The Goddess Legacy

Chapter 48

Roland appeared at the station right on time, in a big white Toyota SUV. Drake, Allie, and Spencer tossed their bags in the back and climbed into the vehicle, which stank of cigarettes — as did the Frenchman, who was as loquacious as usual. The drive to Pathankot, the last large town before the Kashmir border, took the remainder of the day, and passed in silence. Once out of Delhi the road narrowed to a two-lane strip that was used by everything from buses to cattle, and the journey comprised dozens of near misses as they pulled around slow-moving obstacles, only to barely escape being slammed into by oncoming vehicles moving at high speed. By the time they rolled into the circular drive of a third-rate hotel on the edge of town, night had fallen, their clothes reeked of stale cigarette smoke, and everyone was ready to get out of the truck.

“You have rooms,” Roland announced, the first words he’d spoken on the eight-hour drive.

“In whose name?” Spencer asked.

“Bob Hope.”

“Seriously?” Allie asked.

“Robert Hope, actually,” Roland corrected. “Don’t worry. The manager’s not the curious sort.”

They retrieved their gear from the truck and were walking toward the office when Reynolds’s voice called from the shadows. “So you made it.”

Allie stopped in her tracks, and Drake and Spencer nearly ran her over.

“So you decided to put in an appearance,” Spencer said neutrally.

“Yes, I figured this was worth making the trip.”

“Did you get everything we asked for?”

“Tomorrow morning. Early. Guy’s meeting me with the weapons. The rest is in the back of my SUV.”

They joined Reynolds by a smaller black SUV splattered with mud. He opened the rear cargo door, and they eyed the meager collection of equipment. Reynolds reached in and extracted a GPS and handed it to Allie, and then passed out LED flashlights and the rest of their requested gear.

“Now, why don’t you tell me where we’re going tomorrow, so I have an idea why I need to arm you like a private army?” Reynolds asked.

“There’s a sacred cave that we believe leads to an unknown location. That’s what Carson was working on. We put the rest of the puzzle pieces together,” Drake said.

“A cave?”

“Yes. Why the DOD might be interested in it, I have no idea.”

“Where exactly is it located?” Reynolds asked.

“You’ll see. There’s nothing around it — middle of nowhere.”

“Can you show me on a map?” Reynolds pressed.

“Tomorrow. I’m beat,” Drake said, and Allie nodded. “It’s been a long day, and we’re operating on only a few hours of sleep. We can discuss it over breakfast or something.”

“I want to know where the cave is,” Reynolds said.

“I told you, it’s not near much of anything. There’s a dam to the northeast, and the nearest village is Ransoo. Draw a line between the two and you’re in the right neighborhood.”

“That’s the area Carson was researching,” Reynolds said. “It tells me nothing I don’t already know.”

Allie shrugged. “Sorry. It’s what we’ve got. It would be nice if we could tie everything up with a bow and hand it to you, but we’re feeling our way through this. Remember that you’re the one who held a gun to our heads — we’d have already been on a plane home.”

“And you haven’t learned anything that could hint at why the area might be of interest?” Reynolds tried a final time.

“No. It’s a genuine mystery. Although there are a few other events you should know about.” She told him the story of Helms and the professor and Spencer’s ultimate dispatching of the man.

“He didn’t say who he was working for?” Reynolds asked quietly when she was done.

Spencer shook his head. “He turned down ten million bucks to walk away, so whoever it is, he was pretty confident that they’d find him if he double-crossed them, no matter where he hid. That should give you pause. How many would decline that kind of money?”

“Not many,” Reynolds said, his expression dark.

The clerk checked them in without asking questions, and minutes later they were ensconced in their rooms, which were only slightly better than the jail cell in which Spencer had spent his day with the Indian police. After showering off the road dust, they met outside Allie’s room and crossed the street to a small restaurant that appeared reasonably clean. After ordering, Allie looked to Spencer with a troubled expression.

“Reynolds seems like he’s puzzled by everything, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. And that worries me more than anything else. If our secret agent friend has no idea what’s going on, where does that leave us?” Spencer said.

“Nowhere good,” Drake muttered. “And he doesn’t have the guns.”

“If we don’t get them tomorrow, we’re not going. Simple as that. No way do we walk into an unknown situation without weapons,” Spencer said.

“You have any theories as to what’s really going on?” Allie asked.

Spencer shook his head. “Not a clue.”

The group sat quietly, fatigue radiating off them as the server brought bowls of chicken curry and cans of soda. They picked at their meals, their appetites dampened by the prospect of the ordeal to come and their thoughts on the confluence of events that had led them into the Indian wilds, pursued by forces they didn’t understand.

“I don’t think he’s leveling with us,” Drake said. “He knows more than he’s letting on. Just like always, we’re pawns that they’re pushing around their game board. And if we wind up taking a bullet, they’re still fine. I hate this crap. Really hate it.”

“He’s got us between a rock and a hard place,” Spencer pointed out. “Although, not Allie.”

Drake eyed her. “Maybe you should get out while you can.”

“I’ve come this far. I kind of want to see what’s at the end of the rainbow. We’re almost there — it would be weak to quit now.”

“What if we’re walking into a trap?” Drake asked.

Allie frowned. “What do you mean?”

“All along I’ve been wondering whether Reynolds actually already understands everything and is just keeping tabs on us to learn what we actually know. Think about it — he can’t be sure what Carson knew, so then we show up on the radar and he buddies up with us, figuring that we won’t tell him straight out what we’re really doing. So he needs to pretend to be on our side to discover how much info we have.”

“Pretty evil if that’s the case,” Spencer said. “Although I wouldn’t put anything past the DOD — assuming he’s really DOD at all.”

“Who else would he be?” Allie asked quietly.

“CIA. They’re always up to something shady. Maybe they’re running an op, and they know we won’t willingly help after the last nightmare, so this time they’re pretending to be the Defense Department,” Spencer said. “It’s always a possibility.”

Drake nodded slowly. “How do we verify that Reynolds is DOD?”

“If he’s military intelligence, there isn’t going to be any publicly accessible info on him. It will all be tightly classified,” Spencer said. “So it’s a catch-22.”

“Then there’s no way of knowing who he actually is or works for?” Allie said.

“Correct.”

“Where does that leave us?” Allie asked.

Spencer considered the question for a long time. “Go through all the gear he gave you with a magnifying glass, and make sure there are no micro-transmitters in any of it. Give me the GPS and I’ll dismantle it to see if there’s anything besides the factory chips inside. We can just keep it off and they’ll be unable to track it — we’re looking for something small that would have its own miniature power source, that’s constantly emitting a signal.”

“You really think this is a con?” Drake asked.

Spencer held up a spoonful of curry and blew on it to cool it. “At this point, we should assume everyone’s the enemy until proven otherwise. Including those who are most insistent they’re our friends.”

Allie’s expression slowly registered alarm. “Do you… do you think it’s possible that the DOD killed Carson, and we’re just loose threads they’re tying up?”

Drake looked to Spencer, who was chewing his curry methodically with a spectacular lack of enjoyment. “Anything’s possible. But why do it in such a spectacular manner? Generally, when someone’s taken out, it’s made to look like an accident — car crash or skiing or a drowning.” He shook his head. “No, Carson’s murder wasn’t anything the DOD would want to draw attention to if they had him under surveillance. Which means there’s another player in the mix besides Helms, because he wouldn’t have had the physical strength. Carson would have snapped his neck like a twig.”

They sat in silence, considering Spencer’s input, the food suddenly tasting like tar. When they returned to the hotel, Allie gave Drake a chaste peck and retired without a word, and it was hours before Drake finally drifted off into restless sleep — a slumber that featured headless bodies coming for him through a swirling fog that whispered his name.