Lost Empire (21 page)

A gravelly voiced Mitchell picked up on the fourth ring: “Yeah.”

“Ed, it’s Sam Fargo.”

“Huh?”

“Sam Fargo—your Mafia Island charter a couple days ago.”

“Oh, yeah . . . Hey . . .what the hell time is it?”

“About two. I don’t have much time. We need an evac.”

“That’s a word I ain’t heard in a while. You in trouble?”

“You could say that.”

“Where you at?”

“On the mainland, about four and half miles due east of Big Sukuti,” Sam replied, then gave him a description of the area.

“You guys get around,” Mitchell said. “Hang on a minute.”

Sam heard the sounds of paper crinkling, then silence. Mitchell came back on the line: “You know you’re sitting smack-dab in the middle of crocodile hell, don’t you?”

“We do now.”

“Can’t get a fixed wing in there. I’ll have to use a helo. That’ll take a little doing.”

“We’ll make it worth your while.”

“I know you will, but that’s not my worry. I probably won’t get there until just after sunrise. Can you hang on?”

“We’ll have to,” Sam said.

“Are folks going to be shooting at me when I get there?”

“No guarantees.”

There was ten seconds of silence, then Mitchell chuckled. “Ah, what the hell. Life’s a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

Sam laughed at this. “It is indeed.”

“Okay, keep your heads down. I’ll be there at first light. Just in case I’ve got some competition at the LZ, I’ll drop blue smoke so you don’t shoot at me.”

Sam disconnected. Beside him, Remi said, “Here, drink.”

Sam turned, took a deep gulp from the canteen, then accepted a piece of beef jerky. He recounted his conversation with Mitchell. Remi said, “That man’s on our permanent Christmas list. So he’ll be here in another four or five hours.”

“With luck.”

They sat in silence, chewing for several minutes. Sam checked his watch. “It’s been forty minutes since we left the island.”

“You don’t think they—”

Sam held up his hand. Remi went quiet. After a few moments, she said, “I hear them. Two of them, somewhere offshore.”

Sam nodded. “Hard to tell, but it sounds like the Rinkers. We’d better assume so.”

“How far inland are we?”

“A quarter mile, maybe a little more.”

They listened for a few more minutes. The sound of the engines rose in volume, then suddenly went silent. “They’re ashore,” Sam said.

They checked their weapons: two AK-74s, one with a full magazine, the other missing the dozen or so rounds Remi had fired at the Cushman; the .357 Magnum; and the H&K P30. Whether these would be enough should a firefight erupt was an unknown. They’d been lucky so far with Rivera and his men, but neither Sam nor Remi were under any illusion: In a head-to-head contest, they had little chance of besting Special Forces soldiers.

“Let’s get comfortable,” Sam said.

“And invisible,” Remi added.

After shoving their packs under a rotting log and covering them with loam, they did the same for themselves, lying lengthwise, head-to-head, so that each of them could see the approaches from the beach. Sam handed Remi a handful of mud to cover her face, then smeared some on his own.

“Promise me something, Sam,” Remi said, slathering herself.

“A suite at the Moevenpick?” he guessed.

“I was going to say a hot shower and a big breakfast, but since you offered I’ve been composing a list . . .”

PEERING THROUGH A GAP between the logs, Remi spotted a speck of light a few hundred yards to the east. She tapped Sam on the shoulder, mouthed,
Flashlight
, and pointed. The flashlight beam seemed to float through midair, disappearing and reappearing through the trees as the owner picked his way inland.

“I’ll say this much for Rivera,” Sam whispered, “he’s like a dog with a bone.”

“He’s probably said the same thing about us but in less congenial language. Are we waiting until we see the whites of their eyes?”

“No, we’re crossing fingers they don’t even wander this way.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“In Africa, darkness and forest equals predators.”

“I could have done without that tidbit.”

“Sorry.” As if on cue, somewhere in the distance they heard the deep-throated huff-huff-huff of a big cat. It was a sound they’d both heard before, but either on organized safaris or from the safety of a lodge. Here, in the open and alone, the sound was chilling.

Sam whispered, “It’s a long way off.”

Soon a second flashlight joined the first; then a third and a fourth. The men were moving in a line abreast like flushers leading a hunting party. Soon the party was close enough that Sam and Remi could see the figures behind the flashlights. Not surprisingly, each man appeared to be carrying an assault rifle.

Another five minutes brought the group to the sandbar, where they converged. One of the men—Rivera, perhaps—appeared to do most of the talking, gesturing first up and down the shoreline, then inland. They shined their flashlights along the bank and over the water. Twice the beams appeared to skim over the helicopter blade jutting from the water, but it generated no response. Suddenly one of the men pointed across the river. Almost in unison, each of the men unslung his rifle.

“They spotted our fanged friends,” Remi whispered.

Weapons up and ready, the group backed off the sandbar until they were on the scrub ground. They conferred for another minute, then separated, one pair walking downriver, the other upriver. This was the pair Sam and Remi watched closely; as the river abutted the copse’s northern edge, the pair’s path would take them within fifty feet of the hiding spot.

Sam whispered, “I took a look as we flew in: The nearest crossing is a mile downstream. Now we’ll see how determined they are.”

Clearly wary of what other dangers the river might hold, the two men kept a safe distance from shore, walking from left to right across Sam and Remi’s field of vision until the river curved east and merged with the copse. Here they turned southeast, shining their flashlights along the tree line as they walked. Now only twenty yards away, their figures were more distinct. One of them was more distinct than the other: Tall and gaunt, he moved with the economical, purposeful gait of a soldier. It was Itzli Rivera.

Suddenly Sam felt clawed feet crawling over his ankle. Before he could resist the impulse, he kicked his foot. The unseen creature squealed and skittered off through the underbrush.

Rivera stopped suddenly and held up a closed fist, the soldier’s universal hand signal for “Halt!” His partner stopped in his tracks, and in unison they slowly dropped to one knee. The flashlights were doused. Each man’s head began rotating, looking, listening. The flashlights popped back on again and began skimming over the trees, pausing occasionally here and there. Rivera looked over his shoulder and gestured something to his partner. Together they stood up, turned, and began picking their way into the trees, heading directly for Sam and Remi’s hiding spot.

Sam felt Remi’s hand on his shoulder. He reached up, gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Rivera and his partner kept coming. They were thirty feet away.

Now twenty feet. Ten feet.

They stopped, looked left and right, and flashlight beams probed the gaps between the logs around Sam and Remi. Twigs cracked. Rivera whispered something to his partner. Sam and Remi felt the log over their heads sink a couple inches. The tips of a pair of boots appeared at the edge of the log, and a flashlight beam swept over the depression.

Five long seconds passed.

The flashlight clicked off. The boots pulled back, followed by a double thump as Rivera dismounted the log. Slowly the footfalls faded.

Sam counted to one hundred, then slowly lifted his head until he could see through the gap. Silhouetted by the glow of their flashlights, Rivera and his partner were back at the tree line and moving south toward the sandbar. Sam watched them for another minute and turned his head so his mouth was closer to Remi’s ear.

“They’re moving off. We’ll stay put in case they double back.” For the next twenty minutes they remained still, wedged as tightly as possible in their bolt-hole, until finally they heard in the distance the Rinker’s engines growling back to life.

Sam whispered, “Just a little longer.” He gave it another five minutes, then rolled out from under the log. “I’m going to have a look around.”

He crawled out of the depression and disappeared. He returned ten minutes later. “They’re gone.” He helped Remi out from her hiding spot.

She exhaled heavily. “That bell better be worth it.”

“Another few hours and we’re home free.”

 

 

ED MITCHELL WAS as good as his word, if not a little better. Just as the sun was peeking through the forest to the east they heard the thump of helicopter rotors. As a precaution Sam and Remi scrambled back into their bolt-holes, occasionally peeking out as the rotors grew louder. To the west they saw a yellow-and-white Bell helicopter sweep in over the beach and turn inland, following the course of the river. When the helicopter reached the sandbar, the pilot’s door opened. A moment later, blue smoke began drifting over the ground.

Sam and Remi rolled out together and stood up. Sam asked, “Ready for home?” Remi shook her head, and he chuckled. “Right. Sorry. Hot shower and breakfast.”

 

 

AN HOUR LATER, with the crate strapped safely to the Bell’s deck, they touched down at the Ras Kutani airstrip. While Mitchell trotted off to collect his vehicle for the ride back to Dar es Salaam, Sam and Remi used the sat phone to place a long-overdue call to Selma.

“Where have you been?” their chief researcher said over the speaker. “I’ve been sitting by the phone.”

“Is that your way of saying you were worried about us?” Remi asked.

“Yes, it is. Now, explain yourselves.”

Sam briefly recounted the last few days, ending with their recovery of the bell. Selma sighed. “I wish I could say positively you haven’t wasted your time.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“We got the first shipment from Morton’s museum yesterday. In with the miscellanea we found what looks like a journal of sorts—Blaylock’s journal, to be exact.”

“That’s good news,” Remi said, then added tentatively, “Right?”

“It would be,” Selma replied, “if not for the fact that I’m pretty sure Winston Lloyd Blaylock, the Mbogo of Bagamoyo, was certifiably insane.”

 

 

EXHAUSTED AND WANTING TO HIT THE GROUND RUNNING WHEN they got home, Sam and Remi spent the majority of the flights home sleeping and eating and generally trying to keep their minds off Selma’s proclamation regarding Winston Blaylock. Their chief researcher wasn’t prone to hyperbole, so they took seriously her suspicion which, if true, cast a pall on their efforts to recover the
Shenandoah
’s bell. Of course, while the bell was of significant historical value regardless, the cryptic inscription on the bell’s inner surface and Blaylock’s obsession with the ship (either under the guise of the
Ophelia
, the
Shenandoah
, or the
El Majidi
) had suggested to them a deeper mystery—one that had apparently prompted Itzli Rivera and perhaps someone in the Mexican government to murder nine tourists.

 

 

AS PROMISED, PETE JEFFCOAT and Wendy Corden were waiting for them in the baggage claim area. Pete took their carry-ons. “You look tired.”

“You should have seen us eighteen hours and a couple dozen time zones ago,” Sam replied.

“What happened to you?” Wendy asked, gesturing to Sam’s swollen cheekbone and his taped finger. While the latter was now properly bandaged with medical tape, the cut on his cheekbone was crusty with Super Glue—a remedy Ed Mitchell swore was better than stitches.

“I burned a casserole, and Remi got mad,” Sam said. He got a light punch on the arm from his wife in return.

Remi said to Wendy, “Boys being boys, that’s what happened.”

“We’re glad you’re home,” Pete said. “Selma’s been pulling her hair out. Don’t tell her I told you.”

The baggage carousel started turning, and Pete wandered off to collect Sam and Remi’s luggage.

Sam asked Wendy, “Any word on the bell?”

“It’s en route. Should be halfway across the Atlantic by now. With luck, we’ll have it the day after tomorrow.”

“Care to give us a hint why Selma thinks Blaylock is a fruitcake?”

Wendy shook her head. “She’s been up for almost three days straight trying to piece this together. I’m going to let her explain.”

 

 

SAM AND REMI’S HOME and base of operations was a four-story, twelve-thousand-square-foot Spanish-style home with an open floor plan, vaulted maple-beamed ceilings, and windows and skylights enough that they bought their Windex in ten-gallon buckets.