And with those words, Wolf left.
He came to the gantry elevator, where he was met by two figures standing in the shadows there.
One of them stepped forward.
It was Vulture.
“American,” he said slyly to Wolf. “My government grows impatient. You arrived at Abu Simbel too late and the Pillar got away. You knew our bargain: we get the First Pillar—with its reward—and you get the second one.”
“I know the bargain, Saudi,” Wolf said. “You will get the First Pillar, but not before we have our hands on the Second. I know you, Vulture. I also know your methods: you’ve been known to abandon your allies when your ends have been achieved but not theirs. And I want to know for sure that I have your allegiance for the entirety of this mission. The First Pillar is not in our possession right now—Max Epper has it—but it is easily acquired. It’s the Second that poses a more immediate problem.”
“Why?” Vulture said.
“Captain West’s plane was last seen heading south into Africa. They’re going for the Second Pillar, among the Neetha tribe in central Africa. But the Neetha are elusive.”
Vulture said, “Epper thinks he can locate them.”
“So if we find him, we find the Neetha and their Pillar. This should suit the House of Saud, Vulture, for when we catch up with Epper, we get your Pillar. This is why you’re going to help me now: call your government and get them to open their treasury and offer every African nation between Sudan and South Africa whatever it costs to hire their army and cover every road, river, and border in central Africa. With Huntsman dead and Wizard on the run, it shouldn’t be hard to find him. It’s time to shut them down.”
Wolf then stepped into the gantry elevator and accompanied by Mao, Rapier, and Switchblade, whizzed up the side of the mine, leaving Vulture and his companion there. He exited the complex at ground level via an earthen doorway two hundred feet above the floor of the great cave.
As they strode out of the mine, Switchblade whispered to Wolf, “Will the knowledge of Epper be enough to find the Neetha?”
Wolf kept walking. “Max Epper is the world’s leading authority in this field, and his conclusions thus far have matched our own. Should he stumble or die, it will be of little concern, we have our own studies to fall back on. Plus we have our own expert on these matters to aid us.”
Wolf stepped out into daylight—passing several more Ethiopian guards on the way—to behold, seated and smiling in the back of his car, Miss Iolanthe Compton-Jones, Keeper of the Royal Personal Records of the United Kingdom, last seen unconscious on the docks at Abu Simbel.
VULTURE and his companion remained at the base of the gantry elevator on the floor of the mine. Vulture’s companion had requested a few additional moments here before they left.
The two of them strode across the mine floor and stopped before the lone cage suspended above the pool of arsenic.
Pooh Bear stood in the tiny medieval cage with his hands manacled, looking like a captured animal.
From his cage, he had not been able to see Vulture and his companion talking with Wolf at the elevator—so when he suddenly saw them approaching now, he mistook their presence for a rescue.
“Brother!” he cried.
Vulture’s companion—Scimitar, Pooh’s older brother—gazed up at Pooh Bear impassively.
Pooh Bear shook his bars. “Brother, quickly, set me free! Before they return—”
“They will not be returning,” Scimitar said. “Not for some time anyway. Not until this mine yields its secret.”
Pooh Bear froze, stopped shaking his bars.
“Brother, are you not here to release me?”
“I am not.”
Scimitar strolled over to the pit in which West had been killed, idly looked down into it, saw the great slab that had crushed Jack West.
He walked back over to the arsenic pool. “Brother, you have always had a fatal flaw. You ally yourself with the weak. Even as a schoolboy in the playground you defended the scrawny and the frail. This appears noble but it is ultimately foolish. There is no future in such a course.”
“And what strategy do you champion,brother ?” Pooh Bear said, anger now in his voice.
“I side with the strong,” Scimitar said, his eyes dead. “I do so for the good of our family and our nation. There is nofuture in your alliance with the small nations of the world. Yours is a childish dream, the stuff of fairy tales and children’s stories. Only an alliance with the powerful, with those who will rule, will be of any benefit to the Emirates.”
“So with your skulking Saudi friend here you side with these renegade Americans?”
“The American colonel and his Chinese allies are useful to us at the moment. Wolf uses the Chinese, the Chinese are most assuredly using him, and we use both of them. This arrangement has its dangers, but still it is better than your coalition of minnows.”
“I’d rather be in a coalition of minnows than a coalition of bandits,” Pooh shot back. “Remember, brother, there is no honor among thieves. When things go awry, your allies will not remain by your side. They will abandon you in a second.”
Scimitar gazed steadily at Pooh Bear, genuinely curious. “You value these people?” A nod at the pit: “The tragic Captain West? The Israeli Jew who is right now being sent to face the Mossad? The vulgar daughter of the Siwa Oracle—a girl who presumes it is her right to learn and who disgraces you by addressing you with the name of
