The Goddess Legacy (29 page)

“Who else would he be?” Allie asked quietly.

“CIA. They’re always up to something shady. Maybe they’re running an op, and they know we won’t willingly help after the last nightmare, so this time they’re pretending to be the Defense Department,” Spencer said. “It’s always a possibility.”

Drake nodded slowly. “How do we verify that Reynolds is DOD?”

“If he’s military intelligence, there isn’t going to be any publicly accessible info on him. It will all be tightly classified,” Spencer said. “So it’s a catch-22.”

“Then there’s no way of knowing who he actually is or works for?” Allie said.

“Correct.”

“Where does that leave us?” Allie asked.

Spencer considered the question for a long time. “Go through all the gear he gave you with a magnifying glass, and make sure there are no micro-transmitters in any of it. Give me the GPS and I’ll dismantle it to see if there’s anything besides the factory chips inside. We can just keep it off and they’ll be unable to track it – we’re looking for something small that would have its own miniature power source, that’s constantly emitting a signal.”

“You really think this is a con?” Drake asked.

Spencer held up a spoonful of curry and blew on it to cool it. “At this point, we should assume everyone’s the enemy until proven otherwise. Including those who are most insistent they’re our friends.”

Allie’s expression slowly registered alarm. “Do you…do you think it’s possible that the DOD killed Carson, and we’re just loose threads they’re tying up?”

Drake looked to Spencer, who was chewing his curry methodically with a spectacular lack of enjoyment. “Anything’s possible. But why do it in such a spectacular manner? Generally, when someone’s taken out, it’s made to look like an accident – car crash or skiing or a drowning.” He shook his head. “No, Carson’s murder wasn’t anything the DOD would want to draw attention to if they had him under surveillance. Which means there’s another player in the mix besides Helms, because he wouldn’t have had the physical strength. Carson would have snapped his neck like a twig.”

They sat in silence, considering Spencer’s input, the food suddenly tasting like tar. When they returned to the hotel, Allie gave Drake a chaste peck and retired without a word, and it was hours before Drake finally drifted off into restless sleep – a slumber that featured headless bodies coming for him through a swirling fog that whispered his name.

Delhi, India

Nayan Mehta felt for his cell phone in the pocket of his hand-tailored pajamas, the little device’s warble shattering the silence of his bedroom, where he was reading a report on his construction company’s profit and losses for the quarter as light bedtime fare. He was in no mood to take a call, but his annoyance receded when he saw the caller ID.

“My brother, it has been too long,” Mehta answered.

“How is the lifestyle of the rich and famous treating you?”

“No complaints. Although you’re more famous than I,” Mehta teased.

“But nowhere near as rich,” Swami Baba Raja fired back.

“The universe works in mysterious ways. What’s going on?”

“I had a troubling incident at the ashram last night, and I wanted to see if you knew anything about it.”

Mehta sat up straighter. “What? What happened?”

“Someone broke in and tried to steal the statue of Kali you gave me.”

“The hell you say.”

“It is true. First the sword, and now the idol…”

“I’m working on retrieving the sword, but it has proven more elusive than I’d hoped.”

Swami Baba Raja didn’t say anything for a long moment. When he did, his voice was soft. “Does the…cult know I have the statue?”

“Of course not. Are you mad?” Mehta had obtained the relic when a team of his miners had inadvertently broken through a cave wall, violating the sanctity of its resting place. He’d left the rest of the artifacts in the cave, but had been taken by the beauty of the dancing Kali and had secretly removed the idol before sealing the cavern back up and shutting down exploration in that area. But he knew that if those who held the relic to be sacred ever discovered his duplicity, they would exact a terrible revenge.

“It is a possible explanation,” Baba Raja reasoned, his tone glum.

“You say someone tried to steal it. Which means they were unsuccessful?”

“Correct. They were interrupted mid-process. The bastards were in my bedroom while I was sleeping. I naturally thought…”

“The cult has no idea. That you are still alive should be all the proof you require. If it had been them, you’d have never heard or seen anything.”

“We think it was a pair of mercenaries. American.”

“Are you sure?”

“There are several devotees missing. Among them two new arrivals.”

“Who are they?”

“We only have what they wrote on their admission documents, which appears to be pure invention. Allie and Drake O’Keefe. From Kansas City. Brother and sister.”

“Allie and Drake?” Mehta repeated.

“Yes. Why? Does it mean something to you?” Baba Raja demanded.

Mehta’s tone was flat. “No. Just unusual names.”

“Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

“Why would I keep anything from you?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You know everything I do. But if you’re unhurt, and they weren’t successful, no real harm done to anything but your dignity, right? Just add more guards. Things will be fine.”

“I didn’t know if this relates to…your thing.”

“Not as far as I can see. They are unconnected.”

The swami sounded unconvinced, but let it go. “You should come to the ashram more often. It has been too long.”

“My days are filled with other matters. But I will make time to see you. Soon.”

“It would delight me if you would.”

“There is nothing I live for more than your delight.”

After a few more minutes of banter Mehta hung up and stared at his balcony, lost in thought. Of course he recognized the names of the pair that Helms had reported had tried to buy him off, but that they had been so bold as to enter the ashram and attempt to steal the idol…that raised the stakes considerably.

He tried Helms’s cell a final time, with the same result – no answer. Mehta was reluctant to leave a message, his cautious nature erring on the side of the conservative, and he comforted himself with the observation that Helms was a seasoned operative who was tracking rank amateurs.

But still, it was worrisome that he had been out of contact since the prior evening.

Mehta rubbed his eyes and returned to the report, part of his mind still on the call from his brother, another on tomorrow. The first part would be devoted to travel – a dawn flight on his private jet to the Jammu airport, and then several hours by car, and then a cross-country ride on an ATV before arrival at the camp to meet his guests.

The camp.

Such an innocuous description for the hidden mine and the dark recesses of the mountain, where his slave laborers lived out their short, harsh lives before wasting away.

He forced the image of the mine’s horror out of his mind – it served no useful purpose to ruminate about such things, and he needed his sleep. Better to look forward to the celebratory debauchery that would follow the transaction than to focus on that which couldn’t be changed.

Mehta sighed and flipped a page of the report, and turned to the next column of numbers, any thoughts of the camp replaced by margin breakdowns and profit and loss projections.

Pathankot, India

Reynolds was standing by his SUV when Drake, Allie, and Spencer emerged from their rooms, blinking sleepily in the bright morning sunlight. Roland led them to where the DOD man was waiting, a scowl on his face as they approached.

“What is it?” Drake asked.

“We were only able to get one Kalashnikov and two pistols.”

“Unacceptable,” Spencer said.

“That’s the best we could do on short notice. I had to pull in favors to even land those.”

“Leaving us seriously outgunned if we have any problems,” Spencer spat. “I don’t feel like committing suicide today, thanks.”

“I was able to get us cleared at the checkpoint. Cost a bundle, but it’s done,” Reynolds continued, as though he hadn’t heard Spencer.

“How many spare magazines for the AK?” Drake asked.

“Three.”

“It doesn’t matter. No weapons, no deal,” Spencer said, his tone glacial.

Reynolds sighed. “Look – this is all I can get. And we’re not going to hang out here for another day in the hopes that my contacts can come up with another AK. These were smuggled in from Pakistan – you have no idea how hard it was to make that happen. So we’re going, and we’ll make the best of it.”

“Except I refuse,” Spencer growled.

“Spencer, let me explain something that I’d have thought was abundantly clear: you don’t get to refuse, or the cops arrest you within minutes. Is that how you want to play this? It’s not my preference, but if you push me, that’s how it’ll go down.” Reynolds paused. “If I were you, I’d take my AK, say thank you, and shut up.”

“Spencer, it’s okay. I don’t want a rifle,” Allie said.

“Me either. I mean, it’s not like we’re being dropped into Afghanistan or something, right?” Drake said.

“We have no idea what we’re walking into. His unwillingness or inability to perform could cost us our lives,” Spencer argued.

“You’re walking into a cave, last time I heard. What, precisely, do you think you’ll need all this firepower for?” Reynolds asked.

“Ask your operative,” Spencer said. “Oh, that’s right, he’s gone dark, so you have no idea what’s waiting for us at the other end of the cave.”

“I’ll be right there beside you,” Reynolds reminded him.

“That’s another thing I’m afraid of.”

Allie and Drake eventually convinced Spencer to continue on absent all the weapons, and they loaded their bags into the SUV – all now had black nylon backpacks, with Allie bringing only her necessities in hers, including the sword, her phone and tablet, and a change of clothes. She was wearing the hiking boots she’d bought the prior morning on the way to meet Roland, as were Drake and Spencer.

“Have you given any thought as to how you’re planning to slip an AKM past any guards at the cave?” Reynolds asked as they prepared to leave.

“I’ll dismantle the gun and carry it in my backpack. I can reassemble one in my sleep, so once we’re out of sight in the cave, I’ll do so,” Spencer said.

“I’m not going to ask how you know so much about a Russian assault weapon,” Reynolds said.

“I have friends in all the wrong places.”

The trip to the border checkpoint took almost an hour, and when Roland followed Reynolds’s SUV into the far right lane, they were passed through with no inspection by a border guard with an ear-to-ear smile. From the checkpoint it took almost three hours to reach Ransoo, the village used as the jumping off point for pilgrims headed for the Shiv Khori.

They parked the vehicles in a gravel lot next to a market and made their way to the path that led up the mountain to the sacred cave. There were few others on the trail, as the pilgrimage season was already over, and they encountered only the occasional straggler. The path transitioned to a walkway paved with stone and, as they neared the cave, to a series of steep steps that stretched up the side of the rock face to an opening in the side of the cliff.

Once inside the cave, they were met by an attendant who offered to guide them and, when they refused, cautioned them not to touch anything and not to stray from the clearly marked route to the sacred chamber. They agreed and pressed forward until the cavern narrowed, the roof dropping to a point where they could barely squeeze through.

“Up there is the passage we need to take,” Drake whispered, pointing left, into the darkness, the lamps strung for the pilgrims insufficient to light the entire area. “It branches there, and then there’s a dead end to the right after a dogleg we need to avoid, so we bear left until we reach another branch, and take that one to the right,” he advised, peering at the hand-drawn map. Drake led them single file toward the second passage, which they discovered when they reached it had been sealed with a brick wall.

“Damn. Didn’t see that coming,” Drake said, and tried one of the bricks, which came away in his hand, the mortar crumbling to sand at his touch.

“Looks like they didn’t do a very good job,” Reynolds said, and joined Drake in widening the opening while Roland and Spencer kept watch to ensure they weren’t interrupted.

After several tense minutes there was a gap in the wall they could manage, and Drake dragged himself through and then switched on his flashlight while he waited for the rest. Allie came next, and then Spencer, followed by the Frenchman and Reynolds, neither of whom looked thrilled to be spelunking.

Drake headed off into the dark, his flashlight beam piercing the gloom before him. The floor of the cave sloped gently upward as he proceeded, and glistening rivulets of water streamed along both sides of the passage like black veins.

At the fork, he veered left and then had to traverse the next stretch in a crouch as the cave’s ceiling dropped to no more than four feet high. When it increased in height again, he paused and waited for the others, the chamber now illuminated with the beams from their lamps, the air stagnant and dank.

Spencer reassembled the parts of the AKM into a working rifle with a folding wire stock, and slapped a magazine into place before chambering a round. Reynolds watched him with a deadpan stare, and Spencer leaned toward Allie and Drake to whisper to them.

“Strap on your pistols. If you wind up having to use them, there’s not likely to be any warning. Make sure there’s one in the hole, and check the safety so you don’t blow your foot off.”

Allie removed her pistol from her backpack and cinched the web belt that accompanied it tight. “How much further?” she asked Drake as she adjusted it.

“A long way. This is just the start if the map’s to scale.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Drake pushed himself to his feet and surveyed the area before him, playing his flashlight beam over the brown rock. He caught Spencer’s determined look and set off with a nod, the others tailing him.