Chase Baker and the God Boy: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 3) (18 page)

“Holy shit, can you guys please
help me now!” shouts Rudy.

“Okay, okay,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

“Go get ‘em, Hemingway,” Tony says.

“Thanks,” I say. “But you’re not
off the hook that easy. You have to act as my backup in case I miss.”

“Why me?”

“Because Sherpas don’t shoot,
asshole. And you do.”

Tony cocks a round into his .9mm,
takes a knee, raises it up combat position, takes aim.

I grip the wood stocked hunting
rifle in both hands, open the bolt, cock a round into the breach, close the
bolt.

“Here I go,” I take the first step in
my approach to the open space of grassland that separates Rudy from the beast.

I’m no stranger to dangerous
situations. I’ve survived plane crashes, anaconda attacks, and I’ve even been
buried alive. But never in my life have I been made to stare down tons of wild
beast that can crush me with its horns in an instant. I’m no expert but from
what I’ve been told by white hunters in the past, a rhino can cover up to
twenty meters at a full sprint in just a few seconds. They are far faster than
they look.

The animal locks its black eyes on
me. He’s snorting, bobbing, clawing at the ground with its right hoof. There’s
no doubt in my mind he’s getting ready to charge. Raising the rifle, I press
the stock against my shoulder, sight him in, aim for the small sweet fleshy spot
above its breast plate but below its neck. Shoot too low and the bullet will
lodge itself in the thick, bony material. Shoot too high and the bullet will
either pass clean through the neck or, if it lowers its head, which it is sure
to do, will simply ricochet off the bony nose.

Inhaling slowly…thumbing off the
safety…finger on the trigger…

“Come on, come on, Chase,” Tony
insists. “He’s gonna run you over, man…Do it…Do it now.”

“Shoot him, Chase,” Rudy whispers
hard. “Hell you waiting for, mate.”

A droplet of cold sweat drips down
into my left eye, rendering it useless

The beast opens up its mouth wide, lets
loose with a loud roar. My insides turn to liquid, head begins to spin. I
exhale half my air, depress my index finger.

I shoot.

The shot misses. Too high.

I cock the rifle again, but the
bolt jams.

The rhino yelps, digs in with its
front hoofs like a sprinter taking his mark, then explodes in a full frontal
charge.

Tony shoots, but also misses.

I back step and, at the same time,
make out the sound of Rudy screaming like a girl while he runs away with his
pants down around his ankles, falling flat on his face.

Tony fires again and manages to hit
the beast in his top horn, the boney material splintering like shrapnel.
Forcing back the rifle bolt, I release the jam. Shouldering the weapon once again,
I take aim. Fire.

Another miss.

That’s when all fear simply pours
out of me like air through a suddenly punctured balloon. Realization fills my
veins. I’m about to die. While the sight of a two-ton locomotive with one
spear-tipped horn and one now jagged horn coming directly for me fills my
vision, I feel almost detached from the earth. Like my body is here, but my
soul has already pulled an Elvis and exited the building. Even the rapid-fire
gunshots coming from Tony’s .9mm don’t seem to register. Everything is slowed
down and sped up at the same time, like a broken projector.

I close my eyes, await the
collision…

…that never happens.

Something else happens instead.

The rhino passes me by entirely. It
passes by Rudy. It begins to gallop a big, wide circle around us, all the time
snorting and hissing, letting loose with the occasional grunt, like he’s much
more interested in scaring the crap out of us than killing us. And maybe he is.

After completing two full
revolutions, he simply heads for the brush and disappears.

No more rhino.

Tony approaches me, his face a patina
of relief and smiles.

Rudy comes up on my opposite side.
He’s pulling up his pants while he walks.

“Holy crap that was close,” he
says.

“Exactly,” I whisper in disbelief.
“Holy…crap.”

I’m still in a daze, my body not
yet anchored on the solid earth.

“Am I dead?” I say. “And this is
it? I gotta spend all eternity with you sons-a-bitches in heaven…or hell?”

Tony laughs aloud, slaps me on the
shoulder.

“I can think of worse situations,”
he says. “But you’re not dead… yet. Although that was one of the bravest things
I’ve ever witnessed, Baker. I have a new respect for you. And to think I used
to think of you as the spoiled little daddy’s boy. Well, look at you now.”

“Tone,” I say.

“What is it?”

“I think I peed myself.”

He steps back, gingerly. “That’s a
perfectly normal reaction to facing down a full frontal charge from a fully
grown rhino…or so I would imagine.”

After a beat, all feeling returns
to my limbs. Happily, I discover that I have not peed myself, which makes me
feel even prouder. However, it’s time we got back on the trail of the God Boy
and left this forest behind for good.

“Tony,” I say, “let’s break camp
and get moving.” Then, “Rudy, pull up your pants and help the Sherpas with the
elephants.”

“What about you?” Tony says as he
slides a fresh clip into his .9mm.

“I’m going to have a drink,” I say.
“Or maybe two.”

Making my way for the opening in
the trees, I head back to camp, hoping that Rudy had the good sense to leave
enough whiskey for me.

A half hour later camp is broken, the tents and equipment
packed up and ready for travel. We’ve mounted our elephants and now are heading
in a northwest direction towards Kashmiri’s diamond deposit, praying all the
time we’re not spotted by one of his spies along the way.

The going is slow but steady as the
elephants bust through the thickest of foliage with all the powerful efficiency
of Abrams battle tanks. At one point, I turn to make an eyeball check on the
crew when I see that Rudy’s eyes are closing, his head bobbing. The
step-and-sway motion of his elephant is putting him to sleep. Meanwhile, Tony
is ever alert and vigilant and keeping his eyes open for bandits, his cheek
stuffed with fresh tobacco. Anjali has been quiet, and the most we’ve
communicated since waking has been a few casually exchanged smiles. Perhaps she
is silently reciting prayers on behalf of her boy.

Here’s the truth of the matter: Part
of me wants to fall in love with her, but a far bigger part of me knows that I
am no good for her. That our
situation
is no good. She’s a mom and a
good one. A woman who is willing to put her life on the line in order to free
her boy. I would do the same for my little girl, in a heartbeat. But something
tells me Anjali could never be happy with a vagabond, a wanderer, an explorer.
I would only leave her frustrated. And besides, all good love ends badly no
matter what form it takes. There’s no escaping it.

Or, perhaps I’m thinking too much.
Talking myself out of a good thing. A solid and stable thing. Maybe I should
give Anjali some credit. She’s a big girl. She knows what she’s doing. Or maybe
like Tony says, I ought to get out of my own way and love the one I’m with. But
in the back and fore of my mind, I see the face of Elizabeth as I left her
alone on the train platform…as her heart was cut out of her chest by an evil
man…

Several hours later, the thick tree cover gives way to a vast
open plain.

I order the caravan to stop while I
pull out the topo map from the chest pocket on my bush jacket, unfold it. Tony
comes up on my right side.

“We’re close aren’t we?” he says
from high atop his elephant, the tusked beast brushing its head lovingly up
against the head of my own elephant. Anyone who doesn’t believe that elephants
are complex, monogamous creatures who aren’t evolved enough to love and care
for their own, had better think again. How anyone could shoot these glorious
creatures for their ivory, or anything else, ought to be shot in the heart by a
firing squad.

“We are close,” I confirm, as I
consult the map along with the GPS coordinates on my smartphone. Then, pressing
my index finger against the topo map on what is our exact position, I lock eyes
with Tony. “A mile and a half at most,” I add. “Once we cross this open field,
we enter into another small stretch of woods and then come upon another open
plain. That’s where we’ll find the diamond deposit.”

“I’ll tell everyone to keep their
eyes open,” he says before spitting a short stream of black tobacco. Then,
turning, “Rudy, wake up for Christ’s sake. We’re not on vacation.”

I turn to see Rudy raise his head
up fast.

“I’m awake,” he mutters, wiping
drool from the side of his mouth.

“Chase,” Anjali says, her face filled
with anxiety. “I feel my son. I feel he is nearby. Is it true?”

“Not long now,” I say.

But one glance at the Sherpas and I
can see that they are growing fidgety and nervous. It’s like they are perfectly
aware the territory they are entering is not only bad, but evil. Even the
elephants are getting restless. Sensing that if we don’t keep going, I’ll lose
the confidence of both animal and man, I swing my arm around John Wayne style,
shout, “Keep it moving!”

Out on the open plain, the sun
beats down on us. I can hear my heart beating in my chest. The elephants grow
even more agitated. The air around us seems somehow different. Like some of the
oxygen has diminished making breathing more difficult, much more labored. The
sky, which had been a brilliant blue, now begins to fill with thick black
clouds that swirl as if a tornado funnel is about to emerge from them. The wind
picks up, blows coldly and swiftly.

Coming from behind me, the Sherpas
are talking in rapid-fire Nepalese. Even with the diamond mine not yet in
sight, they are clearly not liking the atmosphere. Can’t say that I do either.

“You order up the end of the world,
Chase?” Tony barks from the rear.

“Not lately,” I say. “But it is a
little creepy.”

The earth beneath the elephants
begins to shake and quake.

“Earthquake,” Rudy shouts.

“Chase, I’m afraid,” Anjali says as
the tremors get worse.

The elephants bend their forelegs,
kneel down, and practically toss us off their backs.

“Dismount,” I order.

As soon as we’ve dismounted, the enormous
animals rise back up onto tree trunk legs, extend their trunks, and blow out
trumpeting wails.

“Grab the stuff,” I say, a bad
feeling settling into my stomach. “Quick before they run away.”

I pull off the 30.06 and my pack. Anjali
grabs her pack as well. I can only assume that Tony and Rudy also grabbed their
bags, which is a good thing. True to my gut, the elephants turn tail and begin
trotting in the opposite direction.

Can’t say I blame them.

The tremors are so intense, I have
trouble standing upright. It’s one thing to be caught out in the open during a
major quake, I can only imagine the horror unleashed in overpopulated
Kathmandu. The grass burns away and the bare earth beneath it opens up as a hot
fire materializes from it. There’s a loud wailing while steam heat escapes into
the air. Anjali falls on all fours while Tony and Rudy awkwardly make their way
to where I’m standing only a few feet away from the now blistered and heaved up
earth.

It’s then I view an incredible
sight. What first appeared to be an earthquake is becoming something else
entirely. The shaking ground before us is taking shape. An ovular area about
the size of an in-ground swimming pool. The fire isn’t randomly spouting out of
the openings but is, instead, emerging from out of four distinct holes that
have formed in the grass-covered earth. Two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. The earth
has formed a giant face that seems as if it were delivered from hell itself. The
face resembles the face that formed above the diamond mine when Elizabeth was
murdered. I’m standing not far from the mouth when flames spit out of it.