The Gods' Gambit (38 page)

“How clever of you. To come to us all by yourself. Tell me,
how many people are with you. What are your plans?” the tall man with the
glasses cut off James’ thoughts. His voice was sharp and abrupt.

James cast an appraising glance at him. He subtly stretched
his arms trying to snatch them out of the chains. But they were too tight and
dug into his wrist. It wouldn’t be easy to break free that way.

“How did you discover our base?” the tall man with the
glasses said through clenched teeth.

“You are making a mistake. I’m a cave explorer. I got lost
in the caves. My partners are outside. They’ll call for help,” James decided to
try the cover story which he and Irina had created.

“Miserable bastard,” the tall man spoke with contempt. He
stepped quickly ahead and punched James in the jaw.

“Hitting your guests is a sign of bad education,” said James
calmly.

The tall man’s lower lip trembled. He gave two more blows to
James’ head. “Where are my manners? Welcome. I am Georgie. Nice to meet you,”
said the tall man theatrically.

“Surely, you always win fights with people tied up like this
… Georgie,” James smiled. His front teeth were pink from the blood in his
mouth.

A series of blows rained down on his head and torso. The
tall man, out of breath, stepped back and then kicked James twice in the
stomach. James coughed. His face was bruised, blood trickled down his lips.

Georgie had the expression of a snapping dog. He drew the
pistol from under his belt, and aimed at James. His arm twitched.

“You don’t have the guts,” said James looking him straight
in the eyes.

Georgie slightly moved the barrel and pulled the trigger.
The bullet entered into the back of the chair a couple of inches from James’
head.

“You won’t get away that easy,” said Georgie and returned
the pistol under his belt. “I’ll watch you bleed. I’ll watch you going to a
place worse than hell. Your friends will die too. As well as everybody who
supports you. There is no hope for you and your kind.”

James lowered his eyes to hide the pleasure he felt upon
hearing these words. If Georgie used these threats, it meant that his friends
were still free. The charges Irina and Sonam would have set would go off soon.
Everything would be finished then. James thought that the only thing he could
do was to postpone the ritual these people intended to perform on him.

He realised that he had to antagonize Georgie if he was to
keep his attention, so he stopped using the cover story. “Do you really think
that after my death you would take over the world? That’s a big illusion. Your
organization follows the visions of a group of crazy people you call seers. If
they were real seers, they could have seen me coming. But that didn’t happen.”

“You know too much for a cave explorer,” said Georgie.

“Have you asked yourself if the thing you call the Divine
Eye is a true artifact? I don’t believe you have.”

Georgie’s facial expression changed from mocking, malicious
to wondering, and intrigued.

“You know too much,” he repeated. “But you are far from
knowing the whole truth. The fact that the seers found you speaks for itself—”

“I saw the seer who ‘had found’ me. The poor man was out of
his mind. He might have read some of my books. That’s how my name had arisen in
his mind. I am not the man you’re looking for.”

“If you were not that man you wouldn’t know so much,” said
Georgie.

“Unconvincing argument. Many organizations are aware of your
plans,” James nodded. “I can tell you this. Don’t you think it’s strange that
you only found that Eye after millennia had past? What you have is a surrogate.
The people who stay behind the real Rainbow Carrier have fooled you.”

Georgie smiled. “Here is your big mistake. All this was
foreseen and written down in the legacy of our ancestors. It reads that when
the time is right the Eye will find us. That’s exactly what happened. One day,
years ago, a young Indian peasant from Rajasthan came to one of our associates
who runs an antique shop in New Delhi. The peasant was a dope who desperately
needed some cash to buy drugs. He sold information about the whereabouts of the
Eye for a handful of rupees. This is how the Eye came to us. As it had been
foreseen.”

Right after he finished his little speech several muted
rumbles could be heard. Anxiety crossed the faces of Georgie and the four
guards. James’ swollen lips moved in a scarcely perceptible smile. His friends
were not only alive and free but they were causing problems. If they had
managed to implement their plan these blasts would be just the first wave. They
had to put charges in some tunnels and blow them up. That would close important
access ways to the lowest central zone of the base. It would also distract
Rodnov’s guards. The last charges to be set off were the ones put in the
chambers with the fuel and the chemicals. They were armed with timers so James
and his colleagues could have enough time to get away from the danger zone.

Another blast could be heard much closer.

Georgie took a two-way radio out of his pocked and started
speaking into it in Russian. A minute later he put the radio down and addressed
the four men, “Prior is coming.”

He walked to a small table, which James hadn’t noticed until
now. On there were some folded clothes and an odd elongated hat with a square
rim and a golden veil attached to it. Georgie dressed himself in a long black
robe colored with vertical blue and red strips. He wrapped his waist with a
yellow sash, took the hat under his arm, and then went back to James.

“Nice outfit. I didn’t know you were a clown,” said James.
His voice resonated with confidence but he had put in a strong effort to mask
the sorrow and the pain burning his heart. James knew that the tall man
dressing like that could mean only one thing: the time for the deadly ritual had
come. James was not afraid of death, but he painfully regretted that he had
given himself into their hands so easily.

“Look at me, Mister Whiteway. I am Perfecty. My place is at
the top of the World Mountain.” Georgie spoke fanatically. His eyes were shining
and out of focus as if he’d been drugged. “When you see these colors, shapes …”
with the fingers of his free hand, Georgie indicated the strips on his robe and
the sash. He then put the hat on his head. “It means you see your death. Prior,
who speaks for the Demiurge, is coming. He’ll send you where there is only
eternal misery.”

Georgie pressed a button on the chair and its back began to
fall slowly until it became flat like a table. Desperately, James tried to free
his wrists. The pain was almost unbearable but he continued pulling. He felt
his blood wetting his fingers. Suddenly, he stopped straining his arms because
in the distance he saw three figures sliding on ropes that were hanging from
the cave’s ceiling. Despite his inconvenient position, James could make them
out – Irina, Lao, and Lino.

“Yes. Trying to escape is futile,” said Georgie who had
noticed James’ struggle. He and the other four men were looking at James and
still hadn’t seen the three descending figures.

Georgie leaned over him holding a knife. He pulled James’
shirt up and uncovered his stomach. “When Prior finishes with you I personally
will take out your organs,” said Georgie with a demonic smile. “I’ll use an
embalming technique developed in Sumer, the last kingdom ruled by a Prior. You
make a curved cut under the ribs … It starts from here …” Georgie began slowly
driving the knife into James’ stomach. James again strained to free his arms.
He felt his left hand moving against the chains. The grip of the right one was
somehow tighter so he concentrated his effort on the left. The streaming blood
from his hand served as a lubricant. James lifted the left part of his body as
much as he could in order to cover his hand. For a brief second, while the
knife was penetrating his body, his hand slipped beneath the chains. Suddenly,
Georgie spotted what he was doing. He roared angrily and lifted the knife above
James. James realized that he intended to drive it through his left forearm to
nail it to the chair. Georgie’s hand was still in the air when the shots of a
machine gun rang out. One bullet ripped through Georgie’s forehead, blood
splashing over James. He applied all the strength he had to free his hand but
it was stuck.

The shooting continued louder than before. One of the four
guards had also been killed. The other three fled to take cover behind the
electric carts. From there they returned fire.

James felt a hand grabbing his shoulder. He turned and saw
Lino squatting next to him.

“Are you okay?” shouted Lino, worryingly.

“Yes. Take out the screws from the chains,” said James.

“Doing it,” said Lino and he tried to unlock the chain
holding James’ left wrist. As the screws wouldn’t come out, Lino rose up to be
able to use more strength and pulled again.

“Bend down!” shouted James. “Bend down …”

Before he could finish, Lino took out the screw. Almost
simultaneously, a cascade of bullets hit his chest. He fell on his back on the
floor.

“Lino!” shouted James. With his free hand, he removed the
screws from the chain restraining his right arm and legs and bent down. He
rested Lino’s head on his lap. Lino opened his eyes. A strained smile crossed
his lips. With his bloody hand, he took the Russian maintenance tablet out of
his jacket’s inner pocket and passed it to James. “Never … give up,” he
uttered. His head dropped. James felt Lino’s body becoming heavier at once. His
friend was gone.

The Pamir Mountains, Tajikistan

James held Lino’s pale face tightly for a few instants
before carefully laying his head on the floor. He looked around and saw Irina
and Lao hiding behind some metal chests.

“Lino?” shouted Lao to him.

James nodded. Some flashing lights on the wall next to the
elevator-platform attracted his attention. The platform started to move
upwards, the red light next to the lift was also indicating upward movement.
Somebody from the upper floors had called them.

Prior.

Others would surely accompany him. If they entered the
chamber, James and his friends had no chance of escape.

James’ mind was working frantically. He ran across to the
body of the dead guard and took his machine gun. James saw his own handgun and
the maintenance bag on top of the table on which Georgie had placed his ritual
clothes. James had kept the three grenades he took from Kabir’s arsenal in the
bag. Leaning low, he approached the table and took his belongings. The grenades
were still in there. James activated one of them, counted to four, and tossed
it behind the electric carts. The grenade exploded. Moans of the dying could be
heard. James waited a few more seconds. Only one machine gun resumed firing
from over there. Without protecting himself, James dashed off ahead. The guard
who had survived the blast was still shooting at Irina and Lao. He spotted
James late. The guard tried to turn his weapon on James while at the same time
changing his position, but James had already reached a point from where he had
a clear shot on him. The guard left his cover and the bullets shot by Irina and
Lao brought him down.

James looked at the red light indicating the lift’s
movement. It was creeping upwards. He heard Irina calling him but he didn’t
have time to respond. He activated the remaining two grenades and ran towards
the lift. The first grenade he threw over the rising platform, the second
beneath the lift’s control panel. He then sheltered himself behind one of the
electric carts. The two grenades exploded simultaneously and produced a
rumbling echo in the chamber. The platform squeaked and stopped; the red
indicator of the lift still twinkling but not moving up any more.

“James, let’s get out of here. More of them will be coming,”
shouted Irina.

James followed them to the place where the ropes were
hanging down. Upon approaching them, he saw a ventilation shaft in the ceiling
about three meters in diameter. Half of its protective grating had been removed
and the ropes were bound to the edge of the remaining part. Lao went up first.
He helped Irina and then James by pulling up their ropes. Just before James reached
the end of the rope, shots were fired up at him from a small group of people
who had suddenly rushed into the chamber. James heard the bullets hissing
upwards but they missed him.The shaft, about twenty meters in length, was made
of joined concrete rings. Its upper end reached up into a wide, steep tunnel.
There was a staircase of iron steps leading to it.

As James stepped onto the grating, Irina was already
climbing the steps.

“Where are the others?... Malee?” James asked by fits and
starts, his breathing still agitated by the rapid climb.

“Sonam led Malee and the other girl back on our old route,”
Lao answered. “You go up. I’ll pull up the ropes and shut the grating.”

When James began climbing the steps, bullets started hitting
inside the shaft. The people of the cult were beneath them shooting upwards.
James reached the tunnel at the end of which Irina was waiting unharmed.
Seconds after him, Lao too jumped inside. His right arm was hanging lifelessly.
A bullet had gone through his shoulder.

“I’m fine. Let’s not waste time,” he said in response to
their worried looks.

Without saying a word, Irina took a bandage out of her
backpack, removed Lao’s jacket, and wrapped up the wound. James used the brief
pause to find a route using the tablet on which there was still some of Lino’s
blood.

“We have a path to the open from here,” he said.

“I know. Lino found this way,” said Irina.

James felt the grief mounting in his throat. He coughed.
“How did you find me?” he asked.