Chase Baker and the God Boy: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 3) (17 page)

He slaps his chest as if to give me
a clue.

“Air,” I say. “They all need air
shafts to pump oxygen in and CO2 out.”

“Canary in a coal mine,” he says.
“Since we don’t have shit in the way of weaponry, going Stallone and blasting
our way in and out won’t cut it.”

“We’ll drown them in their own
air.”

“Now you’re cooking with Wesson,
Baker. And when the time comes for that kid to show his face, we snatch him up
and make a run for it.”

“Won’t be that easy. Could be he’ll
be attached at the hip to Kashmiri, and if that’s the case, we’ll need
aforementioned weapons, be they ever so humble.”

“Well, he’s just a man and those
black-robed Thuggee soldiers surrounding him are just flesh and blood no matter
how much they try and pull off their Darth Vader thing. They put on their socks
just like us in the morning. Trust me, bullets and knives will pierce their
skin.” He smiles. “But here’s where we harbor a distinct advantage. We can
commandeer Bruce’s scoped 30.06. As the nasties make their exit from the
tunnel, we can pick them off one by one. It’ll be fun. Like a video game.”

“Not enough rounds for that.”

“But we give the impression we have
enough rounds. You see, we form a semi-circle around their front perimeter, Anjali
shooting from one spot, myself from another, and you from another. When the
Thuggees run for cover, that’s our signal to move in and make the extraction.”

Standing, sighing.

“That’s the plan,” I say, my tone
less than confident.

“Only one we got. And it’s as good
as any. Or maybe you as the boss man can do better?”

“Why do I feel like we’ve suddenly
been transported back in time and we’re working for my old man on some
excavation project in some remote part of the world?”

“Well, you got remote part of the
world right anyway.”

“I appreciate the input, Tone, and
your plans aren’t all that bad. I’m just not sure how practical they are.”

“What’s that mean, Chase?”

“It means, whenever I’ve had to do
an extraction, be it with civilian boots or army issue boots on, it usually went
down one way and one way only: I thumbed off the safety on my hand cannon, ran
in after my target, pressed a little C-4 against the cell door, set it off,
grabbed the
extractee
by the collar, dragged him back out of the place.
We’d already be gone by the time anyone figured out what just happened.”

“Stealth and surprise,” Tony nods.
“You’re talkin’ stealth and surprise like an Apache Indian.”

“Precisely.”

We pause for a beat while a knot
forms in my stomach and I contemplate all the many ways I might have extracted
Elizabeth from that diamond mine if only I’d had the chance. Then, “You take
first watch?”

Tony’s eyes shift from me to Anjali’s
tent back to me again. He smiles.

“It’s not like that,” I say.

He shoots me a wink while a single
droplet of sweat slowly falls down his unshaven cheek.

“Sure it’s not,” he says. Then, his
grin turns into a frown. “Elizabeth. You thought she would…”

“Yes,” I say before he can get the words
out. “I thought she might…live.”

“Just remember,” he says, “you’re
alive. And the life we lead by chasing after fortune and fame, well…you never
know. Anything can happen. Bad or good.”

Now it’s my turn to smile. But I
can’t honestly say it has anything to do with happiness.

“You never know,” I say. “Love the
one you’re with, right?”

“I grew up in the sixties. That’s
my motto.”

He grabs his .9mm by the grip,
pulls back the slide, cocks a round into the chamber.

“I’ll be sitting in a tree case you
need anything, Baker.”

“What could I possibly need from
you,” I say, as he disappears into the darkness.

***

Moments later, I lie on my back inside my tent, my shirt and T-shirt
removed in the hot, humid heat, but my pants and boots still on, just in case I
need to move quickly. The only thing you can truly expect in the jungle is the
unexpected. Or so I warn myself over and over again.

“Life is a jungle,” I whisper. “I
like the jungle…need the jungle. Elizabeth needed the jungle too. Needed to be
searching. And when she found what she wanted, she died for it.”

It’s as if she knew I was watching.
That somehow fate had intervened one final time and waited for my arrival to
the jungle, just so I could witness her final, horrible moments chained to
those pilasters above the open diamond mine, only inches away from the Golden
Kali Statue she desired for so long.

I close my eyes, wait for the onset
of sleep. But I know my efforts will be futile. I listen to the insects buzzing
all around me. The howls of the spider monkeys. Snakes slither in the grass
outside my tent—paralysis and death in their venomous bite. Black spiders crawl
up and down the tent poles, spinning their webs. Bats swoop down from overhead
while tigers eye their prey in the deep heart of darkness.

The entire lethal world feels
alive. But I feel dead inside.

Maybe I could have saved Elizabeth if
I hadn’t wasted so much time getting to the jungle from Kathmandu. But then, I
hadn’t wasted any time. Her fate was sealed before those elephants carried us
into the forest. Hell, her fate was sealed before Singh hired me. It was sealed
the moment I left her standing there on the train platform five years ago in
Varanasi.

Then, a sound, coming from outside
the tent. Like an animal trying to get in.

I reach for my automatic, plant a
bead on whatever it is that’s about to enter my portable domicile. When the
tent flap flips up and I see the figure of a woman in the half light, my brain
thinks,
Elizabeth
. But that’s impossible. It is instead, Anjali. Her
hair has been let down and it drapes her narrow shoulders like a smooth black
veil. She’s wearing a white tank top and a pair of black panties. Her feet are
bare.

Without a word, she crawls over to
me, onto me.

Then, “You should have worn your
boots,” I say. “Snakes thrive out there.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I know
you suffered a great loss today. I haven’t been very good about it. Forgive me.
But now I just want you to hold me and if you allow it, I’d like to hold you in
return.”

I squeeze her tightly and inhale
her rose petal scent. I feel her hair against my face and I feel my heart beating.
After a time, my eyes close and the deadly world around me goes quiet.

I sleep the restless sleep of a
broken-hearted man, until…

…my body slips out from under
Anjali’s. Slips out of the tent as though lifted by invisible gods so that I feel
myself effortlessly rising into the night sky. When I’m above the treeline, my
body stops its ascent and hovers over the jungle. Appearing from out of the
darkness, the illuminated figure of a woman who bears the burden of four sets
of arms. The burden, however, does not diminish her beauty. On the contrary,
only adds to it.

Kali…

Her hair is long and lush, her
skin milky and smooth, her eyes the color of obsidian, her lashes thick and
soft. She wears gold necklaces and many bracelets on all eight wrists. The
jewelry jangles musically with every fluid motion of her fingers, hands, and
arms, as if she were a jellyfish propelling herself along in a clear, calm,
deep, blue sea.

In one of her hands, she holds a
severed head. Elizabeth’s head. In another hand, she holds a sword, of which the
wide blade is blood-stained. In yet another hand, she holds Elizabeth’s still
bleeding heart. I want to scream at the she-devil, reach out and strangle her,
but it’s impossible to move. I am helpless.

The closer Kali comes to me, the
easier it is to make out her face, her naked breasts, her bare belly, the naval
pierced with a blue diamond stud. Her arms are never still as they wave and
twirl, hypnotizing and frightening me with their macabre dance. When she is
finally upon me, she spreads her long legs and straddles me. I enter into her
with the length of my manhood and feel her insides as if they’ve been created
not out of human flesh, but lava and flame. It’s so hot I want to scream, but I
am paralyzed.

“You belong to me, Chase Baker,”
she whispers softly, but somehow forcefully, passionately.

When I release, she begins to
laugh and her face ignites with an intense pleasure that is matched only with
my regret, shame, and disgust. She raises herself up and off of me then, and
floats away while I fall rapidly back to the earth…a mortal man touched and
violated by Satan herself.

Wake to a scream, my body on fire, sweat-soaked.

Anjali raises up, eyes wide.
“Chase, am I dreaming?”

I sit up. Listen.

Another shriek.

“Help! Somebody please! Help!” The
voice is muffled and distant. But I hear it plain enough.

“You’re not dreaming. It’s Rudy.”

Gazing at my watch. “Holy Christ. It’s
five in the morning. We’ve slept all night.”

Gathering my gear, I exit the tent,
take a quick look around for Rudy. He’s nowhere to be seen. I’m holding my
automatic, the sweat from my palm coating the grip. To my left, the Sherpas are
still asleep.

“Hey!” I bark. “Up, up!”

Both of them wake, raise themselves
from the ground.

“Ocha,” they recite instinctually.
“Ocha.”

Behind me, Anjali emerges from the
tent.

“Stay here,” I say. Then, to the
Sherpas, “You come with me.”

Another shriek comes from the
opposite side of the tree line.

“Tony!” I shout. “Tony, you awake?”

A rustling through the bush and the
old excavator appears.

“I heard it,” he says, nodding.
“Coming from that direction. Not far from the grassy opening where we used the
drone last night.”

He’s holding his automatic.

“Let’s go,” I bark.

We begin to trudge through the
forest, the Sherpas on our tail.

“By the way,” I say, “why didn’t
you wake me to take my turn on watch?”

“Saw you had company.”

“You’re all heart, Tone.” I recall
snippets of my nightmare…Kali coming to me…doing something unspeakable to me.

“Well, you know what your old man
used to say about you?”

“No, what did the old man say about
me?”

“That boy of mine…he’s a sucker for
the ladies. All they gotta do is smile at him and he’s whipped.”

“No wonder I’m not married.”

“Can’t make that crap up, Baker.”

We push through the trees and come to
the opening. It’s then we get our first look at Rudy. He’s partially covered by
a patch of tall grass, but from what I can see, he’s squatting, his pants
pulled down around his ankles. Standing four square, maybe fifty feet away, is
a black rhino. The two-ton, dinosaur-like beast is snorting through its
nostrils, bobbing back and forth on its stubby legs like a boxer warming up in his
corner, awaiting that final millisecond when the bell will ring and he comes
out charging.

“Rudy,” I say from the edge of the
woods, “don’t move.”

“Thanks for the advice, mate,” he
says in his British accent, his voice filled with quiet panic. “Shoot the thing
before he rams me.”

I turn to Tony. He’s laughing so
hard I think he might burst the buttons on his work shirt.

“You think our pistols will bring
that thing down?” I say.

“You … need…Bruce’s hunting rifle,”
Tony says in between laughs.

I turn to the Sherpas, relay the
order. They run back through the woods to the camp.

“Hold still, Rudy,” I say. “Help is
coming.”

“Hurry it up,” he says. “That beast
is growing impatient.”

“Hey, Rudy,” Tony bellows in
between chuckles, “you’ve really got yourself in a shitty situation this time,
buddy.”

“Shut up, Tony,” the bartender
says.

“This really stinks, huh?” Tony
presses. “You need toilet paper?”

“Tony, shut…up!”

The beast lets out another snort. It
takes a few, quick, thunderous steps forward towards Rudy, as if testing the
waters.

Rudy screams again.

“Oh shit,” Tony says, his voice
suddenly deadpan, “this is getting serious.”

From where I’m standing, I can see
that the blood has drained from Rudy’s face and neck, making the red rope burn
that rings it even more swollen and painful looking. His blue eyes are open
wide and he’s blinking rapidly. How the chubby, fifty-something man has been
able to hold his body in a squat position for as long as he has is beyond me.
Fear is a powerful motivator.

Some rustling coming from behind
me. I turn to see the Sherpas returning with the 30.06. They hand me the rifle.
Turning to Tony.

“You’re the better shot,” I say.

He looks at me like I just asked
him to shoot his own mother.

“I’m not gonna shoot a beautiful,
majestic rhino,” he barks. “I’d rather shoot Rudy.”