Текст книги "The Solomon Curse"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Russel Blake
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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

CHAPTER 39

At the hotel, Sam introduced Leonid and Lazlo. They loaded the equipment into the Pathfinder as storm clouds darkened the sky.

“How do you know where to start the search?” Leonid asked as they rolled past the first police roadblock.

“We know that the Japanese moved the treasure from the bay and we know where we met with the only living survivor. We’re hoping we can enlist someone in that village to show us where the old deserted village site was,” Remi said.

“And if not?”

“Then it gets harder,” Sam said.

“What about the language issue?” Leonid pressed. “I thought you said that none of the villagers spoke English or even pidgin.”

“That was our impression, but my suspicion is that some of the older villagers must,” Remi reasoned. “Even if they don’t have a lot of contact with the outside world, they have to have some, and if they want to do business, they have to speak something in common. Probably pidgin. In which case, we can wing it. Plus, we have the mighty Lazlo with us—master of a thousand dialects.”

Remi pointed at the opening to the trail that led to the bay as they passed it. “There’s the bay road. The village is about three miles down the coast. According to the survivor, it took them a full day to haul the treasure to the cave.”

Leonid did a quick calculation. “What, exactly, are the directions that Lazlo found hidden in the diary?”

Sam glanced at Lazlo in the rearview mirror. “Care to demonstrate your photographic memory?”

“Ahem. It said ‘Toward the rising sun from the last hut, to the goat’s head, then into enemy territory to the small waterfall. The way lies beyond the falls.’”

Leonid shook his head. “Seriously? That’s what we’re going on?”

“He obviously intended it to be a reminder to himself, not a series of directions to be followed. But it should be enough,” Remi said. “We’ve worked from more obscure clues than this.”

“Right,” Leonid snorted. “So we have to find a village that’s no longer there, which may or may not be the only one in the area, then locate whatever a goat’s head is, then find a waterfall. Assuming it’s still there. Somewhere beyond that, which could be ten meters or ten kilometers, there’s a cave. Which may or may not be visible and could well be crawling with murderous rebels. Did I get this right?”

A deafening roar of thunder exploded overhead and moments later the road darkened with gray rain, reducing visibility to no more than twenty feet.

“You left out where we’re going to probably have to camp out at least one night, and possibly several nights,” Sam said. “But don’t worry. We got a couple of tents and some supplies.”

“And plenty of bug spray,” Remi added.

“In this soup?” Lazlo asked. “I say, nobody said anything about camping. I’d rather hoped to try the blackened ahi for dinner tonight. Looked smashing on the menu.”

“Then there’s an incentive to work fast,” Sam said. He glanced off to his left and slowed. “I think this is the trail to the village. Remi?”

She peered through the rain at an unmarked gap in the jungle. “Could be. It’s hard to tell.”

“Well, we’ve got nothing but time. Might as well give it a go,” Sam said, slowing further as golf-ball-sized raindrops hammered the Nissan. He engaged the four-wheel drive and they lurched off the pavement, the tires slipping in the mud before gripping sufficiently to propel them forward.

The rain stopped just as they arrived at the stream that had proved such a challenge to Rubo on their last trip. Sam slowed and gazed at it. “Now, was it across the stream or up the hill?”

“Are you kidding?” Leonid muttered.

“I think it was across the stream,” Sam said, goosing the gas. The overloaded vehicle splashed through the stream. The jungle closed in around them as they climbed the bank.

When they rounded the bend and the village appeared, Remi exhaled a silent breath of relief—they’d taken the right trail from the road. The SUV coasted to a stop in the clearing at the base of the first cluster of huts, and several curious villagers stared at them as they disembarked. Sam led them up the hill to the group, where he recognized the shaman from the prior trip. The man nodded to them and pointed to the hut far up the hill where they’d interviewed Nauru and shook his head. Sam nodded and fished in his pocket and then extracted a fifty-dollar bill and handed it to the man.

“Rubo,” he said, then shook his head as well. The old man’s eyes widened in understanding and he hesitantly took the bill. “You speak English?” Sam asked.

The man shrugged in denial and then pointed at one of the youths sitting nearby. The young man rose and approached. Sam repeated his question and the youth nodded.

“Little speak,” he said.

“We’re looking for an old village. Abandoned,” Sam said. The youth’s eyes were confused. Sam tried again. “A village. Where Nauru used to live. We need to find it.”

This time, it appeared that the message got through because the youth turned to the elder villager and a short discussion ensued. After some back-and-forth, the youth squared his shoulders and addressed Sam.

“Nothing there. Bad.”

“We know. But we need to go,” Remi said, stepping forward.

More discussion between the youth and the old shaman and then the same impassive stare from the young man.

“No road.”

“Right. We can walk.” Remi paused. “Can you show us where it is?”

Sam withdrew a twenty-dollar bill, deciding the matter as the youth’s eyes lit up at the windfall. He had another brief exchange with the old man and then snatched the money from Sam’s hand like he was afraid it would disappear into thin air.

“Now?” he asked.

Sam nodded. “Yes.”

They returned to the SUV, unloaded the backpacks and sacks containing the camping gear and spelunking equipment, and divided it among themselves. When everyone had a pack and a sack, they set off into the brush, following the barefoot youth as he marched into the rain forest with the ease of an antelope. Lazlo exchanged a troubled glance with Leonid, who looked even more glum than usual, and they followed, struggling under the weight of their burdens, as Sam and Remi strode effortlessly up the faint game trail.

The trek took a solid hour. The last vestige of the squall intermittently drizzled on them, making the slippery ground more treacherous. The sun was just breaking through the clouds as they entered a clearing at the base of another hill, the area soundless except for the cries of birds in the surrounding jungle. The boy gestured toward a brook running along the far side of the clearing, near several crude, man-made stone formations, almost completely overgrown but still distinct from the landscape.

They took a break in the shade of the trees and the youth nodded at the structures.

“Tables.”

Remi nodded. The only things left of the hapless village were the worktables used for cleaning fish and laundry and built using indigenous limestone carved from the nearby hill.

“Looks like the same rock the king used for his islets and temples,” Leonid said.

“Makes sense. Relatively easy to cut and plenty of it,” Sam agreed.

Lazlo gazed around the clearing. “Nothing else here. Bloody amazing it can all disappear—if this fine lad hadn’t shown us the way, we’d have never known what we were looking at.”

Remi nodded. “According to Nauru’s account, everyone was slaughtered. So there was nobody left to keep the elements at bay.”

Sam moved to the brook. He eyed the sun overhead and pulled a compass from his shirt pocket. After glancing at it, he returned to the group and regarded the youth.

“Thank you. We stay here now,” he said. The young man seemed puzzled and Sam repeated his statement, augmented with some simple sign language. Understanding played across the youth’s face and he shrugged. If the crazy foreigners wanted to camp in the middle of the Guadalcanal jungle, it was none of his business—he already had his prize. “You go back,” Sam said, pointing at the trail.

Their escort nodded and with a wave disappeared into the rain forest, leaving them alone in the clearing. Sam pulled a portable GPS unit from his pack and turned it on, then entered a waypoint for the village site so they’d have coordinates to return to if they had to retrace their steps. After ten minutes in the shade, he glanced at his watch and shouldered his gear. “Might as well get going. East is over there. ‘Toward the rising sun from the last hut.’ That says east to me.”

“What about the goat head?” Lazlo asked.

“That’s a little more problematic. I’m hoping we’ll know it when we see it.”

“What if it was referring to something that’s long since been blown or washed away?” Lazlo pressed.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Leonid gave them a dark look and waved away a mosquito. “Goats’ heads. Villages that are no longer there.”

Sam took the lead and led the group across the brook to where he’d spotted a faint game trail leading in the desired direction. Once they were back in the brush, the heat quickly rose to a stifling level, the faint ocean breeze stopped dead by the vegetation. Sam slowed every few minutes and cocked his head, listening for any hint of followers—he didn’t think they had anything to fear from the youth or the villagers, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

The slope steepened as they worked their way east, and the trail eventually veered off in a northern direction, rendering it useless. Sam and Remi unsheathed their machetes and hacked a way through the thick underbrush, their progress slowed to a crawl as they fought the jungle and the terrain.

The afternoon wore on, the swelter almost unbearable, and when they reached another opening near a larger stream, they took a break beneath the spread of a banyan tree, all four panting from exertion.

“How far do you think we’ve come?” Remi asked, blotting her brow with a bandanna soaked in lukewarm river water.

“Maybe half a mile. No more.” Sam retrieved the GPS, waited until it acquired a signal, and peered at the screen. “Actually, a little more than a half mile, but not much.”

“And we have no idea how much farther until we’re in goat head neighborhood,” Leonid muttered.

“All part of the challenge,” Sam said.

“Don’t forget that we have no idea what the goat head refers to,” Lazlo chimed in. “Lest anyone think we’re doing this the easy way.”

Remi cleared her throat. “The reason I ask is because it seems like this stream, assuming it’s been here for a while—which, judging by the erosion, it looks like it has—would be a natural place to rest, just as we have. And while taking a break, it might also be a good spot to memorialize somehow as a marker.”

“Yes, well, that’s all very good, but I’m afraid the diary didn’t say anything about any stream. And I don’t see a waterfall,” Lazlo said.

“And no goats,” Leonid grumbled.

“Sometimes the answer is right in front of your face,” Remi said. Sam followed her gaze to a rock outcropping.

After a few moments, he grinned broadly. “Have I bragged about how perceptive and smart my wife is today?” he asked, his tone nonchalant. He rose slowly and pointed at the boulders. “What does that look like to you, Lazlo?”

Lazlo peered at the outcropping. “Like a bunch of bloody rocks.”

Remi smiled. “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

Lazlo turned to her. “That’s as may be, but—” He stopped dead and stared again at the rocks.

They sat quietly for several moments and then Leonid broke the silence. “Forgive me, but are you all talking in code? Because I don’t understand any of this . . .”

Sam shook his head and gestured to the rocks. “The boulders look like a goat’s head, Leonid.”

Leonid gaped at the outcropping. “Well, I’ll be . . .”

Lazlo nodded. “Quite likely, we all may be, old chap, but apparently not just yet.”

CHAPTER 40

Sam set another waypoint on the GPS and zoomed in on the satellite map of the area. After studying the terrain, he shook his head. “Looks like it’s going to be a low-tech hike for us. The images aren’t any help—it’s all rain forest canopy. You can’t even make out this stream—too much overhang.”

“What’s the rest of the line from the diary?” Remi asked. “Something about ‘into enemy territory’?”

Lazlo nodded. “That’s right. ‘Into enemy territory to the small waterfall.’ Any ideas?”

Sam looked up at the top of the nearest mountain, where wisps of clouds hovered around the peak like a halo. “The Allies held the area around Honiara down to where the airport is. That would be more northeast from this point. Assuming that’s what he was referring to.”

“Actually, they also had most of the eastern part of the island, not to be a killjoy,” Lazlo observed.

“Right, but since Kumasaka felt it noteworthy enough to write in his diary, I think it’s a safe bet that the wording signaled a direction change at the goat head—from east to northeast,” Sam said. “Otherwise, why say anything?”

Remi peered at the slope beyond the rocks. “Looks like it’s going to get harder from here. That’s pretty steep.”

“Remember that they had to lug heavy crates, so all we have to do is think like the Japanese,” Sam said.

“Then we’re looking for a natural passage—a path of least resistance,” Lazlo said.

They studied the landscape, from the dull gray of the goat head to the neon green of the lush vegetation around it. There was no obvious way forward—or, rather, up the mountain that stretched endlessly into the afternoon sky. Sam and Remi headed up to the base and slowly walked along the edge of the brush. It was evident from the abundant tall grass that the area hadn’t seen human feet for eons.

When they returned to where Lazlo and Leonid were resting in the shade, Sam’s expression was pensive. “It may be as simple as following the stream. It looks like it heads in a roughly northeast direction, and it could well be that’s what the Japanese did,” he said.

“Why wouldn’t Kumasaka have simply said ‘follow the river,’ then, instead of all the nonsense about going into enemy territory?” Leonid demanded.

“Maybe he was worried about the stream changing course over time. Rubo mentioned that the stream that now runs across the trail leading to the village wasn’t there the last time he was. On a tropical island, that’s a distinct possibility. Or he might have been paranoid that someone might get their hands on the diary and somehow decrypt it. There are a number of possibilities . . .”

“. . . any of which could be wrong,” Leonid finished.

“Look at the bright side. We found the goat head. So we’re doing something right,” Remi said.

“Ever the diplomat,” said Sam. “Reality is, it’s a decent guess. Unless you have a better suggestion.” He eyed Leonid and Lazlo.

Lazlo pushed himself to his feet. “I’m with you. We follow the stream. If we’re wrong, we’ll figure it out sooner or later. We’re on an island, after all. Eventually, all directions lead to the sea.”

Sam checked the time. “We should get going.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way of arguing for going back to our nice, safe hotel and picking this up tomorrow?” Leonid asked. “You have the waypoints.”

“We’re on the hunt now, my Russian friend. We have the scent. We keep pushing,” Sam said, ending the discussion.

The streambed of loose gravel was at first a welcome relief from the endless mud of the trails, but after a short time it proved the more difficult path as the slope steepened. After an hour of hiking along the bank, the stream widened and then forked, one tributary stretching to their left, the other to their right. They stopped and eyed the two choices. Sam turned to Leonid. “Which do you like?”

“Neither.”

“Come on, choose one,” Lazlo said. “Be a good sport.”

They waited while Leonid studied the two branches, and he eventually grunted and pointed at the one on the right. “That goes more eastward.”

“Well, there you have it,” Remi said. “But perhaps now it’s more obvious why the colonel didn’t simply write ‘Follow the stream.’”

After a brief rest, Sam led them along the stream as it climbed into the mountains. The sun was beginning to sink into the trees behind them when they arrived at the base of a steep expanse of sheer rock that the stream cut through. They stopped to catch their breaths, and Sam looked up into the mist.

“No way they climbed that. I think we might be on the wrong path here.”

Remi nodded. “He’s right. They were hauling heavy crates. They must have followed the other branch.”

Sam looked to the sky. “We should be able to make it back to where it forked before dark. We can set up camp in that little clearing and take this up tomorrow.”

Lazlo eyed Leonid. “No shame in guessing wrong, old boy. Happens to the best of us.”

“That’s why I try to avoid guessing about anything important.”

They made it back to the clearing with just enough time to set up the tents. Building a cooking fire was out of the question, given the waterlogged soil and moist vegetation, so they settled in for a dinner of energy bars, electrolyte-replacement tablets, and tepid water, silently consumed in the ghostly glow from their LED flashlights.

As night fell, the mosquitoes swarmed them. They retired early, liberally doused with insect repellant, serenaded by the hoots and squawks of night creatures beneath the stars.

The following day they were up at dawn, trudging up the second stream, trying to get a head start before the heat of the day hit with full force. The jungle was blanketed with a hazy mist and visibility was down to twenty meters, the humidity heavy in the air even in the relative cool of morning. The only sound was their breathing and the crunch of gravel beneath their boots as they marched determinedly upward toward the distant, fog-enshrouded peak.

Sam stopped at a bend and held up a hand. The group paused behind him as he stood listening, his head cocked.

“There. You hear that?” he whispered to Remi beside him.

She shook her head. “No. What?”

“I thought I heard splashing.”

Lazlo pushed past them and strode farther up the stream. “You aren’t imagining things. I think we’ve found our waterfall,” he called from around the bend.

They hurried to join him, where he was gazing at the white froth at the base of another steep rise, this one a cliff with water rushing over its edge, forming a waterfall easily twenty feet wide. Off to their right, another, smaller waterfall tumbled into a small pond. A ridge stretched eastward, jutting through the jungle that covered as far as they could see.

“Look. That feeds into at least two more streams,” Remi said, indicating the pond.

“Now the question is which waterfall Kumasaka was referring to when he said that the way lay beyond the fall,” Sam said.

“How will we know?” Lazlo asked.

Sam eyed the various falls and grinned. “That’s the tricky part, isn’t it?”

Leonid grunted as he stared at the tumbling water. “We’re looking for a cave, right? Unless I’m seeing things, there’s a cave over there by those boulders,” he said, pointing to their right, past the smaller waterfall.

“‘Beyond the fall . . .’” Remi whispered.

“Leonid, I don’t care what they say about you, you aren’t all bad,” Lazlo said, clapping him on the back. The Russian looked at him disdainfully and took a step away from the Englishman.

Sam fished his GPS from his backpack and entered in another waypoint. “Come on, gang. We’re almost there. Remi? Care to do the honors?”

“I think Lazlo should lead the way since it was his decryption that brought us here in the first place,” Remi said.

“Very well, then. No point in dawdling,” Lazlo said, shouldering his pack and setting off toward the cave.

They skirted the water’s edge, crossing two streams, and made their way to a mushy stretch of bank near the boulders. The cave opening yawned like a giant mouth, the gloom beyond its threshold impenetrable, vines having overgrown across part of it. Sam and Remi freed their machetes and set to work and three minutes later had cleared enough of it to enter.

“Flashlight time,” Sam said. They paused outside the rent in the rock, took out their lights, and switch them on. “Lazlo? No time like the present.”

Lazlo cautiously moved into the cavern, followed by Sam and Remi, their machetes still in hand, with Leonid bringing up the rear. The entry was long and narrow, stretching for fifteen feet, but no more than five high, requiring them to stoop as they crept forward. Lazlo’s light shone ahead of him, and as he moved deeper into the cave, they saw that it opened into a small chamber with water pooled on the ground, the light reflecting off its surface. The source dripped from a fissure in the stone above, rippling the placid surface.

“Be careful, Lazlo. That could be a hundred feet deep, for all we know,” Sam cautioned.

“Ah, yes, the dreaded cenote. Noted,” he said. “Pun intended—” He stopped midsentence and held his lamp aloft.

“What is it?” Remi asked, his body blocking the passage.

“Looks like we’re not the first visitors,” he said as he stepped aside. Remi and Sam followed his gaze to where a pair of skeletons lay on the cold stone floor, their sightless eye sockets fixed accusingly on the entryway.

Leonid brushed past them and neared the bones. “Murdered villagers,” he whispered as if afraid he might rouse the dead with his voice.

“Perhaps,” Sam said, stepping forward and illuminating the pair with his light. “But I seriously doubt the Japanese did this unless they had a time machine. Look at the smaller one’s feet.”

Remi gasped. “Are those . . . ?”

“Yes,” Sam answered. “Flip-flops. Judging by the size and pink plastic, worn by a very small woman or a girl.”

“What are they doing here?” Lazlo asked, his voice hushed.

Sam shrugged. “Don’t know. But they’ve been here a while.” He paused as he eyed the remains. “Animals and rot got their clothes, unless they were naked when they died. But look—no visible injuries, nothing broken, no cracked skulls or bullet holes. It’s possible they died of natural causes . . .”

Remi shook her head. “I doubt it. Look at their wrists. See the plastic?”

“What is it?” Leonid asked.

They all peered down at the skeletons and then Lazlo straightened and spoke softly. “Zip ties. Their wrists were bound when they died.”