Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear

Malcolm thought the drawing was quite clear, actually. A grooved stone surface just large enough to hold a small animal, posts on either side to bind the struggling creature, channels to catch its blood.

Dr. Ettouati went on. “Young infants were also sometimes sacrificed, in times of—”

“Infants?”

“Yes,” Ettouati said. “Is that the wrong word? I mean to say children, boy children. In times of crisis. Is this not what the word means, ‘infant’? How do you say a boy child in English?”

“You say infant,” Malcolm said. “Nothing wrong with your English.”

“Good. Good. They would sometimes sacrifice an infant, although this was rare.”

“It would more or less have to be, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, a woman had more children then, but yes, they were not so plentiful as goats.”

Malcolm turned the page. A hand-drawn map showed the approach to the temple—the way station, whatever it was—through a mountain pass. It was on the other side of the great Green Mountain, the Jebel Akhdar, with its sheer rock faces and endless twisting paths. Getting there wouldn’t be an easy journey for a fully equipped party, much less a man traveling alone. But according to Burke, that’s where he had to go.

“Tell me,” Dr. Ettouati said, “has Burke told you what you are looking for?” He was wiping his hands again, Malcolm noticed, perhaps unconsciously but quite eagerly.

“No,” Malcolm said. “Did he tell you?”

“Not a word. I don’t imagine Burke as the type to root around in ancient sites for purely scholarly purposes, but he’s said nothing about what he hopes to find. Ah, well. ‘Ours not to reason why,’ as your poet had it. Do you mean to go to Mechili?”

Malcolm nodded.

“I can come with you if you like,” Ettouati said.

What would Burke say? He hadn’t brought Ettouati into his confidence, and presumably he wouldn’t want Malcolm to do so either. On the other hand, having a local to guide him through the mountains would make the journey easier.

“I’d appreciate it,” Malcolm started to say—but before he could get the words out, a spray of blood covered his hands.

Everything seemed to happen in an instant, and in reverse: first the blood, streaking across his hands, then Ettouati’s face crumpling as a bullet passed through it, and finally Malcolm became conscious of the sound, the thundercrack of gunfire echoing from wall to wall inside the small room. It took him longer than it should have to react: a bullet clipped his shoulder as he tipped over his chair and fell to the floor in front of the desk.

Where? How? He fought to call the layout of the room to mind as he jammed the bloody notebook into his pocket and fumbled his gun out of its holster. There had been two windows behind Ettouati, both shut. And beyond them a balcony? Probably—he’d seen a door in the other room.

He heard the rapid slap of running footsteps, chanced a look up over the top of the desk. The shutters of one window had been blown away, and through it he caught a glimpse of the shooter’s arm, his back, as he sprinted for the door. Malcolm raced to the window, stuck first his gun and then his head through, but the man was already off the balcony, in the other room. Malcolm slid along the wall to the corner by the door with his gun raised in both hands. His hands were shaking, damn it, and it wasn’t the shoulder wound doing it—the bullet had only grazed him. It was the shock of seeing a man killed just inches from his face. You thought you’d put it behind you, and in an instant it all comes back: the blood, the smell of a body suddenly opened to the air, the sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, the helplessness—

Damn it, pull yourself together. He gripped the gun tighter, swung around to face the door and kicked it open. He was firing before his foot touched the floor. There were two men, one in a sand-colored jalabaya, one in western-style khakis. A pair of red stains bloomed on the jalabaya and the man fell backwards, the gun tumbling from his hand. Malcolm swung to face the other man, saw a curved blade flashing as the man raced toward him. He pulled the trigger twice. The first shot went wide, took a chunk out of the far wall and ricocheted off. The second caught the man in the gut. The dagger clattered to the floor as the man doubled over.

The front door was open, and through it he saw the old woman, now at the top of the stairs, the broom still in one hand, the doorknob in the other. She let the broom fall and took off, screaming for help.

Malcolm stepped around a low table to where the second man lay, gasping, struggling for breath. The knife was within the man’s reach, and he saw the man go for it. Malcolm kicked it away, placed the sole of his boot on the man’s hand, and leveled his gun at the man’s face. “Who sent you?” Malcolm said.

The man was going into shock: his skin was gray and his face was shaking. The look of rage on his face was replaced by one of despair as the pain intensified. He spoke in a child’s singsong whisper, the same words over and over: “Molekh sh’ar liyot bein tekhem.”

“Who sent you?” Malcolm put more pressure on the man’s hand. “Were you after Ettouati or me?”

“…sh’ar liyot bein tekhem,” the man whispered. “Molekh sh’ar…”

There wasn’t time for this. The woman’s screams had faded, but she’d be back any minute, together with whatever passed for the authorities in this town. They’d find him with a half-empty revolver in an apartment where three men had just been shot. He didn’t want to find out what the inside of a Libyan prison was like.

He returned the gun to his holster and stepped off the man’s hand. It wasn’t mercy: the man would die of his gut wound, probably quite painfully as his stomach acids leaked out to poison his body. Shooting him now might have been more merciful. But Malcolm couldn’t spare the bullet.

He took the stairs two at a time. In the alley behind the building, he found the transportation the men had used: a BMW R12, left over from the Wermacht. The sidecar was dented, the kickstand missing, the carriage streaked with rust. The glass cover of the headlamp was smashed in and one of the rubber handle grips had been torn off. But the engine was purring softly and when he gunned it, it responded instantly.

He pushed off against the wall with one leg and drove along the narrow alley as quickly as he dared, taking a sharp right when it became clear that continuing straight would take him to a dead end.

There was no time to return to the hostel, even assuming he could find it again. Between buildings, he could see the mountain in the distance and he used that to orient himself. He prayed the motorcycle’s saddlebags held some water. It would be a short expedition if they didn’t.

From behind him, he heard the roar of another motorcycle engine, and further back the throatier growl of a truck. He shot a look back over his shoulder and after a second saw the other cycle round a corner. The man driving it held a machine gun in one hand, the barrel resting on the handlebars. He shouted something in Arabic, raised the gun.

Malcolm took another corner, skirting the stone wall of the building by inches. The whine of his pursuer’s engine grew higher pitched as he accelerated. Malcolm turned his handgrip to match and felt the cobblestones streak by beneath him, jolting him, forcing him to hold on tighter than his wounds would allow. His sleeve was wet where his shoulder had bled, and his forearm still ached from the slash he’d received in the pub. He struggled to keep the machine upright, to find the end of this maze of alleys, to keep at least one turn between him and the men behind him.

Was this how the others had died, shot from behind or smashed against a wall? He tried not to think about it, forced himself to concentrate on steering.