by Joanne Pence
Big Kyle then gave a quick lesson on rafting. “Listen up! If you get dumped into the water, lay on your back, feet downstream. Push off any rocks that come close, use your arms to paddle, and don’t stand up until you can sit on the bottom of the creek and still keep your head out of the water. The worst thing you can do is try to stand where the water’s deep and get your foot stuck in the rocks. It’s a death sentence. And hang onto your paddle—it’ll help others pull you to safety.”
“That’s right,” Skinny Buck contributed.
“We’re the captains,” Big Kyle said. “When we say ‘all forward,’ you paddle. At ‘all rest,’ you stop. And at ‘all back,’ you back-paddle. Can your brains keep that straight?”
The students nodded.
Big Kyle set out first, pushing the raft toward the center of the creek. The swift current took hold and pulled with a sense of unstoppable momentum. Soon, the small beach disappeared. Creek banks, covered with vines and rock, dropped steeply to the water.
A red-tailed hawk lifted from a nearby tree with one slow powerful flap of the wings, then circled over the water before disappearing from view. Dark green foliage grew thick along the banks but beyond it, lay arid grassland punctuated by pines. The view, barren and harsh but beautiful in its desolation, stretched for miles.
They floated peacefully for a few minutes, then heard a churning sound up ahead. Big Kyle assured them they approached rapids so weak and mild they scarcely deserved the name. Nonetheless, they were strong enough that Devlin and Brian whooped with excitement as the raft plunged headlong through the turbulence.
The raft coasted out the other side and the creek grew tame again. A doe raised her head, still chewing, then loped away, her white tipped tail held high. Ahead, dead trees that had swept downstream were wedged between boulders, their roots and branches reaching out over the water. The debris split the creek in two.
“Lean left,” Big Kyle shouted. “Left, left, left!” The raft buckled and swerved uncontrollably, then plunged through a clear chute of water, zipping unscathed by the tentacle-like brush. Nervous laughter rippled through the raft as everyone took deep breaths once more.
The creek widened and a beam of sunlight found its way through the pines to brighten a stretch of lavender covered banks. In the distance, craggy mountaintops touched a clear blue sky.
Melisse turned to look back. The other raft followed peacefully behind them.
Only after they drifted awhile did she begin to relax. She didn't trust these men, but so far, they hadn't lied. Ninety minutes, Big Kyle had said. She checked her watch. Only twenty minutes had passed.
The sheltered creek forked, and the raft floated onto a much wider body of water. She looked around, and then sat bolt upright. The banks were far apart, and the water cold, deep, and fast. “We’re on the Salmon!” she shouted, her voice tight, harsh.
“Just for a little while, lovely lady.” Big Kyle gave her a broad smile and wink. “Then we turn off and paddle upstream to your pillars. Don't you worry none, sweetie. I won't let anything happen to you.”
Melisse ignored him.
They entered a gorge. Sheer rock rose steeply above the river on both sides. Far overhead whitish gray lichen and eddy moss marked how high the water rose in spring when snow run-off reached its peak. Even though it was fall, the frigid water remained deep and treacherous. They could do nothing but hold on and hope they weren’t tossed overboard.
The black granite walls of the gorge continued to narrow as the river carved its lonely course. The sun no longer reached them. No one spoke and Big Kyle's eyes took on a strange glint.
Melisse searched the banks for a safe landing point, but found none. The air had something different about it. Something that chilled her to the bone.
A strong current caught hold of the raft and carried it forward ever faster. The sound of thunder rumbled up ahead, but instead of stopping, the oddly familiar sound continued. Melisse looked downstream and saw nothing. Then she realized what she heard.
They were heading straight toward a waterfall.
“Beach this raft!” Melisse ordered.
Big Kyle glanced fiercely at her. “Where?”
The raft sped up. As the students realized what was happening, their screams mixed with Big Kyle’s laughter as the raft plowed over the edge.
Half its length froze in mid-air before it tilted and nose-dived several feet into a hollow curve of water. A sheet of freezing water broke over them.
The raft didn’t flip, but shot straight ahead. The river turned, but the raft headed toward the rocky canyon walls. The terrified rafters tried to paddle away from the deadly rock. Even Big Kyle’s laughter ceased as his arms and shoulders bunched and strained to maneuver the raft sideways. They missed the granite by mere inches.
The river angled steeply downward. Its path cut one sharp curve after the other through the empty wilderness, causing the raft to buck, shimmy, and pick up more speed. Waves violently rocked them and showered them with spray. Kyle shouted orders, but the students were too petrified to do anything but hold on as the raft careened forward like a thing possessed.
Vertical granite faces lined the river banks. No safe landing existed.
Melisse peered over her shoulder. She no longer saw the other raft.
Around a bend, the river formed an eddy shaped like a huge, spinning bowl. Unable to avoid it, they pitched headlong into the abyss. The raft shot straight across to the wall of water on the far side. Its bow rose vertically up the side of the bowl, and then flipped upside down.
Melisse sank deep. Despite the life jacket, the ice cold water seemed determined to hold her under. She somersaulted, helpless in the strong, swirling current. Fury filled her for not acting on her instincts, for doing nothing to save herself and the others from this disaster. Her lungs burned, but she wouldn't give in to the urge to breathe.
Darkness overtook her, her lungs about to burst, when the water churned her up and spat her into the air. Coughing and sputtering, gasping gratefully for air, a frenzied froth surrounded her. She turned in a circle, searching for the others. She saw Rachel, flaying wildly. Melisse grabbed her and held her head up as Rachel coughed and spewed water from her nose and mouth. Melisse gave Rachel's lifejacket a strong push in the direction of a small rock-filled bank. Rachel swam toward it. Melisse saw Devlin and Brian's heads bobbing as well as Big Kyle's. He held the tow rope for the raft.
Melisse’s limbs throbbed from the icy water. She swam through her pain to the bank, crawled onto the gritty rocks, then struggled to sit up and look out onto the river.
Skinny Buck Jewell must have seen what had transpired because he amazingly avoided the eddy and steered toward the bank. He let Rempart and the rest of the students off to help their companions, and then headed for Big Kyle to assist him in righting the raft. Devlin and Brian left the two experts and swam toward the bank.
The students and teacher huddled together, shaken, wet, and freezing cold, all the while congratulating each other that they made it out alive and were on dry land. Then they looked out at the water.
The two guides, alone in the rafts, paddled rapidly downstream.
Chapter 14
Mongolia
MICHAEL AND JIANJUN fled the nightmare of murder and destruction at Bayan Ölgiy, and made a frenzied cross-country drive to Ulaanbaatar in Batbaatar's jeep, stopping only for gas. Once there, Jianjun went off to find a way for them to leave the country without attracting unwanted attention.
Michael hadn’t slept since Bayan Ölgiy. When he shut his eyes, he saw the corpses of the men who had worked for him, who had trusted him. He’d failed those he should have protected. Again.
He was a child the first time it happened. Only ten years old. People around him, and later psychiatrists and psychologists, told him a child couldn’t be expected to take care of his mother, couldn’t stop an adult from doing as she pleased. Couldn’t stop her from taking her own life. But he had been there, and no one else was.
His father never forgave him. And he never forgave himself.
His older brother ignored him more than ever.
Only one person ever looked at him with understanding, forgiveness, and love. And then she, too, walked out of his life. He’d gotten over it eventually. But now, memories of the past rushed back.
He might not have slept on the trip across Mongolia, but he had thought a great deal.
He believed some secret arm of the government or shadow government had taken Lady Hsieh's coffin, and suspected that may have been why, after months of being told ‘no,’ he had suddenly been granted access to the dig site.
A team of soldiers or mercenaries would have been needed to remove the sand from the dig site and then steal the coffins. And clearly they had been ordered to not only remove the site’s contents, but to eliminate everyone who knew of its existence. If Michael and Jianjun hadn't left the ger, they would be dead as well. Lady Hsieh, he was sure, had saved them. Somehow, he must save her.
He hurried across Ulaanbaatar.
The city reflected its tenure under the Soviet Union's bleak rule. Old city walls had been pulled down so only fragments remained. Large open streets for trucks and soldiers ran where bazaars once stood. Colorful homes, shops, and temples had been replaced with grim quadrilateral Communist buildings. Now, with the Soviets gone, a gloomy dust hung over everything.
Gandan, short for the Gandanlegchinlen Monastery, was the only place in Ulaanbaatar he genuinely liked. It had Tibetan style gold and crimson pagodas with pavilion roofs, a cloistered Buddhist university, and the Migjid Janraisig Süm temple, which held a one-hundred-foot, gold leaf-covered Buddha. Under communist rule, many of the Buddhist monks had been slaughtered, and religion prohibited, including ''ongoing reincarnations.” All were back now.
Just beyond the monastery grounds, he saw the Natural History Museum. Four stories high and lining several blocks, it housed Mongolia's enormous collection of dinosaur fossils and more dinosaur eggs than any other place in the world.
Bitterly, he realized his find would have changed all that. How could dinosaur eggs compare to a perfectly preserved human?
It was the only place in Mongolia with a climate-controlled environment and instrumentation. If the government was involved, they should have taken her there. In a half hour it would close for the night.
As he made his way through the building, he became surer than ever that she had been brought here. She deserved better than to be shut up like some bizarre feat of early science to be studied, bits of her carved and diced and placed under a microscope. He wandered the halls and displays along with the few other tourists, but spent more time checking the museum's security than its dinosaur eggs. He found a stairwell and when no one watched, ran down it to the basement where the laboratories were. He looked around until he found an exit, knowing that at some point he might need to make a quick escape.
Nearby he found a large, unlocked closet, and snuck inside. There, in total darkness, he waited for the buzzer to sound indicating the museum had closed for the day. He continued to wait for thirty minutes after that.
Chapter 15
Paris
WHEN THE GUNMAN fired into the crowd at the Cluny, complete pandemonium broke out.
Charlotte half-crawled, half-ran, her arm bleeding, to a side street. From there she found the Boulevard Saint Germain, hailed a taxi, opened the door, and jumped in.
The driver looked startled by her appearance. He began to say something about it, but she slid her hand into her purse, staring hard at him, letting him worry about what might be hidden in there as she gave him an address. He paled. His expression stark, he nodded, turned his back to her, and headed straight for the location she named.
She sank back against the seat as her thoughts swirled.
The Agency had done everything it could to comfort and take care of her after Dennis died. Dazed and grief-stricken, she hadn’t questioned anything they told her or paid attention to areas he investigated when he died. Over the years, whenever questions niggled at her subconscious about his death, she pushed them aside. It hurt too much to do otherwise.
Al-Dajani had gone back to look at what Dennis had been investigating. Now, he and Bonnetieu were dead. And their killers traveled internationally with ease, brutally shot bystanders, and organized cold-blooded murders in two secure facilities.
She knew of only one person who might help her. Years ago, Dennis introduced her to Laurence Esterbridge as an old friend and owner of an art gallery. Before long, she realized their true association.
Dennis’s position was originally to work with Israeli intelligence, but it soon became apparent to her that he was receiving orders and assignments from Esterbridge. She had the impression Dennis told him everything he was doing.
She went with Dennis to Paris a few times. He met with Esterbridge alone while she toured museums and other attractions. On a couple of occasions, they dined together in an expensive restaurant, and once at his beautiful apartment on the top floor of a stately building on the rue Clement Marot.
She went to that apartment now and rang the bell. There was no answer. She waited, and as someone walked out the main door to the building, she slipped inside before the door shut and locked again.
She took the elevator to the top floor, and there, knocked on Esterbridge’s door. When no one answered, she tried the doorknob. The door was unlocked.
She went on alert and pushed the door open without stepping inside. The living room was directly in front of her and on the sofa she saw Esterbridge. He wore a stylish brocade smoking jacket. His impeccable hair was white now, with a carefully constructed wave over his brow held in place by a good amount of hairspray. An apparently forgotten pair of reading glasses perched low on his nose.
And a bullet hole marred his high forehead. Blood had soaked through the back of the sofa.
She spun around, leaning against the wall in the hallway as she tried to catch her breath.
She wanted to tell herself his murder had nothing to do with her or Dennis…but she couldn’t.
She looked at the elevator, then opted for the stairs, her head spinning and feeling faint from shock and pain from the gash the bullet had torn in her arm.
She went down to the parking area in the basement and waited, hiding, until she saw a woman drive in alone. She stepped in front of her and when the driver stopped, she pointed her gun and told the woman to get out of the car.
Charlotte took her coat, then hit the back of her head with the butt of the gun. The woman fell, unconscious.
Charlotte put on the coat and drove out of the garage. She soon abandoned the car after wiping her fingerprints from the door handle and steering wheel.
She went to a pharmacy and bought bandages, alcohol and antibiotic ointment. In a department store, she stopped in a women’s room to clean and bandage her wound, then bought and changed into a non-descript outfit. She tossed the coat into an outdoor dumpster, and then took the Thalys train from Paris to Amsterdam where she caught a flight to Washington D.C. People would be watching the Paris airport; people looking for her. She did all she could to be sure no one followed her; all she could to stay alive.
Chapter 16
Idaho
SHOCK AND DISBELIEF filled the students and instructors as the rafts glided away. They cried out; they shouted accusations and blame; they yelled and shrieked until their throats grew hoarse.
None of them was aware of the eyes watching them.
Instead, their minds focused on the backpacks and gear lost. Food, tents, bedrolls, tools, supplies, as well as the professor's map and satellite communication equipment remained strapped to the rafts.
Devlin cursed and ran along the river bank after the disappearing guides. Brian followed. The small beach area soon ended, replaced by rough, rocky land that sloped upward. As they climbed, the Salmon stretched in front of them. The banks grew steeper, however, and the brambles thicker. Soon, they gave up and returned
to the others.
“It’s all right,” Rempart announced, to everyone’s amazement. “They may have taken our things, but they also brought us closer to our destination than we ever would have been on our own. It’s now up to us to find the ‘Double Needles’ as they called them, and then get on about our business. I still have the maps.” He patted his breast pocket. “We can catch fish, and eat nuts and berries for a few days. Live off nature’s bounty! We’ll be just fine. Let’s go.” He waved an arm and headed north.
“Shit,” Devlin said to Brian. “We lost our gear, we’re in the middle of nowhere. We should go home.”
Melisse eyed Devlin. “Scared are you?” she asked. “Okay, we were robbed. Big deal. We’re almost at the site, but instead of doing the job, you want to go home. You aren’t cut out for anthropology!”
“She’s right,” Vince said, moving closer to Melisse as he adjusted his glasses higher on his nose. “I’m not giving up.”
Melisse and Vince followed Rempart.
“Hell,” Devlin muttered, and then he and the others followed as well.
Evening arrived before they found a stream. By then, they felt so hungry that nature’s bounty didn’t look very plentiful.
“How are we supposed to fish without hooks or lines,” Devlin muttered.
“The earliest people here,” Rempart said, “had no metal hooks. You young people were raised in Idaho. I should think you’d know something about roughing it.”
Devlin stared at Rempart as if the man was delusional, then he and Brian went off to find something edible.
They followed the creek and climbed a hill along its bank to a wide, flat area. To their amazement, it held several bushes with small round berries. “Hey, are these huckleberries?” Devlin said as he took a tentative taste.
Brian plopped a berry in his mouth. “Whatever, they aren’t bad.”
“They’re food. That’s all I care about.” The small berries tasted tart. Neither of them had ever eaten raw huckleberries, so they didn’t know what to expect.
