The Cross of Sins (2 page)

There was a soft, electronic chime, and the elevator doors opened.

"And I'm not one for long, sad goodbyes." Jake stepped into the lift.

"You want to see it as much as I do. You want to hold the Devil in your hands as much as any man. Don't tell me it's not true."

Jake said nothing. He knew Perron was right, but he also knew if he gave in now, if he let Perron screw him down on price, then the Frenchman would never stop screwing him over. Hell, there was no guarantee that Perron wasn't already hatching his own wicked little plans to get his hands on what he wanted. But that's what this game was all about—getting your hands on the treasure. Perron wanted the Devil. Jake wanted the money.

And the elevator doors began to close.

"Wait," Perron was getting desperate. "I'll pay you double."

Jake smiled as the doors continued to slide shut, but shook his head. "You blew it, pal."

"Triple!" Perron cried. "That's my last offer."

Jake's hand slammed against the rubber-cushioned rim of one of the elevator doors. Perron held his breath. Jake eyed him sternly. "Two hundred thousand—U.S.—deposited directly into my account before I leave this building."

Perron squirmed visibly. The thought of parting with so much money was obviously killing him inside. "One hundred thousand now," he offered, "the other hundred thousand when you bring me the Devil."

Jake forced open the elevator doors and extended his hand to Perron. "Done," he said with a firm shake.

Back in Perron's palatial suite, the Frenchman loaded up a glass of scotch and ice. It was still early, but this was no ordinary conversation taking place on any ordinary day. "Forgive this dull suite, won't you. Damned striped wallpaper, paintings of vases and fruit. Normally, I like to surround myself with art that's a little less—how do you say—restrained." Perron took a gulp of his drink, and then unlocked the top drawer of a bureau in the suite's parlor and unfurled a handful of maps and graphs across the coffee table in front of Jake.

"Mount Kahna Toga?" Jake asked, trying to read the scribble of geological data.

Perron nodded. "I've spoken to the locals. On my last trip, I met a man—116 years old—claims to know the location of the Devil. He was only a boy at the time. He says he followed the elders into the volcano on that day back in 1899, followed them to where they placed the Devil, inside a small alcove in the heart of the mountain."

Perron looked at Jake as he pored over the maps. Casually, he leaned across Jake, his hand brushing against the young man's shoulder and resting there. "That was just after the first eruption—"

"I know," Jake said, still poring over the charts. "It devastated half the island. Killed most of its inhabitants. The people thought they'd brought a curse upon their land, so they made an idol. The Devil. A twelve inch diamond statue forged from the volcano's own rock and hardened lava. They took it to Mount Kahna Toga, into the caverns, deep within the tunnels of the volcano. It was an offering, so that destruction and chaos would never again rain death and fire upon the island."

"Faith," Perron chuckled. "It's the same all over the world. So well intended. And yet so delusional."

"There are some who would argue," Jake countered.

"I have no doubt," the Frenchman said. "But in this case, science is about to give faith a lesson in reality."

Perron turned away from Jake and the charts. He walked over to the open bay doors that led out onto the balcony of the suite. He didn't step outside, but simply gazed upon the reflection of the hot sun bouncing off the jutting, slated rooftops of Paris. "Mount Kahna Toga is going to erupt. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps next year. Perhaps at this very moment. If the Devil is inside the mountain, as the old man claims it is, then it won't be for much longer." Perron crossed back to where Jake stood. The Frenchman took another sip of his early morning drink.

Jake stood back, narrowing his eyes at the silhouette of Perron looking out the window. "Why me? What makes you think I'd risk my life venturing into a volcano for something that may be nothing more than a village legend? An old man's tall tale? An island ghost story?"

"Because you're the best. Because I like you." Perron turned, a broad smirk on his face. "Because it's what you love, isn't it?"

Jake said nothing. He did not move a muscle.

By noon that day, he was on another plane, this time flying out of Orly on his way to the South Pacific.

As soon as he arrived on the island, Jake hired an interpreter and met with the ancient Kahna Togan that Perron had spoken of. He made a tape recording of his interview with the old man and played it back over and over, until he knew the trail into the volcano, step-by-step. He made drawings. He etched out a map in his mind. If the old man was wrong, if he had been lying or imagining the entire story, then Jake knew he would be walking into a fiery hell.

But if he was right—

If the diamond Devil really did exist—

Then Jake Stone would be the first person beyond this island paradise ever to lay his eyes, to lay his hands, on one of the most mythical treasures of the South Pacific. And he knew that was worth a hell of a lot more than 200,000 euros.

—Or was it?

So far, the old man had been right.

Jake had entered the mountain behind a waterfall that flowed into a beautiful, sulfurous, milky-green lagoon. Sulfur bubbles popped and burst on the surface of the water. Once he was inside the waterfall's cave, he pulled a match from the pocket of his cargo pants and lit his torch. A large flame ignited. He repositioned the wire climbing cable, looped tightly over one shoulder, and started his descent into the mountain.

As the drumming of the waterfall faded behind him, so did the light of day. Soon he was guiding himself along by nothing more than fiery torchlight and the memory of a 116-year-old man. Down through the cave of shimmering pools, he made his way, along the ridge of gleaming stalagmites and into the steaming tunnel. Jake followed the cave along for almost an hour, heading steadily downward, journeying deeper and deeper into the heart of the volcano. At the base of the cave, he looked around for a rocky step formation, just as the old man had described, descending down even further. He found it, hidden behind an enormous fallen rock; a tremor must have knocked it loose from the ceiling of the cavern.

By now, the heat was becoming unbearable. His throat felt thick and tight, his lungs felt as if they would cave in with the pressure of the fumes. Sweat ran in dozens of tiny rivulets down his face. His clothes were drenched and heavy. He was losing mobility with the weight of the sweat-soaked material, so he hauled off the coiled wire cable and stripped off his shirt. It slid groggily off his skin and slapped against the rocky floor. Jake replaced the cable and squeezed between the fallen rock and the cave wall before heading cautiously down the rock steps.

When the earth leveled out once more, the ceiling of the tunnel lowered significantly, and Jake found himself crouching low to move. He quickly realized that with its smooth rounded walls he had entered an ancient hardened lava tube—a flawlessly formed passage once chiseled out through the interior of the mountain by a jet of lava.

As if to remind him of his own mortality, a low rumble suddenly ripped through the mountain. The ground beneath his feet quaked. The torch fell from his hand and the flame went out. He quickly dropped to his knees to steady himself, ready to jolt into action should the lava tube suddenly open up beneath him or fill with another stream of fire. But Jake Stone was tough. He was scarred, but he was a survivor, and if nothing else, he was certain he could claw his way out of this volcano should hell rise up to meet him. He had seen hell many times before, and every time he had lived to tell the tale.

Seconds passed. The earth soon quieted down and the tremor rippled away, but the warning sign was enough for Jake to push on as fast as he could. He jumped to his feet, and that was when he saw it.

A soft, red glow reflecting off the walls far ahead.

A radiance dancing across the distant ceiling.

A slow incandescence filling the dark void of the earth.

The old man had called it the well of fire, and as Jake took a deep breath and walked determinedly toward the glowing red light, he realized why.

The tunnel opened out onto what could only be described as a medieval vision of the Inferno. The well of fire was a giant cavern that dropped fifty feet into a smoldering moat of molten lava circling a huge, dome-like island in the middle. Enormous gas pockets ascended through the thick churning river of magma and exploded on the surface, spitting globules of liquid rock forty feet into the air. The heat was so intense Jake felt every inch of his flesh tighten. The sweat on his body formed a mirror of the cauldron, the taut muscles of his smooth, hairless chest and glassy, ridged stomach glistening bright orange. Veins stood out like cables beneath his searing skin.

His keen eyes quickly sized up the cavern.

Over one section of the lake of lava stretched a narrow rock bridge crossing to the large central island. Jake noticed now there was a crater in the middle of the island. This was the place. According to the old man, the Devil of Kahna Toga was hidden inside that pit, in an alcove midway down the interior of the crater wall. Jake would have to cross the rock bridge and lower himself in through the small opening of the crater to reach the alcove inside.

Only then would he know if the Devil truly did exist.

Only then would he know if his quest was a brave risk or reckless gamble.

He edged his way slowly around the thin rim of the cavern and stopped at the foot of the rock bridge. It was a precarious formation, suspended fifty feet over a fiery death, its width tapering in at the middle to what looked like mere inches.

Jake lifted his right foot and eased it out onto the bridge. Small stones, unmoved for decades, centuries, perhaps even millennia, trickled away from his boot and rained into the lava below, turning instantly to fluid on impact. He pushed his left foot out over the bridge, and suddenly he was over the magma sea. He tried not to look beyond the bridge at the lava below. He tried to focus on the stony ledge ahead of him and the rocky bridge beneath his feet. But the glow of the lava was so bright it was impossible not to be drawn by its hypnotic shimmer.

"One step at a time," he assured himself steadily. "One step at a ti—" But before he could finish his sentence, it began to hail.

He felt the rocky debris from the cavern's ceiling pelt his bare arms and shoulders before the rumble began. When the sound of the tremor hit the cavern, it echoed like thunder. The walls and ceiling seemed to shatter like glass, the lava pitched and lapped ferociously below as the entire mountain shuddered.

Jake managed to hold his balance for one second before he was rocked from the bridge. As he tumbled his arms went wide. His fingers reached desperately. His nails caught onto the jagged edge of the bridge, enough for his fingertips to latch onto a craggy sheet of rock. As his body swung, his hands held firm. The lava splashed and swept up the banks of the lake, sending massive balls of magma shooting up through the air around Jake.

He tightened his hold and hoisted his legs up to the rock bridge. He got a foothold. The mountain chamber was still quaking violently. Great chunks of rock plunged from the ceiling. Jake pulled himself up onto the bridge, pressing his stomach against the hot rock, keeping his center of gravity as low as possible. He glanced upward to see a giant boulder break loose from above and plummet directly toward the middle of the bridge. Jake knew that when it hit the bridge, it would take the whole walkway into the bubbling lava with it. He had a second to decide—back up fast, or run for his life and pray he'd make it to the other side of the trembling bridge before it was smashed to pieces.

Jake Stone's legs exploded underneath him, pumping into action.

He sprang from his belly and charged across the bridge like a cougar in the heat of the hunt. As the boulder bore down upon him, Jake put on all the speed he could manage. The giant rock missed his back by inches before smashing into the narrow bridge. Rock pulverized rock. With still fifteen feet to go, Jake looked beneath his feet to see the entire length of the bridge splinter apart. He launched himself into the air, getting just enough push from the rocky foundation of the bridge before gravity sucked it into the molten river below.

He sailed through the air, clearing the jump to safety.

Just.

His stomach crunched against the edge of the island's rim, knocking the wind out of him. Below, pillars of fire spewed upward as the lava devoured the falling bridge. Despite his locked lungs and the razored flesh of his abdomen, Jake managed to haul his legs up and over the edge of the island an instant before a pyre of flames sailed up the wall and winged its way toward the cavern's ceiling.

As the flames vanished in the air, the tremor, too, began to subside.

Jake gave himself a second to recover. He forced air into his lungs. He touched his fingers to his battered ribs, but felt no breaks. With a groan, he sat up and looked around. He was now stranded on the rim of the dome-like island in the middle of a lake of burning orange liquid.

If there was a way out, he could not see it from here.

All he could do now was find the damn Devil of Khana Toga or die trying.

The island arced to a central point, like a beehive. At the top, a small opening led down into its core. Jake climbed to the top and stepped warily along the thin crust of the rim and peered in through the opening. Immense heat funneled up from inside. There was a drop of twenty feet, maybe thirty. Beyond that, Jake could see nothing but the blinding orange glow of lava.

Seconds later, he was lashing the wire cable tight around a giant rock that had dropped and come to rest near the edge of the moat. He made sure the knot was tied firmly, and then wrapped the other end of the cable tightly about his waist. He trailed it out behind him as he returned to the opening, and then slowly, carefully, Jake lowered himself into the oven of the crater.