Gabriel studied her face. She was sincere. All traces of the mischievous child he remembered were gone, but there remained a childlike quality, a belief in the potential for a discovery like this to improve the world rather than destroy it.
He handed the book to Noboru. “It’s a weapon,” he said.
Chapter 7
“Get some sleep,” Gabriel said. “I’ll take first watch.” They’d moved Joyce into a room whose mattress and window were intact and had dragged another mattress into the hallway outside the door. Noboru was lying on the mattress, his shoes beside him, his knife in its sheath within easy reach. Gabriel sat across the hall with his back to the wall and his Colt in his lap.
“You think they’re going to come back tonight?” Noboru said. He fished a small, square pillbox out of his pants pocket, opened it, popped a pill in his mouth and snapped his head back to swallow it. When he saw Gabriel watching him with a raised eyebrow, he said, “To help me sleep,” and put the pillbox back in his pocket. He rubbed his chest with a grimace and then lay back on the mattress.
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “But I don’t like them knowing where we are.”
Gabriel should have been tired, but his nerves were still in tight coils after the fight with the cult. He sat in the dark, facing the door, listening for any sudden noises. Despite the reassurances he had given Joyce, he knew it was a bad idea to stay at the guesthouse tonight. But they didn’t have any better alternative. Joyce needed food and rest after her ordeal and Noboru did, too; in any event, it was too late to make the long drive back to Balikpapan safely. But even one night was a risk he would have preferred not to take. The guesthouse was the first place the cult would look for Joyce again, and for the Star of Arnuwanda. So Gabriel waited, and listened. Through a narrow window at the far end of the hall he watched the stars grow brighter, then begin to dim as dawn approached. Even with the sun still hours away, the room grew warmer. He peeled off his shirt and used it to wipe the sweat off his face and chest.
Still nothing. No sign of the cult, just Noboru’s gentle snores. Gabriel thought about waking him to let him take second watch, but he decided to let Noboru sleep.
When the stars disappeared from the window altogether and the sky faded from gray to blue, the door to Joyce’s room suddenly swung open.
Gabriel grabbed his Colt, leaped to his feet.
Joyce grinned at him from the doorway. Somewhere during the night she’d used the pitcher and basin in the room to wash herself clean of the mud and grime of the jungle and had donned a fresh set of clothes. Gabriel was once again struck by what a beautiful woman she had become. She opened the door wider and leaned against the jamb. Noboru woke and turned to face her, rubbing sleep out of the corners of his eyes.
“Rise and shine,” Joyce said. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us. I spent the past hour narrowing down the coordinates and I think I know where the first Eye should be. It’s not far from here, maybe an hour’s drive.”
Gabriel nodded. “All right. Pack up your things and bring them down to the jeep. We’ll meet you there.”
“Way ahead of you,” Joyce said. She slung a heavy knapsack over one shoulder and stepped out into the hallway. “See you downstairs.” She headed for the stairway, then stopped and smirked at him over her shoulder. “Oh, and you might want to put on a shirt. Not that it isn’t a pretty sight, but…the sun can be pretty fierce around here. Wouldn’t want you to burn.”
Noboru drove the jeep out of the village and back onto the same unpaved road they’d taken from Balikpapan yesterday, continuing away from the city toward Central Kalamitan. In the passenger seat, Joyce looked over the notes she’d scribbled in her book. Periodically, she would consult her compass and either nod or give a new direction to Noboru: a bit farther, take the next right. Gabriel sat in the backseat, crammed in beside their suitcases, and wondered what, if anything, they would find. If the map and the Star were authentic, at the very least they could discover a gemstone whose value as an artifact would be enormous. Or maybe, if Joyce was right, they would find the first key to a revolutionary source of energy that could change the world. Either way, his interest was piqued. More than piqued.
The only problem, as he saw it, was Joyce herself. Could he trust her? She’d already lied to her uncle, lied to Michael, and nearly gotten herself killed. She was stubborn and foolhardy, rushing headlong into dangers she didn’t understand. True, he’d often been accused of the same thing himself, but he’d demonstrated he could handle it. Joyce, on the other hand…
Maybe he was just being overprotective. But that didn’t sit any better with him, because it forced him to think about why he was being so protective. Was it because she was Daniel Wingard’s niece? Because he’d promised Michael he’d bring her home safely? Or was it something else?
Like the charge he’d felt when she’d looked him up and down in the hallway.
There’d been no shortage of women in Gabriel’s life over the years. But there was undeniably something special about this one…
Pull yourself together, he thought. He couldn’t let himself become distracted, not with the Cult of Ulikummis still out there. Not only were they still desperate to get their hands on the Star of Arnuwanda, they had also been humiliated in defeat, and that made them doubly dangerous. That the cult hadn’t returned to the guesthouse last night meant nothing, except the likelihood that they were regrouping. If he let himself get sidetracked, if he lost focus, they could all wind up hanging over a fire pit.
“Stop here!” Joyce cried suddenly.
Noboru hit the brakes, bringing the jeep to a halt on the side of the road, and cut the engine.
“This is the spot.” Joyce hopped out of the jeep and gestured toward the trees. “It should be about five hundred yards in.”
Gabriel followed her out, then reached back into the jeep and took a machete from the backseat.
Noboru glanced at the morning sun and loosened his collar. “If it’s that far, you’d better start walking. It’s only going to get hotter out.”
“You’re not coming?” Gabriel said.
“Someone’s got to stay with the jeep and keep an eye out for trouble.” He patted the glove compartment. “If I see anyone coming, especially anyone wearing a skull mask, I’ll send up a flare. You should be able to see it through the trees.”
Gabriel led the way into the forest. The vegetation seemed more tightly packed here. He made judicious use of the machete, cutting away vines and branches to clear a trail. Behind him, Joyce kept an eye on her notebook and compass, shouting directions at him as if he were a shady New York City cab driver looking to jack up the fare.
“No, wait, to the left,” she said. “We’re getting all turned around.”
“You just said right.”
“Yeah, left. See if you can get those vines out of the way so we can keep going.”
He sighed and started chopping again. “This better be one hell of a gemstone,” he muttered.
The jungle in daytime was just as active as night, only with different kinds of wildlife. Instead of the buzzing of nocturnal insects, the air was filled with the sound of fluttering wings and screeching birdcalls. Proboscis monkeys and long-tailed macaques jumped from branch to branch in the canopy above, barely visible blurs of white, gray and tan hair. The terrain was hillier here too, slowing their progress and forcing them to exert more energy in the rising heat.