“As in divine?” she said. “Consider this. The phantoms in New York seemed to be shoving the two men into a fight. It distracted the police so we could get away. We weren’t crushed beneath Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, but shown an escape route. The flash flood saved us from the men who were chasing us. The Skinwalkers killed those who would kill us.”
“All I care about is getting the antidote,” he said, the Scotch hot on his dry throat. “Saving those people. Saving your nephew.”
“Agent Fox, you and I seek the same goal,” said Contreras. “You’ve done enough. You’re injured, exhausted. Even if you did find the Breastplate before me, it would do you no good without all seven of the missing sacred stones.” He leaned forward, reaching for the silver Halliburton briefcase on the coffee table. He opened the case, and rotated it so that Braydon and Christa could see its contents. “The Kohinoor Diamond and Edward’s Sapphire. Two of the most famous and stunningly beautiful gems in the world.”
Contreras’s diamond and sapphire were stunning. Braydon couldn’t tell the difference between the fakes in the briefcase and the authentic diamond and sapphire that he had taken from Jared’s hotel room, the gems that were wrapped in a linen napkin in Christa’s daypack. Jared had been a master, and Braydon had to control his rage at Contreras’s brutal attack on the jeweler. “But even the Kohinoor and Edward’s Sapphire find their true glory only with their peers.” He poured himself another Scotch. “The Breastplate can only be restored if one man has all seven sacred stones.”
Contreras snapped his briefcase shut. “You are experienced enough, Agent Fox, to know you don’t have a chance of taking the diamond and sapphire from me. You are unarmed. You have no possible weapon at your disposal nor means of escape. My men would shoot you down before you get twenty yards down that pier.”
“There is that,” he said, “and the fact that you have the means to quickly distribute the antidote. You have made me persona non grata in the Bureau. It will take me days just to convince them that this crazy story is true.”
“My international network is ready to unleash the poison, or distribute the antidote, at my command,” said Contreras. “Those two envelopes on the bar.” He leaned forward, smiling. He looked smug. “One is for each of you. Each contains a number to a one million dollar Swiss bank account. All you need is the proprietary access code, which I shall give to you when you give me the gems.”
Braydon downed the Scotch. It didn’t even begin to dull the pain. The slash from the whip throbbed across the back of his shoulders. He set his glass on the bar, his blood smearing the cut crystal. He took the towel Adam had placed on the bar. He wrapped it around his right hand and grasped the shoulder strap of Christa’s backpack. She gripped onto the strap, stepping back, trying to yank it from his grasp. He looked at her. “Give me the pack, Christa,” he said.
Her expression of betrayal hurt him more than any of his wounds. “You can’t give him the stones,” she said. “You can’t trust him.”
“I’m asking you to trust me,” he said. “Remember. We learned, together, from Seneca. We survived the trap in Saint Patrick’s. We’ll survive this.” He didn’t dare say aloud the Seneca quote in Latin. Contreras might recognize it. He had to trust in Christa’s brilliant mind, and in their experiences together. After the events of the past two days, she knew better than anyone. The outward appearances of things are deceiving.
He pulled the pack forcefully off her shoulder. He unzipped the main compartment, and extracted the silver box. He faced Contreras. “I wondered,” he said, “what one of the richest men in the world would pay for these.” He opened the box, swiveled it around, and showed Contreras the contents. The five sacred stones shimmered in the black velvet. “Make it two million for each of us,” he said. “And throw in this yacht as a bonus. We could live pretty well on this Flying Carpet until this all blows over.”
Contreras leaned forward, his mouth agape. He licked his lips hungrily. A man like him, he’d want to make this moment last, prove that he was in control of his lust, and everyone else. “You are hardly in a position to negotiate, Agent Fox,” he said. “Now that I know for sure that you have all five stones here, I can simply kill you.”
“You still need to find the Breastplate,” said Braydon. “We know how to find the temple. You’re looking in the wrong place.”
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Fox,” said Contreras. “I know about the armillary sphere, and Tristan de Luna’s map.”
Braydon snapped the silver box shut, jammed it back into the pack, and zipped the compartment closed. “Dubler,” he muttered. He expected as much when Dubler didn’t meet them at the airport. He would like to believe that Contreras took Dubler under duress, forced him to talk, but he knew better.
“Mister Dubler came to me to save you, Professor Devlin.” Contreras sipped his Scotch like a cat swallowing the canary. “Now you have the chance to save him. Bring me the gems, Fox.”
“Don’t do it, Braydon. Daniel wouldn’t have betrayed us unless he was near death.”
Contreras grinned. “That statement I cannot refute.”
Christa stepped closer to the bar, fists clenched. “He’ll kill Daniel once we give him the gems,” she said.
“Mister Dubler will most certainly be dead,” Contreras said. Contreras tensed his shoulders. The two guards stiffened, their hands moving to their guns, their eyes on Christa.
Braydon swung Christa’s pack over his left shoulder, on top of his pack. “Looks like you’ve got us in checkmate,” he said. She was drawing attention to herself, and off him, too well. He picked up the bottle of Scotch with his good hand, and clutched his glass with his hand wrapped in the towel. He made his way towards Contreras, casually pouring himself another Scotch as he skirted to the back of the teak dining table by the window, more importantly, on the opposite side of the cabin from Christa.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Christa lunge across the bar, reaching for Adam’s gun. In one, swift movement, he jammed the pointy silver spout of the bottle into the window. With a crash, the safety glass shattered. A torrent of small crystals rained to the floor. Braydon dropped his glass. He thrust himself forward, leading with his towel-wrapped hand. He dove through the broken window to the starboard deck. He rolled and tucked onto the fiberglass deck, staying low, behind the cabin wall. The meathead bodyguard with the Uzi let loose, accomplishing nothing more than shattering the remaining shards of glass and everyone’s eardrums.
Braydon could barely hear Contreras shouting at the guy to cease and desist. Braydon was in position by the time the bad guys scrambled onto the deck to flank him. The thug with the Uzi was to the stern. The guy with the Glock to the bow. Contreras was behind the man with the Glock, holding Christa in a chokehold. Adam decided not to join the party, probably hiding behind the bar thinking it’s all a bad trip.
The side decking was narrow, just enough for one person to walk comfortably the length of the boat. Braydon stood, holding Christa’s pack over the railing, dangling it above the water. “One step closer and the pack goes overboard,” said Braydon.
Contreras tightened his hold on Christa’s neck. For a pudgy guy, he was strong. “Then I would be forced to break Professor Devlin’s neck,” he said. “And cancel my offer of employment.”
“Release her, and I’ll toss you the pack. The five stones are in it.”
“You can forget about your signing bonus,” said Contreras.
“I figured if I traded this pack for those two envelopes, all I’d be signing is our death warrants,” he said. “But I do trust you to do one thing, get that antidote. A guy like you won’t stop at being one of the richest men in the world. You need to be on top. Once your pharmaceutical company is the only one manufacturing that antidote, you’ll have unmatched power and influence on a global scale.”
Contreras grinned. “It is a shame that you don’t trust me,” he said. “You would make such a companionable number two in my budd
ing empire.” He released his chokehold on Christa. She sucked in air, rubbed her neck, stepped away.
“Jump over the side, Christa” Braydon said. “And swim for the staircase under the pier.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she croaked out.
Contreras forcefully shoved her over. She screamed in surprise, and splashed into the water. Braydon recoiled his arm to toss the pack to Contreras. Then, he twisted, flinging the pack into the water as far from the pier as he could throw it. He dove into the water, the cold stabbing him with a thousand needles. He clawed to the surface, sputtered for air, and pierced through the water in a racer’s freestyle after Christa, his pack scraping excruciatingly against his wound. The bang of weapon fire came from the thug with the Glock. Bullets slit and zinged into the water to either side of him. “Forget them!” shouted Contreras. “Get that pack before it sinks.”
Braydon twisted around as he swam. The thugs dropped their firearms and dove into the water, fully clothed. They raced for the pack, surface diving to grab it as it sunk beneath the waves.
Christa had reached the staircase. She helped him out of the water. They were both shivering, just this side of hypothermic.
She yanked him up. “Come on. The thugs are in the water. Let’s go back for those stones.”
He was bent over, heaving in breaths. “I got them,” he said.
“The diamond and sapphire,” she said, “in Contreras’s briefcase. Not the five stones we had. I figured you must have switched packs and still have those.”
That made him catch his breath. “That obvious? I’m glad Contreras isn’t as smart as you.”
“He just doesn’t know you like I do.”
He pointed at her. “I knew I’d get you to like me.”
“I’ll like you even better when we have the diamond and sapphire.”
“Promise?”
“Sure, I promise.” She tugged on his arm. “Let’s get to the yacht before those thugs.”
He sloughed the pack off his shoulder, unzipped the main compartment. The linen napkin was moist, but little water had seeped into the pack. He placed the napkin on his palm, and opened it, showing her the Kohinoor Diamond and Edward’s Sapphire. “What we got,” he said, “is real. And I will never give that up without a fight.”
DAY 5
CHAPTER 63
Christa clenched onto the armrests and the remnants of breakfast roiling her stomach as she peered out the Blackhawk helicopter window. Gusts buffeted the chopper like a cat with a toy. It skimmed above a rainforest canopy so dense it formed a second layer of Earth. No wonder some of the tribes of western Colombia still lived in isolation. To penetrate that canopy was to cross into a different world. The treetops shook with anger, raising fists of green that threatened to swat down and swallow up any human invaders. It was a good thing that, like Braydon, she caught a few hours of dead sleep on the overnight flight from San Francisco to Bogota. The adrenaline that shot through her system with each downdraft wasn’t about to let her rest here. She had just hours to find the temple, restore the Breastplate and return with the antidote plant from the hidden canyon.
From the pilot seat in front of her, Donohue’s voice crackled over her headset. “Radar shows squalls coming in fast,” he said. “Once our skids hit the ground, we got a ten-minute countdown before we head out. Make it count.”
“We can’t see them,” Braydon said. He sat next to her, his eyes focused intently on the rainforest below. “But they sure as hell can see us.”
He was right, if the guerillas were down there. Typical military thinking, outfitting everyone and everything in camouflage, for all the good it would do. Even the chopper was painted in camouflage greens and browns, a Blackhawk in service in the war on drugs, now commandeered by Donohue from a local contact in the CIA. It was big and powerful enough to hold a dozen men and their weapons. But even with the intermittent thunder and howls of wind, anybody on the ground would see and hear it coming.
In addition to the camouflage fatigues from the cap to the heavy tread army boot, Braydon carried a hefty sidearm on his right hip, a knife that Rambo would envy on his left. She had been coerced into carrying a more manageable .22 pistol in a hip holster, and what Donohue had termed a pilot’s survival knife, a five-inch non-glare blade with a sawtooth edge on one side for cutting branches. The weapons, like the camouflage, only gave the illusion of self protection.
Donohue’s spotty transmission crackled through her headset. “The storm is screwing with the radio, but we’re still picking up Hunter’s homing beacon.”
Christa pressed her hand against Donohue’s seat back to balance against a nasty knock of wind. Braydon winced as his back scraped across his seat. He had refused to spend the time to go to a hospital after the fight with the Abraxas. He insisted he needed a quick fix, just enough to get through the next twenty-four hours. After that, it would be too late anyway. Donohue’s medic had patched him up, and thrust a handful of painkillers at him.
Christa’s headset sizzled with a fizz of the lightning that flashed behind them, then Braydon’s voice. “We’re flying into a trap,” he said. “Contreras let us get away from that yacht way too easy.”
“Almost getting killed was easy. Surviving it,” she said, “not so much.”
“He’s played us against ourselves before,” he said. “We’re overlooking something.”
“Don’t overlook what we’re looking over,” she said. She gestured out the window. Endless variations of green. “The nearest village is miles downriver, and that was no more than a half dozen round buildings with thatch roofs. The only way in or out of here is by air or dugout canoe.” She pointed at the serpentine waterway snaking through the dense jungle. “They can’t beat us without a helicopter.”
“Thar she blows,” said Donohue. He nodded towards Christa’s side of the chopper. “The Demon’s Wings rock formation. Given Luna’s map, that’s got to be it at our ten o’clock.”
From the air, it did look like the backs of a pair of whales arching above the ocean of green. Donohue maneuvered the chopper downwards. A different perspective emerged, the curved shoulders of a hunched bird of prey so large that it towered above the tree canopy.
Braydon scoured the jungle with field glasses. “Contreras’s guerillas could have a platoon staking out the temple and we wouldn’t see them in that vegetation,” he said. “Gabriella said they were close to finding it when Percival rescued her.”
“I don’t see anyone,” she said. “And they don’t have Luna’s map.”
“They had Dubler,” he said. “He had seen Luna’s map.”
Christa grabbed her armrest as Donohue corrected against a downdraft. The colonel’s expression was grave. “At least they didn’t get the original from your brother-in-law. He is damn lucky he wasn’t killed and Luna’s map wasn’t compromised,” Donohue growled, his anger clear even through the headset. “He should have waited for my strike force before engaging the enemy.”
Donohue’s zeal for military parlance put her on edge. “He had the Muisca Indians fighting with him,” she said. “The shaman had convinced the tribe to attack. Their families’ safety was at risk. They were ready, pumped up. In military terms, he had an overwhelming force to scare off Contreras’s guerillas.” The news in the last radio transmission to reach them was better than they could have hoped for. Percival, alongside the Muisca fighters, had rescued Gabriella. Then the other boot dropped. Percival had been shot in the gut. He needed medical attention. And Gabriella had twisted, maybe broken, her ankle in the skirmish.
“Doubtful,” said Braydon, “Hardline mercenaries would not retreat before a math professor, a botanist, and a handful of brave but primitively armed Indians. His wife’s life was in danger. That kind of thing can make a man act, not think.”
“For once I agree with Fox,” Donohue grumbled. “But we got to stay on target.”
A bang of distant thunder rattled the sides of the chopper. The concussion shoved the chopper si
deways.
Donohue, intense but calm, corrected. “Crap,” he said. “That felt like anti-aircraft fire.”
“No such luck,” said Braydon. He pointed out his window. Christa leaned forward to look beyond Braydon. An immense plume of smoke billowed into the sky from the mountains on the horizon.
“What happened to God being on our side,” she said, her throat dry. “The volcano. It’s erupting.”
Donohue banked the chopper for a better view. “Who in hell did you piss off this time, Fox?” Lightning fizzed through her headset. Thunder rumbled, shaking the chopper. “My men’s clearing is up ahead,” said Donohue. “ETA two minutes. We land, get the intel, take off. We are out of time, people. As soon as we take off with my strike force, Hunter, Gabriella, my medic and the shaman will head downriver in the dugout canoe for the Doctors without Borders clinic. We swing by and help with evacuation when the mission is complete.”
“Isn’t that volcano in the direction of the temple?” she said.
“I figure about twenty klicks west of our target,” said Braydon. “How does a Blackhawk handle in an ash cloud?”
“I’ve flown in worse,” said Donohue, “but let’s not stop for tea.”
The clearing was ahead, at a bend in the river. It looked like a scar, a bullet hole punched through the green. In less than three hours, the strike force had arrived, secured the area, and cleared away the nearly impenetrable jungle with two chainsaws, machetes and muscle. Their three motorized dugout canoes nosed the shore like curious fish. A small wood fire fought bravely against the wind, sending out its plume of smoke, a scaled down version of the deadly cloud growing on the horizon.
The chopper circled before landing. Christa counted eight of Donohue’s men, all dressed in full combat fatigues, each with a camouflage helmet with goggles. Each clutched a machine gun clipped to his vest like a mother with her baby. The chopper wash flattened the scrappy vegetation at their feet. The men were poised, ready for action. They were all retired military, but not one of them had to suck in a beer belly. Each looked like they could take out three guys half their age and better armed.
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