by Alex Archer
"Good enough for me. I'm ready to order." Annja's stomach rumbled as she looked at McIntosh.
"Me, too. Start and I'll catch up." McIntosh gave the menu a cursory glance.
Annja stuck with breakfast, ordering eggs over easy, hash browns with onions and cheese and jalapeños, toast, biscuits and gravy, sides of sausage and bacon and a pecan waffle. She also asked for milk and orange juice.
The server glanced at her in surprise.
"She's not shy, is she?" McIntosh asked.
"I was going to ask how you afford to keep her." The server took McIntosh's order, collected the menus and retreated.
Annja took her notebook computer from her backpack, placed it on the table and powered it up. "You're buying," she said.
"Why?"
"Because I'm down here as a freebie, and Homeland Security has deep pockets these days. Otherwise, we don't talk."
"As long as we talk, then." McIntosh looked at the computer screen.
The screensaver showed a crude drawing of a female warrior holding a spear while standing atop a wall. She wore a gold crown and was adorned with gold bracelets and a necklace of cat's teeth, either leopard or lion. Annja had never found out which.
McIntosh pointed at the screen. "Who's that?"
"Queen Amina. Or Aminatu, depending on your source material. She was queen of Zazzau during the last part of the sixteenth century. She led her troops in battle and negotiated – at the business end of a spear – safe passage for all her trade caravans."
"I've never heard of her. Or Zazzau."
"I hadn't, either, until I went to Nigeria."
"So as an archaeologist, you don't know about all of history?"
"Do you know about every murder that took place in Atlanta? Last year?"
"I suppose that is a lot to know."
"I've got an ongoing education. It's better to accept that and move forward."
"What were you doing in Nigeria?"
"The same kind of work I'm doing here." Annja frowned. "But what I was studying wasn't the same. While I was there, I was studying the culture of a fierce, dynamic people who dominated parts of the trans-Atlantic trade routes. Here, I'm helping Professor Hallinger find out who those murder victims were."
"I thought they were slaves trying to flee along the Underground Railroad."
"They were. But they were also Hausa."
McIntosh nodded toward the stone. "That's what the stone tells you?"
"Partly. Also the signs on their weapons and some of the copper bracelets they wore. They were slaves. I don't know how long they had been in the United States. But they kept the Hausa ways in spite of their circumstances."
"How old is that stone?" McIntosh asked.
"I'll have to do some tests on it, but I think it was around a hundred years old when it went into that furnace room."
"That makes it between two and three hundred years old."
Annja nodded.
"What is the stone? Some kind of religious icon?"
"No. It's more like a – " Annja hesitated. "A book," she said.
"I guess they didn't believe in light reading material."
McIntosh's quick, offhand dismissal of what the people in that furnace room had accomplished offended Annja. She pinned him with her gaze. "Do you know much about what a slave's life was like during those years?"
"Only what they teach you in high school," he said.
"Have you ever seen slavery? Been in countries where it still exists to this day?"
"No."
"Then don't act like this is a joke. Generations of people lived hard, small lives filled with fear, oppression and abuse."
McIntosh looked at her. "Hey, I can tell I touched a nerve here. I apologize. I didn't mean to do that."
Annja forced herself to take a deep breath. "It's not you. It was being down there with those bodies today. Not all slaves were treated harshly, but those people were. Most of those bodies in the furnace room showed fracture lines where their arms and legs had been broken. Several of them were missing fingers. The smallest skeleton down there, a boy maybe twelve or thirteen, was missing half a foot. The cut through the bone was clean."
"An accident?"
"No. Slaves who ran off usually got hobbled in some way. One of those ways was to chop off half a foot or the whole foot. I'd bet that's what happened to him."
McIntosh grimaced. "Not exactly breakfast conversation."
"You didn't bring me here for breakfast conversation." Annja didn't feel sorry for having said what she did. "I didn't come here for breakfast conversation."
The server returned with their drinks.
"What I'm trying to point out is the incredible risks those men – or whoever was responsible – took in hiding this stone." Annja reached into her backpack and brought out her digital camera. She quickly hooked the camera up to the notebook computer through a USB connection.
"What are you doing?" McIntosh asked.
"I'm going to post a few of the pictures I took today on a few of the newsgroups I'm a member of."
A troubled look tightened McIntosh's face. "I don't know if I should allow that."
Annja focused on him, unsheathing some of the anger that roiled through her. "Do you know what this record represents?"
McIntosh let out a breath. "No."
"Neither do I. Posting pictures on these newsgroups is one of the avenues I have open to me. Evidently this stone is interesting to you and Homeland Security or you wouldn't be here."
"I'm sure we have experts who could look at that stone and decipher it," he said.
"If you had someone who could do that, or one of your supervisors thought it was necessary, you'd have already taken the stone," Annja said.
McIntosh said nothing.
"You're not here because of the stone, are you?"
After a brief pause, McIntosh shook his head.
Annja studied him. "If it wasn't the stone, it must have been the men. They moved like military men. Soldiers." She let that last thought hang.
McIntosh didn't go for the bait.
"You know who they are. But you don't know what brought them here," she said, trying another approach.
Shifting uncomfortably, McIntosh folded his arms and leaned back. "You're way too good at this."
"It's just a process of elimination. I'm in a field where I have to make educated guesses about things that happened hundreds and thousands of years ago. By comparison to millions of years of history, the present-day political atmosphere is a piece of cake. Something about those men made you – or Homeland Security – paranoid. If you want to know what I know, we need to talk."
"This is a sensitive issue," McIntosh said.
"One of the students was shot tonight." Thankfully, Annja had been told he would recover. "I'd say that was pretty serious."
"Have you ever heard of a man named Tafari?" McIntosh asked.
Annja started to say no, but then a vague whisper of memory tugged at her. "I heard the name while I was in Nigeria. He's into black market goods and drugs, I think."
"How do you know that?" McIntosh's eyebrows knitted.
"Look," Annja said, "you can ask me questions with the hope of getting information or of confirming your paranoia. But you can't do both. If you want information, it's going to be a two-way street. If you're just interested in making yourself paranoid, I'm just going to eat breakfast."
"All right. Information, then." McIntosh put his elbows on the table and pressed his hands together. His eyes never stopped roving, but they never neglected Annja, either. "Tafari isn't just a guy into black market goods and drugs. That's actually the tip of the iceberg. He's a warlord. One of the most feared in the area."
The title warlord wasn't just thrown around in Africa. Even before she'd gone there, Annja had known that parts of the continent were torn apart by the existence of what were basically feudal rulers. They were hard men driven by their own desires and needs.
"You're familiar with this k
ind of man?"
Annja shook her head. "I've never met one of them. But I've heard stories."
"Whatever you've heard, it's worse." McIntosh turned to the briefcase, flipped through the combination lock and took a thick file from inside. He opened the file on the table, using one side to block all other views.
Annja stared at the cruel face featured in the top picture. It was a waist-up shot of a powerful-looking African with beads and shells in his hair. He held an unfiltered cigarette to his lips. Blue-black tribal tattooing marked his skin, as did scars from past wounds. He wore a khaki BDU festooned with grenades and knives.
"Tafari?" Annja asked.
"Yeah." McIntosh's eyes never moved from the man's face. "This guy is a stone killer. If he decided that he didn't like you, if there was a buck to be made in the deal, he'd kill you in a heartbeat."
Annja watched as the Homeland Security agent flipped through other photographs. All of them were graphic and in full color.
"We want him for crimes against Americans." McIntosh tapped a picture that showed three dead men lying at the side of a dirt road. "Tafari has killed tourists, as well as relief workers. England wants him for the same thing. Even the United Nations wants him taken off the board."
As Annja watched, more pictures of gruesome murders were quietly turned over, building a stack in no time. "I get that he's a killer. But what does that have to do with me?" she asked.
"Not you." McIntosh flipped through the photographs and pulled one out. The photo was obviously a police mug shot, showing the man full face and in profile. "Recognize him?"
"No."
"His name is Nwankwo Ehigiator. He was one of the men in Dack Tatum's group."
"The men who invaded the dig site?"
"That's right."
Annja shook her head. "I don't know him. I don't know Dack Tatum, either." But there was something about the name that sounded familiar.
"Dack Tatum is Christian Tatum's brother."
The name struck a chord. "Christian Tatum owned the warehouse where the bodies were found," Annja said.
"At one time. From what I got from Ehigiator, Dack was here because of his brother. Until tonight, Christian had evidently been entertaining dreams of political office. Unfortunately, the Atlanta police have taken him into custody at this point and he's being charged with conspiracy to commit murder."
"Christian Tatum sent his brother to blow up the warehouse?" Annja couldn't believe it.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"The arresting officer who took Tatum from his home said that he was there with a journal. They're going over it now. It belonged to one of the Tatum ancestors."
"Jedidiah?" Annja asked. "Jedidiah Tatum built and owned the textile mill."
"Horace," McIntosh said. He flipped through his notebook. Annja noticed the pages were covered with a strong, neat hand. "He was Jedidiah's son. The old man beat the kid and made him work with the slaves in the fields. As a result, the kid hated the slaves. He found the group in the furnace under the textile mill and dynamited them. His father nearly killed him because it destroyed the old furnace and caused a cave-in. But by that time the new system had already been built. Jedidiah decided to leave the furnace room buried to cover up his son's crime."
The cold-blooded act shocked Annja even though she'd seen the blasted remnants in the room. "Why did Horace do it?"
"To get back at the escaped slaves."
"For escaping? That doesn't make sense. He could have told his father."
McIntosh shrugged. "I don't know the particulars. Horace was eleven. You find a kid that age who's homicidal, generally they don't think much past the next thing on their list. If they have a list."
"Can I see that journal?" Annja asked.
The federal agent hesitated.
"It might help me identify the people in that furnace room."
"I'll see if I can make that happen," he said.
"You still want the translation from the stone. I can make that happen," Annja said.
McIntosh smiled. "Done. I'll have the book here by morning."
The waitress arrived with platters of food and quickly served it. Annja and McIntosh forgot about conversation for a moment while they dealt with the meal.
****
"Christian Tatum wanted to blow up the building in case any evidence about his ancestor's murder still existed," McIntosh said as he pushed his empty plate away. "The building was sold during the Depression. I don't think anyone thought much about it after it was boarded up in the 1970s. Then the bodies were found. So Christian Tatum called his brother."
Annja sat back in the booth. Her eyes kept straying to the stone covered in Hausa writing. Her brain picked at words here and there. She wanted to go back to her hotel room and work.
"Homeland Security got interested in what was happening here because of the other man you identified. Ehigiator. Who is he?" Annja asked.
"Ehigiator is a mercenary, like Dack Tatum. Professional soldier for hire. He's been linked to Tafari on several occasions."
"You think Tafari sent him to join Tatum's group of mercenaries?"
"No. Ehigiator has been with Dack Tatum's group for the past year and a half. During that time, Ehigiator has worked several solo assignments for Tafari. Assassinations of police and political figures who have pursued him or who have gone into the bush in an effort to get the villages he preys on to stand against him. We know Tafari was interested in something at the site because one of the snitches we use brought us that information."
"But you don't know what it was?"
"Not precisely, no. However, we do know that Tafari is interested in West African artifacts. The snitch who contacted us told us that Ehigiator had been offered a bonus by Tafari if he could recover the Spider Stone."
"Was Dack Tatum working with him?"
"No. Christian Tatum also wanted the stone."
"Do Christian Tatum and Tafari know each other?" Annja asked.
"We don't think so."
"Dack Tatum came after the stone. Otherwise he'd have blown that building apart." With us in it, Annja thought. She shivered a little when she realized how close the dig personnel had come to getting killed.
"We think he wanted it for his brother. Christian Tatum's notes in his ancestor's journals alluded to a treasure that's connected with the stone."
Annja thought about that. Many maps and artifacts came with legends and stories attached to them that suggested treasures could be found if the secret could be unlocked. Most if not all of those myths and legends were false. In fact, there were a number of artifacts said to exist that probably were as ephemeral as the stories themselves.
"Tafari wants the Spider Stone for the treasure?" she asked.
"We don't know why Tafari wants it," McIntosh admitted. "It's enough that he does. All of his life, Tafari has been interested in ways of consolidating his power base. He achieves part of that by using supernatural objects to terrorize the villagers. Hexes. Voodoo. That kind of crap."
"You can't just dismiss voodoo," Annja said quickly.
McIntosh chuckled and shook his head. "Don't tell me you believe in that stuff?"
"I maintain a healthy respect for voodoo. It's a belief system with roots deep in several religions. For those reasons alone, voodoo has power."
"Yeah, well, you can have it. My agency wants a shot at Tafari. If we can use this – " McIntosh glanced over at the stone " – to bring Tafari out into the open, we might be interested."
"Where is Tafari now?"
"In Senegal. He's never left that country. And he hasn't been caught by authorities since he was a kid. He escaped an execution squad somehow." McIntosh finished the rest of his coffee and covered a yawn. "But if he wants that stone, he'll find a way to get to it."
Despite the quiet of the restaurant, Annja again felt as if someone was watching her. She glanced out the window, but the pump area was largely empty. Only a couple of cars were gassing up.
; "Something wrong?" McIntosh asked.
"Long day." Annja pushed out of the booth. "Thanks for breakfast, but if I'm going to figure out anything about this artifact, I've got to get back to my hotel and get to work."
McIntosh took out a business card and wrote on the back. "That's my cell number on the back. If you need anything, let me know."
"The journal," Annja replied. "As quick as you can."
He nodded.
Annja reached out for the heavy stone. As soon as she touched it, she felt an electric tingle. And the sensation of being watched grew even stronger.
Chapter 5
The man's frightened breath could be heard if a person was patient and knew what to listen for.
Tafari practiced patience and did know. He knelt, secluded in the tall grass under a copse of twenty-foot-tall trees. Night covered the land all around him, but the moon was full and bright. And he had a hunter's eyes, trained not to look directly at something, but to look for movement or a void in otherwise natural surroundings.
He listened to the short gasps and plaintive cries as the man called on his gods to protect him. Tafari smiled. There would be no protection. There was no mercy in him tonight. He would not even grant the man a quick death. He wanted to feel the man's terror and smell the stink of it on him.
Slowly, Tafari drew the long knife from the sheath at his waist without a sound. He rose silent as a shadow and stayed low as he stalked the man through the brush and grass, tracking his prey by sound. It was a game he'd played before, with men, as well as animals.
Short and stocky, Tafari had always had a powerful build. Now he wore only a leather loincloth and the knife. His bare feet moved easily across the hard ground, protected by years of calluses. Many of the young men in his group liked European clothing and shoes. They wore those things when they were in the big cities, but Tafari didn't allow them when they were in the brush.
He had only been to Dakar once. His father had taken him when he'd finally given up trying to survive in the brush and had decided to get a job in the city. Three weeks later, his father had been killed, knifed by a stranger in an alley for the coins he carried in his pockets.
Tafari had returned to the jungle where he had been born. Only ten years old, he'd survived by hunting and stealing chickens from the villagers because no one wanted the extra burden of raising another child. Especially one who wasn't their own.
