Webb was in such high spirits that he knew the trees would not drip on him; the rain would make way. The ground, though slippery, would not make him fall and the face of the moon had emerged primarily to light his way. Such were the perks and expectations of greatness. All he needed now were half a dozen men and women to lie along his path to stop his boots from getting muddy.
Something to work on.
Webb couldn’t remember a happier time. This was the allotted hour when Ramses had promised to offer up the scroll — the very document Webb had been working toward for over thirty years. The Pythians might have been formed to further his quest for Saint Germain, but the scroll was the answer to every riddle, the gate to eternity.
Goodbye Pythians, Julian Marsh and New York. Hello Tyler Webb and the entire meaning of my life.
Beauregard stopped and peeled apart two tent flaps, shaking the material first so that it wouldn’t drip on Webb’s bent head as he entered. Webb found himself inside a small place, lined and floored with padded quilting the color of blood, stitched with gold. A man dressed in a loin cloth sat cross-legged opposite him, arms covered with bracelets and wristlets, and ears pierced, his lobes pulled taut by tear-shaped weights. The man was dirty looking, and greasy as if smeared with oils. His lips were almost black and his eyes were pits where poisonous snakes and spiders fought for supremacy.
Webb halted, surprised. “Where is Ramses?”
“He is… engaged.” The despicable individual’s voice was deceptively smooth, vowels rolling like well-lubricated cogs. “I am… the man whom you seek.”
“This is not what I was promised.”
“Is it not? How do you know? You have not yet seen what I offer.”
Webb remained tight-lipped. He wasn’t about to blurt out his life’s greatest secret to a stranger. To the man’s right, he now saw, lay a large, haphazard mound of Egyptian rugs and discarded furs, beneath which something moved very slowly. A human shaped mass if ever he’d seen one, and no doubt one of this man’s bought slaves.
Webb’s euphoria got the better of him. “All right, do you have it? The scroll? I mean — how could you? I can verify its authenticity so do not try to dupe me.”
The unusual figure studied him for such a long time Webb almost called on Beauregard’s assistance. Finally though, he began to speak. “Ramses did indeed tell me about what you seek. You know there is a prosperous trade in everything illicit — from scrolls and parchments to enormous bronzed statues, from Akkadian to Mongol and from the bones of gods to the skeletons of Alexander and Genghis Khan themselves. They are the prized possessions of the filthy rich, trophies with which to impress and control your peers, currency in which to trade. How many thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of scrolls are out there, my friend?”
“I only want one,” Webb snapped.
“And that is why you are still searching. It would have been easier to find an honest man on Wall Street.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Webb decided he’d gone off topic and a prompt might be in order. “Have you done it?”
“Wall Street? No. But I do have your scroll.”
“Prove it to me.”
Shifting a little, the peculiar man drew a long, deep breath. He took a moment to rearrange the rugs at his side, affording Webb the view of a pale, naked flank, before completely covering the slave, and then clucked what Webb could only assume was a black forked tongue.
“Well… well. To business. The German, Leopold — I am sure you know his name — was an addict. A man much like yourself — obsessed with this legendary figure they called Le Comte de Saint Germain. A wealthy explorer, he spent most of his life searching for clues. He was considered the world’s foremost authority on the Count.”
Webb knew everything there was to know about Leopold, but it helped to hear this man speak of him. He had been trying for decades to gain access to the man’s archives, his vaults, even his home, but had always failed to find a single shred regarding Saint Germain. Leopold’s craftiness was just too sharp even for Webb, it had seemed.
“This scroll fell into the wrong hands following Leopold’s death. As you know it forms part of the journal he took around the world, cataloguing every find, every quest, every single strand of evidence. From Stonehenge to Paris and Milan, it is a scruffy, well-used tome. Inside Leopold has used many pens, always hurriedly, a moment stolen in time as he continued his endless quest. It will need collating, but it is the real deal and it is worth more than the life of any normal man. What would you offer?”
Webb would offer the world, but kept his face neutral. He knew that with his additional knowledge and familiarity with Saint Germain, with his wealth of contacts and data, he stood the best chance of cracking history’s greatest secret…
Who — or what — was Saint Germain and where are his greatest treasures?
To believe in one acknowledged belief in the other.
“I offer…” he paused, mindful of the fact that the expected monetary accoutrements arising from Marsh’s New York escapade would now never materialize. However…
“Everything I have,” he said seriously, holding up his black pre-paid credit card. Material possessions did not matter anymore. He could find the man and the treasure on his own and with what little he had frittered away elsewhere.
“Then we have a deal,” the man said, taking the card and swiping it through some kind of reader. The numbers must have pleased him, for Webb saw his eyes widen. Quietly, he then issued an order.
The rugs and furs slithered away from a rising shape. Webb averted his eyes from the man a moment too late, leaving a lingering scar across his memory.
“Take it.”
Webb reached out and took a proffered pouch about the size of a small backpack, feeling the supple brown leather between his fingers and then turned to leave. It took a moment to remember to check the disorganized contents, but he did so briefly for he wanted to save the luscious pleasure of full revelation for a most intimate moment.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Hayden Jaye stayed low and well away from the barge’s round windows as she spoke on the sat-phone. The interior was in semi-darkness, illuminated only by one dim lantern, but that was good. Several times these last few days she had seen guards venturing close, as if trying to see inside. Smyth had positioned himself on deck, the eternal guardian and soldier, and Lauren had busied herself by helping out with the “guests” and their food. The news coming back from the bazaar was hardly reassuring; the revelations surrounding Secretary Robert Price and the CIA particularly damning. Trouble was, Hayden wasn’t entirely sure what their next move should be.
I don’t like this one little bit.
Part of the reason a leader became a leader was that they acted well under pressure, made the right decisions and brought their people home. During this mission Hayden had acted more than a little impetuously, reacting immediately upon Beauregard’s tip and dragging the entire team into the jungle. She wondered what Price would have said about it if she’d had chance to consult him.
None of this matters. Yes, she was crowding her brain with unnecessary evils. What mattered was Price, the CIA, Tyler Webb and Ramses.
And now Kenzie.
Dahl spoke rapidly on the sat-phone, explaining the latest developments. Hayden listened with amazement, surprised that Alicia had come across her latest nemesis in the midst of the Amazon, then accepting as she heard what the ex-Mossad did for a living. Dahl’s description of her was somewhat colorful — at first tempered with dislike and wariness but later also with a little pity and maybe even some respect. He didn’t explain why, but she sensed a kinship somewhere.