their SAS guards, all dead, all shot in the head.
AIRSPACE OVER AFRICA
DECEMBER 10, 2007, 0930 HOURS
BELCHING SMOKE from its wounded starboard engine, The Halicarnassus limped through the African sky. The landscape below it was an undulating carpet of lush green hills.
They had been flying for nearly two hours since their dramatic escape from Abu Simbel and were now flying over Uganda in eastern Africa.
Their current plan was to head for their old station in Kenya and regroup.
Zoe and Wizard entered the cockpit, where Sky Monster sat alone, flying the plane. Lily and Alby were downstairs, sleeping after their exciting morning.
“You rang?” Zoe said.
“Got good news and bad news,” Sky Monster said. “Which do you want first?”
“The good news,” Wizard said.
“OK. A message just came in from England, from the twins. Something about the Second Vertex.”
Wizard leaped to a nearby computer and scanned the message. “Cape Town. Table Mountain. Oh, those boys are talented. Good work, boys.
Good work !”
Zoe turned to Sky Monster. “And the bad news?”
“We’re almost out of fuel and Kenya just became a no-go zone.”
“What!”
“How so?”
“About ten minutes ago I started picking up aerial signals running north–south grid patterns up and down the Kenyan-Ugandan border.Perfect north–south runs, which means computer-driven planes, which means unmanned aerial drones. Predators.”
“But only the US and the Saudis have Predator drones—” Wizard began.
“The fuel situation,” Zoe said. “How much longer can we stay in the air?”
Sky Monster grimaced. “I had to dump a lot back on that highway when our engine got hit. I figure we got enough fuel to reach Rwanda. Another hour at the absolute most. Then we’ll be on fumes.”
“We’re going to have to land in Rwanda?” Zoe said.
“We can land or we can crash,” Sky Monster said. “Either way, we’re going to be on the ground somewhere in Africa within the hour.”
Zoe exchanged a look with Wizard.
Wizard said, “We have seven days to get to the Second Vertex. But we need to find the Second Pillar first, and Iolanthe said it still resides with the Neetha tribe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We’ll need a chopper at some point, but we can make it to the Congo going overland through Rwanda.”
“Overland through Rwanda?” Zoe said. “I hate to remind you, Max, but Rwanda is still classified as the most dangerous place on Earth, with the Congo a close second.”
Wizard grabbed a map of central Africa and unrolled it on the cockpit’s console:
Sky Monster said, “We’re here, over Uganda, just north of Lake Victoria.”
Wizard pointed at the vast southern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo—taking up the whole left-hand side of the map. “The DRC’s nearly all jungle. Dense jungle. Few roads, no runways for a 747 anyway. Maybe we can steal a chopper in Rwanda, the UN left dozens of supply depots there.”
“We’re gonna need help,” Zoe said. “Supplies, language, local customs. Solomon?”
Wizard nodded. “Solomon. I’ll call him at the farm in Kenya. See if he can hightail it to Rwanda with supplies and anything else he can muster.”
Sky Monster added, “See if he can bring some jet fuel while he’s at it. I don’t want to abandon my plane in Rwanda. She deserves more than that.”
Zoe saw the look on Sky Monster’s face—to abandon his trusty plane in one of the wildest countries in Africa hit him hard.
But then he said, “Go on, you guys. Better grab whatever you’re going to take with you, because in about forty-five minutes, we’re going down.”
WOLF’S MINE
SOMEWHERE IN AFRICA
DECEMBER 11, 2007, 1800 HOURS
DARKNESS,silence, peace.
Then a blinding flash of violent pain in his right hand jolted Jack West awake.
His eyes shot open—
—and he found himself lying on his back on a large slab of stone, at the base of a deep square-shaped pit, with his arms spread wide…and a large black man hammering a thick nail into his right palm!
The man brought his mallet down again, and to Jack’s horror the nail now went all the way through the flesh
