“A ghost. An evil spirit. The Old Mother. She drove these elephants into the cave four hundred thousand years ago. And when I found her, she destroyed their minds, took control of my friends; Bill, Wayne…all of them.” She turned back to him. “I know you won’t believe me, but I can feel her in me.”
King strode cautiously over to stand in front of her, just as she had done with her co-workers. He took her hand in his. “Felice, I don’t know if I believe in ghosts, but I’m sure we can find some way to deal with this. Let me help you.”
This time she complied, but the look she gave him was one of resignation, not gratitude. King didn’t really care, as long as it got her moving. They moved away from the shrine and down the path through the bones. The seven zombies remained still as statues behind them.
He had hoped that her distress would ease once away from the shrine, but it was not to be. “Did you see the bodies?” she asked as they negotiated the tunnel back to the surface. “They turned into cannibals. My fault. All my fault.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Felice. You’re a scientist; think about this rationally. Something caused it to happen; a virus or a prion or something. That’s what you’ve got to focus on; that’s what Manifold wants to control. And if they can figure out how it works, then they can make other people like that.”
She gazed past him, unresponsive. He decided to try a different tack.
“Felice. That’s who you are; Felice Carter. Where did you say you’re from? Somewhere in Washington state?”
“Kirkland,” she murmured.
“That’s near Seattle, right? Have you been to the Space Needle.”
A laugh escaped her lips, cracking the mask of despair. “That’s for tourists.”
King smiled. “Well, I’ll tell you what. When you’re back home in Kirkland, I’ll come visit you and you can take me to the Space Needle.”
“Elvis,” she said, unexpectedly. “Your shirt.”
“Yeah? What about it?”
“I’ll take you to the Experience Music Project. You might like that.”
“It’s a date.” He grinned. It was working; he’d broken through whatever spell she was under. “Right now, though, we need to figure out what happened to you in there. Can you do that?”
Her face clouded again, but she nodded.
“Something happened when you found that skull, right? You were exposed to something?”
“Maybe. But what I saw…that wasn’t from any virus.”
“What did you see?”
He listened as she struggled to find words to express what she had seen and experienced-a vision of a proto-human woman and her evolution of consciousness, and how that had led to the mass death of thousands of elephants, more than four hundred millennia previously. “Those memories didn’t come from exposure to a pathogen,” she concluded. “Don’t you see? I was… possessed, somehow. And it spread to the others; I was controlling them, just like she controlled those elephants.”
“What if there’s another explanation?” King was desperate to find that alterative, but he was out of his depth. Sara would have known. “Isn’t there such a thing as genetic memory? Animals are born knowing how to do some things, right? Birds follow migration patterns to places they’ve never been before.
“When you first told me about the elephant graveyard, you mentioned collective behavior. What if this is a manifestation of that?”
Her brows knit together in contemplation, but he could tell that she was finally thinking rationally again. “I suppose it could be something like that.”
“Now, tell me what Manifold would want with something like that.”
She pondered this for a moment, and then her eyes grew wide. “Control. Turn people into robots, or mindless zombies like…” She gestured back down the passage.
“Good girl. Figuring out what they’re after is the first step toward fighting it.” He gently turned her so that she was facing the mouth of the cave. “Now, let’s get out-”
The words died along with his brief elation as he saw the barrel of an AK-47 aimed at his chest.
17.
The Russian-designed Kalashnikov rifle was the first thing King saw. The weapon attracted his gaze like a magnet, but he forced himself to look up, into the eyes of the man that held it.
It was one of the Ethiopian workers they had hired in Addis Ababa. A second man, also from that group and likewise armed, advanced and quickly relieved King of his MP5, then shoved King toward the exit, barking an order- presumably in Amharic-that required no translation. King raised his hands in a show of compliance, and moved out of the cave, with a wide-eyed Felice right next to him.
The other two Ethiopian hired men were waiting outside with Moses, and while the men were armed, King noted that Moses did not appear to be under guard. “What’s going on here, Moses?”
Night had descended over the valley and it was hard to see the young man’s expression, when he spoke, there was a hint of regret in his voice. “I have been in the cave. I have seen the treasure of ivory; a treasure that belongs to the people of Ethiopia, to all Africans.”
“Ivory?” Felice asked, incredulous. “You’re doing this for the ivory?”
“The ivory is a means to an end. But it is also emblematic of the very reason that such action is necessary. Ivory, like gold, diamonds, and oil, is one of Africa’s great natural resources that has been plundered for centuries to enrich the coffers of foreign kings, while leaving the indigenous people to wallow in poverty, or worse, be enslaved by those foreigners.”
King thought the speech sounded rehearsed, but he did not interrupt.
“This must change,” Moses continued. “The wealth of Africa must be used to enrich the people of Africa, starting with the ivory in the cave.
“Did you know that, despite an international ban on the sale of ivory, the wholesale slaughter of elephants continues. The elephants are on the verge of extinction, and yet foreigners continue to buy ivory. My kinsmen, desperate for money, facilitate the slaughter, but it is the foreign ivory brokers who reap the reward. When news of this discovery reaches the world, those foreigners will act swiftly to take control of this place in order to secure their own prosperity-just as the cartel has done with diamonds-and nothing will change. That cannot be allowed to happen.”
“So you want to ensure control of the ivory for your own people,” King said. “I get that. It’s a noble endeavor. But this isn’t the way to go about it.”
“You misunderstand. We will use this treasure to buy back our freedom, to break the chains of foreign oppression.”
King’s eyes widened in comprehension. “You’re going to use it to finance a revolution.”
“These men,” Moses gestured to the armed Ethiopians, “are soldiers in the Pan-African Army of Freedom. Yes, they are revolutionaries, but they do not seek merely to topple on corrupt government and replace it with another. They desire, as do I, an end to the control of Africa’s wealth and people, by foreign interests. The era of colonial Africa will end. We will see it done.”
“Let me guess. They’ll make you president for life.”
Moses chuckled. “I have no such ambition. Besides, the struggle will be long, but in time, it will be up to the people of Africa to elect a capable leader. Someone untainted by corruption and the influence of foreign corporations.”
“Do you really believe you could ever get them all to agree to that? Get all the different tribes and ethnic groups to put aside centuries of conflict?”
Moses’ voice suddenly took on a harsh edge. “Who do you really believe is responsible for tribal violence and ethnic cleansing? Foreign powers have continued to set brother against brother, playing on superstitious fears in order to keep their control, and when tragedy occurs, they stand back and say: ‘Look, the Africans are savages who cannot rule themselves.’ Do not presume to lecture me on the matter of African history.”
