CHAPTER SIXTEEN
12:40 p.m. Israel Time (5:40 a.m. Eastern Standard Time)
Tel Aviv, Israel
Something terrible had happened.
Luke woke to shouts and screams somewhere nearby. His eyes popped open and he sat straight up in his hotel bed. The bed was large—king-sized—and he had fairly melted into it. Funny. Now that he was awake, there didn’t seem to be any sound at all.
Ed Newsam sat to his left in a chair, near the door to the balcony, calmly sipping from a white coffee cup. He was wearing shorts and a black T-shirt tight to his chest, and he seemed completely relaxed. His eyes watched as Luke adjusted to his surroundings.
The flat-panel TV directly across from the foot of the bed was on, the sound muted. It showed drone footage taken from above some kind of disaster—bodies and parts o
