by Alex Archer
The phone rang several times, and he nearly hung up before it was answered by a sleepy-voiced man.
“The test will be conducted soon,” Hamam told the man. “Nearly all is ready. And if things go as planned, Cairo will be next.”
He replaced the phone in the cradle and stepped to the narrow window. The other offices he could have selected were larger and had bigger windows that opened out onto a usually bustling campus. He drew back the shade. It was raining softly. The lights were dim on this side of the building, and reflected ghostly off the wet concrete.
“Cairo next,” Hamam repeated, his voice a purr. “Then I will have what I need to join the gods.”
11
For a few minutes it looked as if the rain was going to ease off. Annja hoped Dari would really open up the throttle then and make better time. But lightning flashed on the horizon, turning the black sky gray because of the frequency of the strikes. Thunder rocked the ground, the trembles coming up through the pavement and into her feet.
The wind gusted at the same time, sending the rain sideways. Dari, obviously a careful driver, slowed the bike and kept to the middle of the left lane. Ahead, cars were pulling off to the sides of the road, waiting for the worst of the weather to abate.
Dari started to do the same thing, then muttered, “Oh, the hell with it,” and kept going. He said something else, but it was lost in the next boom of thunder.
They’d left the outskirts of the city, and when Annja glanced behind her she could see only a thin haze of twinkling lights, reminding her of fireflies floating to the ground in a farm field.
Annja was soaked to her skin, and knew Dari must be equally miserable. She remembered that he mentioned her catching a cold when they’d stood on the sidewalk in Kings Cross. At the time she thought the rain not even a mild annoyance. Now she thought that a cold could be a good bet.
“Whew!” Dari shouted as they continued north. “Smells like someone lost their lunch!”
A putrid odor rose all around them. Squinting, Annja saw a great expanse of mud to the west—some field that had been liberally spread with a sludgy fertilizer. She wrinkled her nose and gripped Dari tighter when the bike slid across the center lane and then came back again. He adjusted their course and said something else to her, but she still couldn’t hear him over the storm.
It amazed her, sometimes, how strangers could be so helpful and considerate—like Dari leaving his evening of partying to take a stranger to a place she hadn’t divulged yet…and in a nasty thunderstorm. She’d have to pay him back for this, maybe send him a set of autographed DVDs from Chasing History’s Monsters. He’d probably like that, and it was the absolute least she could do.
They’d traveled thirty miles when traffic became nonexistent and they basically had the slippery highway to themselves.
After another ten miles the rain finally stopped. A car raced up behind them, spraying water from its wheel wells and splashing Dari and Annja as it passed.
“Next bloke that does that, I’ll give him a gobful!” Dari fumed.
Annja saw another car behind them, this one keeping its distance and following them as they changed lanes. For a heartbeat she wondered if it carried some of the men who’d shot at her, like the two on the sidewalk in the Cross. After another mile, the car faded back and took an exit.
Another few miles later the bike sputtered and lurched and nearly pitched them to the pavement. Dari caught it and took the brunt of their weight on his left leg. He and Annja got off, and he walked the bike to the shoulder. He fiddled in a small pack at the back and produced a thin, stunted flashlight that he flicked on and held between his teeth as he knelt by the bike and ran his fingers over it.
Annja didn’t say anything, just watched him as he looked at the engine. His fingers worked quickly and carefully, and soon he was shaking his head, the gesture bouncing the light across the black-cherry bike. Finally, he took the flashlight out of his mouth and turned it off.
He was angry. She could tell that from his breathing. She couldn’t see much else, as they were on a stretch of highway with no lights from nearby communities. Dari got himself under control and shook his head again.
“My precious is cactus, at least for the time being.”
Annja waited for him to continue, knowing she wouldn’t have to ask him what was wrong.
“Damn connecting rod broke and went through the cylinder wall. Fixable, sure. But not right now, not out here in the night. Cactus, it is. I didn’t bring a cell phone.” He looked to her.
“I don’t have one, either,” she said.
“So we walk,” he said. He turned back to the south. “I figure we’ve went…oh, I dunno…sixty-five, seventy klicks, maybe a little more. Certainly more than halfway to wherever it is we were going.”
“To an archaeological dig in a forest preserve,” Annja said.
“The Egyptian one?” he asked.
She blinked. “You know about that?”
“Yeah, I said I was a history freak, and I subscribe to Archaeology Today and I’ve bookmarked all the esoteric and fringe sites. Been by it one day several months past—not much to look at, though. There was an article in one of the local papers. The site down in Brisbane is further along, and there’s a lot more to see there.” He continued to prattle about Egyptians in Australia and that some people believed the Mayans made it there, too, and the Phoenicians—who a local archaeologist claimed established a trading center on the Queensland coast.
“So why do you think the archaeologists are in danger?” He stuck the flashlight in his pocket and then moved the bike farther off the road and behind a row of scrubby bushes, where it couldn’t easily be seen from the highway. “They find something? Something that the wrong sorts of people might want bad enough to kill for?”
Annja thrust her fingers in her jeans pockets, discovering in the process that her wallet was every bit as soggy as the rest of her. “I don’t know.” She proceeded to tell him about the men shooting at her, and that her cameraman was missing and that it all had to be something related to the dig. She usually kept the dangerous pieces of her life private, but she figured she owed Dari some explanation. She made no mention of her sword, of course, or that she’d killed some of the men in the hotel.
They started walking north. “There’s a couple of small woop woops ahead, off an exit, and—”
“Excuse me?” Annja had no trouble keeping up with him, despite his long legs and impatient gait. In fact, she could have easily passed him by.
“Woop woop. You know, a small town. You say some fellow’s from Woop Woop and you know he’s from a place you Seppos, I mean Americans, call the sticks.”
“Woop woop,” Annja repeated.
“So’s we walk to a woop woop and call somebody to come get us, get a garage to come pick up my precious.” He paused, and added, “No worries, eh? I’ve got lots of friends in the Cross. Some of them don’t get pissed on Friday nights.”
Annja nodded.
“We’ll get you a ride out to that dig somehow.”
She didn’t know what to say. And so she said nothing, a silence settling between them as she picked up the pace and he matched it. After about a half hour an exit sign, barely lit, came into view at the edge of their vision. But they didn’t have to take it.
Dari had flagged down a pickup, which he called a “ute,” or utility vehicle, and begged the driver for a lift to the nearest town off the next exit. It had been the only vehicle they’d seen on this side of the road for some time. The truck was a white Toyota Hilux that was rusted in spots. The sign on the side read Brumby Paint Co., Parramatta, NSW.
“Actually,” Annja interrupted, sidling up to the window, “if you could drop Dari off at a…woop woop, and take me north of here, say to the forest preserve, I would be ever thankful. I’ll give you a twenty for your trouble.”
“Both of us to the preserve,” Dari said. Then softer, he said to her, “I’m not leaving you alone in the wilderness, Annja C
reed.”
“Yeah, I’m going past the preserve,” the driver admitted. “But it’ll cost you thirty.” He leaned over and held out his hand, and Annja produced three damp ten-dollar bills, scowling to note she was nearly broke now.
The driver was a thin man on the far side of middle age, dressed in paint-speckled coveralls and wearing a faded baseball cap with the logo half-loose and flopped forward so Annja couldn’t read it.
He stuffed the money in his front pocket. “Yeah, I’ll drop you off there if you want.” He crooked a thumb to the bed of the truck. “An odd pair, the two of you. I’d ask what you’re doing out here in the middle of the night, but I’m not sure I want to know. Back there with the both of you. Don’t want you getting my cab wet.”
Annja and Dari climbed in the back and wedged themselves between cans of paint, folded canvas tarps and two extension ladders—all of which were wet. Annja noticed that the driver had rolled up his windows and locked both of his doors—trusting enough to give them a ride, but not too trusting.
“You really don’t need to tag along,” Annja told Dari. She pulled the hair away from her face and twisted it into a bun at the back of her head. “I wasn’t kidding when I said this could be dangerous. I’d prefer not to worry about myself and you.”
Dari shrugged. “There might be no problems at this dig, you know.”
“I know.”
“Then you’d have nothing to worry about. Things’ll be all apples.”
“But if there is—”
“I’ll keep my head low, Annja. Some of my friends are planning a birthday party for me next weekend, and I’d prefer not to miss it.” He grinned, the expression lost on her as she couldn’t see his face for the stack of paint cans. “And I can well look out for myself.”
“You really don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do,” he cut in. “Wouldn’t be right for me to leave a lady in distress, you know. Besides, if this turns all exciting, I wouldn’t want to miss it. I’ll have quite the tale to tell. Maybe even be a part of history rather than just reading about it, you know.”
“Sorry about your bike,” she said after a few miles had passed. She fished around in the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the two candy bars she’d bought at the gas station. The wrappers were so wet they flaked away when she tried to peel them, and she chewed on the soggy candy quickly. She would have offered Dari one, were it in better condition and not smearing all over her fingers. Her next words were muffled while she finished eating, “I know bikes like that are terribly expensive here and—”
“No worries again. I can afford it. I own three op shops.” He chuckled. “That would be thrift stores to you—opportunity shops. Took out a loan for the first one when I turned eighteen. Folks thought I was touched, but I paid the bank back in less than a year. There’s first-rate money in secondhand goods. Thinking about putting up another one, building this one from scratch.” He paused and tipped his head back, eyes fixed on the stars poking through the thinning clouds. “I can well afford that bike, and to fix it.”
He proceeded to regale her with stories about his first few years in business. She’d guessed right; he was twenty-five, soon to turn twenty-six. And she’d also guessed right on he and Nate being a couple. Nate managed one of the op shops.
The truck finally slowed and pulled to the side. The driver rolled the window down a crack.
“Here you go,” he said, thrumming his fingers against the steering wheel.
“Can’t you take us a little farther north?” Annja called. “To one of the main roads into the preserve?”
He shook his head. “Out with you. I was good enough to bring you this far.” He thrummed his fingers harder until they got out of the truck bed. “Enjoy yourselves in the woods.’”
He sped away, leaving Annja and Dari staring at a narrow muddy road that led into the trees.
“Surprised he saw this,” Dari muttered. It was dark and unmarked and looked entirely eerie. “If my bike hadn’t went belly up I could’ve got us to a better spot. Taken us right in there. It’s gonna be a couple of klicks hiking to the dig, you know?”
There was just enough starlight that Annja could see thick ruts from tires on the road. “Someone else found this road, too.”
“Recent,” Dari said, noticing the tracks. “Maybe there’ll be some of this trouble you’re worried about.” He touched her on the shoulder. “Hey, why didn’t the police come out here with you? What with you getting shot at and all, being a celebrity, and worried about the archaeologists? You’d think they would have driven you out here in a divvy van, lights all a-flashing.”
Annja didn’t answer. Checking her bearings, she realized they were on the side of the preserve with the Michaels site. So while she’d have to cut through the woods to get there, at least she wouldn’t have to climb the ridge in this darkness. Letting out a low breath, she started jogging, her feet slapping against the mud in time with her heart.
Dari took a couple of deep breaths and hurried after her.
12
The road—if it could be called that—where the painter had dropped them off was not one of the main routes into the preserve. It wound its way, slick like a wet snake, through white stringybark trees, and then ended at a rusting service shed. Parked outside the shed was a black SUV, the vehicle responsible for the tracks Annja had spotted. The SUV glistened in the moonlight, the water beaded up on it as if it had been freshly waxed. The cloud cover had all but disappeared, so she could easily make out that no one was inside it and that the shed was padlocked. Still, she crept closer to the SUV just to be cautious, holding her hand behind her to indicate that Dari should stay back.
She felt the hood, and while it wasn’t warm, it wasn’t as cool as the air around her—suggesting that the SUV had been there a little while, but not terribly long.
She peered in through the windows, unable to see much, but noting that it didn’t look lived in. There were no empty soda cans or paper bags, no napkins or maps stuffed above the visors. Very neat, and very locked, with a security light on inside that indicated an alarm would howl if she jimmied a door open. She studied the ground. Besides hers, there were two sets of prints, both with pronounced grooves to indicate hiking boots.
“Maybe Dr. Michaels’s car,” she mused, having not paid attention to what sort of vehicles the archaeologists had driven to the site. There’d been none parked directly near where they were working. They’d parked along another service road about a quarter mile back from the dig, one that she and Oliver had taken to do the shoot. Maybe Dr. Michaels parked elsewhere from time to time. Maybe this was his.
But she doubted it.
She had sized up Wes as a bit of an eccentric and had thought any vehicle of his would be littered with maps and boxes of papers and books. “Maybe one of the other archaeologists.”
“What?” Dari had held back and couldn’t quite hear her.
“Shh.” Annja put a finger to her lips. “I was just speculating who this belonged to.”
Dari shrugged. “I’ve no idea.” He slogged closer and looked at the tailpipe. “It’s pretty new. And pretty expensive. A rental, I’d reckon. See the sticker?”
She joined him and squinted. The words were lost in the darkness, but she recognized the shape of the logo. Annja doubted one of the crew would have rented an expensive SUV to drive out here.
“Not good,” she whispered.
“A bad feeling, eh?” Dari was looking into the trees. “Which way from here to this dig? Like I said, it’s been some months since I was out here—and it was daylight then.”
Annja wasn’t certain. Though she’d been out here on three separate days for the shoot, they’d taken a different service road. She studied the boot prints again, and then started following them.
The breeze was strong and rattled the tops of the trees, sending drops down from the recent rain. Hardy beetles fell on them, too, and Annja carefully brushed them off. The most common trees were the white stri
ngybarks. But there were also ironwoods, smooth-barked apples, white mahogany and a giant that Dari whispered was called a gray box. There were shrubs everywhere, but in the shadows of the trees their details were largely lost and Annja couldn’t identify them.
The tracks led down a narrow path, likely a game trail made by deer and wild pigs, Annja guessed. Where the path became thin and almost nonexistent, the men did not walk single file as she thought most would. One walked to the right of the path, smashing ground cover as he went.
Definitely not one of the archaeologists, she decided. All the people she’d interviewed at the dig site professed a love of this preserve and would not have been so careless.
“That’s love grass that one’s traipsing through,” Dari said. He kept his voice low to avoid her scolding him. “Plume grass over there. It’s a little different.”
Annja wondered if he was trying to impress her or was just babbling because his nerves had kicked in. She wished she’d talked him out of coming along, even though she appreciated the company. If the tracks she was following led to some of the men who’d shot at her, she would need to call her sword. And Dari didn’t need to see that.
“Should have done a lot of things differently,” she said too softly for him to hear.
“Hard to see it. Not much light,” he continued. “But that’s kangaroo grass to your left. And there’s some love creeper. Looks like it’s dying back a bit. It likes the heat. Love grass, love creeper, lots of love in this place.”
Annja didn’t hear the things that she wanted to—sounds of insects that could take the fall chill, owls and small animals scuttling along the forest floor. It could be that she and Dari had unnerved them—or that the men they were tracking had spooked them into silence.