‘Show me,’ Sarah insisted.
Maggie opened her eyes and stepped to the door. She searched the knobs for a particular symbol then began to spin the wheel. ‘One must first achieve Right View, an understanding of the natural world around you.’ As she spoke she turned the wheel a complete revolution, stopping with the corresponding knob pointing directly upright near a notch on the door. She could feel the gears catch ever so slightly at the top of her turn. ‘Sarah, I think I felt something.’
Sarah smiled. She had heard it, too. She was very experienced with locks and knew the oldest one ever found was over four thousand years old. By comparison, this one was fairly new. She pressed her ear to the wood and listened while Maggie continued. ‘Keep going.’
‘Next comes Right Intention, the will to change,’ she said as she cranked the wheel in the opposite direction.
Sarah heard a soft ting of metal against metal as the next spoke came into position. ‘It’s working!’
‘Then Right Speech, the use of proper words.’ The wheel spun easier, as if centuries of cobwebs had just been cleaned from the mechanism concealed beneath the wood. ‘Right Action, ridding one’s self from corruption … Right Livelihood, abstaining from doing harm … Right Effort, the banishment of negative thought … Right Mindfulness, understand the world’s effect on the body …’
The gears seemed to click louder with each alignment. Both Sarah and Maggie were certain that their effort would soon be rewarded.
‘And lastly,’ Maggie said, ‘Right Concentration, the art of meditation.’
As the final turn was completed, Sarah heard the ancient tumblers fall into place.
The door popped open with a hiss, inviting them into Polo’s chamber.
Sadly, only one of them would ever step inside.
67
Sarah heard the man before she saw him, and what she heard made her blood boil.
It was the unmistakable sound of laughter.
She turned around to see a lone Chinese gunman leveling a pistol at her and Maggie. As he stepped closer, she recognized the sharp features of his face. He was Feng He, the man that Garcia had said was now in charge of the Brotherhood.
He had come to do his dirty work personally.
‘Your weapons,’ he demanded, ‘place them on the floor.’
Sarah slowly pulled her pistol out of the concealed holster and lowered it to the ground by her feet. As she straightened up again, she noticed Maggie had not done the same.
‘I said “weapons”.’ Feng moved closer. ‘That means both of you.’
Maggie took a defiant step forward. ‘Why do you need my weapon? You never would have made it this far without me!’
The revelation struck Sarah like a sucker punch.
Her gut churned with disbelief.
Maggie was working with the Brotherhood?
‘And neither would they,’ Feng hissed, his delivery dripping with menace. ‘If you had come to me in the beginning and told me of their quest, I would have kept my promise and paid you the sum of their millions combined. But instead, you betrayed your people by helping the foreigners raid our country and steal our history. The only reason you contacted me is because the Brotherhood was on your trail. You got scared like a weak-minded Westerner and decided to hedge your bets. How could I reward someone like that?’
Everything that Feng had said about Maggie was true. In the beginning, she had never considered betraying her team. She enjoyed their company and had worked extremely hard to help them find the treasure. Unfortunately, her allegiance shifted when they interrogated one of the Fists in Tibet. Not because of their actions, but because of the captive’s answers.
Under the threat of torture, he had revealed that several pictures of the team had been sent to the criminal organization’s headquarters in Hong Kong, a city where Maggie was very well known. She knew it was only a matter of time before her friends and family were vigorously questioned about her whereabouts, and she couldn’t let that happen. Although she liked her teammates, she would do anything to protect her loved ones.
While translating the anguished pleas of the captive, she had made her choice: she would give the Fists what they were missing. She would use her knowledge of Polo’s treasure to bargain for her freedom and the safety of her family and, for a small percentage of the haul, she would reveal the location of the riches as soon as the team figured it out. Unfortunately for the hunters, the lateness of Maggie’s betrayal had prevented the team from suspecting anything.
Which made it hurt even more.
Sarah faced Maggie, her lower back brushing against the top of the pedestal. ‘You bitch! You sold us out! That’s how these bastards found us here!’
Maggie slowly reached for the pistol inside her cargo pocket as Feng watched on.
He could only smile as he watched the inevitable creep into her mind.
He knew Maggie was going to make a move.
Sarah sensed it as well. She slid a hand behind her back and reached for the wooden-bound codex. She knew it wasn’t much, but it was the only solid thing within reach. She was tempted to call out for help, hoping that Cobb or McNutt could come to her aid, but she quickly realized that she hadn’t heard a transmission in several minutes. She wondered if the comms had gone down for everyone, or if Maggie or Feng were blocking the signal.
Then it happened.
Maggie spun to face her now-former teammate, the weapon still in hand.
Sarah reacted instantly, pulling the codex from behind her back and hurling the two-foot long wooden slats at Maggie’s face. She hoped that the desecration of the sacred artifact would be the last thing that Maggie ever expected, and fortunately she was right.
Maggie’s face registered a mix of shock and horror as she instinctively raised her arm to ward off the attack. The wooden boards slammed into her wrist, knocking her gun to the cavern floor with a clatter. Dismayed and disarmed, Maggie assumed a classic fighting pose and readied herself for Sarah’s assault.
Sarah was happy to oblige.
She sprang across the room in a lightning-fast flurry of swinging limbs.
Maggie managed to sidestep the onslaught just at the last second. She retaliated with a flying sidekick, catching Sarah squarely in the ribs. The impact sent Sarah sprawling backwards, and she slammed into the cavern wall.
Determined to end the battle before her younger opponent could wear her down, Maggie rushed in but Sarah lunged upward with one fist outstretched. Her knuckles caught Maggie just under the chin, dropping her to the floor. Sarah tried to stomp on her while she was down, but Maggie lithely twisted away from the attack.
Maggie sprang up from the floor and wiped the trickle of blood from her split lip.
Sarah circled her wounded prey like a hungry predator.
The display delighted Feng, who simply stood nearby and watched as the two women squared off. In his chauvinistic mind, women were put on this planet for two reasons: to breed and to serve. Few things gave him greater joy than watching the unrestrained combat of the weaker sex. Not that he cared who actually won the fight.
Either way, he would end up victorious.
And that was the only thing that mattered.
Sarah danced to her right, and Maggie deftly shifted her weight to counter. Sarah kept moving, constantly adjusting her stance as she searched for the right opportunity to strike. When she sensed an opening, Sarah pounced forward with a series of rapid punches. When those failed to connect, she spun her body, using the torque to slam her elbow into Maggie’s midsection as she passed by. She finished the 360-degree rotation by launching her trailing leg skyward and driving her knee into the bottom of Maggie’s chin.