Ancient Echoes (41 page)

Finally, they reached the top and all lay flat, hugging the
ground and breathing heavily. Jake sat up first. He scoured the horizon for any
sign of their pursuers. Rachel handed him a roll of unleavened bread and a
piece of goat cheese. “I took some food before we left,” she said as she handed
some to the others as well.

They all felt much better, even a little optimistic, with
food in their stomachs. The students sat near and listened to the discussion of
how to proceed.

“It may be possible to negotiate with them,” Lionel said.
“They don’t want to be stuck here anymore than the rest of us do. They said
that!”

“They aren’t to be trusted,” Charlotte murmured as she
stifled a shudder as she remembered all she had seen of Hammill’s deadly
activities.

 “Until we know who they are, we’ll have no idea how to
negotiate,” Michael said. “And I’m sure one of us knows a lot more than he’s
saying.” His gaze drilled Simon Quade.

Jake also looked at Quade for an answer.

Quade’s small smile upturned his red cupid-bow lips. “I’ll
tell you, but you won’t like it. About fifteen years ago, Phaylor-Laine
Pharmaceuticals began engaging in strange activity that caught the attention of
several government agencies. PLP looked into alchemy.”

“PLP?”
Jake said, incredulous. “
A big company like
that studying alchemy? I don’t think so.”

Charlotte perked up at the name mentioned, remembering
seeing the letters PLP in Dennis’ notebook. Quade captured all her attention
now.

“We assumed they wanted to find a way to create gold,” Quade
said. “If they could, they wouldn't have to worry when their latest wonder drug
killed or crippled a bunch of people. They could easily pay off all lawsuits.”

“As usual, follow the money,” Jake said with disgust.

Quade faced Charlotte. “Since your husband was the best
scholar the CIA had in ancient
Near
and Middle Eastern
studies, he investigated Phaylor Laine's interest in
The Book of Abraham the
Jew
.”

Her jaw tightened. Her heart ached to hear Dennis spoken of
so coldly.

“Someone place the bomb that killed him,” he continued,
“under an empty table behind him. It was detonated by remote control, and was
far more sophisticated than the nails-in-a-pipe bomb terrorists were using back
then.”

Charlotte blanched. “He was the target?” she asked, her
fearful conviction now confirmed.

Quade nodded. “A Chinese and a Danish scientist had both
been invited to attend a PLP symposium in New York City some fifteen years ago.
Both men were murdered. The CIA investigated the deaths. Dennis was a major
player, working under a man named Laurence Esterbridge. We believe Dennis may
have learned, or was very close to learning, who was behind their murders, and
that’s why he was killed.”

“I thought you didn’t know my husband!” she said.

“I didn’t. But I knew ‘of’ him. After his death, due to my
rather extensive knowledge of alchemy and other paranormal phenomena, the CIA
brought me in as a consultant.” He paused a moment to give them time to absorb
what he’d said. “We maintained a monitor on PLP’s CEO back then, Calvin
Phaylor. He sent a well-armed, well-equipped team to this area, but we soon
lost them. Soon after that, everything stopped. We don't know why. If the FBI knew,
and we doubt it, they weren't forthcoming. All we could tell was that someone
pulled the plug on the project.”

He paused and looked around to make sure he had all their
attention before he added, “Several months ago, everything began again. Lionel
Rempart's activities caught the CIA’s attention. Some documents, some very
high-up phone calls, and I found myself involved once more. Here I am.” Quade
glanced at the others, and then his cold, black eyes fixed on Lionel. “Here we
all are.”

Lionel looked pale. “I…I did receive a grant from PLP,
specifically from the current CEO, Miss Vandenburg. But big companies offer
lots of support to educational and scientific groups. That’s where we get most
of our funding. I did nothing wrong!”

“You were paid to bring us out here?” Vince said.
“To put us in danger?”

Lionel open and shut his mouth a few times, but no words
came out.

Michael stood. “We had better get moving. It’s too dangerous
to stop here for long.”

They began to hike once more. The ground, which had been bare
rock, now turned sandy and began to slope downward. They kept their steps small
so they wouldn't slide.

After a while, the ground leveled out a bit, the group came
together once more. As they did, Jake thought about Quade’s tale of intricate
plots and counterplots, all of which sounded convoluted, bizarre, and too much
like the
X-Files
on steroids. His anger boiled over at the strange CIA
consultant, and he could keep quiet no longer.

“Missing military men, dead scientists, big bad
pharmaceutical companies,” he said, drawing everyone’s attention. “I don’t
believe any of it!”

“It makes perfectly good sense, Sheriff,” Quade said.
“Someone at PLP has to be behind the mercenaries. PLP wants the book, and will
do whatever it takes to get it. I suspect they thought Charlotte knew more than
she does, and wanted to get rid of her. After all, her husband nearly cracked
the case, and who knew how much he told her.”

“So, who is it?” Michael asked.

“I’m not sure about the original perpetrator,” Quade began,
“but the only one with the resources and power to do all that’s been done now
is the CEO, Jennifer Vandenburg.”

“No,” Melisse said. “It’s not Jennifer.”

The others stared at her.

“Since
it’s
confession time, she’s
my boss, my real boss. I’m ex-military, and now work security for PLP. I’ve
been one of Jennifer’s personal bodyguards. She has spent money and resources
on this strange adventure and, yes, she wanted the book, but she didn’t send
any killers out here. She sent Lionel, and then sent me to keep an eye on him.
She knew I grew up in rural Montana, knew I could take care of myself out in
this wilderness. She didn’t trust Lionel.”

“What?
You?
But you’re a graduate
student!” Lionel said indignantly. “You know anthropology!”

“Not exactly.
I know enough to agree
with whatever you say about it. Some well-placed dollars got me a fake résumé
and onto your team, that’s all,” Melisse said. “The men shooting at us were not
sent by Jennifer Vandenburg.”

“Then who…” Jake fell quiet as a strange creature stepped in
front of him. It looked like a cougar, but was the size of a tiger. “Christ!”
he murmured under his breath, reaching for his S&W magnum, glad to have it
on him again.

To their left, a gold-colored grizzly with a human-shaped
head appeared, and to the right, a monster that seemed to be a cross between a
tarantula and a five-foot long lizard. Its tongue flicked out at them. The
beast began to move toward them, closing them in.

Melisse pulled the Beretta from her waistband, thankful Jake
had found it for her. “Do we dare shoot? The sound will give away our
position.”

The beasts charged as a single entity.

“We don’t have a choice,” Michael yelled as he fired.

The animals veered away from the gunshots. Three other
creatures appeared, equally strange combinations of wolves and bears and snakes
and lizards. As Michael, Jake and Melisse held them off, Charlotte and Quade
led the students and Lionel downhill, running fast. Large, smooth rocks filled
the ground. Vince’s foot slipped and wedged between two of them. He fell onto
his backside.
Rachel, who had been ahead of him, stopped to
go back and help him pull his foot free.

A creature that looked half-bird and half-cougar swooped
down. Rachel screamed, tried to run and fell. Quade threw himself atop her to
protect her. The flying beast swerved from them. Melisse shot it, but that
didn’t stop the creature as it soared high.

The other beasts continued their attack.

Jake went to help Vince, but a bear-like creature pounced on
him. He fell backwards, his hands on its throat, holding its fangs away from
him.

 An arrow hit its chest, then another. More arrows
flew.

The village men had arrived—all six of them. They stood at
the top of the hill, shooting their arrows down to where the beasts attacked.
The creatures shrieked with anger as arrows drove them back into the forest.

Michael and Jake glanced at each other, stunned that Ben
Olgerbee and Gus Webber were not only alive, but able to join in the fight.
They were last seen shot, looking as if they were dead or dying, and lying atop
the mound.

“How can they be here?” Jake said.

Michael shook his head, as confused as the sheriff.

 “Troublesome fools!” Kohler shouted, as he marched his
men a little way down the hillside toward the students. “I told you to trust
and listen to us!”

In the distance, they heard a low rumble. They glanced
toward the sound, but saw nothing.

Vince, his foot still caught, held up a hand for help.
Kohler nodded at Arnie Tieg who removed a long, heavy knife from his belt.
Vince must have seen something in Tieg’s eyes because he cried
“No!”
as
Tieg swung the blade hard at Vince’s neck, nearly beheading him.

Brandi screamed and wouldn’t stop until Rachel grabbed her
and pulled her farther downhill, away from the village men.

Jake and Michael, stunned, raised their weapons and aimed at
Kohler. Behind Kohler, the other villagers stood with their long bows and
arrows poised and ready.

“That is what happens to those who disobey!” Kohler roared.
“Now, give us back the philosopher’s stones, and come with
us,
or more of you will meet this fate.”

The students and their would-be rescuers stared at each
other, too scared and heartsick over Vince to move, but also unwilling to go
along with the murderous villagers. The villagers appeared fearless, Kohler
unwavering.

Time stood still, and the roar grew louder.

A roiling sheet of water appeared uphill from them, and bore
down, crashing and raging.

“Flashflood!”
Michael
shouted,
his voice tight.

To the north and south of them the mountainsides sloped
steeply upward. The village men turned and ran back to the hilltop as Michael
and the students exchanged panicked looks near the bottom of a deep, flat, dry
gully.

Signs of earlier floods surrounded them, floods that had
torn through at speeds that ripped away trees, shrubs, and loose rock. The
prior night’s rainfall followed by warm weather must have melted snow at higher
elevations and triggered the massive run-off.

A wall of water hit and knocked them off their feet, tossing
them around like toys. There was no escape. Michael tried to reach Rachel and
Brandi but his outstretched hand clutched at nothing as the rushing wave
gripped and sucked him into the downhill torrent.

Snared by the unrelenting strength of the icy wave, he
tumbled and spiraled wildly. He struggled to find the surface of the water,
then
strained to keep his head above the current, to gulp
air before his lungs burst.

The current hurtled him down the mountain as if he rode a
twisting, turning water slide. It knocked him painfully into objects that had
held their ground. Up ahead, he heard the distinctive splash of a waterfall. He
fought to reach the bank, to do something to help the others, but the
relentless flood held him tight, pulled him under,
then
tossed him over the edge of the fall.

He sank deep, and the rapid flow carried him forward, arms
and legs thrashing as if they belonged to someone else, before the water
reached a wide, flat field. There, it spread out. The roar dimmed, finally
quieting into nothing more deadly than a shallow pond. It took a moment before
Michael realized he had stopped moving.

Gasping for breath, his heart racing, he crawled to his
feet. Bruised and exhausted, he looked around.

He reached Charlotte and helped her to the bank.

“I'm okay,” she murmured as he went back out to help Jake
with Brandi and Rachel. Last of all, Michael dragged Lionel from the water. His
brother was blue-gray with cold and shivered uncontrollably.

 “We need to warm him up!” Michael said.
“And the rest of us as well.”

They quickly found a sheltered area and built a fire. They
pulled off their jackets and heavy outer clothes, and draped them over branches
set up near the fire as make-shift drying racks.

“Oh, hell,” Charlotte said, shivering. “My gun’s gone.”

“I dropped the rifle somewhere up there.” Quade pointed up
beyond the waterfall.

Jake and Melisse still had their handguns. Michael sighed
with relief that the water hadn’t swept away his rifle or the backpack with
The
Book
of Abraham the Jew
carefully wrapped in it. The flood had taken
everything else.

“Our things could be anywhere,” Michael said.
“Still up on the mountain, under the waterfall.
To find
them, we’d have to go back toward the villagers.”

“It’s hopeless,” Jake said. He, too, was half frozen, weary
and discouraged. “With only a Beretta, an S&W revolver, and one Remington
with no additional ammo, how the hell are we supposed to hold off the
villagers, those crazy creatures, and a bunch of well-armed killers?”

o0o

As evening fell, their outer garments dried enough to put
them on again, Rachel, a Mormon and the only church-goer in the group, said a
prayer for Vince. Although the others were not believers in the way Rachel was,
each felt comforted by her words.

They stayed in the sheltered area to rest, recover their
strength, and deal with the shock and despair of losing their young companion
before they moved on. They needed all the strength they could muster to face
their enemies.