Dominique emanated a confidence and love she knew Isabel had been starving for. She saw a vulnerability overwhelm the young woman before her, giving her a glimpse of the young girl she once was—before tragedy struck, and encased her in a fortress of alienation and her own intractable dogma.

Isabel’s voice trembled with these words. “I know someone who claims to be able to activate what lies beneath the desert sand.”

“The girl?”

“Yes.”

Dominique saw Isabel was exhausted, relieved, and terrified to unburden herself of this secret.

Dominique had engendered these confessions in many of those she’d pursued, and questioned in her career ascent. She knew this young woman’s ambition to leave the land of her ancestors had left her tattered roots. It had also brought her here. To this place and appointed time.

The thread being pulled through Dominique’s life now included Isabel, her sister, the girl, and whoever else she was about to find.

63

63

“You remind me of my mother,” Jhana-Merise said. She was alone with Dominique. Isabel had set up the meeting in her apartment.

“You were five when she died?”

“Yes.”

“You have a strong bond with your father because of it.”

Jhana-Merise smiled.

“Tell me about your mother.”

“To do that I need to tell you about all of us.”

Dominique wasn’t sure where this was going, but she was spellbound in the presence of this young girl who had captivated and terrified a lawyer as brilliant and wounded as Dominique.

Jhana-Merise spoke of the course of their collective souls. She spoke of a time in the desert thousands of years ago. Before history caught up with the search for the tablets. Before anyone knew of their existence.

“We were a violent tribe. We come from violence,” Jhana-Merise said. “We’re responsible for continuing the chain of events that has controlled the world ever since our ancestors took a bone in their hand and realized it was a weapon with the power to kill. But my mother, who was my sister at that time—”

“You’re talking reincarnation.”

“I’m talking the arc of a soul, which is given many lifetimes to comprehend its purpose. She knew our purpose was to hide and protect this tablet.”

“This is an awful lot of esoteric information for one so young.”

“I know,” Jhana-Merise said, her smile disarming.

“You mentioned tablets. Are there more than one?”

“Yes. But we’re responsible for the one in the desert of Mosul.”

“And the others?”

“I believe we’ll know them in time.”

Dominique eased back into the sofa they were sitting on, comforted by this young girl.

Jhana-Merise spoke of how Abd al Hashim, and bin Laden before him, and many before them, were among those who’d been given a chance to transform the world. But they had a different take on what that meant. Others had tried and failed because the world hadn’t reached its tipping point.