The Third Caliph

by Alex Archer

  They started back into the wreckage of the city, toward the fires where survivors had gathered.

  “Why did you buy fish?” Garin followed the old man, hating the feeling he always got around Roux. That he was losing control.

  “I’m hungry and we’re going to eat them.”

  Qurtubi nodded happily. “Roux is a very good cook.”

  Garin stumbled over a loose rock but recovered quickly. Even after all these years, the old man could still surprise him. Garin couldn’t help wondering what Roux had done that would require the help of Qurtubi. Especially this Qurtubi whom Garin hadn’t met until yesterday.

  “Garin, would you collect some firewood?” Roux didn’t even bother to look back.

  Cursing, Garin started looking for someone to buy firewood from. There were vendors among the scavengers. He wasn’t going to search for firewood in the gathering darkness. As he walked, he tried to figure out exactly how Roux had taken control of Garin’s expedition to save Annja.

  On the other hand, he had to admit that he felt better with Roux running the show. It was like old times.

  Qodshanes Plateau

  Hakkari Mountains

  Republic of Iraq

  THE CARGO PLANE HUGGED the nap of the earth as it raced across the Hakkari Mountains hours before dawn. Seated in the back, outfitted with a parachute, Annja waited tensely, wondering if she had put herself in too deep this time, thinking maybe she had and hoping she’d get to see what Abdelilah Karam had hidden that Habib ibn Thabit wanted so badly.

  Thabit had brought thirty men, enough to keep her from seeing what he was chasing if he so chose.

  Try to kill me. I’m not going to let that happen. She wrapped her arms around the parachute secured to her chest and felt the extra weight of the primary chute on her shoulders. Her backpack was tied to her with a leash and was stored in a protective case that would shield it from the jump.

  She felt well rested. Even with all the resources he had at his fingertips, it had taken Thabit almost two days to put together transportation to Syria, then the flight to Mosul. Annja had spent the time researching and shoring up strength. Her “host” had made certain she was guarded, but he had also seen to it that she was left alone.

  The plane powered down.

  A moment later, Hamez walked through the cargo area and kicked the feet of the sleeping men, snarling at them. Immediately, they gathered their gear and readied themselves. Hamez stopped in front of her.

  “It is time.” Hamez bristled with weapons—an assault rifle, two pistols and at least four knives that Annja could see. He wore camouflage military gear and heavy combat boots. A ballistic helmet dangled from the fingers of his left hand.

  Annja got to her feet without a word.

  “If you try to get away on the ground, I will personally track you down and kill you.”

  Annja pulled her hair back into a ponytail, then slid on a pair of protective goggles. She reached down for the case containing her backpack.

  Obviously not pleased at her lack of response, Hamez growled and moved on, checking his men with the authority of a drill instructor.

  Thabit stood at the back of the group. Like the others, he was dressed in camo, but his outfit looked new.

  Hamez gave an order, then one of the men cranked open the side door. Cold wind rushed into the plane. One by one, the men attached static lines to the overhead cable and jumped through the door.

  Annja followed them out of the plane. She plummeted in freefall for only a moment, then the chute popped open overhead, blossoming into a wide black rectangle that blotted out the stars. She dropped the protective case containing her backpack and used the steering line toggles to stay with the group as they fell.

  Curtain Bar

  K Street, Washington, D.C.

  “WE’VE FOUND THEM.”

  Brawley Hendricks shifted from lethargy to operational mode. He’d spent the past two days with Sophie in the underground control room, hoping desperately to pick up Annja Creed’s trail again.

  Once the jet had touched down in Sicily, Sophie’s people had lost Creed. The GPS locator MacKenzie had planted on Hamez’s people had gotten discovered or was lost. Hendricks had expected to lose the group and he’d tried to be prepared for it, but accepting that the trail had gone cold was hard. But they’d found her again—in Syria of all places—when a Russian journalist covering the Syrian unrest had recognized Annja Creed and tweeted about her.

  Tweets and blogs had become some of the best spy networks in the world. Managing all the information required a lot of data miners, though. Thankfully, Creed was a major draw for the tech crowd. When she was visible, she was highly visible.

  Once Sophie had locked on to the information, she’d used her local contacts in Syria—and she was more heavily invested in that uncertain arena than Hendricks had been aware of—and ferreted out Thabit. They hadn’t been able to muster a team inside Syria, but they had MacKenzie in the air.

  All they’d needed to know was where Thabit planned to deploy.

  And now they had that.

  With rising anticipation, Hendricks watched the satellite view of the parachutes spilling from the cargo plane Sophie’s intelligence team had locked on that had flown from Turkey into Afghanistan. He turned to Sophie.

  “How far out is MacKenzie?”

  “Twenty minutes.” Sophie patted his hand. “We’re almost there, Brawley. Just sit tight. These people know what they’re doing.”

  Hendricks rolled his head in an effort to loosen the tension in his shoulders and neck. It didn’t help.

  Chapter 38

  Qodshanes Plateau

  Hakkari Mountains

  Republic of Iraq

  “The bogey just deployed parachutes.”

  Seated in the back of the Hummer, Garin Braden watched the computer screen connected to the sat-relay originating from his DragonTech Security offices in Germany. He’d gotten the equipment and the security personnel from ongoing operations in Iraq. DragonTech was one of the private security teams the Iraq government maintained after the U.S. troops had started leaving.

  All the unrest in the world had given Garin new inroads to several streams of revenue, some of them legal and some of them not. DragonTech was a growing—and profitable—concern. The security agency was one of the crown jewels in Braden Enterprises International.

  Roux watched the images on the computer with great interest. Instead of looking ridiculous in the Kevlar armor as Garin had expected, the old man looked like a soldier—despite the overgrown hair and beard. He wore his weapons with grim authority.

  Only the ancient French saber scabbarded over his right shoulder seemed out of place. Roux had insisted on carrying the blade, though. Garin didn’t begrudge him that. He carried one himself—a katana that was perfectly suited for close work.

  Old habits died hard. Garin loved and appreciated firearms, but his first weapon had been the blade, and Roux had trained him.

  Roux pointed at the plane. “You’re sure this is the one?”

  “Yes.”

  Roux sat back and stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Then it appears they have reached their goal. How far away are they?”

  “Minutes.” Garin patted the driver’s helmet. “Let’s roll.”

  The Hummer jumped forward, following one of the trade trails that cut through the Hakkari Mountains.

  * * *

  ONCE ANNJA WAS ON THE GROUND, landing between three guards assigned to watch her, she unstrapped the parachute and dumped the secondary one. Then she fished her backpack from the protective case, checked her electronics and repacked them. She pulled the backpack into place.

  The parachutes were gathered and quickly buried under brush and rocks.

  Thabit walked over to Annja. “Which way to the cav
e?”

  Annja took out her GPS compass and the map she’d drawn as much to scale as she could from the topographical references inscribed on the gold coins. They’d landed on the north side of the mountains and had to backtrack to the south.

  Annja pointed. “That way.” She folded the map and put the GPS compass away.

  “How far?”

  “A mile. Maybe. Depends on how close the map was.”

  Thabit nodded to Hamez, who gave the order to move out.

  The soldiers fell into a point-and-wings formation that was textbook military, and were flanked by a rear guard.

  * * *

  AS IT TURNED OUT, the cave wasn’t a mile away. It was only a half mile and they reached it in seven minutes by traveling up into the mountains. The landmarks Karam had provided—a cleft in the mountains, a rocky outcropping and a spire that had crumbled with age and taken a couple minutes to confirm—were mostly intact.

  In the center of it all was a jumble of rock that had slid down onto the boulder that was supposed to cover the cave entrance.

  Thabit surveyed the landslide. “Are you certain this is the place?”

  Annja pointed out the landmarks again. “This is the only place it could be.” She scowled at the landslide. “But it’s going to take earth-moving equipment to dig it out.”

  “Or explosives.” Hamez stood at Thabit’s side. “I have men who can remove the debris.”

  An image of fire running down the throat of the cave filled Annja’s mind. “You can’t do that. If the cave is shallow, everything that Karam left behind could be destroyed.”

  Thabit didn’t hesitate. He nodded. “Blow it up.”

  Hamez turned sharply on his heel and called out to his troops. Three men stepped forward and started rummaging in their kits.

  Annja stared at Thabit, understanding the man’s motivations then. “You’re not here to find what Karam left. You want it to stay lost.”

  Thabit shook his head. “No, I do not want it to stay lost. I want it obliterated.”

  “You can’t do that. You don’t realize how much history could be in those scrolls.”

  “Too much.” Thabit walked away from her.

  Annja started to follow him, but the three guards trapped her in place. Helplessly, she watched as Hamez’s demolitions team set the charges. They were good at what they did and finished in minutes.

  Then they blew the charges and rock and earth flew into the sky. Hunkered behind a boulder, Annja groaned. She’d thought Thabit had been looking for a treasure, something to prove his case as a Shiite as to the true succession of Islam. She couldn’t imagine anyone wanting something so historically significant destroyed.

  Gradually, the smoke and dust settled. Little by little, the cave mouth that had been hidden by the boulder came into view.

  The chase wasn’t over yet. She stood and shoved through her guards. Since she wasn’t headed for Thabit and they were no doubt interested in the results of the explosion, they let her walk.

  Hamez studied the cave with distaste. “We can set bigger charges, bring down the mountain.”

  “No,” Thabit said. “What we’re looking for could be deep inside the cave. We must make sure it’s gone. Once and for all.” He spat a curse. “Get your men together. We go inside.” He turned to Annja. “It appears I still have need of your expertise.”

  Annja didn’t respond. One of the men shoved her from behind and she fell into step, following Thabit and Hamez into the cave.

  * * *

  IN THE PASSENGER SEAT of the Jeep, MacKenzie watched the cloud of dust and smoke drift across the northern horizon. He clicked the headset that linked him to Sophie. “What happened?”

  “Thabit’s people just blew up a section of the landscape. From what we can see, they’ve uncovered a cave.”

  “You got a history of the area?”

  “There are a lot of caves in those mountains. Wars have been fought there for centuries, from ancient times to World War I, and even present day. There are trade routes all over those mountains, too. People would have stopped in caves to rest for the night or for protection. We have no information about this cave.”

  MacKenzie took a deep breath. “Evidently Creed does. You’ve got to be wondering what Thabit is looking for.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Your job is to get Thabit—alive if you can—and bring him back.”

  “Understood.” MacKenzie braced himself for the rough ride and looked at the Jeep’s driver. “Faster. That’s our mark.”

  The man nodded and the Jeep picked up speed, bouncing across the rough landscape.

  MacKenzie fingered the brass key in his shirt pocket. Maybe they still had a wild card to play.

  * * *

  AS THEY STEPPED INTO the mouth of the cave, Annja reached into her backpack and took out a flashlight. Hamez and Thabit did the same, as did their men.

  Dust and debris littered the opening, and the air was thick with dust. Annja pulled a kerchief over her mouth and nose to filter out particulates. The men followed her lead. The kerchief helped somewhat with the air, but grit stung her eyes.

  She shined her flashlight over the cave’s interior, hoping for some kind of instruction or markings that would cement her belief that this was the cave Abdelilah Karam had mapped on the coins.

  The cave walls remained stubbornly blank. Drawn by the dark pool at the end of her flashlight beam, she started forward. Small rocks crunched under her boots as she followed the light into the unknown.

  Excited voices rang out behind Annja. Thinking she had missed something, she glanced back, realizing immediately that the men were pointing down the incline at the long dust cloud trailing close to the ground.

  Someone had followed them.

  While Hamez and Thabit’s attention was on the approaching vehicles, and her guards were distracted, Annja plunged into the darkness.

  * * *

  “MR. BRADEN, YOU’RE NOT the only interested parties arriving at ground zero.”

  Garin swiveled his attention from the front windshield to the computer screen. The sat-relay jumped occasionally, but it was still locked in. A line of vehicles sped toward the area where smoke from an explosion still drifted through the air.

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “Negative, sir. We haven’t managed to get a visual on them yet.”

  “It must be this other man you mentioned. MacKenzie,” Roux said quietly. “The CIA operative.”

  “That means he’s got an intel support team somewhere.” Garin watched the screen grimly. “Can you get me an ETA on this group?”

  “They’ll arrive on-site in two minutes.”

  “How far out are we?”

  “Four minutes.”

  Garin smiled and reached for the rifle Qurtubi held for him.

  The young warrior smiled back. “It sounds like things will be interesting upon our arrival.”

  “Just don’t get yourself killed.”

  “Of course.”

  “And if it comes down to protecting Roux or me, which will it be?”

  Qurtubi only smiled.

  * * *

  ANGRY SHOUTS ECHOING in her wake, Annja ran through the darkness. She reached a curve in the passageway just as bullets sparked off the wall in front of her.

  She stayed low and ran. A stone chip stung her neck and she felt blood run down into the hollow of her throat. Despite the fact that it was impossible to hold the flashlight steady and run at the same time, she lengthened her stride.

  The ground tilted downward at a steep slope that she didn’t see until it was too late. Her foot hit the stone floor wrong, twisted beneath her and gave way. Instinctively, she reached out with her hands to break her fall but caught herself and kept her arms folded and
loose, up in front of her to protect her face. When she hit, she went limp, felt the air go out of her, but started pushing herself back up at once as the flashlight shot out of her hand and skittered down the passageway. The light spun crazily, briefly illuminating different sections of the walls, floor and ceiling, all of them showing tool marks from where someone had carved the passageway.

  Annja stooped to pick up the flashlight and started running again just as lights crept into the tunnel behind her. Excited cries rang out.

  Ahead of Annja, the tunnel split into three branches. She had only an instant to decide, and picked the one on the right. She caught herself with her left hand just before she plowed into the wall, shoved off and got up to speed again.

  Shots blasted into the wall behind her and ricochets whined like angry bees as they filled the air. Someone cried out in pain and she thought she heard the sound of a falling body. She leveled the flashlight and kept running.

  Chapter 39

  “Keep going! Run them over!” Even as Garin gave orders to the driver, he leaned out the window and trained his assault rifle on one of the vehicles carrying the CIA operatives toward the cave.

  The driver put his foot down on the accelerator and jockeyed the vehicle across the uneven landscape. A couple of times the Hummer went airborne for short flights.

  Garin took up trigger slack and fired at the other vehicle from thirty yards away. He aimed two three-round bursts at the tires.

  Out of control, the Jeep veered toward them.

  “Hold on!” The Hummer driver geared down to grab traction and cut the steering wheel hard to the left. Their bumpers crossed for just an instant, then the Hummer’s heavier weight and momentum brushed the out-of-control Jeep aside with a quick shiver. The Jeep rolled over onto its side and fell apart, throwing passengers in all directions.

  “Don’t stop until you reach the cave!” Garin yelled.

  Some of Thabit’s Shiite warriors had remained behind while the rest of the group poured down the cave entrance. Garin swept his gaze over the assembled troop but didn’t see Annja among them.

  One of the CIA Jeeps was closing on the cave and was going to reach the destination well ahead of the Hummer. In frustration, Garin leaned out the window again and started firing.