Lily smiled. She loved it when he called her that.
Later that evening, the outer door to the Presidential Suite opened and Lily rushed into the arms of the man standing in the doorway. “Pooh Bear! Pooh Bear! You came!”
The man was a shorter, younger version of Sheik Abbas. He was the great sheik’s second son, Zahir al Anzar al Abbas, call sign Saladin, but renamed by Lily Pooh Bear. Short, rotund, and bushy-bearded, he had a voice as big as his heart—and that wasbig.
With him was a taller man, thinner, with skeletal features: a master sniper once known as Archer, now Stretch, having also been rechristened by Lily.
Israeli by birth, Stretch had once been a member of the Mossad, but after a certain…conflict…with them during the Capstone chase, he was now persona non grata in Israel. In fact, it was known that the Mossad had put a price on his head for his actions back then.
Greetings were exchanged with Zoe, Sky Monster, and when they finally extracted him from his study, West.
Lily said to Pooh Bear, “And this is my friend, Alby. He’s a whiz at math and computers.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alby,” Pooh Bear roared. “I hope your intentions with my little Lily are pure. No, let me put that another way: if you break her heart, boy, I’ll hunt you down to the ends of the Earth.”
Alby gulped. “We’re just friends.”
Pooh Bear smiled, winking at Lily. “So, young Alby, are you joining us on this endeavor?”
Lily said, “Alby’s parents are currently in South America and out of phone contact. Alby was supposed to be staying with us at the farm. Now I guess he’s staying with us wherever we go.”
“So, Huntsman!” Pooh Bear exclaimed. “What ails you this time?”
“It could be bad, Pooh. Really bad. Tartarus has been neutralized, and some people want the Firestone badly. We barely got away at all.”
“They found you in Australia?”
“Yes. I’ve called a meeting, one that will bring the original team back together. Fuzzy is the last one. He’s on his way from Jamaica.”
“And Wizard?”
“He’s out of the picture for the moment, but he’s sent me enough information to make a start. With Lily’s help, I’ve managed to decipher a few of his recent discoveries.”
Pooh looked at Lily. “Is that so? How many are you up to now, young one?”
“Five, plus sign language.”
“Good girl,” he said. “Never stop learning. Never stop honing your gift.”
Pooh turned back to West, his face serious. “My father sends a message. At tomorrow’s meeting there will be a few other countries represented. Some not from the original seven. Word has got out, it seems.”
West frowned. This was moving too fast, at a pace beyond his control. It was as if he was still trying to catch up himself.
He pulled out several copies of a five-page summary he’d found amid Wizard’s notes and handed them out to the others.
“This is a summary I’ll be giving to everyone at the meeting tomorrow. It’s about Wizard’s work. Read it beforehand. It’ll be less astonishing that way.”
Then, looking at them all—his old friends, friends who had bonded over the course of a long, hard, and at times seemingly impossible mission—he smiled.
“I’m glad you’re all here for this one.”
THE MEETING
BURJ AL ARAB TOWER
DECEMBER 4, 2007
THE NEXT DAY,as each delegation arrived at the Presidential Suite, they were handed the five-page briefing.
It was a peculiar array of national representatives:
Of the original seven nations who had sponsored West’s initial quest to locate the Golden Capstone, only four were present now: Australia (West), Ireland (Zoe), the UAE (Pooh Bear), and New Zealand (Sky Monster).
Canada’s Wizard was missing in China.
Spain, having lost a man during the first mission, had declined to send a representative to this one. And Jamaica’s man, Fuzzy, was still uncharacteristically late.
“We’re still waiting for Fuzzy and a few others,” West said. “So, please, while you wait, acquaint yourself with the briefing material.”
They did so.
The briefing was headed: “The Six Ramesean Stones and the Pillars of the World.”
THE SIX RAMESEAN STONES AND
THE PILLARS OF THE WORLD
by Professor Max T. Epper,
