by Alex Archer
Annja folded her arms and waited to see if McIntosh would mention Tafari. If he did, they were going to be shuttled out of Senegal just as quickly as they'd arrived. The Senegalese government wasn't going to condone American espionage activity on their soil.
"I'll let you talk to the American Embassy," McIntosh replied.
And that would be a mistake, too, Annja thought. Once the embassy staff got involved, they'd want to be part of everything. Soon there would be a whole parade of people trekking around.
She looked at Mbaye. "How much?" she asked.
Mbaye smiled. "Ah, you've been to our country before."
"What?" McIntosh asked. "How much for what?"
Annja switched to French. "Let's speak in this language."
"Of course." Mbaye waved away a lungful of smoke.
"How much to conduct the investigation?"
"Three would-be rapists, murderers or thieves?" Mbaye shrugged. "What seems fair to you?"
"They're already caught," Annja pointed out. "It's not like you're going to have to go looking for them."
Mbaye grinned.
"What's going on?" McIntosh asked. He tried to step between them, but two of the khaki-clad policemen moved forward and blocked him from their superior.
"The fourth man says you attacked them with a sword," Mbaye said. "He claims that you killed all three of them."
"One of them was shot."
"Only after he'd been cut badly by a large blade."
"Did you find a sword?" Annja asked.
Frowning, Mbaye shook his head. "We haven't given up looking."
"Everyone needs a hobby," Annja said with a shrug.
"Perhaps you used one of their machetes."
"If I took one of their weapons away and used it to save myself, would I be found guilty of anything other than self-defense?"
"No. Of course not," the police inspector said.
"Then how much do you need to do the investigation and bring charges against the fourth man?"
Mbaye hesitated. "Two thousand dollars."
"I'll give you a thousand."
"That's robbery."
"To file a report? I don't think so," Annja said.
"I could put you in jail."
Annja remained calm. "The American Embassy would get me right out again."
"We are at an impasse," Mbaye stated.
"Not if you want a thousand dollars."
"She's being generous," a man said, also in French. "I wouldn't give you a thousand dollars to carry away the bodies of those three dead villains."
Annja turned in the direction of the voice.
A man approached from the hallway. He was blond and fair-skinned, somewhere in his fifties, Annja guessed. His blue eyes stood out like sapphires. An expensive suit draped his lean frame, and the jacket he wore could have paid for a small car.
"Mr. Ganesvoort." Mbaye inclined his head in an abbreviated bow.
The man extended a hand to Annja and took hers in his warmly. "Good evening, Ms. Creed. I'm Jozua Ganesvoort."
"Mr. Ganesvoort," Annja said.
"Please. Call me Jozua." Ganesvoort smiled.
Jozua Ganesvoort was a businessman whose family had moved from the Netherlands to Senegal 250 years ago. He was also the man Professor Hallinger had arranged to see concerning the origins of Yohance and the Spider Stone.
"This isn't any business of yours, Mr. Ganesvoort," Mbaye said.
"I disagree. Ms. Creed and Professor Hallinger are scheduled to be my guests in the morning. I would be remiss if I didn't make an effort to ensure that they made it to my home safely."
Mbaye turned to Annja. "One thousand dollars will do nicely."
Turning to McIntosh, Annja said in English, "Give him a thousand dollars."
"Why?" the Homeland Security agent asked.
"To close the case and cut us loose."
"That's bribery."
"No," Annja said quietly, before Mbaye could take offense, "that's how things are done here. The Dakar police department is undermanned and underfunded. They supplement their incomes by charging for police services."
"That's not how we do it in Atlanta."
"We're not in Atlanta," Annja reminded him.
Scowling, McIntosh shifted his attention to Mbaye. "Do you take traveler's checks?"
"Of course."
"What brought you here?" Annja asked Ganesvoort, in English so McIntosh would understand.
"A phone call, actually." Ganesvoort looked around curiously. "From a woman. She sounded rather old, but I didn't recognize the voice. She knew me, though. And she knew that you were going to be my guest tomorrow morning."
Annja searched the hallway, but there was no sign of the old woman.
I knew you'd come, she'd said.
But who was she? And how had she known?
****
"You've found the Spider Stone, I see."
Seated beside Ganesvoort in the limousine that had pulled up in front of the hotel then swept her and Hallinger away, Annja nodded. They'd left McIntosh behind, which hadn't set well with him. McIntosh hadn't wanted Annja to leave, but he was unable to stop her. The trip to Dakar had already been paid for. She enjoyed being able to slip McIntosh's chains. It put them on more equal footing. They were in her world now, not his.
"May I see it?" the historian asked.
Annja hesitated only a second and hoped her indecision hadn't been noticed by their host. She handed him the stone.
The tiger's eye gleamed honey-gold as he turned the stone in his fingers. "Beautiful."
"What do you know about the Spider Stone?" she asked.
"Only that it could lead someone to a fabled treasure left by a ruined Hausa village. And that it was presumed lost. Most people thought the Arab raiders made off with it when they attacked the village." Ganesvoort returned the stone and looked at her with those bright blue eyes. "I presume the Spider Stone made it to the New World by way of one of the slaves?"
"Yes," Hallinger said, looking flustered. "From the accounts we've had access to, a young slave named Yohance brought the Spider Stone to the fledgling United States before there was even a United States."
"Fascinating." Ganesvoort rubbed at his chin. "I'd heard the stone had disappeared almost three hundred years ago. Before my family set up shop on Ile de Goree. Of course, I'd always believed the Spider Stone to be one more myth. Africa is a land filled with stories of vengeful gods and wondrous things. Even though we've pierced so many of her mysteries, so many yet remain." He smiled. "Of course, you already know that. That's why you do what it is you do." He spread his hands. "Now, why do you want to see my collection of ships' logs?"
"We're trying to find what ship Yohance went out on," Annja answered. "And we're hoping the captain made some notation of where he was captured."
"They didn't all make notes," Ganesvoort warned.
"I know," Hallinger said. "But several of the ships' captains were extremely detailed."
"And you had nowhere else to go." Ganesvoort grinned.
Annja returned the grin, caught up in the excitement of the hunt. "And we had nowhere else to go."
"I have a large collection of logs."
"The precise reason I called you," Hallinger said.
"With over three hundred years of slavery open to you, you're talking about a lot of searching."
"We had to figure out the time frame from how many Yohances there had been," Annja said. "We figured a median age of around twenty-five or thirty for each Yohance. Some died younger than that and some lived longer."
The car sped in silent smoothness toward the harbor. Silver-gray smog hung over the dark green water. Ships and pleasure craft lined the harbor.
"The Yohance we found went missing in 1861," Annja said.
"And what number Yohance was he?"
"The fourth."
"Then by your own criteria, the first Yohance had to have arrived in the colonies 100 to 120 years before that."
"Your family trafficked in sl
aves," Annja said. There's no polite way to put that, she thought.
"They did," Ganesvoort replied. "At the time, slavery was the largest commerce Ile de Goree had to offer." He gestured out the window at the city around them. "Everything else grew up around slavery. Dakar didn't really get built and come into its own until after the slave trade was outlawed. The European need for slaves as a product benefited from the fact that there were so many cultures living here. No one owed any allegiance to anyone else. Every person was fair game as someone else's prize. If the different tribes hadn't preyed on each other, not nearly as many slaves would have been captured."
"Can you imagine what it must have been like?" Annja asked. "Captured, marched in chains down to Ile de Goree and sold like a loaf of bread?" It was hard to contemplate. Slavery had always been abhorrent to her. The most horrifying thing was that some nations still practiced it, and there were hidden flesh traders who trafficked in sex slaves. Annja knew nearly forty thousand women a year went missing, most of them thought to have been taken for the sex trade.
"It had to have been horrible," Hallinger said.
"The transatlantic slave trade took root here in 1513, only eleven years after the first slave was sold, and lasted until the mid-eighteenth century," Ganesvoort went on. "Some scholars contend that fully twenty-four million people were displaced as a result in those three-hundred-plus years. Twenty percent of them died in the slave ships during the journey. They weren't fed or watered or cared for. The dead were thrown overboard to prevent the healthy from getting sick."
"Scientists who study sharks will tell you that shark migratory patterns still follow the old transatlantic slave-trade routes," Hallinger said. "They got used to feeding along those shipping lines."
The limousine arrived at the harbor and they got out. Men dressed in ship's whites and carrying pistols in shoulder holsters transferred Annja's and Hallinger's bags to a long yacht.
With the breeze in her hair and powering over the rollers in the bay, Annja relaxed a little as she stood at the bow.
"Do you like boats, Ms. Creed?" Ganesvoort asked.
"Call me 'Annja.'"
The man nodded.
"I do like boats," Annja admitted. "There's something very calm and peaceful about the ocean."
"Until you get astride her during a tropical storm. Then anything can happen." Ganesvoort studied her. "Do you know who the men were that attacked you?"
Annja shook her head.
"They belong to a man named Tafari. You've heard of him?"
Annja brushed her hair out of her face. That didn't take long. "Yes. I've heard of him."
"He's a very dangerous man, and a murderer several times over."
"There's something you should know," Annja told him.
Ganesvoort smiled. "That Tafari seeks the Spider Stone? I already know that. The man believes in myths and legends and half-buried secrets. He intends to become a legend himself. He'll kill anyone who stands in his way." He looked at Hallinger, then at Annja. "You, my old friend and my new friend, need to always keep that in mind."
Chapter 18
"So this is how the rich live."
Looking up from the ship's log she was currently perusing, Annja smiled at McIntosh. The Homeland Security agent had arrived by ferry the following morning. Ganesvoort had arranged transportation, a horse-drawn carriage, to his manor house on the north end of the small island.
"Yes," Annja agreed. "It is. Some of them. Of course, Ganesvoort could have opted for the Howard Hughes lifestyle there at the end."
The manor house had been built up over the years. It had begun life as a Portuguese villa, then had been taken over by Ganesvoort's ancestors and enlarged to a sprawling fifteen-thousand-square-foot residence. Annja didn't know how many bedrooms and bathrooms the house contained, but there were many. There were a handful of dining rooms and two grand ballrooms. As a result, the rooms weren't all built on the same level, but the various architects – including the French, who'd had the last opportunity to give the structure a facelift – had managed to pull it all together with unforgettable elegance.
The manor house had a state-of-the art surveillance system and a small army of armed guards.
The room she was using was a reading room on the second floor. The north wall was nearly all glass, with a beautiful balcony that overlooked the ocean. In the distance, sailboats and fishing boats plied the waters.
"I don't like the windows," McIntosh growled.
"I love the windows," Annja replied. "It's the north light. The most even light of the day. Painters usually prefer the north light when they're working on a canvas."
"A sniper," McIntosh pointed out at the sea, "on one of those boats could cause a problem."
"Put there by Tafari, I suppose?"
"Yes." McIntosh frowned at her. "You're not taking this very seriously."
Stretching to relieve her back for a moment, Annja decided to deal with the issue head-on. "If Tafari wanted me dead, this would be a dangerous place for me to be."
"He does want you dead. Those guys last night tried to kill you."
"They would have killed me as long as they could get the Spider Stone. They planned to get the Spider Stone, then kill me. Shooting me from a ship out at sea isn't going to get Tafari the Spider Stone, is it?"
McIntosh didn't answer.
Turning her attention back to the ship's log, she said, "Think of me sitting here as being that enticing bait you wanted me to be when we got here." She smirked a little at McIntosh's frustration with her. "I sit here and he can't have me. What better bait could you possibly hope for? It's got to be driving Tafari crazy."
"That's not what I meant."
"It is what you meant. Your best hope is that Tafari gets as tired of waiting as you do and makes a move against us so you can nab him."
McIntosh appeared to give that some thought. "What do you think the chances are of him doing that?"
"I wouldn't do it," Annja said. "I'd wait until I left the house and probably this island."
"That's you. You're probably smarter than Tafari."
"Thank you. I am definitely smarter than Tafari. On any day of the week that ends in Y."
"Don't get cocky."
"I'm not. You see, I know I have a weakness," Annja said.
McIntosh looked at her, not understanding.
"When I figure out where Yohance came from and I know where the map shows, I'm going to go there. I'll bet Tafari knows that. That's when he'll get his opportunity to get the treasure and kill me, too."
That possibility turned McIntosh's frown even deeper.
Annja sat at a French provincial desk that had probably seen service in one of Louis XIV's courts. The chair, of course, was modern although built in a style that accented the desk. Comfort, when working for hours leaning over old documents and maps, was paramount.
"I still don't think you're taking this seriously enough," McIntosh said.
"On the contrary. I'm taking this very seriously. That's why I'm working as hard as I am."
"You don't normally risk your life doing your job."
Annja lifted an arched brow. "Really? You don't call exploring almost forgotten ruins – where cave-ins can occur and diseases run rampant – risky? Going to remote dig sites where a hospital is two days or more away? Falling from a cliff or through a trap some ancient dead man set to keep thieves from his remains? And that doesn't take into account bandits, robbers, slavers, mercenaries or drug traffickers that you can run into who think you have something they want or that they can use you in some fashion to get past the next checkpoint."
McIntosh tried to interrupt.
Annja didn't let him. "Do you know that most countries still distrust archaeologists? Well, they do. Want to know why? Because archaeologists have a long history of being spies for the United States and British governments. A lot of governments see us as a necessary evil. We bring in money to help them extract a past they might never see without outside funding." Sh
e paused. "Archaeology isn't as bland as you seem to make it out to be."
"Not the way you do it," McIntosh grumbled.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that you seem to attract trouble."
Annja couldn't argue with that, so she didn't. Instead, she turned back to her work. Almost five minutes passed in silence.
"How long is this going to take?" McIntosh asked.
Only slightly irritated because she'd been expecting the question from the moment McIntosh had arrived and started pacing, Annja said, "As long as it takes."
"You're reading books." McIntosh approached her and took the top book off the stack.
"That's what archaeologists do."
"I thought you broke into graves, found cities that had been buried in lava, looked for dinosaur bones and located shipwrecks."
"We do that, too."
McIntosh hefted the book. "If you were getting paid by the pound, you'd make a fortune."
Annja looked at McIntosh pointedly.
"What?" he asked.
"You're talking. It's hard to read when you're talking. I mean, I can do it, but then I'd be ignoring you. So I'm giving you warning, I'm going to work until lunch. If you talk to me before the lunch bell rings, I'm going to ignore you." Annja turned back to the book.
And she ignored him.
****
Hours later, seated at the beautiful table in one of the dining rooms, Annja piled her plate high with food. Plates of suckling pig and pheasant, fresh fruit, a half-dozen salads and several desserts, including three different sorbets, covered the table.
"This is wonderful," she said.
"I see you're ambitious," Ganesvoort observed.
Annja felt only a little self-conscious. She'd always been a healthy eater, and the past few days she hadn't exactly been meal conscious. "I haven't eaten this well in a long time. Thank you very much. I'll be embarrassed later."
Ganesvoort smiled. "Don't be embarrassed. It's my pleasure. My cook thanks you, too. It's not often that she gets to go all out. My tastes are simple and don't challenge her. I throw the occasional party simply to keep her from turning in her resignation out of boredom. But she tells me that party preparations are not as personal as cooking for overnight guests."
"I'm glad she likes cooking for guests. We may be here for a few days." Annja sipped her wine.
