Thunder of Heaven by Ted Dekker

Author:Ted Dekker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Published: 2010-09-13T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ABDULLAH AMIR leaned over his desk, picking a scab that had formed over an infected mosquito bite on his upper lip. White miniblinds covered the window that overlooked the processing plant. Behind him a dilapidated bookcase housed a dozen books, haphazardly inserted.

Abdullah sucked blood from his lip and returned his attention to the Polaroids spread on the desk. He had taken them of the bombs in the lab below, their panels opened like two spacecraft waiting to be boarded while the Russian scientist slept. Beside the photographs, a hardcover book titled Nuclear Proliferation: The Challenge of the Twenty-first Century lay open.

It had been nearly a week since Jamal had made contact. He’d simply said that it was time and then vanished. The thought that the man might be on his way here to the compound had not escaped Abdullah. The thought both terrified and delighted him. He’d decided that if Jamal came, he would kill him.

A knock startled him. Abdullah shoved the photographs into the book and dropped the evidence into his top drawer. “Come.”

Ramón opened the door and guided the captain of the guards, Manuel Bonilla, into the room.

The captain’s eyes skirted him and beads of sweat covered Manuel’s forehead.

“Yes?” Abdullah said.

“We successfully took the compound, sir.”

But there was more. Abdullah could see it in the man’s tight lip. “And?”

“We suffered four casualties, sir.”

It took a moment for Abdullah to understand the words clearly. When he did, heat surged up his spine and washed through his head. “What do you mean, you suffered casualties?” Abdullah felt his voice tremble.

The man stared directly ahead now, not making eye contact. “It was highly unusual,” Manuel replied awkwardly. “There was a woman . . . She escaped with the priest.”

Abdullah stood slowly. A wave of dizziness washed through his head. The infection on his lip stung. Not so long ago he would have lashed out in a moment like this, but now he only felt sick. What he was about to do loomed like a giant in his mind.

“I am sorry—”

“Shut up!” Abdullah screamed. “Shut up!”

He sat, aware that he was trembling. Where was Jamal?

“Find her,” he said. “When you find her, you will kill her. And until then, you will double the guard in the valley.”

Manuel nodded with an ashen face, sweat now running in small rivulets down his cheeks. He turned to leave.

Abdullah stopped him. “And if you think they are alone, you are an idiot.”

Manuel nodded again, turned, and left the room.

“Have you heard from Jamal?” Abdullah asked Ramón.

“No, sir.”

“Leave.”

PARLIER LIFTED his hand and peered over the rim with the night-vision goggles sticking from his eyes like Coke bottles. The valley dipped below him several miles before breaking abruptly at a formation he thought might be the cliffs they had been warned about. But in the jungle night, the formation was difficult to make out clearly.

Graham dropped to his belly next to him. “You see it?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“Not sure. I think so. We got us a valley and some kind of rock formation halfway down there.

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