“Yeah, but that wasn’t Father Jerome on the phone, was it? We don’t even know if the caller was really calling from Egypt, much less from the monastery,” she argued.
“Well, we do know Father Jerome is really there,” Finch pointed out.
The reports they’d pulled up after the call confirmed that Father Jerome was indeed in Egypt. He’d fallen ill while working at one of his missions there, close to the border with Sudan, a little over a year ago. After his recovery, he’d pulled back from active duty—he was just shy of sixty now—only going so far as to say he needed to take some time for himself, “to get closer to God,” in his own words. He’d subsequently retreated entirely from public view. Crucially, a couple of brief wire reports did have him traveling north and seeking out the seclusion of the monasteries of Wadi Natrun.
“And how could he actually have drawn what we saw? I mean, how would you draw it?” Gracie argued.
“We need to get a copy of that tape,” Dalton suggested.
Before ending his call, Brother Ameen had offered them a tantalizing piece of corroboration. A British film crew, working for the BBC, had visited the monastery several months earlier. They’d spent a few days there, filming part of a multi-episode documentary that compared the dogmatic approach to faith in Western churches with the more mystical approaches found farther east. They’d managed to get a quick peek inside the cave and shot some footage there, before being turned away by Father Jerome. Brother Ameen assured Gracie it included footage of the priest’s handiwork across its ceiling and walls.
It was proof that Gracie desperately needed to see. The problem was, getting hold of it would most likely alert the filmmakers to its significance—something they didn’t seem to have clicked to, so far—and Gracie could lose the lead on the story. A story that was still virtually exclusively hers.
She let herself sink into the sofa and heaved a sigh of frustration as she pondered Dalton’s suggestion. “No,” she decided, “not yet. We can’t risk it.”
She looked over at Finch, who nodded. After a moment, he said, “So what do you want to do?”
Gracie felt the air around her resonating with expectation. Warring sensations were tugging her in opposite directions, but, deep down, she knew that she’d already made the decision before she’d put down the phone.
With a conviction that surprised her, she said, “I have to go there.” Her eyes danced from Finch to Dalton and back, hoping to find some support.
“I want to believe him,” she explained. “I mean, look, none of this makes sense, right? But what if it’s all real? Can you imagine? If what he’s saying is true . . . Jesus.” She sprang to her feet, pacing around now, gesturing with her arms, her decision somehow liberating her, unleashing a surge of energy that was intoxicating. “I don’t know how this happened, I don’t know what’s really going on here, but, like it or not, we’re part of it, we’re caught up in something . . . exceptional. And the story’s not here anymore. It’s in Egypt. It’s in that monastery. And that’s where I need to be.” She fixed on them fervently. “I mean, what are we gonna do? We can’t stay on this ship forever. We sure as hell can’t go home, not while this thing isn’t resolved.” She paused, studying them, willing a reaction out of them, then she reiterated, “The story’s in Egypt.”
Finch looked thoughtfully at Dalton, turned back to her, and, after an uncertain, so-pregnant-it-must-be-triplets pause, he smiled.
“Let’s do it. Even if it means disappointing the kids. Again.” Finch had two under-tens, a son and a daughter. And although he was divorced, he was still friends with his ex-wife and had been planning to spend Christmas Day with them.
Gracie acknowledged Finch’s comment with a sheepish, clenched expression. She knew it would be tough on him. She didn’t have that problem. She was single and wasn’t seeing anyone special. She wasn’t a huge fan of the end-of-year holidays anyway. As a kid, she’d hated them, especially after her mom died. The cold weather, the short days, the passing of another year, one less year of life—it all felt morbid and sad to her. She turned to Dalton. He nodded, his expression pensive but supportive. He was in too.
Gracie beamed back. “Great.”
“I’ll go talk to the captain,” Finch said. “See how quickly he can get