The Emerald Scepter

by Paul Kemprecos

  “Thanks boys,” he said. “One more thing. Take your boots off and throw them in the truck. Socks, too.”

  “You can’t do that,” one man protested. “It’ll take us days to get down the mountain.”

  “You’ll all have a tenderfoot merit badge waiting for you at the bottom. Do it.”

  The militia men grumbled, but did as they were told. Calvin got behind the wheel of the truck. Hawkins asked Paine to drive the general’s Jeep. Sutherland would ride in front. He climbed into the back seat to cover their retreat in case the militiamen decided to be fool-hardy. He’d call the police as soon as they were in the clear and let the authorities sort things out.

  During the descent Hawkins called in a report to Abby on his phone. The two-vehicle caravan made it down the mountain side in half the time it had taken to climb up to the mine. As they drove through the camp they passed a number of recruits in training. Some may have wondered who Hawkins was but the general’s Jeep was a potent symbol of authority. At Sutherland’s direction, Paine drove to the Kurtz mansion. Sutherland got out of the Jeep and said she would be back in a minute. She dashed into the big house and emerged moments later with her computer bag slung over her shoulder.

  Hawkins called Abby on the hand radio, gave their position and requested extraction.

  Minutes later, they heard a thrumming sound. A shadow passed overhead. Hawkins got out of the Jeep and waved at a helicopter that was circling a couple of hundred feet over the mansion.

  The helicopter landed on the weed-choked lawn. The door opened and Abby climbed out into the rotor blast.

  “That was fast,” Hawkins said in greeting.

  “We were waiting in a meadow a couple of miles from the gate.” She smiled when she saw Sutherland. “Looks like we’re one big happy family again. Who’s the lady in the soldier suit?”

  “Sergeant Paine. Sutherland’s new friend. You’ve just been discharged from the militia, sergeant.”

  Paine didn’t seem to hear him. She was staring at the helicopter.

  “It’s black,” she said.

  “Best we could do on short notice, sergeant.”

  “Just like the general said would happen. Black helicopters.”

  He pressed the Jeep’s keys into her hand. “That’s right. Now go home. Find a boyfriend. Get married and have kids. Shoot squirrels.”

  Moments later Paine was in the Jeep, glancing in the rear view mirror as she drove toward the gate at full tilt.

  “That was a sexist thing to say,” Abby chided. “You wouldn’t have told a man to get married and have children.”

  “I told her to shoot squirrels, too.”

  Abby shook her head. “Ready to fly?”

  “After I show you something.”

  He led her around to the back of the truck and opened the box that held the scepter. She touched the egg-size emerald and the diamond J.

  “The scepter of Prester John. It’s unbelievably beautiful,” she said.

  “And slightly lethal,” Hawkins said. “There’s more to see.”

  He enjoyed Abby’s wide-eyed expression as he opened the chests one after the other.

  Calvin backed the truck up to the cargo door and they moved the chests onto the helicopter. When they were done, Hawkins looked around the deserted old buildings. Sutherland had vanished.

  Hawkins picked up his CAR-15 and started walking toward the buildings, which is when he heard a staccato blast and turned to see a motorcycle speeding his way.

  The Harley skidded to a stop only a few feet from where he was standing. Wearing an ear-to-ear grin, Sutherland got off the motorcycle and pushed it toward the cargo door.

  “Hope you’ve got room for one more item.”

  They loaded the Harley onto the helicopter and lifted off. Within minutes, they had left Camp Kurtz far behind.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Cait lay on her back on the old cast-iron bed. Her wrists and ankles were tied to the frame even though she was in a deep drug-induced sleep. There was a faint sheen of sweat on her upper lip. Her breathing was shallow.

  Marzak sat in a wooden chair next to the bed studying Cait’s finely-sculpted features. At one point, he leaned forward and lifted her head, brought a glass to her mouth and gently poured a trickle of water past her parched lips. His tender gesture had nothing to do with sympathy. It was like watering a plant. The drug in Cait’s system could cause dehydration and he didn’t want her kidneys to shut down. Cait was no use to him as dead bait.

  He had passed what appeared to be an abandoned cottage while he was tailing her. The property was only a few miles from the turn-off leading to the Kurtz yacht, and he had returned there with his prize after knocking her out.

  The cottage was indeed abandoned, though some furniture remained, and its remote wooded location was exactly what Marzak wanted. He had lifted Cait’s limp form from the trunk of his car and carried her into the bedroom. As she lay on the musty-smelling mattress, Marzak administered an antidote to restore her to consciousness. She gurgled like a baby and her eyes snapped open.

  If she had not been on drugs, she would have screamed in terror at the sight of the killer at her bedside. But the drug had a calming, truth serum effect.

  Marzak looked familiar, but she couldn’t place where she had seen him. He seemed friendly, helping her to sit up and plumping a thin pillow for her neck.

  “My shoulder hurts,” she said, unaware that Marzak had used a Taser on her.

  “The pain will go away soon. You’ll feel groggy for a minute, and your tongue will be thick.” He handed her a plastic water bottle. “It’s important that you drink.”

  She glugged the water down in almost a single gulp and handed him the empty bottle. “More please.”

  “After you answer a few questions. Do you remember Hawkins?”

  A dreamy smile came to her face. “Oh yes.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  She struggled to recall. “We were flying from Afghanistan with some of his friends. They were very nice.” Her voice was slurred.

  “Why were you with Hawkins in Afghanistan?”

  “Seems so long ago.” She furrowed her brow. “I was looking for the Prester John treasure, and so was he. We met by accident at an ancient caravan stop.”

  “Did you find the treasure?”

  “It was gone. Kurtz took it.”

  “Who is Kurtz?”

  “An old explorer. He led an expedition to find the treasure. Moved it out of the cave years ago.”

  Marzak gave her another bottle of water and while she drank he pondered the answer. Interesting. So Hawkins didn’t find the treasure after all.

  “Why were you at the boat?”

  “It was the Kurtz yacht. I’m writing a book. I wanted to see the vessel that may have carried the treasure back to the United States.”

  Marzak’s pulse quickened. He leaned forward. “The treasure is in the U.S.? Where?”

  The abrupt movement and change of voice stirred a faint eddy of fear in Cait’s memory. Her instincts told her there was reason to be afraid of this man.

  “I don’t know,” she said, almost in a whisper.

  “Where is Hawkins now?”

  “In Colorado.”

  “Is that where the treasure is? I must tell you that I will kill you if you say you don’t know again.”

  She nodded. “He thinks Kurtz took the treasure there and hid it in a mine.”

  “Have you heard from Hawkins since you parted?”

  She shook her head and looked around as if she had lost something. “My phone.”

  Marzak took a phone from his jacket pocket. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

  “Yes,” she said with relief. “It has Matt’s number in it.”

  “Would you like to call Matt to say hello
?”

  “Yes,” she said eagerly. She took the phone and looked up Hawkins’ number in the contact list and pressed the call button. When a voice answered at the other end, she smiled and said, “Matt. It’s me, Cait.”

  Marzak reached forward and pressed the drug injector to her neck. There was a soft puff as the vapor entered her skin at high pressure. She blinked her eyes and frowned, then her head lolled and she slumped back onto the bed. Marzak took the phone from her limp fingers and brought it to his ear.

  “Hello, Hawkins,” he purred.

  The call came when the jet carrying the treasure east from Colorado was about an hour out from Washington.

  Abby and Sutherland were stretched out asleep in their own rows near the front of the cabin. Hawkins and Calvin were at the rear of the cabin hashing out a strategy to find Marzak before he could set off the Prophet’s Necklace.

  He couldn’t believe it when he answered the phone. It was Marzak. And he had Cait.

  Keeping his voice as neutral as possible, he said, “Hello, Marzak. Thought you were still back in Afghanistan.”

  “I arrived in the United States not long after you, and immediately arranged a reunion with Dr. Everson.”

  “I want to talk to her,” Hawkins said.

  “Not possible. She’s under the influence of a potent drug and will be asleep for another few hours.”

  Calvin was looking at Hawkins with a curious expression on his face. Hawkins put his finger to his lips and pressed the speaker phone button.

  “What do you want, Marzak?”

  “You’re very impatient, Hawkins.”

  “Why waste time on the small talk? Let’s cut to the chase.”

  “I agree. Dr. Everson told me the treasure wasn’t in Afghanistan.”

  “We struck out, sad to say.”

  “Don’t play games, Hawkins. She told me about Kurtz bringing the treasure back to Colorado. You have it.”

  “Only part of it,” Hawkins said. “The Prester John scepter. I’m looking at it now.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “Hang up and I’ll send you proof.”

  “Make it fast. Dr. Everson’s vital organs will shut down if I don’t administer an antidote.”

  Hawkins severed the connection. “You heard him. We’ll have to do some fancy footwork if we’re going to get Cait out of this alive.”

  “He’ll kill her and try to kill you no matter what we do,” Calvin said.

  “That’s why we need to stall and control the situation as much as possible. He’s using Cait to lure me in.”

  Calvin’s lips tightened in a grim smile. “And we were worried we wouldn’t be able to find him.”

  “I never expected Cait to be in the middle, but he’s not the only one who knows how to set a hook.” He handed his phone to Calvin and opened the box on the seat next to him. He lifted out the scepter and held it up.

  “Say cheese,” Calvin said. The phone’s camera flashed.

  Hawkins sent the photo to Cait’s phone. Marzak wasted no time calling back.

  “Congratulations, Hawkins. You have succeeded where I failed.”

  “Dumb luck, Marzak. Here’s the deal. I give you the scepter. I get Cait. Alive.”

  “You must think a lot of Dr. Everson to give up something worth millions.”

  “It’s nothing to me. My mission was to find the treasure, not decide what to do with it. I’ll need time, though.”

  “Make it fast. You’re not the only one who’s impatient.”

  “True, but we are both realists. I’m in an airplane on my way from Colorado. We’re not due to land for another couple of hours. Pick a place for the exchange that’s not far from Washington.”

  “I’ll call later with the location.”

  Hawkins had no intention of improvising his plans last-minute.

  “Uh-uh. Now or never.”

  There was a pause at the other end of the line, then Marzak said, “We will meet in three hours at the old Kurtz yacht. It’s on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Come alone.”

  He gave Hawkins directions.

  “I’ll be there with the scepter,” Hawkins said.

  Cait’s phone went dead.

  Hawkins had a determined set to his prominent jaw. “You heard him. We’ve only got a few hours to put this thing together. Marzak will spend that time setting the trap with Cait as the cheese.”

  “He’ll be a lot more careful than the last time we met him,” Calvin said.

  Hawkins placed the scepter back into its box. “Yes, but this little bauble has a way of clouding a man’s mind. We can use Marzak’s scepter obsession against him. And he doesn’t know about our secret weapon.”

  “That’s good, man.” Calvin wrinkled his nose. “Only I didn’t know we had one.”

  Hawkins cocked his ear to the soft snores coming from the sleeping women. “Actually, we have two.”

  The old yacht had so many possibilities for an ambush that Marzak had difficulty narrowing them down. As he walked onto the rotting hull he focused on two potentials. The strategic and the poetic.

  He scouted the woods around the wreck but it was obvious that anyone trying to come that way would have to cross the marsh and hack his way through heavy undergrowth.

  Carrying a leather satchel, he walked out onto a rickety pier. Hawkins and his friend were former navy SEALs and a water approach was not out of the question, but the soft muck of the mud flats bordering the shore cut down possible access. Anyone coming from the bay would have to use the dock.

  He retraced his steps and found a loose plank around half way back. He pulled it up, armed a small but powerful mine and slipped it under the board. The weight of a footstep on or even near the board would depress the pressure plate and trigger the explosion.

  He went back to the yacht and strolled through the dining room. A few feet from the bar he detected a sponge-softness to the deck. He pried up several planks. A miasma of rotting plants rose through the opening. He explored the bilge with a flashlight, then he removed several supporting boards and replaced the single layer of deck.

  In his mind, he created the poetic scene that would greet Hawkins.

  Hawkins would drive down the only road, park, and walk into the yacht. He would be armed, of course. Marzak would be surprised if he weren’t. Hawkins would approach the bar with scepter in hand and fall through the deck to his armpits. Marzak would pluck the scepter from his hands and proceed to kill him after they had a talk.

  Sheer poetry.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Though Hawkins was painfully aware that the gang of misfits at his command was no SEAL Team Six, he could not have been prouder, or more amazed, at the way they had come together in Afghanistan. But for all his brave talk about secret weapons, he knew that the rescue attempt needed the skills of an elite counter-terrorism team versed in the refined elements of assault, like the group that took down Bin laden.

  Marzak was a ruthless and experienced opponent and the fact that he had a hostage complicated things exponentially. Cait would be caught between competing forces. Luck simply could not be part of the equation. Nor could blunt force.

  Hawkins had designed dozens of SEAL missions. Some had succeeded. Some hadn’t. But every one of them was a work of art as well as an exercise in military science. He knew that a successful mission had to be a combination of desperate creativeness and painstaking planning.

  “We’re going by the book,” Hawkins said. “First, Molly,” he turned to Sutherland, who was munching on her second blueberry muffin, “you’re intel. We’ll need an instant summary of everything there is to know about the Kurtz yacht.”

  “I’ve already got a folder in my Prester John file.”

  “Good. Narrow it down to what we need.”

  Sutherland stuffed
her mouth full of muffin and booted up her computer.

  “Next, operational strategy. It has to be delicate. I’ve—”

  Abby cut him off. “C’mon, Matt. You’re stating the obvious. We’re all very aware that we can’t bomb the crap out of the target and then send in the marines. The objective is simple. Get in. Neutralize Marzak. Save Cait. Get out.”

  “That’s about right, Abby.” Hawkins silently cursed the insanity that had persuaded him to reunite with his ex-wife. “But if you’ll let me continue, I’ve already ruled out dropping in by fast-rope.”

  “Not fast enough,” Calvin said. “Marzak would have too much warning.”

  Hawkins said, “A land assault would be limited as well. Not enough options. My guess is that, no matter how I come at him, Marzak will use Cait to draw me in where he’ll have something nasty planned.”

  Sutherland had been listening with one ear. Not taking her eyes off the screen, she said, “Here’s the CV on the yacht. Steel-hulled, built by Camper and Nicholson boatyard back in 1919. One of their early diesels, switching over from steam engines. It was a hundred-forty-five feet long. Here’s a photo.”

  The computer screen showed a white yacht with a single smokestack, three decks and the almost straight-up-and-down bow typical of ships of its day. There were several photos of the luxurious interior, with its classic salon and spacious stateroom.

  “How did the yacht get to Maryland?” he asked.

  “After Hiram died his family sold it. It was used as a cruise boat on the Chesapeake, then went to a buyer who gutted the interior and turned the yacht into a waterside restaurant. The owner went bankrupt, the restaurant closed and it went into real estate trust. This picture shows the yacht in 1979.”

  “Ouch,” Calvin said. “The old gal must have had some hard times.”

  The paint on the vessel had peeled off and huge rusty blotches ravaged the hull like the effects of disease. The tall windows were broken. Sections of deck had been unevenly cut away with torches.