The Vengeance of the Tau (3 page)

“Take it. Just let me live.”

“I could take it and still kill you.”

“But you won’t. I know how you work.”

“You were to give this to Al-Akir.”

“I was holding it for him. It tells where he was to go next.”

“Better place than where he is now, I’d wager.”

“Let me go. I’ll run. I’ll disappear.”

McCracken was still holding him. “Good idea, because I’m going to put word of our little meeting out. Only I think I’ll make it known that you were the one who gave Al-Akir up. His friends will want you dead, Fazil. Matter of fact, I’d say the next time you lay eyes on any of them, it’ll be the last thing you’ll see.”

Blaine hoisted him from the wall and tossed him effortlessly to the pavement.

“Get out of my sight, Fazil.”

The terrorist scampered down the alley, looking back until he was halfway to the street. McCracken checked the envelope for explosives and then opened it cautiously. Inside was what appeared to be a jagged piece of ancient parchment, the Arabic symbols too faded to be read. Along with this was a business card for an antique store in San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square.

A force that makes whoever holds it invincible.

Whatever that might mean, it was what Al-Akir had been pursuing, and thus what McCracken would now pursue in his place.

Starting in San Francisco.

Chapter 2

“
IT MIGHT HELP
,
Sayin
Winchester, if you told me exactly what we are looking for.”

Alan Winchester redoubled his handkerchief and dabbed the sweat from his forehead. “We’ll know if we find it,” he told Kamir, the Turkish work foreman who had been with him through the entire four-month duration of this dig.

Winchester’s was one of seven teams that Professor Benson Hazelhurst had dispatched throughout the Middle East. Each had one of seven different maps that all reportedly led to the same destination. Besides his team, two were operating in Israel, two in Egypt, and one each in Iraq and Syria. Only one map, of course, could lead to the find, if in fact the find existed. More likely, in Winchester’s mind, this entire business was a hoax that the brilliant Hazelhurst had fallen for in his old age.

Winchester’s map had brought him to Ephesus, one of the world’s richest sites for unearthing archaeological treasures. Located on the Aegean coast in southwestern Turkey, the rolling, fertile plains and hills of Ephesus had previously yielded such finds as the Citadel and Basilica of St. John, the Library of Celsus, and the purported final resting place of the Virgin Mary. It had always been rich in the tradition of religious mysticism.

But the site Winchester’s map had directed him to was located in the middle of the area’s arid bushy lowlands, miles from any other reported find. Upon arriving, he had arranged, through the foreman Kamir, for aerial photography of the general area to pin down the specific find. The plane flew over the area several times at both dawn and dusk, when the shadows were longest, searching for indications of disturbed earth that would reveal signs of an earlier excavation. The results, though not conclusive, had proven indicative enough to give Winchester at least a starting point.

If he himself had believed in what they were seeking, Winchester might have confided in Kamir, whom he had come to trust during their four months of fruitless searching. Benson Hazelhurst might be the foremost archaeologist alive today, but this time the old man seemed way off base. Winchester’s team had now dug down twenty feet in a roughly thirty-foot-square area without unearthing a single thing. Each time Hazelhurst visited the site, his only instructions were to keep going. These instructions belied the fact that twenty feet meant upward of three thousand years of layered history. With no firm indications of earlier civilizations and nothing discovered down to this depth, there seemed little point in continuing. But Hazelhurst insisted that this was exactly what he had expected.

Not that it mattered to Winchester. The mere thought that this find
could
exist was extremely unnerving to him. Better off if—

“Bir sey bulduk! Bir sey bulduk!”

The excited shout came from down in the rectangular pit that had so far yielded nothing. Winchester got up from beneath his shaded lean-to and met Kamir at the rim.

“Iste! Cabuk!”
one of the workmen shouted up at them.
“Sanlrlm, aradiglmlzl bulduk! Cabuk!”

“He says that—”

“He found something that meets the description,” Winchester completed for his foreman, who was already lowering himself into the excavation. Keeping his excitement and uneasiness down, he began to descend the rope ladder after Kamir.

“Cabuk! Cabuk!”
the workman was shouting excitedly from the center of the excavation, urging him to hurry up.

When he dropped off the rope ladder, Winchester could see that the man’s face was encrusted with chalk-white dust and yellowed dirt. But his eyes were alive with excitement as he tapped his shovel against the object of his enthusiasm.

ping … ping … ping
…

Whatever lay beneath it was hard and thick—at least eight feet in length, Winchester calculated. He moved quickly in Kamir’s wake and joined the foreman on his knees over what had been unearthed. Winchester withdrew what looked like a whisk broom from his pocket and began clearing away debris from the object’s top. Barely a minute’s labor revealed an eight-by-six-foot slab of stone, its surface like none Winchester had ever felt before. Neat impressions and carvings were chiseled into it, slowly gaining shape as the archaeologist brushed the dust and debris clear of them. He could make out drawings now as well, but the language was utterly unfamiliar to him.

One of the workmen was gazing over his shoulder, trying to read along. As Winchester swept away the last of the dirt, exposing the outlines of the largest recessed figures, the man gasped and shrank back.

“O ne?”
Winchester asked him in Turkish. “
Ne goruyorsun? …
“What do you see?”

“Hayir! Olamaz!”

“
What
can’t be?” Winchester demanded. He swung toward Kamir. “Ask him what’s wrong! Ask him what he saw!”

Kamir translated the questions. The workman shook his head determinedly, needed more prodding before he spoke quickly in a panicked tone.

“He says it is a warning,
Sayin
Winchester. He says we should go no farther.”

The workman was talking again, Kamir preparing to translate.

“He says—”

“I know what he said. He wants me to bury this find so no one will ever come upon it again.”

Kamir nodded his acknowledgment, but Winchester had already gone back to work clearing the message chiseled into the stone tablet. The rest of the dig team was hovering behind him, trying to see the results of his labor for themselves. When his work with the whisk broom was completed, Winchester went through the arduous process of laying strips of onionskin parchment over the figures and tracing out the message revealed. He numbered and dated each sheet and stowed them in an environment-proof plastic pack. To supplement these efforts, he snapped off a full two rolls of film with two different cameras to record the markings on the tablet. In archaeology, redundancy was a fact of life.

“Have we found what you are after,
Sayin
Winchester?” Kamir asked when Winchester was at last finished.

“I won’t know that until we open it.” Winchester stopped and held his foreman’s stare. “Order the men to remove the tablet.”

Kamir, a veteran of dozens of digs, gazed at him incredulously. “Did you say
remove
it?”

“I did.”

“Please,
Sayin,
you know better than I that proper procedure dictates—”

“Now.”

It took an additional four hours to fully unearth the stone slab. It was twelve inches thick, an unheard-of bulk, meaning that its total weight was likely in excess of a ton. Whoever had sealed what lay beneath it almost three thousand years before certainly had meant for the contents never to be uncovered again. In the sky the sun had turned red, with the last of the afternoon fleeing like the loser from a dogfight.

“We should wait until morning to proceed,” Kamir cautioned.

“I want it lifted off,” Winchester insisted.

“The light,
Sayin
…”

“Will do just fine.”

It was another forty minutes before the dig team managed to free the slab, then twenty more before they could budge it. At last the workmen found the proper leverage, and it slid a foot back from its perch.

The smell flooded out in a violent gush of air, a rancid stench worse than death itself. But even Winchester would have conceded it was more than just a smell that escaped. Something seemed to brush him aside, something like talons formed of hot steel slicing him in the chest on their way by. Winchester looked down at his shirt, expecting to see a neat gash with blood streaming from it.

He shook himself alert as the Turkish workmen staggered backward, falling to a position of prayer. Trembling himself, Winchester was conscious of some of the workmen’s pleas and prayers.

“They say it is an entrance,” Kamir translated fearfully, “an entrance to—”

“We go no farther tonight,” Winchester interrupted, composing himself. “We go no farther until Hazelhurst arrives.”

Hazelhurst was at one of the dig sites in Israel. He could be here as early as tomorrow afternoon, depending on when the message reached him.

“Find me a man to take a message into Izmir,” Winchester ordered Kamir.

Then he yanked his notepad from his pocket and began writing as fast as he could:

Professor Hazelhurst:

    
I’ve found the doorway. …

Chapter 3

“
CAR FIFTEEN, DO
you copy?”

Detective Sergeant Joseph Rainwater pulled the headset off his ears and lifted the microphone up to his lips. “Copy, Twelve.”

“How’s it hanging, Injun Joe?”

“Not bad for a fucking stakeout. You got a reason for calling, Hal?”

“Figured I’d cheer you up, pal. ’Sides, me and the boys are ordering out and I wanted to see if you wanted anything. We’re going with your native stuff tonight. You know, that new Indian place? Bearded maître d’ walks around with a turban on his head?”

“You’re a fucking riot, Hal. Hope you get the runs.”

“Love you too, Sarge.”

Joe Rainwater smiled in spite of himself as he returned the microphone to its clasp. The companionship, distant and garbled as it was, was greatly appreciated. He’d been pulling twelve-hour shifts on this stakeout for weeks now. Putting the headset back into place, he let himself wonder if Captain Eberling hadn’t been right when he’d pulled the plug on this part of the machine. Trying to nail Ruben Oliveras, the big fucking cheese of the whole Chicago drug business, had become an obsession for Injun Joe. Too often he’d seen the results of Oliveras’s work, and so he was only too glad to accept the special assignment. Then, when the bugs they’d managed to plant throughout the drug lord’s mansion turned up zilch, Rainwater found he couldn’t let go. It was just him and one other cop pulling shifts now, and before much longer they’d be yanked, too.

Injun Joe changed the channels on his receiver to check out the sounds in the wired rooms of Oliveras’s mansion. In the automatic mode, it would lock on the room with the most auditory activity. Not that they ever could have wired
all
the rooms, not in the former Japanese consulate building that Oliveras had snatched up as soon as it came on the market. Son of a bitch just couldn’t resist that three-story red-brick mansion on Forest Avenue in Evanston, with Lake Michigan in its backyard. Bought and paid for with drug money.

Injun Joe was parked just over a block away on a circular drive between a small neighborhood park and the beach. Best entertainment on these spring nights was watching the Northwestern kids strolling along. He’d made a game out of trying to guess when the couples were going to kiss, but it didn’t help much. The nights were getting longer, and the black coffee was beginning to chew a hole in his gut. What Injun Joe should do, he should go up to the door and just blow Oliveras’s brains out.

Fat chance, since Oliveras had bodyguards coming out his keister. A dozen guys with Uzis and .44 Magnums around him twenty-four hours a day to protect against attacks from his enemies. Enemies? What a crock. The only attack Oliveras had to worry about was one from his conscience, since he controlled every major dealer in the whole city. A fucking monopoly to rival the old AT&T and no one was taking him to court on it.

Joe Rainwater started flipping through the channels of his receiver like it was a cable TV control. Eight bugs had been placed throughout the mansion and at night all of them would be silent for long periods. It was starting to get to him, every bit of it. Two months ago his wife walked out, and now he’s spending his nights parked in view of one of suburban Chicago’s most glamorous neighborhoods. Check out the houses in it and maybe dream a little when there wasn’t something buzzing in his ear.

It was a far cry from the Comanche reservation where Rainwater had grown up. He had come back from Vietnam the most heavily decorated Indian vet of the war and a hero to his people. He still spent holidays and some weekends in his boyhood home, would probably spend more there now that Sarah had left him. In any case, the council of elders wouldn’t be able to warn him anymore about bringing mixed children into the world. No problem there, since he and Sarah never even tried, never even—

A garbled rasp like feedback filled his ears. A bolt of pain seared his eardrums behind it. He was about to yank the headset off when he heard the first scream, a wail of agony that froze his blood. Suddenly gunshots rang out, and the
rat-tat-tat
of automatic submachine-gun fire became a constant din over shouts of men that gave way quickly to more anguished shrieks.

“What the fuck …”

Injun Joe had the microphone back at his lips in the next instant, not bothering to remove his headset this time as he spoke.

“Central, this is Fifteen.”