by J. F. Penn
"I'd do as she says." Jake stood behind Morgan, his gun pointing straight at the woman's head.
The woman lowered her blade and a slow smile spread across her lips.
"You two beat me to the Taj Mahal. I heard about you from your guide. Of course, he's with the goddess now." She stepped forward. "Do you seriously think that if you shoot me you'll get out of here with your friends alive?"
Jake shrugged. "I'm thinking that you want out of here as well, so I'll take my chances." He kept his gun trained on her as the woman stepped forward to examine what Morgan held.
"Is that the piece from the crypt?"
Morgan nodded. "Yes, and you can have it in exchange for these two men."
"Two men for the final two pieces." She raised the kukri over Ben's neck again. "Or the goddess gets her sacrifice."
Father Ben looked up at Morgan, his eyes pleading with her. She saw that he would go to his God in order to save her, but she wasn't ready to give up yet.
"You'll have your two pieces."
Marietti raised his head at her confident tone. His bloody lips were cracked and broken but he managed to speak, his voice hoarse.
"She doesn't know where the final piece is. Only I do."
Morgan's heart thumped as she stood there. Why would Marietti try to stop her? Why did he court death this way? Was the sculpture truly so powerful that he would die before he allowed the piece to be found?
Well, she would not allow it. She would take Ben home and Marietti too.
"I can find it," she said.
The woman narrowed her eyes. "How are you so sure?"
Morgan took a deep breath. She wasn't sure, but something solidified in her mind even as she faced their enemy. The kaleidoscope of what they knew of Marietti's life, the pictures in his photo album and what Jake had said about the destruction in Africa all coalesced into one idea. Marietti had witnessed mass murder before, and if he believed the piece of the sculpture could create such death, then perhaps he would hide it in the place he still had nightmares about.
"He will never tell you where it is," Morgan said. "You can kill us all and he will never tell and you won't complete the sculpture. But he can't hide the footprints of the past. Give me forty-eight hours and I will find the final piece."
The woman lowered the kukri and turned to the seated sadhu. His ash-rimmed eyes looked at Morgan as she stood unflinching before him. She felt him rake her soul and something inside her curled away at his intrusion.
Finally, the sadhu nodded.
"So be it," the woman said. She walked towards Morgan and Jake, her hips swinging in a sinuous manner. She was beautiful, sensual, even covered in blood. "I'll take this as part payment." She reached for the package and Morgan relinquished it into her grasp. "If you can indeed find the last piece within forty-eight hours, then these two will be released. If not …"
She turned and nodded to her bodyguards. They dragged Ben and Marietti away as the men sagged, defeated, in their bonds. Morgan could only hope that they would be able to hang on for just a little longer.
"I want them unharmed," she said.
"Of course." The woman gave a little bow. She turned and spoke to another of the bodyguards. She took his phone, tapped into it for a second and then handed it to Morgan. "Take this. I'll text the location for you to bring the piece … and I'll send a photo of their heads if you're not on time."
She turned and swept out of the temple.
The sadhu rose to his feet, his eyes empty, like a shadow who lived in the world but was not of it. His footsteps were silent as he walked behind her.
The crowd of devotees melted back into the corridors beyond and within minutes, the temple was empty. The only evidence left was the head of Sister Nataline hanging on the outstretched hand of the goddess Kali, still dripping blood onto the altar.
Morgan fell to her knees, exhaustion suddenly overwhelming her. She felt dizzy and weak. Sister Nataline's head seemed to stare right at her, an accusation of her failure. If only they had arrived earlier. If only …
Jake knelt next to her and pulled her against him. She could hear his heart beating and she rested her head against his chest.
"What were you thinking?" he whispered. "We could have tried to take them."
"You saw how many there were." She looked up at him. "We wouldn't have stood a chance. At least this way we're still alive to fight another day."
"But how will we find the final piece?" Jake's corkscrew scar crinkled at the question, his brown eyes quizzical. "Marietti has never told anyone where it is and it seems that he would die to protect it."
"And let others die for him, Jake. What if it had been you here instead of Sister Nataline?"
He shook his head. "I'm not sure. I thought I knew him …"
"Well, I'm not willing to stand by and let someone I love die." Tears welled and ran down her cheeks. "Marietti may be able to give up, but I won't. Ben didn't ask to be part of this and once again I've dragged him into a mission and put him in danger." She stood and wrapped her arms around herself as the cold night seeped in through the temple walls. "I'm livid with Marietti. How dare he?"
Jake looked up at the severed head of Sister Nataline. "I don't think he knows how to love anymore." He shook his head. "Perhaps he never did. He only sees the bigger picture, the potential for mass slaughter if the sculpture is used as some kind of weapon."
"You and I have faced the darkness before," Morgan said, "and I come from a different faith anyway. The Talmud says that 'whoever saves a life, it is as if he saved an entire world.'" She pointed up at the severed head. "We failed Sister Nataline, but I will not fail Ben."
Jake nodded. "I'm with you. I still want to get Marietti back, even if you're only gonna kill him yourself." He smiled softly. "Right, we have forty-eight hours. Where are we going?"
Chapter 21
Kigali, Rwanda, Africa. 11.48am
"It's been a long time since I was here," Jake said, as they emerged from the airport in Kigali. It was just as hot and dusty and busy as Kolkata had been, with taxi drivers shouting for custom and people embracing in tears. He hailed one of the local cabs and they got in. "I had only just started in the military in 1994 and the killing here had already escalated before the world really took notice. We came as peacekeepers to help with the aftermath. I still have nightmares about that time."
"But Marietti was here during the worst of it, wasn't he?" Morgan said, as they drove along the highway out of the airport and headed north. "There was a picture in his photo album in front of a mass grave. He wanted to remember how much it affected him and I think it's why he can't see one death as important anymore. He'll do anything to prevent murder on such a scale again."
"That's why you think he buried the piece here?" Jake said. "But how can you be so sure?"
"I'm not, but I'm staking Ben's life on it. And Marietti's, of course, although I doubt he'll appreciate the effort." Morgan grimaced, imagining the Director's wrath even if they did get him out of the clutches of Kali.
"He's a tough old man," Jake said. "I don't think you or I know how much he has done under the auspices of ARKANE, or of the horrors he has faced to keep people safe. I know you're angry with him, Morgan, but we'll get through this somehow." He looked out the window. "At least I hope we will."
Morgan pulled out a map marked with five black crosses.
"These are the closest memorials to the city," she said as she showed Jake the proposed route between them. "Marietti was never here very long when he came back to visit, so I'm assuming that the picture we saw is from one of these rather than the others around the country."
They drove through the dirt of the city out to a rural area where rows of green palm trees divided small plots of land. A group of smiling children ran down the road after the car, their white teeth flashing in the sun.
It was a fertile place, rejuvenated in the last ten years as Rwanda invested in crop intensification. Farmers here now made enough to export as well as f
eed their families. Deep green tea plantations dotted the hills and there were gorillas in the high forests near the border with Congo and Uganda. It was a beautiful country and Morgan wished they could be here under other circumstances. After all, Jake was African and he knew this continent. The knife-edge of glorious life and beauty and intense experience, and the shadows too. India had the same sense of being closer to real life, not separated from it by years of uptight repression as she sometimes felt in England.
They soon pulled up at the first memorial but without even getting out the car, Morgan knew it wasn't the right one. The topography was all wrong. She sighed.
Jake looked at his watch. "We still have time. Let's go on to the next one."
They were hot and tired when they finally arrived at the Murambi Genocide Memorial, a school that had been the site of a massacre during the conflict, and the fourth on Morgan's list. It was on a hill overlooking fields of green and hills beyond. Chickens scratched in the ground nearby, but the peace and normality hid a troubled past.
"This is it," Morgan said as they got out the car. "It has to be."
A local guide came to greet them, her gentle smile welcoming even as her eyes held great sorrow. She led Morgan and Jake into the compound.
"Tutsis sheltered here to try and escape the violence, but in fact they were herded into such places to make it easier to kill them in larger groups. It's estimated that 45,000 people were murdered here in just a few days. Their bodies were buried in pits and a volleyball court built over the mass grave to hide the evidence."
Her stark words did nothing to hide the horror of what had happened here. The blood of innocents soaked into the earth beneath their feet and Morgan understood, for Israel was the same. Years of conflict, so much blood spilled, and still, no resolution.
The guide led them towards a series of brick huts, her steps heavy. She pushed open the first door.
"Please," she said, nodding inside.
Morgan walked in first and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Then she saw them.
Mummified bodies lay on wooden racks, white from the lime they had been exhumed from, the bodies squashed almost flat from the way they had been stacked in death. Some wore ragged clothes, one had a rosary around its neck. One figure had tufts of hair and another lay with its mouth open, frozen in a final scream. Many had limbs missing and cracked skulls, killed with machetes and farm implements. On another rack, skulls piled high, some cracked and broken.
"Most of the dead from the massacre here were given a dignified burial," the guide said quietly. "But these corpses are displayed openly to stop denial of the genocide."
Morgan nodded, thinking of those who denied the millions of Jewish dead in the Second World War.
"I understand that," she whispered. "The dead are past suffering, but unless we are confronted with the results of such action, how are people to learn from what happened here."
The guide walked to the door.
"Come to the next room. It has the younger children aged three to six years old."
Jake had been quiet but now he visibly paled. Morgan remembered how he had reacted in the crypt of Palermo at the sight of the mummified children. She wanted to reach for his hand to let him know she understood, but he crossed his arms, tucking his hands underneath his armpits, as if he were chilled to the bone.
"I'm going to wait outside," he said, his voice cracking a little. "Call if you need me."
He walked outside and Morgan let him go.
But she needed to see, and bear witness to the atrocity.
In the children's room there were many more bodies, tiny figures curled in death. A wreath of fresh flowers had been left amongst them, the heavy scent of lilies hanging in the air. Morgan wanted to cry, but these were not her people to mourn. A human life was just the flash of a firefly in the night and she could only try to help keep the light alive.
"Why did it happen?" she asked, wanting the woman to tell her story.
The guide took a deep breath. "On April 6, 1994, a suspicious plane crash killed the president, a Hutu, the majority tribe of Rwanda. The Hutus turned on the Tutsi minority in retribution and it's thought that up to a million people were killed in the months following. Neighbors turned against each other and there was widespread rape and maiming as well as murder. Families were torn apart if there had been intermarriage. It was indeed a dark time and it has taken us many years to recover. Of course, we will not forget." She looked down at the bodies. "Some of my own family were taken." Then she looked up, her eyes blazing. "They called us cockroaches. They saw us as less than human, although days before, we were neighbors."
Her words shocked Morgan because it was the same word that Hitler had used for Jews, the same word used even now against migrants and refugees, the same word used to dehumanize the Other.
"I'm so sorry," she said, putting her hand out to the woman and touching her sleeve. She wondered how the guide could stand seeing this every day, but then if everyone moved on, there would be no one left to remember.
Morgan looked around at the bodies, the number who lay dead here. If the statue was put together again, could the Brahmastra weapon really do as much damage as humans had here? Or was Marietti just haunted by a past he couldn't change? Was it all just an exaggerated myth?
Morgan didn't know, but she was certain that she would not let Ben be one of the dead.
"Are there any foreign tributes here?" she asked the guide, turning away from the skeletal remains. "Anything from overseas aid organizations?"
"There is a memorial area," the guide said. "Come. It's through here."
They walked along the corridor into a simple room. The walls were painted a stark white and a row of benches faced a memorial sculpture. It portrayed a family huddled together in polished black stone, their faces upturned to heaven. Two bunches of colorful flowers rested against the plaque on the wall next to it, and a low table in the corner held an open Visitors Book.
"People of all faiths come here to pray," the guide said. "Many of the murdered were Christian, some were Muslim, some of the tribal faith, so this room is where all can come to remember. It was paid for by an anonymous donor."
Morgan looked around the room. There was nowhere immediately obvious where Marietti might have hidden a piece of the sculpture, but the guide's mention of an anonymous donor gave her hope.
"Do you mind if I sit here for a moment?" she asked.
The guide nodded. "Of course, I'll leave you and wait with your friend outside."
She left the room and Morgan sat down for a moment as she absorbed the feeling of the place.
It was desolate, the walls saturated with the collected grief of half a nation. She had felt this before in the chambers at Auschwitz and in the killing fields of Cambodia, and she understood Marietti's reasons for caring so much.
Martin Klein had sent as much as he could find on Marietti's many trips to Africa over the years. The Director had visited Kigali on the anniversary of the massacre most years, but of course, there were many memorials, many other places where he could have left the sculpture piece.
If it was even in Rwanda at all.
It has to be. Because if it isn't …
She stood, walked over to the table and flipped through the Visitors Book. It was sparse and the entries grew further apart as the years went on. Many of the comments were from foreigners, dark tourists drawn to places like this. Proximity to death made the sweetness and brevity of life more prominent, and perhaps that was why she and Jake would struggle to ever leave ARKANE.
The Visitors Book was no use so she walked over to the plaque next to the memorial. It was a carved piece of stone etched with the dates of the massacre and the number of lives lost in this area.
But then she noticed something.
The stone seemed to float away from the wall. Morgan pressed her cheek against the plaster to try and see behind it.
Her heart beat faster. She didn't w
ant to do anything to desecrate this memorial place, but she had to know if there was something here.
She ran her fingers around the edge and then pulled the plaque towards her slightly to test its movement. It was more slender than she had expected and she was able to lift it up easily. It came away in her hands and she placed it carefully on the floor.
Behind it was a safe with a combination lock.
Morgan's heart fell. They didn't have much time.
She called Martin and he answered on the first ring.
"Morgan, what's going on? Have you found something?"
She switched on the video function on her phone and aimed it at the safe.
"We're at one of the genocide memorial sites and I found this safe but it's a combination lock. I don't even know if Marietti left it here but I need to get inside."
"Zoom the camera closer," Martin said.
Morgan walked forward until the lock filled the entire screen.
"That model is commonly used in Italy and I know Marietti has a version for his personal office safe. There is a chance that he left it here. Let's have a look at possible number combinations." The sound of tapping came from the phone as Martin probed the ARKANE database. "I can look at Marietti's passwords to see if any of those might give us a clue."
Morgan waited in the silence of the room.
"OK," Martin said, a moment later. "Here's something. Try 160867. That's the date Marietti joined the Vatican."
Morgan typed the numbers in.
There was a second of silence then a loud beep.
"That's no good," she said. "And we have to hurry."
Suddenly footsteps echoed down the hallway and the door creaked as it opened.
Chapter 22
"Try 521221," Jake said as he walked into the room. His face was calm again, his darkness lifted and Morgan sighed with relief to see him and not the guide or another Rwandan official.
She typed the code into the keypad.
