A choice that would have far-reaching consequences.
Time sped up again and Alby leaped to his feet and ran back toward the half-raised drawbridge, toward Zoe.
He scrambled up the sloping wooden bridge, clawing at it with his fingernails. He came to Zoe’s fingers, hooked over the edge, just as they slipped a final time—
—and he caught one of her hands with both of his, leaning back with all his strength to hold her.
Below him, Zoe snapped to look up, a new look of hope leaping across her face. Then, knowing that one of her hands was secure, she used her other hand to loosen the grip of the warrior-monk hanging from her belt and wrenched him free of her.
The warrior-monk screamed as he fell away from her, landing with a splash in the water below before several large reptilian shapes converged on him and took him under.
Then with Alby’s help, Zoe hauled herself up and over the edge of the drawbridge.
“Thanks, kid.”
“We really have to go,” he said.
They slid together on their butts down the sloping drawbridge, landing on their feet inside the tower—just in time to see the Congolese Army men reach the Pillar on the other drawbridge and bring it to the attention of Switchblade.
“Damn. The Second Pillar…” Zoe breathed.
Alby swore under his breath, but he’d made his choice.
“This way,” he said firmly, pushing Zoe down the stone steps inside the tower, to the spot where Wizard and Lily waited with Ono and Diane Cassidy.
Lily called, “Quickly! There’s an escape tunnel down here. Come on!”
Alby made to follow Zoe down the steps, but it was right then that the most unexpected thing of all happened.
He got shot.
HE’D BEEN about to follow Zoe down the stairs when suddenly something slammed into his left shoulder, spinning him, hurling him three feet backward, into the nearby wall.
Alby slumped to the base of the wall, dazed, in shock, his left shoulder burning in a way that he’d never felt before. He looked down at it to discover that the entire shoulder was awash with blood.
His blood!
He saw Zoe down at the base of the stairs, saw her try to come for him, but it was too late—the Congolese Army men and the Asian-American Marine were now entering the tower—and Wizard had to pull Zoe back down the stairs and into the escape tunnel down there.
Leaving Alby just sitting there against the stone wall, dumbstruck, bloodied, and horrified, and now at the mercy of the US Marine coming toward him.
DARK, WET,and narrow, the escape tunnel led northward.
Through its tight confines they ran, Ono leading the way, holding a flaming torch above his head. He was followed by Lily and Diane Cassidy, with Wizard and Zoe bringing up the rear.
“Oh, God! Alby!” Zoe cried as she ran.
“We had to leave him!” Wizard said with surprising firmness.
“I think he got hit—”
“Wolf can’t be so evil as to kill a small boy! And we had to get away! We have to protect Lily! What did you manage to get from the sacred island?”
“We grabbed the Orb and its sighting device, but we lost the Second Pillar!” Zoe said. “Alby saved me instead! Wolf’s men got it before they got him!”
Wizard kept running hard. “After he’s done with the Neetha, Wolf and his rogue army will now have both Pillars, plus the Firestone and the Philosopher’s Stone! They’ll have everything they need to perform the ceremony at the Second Vertex and at every other vertex to come! This is a disaster!”
They dashed up a long flight of stone steps and came to a concealed stone doorway cut into a small cave, the end of the escape tunnel.
Emerging from the cave, they found themselves on the banks of the wide jungle river that fed the Neetha waterfall.
To the south, three volcanoes loomed over a seamless green valley—except for a newly opened hole in the canopy, the Neetha’s ravine was completely hidden by the jungle.
Shouts and gunfire made them whip around.
About a hundred yards from the cave, another battle was being waged on the riverbank.
Two Congolese Army pilots were desperately defending a large seaplane from about thirty Neetha warrior- monks. The seaplane—or more correctly, “flying boat”—was a very old model, a Soviet rip-off of the classic Boeing 314 “Clipper.”
Big and bulky, with an upper flight deck and a lower passenger cabin, it had four wing-mounted propeller engines and a huge bulbous belly that sat low in the river. Cheap and old, knock-off Clippers like this one were common in those parts of Africa where the only landing strips were rivers.
Right now this Clipper was literally crawling with Neetha warriors. They were scaling its flanks, jumping on
