Francesca led the way along the dim passageways to her bed
room. The two woven bags on the bed explained Tessa’s temporary absence. She had been packing for their escape. Francesca removed her battered aluminum suitcase from the wooden chest. It had been rigged with a strap which she threw over her shoulder. Handing one bag to Paul and the other to Gamay, Francesca said that the containers held food and supplies and “a few essentials.”
Gamay looked around the windowless room. “Where do we go from here?” The sound of drums was muffled, but the beating was more frenetic.
“We take a shower, of course,” Francesca said.
She lit a small clay lamp from the torch, went over to the shower stall, and pulled up the polished wooden floor to reveal a rectangular opening.
“There’s a ladder. It’s very steep. Be careful.”
She descended first so the others could climb down by lamp light. They were crowded together in a small space, standing on the gravel drain that had been used to catch water from the shower. A passage led off into the darkness.
“My apologies to you, Dr. Paul. I wasn’t expecting someone as tall. We’ve been digging this tunnel for years, carrying the dirt out in small amounts and secretly disposing of it. This passage way runs into a covered trench I had the men build years ago for future waterworks.”
With Paul stooping low to keep from bumping his head, they half walked, half crawled along the passageway. The floor and walls had been smoothed, and evenly spaced beams supported the ceiling. Francesca extinguished the light because of the smoke in the tight confines, and they traveled in darkness. After about fifty feet the tunnel angled into another, slightly bigger passageway.
“This is the water works,” Francesca said in hushed tones. “We must be silent. The tunnel is only a couple of feet below ground, and the Chulo have sharp ears.”
Using a primitive fire starter similar to the one carried by Tessa’s half-brother, Francesca got the lamp going again and they forged ahead. They made slow progress, but after about fifteen minutes the tunnel came to an end. Francesca motioned for Paul to squeeze up beside her. She pulled a small spade from her bag and chopped away at the blank dirt wall until the blade hit something with a thud.
“I’ll need your strength again, Dr. Paul. Push against this hatch. I don’t think anyone is at the river, but be cautious.”
She backed off to give Paul more room. He put his shoulder against the wood, braced himself, and shoved, gradually increasing the pressure until he felt the wood give. He pushed harder. The circular cover opened a few inches. Paul peered through the narrow space with one eye and saw water. With a final shove he popped the hatch off.
The opening was in the side of a grassy embankment. He slithered through the hole, then helped the others climb out. Moving from the cool, dark tunnel into the hot sunlight was a shock, and they blinked their eyes like moles. Paul replaced the hatch. While the others covered the opening he slid on his stomach to the top of the bank and peered over the edge.
The stockade fence and its grim decorations were a short distance away. The tunnel had passed right under it. A tall, billowing plume of black smoke rose from beyond the fence. What sounded like a flock of wild birds could be heard. As he listened the bird cries became human voices. He slid back down.
“It looks like they’re having a weenie roast,” he announced with a grin. Turning to Francesca, he added, “Don’t ever tell me you don’t have a talent for arson.”
Francesca responded by motioning for the others to follow her along the edge of the river. They stayed low, hidden by the embankment, and after a few minutes came upon a dozen dugout canoes. They hauled two dugouts aside. Trout thought of scuttling the others, but their hulls were thick and not easily damaged.
“Anybody got a power saw?” he said. “Even a hatchet would do.”
Francesca reached into her sack and came out with a covered pot. Using a flat stone from the riverbed, she smeared the blackish yellow contents of the pot onto the other canoes. She lit the substance on fire. The wood flared into smoldering flames where she had daubed the unctuous mess.
“Greek fire,” she said. “It’s a combination of resin from local trees. It will burn hotter than napalm. If someone tries to put it out with water, it only makes the fire spread.”
The Trouts looked on with wonder as the flames began to eat through the hulls. They knew the sabotage would help, but once the natives had discovered their scuttled craft, they could race along the well-maintained pathway that bordered the river.
They paired the stronger paddlers with weaker ones. Gamay and Francesca got in one craft. Paul and Tessa took the other. They shoved off into the river and paddled for their lives. After an hour they pulled over to the shore for a drink of water and five minutes of rest, then set off again. The paddles raised blisters on their palms as they pushed the canoes against the river current. Francesca passed around a medicinal ointment from her amazing bag, and it numbed the pain in their hands. They kept on, trying to put as many miles between them and the village as possible before daylight failed.
Darkness came all too soon. Travel on the river became difficult, then impossible. The canoes became tangled in thick grass or ran aground on sandbars. They were quickly exhausting them selves and getting nowhere. They gave up and paddled closer to shore, where they dined on jerky and dried fruit. They tried un successfully to sleep, but the dugouts served poorly as beds, and they were happy to see the gray light of morning.
With bleary eyes and stiff joints they set off again. The sound of drums spurred them on and made them set aside their aches and pains. The ominous drumming seemed to come from everywhere and echoed through the forest.
The canoes glided through the curtain of mist rising off the river. The smokescreen hid them from Chulo eyes, but they had to move slowly to avoid obstacles. As the sun rose it baked the mists off to a translucent haze. With the river ahead once more visible they paddled furiously until the sound of drums faded. They kept moving for another hour, not daring to stop. Before long they began to hear a different sound. Gamay cocked her ear. “Listen,” she said.
From a distance came a low roar, as if a train were speeding through the forest.
Francesca, whose serious expression had not changed since they left the village, ventured a slight smile. “The Hand of God beckons.”
With spirits renewed, they forgot they were tired and hungry and that their buttocks were numb and dug their paddles in once more. The roar grew louder, but it didn’t obliterate another sound, a quick whirr as if a river bird had taken flight, followed by a solid thunk.
Paul looked down in disbelief. A three-foot-long arrow was embedded in the side of his canoe. A few inches higher and it would have pierced his rib cage. He looked toward the shore. Flashes of blue-and-white-painted bodies could be seen darting between the trees. The ululating war cry filled the air.
“We’re being attacked!” Paul yelled unnecessarily.
Spurred by the arrows chunking into the water around them, Gamay and Francesca were bent low over their paddles. The canoes shot forward out of range.
Their pursuers had quickly caught up, making good time following the path along the river. At one point the trail turned in land to cut through the forest. The natives had to fight their way through thick growth to get a clear shot at the canoes. They made several attempts. Each time the canoes passed beyond the range of their arrows. Even the high-tech weapons Francesca helped forge had their limitations.
It was obvious that the cat-and-mouse game soon would turn in favor of the hunters. The paddlers were bone-weary. They were missing strokes and no longer paddled in a unified rhythm. When it seemed they could go no farther, they were out of the river and onto the lake. They paused for a minute to reconnoiter and to firm up their plan. They would cross the open expanse as quickly as possible, aiming for the outlet to the main river. The impenetrable forest growth along the river would protect them from Chulo arrows.
Gamay, who was in the lead canoe, pointed with her paddle toward the shore. “I see it over there, where the tree line is bro ken. Oh, hell-“
They all saw the source of Gamay’s agitation: the flicker of blue and white as three canoes had come out of the river.
“It’s a hunting party,” Francesca said, squinting against the sun’s reflection. “They’ve been away and won’t know we’re escaping. I’m still their queen as far as they know. I’ll try to bluff my way. Head right at them.”
Gamay and Paul put their misgivings aside and kept the dugouts pointed toward the newcomers. The men in the oncoming canoes showed no sign of hostility, and a couple of them even waved. There was shouting from shore. Alaric and his men had burst from the forest. They were calling and beckoning to the hunting party. The canoes hesitated, then, as the yelling grew louder, they pointed the dugouts toward land. The craft had barely touched shore when the hunters were ejected and the chase party took their place.
Their prey had taken advantage of the slight pause and paddled madly for the river, but their pursuers quickly cut down the angle.
“We can’t make it to the river!” Gamay yelled. “They’ll cut us off.”
“Maybe we can lose them in the mists,” Paul replied.
Gamay spun the dugout around and pointed the bow toward the falls. Paul and Tessa were right behind. The water became choppy as they neared the falls. The Indians doggedly kept in pursuit. With their strength and skill they were rapidly closing the gap. The falls loomed closer and the mists enveloped them, but it became apparent that they would be pounded to pieces by the falls if they got closer to the torrents.
Paul shouted over the roar. “Francesca, we need help from your bag of tricks.”
Francesca shook her head.
Tessa picked up on Paul’s frantic plea. “I have something,” she said. She handed over the sack that had rested between her knees. Paul reached into the bag, and his fingers closed on a hard object. He pulled out a 9mm pistol.
“Where did this come from?” he said with astonishment.
“It was Dieter’s.”
Paul looked back at the oncoming canoes, then at the cascading falls. He had little choice. Regardless of Francesca’s wishes that her former subjects not be hurt, they were between the devil and the deep blue sea. Arrows were flying in their direction.
Paul plunged his hand into the bag again, looking for extra rounds. This time he came out with a GlobalStar satellite phone. Dieter must have used it to keep in touch with his buyers. He stared at it a moment before the significance of the find sank in. He yelled with joy.
Gamay had moved closer and saw the phone. “Does that thing work?”
He pushed the ready light, and the phone was on. “I’ll be damned.” Paul handed Gamay the phone. “Give it a try. I’ll see if I can scare those guys off.”
Gamay punched a number out on the phone. Seconds later a familiar deep voice answered.
“Kurt!” Gamay yelled into the phone. “It’s me.”
“Gamay? We’ve been worried about you. Are you and Paul okay?”
She glanced at the oncoming canoes and swallowed hard. “We’re in a hell of a mess, and that’s an understatement.” She had to shout over the roar of the falls. “Can’t talk, I’m calling on a GlobalStar. Can you get a fix on our position?”
Crack!
Paul had laid a shot across the bow of Alaric’s canoe, but it failed to slow him down.
“Was that a gun?”
“That was Paul shooting.”
“Hard to hear you with that background noise. Hold on.”
The seconds ticked by like years. Gamay had no illusions about her call. Even with a position fix it could be days before someone came to their aid. At least Austin would know what happened to them. Austin’s voice came back on, calm and reassuring. “We’ve got a lock on you.”
“Good. Gotta go!” Gamay answered, ducking low as an arrow whizzed past like an angry bee.
With Gamay and Paul busy, their canoes had drifted side ways to the waves. They dug their paddles in and got the boats around. Both dugouts rocked dangerously, but they moved closer to the falls where the mists might hide them.
The Indians hesitated, then, sensing the end was near, began their strange ululation. The archers were kneeling in the bow. They could stand off and let arrows fly at their helpless targets.
Paul had lost all patience. He raised the handgun and took a bead on Alaric. If he killed the leader the others might run for it. Francesca yelled. He thought she was trying to spoil his shot, but the white queen was pointing toward the top of the falls.
What looked like a huge insect flew over the crest of the falls and descended rapidly through the rainbows and the cloud of mist until it was a hundred feet above the lake. The helicopter hovered for an instant, then swooped low and buzzed the war canoes. The archers dropped their bows, grabbed their paddles, and stroked madly for shore.
Paul lowered the pistol and grinned at Gamay. They began to paddle back toward the quieter waters of the lake. The helicopter circled around the lake, then came back and hovered above the dugouts. A smiling figure with a bushy silver mustache and deep-set eyes leaned out a side door and waved. It was Dr. Ramirez.
The phone rang. It was Austin. “Gamay, are you and Paul all right?”
“We’re fine,” she said, laughing with relief. “Thanks for sending the taxi. But you’re going to explain how you pulled this one off. This is something, even for the great Kurt Austin.”
“Tell you about it later. See you tomorrow. I need you back here. Be ready to work.”
A ladder was being lowered out of the chopper.
Ramirez signaled for Francesca to go first. She hesitated, then grabbed the lower rung and, as befitting a white goddess, began to climb into the sky from which she had descended ten years before.
Chapter 26
Sandy Wheeler was getting into her Honda Civic when the strange man approached and asked in accented English how to get to the Los Angeles Times advertising department. Instinctively she hugged her purse close to her body and glanced around. She was relieved to see other people in the newspaper’s garage. She had grown up in L.A. and was used to freaks. But she was jumpy lately handling this crazy water story, and even the cute, pearl-handled .22-caliber pistol in her pocketbook wasn’t totally reassuring. The stranger looked as if he could chew the barrel off her gun with his metal teeth.
Wheeler had the reporter’s ability to take in people at a glance, and what she saw was someone who looked as if he played the bad guy for the WWF. He was her height and would have been taller if he had a neck. The dark green sweatsuit was a couple of sizes too small for a square, powerful body that looked as if it had been assembled from refrigerator parts. The roundish, grinning face framed by the Prussian-cut dirty blond hair re minded her of one of the monsters in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Only uglier. But it was the eyes that got her. The irises were so black that the pupils were practically invisible.
After giving the man hurried directions, Sandy got into her car and instantly locked the doors. She didn’t care how unfriendly the gesture looked. As she backed out of her space he seemed to be in no rush to go to the advertising department. He stood there staring at her with eyes as hard as marbles. She was in her thirties, with long chestnut hair, an athletic body from jogging and working out. Her nut-brown face was taut and angular but not unattractive, dominated by large sky-blue eyes. She was pretty enough to attract occasional
attention from the odd characters who seemed to drop from the palm trees around town. She was street-smart and had gained a layer of emotional calluses working as a police reporter before being assigned to the investigative team. She didn’t spook easily, but this creep gave her the shivers. It went beyond appearances. There was some thing of the grave about him.
She checked her rearview mirror and was surprised to see that the man had disappeared. Easy come, easy go, she thought. She scolded herself for letting him sneak up on her. Growing up in L.A., she had learned early on to be aware of her surroundings at all times. This damned water story had preoccupied her, taken the edge off her alertness. Cohen had promised only a couple more days before they ran the story. Not soon enough. She was getting sick of taking the file disks home. Cohen was positively paranoid about leaving them in the building. Every night he cleaned the files off the computer and put them on backup disks. In the mornings he would load them back on.
Not that Sandy blamed him for being paranoid. There was something special about this story. The team had talked Pulitzer prize. Cohen coordinated the work of the three reporters. Her area was the Mulholland Group and its mysterious president, Brynhild Sigurd. The other two reporters concentrated respectively on domestic acquisitions and international connections. They had access to an accountant and a lawyer. The secrecy was tighter than the Manhattan Project. The editor was aware of the story but not its scope. She sighed. The story would be out in a few days, and she could take that long vacation in Maui.
She swung out of the garage and headed to her condo in Culver City. She stopped off at a shopping plaza and picked up a bottle of California Zinfandel. Cohen was coming over later to talk about wrapping up loose ends, and she had promised to whip up a pot of penne. As she was paying the cashier she noticed someone standing in front of the window looking into the store. It was that damned metal-tooth creep, and he was smiling. This was no coincidence. The jerk must have followed her. She glared at him as she exited the store, then strode purposefully to ward her car. First she dug the pistol out of the purse and tucked it in her belt. Then she called Cohen on her cell phone. He had told her to report anything unusual. Cohen wasn’t there, but she left a message on his recorder saying she was on her way home and that she thought she was being followed.
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