The Goddess Legacy

by Russell Blake

  “I’ll send Roland to pick you up. Where are you?”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  Reynolds’s voice hardened. “It wasn’t a request. I’ve let you have your head in this, but now the adult supervision gets called in. He’ll be responsible for your safety and will drive you to Kashmir. I’ll work on the equipment and a way to get you across the checkpoint – that’s not going to be easy, but it’s possible with the right kind of grease.”

  “We want to do this our way.”

  “That may well be, but you have no choice. This is moving to a whole new level, and I need professionals involved if I’m going to arm you and move you across borders. And let’s not forget that I lost my man where you want to go – you should be thanking me, not fighting me.”

  “Okay, okay. But we have a few errands we need to run. Can we meet him at the Delhi Junction Railway Station in an hour and a half?” Allie asked, resigned to the DOD man’s conditions.

  “I’ll call him. I see no reason why not.”

  “Thanks. We’ll be standing in front of the main entrance.”

  “You might want to get some warm clothes. Kashmir is a lot colder than Delhi because of the elevation,” Reynolds said, and hung up.

  Allie turned to Drake and Spencer. “We’ve got the Frenchman picking us up. Reynolds won’t cooperate if we don’t play ball with him. The good news is he sounds like he’ll be able to get us into Kashmir.”

  “And the guns?”

  “He said he’d work on it.” Allie removed the battery from Spencer’s phone and tossed it in the garbage. “Let’s get moving. We need to do some shopping.”

  “Probably not a lot of spelunking stores in town,” Drake observed.

  “We’ve got an hour and a half to make it to the station. Let’s make the most of it,” Allie said.

  “Yes, boss,” Spencer joked.

  “That’s more like it.”

  Chapter 48

  Roland appeared at the station right on time, in a big white Toyota SUV. Drake, Allie, and Spencer tossed their bags in the back and climbed into the vehicle, which stank of cigarettes – as did the Frenchman, who was as loquacious as usual. The drive to Pathankot, the last large town before the Kashmir border, took the remainder of the day, and passed in silence. Once out of Delhi the road narrowed to a two-lane strip that was used by everything from buses to cattle, and the journey comprised dozens of near misses as they pulled around slow-moving obstacles, only to barely escape being slammed into by oncoming vehicles moving at high speed. By the time they rolled into the circular drive of a third-rate hotel on the edge of town, night had fallen, their clothes reeked of stale cigarette smoke, and everyone was ready to get out of the truck.

  “You have rooms,” Roland announced, the first words he’d spoken on the eight-hour drive.

  “In whose name?” Spencer asked.

  “Bob Hope.”

  “Seriously?” Allie asked.

  “Robert Hope, actually,” Roland corrected. “Don’t worry. The manager’s not the curious sort.”

  They retrieved their gear from the truck and were walking toward the office when Reynolds’s voice called from the shadows. “So you made it.”

  Allie stopped in her tracks, and Drake and Spencer nearly ran her over.

  “So you decided to put in an appearance,” Spencer said neutrally.

  “Yes, I figured this was worth making the trip.”

  “Did you get everything we asked for?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Early. Guy’s meeting me with the weapons. The rest is in the back of my SUV.”

  They joined Reynolds by a smaller black SUV splattered with mud. He opened the rear cargo door, and they eyed the meager collection of equipment. Reynolds reached in and extracted a GPS and handed it to Allie, and then passed out LED flashlights and the rest of their requested gear.

  “Now, why don’t you tell me where we’re going tomorrow, so I have an idea why I need to arm you like a private army?” Reynolds asked.

  “There’s a sacred cave that we believe leads to an unknown location. That’s what Carson was working on. We put the rest of the puzzle pieces together,” Drake said.

  “A cave?”

  “Yes. Why the DOD might be interested in it, I have no idea.”

  “Where exactly is it located?” Reynolds asked.

  “You’ll see. There’s nothing around it – middle of nowhere.”

  “Can you show me on a map?” Reynolds pressed.

  “Tomorrow. I’m beat,” Drake said, and Allie nodded. “It’s been a long day, and we’re operating on only a few hours of sleep. We can discuss it over breakfast or something.”

  “I want to know where the cave is,” Reynolds said.

  “I told you, it’s not near much of anything. There’s a dam to the northeast, and the nearest village is Ransoo. Draw a line between the two and you’re in the right neighborhood.”

  “That’s the area Carson was researching,” Reynolds said. “It tells me nothing I don’t already know.”

  Allie shrugged. “Sorry. It’s what we’ve got. It would be nice if we could tie everything up with a bow and hand it to you, but we’re feeling our way through this. Remember that you’re the one who held a gun to our heads – we’d have already been on a plane home.”

  “And you haven’t learned anything that could hint at why the area might be of interest?” Reynolds tried a final time.

  “No. It’s a genuine mystery. Although there are a few other events you should know about.” She told him the story of Helms and the professor and Spencer’s ultimate dispatching of the man.

  “He didn’t say who he was working for?” Reynolds asked quietly when she was done.

  Spencer shook his head. “He turned down ten million bucks to walk away, so whoever it is, he was pretty confident that they’d find him if he double-crossed them, no matter where he hid. That should give you pause. How many would decline that kind of money?”

  “Not many,” Reynolds said, his expression dark.

  The clerk checked them in without asking questions, and minutes later they were ensconced in their rooms, which were only slightly better than the jail cell in which Spencer had spent his day with the Indian police. After showering off the road dust, they met outside Allie’s room and crossed the street to a small restaurant that appeared reasonably clean. After ordering, Allie looked to Spencer with a troubled expression.

  “Reynolds seems like he’s puzzled by everything, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes. And that worries me more than anything else. If our secret agent friend has no idea what’s going on, where does that leave us?” Spencer said.

  “Nowhere good,” Drake muttered. “And he doesn’t have the guns.”

  “If we don’t get them tomorrow, we’re not going. Simple as that. No way do we walk into an unknown situation without weapons,” Spencer said.

  “You have any theories as to what’s really going on?” Allie asked.

  Spencer shook his head. “Not a clue.”

  The group sat quietly, fatigue radiating off them as the server brought bowls of chicken curry and cans of soda. They picked at their meals, their appetites dampened by the prospect of the ordeal to come and their thoughts on the confluence of events that had led them into the Indian wilds, pursued by forces they didn’t understand.

  “I don’t think he’s leveling with us,” Drake said. “He knows more than he’s letting on. Just like always, we’re pawns that they’re pushing around their game board. And if we wind up taking a bullet, they’re still fine. I hate this crap. Really hate it.”

  “He’s got us between a rock and a hard place,” Spencer pointed out. “Although, not Allie.”

  Drake eyed her. “Maybe you should get out while you can.”

  “I’ve come this far. I kind of want to see what’s at the end of the rainbow. We’re almost there – it would be weak to quit now.”

  “Wh
at if we’re walking into a trap?” Drake asked.

  Allie frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “All along I’ve been wondering whether Reynolds actually already understands everything and is just keeping tabs on us to learn what we actually know. Think about it – he can’t be sure what Carson knew, so then we show up on the radar and he buddies up with us, figuring that we won’t tell him straight out what we’re really doing. So he needs to pretend to be on our side to discover how much info we have.”

  “Pretty evil if that’s the case,” Spencer said. “Although I wouldn’t put anything past the DOD – assuming he’s really DOD at all.”

  “Who else would he be?” Allie asked quietly.

  “CIA. They’re always up to something shady. Maybe they’re running an op, and they know we won’t willingly help after the last nightmare, so this time they’re pretending to be the Defense Department,” Spencer said. “It’s always a possibility.”

  Drake nodded slowly. “How do we verify that Reynolds is DOD?”

  “If he’s military intelligence, there isn’t going to be any publicly accessible info on him. It will all be tightly classified,” Spencer said. “So it’s a catch-22.”

  “Then there’s no way of knowing who he actually is or works for?” Allie said.

  “Correct.”

  “Where does that leave us?” Allie asked.

  Spencer considered the question for a long time. “Go through all the gear he gave you with a magnifying glass, and make sure there are no micro-transmitters in any of it. Give me the GPS and I’ll dismantle it to see if there’s anything besides the factory chips inside. We can just keep it off and they’ll be unable to track it – we’re looking for something small that would have its own miniature power source, that’s constantly emitting a signal.”

  “You really think this is a con?” Drake asked.

  Spencer held up a spoonful of curry and blew on it to cool it. “At this point, we should assume everyone’s the enemy until proven otherwise. Including those who are most insistent they’re our friends.”

  Allie’s expression slowly registered alarm. “Do you…do you think it’s possible that the DOD killed Carson, and we’re just loose threads they’re tying up?”

  Drake looked to Spencer, who was chewing his curry methodically with a spectacular lack of enjoyment. “Anything’s possible. But why do it in such a spectacular manner? Generally, when someone’s taken out, it’s made to look like an accident – car crash or skiing or a drowning.” He shook his head. “No, Carson’s murder wasn’t anything the DOD would want to draw attention to if they had him under surveillance. Which means there’s another player in the mix besides Helms, because he wouldn’t have had the physical strength. Carson would have snapped his neck like a twig.”

  They sat in silence, considering Spencer’s input, the food suddenly tasting like tar. When they returned to the hotel, Allie gave Drake a chaste peck and retired without a word, and it was hours before Drake finally drifted off into restless sleep – a slumber that featured headless bodies coming for him through a swirling fog that whispered his name.

  Chapter 49

  Delhi, India

  Nayan Mehta felt for his cell phone in the pocket of his hand-tailored pajamas, the little device’s warble shattering the silence of his bedroom, where he was reading a report on his construction company’s profit and losses for the quarter as light bedtime fare. He was in no mood to take a call, but his annoyance receded when he saw the caller ID.

  “My brother, it has been too long,” Mehta answered.

  “How is the lifestyle of the rich and famous treating you?”

  “No complaints. Although you’re more famous than I,” Mehta teased.

  “But nowhere near as rich,” Swami Baba Raja fired back.

  “The universe works in mysterious ways. What’s going on?”

  “I had a troubling incident at the ashram last night, and I wanted to see if you knew anything about it.”

  Mehta sat up straighter. “What? What happened?”

  “Someone broke in and tried to steal the statue of Kali you gave me.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “It is true. First the sword, and now the idol…”

  “I’m working on retrieving the sword, but it has proven more elusive than I’d hoped.”

  Swami Baba Raja didn’t say anything for a long moment. When he did, his voice was soft. “Does the…cult know I have the statue?”

  “Of course not. Are you mad?” Mehta had obtained the relic when a team of his miners had inadvertently broken through a cave wall, violating the sanctity of its resting place. He’d left the rest of the artifacts in the cave, but had been taken by the beauty of the dancing Kali and had secretly removed the idol before sealing the cavern back up and shutting down exploration in that area. But he knew that if those who held the relic to be sacred ever discovered his duplicity, they would exact a terrible revenge.

  “It is a possible explanation,” Baba Raja reasoned, his tone glum.

  “You say someone tried to steal it. Which means they were unsuccessful?”

  “Correct. They were interrupted mid-process. The bastards were in my bedroom while I was sleeping. I naturally thought…”

  “The cult has no idea. That you are still alive should be all the proof you require. If it had been them, you’d have never heard or seen anything.”

  “We think it was a pair of mercenaries. American.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “There are several devotees missing. Among them two new arrivals.”

  “Who are they?”

  “We only have what they wrote on their admission documents, which appears to be pure invention. Allie and Drake O’Keefe. From Kansas City. Brother and sister.”

  “Allie and Drake?” Mehta repeated.

  “Yes. Why? Does it mean something to you?” Baba Raja demanded.

  Mehta’s tone was flat. “No. Just unusual names.”

  “Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

  “Why would I keep anything from you?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “You know everything I do. But if you’re unhurt, and they weren’t successful, no real harm done to anything but your dignity, right? Just add more guards. Things will be fine.”

  “I didn’t know if this relates to…your thing.”

  “Not as far as I can see. They are unconnected.”

  The swami sounded unconvinced, but let it go. “You should come to the ashram more often. It has been too long.”

  “My days are filled with other matters. But I will make time to see you. Soon.”

  “It would delight me if you would.”

  “There is nothing I live for more than your delight.”

  After a few more minutes of banter Mehta hung up and stared at his balcony, lost in thought. Of course he recognized the names of the pair that Helms had reported had tried to buy him off, but that they had been so bold as to enter the ashram and attempt to steal the idol…that raised the stakes considerably.

  He tried Helms’s cell a final time, with the same result – no answer. Mehta was reluctant to leave a message, his cautious nature erring on the side of the conservative, and he comforted himself with the observation that Helms was a seasoned operative who was tracking rank amateurs.

  But still, it was worrisome that he had been out of contact since the prior evening.

  Mehta rubbed his eyes and returned to the report, part of his mind still on the call from his brother, another on tomorrow. The first part would be devoted to travel – a dawn flight on his private jet to the Jammu airport, and then several hours by car, and then a cross-country ride on an ATV before arrival at the camp to meet his guests.

  The camp.

  Such an innocuous description for the hidden mine and the dark recesses of the mountain, where his slave laborers lived out their short, harsh lives before wa
sting away.

  He forced the image of the mine’s horror out of his mind – it served no useful purpose to ruminate about such things, and he needed his sleep. Better to look forward to the celebratory debauchery that would follow the transaction than to focus on that which couldn’t be changed.

  Mehta sighed and flipped a page of the report, and turned to the next column of numbers, any thoughts of the camp replaced by margin breakdowns and profit and loss projections.

  Chapter 50

  Pathankot, India

  Reynolds was standing by his SUV when Drake, Allie, and Spencer emerged from their rooms, blinking sleepily in the bright morning sunlight. Roland led them to where the DOD man was waiting, a scowl on his face as they approached.

  “What is it?” Drake asked.

  “We were only able to get one Kalashnikov and two pistols.”

  “Unacceptable,” Spencer said.

  “That’s the best we could do on short notice. I had to pull in favors to even land those.”

  “Leaving us seriously outgunned if we have any problems,” Spencer spat. “I don’t feel like committing suicide today, thanks.”

  “I was able to get us cleared at the checkpoint. Cost a bundle, but it’s done,” Reynolds continued, as though he hadn’t heard Spencer.

  “How many spare magazines for the AK?” Drake asked.

  “Three.”

  “It doesn’t matter. No weapons, no deal,” Spencer said, his tone glacial.

  Reynolds sighed. “Look – this is all I can get. And we’re not going to hang out here for another day in the hopes that my contacts can come up with another AK. These were smuggled in from Pakistan – you have no idea how hard it was to make that happen. So we’re going, and we’ll make the best of it.”

  “Except I refuse,” Spencer growled.

  “Spencer, let me explain something that I’d have thought was abundantly clear: you don’t get to refuse, or the cops arrest you within minutes. Is that how you want to play this? It’s not my preference, but if you push me, that’s how it’ll go down.” Reynolds paused. “If I were you, I’d take my AK, say thank you, and shut up.”