quick enough for the unexpected blow that caught him just above his left eye. As Flint’s head flicked backward and sideways, Ethan swung a roundhouse right that smashed across his temple with a loud crack. Flint’s legs quivered as he toppled across a desk and slumped onto the carpeted floor.
Rachel’s eyes flew wide. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Ethan turned to Karowitz.
“Which one of the fossil hunters you mentioned is most likely to have known where Lucy was?”
Karowitz stared in shock at the fallen guard.
“Bill Griffiths,” he stammered weakly. “He’s staying in Beit Hakarem, not far from here. Hassim Khan in Gaza might know too, but I haven’t heard from him in a week.”
Ethan approached Karowitz and clicked his fingers in the Belgian’s face to focus his attention.
“I need you to tell me the truth: what’s the chance that what Lucy found was just some kind of deformed human skeleton?”
“Zero,” Karowitz said confidently. “Lucy would have easily identified any kind of forgery or deformation of natural remains.”
Ethan turned, grabbed Rachel’s hand, and yanked her out of the lecture hall.
“You’re insane,” she snapped, struggling against his grip.
“If you want to find Lucy, we need to lose these MACE goons,” Ethan said, releasing her. “You can either stay here with them or come with me. Your call, but I’m leaving now.”
Ethan set off without her, suppressing a smile as he heard her run in pursuit.
“I just know I’m going to regret this,” Rachel muttered as they hurried out of the university compound.
THE REFLECTING POOL
NATIONAL MALL, WASHINGTON DC
Thank you for seeing me at such short notice, Byron.”
A humid, overcast sky was reflected upon the glassy surface of the Potomac River in the same tones as the steel-gray-haired man with whom Kelvin Patterson shook hands. Byron Stone was a sepulchral, gaunt figure with frosty turquoise eyes who towered over the diminutive pastor.
The two men sat down on a bench overlooking the river.
“How is the boy?” Stone asked in a broad Texan accent.
“He is safe. For obvious reasons I could not bring him with me today.”
The Texan nodded slowly, though Patterson could not tell whether it was a sign of regret or relief.
“He’s safer at the institute,” Stone replied before casting a serious gaze at the pastor, “and reliant upon your care, Kelvin.”
“I never wanted him there. He is your responsibility.”
“Some responsibilities are best shared. Agreed?”
Byron Stone was the son of the legendary Bradley Stone, a Texan oil prospector turned munitions salesman who had built himself a small empire from the profits of conflict. Munitions for Advanced Combat Environments, or MACE, had grown from a minor arms developer in the 1950s to a major defense contractor by the 1990s. Bradley Stone—a whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking womanizer—had run himself into an early grave just two years after his long-suffering wife had expired into hers. Thus, Byron had inherited the business and reached out into the burgeoning private security industry, providing former military soldiers as security advisors for companies across America and Europe. The fact that MACE had been investigated on numerous occasions for alleged atrocities in both Iraq and Afghanistan had not stalled the company’s growth, but costly investments in developing a series of remotely operated aircraft called Valkyrie that had failed to achieve production orders were crushing MACE beneath unbearable financial burdens. Once a giant, MACE was now struggling, a fact not lost on Patterson when he had acquired the controlling share of the company. He had known Byron for almost twenty years and had ministered to Bradley Stone for a decade before that, for what little good it had done. Now, he guided MACE policy.
The pastor looked out across the river as he spoke. “The situation in the Senate has not proceeded quite as we expected it to.”
“That is your responsibility,” Stone drawled.
“Only for now,” Patterson reminded him. “The current administration’s search for a peaceful resolution to the Middle East problem continues to hinder both of our causes.”
Stone shook his head slowly.
“Our causes, or yours? Your power comes from the tithes of your faithful flock, not from the puppets you orchestrate in the Senate.”
“Senator Black’s success is key to our own, and Israel’s future may depend upon his ascension.”
“Israel and Palestine are committed to each other’s destruction. That’s been the way of things for the last fifty years and it ain’t gonna change overnight.”
Patterson frowned.
“This is a conflict between what is right and wrong. A divided Jerusalem is a divided nation of God.”
“Everything this administration has done is a disgrace,” Stone agreed. “The emasculation