gotten Maddox to pump a couple of bullets into him.
The realization pulled his doubts regarding what Drucker had in mind back into focus. They’d gone into this together, brothers-in-arms, united for a worthy cause. Was that still the case? It suddenly dawned on him that maybe they weren’t after the same thing anymore. Maybe the others were after something else. And in the process, they’d created a messenger that transcended the message. That dwarfed it and buried it in its shadow. The media’s shifting focus confirmed his fears.
The story wasn’t about God’s warning anymore. It was about His messenger.
Drucker wouldn’t make such a mistake. Unless he had a different message in mind.
Think of what we can make people do, Drucker had said. The phrase reverberated inside Rydell’s head again.
A final thought confirmed his worst fears. Again, it was born out of something Matt had said.
Me, I’d take it as a definite sign that you guys are now enemies. That’s what he’d said. And it suddenly dawned on Rydell that Matt was right. There was no way this was ending well. Not for him. Nor for his ill-fated alliance with those bastards. They had Rebecca. There was no point in glossing over it. In pretending that it was a temporary difference of opinion. There was no going back from that. No way to salvage it. It was over.
They were the enemy.
His cell phone rang. It was Drucker. It didn’t take long for him to voice the main question.
“What did you tell him?”
“All he wanted to know was what happened to his brother,” Rydell said vaguely.
“And?”
“I told him I thought he was still alive. I told him I didn’t know where he is. Then I ran.”
Drucker went silent. After a moment, he said, “Nothing else?”
“Don’t worry, he doesn’t care what you’re up to,” he lied. “He doesn’t know about you, for that matter, although maybe I should have mentioned it.”
“Wouldn’t have been ideal for Rebecca,” Drucker reminded him coldly. He paused, clearly putting the news through its paces, then said, “All right. Stay at the hotel and avoid the press as much as you can. We might have to find you somewhere more discreet to stay until you can move back into the house.”
Rydell hung up and thought about Rebecca again. Matt’s words rang through his mind.
He was right. They were enemies now.
And maybe Matt was the only one he could turn to in order to do something about it.
Chapter 62
Skies over the eastern Mediterranean
The sea stretched out as far as Gracie could see, a cobalt-blue quilt snugly tucked in around the very edge of the planet. Up ahead and to the left, the sun was teasing the horizon. She leaned forward, right against the glass, and drank in the tranquil view. Although she hopped on planes as often as people took the subway, looking out from an aircraft at high altitude never failed to instill a sense of wonder in her. It was an almost mystical experience—looking out at the planet, the clouds, the sun, the infinite expanse of space beyond what she could see. She never tired of it. She’d normally just sit there and stare out and let her mind wander in all kinds of directions, enjoying that fleeting moment of blissful isolation before getting pulled back into the land of the living by some intrusion.
This time, the intruder was a question, voiced in the dulcet tone of Father Jerome. “How are you feeling?”
She looked up at him. It felt surreal. To be there, talking to him. After what she’d witnessed. When she wasn’t sure what he really was.
She managed a partial smile and a soft shrug. “Frankly . . . a bit lost. Which is not a feeling I’m used to.”
“You’ve been lucky,” he commented. He looked uncomfortable, slightly stooped in the cabin despite the fact that its ceiling was an inch or two over six feet high and he wasn’t a tall man.
Gracie noticed. She gestured at Dalton’s empty seat. “Please. Won’t you join me?”
He nodded, and as he sat down, Dalton came back from the galley.
“I’m sorry, I’m in your seat,” the priest apologized.
“No, that’s fine,” Dalton replied breezily as he handed Gracie another coffee. “I need to talk to the pilot anyway. Find out what the plan is.” He glanced back at Gracie to make sure she was okay with that, then moved forward toward the cockpit.
Gracie watched him go, then turned her attention back to the priest, recovering her train of thought. “You were