The Gods of War

by Christopher Stasheff

  Someday, she'd have to instill a bit of creativity into Kirsi's libido. For Kemal . . . Perhaps Kemal would benefit from a bit more—personal instruction.

  She caught the wind back to the Izmir Hilton. Mammon was still awake—on the phone to his broker in New York. He nodded to her as she drifted in through the window, but it was a good fifteen minutes before he hung up the phone.

  "So. Did you have a good time?"

  "They went to Ephesus."

  "Oh, joy. Oh, rapture. That dump ought to be torn down once and for all. Clear the land for something useful." His bearded face lightened. "A factory, maybe. That would be nice."

  "Kemal says they've plans to rebuild the temple—make it into the ultimate tourist trap. Make lots of money, it will."

  Mammon snorted. "I'll believe that when I see the receipts. —Find out anything interesting?"

  "Tomorrow. Want to go with me?"

  He yawned. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

  She leaned over his shoulder and stroked his beard, became distracted by the ear next to her mouth and nibbled it lightly. Kemal and his sweetheart had her feeling quite energetic.

  But:

  "Not tonight, woman. I just lost a cool half-mil and my head is killing me."

  "Scum." She bit hard enough to draw blood and floated away on a breeze before he could retaliate.

  Predictably, Kabil was late.

  "What's your problem?" Kabil asked as Kemal hurried him and the others to the back of the bus. "Your American tourists aren't even up yet."

  "That's all you know about it, Kemal muttered. He threw open the luggage compartment and jerked his head toward it. "Get in. Hurry."

  "It stinks!" Mart groaned and complained. "The exhaust will kill us."

  "The compartment is rated safe for animals," Kemal hissed. "I think you'll survive. Just get in and shut up, will you?"

  "I still don't understand why we can't just pretend we're tourists." Mart whined.

  "Because the bus is full, fool," Kabil answered for him. "And if the gateguard registers you going in, he'll expect you to come out, now, won't he?"

  "Hello-oh, Keee-ma-a-al!" An adolescent female voice echoed down the narrow side street.

  Kemal wrenched the door down just as Teresa Preston skipped around the comer of the hotel. He twisted the lock on the panel and jolted upright in time to avoid her rather personal greeting.

  " 'Morning, Miss Preston." He smiled tightly, dodging her groping hands with a practiced sway. "Are the others ready to go?"

  "What have you got in there?" She tried to look around him at the luggage compartment.

  "Nothing. I thought I d left something last night. I was mistaken."

  A smothered sneeze.

  "What was that?" she asked immediately.

  "What was what?" He gave her his best wide-eyed innocence, and taking her arm with a familiarity she'd sought for three solid days, he led her toward the front of the bus and helped her up the stairs, brushing his lips across her hand before releasing it.

  Funny thing, she seemed to forget completely about the noise in the baggage compartment.

  "But the agency assured me . . ." The woman's voice trailed off uncertainly, and Kemal felt an honest pang of regret when he had to say:

  "I'm sorry, ma'am, but, as you can see—" He waved an arm toward the loaded seats. "—I'm full."

  Her bright blue eyes followed that gesture, returned mournfully to his face. A momentary flash of recognition, gone with the next breath. Tall, slender, copious blond hair—if he'd met her before, he'd certainly remember, for all she was decidedly middle-aged.

  "Oh, dear," she said, breaking the spell. "What shall I do? I was to meet my friends at Ephesus. They'll be waiting for me—"

  Suddenly, from the seat behind the driver's niche: "Mama? Mama, I think I'm going to be—" A choking cough. An exclamation. A sudden flurry to get the window down. And a very surprised passerby on the far side of the bus.

  Thanks to the blond lady's skillful soothing, the passer-by laughed the matter off. But as Teresa Preston's mother helped the precocious teenager off the bus, Mr. Preston said loudly: "I shall, of course, expect a refund . . ."

  "I haven't that authority, sir," Kemal answered quietly. "But I'll make a complete report to the office. If you'll contact them, I'm certain they will—"

  "My daughter's sick! Probably food poisoning! You'll hear from my lawyers."

  Kemal watched helplessly as Teresa's parents bundled her—despite her loud protests—back into the hotel.

  "Poor thing," a voice said solicitously at his back.

  He turned to find the blond woman still there.

  She smiled. "I'm sure she'll be all right. Probably something at breakfast . . ."

  He grimaced. "Probably just too much of everything. On the other hand, it appears we have a seat available—if you'd still like it."

  She wrinkled her nose at him. "I'll just grab a towel from the hotel to put over the wet spot."

  Diana pressed her nose to the window, examining each passing vehicle carefully. Not that she expected a truck marked Contraband, but one never knew—which was why she'd had to be on this bus. She'd investigated the flux last night, but they were evidently close to a primary pivotal node, so numerous were the possibilities.

  Without details, she'd just have to stick close to Kemal's rear all day long. Dirty job, but somebody . . .

  They were among the first visitors to arrive at Ephesus. Kemal dropped the passengers off at the entrance, then took the bus to the far end of the parking lot: only polite, or so he claimed—Diana couldn't help but notice that in so positioning the bus, the baggage compartment was carefully aimed toward the brushy hillside.

  Kemal then treated his tour group to a much modified version of the same spiel he d given Kirsi last night, then turned them loose with information pamphlets and instructions to meet him at such and such a time, beyond the theater in the lower parking lot.

  Diana faded out and drifted at his back as he returned to the bus.

  His fellow conspirators emerged from the baggage compartment, sweaty and cursing, accusing poor Kemal of purposely forgetting them. Kemal swallowed any retort he might have made, halting their tirades with the simple expedient of stepping into the open at the back of the bus and raising the engine casing.

  When next Diana looked, they'd disappeared.

  The small transport vehicle beeped a protest and Kemal stepped aside to let it pass. Yet another load for the excavation team working the far side of the temple. The fifth such load today from the large truck parked in the upper lot.

  Kemal wondered which, if any, of those crates contained their shipment. Which, if any, he'd be carrying up the hillside tonight, to a hidey-hole he knew and no one else did. Yet.

  After tonight, Kabil and all his cronies would.

  He made his way slowly to the lower parking lot, where he'd left the bus, stopping occasionally to answer questions—some from his own group, some from lone tourists. It was an old routine, and one he generally enjoyed. Once someone proclaimed you an expert, other someones invariably emerged from the shadows armed with observations they simply had to share. Most of the questions, he'd answered a hundred times his first week on the job. But every once in a while, usually from the most naive visitor to the ancient city, an insight occurred which opened a whole new realm of historic possibilities.

  Today, however, his interest waned rapidly, and he finally hurried past the crowds to the lower parking lot.

  "What do you mean, the bus won't start?"

  Sometimes, tourists were amazingly thick headed.

  "Just that, Mr. Clark," Kemal said patiently. "I called for a replacement over an hour ago. He'll be here with a working bus in half an hour." He smiled placatingly, and knowing how fast Acayib could drive with an empty bus: "Maybe less."

  "I know something about cars, son," Mr. Bierhorst said from the back. "Want me to take a look?"

  No! Kemal wanted to say, but instead:
"The mechanic will come tomorrow. He'd have been here today, but his sister's getting married and . . ."

  "Nonsense. It will give me something to do while we wait."

  "I really can't let you, sir. Company rules. It would be my job if—"

  "Honestly, son, I'm a licensed mechanic." Bierhorst pulled out his wallet, handed over a card, but Kemal barely glanced at it.

  "C'mon, son." Bierhorst persisted. "I've worked for the bus company back home for twenty-five years. Maybe I can save your company some time and money."

  Bierhorst had no reason to lie, and perhaps it was his own raw nerves, but the others in the group seemed to be casting suspicious glances at one another. Kemal sighed and murmured:

  "Thank you, sir. I'd appreciate it."

  Bierhorst, as Kemal had feared, found the "problem" the instant he raised the casing.

  "Why, it's nothing but a loose wire. Try it now, son."

  With a silent prayer, Kemal pressed the starter. A working bus meant he took the tourists home—and left Kabil and crew stranded.

  The engine turned over . . .

  Kemal's heart sank.

  . . . sputtered, and died.

  "Try it again."

  This time—nothing.

  Which circumstances solved the problem of the tourists, but not Kabil's getaway vehicle.

  "You're sure you don't want a lift back to the city?" Acayib, his replacement driver, asked, across the stream of tourists they were helping onto the bus. "I can drop you off here in the morning."

  Kemal shook his head. "The bus is my responsibility. I'll feel better staying here until the mechanic can make it."

  "Bad luck, the engine's going dead on you today."

  "Can't blame Abi. Not every day your sister gets married." Which was why they d chosen tonight—full moon and all—to make the transfer. "Do me a favor?"

  "Name it."

  "Go up topside and leave a message with the guard for me, will you?"

  "No problem."

  Kemal waved goodbye to his group, and climbed back into his own bus. He had to get it running before closing. He turned the key, one final attempt to start it.

  Kabil would have his hide—

  It caught without so much as a splutter, ran smoothly in the seconds it took to gather his wits and turn it off again. Then he dropped his head into arms crossed on the steering wheel and offered a silent prayer to the goddess.

  A pleasant filling of the void inside. Diana smiled at her young convert, and passed a gentle, relaxing hand over his back. He did well to recognize his benefactress. Few would.

  What she didn't know about auto mechanics would fill a library, but it took no genius to lift the wire free again, nor to replace it afterward. On the other hand, it had taken exquisite skill to trick Bierhorst into seeing otherwise.

  The site closed down for the night, the guard, making a final run through, stopped for a word with Kemal before returning to his station. And as darkness closed around them, the others began filtering in from the ruins, slipping on the black clothing Kemal produced from the baggage compartment.

  The last to arrive was (no surprise) Kabil.

  "So," he said, without preamble, "Where's this digging going on?"

  "You spent the entire day here and don't know?" Kemal asked, handing him black slacks and turtleneck sweater.

  "I was—otherwise occupied."

  Ribald laughter echoed through the bus along with comments of a personal nature in which Kemal, toward the window, evidently found no humor.

  Neither did Diana. She'd seen what Kabil called love-making; animals had more finesse. And the poor idiot tourist he'd lured into the ruins would have some heavy-duty explaining to do to her parents in about nine months. Not good to play those games in her territory.

  "Let s just get this over with," Kemal muttered, and threw the bus door open.

  Kemal led the way through the ruins, past the temple, to the excavation pit and its accompanying supply tent, where, according to the blond-haired foreigner, the single guard had been . . . taken care of. Certainly no one challenged their entry into the tent.

  Inside, stack upon endless stack of crates and boxes of all shapes and sizes. Kemal despaired of ever sorting out those they'd come for, but Kabil pointed silently to one box. They worked it free of the stack and Kabil, producing a knife from his pocket, prised the lid free, revealing layers of packing material, evidently designed for shipping artifacts away from the site.

  Kabil thrust a hand in among the shredded fibers, grinned and withdrew what had to be one of the submachine guns.

  "It's so small," Asker said wonderingly, kneeling down for a closer look.

  Personally, Kemal could see all he wanted from the far side of the tent.

  Small, indeed. Not much more than a foot long. And light, if the overall weight of the crate—which must contain several of the hand weapons—were any indication. Frighteningly easy to hide.

  Kabil tilted the Uzi this way and that, poking and prodding, finally, swinging the stock around and down, clicking it into place. Another bit of burrowing in the crate uprooted a box of clips, another examination of the weapon revealed only one way to load it—trial and error actions which made Kemal's skin crawl.

  "How much training have you had with one of these?" he asked, morbidly curious.

  Kabil sneered up at him. "Not exactly difficult to figure." He hit the bolt above the handgrip, and waved the loaded weapon casually about the tent, making soft ack-ack sounds. "Here we come, ready or not." He caressed the barrel, kissing the tip. "Seven pounds, 14 inches, 950 RPM. Hell of a baby, don't you think?"

  "If you don't drop the spare clips on your foot!" Kemal controlled the urge to bolt from the tent. "For God's sake, man, put it away!"

  Kabil laughed silently, and slung the weapon over his shoulder. "Let's get these condensed and stashed." He stood up and began singling out boxes, choosing unerringly, for all that no two were marked or packaged alike, until they had a stack sorted from the rest.

  Of a sudden, from outside the tent:

  "Hello there, Officer Berk. How's it going tonight?"

  Kemal cast an anxious glance at Kabil. Kabil frowned, then gestured the others into the shadows between boxes, doused his flashlight, and grabbed Kemal's arm, pulling him into a shadowed alcove, keeping him there with a hand on his elbow.

  A reflective flash beside him, a click of metal on metal: Kabil had the Uzi unslung and ready.

  The voices came ever closer, exchanging pleasantries and rude comments. Berk was just growing bored. Had discovered the empty bus and come looking for Kemal.

  "Haven't seen him," the dig's night watchman's voice said, "but if I do, I'll tell him you were looking for him."

  "Probably just out wandering. The kid loves this place . . ."

  The voices faded again and the pressure on his elbow eased. But in his ear: "We're going out there, Duman. You're going to give that guard a convincing story, get him back in his little office, or he's gone. Do you understand me?"

  A flourish of the expensive toy punctuated the threat.

  "Don't be ridiculous. Put that away. Ill take care—"

  "I'll watch. Just make it good."

  It wasn't exactly difficult. Kemal intercepted Berk at the temple, promised to meet him later for coffee and donuts, but for now, he said, he just wanted to—commune with the stones of the city. Berk laughed, asked if he had Kirsi stashed in the ruins somewhere, and left him without waiting for an answer.

  Sighing with relief, Kemal returned to the supply tent with Kabil. The others had three crates ready and were still working. But what they packed now were very definitely not Uzis.

  Kemal leaned for a better look, got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. A glance discovered Kabil looking speculatively down his long nose.

  "Explosives?' Kemal whispered, not trusting his voice.

  "Naturally." Simple, straight answer.

  So why aid it make his skin crawl?

  "Mar
t, you and Cahil continue packing. —Deniz, Asker, you come with us. —Duman, where's that stash-point?"

  The hike to the far side of the hill was a nightmare. A half-dozen of the little guns was no weight at all to shift about the inside of a tent. Four times that number, on a long hike across rough ground, made the crate's rope handle bite painfully into his bare hand, made the muscles across his back burn.

  "How much . . . further?"

  He was glad to hear the breathlessness in the superior Kabil's voice. He pointed up the hill and replied, with somewhat less difficulty:

  "Just past that cap-stone.'

  "Thank God."

  From the two following them, only the sounds of labored breathing.

  The ancient cellar was quite clear. Kemal had found it during his childhood explorations of this place, had cleared it out one summer for his special place. Recent development of the site had cut him off from it, but no one had yet disturbed his "lock rock."

  Not that it really kept anyone from getting into the cellar, but the entryway couldn't be cleared without moving it, and replacing it required a special touch.

  They stowed the two crates, then collapsed onto rocky benches to catch their collective breath. Suddenly, from down the hill, a scream. Gunshots. Single shots, not the staccato spray of the automatic weapons.

  Asker swore, and bolted down the hillside toward the temple, stumbling over the rubble. Deniz followed at a somewhat slower pace. Kabil jerked his head after them. "Let's go."

  Without a word, Kemal worked his way down the rock and brush-strewn hillside, quickly, but with careful attention to where he set his feet. They caught up with Deniz and Asker just short of the marble roadway. Asker was sprawled on the ground nursing his foot.

  "I think it's broken," Asker squeaked.

  Kabil grabbed him by the arm and hauled him to his feet. Forced him to walk the few steps to the more even ground of the road, then thrust his arm at Deniz. "Get him to the bus. Now. Wait for me there."

  Deniz and Asker began hobbling up the long hill toward the parking lot. Kabil gestured with the Uzi in the opposite direction and Kemal led the way toward the supply tent, that singular "me" not getting by him unnoticed.