by Alex Archer
“The elder has made his decision about you. He requests our presence immediately.”
* * *
THE NEWS ABOUT PORTER had unsettled Humphrey and he kept to himself as the guards escorted them out of the tower and along a short path toward the palace. Just before they reached it, they veered right and entered a beautiful garden full of flowers. Given the desolation of the rest of the Kalahari, the garden seemed lush and exotic to Annja and she found herself imagining that once, long ago, the entire Kalahari region had been like this. It was like a tiny moment out of time and Annja was captivated by its beauty and innocence.
The cry of an elephant reached her ears, followed immediately by several more. Annja tensed, remembering the last time she’d heard such a cry, and she began scanning the foliage around them, looking for the source.
She glanced at Humphrey, hoping he might share some information about what to expect up ahead, but he was still absorbed in his own thoughts.
The elephants, as it turned out, were around the next bend.
Annja and the others emerged from the dense foliage to find themselves standing on the bank of the river, just upstream from the waterfall. A series of large rocks formed a shallow pool in front of them and bathing in that pool was a herd of elephants. Annja smiled at the sight; she couldn’t help it. She counted half a dozen adults in the water, tending to two baby elephants, while off to the right, near the edge of the bank, stood an older one, most likely the matriarch. Her tusks gleamed in the sunlight, as if they had been polished.
Sitting on a stool with his back to them, halfway between the water and where they now stood, was the elder.
Almost as if he had eyes in the back of his head he turned at their approach and then beckoned them. Humphrey stepped forward as Annja was flanked by two guards and ushered along in his wake.
Humphrey bowed when they reached the elder, then frowned when Annja didn’t do the same.
The elder didn’t seem to notice. Addressing himself solely to Annja, he said in near-perfect English, “I dreamed of you last night. I saw you in a great fire, holding a sword aloft as you stared through the flames.”
Goose bumps broke out over Annja’s flesh. She felt the hair standing up on the back of her neck. The feeling of being watched was overwhelming.
Who was this guy?
“I saw you standing alone in the ruins of !Ksanna, a look of sorrow and dismay on your face as wind whistled through the empty buildings and the plants lay withered on the ground.”
Humphrey didn’t say anything to interrupt the elder. Annja was not so sanguine.
“What do you mean I was standing in the ruins of this city?” Annja asked sharply. “How did that happen?”
The elder ignored her, his gaze never leaving her face. “I do not know what these visions mean, other than that your destiny is somehow tied up with the destiny of our fair city. Because of this, I have no choice but to keep you here until the prophecy plays itself out or until fate changes the path before us all.”
Just like that, Annja became a more-permanent prisoner of the Sho.
For an instant she considered drawing her sword, running the blade right through the man seated on the ground in front of her and then making a dash for it.
She didn’t want to harm him, though, didn’t want to harm any of them, for that matter. She allowed them to pull her back, away from the elder, who sat watching her, emotionless.
Humphrey and the elder had a brief conversation in the Sho’s language and then he was dismissed. He led her out of the Elephant Garden and back toward the tower.
For several minutes Annja didn’t say anything. Then, as they neared the tower, she said, “If you can get me out of the tower under some pretense or another, I can get us both out of here.”
“No.” Humphrey’s tone was flat.
“No one will get hurt. I promise you that.”
Humphrey shook his head.
“Once we’re free, we can bring the authorities down on Malcolm for what he did to your friend Dr. Crane. Keep him from coming here, disrupting the lives of these people.”
“I said no, Ms. Creed.”
The entrance to the tower loomed ahead of them. Annja had one last chance to convince him. She played her trump card.
“Don’t you want to go home, Robert?”
He stopped, then slowly turned and looked at her.
“Home?” he asked. “This is home. And I won’t let you destroy it.”
They led her inside, up the stairs to the room at the top and then locked her inside once more.
40
Porter heard them before he saw them, the rotors filling the air overhead as the four Blackhawk helicopters came in from the north. They circled once, looking for a place to land, and then settled in the ancient riverbed nearby.
He went out to greet them.
The team was one that Porter had used before, mercenaries out of the Congo staffed with former soldiers and guns for hire. They were no match for a frontline unit like the South African Reeces or the U.S. Marine Recon, but Porter was satisfied that they’d be more than a match for the tribesmen with darts he expected to encounter. The group was led by a grizzled Congolese sergeant named Hawser.
The men shook hands and Porter explained what they were going to do. Hawser listened carefully, asked a few questions, but in general had no problem with the plan.
He’d better not, Porter thought. He’s being paid enough.
Once the men were briefed, they broke camp and boarded the choppers.
The lead Blackhawk held Hawser, Porter, Bryant and nine of Hawser’s men. Hawser had the pilot’s chair, while Porter sat across from him.
The rest of Hawser’s two-squad unit, plus Porter’s men, divided themselves among the final three choppers. Twenty-nine men in four Blackhawks, with ample room to carry out the treasure.
Porter gave Hawser the GPS coordinates for the city center and they lifted off. They flew at a good pace, covering in moments what it had taken them more than an hour to do on foot, and soon they were approaching the target. Porter’s plan called for a smash-and-grab assault, with the choppers landing in the middle of the city near the palace he’d seen during their earlier reconnaissance. There, the miniguns could be used for fire support if it became necessary.
Given the primitive weapons he’d seen the tribesmen carrying he didn’t imagine much firepower would be necessary. Better to have it and not need it than be without it in a crucial moment.
They swung out and headed for the group of low peaks in the distance, with Porter updating Hawser on the route they should take from the information on Bryant’s phone.
Five minutes later everyone began scanning the area through their windows, looking for the target.
Porter saw it first.
“There!” he said, pointing between two peaks where the mouth of the crater was just now becoming visible.
Hawser swung the chopper toward it.
Before they got far, however, something struck the chopper violently, rattling its frame. To Porter, it felt like a giant had seized them from below.
Alarms went off and Hawser was suddenly very busy at the controls, flicking switches and hauling back on the stick to right the aircraft.
“What the hell was that?” Porter demanded.
Hawser looked grim. “Turbulence.”
Porter wanted to laugh. Turbulence? Here he’d thought they were under attack by heat-seeking missiles. “Well, can’t you go around it?”
“Working on it, sir.”
But after a few minutes of bouncing around the sky, Hawser had to admit defeat. “Seems it’s localized to the area around these peaks, sir. If we want to get down into that crater, we don’t have any choice but to go right through the turbulence.”
“Fine,” Porter snapped. The bouncing around was making his face hurt beneath the bandages. “Just get us down there without killing us.”
Hawser didn’t reply. He tipped the chopper on its side and h
eaded for the green they could see poking up between several peaks.
It was a bumpy ride. Porter held on to the crash webbing and tried to keep his food down as they twisted and turned through the descent. Behind him, someone else wasn’t so lucky and the stench of vomit filled the cockpit.
It was clear to Porter how the city had stayed lost for so long, even in this age of technological wonders. There was the remoteness of the area itself. Not even the safari companies came out this way; there just wasn’t anything out here to see, that tour guides knew of, anyway. That same remoteness made the area of little interest to international satellites and national security teams. This part of Africa was not known for being a terrorist breeding ground. The eyes in the sky were aimed at more target-rich environments in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, not the back end of nowhere in the middle of the Kalahari. If they were looking this way, the angle of the nearby peaks combined with the cloud cover hanging about the region would make spotting that one stretch of green marking the open mouth of the crater difficult.
Even if they did find the valley, getting to it, both by land and, as they were finding out, by air was more difficult than the average individual was willing to pay for.
Not unless they had a really good reason.
Like a legendary treasure.
“Hang on!” Hawser shouted, and the helicopter whipped over on its nose into a steep dive.
Bile rose in Porter’s throat as Hawser dropped the helicopter through the mouth of the ancient caldera, if that was indeed what it was, and into the airspace above the ancient city.
Once they were out of the slipstream the turbulence stopped. The beat of the rotors magnified tenfold by the cliff walls as they swooped low over the city, heading toward the open area in front of the palace Porter had picked out as their landing place.
Ahead of them they could see a group of warriors gathering in the street, pointing up at them. Porter could see that quite a few of them were armed, but as he’d expected there wasn’t a single modern weapon among them. There were plenty of spears, knives and bows and arrows, but against the firepower his people carried that was like going into a knife fight with a wet noodle. They weren’t going to last twenty seconds if they got in his way.
Porter fully expected them to scatter and run, but as the helicopter swooped, the tribal warriors did the unthinkable.
They fired!
Everything from rocks to arrows to spears were launched at the chopper. Another place and time Porter might have found it interesting, admirable even. But he’d had his fill of people trying to prevent him from securing his goal.
Anger flared in him, hot and feverish, and the wall he had built to contain all the rage and frustration he’d felt since this expedition began finally gave way.
It was time to teach these people a lesson.
“Kill them,” Porter said. “Kill them all!”
Hawser didn’t need to be told twice. He turned and pointed at the door gunners. Without hesitation they pointed the barrels of their miniguns at the buildings whipping past on either side and opened fire.
A thunderous growl filled the air as the weapons fired four thousands rounds per minute. Wood splintered, walls collapsed and bodies bled as the bullets tore through anything in their way. People ran in every direction, screaming as destruction and terror rained down on them from the sky.
It was an utterly horrific attack against a people unable to defend themselves and Porter laughed to see it. He’d had enough of chasing after what he wanted. Now he intended to reach out and take it.
He had the choppers make several passes, and by the time he ordered them to turn and head for the palace, entire sections of the city were little more than smoking ruins.
No one was firing on them now, Porter noted with satisfaction.
The men were cheering and shouting in the back, their bloodlust high, so when Porter spotted the group of warriors standing in front of the palace steps like some kind of primitive guard, he ordered the miniguns offline.
“I want those fools taken care of,” he shouted, pointing out the window at the guards lined up like bowling pins, “but I’ll personally shoot any man who tries to enter the palace ahead of me. Is that clear?”
There was a chorus of “Yes, sir.”
Porter nodded. “Hawser, bring us down!”
The choppers settled in a diamond-shaped formation on the grassy area in front of the palace. As soon as the skids touched the earth the door sprang open and the troops poured out.
A barrage of arrows met them, but the wind from the still-circling rotors played havoc with the tribesmen’s aim. Still, a few got through and at least one of Porter’s men went down, a poisoned arrow in his chest.
Unfortunately for the Sho, the rotors had no such impact on the bullets from the soldiers’ guns. Automatic rifles were brought to bear, riddling the group with a hail of burning lead. Limbs twitched and bodies shook under the impact of the firepower, making them seem to be doing some crazed sort of dance. Blood flew, splashing the steps and the doors behind them.
In seconds it was over.
41
Annja heard the helicopters first, the sound of their rotors quickly drowned by a thunderous roar that shook the tower she stood in.
She stumbled forward, trying to reach the nearest window while fighting to keep her feet. Something big and dark went whipping past the opening and Annja threw herself to the floor just as bullets chewed through the wall in front of her like a chain saw spitting teeth. Then she was rolling across the floor, feverishly trying to get out of the line of fire as the helicopter went flying past outside.
As the sound receded, Annja scrambled the rest of the way to the nearest wall and flattened herself against it, then rose and peered out the window.
Her heart leaped into her throat at the sight that met her eyes.
Blackhawk helicopters—at least three—were flying low over the town, gunners firing wildly as they strafed the buildings around them.
It was Porter. It had to be.
She had to stop him. Had to help these people.
Annja rushed over to the doorway and began pounding on it, desperate to get the guards to open the door. She couldn’t do anything from in here; she had to get out there, where the action was, if she had any hope of stopping Porter before things got worse.
When no one answered she stepped back and called her sword. The minute it was in her hand she tried the same trick she’d used the other night, sliding the blade between the door and the jamb, then using it to leverage the bar out of the way. Her captors had apparently learned their lesson, however. The bar was heavier than it had been before. So heavy, in fact, that she couldn’t get it to move, never mind slide out of its groove.
The choppers came back around for another pass, and as the roar of the guns filled the small room, Annja began hacking at the door with the sword. Chips of wood flew with each blow, but at the rate she was going it would take hours for her to get through.
Hours she didn’t have.
She spun around, looking for another solution, and her gaze fell to the remains of the window. The gunfire from the helicopter had shattered the wooden bars, leaving an opening wide enough for her to slip through.
Annja didn’t hesitate. She ran to the window and stuck her head out.
The thunder of the choppers assaulted her ears and from where she stood she could see them headed toward the far side of the palace. It wouldn’t be long now before they were inside and in possession of the Heartstone.
Not if I can help it.
She looked down. Tried to forget that she was three stories up as she examined the face of the tower. The stones had been carefully fitted and then sealed together with a thick coat of mortar. Their uneven nature created plenty of hand- and footholds. Climbing down shouldn’t be much more dangerous than descending a ladder, really. All she had to do was get out the window without falling and she should be fine.
That first step was the h
ardest.
She used her sword to clear away what was left of the bars. Since the window was at chest height, she grabbed the chamber pot, unused thankfully, and turned it upside down as a stepping stool.
A barrage of gunfire rang out from the palace. Small-arms fire this time and not the choppers’ guns. That wasn’t much of a relief. It meant that Porter’s men were engaged in the palace.
Faster, Annja, faster.
She stepped up onto the chamber pot, leaned out the window and drove her sword into the side of the tower as deeply as it would go. Then, using the sword as a kind of handle to balance herself with, she climbed through the window and let one leg dangle out.
Now the hard part. She kept one hand on the hilt of the sword and reached over her head with the other to grab the wall, while at the same time finding a foothold. When she was satisfied she’d found a spot that would support her weight, she pulled up with her hands, balanced on her foot and pulled the other leg out.
Once she had found two footholds, she moved the hand holding the hilt of the sword to the face of the tower itself.
She took a couple of deep breaths to steady herself and then began climbing hand over hand down the face of the tower. Above her, the sword vanished back into the otherwhere.
* * *
PORTER STRODE INTO the audience hall with Bryant and Hawser at his heels. Ahead of him was a raised dais. At the foot of the dais were three tribal warriors, bows aimed at them. On the dais sat a grizzled old warrior dressed in a colorful sarong on a throne made of bones.
Embedded in the wall behind the throne was the largest diamond Porter had ever seen.
As amazing as that was, his attention was compelled back to the dais and to the man standing next to the throne.
Porter would recognize him anywhere, even after so long apart.
His father smiled. “Hello, Malcolm.”
Porter stared openmouthed for several long moments at the man he’d presumed dead for over two years now.
The gunshot was particularly loud in the silence.