Ancient Echoes (40 page)

o0o

Charlotte and Lionel needed to string out their deception as
long as possible to give Michael, Jake, and Quade time to find the weapons and
escape with the students. Both of them took frequent rest stops and complained
about fatigue and aching backs and hips as they walked the four miles to the
pillars.

Charlotte and Lionel climbed the mound with the villagers
and sat in a circle. The prior night’s heavy rainfall left the ground damp, but
the morning was warm and sunny. They then announced that they needed a small
campfire, and descended the mound.

Finding dry twigs took time, but eventually, they gathered
enough to build a fire.

Once the fire blazed, the five men placed their
philosopher’s stones in a clay pot, and placed it on the fire. Kohler added in
Arnie Tieg’s to complete the six pieces that made up Abbé Gerard’s original
stone. Each of the six pieces had been set in gold, and made into a pendant.
“The gold will melt if the fire grows hot enough,” Kohler said.

“That may be a good thing,” Charlotte said. “That way, the
stones will touch each other more directly.”

“Where is the cinnabar?” Kohler asked.

“I’ve got it. I’ll use it when the time comes. Now, we must
read.” She opened
The Book of Abraham the Jew
and began reading the
ancient Greek aloud. She was unsure of the meaning or pronunciation, but no one
could call her on it if she was wrong.

“I want to see the cinnabar now,” Kohler insisted, “before
this goes any further.”

Charlotte didn’t want to do it, but she removed the four
small rocks Jake had found in the stream.

“That’s not cinnabar. They’re red pebbles,” Kohler said.

“Have you seen cinnabar before it’s removed from its natural
setting? I have, and this is it,” Charlotte said as forcefully as possible.
Most people had no idea what the mercury sulfide ore looked like, or even that
it most often resembled
a brick
red quartz.

Kohler looked suspicious, then nodded. She felt a flood of
relief. He didn’t know. She continued to read from the book.

When she hoped enough time had passed, she stood and threw
the fake cinnabar into the fire while she continued to read aloud. She expected
nothing to happen. She planned to put on a sad face and tell Kohler and the
other villagers that her plan failed.

But a few seconds later, the philosopher’s stones began to
glow. The village men gasped in awe.

“It’s working!” Lionel shouted. “We did it! The gateway is
going to open!”

The villagers let up a cheer. Just then, Arnie Tieg came
running toward the mound, waving his arms. He carried two full quivers of
arrows, as if he expected a battle. “Don’t trust them! It’s a trap! The others
escaped!”

A shot rang out. Ben Olgerbee fell. More shots followed. A
bullet hit Gus Webber next. The others scrambled and rolled down the mound to
find cover. Charlotte peeled off her jacket and used it to pick up the crucible
with the philosopher’s stones, and then followed Lionel who had paused to pick
up the book. The villagers were well ahead of them both.

o0o

“Damn!” Michael said at the sound of gunfire as he and the
others hurried through the pine forest toward the pillars.
“High-powered
rifle fire.
It’s got to be those mercenaries.”

“The sound seems to be coming from the direction of the
pillars,” Jake said.

“Yes, but who are they shooting at?
And
why now?”

They were already moving fast, but hearing gunfire, they
began to run. They had spent two hours searching all the huts and the tunnel
for the weapons taken from them and Melisse. They almost gave up but decided to
do a more thorough search of the storage shed. They found the weapons in a
barrel filled with wild onions.

Before they left, they saw that somehow Arnie Tieg had freed
himself of the ropes they used to tie him. They had no idea how he had managed
it, but he was gone. No one doubted he would head straight for the mound, which
meant Charlotte and Lionel were in trouble.

Almost as quickly as it began, the shooting stopped and the
land became eerily quiet.

o0o

Charlotte and Lionel no sooner reached the foot of the mound
when Derek Hammill stepped between them and their escape route. He flashed them
a smile more threatening than friendly. “I knew you could get us out of here.
And you’ve got the book. A two-fer!
Our lucky day!”

Charlotte immediately recognized Hammill from Jerusalem and
Paris. Her gaze riveted on his; her stomach knotted. “Who are you?”

“Who we are isn’t important,” Hammill said.

Lionel glanced at her, worried and confused. “What’s going
on?”

“The only thing for you to worry about is how to get us out
of here. Go back up to those pillars.”

 “I’m not going anywhere with you,” Charlotte said.

Hammill laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that,
Charlotte,” he said. “You don't want us to kill your friends, do you? All we
want is the book, and to go home again. You give us the book and open that ‘gateway’
as you call it, and we won’t hurt any of you. We’re quite reasonable. We aren’t
killers. You can trust us.”

“Like hell.” She sneered.

“Down!”
Nose shouted and fired into
the trees.

At that same moment, arrows flew toward the mercenaries. The
village men fought back.

Bullets and arrows flew at each other, cracking rocks,
snapping brush and tree limbs, and ricocheting all around.

Charlotte and Lionel ran in the opposite direction from the
village men, and also away from the area the mercenaries ran toward.

“This way!”

Charlotte turned at the whispered sound. She saw Michael
with Jake behind him. They both carried rifles.

“We’ve got weapons and supplies, plus some of Ben Olgerbee’s
magic poultice in case anyone gets hurt,” Michael said, glancing towards the
mound where the fighting raged on. He handed her the poultice for safe-keeping,
and she zipped it shut in a jacket pocket. “Quade is leading the students to a
creek. They’ll wade through the water, head south, and wait for us. Let’s get
out of here!”

Michael knew that whatever happened, Lionel would never let
go of
The Book of Abraham the Jew.
He never felt so happy to be right
about anything as he did then. He found a plastic rain poncho in his backpack
and wrapped the book carefully in it so it would stay dry even if it fell into
a creek or pond. Lionel wanted to carry it until he felt how heavy the rations
and rifle magazines made the backpack. He quickly agreed to let his brother
have the honor, although his face contorted as he released the book.

Charlotte put all six philosopher’s stones around her neck
and tucked them under her shirt while everyone’s attention was on the book. She
found she couldn’t bear to part with them.

New York City

JIANJUN LAY IN THE trunk of the car
driven by Bob, Calvin Phaylor’s nurse. He tamped down his fear with the belief
that if Calvin Phaylor wanted him dead, Bob would have killed him in
Vandenburg’s apartment, the same way Bob killed Vandenburg. The nurse simply
followed Phaylor’s orders, but why did Phaylor have Vandenburg murdered?

As fit his logical, computer-like brain, he laid out the
facts.

Point A. Years ago, Calvin Phaylor learned about the Chinese
and Danish scientists and their discovery of the Mormon settlement documents
including Francis Masterson’s Journal. That started him on his findings about
alchemy and Idaho. That set everything else in motion.

Phaylor would have quickly realized the possibilities:
The
Book of Abraham the Jew,
alchemy, immortality. He then needed to eliminate
the two men who knew most about it so he could take it over himself. The hard
part would have been to get the Chinese scientist out of China. PLP’s
international symposium on genetics provided the perfect cover.

Getting rid of the Dane had been child’s play in comparison.

Point B. Vandenburg seemed to know nothing about the recent
murders in Paris and Jerusalem. Calvin Phaylor must have been behind them as
well. He used Vandenburg, manipulated her because of her daughter. He told her
about Idaho and the Secret Expedition. She provided him with the perfect cover,
while he hid behind the scenes. Through her, he got the right people involved,
people like Michael Rempart.

Phaylor wanted Michael and Lionel involved, but why? What
was special about them?
That, Jianjun wasn’t able to answer.

Point C. Phaylor knew what happened in Mongolia, not because
he had been told by a member of the Chinese government, but because he had
paid
for the information,
paid
for Batbaatar’s help, and
paid
to have
him killed so he wouldn’t warn Michael and confess all he knew.

Phaylor must have been the one who sent people to steal Lady
Hsieh’s body. Also, getting permits to allow Michael into Mongolia to dig,
although difficult at first, suddenly became easier, way too easy in hindsight,
than Jianjun ever expected. Perhaps Phaylor’s money helped pave the way there
as well.

Phaylor might also have sent someone to follow Lionel and
Michael in Idaho, perhaps to steal
The Book of Abraham the Jew
from them
as soon as they found it. Jianjun wondered if that was why Michael was missing
now. Was his boss, his friend, already dead?

Jianjun refused to consider that possibility.

Vandenburg became a liability to Phaylor. She spent time and
money, became far too invested in the results, and expected to own a part of
them. She probably found out things Phaylor didn’t want her to know. Phaylor
was close to everything he wanted, and wasn’t about to share.

The car stopped, and Jianjun held his breath with fear. All
other questions vanished from his mind, replaced by only one:
Was he a dead
man?

QUADE AND MELISSE urged Rachel,
Brandi and Vince to move as quickly as possible through the brush and rocky
uneven land toward the stream Quade and Michael found several days earlier.
Brandi chattered nonstop about how nervous she felt when she lied to Arnie
Tieg, and how she had managed to fake crying for his benefit.

They halted, wide-eyed, at the sound of gunfire.

“It’s far from here,” Quade said, trying to reassure the
students. “The pillars are in a valley, and sound reverberates and echoes in
these mountains. We’re fine. We’ve simply got to keep going.”

“What do you think it is?” Rachel asked.
“Michael
and Jake rescuing Charlotte and the professor?
Or—”

“We can hope,” Melisse’s firm tone cut her off and
discouraged anyone from voicing other possibilities. “Now go on.
Hurry!”

The group ran. The gunfire stopped for a while, but then
started up once more with even more shots.

When the group reached the stream, they waded into the water
to hide their tracks.

At first they barely noticed the cold as adrenaline and fear
pumped through their veins. They slipped, crawled, and lurched their way for
nearly a quarter mile before their feet and legs grew so cold and numb they
were forced out.

On dry land, they limped from the banks, their feet going
from being numb to burning, making every step agony. Once sheltered by trees,
they stopped. They didn’t dare build a fire for fear it might give their
location away to someone they didn’t want to find them.

Melisse stayed with the students while Quade returned to the
stream, the agreed-upon meeting place, to remain on the lookout for Michael and
the others.

The students huddled together, mute, cold, and frightened.

o0o

Michael, Jake, Charlotte and Lionel reached the students and
Quade an hour later. They found a sheltered area to build a fire and discuss
what to do next. “Someone's paying a bunch of real bad asses to hunt us down,”
Jake said as he and the others huddled barefoot beside the campfire letting
their shoes and socks dry off. “Who are those professionals with their
high-tech weapons?”

“I’ve seen their leader before,” Charlotte said. “I watched
him kill someone in Paris, and he tried to kill me there, as well as in Jerusalem.”

“He followed you here,” Jake said.
“But
why?”

Charlotte shook her head, perplexed. “He never said who sent
them or who they're working for.”

“Whoever they are,” Michael added, “they'll be coming this
way soon. Both Gus and Ben Olgerbee were shot, and most likely are dead. The
others won’t be able to stop them for long. We've got to keep moving.”

“We should go to ground that will give us some advantage,”
Charlotte said. “Straight up steep, slick, mountain slopes. Their weapons are
heavy. They’ll slow them down over time.”

Jake and Michael glanced her way, impressed at how quickly
she learned out here.

“There’s one other thing that gives us some advantage,”
Michael said.

“What’s that?”

“The mercs are missing their shots far more than highly trained
pros should. I can only guess it has something to do with an imbalance of the
air, or a magnetic pull, or who knows what, emanating from the pillars. Bullets
aren’t flying straight. It’s something I suspect the villagers take into
account for the flight of their arrows. If you fire your gun or rifle, remember
that the bullet’s trajectory will curve slightly toward the pillars, and aim
accordingly.”

The others
nodded,
glad to hear
that something leveled the playing field in some small way. Though exhausted
and chilled, they stomped out the fire and headed for the jagged gray cliffs
that loomed above a wooded ridge.