The Lost Power: VanOps, Book 1

by Avanti Centrae

  Heart pounding, thinking quickly, she turned to face him and looked into his arctic-blue eyes, now melting. They were in trouble. It would be a good hoax. “True. Okay.”

  He put his hand on her hip. “Can I kiss you?”

  Slowly, she nodded.

  It was awkward, lips touching, agreed to but unexpected. Suddenly, even more bewildering, a surge of energy flowed through her and lit her up. His energy is...strong. The kiss kindled a spark. She’d had her share of kissing. But this is--

  Thought stopped, she gave in to the sudden fire and kissed him back.

  The spark grew into a flame. Awareness of time fled.

  After what could have been a minute, the dog whined again, and Will hit their legs with the strap of the binoculars. “Hey. Lovebirds.”

  Maddy pulled smoothly away and looked Bear in the eyes. Had he felt that, too?

  His eyes beamed. He had felt something. She shivered and shook her head to clear it.

  “What is it, Will?”

  “You guys aren’t going to believe this.” From his spot on the floor of the basket, Will had the binoculars trained ahead, between basket sections, to Old Bagan. “I see a signum regis on top of one of those temples.”

  Maddy reached for the binoculars and Will handed them over without a word. “No way.”

  She focused them where Will was pointing and, sure enough, on the side of a medium-size, bell-shaped cone was the telltale sign. At this distance, it looked rather small and, with the decay of years, some of the roof tiles that made up the sign had fallen off. Yet, the symbol was unmistakable: a thorned cross with a pointed bottom and flanged ends.

  Maddy nodded. “That’s it all right. I see the white mausoleum with the golden spire we looked at our first night here. The sign is second to the left of it. On the building that looks like an upside-down ice-cream cone. Happy birthday to us! Take a look, Bear.”

  She handed him the binoculars and watched him as he studied the temple. He was a smart, good-looking man with a kind soul. He also had a tall spirit and was sexier than she’d realized. Was that enough?

  Bear interrupted her train of thought. “Yeah, there she is. Just to the right of the squat round one. I remember the temple it’s on. It’s the oldest one here and the only Hindu temple. Let me find it in the guidebook.”

  While he grabbed the book, Maddy looked back to the green balloon that held her father’s killer. The balloon still looked small on the horizon. He was far enough back there that they could take a moment to study the clue.

  Bear pulled the guidebook from his pocket and flipped through the pages. “Nathlaung Kyaung Temple. Square temple, with steep-rising upper terraces. Central pillar inside holds up the dome and it has Vishnu reliefs cut into the bricks.” He looked at Will and Maddy. “How’d we miss it before?”

  Maddy smiled broadly. “We were on the ground. I wonder if you can see the clue from the top of the tall temple? I’ll bet you can since there were no balloons back in the day. We never went to the top. But I guess it doesn’t matter at this point. We found ourselves the ‘Center of the Pagan Empire.’”

  Bear squeezed her arm. “I guess we have. But with our Russian tail, let me see if our guide can understand enough English to move this Hindenburg along any faster.”

  CHAPTER 61

  9:15 a.m.:

  To Will, the green balloon that contained the sniper seemed to get closer to them with every passing minute.

  Proud of his accomplishment spotting Ramiro’s sign, but concerned about the Russians behind them, he kept one eye on their pursuers and the other on the signum regis, which graced the temple ahead.

  He was grateful that Bear and Maddy were now restraining themselves to standing next to each other, with Bear’s arm over her shoulder. Disguising themselves as a couple. Clever move, Bear, I’ll have to remember that one. He’d suspected that the energy between them would hit a flash point. It was only a matter of time.

  Will continued to sit out of sight below the railing and wondered if the guide thought them odd. But the spiky-haired young man didn’t utter a word, just guided the balloon and spat over the side. Will found the spitting somewhat disgusting, and seeing all the old men around town without teeth had made him glad he’d quit smoking.

  Bear’s urging of the red-mouthed guide to more speed proved futile. The sights were spectacular but there seemed no way to hurry the rest of their flight. The wind was the wind, after all.

  Eventually, the landing field appeared. It was across the main road from a lonely pyramid-shaped stupa. Will was pleased that he’d made it this far without tossing his breakfast. Perhaps he had made progress on the plane about his fear of heights, but the imminent landing made him hold onto the binoculars with an iron grip. Before departure, they’d had to sign a waiver that discussed how the landing might be bumpy, and the basket might even lie on its side and drag for a while until it stopped. Gee, doesn’t that sound like a fun way to end our flight?

  As they lost altitude, their captain came alive. “Time to land. Need binoculars back.”

  Will hesitated before he handed them over. Looking through them had been a good way to distract himself from the anxiety of a crash landing.

  “Face backward to the wind.”

  At the guide’s direction, all three of them turned away from their landing zone and looked the other way, back toward their pursuer. Will hated to think of what would happen if the Russian, or Russians, caught up with them.

  “Sit down on the seat and hold on to the rope.”

  Following instructions, they grabbed onto the handles woven into the basket sidewall.

  “Lean back against basket padding.”

  The guide prodded Will, who had assumed a head-between-the-knees airplane crash-landing position. “Do not lean forward.” He looked them over and also pointed at the dog, who he had made sit between Will’s feet. “Now stay.” He grinned, enjoying his own joke.

  Will’s active imagination was in overdrive, thinking about eating dirt in a crash landing.

  The pilot yelled, “Landing positions!”

  They all grabbed onto the rope a little harder.

  Light as a feather, the basket touched down.

  Other balloon employees grabbed the basket and attached guy wires. The balloon came to a gentle stop.

  The entire landing was anticlimactic. Will shook his head at himself, chagrined.

  Bear threw open the basket door. Maddy gave the guide a tip and they rushed onto terra firma.

  A variety of transportation options presented themselves: buses, horse-drawn carts, motorcycles.

  Bear pointed to a cluster of motorcyclists waiting at the edge of the field to convey people to their next destination. “How ‘bout the motorbikes?”

  “Sounds good!” Will replied.

  They jogged over to the drivers. He would miss the dog but knew it would find another tourist from whom to beg leftovers. Their time here was now limited.

  Bear pulled out some bills. “We need fast ride to Old Bagan. Near tallest temple.”

  “Okay,” a young woman agreed.

  Two other men pulled their motorcycles forward and donned helmets. Will, Maddy, and Bear each hopped onto the back of a bike.

  “Hurry please,” Will said into the helmet-covered ear of his driver.

  The locals seemed happy to have an excuse to drive fast. They gunned their engines and took off.

  Will looked over his shoulder and could see the green balloon just starting its descent. Good, at least we have a head start.

  The side road that led to the landing field let onto the main road into New Bagan. The day had warmed and the rush of air dried the sweat on his face.

  In a field to the right, a plaid-shirted farmer wore a straw hat while tending a flock of goats. When the motorcycle got up to speed, Will urged it to go more quickly. He imagined he could hear another set of motorcycles behind them and nudged the driver. “Can it go faster?”

  “No, this is fast.” />
  Their pack of three motorcycles passed a truck laden with long bamboo stakes that were tied together into bundles and overflowed the back of the truck by a good ten feet. In the oncoming traffic lane, a slow-moving herd of water buffalo loomed. Will’s heart thudded as his driver careened around the bamboo truck and back into their lane, narrowly missing the lead buffalo.

  He was used to this type of sharing the road from his time in South America, but it was still nerve wracking.

  Then they were forced to slow down as they hit the main drag, which had red-and-white striped meridian dividers. They passed several shaded horse-drawn carts, holding tourists who were enjoying the relative cool under the awnings. A group of barefoot children rushed their motorcycles. They sang a chorus, “Change, throw us your change!”

  Their rides crawled past the children. Impatient, Will bounced his leg up and down on the motorcycle peg.

  The crowd got thicker as they approached the market area. Flooding the streets, women balanced platters on their heads that contained everything from slices of watermelon, to baskets of fresh cut flowers, to fish heads. They slowed to a crawl to avoid the women and the associated tourists.

  Will could walk faster and almost jumped off the bike in his impatience.

  A pack of homeless puppies wandered into the street, and his driver had to brake sharply. After Will recovered from getting thrown into his driver’s back, he yelled into the dark helmet, “We have to get there soon!”

  “Going now.” The driver maneuvered around the puppy pack, found a clear route between a truck overloaded with men heading to a job and an oxen-drawn carriage, and then they were free of New Bagan.

  Will looked over his shoulder again but he couldn’t see any motorcycles following them. From walking between Old and New Bagan multiple times this week, he knew this stretch by heart, and it wasn’t long until they left the paved highway and entered the dirt roads that marked the beginning of Old Bagan. They passed the Archaeological Museum on their left and then leaned into a right turn at top speed, kicking up clouds of dust.

  They drove by a small temple on the right, the round little stupa that they’d seen from the air, and then Bear was motioning for the driver to stop in front of their temple. The three of them dismounted, paid the drivers, and the bikes roared off.

  Maddy looked up. “It looks bigger than it did from the air.”

  Bear stood on his heels and craned his neck back. “I don’t see the sign from this angle.”

  “C’mon! Hurry! Let’s go inside before they get here.” Will started up the mud-brick steps.

  Although there were no gaps in the stairs, like most temples in the area, this brick structure was showing its age. The pillars to either side of the once-proud, arched doorway had lost most of their stucco veneer, and only one of the four niches still had a statue inside.

  From this perspective, it looked as if there were two open eyes masquerading as windows on the second floor. It gave the structure a haunted look.

  Without pausing to take off their shoes, they ran through the doorway of the temple and into utter darkness.

  CHAPTER 62

  9:45 a.m.:

  Inside the temple in the middle of Old Bagan, Bear’s head was still spinning from the kiss he shared with Maddy while up in the balloon. Oh my god. Oh my god, kept marching through his head like a location-appropriate mantra. The sudden connection he’d felt, the fire, and her startling desire made him feel thrilled at the prospect of an intimate relationship with her.

  And guilty, because he was still operating under “keep it quiet” instructions from VanOps and hadn’t disclosed their interest. The kiss shifted the balance of his loyalty, though, and he vowed to rectify his sin of omission once he had a chance. She deserved to know, but he wondered how she’d take it. With the sound of motorcycles coming closer, he’d have to figure it out later.

  It took a moment until his eyes adjusted to the gloom of the temple’s interior. Both Maddy and Will had halted as well, just inside the door. Far enough in that they couldn’t be seen by prying Russian eyes but not so far that they’d bump into anything.

  Once he could see the stone floor, faded remains of wall murals, and the huge, square brick pillar ahead, he moved forward. Common to other temples they’d seen, a circumambulatory passage surrounded the pillar.

  Maddy walked in lockstep with him. “Now what?” They approached the pillar and she reached out to touch it.

  Will touched one of the niches. “This must support the dome and tower above. What’re the towers called?”

  Bear ignored both questions since he didn’t have a clear line of sight to their next move and knew Will didn’t care what the tower was called in Sanskrit. “I read in the guidebook that these niches were originally adorned with different poses of Vishnu.”

  Maddy pulled her hand from the pillar. “Focus, guys. You’re killing me. We’re going to have to start praying to all known deities, including Vishnu, in a hot minute, if we don’t figure out how to find the sign, or hide, or both. Hear those motorcycles?”

  Bear did hear them. “You’re right, they’re getting closer. Let’s look around. Maybe there’s another sign inside here.”

  Maddy sprinted up a set of interior steps that Bear had overlooked in the gloom. “Since the sign was up on the tower, I say we look upstairs. And it will give us a little space from our stalkers. Let’s go!”

  Bear and Will followed. It was hard for Bear to keep his eyes off her long legs.

  The second-story landing opened into a space that also had the square pillar from below thrust up through the floor. It was as if the building had been skewered, at least to the top of this room’s ceiling.

  Maddy looked around. “Will. Where’s that flashlight? Hurry!” she whispered, as the rumble of the motorcycles sounded close. Too close.

  Will pulled out his flashlight, put his hand over the top to minimize stray light, and flashed it around.

  “I’m looking low, Will you look high, Bear, in the middle like before.”

  Bear did as she instructed and ran his eyes over the interior of the brick and mural wall as fast as he could.

  Motorcycles were below them now. Bear risked a look out the window. Two men on cheap bikes were spinning up dust as they drove up and down the street looking for the three of them. A blue polo shirt and solid black T-shirt gave them away as the Russians.

  “Over here,” Will whispered.

  Bear and Maddy walked to where Will was standing in front of a mural. Will pointed. In the upper right-hand corner, a signum regis hid inside a tree shape, and a tense piece of Bear’s gut relaxed a notch.

  Bear slapped Will on the shoulder. “Good work, Argones.”

  Maddy pressed the sign and a hidden pocket door to the left of where they stood slid open, revealing a dark, dusty staircase that led straight up.

  Bear went first up the hot and dirty stairs. It was a short set and led to what was likely the inside of the bell they’d seen from the balloon. That pillar below must hold up this floor. He stepped off the stairs and had to bend over as he stood looking around in the gloom.

  Maddy softly closed the pocket door, and Will tiptoed up the stairs.

  The heat was intense in the small space. Filtered light from between cracks in the bricks provided dim illumination. Bear sat down to think. Will sat next to Bear, his long legs sticking out in both directions.

  Maddy was the last to come up the stairs. “Good Lord, it’s hot up here.” Completing the small three-way circle, she peered out between the bricks. “Looks like our friends haven’t left yet.”

  Will drummed his fingers on his thigh, his actions belying his confident words. “At least they won’t find us here.”

  Maddy sat down. “Let’s hope not.”

  Bear wiggled to get more comfortable on the rough floor. “I think we’re pretty safe. They don’t know where to look and couldn’t recognize the sign.”

  “Sure, but how long are they going to linger down
there?” Will asked.

  Maddy looked around. “And why did the clue lead us up here?”

  Bear took a deep breath to calm his nerves and looked around, too. There wasn’t much to see. A handful of bricks had fallen onto the floor and above, in the narrow part of the bell shape, it looked as if missing bricks were part of the design.

  In the distance, over the motorcycles, a group of dogs barked.

  “I don’t see anything and think I’m going to die of heatstroke,” Will said quietly.

  Maddy pulled a water bottle from her backpack and handed it to him. “If we could be so lucky.”

  Will took the water bottle from her and drank. “Feeling snarky, are we?”

  He handed the bottle to Bear, who also drank. The water, at least, was cool and refreshing.

  Maddy wiped sweat from her brow. “I’m hot, too. Does not help my typical lack of patience and, if you haven’t noticed, there are men down there who want to kill us.”

  Bear wanted to cover all the bases and sometimes distraction was the best way to stop their bickering. “Argones, you’re the tallest. Stand up and let me know what you see up there by those open bricks. But move quietly.”

  The motorcycles made him tense. He felt so naked without a gun.

  Will stood until he was eye level with the open bricks. He turned around in all four directions, then reached out his arm and plucked something from one of the openings.

  “What is it?” Maddy whispered.

  Will sat back down and opened his hand. Maddy reached out and took the object. It was a polished, round metal object about two inches across. She moved it into the light to see it better. It caught a reflection, hurting Bear’s eyes, and sent a beam toward the ceiling.

  She frowned at it. “Maybe it’s a mirror?”

  Bear reached his hand out for it and she gave it to him. Although there was no glass, one side was highly polished. He examined it carefully. “I think you’re right, Marshall.” Should I call her Maddy now? “During the Middle Ages, glass mirrors went out of style for a while when folks thought the devil was lookin’ at them from the unpolished, back side.”