“Pre-Inca?” Drake breathed, tearing at a hunk of meat. “Imagine the worth.”
“Billions,” Brynn said. “But not only that. Imagine the value of such a gift to mankind.”
Drake agreed with her in silence. He was only too well aware of the greed of men and the levels to which they would stoop to own that which others could not, to gain even a modicum of wealth and power. It also occurred to him now that Dantanion — if this man was the seller — could never sell the fountain or other principal pieces. The notoriety of such a sale would soon unmask even him. Also, the violence it would attract.
“If it’s there,” he said, “up there with this Dantanion, we will find it and stop them all.”
Brynn nodded vehemently. “These people,” she said, indicating the dancers and the conversationalists, all chatting with each other and the guests. She nodded at the servers and the cooks; the men that had chosen to stand watch whilst the soldiers ate. She nodded at new friends. “These people want you to train them.”
Drake gave her the widest smile. It was right and it was honorable that a soldier should help people, but when those people expressed a desire to help themselves alongside the soldiers then everything felt right with the world; easing the burdens he carried in his soul.
“Then we will train them,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Karin Blake glared hard at the killer desert as if she might be able to force it into submission. They had been waiting hours now, sweating like greasy bacon stuck on a grill, twitching away the insects and forced to use every moment of knowhow they’d gained from their army training to maintain focus on their target.
“I got sweat creeping everywhere,” Karin complained to the dirt, which was about three inches from her face. “Literally everywhere.”
“Y’know I can help you with that,” Palladino said, touching her shoulder to the left. “Shit… been trying for months.”
“Shut your face, Dino. We’re still right in the middle of the shit, trying to help you, remember?”
“Yeah, sorry. Y’know I’m grateful for that.”
“Bloody better be. If the Army find us, we’re going to prison.”
A somber silence fell over the three soldiers. The sun beat down relentlessly as it passed its zenith; the stony brown hills and monoliths stretching to the horizon as if composing the entire world. Dino had likened it to the set of a Mad Max movie. Karin had pointed out it was his family who’d decided to put down roots here.
“No wonder I got the hell out,” he’d grumbled.
But Karin knew he loved his family more than anything else. Why else would they be here?
“Do you think we’re gonna be in so much trouble?” came a low voice from her right. Wu, the slight Chinese-American from LA, couldn’t smooth out the deep, worried crevice that had crinkled his face since they’d set out two days ago.
“AWOL?” Dino snorted softly. “Yeah, they’re gonna cream us.”
“Maybe you,” Karin said. “Not me. My posting to Fort Bragg was a favor. I’m a free agent.” But the words were hollow and the other two knew it. Karin hadn’t been officially released yet. Couple that with Dino and Wu’s absence and she was firmly placed slam bang in the same barrel of camel dung.
“Compassionate grounds,” Dino said. “That’s what we’ll plead.”
Karin shifted her weapon — a reliable M16A2 rifle — to ease a cramp in her shoulders. The current dilemma was an interesting one for her — because, despite all her new plans, she really wanted to help Dino out. Take away the bluster, the manly testosterone and immaturity and he was a likable guy, devoted to his family, raised to care for his friends. She could imagine him in another role, as one of those customer service guys that actually wanted to help his customers. Dino had been there for her every time during her stint — when the heart-breaking memories became too vivid or when the anger broke like a deadly tidal wave and threatened to wash the rest of her life away.
“See that?” Wu said, nodding at the horizon. “Dust.”
“Tire dust,” Dino said. “We’re on.”
Scrambling up, gear creaking, shedding dust and dirt, they ran low toward the next mound, keeping under cover and only two hundred meters from Dino’s old house. They could see the white shutters, the patterned curtains, the low fence. They could see that someone had left the outside lights on. Occasionally, they saw shadows pass the windows.
Dino’s mother, father and older brother would be there today.
The dust trail continued to bloom, its source hidden behind another mound of dirt. Karin tracked it, gauging the distance between it and the house.
“Two minutes,” she said. “We ready?”
“All good.”
“Yeah, damn right.”
A short chance to reflect on the consequences of their upcoming actions. On the one hand they were doing the right thing, but on the other much about it was strictly illegal. And in the darkest corner of her mind a nasty voice hissed that it went against her plans.
No. Not exactly.
She would need men like these.
The other life fell away when the new training kicked in. Karin felt like a new person, reborn. At least able to progress, which for the genius, capable woman she’d been shouldn’t ever have been difficult. Instead, life kicked her in the chest again and again, constantly forcing her back.
After all these weeks and months of planning, the mind was now ready too.
“Here we go,” Dino said.
A dusty Range Rover appeared in the lee of two hills, and followed the half-track all the way to a parking area in front of the house. The dust plume followed it, then billowed around it as the vehicle stopped. A minute passed and then the doors opened.
Figures moved at the house’s front window.
Karin glanced across at Dino. “Are we go?”
“Been a go since I heard these clowns were taking a piece of my family.”
Five emerged from the car; leather jackets open, jeans hanging loose, faces twisted into hard sneers. One of them pointed a gun at the house and pantomimed a fake shot. Laughter sprang up between the men. One kicked at the fence that bordered the well-tended garden. Another simply jumped over the top.
Karin watched as the door opened and a man emerged, fighting his other son, making him go back inside. A woman’s plaintive tones rang out; a threat to call the cops.
Dino’s father closed the door behind him and, unarmed, faced all five thugs. “What is it you want this week?”
Satisfied nobody was left inside the car, Dino ran hard and low, using the vehicle as cover. Karin tracked him to the left and Wu to the right. When Dino heard that his family were being intimidated and bullied into unknown deals by a dope gang who’d decided to take over the sparsely inhabited area, he’d flipped. The information was off the record. The police were compassionate but couldn’t watch the place twenty four hours a day. If a bunch of guys wanted to move to the near desert and live, then that was their affair. Kept them out of the city.
His father’s face was bruised from previous meetings, an eye blackened. Karin knew that Dino’s mother’s face was also bruised, and his brother’s right arm broken.
A swaggering youth kicked at garden ornaments, destroying and scattering them. He put a bullet through the front window, grinning as the glass shattered and the woman screamed. One of his colleagues shot out a top floor window, sheltering and hooting as shards showered all over him.
The tallest man grabbed hold of Dino’s father, pulled him close and jammed the barrel of a handgun into his mouth.
“You ready to give this shithole up, pops? Walk away? Only you left now and we can come back every day.”