The Spirit Banner (17 page)

The smell of frying antelope brought her out of her sleep the next morning. Mason, rolling up his bedroll just a few feet away, greeted her with a smile and a cheerful good-morning.
Annja turned away with just a quick nod, not trusting herself to speak, and went to splash some water on her face and get a plate of food. Antelope strips weren't as good as bacon, but they were a lot better than the powdered eggs she'd been eating for the past few days. She wolfed them down, knowing she'd need the protein for the day's events.
After breakfast, Annja found reasons to avoid Mason as she packed up, but always made sure she was close enough to hear what he had to say. When he ordered Jeffries to help him fill everyone's water carriers from the river outside, she knew that was her call to action. She made sure no one was looking in her direction and then slipped out ahead of them.
She made her way downstream a short distance to the clear pool where they had been gathering their water since they'd arrived. A thick pine tree extended over the spot and its lower branches were easily accessible. She grabbed one and pulled herself up into the tree, finding a spot where she could see what was taking place below her but that was also shielded enough to keep her from being seen.
Satisfied with her position, she settled in to wait.
It didn't take long.
He came down the trail alone, the canteens he was supposed to fill slung on a rope over his shoulder. He squatted down at the edge of the water, removed the containers from the rope, and began to fill them one at a time. He stood them up next to one another in a line behind him, and by the time he was done he had more than a dozen containers lined up on the riverbank.
Annja tensed, knowing that this was it. If something was going to happen, it would happen now.
He straightened and then carefully looked around, no doubt making certain that he was alone.
If the circumstances hadn't been so dire, she might have laughed at the sight. No one ever looks up, she thought with a slim smile of satisfaction.
He reached into the inside of his coat and removed a paper packet, like the kind old-fashioned druggists gave their powdered medication in. Opening it, he moved toward the first bottle in line.
That's my cue, Annja thought.
She let go of the branch that she'd been holding on to and dropped lightly to the ground. Drawing her sword, she came up silently behind him and touched the point of her weapon to the back of his neck.
Before she could say anything, the sound of a gun being chambered came from almost directly behind her.
"Don't move, Annja," Mason said.
She didn't.
He moved into her peripheral vision on her left side, far enough away that she couldn't easily swing the sword and reach him, yet close enough to keep her from rushing for cover and escaping.
In front of her, Jeffries tensed, as if considering making a run for it himself, and she applied a little more pressure down the length of the sword, letting him know that it was a bad idea.
A very bad idea indeed.
"Someone want to tell me what's going on here?" Mason asked in a soft but deadly tone.
Annja kept her sword hand steady and her eyes on Jeffries. If he was going to try something, it would be while Mason's attention was on her.
"He's working for Ransom," she said.
"Jeffries?"
"I don't know what she's talking about, boss," the other man replied. "I came down here to fill the water bottles, just like you said."
Annja resisted the urge to skewer him where he stood. She wouldn't convince Mason of anything by doing so and might end up getting shot herself. That would leave the rest of the group in danger.
"Ask him what the packet in his hand is for," Annja said.
Mason moved out from behind her and around to the side where he could see both Annja and Jeffries. He had his pistol in his hand and he kept it pointed in their general direction.
"Show me," he said to Jeffries.
Jeffries slowly lifted his arms out to his sides and opened his hands.
They were empty.
"He's got it on him somewhere. Search him," Annja said. She could hear the anger leaking into her voice.
Jeffries sensed Mason's hesitation and went on the offensive. "For heaven's sakes, boss. Will you get this crazy bi—"
"I'd watch that mouth if I were you!" Annja shouted. She twisted the sword back and forth in her hand to make sure he got it the point.
Mason lowered his gun slightly. "Look, Annja. I don't know what's going on here, but…"
"I've already told you what's going on. He's working for Ransom and he intended to do something to our water supply."
Mason shook his head. "This expedition is getting to all of us. Ease off, okay?"
"Not a chance. Not until you search him."
Jeffries was quiet, biding his time. Annja knew she had only seconds left to convince Mason that she was telling the truth. He'd worked with Jeffries for years. Considered him a friend. It was his word against hers and right now she wasn't coming out on top. She needed something…
The phone!
Jeffries had made calls with a satellite phone and had put it in his jacket. The same jacket he was wearing right now.
"There's a satellite phone in the inside pocket of his jacket, Mason. If you check the last number dialed you'll see that it goes right to Ransom."
Please don't have deleted your list of calls, she thought.
If Jeffries handed over his phone without a problem, she was dead in the water.
But he didn't. Instead, he started protesting harder, calling her a liar, saying the whole thing was absurd and she'd better let him go or else.
Annja could see the wheels turning in Mason's eyes. Thou dost protest too much…
Mason stepped toward Jeffries. "I'm going to reach inside your jacket. Might as well get this over with so that there aren't any issues later."
"If you must," Jeffries said, the disgust that Mason wasn't taking his word evident in his tone.
As Mason stepped closer, Jeffries made his move.
He lunged forward and to one side, taking him out of easy reach of Annja's sword and directly into Mason, who had made the fatal mistake of not keeping his gun on his former comrade. As Annja watched, Jeffries barreled into Mason, trapping the gun between their bodies. Jeffries' elbow came around in a vicious arc that connected with Mason's jaw, sending him to the ground as Jeffries charged past, headed for the river.
Annja rushed after him.
She scooped up Mason's gun as she went by, then, hearing a splash that told her Jeffries had gone into the river, angled to the left in an effort to cut him off, knowing the current would quickly take him out of reach if she didn't do so in time.
Detouring around a large outcropping of rock that blocked her path to the river, Annja reached the water's edge just in time to see Jeffries rushing past her. He was in the middle of the river, stroking hard, hoping to get away.
Annja wasn't prepared to let him do that.
She raised the gun and fired off several shots in rapid succession.
At least one struck Jeffries, possibly two. The impact drove him under and he stayed down for several long minutes.
Annja ran along the riverbank, gun extended, ready to fire again, when he broke the surface, but as it turned out she didn't need to. When Jeffries popped back up, he was facedown in the water and no longer moving. She watched his body roll in the current and disappear out of sight downriver.
Mason was waiting for her when she returned upstream.
"How did you know?" he asked, as she handed his weapon back to him.
"I've been wondering how Ransom knew where we were going all the time. Bugging our trucks is one thing, but someone had to plant those bugs and that required an inside man."
"Ransom could have hired someone from the rental-car company to do it."
Annja shook her head. "I didn't think so, because he would have to be certain it had been installed by someone who knew what they were doing and not some local yokel."
"But how did you know he was going to try and do something to our water supply?"
"I overheard him making a call last night. It sounded suspicious, so I've been watching him ever since."
Mason shook his head. "I can't believe I didn't see through his act. I must be—"
He was interrupted by the ringing of a telephone.
They looked at each other and then sprang into action, both of them searching around frantically for the source, hoping to find it before it stopped ringing. Mason spotted the black casing of the dropped cell phone first and snatched it up. He answered the call, then hit the speakerphone button so Annja could listen in.
"Is it done?" the caller asked.
The voice was unfamiliar to Annja, but she could guess who it was. Judging by what Mason said next, she was right.
"You mean are we dead yet? Not even close!"
"Jeffries?"
"Mason Jones. Your faith in Jeffries is misplaced. We're all still alive and he's dead. So help me God, if I catch you anywhere near us again I'll gut you myself. Do you understand me?"
Mason's voice rose in intensity as he went on, until he was shouting into the phone in anger.
Ransom shouted right back. "You'll never make it out of Mongolia alive. That tomb is mine!"
"You just try it, Ransom. 'Cause when you do, I'll see to it that you wake up in hell!"
He stabbed his thumb down on the disconnect button and then tossed the phone into the river.
"Come on. We've got to tell the others," he said.
They gathered the water bottles and headed back to camp.

* * *

I
N THE COURTYARD
of the abandoned Soviet base where he had ordered his pilot to land a half hour before, Ransom turned to his communications specialist in the back of the helicopter. "Did we get it?"
The other man did not disappoint.
"Yes, sir. I used Keyhole 5 to lock it in within a ten-yard radius." The technician pointed at the laptop screen resting on his knees that was showing a topographical satellite map of the surrounding landscape. "They are right here, sir," the technician said, using his finger to circle the spot on the map. "It's the same location that Jeffries called in from last night. As of now, they haven't moved on. And even if they do, they won't get far."
Ransom stared at the point on the map near the base of Burkhan Khaldun, where his man's finger currently rested. The helicopter would get them that far, but if Davenport and his team went any farther up the mountain they would have to follow them on foot.
That was just as well.
Ransom preferred his killing to be up close and personal.

Once the rest of the group was informed of Jeffries's treachery, the decision was made to get under way as swiftly as possible. They had no idea just how much information the insider had relayed to Ransom, so the farther they got from their position the better off they were likely to be. The group packed up quickly. They sealed off the entrance to the map chamber by tripping the hidden lever in the same way Annja had opened it, and headed out.
That morning's travel was the hardest yet. Their route took them higher into the mountains, along narrow trails that Nambai said were made by argali, the wild mountain sheep whose curved horns were prized for their supposed magical properties. Annja secretly hoped they wouldn't run into one, for they were known to be fiercely territorial.
The air grew colder as they climbed higher and Annja found herself wishing for the warmer temperatures of the steppes. While they didn't encounter any argali, they did see their fair share of rodents, squirrels and pikas. Nambai told them how the pikas, which were part of the rabbit family, were also known as whistling hares due to the high-pitched sound they made when threatened, and then proceeded to demonstrate by cornering a few of them against the trunk of a downed tree. He was right; the little things screeched like banshees. The fresh meat they'd have for dinner that night would more than make up for it, though.
The forest grew thicker as they climbed. The trees rose around them like silent guardians, watchful and aware. Mixed through the evergreens were patches of white birch, bringing flashes of white to all that green, and heightening the sense that they weren't alone, that out there among the trunks some ancient guardian was keeping score, and Annja almost expected one to come strolling out of the shadows between the deeper trunks.
Annja waited until she and Mason had dropped back a bit behind the others and then asked, "You okay?"
"Compared to what we used to do in the SAS, this is a Sunday walk in the park," he replied, without looking at her.
The lack of eye contact said it all. He was avoiding the real question.
"Not what I meant at all and you know it," she said quietly.
Mason stopped and turned to face her.
"You're right. I do know what you meant. But what, exactly, do you want me to say?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I just thought you might need to get some of it off your chest."
Mason looked away. "I knew the guy for almost ten years, Annja. He was part of my squad in the regiment. He saved my life half a dozen times and I returned the favor just as often. I'm having a hard time believing any of it really happened, to tell you the truth."
Annja could feel her anger creeping up. "But it did happen," she said firmly.
"Oh, I know. I'm not doubting that at all. But what I can't figure out is why he would do something like that. What would motivate him to sell us, or rather me, out like that?"
Now it was Annja's turn to look away. The shiny look in Mason's eyes told her just how deep the knife had cut. "People do things we don't understand all the time. It's not our place to figure it out. We have a hard enough time just living with the consequences."
"Ain't that the truth," he muttered, and the dark cloud that had been hanging over them moments before seemed to break up and move on.
Their conversation turned to lighter things as they hustled to catch up with the others.
In the early afternoon they found their first indication that they were not alone. They emerged from a particularly thick copse of trees to find Nambai standing in the middle of a trail cutting its way northward through the forest.
In the middle of the trail were fresh horse tracks.
"What do you think?" Mason asked their guide as he stood frowning down at the tracks.
"Not good," he said, as he lifted his gaze to the trees around them. "Could be the Darkhats." The name fell from his lips like a curse and sent him off into a half-whispered ramble in Mongolian.
Annja had been around the wiry old guy long enough to recognize that he was saying a prayer, no doubt to ward off evil and keep his enemies far, far away.
"What are you talking about?" Mason asked. 'Who, or what, are the Darkhats?"
Nambai remained silent, refusing to say anything more, so Annja answered for him.
"Legends say that after Genghis Khan's body was returned from China and hidden away forever from the sight of man, a small group of warriors were designated to keep watch over the Great Khan's tomb for all time. When one died, the duty fell to his son and that man's son and so on down through the centuries. Anyone brave, or foolish, enough to enter the Great Taboo in search of the tomb would be punished by death. The warriors were known as the Darkhats, though where the name comes from seems to have been lost in antiquity."
Mason scoffed. "And people still believe this stuff?"
Annja watched Nambai, who hadn't taken his eyes off the woods around them, and said simply, "Yes. Some people do."
Mason gave their guide an odd look and then moved off to talk with his employer.
After some discussion between the two of them, the decision was made to follow the trail they had found, horse tracks or not. It was easier than winding their way through the trees and would require less hacking at the undergrowth, which had the added benefit of conserving their strength for when they might actually need it.
The trail was wide enough to manage two horses riding abreast, and to Annja it indicated the presence of much more than just a solitary horseman. But despite keeping a careful watch, she didn't see any evidence that they were being followed. Nor did she find any indications that anyone else was out in the primeval forest with them.
Until they came to the burial ground.