The Six Sacred Stones jw-2

by Matthew Reilly

  Found by accident by HENRY MORTON STANLEY in 1876; Neetha warriors killed seventeen of his party; Stanley barely escaped alive; years later, he tried to find them again, but strangely he could not locate them.

  Possibly the same tribe encountered by the Greek explorer HIERONYMUS during his expedition into central Africa in 205 B.C . (Hieronymus mentioned a tribe with terrible facial deformities in the jungles south of Nubia. It was from the Neetha that he stole the clear spherical orb that was later used by the Oracle at Delphi.)

  BEST KNOWN EXPERT:DR. DIANE CASSIDY, Anthropologist from USC. But her whole 20-man expedition went missing in 2002 while searching for the Neetha in the Congo.

  Cassidy found this cave painting in northern Zambia and attributed it to ancestors of the Neetha:

  Seems to depict a hollowed-out volcano with the Delphic Orb at the summit but its meaning is unknown.

  And finally, the entries that intrigued Lily the most:

  EASTER ISLAND

  (a.k.a. “RAPA NUI”: “THE NAVEL OF THE WORLD”)

  CO-ORDS: 27°09'S, 109°27'W

  BIRD-MAN CULT ( “TANGATA MANU”)

  Annual competition, held near Rano Kau, the southernmost volcano of Easter Is, whereby a young champion would compete on behalf of his chieftain;

  Each champion had to swim to islet of Motu Nui, grab the first tern egg of the season and then return across the shark-infested waters. The winner’s sponsor became Bird-Man, or Chief of Chiefs, for the next year.

  ARISTOTLE’S RIDDLES

  Series of strange axioms left by Aristotle as “life-guidance” for his students.

  Aristotle’s authorship of them is disputed, since they find no correlation elsewhere in his works. They begin with:

  What is the best number of lies?

  (One, since to support one lie means telling more)

  What is the best number of eyes?

  (Again, one, after the All-Seeing Eye of Egypt)

  What is the best life to live?(The afterlife—key source of Christian theology)

  What is the direction of Death?

  (West—Egyptian origin)

  Lily particularly loved to read through West’s books on Easter Island; she could stare for hours at the great statues, the famous moai, that gazed out over the barren landscape of that distant island, the most remote on Earth.

  It was not uncommon for West to find her asleep in the corner of his office, an open book lying across her lap. On those occasions he would gently pick her up, carry her to her room, and put her to bed.

  The introduction of Alby to Lily’s life brought not only fun and good times, but also new reading material.

  While Lily had been a longtime fan of The Lord of the Rings, it was Alby who introduced her to a boy wizard named Harry Potter.

  Lily devoured the Harry Potter series and constantly reread them. In fact, whenever she traveled—either back and forth to school, or overseas to visit her Capstone teammates—the entire Harry Potter series always went with her. Always.

  But as ever, the greatest source of mystery to Lily—even now after he had adopted her—was Jack West Jr.

  DURING HER adventure with the Seven Wonders, Lily had learned a lot about Jack—except when it came to his family.

  She remembered once overhearing Zoe and Wizard talking about his father.

  Apparently, Jack West Sr. was American, and he and Jack didn’t get along. To anger his father—who wanted him to join the US military—Jack had become a member of the Australian Army, based on his mother’s nationality.

  So one day, over breakfast, Lily asked him straight out, “Daddy? Do you have a family?”

  Jack smiled. “Yes. I do.”

  “Brothers or sisters?”

  “One sister.”

  “Older or younger.”

  “Older. By two years. Although…”

  “Although what?”

  “Although, she’s not older than me anymore. Her name was Lauren. She’s no longer older than me because she died when she was thirty.”

  “Oh. How did she die?” Lily asked.

  “She was killed in a plane crash.” Jack’s eyes became distant. “An airliner accident.”

  “Were you close?”

  “Sure we were,” Jack said, perking up, returning from his memories. “She even married my best friend, a Navy guy named J. J. Wickham.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “They divorced when Lauren and I were in our teens. My mother was a high school teacher. History. A smart and quiet woman. And my dad, well—”

  Lily waited, holding her breath.

  West stared off into space for a moment. “He was with the US Army, met my mum while out here on exercises. He was on the fast track up the promotions ladder and always wanting to go higher. Ambitious. He was also intelligent, really intelligent, but conceited about it—he looked down on anyone who didn’t know as much as he did, talked down to them, including my mother. Which was why they split in the end. She won’t see him now.”

  “Do you keep in touch with her?” Lily had never met Jack’s mother.

  Jack laughed. “Of course I do! It’s just that…she doesn’t want my father to know where she is, so I only see her rarely. I was actually going to ask you if you wanted to join me the next time I visited her. She’s very keen to meet you.”

  “Is she? I’d love to!” Lily exclaimed, but then she frowned: “What about your dad? Do you ever see him?”

  “No,” Jack said firmly. “We never really got along. In fact, I can honestly say I don’t ever want to see him again.”

  Despite the fact that Jack was no longer on active service, the military never quite went away.

  On one occasion in late 2006, an Australian general came to visit Jack at the farm and asked him lots of questions about the Capstone mission.

  The general also asked Jack if he knew the whereabouts of someone called the Sea Ranger.

  This Sea Ranger, Lily gleaned, was a modern-day pirate of some sort, cruising the east coast of Africa in some kind of boat.

  Jack told the general he hadn’t seen the Sea Ranger in years.

  But the thing about Jack that was of most interest to Lily was his relationship with Zoe.

  When Zoe was finally able to come to Australia more often, Lily was thrilled—especially when she could see how close Zoe and Jack were becoming.

  They would smile when they talked on the balcony or went for walks together at sunset.

  Lily also enjoyed doing girly stuff with Zoe—painting toenails, doing each other’s hair, dyeing their end tips in matching electric pink—but more than anything else, she loved how Zoe made Jack happy.

  She once asked Zoe if she was in love with Jack. Zoe had just smiled. “I’ve loved him from the first moment I met him. But, well—”

  “But what?” Lily had asked gently, but Zoe didn’t reply, she just stared off into space, her eyes moist with tears.

  Lily let it go, but more than once she imagined Jack and Zoe getting married, and it made her happy because then Zoe would officially be her mom.

  Christmas 2006 was an occasion Lily would remember for a long, long time.

  She and Jack spent it in Dubai, at the Burj al Arab tower, with all the members of the team that had found the Seven Wonders and the Capstone.

  Pooh Bear and Stretch were there, as was Fuzzy, having come all the way from Jamaica. Zoe and Sky Monster, Wizard and Tank.

  The whole family, back together again. Lily loved it.

  She spent much of the next week with Pooh Bear and Stretch, visiting Pooh’s father’s palace.

  There she met Pooh’s older brother, Scimitar, but he talked to her like she was a child, so she didn’t like him too much.

  What she did like was Pooh’s demolition shed out beyond the mansion’s stables. An explosives expert, Pooh had all manner of blasting supplies there. He even showed Lily a strange foamlike epoxy that Wizard had given to him: it was called Blast-Foam and it came from the famous S
andia Laboratories in the US. You sprayed foam from a small canister around a live grenade and it could absorb the blast of the grenade.

  He also showed Lily how to use C-2 plastic explosive—a small-radius/high-impact explosive used by archaeologists on delicate sites. It could blast away tight sections of rock but not damage nearby relics.

  “It can also blow locks,” Pooh Bear whispered to Lily. “Which is why Huntsman always keeps a little wad of it in a compartment in his artificial arm, and why I keep some in this”—he indicated the ornamental bronze ring that kept his massive beard in check. “Don’t leave home without it.”

  Lily grinned. Pooh Bear was cool.

  AWEEK LATER,the team celebrated the New Year on the rooftop helipad of the Burj al Arab tower, watching a fireworks display in the Arabian sky alongside many of Sheikh Abbas’s powerful friends and associates.

  Despite the fact that she should have been in bed, Lily sneaked out in her gown and slippers and watched the gathering from the storage shed on the helipad.

  The women wore sparkling dresses—even Zoe, who Lily thought looked just beautiful—and all the men wore smart dinner suits or Arabian-style robes. Even Jack wore a tux, which Lily found very funny. It didn’t suit him at all, and he seemed very uncomfortable in it, but it did make him look very handsome.

  Arriving late at the New Year’s celebration, just before midnight, had been Jack’s brother-in-law, J. J. Wickham.

  Wickham was a few years older than Jack and seriously good-looking, with short brown hair and a rough unshaven jaw; a sexy guy. All the women on the pad cast sideways glances at him as he walked by.

  Accompanying Wickham was an exceedingly tall and skinny black man named Solomon Kol. His skin was a deep, deep black and his eyes were kind. He walked with a long loping stride and stood with a stoop, as if to diminish his considerable height.

  Lily stared at the two men, frowning, struck by a strange feeling of recognition. She felt she had seen both of them before but couldn’t remember where.

  “Why if it isn’t the Sea Ranger!” Pooh Bear exclaimed, clasping Wickham’s hand warmly.

  “Hey, Zahir,” Wickham said quietly. “Sorry, it’s Pooh Bear now, isn’t it?”

  “It is indeed and it is a name I wear with pride. ’Tis a great honor to be renamed by young Lily. I hope you have that honor one day.”

  Lily smiled inwardly. She just loved Pooh Bear.

  “Wick,” Jack said, coming over. “Glad you could make it. And Solomon, my old friend, how are you?”

  The giant African smiled broadly. “We miss you in Kenya, Huntsman. You must visit again soon. Magdala misses young Lily terribly. She yearns to see how she has grown.”

  “Oh, she’s grown all right,” Jack said. “And she’s hiding right now in the shed over there. Lily! You can come out now.”

  Lily emerged, head bowed, in her gown and slippers.

  Jack put a hand on her shoulder. “Lily, I’m not sure if you remember Solomon. He used to live next door to our farm in Kenya, and would come over often. He now looks after it for us, just in case we ever return.”

  “My, my, you have grown, little one,” Solomon said. “Soon you will be as tall as me!”

  Wickham was also gazing down at Lily, but silently, sadly.

  Then he turned to Jack: “I can’t stay long. Got the Man on my tail again. But thought I’d swing by and say hi.”

  Jack said, “They came asking about you last month. Arms smuggling. Said you grabbed an American weapons shipment by mistake.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t a mistake. I knew exactly what it was,” Wickham said. “And I knew exactly where those weapons were heading.”

  “Be careful, Wick,” Jack said. “One man’s crusader is another man’s pirate.”

  “They’re calling me a pirate now?”

  “You keep grabbing CIA weapons shipments to African warlords and soon you’re gonna have the whole Seventh Fleet combing the Indian Ocean for your ass.”

  “Bring it on,” Wickham said. “The American military can be beaten. I mean, hell, look at whatyou did, and you’re a chump!”

  Jack smiled. “Watch yourself is all I’m saying.”

  “I will. Call me if you’re ever in Zanzibar,” Wickham said. “Buy you a beer.”

  Then the midnight fireworks started going off. Seen from the helipad of the Burj al Arab, they were simply spectacular. The assembled crowd oohed and aahed as the desert sky lit up in a million colors.

  But when Lily turned back from the dazzling fireworks display, J. J. Wickham was gone.

  A few days later, when they were alone, Lily asked Jack about him.

  “He’s a good man,” Jack said. “A decent man who got court-martialed by the US Navy for doing the right thing.”

  “What did he do?”

  “It was more what he didn’t do. Wick was the XO on a submarine in the US Navy, a little Sturgeon-class sub operating out of Diego Garcia, the US base in the Indian Ocean, doing patrols off eastern Africa.

  “Anyway, a few years after the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia, his boat intercepted an unregistered Kilo-class submarine en route to the private dock of a Somali warlord: Russian pirates in an old Russian sub, smuggling arms. Wick’s captain ordered him to take a boarding party onto the Kilo and sail it back to Diego Garcia.

  “When he got on board the Kilo, however, Wick found a dozen crates of American Stinger missiles and one very pissed off CIA agent. Turned out the CIA was in the process of destabilizing east Africa by arming all the warlords.”

  “So what did he do?” Lily asked.

  “Wick did what he’d been ordered to do. With a small team, he secured the Russian pirates, took command of the Russian sub, and began sailing it back to Diego Garcia.

  “But halfway there, he got a priority signal from Naval HQ, telling him to hand the sub back to the CIA man and forget he’d ever seen it.

  “Wick was stunned. The big shots back home were actually supporting this operation. So he made a decision. He figured enough was enough, and since he no longer had a family to worry about, he’d do something. And so he stopped the sub in the middle of the Indian Ocean, threw all its crew—including the enraged CIA man—into a liferaft and set them adrift.

  “Knowing a court-martial would follow, he offered all his men on board the sub the opportunity to leave—indeed, he encouraged them to do so, to think of their careers. Most did and he set them adrift as well, in life rafts with homing beacons.

  “And so with a skeleton crew Wickkept the Russian submarine and has been using it ever since, conducting his own private patrols off the coast of Africa, using several old World War II submarine refueling stations as his bases. He was court-martialed in absentia for desertion and disobeying a direct order and sentenced to twenty-five years in a military prison. There’s still an outstanding warrant for his arrest.”

  “So is he a pirate?”

  “To the people of Africa, he’s a hero, the only guy who stands up to the warlords, by intercepting their arms shipments. He also brings the people food, free of charge and obligation. They call him the Sea Ranger. Unfortunately, he steals much of the food from western cargoes, so the US and British navies call him a pirate.”

  Lily frowned. “When I saw him on New Year’s Eve, he seemed, I don’t know, familiar. Like I’d seen him before.”

  “That’s because you have seen him before.”

  “I have? When?”

  “When you were very young and we were living in Kenya. You were just a toddler and Wick had only just started sailing his own private submarine. He was on the run, so I let him hide out with us for a while.

  “He played hide-and-seek with you, peek-a-boo, that sort of thing. You loved it. Now that you’re officially my daughter, he’s officially your uncle. He lives mostly on the island of Zanzibar, off the Kenyan-Tanzanian coast. But wherever he is and wherever we are, we’ll always be family.”

  And so life went on for Lily—at the farm with Jack and at school
with Alby, and with Zoe and Wizard when they came to visit—until that fine summer’s day when the sky above the farm filled with parachutes.

  K-10 SUBMARINE BASE

  MORTIMER ISLAND

  BRISTOL CHANNEL, ENGLAND

  DECEMBER 9, 2007, 2145 HOURS

  “DADDY!”

  Lily leaped into West’s arms as he strode into the central lab of the submarine base, K-10, having taken three full days to get to England.

  Situated on a windswept island in the mouth of the Bristol Channel, K-10 had been a refueling and repair station for US naval vessels in the Second World War. After the war, as a gesture of thanks to the Americans, the British had allowed them to keep using the island. To this day it has remained a US base on British soil.