Traversing the tiny island was an arduous job. Preston and Claudia were relatively healthy, but neither was accustomed to the rigors of a relic hunt, and certainly not to the kind of hike required for this one. Lloyd, Sydney, and Nigel were in various stages of recovery from physical trauma. With the additional constraints of climbing through semi-darkness over an inundating, unforgiving path, they made precious little progress in just over two hours. When the moon finally set, they were forced to stop. Brilliant though they were, the millions of stars strewn across the midnight skies weren’t enough to illuminate the landscape. Neither could the relic-hunting team risk using flashlights and alerting the enemy of their presence.
Preston volunteered to stand first watch and Claudia piped up immediately that she wasn’t tired and would be more than happy to keep him company.
Nigel shrugged, figuring there was no accounting for tastes – in either case – and he was more than happy for whatever respite their blossoming romance offered him. He ached from head to toe, and was more tired than he could ever recall being. From what little he could see, Sydney looked like she was about to topple over, too, and Lloyd was operating on automatic pilot, barely able to go through the motions of putting one foot in front of the other.
They camped out beneath the trees, their only bed the rocky, compacted soil. Nigel stretched out in the dirt, flicking away a bug that lit on his arm and blinking when Sydney moved in next to him. While she didn’t actually touch him, there was an inexplicable and undeniable territoriality to her presence. They were partners and friends and would continue to stand together – even lying down, if need be! He closed both eyes, then opened one, catching sight of Lloyd moving to Sydney’s other side.
Nigel sighed. It made sense, really. They needed to stay together. But by the same token, Nigel smiled when Sydney turned toward him, her back to Lloyd.
"Night, Nige," Sydney murmured through a yawn. "Don’t worry, about it tonight, okay? We’ll figure it out in the morning." Whether she reached for his hand or to pat him on the head like a puppy, Nigel wasn’t sure. All he saw was that she reached for him and fell asleep midway. Her hand dropped to his chest, palm-up.
Not knowing what else to do, Nigel cupped his hand over hers and closed his eyes.
Breakfast was a double gulp of water from a battered canteen and a fistful of a native berries that Sydney insisted were safe to eat. Nigel didn’t argue, all things considered, though his stomach was rumbling out a protest at the moment. He brushed away a low-hanging tree branch, inadvertently flinging its hidden snake a few hundred yards away. He wondered absently if it was poisonous.
Glancing from one companion to another, Nigel decided that they had to be one of the most ragged teams ever assembled. Sydney’s normal relic-hunting costume of fitted black jeans and stretch shirt had seen better days. Its fabric was torn here and there to reveal where thorns and brush bit into her skin. Dark circles beneath her eyes betrayed the strain of the past few days. It seemed like a lifetime, but in reality, it was only about three weeks since the conference in the U.S. At least, Nigel thought it was only about three weeks. He wasn’t sure exactly how long he’d been captive in the Viper’s lair.
Lloyd looked a little better today than the day before. Not that it was saying much. The abrasive agent moved like a robot, jerking his limbs with each step. Lloyd had taken off his tee shirt and tied it around his head, in the course exposing the mass of injuries he’d received at the hands of the Viper. Deep, nearly black bruises showed blows to his ribs, abdomen, and kidneys. Seeing the horrible damage up close, Nigel was overwhelmed by guilt. He’d been kidnapped and drugged, but not beaten like Lloyd had been. Why? What perversion of fate said that Lloyd be on the receiving end of such brutality, while Nigel walked away relatively unscathed? Was it because he’d become ill? Was it because the Viper considered him too important in finding the relic? Was it because the killer thought a milquetoast Englishman was too inconsequential?
Preston was stumbling along, and Claudia was walking two steps behind, mumbling in her sleep. They hadn’t taken the first watch, they’d taken the only watch of the night. As generous as that was on the surface, Nigel worried that it could come back to haunt them later. He knew instinctively that they’d need all their faculties to get out of this alive, Viper or no Viper.
In daylight, the team made better time. While the island was no more than a couple of kilometers or so across, it was easily fifteen times that in length. They were careful to stay in the relative shelter of the wooded interior, hoping that the tree canopy would be adequate to conceal their march. By mid afternoon, they reached the location that Lloyd had circled on this enhanced satellite map. The lower portion of the cliffs rose nearly perpendicular to the ground, shadowy green basalt that spoke of a volcanic past. They were standing on a modest shelf about halfway up from the island floor. And there was no sign of a cave, nor of Ichriem.
Nigel kicked at the gravel underfoot. Mixed with the crumbled basalt were bits of obsidian, the volcanic glass that occurred only when lava was cooled too fast for crystals to form. Some of the smaller pieces were tumbled and worn to a smooth finish. In the Southwestern US the smooth obsidian pebbles were called Apache tears, for a legend of an Indian couple who threw themselves off a cliff to their deaths because they were denied a life together. The stones looked glossy black from a distance, becoming crystal-clear when held up to a light source.*
More useless facts, Nigel reminded himself, resisting the urge to collect a few of the stones and heave them at the unrelenting sun. He settled for tossing one of the obsidian chips against the cliff, listening for the chink of stone-to-stone. Except when the rock connected, there was a slightly different tone than he was expecting.
He stared, moving next to the wall and flattening his hand over its weathered surface. God… The color and texture blended perfectly into the surroundings, but up close, its translucent surface gave it away. He was too shocked to be excited. "Sydney…" he asked, "How big a hunk of glass d’you suppose we’re looking for, anyway?" He stepped back, trying to calculate where the rough slag ended and the mountain began.
"I dunno. It would probably depend on how much they had. The Phoenicians had to melt it down and pour it over the statue, which presumably was encased in some kind of clay. But they would have been limited. They wouldn’t have had the kind of equipment to do a massive glass manufacture like what the big companies have today." She was standing close by and looking more than a little nervous. "Nigel…"
"Wanna bet?" he asked, stepping back still further.
"Whoa!" Sydney dashed forward and caught his arm, yanking him forward. "You have a death wish?? Watch where you’re going!" She grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him around to see the step he’d nearly taken, one that would have dropped him over a precipice. "What the hell are you doing?"
For his reply, he pointed straight ahead. "It’s right there. We’re sitting right on it, and you can’t see it unless you know what you’re looking for. But it’s enormous. I don’t think we’re going to break the glass with more rocks. What if we came all this way for nothing?"
He saw the comprehension dawn in her face, a clear picture of what they were up against. Like the Egyptians, they could see it, but they couldn’t touch the statue.
A second later there was a hoarse cry from Lloyd. "No!" he shouted. "It’s a damned massacre!" The agent had dropped to all fours on the lip of the rocky floor, his face twisted in horror.
The rest of the tiny party followed Lloyd’s stare. From their vantage, they could see as a contingent of agents swarmed over the place where the Gural Nataz had been digging. But the Gural Nataz wasn’t there. The guerrillas were perched above the pit, standing or squatting on ledges and ridges, their weapons trained on the unsuspecting good guys. It didn't take much to figure out what they planned.
Sydney gasped, "We’ve got to do something!"
"What can we do?" Nigel challenged, frustration tearing a hole in his midsection. "We’re too far away to shout out a warning, and we’d only get ourselves shot, anyway. They’re too far away for us to shoot them, and we can’t get there before it’s too late. It would take us at least a couple of hours to reach them, even if we could take them on!" Nigel was caught up in the macabre scene, unable to tear his eyes away even while knowing if he didn’t that it would haunt him for the rest of his life. He was about to watch dozens of men and women slaughtered like lambs, and there was nothing he could do about it.
"What about Ichriem?"
Nigel whirled at the sound of his brother’s voice. "Preston, the damned statue can wait! Those people are about to be murdered in cold blood."
"No, Podge, I don’t mean that! What if it’s true about the statue? About its power? What if two of us are soul mates and could use Ichriem to stop the massacre?"
End of Part Forty Nine
Go to Part Fifty.