by Tom Hunter
Valentina smiled a little crooked smile, some of her old confidence returning now that she had something useful to offer. “It was quite a sophisticated cypher. You know, if I’d left the hacking to your team of incompetents like you wanted me to, it would have taken at least another week, if not longer. They may never have been able to access all the files.”
Pin glared at her but, knowing how temperamental Valentina could be, chose to say nothing that might antagonize her, simply gesturing to her to reveal what she’d discovered.
“Of course, I’ll be more than happy to share what I know.” Valentina smirked, making Pin sigh.
“And here it comes.” He shook his head. “Everything with you always comes with a price tag. I’m sorry to say that given your recent performance, I am disinclined to pay you any more money.”
“I delivered Samuel to the island as promised,” shrugged Valentina. “It’s not my fault that your men weren’t capable of keeping him here. As always, I kept my word. However, in this instance I’m not asking for money. I’ll give you all the information you need for free, on one condition.”
Pin arched an eyebrow.
“I want to come with you when you recover McCarthy and I want your guarantee that Waleed will be mine.” Valentina practically spat out the words. “I want to strangle that little weasel with my own two hands so that I can be sure he’s dead.”
Pae burst into guffaws of laughter. “Oh, this one’s a peach!” he cried. “I like her. I like her very much.”
“If word ever got out that a hobo like Waleed managed to get one over on me, my career will be ruined,” Valentina continued. “In order to ensure that never happens, I want to have the satisfaction of seeing his life end by my hands. I want to see the feral look drain out of his eyes, my face being the last thing he sees before he descends into darkness. I want him gone for good and I’m not going to trust anyone else to do it.”
Pin nodded slowly. “That seems fair. All right, Valentina. You have a deal.”
He reached out to shake her hand, sealing their fate.
“Now,” said Valentina. “With that said, let me tell you about a place called Dougga…”
Three
Samuel sat cross-legged on the bed in his room, his eyes closed as he attempted to focus on controlling his breathing. He held the fully assembled scepter loosely in his hands, to try and connect with the energies of the artifact. The sound of conversation, music, and dancing filtered through from the bar area below combined with the noise of guests thumping up and down the hallway regularly interrupted his calm, making it very hard for him to maintain a meditative state.
Huffing, he opened his eyes and crossed over to the window. Gazing out over the fields sprawling into the distance, he watched as a shepherd lazily made his way across the meadow, a robotic dog working hard to keep his flock in line.
Absently, Samuel rubbed his thumb over the emerald set into the top of the scepter, at a loss to how the relic worked its magic. “You saved our lives once,” he muttered. “But how? Is it really as simple as simply being calm enough to see?”
He looked down at the scepter, turning it over from side to side while he admired the way the light reflected in the gems studded all over it.
“There’s no way we could let you fall into the hands of a fiend like Pin,” he remarked. “There’s no limit to the damage he would do if he had you to work with. But anything that harms has the capacity to heal as well. I wonder just how much good we could do with you if you were combined with the cap? Will we ever be able to find out now that it’s surgically attached to Pin’s head?”
Samuel sighed, contemplating the futility of ever recovering St. Augustine’s hat. If it was lost to them forever, it was even more imperative that they found the saint’s bloodline before the Bruard got to it. The scepter could block the power of the hat, the two relics cancelling each other out. The tipping point would come to whoever found the saint’s descendants first.
His reverie was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Samuel crossed and stood behind the door, holding the scepter high to use as a bludgeon, just in case.
“It’s your friendly neighborhood Frenchman,” came Basile’s voice in reply.
Samuel heaved a sigh of relief, opening the door to reveal Basile and Josh standing outside.
“We thought you might like a little lubrication,” smiled Basile, holding up a bottle of wine in one hand and three glasses in the other.
“You know, I think I would,” agreed Samuel, standing aside to let his friends in before shutting and locking the door behind them.
“Josh and I were down in the bar munching the fat…”
“Chewing the fat,” Josh corrected.
“Yes, yes, whatever.” Basile waved him away. “As I was saying, Josh and I were talking about how long it’s been since we’ve had a decent drink, when the innkeeper told us that he had his own private wine cellar in the basement stocked with plenty of good wine. As a Frenchman, I’m sure you can understand I was naturally dubious, so requested he prove what he was saying. To be fair, most of the wine he showed us I wouldn’t even give to a dog, but we did uncover this rather delightful bottle of Bordeaux hidden in a crate of lesser wines. I had no choice but to buy it. It deserves to be appreciated by someone who will truly value it.”
He blew at the light covering of dust on the bottle, wiping it clean.
“And as I’m sure you can understand, I had no choice but to try and stop him,” put in Josh. “There’s no way something forgotten about for so long can be worth drinking.”
“Haven’t you heard about letting a wine age?” remarked Basile. “Ignorant Americans! It feels like forever since I last had a decent French wine and looking at the vintage of this one, I’m sure it will be divine. Of course, you are more than welcome to forego your share, Josh. That will leave all the more for me and Samuel. At least he appreciates a good wine.”
“Tell you what,” chuckled Samuel. “Why don’t you pour me a glass and I’ll be the judge of whether this one’s decent or not?”
Basile opened the bottle and poured out three generous glasses, passing them out to his friends.
“I think you’ll find that, unlike American wines, French wines are subtle and will not knock a man out, will treating your taste buds to a truly divine experience,” he explained. “Now let us toast to our successes, both past, present, and future. We will defeat the Bruard, once and for all!”
“We will defeat the Bruard,” echoed Samuel and Josh before drinking deeply.
Basile lay crashed out on the floor, snoring loudly.
“French wines are subtle enough to send you to dreamland, non?” quipped Samuel, doing a more than passable impression of the engineer.
“Thank goodness they didn’t have any American wines,” agreed Josh. “I can’t imagine how Basile would have reacted to one of those. So much for our sophisticated Frenchman being able to hold his drink!”
The two men laughed, as Basile continued to snore, oblivious to the jokes at his expense.
“Would you like me to take Basile to his room?” offered Josh. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t really fancy listening to him complaining all tomorrow about how much his back hurts after a night on the floor. Besides, I wanted to talk with you about Shafira again, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” nodded Samuel. “Do you need a hand getting him to his bed?”
“No, I’ll be fine.” Josh bent down and hefted Basile up. The Frenchman barely regained consciousness as he was pulled to his feet, while Josh draped one of Basile’s arms around his shoulders to make it easier to support him.
“All right,” nodded Samuel. “I’ll be right here waiting for you to get back so we can talk more.”
Four
Pin, Pae, and Valentina were seated around the dining table in Pin’s private suite enjoying a simple meal of stew and dumplings. Nobody felt like eating in the main dining hall given its current stat
us as a temporary mortuary, even if there was space for them to be far away from Gord, and, besides, the men felt it prudent to keep their conversation with Valentina private for the time being. St. Augustine’s hat was on the table next to Pin, who regularly reached out to stroke its fabric, almost without realizing he was doing it.
“So now I’ve told you everything I know, what’s the plan?” asked Valentina. “Shall I lead a small team to Dougga to intercept McCarthy?”
Pae steepled his fingers, resting his chin against them as he considered her suggestion. “Since we know exactly where he’s heading, I suggest we put the local agents on high alert. Once they’ve spotted McCarthy and his friends, we can bring in support and let them lead us to the hidden final relic, do all the hard work of recovering it, and then steal it from them at our leisure.”
“That won’t work.” Pin shook his head. “I’ve tried that approach once already with this man and somehow they managed to get away. That man is luckier than anyone I’ve ever encountered. If I believed in a god, I’d say that he smiles on him. What we need to do is delay Samuel’s team on the road to Dougga so we can beat them there and capture them before we go and retrieve the relic for ourselves. We already have all the information on the jump drive. They don’t have any advantage over us, so we don’t need to get them to find the relic first. That way we’ll have the best of all worlds – the final artifact and the enemies of the Bruard all in our possession. Samuel can be the first test subject to face the might of the reunited relics.”
“Didn’t you try that approach with Shafira?” Valentina pointed out. “As I recall, that didn’t end so well for you either.”
“Insolent woman!” Pin raised his hand to backhand her, but Valentina didn’t flinch, staring him straight in the eye.
“Hit me then,” she said. “Go on. I dare you. I guarantee it’ll be the last thing you ever do with that hand.”
Pin drew his arm back further, preparing for the blow, but then changed his mind and dropped it.
“I must say that the entertainment you are both providing me with is most diverting,” chortled Pae. “The pair of you talk as though you are the ones with the authority to make the final decision. Your opinions are interesting but hardly relevant in the grand scheme of things.”
“I seek only to advise you to the best of my ability.” Pin bowed his head in deference to the dictator. “I have direct firsthand experience of McCarthy which I believe gives me a unique insight into the workings of his mind.”
“And I spent days traveling in close quarters with him by land, sea, and air,” pointed out Valentina. “I would humbly posit that I have a much better understanding of what makes him tick, especially given all the time I spent alone with the man. McCarthy is a complex character. I would have thought that, since he’s managed to defeat you on more than one occasion, you of all people would appreciate how formidable an opponent he is. Or maybe you’re not quite as clever as you think you are.”
“Enough!” Pae raised a hand to stop the bickering. “The pair of you are like children. Unless you can come to me with a workable solution, do not bother me with your problems.”
“I do have one idea,” suggested Pin. “I propose that we combine both approaches to ambush McCarthy when he least expects it. We have an established network of agents in Tunisia. We need to set them to stalking the major roads that connect all the towns and cities between Carthage and Dougga with a view to capturing McCarthy’s crew. If no opportunity presents itself to snatch them, we should at least put in place a number of delays so we can ensure that we reach Dougga before they do and lie in wait there. Either way, we need to take care that McCarthy is never allowed anywhere near the final resting place of the relic. I’m not willing to take a chance on his stealing our rightful property again. If he gets to the descendants first, it will be nigh on impossible for us to overpower him.”
“While I’m sure such a two pronged approach would work, I’m not convinced that we can spare the resources necessary to make it work. Surely if our agents are doing their job, they’ll capture them without any need to set up delays as well?” questioned Pae. “While I can see that McCarthy has been a fly in the ointment for quite some time, this really does seem to be overkill for the sake of a few amateurs. No, I think it would be better to handpick a few of our most experienced mercenaries and let them deal with the problem. If Valentina has decoded the jump drive, then we don’t need McCarthy to show us where to go. We have access to all the information he had. Let’s simply eliminate him and his fellows so you can recover the final artifact at your earliest convenience. Meanwhile, we still have all our troops focused on Mongolia without diversion so if there are any more problems with these relics, we still have the reassurance of knowing that our military efforts continue uninterrupted. After all, I’m still not convinced that these artifacts are going to solve all our problems.”
“As I have told you before, once we have all of St. Augustine’s relics, there will be no need for a military offensive in Mongolia, or anywhere else for that matter.” Pin’s tone was respectful, but he gripped the papal cap so tightly that his knuckles whitened. “We must pay all our attention to thwarting McCarthy’s ambitions. Do you want to see him depose you? I have no doubt that everything he has been doing has been motivated by a desire to usurp you from the Bruard throne. He has seen how powerful you are and covets your position. He must be eliminated and all the artifacts placed under my strict supervision or the Empire itself will fall.”
Valentina narrowed her eyes, watching the interplay between dictator and minion. There was something strange about how Pin was manipulating his master, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.
Noticing her expression, Pin made a mental note but said nothing, keeping his attention on his master. His first priority had to be controlling Pae.
“I see,” Pae nodded. “Yes, when you put it that way, you’re completely right. Mongolia won’t matter if McCarthy is allowed to run rampant in Dougga. Go, issue the necessary instructions to our agents in Tunisia. I want McCarthy’s head on a platter by the end of the week.”
“Of course, Glorious Leader. Your words cut straight to the heart of the matter. I’ll put your wise plan into action immediately.” Pin picked up the papal cap from the table. He bowed deeply before hurrying out of the room.
“That Valentina has always liked to dice with danger,” he muttered to the papal cap, as he headed towards his comms room to send out the command to the Tunisian Bruard agents. “I may have to deal with her sooner than I thought. No matter. With you by my side, it will be no trouble to bend her to my will.”
Five
“Good. Riddance. To. Bad. Rubbish.”
With every word, Shafira tore through the traditional Korean dress she’d been forced to wear for her dinner with the Bruard. Once she was satisfied that she’d torn it way beyond repair, she tossed it in the trash can, slapping her hands together to wipe away the imaginary traces of dirt left behind by her encounter with the dictator.
She crossed over to the window, gazing out at the view. As the sun set over the horizon, lights flared to life across the ancient city of Carthage. Never in her wildest dreams could she ever have imagined that she’d end up somewhere like this, and despite all the near death experiences, terror, and nightmares, it was all worth it.
One thing was for sure: there was no way she could ever go back to her old, dull life in an office.
“I guess I’m my brother’s sister after all,” she joked to herself. Maybe that wasn’t such a great thing, given that Yusuf was now in jail and facing the very real possibility of spending the best years of his life behind bars.
She remembered what he’d said to her the last time she’d seen him. “Once you have a taste of the fast life, you never give it up. You might understand one day, sis.”
She understood now, she really did. She’d even had her own time in a cell-twice!-since joining Samuel on his quest, yet she wouldn’t give i
t up for anything. In her defense, while Yusuf deserved his sentence, she’d done little to break the law and everything she was doing was for a good cause rather than in the name of thrill seeking. Her jailers had all been criminals themselves or clandestine operatives working outside the law, a world apart from standing before a judge and being found guilty.
Much as she’d be happy to never see the inside of a prison again, Yusuf was right. It would be impossible for her life to go back to the way it used to be. She’d seen and done too much. She wanted the kind of life that Samuel had. Heck, she wanted to share Samuel’s life with him, accompany him on his adventures, and be by his side when he unearthed ancient relics that had been hidden for centuries.
But would he want her there?
It was impossible to know what the archaeologist was thinking. They’d never actually sat down and talked about their potential future together. She had no idea whether he would be willing to accept her as a companion on his work and adventures.
“Well there’s no time like the present, Shafira,” she said determinedly to herself. Tonight was the perfect opportunity to have that conversation. If not now, when?
Quickly, so she didn’t have a chance to change her mind, she grabbed her room keys and headed out to find Samuel. Going down the hallway, she paused outside the door to Basile’s room. She snickered to herself when she heard a loud snore.
“Somebody must have enjoyed themselves,” she smiled. Basile’s snoring was legendary among their group when he’d had a few glasses of wine.
In the intervals between snores, she could hear Waleed and Akhenaton talking, clearly staying in the room with him to make sure he was okay.
“You’re holding your hands the wrong way,” Waleed advised. “The point is that nobody should be able to see you’ve got an extra card concealed in your palm. You need to curl your fingers like this, see? It looks perfectly natural if you get it right. Only a fellow cheat will be able to spot what’s going on.”
