The Masada Protocol

Chapter One Wednesday, December 11, 2013; Somewhere in Egypt Steve Barber unlatched the trunk of the ancient Citroën and opened it an inch to hear the sounds of the night. Fresh air rushed in and he filled his lungs. He held his body frozen, legs cramped and neck stiff from eight hours in the confined space, and absorbed the village through his eyes, ears and nose. Voices were distant, the tone easy. It was pitch black, with just a wisp of lantern light coming from a mud-brick building fifty meters away. Dinner fires still offered a touch of garlic and onion mingled with the wood smoke.

Raising the lid higher, he climbed out with just the whisper of his clothing rubbing against his pack. He held a Glock equipped with a 17-round magazine—he’d attached the silencer while waiting for nightfall. He planted his left foot on the stony ground, cringing at the crunch his boot made on marble-sized pebbles scattered along the road. Slow and steady, he retrieved his pack, lowered the trunk lid, and crouched behind the right rear side of the twenty-seven-year old French car. After a 360-degree scan, he darted to the north wall of the building against which the Citroën was parked.

He had been in the trunk since being driven to the village and, even though the temperature had not exceeded 20 degrees Celsius that afternoon, sweat soaked his clothes down to his Phenix Fast Assault soft boots. But now it was a cool 9 degrees. A relief. A few quiet stretches and isometrics. Ready to move.

He had memorized the layout of the village, every detail from the bends in the streets to the depths of the wells, from the collapsed wall on the outskirts near the graveyard to the grove of broad-podded Acacia trees where the ground sloped toward a dry creek bed. Even in the dark, Steve knew this was the southwest corner.

He checked his watch—2334 hours. He drank some water from the pouch in his pack while he assessed his environment. Although there would be a full moon later, it was not yet visible. Steve didn’t use night vision goggles.

He relied on his training and eyesight, and dispensed with the ten ounces of equipment. As usual in December, it had not rained in this part of Egypt for days. A layer of dust covered anything that had not been recently touched or