The Emerald Casket (31 page)

Gerald couldn't believe he'd given away their location.

‘Wait a second,' he said. ‘If this guy's not with Interpol, how did the pigeon's owner get in touch with him?'

Green's laugh reverberated around the temple. ‘Because I am the pigeon's owner, Gerald. The birds belong to me.'

‘What!'

‘Your little fraternity wasn't the only one interested in Constable Lethbridge's notebook. During my police interview with him I inadvertently let slip my interest in a certain charity. I had to make sure that information didn't find its way into the investigation. I couldn't afford to have any police attention on India. So it was vital that I find out what Lethbridge knew and remove him from the investigation.'

‘You fooled Lethbridge into coming to a fake conference,' Ruby said, ‘knowing he couldn't resist anything to do with pigeons.'

‘Miss Valentine,' Green laughed, ‘you are looking at the entire membership of the Indian Pigeon Fanciers Association. I had a man play the part of a pigeon owner in Delhi and he supplied the constable with his birds. A handy communications back-up.'

‘And the nice man who sat next to Lethbridge on his flight,' Gerald said, ‘who just happened to be reading about me in the newspaper? That was Leclerc.' And then a flash hit him. ‘And that's when he slipped a fake Interpol report into the stuff Lethbridge was bringing here to give to me.'

Green clapped his hands in slow applause. ‘Well done, Gerald. I had to salt a few clues along the way. But I couldn't be too obvious. You see, it was important you made your way here of your own free will. The fortune-teller was concerned any attempt to kidnap you would seal off your inner thoughts. The tenth gate, Gerald, is the opening to your subconscious. Eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth and two other openings I'll leave to your imagination make up the nine gates of the body. But the tenth gate opens the way to the most interesting path of all. And the fortune-teller was able to see things there that you could not.'

Gerald rubbed his forehead between his eyebrows. ‘You killed him, didn't you?' he said. ‘The fortune-teller knew where the casket was hidden—he saw it through me—but then took you somewhere else. And you killed him for deceiving you.'

Green shrugged. ‘People seldom cross me twice.'

Gerald shivered at Green's cold-blooded manner. ‘Look, you've got your, your…' he was lost for words, then a phrase popped into his head, ‘…cheap old relic. Let us go.'

‘Cheap old relic?' Green said. ‘You really ought to show more respect.' He paused. ‘Come with me, Gerald,' he declared at last. ‘We are on the cusp of something incredible. And you, of all people, should witness it. It's your destiny. Haven't you always felt you were bound for great things? Your great aunt thought so.'

Gerald looked at his friends. Sam, Ruby and Alisha stood near the Ganesha statue, exhausted. Could he abandon them? Then his eyes flickered to the golden rod in Green's hand. Twice he'd tasted its extraordinary power. What lay behind its secret? He desperately wanted to know.

‘Let them go,' Gerald said to Green. ‘And I'll come with you.'

Green's mood switched in an instant. ‘I wasn't opening a negotiation!' he roared. He threw the handgun to the thin man.

‘Kill them all,' Green said, as calmly as if ordering a coffee. ‘No witnesses. The Frenchman included.'

Green walked from the temple, the golden rod in his hands, leaving the thin man with his victims.

Gerald rushed to the statue to join his friends.

Leclerc squared up to the thin man and brandished his knife, his face a picture of desperation. ‘You will not do this!' he hissed.

The thin man smiled and raised the gun.

The two men stood there, each waiting for the other to move first. Gerald nudged Sam and Alisha and nodded towards a door behind them. He took Ruby's hand, interlocking fingers, and they all inched back.

They'd gone perhaps ten paces when Leclerc made his move. He sent the knife spearing through the air. It connected with the thin man's hand at the moment the thin man pulled the trigger. The shot rang around the temple. It may as well have been a starter's pistol— Gerald, Ruby, Sam and Alisha bolted towards the entry. Gerald flung an urgent look over his shoulder. Leclerc was close behind them, running for his life. The thin man had dropped the gun and was scrambling to retrieve it. They had seconds to make it to the door.

They flung themselves into the corridor as the second shot was fired and sprinted towards an arched opening at the far end. They burst into a broad chamber the size of half a football field. The low ceiling was supported by a grid of close-set pillars, hundreds of them, laid out either side of a central pathway that glistened in the light. It led to a large statue of a dancing god at the far end. It was the most direct way ahead; dodging through the columns would slow them down.

Leclerc tore into the room behind them, as wild-eyed as a hunted animal. Ruby was about to run onto the path when Leclerc shouldered her aside, sending her sprawling.

‘Imbecile,' he shouted and surged onto the glossy surface. He jolted forward in a tumbling arc as he sank to his hips, disappearing into a thick syrup of water and sand. His momentum carried him right into the middle of the trench of sludge. Within seconds he was up to his armpits. He struggled and writhed, but the sand was like treacle.

‘Get me out!' he yelled, panic ringing in his voice.

The first of the crabs slid up from the depths, huge nippers slicing the air. Two more appeared, silent disks breaking through the surface. Then a half dozen more.

Gerald had no desire to witness what happened next. He gathered up Ruby from the floor and dodged through the maze of columns with Sam and Alisha close behind. Leclerc's screams followed them out of the room.

Gerald rushed onwards, entries to side chambers and halls a blur as they ran past. The thin man couldn't be far behind.

They pounded into a small room at the end of a corridor and skidded to a stop in front of a blank stone wall.

‘Dead end,' Gerald muttered.

They went to turn but the sound of footsteps was close.

Ruby pointed to six narrow columns clustered in one corner under a narrow opening in the ceiling. Light shone in from above.

‘That's our way,' she said. ‘Sam, help out.'

Ruby pulled the bandit sling from her backpack and whipped one of the stones around a column, then another around its neighbour. She climbed onto the rung that they formed.

‘Give me two more,' she said.

Ruby quickly strung the other slings in place and she clambered up the makeshift ladder and out the opening at the top. The others bundled up after her.

The four of them were back on the platform outside the temple. They stared down through the black hole. ‘Now where?' Alisha asked.

From the darkness, the wraith-like face of the thin man glared up like a skeleton in a grave.

‘Anywhere but here!' Sam said. They set off down the temple steps, a pistol shot ringing after them.

Sam reached the bottom of the stairs first and led them scampering towards the closest seawall. ‘Where are the security guards? They must have heard the shots.'

Gerald caught up with him as they rounded a street corner. ‘Green doesn't leave witnesses.'

They spilled onto a roadway that ran the length of the southern edge of the site. Above them, the curtain of plastic sheeting hung down three metres from the floating barriers to the seawall, holding back the incoming tide. The
chug-chug-chug
of the pumps on the barge drifted across from the ocean side.

Gerald pointed to a tight cutting in the rock off to their left. ‘Quick,' Gerald said. ‘Up to the top of the wall. We can run straight out of here.'

There was no debate. Alisha was first to the steps, the metal rungs clanging under her boots, followed by Ruby and Sam. Gerald had a hand on the rail when the paving at his feet exploded, peppering his pants with stone shards. He looked up to see the thin man on a square concrete platform abutting the seawall between them and the shore. His gun was aimed at Gerald.

‘Drop down!' Gerald yelled. Sam, Ruby and Alisha flattened onto the stairs, sheltering into the cover of the rock cutting. But Gerald stood exposed.

The thin man's melted face leered at him.

‘Your quest ends here, Mr Wilkins,' he called.

Gerald had nowhere to go. Surely he hadn't come this far to die with an assassin's bullet in his chest. He jerked his head up, and a smile broke across his face.

‘Now Kali!' he cried. ‘Do it now!'

The thin man wheeled around and his eyes shot up to the top of the seawall. The only thing there was the bulging plastic holding back the sea.

By the time he turned back, Gerald had unleashed the bandit sling. For a split second, the thin man was mesmerised by the rocks hurtling towards him in attack formation. But then the pistol was up, the trigger squeezed. Time slowed. The bullet left the chamber and entered the barrel at the instant the sling soared over the thin man's head. Gerald stared distraught. One rock then another sailed harmlessly past their target. The bullet started its journey, the rifling ripping it clockwise down the barrel. The pistol bucked in the thin man's hand.

Could time slow this much? Or was Gerald's mind that quick? Did he notice the sling and the last of the rocks clip the thin man's head? It all happened in a heartbeat. The thin man fell back with the blow. The pistol jolted. The bullet's trajectory shifted high. The thin man teetered on the edge of the platform for a second, his arms turning wide circles as he tried to regain his balance. Then he tumbled back and disappeared.

The air was cut by an anguished scream from inside the concrete bunker. The steady chug-chug of the pumps burred—a high-pitched whine of motorised protest rent the air. Something had clogged the machinery.

For the first time in what had seemed an eternity, Gerald breathed. It was time to leave.

Alisha was already on top of the seawall, helping Ruby up behind her. Gerald clambered up the stairs, taking two at a time.

‘Nice throw,' Sam said, clapping Gerald on the back. Gerald bent at the waist, hands on knees to catch his breath. He glanced up at Sam. Stretching back behind him, the plastic curtain was suspended beneath the long inflated tubes. But just above Sam's shoulder there was something else, something that didn't look right. A jet of water shot out from the blue plastic and sprayed down over the paving below, a tiny fountain springing into the sunken city. It was as if the wall had sprung a…

‘Leak!' Gerald cried, pointing at the water jet, which was growing in intensity. ‘The bullet must have gone through.'

Before he could say another word, a panel in the sheeting burst inwards. The ocean gushed through the shredded opening with a roar. The four of them stood transfixed by the eruption of seawater. The pressure was immense; a torrent arched across the lane and smashed into a line of outer buildings, blasting the walls to rubble. The city was filling up like a soup bowl.

‘We need to get out of here,' Gerald said. They hadn't gone five steps when the next panel imploded. The inflated tube at the top detonated with an ear-shattering bang. A chain reaction set in. Tube after tube ruptured under the force of the water pressure. The curtain shredded as tonnes of water burst into the city.

They ran at full tilt along the top of the rock wall towards the shore. Alisha led the charge, the twins hard behind her. Gerald trailed. He still had one bare foot from his near drowning in the temple and the rocks along the top of the seawall were not designed for smooth running. He stumbled forward, his foot pounding the stones. Behind him the line of inflated tubes were going off like a string of cheap fireworks, the blasts showering his back in sea spray as he barely kept ahead of the advancing mayhem. The plastic dam flayed the air behind him like a blown-out spinnaker as the Bay of Bengal sought to reclaim its stolen treasure. The hot air pushed out by the disintegrating tubes blasted against Gerald's back driving him onward. But the rocks were taking their toll on his foot. No amount of adrenalin could mask the sharp edges cutting into his flesh. But he knew he couldn't slow down. The blasts behind him were getting closer. Ahead, Alisha was almost at the sand, and Ruby and Sam were seconds behind her. They launched off the seawall and scrambled up the dunes to higher ground.

Only fifty metres to go and he'd be with them, safe and laughing at their grand escape.

Just fifty metres.

His foot jagged on a rocky point and he stumbled.

The fates weren't done with him yet.

A sheet of plastic blew out behind him, picked him up in its folds and flung him cartwheeling into the roiling surf below.

Chapter 25

A
bsolute quiet. After the wind and the explosions and the snapping of the tattered plastic, Gerald was taken into the embrace of the ocean. He was rolled and cosseted and tossed for what seemed like forever. Gerald had been dumped in the surf before, countless times. He was used to curling his chin to his chest and letting the waves chew him up and spit him out—his head popping up into the air again, a little battered maybe—but nothing like this. He braced for the usual crunch against the bottom, hoping to take the impact on his shoulders. But it didn't come. An endless whirl of water twisted him over and over, lurching him forward with the promise of breaking the surface only to drag him back down. His chest screamed for air. His eyes popped open. Everything was black. Gerald flailed his arms, trying to find the way up, desperate for air. He had to breathe. He opened his mouth. Water rushed in. He couldn't stop himself; it was a reflex action. His chest expanded as his lungs filled…

With air. Warm salt-stained air swept across Gerald's face. His chin was on his chest when he was grabbed under the shoulders and dragged coughing and retching out of the surf. But he was breathing. Sam and Ruby pulled him up the dunes and he dropped onto the gritty blanket like a shipwreck survivor. Sam and Alisha plopped down next to him. Ruby had an arm around his shoulders. A round moon was high in the sky and under its light they watched as the waves spilled over the southern wall. The barge bobbed on the waves, its pumps silent.