The Cleric's Vault (35 page)

He
knew she was right.
 
They could
stay up all night trying to figure out where Tommy and Will were or the location
the clue eluded to, but they would most likely be unsuccessful with both.
 
He doubted he would sleep much, but
even a few minutes of rest would be welcome.

“Okay,”
he nodded finally.
 
“We’ll get up
early and see what we can find out.”

Mauricio
agreed.
 
“I’ll check around first
thing in the morning.
 
Perhaps I
can find a clue as to what happened or where they headed.”

She
patted Wyatt on the shoulder as if confirming his decision was a good one.
 
“We will find them.”

He
wished he had her confidence.
 

Chapter 60

Utah, United States

Alexander
Lindsey stood silently overlooking the mountain range from the third floor
office in his mansion.
 
It was
early in the morning.
 
The sun was
just beginning to slip above the horizon to the east.
 
He wore his usual morning robe, featuring a burgundy silk
with a dark green collar and belt.
 
It looked more like a smoking jacket.
 
The coffee in his hand was still steaming, a stark contrast
to the cold outside.
 
Snow covered
the mountains as far as he could see, a possible look into the season to
come.
 
Cold winters were something
he’d grown accustomed to over the years.
 
There was something about the cold that afforded him a great deal of
privacy.
 
The harsher the winter,
the fewer people bothered him.
 
However, soon the comfort of privacy had been unable to soothe his
nerves for the last few days, though.
 
He’d tossed and turned each night for nearly a week and his eyes had big
bags under them as a result.
 
The
deprivation of sleep was something he loathed.
 
He usually needed a full eight hours to be completely
functional.
 

Agent
Weaver had called him late in the night to report that her team was staked out
at a hotel in Ecuador, observing Wyatt’s group.
 

In
her report, she had informed him that Agent Collack had been killed in a
gunfight at the church, as had three more of her men.
 
Weaver had tried to assure him that things were under
control but shootouts in the streets of Cuenca were hardly easy to cover up.
 
A quick search on the web confirmed her
story.
 
Local news outlets all over
Ecuador were covering the odd killings outside the Iglesia de Maria
Auxiliadora.

He’d
spent a tremendous amount of time and money making sure that the policing
agencies of the world had no way to track his operatives.
 
When a mercenary signed up to take a
mission for him, they were completely removed from the grid, untraceable except
by him.
 
Still, it was unsettling
that Collack had been killed.
 
James Collack was one of the best assets to have ever worked for the
Order.
 
How many missions he’d
completed was difficult to remember for Lindsey to remember.
 

Another
issue on his mind was the lack of communication between he and his other agent
in play.
 
Will had not reported in
for nearly two days, which was very untypical for him.
 
Lindsey understood Will’s plan.
 
He was no doubt in the midst of the
enemy at this point and most likely couldn’t get time for a phone call.
 
It was still unnerving, though.
 

Alexander
liked to be in total control.
 
He
liked to have all the strings attached to his fingers so that everything went
according to plan.
 
Clearly, the
people they were dealing with were dangerous.
 
He had to press on, though.
 
Finding the last chamber of Akhanan was all that
mattered.
 
Once he found that,
nothing could stop him.

Perhaps
it was time to cultivate a new relationship within the Justice Department.
 
Then there was the little clandestine
problem.
 
Emily Starks had been an
irritation, as had Sam Townsend.
 
So when Eric Jennings came up with the plan to eliminate both, Lindsey
had been more than willing to provide him with a sacrificial lamb, an operative
that had gone rogue a few times and had a problem with drinking.
 
The problem being that when he drank,
he talked too much.

Jennings’
call about twenty minutes after Weaver’s had been somewhat of a
consolation.
 
Starks and Townsend
were both dead, effectively eliminating government interference from Axis or
internal investigations.
 
He smiled
at the thought and sipped a cup of the hot coffee, trying to remind himself
that everything was going according to plan.
 
It was God’s plan, after all.

Chapter 61

Southeastern Ecuador

It
had been a long night for Tommy and Will.
 
They had been unable to sleep save for a few minutes of dozing off here
and there.
 
Each time their heads
lowered in sleep, they woke to the tightening of the rope around their chests
as their body weight pressed against it.
 
The man who’d taken them had also slept lightly, if any.
 
It seemed every time Tommy looked over
at him, his cold, alert eyes were staring at he and Will.
 
Tommy wondered if their captor slept
with his eyes open.

The
early morning dew had been an annoyance, virtually soaking their clothes as
they sat on the ground, tied to a small tree.
 
It was doubtful the stranger had that problem since he slept
in the back of the SUV with the rear door open so he could watch his two
prisoners throughout the night.

Schultz
saw the man rouse from his vague slumber and walk over to where he sat upright
on the ground.
 
He carried his gun
in hand for both men to see.

“Time
to go,” he stated simply.

“Where
are we going?” Tommy asked, unable to move against the tight ropes.

“There’s
a village not far from here.
 
We’ll
drive there and ask the locals about the place on this map.”

“I’ve
been thinking about those lines,” he offered.
 
“My guess is that either they are trails or rivers.
 
I doubt they’re roads.
 
If they are rivers, one of the locals
might be able to point us in the exact direction we need to go.”

Their
captor seemed happy with the notion for a moment.
 
Then, his face took on a sinister look.
 
“You, I need,” he said to Tommy.
 
“But him,” he paused, “I don’t.”
 
Carlson raised his weapon and pointed
it at Will.
 

Will
just stared up at him, not an ounce of fear anywhere on his face.
 
Anger was there though.
 
A rage filled his eyes like a
hurricane.

“Wait!”
Tommy pleaded.
 
“If you need me
then you have to take both of us.
 
You kill him and I won’t tell you anything else.”

“Maybe
I don’t need either of you,” the stranger said coldly.

Schultz
stared through him.
 
“You know that
isn’t true.
 
Even if you find the
location on this map you won’t be able to find the treasure without the
information I have.”

“What
information?” Carlson asked, skeptical.

“You’ll
just have to wait and see,” Tommy narrowed his eyes.

The
stranger lowered his gun.
 
“I’m
pretty sure you’re bluffing.
 
But
I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
 
He
waved the gun towards the car.
 
“I’m going to untie you both but once you’re free, tie him up again in
the back of the car.”

Tommy
nodded while Will just continued to stare.

Ten
minutes later, they were back on the road heading southeast.
 
Tommy had tied Will in the back as he
was told.
 
He had his cell phone in
his pocket but wasn’t sure if the battery still had any power left in it or
not.
 

Schultz
hadn’t been bluffing when he told the stranger that there was something he
knew.
 
The problem was, Tommy
didn’t have access to what he needed either.
 
The golden leaves they’d found before were certainly a
necessary part of the puzzle.
 
Even
if they found the location of the next chamber, he doubted they would be able
to get to it.
 
At the moment, he
wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
 
It was anybody’s guess how this wildcard would react to a
situation like that.

*****

Adriana
was already awake when the sun peeked over the mountains to the east.
 
She’d been up for a while, wrestling
with a problem in her mind.
 
After
some consideration, she’d picked up the phone and made a call.
 
The conversation had been brief but
maybe it helped their situation.

She
made her way over to Wyatt’s room and found the door propped open with the
little locking bar near the top.
 
After politely knocking, she heard Sean tell her to come in.
 
She wasn’t the only one up early.
 
She figured that everyone probably had
the same anxiety she had, if not more.
 
She noticed that he looked as if he hadn’t slept all night, his weary
eyes scanned the computer screen, looking for something.
 
Mauricio was on the phone again, busily
talking to someone in Spanish.
 
She
observed that Mauricio was on the phone, talking to someone in Spanish, saying
something about a stolen vehicle.

“How
did you sleep?” Sean asked her while he typed on the computer.
 
He didn’t even look up.

She
forced a smile.
 
“I slept
okay.
 
Maybe a few hours.”

He
didn’t respond.
 
His exhausted eyes
just continued scanning the screen.

“Did
you find anything?” she continued.

Finally,
he looked up.
 
A serious look
covered his face.
 
“Unfortunately,
no.
 
But we are still checking some
resources.”

“What
are you looking at?” she asked as she stepped around the corner of the desk and
tilted her head to see what he was doing.

He
pointed at the screen.
 
“Just this
Bible text again.
 
I’m trying to
figure out what it means.”

She
read the text on the monitor silently.
 
When she was finished, she thought for a moment.
 
“What is so special about the Jordan
River?” she wondered out loud.

“In
ancient Israel, it was a very important river to the Hebrews.
 
Almost sacred.
 
In this particular story, a general for
a foreign army is stricken with leprosy and is desperate so he goes to see one
of Israel’s prophets, Elisha.
 
The
prophet doesn’t even come out to greet him but instead sends his assistant who
tells the general to go wash in the Jordan River seven times and he will be
healed.

Adriana
looked skeptical.
 
“So why that
river?”

Sean
grinned out of the corner of his mouth.
 
“That’s exactly what the general said.
 
He was furious that Elisha wouldn’t meet with him personally
and also at the fact that he’d told him to go wash in a dirty river.
 
The general wondered why he couldn’t
just go back to his homeland and wash in one of their own rivers.”

Realization
washed over Adriana’s face.
 
“Wait
a minute,” she thought for a second before continuing.
 
“Dirty river!
 
That must be it!”

Sean
looked confused.
 
“What do you
mean?”

“I
think I know which way they were headed,” she blurted out.

Mauricio
stopped his conversation on the phone, excusing himself and telling whomever he
was talking to that he’d call back.

She
continued.
 
“I spoke with a friend
a little earlier today.
 
Let’s just
say they are in the surveillance business.
 
They told me that he had video of your truck heading east
last night at the same time that we were coming here.”

A
flicker of hope came into Sean’s eyes along with skepticism.
 
“Can you trust them?”

She
ignored his query and went on.
 
“At
first, that didn’t mean much to me.
 
Really, that car could have been headed anywhere.
 
Adriana had a renewed energy.
 
She pulled the laptop around and
stroked a few keys.
 
Google
appeared and then she typed in a few more.
 
A second later, a listing of Ecuadorian maps appeared, all
featuring prominent rivers.

She
scanned the screen with her finger and then found what she was looking for and
tapped the screen with her nail.
 
“The Zamora River,” she said.
 
“Mauricio, is that a dirty river?
 
I’ve never been in that area before.”

He
nodded.
 
“Hmm.
 
Yes, it is.
 
Lots of dirt and silt from the mountains wash into it.
 
It’s over towards the border with
Peru.
  
The original settlers
in that area called it
Father River
.”

Sean
raised an eyebrow.
 
“Ok, but that
river has got to be pretty long, right?
 
The odds of us finding the location or Tommy are both slim to none.
 
Plus, we don’t know for sure they went
that way.”

Her
face grew stern.
 
“It’s the only
lead we have, Sean.
 
Right now, we
don’t have any other choice.”

She
was leaning close to him.
 
He could
smell a sweet, simple perfume that she must have put on earlier in the morning
after her shower.
 
The scent
lingered for a second, distracting him from the job at hand.
 
Quickly, he regained his senses.

“What
about the washing seven times?” Mauricio interrupted his thoughts.
 
“That must have something to do with
the solution to the riddle.”

Sean
and Adriana looked at him.
 

“You’re
right,” Sean said.
 
He typed in a
few more words and pulled up several different images of the river from tourist
blogs and a number of other resources.
 
Then something caught his eye.
 
“Does the Zamora have any waterfalls?” he asked.

Mauricio
nodded.
 
“Not too many dramatic
ones but yes, it has several waterfalls.
 
Why?”

“Because
if you go over water falls you will go under the river, right?
 
Just like in the Bible story where he
was told to go under seven times.
 
Maybe the clue in the text is that the location of the entrance to the
chamber is at the seventh waterfall.”

The
stout Latino man nodded slowly.
 
Then he pointed at the map on the monitor.
 
“Up here is where the river begins.”
 

His
finger moved slightly to the line of another river.
 
“Notice this other river begins here.
 
The two will join at this point.”
 
He traced the line to where it and the
Zamora became one.
 
“There is a
waterfall right here.”
 
He tapped
the screen to emphasize his point.

“I’m
guessing there are six others, three in each river, before you get to that spot,”
Sean said.

“Probably,”
Delgado agreed.
 
“It’s worth a
shot.”

Sean
became silent.
 
His mind
raced.
 
Then he said, “Maury,
remember the Priest’s garden?
 
The
pathways became one under the tree.
 
These two rivers,” he looked at the screen again, “they become one here
too.”

“It
would appear we are headed east,” Adriana said with a smile.
 

Wyatt’s
face filled with determination.
 
“Yes, it would.”

*****

Angela
watched as the three exited the hotel.
 
She sat perfectly still as they got in their cars and drove down the
road leading back towards the city.
 
She spoke to a middle-aged man standing next to her, telling him to get
everyone rolling.
 
He had a
different appearance than the rest of her group, sporting a thick, brown beard
with a few strands of gray.
 
The
beard matched the man’s hair in thickness and in color.
 
Most of the team were young, probably
in their mid to late twenties.
 
This man, though, looked to be in his upper forties.
 
Mercenary work was not something that
usually had a long career span.
 
So
either this guy was good at what he did or he was some kind of action
junkie.
 
Either way, she was glad
he was on her side.
 
He’d joined up
with her team in the middle of the night, a special guest she’d heard of and
called upon after the fiasco at the church.