THE GODS' GAMBIT
A Thriller
By
David Lee Marriner
Copyright ©2013 David Lee Marriner
All rights reserved. This e-book is licensed for personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be reproduced, resold, or given away without the author’s prior consent. If you would like to share this e-book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.
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This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, incidents, organisations, businesses and places presented in the book are either product of author’s imagination or are used entirely fictitiously.
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Acknowledgments
My profound thanks and appreciation to Amanda Burfoot, Richard Sheehan, and Jo Egre for their invaluable editorial assistance.
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CONTENTS
Title
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
PROLOGUE
Rajasthan, India
Forty-two years ago
The commander of the dozen armed men lurking at the edge of the forest checked the phosphorescent dial of his watch and spoke in English with a hint of a Slavic accent, “Ready! It’s time.” Peering through his night vision field glasses, he scanned the landscape in front of him concentrating his attention primarily on the only man-made thing in sight – a Hindu monastery perched on a crag atop a nearby hill. A few moments later, he put down his field glasses and walked out from the blackness of the forest. “Onward!” the commander barked, and the team broke into a run towards the hill. After climbing up to the top, the armed men moved in the direction of the stone-built monastery. The ghostly light of the full moon made its medieval architecture and the backdrop of saw-toothed rocky formations look as if from another world. Its main entrance consisted of a tall, two-door gate framed by a stone arch, on which a several-metre-high pyramid rested. Massive colonnaded cloisters with a multitude of statues of Hindu gods, demons, and other mythological creatures set between the columns surrounded the main building. The stealthy attackers marched past two half-sized sculptures of elephants and an obelisk of the same height positioned in front of the entrance and stormed through the unlatched gate. It appeared as though they were already acquainted with the inner layout of the monastery, because some of them immediately fixed their torches on a door in the opposite wall and ran straight towards it. Upon breaking through, they found themselves in a dormitory confronting several drowsy young monks and an aged long-haired yogi. The attackers seized and tied up the bewildered men, leaving them moaning and writhing on the floor. At the same time, other members of the assault team spread out to secure the spacious obscure narthex.
Standing at the gate, the commander observed the scene, while talking briefly into his two-way radio. When the conversation was over, he addressed a man with a pockmarked face who stood closest to him. “Second, I want every room checked. Hurry up. The chief is on his way!”
“Aye,” Second responded. He and the men guarding the narthex reshuffled quickly and went further into the monastery.
The commander dropped his gaze towards the bottom of the hill from where the muted roar of engines floated up. Four jeeps and a truck covered with canvas, with headlights full-on, had just crawled out of the forest from the same place he and his men had been hiding such a short while ago. The vehicles pulled up at the foot of the hill and four men carrying lit oil lamps jumped out of one of the jeeps and started climbing.
The commander waited until all four had reached the top and then headed to meet them. The chief - an extremely tall, slim man dressed entirely in black - walked ahead. A raggedly-dressed Hindu and two heavily armed guards followed him.
The commander nodded reverentially to the chief. “Sir, we’ve taken control of the monastery. No trouble at all,” he reported walking alongside him.
The chief was breathing deeply, as if inhaling some kind of scent. “It is here. I can sense it,” he said.
As the group reached the gate, the chief addressed the commander, “You come in with me now."
The commander hesitated for a second. “Sir, allow me to take care of the prisoners.”
The chief threw a sharp glance at him. “Are you bored?”
“I just detest them. Generations of these miserable monks have kept it hidden… That mere thought makes me sick.”
“For what it’s worth, these people are totally unaware of what they’ve been guarding. To them it’s simply a relic they have inherited from their ancestors,” the chief explained.
The commander snorted with contempt, “Damn fools!”
“Wait until our Hindu friend here delivers on his promise. Once we find it, the monks are all yours,” said the chief.
Both men entered the narthex now lit with oil lamps that had been hung on the walls and columns by their men. Behind them walked the two guards who were closely escorting the Hindu. When they were passing by the imprisoned monks at the entrance of the dormitory, the old yogi rose to his knees and shouted something incomprehensible in a Hindi dialect. His face was contorted with anger and disgust. It appeared as if his words were aimed at the Hindu, who visibly cringed as though the yogi had hit him, but continued pacing in silence. Prompted by the sudden outburst, one of the men guarding the monks jumped on the yogi and delivered a blow to the side of his head with the butt of his machine gun. The yogi fell back on the floor lying silent amongst the monks.
“Judging by that old man’s reaction we are definitely on the right track,” commented the commander. He patted the Hindu on the back. “Well done.”
The group approached an altar at the bottom of the narthex, on which stood a wooden, colourfully painted statue of the dancing divinity Nataraja. Before it, the chief suddenly stopped and turned around. He poked the Hindu in the chest with his long bony forefinger. “Open the passage!”
The Hindu lifted his dull eyes to look into those of the chief. “Sir, give me a quick shot, please,” he begged.
“Stick to y
our part of the deal and I’ll reward you. Open the passage,” the chief replied with an ice-cold tone.
The Hindu laid down his oil lamp and moved close to a huge bas-relief chiselled out of the wall. He grasped an ornament depicting the sun and, with some effort, managed to swivel it around for about half a revolution. After waiting for a few seconds, he proceeded to press several relief fragments. A deep rumbling sound came from beneath the floor, and a crack opened in the wall behind the altar.
Looking at the aperture, the Hindu suddenly began to cry. The chief stepped forward holding a small syringe in his outstretched hand. On seeing this, the Hindu quickly wiped his tears and grabbed the syringe. Holding it between his teeth, he rolled up his left sleeve, revealing a forearm scattered with the perforated veins of an obdurate drug addict. At twice the speed he moved, the chief reached inside his jacket and pulled out a gun with a silencer. He pressed the barrel of the gun directly against the Hindu’s temporal bone and pulled the trigger. Blood, bits of brain, and bone splattered onto the wall, and the lifeless body of the Hindu collapsed to the ground. The chief abruptly put the pistol back. “You walk ahead,” he ordered the guards.
The four moved through the dark aperture behind the altar. After the first main turn, the tunnel broadened to reveal double doors. Prompted by a gesture from the chief, the guards opened both doors, slamming them hard against the surrounding stone doorframe. The sound of the collision echoed in the tunnel like thunder. On the other side of the doors, in the middle of a wide room, there was a folding wooden screen splitting the space neatly in two.
“Stay where you are!” called out the chief.
He walked to the right-hand end of the screen, folded its last section and stepped behind it. In the same instant, multicoloured light played on the ceiling. It seemed as if some sort of crystal structure reflected the rays of the oil lamp he carried because the light formed various geometrical shapes. They were moving and changing like a kaleidoscope – entrancing and captivating.
The light show ended instantly when the chief reappeared from behind the screen. He lifted his oil lamp high, illuminating his face. He stood in silence for some moments contemplating something that had brought a smile to his thin, pale lips. Then he said to the commander, “Now you can take care of the monks.”
The commander’s eyes glowed in the twilight. “Our sacrifices at last paid off.”
The chief nodded. “Yes, my friend. The countdown has started already.”
CHAPTER ONE
Sofia, Bulgaria
Three weeks ago
North stood on the roof of the multi-storey building, hugging the wall of the lift shaft superstructure. He was of muscular, medium build, and he wore black from top to toe to blend in with the darkness. Over his shoulders he carried a compact backpack, attached to which was a small rifle.
On feeling a vibration from the micro transmitter fitted snugly in his ear, North spoke in a low voice, “Perfecty?”
Immediately he heard the voice of a man. “We’re a couple of crossings away. You go now!”
The car in which the perfecty, the leader of the group, and three others sat was weaving its way through the unusually busy night traffic of Sofia towards the building where North was waiting on the roof. They were keeping tabs on a black car driven by a lone man just ahead of them. The code names of the two women accompanying the perfecty were West and South, and the other man with them was known as East. All of them had assumed the alternative personas of their double lives working together as a compact team. Tonight, they were carrying out a mission of purge, and the man in the black car was the target.
Making sure that he remained in the darker zones, North scuttled across the roof to the fire escape and, kneeling close to it, reached for his modified rifle, then aimed and pulled the trigger. Out of the barrel sprung a metal cord, on the end of which was a spider hook. He had aimed at a point on the roof opposite, and now the cord stretched out, providing him with a bridge from one building to another. North clamped his rifle to the fire escape and tightened the cord using the rifle’s reversing mechanism. Out of his backpack, he retrieved a roller clamp, and after attaching it to the cord he glided across the void to the opposite building.
Now on the other roof, North spoke to his colleagues in the car through his headset. “Ready for the second phase.” He squatted in the ink-dark shadows of the roof’s parapet and waited there for a few minutes before hearing the flat tones of the perfecty’s voice. “He’s just entered the building … He’s speaking with the janitor … Heading for the lifts.”
“On my way,” said North upon hearing the last phrase.
He picked the lock to open the door to the lift shaft. Once inside, he switched on his flashlight and headed through a narrow corridor until he approached a round garret-style window. He opened it, took a rolled-up rope ladder out of his backpack and let it slowly unfurl from an ornamental fixture that protruded from the window. Squeezing himself through the gap, he stepped onto the ladder, closed the window behind him and climbed down until he reached the penultimate level of the building. He then stepped out onto the ledge of the façade right next to an apartment window and waited there, motionless, like one of the many darker shadows of the night.
Some minutes passed before he saw a light come on inside. The light, filtered through the glass panel of an inner door, cast a dim illumination across a spacious kitchen on the other side of the window. The light indicated that the target had just arrived home. If the apartment was protected by a burglar alarm, it should have been deactivated by now. He had to get in quick. The perfecty’s plan, which he had flawlessly followed until now, demanded that North should enter through the kitchen.
Out of his pocket, he swiftly took a small canister and sprayed a circle of liquid onto the glass. The sprayed area instantaneously bubbled causing the glass to melt. North repeated the process on the inner part of the double-glazed panel. Pushing his hand through the still smouldering aperture, he tried to unlatch the window’s interior handle. Surprisingly, the window did not open on the first attempt as he had expected. North’s next attempts proved fruitless also. He began to feel the beads of sweat turn to trickles down his forehead. He was losing momentum and crucial time was passing. He pulled his hand back through the hole, catching it on a ragged piece of glass. In that moment, he noticed a second small locking mechanism attached to the window frame above the hole in the glass panel. He shoved his hand in again, unlocked it, and this time the window opened.
Without making the slightest sound, North jumped cat-like onto the floor. He stood motionless for a short while. It was quiet. He took a curved dagger out of the sheath on his belt and began to move towards the door. He had only taken one step before it opened. A small grey-haired man entered the kitchen, taking a couple of steps by force of habit before he froze. His eyes opened widely.
“What the…!” he exclaimed.
North felt himself being taken over by instantaneous euphoria. Now I’m going to earn my ascension, he thought.
The man in front of him quickly recovered from his shock and, turning, started to run away. North smiled and rushed after him.
All the information North and the others had gathered about this man indicated that he wasn’t capable of much resistance. He was a gentle, non-violent man; a scientist, an art connoisseur and a paper-rat who was married to his work.
North caught up with him just before he was clear of the kitchen area. However, what the man did next caught North by surprise. Seeing that he would not be able to escape, he turned and threw a swift punch, hitting North full in the face, shortly throwing him off guard. He then punched and kicked out at North twice more. Angered by the resistance of somebody he had considered easy prey, North hit back using the blunt handle of his dagger. The man fell on his knees to the floor, his head streaming with blood. North bent down, gripped him by the throat and flashed the dagger in front of his eyes.
“You want to play? Let’s play,” North hissed t
hrough clenched teeth.
“What do you want from me?” the man pleaded weakly.
“Everything.”
“Take the money, the credit cards. My wallet is in my jacket…”
“Shut up and listen,” North said in a commanding tone. “I want you to do something for me. Get up!” He grabbed the man, pulled him into an upright position and pressed the blade of the dagger to his neck.
“Okay, I’ll do as you say,” the man groaned resignedly.
“Our party’s fucking boring. We could invite few friends to freshen it up. I bet you like this idea, don’t you?” North taunted sarcastically as he pushed the man back further into the apartment. “Move!”
On the way, he picked up a T-shirt from a coat rack on the wall and wrapped it around his still bleeding hand. The man noticed that North was distracted for a brief moment and broke loose, making a dash through an open door to the left. North rushed after him, but was too late. With the palm of one hand, the man hit something under the top of a large computer table standing in the centre of the room, and with his other hand, he started to open one of the drawers. North threw a punch and knocked him down just before he was able to snatch a silver-plated revolver out of the half-opened drawer.
North bent over and looked under the top of the computer table. As he feared, he saw a red panic button. His victim had managed to activate the security alarm. North’s expression became twisted with anger and frustration. He knew that this type of alarm could be connected directly to the police or to a private security contractor and, eventually, to the janitor downstairs. Whatever the case, he knew he had failed.
Giving in to his rage, he kicked the man twice in the neck, rendering him unconscious. He then activated the micro transmitter in his ear by tapping it with his finger and spoke rapidly. “Abort the mission! We’re going to have company.”
Quickly, North approached two paintings hanging on the walls, cut them from their frames and placed them, rolled up, in his backpack. He then emptied the contents of some drawers onto the floor and grabbed the man’s wallet.
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