Free Exodus by J.F. Penn

but she could see that he still wanted to take it from her. Keeping an eye on him, she half turned and called,  
    “Isac. Bring one of them.” Isac grabbed a monk from the throng and pushed him down next to her. Natasha stood and pulled her gun. Holding it against the monk’s temple, she asked again. “Where’s the rest of the Ark?”  
    The monk at gunpoint began to pray, shaking his head at the man on the ground. Natasha pulled the trigger and the monk slumped to the ground, blood running from the wound in his head, soaking the earth of the sanctuary.  
    “You are from the Devil,” the old monk whispered, shaking now. “God would not ask this of us.”  
    Isac pushed another monk down next to him so that his body would fall onto the old man cowering on the floor.  
    “How many of your brothers will you give up for the sake of this fragment?” Natasha asked.  
    This man wasn’t as strong as his friend. He begged the old monk to save him, to let him live.
    “Too long.” Natasha fired into the back of his head and his body slumped down over the old man. Blood and brains spattered his face and neck and he scrambled to wipe it off, gore staining his hands, but it was enough to tip him over the edge. He babbled words in Amharic, pointing south away from the sanctuary. As Isac reached for another monk to be sacrificed, he spoke clearly in English, raising his hands in surrender.
    “No more. Please. You must go to the Lemba.”    
    Natasha looked at Isac and raised an eyebrow. He nodded. They had been reading in Gamal’s notebooks about the Lemba tribe of Zimbabwe, who also claimed an ancient link to the Jews and the Ark of the Covenant. It seemed that the curator’s research had been heading in the right direction, although he hadn’t foreseen the Ark being broken into pieces.  
    The sun was high now. If they hurried, they could make Zimbabwe by nightfall. Natasha stepped away from the old man and he was immediately surrounded by other monks, supporting him and dragging him out from under the bodies of the slaughtered men.  
    As Isac pulled his men back, they kept their weapons trained on the group, expecting a last minute resistance, but nothing came. Natasha set off across the enclosure, her steps sure and firm, flanked by the soldiers as they double timed it back to the waiting Range Rover. A great wail went up as Natasha stepped outside the boundary wall of Mary of Zion, as if their grief at losing the Ark could no longer be contained.  
    The driver was shaking as they got back in. He crossed himself and edged away from Natasha as she sat in the front next to him, blood still wet on her clothes. She leaned close to him.  
    “Drive,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his, the threat apparent. Clouds of dust rose as they drove back towards the airport while Isac made the arrangements on his smartphone for them to head deeper into Africa.

Al Jazeera News Broadcast, 10.41am  

    Jerusalem’s holiest site erupted into running battles today. Tensions have been escalating following the release of images showing an Arab man murdered on a replica Ark of the Covenant, inciting extremist rhetoric on all sides of the debate.  
    Fighting broke out as Palestinian worshippers exited the Al-Aqsa mosque after prayers, a place also sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount. The unrest was sparked by two Ultra Orthodox Jews who managed to bypass soldiers and run into the sanctuary to pray. Since late 2011, non-Muslims have been banned from ascending into the Sanctuary in order to prevent such conflict, and non-Muslim prayers are forbidden. Israeli police are permanently stationed at the Temple Mount, mainly to prevent Jews from accessing the sacred area which was left under Muslim control, despite the city being under Israeli occupation.  
    “It seems that freedom of religion in Israel is only for Muslims and not for Jews or Christians,” Moshe Aridor, deputy speaker of the Knesset, told reporters. “We cannot even