Endgame: The Calling (45 page)

She coughs again. “I’m already dead.”

Maccabee looks at his fingernails. “You’re right about that,” he says absently.

Kala ignores Maccabee. She locks eyes with Baitsakhan. His gaze is like stone. Hers is something older, and harder. “I am home, Annunaki,” she whispers in Sumerian, a language only she can understand. “I am sorry that I come empty-handed. Peace and blessings.”

Baitsakhan nods. “This is for my brother, Jalair. The gods take him.” And he drives the knife into her chest.

Christopher has propped himself up and sees it all. He is mortified, riveted. Baitsakhan twists the blade as blood covers its handle. Kala whimpers, a hole carved right through her heart. He pulls the knife free and stands. He is finished.

And so is Kala.

I should have listened,
Christopher thinks, overflowing with fear.

“Hey.” Maccabee snaps his fingers in Christopher’s face. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

Christopher is too broken to lie. “I’m Christopher,” he says, unable to peel his eyes from Kala’s still bleeding body. “I know Sarah Alopay. Kala was going to ransom me.”

“Can you contact Alopay?” Maccabee asks.

“Yes.”

His newest captors share a look.

“This just gets better and better,” Maccabee says.

Maccabee hauls Christopher to his feet and drags him to the doorway. Christopher is wasted, pale, gone. Chiyoko has never seen a more frightened look in all her life.

Poor boy,
she thinks.

Maccabee drags Christopher into the stairwell and disappears. Only Baitsakhan and Kala remain. Life clings to her like late-morning dew to a spider’s web. Baitsakhan sneers, “Blood for blood,” and throws the torch onto her lap. Kala whimpers, smoke billowing, her flesh searing, clothing melting, and Baitsakhan walks away.

As soon as Chiyoko is sure he’s gone, she drops silently from the stone and pulls the wakizashi from her belt. Kala sees her through the flickering tongues of flame and manages a small smile. Chiyoko draws the blade swiftly across the Sumerian’s throat.

Kala’s eyes go dark, her arm falls outstretched, index finger extended at 166°30'32".

Rest, sister.

With the tip of her weapon Chiyoko prods Kala’s still-burning body until she finds what she’s looking for. Using the blade, she cuts the cloth and picks up the ring. It rattles down the length of the steel and stops at the hand guard. Chiyoko stares at it for a moment, feels, senses, knows she got what she came for.

Kala did too.

Chiyoko secures the ancient ring and looks at her tracker display. Jago and Sarah are less than 15 km away. They’ll be in the parking lot soon. It’s time to go and meet them.

Time to get the disk.

Time to Play Endgame.

It’s full of stars.
^lxvii

Audi A8 Leaving Gobekli Tepe

Christopher is dragged up the stairs, into the night, toward the party. They skirt around the rave until they reach the parking lot, where he is thrown in the back of a black sedan. He slides to the far door. His leg is killing him. He puts his face in his hands and begins to cry.

Maccabee gets behind the wheel, and Baitsakhan is in the passenger seat. Baitsakhan turns around and studies Christopher, his swollen lips curled in distaste.

“If you try to escape, I will gut you,” Baitsakhan warns. “And if you keep crying, I will gut you.”

Christopher tries to get himself under control. He can’t bear to meet Baitsakhan’s eyes. He hated Kala with all his heart, but no one deserved that. These two are monsters.

They pull out of the parking lot, Christopher staring out the window. He sees the glow of the lasers and the smiling people and a girl running giddily across the parking lot. They have so much to live for, these happy kids. They’re just like he was before the meteors fell, just like Sarah was. He’s glad they don’t know what he knows, that they’re able to live freely and in the moment. At least for now. Christopher remembers Sarah’s words:
Endgame is a puzzle. The solution is life.
But he realizes that she didn’t tell him everything. Endgame might hold the key to life, but Endgame itself is death, just as Kala promised.

But the game is death,
he thinks, as if he is speaking to Sarah.

And then, as he stares blankly out the window, wondering what Baitsakhan and Maccabee are going to do to him, and if he’s about to die, and how it’s going to happen, and how terrible it’s going to be, he sees Sarah, behind the wheel of another car, passing them.

Just like that.

Was she real? He doesn’t know. Can’t be sure. She comes and goes, and fades into the distance. She is gone.

The game is death.

He plants his hands on the glass and he knows. He’s going to die. He’s going to die and he will never see Sarah Alopay again.

Peugeot 307 on the
anl
urfa Mardin Yolu, Route D400, Heading East

A black Audi screams past the 307 as Sarah and Jago pull into the parking lot at Gobekli Tepe. They were expecting Kala and Christopher, not all these cars and buses and revelers.

“How’re we supposed to find her in this?” Sarah asks, waving her hand in front of her.

“Look for someone like us,” Jago answers, the M4 resting in his lap. “Someone with guns.”

And that’s when Sarah sees her. A girl in a black bodysuit, a hood, a mask. Yeah, that definitely fits the description of a Player. Sarah points her out.

“Told you,” Jago says. He clicks the safety off. “Easy.”

When the girl sees them, she tears off her hood and spreads her arms out wide. It isn’t Kala.

“Is that . . . ?”

“The mute,” Sarah says.

Chiyoko works her way to the driver window, signing frantically. She makes a show of demonstrating that her hands are empty.

“What the hell is this?” Jago says, his voice low. “Why is she here?”

Sarah rolls down the window. “Are you with Kala?” she asks.

Chiyoko reaches for her phone and the notepad program she can use to communicate. She hears a gun cock within the car and stops, glancing up.

“Hands where we can see them,” growls Jago.

Chiyoko sighs.

“Where’s Kala?” Sarah asks again.

Chiyoko shakes her head at Sarah and draws her thumb slowly across her throat.

“Dead?”

Chiyoko nods.

“You killed her?” Jago asks, leaning across Sarah to get a better look at Chiyoko.

Chiyoko ignores Jago’s question, the answer too complicated to communicate right now. Instead, she points to Sarah, then clasps both her hands over her heart in a loving gesture, then points at Sarah again.

“My . . . my friend?” Sarah asks hesitantly. “My
boy
friend?”

Chiyoko nods. She points down the road at the pair of taillights that are quickly melting into the night. Then, she holds up two fingers.

“Two of them?” Sarah asks. “Took Christopher?”

Chiyoko nods.

Jago claps sarcastically from the passenger seat. “Shit—next time bring something to write with.”

Chiyoko frowns, gestures at her pockets, then at his gun.

“Don’t blame me,” he says. “This is Endgame, sister. You know the drill.”

“Hell with this,” says Sarah, putting the car in gear. “We’ve got to catch them. Whoever they are.” With Christopher in trouble, Chiyoko is an afterthought. “Thanks,” Sarah shouts out of the window as she steps on the gas.

“Whoa!” shouts Jago as Chiyoko leaps in front of the car, blocking their path.

Sarah barely has a chance to hit the brakes. She grips the wheel with both hands. “What the hell, Mu?”

Chiyoko holds out her sheathed short sword and slams it flat on the hood. She makes a grand bow, as if she’s presenting the blade to Sarah and Jago.

“I think she wants to come with us,” Jago says.

They don’t have time to negotiate. Sarah leans her head out the window. “All right, come on, but don’t try anything!” From the corner of her mouth, to Jago, she whispers, “If things get weird, kill her.”

“Gladly.”

Chiyoko opens the back door. As she gets in, she hands her sword to Jago. And then Sarah guns the car in reverse.

“I guess I should thank you,” Sarah yells as she cranes to look out the rear window. “If we save my friend, it will be because of you.”

Chiyoko bows again. When she straightens, she sees some of the lights on the HUD creeping along the bottom of the windshield. She points at them as if to ask what they are.

“Oh, you’re in for a treat,” Sarah says, piloting the car backward at 50 mph.

“Yeah,” says Jago. “We’re full of surprises.”

Sarah yanks the parking brake and they spin around. She throws the car directly into 2nd gear and drops the pedal and they’re off. She extinguishes the headlights as they hit the pavement. As soon as she does, the inside of the windshield transforms. They can see everything in front of them. The road, the sky, all of the stars above. The brake lights of the unsuspecting Audi. As Chiyoko looks around, she sees that all of the windows are night-vision equipped. She blows out a long ascending whistle that conveys her amazement.

“I thought you were a mute,” Jago quips.

Chiyoko reaches into her pocket, producing her cell phone. She begins typing frantically. When she’s finished, she hands the phone to Jago, who reads the message.

“Listen to this,” he says to Sarah. “It’s Maccabee and Baitsakhan we’re chasing. They’ve got your . . . friend. He’s got an injured leg. Chiyoko here promises, on her honor, to help us and not kill us—so long as we let her examine the disk afterward.” Jago narrows his eyes at Chiyoko. “I don’t know.”

Chiyoko snatches back her phone and types another message.

“Well?” Sarah asks.

“She says her line used to care for the disks. Says she knows stuff about them.” Jago eyeballs Chiyoko. “You going to share some of that knowledge, shy girl?”

Chiyoko nods grudgingly.

“Then I guess we’ve got a deal.” Jago reaches under his seat. “You want a gun?”

Chiyoko claps once.

Jago asks, “Twice for no?”

She claps once again.

“Good enough,” Jago says. He passes her a two-tone sterling-and-black Browning Pro-40. She grabs the stock.

“On your sword and honor, right?” Jago asks before releasing the barrel. “You aren’t gonna betray us.”

Chiyoko gives him a curt nod.

He lets go. “All right. In case you forget, I’ve got this.” He pats the M4, the one with the grenade launcher mounted under the barrel.

Sarah drops the 307 into 4th gear and they go from 94 to 114 in two seconds. The Audi is fast, but the crappy-looking 307 is faster. They snake along the road; all the turns are tight, fast, and low, the wheels screeching, the engine roaring. Sarah’s an expert driver, and within a minute they’re 50 m behind the A8. And judging by the casual driving of their targets, still undetected.

Chiyoko rolls down her window and takes aim. Jago rolls down his window and braces the M4 on the side mirror.

“Ready?” he asks.

Chiyoko nods.

“Fire!”

Chiyoko fires three rounds and Jago a short burst. The slugs hit the Audi and glance off it in sparks and flares.