“It’s a start.”
“We knew it was Kashmir already. So not much of one.”
Drake tapped the screen. “And part of this area is controlled by Pakistan. That could be a border-crossing problem.”
“This just keeps getting better.”
Allie switched to the string of numbers again. “Any ideas on how to tackle this?”
Spencer and Drake exchanged blank stares and Drake slowly shook his head. “Not really.”
“None of us is a code cracker.”
“What about Betty?” Allie asked. Drake’s assistant had proved resourceful in the past.
“I can send it to her and ask her to put it out to some people. Probably can’t hurt,” Drake agreed. “Can I see the tablet? I can email her.”
Allie handed it to him and passed her phone over so he could copy the string. He tapped in his password and carefully entered all the letters and numbers, along with a request to her to figure out what it was, and pressed enter.
Finished, he returned the devices to Allie, who began doing web searches on artifacts that might be a description of their dagger. There were hundreds of hits, and she began wading through them, discarding those that weren’t from India or Pakistan.
“I don’t know. I’d keep Afghanistan in the mix, too. There was a lot of travel between India and Persia through there at one time,” Spencer said.
Allie cocked an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”
“Carson was big on the history of the region. Sort of fixated, actually. Which makes sense. If you’re going to spend your golden years chasing a treasure, you probably have it on your mind most of the time.”
“But the treasure is just a rumor. I mean, like so many of these, it could have been embellished over the years,” Drake pointed out.
“Sure. But Carson wasn’t stupid. He didn’t let on about everything he knew, but he was obviously convinced it was real if he was willing to pay the last of his savings for some relic he thought would lead him to it,” Spencer said.
Drake snorted. “Another oral tradition. On the Internet, the only part of the treasure that’s ever mentioned is the Peacock Throne, which went to Persia before it disappeared there.”
“Right, but he knew all that. Frankly, if it was all over the web, I’d have been less interested. It would have been too crowded a field,” Spencer countered.
“Did he say how exactly he tumbled across it?” Allie asked.
“Said he found it when he was researching the Peacock Throne. That he started out thinking he could trace it down and wound up convinced that was only part of the story. That’s all he told me. He was vague, and frankly, I wasn’t all that interested in how he picked up the trail.”
“Well, it’s obvious none of this is going to go smoothly, so we should look at dividing up our labor to cover more ground today,” Drake said. “We’ll need to run down every image on Allie’s phone.”
“I want to see Spencer with makeup,” Allie said with a smile.
“Nice to see you’ve been able to preserve your sense of humor in all this,” Spencer fired back.
“Well, you have to admit, it’s fertile ground for some ribbing,” Drake observed.
“Come on, Spencer. Be a sport. It’s for your own good.”
He stood and headed to the bathroom. “The doctor used to say that when I was a kid right before he stuck me with a needle. Why is it that whenever something bad is going to happen, it’s for my own good?”
“Just pretend I’m Dr. Allie, if it makes it any easier.”
“I think I need an exam, Dr. Allie,” Drake whispered.
She rolled her eyes, and he pretended he didn’t hear her murmur, “Pervert.”
Chapter 17
Lahore, Pakistan
General William Monroe sat back in his chair and stared at the drab walls of his office as he held his telephone to his ear. As the ranking American in a region that was in constant turmoil, as well as the de facto head of field operations for military intelligence, he worked long hours seven days a week, and today was no different. He ran a hand through thick silver hair and eyed his watch – there was never enough time in his day to accomplish everything that was expected of him.
Monroe listened patiently to the caller as the man finished his report, and grunted approval.
“You’re confident that nothing was downloaded?” Monroe asked.
“Yes, sir. We were able to wipe the phone clean as we siphoned the memory contents, so they couldn’t have gotten anything that would compromise us.”
“What did he have?”
“It appears that our fears were justified, but the area he was triangulating was large. We’re satisfied that he didn’t know anything material.”
“Still – too much has gone sideways on us with this one. We can’t afford any more screwups. The timing couldn’t be worse.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Where are they now?”
“The phone was moving, but it’s now stationary by the Yamuna River and has been for almost an hour. Looks like they’ve gone to ground.” The caller paused. “How would you like to handle this?”
Monroe’s instinct was to send in a platoon of hardened mercenaries to take out the troublemakers, but he dismissed the idea as wishful thinking. The last thing the DOD needed was to be connected with an operation in India – an ally who might take a dim view of the U.S. military carrying out a strike in its capital city.
“I think an anonymous tip to the police would be best. They’ll be anxious to perform after this character made a fool out of them not once, but twice.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“I want a full report as soon as it’s over.”
“Of course.”
Monroe hung up and studied the steel-framed black-and-white photographs from his Vietnam tours hanging on the wall. He’d been a lieutenant, young and brash, little more than a boy, to look at it now. Had that really been so long ago? In reality it was a lifetime, but in his mind he could still smell the elephant grass and hear the chatter of M16 fire as though it were yesterday. Two tours of duty there, his parting gift the shrapnel he still carried in his hip and a missing ring finger he swore he could still feel on rainy days.
Now he was the gray sage who directed the young into battle, who waged war in forgotten backwaters on behalf of faceless men in boardrooms halfway across the planet. Not much, and yet everything, had changed, and it was days like this that he felt every one of his years weighing on him.
Monroe turned over a file and stared at a color image of a thirty-two-year-old intelligence operative who’d disappeared in Kashmir several days ago – an operative whom he’d never authorized to probe around in that area and who had done so after signing out for three vacation days. At the time the request had seemed innocent enough, but then his superior had called in a panic, fearful that he’d lost a man. Monroe had talked him down and ordered him to drop the subject, assuring him that he’d deal with it personally, but he was afraid that the officer would continue regardless of his orders. After all, that was what Monroe would have done in the same circumstances.
“Why can’t anything go smoothly? Just once?” he murmured, and then tossed the file aside with a sigh. There would be no inquiry, no investigation, and the operative’s passing would go unremarked and unacknowledged, other than an entry that he was suspected of having gone AWOL. It was a shame, but Monroe had no choice. There could be no link to Kashmir and the DOD’s involvement there – the stakes were too high.
If some eggs had to be broken, that was sometimes what it took to make an omelet, and Monroe had no sympathy for collateral damage. He wasn’t given to introspection; there would be time enough for that on Judgment Day.
Until then, he would follow orders.
Today, that meant turning over a man who’d done his country proud with the SEALs to the Indian police – a man who was guilty of nothing but being in the wrong place at
the wrong time. The fact that he’d recently become rich and celebrated didn’t alter Monroe’s decision. He would do what was required to keep his secrets, and if this Everett Spencer had to pay the price, it was out of his hands.
He opened another file and studied a photograph of a young Spencer, in his early twenties, hair clipped in a buzz cut, steel in his gaze – a poster boy for the SEALs, had they desired one. Monroe scanned his background and reread three newspaper articles about his startling South American find. In the clipping photos, Spencer stood by the side of a younger man with the slacker look of youth these days, his arm around the man’s shoulder as both beamed at the camera, instant billionaires from their good fortune.
“Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted,” Monroe whispered, and then closed the file and slid it into a desk drawer, his attention required now on other matters – this one a foregone conclusion. He stood and marched to the door, his posture ramrod straight, and called for his secretary; his meeting with Pakistani intelligence was only minutes away. “Get the Jeep warmed up. I’m on my way!” he said, and with a final glance at the photo of his younger self, swung the door open and stepped over the threshold, a man who did his duty with the fearless determination of a bird of prey.
Chapter 18
New Delhi, India
Running footsteps sounded from the houseboat deck as Drake and Allie scanned a website while seated at the dining room table. The door burst open and Roland stood in the gap, an alarmed expression on his weathered face and a handheld police scanner in his right hand.
“We have to get out of here. The cops will be here in two minutes,” he warned.
Spencer hurried from the bathroom, his newly darkened skin shining with perspiration. “How did they find us?”
“I don’t know. But they did.”
Allie darted into her bedroom and returned with her bag a moment later. Drake scooped up her tablet and handed it to her, and she dropped it into a zippered compartment before turning to Roland.
“Where to?”
“We can’t drive out of here. There’s only one road, and they’ve already got a car watching it,” Roland said. The scanner hissed with static, and then a voice spoke in Hindi. He listened to the burst of jabber and shook his head. “They’re almost here.”
Allie turned to Drake and Spencer. “What are we going to do?”
“We’ll find another way. How about footpaths?” Spencer asked.
“No, they all terminate at the same point on the road,” Roland said.
“Follow me,” Drake said, and rushed past the Frenchman into the sweltering afternoon sunlight.
Spencer and Allie were close behind, and they quickly eyed the other houseboats; any occupants were inside, out of the heat. Brown water foamed around the hulls in the mild current, and Drake’s eyes settled on a skiff tied to one of the houseboats upstream from them. Its hull was scarred, the paint blistered from the river water, and a few inches of leakage rolled in the bottom of the craft as it tugged at its line.
He pointed at the boat. “That’s our way out.”
Spencer nodded. “How do you want to do this?”
“Only one of us needs to climb aboard and untie it. Then we can get in from here.”
“I’ll go,” Spencer said, and before Drake could say anything, he was loping down the gangplank.
Drake eyed Roland as Spencer made his way onto the neighboring boat. “What about you?”
The Frenchman shrugged. “They aren’t looking for me. I won’t have a problem.”
Allie appeared relieved. “Good. I don’t think that thing could fit four of us.”
The sound of motors from the dirt road drifted to them, and Drake urged Spencer to greater speed with a stage whisper. “Hurry up. They’re almost on top of us.”
Spencer piloted the boat to where Drake and Allie were waiting and lashed the skiff to the railing with the bow line. Allie tossed him her bag and hopped aboard. The small craft rocked crazily, and then Drake was by her side. Spencer cast off the line and pushed the boat as hard as he could into the channel.
“No oars,” he explained as they drifted away.
“Figures,” Allie grumbled, and Drake motioned to their houseboat.
“They must have tracked Carson’s phone somehow,” he said.
“Crap. I should have thought of that,” Spencer said. “Of course. If they suspected I had it…”
“Why didn’t they come sooner?” Allie asked.
“It wasn’t on,” Drake explained. “I powered it up at the morgue.”
Spencer held out his hand. “Let me have it.”
Drake obliged, and Spencer shut it off. “Throw it overboard,” Allie suggested.
“No. We might want to use it later, as a decoy. If I toss it, we lose that option.”
“Are you sure?” Drake asked.
“Waste not…” Spencer felt around in the bow and freed a greasy tarp that stank of fish and rot. “Get down as low as you can. We can’t all stay out of sight, but since I supposedly look like a local, maybe they won’t pay any attention to me.”
Allie made a face and Drake took the tarp from Spencer and pulled it over them. Spencer sat in the stern, holding a fish net and pretending to work on it. From the corner of his eye he watched the houseboat and was rewarded a minute later by the sight of at least twenty uniformed police with submachine guns encircling the boat.
“Looks like we got out just in time,” Spencer said. The boat had drifted sixty yards and was in the middle of the river, moving downstream at a leisurely clip. “What I wouldn’t do for an outboard.”
“Can they see you?” Drake asked.
Spencer’s mouth barely moved. “They’ve got their hands full right now, but yes, it’s just a matter of time till someone looks over.”
“What should we do?”
“Prayer’s never a bad idea.”
“Seriously, Spencer,” Allie chided.
“Not a lot we can do if they decide to open up on us with their guns. Then again, there’s no reason for them to if they think I’m a lone fisherman.”
“So it comes down to luck?” she asked.
“Most things usually do.”
When they were a hundred yards away, Spencer could see that the cops on the boat were obviously agitated, and several of them pointed to the skiff. One of the men had binoculars, and Spencer caught the glint of sunlight reflecting off the lenses as the spyglasses were brought to bear on him. Spencer fingered the net, staring at it with intense concentration as he tied an imaginary knot, and then held it partially up, as though inspecting his work. He could only hope that his disguise would carry the day, and then his heart caught in his throat when he remembered the dye box and supplies in the houseboat garbage.
When the police did a thorough search of the boat, they would find it, and even the dimmest would quickly figure out what he’d done. Sweat pooled beneath his arms as he willed the boat faster, all the time pretending to be engrossed with the net.
The skiff passed a group of locals washing their clothes in the river, seemingly oblivious to the drama playing out upstream, as well as to the questionable cleanliness to be had from the muddy water. Spencer waved at them and returned to his project, hoping he would be dismissed as benign by the police.
Spencer’s fishing act must have been convincing, because as the little boat drifted around a bend and out of sight, no high-velocity bullets blew them to pieces. He remained in character until he was sure they were clear, and then pulled the tarp off Drake and Allie, who were drenched with sweat from just the short time without any breeze.
“Safe to sit up?” Allie asked.
“I wouldn’t. Just in case. But don’t worry – we’re coming up on a bridge. We can get off there if we can climb one of the pontoons.”
The shade of the bridge was a blessing as they passed beneath it. Spencer used his hands to paddle the boat closer to a support, and the bow bumped against
brick and concrete and came to a stop. Drake sprang up and tied off the line to a piece of corroding rebar. “Can you manage Allie’s bag?”
“Sure thing,” Spencer said.
Drake clambered up the crumbling face of the support, using the gaps where bricks had worn loose as hand and footholds, and Allie followed him up. As she was nearing the top, she lost her footing and, with a small cry, dropped toward the water below. Drake’s arm snaked out and his hand locked on hers, and he pulled her up to him, muscles straining. He hauled her over the rim and they lay panting beside each other as Spencer climbed the sheer side.
Allie sat up with a look of alarm. “Drake, do you feel that?”
“Was it as good for you as it was for me?”
She swatted him. “I’m serious. The vibration.”
Spencer’s head popped up at the edge of the platform, and Drake rolled away from Allie, almost knocking himself unconscious on a metal rail. He stared at it as Spencer heaved himself onto the bridge, and then turned to call out a warning. He was interrupted by the deafening klaxon of a train horn as an engine came into view, bearing down on them at high speed.
“Damn,” Drake cried, and pulled Allie to the side. “Hang on to the outside of the bridge. We can’t stay on the tracks – it’s only wide enough for the cars.” He inched around a girder to where he could just maintain a grip on the steel, his toes wedged in a gap. Allie joined him, and Spencer made it with only seconds to spare.
The train roared past, car after car. The bridge rumbled with the weight, the structure shaking like a drunk with the DTs as they held on for dear life, eyes closed against the black dust blowing from between the girders with hurricane force.
Several long minutes later, the last car passed and the train receded down the tracks, leaving them stunned and deafened. Drake helped Allie back onto the platform and Spencer joined them. Soot darkened his face, and his teeth glowed when he grinned.
“That’s one way to get our attention,” he said. “If the cops don’t get us, India will.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Allie said. “Let’s get off this thing and find a road. The police will eventually figure it out, and when they do, we can expect them to pull out all the stops.”
The Goddess Legacy Page 9