Threatcon Delta by Andrew Britton

to—something. No bother, as long as it wasn’t them. More likely he was hurrying to the Monastery of St. Catherine, which sat behind them in the foothills of Mt. Sinai.
     
    The host noticed the stares of the crew and turned to follow their gaze. He shielded his eyes with his hand.
    “Those are the robes of a monk of the monastery,” Wesley commented.
    “Maybe a snake bit him or something,” suggested a production assistant.
    The veteran camera operator continued to record as an Egyptian bodyguard traveling with the group unshouldered his MISR assault rifle and walked forward cautiously.
    “ Esmak eh? ” the Egyptian shouted.
    When the man failed to identify himself, the bodyguard raised the weapon waist high, pointed toward him, and repeated the question.
    The newcomer waved his arms over his head and shouted something back. Wesley struggled to hear it but couldn’t quite make out the panting Egyptian.
    The bodyguard managed to hear him and shook his head. “ Mesh mumk’n! ” he yelled with a sneer.
    The man, now about fifty meters away, slowed to a trot and held both hands up as though he were surrendering.
    Standing behind the camera, the director frowned uncomfortably. “He said something about Allah. That’s not good, is it?”
    “It’s all right,” the bodyguard said, relaxing his weapon. “He was simply swearing that what he told me was true.”
    “What did he tell you?” Wesley asked.
    The bodyguard gestured toward the top of the holy mountain with his weapon. “He said that he has just seen the Gharib Qawee. ”
    “Did he now?” Wesley said with some astonishment.
    “Who’s that?” the director asked.
    “The Remarkable Stranger,” Wesley replied.
    “And who is that ?”
    Wesley said, “It’s a Byzantine usage that references Exodus 2:21–22, the Stranger in a Strange Land.”
    “I’m confused,” the director said.
    Wesley told him, “This fellow insists that he has just seen the prophet Moses.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    FORT JACKSON, SOUTH CAROLINA
    I t didn’t happen often, but infrequently is not never .
    The Department of Defense assigned Maj. Amanda Dell to Fort Jackson, home of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps. While Maj. James Phair was assigned to teach a course in Chaplain Officer Basics to new recruits, she was asked to make a more thorough study of him. It came as Administrative Directive 703 ID—Intelligence Detachment—and cc’ed one Deputy Director Jonathan Harper at the Central Intelligence Agency. The AD gave no reason other than to say that “the cleric,” as Phair was called, was a “subject of interest.” The description told her nothing she hadn’t gleaned from the assignment itself. The fact that the CIA was involved told her that it wasn’t so much Phair as his walkabout among the Iraqi people that was of interest. She had not been instructed to probe him on any specific points, however. That was uncharacteristic of the military. Also to her surprise, Dina Westbrook had not been cc’ed on the AD.
    Dell was instructed by the head of psychiatric studies at the Pentagon not to make him her sole patient. They did not want him to feel special, put him on guard. She e-mailed the HOPS that he was already on guard because of his experiences in Iraq and asked if that mattered. They said no. They reiterated that this was simply a six-month project that might be followed by what they called an “Evaluation of Impressions,” which was bureaucratese for “What do you think of him?”
    Goals and priorities were still shielded at worst, vague at best. But at least the air-conditioning worked here.
    This was session number nine since she arrived early in the spring. Phair had come here in January to give him time to settle in.
    “How’s the teaching?” she asked as he settled into the armchair across from her desk. He had been training up-and-coming clerics for two weeks.
    “They’re eager and devoted to God and country,” he replied, though his terseness suggested