He and Flagg took turns covering each other as they went through the lower level room by room. Next they searched the second story. They found the room with the balcony. It was a study, with a large desk and leather chairs. Austin went out on the balcony. He had a view of the surrounding lawns and fields. Nothing moved within his field of vision except for a few crows.
“Hey, Austin,” Flagg called. “Your pal left you a note.”
Flagg was pointing to a sheet of Baltazar’s stationery taped to a remote control on a side table. Below the bull’s-head logo were the words: Dear Austin, Please watch the video. VB
“Too polite. Might be a booby trap,” Flagg said.
“I don’t think so. Baltazar likes to torture before he kills.”
Flagg’s expression mirrored his doubts, but he picked up the remote and pressed the ON button.
A section of wall disappeared to reveal a wide television screen. Baltazar’s smiling face appeared on the screen. The video had evidently been shot in the study, because behind Baltazar was the door leading to the balcony.
“Greetings, Austin,” Baltazar said. “I apologize for this hasty message, but I had family business to attend to. Miss Mechadi is with me. You didn’t know that she is the direct descendant of Solomon and Sheba. I must carry out my family mission and offer her to Ba’al. I had plans to spare her, but Ba’al sent you as a scourge who would remind me to return to my family roots. Adriano will be disappointed, but he has become quite obsessed with you. I suggest that you keep looking over your shoulder. Thank you, Austin. It was a pleasure jousting.” He smiled. “You can keep my car. I have others.”
The picture faded.
Flagg frowned. “Guy’s a real nutcase.”
“Unfortunately, he’s a lethal nutcase. And he’s got Carina. You found this place. Any luck locating other holes where he might go to ground?”
“It was hard enough to locate this shack,” Flagg said with a shake of his head. “We’re still working on it, but with all the dummy corporations he’s got set up it’s tough. Who’s this Adriano?”
“The stuff of nightmares.” Austin stuck his hand out. “I need to borrow your phone.”
ZAVALA WAS CLIMBING into the helicopter cockpit when he heard “La Cucaracha” jangling in the pocket where he kept his phone. He put the phone to his ear and heard a familiar voice:
“You’re still answering calls, so I guess you didn’t run off to Mexico with Solomon’s gold,” Austin said.
Zavala grinned broadly.
“And Baltazar must have gotten sick of your wisecracks because you’re still making them.”
“Something like that,” Austin said. “Did you find the mine?”
“Yup. No gold, Kurt, but we found another treasure hidden in the mine. The other piece of the vellum map in a box apparently owned by Thomas Jefferson.”
“Jefferson again. I’m going to let you and the Trouts work on that one. Baltazar’s still got Carina. I need to talk to Saxon.”
Zavala passed the phone to Saxon, who said, “Kurt, can you believe it?”
Austin cut him short. “I’m interested, but not now. Baltazar left me a message. I’m going to let you hear his exact words. If there is any hint of his plans, no matter how slight, I want you to tell me.”
Austin clicked the television remote and held the phone up so Saxon could hear Baltazar’s chilling good-bye.
There was a stunned silence at Saxon’s end, then he said, “He believes Carina is descended from Solomon?”
“Apparently so. What’s the reference to Ba’al mean?”
He quickly regained his composure.
“He said he’s going to offer Carina to Ba’al. It can only mean one thing. He’s going to sacrifice her to the god Ba’al. The bastard! We’ve got to find her before it’s too late.”
“You’ve known the man longer than I have. Any ideas where could he have taken her?”
“Not specifically.”
“His company owns a mercenary ship. Is that where he’s taken her?”
“I don’t think so. He mentions his family roots. That implies dry ground. He could be talking about Spain, where the Baltazars moved after the Crusades. Although their ancestral home was on Cyprus. That’s where they prospered for many years. It’s either Spain or Cyprus. I’d stake my life on it.”
“Make up your mind, Saxon. It’s not your life I’m worried about.”
“Sorry. Um—wait. After my boat was torched, I learned what I could about the Baltazars. A shadowy bunch. But I found references to them in the history of the Knights Templar. The Baltazars were connected to the Templars but apparently broke off or they would have been wiped out with the rest of the Knights. The order’s symbol was the bull’s head, which can also represent one of the incarnations of Ba’al.”
The bull’s head.
Austin let his mind drift back to the helicopter flight he and Joe had taken after the containership hijacking. The chopper had come in low over a mineral ship and he had seen the bull’s-head symbol for the first time. Below the ship’s name was its port of registration.
Nicosia. Cyprus.
“Thanks, Saxon. You’ve been a great help. Tell Joe I’ll keep in touch.”
Austin clicked off and relayed the substance of his conversation to Flagg.
“Cyprus,” Flagg said. “That’s the other side of the world.”
“Close to the Turkish coast. If I had known Baltazar might be headed that way, I would have stayed in Istanbul. Do you have anyone there?”
“We’ve got a guy in place who grew up on the island. We’ve got additional assets in that region. I could spring a few guys to give the gentleman a big surprise.”
“Baltazar’s dangerous. He’s not going to let anyone get in the way of his family destiny. He’ll kill Carina before anyone can get to him. Have your guys track him down and move in only if they have to. I’ll see if I can commandeer a NUMA plane in the meantime. I’ll only be a few hours behind him.” Austin shook his head. “Unfortunately, he can cause a lot of trouble in that time.”
“That’s why I was thinking you might get there ahead of him.”
Austin was in no mood for jokes. “I didn’t know the CIA had mastered teleportation.”
“Nothing that sophisticated. I was thinking of the Blackbird.”
Austin was well acquainted from his CIA days with the avian nickname for the SR-71, a high-speed, high-altitude aircraft that had flown secret reconnaissance missions for the CIA before it was succeeded by drone aircraft and satellites in the late 1990s. The legendary plane could make a transatlantic crossing in two hours.
“I thought they retired the whole flock of Blackbirds,” he said.
“That’s the cover story,” Flagg said. “We kept one to transport personnel in emergencies.”
“I’d say this qualifies as an emergency,” Austin said.
“Great minds think alike,” Flagg said. He flipped open his cell phone. He worked his way through the bureaucracy, and was still talking when the whup-whup of helicopter rotors could be heard.
Austin went to the balcony and saw two helicopters flying in low circles over the mansion.
“The cavalry has arrived,” Austin said.
Flagg tucked the phone in his pocket. “I always cheered for the Indians, but I’ll make an exception because I’m in a good mood. Just spoke to a mucky-muck. It wasn’t easy, but you’ve got a first-class ticket on the Blackbird.”
Flagg’s news was good, but Austin was a realist. He was facing long odds.
His eyes hardened. If Carina were harmed, Austin would devote every sinew and synapse in his body to a single goal.
And that was to send Baltazar to hell.
Chapter 51
FRED TURNER WAS DOWN on his knees behind the bar, stacking beer mugs. He heard the door open and close. A frown came to his ruddy face. Probably a regular customer looking to start his happy hour early.
“We’re closed,” Turner growled.
N
o one answered. Turner stood up and saw a large man in the doorway. The stranger’s round features were soft and childlike. Turner was a retired policeman, and his cop’s instincts sensed an unspoken menace behind the unthreatening façade. He stepped closer to the shotgun he kept near the cash register.
The stranger simply looked around and said:
“Where did the name of this place come from?”
Bender chuckled at the unexpected question. “People think I named it after an Old West saloon. But when I bought the place, I remembered reading that there were gold mines around here in the old days.”
“What happened to the mines?”
“Closed them years ago. Didn’t find enough gold to keep them open.”
After a moment in thought, the man said, “Thank you,” and left without further comment. Turner went back to stacking glasses, muttering to himself about the odd people who come into bars.
Adriano sat in his car in the parking lot and reread the directions and map Austin had jotted down on the sheet of notepaper. He gazed up with a bland expression on his face at the neon sign on the flat roof of the low-slung building: GOLD MINE CAFÉ. Then he ripped the paper to shreds, started the car, and drove out of the parking lot onto the Maryland back road.
After leaving Baltazar’s jousting contest, Adriano had driven from Upstate New York to New Jersey and then to Maryland. Austin’s directions had directed him to a rural area not far from Chesapeake Bay and taken him down a series of back roads that had ended in the Gold Mine Café.
He picked up his telephone and called on the direct line that connected him to Baltazar.
“Well?” His employer’s voice came on the phone.
Adriano told Baltazar about the Gold Mine Café. “Too bad Austin is dead,” Adriano said. “I would have made him tell us what we want to know.”
“Too late,” Baltazar snapped. “He escaped. We had to leave the estate. Don’t go back there.”
“And the woman?”
“I have her. We’ll deal with Austin later. I want to see his face when I tell him what I did with his lovely friend.”
Adriano had hoped he would be the last to talk to the woman, but he kept the disappointment out of his voice.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’ll be back in a few days. Go to ground in the meantime. I’ll call you when I return. You’ll have much work to do. I want NUMA and anyone associated with it destroyed. You’ll have every resource you’ll need.”
Adriano was smiling when he hung up. He had never attempted large-scale killing and looked forward to the challenge mass murder offered.
Life was good, he thought. Death is even better.
Chapter 52
THE BOEING 737 MARKED with a bull’s-head logo on its fuselage touched down at LarnacaInternationalAirport and taxied to an area reserved for private corporate jets. The mechanics who normally worked on the planes had gone home for the night. Baltazar had planned his arrival with great care, and it was unlikely anyone would have had more than mild curiosity at the figure being carried down the steps of the plane in a stretcher.
Bandages covered the person’s face except for the eyes and nose. Men in white medical jackets loaded the stretcher into a waiting helicopter. Seconds later, Baltazar descended to the tarmac and got into the helicopter. The helicopter lifted into the air moments later and headed west.
The aircraft landed in a small airport near the coastal city of Paphos. A waiting ambulance drove off as soon as the stretcher was loaded aboard. Baltazar and his men followed in a Mercedes sedan.
The two-vehicle convoy skirted the edge of the city and turned onto a main highway. Eventually, it left the highway for an ascending mountain road. The road narrowed to two lanes, as it traversed a series of switchbacks, passing through quiet mountain villages and past derelict hotels that had once been fashionable summer resorts before people started to spend more time at the seashore.
The countryside grew more rugged and less populated the higher the ambulance and its companion climbed. Dark piney woods crowded in on both sides. With the Mercedes close behind, the ambulance turned onto a dirt lane that was almost hidden by overgrowth.
The vehicles lurched along the cratered road for about a half mile. The road came to an abrupt end without warning. Silhouetted against the starry sky was a squat two-story structure. Baltazar got out of the Mercedes and breathed in the cool night air. The only sound was the moaning of the wind through empty rooms of the old Crusader castle. Baltazar soaked in its ancient aura, gaining strength by his proximity to the ruin that had housed his forebears.
The government had once tried to acquire the historic structure and turn it into a tourist attraction. The plan disintegrated after supporters received death threats, which was just as well for those who knew the fearsome history of the place. The locals still whispered about the unspeakable horrors associated with the moldering ruin.
Baltazar hadn’t visited the castle since the last offering to Ba’al. He remembered the stark defensive architecture of the building. It was built as a fortress originally. The roof was crenellated to provide shelter for defenders. The only openings in the otherwise blank façade were arrow slits for archers. But mostly, he remembered the Room.
He climbed a short set of stairs to the entrance. Using an antique key, he unlocked the door, which swung open with a mournful creak. The empty rooms were like refrigerators that kept out the heat of the day and preserved the cold. Baltazar called out to his men to bring the stretcher in and to place it in front of a fireplace big enough for a man to stand in.
There were six mercenaries, all culled from his security company. Their major attributes had been obedience, cruelty, and the ability to keep their mouths shut. He told them to take up guard posts. As soon as he was alone, he pressed a combination of stones on the mantle. The procedure unlocked a door hidden in the back of the fireplace.
He switched on an electric torch, ducked through the fireplace door, and descended a flight of stone stairs.
A miasma of air more foul than dragon’s breath flowed up from below. The musty tomblike odor carried memories of pain and terror and was heavy with an oily smell. But to Baltazar it was as sweet as perfume. He stopped to light a wooden torch in a wall sconce and used its flames to ignite wall torches that lined a short passageway. At the end of the corridor was a perfectly round room about a hundred feet in diameter.
Plaques set into the walls marked the ancestral resting place of scores of Baltazars who’d been buried in the castle before the family was forced to flee to Cyprus. Figures of Ba’al in the god’s various incarnations ringed the room.
In the center of the chamber was a bronze statue that resembled the stone one in the basement of his mansion in the United States. Like the other, it was a sitting figure whose arms were outstretched with the palms up. It was at least four times as large, sitting on a pedestal around six feet tall. Narrow stairways ran up both sides of the pedestal. The face on the smaller statue was almost benign compared to the visage of the larger one. It was more hideous than the ugliest gargoyle.
Baltazar climbed the stairs. He stood on a small platform behind the statue. The ancient priests took their post here, speaking into a voice tube that they had used to instill even more fear in their hapless victims.
He removed the family book from its bag and placed it on a ledge specially made to hold it. Reading the rituals from the book, he wrapped his fingers around a lever that protruded from between the shoulder blades of the seated figure. He pulled the lever down. There was a grating noise as a system of weights and pulleys came into play and doors slid open to reveal a circular pit in the floor directly in front of the statue.
He lifted the lever. The statue’s arms dropped down at the elbows and snapped up almost as quickly.
He descended the stairs and checked the pit with his light. It had been refilled with oil after the last time it had been used, when the family fortunes were on the wane and it had been necess
ary to make an offering to Ba’al.
A young Eastern European woman with no family had been lured to Cyprus with the promise of a well-paying job.
All was ready.
He went back for Carina. The bandaged figure on the stretcher stirred. Good, Baltazar thought. He wanted Carina to see the fate that awaited her. He undid the straps that held her on the stretcher and slung her over his shoulder fireman-style.
Baltazar heard a moan from Carina’s lips. She was coming to.
He smiled. Soon she would be in the loving arms of Ba’al.
Chapter 53
THE VOICE OF THE BRITISH TORNADO FB fighter pilot crackled over the intercom.
“Welcome to the beautiful island of Cyprus, birthplace of Aphrodite, goddess of love.”
Austin sat behind the pilot in the seat normally occupied by the supersonic plane’s weapons system operator. The plane made a circle over the British Air Force base near the old Roman city of Curium before it dropped out of the sky in a quick descent. As the jet’s landing gear thumped on the tarmac, Austin gazed out at the runway lights after the ninety-minute flight from England and wondered at how small the planet had become.
Hours earlier he had hitched a ride on a CIA helicopter to Albany. From there, an executive jet transported him to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where the Blackbird was housed in a special hangar, and flown only at night.
The SR-71 had been developed as a long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft that could fly at speeds of more than Mach 3.2 and reach an altitude of eighty-five thousand feet. The flattened fuselage, bluer than black, was more than one hundred feet long, excluding the five-foot-long nose probe. Two vertical stabilizers rose from the rear of the plane like twin shark fins. One of the 32,500-pound thrust engines could power an ocean liner.
Austin was given a high-protein meal of steak and eggs, a medical exam, and fitted out for a special suit similar to those used on the space shuttle. As he suited up, he breathed in pure oxygen to filter gases out of his body. A van took him to the barn where the plane was kept and he was buckled into a specially built passenger seat. The plane rendezvoused with a tanker seven minutes after taking off. Less than two hours later, it landed at a British RAF base in England.
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