The Lucifer Gospel

16

They made it to the ruined Italian Sahariane before the insect-like Russian-built helicopter gunship appeared. The Mil-24 slipped suddenly over the canyon wall like some mechanical horror from a science-fiction film, a hovering steel mantis, twisting beneath its main rotor, searching for its prey, bland in its pale camouflage. It moved into the valley with agonizing slowness, tilted slightly, nose down, swinging left to right.

“They haven’t seen us,” said Hilts.

“They must know we’re here; they would have seen the plane,” said Finn. They were crouched together behind the huge fender of the old truck.

“They know we’re in the valley, but that’s all,” the pilot said, shouting into her ear over the thundering roar of the Mil’s jet engine. “We’ve still got a chance.”

As the helicopter cruised slowly along above the valley, they moved behind the Sahariane, keeping the bulk of the vehicle between them as a shield. Reaching the rear of the blasted desert vehicle, Finn looked over her shoulder. The entrance to the canyon was at least a hundred feet away; too much exposure.

“We need a distraction,” she shouted.

Hilts nodded. He reached into the deep pocket of his fatigue jacket and pulled out one of the old Mills grenades from the cave.

“Think it’ll work?!”

“Only one way to find out!” He pulled the pin and waited, keeping the spring lever tightly enclosed in his fist. He waited until the Mil had settled onto the ground, facing away from them, then hurled the baseball-sized grenade. The scored steel fragmentation bomb sailed up and out, the lever spinning away, glinting in the sun as it popped off the side of the grenade.

“Count to four, then head for the canyon,” Hilts instructed. “I’ll be right behind you!” He pulled a second grenade from his pocket and threw that one as well, aiming for the other side of the valley.

Finn, crouching, did a quick four count then leapt up and ran, keeping her eyes on the dark shadow that marked the canyon entrance. She reached the canyon just as the first grenade exploded. She tried to look back over her shoulder but felt Hilts’s palm in her back, pushing her forward into the entrance. She stumbled and his hand was on her arm, pulling her up. The second grenade went off with a sharp bang and then she was in darkness.

“Go! Go! Go!” Hilts yelled, and she went. Behind her there was a harsh coughing sound as the engine of the Mil hesitated, then caught, then hesitated again. “I think I hit the rotor!” said Hilts.

Finn nodded blindly and kept on running, finally coming out of the narrow canyon entranceway and into the open desert. The little airplane stood waiting a few hundred feet away. There was no sign of the helicopter.

She stopped, horrified, staring to the left, into the desert. Rising like a brutal wave was a dark curtain a thousand feet high, blotting out the sun.

“Look!”

“Sandstorm!” Hilts yelled. “Get to the plane!”

Finn ran harder, lungs bursting, heart hammering in her chest. Her breath came in harsh, hot gasps. She reached the shadow of the wing, ducked under it and wrenched open the door of the little airplane. The wind blowing against her back was fiercely hot and filled with grains of sand that burned, stinging into her exposed skin, even tearing at her hands. The sound of it against the wings and fuselage was like the frantic tapping of a million bony fingers foretelling her choking, blast-furnace end in the immense dark thing that loomed behind her like a gargantuan, living creature, the desert’s own spawn or demon.

She threw herself into the plane and scrambled to shut the door as Hilts climbed in beside her. He immediately began going through his preflight routine, reaching up to hit the button on the flap selector switch, then punching the air bottle valve between the seats and the fuel primer simultaneously. The radial engine started with a roar. He released the brake and pushed the throttle forward hard with his left hand, his right holding on to the steering column. The oversize propeller windmilled, seeming almost to suck them forward, the wall of the cliff directly in front of them.

“Aren’t you going to turn?!” Finn yelled, staring at the cliff less than two hundred yards away.

“Too slow! She turns like she’s sleepwalking!” he answered, pushing the throttle forward even harder. They raced across the hard-packed sand, the steamroller of the sandstorm coming up on Finn’s right, filling her entire field of vision.

“Are we going to make it?!”

“Think elevating thoughts!”

The helicopter came over the top of the cliff and swooped down directly in front of them. Finn could see a spurt of flame from the twin-barreled turret gun slung under the nose and suddenly the ground immediately in front of their little plane was torn to ribbons.

Hilts jerked the steering column hard to the right, slammed his foot down on the right rudder pedal and pushed the throttle forward as far as it would go. The plane swung to the right and leapt into the air, the Mil-24 sliding away to the left, heading directly into the oncoming wall of the howling storm. There was a sudden clattering sound from behind them and Finn felt as though a giant hand had grabbed the plane and shaken it. Then the sandstorm hit and they vanished into its hungry jaws.

They flew within the storm, blind, desperately climbing until they rose above the dark, roiling horror and came out into the sunlight. Below them the storm was like the surface of some black, awful sea, shot through with streaks of lightning.

“It really is a storm,” said Finn, staring down.

“Crazy things,” Hilts said and nodded, checking his instruments. “The friction of the sand causes the lightning. All sorts of magnetic disturbances as well.”

“Down there, you flew right at that helicopter. You didn’t turn.”

“This thing flies like stink, but it takes a lot to turn, and anyway, the Mil-24 was probably the least maneuverable chopper the Russians ever made. Fly at it and it has to swing around in a big circle. I knew we had the throttle to get up and over.”

“Knew?”

“Hoped.” Hilts grinned.

“Think elevating thoughts? That was the best you could come up with?”

“Better than kiss your ass good-bye,” said Hilts. “Which was the only other alternative.”

“What about the helicopter? Will they come after us?”

“No. They didn’t have enough time to get the elevation. That Nasif guy’s going to have to ride it out on the ground. Even then he might have to radio for help to get restarted.”

“So now what do we do? We can’t go back to the dig.”

“There’s an old oil airfield at Ayn al Ghazal. We can fuel up there and get across the border into Egypt.”

“And after that?”

“We’ll have to give that some thought. Cairo. The embassy. New passports. Maybe talk to your pal Mickey Hearts.”

“Or see if we can find out what Pedrazzi was up to.”

“Should have brought one of those copper urns with you,” said Hilts.

“I was distracted,” Finn answered. She dug into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the old flat cigarette tin with the lounging woman on the lid. “All we’ve got is this.”

“And neither one of us smokes,” Hilts said. “Darn.” They were flying due east now, toward the distant border, away from the sandstorm and the threat of Nasif and his helicopter.

Finn shook the tin but there was no sound. For an empty tin it seemed heavy. Curious, she pried open the lid and was surprised to see a wadded piece of dusty linen inside. Hilts glanced across the narrow cockpit.

“Got something?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “It looks like a handkerchief.”

“I’m taking us down under the radar,” said Hilts, gently easing the control stick forward. The plane responded instantly, swooping down toward the desert. “Wouldn’t want our friend calling in the cavalry on us.”

Finn unwrapped the cloth. There was a monogram in one corner, two letters entwined beneath a crest. “L.P. Lucio Pedrazzi. The crest is the same as the ring he was wearing.”

“He didn’t get that hole in the side of his head from a scorpion bite,” said Hilts. “A handgun from close range, more likely.”

“Murdered?”

“At a guess, yeah.”

“But according to you the only person with him was…”

“Pierre DeVaux, a monk,” Hilts completed.

“A monk with a pistol?”

“Agatha Christie would have loved it.”

Finn finished unwrapping the handkerchief. In the center of the fabric square a gold medallion gleamed. Staring up at Finn was the embossed malevolent face of a frowning Medusa, lips snarling, hair a mass of writhing snakes.

“A coin?” asked Hilts, looking at the object in her palm.

“A medallion.”

“What does it have written around the head?”

“The inscription is the same as the one of the stone coffin,” she said. “Hic Latito Lux Excito-Vox Luciferus. Here Lies Hidden the Bringer of Light: The Words of Lucifer.”

She turned the golden disk over. Engraved on the other side was the profile of a handsome face and another inscription.

“What does it say?”

“Legio III Africanus-Domus in Venosa est. Third African Legion, whose home is in Venosa,” she translated.

Hilts’s brow furrowed. “Where’s Venosa?”