by Tom Clancy
It took fifteen minutes to shift and precariously restack the seats enough to allow him access to the cockpit. He lowered himself into a kneeling position, knees braced on either side of the door, rotated the rappelling rig around until it was facing backward, then he lowered himself again until he was lying splayed across the doorway.
Partially blinded by the glare of his flashlight on the water, which had filled the cockpit to a point just below the windshield, Fisher didn’t immediately see the skulls.
There were two of them, one on either side of him in the pilot’s and copilot’s seats. Each was devoid of all traces of flesh, save a few desiccated chunks that hung like beef jerky from the facial bones. The torsos, which were submerged from the waist down, were clothed in tatters and in between the strips of fabric Fisher could see glimpses of white bone. Each skeleton hung suspended from its seat back belt and harness, arms dangling and fingertips dipped in the water.
Fisher scanned the interior, looking for anything that might positively identify the craft or its occupants. Then he saw it, jutting from the pilot’s inside jacket pocket, a brown rectangular package. Right arm braced for support on the cockpit bulkhead, Fisher leaned forward and gingerly removed the package.
It was oilskin. Fisher opened the folds. Inside was a well-preserved paperback-size leather journal. On the cover in faded, gold-embossed letters were the initials NW.
Niles Wondrash.
Fisher rewrapped the journal and slid it into the thigh pocket of his cargo pants. He was about to turn and leave, when he saw the glint of steel behind Wondrash’s seat back. Fisher carefully tore away a section of the seat’s moldering fabric until he could see the object.
It was a screw-top stainless steel canister, roughly the size of two soda cans stacked atop one another.
He grabbed it, then turned and started climbing.
31
PAPONDIT, KENYA
“I assume you haven’t opened it?” Lambert said.
Fisher switched the satellite phone to his left ear and moved out of the sun beneath the low-hanging branches of an olive tree. In the distance, over some scattered kopjes—low, rocky mounds — and forested savanna, he could see the surface of Lake Victoria shimmering blue in the heat. Fifty feet away Jimiyu sat in the Range Rover’s driver’s seat on the shoulder of the road.
“Which one?” Fisher asked. “The journal or the canister?”
“The canister.”
Fisher smiled into the phone. “A mysterious sixty-year-old stainless steel canister I found inside a plane in the middle of the jungle. No, Lamb, I didn’t open it.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“As for the journal, the cover looks to be in good shape, but the edges of the pages feel spongy. I think it’s best we wait for Quantico. If I open it, there’s a good chance we’ll lose whatever’s in there.”
“I agree.”
“Anything more from Omurbai?” Fisher asked.
“More of the same, but his speeches are taking on a hysterical tone — the evils of the West, of ‘infidel’ cultures, of technology, and so on. As we’d guessed, he’s sealed the border to all non-Muslims but has extended an invitation to all Muslims who want to, and I quote, ‘partake in the jihad to end all jihads and to live in harmony in the true way of Islam, ’ unquote.”
“Gracious of him.” Fisher checked his watch. “Jimiyu and I just fueled up, and we’re on our way to the second set of coordinates. I’ll be in touch.”
* * *
From Kusa they followed the C19, a heavily potholed road that meandered along the coastline southeast for a few miles before curving northwest into the Winam Gulf Peninsula, then on to Kendu Bay. On both shoulders, scrub grass, freshly green with spring, spread over rolling savanna. Here and there Fisher could see cones of earth rising from the landscape. Volcanic plugs, Jimiyu explained, exposed by erosion.
Four miles from the coordinates, Fisher’s satellite phone chimed. He answered it and barely got one word out before Aly’s panicked voice came over the line: “Sam, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell them, but—”
“Aly, what—”
“They said they were going—”
“Aly, stop, slow down,” Fisher commanded. “What’s happened?”
There were a few seconds of silence. Fisher could hear her trying to catch her breath. “They came the night after you left. They broke into the house, tied me up, wanted to know where you’d gone. They had knives. They said they would—”
Fisher clutched the phone tighter. “Did they hurt you, are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine, but I told them, Sam. I’m sorry, but—”
The driver’s side window shattered. Jimiyu cried out and fell sideways into Fisher, who dropped the satellite phone; it clattered across the floorboards and disappeared. The Rover veered left, off the road, bumped up onto the shoulder, down into a depression, and began tipping onto its side. Fisher reached across Jimiyu’s body, grabbed the wheel, straightened the Rover out, then groped with his foot until he felt the gas pedal and stomped on it. The engine roared. The Rover lurched up the hill.
“Jimiyu, can you hear me?” Fisher yelled. Using his free hand, he grabbed the Kenyan’s shoulder and shook him. “Jimiyu!”
Jimiyu groaned.
A second bullet punched through the rear window and slammed into the dashboard. Fisher ducked down. Somewhere he could hear Aly’s tinny voice calling, “Sam… Sam… are you there…?” A third and fourth bullet tore through the back window, shattering it and spiderwebbing the windshield. Through the cracks he saw a kopje looming.
He jerked the wheel to the right, felt the left front tire bump over a rock, then they were tipping, the sky canting through the windshield.
* * *
Fisher forced open his eyes — one of his lids felt glued shut with what he assumed was blood — and looked around. The Rover had rolled once and come to rest on its roof, but the solid-cage construction had kept the interior intact, save his side window, which had shattered with the compression. Through the side window Fisher could see scrub grass. Jimiyu, whose seat belt had been demolished by the first bullet, lay in a heap, wedged between the dashboard and the windshield. Fisher realized the Rover’s engine was still running. He vaguely thought, Gas leak, then Fire, then reached over and switched off the ignition. He undid his own seat belt, then rolled onto his side and reached toward Jimiyu. He found his hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Jimiyu,” Fisher whispered. “Can you hear me?”
“… es…”
“Stay still, don’t move. Squeeze my hand if you understand.”
Squeeze.
“Play dead. They’ll be coming to finish us off.”
Squeeze.
Fisher rolled over. He looked between the seats, searching for the M-14, and spotted the stock between the center console, which had detached itself during the rollover, and the roof. He grabbed the stock, gave it a tug. It didn’t budge.
From outside came the roaring of an engine, then tires skidding on dirt. Three car doors opened and slammed, and Fisher heard boots crunching on gravel.
He reached out, wrapped both hands around the stock, took in a deep breath, and heaved. The M-14 came loose, the butt smacking him in the lip. He tasted blood. Rifle held lengthwise down his body, he pushed off the dash with his legs, squirming until his torso was out the side window, then pushed again and drew his knees out.
On the other side of the Rover he heard a whispered voice say something, then once more. It took a moment for Fisher to realize it was Kyrgyz — something about going around.
Slowly, quietly, Fisher rose into a crouch. He flipped off the M-14’s safety, took a few breaths to clear his head, then crab-walked to the rear of the Rover. Around the corner post he heard footsteps chafing the grass. He switched the M-14 to his left hand, drew the Applegate, flipped it open, and clenched it in his right hand, blade down and pointing back along his forearm. A thought popped into his head: Crime scene. He lai
d the M-14 in the grass.
The footsteps came closer. Fisher saw a man-shaped shadow fall across the grass. In one smooth motion, Fisher stepped around the Rover’s corner post and rose up, grabbing and lifting the man’s rifle stock while sweeping the Applegate up in a tight arc. He jammed it hilt-deep into the hollow spot behind the man’s jaw and beneath his ear. The man never made a sound, dead before he hit the ground.
Fisher kept moving. He reversed the man’s rifle — a FAMAS 5.56mm — shouldered it, took three quick steps out from behind the Rover, and saw a man turning toward him. He fired twice. Both rounds punched through the man’s sternum. Even as he fell, Fisher was moving again, this time in the opposite direction, back across the rear of the Rover, where he dropped to one knee and leaned out, rifle at his shoulder. The last man was moving down the passenger side, his FAMAS coming up. Fisher fired. The bullet caught the man in the hip and spun him around. He screamed and toppled onto his side and kept rolling, trying to bring the FAMAS to bear. Fisher fired again. The bullet drilled a neat hole in the man’s forehead. His head snapped back, and he went limp.
Moving on instinct, he checked each man to ensure he was dead and for any identifying papers (there were none), then crouched down and took ten seconds to catch his breath. He looked around. No cars on the road, none visible. He thought for a moment, running scenarios in his head, then made his decision. He dropped the FAMAS in the dirt, then hurried back to the driver’s side window and dropped to his belly.
“Jimiyu, can you hear me?”
There were a few seconds of silence, the Kenyan cleared his throat and said softly, “I can hear you. Is it safe to no longer be dead?”
32
He pulled Jimiyu from the Rover and checked him over. The bullet, moving slightly backward to forward, had carved a groove in the bony tip of his shoulder, then punched cleanly through the skin of his neck between a tendon and his jugular vein. There was a lot of blood but only superficial damage. A half inch to the right, and Jimiyu would be dead.
Fisher dug the first aid kit from the Rover’s glove compartment, then dressed both his wounds and covered him with a blanket.
Next he picked up the M-14 and jogged the quarter mile to a rocky outcrop overlooking the lake. He hurled the rifle far into the water, then ran back to the Rover.
“Who were those men?” Jimiyu asked.
“The less you know, the better,” Fisher said. “They were highway bandits. They ambushed us, and we never saw them coming. When you woke up, the Rover was lying on its side, and the men were already dead. You didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, and you don’t remember anything after your window shattered. Got it?”
Jimiyu nodded. “I understand.” Then, softly: “You killed them, Sam.” There was no reproach in the Kenyan’s voice, only astonishment.
“I’m sorry I got you into this.”
“No apologies necessary, my new friend. What do we do now?”
The police were going to be involved; there was no way around it, which is why he’d chosen to not use the M-14 and to dispose of it. The better he could play the lucky victim, the easier things would go.
He hit speed dial on his satellite phone. When Grimsdottir answered, he said simply, “Napper, three, mess. Stand by.” Then he hung up and dialed Aly. She picked up on the first ring.
“My God, what happened?” she asked. “I heard shots over the phone—”
“Have you called the police?”
“No, I wanted to hear from you.”
“Good. How do you feel about not calling them?”
She hesitated. “Do you want me to not call them?”
“I’d be grateful.”
“Okay.”
Fisher thanked her, promised to be in touch, then disconnected. He cleared the phone’s call memory.
East down the road he saw a car round the bend toward them. He jogged to the shoulder and started waving his arms.
* * *
The Western District Police and an ambulance from Kendu Adventist Hospital in Kendu Bay were there in twenty minutes. As Jimiyu was loaded into the ambulance, Fisher walked the one constable through the shooting and the accident while the other covered the bodies of the Kyrgyz in green plastic tarps and searched both vehicles and jotted notes.
Fisher stopped and restarted his story a half dozen times as though confused, asked for water, to sit down, then wondered aloud if he should go to the hospital. At last, after fifteen minutes, he got the whole story out.
“And you say these men just began firing at you?” The constable spoke perfect English with the barest hint of a British accent.
Fisher said, “I didn’t even realize it until the third or fourth — or was it the fifth? — shot. I don’t know; it was a blur.”
“And this,” the constable said, waving his pencil at the three bodies. “You did this?”
“Yeah… uh, I guess. I was in the… in the army, the U.S. Army — the first Gulf War. Training, I guess. It just took over. I don’t know, it happened so fast. I don’t feel so good… Can I sit down?” The constable cupped Fisher’s elbow and guided him to a rock.
They watched as the ambulance finished loading Jimiyu aboard, then pulled away.
“Is he going to be okay?” Fisher asked.
“It appears so. So tell me again how his happened. From start to finish, if you please.”
Fisher did so, telling the same story, but not the exact same way.
“And this knife you used… it’s the one in the dirt there?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Am I in trouble? They didn’t really give me a chance. When I crawled out of the car, they were pulling up. I stumbled around the Rover, and there he was, with the gun…”
“I will forward my report to my chief, of course, but providing we find nothing contradictory here, a written statement from you and your friend should suffice. You are staying here locally?”
Fisher nodded. “In Nairobi, at a friend’s.” Fisher gave him Aly’s contact information.
“Do you wish to go to the hospital?” the constable asked.
“Uh… no, I don’t think so.”
“I will call your rental car agency and inform them of the incident. They’ll arrange another vehicle for you, I’m sure.”
“Thank you.”
“How long will you be staying in Kenya?”
“Another day or two, I guess. I’ll go to the hospital, I think, and see how Jimiyu’s doing, then… I don’t know.”
But he did know. More than ever he wanted to find out what was so important about Niles Wondrash and the Sunstar that Bolot Omurbai would send three killers halfway across the globe to keep secret.
33
0° 17’ SOUTH, 34° 50’ EAST
Fisher steered the Toyota Highlander off the road and coasted to a stop, his tires crunching on gravel. Through his windshield was a chest-high stockade fence bearing a sun-bleached, vine-entangled sign: RAKWARA WHCP (WATER HYACINTH CONTROL PROJECT) HEADQUARTERS. Through the trees he could see a ranch-style building. Faint strains of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” mixed with the chirps and buzzes of the jungle, filtered through the trees.
He checked his GPS unit. This was, literally, the end of the road. From here, he walked. He climbed out, walked to the rear of the Highlander, and pulled out his Granite Gear pack, then started sorting through the gear he’d managed to salvage from the Range Rover.
The constables had waited with him for the arrival of the tow truck from Kusa and a replacement car from the rental agency in Kisumu. Ostensibly making conversation, Fisher had asked the constables about the area — terrain, geology, history — and gotten in return much more than he’d bargained for. Both men had grown up along the shores of Lake Victoria and knew it intimately. In fact, one of them said as boys they used to search some of the shallower caves for pirate treasure.
“Caves?” Fisher asked.
“Yes,” replied the constable. “Our word for them does not translate well.” He tho
ught for a moment, then held up an index finger. “In Mexico, I think, they have something similar — deep ponds — like shafts — with underwater caves.”
“Cenotes,” Fisher said.
“Yes, that’s it. Cenotes.”
A lightbulb came on in Fisher’s head. The climbing gear in Wondrash’s plane… He’d assumed it was climbing gear, but in what direction? Up or down? According to the legend, Wondrash and Oziri had flown straight into Kisumu then set off for Addis Ababa a few days later.
“No mountain climbing nearby?” Fisher asked.
“Mountain climbing? No, not near the lake. Mount Kenya, perhaps, but that’s closer to Nairobi.”
So, what, Fisher thought, had Wondrash and Oziri been doing with climbing gear?
* * *
Once satisfied with his pack’s contents and weight distribution, Fisher set it aside and dialed Grimsdottir. Lambert was also on the line: “What’s going on? What happened?”
Fisher explained, then said, “Jimiyu’s going to be fine. I called the hospital and talked to the doctor personally. As for the police, I’m pretty sure they bought it. I’m due in the Kisumu District headquarters day after tomorrow to write my statement.”
“And you’re sure they were Kyrgyz?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then clearly we’ve touched a nerve. The very fact that he sent his own men rather than hiring locally says something. Grim, what can you give us on topography?”
