by Roland Smith
Fiske considered it, but only for a second. “No. We better go.”
He took a step out and started down the cliff.
Reagan and Nellie had been flex-cuffed and pushed into the back of a windowless panel truck.
Nellie swallowed. “Is it really bad?” Her white and black hair was matted to her head with sweat and blood.
Reagan examined her in the dim light. “Your face is a little swollen, but I don’t think it’s serious. I’m more concerned about your leg. We need to get the wounds cleaned up so they don’t get infected.”
“I shouldn’t have thrown the stick,” Nellie said.
“It’s pretty hard not to when a vicious animal is charging you. I learned about it in survival school. Predators expect their prey to run away or defend themselves. When that doesn’t happen it throws a wrench into their circuitry — most of the time.”
“Listen!” Nellie interrupted.
One of the guards was talking on a two-way radio outside the door, but he must have had an earphone in because they could only hear his side of the conversation.
“Yes, sir . . . no . . . We have two in custody. . . . Nellie and the Holt girl . . . If that’s how you want to handle it . . . Let me look at a map. . . . I know the location. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
The truck rumbled to life. They were on the move.
Phoenix had no idea how he had gotten to the front of the line, but it was too late to change positions now. The slippery steep path down to the river was only wide enough for one person. Alistair was about twenty feet behind him, holding on to roots sticking out from the dirt bank to keep himself steady. Fiske was next, followed by Ted and Natalie. Of all of them, Ted seemed to be doing the best at negotiating the treacherous descent. Phoenix could only guess it was because he was used to moving carefully and feeling his way. He waited for Alistair to catch up.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Alistair answered through clenched teeth. He was normally as neat as a pin, even in captivity, but his coverall was now soaked through with sweat and spattered with dirt. “I just have to move slowly, and I can’t look down. I’m a little acrophobic.”
Phoenix risked a glance at the boiling river a hundred feet below and his stomach lurched. He grabbed on to one of the roots, wondering if he suffered from fear of heights, too.
Or maybe it’s the fact that I can’t swim. Not that anyone could swim in those rapids.
“How’s your hand?” Alistair asked, pushing on despite his obvious pain.
“It’s okay,” Phoenix said, which wasn’t true. It was swollen, painful, and useless. He could only use his left hand to anchor himself in place and his heart squeezed each time he had to let go and take another step.
“Any sign of Reagan and Nellie?” Alistair asked the group behind him.
“No,” a weary-looking Natalie replied.
Phoenix was about to volunteer to go look for them when the ground lurched beneath him. The wet dirt he was standing on seemed to quiver, then peel away from the path. Phoenix lunged for the side of the cliff, but his legs windmilled under him. It was too late. His world shifted into terrifying slow motion as he began to plunge into the rapids far below.
“Nooo!” Alistair leaped forward, falling hard on his bad knee, but all he could grab was Phoenix’s injured hand.
Phoenix could hear the others screaming, but he couldn’t see them. He was dangling over the river with the gray face of Alistair Oh looming above him. He frantically scrambled for a foothold, or something to grab on to with his good hand. But there was nothing beneath him but air. The pain from his injured hand was excruciating, and the blood made it slippery. He could feel Alistair’s grip starting to fail.
“Hang on!” Alistair shouted. “I have you!”
Phoenix’s weight was pulling Alistair closer and closer to the edge. Phoenix’s eyes blurred with tears as the hideous truth struck him. If he didn’t let go, they would both die.
Alistair must have seen the resolve in Phoenix’s expression. “Don’t let go!” Alistair pleaded.
Phoenix shook his head then, closing his eyes as tightly as he could. He pictured his mom’s face, the good-night smile she gave him when she used to tuck him in.
And Phoenix let go.
“Did someone just fall?”
Natalie barely heard the question over her sobs. Incredulous, she turned her head to see a hiker standing behind her.
“Did someone fall?” he repeated urgently.
Natalie looked at him in confusion. He was in his early twenties, carrying a backpack slung over his shoulder.
“Our friend just . . .” She choked up again. “He . . .”
“Stay exactly where you are,” the man said. “I’m going to squeeze by you.”
Before she could object, he slipped nimbly by her and Ted, who was frozen in horror.
Fiske stared at the man in disbelief. “Who are you? How did you —”
“Never mind that,” the man interrupted. “The ground isn’t stable!”
Together Fiske and the hiker pulled the devastated Alistair to his feet.
“I . . . I couldn’t hold on. . . .”
“It’s a long fall,” the man said, looking over the edge. “But there’s a chance he’s still alive. Can he swim?”
“I don’t know,” Fiske said, looking with a spark of hope at Ted and Natalie.
Natalie shook her head. She didn’t know, either.
“The rapids are bad through here,” the man said. “But they flatten out about a mile downriver.”
“Who are you?” Fiske asked.
“My name is Martin Holds. I was up on top when I heard someone yell.”
“You got down here pretty quickly,” Fiske said.
“I guess I did,” Martin said. “I’ve been down this path before and I’m a mountain climber.”
“Where are we?”
Martin looked confused. “You don’t know?”
Fiske shook his head.
“Baden-Württemberg.”
“Germany?” Fiske asked.
Martin nodded. “The Black Forest.” He looked at their clothes and a whisper of alarm crossed his face.
“How can we get down there?”
“The trail’s out. The only way around is to go back on top. I have a cell phone at camp. We can call for help.” He gave Alistair a sympathetic look. “If your friend survived the fall, we’ll find him.”
Fiske shook his head. He could not believe that Phoenix was gone.
Natalie was the first to reach the top of the trail, but she’d barely stepped to safety when a hand grabbed her, covered her mouth, and threw her to the ground. Ted was next. Fiske tried to fight the guards off, but got a smack with a rifle butt for his trouble. With his bad knee, Alistair was subdued easily. Martin Holds was last. He was able to bloody a guard’s nose and smash a fist into another guard’s belly before he, too, was overwhelmed.
“Saved us from coming down to get you,” the head guard said, looking down at the flex-cuffed prisoners. “Nice of you to come back up the trail.”
Fiske was too exhausted and grief-stricken to respond, but Martin Holds struggled to turn over. “What’s all this about?” he demanded.
The guard ignored him. “Where’s the boy?”
“He fell,” Fiske said.
“We’ll see.” He waved two guards down the trail. “Get up!”
When they didn’t comply, the guards yanked them roughly to their feet.
“Get your hands off me!” Martin shouted.
“He has nothing to do with this!” Fiske insisted, breaking away to force himself between the guard and Martin. “He doesn’t know anything. He was just trying to help us!”
“Wrong place at the wrong time,” the head guard said. He took his pistol out of its holster and chambered a round.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Martin shouted, his face stark with shock.
“Take them to the trucks,” the head guar
d ordered, jerking his head toward the hostages.
“You can’t do this!” Fiske yelled as they pushed him and the others into the woods. “He didn’t do anything!”
A gunshot rang out behind them.
Natalie, Fiske, Ted, and Alistair each felt it in their guts.
Phoenix Wizard was too scared to scream as he fell. And he didn’t have the time. The hundred-foot fall took only two seconds, but he hit the ice-cold water faster than his mom’s car at top speed. He slammed down through the water and felt his legs crunch against the rocks at the bottom. The impact knocked the air out of him and he sucked in the frigid water. The current caught him immediately, scraping him over rocks and sucking him through whirlpools. When his lungs felt like they were about to burst, the current popped him out long enough to catch a frantic breath.
He knew his body couldn’t take much more. His muscles had gone limp, and he barely had the strength to keep his hands up to protect his head from the jagged rocks that lined the banks and loomed up out of the water. Just as his battered body and brain were about to give up, he saw a long hanging branch. It was his only chance.
If I catch it, I live. If I miss it, I die.
He lunged for the branch, but his hand started to slip. Gritting his teeth, he lunged a second time and let out a primal scream. This time his grip held and slowly, hand over hand, his shrapnel wound burning, he managed to pull himself onto shore. He lay there gasping for breath.
When Phoenix had enough strength to sit up, he assessed his situation. He guessed he must be at least a mile downstream by now. The others wouldn’t have been able to make it past where the path collapsed. They’d have to double back and find another way down to the river — if they thought he survived. Phoenix fought the urge to rush back upstream as fast as possible and search for the others. His best option was to follow the river downstream and find help for himself and his friends.
He got shakily to his feet and tried to get his bearings. For as far as he could see in every direction were giant trees, steep hills, and snowcapped mountains.
How far is it to the nearest town? What if there isn’t a road downriver?
The vastness of his surroundings seemed to shake right through him. Phoenix was alone in the wilderness.
On the flight between Berlin and Timbuktu, Dan and Atticus used the private jet’s restroom a record twenty-seven times each. Their room-service gorge from the night before had taken its toll on both of them. In between urgent trips down the aisle, they played video games on Jonah’s sixty-inch high-definition monitor.
Amy and Jake were sitting as far away from the boys as they could. They both said that they wanted to sleep the whole way to Timbuktu, but the fifty-four times Dan or Atticus walked by, the two teenagers had their heads together talking, totally oblivious to everything around them.
Atticus returned from the restroom, sat down next to Dan, and blinked. “I think Jake has . . . It’s almost too gross to think about. I think he likes Amy.”
“Yeah?” Dan stared at the monitor. He was very close to achieving the next level. “By the way, you died when you were on the toilet. I tried to save you, but it was hard to use two controllers at once.”
“What about Jake and Amy?” Atticus asked, craning his neck to get another look at his brother.
Dan scrunched up his face as if he were confronting a plate of lima beans. “If Jake likes her, he’s in for a big disappointment. She only has eyes for Evan. When they’re together, they’re all ‘You’re so great; no, you’re so great.’ If you saw it, you’d gag. Speaking of which, I’m finally getting hungry again. How about you?”
Atticus reached up and punched the flight-attendant button.
“Desertification,” Amy said as they stepped out onto the baking tarmac.
“I hear you,” Dan said, holding his stomach. “I’m not going to eat another dessert for a week.”
Atticus rolled his eyes. “She’s not talking about dessert! She’s talking about how the desert is reclaiming Timbuktu.”
Dan had to admit it, it was difficult to distinguish the single-story airport buildings from the sand around them. The air seemed to crackle with heat. Battered airplanes were scattered haphazardly along the cracked runway, as if they had landed decades before and had never taken off again.
“It looks like the end of the world,” Amy said.
“Well, it’s sure deserted,” Dan said. “Where is everybody?”
The only thing moving on the tarmac was blowing sand. The only thing moving inside the terminal was an old custodian sucking sand off the carpet with an ancient vacuum cleaner.
Atticus inched closer to his brother. “This is kind of creepy,” he said.
“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “It kind of reminds me of that end-of-the-world game we were playing on the airplane.”
“Without the zombies,” Atticus said, frowning suspiciously at the landscape around them.
“I’m glad to see you both utilized your time so well on the plane,” Amy said.
“Yeah? What did you and Jake do?” Dan shot back.
Amy lifted her chin. “We learned that Timbuktu was once a safe haven for scholars and the intellectual hub for most of Islam.”
“There’s no reference to an ‘Apology for a Great Transgression’ anywhere on the web,” Jake said. “But Timbuktu has a half a dozen libraries, with thousands of ancient manuscripts, most of which are uncataloged. Whatever Vesper One’s looking for, it’s probably in one of those libraries.”
“How many thousands?” Atticus asked, a spark of interest showing behind his glasses.
“Mark this down,” Jake said. “There’s something my brother doesn’t know.”
“Seven hundred thousand,” Amy said quietly. The vast number silenced them all for a moment.
“That’s only one hundred seventy-five thousand each.” Atticus cocked his head doubtfully.
No one responded.
Dan looked at his watch. “We have twenty hours left, so we better get started.”
Amy opened the door marked Passenger Pick-Up in French.
There was only one taxi. The driver was lying on the hood asleep, but he sat up and stretched as they approached. He gave his brown and gray beard a good scratch, took a sip of water, swished it around, then spit it out on the sand-covered asphalt.
“My name is Bart. I am at your service.”
“Is your name really Bart?” Atticus asked.
The man raised an eyebrow. “If you prefer you can call me Basharat Antarah Rawahah Tajamul.”
“Bart works for me,” Dan said.
“Your English is excellent,” Jake said. “Elijah told me it would be.”
Amy stared at him. “Who?”
“Elijah Smith,” Jake explained. “My dad’s travel agent. I texted him and asked if he knew anyone in Timbuktu that could show us around. He said we could trust Mr. Tajamul with our lives.”
Amy gritted her teeth. “You could have mentioned this to me,” she said.
Jake smiled and shrugged, which irritated her even more.
Bart looked at Amy. “My French is even better than my English. My father sent me to private school in Paris and the University of California at Berkeley. He wanted me to better myself. But as you can see . . .” He gestured to his tattered clothes and dented taxi.
“I’m not sure we’ll need your services after all,” Amy said.
Jake frowned. “We’ll at least need a ride into town.”
“How much?” Amy asked Bart.
“Seventy-five thousand CFA,” Bart said.
“And how much is that in dollars?”
“One hundred and fifty.”
“Outrageous,” Amy said, snapping her eyes over at Jake. He looked a little surprised, too, which gave her some satisfaction.
“For two hundred dollars I could be at your disposal for the next twenty-four hours. Or perhaps you already know your way around Timbuktu?”
Amy pulled Dan to the side. She trusted his inst
incts. “What do you think?” she whispered.
“He seems okay,” Dan answered. “If he was a Vesper he wouldn’t be asking for that much, because he wouldn’t want to lose the job. And we are in a hurry.”
Amy nodded and turned back to Bart.
“All right,” she said. “Half now. Half when we leave.”
Bart gave her a slight bow. “It is a deal.”
Amy counted out the money.
Milos Vanek was at an airport four thousand miles away. Unlike the Timbuktu airport, Mumbai International was teeming with thousands of people in bright clothes hauling impossibly huge loads of luggage and packages. He wove his way through the throng as he spoke to a colleague at the Mumbai Interpol headquarters.
It appeared that Dan Cahill had been telling the truth. Jonah Wizard had been spotted in Mumbai earlier that day. A video of the famous entertainer dancing with a charmed cobra had gone viral, and now every young person in Mumbai was out with their camera phone looking for him.
Vanek would be looking for him, too.
Nellie had been sobbing for more than an hour straight, her injuries all but forgotten in her grief over Phoenix. The thoughts of what she should have done pummeled her. She should never have stayed behind with Reagan. She should have kept everyone together. The others assured her that it would have made no difference, but she didn’t believe them. He was just a little kid, and he’d trusted her. She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand and took a deep breath. There were other little kids in the truck, and they needed her just as much as he had.
Get it together, Gomez. Focus on those who are still here.
“I can’t believe they shot Martin Holds,” Fiske said.
They had told her and Reagan about the hiker and his sudden murder.
If the Vespers could murder a completely innocent bystander, what do they have in mind for us?
The hostages had been in the back of the panel truck for hours without water, food, or relief. No amount of pounding, kicking, yelling, or pleading would get the guards to open the door. Reagan had suggested they rock the truck until they tipped it over.
