Chase Baker and the God Boy: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 3) (21 page)

She looks at me with her deep, dark
eyes.

“Yeah, nice work, lady,” Tony says.
“For a second there, I thought we were supper for Kali. I was already counting
on how good it would feel to tear your eyeballs out.”

“It’s not as it appears, Chase,”
she says. “Kashmiri and I became lovers for a brief time after Singh left me. I
truly had no idea he was a terrorist because he only visited me once a month
and only at our humble house in Varanasi. He referred to himself as a freedom
fighter. That was the extent of it. Something not at all unusual for that area
of the world. But you see, he took a great and, what seemed at the time, loving
interest in Rajesh. He became like a father to the boy when no one wanted
anything to do with him, gifting him with food, clothing, and money even long
after we stopped being lovers.

“But then, one day I awoke to find
the boy gone. This was not long after Rajesh began proving his saintliness by
performing miracles and attracting large crowds of believers. That Kashmiri was
behind the abduction, there was no doubt. Only then did I discover the truth
about his terrible past. About his terrorist activities with the 313 in
Pakistan.”

“Ha,” Rudy says, “a likely story,
lady.”

“Well, it’s one we’re gonna have to
go with for now,” I say, as I desperately look around for a way out of this
place. An alarm is sounding and the sound of jack boots descending into the
tunnel echoes down into this chamber.

“The devils are descending, Chase,”
Tony says.

“Why didn’t that Kali defend Kashmiri?”
says Rudy. “Why wait until we step out of his office to attack us? Shouldn’t
she have at least made a guest appearance inside the office? Maybe made the
floor open up beneath our feet or something?”

“My guess is Kali has to be summoned
to do that,” I say. “What happened out there in the jungle…the face appearing in
the ground. The fire and the snakes. And what just happened inside this chamber…Kashmiri
is somehow able to summon the devil in short bursts only.”

“We must find a way out of here,” Anjali
insists. “Before one of those short bursts of evil turns into a far too long
one.”

Pounding coming from inside the big
wood doors. Rifle stocks against the wood slabs. Kashmiri and some of his men trying
like hell to get out…only a matter of seconds until they succeed.

The flames of the wall-mounted torch
and the one I stuck into the door openers are flickering like there’s a breeze
blowing inside the big chamber. I recall what Tony said about air vents feeding
oxygen into the underground depths and venting the bad CO2 out.

“Spread out everybody,” I say.
“Check the walls for an opening. There’s got to be a way out of here.”

“Maybe we should go back into
Kashmiri’s office,” Rudy suggests.

The sound of boot-steps getting
louder as the Thuggees descend the ramp.

“There’s no time for that,” I
insist. “Besides, the first person who steps through that door is a dead man.
There’s got to be an opening and it’s got to be here.”

“Why?” Tony says.

“Because, I damn well say so,” I
spit.

The boot-steps sound like their
only a few feet away, the Thuggees shouting, screaming for blood. The pounding
on the wood doors is getting more intense. Then comes multiple gunshots.
Bullets bursting through the wood, the torch that holds the openers together
bending, about to snap in half, the flame spreading from the torch head,
igniting the dry wood doors.

I go to the section of wall where I
suspect the breeze is originating from and begin to examine it. Crouching, I
feel the wall’s surface with the palms of my hands and my fingertips.

Anjali comes to me then. Tears are falling
from her big eyes.

“We search in vain, Chase,” she
says, pressing her back to the stone wall. “We’re as good as dead.”

That’s when Anjali disappears.

Rather, Anjali doesn’t disappear so much as she accidentally
uncovers a secret passage hidden in the stone wall.

“Hey,” Rudy says. “Where’d she go?”

I place my hands on the exact spot
where Anjali slipped through the rabbit hole and, after a few carefully placed
shoves, the solid rock door spins open on its vertically mounted hinges.

“Well, I’ll be dipped,” Tony says.
“This
is
a Hollywood set.”

I hold the door for the two men as
they enter into the dark corridor. Standing a few feet away, her back to me, is
Anjali.

“Chase,” she says, turning to me.
“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” I say, shouldering the
AK-47 by its leather belt.

I allow the stone door to close on
its own.

“Everyone quiet,” I order.

Taking a step into the corridor, I
listen intently. Along with the distinct odor of human sweat, I hear the
clanging of metal against metal and metal against rock. I hear voices wailing,
crying. I hear something cracking. Short, sharp, cracking. Like the crack of a
whip. I add it all up inside my brain.

“This leads to the heart of the
diamond mine,” I say.

Rudy lights up at the news. He
starts looking around.

“I need a shopping bag,” he says.
“Anyone got a plastic shopping bag? I’m not leaving here without my retirement
etched in brilliant stone, so to speak.”

“Take it easy, Rudy,” Tony says.
“Our first priority is finding Anjali’s kid, our second priority is getting out
of here alive.”

“Let’s go, everyone,” I say, my
eyes focused on the dim light that seems to be coming from the mine at the end
of what I estimate to be a one hundred meter corridor.

We walk, eyes wide open, at the
ready, just in case we’re heading into a trap. But my guess is that this
passage serves a distinct purpose other than doing damage to those who tread
its stone floor. My guess is that this is a secret corridor for a man like Kashmiri
to make a check on the progress of the work being conducted by his band of
slave laborers in the mine.

When we come to the end of the
corridor, my suspicion rings true. The corridor empties into a small
observational area also hewn out of the cave bedrock. There are three distinct
round windows carved into a short wall that looks out on a massive mine. My
heart nearly skips a beat when I get my first good look at what lies below. All
breath escapes my lungs. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. One thing
is now for certain. The legend of the great India diamond mine is absolutely true.
But the reason it hasn’t been located in India is because it’s in Nepal,
outside the fenced-in perimeter of the Chitwan National Forest. No wonder it’s
eluded explorers for centuries.

“Easy everyone,” I say. “Don’t let
anyone see your face.”

The operation is enormous. The mine
isn’t only comprised of countless chunks of diamonds embedded in the granite
walls. It also houses in its core a behemoth blue diamond that must be as big
as a two-story house.

“My God in heaven above,” Anjali
exhales. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful surrounded by something so ugly.”

The blue diamond glows in the fire
and electric lamplight as though it contains its own electric charge. And
perhaps it does. One thing it houses inside a core opening at its very top is
the Golden Kali Statue. The Ancient Hindus must have possessed the know-how to
drill a hole deep enough into the blue diamond to house the statue, then rigged
up a mechanical winch system that would raise it up during the ceremonial
processionals. Or, maybe the power discharged by the diamond itself is enough to
raise the statue.

“How do we get down there?” Rudy asks.
“The only thing keeping me from being rich beyond my wildest dreams is standing
here doing nothing.”

“Rudy,” Tony says, “you go down
there now, you’ll be shot on the spot.”

“Tony’s right,” I say. “The Thuggees
are crawling all over the joint. You’ll never make it.”

There must be three hundred slaves
chopping away at the walls with hydraulic chisels and lightweight jackhammers.
Some use old-fashioned picks and iron bars to free the little chunks of diamond.
Working alongside them are the wheel barrel men who are forced to push the
overloaded barrels up a ramp made of wood plank-topped scaffolding that winds
its way around the entire mine perimeter.

Out the corner of my eye, I catch a
particularly thin and weak man who is pushing his wheel barrel up the incline. Problem
is, his strength is running out. He’s barely half way up when his wheel barrel
tips, dumping the contents out onto the rocky floor below. One of the black-robed
bandits jogs up to the sick looking slave, shoulders his Kalashnikov and shoots
him on the spot.

The shot reverberates across the
entire mine, causing everyone to stop what they’re doing, if only for a few
brief seconds. That’s when the source of the gunshot is revealed. Some of the
Thuggees remove their red sashes, spin them like you would a towel, and with
the little metal pendant attached to the very tip, savagely whip the exposed
backs of the slaves until the flesh opens up and bleeds.

Maybe I don’t understand Nepalese
or any of the Indian dialects. But I don’t have to know the language to realize
they are shouting at the slaves to get back to work. Get back to work… or die.

I turn back to the others.

“You got a plan?” Tony says.

“It’s not much,” I say, cocking the
AK-47, “but at least we have the element of surprise.”

“Chase,” Anjali says, worry
painting her face, “perhaps we should rethink this. You can get killed going in
there like a Wild West cowboy.”

“You’d be surprised how effective
an all-out frontal assault can be.”

“You do what you have to,” says
Rudy, setting down his rifle. “And I’m going to do what I have to do. All I ask
is that you let me do my thing first.”

“Rudy,” Tony says. “Just what in the
hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Utilizing stealth to my
advantage,” the barkeep says, pulling off his shirt, then his boots and finally
his pants so that he’s wearing nothing but baggy blue boxer shorts inscribed
with little skulls and crossbones. “I’m going to slip in alongside one of those
poor slaves, fill me a wheel barrel full of fortune and fame, and then I’m
going to simply walk out of this creepy place, a very wealthy man.”

“Way to help out with our cause of
reuniting a mother with her son,” Tony says, acid in his tone and on his pursed
lips.

“One for Rudy,” says the bartender
while rolling up his clothing in a ball, tucking it under his arm, “and all for
Rudy. That’s what I say.”

Anjali shakes her head in
disbelief.

“Do what you gotta do, Rudy,” I
say, “But be quick about it.”

“You’re going to let him try and
get away with this, Chase?” Anjali says.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “Rudy is a
survivor. Isn’t that right, Rudy?”

He grins likes he’s already rich,
the process of digging up a few gems merely a minor inconvenience.

“You got that right, Mr. Chase.
Sorry things didn’t work out the way you wanted them to. But then, them’s the
breaks.”

Climbing up the short wall over the
three portholes, he then makes the descent on the other side and slowly
shimmies his way along the angled side of the crevice and into the diamond pit.
I have to give him credit, because he manages to do so quickly and without
alarm so that within a few seconds, he’s blended in with the hundreds of half-naked
slaves, filling up his own wheel barrel with chunks of rock he’s removing from
the quarry with a pickaxe.

A full minute goes by before one of
the Thuggee bandits spots him.

“Okay guys,” I say, “this is our
cue. Maybe Rudy thinks he’s gone rogue, but he’s actually providing us with an
invaluable service. He’s providing us with a distraction.”

“Lock and load,” Tony says, cocking
his AK47, then stuffing some chew inside his cheek.

“May the good Lord watch over us,” Anjali
says, pulling back the slide on her .9mm.

“On three,” I say.

I start counting. Before the sound
of the number three has exited my lips, we’re over the wall.