Catacombs

by John Farris

  It was coming very fast, straight at her out of nowhere, and there was no sound. All the thunder of the Tumansky turbojet engine was well behind the MiG Fishbed fighter-interceptor. For three terrifying seconds she descended into its path, totally helpless, while the delta-wing jet closed from one mile away with a gradual sound of the sky tearing open. The jet had a black pencil-sharp nose and two Atoll AAM's mounted on wing pylons. She could clearly see the head of the pilot inside the canopy. He had to have seen Raun, no way to miss her. Therefore he intended to run her down.

  But before this flash of thought and her mounting terror could crystallize into the certain knowledge of her imminent death, the Fishbed barrel rolled and flashed by over the lake almost too fast for her brain to register the image. Then she was buffeted by a severe shock wave that came close to collapsing the chute overhead. Her eardrums ached.

  Adrenaline was still pumping madly as she hit the ground and tucked and rolled and was dragged thirty yards by an unexpectedly fierce gust of wind across the friable skin of the alpine plateau. When she had the sagging canopy under control and was out of harness, she stood trembling, her body streaming wet beneath the jump suit. She scanned the plateau and thought she saw someone else come down in a collapsing blossom of chute about two hundred yards over the crest of a ridge.

  Raun was astonished to find that she barely had the strength to stroll a dozen feet to one of the pallets and sit on it. She took off her helmet and put her head between her knees and rested like that until she heard the unnerving scream of the jet coming back. Or was it a different one?

  Now what? she thought, but she didn't trouble to look up.

  "Stop here."

  Michael Belov heard the sound of the helicopter's turbine engine in the yard of the Nyangoro Coffee Cooperative. They had approached the plantation circuitously from the west and were traveling along a muddy track between neat straight rows of coffee shrubs. When McVickers stopped the Land Cruiser, Belov got out and continued on foot until he could see the orange metal roofs of the buildings and the rotor blades of the Raven helicopter turning. They turned slowly and it was apparent that the pilot was not about to take off.

  It had not rained for an hour. There were hot flashes of sun through the streaming low clouds. Belov found concealment behind a heap of irrigation pipe. The pilot cut his engine, climbed on top of the helicopter with his kit of wrenches, and made more adjustments on the rotor hub. The helicopter had the colors and markings of the Air Defense Wing. A radio was playing music but the pilot was, as far as Belov could tell, alone on the coop.

  A tremor ran through the land, causing the pipes to rattle. Thinking the pile might collapse, Belov backed off a little way. After three or four minutes the tremor subsided.

  He found it reasonable to believe that Kumenyere, after leaving his villa, had been driven to the nearest airport, where the copter had picked him up for the flight to Kilimanjaro. Here the copter had been grounded, probably for repairs. But Belov recalled that the Raven had an operational ceiling of only about ten thousand feet. Therefore, if Kumenyere was not here, undoubtedly he had pushed on up the mountain on foot, to an elevation of ten thousand feet or better, where the cloud cover was heavy. And he must have had a good idea beforehand where Henry Landreth could be found.

  About twenty minutes later Robeson Kumenyere came walking down off the mountain. Alone. His boots were caked with mud. He carried the laser rifle in one hand. He went directly to the helicopter. A few feet away he suddenly raised his rifle over his head, a gesture of exultation. He did a little tribal dance to emphasize his triumph. The hunter home from the kill. It sent a cold shockwave through Belov's gut. Then Kumenyere wearily let down his pack and climbed into the helicopter beside the pilot; Belov couldn't see him clearly any longer.

  Within a couple of minutes the engine started, the rotor blades achieved lift-off pitch, and the copter rose slowly. Belov crept back to the pile of rust-pitted pipe. He watched as the helicopter swung around above the trees and then flew southwest, in the general direction of Arusha.

  He went back to the Land Cruiser. It was two thirty in the afternoon. He had McVickers follow the track where he'd first seen Kumenyere. It was not much to go on, but the ruts told of a big four-wheel drive vehicle that had passed that way during the last twenty-four hours.

  Twenty minutes tortuous driving from the cooperative they came to the abandoned Land-Rover, which looked like the backplate in a target gallery. The holes were small enough to have been made by .22s, the caliber of Kumenyere's rifle. He had thrown enough lead to disable the Rover, but otherwise the ambush was a futile one. There was no blood anywhere inside.

  If Landreth had been hit it wasn't serious, at least not right away. The key was in the ignition. The engine was dead cold, so the ambush hadn't happened recently. A spider spinning its web from steering wheel to dash panel suggested the vehicle had sat there at least overnight. There were crushed cigarette butts on the floorboards, a pack of them. Perhaps he had sat smoking nervously in the dark all night while Kumenyere enjoyed a restful snooze back at the coffee coop's lodge. Which might have given him a head start at dawn.

  Belov tried the ignition but the engine wouldn't turn over. He and McVickers couldn't push the Land Rover far enough to one side to allow the Toyota to pass. The Russian put on his foul-weather mountain gear and shouldered his backpack, which weighed close to thirty-five pounds. McVickers backed slowly away with a wave of his hand, and Belov continued up the track.

  After a few minutes rain set in, a blowing drizzle that seeped to his skin despite his weatherproof clothing and worsened the footing. He fell several times, and his progress at best was excruciatingly slow. The air was thinner, much colder; he could see his breath. When the track became steeper he used his alpine ax to keep from sliding backward. All along the way he could still make out two sets of slurred bootprints. Two going up, one returning. It would not have surprised him to come across Henry Landreth's body by the side of the track as he moved steadily higher. He thought he was somewhere around ten thousand feet. Visibility was poor. From time to time the earth was uneasy beneath his feet, not precisely shaking: It felt a little as if he were walking across the back of a living creature. He heard a low rumbling that prickled the hairs on the back of his neck.

  Slowly the dense creeper, brier, and giant ferns began to thin and he had a glimpse of a moor half smothered in cloud. The forest trees became noticeably smaller, hung with Saint-John's-wort and orchids. They were more widely spaced, forming pleasant glades rather than dense impenetrable tracts.

  He emerged onto a devastated landscape that was thick with mud as far as he could see; it was as if he were looking at the canted bottom of a lake violently and completely drained of its waters. The mud, called lahar, was piled up in places in a soft wall five or six feet high; it contained some awesome boulders and huge chunks of ice clear as diamonds, unimaginably ancient ice now being shed by the glacier somewhere above in blinding fog and cloud.

  There seemed to be no way to get through the mudslide–he would have to feel his way around it. But he was tired now; he had to rest. His eyes settled on a raft of timbers that looked as if they had formed a roof of some kind, perhaps the roof of a climbers' hut. The timbers were about forty feet away in the morass. The mud had swallowed the rest.

  Belov, cold and dispirited, poured a shot of brandy from a sterling flask, never taking his eyes off the glistening mud. He had the uneasy feeling that the entire mass might suddenly pour down, with a loud plopping sound, like catsup from an upended bottle.

  He swallowed the fiery brandy, then suddenly and angrily put his hands to his mouth and shouted. "Hello! Henry Landreth! Can you hear me?"

  The echoes bounced cheerlessly, frustratingly across the wide moorland.

  It was schoolboy's pique; he'd known from the beginning that the odds were impossibly long. From bootprints on the ground it was apparent that Robeson Kumenyere also had turned back at this point. But his brief cele
bration before boarding the helicopter was testimony to his success. Undoubtedly he'd overtaken Landreth here and left him dead, perhaps in a narrow vale now deep in gelid mud.

  At the corner of his eye Belov saw a tiny flare of red. It was next to nothing, a pinprick of light, attractant because of its contrast to the monotonous mud landscape. It could have been a late shaft of sun striking a piece of quartz at a specific angle to bring out the refracted color, but although there was a glow of sunset in the west, the fading daylight was diffused by the cloud cover. He looked to his right but didn't see the light again. All he saw were rocks of all sizes, smashed and uprooted trees with skinny trunks and large crowns of green leaves, thousands of pieces of ice embedded in the lahar.

  Still. . .

  He took binoculars from his pack and straightened, but before he could raise the glasses to his eyes he saw the tiny blip of red again. He focused hurriedly on the quadrant from which the glow was emanating. He couldn't locate it. He began a search pattern, noting the almost jellylike consistency of the mud, the thin puddles of rainwater on the undulant surface, some torn blossoms, and the time: The time was five twenty-three. The date was–

  Belov lowered the glasses disbelievingly, a rictus of a smile appearing. He raised them again and saw the uplifted hands and a bony wrist, the large black lozenge and stainless band of a quartz LED watch, the slant red numerals. A trembling finger depressed a button on the side of the case. The display vanished. Then it was on again. Five twenty-four. He cocked the binoculars a little to the right of the watch and brought into view the mummified head of Henry Landreth, mud everywhere except for the black holes of nostrils, eyes, shrunken mouth.

  "Hang on!" Belov called. "I'm coming!"

  There was no immediate response; then he saw the blinking of a mud-thickened eyelash, the fingers of Henry's left hand closing weakly in a try at a clenched-fist salute.

  Alive.

  "I'll get you out!" Belov said reassuringly. But even as he spoke he realized how very near impossible it would be to effect a rescue without sacrificing his own life in the attempt. Still, without Henry Landreth he couldn't hope to get his hands on the red diamonds, and the FIREKILL formula.

  He was already working as he tried to think of a surefire solution. Henry was some forty yards uphill and to his right, well into the flow of mud which Belov now perceived to be moving, very slowly, piling up more thickly in some places than in others. The depth of the mud surrounding Henry was difficult to gauge: perhaps five feet. He seemed to be buried in it on his back and at an angle, his head downhill.

  Should Belov wade up into the mud, he might quickly become immobile. Perhaps, no matter how careful he tried to be, he would step into a depression in the uneven moorland and sink over his head.

  He was carrying two hundred coiled feet of a light but tough Dacron rope, his best bet if Henry retained sufficient strength in the cold mud bath to seize it. In the late seventies Belov had spent eight weeks touring the United States, and had enjoyed a couple of days on a dude ranch in Arizona. There a sometime movie cowboy and stunt man named Zane Grey Glenburn had taught him how to make and throw a lasso. The rope he now had in his hands lacked the weight of the lariat he'd used on the ranch, and he wasn't sure he could reach Henry, but there was no other real hope.

  "I'm throwing a rope! Hold up your arm as high as you can–give me something to aim at!"

  He edged closer to Henry along the perimeter of the moving mud, and as he did so was distracted by an unexpected and unnerving sight. On the raft of timbers that had been the roof of the climbing hut a tawny cheetah was sitting, watching him. The cheetah's face, at a distance, looked as stylized as a Noh mask; typically feline eyes a vivid yellow in the dying light, black teardrop patterns bracketing the short nose from the inside of each eye to the corners of the mouth. The tips of the steely whiskers had a peculiar radiance, like St. Elmo's fire.

  It wasn't possible to tell how the creature had so cleanly reached the raft; perhaps by springing from one boulder after another across the coffee-colored mud. And, he thought, sparing the matter a few moments, cheetahs were plains animals, common enough in the flatlands of the Serengeti, where their startling bursts of speed augmented their hunting skills. But probably a lone cheetah was unheard of at this altitude. What had brought it here?

  His fascination with the animal was short-lived; it looked well fed and couldn't be any danger to him. And he had to be quick about getting Henry unstuck. There was very little left of him above the surface.

  Henry had heard, and tried to obey, Belov's command. But the arm he thrust higher shook and fell back to the mud. Now almost all of his head was submerged.

  "Here it comes!"

  Belov made a big whirling loop to one side of his body as Zane Grey Glenbum had taught, and threw the lasso forty feet. The loop, six feet in diameter, landed around Henry and he began to draw it tighter. Henry still had his other hand free.

  "Try to push it down under your arm!" Belov shouted when the mud-laden Dacron loop had drawn closer and tighter around Henry. Obviously Henry no longer could lift his head from the ooze; but his left hand felt slowly around for the rope and closed on it, drew it down to the elbow of his right arm, pushed it beneath the mud. Not very far. Belov gave a slow steady pull on the line, setting the loop around what

  he hoped was Henry's shoulder. When his cautious pull resulted in a taut line he was ready for the desperate business of trying to yank Henry home without suffocating him along the way. "We need leverage! Grasp the line above your head with your left hand!"

  Belov waited impatiently for Henry to respond. Henry needed three tries to reach high enough to take hold of the line inches above his face.

  Belov's breath was smoking; he felt the cold even through his mountaineer's sweater and knit cap and marveled at the spark that had kept Henry alive, even at this low ebb, for what might have been hours. "Now! Give me all the help you can–you're dead weight!"

  Belov belayed the Dacron line around his waist and chest; the line ran tight back over one shoulder. He heaved with what he thought was all of his strength and felt no give, no momentum beginning, which shocked him; it was like trying single-handedly to yank a whale off the ocean floor.

  He sobbed with effort, finding it difficult, even in nailed boots, to get a good purchase on the sodden heath. He bent nearly double, trembling violently, willing himself to sustain the effort.

  Another man might have cursed, or prayed. Belov did John Wayne.

  "Well, Pilgrim . . . don't know how you got yourself . . . pinned down in that hog waller, but . . . it's gonna be all right. . . . The Duke ain't lost . . . a poor wayward Pilgrim . . . yet, and he ain't . . . about to start now . . . ayuh."

  The tight line around his chest was having the undesirable effect of cutting off some of his wind, and he felt as if he were drifting off into a field of sparkling stars, out of touch with his fingers, his stomping boots.

  Then the line seemed to part behind him and, with no way to put the brakes on, he pitched head over heels down the slope.

  It took him half a minute to get to his feet; his head cleared slowly. He had gashed his chin and blood dripped steadily. He shoved a gloved finger against the wound to stanch the blood and turned in despair.

  He saw that it hadn't been the line after all. Nor had he pulled Henry Landreth's right arm out of the socket. The mud had yielded Henry whole, and he had come skimming and slicking down the heath after Belov. He was lying motionless, faceup, in a freshened rain. There was not an inch of Henry uncoated with mud, hair and hide, but the rain began slowly to clean him up.

  Belov fetched his canteen to help nature along, and the flask of brandy. Henry took a long drink of water, choked, spat and spat streams of brown water. His skin was too blue, and Belov was worried. He poured a few drops of the brandy at a time on Henry's tongue and began to strip him in order to wrap him in one of the wool blankets from his pack.

  Henry put a hand on his arm, a gesture of gra
titude.

  "Did you see them?" he whispered. Belov was astonished to hear any sound from him other than wheezing, choking, and gasping.

  "What?" He looked back over his shoulder, at the raft of timbers. The cheetah had vanished.

  "They," Henry continued, as if it were of vital importance, "did not want me to die. I thought they would be angry. But they came down to watch over me. Otherwise, don't you see–I'd have given up."

  "I haven't seen anyone."

  "No?"

  "Who are you talking about?"

  "The Lords of the Storm," Henry explained, his voice almost inaudible. "They ruled the earth–or at least the continent of Africa–ten thousand years ago." Henry's dirty forehead creased in a frown. He tried to take a look around, but hadn't the strength.

  Belov, sitting him up naked to get a blanket around him, could almost see the wild beating of his heart in the thin cage of bones that was his chest. As far as Belov could tell, Henry hadn't been shot. But he was having trouble breathing. He looked very ill from prolonged exposure on the inhospitable mountain, and apparently was delirious.

  He could lose the Englishman, Belov thought, gritting his teeth. After years at his trade he had an instinct about the nearness of death. He began rubbing Henry's body furiously in an attempt to restore circulation, to draw some warmth from the tepid veins. After all the luck they'd both had, bloody hell, Henry just wasn't going to duck out on him now!

  Chapter 24

  MOMELA LAKES, TANZANIA

  Camp David, Maryland

  May 20

  The four men from the Soviet Union met at Chanvai with Jumbe Kinyati and Robeson Kumenyere at ten thirty in the morning, following an all-night flight from Moscow to Kilimanjaro airport. The delegation had been handpicked by the thirteen members of the Politburo to provide a convincing demonstration of the faith they had in Jumbe's bloodstones.