John Hawks - The Golden City

“I don’t think so. It’s dark. He couldn’t find them if they ran away. Let’s go to the mine.”

They left the shed and followed the narrow railway track that once guided the handcarts. Near the top of the mountain, a framework of steel struts had been built over the mine shaft. An electric motor powered a winch that raised and lowered a steel cage. When the mine was active, the handcarts were filled underground, rolled into the cage, and raised to the surface.

“This works like a freight elevator?”

“That’s right,” Boone said. “If he’s got the children down in the mine shaft, they can’t run away and we can’t save them.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Doyle will hear the winch moving when we raise the cage up to the surface. He’ll kill everyone before we reach them.”

Maya left the area near the mine shaft and began to search the site. “Did you ever read Sparrow’s book, The Way of the Sword?”

Boone nodded.

“There’s a chapter about evaluating your opponent. The weakest opponent is the one who expects a victory.”

“And you think Martin Doyle is in that category?”

Maya picked up an old towel covered with grease. “He’s waiting to hear the elevator, but that’s not going to happen.”

She ripped the towel in half, slipped the shotgun strap around her neck, and climbed onto the elevator struts. Wrapping the towel around the cable, she swung out into the middle of the shaft.

“I’m going to follow you,” Boone said.

“That’s not necessary.”

“This is my responsibility.”

Slide down a few yards. Stop. Slide down a little farther. Stop. A year ago, she had met her father in Prague and stabbed a man in an alleyway. Since then, her life had been shaped by what was hidden from view. Maya felt as if she were descending into a secret world. Somewhere beneath the surface, the innocent were about to be destroyed.

The cable swung to one side, and she almost lost her grip. Looking upward, she saw that Boone was about thirty feet above her, swaying back and forth as he followed her down. Maya tried to move a little faster, pressing her feet against the cable to control her descent.

Finally, she reached the top of the elevator cage and stopped, waiting for Doyle’s attack. When nothing happened, she climbed down into the mine’s main tunnel. Light came from dust-covered bulbs attached to an orange power cable. The tunnel went off in two directions, but she could hear voices coming from the left. Children were singing a frightened, wavering chorus.

“If you’re happy and you know it,

Clap your hands…”

With the shotgun close to her chest, she followed the tunnel into the heart of the mountain. Small hands clapping. Voices singing. Then she heard a man’s voice echoing off the stone walls. “Louder, everyone! Louder!”

As she came around the bend of the tunnel, she saw the captive children. A man stood in front of them like a choir director who wasn’t satisfied with their performance. The children watched him-obedient, terrified-as the big man swung his hand to beat out the time.

“If you’re happy and you know it

And you’re not afraid to show it-”

“You’re not clapping,” Maya said. Drawing a handgun, Doyle spun around to face her, and she fired the shotgun. The pellets knocked him backward and he collapsed on the floor of the mine. His body convulsed, and then relaxed. The malevolent power that had propelled him through the world melted away, leaving nothing but a dead body.

Maya was frozen in that moment of destruction until the children started crying. Their tears and frightened faces changed everything. She slung the shotgun on her back so they couldn’t see it, then stepped forward and spoke with a soothing voice.

“Don’t worry. No one’s going to hurt you.”

She took a little girl’s hand and guided her and others back down the tunnel. “You’re safe. The bad man is gone,” Maya said. “We’re going to take you back to your families.”

Boone was waiting for them at the base of the mine shaft. The elevator gate made a shrieking metallic sound as he forced it open. The children scurried into the cage like baby chicks trying to hide from a hawk, but instead of following them inside, Boone shut the gate and turned to Maya. He looked as if they had just lost the battle.

“There was another child.”

“What?”

“Another child’s body is at the end of the terminal. She wasn’t on the list.”

Maya felt sick to her stomach. They had entered the mountain and destroyed this demon-and failed. Without thinking, she touched her belly. All her caution disappeared as she followed Boone down the tunnel to a T-intersection. She was prepared for a dead body, but found only gravel and dust. Suddenly, Boone pulled the automatic from his waistband and faced her. There was no way she could defend herself.

Boone stared at her for what felt like a long time. She could see his sadness and pain.

“Forgive me.”

Maya nodded. Yes. I forgive you .

Boone raised the gun with one quick motion and shot himself in the head.

Priest used Boone’s key card to enter the room at the Culver Hotel. Immediately, he saw two dead men, one on the carpet and the other on a couch. The Harlequin slipped a plastic shopping bag over his hand, turned the doorknob and entered the bedroom. The third mercenary was lying beside the bed with a surprised look on his face.

As he stood beside the dead man, Priest remembered a line of scripture from the Collected Letters of Isaac Jones. “The foolish man calls forth a demon to harvest his fields and carry his water. But the demon will destroy his master.”

“Hell, yes,” Priest muttered. It looked as if Boone’s particular demon was killing everyone around him. Trying not to step in the blood, he checked the bathroom and the closet, then called Maya on her mobile phone.

“We just found three dead rats.”

“Get out of there and help our friend find his brother,” Maya said. “I’ll call you when I get more information.”

Priest left the building and returned to the car. When they had searched Boone’s hotel room, Maya found a manila envelope filled with black-and-white photographs of the kidnapped children. Gabriel was sitting in the front seat, examining each photograph.

“Boone was telling the truth. There were three bodies in the room. Now what do we do?”

“This could be the moment that we challenge the Brethren. If the children are still alive, then it substantiates our own story.”

“Will you make your speech?”

“Let’s wait to hear from Maya. If the news is good, we’ll activate the Revelation Worm. I’ve got a laptop and a web camera in my pack. We need to go on the Internet at a location where we won’t be disturbed.”

“We can probably use my martial arts studio. It’s still being run by my students.”

He turned south and drove through his old neighborhood. All the familiar sights seemed to float past the windshield. An elementary school surrounded by a chain-link fence. A doughnut shop with barred windows. A line of palm trees defaced with graffiti that marked off the borders of different street gangs.

There were skyscrapers in downtown Los Angeles, but the urban style was distilled into cheaply made two-story buildings with stucco façades. These days Priest felt no connection to a city or a language or a name on a passport. So many things in the world were just glitter tossed on a dance floor.

His old martial arts school was in a mini-mall on Florence Avenue. The liquor store was still there, but the video outlet had been replaced with a shop that sold beauty supplies. His two best students, Marco Martinez and Danny Wu, hadn’t changed the words painted on the front window, but they had placed a sign on the dirt strip near the sidewalk. The sign showed four people-black, white, Latino and Asian-flying through the air with a variety of capoeira moves. Think. Feel. Be Real , the sign said. Defend Yourself!