The Eight

by Katherine Neville

  I swung the duffel bag from my shoulder and with one unbroken circle brought it up as high as my arm could reach and down, down with all its massive weight—crashing into his head. His eyes rolled back, and he started to slump sideways as I whirled to the pandemonium that was going on behind me.

  Lily had shoved open the French windows, Carioca was barreling into the room, and I was swinging the blackjack of my duffel bag, running toward the thugs. The first one had his gun halfway out when I hit him. The second was doubled over with a stomach punch from Kamel. We were all in a pile on the ground as the third freed his gun from the holster and pointed it at me.

  “Over here, you fool!” screamed Sharrif, beating Carioca away with rapid kicks. Lily was tearing up turf, halfway out the door. The thug raised his gun, pointed it at her, and squeezed the trigger—just as Kamel knocked him sideways, slamming him into the wall.

  Sharrif screamed in high-pitched frenzy as he spun around with the force of the bullet, his hand cupped to his shoulder in pain. Carioca was following his leg around in circles, trying to get in a bite. Kamel was behind me, wrestling for the thug’s gun as one of the others was rising from the floor. I raised my bag and hit him again. This time he stayed down. Then I smacked Kamel’s companion in the back of the head for good measure. As he fell, Kamel pulled loose the gun.

  We tore for the door; I felt a hand grab me and wrenched myself away. It was Sharrif, dog manacled to his leg but still moving. He lurched through the door behind me, blood pouring from his wound. Two of his pals were on their feet again and just behind him as I darted—not toward the stairs, but toward the steep edge of the cliff. Below I could see Kamel halfway down the steps, looking back at me in frenzy. In the moonlight I saw Lily reach bottom and head for Kamel’s car.

  Without thinking, I jumped over the low retaining wall and flattened myself on the ground as Sharrif and his troops tore around the side of the house and headed for the stairs. The enormous weight of the Montglane Service hung suspended from my aching hand over the side of the precipice. I nearly dropped it. I could see a hundred feet straight down, where the waves crashed against the sheer rock in the rising wind. I held my breath and slowly pulled the bag back up with all my strength.

  “The car!” I heard Sharrif screaming. “They’re headed for the car!” I heard the clatter of their feet going down the rickety steps and started to raise myself up when I heard something crunch close to my ear. In the pale light I peered over the top of the wall, and Carioca’s long tongue lapped me in the face. I was about to get up when the clouds parted again and I saw the third thug, whom I’d thought I’d knocked cold, coming toward me rubbing his head. I ducked again, but too late.

  He made a lunge toward me right over the two-foot wall. I flattened again as I heard him scream. Peeking through my fingers, I saw his unbalanced leg tottering on the ledge. Then it disappeared. I leaped back over the wall onto solid ground, grabbed Carioca, and headed for the steps.

  The wind was really high now, as if a storm were coming in. To my horror, I saw Kamel’s car taking off in a cloud of dust as Sharrif and his two companions ran frantically behind it, taking wild potshots at the tires. Then, to my surprise, the car doubled back, threw on the headlights, and made right for the guys on foot. The three villains dove out of the way as the car swept by them. Lily and Kamel were coming back for me!

  I clattered down the steps, taking them four at a time, as fast as I could go, keeping a tight grip with one hand on Carioca, the other on the pieces. I hit bottom just as the car swept up in a cloud of dust; the door flew open, and I jumped inside. Lily took off again before I could pull it closed. Kamel was in the backseat, his gun pointed out the window. The explosion of bullets was deafening. As I struggled to slam the car door shut, I saw Sharrif and his pals tearing by us on foot toward a car that was parked just at the edge of the port. We kept on going as Kamel pumped their car full of lead.

  At the best of times Lily’s driving was unnerving, but now she seemed to feel she had license to kill. We fishtailed all over the dirt road out of the port and kept right on laying down rubber till we reached the main road. We all sat in breathless silence, Kamel watching out the back as she increased the speed first to eighty, then ninety. When she was about to break a hundred, I saw the OPEC blockade coming up in the distance.

  “Push the red switch on the dashboard!” screamed Kamel over the sound of squealing tires. I leaned over and flipped it, and a siren came on, with a tiny red light that flashed like a beacon on the dashboard.

  “Good equipment!” I called over my shoulder to Kamel as we barreled on and the guards ahead scurried out of the way. Lily slalomed between the cars as amazed faces stared at us through the windows—then we were past.

  “There are some advantages to being a minister,” said Kamel modestly. “But there’s another roadblock at the far side of Sidi-Fredj.”

  “Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!” Lily cried, hitting the gas again as the big Citroën leaped ahead like a thoroughbred in the final stretch. We took the second blockade the same as we had the first, leaving them in dust.

  “By the way,” she said, glancing at Kamel in the rearview mirror, “we haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Lily Rad. I hear you know my grandfather.”

  “Keep your eyes on the road,” I snapped as the car wavered treacherously near the steep edge of the corniche. The wind was practically lifting the car in the air.

  “Mordecai and my father were close friends,” said Kamel. “Perhaps I shall meet him again one day. Please give him my warmest regards when you see him next.”

  Just then Kamel whipped around and stared through the rear window. Some lights were closing on us fast. “More juice,” I told Lily urgently. “Now’s the time to impress us with your driving skills.” Kamel muttered, holding his gun poised as the car behind us turned on its siren and lights. He was trying to peer through the violent wind and dust.

  “Jesus, it’s a cop,” said Lily, letting up on the gas slightly.

  “Keep going!” Kamel snapped ferociously over his shoulder. She obediently hit the gas again, and the Citroën swerved for a moment, then recovered. The needle was pushing 200 kilometers—which I quickly converted into a speed over 120 miles per hour. They couldn’t push much faster than that on these roads, no matter what kind of car they had. Especially not with the violent gusts that were now hitting us from all sides.

  “There’s a back route into the Casbah,” said Kamel, still keeping his eye on our pursuers. “It’s a good ten minutes from here, and you’ll have to cut through Algiers. But I know those back streets better than our friend Sharrif. This route will bring us into the Casbah from above.… I know the way to Minnie’s,” he added quietly. “I should—it’s my father’s house.”

  “Minnie Renselaas is living in your father’s house?” I cried. “But I thought you came from the mountains?”

  “My father kept a house here in the Casbah, for his wives.”

  “His wives?” I said.

  “Minnie Renselaas is my stepmother,” said Kamel. “My father was the Black King.”

  We ditched the car in one of the side streets that formed the mazelike upper region of Algiers. I had a million questions but was straining my eyes for Sharrif’s car. I was certain we hadn’t shaken them, but they were far enough behind that we could no longer see their lights when we doused ours. We leaped out of the car and headed into the labyrinth on foot.

  Lily was right behind Kamel, grabbing his sleeve as I caught up to them. The streets were so dark and narrow that I stubbed my toe and nearly fell on my face trying to keep up.

  “I don’t get it,” Lily was croaking in her hoarse whisper as I kept looking over my shoulder for our pursuers. “If Minnie was the wife of the Dutch consul—Renselaas—how could she be married to your father, too? Monogamy doesn’t seem to be very popular in these parts.”

  “Renselaas died during the revolution,” said Kamel. “She needed to stay in Algiers—my
father offered her his protection. Though they loved each other deeply as friends, I suspect it was a marriage of convenience. At any rate, my father was dead within one year.”

  “If he was the Black King,” hissed Lily, “and he got killed, why didn’t the Game end? Isn’t that it—Shah-mat, the King is dead?”

  “The Game goes on, just as in life,” Kamel said, still keeping up the clip. “The King is dead—long live the King.”

  I looked up at the sky between the narrow crack of buildings closing about us as we plunged deeper into the Casbah. Though I could hear the wind wailing above us, it couldn’t penetrate the narrow passages we now moved through. A thin dust was sifting down on us from above, and a dark red film was moving across the face of the moon. Kamel glanced up as well.

  “The sirocco,” he said carefully. “It’s coming; we must move quickly. I only hope this does not upset our plans.”

  I looked at the sky. The sirocco was a sandstorm, one of the most famous in the world. I wanted to get indoors before it hit. Kamel paused in a small cul-de-sac and extracted a key from his pocket.

  “The opium den!” Lily whispered, remembering our last journey here. “Or was it hashish?”

  “This is a different route,” said Kamel. “A door to which I have the only key.” He unlocked the door in darkness, letting me pass in first and Lily after. I heard him locking the door behind us.

  It was a long, dark corridor with a dim light at the very end. I could feel thick plush carpeting beneath my feet and cool damask covering as I felt my way along the walls.

  At the end we reached a large room, the floors covered in rich Persian carpets, a large gold candelabra on a marble table at the far end providing the only light. But that was adequate to pick out the opulent furnishings: low tables of dark Carrara marble, yellow silk ottomans hung with golden tassels, sofas in the deep burnished colors of aged liqueurs, and large pieces of sculpture scattered about on pedestals and tables—magnificent even to my untrained eye. In the liquid golden light, the room looked like a treasure trove found on the floor of an ancient sea. I felt as if I were passing through an atmosphere denser than water as I crossed the room slowly with Lily just behind me, to the two figures at the far side.

  There in the candlelight, in a gown of gold brocade scattered with glittering coins, stood Minnie Renselaas. And beside her, holding a glass of cordial as he looked up with his pale green eyes—was Alexander Solarin.

  Solarin looked at me with his dazzling smile. I’d thought of him often since that night he’d disappeared at the tent on the beach, always with the secret understanding that we’d meet again. He came forward and took my hand, then turned to Lily.

  “We’ve never been formally introduced,” he told her. She was bristling as if she’d like to slap down a gauntlet—or a chessboard—and challenge him then and there. “I am Alexander Solarin, and you are the granddaughter of one of the finest chess masters alive. I hope I can return you to him soon.” Somewhat mollified by this accolade, Lily shook Solarin’s hand.

  “Enough,” said Minnie as Kamel came up to join our group. “We haven’t much time. I assume you have the pieces?” I noticed, sitting on the nearby table, a metal box I recognized as that containing the cloth.

  I patted my duffel bag, and we adjourned to the table, where I set it down and extracted the pieces one by one. There they sat in the candlelight, glittering with all those colored jewels and emitting the same strange glow I’d noticed in the cave. We all stared at them in silence for a moment—the brilliant camel, the prancing horse that was the Knight, the dazzling King and Queen. Solarin bent to touch them, then glanced up at Minnie. She was the first to speak.

  “At last,” she said. “After all this time, they will be reunited with the others. And you are to thank for this. Through your actions, you’ll redeem the fruitless death of so many, over the course of so many years.…”

  “The others?” I said, glancing at her in the dim light.

  “In America,” she said with a smile. “Solarin will take you tonight to Marseilles, where we’ve arranged passage for your return.” Kamel had reached inside his jacket pocket and returned Lily her passport. She took it, but we were both staring at Minnie in amazement.

  “To America?” I said. “But who has the other pieces?”

  “Mordecai,” she said, still smiling. “He has nine more. With the cloth,” she added, picking up the box and handing it to me, “you’ll have more than half the formula. It will be the first time these have been united in nearly two hundred years.”

  “What happens when they’re united?” I wanted to know.

  “That is for you to discover,” said Minnie, looking at me gravely. Then she gazed back down at the pieces, still glowing at the center of the table. “Now it’s your turn.…” Slowly she turned away and put her hands on Solarin’s face.

  “My beloved Sascha,” she said to him with tears in her eyes. “Take good care of yourself, my child. Protect them.…” She pressed her lips to his forehead. To my surprise, Solarin threw his arms about her and buried his face in her shoulder. We all watched in amazement as the young chess master and the elegant Mokhfi Mokhtar clung to each other in silence. Then they parted, and she turned to Kamel, pressing his hand.

  “Get them safely to the port,” she whispered. Without another word to Lily or me, she turned and swept from the room. Solarin and Kamel looked after her in silence.

  “You must go,” Kamel said at last, turning to Solarin. “I’ll see she’s all right. May Allah go with you, my friend.” He was collecting the pieces on the table, shoving them back in my bag along with the box containing the cloth, which he took from my hands. Lily was standing there clutching Carioca to her chest.

  “I don’t get it,” she said weakly. “You mean that’s it? We’re leaving? But how are we getting to Marseilles?”

  “We’ve secured a boat,” said Kamel. “Come, we haven’t a moment to lose.”

  “But what about Minnie?” I said. “Are we going to see her again?”

  “Not just now,” Solarin said quickly, recovering himself. “We must go before the storm hits—get out to sea at once. The crossing is rather simple once we’ve cleared the port.”

  I was still in a daze when I found myself, with Lily and Solarin, once again in the darkened streets of the Casbah.

  We were racing down through the silent passages where the houses squeezed together to shut out all the light. I could tell by the salty fish scent invading my nostrils that we were approaching the port. We came out in the wide plaza near the Mosquée de la Pêcheur, where we’d met Wahad so many days before. It felt like months. Sand was blowing across the plaza with great violence now. Solarin grabbed my arm and hurried me across the square as Lily, with Carioca in her arms, ran quickly behind.

  We’d started down the Fisherman’s Steps to the port when I caught my breath and said quickly to Solarin, “Minnie called you her child—she’s not your stepmother, too, is she?”

  “No,” he said softly, pulling me down the steps two at a time. “I pray I’ll see her again before I die. She’s my grandmother.…”

  THE SILENCE BEFORE THE STORM

  For I would walk alone,

  Under the quiet stars, and at that time

  Have felt whate’er there is of power in sound …

  And I would stand,

  In the night blackened with a coming storm,

  Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are

  The ghostly language of the ancient earth,

  Or make their dim abode in distant winds.

  Thence did I drink the visionary power.

  —The Prelude

  William Wordsworth

  VERMONT

  MAY 1796

  Talleyrand limped through the leafy forest, where shafts of sunlight, swimming with golden motes, cut through the cathedral of spring foliage. Bright green hummingbirds shot here and there, hovering to gather nectar from the brilliant blossoms of a trumpet vine that hung
like a veil from an old oak. The ground was still damp beneath his feet, the trees still dripping with water from the recent shower, catching the light like diamonds scattered in the mottled foliage.

  Two years and more he’d been in America. It had lived up to his expectations—but not his hopes. The French ambassador to America, a mediocre bureaucrat, understood Talleyrand’s ambitious political aspirations and was also familiar with the charges of treason against him. He’d blocked his entrée to President Washington, and the doors of Philadelphia society had closed as swiftly as those in London. Only Alexander Hamilton had remained his friend and ally, though he’d been unable to secure him any work. At last, his resources exhausted, Talleyrand was reduced to selling Vermont real estate to newly arrived French émigrés. At least it kept him alive.

  Now, as he tramped with his walking stick across the rough terrain, measuring the plots he’d sell tomorrow, he sighed and thought of his ruined life. What was he salvaging, really? At forty-two he’d nothing to show for his centuries of breeding, his fine education. With few exceptions the Americans were savages and criminals, cast out by the civilized countries of Europe. Even the upper classes in Philadelphia had less education than barbarians like Marat, who’d taken a medical degree, or Danton, who’d studied law.

  But the majority of those gentlemen were dead, they who’d first spearheaded, then undermined the Revolution. Marat assassinated; Camille Desmoulins and Georges Danton gone to the guillotine in the same tumbril; Hébert, Chaumette, Couthon, Saint-Just; Lebas, who’d blown out his own brains rather than submit to arrest; and the Robespierre brothers, Maximilien and Augustin, whose deaths beneath the blade marked the end of the Terror. He might have met the same fate, had he remained in France. But now it was time to pick up the pieces. He patted the letter in his pocket and smiled inwardly. It was France where he belonged, in the midst of Germaine de Staël’s glittering salon, weaving brilliant political intrigue. Not tramping about in the midst of this godless wilderness.