Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear gh-2

by Gabriel Hunt

  “And?”

  “Like most of what’s in the Bible, there are elements of historical truth to this story, but there is also much that’s unreliable. Moses existed, surely, and so did the golden calf, and when he saw the thing being venerated at the foot of Sinai, it’s very likely he did order it destroyed. Perhaps he even thought it had been, that the powder he was forcing down his people’s throats was the residue of its destruction. But he was just a man, after all, and easily deceived.

  “The golden calf was not destroyed, Mr. Stewart. I’ve seen it. I’ve touched it, I’ve held it in my hand. For three thousand years, it’s been hidden, preserved by a priestly sect that moves it from place to place at two-year intervals. They’ll kill any outsider who gets close to it. They tried to kill me, and they’ll try to kill you. But they won’t succeed—not if you’re as good as people say.”

  “I was once,” Malcolm said.

  “And you shall be again. No more wine, man. You have a job to do.” Burke extended his hand again, his left hand, and Malcolm watched it hang in the darkness, drawing him into a covenant that could cost him his life or worse.

  Lydia, he thought, if you were here, I’d spurn the offer and not think twice. But you’re gone, my darling, in heaven or in sod, and I’m left behind to end my days alone. What harm if they end quickly?

  He took Burke’s hand, felt it tighten around his own.

  From the darkness, he heard Margaret’s breath catch and felt a flicker of anger. She was the one who’d brought him here. What had she expected him to do?

  Malcolm strode purposefully through the rooms, retracing their steps to the entry hall. Margaret had to run to keep pace.

  “So, how many of us have there been?”

  “Four. Unless you count the ambassador. He refused the offer.”

  “Probably the only time anyone has refused that man anything.”

  “He’s a great man, and he’s suffered greatly,” Margaret said.

  “And made others suffer.”

  “He’s not made anyone do anything. He’s offered the opportunity—”

  “Four men have died chasing his opportunity.”

  “Then why did you say yes?” She wheeled on him and grabbed his arm. “No one forced you to.”

  “Maybe I just want the money.”

  She held his eyes, searched in them for something.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think you expect to see the money.”

  “Well, then, maybe I just need something to do, something that will get me out of this town.”

  She shook her head.

  “So tell me, Miss Stiles, why am I doing it?”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to think it’s because you recognize the importance of what he’s discovered. But I don’t think that’s it at all. I think maybe it’s the danger that attracts you. I think maybe you want to die.”

  “You’re wrong,” Malcolm said. “If that’s what I wanted, this city’s got no shortage of roofs to jump from.”

  “And pubs, where you can get yourself stuck by a boy with a knife.”

  “I didn’t start that fight,” Malcolm said.

  “None of you ever starts a fight. But somehow you end up in so many. And eventually one of them’s the death of you.”

  “Eventually. But not today.”

  “Only because I was there.”

  “And I’ve thanked you for it,” Malcolm said.

  “Who will you thank in North Africa, Mr. Stewart? When you’re crossing the Jebel Akhdar, who will you lean on for support?”

  “Maybe you’ll come with me,” he said, with a small smile. “And watch my back for me on the Jebel Akhdar.”

  She released his arm and he started toward the front door. She called out after him.

  “You know what the difference is between you and the other four?”

  He looked back. “What.”

  “They had a chance,” Margaret said.

  II

  He needed a drink in the worst way. It wasn’t just the heat, nor the deprivation—he’d gone without for longer when he’d had to. It was the touch of the familiar he yearned for. A bit of the house red might have dimmed the sun and cooled the air; most of all, it would have made the place feel less alien.

  Six years had gone unnoticed here. The flags of the Reich were gone, but no new standard had taken their place—the few flagpoles still standing were bare. The harbor hadn’t been enlarged: two ships of modest size still filled it to capacity. And bullet holes of various vintages scarred the walls of every building, silent reminders of the place’s violent history.

  Malcolm carried his bag into the center of town, waved off the attempts of two locals to take it off his hands for a couple of dirham. The papers Margaret had given him directed him to the hostel by the souq, and Malcolm picked his way to it through the crowded, listless streets. There were tradesmen bargaining, displaying their wares from hooks driven into the walls a century earlier. Reed baskets and hammered metal copils, cloth woven with traditional Arab motifs hanging side by side with war booty, bits of parachute silk and laceless boots, bayonet blades brown with rust and blood. Who would buy these things, Malcolm wondered, and with what money? But the merchants were there, and they didn’t look like they were starving.

  He palmed some folded dinars to the man behind the front desk at the hostel and was taken to a third-floor suite. The bed was low to the ground, and other than a mat and a basin the room had no furnishings, but it would do. It would have to. At least the elevation put it off limits to all but the more adventurous burglars—there was no balcony outside the window, and a thirty-foot fall to the cobblestones would end a man’s career even if it were not fatal.

  The call of the muezzin sang out and Malcolm closed the shutters of the window to muffle it. He’d have to get used to it—he’d be hearing it five times every day. But he was still tired from his trip, his healing arm was still sore, and he figured he could start getting used to it tomorrow.

  He unpacked his revolver, wiped it down, sighted along the barrel and practiced firing a few times before loading it and sliding it into the holster on his hip. With his jacket on, all but the bottom of the holster was covered. Anyone looking for it would spot it, but a casual passer-by might not.

  He folded Margaret’s tidy pages of notes and tucked them into one of his shirt’s breast pockets. He’d committed the information to memory during the crossing, but these names—he couldn’t always remember which was the person’s, which the street’s.

  The currency Burke had supplied went into his other breast pocket. Malcolm buttoned this one closed.

  The rest? His clothing could stay here. It would be pawed through by the management, but as long as they expected another night’s stay from him, they’d be unlikely actually to take any of it. He slung a small leather satchel over his shoulder and around his neck. The two paperbacks he’d brought as shipboard reading he wrapped in one of his shirts and shoved to the bottom of the bag. One was the new James M. Cain, the other a copy of the Christian Bible, and both would excite comment if left lying around.

  Finally, he unfolded the crushed Borsalino he’d bought just before leaving, patted it back into shape. Every soldier knew you couldn’t get by in the desert without a decent hat. It didn’t have to be a Borsalino, but for god’s sake, it was Burke’s money he was spending, this might well be the last hat he’d ever own, and damn it, he’d bought the Borsalino.

  He put it on and headed down to the street. He didn’t bother to lock the door.

  Dr. Ettouati’s rooms were in the old quarter, where the buildings were smaller and the streets tighter. Standing with your arms out, you could almost touch the walls on either side. Malcolm consulted the notes, tucked them back into his pocket, and made his way to the building Burke had named.

  It was a low, terraced building done in the Andalusian style, with rounded arches supported on the backs of narrow columns. There were fewer bullet holes here, and fewer pe
ople. One old woman watched from a nearby corner, leaning on a whisk broom she’d been using to stir the dust between the cobblestones. He felt her eyes on him as he climbed the exposed staircase to the building’s second story.

  The doctor came to the door wiping his hands, and wiped them again after closing it behind them. He was a short man, no more than shoulder height to Malcolm, but solid, as though he’d be awfully hard to tip over. Malcolm was reminded of the statues he’d seen in Derna’s museum when he’d passed through in ’43, the heavy-featured stone guardians and gods, carved and unmovable.

  “Burke wired me to expect you. You are the American, eh?”

  “Hardly,” Malcolm said.

  “British?”

  “That depends who you ask.”

  “Well. Which of us is not a citizen of the world, yes?” He waited for a response, got none, and went on. “Burke indicated that he wanted me to give you certain information I have collected for him about the Ammonites and their descendents. He seemed to think there was a modern sect carrying on their practices. This is, of course, highly unlikely.

  “But there are ruins. Aren’t there always? And there are records, and you’re welcome to my notes on both.” He pushed a notebook across the table between them. Malcolm thumbed through it briefly.

  “Mr. Burke said you’d be able to point me toward a particular temple,” Malcolm said. “North of Mechili.”

  “The Mechili find? Oh, I wouldn’t call that a temple—really just a way station for travelers. And it’s in poor condition. But if you want to see it…” He took the notebook back, paged through it, found what he was looking for and handed it back, tapping a forefinger on an illustration. The pencil sketch showed a stone altar, crudely carved with figures that might have been animals or people, or perhaps a bit of both.

  “The Ammonites were a sacrificing people, and they missed no opportunity to provide their gods with a tribute. See this surface here?” He pointed to a flat rock protruding from the wall in the illustration. “That’s where they would slaughter the lamb, or goat, or bullock, or what have you, and then burn it as an offering. There are channels here and here for the blood to run. You’ll have to forgive the drawing, I am a poor draftsman…”

  Malcolm thought the drawing was quite clear, actually. A grooved stone surface just large enough to hold a small animal, posts on either side to bind the struggling creature, channels to catch its blood.

  Dr. Ettouati went on. “Young infants were also sometimes sacrificed, in times of—”

  “Infants?”

  “Yes,” Ettouati said. “Is that the wrong word? I mean to say children, boy children. In times of crisis. Is this not what the word means, ‘infant’? How do you say a boy child in English?”

  “You say infant,” Malcolm said. “Nothing wrong with your English.”

  “Good. Good. They would sometimes sacrifice an infant, although this was rare.”

  “It would more or less have to be, wouldn’t it?”

  “Well, a woman had more children then, but yes, they were not so plentiful as goats.”

  Malcolm turned the page. A hand-drawn map showed the approach to the temple—the way station, whatever it was—through a mountain pass. It was on the other side of the great Green Mountain, the Jebel Akhdar, with its sheer rock faces and endless twisting paths. Getting there wouldn’t be an easy journey for a fully equipped party, much less a man traveling alone. But according to Burke, that’s where he had to go.

  “Tell me,” Dr. Ettouati said, “has Burke told you what you are looking for?” He was wiping his hands again, Malcolm noticed, perhaps unconsciously but quite eagerly.

  “No,” Malcolm said. “Did he tell you?”

  “Not a word. I don’t imagine Burke as the type to root around in ancient sites for purely scholarly purposes, but he’s said nothing about what he hopes to find. Ah, well. ‘Ours not to reason why,’ as your poet had it. Do you mean to go to Mechili?”

  Malcolm nodded.

  “I can come with you if you like,” Ettouati said.

  What would Burke say? He hadn’t brought Ettouati into his confidence, and presumably he wouldn’t want Malcolm to do so either. On the other hand, having a local to guide him through the mountains would make the journey easier.

  “I’d appreciate it,” Malcolm started to say—but before he could get the words out, a spray of blood covered his hands.

  Everything seemed to happen in an instant, and in reverse: first the blood, streaking across his hands, then Ettouati’s face crumpling as a bullet passed through it, and finally Malcolm became conscious of the sound, the thundercrack of gunfire echoing from wall to wall inside the small room. It took him longer than it should have to react: a bullet clipped his shoulder as he tipped over his chair and fell to the floor in front of the desk.

  Where? How? He fought to call the layout of the room to mind as he jammed the bloody notebook into his pocket and fumbled his gun out of its holster. There had been two windows behind Ettouati, both shut. And beyond them a balcony? Probably—he’d seen a door in the other room.

  He heard the rapid slap of running footsteps, chanced a look up over the top of the desk. The shutters of one window had been blown away, and through it he caught a glimpse of the shooter’s arm, his back, as he sprinted for the door. Malcolm raced to the window, stuck first his gun and then his head through, but the man was already off the balcony, in the other room. Malcolm slid along the wall to the corner by the door with his gun raised in both hands. His hands were shaking, damn it, and it wasn’t the shoulder wound doing it—the bullet had only grazed him. It was the shock of seeing a man killed just inches from his face. You thought you’d put it behind you, and in an instant it all comes back: the blood, the smell of a body suddenly opened to the air, the sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, the helplessness—

  Damn it, pull yourself together. He gripped the gun tighter, swung around to face the door and kicked it open. He was firing before his foot touched the floor. There were two men, one in a sand-colored jalabaya, one in western-style khakis. A pair of red stains bloomed on the jalabaya and the man fell backwards, the gun tumbling from his hand. Malcolm swung to face the other man, saw a curved blade flashing as the man raced toward him. He pulled the trigger twice. The first shot went wide, took a chunk out of the far wall and ricocheted off. The second caught the man in the gut. The dagger clattered to the floor as the man doubled over.

  The front door was open, and through it he saw the old woman, now at the top of the stairs, the broom still in one hand, the doorknob in the other. She let the broom fall and took off, screaming for help.

  Malcolm stepped around a low table to where the second man lay, gasping, struggling for breath. The knife was within the man’s reach, and he saw the man go for it. Malcolm kicked it away, placed the sole of his boot on the man’s hand, and leveled his gun at the man’s face. “Who sent you?” Malcolm said.

  The man was going into shock: his skin was gray and his face was shaking. The look of rage on his face was replaced by one of despair as the pain intensified. He spoke in a child’s singsong whisper, the same words over and over: “Molekh sh’ar liyot bein tekhem.”

  “Who sent you?” Malcolm put more pressure on the man’s hand. “Were you after Ettouati or me?”

  “…sh’ar liyot bein tekhem,” the man whispered. “Molekh sh’ar…”

  There wasn’t time for this. The woman’s screams had faded, but she’d be back any minute, together with whatever passed for the authorities in this town. They’d find him with a half-empty revolver in an apartment where three men had just been shot. He didn’t want to find out what the inside of a Libyan prison was like.

  He returned the gun to his holster and stepped off the man’s hand. It wasn’t mercy: the man would die of his gut wound, probably quite painfully as his stomach acids leaked out to poison his body. Shooting him now might have been more merciful. But Malcolm couldn’t spare the bullet.

  He took the stai
rs two at a time. In the alley behind the building, he found the transportation the men had used: a BMW R12, left over from the Wermacht. The sidecar was dented, the kickstand missing, the carriage streaked with rust. The glass cover of the headlamp was smashed in and one of the rubber handle grips had been torn off. But the engine was purring softly and when he gunned it, it responded instantly.

  He pushed off against the wall with one leg and drove along the narrow alley as quickly as he dared, taking a sharp right when it became clear that continuing straight would take him to a dead end.

  There was no time to return to the hostel, even assuming he could find it again. Between buildings, he could see the mountain in the distance and he used that to orient himself. He prayed the motorcycle’s saddlebags held some water. It would be a short expedition if they didn’t.

  From behind him, he heard the roar of another motorcycle engine, and further back the throatier growl of a truck. He shot a look back over his shoulder and after a second saw the other cycle round a corner. The man driving it held a machine gun in one hand, the barrel resting on the handlebars. He shouted something in Arabic, raised the gun.

  Malcolm took another corner, skirting the stone wall of the building by inches. The whine of his pursuer’s engine grew higher pitched as he accelerated. Malcolm turned his handgrip to match and felt the cobblestones streak by beneath him, jolting him, forcing him to hold on tighter than his wounds would allow. His sleeve was wet where his shoulder had bled, and his forearm still ached from the slash he’d received in the pub. He struggled to keep the machine upright, to find the end of this maze of alleys, to keep at least one turn between him and the men behind him.

  Was this how the others had died, shot from behind or smashed against a wall? He tried not to think about it, forced himself to concentrate on steering.

  He was glad now that he hadn’t taken a drink. His heart was racing and his reflexes, he knew, weren’t what they once had been, but his hands were relatively steady and his vision clear. He heard Margaret’s voice again—The other four…they had a chance—and gunned the engine.