Part 13 (1/2)

But then one day, when she was seven, there was a commotion.

As the team was eating breakfast, a radio squawked: 'All units. This is Sentry One, I have an intruder coming in through the main gate.'

Everyone leapt up, alarmed at the presence of an outsider, worried that other nations might know of their mission.

The intruder turned out to be a lone man-tall and thin, with a sanguine face-walking casually down the dirt road from the main gate.

Three hidden guns were trained on him as he rang the doorbell.

Wizard answered the door. 'Can I help you, young man?'

'Indeed you can, Professor Epper,' the thin man said. He had a dry pale face, with high cheekbones and deep hollow eye sockets.

Wizard blanched, did a double-take.

The intruder's grey eyes never blinked. He knew that he had just chilled Wizard to the very bone.

'Professor Max T. Epper,' he said, 'Professor of Archaeology at Trinity College, Dublin, and the representative of Canada on a secret eight-nation task force protecting the daughter of the Oracle of Siwa, with a view to obtaining the lost Capstone of the Great Pyramid. My name is Lieutenant Benjamin Cohen, call-sign Archer Archer, formerly of the Sayaret Matkal, now of the Israeli Mossad. I've been sent by my government to join your task force.'

West stepped out from behind Wizard.

'Why h.e.l.lo, Jack,' Archer said familiarly. 'Haven't seen you since Desert Storm. Heard about what you did at that SCUD base outside Basra. Very nice. And Israel appreciated your efforts; although we still don't know how you got out. My bosses said you were involved in this, which was why they sent me. They thought you would accept me more than you would a total stranger.'

'They were right, Ben,' West said. 'It's the only thing keeping you alive right now.'

'Don't shoot the messenger.'

'Why not?' West said and for the briefest of moments, Archer's confident air fell.

West said, 'I don't like having my hand forced, Ben, and you've got us over a barrel here.'

Archer said seriously, 'This is big, Jack. Affairs of state. Fate of the world and all that. This confrontation between Europe and the US has been coming for a long time. Let's just say, Israel always likes to be involved. If it makes you feel better, I have orders to place myself under your direct command.'

West pondered this a moment.

Then he said, 'No contact with home. No reporting back to Mossad until the mission is achieved.'

'I have have to report back sometime-' to report back sometime-'

'No reporting back to Mossad until the mission is achieved or I blow your brains out right now, Ben.'

Archer held up his hands, smiled. 'Can't argue with that. You've got a deal.'

The team was stunned-but they knew they didn't have any choice in the matter.

Either they allowed Archer to join their team or the Israelis would just advise the Americans of their mission.

How the Israelis had discovered them, they didn't know-but then the Mossad is is the most ruthless and efficient intelligence service in the world. It knows everything. the most ruthless and efficient intelligence service in the world. It knows everything.

What was also apparent, however, was that Israel did not not want to see the Capstone fall into the hands of either America or Europe-which meant Israel had an interest in the mission succeeding. That was good. want to see the Capstone fall into the hands of either America or Europe-which meant Israel had an interest in the mission succeeding. That was good.

The big question, however, was what Israel planned to do at the end of the mission. Could Archer and Israel be trusted then?

At first, hardly anyone even spoke to Archer-which the ever-cool Israeli didn't seem to mind at all.

But no man is an island, and one day he joined West as he carried out some repairs on the station ...and so began the process of becoming part of the team.

And slowly, over the course of many months, by working and sweating and training with the others, he became accepted as one of them.

One member of their little community, however, always regarded Archer with great suspicion.

Saladin.

As an Arab and a Muslim, he distrusted the Israeli intensely, but he also knew that Archer's presence in Kenya was now a given.

He would often say that while he had to accept Archer's presence, he didn't have to like it.

As all this was happening, Lily's development was proceeding apace.

She was always inquisitive, always watching.

Watching Saladin go off into the big barn and disappear inside his explosives workshop. He was so sweet and cuddly, she renamed him Pooh Bear.

Watching the new man, Archer, go out to the western paddock and practise firing his ultralong Barrett sniper rifle at far-off targets-and hitting the target every single time every single time. She watched him closely, even when he disa.s.sembled his rifle. He was so tall and thin, she started calling him Stretch. (She also noticed that Pooh Bear and Stretch hardly ever even spoke. She did not know why.) Watching Witch Doctor do chin-ups. From an early age, she had loved his wild dreadlocked hair. He became Fuzzy.

Watching the two youngest troopers, Matador and Gunman, jog together, train together and drink together. This earned them their new callsigns: Noddy and Big Ears.

And, of course, watching Zoe.

Idolising Zoe.

Being the only twenty-something female Lily knew, it wasn't unexpected that Zoe would become her feminine role model.

And Zoe Kissane was a good role model. She could outlast the men in fitness tests, outwit most of them at dinner-table discussions, and she could often be found studying history books deep into the night.

It was not uncommon to find Lily sitting in an armchair late at night beside Zoe, fast asleep with a book open, trying to imitate the pretty Irish woman.

Naturally, Lily called her Princess Zoe.

But above all, the one person Lily enjoyed watching most was Jack West Jr.

She would never forget the day in 2000 when Wizard had presented West with a s.h.i.+ny new silver arm.

With Zoe a.s.sisting, Wizard spent the whole day attaching the high-tech arm to West's left elbow, pausing every now and then to frown and say something like, 'The arm's CPU is experiencing interference from somewhere. Aziz, would you turn off the television set, please.' Eventually, he changed some frequencies on the arm's central processing unit and it worked to his satisfaction.

The four-year-old Lily had watched them keenly as they worked.