From the top of the mountainside the frigid night air started to roll in, grazing the skins, and the hearts, of the small group.
"Can we make a fire? I'm fucking freezing," Gary asked his colleagues.
"That will not be smart. It would lead them right to us," Purdue answered. "Give it some time. If they go back to the village we can find a cave or somewhere to get warm."
Another gunshot clapped somewhere on the lower road and a bunch of male voices called out strategies to one another to encircle the intruder who killed their brethren.
"I suppose we will not see Calisto again," Sam lamented.
"Oh, God, I hope they didn't kill her," Nina answered, but after some thought, her naturally positive demeanor dealt her some hope. "Then again, if she were dead, what would they be shooting at?"
"Aye, that is true. Then again, it could be a hunting rifle somewhere else. There are a few hunters out getting wild," Sam inadvertently put a damper on Nina's rising relief. She clutched a water bottle she took from her backpack and stared into space. They were in trouble, and they were unarmed on top of it. Thoughts of being hacked to death in the high altitudes of Nepal did not sit well with her and she wondered if they would ever be able to make it out alive. They stood out from the locals and word would be spread quickly about something as serious as the destruction of the shrine. Now they were fugitives, out of food and slowly freezing to death while having to keep awake and alert for the people who closed in on them with no good intention.
A rustling came from somewhere down the riverbed, the snapping of branches in the oblivion of the frozen darkness. Nina moved closer to Sam, her body just touching his for comfort.
"Please let that be a fucking yak or something," she whispered in heavy breath.
"Quiet," Purdue whispered. They listened closely, practically holding their breaths the whole time. Another crunch sounded from the opposite direction and they all jumped. Nina shivered against Sam who used his arm to push her behind him protectively.
In the distance the voices still echoed occasionally, but there was less of a furor. Purdue was tempted to switch on his flashlight and just look. His curiosity had always been his bane and he could take the tension no more. If he was going to die from the cold anyway, he might as well take his chances locating the source of the suspicious sounds.
"Don't do that," Sam told him. "We are, for now at least, safe and whole. Don't change the dynamic just because you have to know what that is."
"We cannot stay here. If they discover us here tomorrow, and they will, we are all as good as dead. In the daylight tracking our movement would be exceedingly easy. We don't stand a chance," Purdue retorted.
"Where will we go, Mr. Purdue?" Gary chipped in. "We don't know the terrain in the dark. God, it's bad enough navigating these hills in broad daylight and braving the thin air up here. Moving now would be suicide."
"I agree with Gary," Nina said. Once more she found herself in the middle of a two-faction argument where the most votes would be the way to go. But Purdue was not adamant about his plan and yielded to the opinions of the others.
"Well, it appears, my friends, that we are fucked," Purdue sighed and sat down to face a bitter night ahead.
"I suggest we just stay put and keep quiet so that they don't find us. Once we hear that there are no more voices out there, maybe we can just slowly start changing our location at least," Nina said.
"Look, I know where we are. It's not like we are lost," Gary said, briefly holding his GPS out for them to see, "but we have to worry about hiking in the dark and that cannot end well."
Suddenly, snapping twigs alarmed them into a defensive mode and they huddled together to face what was coming. With the approaching crack and clatter of the branches came heavy panting, the sound of laborious movement.
"Shall I use my light now?" Purdue asked in a low voice, stoking the sarcasm.
Nina's fingers dug into Sam's arm as Dave Purdue switched on his flashlight to see what was coming at them. In the pale beam of his torch the familiar physique of his bodyguard appeared, her arms outstretched to find her way in the dark.
"Calisto!" Nina cried, making her way to the wounded woman to support her.
"We thought you were dead," Gary said, clearly happy to see her.
"So did I," she gasped. "In fact, I still kind of feel like death warmed up. Did you lose this, perhaps?" she asked Purdue. She handed him his satellite phone, which had almost been lost in the chaos of the attack.
"Oh, my God, Calisto! You are worth every penny!" Purdue smiled and took the device from her while Nina retrieved a med pack from her side bag to dress Calisto's wounds. She had a flesh wound from a bullet intended for her head, which had instead ended up just above her collarbone. Other than that and her ankle, sprained in that awkward landing, she was in good shape. Purdue did not wait another moment to call for assistance from one of his aviation companies in Malaysia.
Now they had the good fortune of an extraction, relieved that the next stop on their search would be wonderfully close to home.
Chapter 27
A few days later Deep Sea One received its owner and his expedition members by helicopter. The weather was mild on the North Sea and the group was eager to get on with the quest for the Spear of Destiny. They were welcomed with a feast of breakfast, courtesy of the kitchen staff who had heard about their ordeal.
"Bacon and eggs. Oh, my God, I thought I would never taste bacon and eggs again," Sam groaned in ecstasy, as he piled up the food and drove his fork through it. He shoved the entire forkful in his mouth, to the amusement of Nina and Calisto, who were seated opposite him. Dave chose to have only black coffee and a slice of toast. His pathetic little plate immediately got their attention, compared to their stacked plates.
"Are you pregnant?" Sam asked Purdue, who gave him a silly nod to profess that he was.
"Congratulations, Dave," Nina said, "I knew your whoring would pay off one day."
He gasped as the others roared with laughter. It was a good one. Purdue shook his head and chuckled. It was not far from the truth, actually. The sorts he had previously gotten involved with in his business ventures and other pursuits were guaranteed to fuck him at some point. And many did. Before he became an insanely rich man he had his share of misadventures and close calls by mucking with the wrong people.
"I'm just feeling a bit queasy this morning," he admitted sincerely, "I am nervous about the dive. My control room tells me that there had been a spate of uncharted storms here in the last few days, just coming out of nowhere. It makes the dive quite perilous."
"Do you think the Spear is on the German submarine?" Nina asked. He nodded.
"The map we fed into the geographical mapping system revealed that it was within a two-mile radius from the oil rig, and I'm thinking it is better to commence the search in a place where there were actual traces of it, you know? No use going out in the open sea and hoping for another revelation."
"True. So when are you planning to go?" Nina asked.
Purdue looked at his gluttonous photographer, "As soon as Mr. Cleave has worked his way through that pig."
On the map they had charted and printed, the approximate vicinity of the item was quite vast. It made Purdue nervous and he kept harboring concerns that they might have misinterpreted the signs in the Godwomb, that perhaps the point on the map they worked from was just a coincidence. Never before had he doubted his efforts so much, or himself, for that matter. Maybe it was his most recent close call or finding out that Walter Eickhart, whom he trusted, would not have hesitated to put lead in his skull. For the first time in his adult life, Dave Purdue felt vulnerable.