The Sage Stone Prophecy (Arkana Archaeology Adventure Series Book 7)

by N. S. Wikarski

  Ken scratched his chin, pondering their comments. “If that’s the case, then I’d be willing to lay odds that you’ll find the Sage Stone hidden at Lake Baikal.”

  “Lake Baikal!” Griffin registered dismay. “But that’s near the Altai Mountains. It’s thousands of miles from here. And you’ve told us to follow the Amur River all the way. That would mean a daunting overland trip.”

  “Not so daunting if you go by rail,” Ken said enigmatically. “And I know just the tour guide to get you there.”

  Chapter 24—Sure As Shootin’

  Leroy Hunt darted a glance toward a scribbled note sitting on the passenger seat of his truck. He muttered a few choice words to himself and continued to drive. The old coot had given him directions to a rendezvous point someplace out in the sticks. The preacher’s timing sucked lemons given that Leroy was on the verge of a breakthrough in his search for Mr. Big.

  A few days earlier, the cowboy had gotten a brainstorm. He’d been cogitating about the old lady who owned the house where little Hannah hid herself. Blondie had said that the granny was Mr. Big’s go-between. But what if she wasn’t the only one? Leroy remembered the kid with the noisy car—little Hannh’s boyfriend. He came around to do errands for the old lady because she was his kin. If Mr. Big’s operation was a family business, it might be the kid was delivering more than groceries.

  Now that the farmhouse was locked up tighter than a drum, Leroy was forced to look farther afield for answers. Reasoning that even a blind pig might turn up an acorn or two, Hunt decided to tail Hannah’s boyfriend to see if he went anyplace interesting. Luckily, Leroy had taken down the kid’s license plate number during his initial round of surveillance. It was a small matter to find out the name and address that went with the plate.

  That very morning, the cowboy had left the city intending to stake out the kid’s house. He took all his usual precautions just in case Mr. Big was still having him watched: driving to the airport, ditching his truck in the long-term lot, changing clothes inside the terminal, renting a white cargo van. He’d even bought a new magnetic logo which he stuck to the vehicle’s side doors. It announced to the world that he was in the pest control business. The notion tickled Leroy’s funny bone because it was true. During the course of his career he’d had occasion to exterminate many a pest for his various employers. He was halfway to the kid’s address, feeling the exhilaration of closing in on his quarry, when he got the call that completely hosed up his plans for the day. He grudgingly turned the van around and pointed it toward his new destination.

  Leroy squinted through the windshield, trying to scout for any road markers up ahead. He’d already driven a good ten miles past the compound and wasn’t familiar with the area. Snapping to attention, he spotted a sign for an approaching intersection. According to his directions, he was getting close. A mile beyond the crossroads he found an unmarked dirt trail and turned right. Then he drove another mile through cornfields and scrub brush until the road dead-ended at an odd-looking structure.

  It was nothing more than a cinderblock foundation sticking a few feet out of the ground and capped by tar paper. He climbed out of the van and walked warily up to the entrance. Two metal doors were set into the concrete at a slanted angle. It looked like the hatch to his mama’s root cellar. When he pulled the handle on one of the doors, it squealed on its hinges.

  The cowboy peered down a long flight of stairs that led deep underground. Fluorescent light fixtures had been set into the walls to light his way. He paused a few seconds at the top of the stairs to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. Then he descended, allowing the metal door to slam shut behind him. Unsure what awaited him at the bottom, he moved warily, reaching into his shoulder holster just in case.

  “Hello, Mr. Hunt,” a voice called from somewhere below. “I see you found the place.”

  It was the preacher. Hunt relaxed his grip on the gun. “Yessir, I found it alright, though I’m a mite puzzled as to why you asked me to come here.”

  “Everything will be obvious in a few moments.”

  When Leroy reached the bottom step, a light switch clicked and more fluorescents bathed the basement in a greenish glow. It was then the cowboy realized he was in a vast target range. Guns and other ordnance were stored neatly in racks and cupboards along the side walls. The far wall stretched a good thirty yards off into the distance. Directly ahead of him were six firing lanes. Overhead moveable tracks held paper targets suspended at various distances. They were already riddled with bullet holes.

  Leroy nodded appreciatively. “You got a nice little set-up here, boss. Is this where Chopper trained your boys?”

  “Yes, it is,” the preacher affirmed. The old man was seated at a desk near the base of the stairway. He gestured for Leroy to take the chair drawn up in front of the desk.

  The cowboy complied and sat waiting for further enlightenment.

  “Thank you for meeting me here, Mr. Hunt.”

  The cowboy’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. The old man never said “thank you” to anybody for anything. He simply expected to be handed whatever he wanted as a matter of course.

  “Yessir. What can I do you for?”

  “I’m sorry to call you away from your other assignment on such short notice.”

  Leroy found himself stifling a gasp of wonder. The old man also never said he was sorry for anything. The cowboy harbored a suspicion that he’d just stepped into the Twilight Zone.

  Then the preacher smiled at him. A third unnerving oddity.

  Leroy gave a wary grin in return.

  “So tell me. Have you made any progress in tracing the mastermind who controls our band of thieves?”

  “I was fixin’ to when I got up this mornin’,” the cowboy said pointedly. “But then you called.”

  “Oh, I see.” The preacher apparently realized his untimely demands had interrupted Leroy’s surveillance. “Well, no matter. You can pursue that lead once we’ve finished our business here.”

  “Yessir,” Leroy agreed noncommittally. “But you still ain’t told me what our business here is.”

  The question seemed to make the old man uncomfortable. He swept his eyes around the room and cleared his throat. “I have an immediate need to avail myself of your other skills.”

  Leroy felt less annoyed than intrigued now. “How’s that?”

  Metcalf gave a deep sigh. “I’ve given some thought to the concerns that you and Daniel expressed during our recent meeting.”

  The cowboy sat forward. “You don’t say.”

  “Um, yes. You may have been onto something important.” The old man’s voice sounded downright remorseful.

  “I’m glad you come to see the light, boss,” Leroy agreed amicably.

  “I believe, at the very least, I should heed your words and take some precautions to protect myself.”

  The cowboy scratched his head. “You want me to be your bodyguard or some such?”

  “No, you can’t guard me round the clock nor would I wish it. I have something else in mind. For the next week, I want you to meet me here every morning at 9 AM sharp for one hour. I know for a fact that no one uses this facility in the mornings.” He hesitated briefly as his eyes traveled to the bullet-riddled targets. “I want you to teach me to shoot a gun.”

  Hunt let out a low whistle. He fell silent, considering the implications of everything the preacher had left unsaid. Then he peered hard at the old man. “Are you sure it’s gonna come to that, boss?”

  “I hope not, Mr. Hunt.” The preacher wavered. “Yet despite my hopes, I fear it will come to that just the same.”

  “Boss, if you think your boy Josh is gonna do you harm, you best take him down right now and be done with it. I can see how your own people might be squeamish to pull the trigger, seein’ as he’s kin. Don’t you fret none. I’ll do the job for you. Won’t cost you nothin’ extra.”

  Metcalf shook his head. “I said I feared he might be capable of harm. I have no proof that he’s a threat
to me.”

  The cowboy gave a bark of a laugh. “Let’s hope your proof positive don’t come as a bullet in the chest.”

  “I will not kill my son in cold blood. All I know is that he’s lied to me. If he is capable of worse than that, we must wait for him to reveal his true colors.”

  Leroy rubbed the back of his neck in irritation. “Well, that’s gotta be the worst idea I heard all day. If you want to wait and see, then I got just one last piece of advice for you, boss. You best plan to sleep with one eye open from here on out.”

  The preacher gave a mirthless laugh. “Sleeping with one eye open would hardly represent a change, Mr. Hunt. I’ve been doing that for quite some time now.”

  Chapter 25—Making Tracks

  Cassie watched her cabin mate as the woman briskly sorted through her belongings. When she had organized things to her satisfaction, she stowed her luggage in the hideaway bin below her seat and turned to face the Pythia.

  In a thick Russian accent, she said, “There. Everything is in order now.” The woman’s name was Olga Morozova. A fresh-faced twenty-something, she was the scout assigned to assist the Arkana team on the next leg of their journey.

  The Pythia found herself staring. She couldn’t help it. Olga was a rare bird indeed. She made the Jomon trove-keeper’s hybrid appearance seem bland by comparison. Her naturally blond hair was so light that it bordered on platinum and she styled it with fringe bangs which accentuated her eyes. It was Olga’s eyes that contradicted the rest of her appearance. They were a vivid blue but the eyelids didn’t possess a double fold. The shape was Asian as were her high cheekbones. Given the Arkana team’s next destination, perhaps Olga’s genetic mix made sense. They were aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway headed toward Lake Baikal—a stone’s throw from Outer Mongolia.

  When the Jomon trove-keeper had told the Arkana team where to search next, no one anticipated what a scramble it would take to get them to this point. Shortly after Ken set their itinerary in motion, they learned they would have to fly out of Hakodate immediately if they hoped to catch the next train from Vladivostok. The quickest flight took ten hours with layovers and they barely had time to race to the train station where Olga was already waiting with their tickets.

  Cassie quickly learned to appreciate the scout’s adeptness as a travel coordinator. She not only acted as their interpreter, but she also understood the intricacies of Russian bureaucracy as it pertained to riding the rails. The Pythia realized it was only due to Olga’s savvy that they’d been able to secure first class tickets on such short notice. Rather than enduring the free-for-all nightmare of third class bunks or the only-slightly-more-private second class billets with four strangers to a cabin, the team could enjoy the luxury of sleeping compartments designed for two passengers only.

  Unlike trains in America, the Trans-Siberian wasn’t primarily ridden by tourists. Even in the jet age, Russians still used it to journey through the country’s inaccessible heartland. As a result, the train carried a ragtag cross-section of society. Frazzled young mothers with multiple screaming infants and toddlers. Rowdy teenage military conscripts returning from their first tour of duty. Shady characters sporting coded prison tattoos. Businessmen calling on customers in the hinterland.

  All of them were looked after by the provodnik and provodnitsa—each car’s male and female carriage attendant, respectively. The attendants combined the duties of conductor, porter, janitor, maintenance crew, and wait staff. A major duty of the provodnitsa was to fill the huge samovar in each car with boiling water. This was useful not only for dunking tea bags and making instant soup, but as a source of hot water in case the bathroom tap went cold. The provodnik held the equally important duty of locking the bathrooms twenty minutes before each station stop and keeping them locked for another twenty minutes after leaving the station. Since the toilets flushed their waste directly onto the train tracks, the necessity for this lock-out was self-explanatory. The carriage attendants of both sexes had a reputation for being surly, even to native Russians, though they were slightly more polite in first-class.

  The Golden Eagle tour trains were rumored to have friendly staff. These luxury trains were also equipped with pay showers. However, the Arkana team wasn’t riding a Golden Eagle train. Cassie decided not to cavil about the shared bathrooms or lack of shower facilities. She was lucky that Olga had been able to secure them the best this train could offer.

  “We sleep now, yes?” The scout didn’t wait for an answer but switched out the light on her side of the compartment and climbed up to the bunk above her sitting area. “The time for talk will be tomorrow.”

  “Fine by me.” Cassie switched out the other light and climbed up to her own bunk. Griffin and Daniel were getting themselves settled in another cabin. The team had agreed to meet in the dining room car at noon to map out a plan.

  Their tardy start the next day could be attributed to the train’s odd schedule. The Trans-Siberian ran on Moscow time which was seven hours earlier than Vladivostok. This translated into unusual departures. The Arkana team’s train didn’t leave the station until nearly two AM. This was less disorienting than it might seem since summer twilight lasted until eleven o’clock in this far northern latitude. As a result, Cassie was still wakeful when she turned off the light but the relative silence of the darkened cabin and the clickety-clack of the wheels on the track helped her unwind.

  The Pythia didn’t mind sleeping through the first leg of their journey. There wasn’t much to see around Russia’s easternmost port city of Vladivostok. Shipyards, heavy industry, baroque architecture, and statues of muscular Bolsheviks in heroic poses didn’t appeal to her.

  Initially, Griffin had suggested taking the more northern Baikal-Amur route, or BAM for short, since its name contained two places of immediate interest to the team—Lake Baikal and the Amur River. That plan was discouraged by the Jomon trove-keeper. He explained that although the spur line began at the mouth of the Amur River right across the strait from Sakhalin Island, its route soon diverged from the great waterway. BAM trains made for the northern shore of Lake Baikal which offered limited amenities and no airport. Instead Ken urged the Arkana team to take the main Trans-Siberian line departing from Vladivostok and arriving in Irkutsk—a sizeable city which had an airport that could fly them quickly to Moscow should their quest prove successful. The main line also ran parallel to the Amur River for several hundred miles. Cassie hoped the river’s proximity might help her get a lock on the route the Minoans had taken.

  It would require four days of continuous travel to cover the 2,500 mile trip to Lake Baikal. The Pythia marveled at the fact that their destination only marked the railroad’s halfway point. The full journey from Moscow to Vladivostok would be equivalent to traveling from New York to San Francisco twice. She flashed back to Griffin’s lengthy lecture on the subject earlier that day.

  At over 5,700 miles, the Trans-Siberian was the longest railroad on the planet and it was constructed over the world’s worst terrain. The project had nearly bankrupted the Russian government. Begun in the spring of 1891, the railway wasn’t completed until the fall of 1916. Not only did engineers have to cope with tunneling through mountains and building bridges over innumerable rivers, their work season only lasted four months during Siberia’s brief annual warm-up. The permafrost of the pine forests, or taiga, presented additional challenges as the swampy top layer of earth tended to swallow entire sections of track during the summer melt. Despite overwhelming obstacles, when the main line was completed it succeeded in connecting the whole of Russia from Moscow to the Sea Of Japan.

  Cassie yawned and rolled over on her side. She realized that rehashing the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad proved to be better than counting sheep. The very thought of the immense length of the railway and the Herculean efforts needed to build it made her unbearably weary. She closed her eyes and fell asleep in a matter of minutes.

  Chapter 26—Receiving Holy Orders

  Mother R
achel slipped into the darkened chapel unobserved. It was the middle of the day and everyone else was engaged in their usual activities. She wished she could have gone about her duties as innocently as they. Unfortunately, she was burdened with notions she might gladly have done without. Shortly before dawn, a terrible nightmare had shocked her into wakefulness. This, in itself, was unusual since Mother Rachel rarely dreamed. Far more unusual was the fact that the vivid details of this particular vision still haunted her hours later.

  In her sleeping state, she had seen her husband Abraham cast into a deep pit by an angel with a flaming sword. Mother Rachel watched in horror as the Diviner plummeted helplessly through empty space. From out of nowhere, a chain materialized around his waist. The chain grew in length and sprouted upward like a living thing. When it reached the top of the chasm where Mother Rachel stood, it snaked around her own waist. Wrenching her off balance, it toppled her downward after her husband. The chain then sprouted more tendrils and ascended toward her eldest son who remained above. He was likewise enmeshed and dragged from his perch. As the matron sank deeper, she saw more and more of her children ensnared until she eventually lost count of the string of souls being dragged to their doom. The endless nothingness through which she tumbled closed in to consume her. Mother Rachel opened her mouth to scream just as the dream ended, leaving her wide-eyed and shivering with cold sweat.

  Under ordinary circumstances, a Consecrated Bride experiencing such a portentous nightmare would consult her husband in his capacity as her spiritual advisor. Mother Rachel could hardly tell Abraham about this troubling vision. He was too deeply embedded in the message it contained. She would have to sort this out alone with the Lord’s help. That was the reason she had come to the chapel in the first place. Here, away from the bustle of daily life, she might be able to hear the voice of the sacred more clearly.