Catacombs

by John Farris

  The main floor and support columns of the lodge were stone, but enough mahogany had been used in construction to make the lodge a prime firetrap. A lamp dropped in the wrong place would turn the rotunda into a furnace. Erika envisioned the bronze bed-vessel overheating, taking on an other-worldly glow, then slowly sinking into a tumultuous sea of sparks. She licked her dry lips, ignored the painful hammering of her heart, and crossed the rotunda to the entrance. There one ten-foot cast-bronze door, as ambitious a work of art as anything she'd seen in a Renaissance church, stood open a couple of feet.

  She went outside, passing from a gloomily baroque vision of man to the starkly primeval.

  Before her, from the modest heights on which the lodge was set, was a vista of a thousand square miles, parched savanna and bush, flights of birds in a yellow sky, dark trees like thorny low clouds along a seeping stream. And animals quietly on the move everywhere to the scarce water: baboons, blue monkeys, the inordinately shy bushbuck. Within a hundred feet of the dooryard she saw a twitchy herd of golden impala, passing through what had once been a formal garden.

  The red-eyed mongoose settled down to capturing a meal of flickering grasshoppers. Erika ventured farther into the yard and looked behind the great lodge, at an unexpected escarpment of naked rock three hundred feet high, an offshoot from the Great Rift Valley; it cast a premature darkness over them. She saw why the abandoned lodge might well have gone undetected for many years. Its stone exterior had the precise coloration of the rugged rise behind it.

  This escarpment accounted for the abundance of game; even without rain some water and minerals would trickle into the lowlands the year round. Erika saw where elephants had demolished an acre of yellow acacia, leaving fragments, splinters, the beginnings of a desert. She was breathing through her mouth and knew she must rest. She sagged down on the rim of a fountain. Masonry, and bronze figures, discolored, dark as ink. From a cherub's blissful mouth a sinister lizard dripped. She heard the ominous hum of tsetse flies; but they hadn't found her yet. She panted. She knew she could not proceed another dozen steps. Her body trembled. In all this openness she was trapped by infirmity, as solidly as if she were anchored in concrete.

  Among the stones ringing the fountain there was a larger oblong, as large as the roof of a crypt. She went down on one knee to examine a metal marker. She used her fingertips to decipher the Gothic letters. It was the final resting place of Admiral Von Kreutzen. Whoever he was. Another voyager, far from the mainstream, asleep, in bedrock. She batted away a bloodsucking tsetse, and winced.

  Oliver trudged toward her, looking concerned.

  "Coming in now. Flies very bad sometimes here."

  Erika braced herself, raised her head, and smiled.

  "Well, Oliver. As you can see, I'm not exactly going places. Give me–another day or two. In the meantime I know–I can depend on you to carry on, you've done splendidly so far. It's imperative that you get to a radio or a telephone, and notify–let me think now, who would it be best to–never mind, I'll give you names. You call, use my name, they'll pay. Tell them–an emergency exists. Kingdom Mission, Ivututu, Tanzania. Everyone dying. Help must be sent immediately. There must be–official inquiries, the UN, I don't care. They'll know what to do. Oliver, are you listening? With your–capable assistance, I know we can pull this off."

  He did a little scuffling dance of uneasiness, grinning. At this level, eyes at his knees, the fraying edges of cutoff trousers, she was made aware of what a load of testicles he carried, they hung down almost a foot, big fist-like bulges that caused him to walk with a slight bowlegged stride. He was almost inhumanly endowed, balls enough to burst through the always dusty, glittering khakis he wore.

  Erika raised her eyes to the escarpment behind the lodge.

  "All the dust," she said. "You're always–so dusty. You told me you'd been a miner, near Joey's. That's what you're doing here, isn't it? Looking for gold. I'll wager you've found it. That escarpment. You know a gold-bearing hill when you see one, don't you?"

  His wide smile pleaded innocence even as he backed away in fear.

  "Oh, mum. Tanzania very poor. No gold. No gold."

  "What about the Lupa gold field near Mbeya? I heard you downstairs last night–all night. Pick, pick, pick. Chinking away at some rocks. It's all right, Oliver. Please don't misunderstand. I'm happy for you."

  "Coming in now. Bad flies."

  "Is it that you're afraid to help me? Afraid the authorities will somehow get after you for prospecting on government land? You needn't be. I'll see to it that you're amply rewarded. Trust me, Oliver. My friends–are dying. I must get word out."

  Oliver looked around unhappily. He clapped his hands to his head.

  "Oh, heavens," he moaned.

  "Oliver, I'm sort of a prospector, like you. I'm an archaeologist, do you know what– Never mind. I look for treasures, the remains of old civilizations. Tribes that lived a long time ago. Right here in Tanzania, my associates and I discovered the most astounding treasure anyone has ever seen. More valuable than all the gold of the Witwatersrand, I promise you."

  He was staring solemnly at her, still holding his head in commiseration, listening. But not, Erika was certain, comprehending what she had to say.

  "You've heard of Kilimanjaro, haven't you?"

  "Oh, yes. Big mountain. But not seeing it ever."

  "In Kilimanjaro, I mean inside the mountain, there are–there are–I don't know how to make you understand–there are rooms. And each of these rooms is larger than all of Admiral Von Kreutzen's lodge. One of the rooms is a Repository, a–a storehouse, containing hundreds of red diamonds. Immensely valuable in themselves, but they're etched with a complete record of a long-vanished race of men. Well, it's a long story, what happened to us, but we were betrayed, I think.

  "By Henry Landreth. Yes, it had to be that bloody bastard H-Henry. And removed to this pitiful little mission near Ivututu. Either we contracted a fever in the–the Catacombs, the big rooms I was telling you about, or else we picked it up at the mission where they forced us to– But the tragic thing is, I thought I was free, I'd escaped. Now I'm no better off than I was before! And so much time has been lost. Oliver, if I can just get proper medical attention for my colleagues– But you have to do it. Help me. And I swear–I'll take you to the Catacombs. You can have one of the red diamonds! In a hundred years you won't dig enough gold in this godforsaken place to equal the value of a red diamond. You could own a house, and a Land-Rover to drive."

  Erika was sobbing. She knew that Oliver thought she'd gone round the bend.

  "Oliver!"

  He jumped and then nodded, too eagerly.

  "Yes. Helping, I." His head continued to bob up and down; his hands flailed at the swarming tsetses attracted by their body heat. "Coming in now, dark. Flies."

  He was a good and tenderhearted man, but a loner, perhaps a fugitive like herself. He had learned the hard way that it was wise to have nothing to do with governments, their petit officials, their brutal soldiers and police. He would continue to take very good care of her, and listen earnestly to her pleas. Tomorrow, and the next day, he would find plausible excuses for not making the trek to the nearest radio. He would procrastinate until it was too late for her to do Chips any good–if indeed he was still alive.

  Goaded by the vicious bite of a fly on the back of her neck, Erika screamed and lunged toward Oliver, taking him by surprise. She seized the prominent bulges between his strong thighs and dug her fingers into them.

  Instead of testicles there were nuggets. She had found his small hoard of compressed gold, carried in pouches in the safest place he could imagine.

  "You're lying! This is all you care about! You won't help me, you're too afraid!"

  Erika was overwhelmed by attacking flies and her own emotions. She curled up on the ground, trying to protect her face and neck, yelping each time a tsetse nipped flesh. She felt Oliver's hands on her. He picked her up as if she had no more heft than a market basket and ca
rried her at a jog into the lodge. He put her down on the lowest step of the staircase and went to slam the big bronze door.

  The rotunda reverberated, like the inside of a bell. Erika sat with her head in her hands, trembling.

  Oliver came back. "Blood on your face," he said. "Bad such flies. Maybe catching the sleeping sickness, you."

  "Oh, don't worry," Erika said irritably, barely able to breathe.

  She pulled herself to her feet and started up the stairs. She had to rest, every third step, and for longer intervals each time. A bat went whispering past, up and out through the broken dome.

  "I'm going to bed. Tomorrow–I'm leaving." Her declaration had a slight ringing echo. "You hear? Walking–out of here on my own. And I'll make it."

  From the top of the stairs she looked back at Oliver, at his impassive face in the shadowy rotunda.

  He looked different somehow. She wasn't used to seeing him absolutely, powerfully still–not smiling, nodding, dancing, doing one of his shy pantomimes. His long fingers were slowly curling, uncurling. There was about him an aspect of loosely controlled violence; and she was unexpectedly, irrationally afraid of him.

  "No, mum," Oliver said. "No leaving here, you. If you do that, you will surely die."

  Chapter 12

  FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL

  FACILITY

  Talon Mountain, Colorado

  May 8

  "Miss Hardie, I'd like to introduce Matthew Jade. He saved your life."

  Raun looked from John Guy Gibson to Jade, moving her eyes but not her head. She still felt a little sleepy from the sedative given her hours ago. She was lying nearly flat in a narrow hospital bed. They had cleared the entire infirmary ward, which was now locked and heavily guarded. Several CIA agents, protection specialists, had been flown in to ensure her safety.

  "Did you have to kill Zola?" she said crossly. "Wasn't there some other way? That poor demented woman."

  "She didn't leave any options."

  "Take off your hat so I can see your face."

  Jade removed his Stetson and took a step closer to the bedside light.

  Raun studied him. Curly, brassy hair grizzling at the temples, a high forehead, a formidable wedge of jaw, a slightly bemused, inquisitive expression. Small secluded eyes, just a hint of blue.

  "How could you do that? With the knife. It was dark and she was moving, wasn't she? My father used to throw a knife–for fun. But he said you couldn't hit a moving target very well."

  "It takes practice. About twenty hours a week, for twenty years. You get to where you can hit a tomato seed in a shit storm."

  "Oh, I see. What an interesting way to spend your time. You must be the star of one of the CIA's traveling horror shows. A program of old favorites, by request. Subversion, assassination, the politics of torture."

  "I'm just a local rancher," Jade said affably. "By the way, that was good shooting. Or I wouldn't have been in time to do you any good."

  Raun looked as if she was going to be sick.

  "Oh, God. I didn't want to think about that." She licked her lips, wincing, and dropped a hand to her right side.

  Dr. Murtaugh, a freckled plump woman with a severe hairdo, appeared at the side of the bed.

  "Raun, it was a superficial cut, I didn't have to take stitches. But it'll be painful for a couple of days."

  Raun caught her breath and relaxed, closing her eyes for a few moments. Then she tensed again, as if she were reliving her ordeal in the dispensary. She asked for a sip of water and focused on Gibson.

  "I suppose you're in charge here. Are you going to tell me what it's about? Why were Zola and–that girl trying to kill me? Or don't you know?"

  Gibby glanced at the doctor, who smiled and nodded and excused herself. When the door of the ward closed behind her there were only three men around the bed, including Gibson's bodyguard, Parcher; he was operating a Nagra tape recorder.

  "We can be reasonably certain that the attempted assassination has to do with an important archaeological discovery that your father made many years ago, near Lake Tanganyika."

  Raun looked perplexed. "I grew up in Africa. Kenya, Tanzania. But–Dad's major discovery came before I was born, in Ethiopia. The Afar communities. He's famous for–"

  "We know. We're talking about the Catacombs, a huge burial ground for an ancient civilization which he found just a few weeks before he died. We thought you might have been with him at the time."

  They were all watching her closely. Raun looked deep in thought, unenlightened.

  "We have reason to believe that President Kinyati of Tanzania ordered this attempt on your life, because he's afraid you can supply us with detailed information about the Catacombs, and pinpoint their location."

  "Catacombs? Lake Tanganyika? You mean–" She was suddenly silent, watchful, guarded.

  "I may know what you're talking about. But why should I tell the government anything? Look what the government's done to me."

  "All I can say now is that something found recently in the Catacombs by other explorers has a direct, vital bearing on the national security, and we must verify–

  "Oh, hey. Try again. I mean, that's just not where I'm coming from, all right?"

  "Miss Hardie, you were within a few seconds of dying this morning, and if you aren't willing to take that seriously–"

  "Gibby?" Jade said. "You're not making much of a presentation." He smiled warmly at Raun. "She has a right to be skeptical. I think I ought to assure Raun that the government is charged with responsibility for her well-being, so she'll have airtight protection from now on."

  "Thanks."

  "But you'll be living a little differently–in max Security, observed around the clock. Lights on twenty-four hours a day. Until you're eligible for parole, that's what–?"

  "Three and a half years from now," Raun said grimly. "You've made your point. Are you sure you're just a rancher?"

  "Cowflop between my toes."

  "I'll bet. Okay, you do the talking. If I want to be really loyal, patriotic, and sincere, could I get out of jail? Now?"

  "What can you do for us?"

  "Well–suppose I tell you that you're totally wasting your time, that someone is putting you on? That'll save you a lot of trouble, and maybe it's worth a commutation."

  "Do you know where the Catacombs are?"

  "If we're talking about the same thing. Dad stumbled onto this–burial place while he was looking for something else. But this is the part I don't think you'll like." She looked somewhat anxiously at the faces around the bed. "Believe me–there's nothing inside worth a second look. Ancient civilization? That's a reach. It's a room-like cave with a low ceiling. Some well-preserved mummies, potsherds, primitive artifacts. There are a few pictographs scratched on the walls, I didn't get a very good look at them. But nothing that could possibly be of significance to any government. Nothing that's worth my life. I'm telling you the truth! I'll take sodium pentothal or a lie-detector test if you want me to."

  Gibby, after a few moments, sighed bleakly and glanced at Jade, who seemed unperturbed as he stared at the woman in the bed.

  "How much time did your father spend exploring the Catacombs?"

  'Two days. He would have stayed longer, but I twisted my ankle the first day and it swelled up badly. It could have been broken, and he wanted to get me to a doctor. You know what a problem that can be, we were in the back of beyond. He made a lot of notes in one of his green books–"

  "What kind of book?"

  "Like a diary, dateless but with lined pages; they were all covered with dark green cloth. He bought a case of them at one time, and never used anything else for his observations. It was a trademark, almost, everyone in the profession made jokes about Dr. Hardie's little green books. Anyway, he was anxious about me so we broke up camp. He said he'd probably come back and finish the job one day, but he wasn't really excited about the find."

  "What happened to that notebook?"

  "Oh, Lord, there were so many! It's
probably at the University of Edinburgh, with the rest of his papers. That's where I shipped his files when I cleaned out the villa in Dar. I also sold most of his library to a second-hand dealer, but none of the notebooks was included. I don't think. But there were boxes and boxes."

  "So the green book with a description of the Catacombs could have slipped through accidentally, and turned up in the bookshop. Remember the dealer's name?"

  "Sure. Mr. Ganges. I guess he's still doing business there. On Maktaba Street, near the New Africa."

  "Did your father go into the Catacombs without you?" Jade asked.

  "The second day, after I twisted my ankle. I couldn't even stand up. We thought it would get better, so he went ahead with his exploration. I didn't see him until past sundown. By then I was in such pain I was almost delirious. I was running a fever."

  "Is it possible that Dr. Hardie made a second discovery at the site, that there was a lot more to the Catacombs than a chamber filled with mummies?"

  "A major archaeological discovery? My father wasn't the type to get excited about anything, but I would have known."

  "Maybe what he saw in the other Catacombs was so amazing that he was afraid to say a word, until he'd had a chance to thoroughly explore the find on his own."

  "He trusted me," Raun insisted. "He would have dropped a hint, given it away. Whenever I had a birthday due and he'd planned something special, his mouth would twitch at the corners and he'd try not to smile when he looked at me. Then I'd go to work on him, and get him to spill the beans."

  Her head turned restlessly on the pillow. She looked around the dreary prison ward, falling into a visible depression, bluntly reminded that the joy and freedom she'd had as a girl might be irrecoverable.

  "He must have been concerned about your condition when he came back," Jade said. "You were feverish–you might not have been fully aware of what was happening, what he had to tell you."