The Seventh Stone (9 page)

Joseph teetered on the rim, his silhouette dark against the sky. The beasts closed in around him. “Leave me, Christa,” he called to her.

“
Not a chance,” she said. She started towards the beasts, yanking the sphere from her pack. She thrust it up in the air. She waved her arms. “Over here!” she yelled, determined to redirect the beasts. “You want this?” This was crazy, rationalizing with wild animals.

“
Christa, you must run! Back into the tunnels! Now!” A light flashed on the opposite rim of the canyon. The bang of the rifle split the night. Joseph spun around. She thrust her hand towards him, reaching across space, desperate to stop time. He teetered, flailing his arms in a frantic struggle to regain balance. He twisted backwards over the precipice.

CHAPTER
11

The marauding pirates closed in on the
Aquila
. Ahmed clutched at the searing pain in his thigh. The bullet had pierced through the fleshy part of his muscle. He scrambled to the starboard cabin door, pulling himself across the decking, tracing a stark red trail of blood. Gunfire blasted from belowdecks as the crew returned fire. The acrid scent of gunsmoke fouled the sea air. A man screamed in agony. Ahmed stole a look over the railing to see Stubb writhing on the deck, clutching his belly as his blood formed a slick puddle beneath him, his massive strength stolen away in a moment by a small piece of lead.

The speedboats bulleted toward them, now less than one hundred meters away. Two pirates manned the deck-mounted machine guns, spitting out bullets in sickening spurts. Another pirate pressed a rocket launcher to his shoulder, barely holding it steady as their speedboat bucked over the waves. Ahead of them, their bullets found their marks. Isaac went down with a thud, a deceivingly small hole through his left temple.

“
Arm yourselves!” Bertoni yelled. “Get the guns of those who have fallen!” Thomas, hardly more than a boy, dashed out of the pilothouse and bounded down the stairs. He grabbed Isaac’s semi-automatic rifle and started firing blindly to starboard, the recoil of the gun making him dance as if dangling from puppet strings.

Ahmed pulled his gaze away. He would keep his promise to Thaddeus Devlin, to his captain, and to himself. He bellycrawled across the flying deck, used the railing to heave himself up, and hobbled down the starboard stairs, his leg in a flame of pain. He had to make it to the engine room, two decks down. He glanced out the porthole to see the pirates clambering on board.

Owen, wide-eyed with terror, shoved him aside on the inner stairway, fled through the door and dove overboard. What did he hope to do, swim to safety? Ahmed slammed shut the engine room door behind him and nearly slid down the final, steep set of stairs. He staggered around the pistons and spark plugs, dragging his injured leg behind him like an anchor, thrusting himself across the last few feet. His hands hammered into the cold steel of the circuitry cabinet that held the engine’s thermostat system. He quickly loosed the hidden latches at the top of the circuitry panel and pushed, then pulled. The whole panel came forward, revealing a space behind, dark, empty, barely large enough to hold even Ahmed’s slight frame.

Reluctance hit him like a rogue wave. What if the
Aquila
sank? He’d be trapped, with no escape from the cold ocean water that would fill his lungs with a few last, tortured gasps. Or worse, what if the pirates found him inside? Mishad would show no mercy for a man who disobeyed him. His torture would prove worse than the pangs of drowning, but, ultimately, be just as deadly.

Rapid thunks of boots on metal reverberated from above. The pirates were on board. Ahmed squeezed into the compartment, bringing his knees to his chin. He twisted to grab the circuit board with his fingertips, its metal edges sharp. He pulled it into place. It got stuck. On an angle. This was insane. Of course Mishad would find him. Pirates knew of smugglers’ hiding places. Mishad would never believe that Ahmed had gone overboard.

Running, pounding footsteps clanged all around him. Bertoni, yelling, he couldn’t make out the words. He snatched at the circuit board, its razor-sharp edges slicing his fingertips. He pushed, then pulled, only to wedge the cockeyed board tighter. Blood dripped from his fingers. Gunfire. In just moments, the pirates would be scurrying belowdecks like rats. They’d see him. He could kick out the circuit board, dash for the side. Yes, he’d most likely drown or be shot, but the Emerald would be safe again, at the bottom of the sea. Perhaps that’s where the accursed stone belonged. But Bertoni had given him the chance to live, to keep his promises. If Allah was willing, he would survive, like the missionary survived the shipwreck five hundred years earlier. Ahmed twisted as much as he could in the confined space, raised his heels, and prepared to kick with all his might if the pirates found him.

He could see nothing but darkness, but the noises proved more terrifying than any vision. He could hear more shouts than gunfire now. He heard calls of surrender, Bertoni pleading for the lives of the survivors, a spatter of gunfire, then, most horrifying of all, laughter. After that, silence.

Ahmed clutched his knees tighter to his chest in a vain attempt to stop trembling. Part of him wanted to run, try his luck overboard like the fool earlier, anything but wait in darkness for the ruthless killers to find him.

At the clang of the engine room door being kicked open, he tucked in tighter. Footsteps. A metallic smashing sound as the engineer’s rolling desk chair was shoved aside. The adrenaline-pumped boasts of two men speaking Arabic. They were searching the engineer’s desk. Then more footsteps descending the steel stairs to the engine room. Two, quick shots, followed closely by two thuds. Bodies falling to the floor.

“
Check them. One of them could have found the Emerald.” The man was speaking English, American English.

“
You just had to shoot them, didn’t you? Couldn’t just ask. I was beginning to like these guys. A pirate’s life for me.” Muffled sounds, coughing, then banging of metal being tossed and turned onto the metal floor. “The Emerald’s not in their pockets, and I’m not doing a body search on a corpse.”

“
You’ll cut open their innards if The Prophet tells you to.”

“
Hold on. Check out this blood trail.”

Ahmed stopped breathing. They knew. His leg throbbed. The blood from his wound. He had been a fool. He had led them right to him.

The rumbling start of an oversized outboard motor. A speedboat starting up.

“
Damn. That’s got to be Mishad. He’s getting away.”

The footsteps retreated up the stairs. Ahmed realized he wasn’t breathing. He sucked in oxygen. More gunshots rang out from somewhere on deck.

A deafening blast concussed through the ship, pounding into his head and chest. The
Aquila
lurched perilously on its side, then lolled back upright. Ahmed pressed his palms against his ears to steady his dizziness. Mishad must have hit the
Aquila
with a rocket. Through the ringing, he could barely make out another sound, even more terrifying than the blast, rushing water. The cold fingers of the Atlantic reached into his hiding place. No more time. He had to hope that the Americans were killed by the rocket blast.

Ahmed twisted and kicked out the circuit board. The lights were out, but a stream of daylight tumbled down the metal stairs, along with a powerful cascade of ocean water. The frothy water swirled and eddied across the engine room floor. Already it had nearly covered the corpses of the two pirates and lifted them into a macabre float. Ahmed slogged past them. The ship listed at an alarming rate.

He strained to hear voices from the deck above, but he could hear only the ringing in his ears and the horrifying sound of ocean gushing into the Aquila. He grabbed the handrail, barely able to pull himself against the force of the water cascading furiously down the stairs. Water sprayed onto his face, the salty brine fingering his lips like a murderer lusting after his horrific death.

Ahmed yanked himself onto the foredeck, then up the last set of stairs to daylight. He rushed across the threshold, and tripped, stumbling over something wet and soft. A body. Bertoni. Ahmed’s stomach lurched. The captain’s grimace of death was very nearly a smile. He raced, limping, dragging his leg, across the deck. Quickly, he ducked. The two Americans hadn’t been killed. They were dressed as Mishad’s pirates in ragged khakis and cast-off t-shirts and were hurriedly lowering themselves into the remaining speedboat. They shoved off and started after the other speedboat, now some 150 meters away.

Another explosion. A rocket ripped through the Americans’ speedboat and into the
Aquila
, sending body parts and metal shards screaming into the sea and sky. The concussion knocked Ahmed backwards. If not for Bertoni’s body, Ahmed’s head would have been cracked against the steel door. His ears rang. He could no longer hear the water, but could feel its power coursing over the railings. Ahmed gasped for breath, toppled and rolled across the deck, splashing into the water, the cold ocean slapping him into focus as he fell below the surface.

For a moment, all was muted and slow-moving beneath the chaos above the surface. But the stab of the salt on his wound nearly knocked him unconscious. He kicked towards the sunlight, but was held back. The jagged
metal from the blast hole in the hull
hooked the hem of his
djellaba. A fingerless forearm floated towards him from the ship’s hull. Frantically, he ripped his clothing free and surfaced. He swam as hard and fast as he could. He turned to see the bow of the
Aquila
slip into the sea, then huge air bubbles rising and bursting, creating a boiling stew of bodies and flotsam.

Ahmed was utterly alone in the vast ocean. The image of the missionary haunted him, the sole survivor five hundred years earlier, bound mercilessly to a flotsam of decking as his caravel sank before his eyes, not able to choose life nor death. His God had saved him, for what? So that Ahmed could bear witness to more brutal death? That’s when he saw it, the pirate’s speedboat, bobbing in the waves not one hundred meters distant, its motor silent.

Ahmed swam for it. The salt water knifed his leg wound. He ignored it. He thought of the shark he had seen earlier. He hoped, revoltingly, that the shark would feed on his dead shipmates before him.

As he neared the speedboat, he could see the pirate, slumped over the wheel. His back was red with blood, but was he dead? Ahmed approached cautiously, every splash deafening the ringing in his ear. The pirate remained still. He could see now, it was Mishad. He called to him, “Mishad!” As far as Mishad knew, Ahmed had completed his mission, pushed the button that alerted him to attack. No answer.

With great difficulty and the last of his strength, Ahmed hoisted himself over the gunwale. He crawled to Mishad and pulled him back. His face had been obliterated. Ahmed gagged. His stomach heaved. He summoned will from deep within, and heaved and shoved Mishad over the side. The body floated for a moment, then sunk with the weight of his sidearm, still holstered.

Ahmed sat in the bloodied seat. He turned the key. The engine stuttered then started with a roar. He dared to realize that he had been saved. He yanked the velvet pouch containing the Emerald from his pocket. He held it over the side, ready to drop it back into the depths where no man would find it. His grasp remained tight. He knew he couldn’t let go. It was as if Allah told him that the power behind the attack, the master of both Mishad and the Americans who killed him, would cause more death and destruction. Ahmed knew, like his ancestor five centuries before him who had passed down the missionary’s letter through generations of his family, that he was destined to help stop that evil power. He knew he had to get the Tear of the Moon Emerald to safety, to the only person who could protect its power from being unleashed, to its guardian. He had made a promise, and he would not break it.

Ahmed pushed the throttle forward. He didn’t look back. His fate lay not in the past, but in the future, and he had to do what he could to change it.

CHAPTER
12

Christa stared towards the dark abyss where Joseph had fallen. The beasts sniffed the rim of the plateau. One of them howled. Joseph had wanted to leave sooner. That kind, brave grandfather was dead, because of her. She had come here to do the right thing. How had it gone so wrong?

A light flashed from the opposite canyon rim. A second bang blasted through the darkness. The beast to the right yelped as it was bodily lifted, and thrown down in a heap. Its paws kicked pathetically. It whimpered, and wobbled back up to all fours. Slowly, with clear menace, the beast to the left with the long snout swiveled its massive jaws towards her. Its eyes flashed red, and it wasn’t the reflection of her headlamp beam.

The beast bared its sharp canines. It emitted a guttural growl. The animal with the gray-tipped mane turned towards her. The two of them stalked closer, their haunches down, their lips stretched back against their teeth.