Rebecca kept her tone quiet. "These people are extremely traditional. If we don't allow them to feed us...If we don't break bread with them, they are not going to give us the information we need."
Brandt did enough work in foreign countries to understand the need to observe and interact in local customs. It didn't mean he had to like it, though. However, with the rumbling above his belt, his stomach was pretty keen on the idea.
Rebecca sat on the hard wood bench, watching as the villagers piled plates and more plates on the table. Competing for their attention were bacalao al pil pil, tortilla con chorizo, jamon iberico de bellota, and pretty much every imaginable kind of tapas you might encounter on a traditional Spanish Basque bar crawl, or txikiteo.
They had included both manchego and the more traditional Basque idiazabal cheeses, as well as black and green olives. The green ones were aceitunas rellenas de anchoa, or stuffed with anchovies.
Included in the beverage department were the Basque cider sagardo, the Cava sparkling wine from Cataluna, and sherry from Jerez. The meal was fit for a king-or in this case, fit for a little girl whom they were all clearly fascinated by.
And Vakasa returned the affection, taking nibbles of everything offered. Rebecca noted, though, that she was also hiding about half the food under her plate. Even supposed Messiahs didn't like seso frito-fried pork brains.
Though Brandt had objected to the lunch, he was plowing through his second plateful of paella. Levont might have been on his third yet took heaping servings of any new dish put in front of him. Talli was the only one who appeared to have a discerning palate. It seemed he wasn't all that fond of olives, which was a slight problem since just about everything had olives in it.
"Lopez and Davidson are going to be so pissed," Levont said, shoving another forkful of food into his mouth. Brandt just grunted his acknowledgment. "This food rocks."
Rebecca couldn't argue. The bacalao al pin pin was her favorite from the last time she had visited the village. It was a soup made of salted cod, olive oil, garlic, and pinch of chili. Didn't sound like it would be much to write home about, but when made with skill, it was mouthwatering. And not nearly as salty as one might think.
And was she just that hungry, or was the tortilla twice as delicious this time? She remembered the first time she had been served tortilla in Spain at a tapas bar. She had expected a round, flat cake made of corn or flour and had ended up with a savory omelet of egg, potato, onion, and heavenly chorizo-red sausage. What she had meant to be a side dish ended up being most of her meal after she had taken that first bite.
She noticed though that Hernandez hadn't touched his food. Instead, he stared at the little girl as if visual inspection would be enough to tell if she were divine or not.
"Has she performed any miracles?" he asked, obviously sensing her inspection.
Rebecca looked to Brandt, who blew a breath out through his nose as he lowered his fork. "The kid had a reputation as being an ajuogo, a female witch doctor."
"But a miracle?" Hernandez asked.
"Your gunshot wound?" Rebecca prompted Brandt.
Brandt leaned back on the bench. "I got shot. It hurt. It looked like it was bleeding a lot. She put pressure on it, and it stopped. No big deal."
"That's when the first earthquake hit," Levont added, taking a huge bite of lentejas, a Spanish lentil stew. Brandt glared at his point man. Levont shrugged. "It was, Sarge."
"A three-point one," Brandt countered. "We barely felt it."
Rebecca looked to her fiance. This was her first time hearing about an earthquake. "Anything else you are holding back?"
"No," Brandt stated, then leaned forward to take another bite. "Nothing at all."
"Well..." Levont said, flinching as Brandt glared at him again. Still, he went on. "The witch doctor dude we left her with called her a mo-mo. That means 'messiah' in Swahili."
CHAPTER 22.
Lennore, Spain 5:48 p.m. (CEST) Brandt was seriously going to have to give Levont a refresher course on which glares to stand up to and which to back down from. Like don't tell everyone the witch doctor had called the kid sitting next to him a messiah. Although, in this discussion, Brandt had the upper hand. All he had to do was point toward Vakasa, who currently had olives on each of her fingertips after sucking out the anchovies. She was now eating each one off at a time.
"Look at her," Brandt said, shaking his head. "She's just a kid."
"That she might be," Hernandez said, nodding to one of the women serving them. The villagers began clearing off the table.
"Wait," Levont said, scooping huge spoonfuls of guiso from one of the pots onto his plate. "Why are they taking away the food?"
Brandt wasn't sure, but took a few scoops himself. Apparently, he'd pissed off the priest. Even though they had come here to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Vakasa was not in fact the Messiah so they could get the Disciples off their ass, Rebecca had warned them to keep the "This isn't the Messiah" rhetoric to a minimum.
Quickly, though, it became apparent why they had removed the food. They needed the table for something else. On a large wooden platter, one of the women presented a burnt statue. Not any statue, but that of the Black Madonna. Even though half of her face was blasted away by flame, it was clear this was a treasured relic. And there was not doubt that the artist had meant for this Madonna to be dark skinned. From the striations, it was clear he'd used several different types of wood to complete the statue. Her features were also clearly African.
"Borgona," the priest explained, "dying, covered her with his body, sparing the Madonna for generations to come."
The villager set the platter down in front of Vakasa. The girl stroked the wood, then laid her face against the figure. "Momma."
"That doesn't prove anything," Brandt said.
Hernandez actually agreed with him. "No, it does not."
Rebecca put her hand on Vakasa's arm. "We need your help to prove whether she is or is not the child of the Black Madonna."
"Are we not all children of her blessed womb?" the priest asked, his accent thinning. The guy clearly spoke more English than he liked to let on.
"The Disciples commissioned this statue, didn't they?" Rebecca asked.
Brandt watched the priest's face as he clearly struggled with how much to share with them. In the end, he stood, smoothing his robes.
"There are some preparations to be made, but as much as we can answer, we shall." His face softened as he looked to Vakasa and then the statue. "We owe her that much."
Brandt wasn't sure which "she" the priest was referring to, but he'd take it. The sooner they got out of Europe and back to the States, the better. The villagers left the room, taking the Black Madonna with them.
"So," Talli asked. "are they really getting ready to help us or...?"
"Firebomb us?" Levont finished.
Brandt wasn't sure which way that one was going to go, either. "Check the doors."
The men set up on either side of the room, protecting the only two exits out of the room. Rebecca rose, keeping Vakasa close.
"If we do prove she isn't the Messiah," Rebecca asked quietly, "what happens to her once we get home?"
It was getting a little old not having any firm answers. "I don't know."
Rebecca crossed her arms over Vakasa. Like a mother would her child. "I was thinking..."
She didn't need to finish the sentence. Brandt knew exactly what she was thinking.
Rebecca waited as Brandt studied her face. She knew what she asked was a lot. A whole lot. More than she thought she'd ever be ready for, but with Vakasa's hands in hers, it felt right.
"I was thinking the same thing," Brandt answered.
"Are you sure?" Rebecca asked, wanting to make sure he'd understood her unspoken question. "What about your family?"
To her surprise, Brandt chuckled. "Are you kidding me? Vakasa wouldn't be stateside a week before Mom had her entered into a beauty pageant, and trust me, the family Christmas letter would announce, 'Three generations of beauty queens.'"
Rebecca smiled back. Could something so good come out of such a horrible set of events?
Before she could ponder the notion any further, Hernandez returned. "Follow me."
Vakasa didn't hesitate, skipping after the man. Rebecca had to grab her hand and keep her in proper formation as they made their way out of the cottage and toward an older, overgrown monastery. The wooden structure had fallen into disrepair. Tiles hung down from the roof, and it looked like squirrels had set up housekeeping in the eves.
Ahead of her, Levont had to lower his head to make it into the broken doorway. Once inside the monastery, it seemed like they had stepped back several centuries. With no electricity and branches covering most of the windows, Levont and Talli turned on their flashlights, the beams cutting across stucco walls and leaf-covered floors.
Was it just Rebecca, or did the wind rustling through the vines sound like a monk's devotional chant? Nothing, however, adorned the hallway. Not a single cross or painting. Had the monks taken everything with them, or had the place been looted?
Hernadez led them through an ivy-choked chapel and back into the living quarters. Here there was more filtered light through the broken windows. The priest pushed aside a large swath of moss from the floor and moved a board to reveal a stash of artifacts.
Silently, he brought them out one by one, laying them on the lone moldy bed.
The first item was a halarii-actually, it was a small pendant shaped in the image of a halarii, or Basque gravestone. The top was a disc shape that connoted the rising or setting of the sun. This disc sat upon a triangular base. Several ancient Basque symbols filled both the disc and its base.
Vakasa smiled as her finger traced the six-leafed rosette. The most ancient of iconry. Yes, primitive man drew bulls and horses, but those were meant to be literal. They were drawing animals. Many scholars tried to argue that these stylized flower petals were only meant to represent the plant and nothing more. Others argued that the sun-like disc and rosette were representational of the gods' gifts to man. Sun and foliage. The two things man needed to survive. Included inside the base were several lines of ancient letters and a crude symbol for running water.
Rebecca had never really had an opinion one way or the other. In some ways, she felt it was splitting hairs, but seeing the ancient totem, it did feel like whoever had carved it was trying to send a message.
Who knew what it was, though? Rebecca couldn't translate the lettering. She turned to Hernandez. "What does it say?"
"That is what I hoped the child would tell us."
Vakasa, though, simply picked up the halarii pendant and tied the leather cord around her neck. She patted it as if to make sure it was going to stay there. Vakasa then moved on to the second item. An unusual cross lay on the tattered blanket. With a circle encompassing the top of the cross, used to represent Christ's death and resurrection, Rebecca was certain it was a Coptic cross. Silver and apparently heavy, Vakasa picked it up.
"Hermano," she whispered, touching her lips to the center of the cross.
Brother.
"Don't start," Brandt said from the corner of the room. "Are we learning anything of value here?"
Vakasa took the cross and whacked it against the wooden frame of the bed.
"No!" Rebecca cried out, trying to get the artifact from the child before the priest had an aneurism. "Honey, no."
But the girl wiggled out of her grasp and hit the cross again. It cracked at the base of the circle, revealing a small compartment down the shaft of the cross. Vakasa pulled out a small piece of parchment. With a smile, she walked over to Brandt and handed it to him.
Rebecca looked over Brandt's shoulder as he carefully unrolled the parchment. The drawings on it seemed to be a map. Only, a map of what?
Bunny paced behind Stark. "Well, is it going to work?"
"Everyone does realize I am hacking into the NSA's central database, right?"
Prenner frowned. He'd voted against them, of course. Luckily, he was outvoted.
"I still think we should move to Langley," Emily added for like the thousandth time.
Stark nodded toward the leftovers. Only the trunk of a pancake elephant and tiny shreds of crispy hash browns survived. "And exactly what are they going to serve us there?" Before Emily could retort, Stark overrode her. "And these computers are more secure than any CPU in any government building."
To underscore his point, the computer dinged, indicating he had in fact just hacked his way into the NSA's hub. Stark rubbed his hands together. "Let's see what they've been up to since Vanderwalt dropped them off in Turkey."
Bunny really hated this whole radio silence thing. But with the Disciples hot on Rebecca's trail and half the US military wanting to pull in Lopez and the rest, it was the only way to keep them safe. Stark flipped through reams of data, apparently sorting it in his head.
"Here we go," Stark stated, bringing up a photo of a jumbo jet parked on a pretty small runway. "That's gotta be Lopez."
Yes, Bunny had to agree. Which meant they had headed to the Basque region. Which meant they were going back to Rebecca's old stomping grounds. "Can you get us some satellite coverage of the northwest area of the Basque region?"
Emily shook her head. "There's not a lot over that area. Not since the separatists agreed to the cease-fire."
Bunny frowned.
"Sorry, darlin', she's right," Stark said. "I can't pull up footage that isn't there."
"What about the Disciples?" Prenner asked. "Can you pick up their trail from the Congo?"
"Well, I already knew that they followed Brandt to Egypt after chartering a plane out of Cameroon..." Stark stalled out as he brought up and rejected several maps. "Out of Egypt, though? That is a problem. After the Sphinx disaster, only three planes made it out before a complete lockdown of Egyptian airspace. One was the Turkish plane. The other two were headed nowhere near Spain. One went to India, and the other headed to South Africa. It doesn't look like they followed Brandt at all."
Stark was good. Extremely good at his job. However, the tech had never gone up against the Disciples. They didn't give up. They didn't know what giving up looked like. But how else could they have gotten out of Egypt?
"How long until they locked down the ports?" Prenner asked Stark. "Those are usually far more porous than airports or even train lines."
"Good question," Stark commented as his mouse flew across the multiple screens. "For major ships? They were pretty quick, but look at what we've got over here..."
He brought up a map of the long coastline of Egypt. A satellite feed showed numerous small crafts launching from non-port locations. Actually, it looked a little like rats fleeing a sinking ship. If anything, there were too many boats to track.
"This is going to take a while."
Prenner shook his head, though. "There's no way they were going to stay on the water. Too high a probability they could get stopped and searched."
"And it would just be too slow," Emily added. "The Disciples must have known Brandt was going to take to the skies."
"All right. Let's see if anybody's flight path crossed a-" Before he even got the sentence out, he found a seaplane that had landed near a boat. Sure enough, from Brandt's description, that was Frellan and his team.
Bunny watched in horror as he shot the crew and pitched their bodies over the side. Yes, that was the Disciples for sure.