Raiders Of the Lost Ark

by Campbell Black

  In this place I already looked. She remained very still.

  What she didn't see, what she couldn't see, was the monkey sitting on a wall that overlooked the alcove; she could hear it chattering suddenly, wildly, and it was a few moments before she understood what the noise was. That monkey, she thought. It followed me. The affectionate betrayal. Please, monkey, go away, leave me alone. But she felt herself being raised up now, the basket lifted. She peered through the narrow slats of the basket and saw that the Arab and the Euro­pean were her bearers, that she was being carted, like refuse, on their shoulders. She struggled. She hammered with her fists against the lid, which was tight now.

  In the bazaar Indy had pushed the man with the machete aside; but the place was in turmoil now, angry Arab merchants milling around, gesticulating wildly at the crazy man with the whip. Indy backed away against the door, fumbled for the bolt, saw the ma­chete come toward him again. This time he lunged with his foot, knocking the man backward into the rest of the crowd. Then he worked the door open and was out in the alley, looking this way and that for some sign of her. Nothing. Only two guys at the other end of the alley carrying a basket.

  Where the hell did she go?

  And then, as if from nowhere, he heard her voice call his name, and the echo was strangely chilling.

  The basket.

  He saw the lid move as the two carriers turned the corner. Briefly, a strange chattering sound drew his at­tention from the basket, and he looked upward to see the monkey perched on the wall. It might have been deriding him. He was filled with an overwhelming urge to draw his pistol and murder the thing with one well-placed shot. Instead, he ran quickly in the direction of the two men. He took the same turn they had made, seeing how fast they were running ahead of him with the basket wobbling between them.

  How could those guys move so quickly while they carried Marion's weight? he wondered. They were al­ways one turn ahead of him, always one step in front. He followed them along busy thoroughfares filled with shoppers and merchants, where he had to push his way through frantically. He couldn't lose sight of that bas­ket, he couldn't let it slip away like this. He pushed and shoved, he thrust people aside, he ignored their complaints and outcries. Keep moving. Don't lose sight of her.

  And then he was conscious of a weird noise, a chanting sound that had somber undertones, a certain melancholy to it. He couldn't place it, but somehow it stopped him; he was disoriented. When he started to move again, he realized he had lost her. He couldn't see the basket now.

  He started to run again, pushing through the crowd. And the strange sound of the lament, if that was what it was, became louder, more piercing.

  At the corner of an alley he stopped.

  There were two Arabs in front of him carrying a rattan basket.

  Immediately, he drew his whip and brought one of them down, hauled the whip away, then let it flash again. It cracked against the other Arab's leg, encircl­ing it, entwining it like a slender reptile. The basket toppled over and he stepped toward it.

  No Marion.

  Confused, he looked at what had spilled out of the thing.

  Guns, rifles, ammo.

  The wrong basket!

  He backed out of the alley and continued up the main street of bazaars, and the odd wailing sound be­came louder still.

  He entered a large square, overwhelmed by the sud­den sight of misery all around him: a square of beg­gars, the limbless, the blind, the half-born who held out stumps of arms in front of themselves in some mindless groping for help. There was the smell of sweat and urine and excrement here, a pungency that filled the air with the tangibility of a solid object.

  He crossed the square, avoiding the beggars.

  And then he had to stop.

  Now he knew the nature of the moaning sound.

  At the far side of the square there was a funeral procession moving. Large and long, obviously the fu­neral march of some prominent citizen. Riderless horses hauled the coffin, priests chanted from the Koran, keening women walked up front with their heads wrapped in scarves, servants moved behind, and at the rear, cumbersome and clumsy, came the sacri­ficial buffalo.

  He stared at the procession for a time. How the hell could he go through that line?

  He looked at the coffin, ornate, opulent, held aloft; and then he noticed, through a brief break in the line, the basket being carried by the two men toward a canvas-covered truck parked in the farthest corner of the square. It was impossible to be sure over the noise of the mourners, but he thought he heard Marion screaming from inside.

  He was about to move forward and shove his way through the procession when it happened.

  From the truck a machine gun opened fire, raking the square, scattering the line of mourners and the mob of beggars. The priests kept up their chant until the blasts burst through the coffin itself, sending splinters of wood flying, causing the mummified corpse to slide through the broken lid to the ground. The mourners wailed with renewed interest. Indy zigzagged toward a well on the far side of the square, squeezing off a cou­ple of shots in the direction of the truck. He slid behind the well, popping up in time to see the rattan basket being thrown into the back of the truck. Just then, almost out of his line of vision, barely notice­able, a black sedan pulled away. The truck, too, began to move.

  It swung out of the square.

  Before it could go beyond his sight, Indy took care­ful aim, an aim more precise than any other in his lifetime, and squeezed the trigger. The driver of the truck slumped forward against the wheel. The truck swerved, hit a wall, rolled over.

  As he was about to move toward it, he stopped in horror.

  He realized then he could never feel anything so intense in his life again, never so much pain, so much anguish, such a terrible, heavy sense of numbness.

  He realized all this as he watched the truck explode, flames bursting from it, fragments flying, the whole thing wrecked; and what he also realized was that the basket had been thrown into the back of an ammuni­tions truck.

  That Marion was dead.

  Killed by a bullet from his own gun.

  How could it be?

  He shut his eyes, hearing nothing now, conscious only of the white sun beating against his closed lids.

  He walked for what seemed like a long time, unknow­ing, uncaring, his mind drifting back time and again to that point where he had leveled the gun and shot the driver. Why? Why hadn't he considered the possibility that the truck might be carrying something dangerous?

  You ruined her life when she was a girl.

  Now you've ended it when she was a woman.

  He walked the narrow streets, the alleys thronged with people, and he blamed himself over and over for the death of Marion.

  It was more pain than he could think about, more than he could bear. And he knew of only one remedy. He knew of only one reliable form of self-medication. So he found himself walking toward the bar where, earlier, he had arranged to meet Sallah. That seemed locked in some dim past now, another world, a differ­ent life.

  Even a different man.

  He saw the bar, a rundown place. He stepped in­side and was assailed by thick tobacco smoke, the smell of spilled booze. He sat on a stool by the bar. He ordered a fifth of bourbon and drank one monotonous glass after another, wondering-as he grew more in­ebriated-what it was that made some people tick while others were as animated as broken clocks; what was that clockwork so necessary to successful relation­ships that some people had and others didn't. He let the question go around in his mind until it shed its sense, floating through alcoholic perceptions like a ghost ship.

  He reached for another drink. Something touched his arm and he twisted his head slowly to see the mon­key on the bar. That stupid primate to which Marion had become so witlessly attached. Then he remem­bered that this idiot creature had splashed a kiss on Marion's cheek. Okay, Marion liked you, I can toler­ate you.

  "Want a drink, you baboon?"

  The monkey put it
s head to one side, watching him.

  Indy was aware of the barman watching him as if he were a fugitive from a nearby asylum. And then he was aware of something else, too: three men, Euro­peans-Germans, he assumed, from their accents- had crowded around him.

  "Someone wishes your company," one of them said.

  "I'm drinking with my friend here," Indy said.

  The monkey moved slightly.

  "Your company is not requested, Mr. Jones. It is demanded."

  He was hauled from the stool and rushed into a back room. Chattering, squealing, the monkey fol­lowed. The room was dim and his eyes smarted from smoke.

  Someone was sitting at a table in the far corner.

  Indy realized that this confrontation had been in­evitable.

  Rene Belloq was drinking a glass of wine and swing­ing a chain on which hung a watch.

  "A monkey," Belloq said. "You still have admirable taste in friends, I see."

  "You're a barrel of laughs, Belloq."

  The Frenchman grimaced. "Your sense of repartee dismays me. It did so even when we were students, Indiana. It lacks panache."

  "I ought to kill you right now-"

  "Ah, I understand your urge. But I should remind you that I did not bring Miss Ravenwood into this somewhat sordid affair. And what is eating you, my old friend, is the knowledge that you are responsible for that. No?"

  Indy sat down, slumping into the chair opposite Belloq.

  Belloq leaned forward. "It also irks you that I can see through you, Jones. But the plain fact is, we are somewhat alike."

  Through blood-shot eyes Indy stared at Belloq. "No need to get nasty."

  "Consider this," Belloq said. "Archaelogy has always been our religion, our faith. We have both strayed somewhat from the so-called true path, ad­mittedly. We are both given to the occasional . . . dubi­ous . . . transaction. Our methods are not so different as you pretend. 1 am, if you like, a shadowy reflection of yourself. What would it take to make you the same as me, Professor? Mmm? A slight cutting edge? A sharpening of the killer instinct, yes?"

  Indy said nothing. Belloq's words came to him like noises muffled by a fog. He was talking nonsense, pure nonsense, which sounded grand and true because it was delivered in a French accent that might be de­scribed as quaint, charming. What Indy heard was the hissing of some hidden snake.

  "You doubt me, Jones? Consider: What brings you here? The lust for the Ark, am I correct? The old dream of antiquity. The historic relic, the quest- why, it might be a virus in your blood. You dream of things past." Belloq was smiling, swinging a watch on a chain. He said, "Look at this watch. Cheap. Nothing. Take it out into the desert and bury it for a thousand years and it becomes priceless. Men will kill for it. Men like you and me, Jones. The Ark, I admit, is different. It is a little removed from the profit motive, of course. We understand this, you and I. But the greed is still in the heart, my friend. The vice we have in common."

  The Frenchman stopped smiling. There was a glassy look in his eyes, a distance, a privacy. He might have been conducting a conversation with him­self. "You understand what the Ark is? It is like a transmitter. Like a radio through which one might communicate with God. And I am very close to it. Very close to it, indeed. I have waited years to be this close. And what I am talking about is beyond profit, beyond the lust of simple acquisition. I am talk­ing about communicating with that which is contained in the Ark."

  "You buy it, Belloq? You buy the mysticism? The power?"

  Belloq looked disgusted. He sat back. He placed the tips of his fingers together. "Don't you?"

  Indy shrugged.

  "Ah, you are not sure, are you? Even you, you are not sure." Belloq lowered his voice. "I am more than sure, Jones. I am positive. I don't doubt it for a moment now. My researches have always led me in this "direction. I know."

  "You're out of your mind," Indy said.

  "A pity it ends this way," Belloq said. "You have at times stimulated me, a rare thing in a world so weary as this one."

  "That thought makes me happy, Belloq."

  "I'm glad. Truly. But everything comes to an end."

  "Not a very private place for murder."

  "It hardly matters. These Arabs will not interfere in a white man's business. They do not care if we kill each other off."

  Belloq rose, smiling. He nodded his head in a curt way.

  Indy, stalling for time, for anything, said, "I hope you learn something from your little parley with God, Belloq."

  "Naturally."

  Indy braced himself. There wasn't time to turn swiftly and try for his pistol, and even less time to reach his bullwhip. His assassins sat directly behind him.

  Belloq was looking at his watch. "Who knows, Jones? Perhaps there will be the kind of hereafter where souls like you and me meet again. It amuses me to think that I will outwit you there as well."

  There was a sound from outside now. It was an incongruous sound, the collective chattering of excited young children, a happy sound Indy associated with a Christmas morning. It wasn't what he expected to hear in the death chamber.

  Belloq looked toward the door in surprise. Sallah's children, all nine of them, were trooping into the room and calling Indy's name. Indy stared as they surrounded him, as the smaller ones clambered on his knees while the others made a circle in the manner of frail human shields. Some of them began to climb on his shoulders. One had managed to drape himself over Indy's neck in a piggyback-ride style, and still another was hugging his ankles.

  Belloq was frowning. "You imagine you can back out of here, do you? You imagine this insignificant human bracelet will protect you?"

  "I don't imagine anything," Indy said.

  "How utterly typical," Belloq answered.

  They were pulling him toward the door now, he was being tugged and yanked even as they were shielding him. Sallah! It must have been Sallah's plan to risk his children and send them into this bar and contrive to get him safely out somehow. How could Sallah have taken such a risk?

  Belloq was sitting once again, arms folded. The look on his face was that of a reluctant parent at a school play. He shook his head from side to side. "I will regale the next meeting of the International Archaelogical Society with the tale of your disregard for the laws governing child labor, Jones."

  "You're not even a member."

  Belloq smiled, but only briefly. He continued to stare at the children and then, as if he were deciding something, turned toward his accomplices. He raised his hand, a gesture that indicated they should put their weapons away.

  "I have a soft spot for dogs and children, Jones. You may express your gratitude in some simple form, which would suit you. But small children will not be­come your saviors when we next meet."

  Indy was moving back rapidly. And then he slipped out, with the kids clutching him like a precious toy. Sallah's truck was parked outside-a sight that filled Indy with delight, the first event of the day that even remotely lifted his spirits.

  Belloqfinished his glass of wine. He heard the truck pull away. As the sound died in the distance he thought, with an insight that surprised him vaguely, that he was not yet ready to kill Indy. That the time was not exactly ripe. It hadn't been the presence of the children at all-they hardly mattered. It was rather the fact that he wanted, somewhere in a place he did not quite fathom, a remote corner of under­standing, to spare Jones, to let the man live a little longer.

  There are some things, after all, worse than death, he thought.

  And it amused him to ponder the agony, the an­guish, that Jones would be going through: there was the girl, for one thing-which would have been pun­ishment enough, torture enough. But there was also the fact, just as punishing, perhaps even more so, that Jones would live to see the Ark slip through his fingers.

  Belloq threw back his head and laughed; and his German accomplices, their appetite for killing unsatis­fied, stared at him in bewilderment.

  In the truck Indy said, "Your kids have a sense of t
iming that would outdo the U.S. Marines, Sallah."

  "I understood the situation. I had to act quickly," Sallahsaid.

  Indy stared at the road ahead: darkness, thin lights, people parting from the path of the truck. The kids were in the back, singing ana laughing. Innocent sounds, Indy thought, remembering what he wanted to forget.

  "Marion..."

  "I know," Sallah said. "The news reached me ear­lier. I'm sad. More than sad. What can I say to con­sole you? How can I help your grief?"

  "Nothing helps the grief, Sallah."

  Sallah nodded. "I understand, of course."

  "But you can help me in other ways. You can help me beat those bastards."

  "You have my help, Indiana," Sallah said. "Any time at all."

  Sallah was silent for a moment, driving the last stretch to his house.

  "I have much news for you," he said after a while. "Some isn't good news. But it concerns the Ark."

  "Hit me with it," Indy said.

  "Soon. When we reach my house. And later, if you wish, we can visit the house of Imam, who will explain the markings to you."

  Indy lapsed into a weary silence. He had a hang­over already beginning, a violent throb in the center of his skull. And, if his senses had been sharper, his intuition less blunted by booze, he might have noticed the motorcycle that had followed the truck from the bar. But even if he had, he would not have known the rider, a man who specialized in training monkeys.

  When the children had been sent indoors, Indy and Sallah went out into the walled courtyard. Sallah walked around the yard for a time before he paused by the wall and said, "Belloq has the medallion."