Agent with a History (18 page)

I glanced at him, “So, you’re hoping that if
there’s an investigation as to what happened, the finger will point
to a major world power being behind the destruction of the treasure
and not you?”

“That’s the plan.”

“I just hope you don’t blow us up with the
treasure.” I said meaningfully.

“Yea I hope not too! Kind of looking forward
to the rest of life here on out.”

Something in his tone sparked my interest.
“You weren’t looking forward to the rest of your life before?”

He met my gaze, “Before you, I wasn’t
particularly excited about anything.”

My hand reached out and he took it. We walked
like that for a ways.

“Looks clear.” Flint said under his
breath.

It was true; I couldn’t see any sign of
activity around the pools. I stepped out from hiding and approached
the central pool. Flint followed, looking around as if he didn’t
understand something.

He voiced his question, “I don’t understand
this. You’ve got five geocentrically placed pools of water, a lot
of water in the middle of nowhere to be sure. The pools have an
obvious influence of human construction, but I’ve never heard
mention of this place.

All this water and there’s nobody here and no
sign as to where so much water is coming from. The surrounding area
is downright arid!”

I just smiled as I walked along the dusty
ground that bordered one of the pools. He exclaimed again, “I don’t
even see where animals have come to drink! Is the water
poisonous?”

“No.” I said, as I stopped.

I squatted down and dipped my hand in the
water and brought it to my mouth and drank of the crystal clear
water. It was just as I had remembered it.

“Okay I’m convinced it’s not poison, but why
are you the only one drinking it?”

I scooped both my hands into the water and
cupped them together. I rose to my feet and approached Flint with
the water held in my cupped hands.

“No one drinks of the water because only
queens and their kings may drink of it.” I held the water out to
him and he looked a little stunned at the ceremonialism of my
gesture.

His head started to lower to my hands when he
stopped, “Just so you know I’m not at all for this custom of kings
committing hari karri because their ladies deemed it so.”

I grinned, “Some customs are better left in
the past I think.”

His head lowered and he drank the water, all
of it. He looked up at me in surprise, “That’s the best tasting
water I’ve ever had! Somebody should bottle that.”

I couldn’t agree more. I turned back and
continued on towards the central pool.

“So do you realize that everything about you
has changed since you’ve neared these pools?”

I looked back curiously, “In what way?”

“Your walk, the way you carry your head high
and the deeper confidence with which you speak your words.”

I nodded.

The old Candace had taught me all that. I had
soaked up her instruction like I had the love that she had showered
me with.

“She must have been very special for you to
care so much.” I heard Flint say softly, which caused me to realize
that there were tears on my face again. I was crying again!

“Do you feel like your betraying her by
helping me destroy the treasure?” He asked softly.

“I thought I was, but now I’m not so sure. In
her last words to me she told me that when she had been young she
had made a mistake that she didn’t want me to make. She told me to
follow my heart, and that is just what I’m doing. I think she knew
this day was coming.”

Flint nodded.

I turned back to the central pool. It was
time for the past to go. I approached the circular central
pool.

“I hope you can hold your breath for a long
time Flint.”

There were several stones lying on the ground
and I started to pry several of them up. Pulling them free revealed
carved out stone handles on the undersides.

Glancing up at Flint I said, “With the weight
you’re carrying you’ll probably not need a weight. In the old days
they wore so much golden jewelry that they didn’t need a weight
either.”

I held a stone in each hand and stepped into
the water and kept stepping down, hyperventilating slightly. Flint,
with a slight pause of hesitation, followed. Once he was all the
way under the water he saw more clearly for himself the spiral
stone staircase that we were walking down.

Memories of my first time walking down these
stairs began to flood into my mind as I walked down into the
crystal clear water. I had been so in awe of the Candace and this
descent into the water had only helped to reinforce how cool she
was.

Thirty feet down the stairs ended at a door
and I pushed a series of stone panels and the door opened to a dark
void of yet more water. Only queens knew the combination. I waited
for Flint and grasping him firmly I made sure that he came through
the door with me. We stepped down into something dark and I made
him sit down.

Nothing happened for a moment and then a
series of groans sounded as the stone weights began to depress and
our barge began to move. It moved quite fast into the dark void we
were in and, as always, my lungs had begun to burn in need of
air.

Apparently holding ones breath for a long
time hadn’t been much of a problem for my ancestors, but for me it
was. Just when I thought I would take a gulp of water and drown,
the barge surged up to the surface and I opened my mouth gulping in
air. Flint was doing the same.

“I’ve been on some death defying theme park
rides, but this one takes the cake!” Flint huffed out.

I couldn’t disagree with him there. I didn’t
bother telling him that if the wrong combination of panels was
punched in at the door the barge went somewhere else entirely. More
people than he knew had found the treasure over the years, but
they’d fallen prey to the clever door mechanisms of the Queen’s
Gate.

My father knew of the door, but not the
combination to open it. I stood up and walked the length of the
barge to the stairs at the other end in complete darkness, as my
feet knew the way by faith. My hands found the twin pedestals that
marked the landing of the Queen’s Haven and I reached for levers to
either side and pulled.

There was a swish of sound and the chamber
lit up with a jeweled array of color, as light tunnels from the
surface reflected down light that was refracted by the use of
crystals into a glittering intensity of color that swept throughout
the entrance of the Queens’ Haven. I turned my head to see Flint
sitting in stunned shock at what the glittering light revealed. I
well knew what he was experiencing as I once had been in his place.
It was hard to believe a place like this had ever existed in the
time of the Earth.

We were in a massive cavern, which was mostly
dark and lay full with water, except for this end of it. Before me,
across an inlaid floor of tile studded with polished gems, rose a
series of steps to a platform from which massive pillars rose to
bolster the ceiling of the native rock. Gems and crystals glittered
here and there but what caught the eye was that the steps and the
pillars themselves were overlaid with gold.

“Welcome to the Queens’ Haven.”

Flint looked at me and I wondered, not for
the first time, whether he would be able to destroy the treasure.
He got up and walked up to me, still looking at the golden display
before him and said, “Today I’m really going to hate my job!”

He glanced at me and made a movement with his
hand, “After you, my queen. I need to get the bomb placed squarely
in the middle of the treasure room.”

I nodded, and started past the pedestal
towards the golden pillars, as Flint followed. My eyes skipped off
to the side as I saw something floating on the dark waters. It was
a scuba flipper! Divers! Oxygen tanks!

Could the central pool be bypassed in order
to reach this cavern? Evidently so, which meant someone was here! I
stopped, as the alarm of that realization shot through me. I
started to turn to push Flint back toward the barge, when several
dark figures stepped out from behind the pillars.

Flint jerked me abruptly behind him and
started to raise his rifle to fire even as several bullets crashed
into him, knocking him back against me. He started to fall dropping
the rifle and the case and I tried to catch him and break his fall
to the ground.

No this couldn’t be happening! Oh God! In a
panic I turned him over on the floor. He was unconscious and pale
looking, which scared me to death. I checked for a pulse and sobbed
in relief, when I found one. His arm was bloody and I could see
blood welling up fast out of his thigh through his torn pants. Was
he hit elsewhere too? I ripped his shirt open in the front and in
relief I saw he was wearing a light vest.

Ripping the vest open I gasped as I saw more
blood, but then I recovered, when I realized that the bullets
hadn’t gone into him, but instead had just split the skin.

The leg wound was the worst. I had to get the
bleeding stopped! Feeling at his leg I noticed that the bullet had
gone through cleanly. I ripped part of his shirt up and made two
pads and put them on each of the wounds and then taking the rest of
his shirt I tied it tightly around his thigh overtop the two pads.
The bleeding slowed to a stop and I turned my attention to his
arm.

It was nothing more than a slight groove from
where a bullet had burned by. A shadow fell across me and I knew
who it was without bothering to look up. My fingers were shaking,
as I wrapped his leg with additional material from my over shirt. I
hated this! I hated the injuries that my man had suffered for me,
but most of all I hated my father! His avarice and greed soaked
ambition had done this!

Oh God please don’t let him die! I wanted
everything there was to do with this man. I had been so close to
everything I had ever wanted and now this!

“Why do you waist your time with this man?
You know I’m going to kill him.”

I looked up into the eyes of my father, who
even now, was bringing up a massive pistol to take aim at Flint’s
heart. I met his gaze with steady resolve and my voice didn’t
quiver as I spoke, even though it felt like my insides were shaking
apart.

“If this man dies, so will you and everyone
that you’ve brought with you! The treasure will be lost forever and
you will have no golden legacy!”

The pistol swiveled from Flint’s heart to my
head, but I didn’t drop my gaze.

“And who are you to threaten me so? I have
conquered the riddle of this place and of the treasure! It is all
mine! Again I say, who are you little half breed whelp of mine to
threaten me so?”

I saw the finger tighten on the trigger and I
knew that I was seconds away from my own death. I rose to my feet,
and I stepped forward toward my father until the muzzle of the
pistol was pressed into my chest.

Firmly I responded with all the cold distain
that I could muster for this man, which it shamed me to admit that
I shared blood with, “I am Candace! Queen of Queens and ruler over
kings! This is my domain and I alone rule here! Kill me and you
die. Steal the treasure without my blessing and you’ll suffer worse
than death. I am the Queen and I have spoken! Heed my words
wisely!”

I slammed my foot down and the cavern’s
lighting shifted to more of a reddish haze. Iya blinked and looked
around. He slammed his foot down too, but nothing happened.

The muzzle of the pistol drifted away and he
gave a slight nod, as his characteristic wolfish smile returned,
“You are the Queen, but first and foremost you are my daughter and
you will help me get all the treasure!”

He turned and gestured at several of his men.
“Come carry the man and be quick! I want to see the rest of my
treasure!”

“You do remember Mr. Muatombo, that this is a
joint venture, do you not?” Spoke up a slim man with white skin and
pale blond hair.

The man had a European accent that matched
the men, who had tried to kill us in Barcelona. The man had the
cold eyes of a snake. There was something darker about the man then
just his appearance though. Father’s own snakish charm came out as
he responded to the man.

“But of course Heinrich, as we agreed, half
the treasure will go to your bank directly and you know that I
intend to heavily invest my share with you, so relax, we are this
close to the find of the ages and I will share it with you as
promised.”

Yeah, right, my father had never learned the
virtue of sharing anything with anyone. The slim man had a short
future ahead of him, if he believed my father. The best he could
look forward to was a clean shot to the back of the head, if he was
lucky.

The man called Heinrich smiled back at my
father. The smile had a calculated false quality to it, which
caused me to reconsider my assessment of him as a pushover. The man
was surrounded by my father’s henchmen, who as it was, were my half
brothers and yet the man maintained his cool resolve. Despite being
all alone Heinrich appeared very much in control of the
situation.

Perhaps he wasn’t such an easy mark. I
wondered if my father knew that. I doubted it as he tended to only
respect people that were a threat to him physically and not
individuals that he could squash out with one choking hand.

Something else I wondered about was if father
knew that this Swiss backed businessman, he had partnered up with,
had been trying to kill Flint and I in Barcelona? Not question us
about the treasure, but simply just kill us. I doubted that he’d
listen even if I told him. His eyes were to full of treasure to let
any sane thought through.

Heinrich gestured to us, “You should just
kill them now and be done with it. They cannot be allowed to live
to speak of what they have seen.”