Desmond turned to him, his voice hard. “I suggest you stop with the constant threats. They’re meaningless to me. You obviously have something going on with your sister, so why don’t you take it up with her?”
Ari squinted. “Don’t be as ass. There’s nothing going on with her. I just don’t like guys who can’t keep it in their pants when they’re around her.”
“Then maybe you should have done the job with her yourself and none of this would have happened,” he murmured. “Or maybe you would have screwed it up even further, with her writhing on top of you without her underwear on? She does have a way of being very… persuasive.”
Ari gripped his hands into fists and took a threatening step towards Desmond, but when Desmond didn’t back down, he moved to the other side of the room, helping Seung pull out various boxes and gear.
Out of the corner of his eye, Desmond watched Kelsey remove a wig and hat from the closet--the same one he noticed she had worn for the Miami job. She placed it on her head, covering her braid, then rummaged inside another bin before turning to the mirror.
“Desmond, put these on,” Julia said, kindly, handing him a tight, curly blond wig and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.
Seung brought two carry-on bags over to a table against the far wall and they all crowded around.
He started organizing the equipment they would need for a very advanced undercover mission. Out came a GPS tracker, a pair of night-vision goggles, flashlights, transmitters and extra magazines for their guns.
Kelsey put on a lightweight blue blouse with multiple pockets and started storing some of the supplies in her shirt. She stored her unloaded gun, the goggles and a small laptop computer in her carry-on bag. They’d declare their guns to the TSA agents when they got to the airport.
They handed Desmond a shirt of his own, filling it with spare magazines, a small flashlight, and the Garmin GPS receiver. They stowed his bag with two of the smallest sleeping bags he had ever seen, each folded up to the size of his palm.
“Are we camping out?” he asked.
Dennis piped up, adding energy and protein bars to their supplies. “Most likely. Raul’s drug operations are run in the middle of the forest and when he’s there, it’s usually for a week at a time. But, he’s taken the map with him, so we believe he’s more than likely going to be headed to the nearby Buddhist monastery. Remember, these sleeping bags are built for two and biodegradable. Use it once and then crumple it up and bury it. Eventually it’ll just disappear.”
“Did you say Buddhist monastery?” Desmond asked. “I didn’t think there were any monasteries in South America other than the single one in Brazil.”
Everyone stared at Kelsey, their resident Buddhist expert.
“They just opened this one a month ago,” she said quietly, checking the inside of her bag. “It’s the only other one in the country and they come from a sect in Tibet that worked directly with the members of the Bodhidharma Monastery, so we can be sure Raul is going to go there and try to get them to give him some answers.”
Ari spoke up as he brought canteens over to them. He shoved Desmond aside. “Kelsey, there’s a good chance you’ll have to intervene, because if Raul doesn’t get what he wants, he’ll probably kill them. There’s no way they’ll be able to protect themselves.”
Julia handed Kelsey her passport. Then they all glanced at Desmond questioningly. He put his hand in his pocket and held his up. “Once I saw Raul leave, I thought I might need it.”
Chapter 17
RAUL
The first class cabin was richly appointed with video flat-screens, plush carpeting and wide cream-colored leather bucket seats that converted into beds. A sexy stewardess who could have posed for Playboy handed out beverages.
She offered him his cognac and scooted away. She had smiled pleasantly, but it was plastic and seemingly painted on her face. He knew she was terrified of him, as she should be. Everyone was scared of him, and that’s how he liked it. He took this flight regularly and his reputation was well known. He didn’t get to where he was by letting people walk all over him. Kill or be killed was his motto. No witnesses.
Raul Salazar held up the glass of Pierre Ferrand, admiring the tawny brown color. He twirled the liquid in the thick, tulip-shaped cup and sniffed it. The spicy aromas of licorice, ginger, caramel and vanilla permeated his senses. He took a sip and leaned back, thinking about the box in the overhead bin. The box that held the secrets to the land of Xanadu, a world of riches meant for him alone.
He remembered when he first learned about Xanadu and had realized the mystical land was actually real. At the age of twenty-five, he was working the streets and met a monk who had been kicked out of the order because of his addiction to crack cocaine. He would sell everything he ever owned for another score of the drug and Raul was only too willing to comply. Quickly moving up the chain of command as the United States emissary to the Colombian drug trade, he was already building up a fierce reputation. No one went against him.
When the monk no longer had any money to pay for his fix, he made a desperate plea to Raul. He would tell him a secret of a place that held riches and powers beyond belief. Raul didn’t believe him until the man started speaking. It was then Raul plied him with drugs to get him to tell him all he knew.
* * * * *
“Please, Señor,” the young monk begged, scratching his skin. “I beg of you. If you give me some, I’ll tell you a secret my order has been protecting for centuries. It’s a powerful secret.”
“A secret? What type of secret?” Raul was not normally a curious man, but powerful things always intrigued him.
“There’s a land called Xanadu, a mystical land that the Buddhist Monks protect. They say an ancient secret order in Tibet holds scrolls and maps to this land. I can tell you more about them if you will simply provide me my fix.”
Raul did. For the next few days, he provided the monk daily hits of cocaine, watched the high he achieved, listened as he told of a land beyond beauty, cities made of gold, fantastical animals and mythical creatures. A hidden world that held riches to claim for those who could simply find a way to get there. He listened until he had learned all the monk knew. Then, he watched him crash, relishing the way he begged for his fix.
Then he killed him.
The next week he was on a plane to Tibet and began his quest to find Xanadu. The monk had said there was a monastery at the base of Mount Abora and that in order to travel through the land, he would have to bribe the Chinese officials to roam Tibet freely. That wasn’t going to be a problem. Raul was comfortable in a world where anything could be had for the right amount of money, including access to places others normally couldn’t go.
Raul traveled far and wide, visiting many monasteries, some closed, some secreted, threatening them all, but he didn’t find what he sought. Then, at the Bodhidharma Monastery, he found a couple with a daughter, who were also searching for the land of Xanadu. They helped the monks and while he didn’t know what their reward would be, he could wait them out, monitor them, and find out what they had discovered.
For a year, he did. He watched them surreptitiously, waited until they had transcribed some discs and were given a map. The Map! The one that would lead him to Xanadu.
It had been so easy. While based in New York, he had Sherpa’s working for him, spying on the couple. As soon as it was known the map was found, he went straight to Tibet with his men. He attacked the monks and took their disc and then dealt with the stupid Americans. They held the map to a valuable land in their little hut in the woods with no security and no weapons. Apparently, even the Chinese military didn’t know they were there. He smiled as he remembered murdering them both and defiling their daughter. He vaguely wondered if she had lived. Probably not, and he didn’t care.
Right after that, he discovered the Porter’s had given one of the discs to a visiting American who had brought it back to The United States with him. It was easy to locate him and dispose of those who knew t
oo much. He took the disc, not caring at all that he killed innocent men. All he cared about was being the only one in the world who now had both the discs and the map. It was his lifelong quest to decode them and find Xanadu. Once he did, he would be powerful beyond belief. He didn’t believe Coleridge’s poem, Kubla Khan, was simply created from an opium-induced dream. Coleridge must have gotten the information from somewhere because if it were just a dream, why would the monks be hiding it? If you took the words in the poem literally, “a sacred river and powerful fountain,” then it meant there were incredible riches to be had, possibly the true fountain of youth. When he finally found this land, he’d dominate it like he dominated everything else in his life and he’d truly become the most formidable man in the world. No one could ever touch him.
The problem was, how to get there? None of his people could decode anything on the discs yet. The American had encrypted them somehow. Only once had one of the analysts been able to even read a small decoded copy and the words were still unintelligible. Raul had been enraged when it happened and nearly shot the man, but the man had begged for mercy and gave him clues as to how to get the information he needed. Go to the other monasteries, question the other monks, see what secrets they might still be hiding.
First, he went back to the Bodhidharma monastery, but they told him nothing. They had now hired Shaolin Monks to protect them and after a week of attacks, they forced him out. Many of the monks from that particular monastery fled to other temples around the world. He tracked a small cloister to Africa, but they still kept their silence, so he murdered them. He attacked six more Buddhist temples around the world in twelve years, and it had yielded him nothing.
* * * * *
He took another sip of cognac, the taste suddenly bitter and put it down, rubbing his scarred cheeks with his hands. They itched when he was stressed or frustrated, and now he was both. Someone was out to take his prize. For years after he had first acquired the map, things were steadily being worked on, visiting monasteries, decoding the discs, decoding the map, creating the box to house it in. Then, four years ago the killings began. First his cousin, Ramone, had been murdered while on vacation in the Bahamas. He was found naked in his bed with a gunshot to his temple and burns riddling fifty percent of his body. The autopsy report showed the burns had been inflicted while he was still alive. A year later it was Chico, killed in his home in East Hampton and beaten so badly it took dental records to identify him. They say the attacker took a bat to his face and entire body. Every single bone had been broken. He’d been tied up when they found him. Again, the autopsy results indicated he’d been alive as the killer bludgeoned him to death, bit by torturous bit.
There were no witnesses for either murder, and no note, but Raul had a gut feeling their deaths were connected to him, to the map, and to the murders of the American couple and their child in Tibet. Both men had been with him at the time and were now dead. He had learned to trust his gut over the years and it had yet to steer him wrong. But who could have done it? There had been no witnesses.
It was then the rest of them went even further underground. Juan took his family to Mexico and hid away in a remote coastal town. Ricardo moved to Miami into a heavily guarded estate. Only Raul remained where he was. He wasn’t afraid of anyone. Let them come.
Six months before Juan was found floating face down in his swimming pool, a nylon cord wrapped around his neck. His home had been robbed.
It was not long after that Ricardo had been killed. Raul felt his rage starting to build again. Like a white hot flame obscuring all rational thought, the rage had the all-consuming ability to overtake him. It made him want to kill, to destroy, to annihilate. Ricardo had been his right-hand man and best friend, but at least now they had a lead as to who had been doing this.
A stinking woman.
Ricardo and his two bodyguards were attacked by a young blond who had the audacity to confront and kill him in his own home and then take one of the discs. How the hell she even knew about them concerned him. If she knew about the discs and knew about the murders of the Americans abroad, then he had to assume she’d be coming after him next. Maybe she knew about the second disc, maybe she even knew about the map. How she knew was beyond him.
He wasn’t worried about being attacked and killed, himself. He glanced around the first class cabin, three other seats taken by his bodyguards. Let the bitch come. He’d take her in every way imaginable, and then let his guards have their way, before he slit her throat.
He took another sip, trying to calm himself. All she had was a single disc and the real prize still sat above his head. The remaining disc was back in his safe. A safe which had been compromised by another young girl, a prostitute no less, who had assaulted his men only days before to get money for her own fix. Taking his necklace, the money and bars of coke, she had left the disc and his paperwork, never realizing the real prize she overlooked. Fine, let her have those other trinkets. Stupid bitch.
He closed his eyes, picturing the map in his mind. He had stared at it for years and every detail was etched in his brain. For the past decade, he’d tried to find anyone who could make heads or tails of it. All anyone could say was that it was a perfect replica of the landscape surrounding Mount Abora in relation to the Bodhidharma Monastery and the adjacent countryside. But that’s where any knowledge ended. In every margin and written between the topography were words inscribed all over the map. Words that were unintelligible and unlike a language any linguist had ever heard of before.
So, now he was off to Colombia to confront a new set of monks at the recently erected Chi Wong Po Monastery which had opened just five miles from his base of operations. The proximity and obscurity of the location astounded him. Maybe his luck was turning. He’d demand they translate the map for him, and if they didn’t, he’d kill them. He was done playing games.
He quieted his mind, breathing deeply, and absentmindedly toyed with the key that hung around his neck. He was trying to understand why things were getting so out of control.
He rubbed his face, feeling the scars that were a constant reminder of letting a woman once get the best of him. The anger grew again and he breathed deeply. He was just stressed with the death of Ricardo. He remembered Ricardo’s call after Juan’s death. He’d been so scared.
* * * * *
“Raul, someone is coming after us. Someone knows about what we did in Tibet.”
“And what did we do in Tibet, Ricardo?” Raul said. “What did we do that was any different than what we do every day? Kill a bunch of stupid Americans? Big fucking deal. What, you think, their ghosts are after us?”
“No,” Ricardo had said. “But someone is. Someone who might know about what we did to all those monks and that family, or someone who knows about the map.”
“Don’t you worry about the map. I’ve got it locked up tight, the only key kept around my neck. I’ve got one disc, you’ve got the other. You just remember the riches we’ll get when we find that land. You hear me?”
“I hear you, Raul.”
“Good, don’t worry. There’s no way anyone is going to be able to get to you.”
* * * * *
Well, he would find the one responsible and destroy her. Then things would go back to normal. His mind turned to that recent night at Garters when he had blacked out. So unlike him to not remember anything that happened.
He did remember the hot young thing he had kissed. Those dark blue eyes and that amazing ass. Everything had been perfect, right down to her man watching--then nothing. He took another sip of his cognac, knocking back the contents and grimacing. He knew something had happened because he’d woken up undressed with her lipstick stains on his clothes and her perfume in his hair. Still, he would have liked to have remembered fucking her.
The stewardess returned, her plastic smile frozen on her face. “Another drink, Senor Salazar? Anything else I can get for you?”
“No, just get the hell out of here and leave me alone. I’ll call you
when I need you.” She flinched, but obediently backed away without another word.
Let the bitch flinch. He’d bang her in the bathroom before the flight was over and shove a year’s worth of salary in her underwear as thanks. More than enough money to silence her.
Chapter 18
DREAMS
Kelsey woke with a start, staring wide-eyed around her with her hands in mid-flutter in her lap. She sat in the aisle seat next to two elderly Spanish women who chatted and knit baby blankets. Pink and aqua-colored yarn spilled from their ample laps and onto the floor.
She glanced across the aisle. Desmond stared at her curiously through his wire rimmed glasses, his eyebrows raised questioningly.
She ignored him, laid her head back on her seat and closed her eyes, keeping her hands balled into tight fists. She didn’t want him to know anything about this part of her life, but wasn’t sure how long she was going to be able to hide it.
The dreams had been coming more frequently. Even in little catnaps, they made their appearance, as if her subconscious was trying to sabotage her.
This time, she flew through the air on Ishu, racing to the sanctuary to save the Emperor and Empress. The sky was filled with warriors like herself, whose only mission was to rid the world against the blackness streaking across the sky. Yet, in this dream, the blackness was closer, with the dark malignancy spreading out not just over Tedanalee, but across the entire land. Soon it would overtake the world and the beauty and secrecy of this land would no longer exist. The dream switched and she was again privy to another senseless murder. She watched three men storm the shack of a young family from a small town in Kenya. Watched helplessly as they ripped a two-year old girl from her screaming mother’s arms. They brought the child out to the savanna and threw her into the middle of a den of wild dogs. In moments, the toddler had been torn to shreds. Her name had been… Halima. Yes, Halima.
The Hunt for Xanadu Page 12
