East of the Jordan (A Logan Connor Thriller Book 2) Read online

  The suspension was completely shot on the old Toyota, so every pothole and chunk of loose pavement seemed to toss the car into the air before it came crashing down. Eric moaned and groaned a few times as the car bounced down the road, but he still didn’t wake up. Abiy must be driving at least 70 miles per hour down the one-lane road through the scrub brush. No wonder the suspension was toast. They burst through the desert, careened around a long arcing curve, and approached a neighborhood. The neighborhood looked airlifted and dropped into the middle of the green and brown wilderness. The houses were all one-story ranch-style houses, long and low. Each one shaped about the same, but they were all different colors.

  Logan watched the houses zip by. They came in two different designs. One of them was a low-slung rectangle with a deck jutting off to the side. The other was an L-shaped house with a front porch. They were prefabricated houses that were all built by the same builder. The colorful houses against the scrubby desert could easily have been in Arizona or New Mexico. The only differences were the rows and rows of clotheslines and the open windows.

  Eventually, Abiy hit the brakes and slid into the driveway of a light pink house.

  They carried Eric in and put him on the kitchen table. Abiy’s wife, Miriam, definitely wasn’t happy about that. Still, she prepared a pitcher of what Abiy called atmet, a drink made from barley, oats, and butter. To Logan, it looked a little bit like eggnog and with about the same consistency. It was sweetened with sugar, so it tasted kind of like sugary oatmeal. She gently fed spoonfuls to Eric. He managed to swallow most of it without waking up.

  Eric coughed a few times, spitting some atmet down his chin. Miriam wiped away the spittle. Eric coughed some more, and then his eyes opened.

  Logan breathed for the first time in hours. “Oh, thank God.”

  Eric shook his head. “No, thank Chemosh. I just had a vision. I saw Chemosh. He saved me.”

  Oh, come on.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The next morning, Logan and Eric sat in Abiy’s living room. His children, two elementary school-aged boys, and a girl still in diapers, ran around in the living room raising a ruckus. Abiy scrolled through his phone, and Miriam brought out bowls of kinche, a kind of savory mush. Logan spooned it down before it got cold.

  Eric seemed to be making a strong recovery because he spoke in a hurry. “So, the last thing I remember, we were running from whoever was shooting at us. The guys with the blue and brown symbol.”

  Abiy leaned forward. “Symbol. Brown river and blue,” he seemed to search for the word.

  Eric made the symbol of a circle with his hands. “Circle?”

  Abiy replied, “Yes. This is Jubba River Militia. They are ummmm,” he searched for the word again. He put his hand over his eye and said, “arrr.”

  “Pirates?” Eric offered.

  “Yes. Elephant, drug, girls. They take on river for money.”

  So, less of a militia and more of a smuggling ring.

  Eric went on. “So, they were shooting at us. Then, I woke up, and I was in a little boat. The boat was out in the middle of the ocean. It was storming all around me: lightning, thunder, and huge waves. I was getting thrown around everywhere, and I was petrified. That’s when I saw Abu Kishaa. He was standing out on the water, and it wasn’t storming where he was. So I said, ‘Abu Kishaa, help me.’ He beckoned, saying, ‘Come out on the water. Whosoever has faith in me will walk as if it is a street paved with gold.’ So, I stepped out of the boat and walked on water, and it stopped storming.”

  This is literally just the story of Peter and Jesus walking on water.

  “So, I went to Abu Kishaa. He hugged me and declared, ‘My brother, may all of the faithful hear you and heed you.’ The sky opened up, and the clouds went away. I saw a face like I can’t describe. It was like a bull, but it was all made out of sunlight. It covered the entire sky. I said, ‘Are you Chemosh?’ I heard this voice. It was Chemosh’s voice. He told me all of his names. I don’t even remember all of them. Baal, Nergal, Shamosh, Ashtar. Then, I woke up here.”

  I never should have involved him. He’s completely lost.

  Abiy pointed to the side of his head. “The devil. He do this.”

  Eric jumped up excitedly. He winced at the shooting pain in his shoulder but shrugged it off. “No, this was Chemosh. It’s the same voice I hear when I take qedex.”

  A fever, a gunshot wound, and a hallucinogen and now the kid thinks he sees ancient Middle Eastern gods.

  Then, it hit Logan.

  The qedex is a hallucinogen. The followers burn it in the tents and in the campfires, and it must be in the hangover cure as well. If they’re all exposed to the drug constantly, they’re probably hallucinating all the time. That explains Abu Kishaa’s “miracles.” They’re all drugged up.

  Holy crap.

  * * *

  The next few weeks in Abu Kishaa’s camp were pretty uneventful. Abu Kishaa went around small towns in Jordan preaching his message. He liked to preach at night in outdoor settings. He would have people gather in parks and abandoned lots. He would light a bonfire and stain the flames green with pieces of dried qedex. He’d preach to the people and work a few miracles. Most people would shrug at it as if they’d seen a stage magician, but a few of them would show up at Abu Kishaa’s camp.

  Sydney assumed that several more of them would go back to their homes but secretly hold onto the belief that Abu Kishaa might be who he said he was.

  The camp swelled in size. It grew from 400 people to 800 to 1000. By the time the silphium—qedex—plants were swollen with bulbs, about four thousand people moved in and out of the camp. Most of them were from nearby towns, so they would drive in during the day and stay for Abu Kishaa’s nightly sermon. Then, they would go home at night—only the most devoted set up tents.

  One morning, Sydney emerged from her tent to find Abu Kishaa and Hiba walking towards her. Sydney needed everything she’d ever learned to keep her composure around Hiba. Ever since she’d called the University of Florida, Sydney had been weirded out by the outlaw botanist. She’d dealt with murderers, rapists, and drug kingpins for her entire career, but something about growing plants in corpses was just too creepy. Hiba seemed so nice and normal. Then again, if she were so normal, what was she doing in a desert cult halfway around the world from her home?

  Hiba practically danced up to her. “We’re harvesting the qedex today,” she announced.

  Abu Kishaa added, “And tonight, we will audition new Brothers. Our numbers have grown. The militant arm of the faithful must grow as well.”

  Harvesting the qedex was simple enough. Each qedex grew in long thin stalks with blade-shaped leaves. The stem ended in a fat bulb that caused the stalk to lean over. The bulb sucked nutrients out of the soil for weeks, and then, on a particularly sunny and dry day, the bulb opened up. The result was a bright yellow flower with dozens of petals. All of those nutrients are committed to creating a flower and to creating sap. The sap from the bulb infused the flower’s petals with a chemical. The chemical, when ingested by bugs, killed them almost instantly. It was the plant’s natural defense mechanism. However, when consumed by much bigger animals like humans, it created a sense of euphoria. The sap caused an overall warm feeling, a feeling of well-being, and happiness. Most importantly, it caused compelling hallucinations. Qedex hallucinations were indistinguishable from reality; they were so vivid.

  To harvest the sap, Hiba handed Sydney, and a few other women, pocketknives with curved blades. They scratched a thin line around the bulb of the plant just before the flower emerged. Right before the flower emerged, this was when it was most full of sap. When the bulb was scratched with the knife, a greenish substance leaked out. The sap would be left to dry on the stalk until it was sticky and tacky like chewed gum. They would come back and scrape up the gooey sap, forming wads of it. Those clumps would dry into the chunks of greenish rock.

  The rock could then be burned in a pipe or an open campfire. Hiba was in the habit of
scoring a bulb and watching the sap leak out. She’d then scoop it up on her finger and pack it into her lip like tobacco. Sydney couldn’t help but wonder how many times she’d interacted with Hiba while she’d been high as a 747. All of the time, maybe.

  They harvested the greenhouse full of qedex plants. Each plant produced about one gram of qedex sap, according to Hiba’s scale. About a thousand plants were growing at the moment. That was one kilogram or a little over two pounds.

  By lunchtime, they’d scored and harvested the entire greenhouse. Hiba held a brick of gummy qedex sap about the size of a paperback book. Sydney frowned at it.

  “That’s it?” Sydney said. “That’s not a very exciting start to Abu Kishaa’s empire.”

  Hiba giggled. “No, you don’t get it. The sap is a response to trauma. We can harvest this much at least twice a day. I bet we can do it every day for a week. Then we cut the bulbs off and, if I’m right, they’ll grow new ones in a few days.”

  Sydney did the math in her head. That was about five pounds a day. So, thirty-five pounds a week. Then they could do it again the week after that. Seventy pounds a month. They could have two hundred pounds in three months. It still wasn’t much, but it was going to be enough to start. The stuff was potent. It only took a few grams to fumigate an entire tent. If Hiba was right about the harvest, they could grow this anywhere they could pump the Dead Sea water. Once they figured out the exact composition of the water, Abu Kishaa would be unstoppable.

  Sydney absentmindedly shuffled her toe in the sand. “How long do you think it will take to figure out what makes the Dead Sea water work?”

  Hiba shrugged. “I’m close. I sent it off to a lab in Albuquerque. The guy usually makes steroids for bodybuilders, but he owes me a favor. Probably a month before I get the results back.”

  Okay. We have to stop Abu Kishaa before that. Once the method gets out, we’re going to have a global drug crisis on our hands.

  Hiba tossed the block of qedex from hand to hand. “Let’s go eat. The second harvest starts after lunch.”

  They harvested again after lunch and yielded about the same amount of sap. Hiba didn’t know if the second sap would be less potent than the first, so they would need to mix the two to create consistency.

  After the harvest, Sydney went back to her tent to change her shirt because she’d soaked it all the way through with sweat. She changed her sweaty undyed linen shirt for a dry undyed linen shirt. She couldn’t wait to put on some real clothes again.

  Once Sydney had on a fresh shirt, she headed out into the camp. The sun was beginning to set. Several brothers were dragging metal barrels towards the center of camp. They set up six barrels around an empty area of the camp, then started fires in all of the barrels. Once the fires began roaring out of the barrels and casting a dancing orange glow on all of the tents, Sydney smelled the familiar scent of dung. The feces of the different animals around camp were collected each day and set in the desert sun to dry. They were then burned whenever firewood was in short supply. Burning dung smelled like charred sewage floating in the air. At first, the scent was enough to make Sydney gag. Now, she was fairly used to it. She still hated it, but she was used to it.

  Abu Kishaa stepped into the center of the ring of burning poop barrels. Since he was in the middle of the barrels, the light of the fires ruined Sydney’s night vision, and she couldn’t see the massive throngs of followers. There must be at least a thousand people packed tightly in between the tents and vehicles. There were no headlights for this ceremony—only the lights of the barrel fires.

  Abu Kishaa spoke in that peculiar way of his. He didn’t seem to raise his voice, but everyone could hear him. “I received a message from my father last night. He said unto me, the people of the true faith are growing in number. The defenders of the faith must grow in number as well. We have lived in relative peace for months now, but the forces of the false prophets will not sit idly by forever. Soon, battles will find us. We must be ready to defend the faith with the sword.”

  The crowd gathered in the darkness roared triumphantly. A few of them, who were sitting in their cars or on four-wheelers, honked their horns. They sounded like more than a thousand.

  Sydney saw this before. This was a turning point for any cult. This was when they went from fringe religions to terrorist groups.

  Abu Kishaa held up his hands, and the crowd went silent. “The Brothers have defended our camp for months now, but they have been stretched too thin. We must grow their numbers. My father, the Lord Chemosh, has given me the authority to create new Brothers. Tonight, amidst the flame and smoke, ten shall come before you. How many shall become Brothers depends on their hearts and on their swords.”

  The crowd roared again.

  One of the Brothers stepped into the circle of fire. He wore the patterned keffiyeh over his head and wrapped around his face. He wore black linen pants and no shirt. He was thin and muscular, like a coyote, and held a long scimitar in his right hand. The blade was wide, and the edge gleamed.

  That’s a live edge, Sydney thought. They weren’t playing around.

  A young boy stepped into the circle with the Brother. The boy looked to be about sixteen or seventeen. He wore the standard, undyed linen pants and a linen shirt. He held the same type of scimitar in his hands, but it looked heavy and unwieldy. He grasped it with two trembling hands.

  Are they about to kill this kid?

  Abu Kishaa held up his hands to silence the crowd. Then, he said, “Let us bow our heads. Our father, who lives in heaven, holy is your name. Guide this young man in his path towards a closer walk with you. If he be destined to be a Brother and carry a sword for you in the coming war, then make it so. If he be destined to fall, we ask that you make his death swift and that he be in Heaven before the Deceiver knows he is dead. Amen.”

  The thousand or so people all chorused “amen.” The disembodied crowd from the other side of the fire was truly unnerving.

  Abu Kishaa said, “Should he still live when I return to the circle, he shall be a Brother. Should he die, he shall be a martyr.”

  Abu Kishaa stepped between two barrels and disappeared into the darkness.

  So, he just has to survive until Abu Kishaa says “stop?” Run, kid. Run for your damn life.

  The kid started circling in the ring, keeping the Brother back with his sword held out like a hot poker. The Brother stalked after him like the villain in a horror movie.

  The kid scurried in a circle where the barrels were lined up. Eventually, the Brother took a long stride to cut off the kid’s path. The kid raised his sword. The Brother swung his down hard, and their swords collided with a sharp clattering ring. The kid nearly dropped his sword from the impact. The force of it knocked his hands down. The Brother flipped his sword around in his grip and swiped it across the boy’s neck. For a moment, it seemed as if he missed. The boy stood frozen, and the Brother was standing still at the end of his stroke. Then, Sydney noticed the blood dripping off the edge of the Brother’s sword. Blood ran down the boy’s chest in bubbly spurts. His linen shirt was quickly soaked.

  He staggered back for a second, lolled to the side, and then collapsed. His blood continued squirting in the sand.

  Abu Kishaa stepped into the ring, but Sydney didn’t stay to listen. She didn’t give a damn what he said.

  She walked back towards her tent. Not even waiting to get to her tent, she pulled her sat phone out of her pants. She texted Logan’s secure phone. Her message said, “30 days.”

  She was going to end Abu Kishaa within 30 days.

  * * *

  Logan and Eric stayed with Abiy and his wife Miriam for a couple of weeks. Eric needed rest and ibuprofen to deal with the bullet in his shoulder. Fortunately, it hadn’t severed anything vital. As far as Logan could tell, the projectile was resting against the bone of Eric’s shoulder blade. He’d have some pain when moving his shoulder in certain ways that would probably stick with him until he could get corrective surgery. He’d live,
though.

  Abiy had a 1987 Toyota truck parked behind his house, slowly rusting away. The desert air was dry, and the vegetation was low, so the vehicle was in surprisingly good shape. He said it hadn’t run in about six years. Logan used every skill he’d learned as a mechanic in Alabama, every bit of money he could pull out of different secret bank accounts, and all of Abiy’s social connections to buy the parts he needed to get the truck running. It took a while to get everything situated. One morning, Logan woke up and ate with Abiy, Eric, and Miriam then went out to the truck and popped the hood for the last time. This was going to be the decisive day.

  He finally had the new fuel pump installed. He pulled the air cleaner off the engine and dribbled some gas directly into the carburetor while Eric turned the key. The engine sputtered and coughed.

  “Turn it again,” Logan said.

  Eric turned the key as instructed. Logan poured more gas into the carburetor. The engine sputtered, chugged, and then finally roared to life. The six-cylinder growled as it shook off years of inactivity. Logan leaned over and pumped the throttle cable by hand. The engine revved up and slowed down, revved and slowed. It chugged and groaned at idle. He’d need to tune the carburetor, but the engine would run. Abiy didn’t have a vacuum gauge or timing light, but Logan could tell it was running rough. If he were in the shop, they would alter the timing and probably check the vacuum on each cylinder. They weren’t in the shop, though.

  This would have to do.

  Logan and Eric loaded a change of clothes into the back of the truck. Miriam handed them shopping bags full of bread, dates, dried fruits, and some beef jerky. They were all things that didn’t need to be refrigerated. If Logan and Eric were careful, these could last them about four days. They could make it to Addis Ababa in two.