by Alex Archer
"Stop," Annja told McIntosh, kneeling beside the wounded man.
He was in his early sixties, white-haired and clearly frightened. His eyes rolled and his breath came in short gasps. The woman who cradled his head in her lap looked as though she was his wife. Three small children, probably grandchildren, sat nearby.
"This man is scared enough," Annja went on in a calm voice. She smiled reassuringly at the man. "If you get upset, he's going to panic."
"If that wound doesn't get closed up, it's going to get infected. This train isn't the most hygienic environment."
"I know."
"If infection sets in, he could lose that leg."
Annja forced herself to draw a deep breath. She knew that, too.
"Have you ever dealt with an open fracture before?" McIntosh asked.
"No," Annja admitted. "But I know how to handle it. I need a med kit and some kind of anesthetic."
McIntosh talked briefly over the radio. Within a few minutes, one of the agents showed up with a medical kit they'd salvaged from the locomotive.
"The engineer and the brakeman are both dead," the agent said. "Took a direct hit up there. They probably died instantly."
Annja didn't let the news touch her. It was too depressing. So far they knew of seven people who had died in the attack. One of them had been a child.
You'll grieve later, she told herself. Do what you can for the others now.
She opened the med kit and found ampoules of morphine. In a calm voice, she told the man that she was going to give him something to take some of the pain away, and she told him there would be pain involved in her fixing his leg.
Grimly, face ashen in the darkness, the man nodded. "Thank you for everything you're doing, miss."
"You're welcome. Now just lie back and try to take it easy." Annja used an alcohol swab on the inside of his right elbow. She gave him the morphine and waited.
Gradually, the old man's eyes glazed and his breathing slowed and deepened.
Annja turned to McIntosh. "I can't do this in the dark."
McIntosh sighed. "I know. Give me a hand and we'll cover the windows as best as we can."
Together, they scrounged for something to use to cover the windows and found bolts of cloth in one of the cargo cars. They cut the material into squares with pocketknives and used strapping tape they'd found there to hold the cloth in place.
By that time, the old man was deeply under the influence of the morphine.
"I'm going to need you to help me do this," Annja said. "If I knew he'd get medical attention within the next two hours, I'd just immobilize the leg. I'm going to have to assume that it's going to be longer than that. We've got to align the break."
"Tell me what to do." McIntosh put his rifle down nearby. Following Annja's directions, he gripped the man's upper thigh.
The man groaned a little.
"I'm hurting him," McIntosh said.
"It's going to hurt," Annja replied. "If I could put him out, I would."
"You've got more morphine there."
"I could give him too much. I've given him all I think I safely can. Just hold on to his thigh. When I start realigning the bone, I'm going to pull it back into the flesh. If that jagged end slips around too much, it could cut the femoral artery and he'll bleed out in minutes and there's not a thing we can do about it." Annja looked at McIntosh. "Are you ready?"
He gave a tight nod.
Working carefully, Annja stripped the man's shoe off and gripped his foot by the heel and by the top. She pulled steadily, ignoring the man's cries of pain and his wife's plaintive cries to stop what they were doing.
Finally, after a lot of hard work, the broken femur oozed back through the hole in the flesh with a slight sucking noise and disappeared. Annja kept on working, feeling the ends of the bone grate together until she judged she had the best fit possible.
Annja then fashioned a splint for the man's leg using materials she salvaged from the train.
After she'd finished, the man quietly went to sleep.
"Watch him," she told the woman. "Keep him still. If there's any problem, come get me."
"Of course," the woman said. "Bless you for all that you have done."
Annja smiled at the woman. "He's going to be fine. You'll just have to take care of him for a little while after the doctors finish with him."
"Always," the woman said proudly. "I always take care of him."
****
A few minutes later, Annja stood outside again. The wind felt cool after being inside the train car. McIntosh put a bottle of water in her hand. She opened it and drank gratefully.
McIntosh nodded toward the train car. "What you did back there, most archaeologists don't do that, do they?"
"Not unless they have to take care of someone who's been hurt. Most of us have taken first aid."
"How many times have you done this?"
"Counting this time?"
McIntosh nodded.
"Once."
****
Dawn streaked the eastern sky purple and gold. As night swiftly disappeared, so did some of the fear that had hung over them since the attack.
If it hadn't been for the skull-faced corpses littering the ground, and the fact that another passenger had succumbed to his injuries, the morning might almost have seemed normal.
Annja sat on the ground with her back to a tree and felt the world warm up around her. She wanted a long bath and a comfortable bed, but her mind kept buzzing with thoughts of the Spider Stone. They were close to the area where Yohance had come from. She felt certain about that.
She took the stone from her pocket and studied it again. Her backpack lay nearby. One of McIntosh's agents had recovered it and brought it to her. A brief examination of the computer revealed that it was still in working order.
Footsteps drew close to her. She looked up and saw McIntosh approaching.
Professor Hallinger and Jozua Ganesvoort slept on sleeping bags that had been taken from the cargo cars. Both had spent the night tending to the injured passengers.
She waited for McIntosh to speak.
"We still haven't made contact with Kidira," he said. McIntosh definitely looked worse for wear after being up all night. His clothing was bloody and dirty. He carried the assault rifle in his hand, as if it were a growth that had sprung up overnight.
"They'll send someone," she said.
"We've got enough jeeps to get everyone out of here."
"That would mean crossing a lot of open space, though," Annja said without disguising her concern.
McIntosh sighed. "I know. I've been thinking about that, too." His radio squawked for attention. "McIntosh."
"We have a problem," a man said. "One of the two sons of the lady engineer has a laceration above his eye. We haven't been able to get the bleeding stopped. She wants to know if Ms. Creed could take a look at it."
McIntosh looked at Annja.
Annja nodded.
"Sure," McIntosh said. "We'll be right up." He offered his hand and helped Annja to her feet.
She hoisted the backpack over one shoulder and bent down to retrieve the med kit. Most of the supplies had been exhausted.
"Last night," McIntosh said as they walked toward one of the jeeps they'd commandeered, "that woman said you'd gone outside the car."
"I did," Annja said.
"Why?"
"I needed some air."
McIntosh snorted as he started the engine. "You're lucky you weren't killed."
Looking at the wrecked train, Annja said, "We all are."
****
"Can you close the wound?"
Annja pushed the two edges of the laceration above Kamil's eye together. The edges met perfectly, offering mute testimony that it had been a slice and not a tear. Blood wept slowly down the side of the boy's face.
"I can," Annja said, "but I'm not a doctor."
Tanisha stood behind Annja, looking over her shoulder. "I know," Tanisha said. "But the wound needs to
be closed. Kamil says he's feeling light-headed. I'm afraid he's lost too much blood."
"Light-headedness could be from lack of sleep or a concussion," Annja said.
"The size of his pupils match. If it was a bad concussion, the pupils wouldn't match and he'd have a horrendous headache."
Tanisha was anxious about her son's condition. Annja felt the tension coming off the other woman in waves. It's not just the wound. It's about being out here, as well. Not knowing what's going to happen or if her kids are going to be safe, she thought.
"I don't have a headache," Kamil said.
Tanisha and her boys sat away from the train with the other civilians. The precaution was in case Tafari's men returned, hoping to catch them unawares. They had food and water and shade, but Annja could tell they were all worried.
Maybe McIntosh is right, she thought. Maybe we should take our chances about going cross-country.
But they were more than an hour away from Kidira by train. Traveling by jeep over the rough terrain would certainly add to that time.
"I need to sit down," Kamil said. "I feel sick."
"Okay," Annja said. "Have a seat." She held on to the boy's arm and helped him sit. Then she looked at Tanisha. "I can close the wound, but I'm not a professional. If the hospital has a plastic surgeon on call, Kamil won't have much of a scar. If I close the wound, I don't know what it'll look like."
"If the cut stays open and gets infected," Tanisha said, "it won't matter if a plastic surgeon is on call at the hospital. The hospital is hours away, and there's no telling how long the wait will be once we get there. I don't want to risk an infection."
"Do you want to do this, Kamil?" Annja asked. During childhood in the orphanage, she hadn't had much control over her life. She'd gone to doctors and dentists when and where she'd been told. She'd resented the impersonal actions. She didn't want to treat Kamil that way.
"Not really," the boy answered.
"We're going to do this," his mother replied, her voice firm. Then it softened. "I don't want you to get worse, Kamil. If this wasn't necessary, I promise you I wouldn't have it done like this."
"Okay." Kamil didn't sound very happy, but he reached out to take his mother's hand.
Annja prepped the wound, cleaning it out with antiseptic and applying topical antibiotics. "Close your eyes, please."
Kamil did, and sat tense as a board.
"Ooh, Kamil," Bashir whispered, eyes wide. "Annja's got a needle. A big needle."
Kamil groaned unhappily.
"Hey, Bashir," Annja chided. "I thought your name meant you brought good news."
The younger boy clapped his hands over his mouth. "Sorry," he said quietly.
Working quickly, Annja injected local anesthetic around and into the wound to numb it. She used the smallest curved needle in the med kit and put six close-set stitches above Kamil's wound. The smaller and closer the stitches, the smaller the scar.
When she was finished, Annja washed the blood away, put more topical antibiotic on the closure and bandaged the wound.
Once done, Annja had a moment to relax. She suddenly realized she hadn't been alone when the train was attacked. She looked for the old woman, Jaineba.
"Looking for someone?" Tanisha asked.
"I saw an old woman last night," Annja said. "You were with her when you came out of the passenger car."
"Jaineba?"
Annja remembered the name and nodded.
Looking around, Tanisha shook her head. "She was here earlier, but I don't see her now. In fact, I don't know how long it's been since I saw her."
"Is she a friend?" Annja asked.
"Maybe," Tanisha answered. "I think she believes she is. She's a Hausa wisewoman. She lives up in the hills around here."
"Here?" Annja asked. "Not around Dakar?" Excitement flared in her as she thought about the few Hausa villages that were in the area. Most of the Hausa in West Africa lived in Nigeria, not Senegal.
"I don't know if she's ever been to Dakar."
"She's been to Dakar. She was there last night," Annja said.
Tanisha looked at Annja doubtfully. "I don't mean to sound as though I doubt your word, but are you certain it was Jaineba you saw? Some old people tend to look alike."
Annja nodded. "It was Jaineba. She knew me."
"Had you met before?"
"Never."
"Then how did she know you."
"I have no idea."
"That's strange," Tanisha said.
Taking a bottle of water from the box of supplies they'd gathered from the train, Annja silently agreed. Then again, strange things had started happening to her the day she'd found that piece of the sword in France. Strange things had continued happening ever since.
****
The savanna filled with people an hour later. Tribesmen in loincloths or T-shirts and shorts came with their wives and children from all directions and descended upon the train like carrion feeders.
McIntosh stood, his rifle at the ready.
"Don't shoot," Annja said. "They don't mean us any harm. They're just here for the cargo." She didn't know how she knew that, only that she sensed no menace.
"Hold your fire," McIntosh called over the radio.
All around them, his men held their weapons up.
The tribesmen smiled and waved and yelled out greetings in English and French. Most of them were empty-handed.
They didn't leave empty-handed, though. Crawling through the cargo, the men, women and children made their selections – as much as they could possibly carry – and returned to the trees and grasslands, disappearing almost at once. Within the hour, there was no sign that they'd ever been there.
"Shopping day," McIntosh commented. Then he sat down in the shade.
Annja joined him. "Someone let them know the train had been derailed," she said. "If they know, other people have to know, too."
"I'm going to give the railway another hour," McIntosh said, "then we're going to caravan out of here. If we'd left this morning, we'd already be in Kidira. I don't want to be out here when it gets dark again."
Me neither, Annja thought. The idea of being trapped in the open by Tafari's men again wasn't a happy one.
****
Forty-three minutes later, a train from Kidira chugged into view. The people who'd been stranded by the attack gave voice to a small cheer.
Gendarmes, the military law-enforcement body outside the metropolitan areas of Senegal, occupied the train in force. Dressed in green fatigues and blue berets, they stepped off the train armed to the teeth and took control of the area without hesitation.
The passengers and their luggage were loaded onto the new train. Work crews and security guards wearing black uniforms with Childress Security Division stamped on them stayed behind to begin salvaging what they could.
****
Annja, Hallinger, Ganesvoort and McIntosh took one of the private salons in the new train and sat down to figure out how they were going to proceed with their treasure hunt.
"I think we should turn back," McIntosh said.
"Turn back?" Annja asked in disbelief. "It was your idea to come."
"It was," McIntosh admitted. "But I was thinking that Tafari would be easier to handle than he is. I thought we could get him off to himself long enough to lock him down. According to our intelligence, his troops were scattered. After last night, we know that's not true." He leaned back in his seat. "Much as I hate to admit it, we're outgunned."
"Just because you're giving up on the possibility of getting Tafari doesn't mean we should back off finding the treasure that Anansi left the Hausa," Hallinger said.
McIntosh shook his head. "Listen to yourself, Professor. You're talking about chasing after an unknown treasure left by an African spider god. It's a story. Make-believe. Nothing more."
Hallinger held up his thumb and forefinger a fraction of an inch apart. "We're this close to finding Anansi's treasure trove."
"You don't know that," McIntosh
said.
Anger mixed with Hallinger's words. "We didn't come this far just to give up."
"If you keep this up," McIntosh said, "you're going to get killed. It could have happened last night. I knew it was a mistake to leave Dakar. I should have put my foot down then. We're not set up to deal with something like this. We should have been able to grab Tafari somewhere along the way. That was the plan."
"That was your plan," Hallinger replied brusquely. "Annja and I came to find out the truth about the Spider Stone. Just because your plan isn't going to work out doesn't mean ours won't."
"I'll pull the funding on this operation," McIntosh said.
"And I'll underwrite it," Ganesvoort stated quietly. He looked at Hallinger. "If you'll permit me. I've never been part of something like this, and I have to admit that it holds a certain allure."
"You're on Tafari's turf out here." McIntosh sounded exasperated. "Are you people not listening?"
Annja ignored the conversation, concentrating on the topographical maps she'd taken from her backpack. You're not going to see anything you haven't seen before, she told herself. It was hopeless. The map on the Spider Stone didn't match up with anything she could see on paper.
McIntosh was right. They'd come to the end of the chase. The puzzle couldn't be solved. She didn't have enough pieces to make it work.
Worn and tired, not knowing her next move, Annja looked out the window. High in the sky, she saw a lone falcon riding the wind currents. The bird dropped like a stone, plummeting to earth and scooping up a small hare.
She felt as powerless as the hare, and she didn't like it.
Chapter 23
Seated in a jeep with the canvas canopy up, Tafari waited outside Kidira at an abandoned warehouse and watched the train roll toward the railway station. The building was just outside the city's border so none of the guards would bother him. Outside the city limits, the country turned immediately hostile and dangerous.
Tafari knew the woman archaeologist would be on the train and that vexed him. The night's events had not happened the way he'd imagined them.
Furthermore, the destruction of the train had caused an unplanned rift with his partner. That partnership was a lucrative one, and it promised to be even more so in the future.