, you should hear something any minute now.”

“Will do. And be careful. If that guy isn’t dead, he’s not someone you want to run into a second time.”

Sean grinned. “Neither am I.”

He ended the call, grabbed his things, and followed Tommy into the terminal. Sean kept his phone in his hand as he moved through the swaths of travelers and sent a quick text message before putting it back in his pocket.

Getting through airport security had been a little more stressful than either Sean or Tommy had anticipated. Both men had grown accustomed to getting to where they needed to be without much fuss. There were, it appeared, still places that had plenty of red tape.

They were relieved to set foot inside the Gulfstream’s cabin and kick up their feet. The events of the day had exhausted their adrenal glands, and now their bodies needed rest. Sean leaned his seat back and propped his feet on the footrest as the engines whined and the plane began moving down the runway.

It was the middle of the day, but they’d been in so many different time zones over the course of the last few days that both Tommy and Sean had trouble establishing what time they were really on.

By the time the plane left Indonesian soil, the two were in a deep sleep. The flight attendant elected not to bother them, instead letting them catch up on some shuteye. Neither man moved much until the plane entered Bhutan airspace in the late afternoon.

Paro’s airport barely qualified as an international one. Only a few flights went in and out each day, and as the country was so small and remote, tucked away at the edge of the Himalayas, a massive hub wasn’t necessary. A lone runway ran along the plain, nestled between barren foothills.

Because the trip to the Taktsang Trail was less than thirty minutes away, Sean and Tommy decided to pay a driver to take them up to the trailhead. Based on some quick research, they figured getting to the monastery and back would take about two hours, then figured in another hour for finding whatever it was they were looking for.

The two Americans stood outside the airport amid a short line of taxis.

“You don’t happen to have a plan for finding this thing, do you?” Tommy asked.

Sean stretched his arms and yawned. He winked at his friend. “I figured we’d just ask the abbot where it is.”

Tommy stared at him in annoyed disbelief. “Seriously? That’s your plan?”

“From what I understand, a lot of these Buddhist monks are very honest and friendly. They’re usually more than happy to share information with people when asked.”

“True…except in this case they’ve been entrusted with hiding a priceless relic that’s over three thousand years old.”

“Well, there’s that. But if you forego the details, I’m pretty sure they’ll be happy to help us.”

Tommy rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Just in case, I’ll be trying to think of an actual plan.”

“Knock yourself out. Last I checked, I didn’t see any other clues in that Indonesian temple.”

“We left in a hurry. There may have been something else there.”

Sean was dubious. “I don’t think so. If there were more clues, we would have seen them in that drawer or at the base of the statue. There was nothing else. That means we can spend several hours traipsing around a temple high up in the mountains of Bhutan, or we can ask the monk in charge to show us where it is.”

“And you think that’s going to work?” It was Tommy’s turn to look doubtful.

“I’m just saying, we’re probably the first people in over two thousand years to ask for it.”

“Technically, this particular monastery is only around five hundred years old.”

“You know what I mean.” Sean shot his friend a narrow-eyed glare.

A red four-door car pulled up to the curb and stopped at their feet. The car looked only a year or two old and was made by one of the Chinese automotive companies.

The driver was a young man, short with a boyish face and a shaggy head of black hair. He got out and smiled broadly at the two Americans. “You are Mr. Wyatt and Mr. Shultz, yes?” His English was good, which was a mild concern when Tommy had made the arrangements.

“That’s us,” Tommy answered.

The driver motioned with his hand that he wanted to take the bags, which both men refused.

“We’re okay, thank you.”

“Is this all you have?” The driver appeared perplexed.

“We like to travel light,” Sean answered.

“Ah, clever. No pesky bag fees.” He clearly didn’t know they’d flown on a private jet. “My name is Pak. I will be your driver. I understand you want to see Tiger’s Nest.”

His English was solid, and better than good enough to understand simple directions.

“That is correct, Pak,” Tommy said.

“You want to go there today?”

The two visitors nodded.

“We must hurry then. Sun will go down in four hours. It take two hours for most people to go up and down. If you want to see the sights, you will not have much time.”

“Let’s do it,” Sean said.

Pak scurried around to the driver’s side door and hopped in while the Americans got in the back. As soon as the doors were closed, Pak jammed the gas pedal and zipped the car out onto the road.

Sean and Tommy were jostled but stabilized themselves with the handgrip above the windows.

“It only take twenty minutes to get to the Taktsang Trail from here. You two look like you are in good shape, so maybe it not take as long for you to reach the monastery.”

Sean thought about making a wisecrack about Tommy’s lack of fitness, but a knowing glare from the other side of the backseat kept him in check. “We’ll be fine,” he said instead.

Pak guided the car out onto the main road and then off again onto a winding side road that twisted its way up through the hills and into the dramatic mountains. The landscape reminded the visitors of Colorado. Flatlands erupted into jagged hills, covered in evergreen trees and outcroppings of massive rocks. At certain curves in the road, the views were absolutely stunning. A river flowed through the valley off in the distance near a small town.

“I never hear anyone talk about visiting this place. I’m not sure why. This countryside is gorgeous.” Sean said.

Pak answered, clearly eavesdropping. “Bhutan is one of the best kept secrets in the world. We like to keep it that way.”

“Makes sense,” Tommy said, looking out the window at the mountain range. “Heaven knows we’ve screwed up enough of our pretty country by overpopulating and overselling tourism.”

Pak nodded. “Some visitors good. Like you two.” His smile beamed in the rearview mirror. “But too many make mess.”

Sean kept his thoughts to himself, hoping that the same mess that happened in Israel and Indonesia didn’t happen here. Just in case things got sticky, he and Tommy had replenished their ammunition supply before getting off the plane. They usually traveled with extra magazines and a spare weapon each, just in case. More often than not, they weren’t needed on ventures with the IAA. Lately, though, things had been different.

About twenty minutes after leaving the airport, the vehicle came to a stop in a small, shaded parking area surrounded by a ranch-style wooden fence. Pak put the car in park and stepped out to open the door for Tommy. He was a second too late, as his passenger was already exiting and had one foot on the gravel. The air was much cooler in the mountains and smelled of spruce, hemlock, and pine. The forests were thick and kept most of the ground in a cool shade throughout the day.

The men surveyed the area, tracing the outline of the fencing until they found where it opened into a high wooden archway at the trailhead. Words were written in various languages, including Chinese characters and English, describing the Taktsang Trail. In a clearing just beyond the fence, a dozen ponies and four donkeys loitered near the edge of the forest. All of the animals were saddled and ready to transport any late arriving visitors to the top of the trail. The smell of horsehair mingled with the scent of the forest.

Sean’s eyes lingered on a faded white five-door hatchback on the far side of the parking area. It sat in the shadows, keeping the car’s interior dark. He was sure a woman sat behind the wheel, but it was difficult to make out her face.

“You can take one of the pack animals if you prefer. They move pretty slow, though.” Pak pointed at the ponies as he spoke.

“We’ll be fine walking, Pak. Thank you,” Sean said, removing his gaze from the white vehicle.