The Tenth Saint (36 page)

A second guard entered. His jaws smacked as he chewed gum. “Boss wants to see you, Nate.”

The guard unhooked the small pewter vessel from his belt and spat into it. He stuffed everything into the backpack and carried it to the door. “I suggest you and Pretty Boy here think long and hard about it. I’ll be back in five minutes, and you better be ready to bargain ‘cause I’m in no mood for your British antics. You hear?”

She shot him a fiery look.

He slammed the door and locked it from the outside.

Daniel touched his cheek to hers, whispering into her ear so they would not be overheard. “Listen to me, Sarah. These guys mean business. Have you seen anything that looks like an exit?”

“I snuck into the bioreactor. But I don’t think …” She paused to recall the details of the room. One element in particular stood out in her mind. “These panels they’re growing the algae on—they were hanging above big troughs of water. Those have to drain somewhere.”

Daniel snapped his fingers. “That’s it. When they first brought me here, they held me in a room somewhere under this complex. I could hear pipes draining day and night. It was quite loud, like a lot of material was passing through.”

“So the water beneath the algae panels—”

“Is actually the waste product. Algae sludge spiked with carbon dioxide is being carried out of here.”

“Do you remember how to get there?”

”Yes. But it’ll be next to impossible. What’s this letter he was talking about?”

“It’s a medieval document corroborating Gabriel’s warning. Long story.”

“Where is it?”

“I can’t tell you.” She couldn’t risk being heard.

Footsteps approached.

“I’ve got an idea,” Daniel whispered. “Follow my lead.”

The door swung open, and two guards stood in the entry, arms crossed.

Nate spoke. “Well? What’s it going to be? Speak quickly ‘cause I ain’t got all day.”

“If we give you what you want,” Daniel said, “what’s in it for us?”

“Hand over the letter, and you’re free to go.”

“How do I know you’re not bluffing?”

“If we have this letter and a package en route from Ethiopia, we have no more need for you.”

They still think the package is coming. They don’t know the cross and codex have been intercepted.
She decided to keep that card hidden, even from Daniel.

“We have your word on that?”

“Scout’s honor.”

Daniel looked at Sarah. “Tell him where you dropped it.”

Sarah understood what Daniel was doing and played along. “It’s somewhere in the basement. I can take you there.”

“Well, all right. Let’s go.” He waved an open palm. “Ladies first.”

Sarah led the two armed men into a basement she knew nothing about, trying to look confident but in tatters inside. She didn’t know if she could pull this off. She glanced furtively at Daniel, who raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly. She felt reassured just knowing he was there.

As they stepped out into the corridor, Daniel signaled Sarah to turn left. After two more left turns and a long walk, they came to the entrance of another pod and took a staircase down. There must have been a thousand steps leading to this basement. The tomb chambers she had entered before seemed like shallow graves by comparison. The underground structure obviously housed something elaborate. She couldn’t shake the thought that there was a second bioreactor conducting separate experiments, hidden for a reason.

At the bottom of the stairs, they came to a doorway to a large space partitioned in mazelike fashion. Fluorescent lights hung in rows down the center, illuminating the center of the room and leaving the corners dim. She glanced at Daniel and got no signal in return. She could tell by his crumpled brow he was struggling to remember which way to go from here. She swallowed hard.

Nate broke the silence. “We’ve got to keep moving, lady. Let’s go; let’s go.”

“Just a minute,” she snapped. “I’m thinking.”

“Maybe this will remind you.” He drove his elbow into Daniel’s midsection, causing him to double over.

Sarah clenched her fists but didn’t lose her cool. She nodded toward the partitioned area. “This way.”

Though he didn’t question her, it was evident by his wide eyes that Daniel feared the worst.

Sarah didn’t have a plan but felt secure in her ability to negotiate twists and turns and remember where she was in relationship to the exit. It was a gamble, but it was all they had.

She led the way, with Daniel behind her and the two guards in tight formation bringing up the rear.

Daniel’s breath brushed the back of her neck. One long breath, followed by two short ones.

It was another code.

A pause, then three long breaths. Again. Then a short breath, a long one, and another short one.

Morse code.

Door.

At the opposite end of the maze was a big metal slab like the entrance to a vault. Before she could compute the meaning behind his message, he sent another. Short breath, long breath, short breath. Two short breaths and a long one. Long breath, short breath.

Run.

With a swift knee to the groin, Daniel incapacitated one guard.

Sarah launched into a sprint. Behind her, she could hear the men grappling. A gunshot sounded. Alarmed, she looked back.

Daniel struggled with the young guard, wrestling the weapon away from him. He pointed the revolver at the guard’s face. “Stay right there.” He turned to Nate. “You. Kick your weapon over to me.”

She exited the maze with relative ease and tried to find a way to open the massive portal.

Daniel emerged with his two captives.

“I think this is the place, Danny. Listen.”

A faint murmur could be heard through the thick concrete walls.

Daniel smiled. “All right, gents, what do you say you open that door for us?” He held the men’s own guns to their heads. “And don’t try anything funny.”

Nate punched the code into the keypad on the wall. A soft click indicated the door was unlocked. The other guard pulled the heavy metal handle until the door cracked open.

“Assholes first,” Daniel said. “I insist.”

Sarah and Daniel followed the guards inside and onto a metal platform above a sheer drop. The murmur they’d heard from the other side of the door was now a rhythmic drone as loud as a helicopter at full power. A spiral staircase with metal treads wound around a pole, leading to a floor so far down they could not even see it. In the cavernous space below was an elaborate network of pipes, twisting in several directions and crossing above each other like the ramps of a major urban freeway. The pipeline appeared to be carrying its cargo deep underground.

Sarah shouted above the roar, “What is this place?”

Nate spat toward her feet and scowled. “You’ll get nothing from me.”

Daniel pointed one of the guns between the eyes of Nate’s young partner, whose frightened expression betrayed his trepidation. “And what about you, son? You ready to sing?”

The guard stuttered incomprehensibly. His eyes were closed, sweat forming on his brow.

“Open your eyes,” Daniel shouted. “Look at me.”

The guard did, slightly, and inched toward the door. Daniel threw one of the guns to Sarah and grabbed the young guard with his free hand, dragging him toward the edge of the platform.

“All right,” the guard shouted. “All right. This is the sewer. Let me go. For God’s sake, please let me go.”

“Sewer? What kind of sewer? What’s going through these pipes?”

“Al-al-al-al—”

“Algae?”

”Yes.” His voice was panicked. “Let me go.”

Daniel released his arm.

That was all it took for the fear-crazed young guard to attack. He wrapped his hands around Daniel’s throat and squeezed.

Daniel dropped the gun, grabbing the guard’s wrists to break his grip.

Sarah aimed to fire but couldn’t risk hitting Daniel. Instinctively, she reached for the gun he’d dropped.

A forceful kick to her side sent her tumbling across the platform and onto her back. She jammed both heels toward Nate, but he intercepted them and turned her facedown. His knee dug into the small of her back, pinning her to the perforated metal floor. Through the holes, she could clearly see the network of pipes a hundred feet below. She would not survive a fall. Adrenaline surging, she rolled and dislodged the guard from her back. Her biceps burned as she tried in vain to hold him back.

Daniel had broken free of the other guard’s grip and held him over the platform rail. The young man, obviously overtaken by fear, wailed and vomited, collapsing on the floor.

Daniel ran to Sarah’s aid and grabbed Nate in a choke hold. “Sarah, run!”

She wasn’t going anywhere without him. The noise was overwhelming. She saw his mouth form the words, “Get out now.”

Sarah darted out of the room and into the maze, looking behind her as she ran. Thoughts of the carnage in the maze at Yemrehana Krestos crossed her mind, adding to her terror. Her mouth was dry, and sweat drenched her shirt. She had been afraid many times but never like this.

There was no sign of Daniel.

She couldn’t lose him.

When she looked back again, he was there but not alone. “Danny, behind you!”

Nate was in pursuit, but Daniel was too swift for the lumbering, overweight guard. Daniel gained ground, leaving Nate well behind.

Nearing the exit, he yelled, “There’s a short cut. The freight elevator. Down that corridor to your right.”

Sarah nodded and ran in that direction. By the time she called the elevator down, Daniel was at her side. The two stepped inside and pressed the up button, embracing tightly the entire time it took to travel from the basement to the ground floor.

Her father’s Dassault Falcon 900 was the only jet parked at the airstrip outside of town. Sleek and more expensive than the fanciest house in town, it was the kind of plane folks didn’t see much in these parts, where turbo props were considered high-tech aviation.

Sarah had never been so relieved to get on a plane. She collapsed on a leather seat and buried her face in an ice-cold towel.

Daniel motioned to the flight attendant and asked for a double bourbon, up. Branford Spencer, the Westons’ private pilot for more than twenty years, approached. Removing his cap to reveal a head full of white hair, he spoke in a gentle voice Sarah had come to associate with stability and safety. “Good evening, miss, sir. Shall I set a course for Heathrow, then?”

“Not quite yet, Branford,” she said. “We’re going to make a detour to New York.”

“Very well, miss. Shall I phone ahead to the Plaza and see if your apartment is available?”

“Yes, that would be lovely.”

Daniel turned to her. “You have an apartment at the Plaza? You are just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

She laughed. “You have no idea.”

He took a big gulp of his bourbon. “So what’s next?”

“Next, we beat them at their own game.”

Thirty

T
he Oceanus headquarters was on the first K- floor of an anonymous glass building in downtown Manhattan. The lobby was clean, sterile almost. Sarah sat in one of the four sleek black leather and chrome chairs. Daniel, now shaven and wearing the respectable clothes procured for him by the Plaza’s concierge, walked to the front desk.

The young receptionist recognized him right away. “Oh my God, you’re that anthropologist from TV. Daniel Madigan, right?”

The plan was working. He put on his most charming southern drawl. “Now, how’d you know that?”

She blushed and pushed a lock of hair behind one ear. “Well, I watch you all the time. I loved your show about the Queen of Sheba. That part about her being a temptress? I could listen to you all day long.”

”Yes, this is a fascinating business. I’ll tell you all about it sometime. But, hey, darlin’, I’m actually here to see Mr. Stuart Ericsson. I’d love to talk to him about participating in one of my shows.”