“Yeah but they didn’t steal anything,” the pythia objected.
“I’m guessing they’ve already built up a track record,” Erik countered. “Either way, they’ll be busy with the police long enough to stay out of our hair.” He shifted the rifle to his other shoulder where he had already slung the extra coil of rope from the cottage.
“What’s with the rope?” Cassie asked.
“You ask me that after the kind of day we’ve had? Consider it an insurance policy.”
“That was absolutely brilliant of you, Cassie,” Griffin said. “The way you handled those thieves. Though I do think it was risky to step on his foot. He might have knifed you.”
“I figured I had the advantage. I was wearing steel-reinforced hiking boots. He was wearing loafers. Besides, I got to the point where I was more angry than scared. I am totally sick and tired of being the patsy.”
“Patsy?” Fred repeated blankly.
“Yeah, the dame, the skirt, the frail.”
“Now who’s seen too many movies,” Erik interjected. “Sounds like you binge-watched an entire noir marathon.”
Ignoring the remark, Cassie continued. “I mean, first it was Leroy Hunt sticking a gun to my head. Then this joker with the knife. I’ve absolutely had enough. I figured it was time I put my foot down.”
“Literally.” Griffin laughed.
“The next guy who messes with me is going to lose some teeth.” Cassie paused and glanced at each of her teammates in turn. “Still, all things considered, I’m sure glad you guys showed up to save the day.”
Erik shrugged nonchalantly. “You’re worth saving, toots.”
Cassie did a double-take. She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. Maybe she’d have her ears checked when she got back to the States.
Chapter 38 – Tourist Trap
It was mid-afternoon by the time the Arkana team threaded their way through the forest and arrived back at the Jeep. They stowed the gun and the rope and were on the point of climbing in when Fred paused. “Quiet,” he whispered urgently.
His companions stared at him.
“Can’t you hear that?”
They all listened intently.
“Is that an automobile engine?” Griffin sounded tentative.
“That just tears it!” Erik muttered. “Could this day possibly get any worse?”
“What?” Cassie looked from one to the other, uncomprehending.
“It’s the Nephilim,” the security coordinator explained. “Has to be.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Who else is likely to be driving up here?”
“It might just be tourists,” she objected.
“Gee, why don’t we stand here and wait to find out,” Erik snarled back. “Even if I’m wrong, we’d be crazy not to assume a worst-case scenario. Luck hasn’t exactly been on our side today. We’ve got to do something.”
“No time to move the Jeep,” Fred told them. “We’re boxed in. The only trail that leads out of here is the one they’re traveling. We’d run straight into them.”
Erik rubbed his face distractedly then eyed the contents of the truck. “I’ve just had the mother of all stupid, dangerous ideas but it may be our only chance. Come on. We don’t have much time.”
***
Daniel and his companions bounced along the rutted trail up the eastern slope of the mountain. They were approaching the end of the tree line now. Ilhami assured them that a set of megaliths was to be found close by. The scion wasn’t in an optimistic mood. Even if they did, by some miracle, find the standing stones, there was no guarantee the relic would be hidden among them. He sighed. They had nearly reached the summit of the mountain. This was their last hope. Daniel dreaded the thought of his next telephone conversation with his father.
Ilhami stepped on the brakes abruptly, snapping Daniel out of his reverie. The scion blinked. There was a Jeep parked at the end of the trail.
“What on earth!” he exclaimed.
“Probably tourists,” Hunt said matter-of-factly as he checked the clip of his pistol.
“There will be no need for that, Mr. Hunt,” Daniel cautioned him.
Leroy grinned. “Aw shucks, boy. You aim to ruin my fun again?”
Daniel thought back to the tourist couple whom Hunt had threatened to shoot earlier in the day. He hoped the mercenary wasn’t about to have another opportunity to indulge his violent streak. It unnerved Daniel to contemplate such a possibility, but he expected Hunt knew that.
“We go up this way,” Ilhami was already out of the truck and gesturing toward a narrow trail that cut through the trees. “No more driving. We walk now.”
Leroy holstered his pistol. He fell in behind Ilhami leaving Daniel to bring up the rear.
They trudged upward through the pines for half a mile before breaking out into a desolate open landscape of rocks and scrubby grass. The air was thinner and a bit colder now. They climbed a rise where the ground dipped unexpectedly onto a flat table of land. On the plateau beneath them were the standing stones. A lone figure of a man stood in the middle of the circle. For some reason, he looked vaguely familiar to Daniel. He seemed startled to see them and backed away to the far end of the megaliths, hiding behind one near the edge of the plateau.
“Somethin’ don’t smell right here,” Hunt said. He hastened down the hill to investigate the spot where the man had been standing. Daniel and Ilhami scurried after him. The mercenary paused to scrutinize a small boulder. He kicked something beside it with his toe.
When Daniel arrived at the spot, his mouth fell open. A flat stone with the lily insignia lay on the ground before him. His excitement turned to horror when he shifted his focus to what lay beside it. An empty alabaster urn and a gaping hole in the earth.
“S… s… somebody has taken the relic,” he quavered.
“Not somebody,” Hunt replied. “Him!” He pointed across the circle to the man peering at them from behind a megalith on the far side.
“Hey, you!” Hunt challenged.
“Don’t come any closer,” the man warned.
Despite the command, the newcomers stepped a few paces nearer. As the gap between them closed, Daniel understood why the man looked familiar. God in heaven! It was one of the Fallen from Karfi. A young blond man in his mid-twenties. It had been dark that night, but even at the time, Daniel had been struck by this handsome youth’s face. He tried to suppress his elation. He’d been right. They were alive after all! They hadn’t died underground. He felt a burden lift from his heart. His conscience was clear once more
Hunt squinted at the man in the distance. “I know you, boy?”
“You might say that,” the stranger replied.
“Mr. Hunt, he was one of the people at Karfi,” Daniel reminded him. “They were sealed in the tomb after the earthquake. Don’t you remember?”
Hunt stared at the stranger until recognition dawned. His face wore an exasperated expression. “How many times I gotta kill you, boy? Back in the day, when I shot somebody, they stayed dead. The world’s in a sorry mess if everybody just starts resurrectin’ themselves all willy nilly without permission.”
“Technically, you didn’t kill me,” the stranger retorted. “You were about to.”
“You say tomato,” Hunt grumbled. “Where’s the other two was with you that night?”
“They didn’t make it out alive,” the man answered.
“Well, that’s some comfort to a body, at least,” Leroy huffed.
While this conversation was transpiring, Ilhami looked from one face to the next, totally lost. Daniel didn’t feel inclined to enlighten him. The stranger’s last words were like a new dagger through his heart. His guilt hadn’t been expunged after all.
“Your friends didn’t survive?” he asked hesitantly.
“No, they didn’t thanks to you,” came the resentful response.
“I wouldn’t be all hang-dog if I was you, boy,�
�� Hunt observed. “Seems to me you got the whole pie to yourself now. Don’t need to share it with nobody.”
“I would have if you hadn’t shown up to ruin things,” the man countered.
“So we did. Game’s over.” Hunt advanced a few paces.
“You take one step closer, and I swear I’ll throw it over the cliff,” the man warned. He held up his palm. He was holding a golden object. Daniel couldn’t get a close look at the shape of it, but he was sure it was the relic.
“That’s the artifact we’ve been seeking!” he exclaimed.
“Damn straight,” the stranger confirmed. “If I throw it over the edge of the plateau, it’s a straight drop down the side of the mountain and no way for you to get down there to search for it.”
Daniel put a restraining hand on Hunt’s arm. “Mr. Hunt, no.” He turned to address the young man. “Surely we can come to some agreement.”
“The agreement is this. I give you the relic, and you let me leave here alive.”
Hunt fumed in silence.
“That is acceptable to us,” Daniel assented readily.
“Oh, hell no, it ain’t!” Hunt countered. “You let him go, he’s gonna keep on huntin’ them doodads, and maybe next time we won’t be so lucky. Maybe he’ll get there first.”
“No, I won’t.” The stranger grinned impudently. “Scout’s honor. Cross my heart.”
“And hope to die.” Hunt drew out his pistol.
“Mr. Hunt, no!” Daniel screamed.
The stranger was still concealed behind the standing stone so Daniel couldn’t see what happened clearly, but he could hear it. He heard the scrape of gravel as the stranger took several paces back and lost his footing. He saw the stranger’s arms flailing. The gold object flew out of his hand and clattered to the ground in front of the megalith. Then he heard the scream as the stranger went over the side of the mountain.
All three men stood frozen for several seconds. No one had expected such a thing to happen and they didn’t react immediately. They were still fifty feet away from the spot where the thief had fallen. The trio scrambled forward. Hunt stopped short to scoop up the artifact first. Only then did they peer over the edge of the plateau.
The stranger had been right. It was a sheer drop over the edge of the cliff. Not a toe-hold anywhere to be seen. Two hundred feet below them, on a tiny ledge that was scarcely wide enough to support it, lay the body of the stranger, sprawled face down.
“We have to do something!” Daniel cried in anguish. “We can’t just leave him there.”
“Can and will,” Hunt replied decisively. “Ain’t no way to get down there even if I was inclined to try which I ain’t. The vultures’ll find him before anybody else thinks to look there. Let them clean up the carcass.”
Hunt stood up and dusted off his sleeve. He held out the golden object and dropped it into Daniel’s hand. “Congratulations, son. You got your first doodad. Your daddy’s gonna be right proud.”
Daniel stared at the exquisite golden bee. To his mind’s eye, it appeared to be covered in blood.
Chapter 39 – Installment Plan
Leroy Hunt stood on the balcony of Ilhami’s tiny apartment and surveyed the street below. Everything was dark and quiet. He figured it must be around three o’clock in the morning. Brother Hammy was sleeping under the stars tonight. He’d strung two of the folding chairs together into a makeshift bed. His head lolled over the back of one of the chairs, and he was snoring to beat the band. That boy sure liked his raki. Too bad he couldn’t hold it worth a damn.
Hunt felt a surge of satisfaction. They’d done it. They’d actually gone and found it. The old man wasn’t crazy after all. With all the holy smoke Abe had been blowing up Leroy’s butt, the mercenary had begun to doubt that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But lo and behold, here it was. He held the shiny bee in the palm of his hand and studied it, captivated by its delicate design. Pretty little thing. Probably worth a fortune on account of it was so old. The thought gave him a warm glow in the pit of his stomach—like half a dozen shots of tequila.
He walked back inside and cast a furtive look around the apartment. Daniel lay huddled fast asleep under a mound of blankets on the floor. Good. No way Hunt was going to share the sleeper couch with that weirdo. He couldn’t prove it, but he had a deep suspicion the kid was batting for the other team. Probably didn’t even know it himself. Hunt chuckled and wondered what the boy’s wives thought about that. Probably nothing. Four silly gals who’d spent their whole lives shut up in that tomb of a compound. Likely too dumb to figure out anything was off with weasel face. Leroy could never understand the attraction holy rollers had with virgins. He’d take a whore who knew stuff any day of the week over ten giggling morons who were no damn good in bed.
The mercenary glanced down at the golden object in his palm once again. He slipped it into his pocket and padded barefoot to where he’d left his shoulder holster slung over a chair. He checked the clip on his pistol and attached a silencer. Pay day had finally come around.
The streetlight outside cast a yellowish glow over the lump sleeping on the floor. Easy pickings. Leroy aimed for where he guessed Daniel’s head to be. He lingered a moment, savoring the thought of finally parting ways for good. He’d be well rid of the whole lot of them with their undertaker suits and hangdog faces. He took aim, but at the last second, something stopped him from pulling the trigger. He hesitated as a new idea came flying out of nowhere and hit him smack between the eyes so hard that it gave him a headache.
Leroy lowered the gun. A troubled frown crossed his face. Generally, he avoided thinking whenever possible because it was hard work and made his skull cramp up. He preferred to shoot first and never ask questions. But this time he decided to risk burning up some grey cells over the matter. He rubbed the back of his neck distractedly as more thoughts crowded into his head. There wasn’t room for them all.
Hunt resisted these strange new notions because, in addition to disliking cogitation, he was a creature of habit. He preferred the safe, familiar routine of shooting folks and getting paid for a job well done. It was simple and straightforward, and he liked it fine the way it was. But his thoughts were rapidly haring off into uncharted territory.
“Leroy, you’re too smart for your own good.” His momma’s words jostled with the multitude that was already occupying his brain pan.
“No, ma’am, I ain’t. I’m just smart enough to make it pay.” But was he?
He ground his teeth in annoyance. He was just spoiling to shoot somebody tonight because of the way he’d been thwarted earlier in the day. He flashed back bitterly to that blond Ken doll playing hide and seek behind the boulders. He’d tried to kill Kenny once before and been interrupted, and just when he was on the point of finishing the job proper, the fool went and tripped over his own feet and slid off the side of a mountain. Leroy didn’t credit himself with an overabundance of brains, but even he wouldn’t have done something that stupid. Prancing idiot! The whole episode left him with an itchy trigger finger. He felt an urge to go back up the mountain and shoot Kenny’s corpse just for spite. Too far out of range to hit him though. Damn!
Leroy drew his attention back to the question at hand. What to do, what to do? For the moment, he put his pistol back in the holster, set the bee on the table beside it and lay down on the sleeper couch. He laced his fingers behind his head and turned the problem over some more. Ordinarily, he would have just shot his two bunk mates and taken off with the bee. Not that he had anything personal against Brother Hammy. In fact, he liked the little dung ball. The Turk had what the Frenchies called panash which meant he knew how to have a good time. It endeared him to the mercenary, but this wasn’t Brother Hammy’s lucky day. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fortunes of war and all that. Now Daniel was a horse of a different color. Leroy would have loved to put a bullet in that pasty-faced bastard’s head just on principle. His holier-than-thou crap made Hunt like
to puke. But he restrained himself. There was more at stake here.
He thought of his cowboy heroes. He’d patterned his entire life around their exploits on the silver screen. What would Ramon Navarro do in a situation like this? He scowled. Maybe that was the wrong caballero to ask. What would Eli Wallach or Lee Van Cleef do? They’d take the money and run. That’s what they’d do. After kicking the crap out of Clint Eastwood first, of course. Leroy shook the image out of his head. He didn’t think either the white hats or the black hats had an answer for him this time. Sure as shootin’, he was on his own.
He stared at the ceiling for what seemed like hours and pondered the topic some more. It all boiled down to one of two choices. He could collect his payday now, or he could wait. The mercenary rolled his eyes in frustration. He hated to wait for anything, but maybe this one time it would be worth his while to rein himself in. That little gold bee was proof positive that a treasure existed. He wasn’t sure what the other doodads were like, but they would probably fetch as much as the bee. Maybe more.
He sat up. He’d reached a decision. He was going to stay in it for the whole game. He’d stick with Daniel until the kid had sniffed out all the relics. Then and only then would Leroy cash in his chips. When that day came, as a special reward to himself for being patient, he’d blow the kid’s brains out gratis. But not today. He sighed deeply with a sense of fleeting disappointment. Nope. This wasn’t the day.
Leroy lay back down and drew the covers around his shoulders. The sun would be up soon. They had an early flight back to the states in the morning. There wasn’t any more to be done tonight. With stolid composure, he settled down to catch forty winks before dawn.
Chapter 40 –Ties That Bind
Zachary and Faye sat facing one another in the parlor. The boy’s backpack rested on the floor next to his feet.
A car motor could be heard outside and then a gentle rap on the front door.
Faye rose to answer. When she swung the door open, she was greeted by a woman and a man—Zachary’s parents. The woman was about forty with black hair pulled so tightly into a bun that her eyebrows seemed to be permanently lifted in surprise. The man was tall with a sallow complexion. He wore a drab brown suit that matched the color of his eyes and hair.
The Arkana Mysteries Boxed Set Page 49