The Spider Stone

by Alex Archer

  Chapter 15

  Annja stood as the plane door was opened and the passengers were allowed to start filing out. McIntosh handed down her book, then grabbed his own kit and waited.

  "We'll let everyone else deplane first," he said. "Then we'll move as a group."

  "Doesn't that mean they'll get us all in one concentrated burst?" Annja asked.

  McIntosh frowned at her, but his eyes still held a twinkle. "You've got a demented mind."

  "Ever wonder why Scooby and the gang separated every episode?"

  "I'd always thought it was so they could get confused over who was who under the sheets. If it had been an armed engagement, somebody would have gotten killed."

  "Okay, that takes the fun out of it," Annja said.

  "I just want us to stay safe."

  Annja took out her cell phone and turned it on. There were nineteen missed calls. Eighteen of them were from Doug Morrell. The other was from a number that surprised her.

  Annja punched in the number and waited.

  "The producer?" McIntosh asked.

  Annja shook her head, but she didn't bother to explain.

  "Ah, Annja, you decided to return my call." Garin Braden's voice was deep and guttural, reflecting his German heritage. The voice fit the man. Garin stood six feet four inches tall and had broad shoulders and a powerful build. His long dark hair matched his magnetic black eyes. A goatee usually framed his mouth and gave his face a roguish cast.

  "I did," she replied.

  "And what would Roux say if he knew?"

  "To stay away from you and not trust you, I imagine," Annja replied easily.

  McIntosh looked at her.

  Annja shook her head and listened to Garin roaring with laughter.

  "You do amuse me. I appreciate that."

  "What did you need?"

  "Nothing. I just happened to see the footage of you in that small town in Georgia – "

  "Kirktown."

  "Whatever it's called. Anyway, I saw it and I thought I'd give you a call and see how you were faring."

  The plane was emptying slowly, but most of the passengers were now off.

  "I don't have a lot of time," Annja said.

  "I won't take up much of it, then. Are you well?"

  "Yes."

  "Good."

  "Were you worried?" Annja asked, immediately suspicious.

  "Not really," Garin admitted. "You've always shown yourself to be a woman who could handle herself." For a moment, an awkward silence stretched between them.

  "Was there anything besides checking on my health that was on your mind?" Annja asked.

  "A warning, perhaps. I take it Roux hasn't been forthcoming with everything you can expect now that you have the sword in your possession."

  For just an instant, Annja felt the sword hilt press against her palm. She didn't know if the sword felt threatened or she did. Maybe it was both.

  "I get the feeling there's a lot he hasn't told me," Annja said.

  "The news reports mentioned a Spider Stone. According to the legend behind it, the stone was supposed to be some kind of gift from a god."

  "Anansi."

  "Ah," Garin said. "The spider god. There's a lot of power in an entity like that."

  Entity? Annja thought. Not mythical being?

  "Dealing with something like that, if the stone truly was given by Anansi to the person who carried it, could prove decidedly dangerous."

  "I'll keep that in mind," Annja said.

  "Do so. There will be powerful men after an item such as that."

  "Do any particular names come to mind?" Annja asked.

  "No, but I do know there are evil men in the world. I don't want you to come to any harm until we meet again."

  Because you want to harm me? Annja wondered. A chill ghosted up Annja's spine. She remembered how Garin had attacked her in her loft. Then they'd turned around and had breakfast with Roux, who'd also come calling, and then he'd loaned them his private jet while she finished up the bloody business relating to the Beast of Gévaudan.

  Like Roux, Garin Braden was a confusing man.

  "I would like to see you again, Annja," Garin said. "Call me. We'll do lunch anywhere in the world that you want to."

  "Sure," she answered casually. She wanted to see him again, too. Not because he was good-looking and rich, though that would have been enough for most women. But because he might talk and reveal some of what he'd seen and done during the past five hundred years.

  Roux would never do that.

  "Be safe, Annja," Garin said. "If you need anything, call me."

  While Annja was trying to figure out how to respond to that, Garin broke the connection.

  ****

  "The city's different than I thought it would be," McIntosh said.

  "How?" Annja studied the Dakar sights through the tinted window of the rental sedan the Homeland Security team had secured.

  "It's bigger. A lot bigger. And modern."

  Annja smiled. "Don't tell me you were expecting grass huts."

  "No, but I just didn't expect this. It seems like any city in the United States. Except for all the French advertising."

  "French is the national language," Annja said.

  Neon lights splashed over the car's windows. The downtown area was still throbbing and active. Pedestrians filled the streets as they walked from bars and taverns. The Atlantic Ocean was only a short distance away to the west.

  "Over two million people live in Dakar," Annja went on. "A lot more come into the city to work at service jobs in hotels, bars, tourist areas. The architecture of the newer sections of the city looks like any other large city. But if you see the older sections, like the Kermel Market, you'll see colonial houses that date back to the mid-nineteenth century. The big market, Sandaga, is located in a neo-Sudanese building that is absolutely wonderful to walk through."

  "Fond memories?" McIntosh asked.

  "I read it in the travel guide," Annja said, laughing.

  "Probably won't be a lot of time for sight-seeing," McIntosh informed her.

  "I know."

  "Who are we meeting here?"

  "Jozua Ganesvoort," Annja said.

  "He's an archaeologist?"

  "No. He owns an import-export business that's been in Dakar for over two hundred years."

  "Why are we meeting him?"

  "Because he's an armchair historian who has access to ships' logs that date back to the early years of the slave trade."

  "And you need the ships' logs?"

  Annja looked at him. "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "To see if we can find a reference to Yohance. The first Yohance. The one whose village was razed and who was taken into captivity and sold as a slave. If we find him listed, there may be some mention of where he was from. Once we get close enough, the map carved on the stone should be enough to get us the rest of the way."

  "You don't have to do that," McIntosh said.

  Annja felt slightly irritated. "Yes, we do. That's what Professor Hallinger and I came here to do."

  "You're going to be exposed if you start traipsing around all over this city."

  Her irritation grew. "Hallinger and I didn't come here to sit around as bait."

  "We can't guarantee your safety unless you follow procedure."

  The car stopped at a light. Shadows bumped and moved across the windows. McIntosh reached for his pistol under his jacket.

  Annja looked at the men and women, young and old, lurching at the car. Many of them were maimed, missing fingers and hands and eyes, their faces horribly scarred. Their skin was mottled with leprosy or ashen-gray with illness.

  "Calm down," Annja said. "They're just beggars. The city is full of them."

  The beggars pleaded in a number of languages, all of it sounding sad and hopeless.

  Annja reached into her pocket for some money. Quickly, she pressed money into the hands before her.

  When the light changed, the beggars backed off.


  "It's not a good idea to give them money," the driver said. "Once they find out you'll do it, they'll stay after you."

  "You've been here before?" Annja asked.

  "A few times." The man looked at her in the rearview mirror as he pulled through the intersection.

  "Then you know that those people can't do anything else but beg," Annja said. "They live outside the city in cardboard huts and sleep three and four to a room. They have to get water from a standpipe every day and sometimes stand in line for hours to do that. Then they have to walk or crawl or drag themselves into this city every day in hopes of begging for just enough money to do it all again the next day."

  The driver looked away.

  Annja leaned back in the seat and settled into the shadows. Neon colors continued to slash across the windows.

  "Sorry," McIntosh said. "I guess I overreacted. For a minute there I could have sworn we'd been overrun by zombies."

  "They're just poor and sick," Annja said. "They can't fix that. Someone has to help them. That's one of the things I hate about traveling. No one seems to care about the poor. Governments don't want to deal with the issue because it's too expensive. And tourists feel like their vacations are getting interrupted." She took a deep breath. "There's so much history in these places, but all the resources have been tapped out, or they haven't been able to compete in world markets." Annja sighed.

  They rode the rest of the way to the hotel in strained silence.

  Annja felt guilty about that, too. She wasn't being fair. McIntosh and the other agents hadn't known what they were getting into.

  She'd overreacted because she'd almost allowed herself to forget.

  ****

  Alone at last, Annja stripped off her clothing and stepped into the deep bathtub in her hotel room at the Novotel Dakar. The hotel was located near the business district. Her room was at the front of the building, facing the Atlantic Ocean and the Ile de Goree.

  The scented bath smelled divine, and she could already feel the heat from the water penetrating her muscles. Lying back, she luxuriated in the bath, letting it soothe away the aches and abrasions from the fights she'd had. In Atlanta, she'd only taken showers, always in a hurry.

  Tonight it was comfort time.

  She loved baths. She'd had a large tub installed in her loft when she'd signed her first contract with Chasing History's Monsters. In the beginning, she'd thought the show – and she – would only last a season. She wasn't an actress and the show – in her opinion – wasn't very promising. So she'd splurged on the tub and tried not to feel guilty.

  Taking a deep breath, she submerged, sliding under the water and letting the heat soak into her. She closed her eyes, feeling almost weightless in the water.

  Don't go to sleep, she warned herself. More than once she'd woken in cold water, undoing all the good the hot bath had done.

  In an effort to stay awake, she thought about McIntosh.

  She was certain that he'd put her in the big suite on purpose, and she doubted that Hallinger or any of the Homeland Security agents had matching accommodations.

  The room's a peace offering, she realized. She wondered if she needed to apologize for the episode in the car on the way over. After that, her mind wandered to other thoughts of McIntosh that were entirely healthy and not exactly conducive to relaxation. She decided to push all of that out of her mind and concentrate on the puzzle of the Spider Stone. That's what you're here to do, she reminded herself. You're not some kind of bounty hunter for terrorists.

  Unable to hold her breath any longer, she regretfully surfaced. The knots of tension that had tightened her back and shoulders had, for the most part, disappeared.

  Reaching over the side of the tub, Annja dried her hands and arms on a towel and reached into her backpack where she'd placed it on a small folding table. Working in the tub wasn't new to her. Her mind was too busy to properly soak if she didn't occupy it. She took the Spider Stone from one of the pockets and held it up to the light.

  Amber gleamed like cold fire along the striations.

  Hallinger had enlarged photos of the stone in his room, claiming that he'd rather work with them. Since he didn't know the language, he was working with topographical maps of Senegal, trying to overlay the map on the stone onto the country.

  While she'd been on the plane, Annja had worked through most of the message, but she wanted to check her findings. There was only one place to do that.

  She got out of the bath, wrapped herself in a bathrobe and set up her computer. When she was online, she logged onto the message boards.

  There were several messages. Evidently the people on the board had figured out who she was. She usually logged in with a different name on each project and sent private messages to people she'd worked with in the past who had proved reliable.

  Most of the messages were from teens with out-of-control hormones, or men who were old enough to know better. Interestingly enough, there were also overtures from females, which was really different from the normal responses.

  She scrolled through a number of propositions and jokes looking for anything that might be useful. Finally she came across a private message from hausaboy. Annja opened it.

  Hey, Annja. I got most of the message translated. Cool stuff. Lotta work. Here's the story, and I say "story," even though Hausa believers might consider that term sacrilegious, because that's how this tale comes across to me.

  Sometime years ago, one of the earliest ancestors of this particular Hausa village – think the name translates into "Falson's Egg" – was under attack from fierce enemies. He prayed to Anansi, who was the chosen god of his people, and asked that his village might be spared. Unfortunately, that was one of Anansi's less responsible days. He was off on his own pursuits and ignored the pleas of the villagers he'd chosen to adopt as his own people. That happened sometimes with any of the gods of whatever mythology you want to ascribe to. The village was destroyed by fire or lightning – I can't be sure of the translation. Something like that.

  Annja had struggled with the same translation. Fire and lightning were interchangeable in some instances.

  When Anansi returned to the village, he was sad. He promised the people who had survived that they would be safe from that point on. The villagers had to travel far away. Anansi had to find them, but he did.

  Anansi gave the medicine man the stone. The location of the new village was drawn on the stone's surface, as was Anansi's likeness. It was his promise that they would be taken care of.

  As you know, Anansi wasn't around the night the slavers ransacked the village.

  There's also some mention of a curse against anyone not of the village who might come into possession of the stone.

  Great, Annja thought. All I need is to be cursed.

  Thought you might want to know that last part. Personally, I don't believe in curses.

  Annja quickly typed out a response.

  Hey, hausaboy, thanks for all your help. I'd come up with pretty much the same thing. If there's anything I can ever do for you, please let me know.

  After she sent the e-mail, Annja went back to her bath. The water had chilled slightly while she'd been busy. She turned on the hot water and opened the drain at the same time. Almost immediately, the water began to warm.

  She thought about the possibility of a curse as she studied the Spider Stone. Curses were old. They depended on local belief systems and chance. If enough people believed in a curse, it didn't take much coincidence to make believers out of everyone around. As a result, curses were generally the first line of defense for grave sites.

  Reaching for her backpack, she rooted for the topographical maps of Senegal she'd had McIntosh arrange for her. She'd been over them before, during the layover in Paris and while on the plane. Maybe now that she was relaxed, something might jump out at her.

  She froze when she heard a noise in the bedroom.

  It wasn't repeated.

  Annja stood in the bathtub. She reached for
the flannel shorts and Brooklyn Dodgers jersey she liked to sleep in when she was traveling.

  She pulled on the clothing as quickly and silently as she could. Surreptitious noises came from the outer room again, and this time there was no mistake.

  Someone's in the room! The thought crawled across Annja's mind and sent a shiver up her spine.

  Chapter 16

  The bathroom was a dead end. There was nowhere to go, no real room to fight even with the spacious accommodations.

  Annja summoned the sword to her hand, wrapping her fingers around the hilt as she took a firm grip. She took in a deep, quiet breath, then let it out as she slowed her heart and forced herself to be calm.

  The only choice was whether to stay in the room until whoever was out there came in after her or charge out to meet them. Frugal or foolhardy.

  Annja decided to set her own destiny. That had always been her preferred path. Gripping the door handle, she twisted it and pulled the door open.

  Four young and hard-eyed men stood inside her room, lit by the bedside lamp. All of them were dressed in American-style warm-ups and basketball jerseys, as if they'd just stepped off the court of an NBA game. Except these men were carrying suppressed pistols and machetes. Two of them stood guard near the bathroom door while the other two went through Annja's suitcases and books.

  They didn't expect her to come out of the bathroom. Evidently they felt confident enough to try to search the room before any violence broke out.

  Definitely not random burglars, Annja thought. They're here for the stone. She was conscious of the slight weight of it in her pocket even as she drew back the sword and launched herself at the first man.

  The man lifted the pistol and fired. The bullets cut the air by Annja's head. She didn't hold back, couldn't hold back.

  Months of practice with the sword had made it more a part of her than it had been when the pieces had re-formed. Annja sliced into the man's forearm. Before the shock or the pain had time to register on him, before his pistol had time to hit the floor, Annja swept the sword across his body.

  She darted behind the man, taking brief refuge there. Bullets slapped into the stunned man.