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"He's not going to believe that if Tafari doesn't believe that."
"Tell him the treasure isn't located anywhere around here."
Annja was quiet for a moment. The men had finished replacing the tire on the
Land Rover, and everyone was preparing to continue.
"It is, though," Annja said. "And I'll bet Tafari knows it is, too." She took
out the Spider Stone and looked at the map etched on its surface. She knew
every line of it by now. "Leaving isn't the answer. We're too deep into it
now. The only way out is to go through with this."
Chapter 26
"You haven't asked me why."
Looking up from the maps they were studying as they ate, Annja studied Tanisha
Diouf. "Asked you why what?"
"Why I'm out here."
Annja didn't understand.
"In the savanna," Tanisha said. "When I could be home in London with my kids."
She glanced at Kamil and Bashir. The boys played in the nearby scrub, going
deeper and deeper into the wilderness as they got braver. "To hear my mother
tell it, where I should be with my kids." She sighed. "There's nothing worse
than a mom call."
Annja had seen Tanisha talking on the satellite phone earlier.
"Does your mom call to give you grief over what you do?" Tanisha asked.
"I kind of missed out on that," Annja said.
"You lost your mom?" Tanisha looked stricken. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to
bring up anything that would "
"Actually, I was raised in an orphanage."
"I've seen you on that show "
"Chasing History's Monsters," Annja said.
" and no one ever mentioned it."
"Not exactly something you want advertised on a television show like that,"
Annja said. She waited a beat. "So why are you?"
"Why am I what?" Tanisha asked.
"Out here. In the wilds of West Africa. With your boys."
"I was working for Childress in London. Operating some of the drilling
platforms he's working in the North Sea. I had a deal set up with him where I
was two weeks on-site and two weeks home with my kids. Still available for
calls, though." Tanisha ate another peach slice. "Then he approached me about
this." She waved her fork around to take in the savanna.
"Was the offer too good to turn down?"
"It was good. Don't get me wrong there. But it was something else that made me
come here."
Annja waited.
"I grew up in London," Tanisha said. "But my grandparents grew up in the
United States. In Georgia. Near Atlanta. Before that, according to my father
and grandfather, my people were here."
"West Africa?"
Tanisha nodded. "They were from the Hausa." She looked at Annja. "The same
people who made that Spider Stone." She shrugged. "So, in a way, taking this
job meant that I could see my homeland. I didn't know if it would make a
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difference."
"Does it?"
Tanisha hesitated. "I don't know. The job and the boys have been keeping me
frantic. The sabotage and destruction of the equipment has been the worst.
That always causes a drain on time and energy." She took a deep breath and let
it out. "But sometimes, when I'm alone or it's really late at night, or when
I'm talking to Jaineba, this place just feels like home." Shaking her head,
she looked at Annja. "Isn't that weird?"
Annja thought about the sword she carried, the one Joan had carried into
battle. I've seen stuff a lot weirder than that, she thought.
An hour later, they came to a rise and Annja looked down into the slight
valley below. A small stream, nothing like the Senegal River or any of the
other three that fed the country, wound through the valley and for a time,
just as the Spider Stone map showed became two streams.
There was something about the land that drew Annja's attention. Pieces of the
Spider Stone's map and the topography files she'd been studying fit together
inside her head.
She had the driver stop and she got out at the top of the hill.
Garin, noticing that she had stopped, ordered his vehicle to a halt also. He
clambered out with his assault rifle in hand.
"What is it?" he asked.
"We're here," Annja said, controlling the excitement that filled her. "This is
the Brothers of Water."
Garin looked around at the area. "You're sure?"
Annja nodded. She saw the landmarks she'd been searching for the hills that
formed a bowl-shaped depression and the two streams that made a wishbone only
a little to the right of her position. There, like the Senegal River was
formed by the mixing of the Semefé and Bafing Rivers, the two streams came
from one, then pooled into a depression at the bottom of the valley.
"It's here," she said. "Or it doesn't exist at all."
They began in the center of the valley. Annja marked off sections by natural
landforms. The hunt kicked off in earnest.
"What are we looking for exactly?" McIntosh asked.
"A door," Annja said. "At least, that's what I think it is. On the map on the
Spider Stone, it shows a rectangle that I think is a door."
"But you might be wrong," he said.
"Archaeology isn't as exact a science as mathematics or physics," Annja said.
"There's a lot of guesswork involved, conclusions that you draw that may never
be proved."
"The rectangle could just as easily be an unmarked grave," he said.
Annja replied grudgingly, "Yes. But that's not what the stone says."
Tafari watched the woman search the valley. Hours passed and the sun settled
over the western horizon. Still, she didn't give up.
Nor did he.
He lay on his chest on another hill and held a pair of binoculars to his eyes
as the woman continued her quest. Eventually, some of those hunting in the
area were pulled off the search to set up camp.
Zifa crawled up to him and handed him a satellite phone. "Childress," Zifa
said.
Taking the phone, Tafari cradled it to his face and said, "Yes?"
"I think this is a waste of time," Childress complained. "Whatever she thinks
she has, whatever you think she has, she doesn't have it."
Tafari said nothing. He kept watch through the binoculars. Below, the
searchers were starting to use flashlights, not even giving up to the night.
"Did you hear me?" Childress demanded.
"I did," Tafari replied.
"What are you going to do?"
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"Be patient."
"It's just a superstition," Childress argued. "If there was anything to find
here, it would have been found by now." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]