Death and Deception

by Seeley James

  Out of nowhere, a young blonde woman appeared an arm’s length from Jenny and her attacker. The blonde hooked the man’s wrist with her ankle and spun on her other foot, forcing his wrist to the ground. She pinned his wrist, surprising the man and giving Jenny enough time to struggle to her feet.

  I arrived a second later and drove a devastating boot to the top of the man’s head, stunning him.

  The blonde took off running and disappeared.

  Before I could shout thanks, the second man shoved Cherry into the room. Jenny slammed her shoulder into the door, preventing him from locking us out. I took three big steps, pounding my shoulder into mix. The door swung open. The second attacker flew backward, stunned and pinned to the wall. I fell to the floor because, unlike the movies, that’s what happens when you commit your full body weight to opening a door.

  Jenny pulled the door back and smashed it into the attacker a second time. That stopped his struggling for a fraction of a second. She repeated the process several more times. While she did that, Cherry tossed me a backpack.

  Rafael took the time to deliver an extra kick to the head of the man lying on the ground in front of the doorway. Then he motioned for me to toss his pack to him. I did.

  Jenny said, “I couldn’t carry yours. Go get it and meet us on the dock. I have a plan.”

  I ran for my room, hoping her plan was a good one because I had nothing. I barged into my room and grabbed my pack with Seven-Death’s replacement altar.

  I stood still a moment, listening to the sounds around me. In the distance, I could hear tromping feet. The Knights’ reinforcements were arriving in numbers.

  I shouldered the pack and ran down the path to the boats. Four Knights rounded a corner fifty yards back. I passed the old Chinese woman with her walking stick and her young friend. In the light of day, she looked older and he looked younger. They stepped aside as I ran by. Behind me, I heard one of my pursuers face-plant on the walkway. Did the Chinese lady trip him? No time to look back.

  Jenny helmed the water taxi as Rafael cast off. She was backing it up when I jumped aboard. I crashed into Cherry and Rafael. They did their best to keep me upright, but my momentum and weight sprawled all three of us across the bench seats. Jenny cranked the throttle and powered across the lake. I took a second to admire her ingenuity in making our escape.

  Although it was not as exciting as you might think. A water taxi is no speedboat. We were going about as fast as a decent runner can sprint. The men chasing us opened fire with pistols. I scrambled to the bulwark and returned fire while Jenny zigged.

  Without realizing I’d bumped the selector to full-auto during my crash-landing, my first magazine emptied in half a second. My objective was to scatter the killers. It worked—at the expense of a lot of ammo. The Glock 18C uses a standard 9x19mm Parabellum, but Guatemala has few firearms stores in tourist towns. I wasn’t sure when I could find more. I reserved the remaining magazine in case of another encounter.

  They hadn’t expected that kind of firepower. They headed up the hill as fast as their feet could carry them before figuring out I wasn’t keeping up the assault. The Knights regrouped and made their way back to the dock.

  We were out of range, but they got busy untying the pontoon boat. I couldn’t imagine it was any faster than our water taxi, but it couldn’t be much slower either. They jumped aboard and followed us.

  We were in a slow-motion boat chase, the kind James Bond never, ever gets into. Why does this stuff happen to me? Why couldn’t there be a jet ski or a cigarette boat on the pier?

  It took an hour to get to Flores. The Knights started a mile behind and fell back by a few yards every few minutes. Which meant they would see where we landed and be behind us by five minutes. And they had radios to guide their minions. I’d counted thirty-two back at Hidalgo’s dig. They had plenty of resources.

  During our flight from El Remate, Rafael told me Lt. Soto had chosen to wait for his backup to arrive. He couldn’t abandon his town or his officers to help us. Which was understandable and admirable. Soto had warned us that the garrison at Flores had sent all available personnel to aid him in El Remate, leaving their city unguarded. Which meant I was the lone defense against our four pursuers. As long as the other Knights didn’t arrive in Flores ahead of us, we could make it to the airport and charter a plane or rent a fast car.

  I spent the trip chartering a plane. All I could get was a single engine turboprop. The good news was: that’s all anyone could get. It wasn’t a big airport. With any luck, we’d be on that plane and gone before the Knights in the pontoon boat tied off at the city dock.

  Mercury sat on the bow. You ain’t got no luck, homeboy. Not until you come clean with Jenny.

  I said, I will. Just has to be the right time and place. You can’t just spring stuff on people. I mean, I can’t just say, Oh, by the way, I’m in tight with a god who hasn’t been worshipped in fifteen hundred years.

  Mercury looked hurt. Say what? I been worshipped plenty. I got worshippers all over the world.

  I said, I’m not talking about the kind who push their belongings around in shopping carts.

  Mercury frowned. Dude. You wanna be that way? Then check out this here.

  He pointed at the only dock sticking out of the city’s seawall. Ten Turkmen lined it.

  CHAPTER 11

  When I pointed them out to Jenny, she gave the dock a wide berth, keeping us out of range and slicing across a small bay. She said, “Look for somewhere else to land.”

  I scanned the coastline ahead of us. Nothing but rocky seawalls as far as I could see. Jenny studied Google Maps on her phone.

  The Knights tried to run parallel to us along the shore. Due to the arc of the bay, they would have to run much farther to meet us. They would be a threat, but not until after we landed.

  The pontoon boat crew saw our avoidance maneuver and narrowed the gap by cutting across our course correction.

  “I’m going to run us aground,” Jenny yelled above the straining motor. “There’s a dirt lot a mile short of the airport. We can sprint the rest.”

  We glanced at each other; certain we could handle it.

  Jenny looked us over as she realigned her course. “We’ll be going twice as fast as a San Francisco trolley. It’ll be a violent landing.”

  We traded glances again, this time with less certainty. I knew I could handle it. That was about the speed of an airborne assault landing under fire. Tuck and roll. Rafael had kept up on our trek, but could his old bones handle that kind of jolt? We lined up on the bow, ready to jump on impact.

  Jenny revved it up, then revved it down, putting the boat on top of a little bow wave to cushion the impact. An instant before we hit, we tossed our packs and jumped in different directions, tucking and rolling. The little boat ran up the gravel embankment before groaning to a stop. When I rolled up to standing, Cherry came up next to me. The boat had shifted, blocking our view of the other two.

  We grabbed our packs and tracked around the front to find Rafael staggering to his feet with Jenny’s help.

  Bullets pinged off the water taxi’s metal hull. The deeper draft of the pontoon boat stopped them fifty yards offshore. I aimed without firing. They instinctively ducked.

  We ran.

  Rounding two concrete buildings, we ran up the main drag in Flores. We passed a municipal stadium, a tire dealer, a disco, and several restaurants on narrow sidewalks next to a four-lane road. For two more blocks, we had a wide grassy patch between the curb and a fence topped with razor wire. After that, there was no sidewalk, curb, or shoulder. We ran on a narrow strip of ground alongside a wall. The gopher holes and broken bottles lining the way slowed our progress. We stumbled and charged on, keeping our steps light in case the ground beneath each footfall gave way. Progress slowed, but the terrain would slow the Knights as well.

  Cherry was not an athlete. Before long her jog turned into a walk. Her resolve didn’t fail her, her lungs did. I took her pack from her without aski
ng. She looked at me with protest in her eyes, but quickly understood. Our lead on the killers wouldn’t last long. Admirably, she picked up her pace, breathing hard. I noted that she had never complained throughout our ordeal.

  In half a mile, we came alongside the airport runway. A cinder block wall topped with rusty barbed wire kept us from taking a shortcut. Half a mile ahead of us, I could see the only plane on the apron. Our plane. The terminal loomed six football fields down the road. Three minutes at our pace.

  I looked back. No sign of the Knights. I doubted we were safe, but that gave me hope. Rafael and Cherry were running out of breath.

  The professor tripped on a tree branch hidden by the knee-high weeds. I took his pack from him before helping him to his feet. Jenny and Cherry kept going, knowing there was nothing they could do. We regained speed and determination as we neared the terminal’s short driveway. Safety was in sight.

  Three trucks roared up the road behind us. Several Knights rode in the bed of pickup trucks. They opened fire with semi-automatic assault rifles, laying down a spread of bullets in the dirt behind us.

  I dropped the packs and aimed at them, hoping to bluff them again. This time, it didn’t work. They laid down another wall of bullets at our feet.

  I picked up the packs and ran to catch up with my friends. They had spread out, the bullets scattering them in different directions. Cherry tripped on a pothole and went down. The Knights fired a line of bullets into the dirt between us and Cherry.

  I squeezed off a shot at the driver. He kept coming but braked.

  At first, I thought I’d scared them. Then I realized they’d slowed for a different reason. In the back, a man rose with a grenade launcher. He fired at my plane. My eyes followed the rocket in disbelief. It hit the engine compartment square on. White hot shrapnel flew out in every direction, some hitting the wings where the fuel tanks exploded in a fireball.

  While my eyes told my brain what I didn’t want to believe, a second truck flew into the drive behind me, cutting between Cherry and me. Two men jumped out while another held a rifle leveled at me. He didn’t shoot. Not wanting to tip my hand about being low on ammo when I was outnumbered, I held my fire.

  The two men tossed Cherry into the bed of the truck. She screamed for help.

  The driver floored it, burning rubber on his exit. The first truck cranked around in a tight circle and left. The third had already turned around.

  My mind instantly snapped into tactical analysis. They could’ve shot me between the eyes and taken my pack. They didn’t. Which means they know I don’t have the Stone.

  So what were they doing? They hadn’t been shooting to kill. They wanted one of us. No doubt to bargain for the Poison Stone. Rafael was right. The myth was only as strong as the people who believed it. And the Knights of Mithras were believers. They believed in it so hard, they were willing to murder archeologists and blow up airplanes in broad daylight. Taking them down wasn’t going to be easy.

  Could I even do it? Without my friends from Sabel Security? I faced thirty-two men armed with rifles and at least one grenade launcher. Those guys weren’t from around here and you don’t shove a grenade launcher into your checked bags. At least, I’ve never gotten away with it.

  There was no way they could’ve pre-positioned hardware ahead of my arrival in Flores. Or even Guatemala, for that matter. I could’ve easily gone home the way I came, through Mexico. That meant they had bribed someone in the military. And they’d found someone they could bribe while on the run. Or they had help from high up. None of which was a good sign.

  Rafael Tum screamed in agony. At first, I thought he’d been shot. I ran to him. Jenny reached him at the same time I did. He turned to me, tears streaming down his face.

  He clawed fistfuls of my shirt and cried, “You have to get her back. You have to save my niece!”

  CHAPTER 12

  It was a two-hour truck ride from hell. No one said a word. Cherry Crocker had never been so scared in her life. She told herself to stand up and take it. Her uncle had suffered incredible hardships. He had been tortured by paramilitary agents and survived. Many of his comrades had not. In 1980 alone over 3,000 Guatemalan citizens had been labeled subversives or criminals and summarily executed. Her mother’s brother had managed to emerge as a powerful leader of the insurgents, a fact she had only learned while in college. Her mother had always refused to acknowledge Rafael Tum existed. Even when Cherry asked about the pictures of him in her mother’s childhood photo albums.

  If Uncle Rafael could survive torture to lead the insurgency, so could she.

  A stocky bald man strode into the tent and glanced at her before gasping. He turned to the guard outside and shouted in Turkmen. He crossed the small space to her and untied her hands from the post high over her head. In a British accent, he said, “My apologies, Ms. Crocker. They were not to treat you as a criminal. You are a guest under my protection.”

  “Lovely invitation—at gunpoint.” Cherry rubbed her wrists. “Are your guests allowed to leave?”

  “Soon.” He stepped back to give her room. “Before you go, there is an especially important person who would like to meet you. He is known as the Guardian. He has asked to meet you in person. He will explain certain facts about your uncle and your heritage. After you listen with an open mind, you will be free to go.”

  Cherry looked him over. He was built like a running back with thick muscles and no neck.

  He gestured to a camp table with two folding chairs. “We are having shurpa, a mutton dish. Are you vegan like so many other Californians then?”

  “What do you know about me? You know Uncle Rafael. You mentioned my heritage.”

  “Patience.” He waved away her concern. “You’ve been on the run for two days. You hardly ate breakfast this morning. You must be famished.”

  A man brought in bowls of soup filled with chunks of mutton, onion, and potatoes and left them on the table. Strong spices wafted from the bowls. Her stomach growled. She took her seat, confused about the method of this man’s torture. Should she trust the soup?

  He took the first spoonful and noticed her watching him. “Would you like to trade bowls?”

  “This is fine,” she said and immediately regretted it. She should’ve insisted on trading just to read the expression on his face.

  “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Captain Batyr Amanow. I am the leader of an expedition for an ancient organization known as the—”

  “Knights of Mithras.” She spooned some soup. A chunk of mutton melted on her tongue. She tasted hints of bay leaves. It was delicious.

  “We are not who your uncle believes. This is one of the things we’d like to explain. Ours is a simple cause, we quietly advocate for good.”

  “You murdered Benito Hidalgo.”

  Amanow leaned back as if she’d slapped him. “Is that what your companion, Jacob Stearne, alleges? Did he offer any evidence other than his word? Did he mention the US Army asked him to resign after his many struggles with sanity? You know, reality becomes an elusive thing for men who have snuffed out hundreds of human souls.”

  Cherry felt confusion clouding her thoughts. “He was a hero in Paris. The president of France—”

  “Have you read the alternative facts about those events?” Amanow leaned across the table. “Eyewitnesses saw him murder two innocent men that he later claimed were about to attack. Their testimony has been quashed. Why?”

  Cherry hadn’t heard those versions of events. She only saw one official press release. Would the president of a country award an honor … she thought of the men who had hunted her uncle for years. They had been given medals.

  “Eat.” Captain Amanow finished his soup and smiled at her. “We have quite a long journey ahead of us.”

  Gu Peng hurried to the suite where the Brothers held the Knight, her walking stick tapping out a quicker rhythm than usual. The Freedom Stone was so close, she could feel its energy. If she could get just one step ahead of the Knights, she m
ight convince Jacob Stearne to help. If she couldn’t persuade him, perhaps his girlfriend could be persuaded. She didn’t want to think about other methods. If there was one person she never wanted to become, it was the tank driver who crushed Gu Tong.

  Still, in the long and documented history between the five factions, the Brotherhood had been successful only when resorting to violence. That fact had made her insist the Brothers train like soldiers. It would be best if they never resorted to violence, but also wise if they were prepared for any situation.

  Peng knocked on the suite’s door. A Brother let her in and showed her to the dining area. A bloodied and beaten Knight was tied to a chair at one end of the table. One eye was swollen, his nose broken.

  Peng gasped and tossed her walking stick aside. “Ice, at once. Who do this thing?”

  “Not us,” Danny quickly responded. Fiona, standing behind him, ran for ice. “Jacob Stearne did this with his elbow.”

  Peng met Danny’s gaze with one eyebrow raised. “Untie him. Least we do. Treat him guest not prisoner.”

  Danny said, “He was quite violent when—”

  “Are your guests allowed to leave?” the Knight asked in a thick accent.

  “You speak English?” she asked. “I Gu Peng. He my associate, Danny. We speak of universal brightness. We illuminate whole universe. We not animals. You go free when we render aid.”

  The man scoffed, his swollen eye taking in Gu Peng from head to toe. “Does this first aid involve knives? Needles? Something barbaric? We have been warned about you.”

  Fiona returned with ice wrapped in a towel. She applied it to the Knight’s swollen eye. He batted it away. The ice clattered across the stone floor. Without hesitation, the young woman dropped to her knees and picked up each cube.

  “We not harm you,” Peng said. “Have one question for you. Why girl? Why no Jacob Stearne? Why no take his fiancé?”

  The Knight spat on her.