The Problem:

Cobalt was at a threshold – the first major one his life had presented him: he had just become engaged to marry the woman he loved. But his dreams of happiness turn abruptly to nightmares when, on his return home from a secret Afghanistan mission, he finds that dream, and his future, gone up in smoke.

His recovery – including the adventure he stumbles upon in the process – and his unlikely emergence from that darkness, are the meat of this book.

BRIEF SELECTIONS Follow:

ALL EXCERPTS COPYRIGHT © 2018 Daniel J. McCarthy

ROADKILL:

From Chapter 26, set at the Elko County Fair in northern Nevada, where a squad of 4 Hashashins has been sent to perpetrate mayhem and murder. After squandering 2 days and nights gambling in Las Vegas, they rush to Elko where, with the body of their first victim in the trunk of their car, they encounter another roadside ritual. . . .

The driver of their car, Mamoun – the only one who spoke even passable English – had grown to enjoy tearing up Nevada’s speed-limitless highways with their rented late-model New Yorker over the past couple days. It was a treat he would never have had the chance to sample back home in Yemen, where he had spent most of his life. But the laws of physics are universal ones: the faster a body travels the longer it takes to stop, as he found out to his great distress about three miles outside of Elko, when an unsuspecting mule deer buck sauntered gamely out of the sage grass scrub and strutted across the road in front of him.

Not even the near-dark of a dismal dusk could hide the horror in the buck’s eyes, as half-a-ton of chrome and Chrysler came barreling down on him at a hundred and ten, its horn screaming, brakes squealing, and four crazed fools inside flapping their arms like they thought they could fly.

The buck did not survive the consequent collision. The ‘shins however did, but their vehicle looked no more like a vehicle now than the mule deer looked like a mule. Or a deer.

They had been instructed to learn one new word of English each day to prepare for this excursion; today’s word was “pickle.” They were in one now.

An Enlightenment Dilemma:

. . .Almost immediately, Brant faced a dilemma. He had to tell someone of his . . . awakening. He wanted to scream it from every mountaintop. But, how to do that without without being run to the nearest loony bin? He knew telling anyone would arouse immediate immediate suspicions about the state of his mental health ― and this at the sasanest sanest moment of his life. That paradox haunted him for months.

He had to be careful about his choice of words if he were to tell anyone. He lived in a a a world where anything not worth a dollar wasn’t worth a damn. But whom to tell? Of course he would tell Jack, but that was like telling himself.

He imagined trying to describe what he had experienced, and saying, “I was lying alone in bed last night and discovered the secrets of the universe.” Or, “…the meaning of of life.” Or, “I was lying alone . . . when I had the most incredible experience I’ve ever had.”

No matter how he rearranged the words, the only response he could imagine was one of ... one of either fear, of imminent physical harm, or of profound sympathy for a pathetic pathetic existence. He wished to encourage neither. The best of all possible reactions would leave leave him regarded suspiciously in any event, and that left him tightlipped jandndndk and speechless after all.

At a Santorini Villa, MASDAR'S Top Brass Convene... to Discuss Strategy for Tarnishing Cobalt

FROM A QUAYSIDE TAVERNA, with the tear-clear Aegean lapping blue, still, and tepid at at its jagged shores, the Greek island of Thira shot straight into the sky for a quarter-mile, to the tiny town of Fira. The cliffhanging hamlet looked out across a picturesque lagoon toward a cluster of smoldering volcanic islets brooding quaintly in the the distance, and clung to the rim like an obstreperous atheist being flung toward Heaven.KGGG

A broad stone stairway, each step’s number whitewashed on its riser, zigzagged the 1,483 treads up the nearly vertical slope to the town in a series of switchbacks. The ascent was negotiable on foot, from bottom to top, in under half an hour, or longer if one stopped to sample fruits of the prickly-pear cacti that curtained the crag, or half that time for the descent, and less still for the fall. . . .

At Sea, Aboard the Diamond-Laden Tyrrhenian Voyager, en route to Naples . . .

. . . Neither Jack nor Brant had ever experienced seasickness in the thousands of days and and nights they had spent collectively on the ocean, although each had endured his share of of nausea. Jack was hard pressed to recall any overt display of cheerfulness ― a Smiley Face, for example ― that was not greeted by him with some degree of revulsion. He’d had years go by of secretly greeting every new day with the same loathing. He did seem to be mellowing with age. Somewhat.…

There was something though, about being the only well person on a boat full of seasick ones, that drew out extraordinary qualities in one disinclined toward nursing. Jack amused himself briefly by offering anyone who passed him by looking pallid and gaunt . . . a nice, thick slice of lemon meringue pie. He did not display the actual portion ― its mere suggestion at once sent them running for the rail, retching.

That behavior notwithstanding, they had more reasons than the sounds of seasick- ness to lose sleep at night. They were unaware that a squad of Hashashins had already boarded the ship, with the sole expressed intent of eliminating Brant in particular and Jack by association. Cobalt expected Masdar to provide extensive security in addition to the truck’s well-armed drivers to chaperone the stones. And he he expected to have some fine fishing.

CHAPTER 1: (In Entirety)

Cobalt eased into the shotgun seat of the Mercedes sedan, the final of four to board, greeted the others with a congenial salute and congenital sneer, and slapped a fresh clip into a 9mm Ruger. The chauffeur, Sayed, checked the time, revved the engine, rolled down the slope of the tidy U.S. Embassy grounds, and into the chaos of downtown Kabul’s evening rush.

Recently named Special Operations Liaison to the President by the CIA, Agent Brant Cobalt just left a meeting with Afghani warlords – his notes would be on the C.E.’s Oval Office desk that morning – and was on his way to Jalalabad and a flight home. The others en route to the J-bad consulate were a local translator and two more Americans, both U.S. State Department aides carrying diplomatic pouches.

Beyond the city limits, the road opened up through a checkered patchwork of farmland and desert to the distant mountains. Driving by fields of vibrant white poppies abloom in the countryside, an occasional oxcart mingled with the now sparser vehicular traffic. Overtaking one of the sluggish buggies piled high with loose hay, it swerved abruptly blocking their path.

Sayed prepared to investigate unruffled by the delay. Brant did not openly second-guess his decision not to ram the obstruction and continue on. As driver, he was liable like a sea captain for the safety of his vessel and its passengers. The agent had been assured by all he was trustworthy. Reputation meant a great deal in this unstable corner of the globe. It meant little now to Cobalt.

“Wait here, please,” Sayed grumbled and hopped out tugging at his collar. He approached the wagon cautiously and engaged its driver in conversation. As temperatures climbed in the hushed Mercedes, Cobalt watched all this coolly – one hand warming his gun. Sayed soon spun about, beamed back a triumphant smile, and returned to the car.

To audible sighs of relief, he explained the cart had lost a spoke from a broken wheel felloe. It was a simple fix; they would be on their way in no time.

Buoyed by the reassurance, all eyes faced frontward to the oxcart’s driver, who bounded from his seat and walked ahead, pointed the muzzle of a magnum at a spot between the ox’s brown eyes, and blew its pink brains all over the road.

The shot was a signal. It sent the dismounted driver running for his life, and set in motion a chain of prearranged events agreed upon earlier by a cadre of conspirators.

Suddenly, the haystack in front of them burst open. Three black-hooded assassins blazed up screaming in a spray of bullets and raked the Mercedes with machine gunfire.

Inside the car bedlam was spattered with blood. Screams of panicked envoys ignited the tight space in terror, like sparks in a grain-dusty silo. Brave fists and fingers fought private pantomimes, but were no match for bullets paying no heed to an aging car’s armor.

One fear-frozen aide looked plaintively to Cobalt, as if he was a Zen master holding the key to calm and the secrets of the ages. He would soon gain greater expertise in those regards, but was trying to save her life at the moment.

…Oddly informative dreams had lately added kick to his morning gait that lasted all day. They told him things he never expected of dreams. One told of treachery today. Others, about his ancient origins. Real details. He never bought the tales churches told but did believe in the everlasting soul, and was getting his own evidence free of charge from the ether – in his sleep. He had a connection there of some kind that he was determined to figure out, and would. …But other issues pressed.

The ringleader stood knee-deep in hay blasting an Uzi, wildfire in his eyes, turning his aim on the agent before his gun barrel warmed. Cobalt was waiting… ready with his Ruger. His vantage point gave him an excellent view. He gently squeezed the trigger once and put a stop to the nonsense with a headshot from his widow seat.

Their leader led – falling first, and hard to the ground. The instant he did his group’s sense of purpose died with him, and the stragglers knew it. Sensing pain and pending demise, they fled to the opium fields hightailing to a steaming hiss geysered from the car’s radiator.

Immediately, Cobalt faced a grim choice: swallow his suicide stash and die here and now with the shot-up vehicle, or evaporate to J-bad and remain among the living. Being captured alive was not an option. That cyanide was and would remain with him – a potent motivator. His own death, however, was not on today’s agenda.

Sayed urged him to leave the others and save himself. He would call for the medical attention the State aides required, both bleeding unself­ishly. He made clear enemy insurgents rife in the area would kill the Yank spy on sight and likely be the first responders.

Sweat rained from his brow as he grabbed his rucksack and made for the hills on foot and alive. His plan: stay out of sight by trekking the 18 miles (30 km) to Jalalabad via the high road – a goat path through the mountains. After only a few steps the landscape absorbed him.

That was last night. By midnight, he had climbed high above the Panjshir Valley floor when the sudden birr of lethal steel speeding in the dark told him he was hunted. He traced the flash of muzzle blasts 1,000 meters opposite to a facing canyon wall. There, his prey had nested. He knew what they wanted: to send him home the hard way. He wanted hard information about them. His plan – his job – was to find out who they were… before he closed their case.

He had played this deadly game of tag all night and day against a dozen Haqqani insurgents. He kept out of sight by evading the many eyes of the dark. Reliant for cover on boulders and their crannies, and constantly moving on to the next, he had made his way along the cliff unharmed all night, one ridge to the next, a 3,000’ dead drop at his feet.

His ancestors, he would soon discover, made similar stop-and-go journeys of necessity – from dune to desert dune… well to water well – and he now felt déjà vu not knowing why; the answer taunted from his dreams.

Reaching the sanctuary of an overhang he reviewed his assets. His greatest, more powerful than the sum of the others and one he at last had mastered, was safe. It was in his blood.

Another was the Fly-bot: a MAV (Micro Air Vehicle) not to be confused with the bot fly, it was a tiny airplane with eyes – a micro video cam. With a wingspan of only 1½” (4 cm), it gave him closeup remote observation of his target area from 10 feet (3 meters) away, its controls on his lap.

Two points on the distant horizon suddenly grew large and loud, as a ground-hugging brace of F-15 Eagles screamed overhead. They vanished just as quickly with a boom that shook the earth. One side of the mountain disappeared with them exploding away in a spray of debris.

“Cobalt! Cobalt! Alpha two foxtrot niner, over! …I hope that did the job. We’re outta here! …Did you see us? How copy?” Cobalt scrambled to answer the crisp demand garbled from his headset. It was the pilot who led the strike. He answered with awe and heartfelt thanks. It had rid him of his tormentors. Some of them. He would not be sure until he flew the Fly-bot for a visual.

“See you? I didn’t see a thing! Every bone in my body saw you, Alpha two! Pretty work. I thank you, my fiancée thanks you… my future kids thank you! Over and out!”

That morning, he had been contacted by the pilot – on his way back to base after a mission – with an offer of surplus unexploded ordnance he did not refuse. He stashed his headset and readied the Fly-bot. …And waited.

He had done a lot of waiting lately. It taught him patience he could not have learned otherwise; he had plenty work yet to do. It would help him survive the unendurable. The enemy that occupied him now had kept him busy, but their numbers were dwindling. Hushed by the screaming Eagles, they had dug in. Two still seemed determined to keep him alert dancing for his life dodging bullets… and butterscotch.

In this high stakes head game, he caught himself daydreaming: a butters­cotc­h sundae. His inner Drill Sergeant raised holy hell. Those slipups find you dead at your next heartbeat he reminded, and did an exercise saved for such a parapraxis.

It replayed step-by-step – in his mind – the procedure he employed to remove two deeply-imbedded treble hook barbs from the white of his architect brother’s eye one recent remote fishing trip. This was a time for sobering thoughts, and that put him where he needed to mentally be.

It was the same vicinity visited performing an emergency auto-appendectomy stranded in a remote Antarctic research outpost, or penknife auto-amputation of forearm at elbow, or darning 8 stitches to close your own split forehead on a boat pitching in 30-foot seas, for example, that required rare strength. It seemed butterscotch was bad for body and mind – unsafe to chew up or on.

Butterscotch, though a favorite, was only a common substitute for a rarer flavor – carob – that lately had haunted him and drove him up walls to figure out why. He only once had tasted it and was outright unimpressed. Along with his recent spate of edifying dreams had come strange flavor cravings that, in rarest of moments, had him concerned.

Brant had no business here, really. For eight years he was a SEAL, the U.S. Navy’s Special Operations force known by the anagram for SEa, Air, and Land, and would not trade that time for gold, but change beckoned.

He could not let go all its excitement, so kept a toe in the door via the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Products Agency).

With that toe and others he found himself here. Brant liked the job; it gave him a monthly meeting with the President, access to newsmaking people and circumstances, and it paid… well, he was good at it.

A sharp chink and stones jumping near his feet got his attention and his senses on hyper.

The distraction was an opportunity to deploy the Fly-bot, his first since the F-15 raid. It fluttered off his fingers like a twisted Tinkerbelle, disappearing as it spanned the canyon and hovered over the target. He could no longer see it; he saw its video feed on his laptop just fine.

Dying to see what they were up to and how many they were, his heart pounding every unrepentant thief, he guided the bot closer… into their cave. No crowd. Rocks galore. He had expected a knot of men teeming over backgammon or dominoes and a pot of tea. There was no one. Not even a dog or a donkey.

He stood away to stretch then back to see a lone male figure. He looked familiar and was soon joined by another. They argued. Brant wished he had audio but did not need it. Actions spoke louder, and unambiguously. This discussion was heated; tempers flared.

It soon got animated. Violently. Arms swinging, fists flying; then hats… and teeth. Zooming closer he noticed incongruities that did not fit the picture in his mind. Out-of-place objects; familiar things but from a different setting: a glint of gold; ballistic vests; thick wads of new Franklins; a security badge he had recently seen… on a diplomatic pouch in the car. His preconceived notion was all wrong.

Sensing other anomalies he soared nearer still, past the gleam of precious metal, to face-slap-rude reality: these men shooting at him had been his travelling com­panions hours earlier – the interpreter and driver, Sayed.

When he looked again, amid a crisp blizzard of hundred-dollar bills, the fight intensified. As a shouting Sayed spat in the polyglot’s face then point-blanked a pistol at his head and fired… twice, Brant witnessed the murder on live video, when he point-blank refused to surrender the demand.

Immediately, Cobalt sent the Fly-bot back downstream to the wrecked car. The two State Department aides’ bodies remained in the back seat as before, their clothing crudely disheveled; throats neatly slit. At that instant, the boarding pass was issued for one express ticket to Paradise.

Cobalt had nothing per­sonal against the man trying to end his life. He was probably an affable guy, just trying to get by, who had made some poor decisions. Brant was known for his patience, but Sayed had exceeded his allotment. The world was full of nice guys getting by. Sometimes, one bad decision is all you get.

But Sayed had also abused a timeless human covenant, that Cobalt sensed in his bones and by which all who breathe were bound.

A major life-changer loomed in his near future. His fiancée planned a welcome party for him – as soon as he got to J-bad and a flight out of here. It would also celebrate their engagement; on the eve of his last departure, he proposed. She accepted. He sat languid looking forward to happiness to come – and a butter­scotch sundae – when a rumble alerted.

Booming artillery dinned the valley, quaking that reverie and putting his sweet tooth on ice. He had no yen to spend another night at this place, and planned to work his way to a gentler altitude, but had business up here to finish.

Slinking boulder to boulder and using mental muscle he was glad to possess, he crept to within 80 meters of the adversary by nightfall. His goal within reach now, his blood began a steady simmer.

Mumbling about renal implants, he burst forth in a silent surge of testosterone and adrenaline oblivious to the barrage, with feline stealth, stole his way to the ledge above the sniper’s nest still undetected, and in one fluid movement pulled the pin from a mini flash-bang, swung himself down to confront his staggered target eye-to-eye, fist-bladed his solar plexus to take his breath away, then tucked the grenade into his yawning maw just in time to spin clear out of range as the flash-bang took his head away in a muffled puff of pink.

The puff was a signal. It sent Sayed’s torso rolling down the slope of scree, and into the chaos of downtown oblivion’s evening rush.

Cobalt wondered if there was a Dairy Queen in Jalalabad.

Chapter 2:

Cobalt’s Engagement Homecoming Surprise

Brant tabled his butterscotch ambitions in Jalalabad. His schedule left little time for luxury. It was just as well. He suspected it would have tasted like sesame seeds. He enjoyed their flavor, but not expecting butterscotch. Operating in Western mode now, to ease transition, he was in the mood for the real thing. That would just have to wait until he got back to the land of the red, white, and DQ.

Nevertheless, in the weeks before his departure he managed to leave a favorable American impression on at least one Kabul local. A girl of thirteen or so had befriended him while he surveiled an insurgent cell, pinching moments on her way to and from school to apply newly-acquired language skills to events in the news.

Born with a cleft palate to penniless parents unable to afford corrective surgery, and too young for a veil, the girl bore her deformity if not entirely proudly for all to see. He noticed she was of a higher than the prevalent plane, and went out of his way to ease hers. Her courage and blushing dignity moved him.

But a local thug and avid Taliban supporter had another idea for her complexion. He heard she was studying English, compounding her alliance with the Yank, and determined that she required humiliation. He proceeded to make over her face – with a coating of bright yellow housepaint.

The savagery steamed Cobalt, who spent parts of the next three days hunting for the perp – one of a gang of toughguys who preyed on schoolgirls. Brant met a policeman who had witnessed him stealing radios from an electronics shop, and put that news and the 'lifter to work.

When the colorless guy finally showed his face, after securing a public pledge to cease harassing the young woman, Brant persuaded him to paint the storefront of every shop on the block in a shade of each shopkeeper’s choosing. To level the painting field, he was made to do the job with his own face dripping yellow enamel. His only alternative entailed the swift loss of one of his hands as a thief, in keeping with the Sharia justice he had previously endorsed.

Payback was a bitch – for him, but a big hit with the local merchants, who watched his graceless efforts with catcalls and bellylaughs, and the odd overripe egg lobbed his way. Word spread quickly: the boy’s rehab was an event; it drew a sizeable crowd, that seemed to grow by the brush stroke, to watch what had become the best free public show in town all week.

Brant picked up the tab for the paints, and brushes only; no rollers permitted. He assured the thug, if his work was not up to scratch he would be obliged to repaint it entirely, by toothbrush – paint brushes were too pricey for improvidential use – and, that if he suffered any future impulse to make girls cry, it was better done from happiness.

Cobalt contacted a Kabul medical charity that ran a mobile cleft palate correction clinic-on-wheels. There was such demand for the service they could accept only a tiny percentage of applicants, but he covered her procedure with a transfer of anonymous funds to the clinic in case she did not otherwise qualify, to remain as a donation if she did.

He did manage to get safely into and out of Jalalabad. No more insurgent incidents. He ate up the 18 miles to town by dawn with minutes to spare for a nap, and dashed through BWI Airport, butterscotch banished from mind in the rush home. It was just getting dark; he was on party time.

Practically giddy driving up the dark lane to the house, he couldn’t wait to see the crowd of friends and family. He even looked forward to the pranks some of the smartasses among them no doubt had connived all week. And, the food. He had for months nearly drowned dreaming and drooling simultaneously, of delicacies he ached to catch up with. After butterscotch, a rare burger topped the list.

Long, and hungry, months had lapsed since his last visit, and he was engaged now, to a woman whose touch would soon make time, and his demons, stand still. With her help, he had lately learned that out of no particular weakness people need pillars, at times, and she was his. She was about to become a sturdy addition to the first rebuild of his life.

Marriage was a sizeable step for anyone, but a huge departure from his singular course. He had developed an aversion to marriage and family – his own – only recently reconciled, that was rooted in his upbringing, and gave him a unique perspective.

His pet definition, apt for him, of the family: “an institution that provides for the systematic production of mental illness among each of its members,” coined in the '70s by British anthropologist Dr. Ashley Montague.

His most telling childhood memory: returning home one day from kindergarten, greeted in the street by neighborhood children shouting him news his alcoholic father had just been taken handcuffed away by three dozen police and FBI Agents, guns drawn. He grew up abruptly in the subsequent seconds, aging thirty years in fewer minutes. …Only to later learn his public humiliation was his own doing!

His father’s glib spin pinned blame on the boy – it was love for his son that compelled him to punch the tax man’s nose. Too young to decipher adult logic, he quietly accepted his new role as patsy and his abrupt fall from grace. It was a lot for a 5-year-old to bear; he barely did. The old man did: 30 days in Federal Prison; the boy, life, convinced he was emotionally damaged goods unfit for marriage and the children he couldn’t abide anyway. But all was long forgiven and, now, forgotten.

It was perfect weather for an engaging evening – not too hot; not too humid; a hint of breeze. He had the car top down; its stereo blaring tunes into the honeysuckle-heavy haze of twilight, …loving life.

Nearing the house, above the headlights’ beam he noticed an array of red, white, and blue beacons reaching high above treetops to scratch a crepuscular itch. Amused that his loved ones had gone to such lengths, a shiver ran through him and he let a grin crease his face rounding the final curve to find the charred remains of his home, and hungry little flames drooling sparks of Hell onto his party and busy first responders, emergency vehicles, and curly black pillars of sorrow-in-smoke.

Time, but not demons, jolted to a halt.

CHAPTER 3: After Cobalt learns his days may be numbered and hits the Golf Club with friend Desmond, his ancient connections are introduced and described….

. . . “What’s the verdict?”

“Possibly, …grim,” he answered with melodramatic bluntness, from which he gleaned a curious glee. His timing, not unlike Jimmy Stewart’s, was perfect, though. …Wanna play golf?” . . .

Desmond was a member of Congressional Country Club, in Potomac, Md., where Cobalt’s first golf outings were committed….

. . . They stopped at the Pro Shop to confirm their tee time, then went up­stairs to the putting green, beside the main entrance to the grand hacienda-style clubhouse. Cobalt plucked a putter from his bag and stared down its shaft at a ball resting on the close-cropped bent grass. He drew the head back and struck it, then spoke as it dropped with a clatter that comforted him.

“I was close to refining a new approach to my life: focusing on the moment, rather than the whole shebang. Now… this hiccup, but what a moment. Unlike life, it’s hard to hide from death. …Ha-ha, I can run away with the best of them. I wish I had the option. …But, if you are in it, you might as well be in all the way.”

“Brant, I wouldn’t expect any less… from a guy named for a goose, ha-ha! …You now have a well-defined goal: the fight of your life! You cannot ask for any more than that. There’s no fear like catastrophe to get the blood flowing. You’re a survivor! And people think those are the lucky ones. Imagine your friends in Japan, after the Fukushima tsunami; …those survivors had to face life like few must. That is the stuff that spurs Bible-writing. …You just have to take one day at a time, or risk overwhelmedom. …They can always find a cure, …who knows? It happens every day. You may be dead, but you’re a long way from buried!”

“Well, …I’d be happy with a cure for my slice.”

They made their tee time and played a round of 18 holes… one slice at a time.

Death was not a new adversary; he had often faced it as a SEAL. His health news shook him but was not the major motivation for his recent spiritual focus, nor was any desire to save his soul. His young life had been peppered by strange evocative events; haunting coincidences… connections… that he wanted – now needed – to understand.

Memory inheritance – the human ability to preserve crucial information by passing it from generation to generation – as instinct – mesmerized him. That the memory of significant visual elements – bold shapes – could be transferred between generations was nothing short of miraculous.

He recognized this realm of… symbolic consciousness as a sizeable piece in his puzzle… after shrugging his initial dismissal of it as another case of the Virgin appearing as a Chicken McNugget. It was time to investigate this new twist to his cosmological orientation.

He hunted by instinct, for instinct, through perception and intuition. It was a murky search, into obscure glimpses of protean images from dreams: the myths of night. He suspected it would be a lengthy one.

Ancient rock art, of petroglyphs and their pictograms, had brought on his earliest religious experience – he had frequented church, but those experiences were not religious ones; their only occasion of grace: his laughter; they had nothing to do with God as he understood it – as a boy, at Canyonlands National Park in Utah. He felt connected, looking into them, to something primal and real. Something familial.

The one recurring icon that got his attention was characteristically simple: a circle within a square. It was the barest of complex images, open to the broadest of readings. It suggested to him fertility and renewal, perhaps an embryo inside a mother. …Perhaps. The shape initially meant no more than a bad fit, but stuck in his memory with its urgency: it possessed an aura of necessity – essential as food, water, shelter – that puzzled him. It also stayed with him.

Having had little life experience by then, to compare or comprehend, his interest in it was purely curious, at the time. Cats had nothing on Cobalt; curiosity used up many more than 9 of his lives before he matured enough to mind. The image’s grip on him tightened when it demonstrated powers. That got his attention….

Years later, on a hostage reclamation mission in Somalia with the SEALs, he was storming a downtown Mogadishu highrise hideout. To prove the abductee was alive, the kidnappers amputated the captive ring-bearing finger, and tossed it still bleeding out a window. Cobalt caught the warm dactyl before it hit the sidewalk, and remembered its visual imprint a long time. The extremity was: gray, the blood: red, the hostage: rescued, the digit: reattached eventually, the ring’s outer circumfer­ence: square, enclosing a perfect circle around the finger.

Yet, that image lost none of its urgency, and remained in his dreams long after this event.

Another – childhood – incident, involving the night sky and astronomy but a different image, illustrated how nebulous was his evidence and tricky the terrain. And, how mesmeric. Observing by telescope the constellation Orion, early one late-autumn evening, paying particular attention to the geometry and angular relationships of the 3 stars in the Hunter’s hallmark “belt” and 4 others of its body and weapon, he was overwhelmed by sudden burning knowledge – that sent him racing up the highway: a girl was drowning in a nearby lake. He had never been to the 19-mile-distant reservoir, but gave his impatient mother flawless driving directions.

Arriving at the boat ramp he soon found the girl, who had just been pulled safely from the water. She sustained 7 contusions across her back impacting the limb of a shoreline tree she had jumped or fallen from and into. The wounds formed a distinctive pattern freshly familiar to him, exactly matching the 7 major stars in the belt and body of Orion he had been studying, all small enough for precision in identifying them positively.

Each of this story’s increments viewed individually was utterly unremarkable, until combined, they suggested… something. He returned home humming The Twilight Zone theme. For days he could think of little else. The following week, he noticed a mention of the near-drowning in a local newspaper and was startled further when he read the girl’s given name: Diana, the name of the Roman goddess of the hunt who’s Greek counterpart Artemis slew Orion, who’s body, legend had it, was then hung in the sky as a constellation, in consolation. That her surname was Rigel shed no additional light on his dilemma.

He could do nothing but wonder about it, and he did. It remained in his memory for years, unexplainable; unforgettable….

. . . Cobalt was skeptical by nature, and wary of superstition. He knew there were scientific explanations for most things. He had utmost respect for science and scientists – as he did for clergy – and tried to maintain its high standards throughout. He also knew there were things he sensed and knew to be real for which science had no explanation; real things that were thus far scientifically unexplainable. That, too, got his attention.

He knew that a major percentage of the universe – nearly 96% – was made up of dark matter and dark energy that stymied science. Those phantoms were the reason most of the known universe… was unknown. Science was thus far at a loss to explain them or their nature. The palpable percentage of the universe that can be detected, measured, and explained, amounted to less than 5% of its total mass. That left a lot of unexplained space. …And a lot of mystery.

LINKS to ANCIENT INK; a TELLING REUNION

The Book’s Penultimate Chapter…

COBALT HAD TO SOLVE THIS RIDDLE SOON. His appetite for information about it had been ravenous, but he had hardly eaten in weeks. What was simply a sanity issue had now become one of health as well. Desmond and Jack, assisted by friends in archaeology, had helped him narrow the search for the source of his image.

He was newly armed with a wealth of insider information about the icon, from his vision event that had further narrowed his search field. That had tempered his pineal eye with new acuity. Certain visual images stored in his memory had received an instant update, and were suddenly deeper than ever.

The circle in the square, for example, had been transformed and enlivened; it displayed another dimension: a triangle now enclosed the original figure. His dreams were coming more frequently, and clearer; he was invigorated, anxious to see what lay ahead…. Once again he would be drawn to Nefta.

Energized, Brant and Jack met at the Saharan Museum of Natural History and Antiquities, in Nefta, where they were joined by its chief curator. Boswell had a friend and professional associate in the Museum’s director, Dr. Hanno Wadi, sometimes known as Hanno the Excavator. His academic fellows had tagged him with that moniker alluding to an earlier Hanno: the Navigator. The contemporary was apprised by Jack of the Cobalt situation and it fascinated him. He was quick to offer the museum’s resources, and to make them feel at home.

He had invited both to visit a live dig they were currently working, in the Acacus Mountains of neighboring Libya with the Libyan Council on Antiquities. Brant was particularly keen on that spot, having followed online an Italian group’s work there, at Uan Muhuggiag, but a civil war broke out wreaking havoc with schedulers. Dr. Wadi suggested a safer local alternative much nearer Nefta, and invited them to another dig located within tranquil Tunisia, in its mountainous northwest.

This area was rich in Neolithic cave art and petroglyphs, left behind by a comparatively advanced local culture that thrived at the end of the last ice age, roughly 10,000 years ago, when a more temperate clime than today’s – the result of an infinitesimal wobble in Earth’s orbit, or an asteroid impact – made the Sahara less xeric, temporarily. This greening event occurred several times between maximum glacial periods.

That climatological anomaly was responsible for the idyllic conditions portrayed in the Cave of Swimmers, southwestern Egypt’s Neolithic site of parietal art and petroglyphs depicted in the film The English Patient. Cobalt was captivated completely by this subject. …He knew it brought him closer.

There was, to him, a kind of magic – about an early complex culture in the Sahara – something transporting and bridgeable in the notion… of swimmers and caves, that swept him away in a flood of emotion. It stirred in him long-lost memories….

…Of desert schooners. …Of caravans. …Of proud lions, acacia thickets; tribal drums.… Memories that chilled his spine and dampened his cheek as they ran his mind through the ages. He could taste them now, he was that close. He was almost… home.

“Brant! …Brant! …BRANT! Snap out of it. Ha-ha. You were somewhere else. It’s lunchtime.”

“I was, indeed. Is it already time for lunch? …I’m not very hungry; I’ll pass.” He suddenly caught himself. He auto-reminded that his friends were only there for his benefit, and that he needed to cut the prima donna crap and to be there for them much better than he thus far had. He appologized for his boorishness – on their way to the cafeteria.

After lunch, Brant was still getting his bearings in the museum when he noticed an exhibit that captured his attention. A design on the blanket wrapping a Stone Age mummy fixed his gaze. The mummy sat upright in a fetal position, chin-to-knees, and was draped with a burial mantle. Dr. Wadi took notice of his sudden focus.

Cobalt picked it up and asked, “What habit killed him?”

“Ha-ha, …that’s an interesting way to put it. Astute, actually. He looks comfortable: an unnatural state in the wild, seen most often among the soon-to-be dead. …He was a shaman, we think, from an early proto-agrarian clan of the late Capsian culture, during the Neolithic Subpluvial period. The Capsian declined roughly 6,000 years ago, around the time this mummy lived and died, approximately 3,900 BCE, after the watershed 5.9 kiloyear event, when the Sahara reverted to its ‘dry’ phase. Its most recent greening stopped at that time, and the desertification that continues today resumed.”

“This fellow lived in a vastly different Sahara – lusher than the desert we now know. It was a verdant savanna teeming with life: a now-extinct giant buffalo Bubalus antiquus, hippopotamus, giraffe, crocodiles, elephant, antelope, lions; …a comparative watery wonderland. …We don’t know how he died. He was buried with items that suggest he was a shaman: beads, pottery, and amulets. …Oh, yes. Another, funny thing… he also had with him… a mummified hummingbird.”

Cobalt was rendered momentarily speechless by that addendum, but quickly recovered with another question.

“I would like to see their artwork; …any images you may have, that I could peruse. Is that possible?”

“Absolutely! I have something right here.” The excavator reached into a cabinet beside his desk and dug out a volume, Art of Neolithic Africa. He opened it to a page of forceful geometric images. Instantly, Brant’s eyes widened as Hanno pointed them out.

“These are some frequently found designs. The one you were interested in seems simple, but it is not that common; I don’t recall ever seeing that particular configuration. Some similar renderings are found on textile fragments, which along with pottery are the most abundant source of imagery we have from the Neolithic.”

“Did these people ever adorn their bodies… with tattoos, for example?”

“They did, but rarely does the evidence survive. …How strange you should ask. I was working just last week at a nearby dig – a cave where mummies were found entombed – and one of them had a small tattoo on the cervical carotid region, …on his neck below his left auricle… the outer ear. Mummified tattoos often are severely damaged over time if they survive at all, as the skin darkens with age and colors generally fade, but this one was well conserved. Desert climate acts in our favor sometimes, ha-ha. …Its image was of a triangle, that enclosed a smaller square, that itself enclosed a smaller circle.”

Brant took all of this in with an intensity reserved for finality. That had not escaped Jack’s notice: he was equally absorbed, having accompanied Cobalt the previous week to the Ink Well, one of metro Washington’s premier tatttoo parlors.

“Did it look anything like this?” Brant asked, then canted his head toward the right. With his left hand, he nudged slightly forward his outer left ear, exposing the region of interest. Dr. Wadi, taken suddenly aback, examined it in stunned disbelief.

“Oh, my. …Yes. It looked just like that! I don’t understand. …How did you… know? It’s even at the exact location. That is uncanny! Oh, my! …How did you know?”

Brant, stymied and without alternative, did his stumbling best.

“I wish I had an answer. …I need to sleep on this one.”

Dr. Wadi invited them to visit that nearby site the following day. They arrived at a scene that was familiar to Jack, but this was Brant’s first encounter with an active dig. He was engrossed by its levels of organization, and the overall neatness.

Scattered across the two-acre site in the Atlas Mountains, 180 miles from Tunis, nine workers, inquisitive and diligent, busied themselves in precise prodding, dusting, and measuring. Wadi welcomed the pair of Americans and led them to the mummy of the moment. Its face radiated a gnostic composure that Hanno described as ‘restful.’ After 6,000 years in the sleep of the dead that look was earned, Brant thought.

A strange sensation came over Cobalt when he glanced at its face, a less reposeful one than the mummy evinced. With Jack and Hanno standing silently by looking on, he bowed slightly in perfunctory introduction and for a closer look.

Cobalt was frankly scared to death: he was very afraid of the very unknown. There were few dreads left in his world that he had not dealt with and overcome, but this was alien territory. He had learned to turn fear to his advantage long ago, when faced with its alternative: conceding ignorance. That option, he determined, was not one.

But, it had him now.

Beholding its visage, Brant’s eyes did not leap from his head. As he laid them lightly upon the mummy and visually caressed each fold of its skin kneading every inch in ocular rubdown, he felt tumblers tumbling in the vault of his memory and emotions he did not know existed. And, an acquaintance he was terrified that did. This was an experience new to him, one he could never forget. Not if he lived another 6,000 years.

A frisson of recognition shot through him as he examined the tattoo. The sight of that familiar mark pierced his spine and his soul with a shuddering concatenation, bridging a millennial breach… as his body trembled. Then, another shiver shook him: one of reunion. …And acceptance.

Brant’s nostrils now tasted fresh Ethiopian ether. He was not familiar with its flavor or fragrance. Not in this lifetime. But he knew, with the certainty of unconstrained conviction, this was it. He had an instinctive knowledge of it that knew no doubt.

“Brant…?” Jack was well aware of the profound implications to him of this ‘reunion,’ and after a prolonged silence his tender inquiry brought Cobalt gently back to the present moment.

“Ha-ha. …Wow. What a rush. …Is it lunchtime, yet? I’m hungry. …There’s something about antiques and old mold that whets the appetite. …You two must be famished. Ha-ha.”

The three bade farewell to the old guy then headed to the nearby café for lunch, to satisfy carnal appetites.

CHAPTER 34: Cobalt and Nikki Get Acquainted, Having Just Met in a Tour of the el Djem Coliseum Ruins

”Who the hell areyou, Nikki,” Brant wondered aloud,on their way up to ground level. They missed the tour’s end; it had been nearly over. Their detour was more illuminating. And, informative.

“I’ve been with The Agency for three years since just out of Oxford, working from London and MI-6. Mostly, Middle East and South Asia.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but would you care for… a cocktail? I just happen to have a bar in my pocket,” he interjected as he opened his minibar. It was not actually in his pocket, or a bar, but might as well have been. Everything he needed was contained in an attaché case that he, on rare occasions, carried with him.

“Oh… my God. I don’t believe it. Ha-ha! Okay, I’ll have… a Boodles and tonic then, please.”

“It comes in handy, once in a great while. Like …touring a catacomb under the Sahara Desert …beneath a Roman amphitheater …with a beautiful woman. I’d say any occasion that is all of those, is one for a cocktail. So, there you were, ‘Fresh out of Oxford…’”

* * *

Brant peered down the ramp into the darkness with an impatient sneer, something he did often and for no apparent reason. “Off, we go. Wazawi’s waited long enough…. Won’t Nigel be worried about you?”

“Not at all. He knows where I am. Besides, he’s grown to anticipate my slutty side. …Speaking of Wazawi, I have some photos for you, from 190 miles in space. ”

“What! Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been dying to see those photos nearly a week, now. About …face! Come on! We’re going to my room… to look at your etchings. How’s that for turnabout?”

On their walk back to his hotel, Brant wondered if he’d been wrong all along about tour groups. He noticed too that chickens had returned to the streets. That instilled in him a feeling both comforting and worrisome. Comforting, in that calm had returned; worrying, that it had been achieved by a chicken. The satellite photos would divulge something of interest, he hoped.

At his hotel, those images were indeed illuminating. They showed a sizeable volume of commercial truck traffic, all nocturnal, operating at the far edge of town – the bottling works. Lines of trucks waiting to be loaded began queuing at midnight and continued until around six each morning.

They had been standing at a table in the main room, studying the photos. That done, Brant moved to the sofa to discuss finer points of aerial photo-analysis.

“Over here Nikki, have a seat.” She joined him where he patted.

While the two busied themselves perusing satellite photos, other life forms shared the room’s air with them. Alien rhythms keeping alien time in binary tempo. Other – ophidian – pairs of eyes… with other sets of rules… that recognized no boundaries… that knew no fear… that sensed the world – not saw it – through sensory pits, as a pixeled yellow monochrome… of heat… and cold… of motion… and stasis… black… and white… stark… and bleak… that watched them come together… that watched them drift apart… watched them come together again… then, slithered closer.

Hunger lashed them like sharp tongues of flame. Food was warm. One spied warmth across the room and wriggled in its direction, its body assuming the contours of its environs. Following their pixels’ trail, it looped behind the sofa and up the back… toward dinner.

Brant noticed a snake crawl past the couch and, in a voice of unassailable serenity avowed, “Nikki, do not be alarmed. There’s a large deadly snake; slithering on the floor across the room is a highly poisonous Gaboon viper. I want you… I do… to stand up, and walk over… there!” He pointed to the kitchen, then crossed the room to the snake, which had hunkered in a corner. “Distract him!”

“Distract him? How the hell do you propose I do that?”

“I don’t know! You cannot tell me that a woman of your obvious abilities needs advice… on how to distract! And, mine, no less. Do a little dance… or something. Your dancing distracts me, there’s no reason it should not distract all other snakes.”

“Perhaps this is a gay viper; there did seem to be a sashay in its slither. Well, we shall see. Watch me.”

“Bet the house on it!”

She then performed a wiggle-waggle-shimmy with a lolli-pop maneuver, not necessarily in that order, that would have captivated any snake in Africa. It would have roused the Sphinx. It resembled premium quality belly dancing closely enough to suggest to Brant this was not her first exposure to Arabic culture, despite her rejoinder to the contrary.

Her boogie engaged the interest of this snake, for a split second. Enough time for Brant, in one of his better tai chi moves, to snatch the snake at the base of its head, after quickly hypnotizing it, admire the geometric pattern of its skin and show it to Nikki so that she too could marvel at its veneer, then carry it to the open window and fling it out into the prickly but waiting arms of a tall cactus: one of a grove of succulents in the courtyard garden that held more secrets than cactus pricks.

“Compliments of Mr. Wazawi,” he cracked as the snake cleared the windowsill.

“Wazawi!?” She made no attempt to disguise her surprise.

“His goons left it here this morning, I presume. Ha-ha. It’s a shame you missed it; you would have enjoyed a good laugh, walking in on that!”

“On what?”

“Oh, nothing really; a bit of collecting. It’s amazing, the kinds of wildlife you find around here with a little net. I would never have thought snakes among them, though. Luckily, they fascinate me and I can always learn a little more about them. You got me started now, there may be no end to it.”

“Gaboon vipers have the longest fangs of any in the world – over two inches – and they inject the largest dose of venom. Gaboons are in a dead heat for the most lethal snake in Africa with the fearsome black mamba and little puff adder.

“Puff adders are responsible for more deaths than Gaboons; they’re small with an attitude, a Napoleon complex with poison. Saw scale vipers, on the other hand, are bad-tempered, extremely aggressive, and kill more people than any African snake. Because of their temperament and size, they easily go unseen and much of their enormous range is in remote backcountry areas far from the life-saving medical treatment a bite requires.

He spoke, not as if hurrying to be somewhere – and with someone – else, but as if he enjoyed the taste each word left on his tongue, and their sound and feel in his mouth. She appreciated that, and truly enjoyed the listening, tiresome as she found the topic.

“Listen to me go on! Ha-ha. But, to finish my lecture on an artistic note, the Gaboon’s look – geometric planes marking its skin that could have been painted by Braque, de Chirico, Cézanne… make it a handsome critter. Don’t you think?”

“Yes. Striking.”

“Hisssss…. Ha-ha.”

“How did your interest in snakes come about?”

“I played with fire a lot as a child. How did you learn snake dancing?”

“I’m serious!”

“I’m curious! Venomous animals – from spiders, scorpions, and snakes, to the tiny and deadly Australian box jellyfish Irukanji – produce poisons science is finding help cure cancers, ease pain, and fight astonishing numbers of maladies. Evolution is just miraculous. The most fascinating of creatures of course is the female of the species Homo sapiens sapiens. That is one critter I cannot get enough of. …Ooh, look. There’s one, now. …A fine specimen.”

With his fingertips, he lightly tapped an ancient message in code that began on the back of her hand.

“Ha-ha! I’m glad you didn’t kill that viper. Thank you for saving me, too, Sir Dragonslayer! Or, is it Saint George? …Or Nuits St. Georges? Ha-ha!”

“I do happen to have a very nice Pommerol. But no, no, no, there’s no saving you! And I’m no saint! …I spared this dragon. St. George killed his. If he did that today, he’d be pilloried. In the 5^th Century, they canonized him. …Sic transit gloria! Ha-ha!”

Classical music wafted from the distant stereo. An oboe solo sprang to his ear, from a passage by a woodwind ensemble, sparking speech.

“Like the music? Double-reeds have a primordial attraction – it’s in my genes, I think – that fascinate me… nearly as much as you do.” She did not respond to his remark.

“Well, thank you, just the same.”

Without reply he smiled at her and their eyes met. He kissed her softly then again with appetite. He felt a rush of hot new blood from his femoral artery stiffen his resolve to please her. She felt it too and buttons lost their grip on friction.

Finally, he had the opportunity now to observe her young body in the light of unperturbed abandon. She was mercifully hardware free; though never averse to new experience, he was not yet sure how to deal with the ring in clitring; the word ring, in general, in the same breath as the word woman, still brought a chill to his spine and warmed the engine of his getaway car.

Her breasts were perfect. They seemed to lead a life of their own, independent of the rest of her; a buoyant, charmed life that anticipated her every move and appeared to avoid gravitational force. Her toned tummy’s sympathetic curves posed a proud prelude, with liberal artistic epilation, to the coming fugue: a dainty, smooth-shaven mons Veneris, full of grace and glistening, begged veneration. His face glowed with a happiness that now illuminated his labors at this mystifying cleft; his smile met hers lip to labium; his tongue serpent-like, scrutinizing, lingering at her inguinal altar, the vestibule of being… to worship, and wonder at the shimmering scissure before him – that this quaint little wattle could wield such worldly wallop – holding it in equal awe as he once beheld, with a similar grin, a vaster gash from a grimmer rim – the Grand Canyon of the Colorado – never mind his current view was superior, and considering the predicament of the hetero human male who, expelled from it once, is by hormones doomed to spend the rest of his life trying to get back in; once there cannot wait to get out again, of this greater than the greatest of cats and ironies, as she gasped her first sky-scratching of several to come; then simply lost himself in her soft sanctuary.

* * *

“I’m disappointed!” Her voice sounded playful, but he was unsure.

“Disappointed!? Ha-ha.” He laughed, but he worried the ever-lingering doubt of the male ego, and finally bit the hook. “At what!?”

“At not seeing those catacombs. I know, of course, they’re not just catacombs, but I’m disappointed!”

“Aren’t you over disappointment, yet!? How old are you?”

“We can’t all be supermen… women.”

“I’m hardly a superman. It’s just that I have had so much experience with failure, I’ve had to learn to deal with disillusionment, not make it a habit. It’s a sad but true fact. The alternative is unacceptable. …Hey, Nikki. You want to see the catacombs?” She nodded as he continued, “Tomorrow, then… maybe. Not tonight, though. I’m going tonight, …alone.”

He continued, “I’ll know by then where I’m going, and won’t get you lost! I need the lay of the land I cannot get with you along. Sometimes we can be too good at what we do.” Her head nodded mute like a bobblehead doll.

For her part, Nikki had worked hard on her own performance. She displayed remarkable poise remaining mum throughout his speech, and not blurting the words that burned her tongue: ‘You ego-testical ASS!’

She had long seen the necessity for a strong, attractive, clever woman in a testosterone-driven world, of maintaining occasional politic silence, overlooking certain minor offenses for the greater good. She also understood human nature. That within every human being, more artfully disguised in some than others but always present, lurked an asshole. Everybody had one. It was the ‘human’ part of the being, she explained; when given a chance, and enough time, it would invariably appear.

He noticed in her an obsession to reveal truths about herself. She was a pathological truthist. He wondered if it was contagious. How she got into this line of work was a question that would linger like butterscotch he reckoned, and doubtless boggle his mind more than was good for it at the moment. She was forthcoming enough to make him slightly edgy at any rate, and more on his guard than usual.

“I thought you lived for danger.” Nikki’s speech began to slur as she felt effects of three Boodles and tonics she began to lament.

When his laughter – at her comment, not condition – subsided, he responded, “I live for the fugitive moments that danger allows. But, like all else, if you do that with an unclean conscience, you risk life, limb, and frightful karma.”

“Still, I’m pleased that you let that viper go free; it was the right thing to do. I promised the bloke at the pet shop I’d take good care of it wh….”

Unbeknownst to Cobalt, the CIA and MI-6 were not Nikki Fairchild’s only employers. She also drew income from a British petro-chemical conglomerate, World Interim Oil, with extensive economic interests in North Africa, among other places. They had been appraising Masdar for the past year, studying its finances, corporate structure, etc., prior to a possible purchase offer or takeover bid. There were rumors in the intelligence community that a recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, that involved one of their offshore drilling rigs, had been intentional; an act of industrial sabotage designed to deflect world attention away from WIO’s cozy financial dealings with unsavory Islamist elements.

Her job was to kill him.

CHAPTER 43:

Nikki Sabotages the Cave with Mischief, Symmetry, and Wild Beasts

Above the Cave’s acre of silent supplicants, in the upper levels of this industrial jungle’s treetop canopy, lurked its resident psychopomp, a strange impish being that swung from limb to limb with easy grace. Cunning and cautious, and ape-like, it had only one eye, but it was the eye of an eagle. Sometimes it did not move at all; it only appeared and disappeared, so fast it was almost imperceptible.

When it could be seen to move, it did so with style. It wheeled and careened from one place to the next with virtuosity; no sound, but for an occasional, soft, whir-r-r. It had a strangely human appearance: a barrel chest, full strong arms, and most of a head, and a gaping scar where another eye would have been. But, that was only the half of it. The other half… was not there at all.

The space was enormous, the largest in the Cave, with a 50-foot – 15 meter – ceiling and warehouse racks, often reaching all the way up, utilizing every inch of vertical space in the chamber that sprawled across nearly 2 acres. It housed towers of boxes and crates that loomed like gargantuan industrial stalagmites from the cavern floor, and contained all the necessary materials any functioning bottling plant needed to produce one-liter glass bottles, full of spring water: bottles, labels, and caps. Aside from glues and inks, there was little else to the bottling operation, material-wise. Just add water.

Aristotle and Brant crept with spycraftiness toward the adjacent sector farther from the bottling works, to investigate. Entering, their excitement spiked. The sound, for one thing. It was animated! No more of the chug and whirr of industry. There was a continuous guttural lowing… from ungulate life forms of several sorts and more, including primates. There was no obvious sign of Wazawi.

There were signs of his presence. At one end were rows of tables, every seat occupied by cleaners hard at work, on raw diamonds. They were busy scrubbing mud and other debris from the rough stones readying them for bottling. Cobalt counted two dozen at the task.

The vast remainder of the room was not as brightly lit or heavily staffed; aside from the diamond brigade, the chamber did not seem staffed at all. Much was unlit: beyond the realm of ocular scrutiny. Brant imagined this sector, with its vigorous mustiness and weathered feel, must be linked to the amphitheater above, by some sort of elevator.

Pens and cages of an ancient age occupied the bulk of its visible floor space. They constrained wild animals: lions, leopards, addax – the large horned antelope endemic to the Sahara, zebras, ostriches, camels, chimpanzees, baboons, and Asian water buffalo – Bubalus bubalis, the commonly domesticated ox-like draft animal. Also in the mix: three pairs of Cape buffalo – the bad-tempered African cousin of the aforementioned water beast – and two elephants, the gentler Asian variety – mild-mannered cousin of the cantankerous tusker of Africa. Their numbers were paltry – well under a dozen of each kind – but the effect was no less surreal.

Goldy was in his element now – one of them – among animate, flesh-and-blood creatures, not the tanned and mounted forms found on his walls at home. Being in the sudden invigorating presence of feral beasts, caged or not, flushed an infusion of life through his veins and new joy to his step. His heart sang as his cadence quickened.

“Goldy! What’s the rush? …Hold on!” As Brant sprinted to catch up, he saw what Goldy was after, and ramped up his own pace. They were able to hear distinct shouts of alarm now, from nearby workmen, that rose above the barnyard-ish din of yowls and yammers, and observe the workers suddenly swarm, drawn toward a remote corner like bees to a bad dog. The closer they got to the disturbance, the more apparent the reason for their panic.

Nikki got a kick out of tricks with arithmetic, among other things. She found that an erg here and an erg there, inconsequential blips by themselves, could come together, in sufficient quantities, toward a magical fusion of mischief and symmetry: pure elemental ergonomic economy. She found too that her enjoyment of math could be compounded by applying it to topical life-and-death situations. To demonstrate this theory, she visited the bottling works that evening and happened to encounter some of the key elements she needed.

One of those, a ring of master keys, hung tantalizingly out of her reach dangling from the neck of a porter, who had been busy with a broom, sweeping.

Nikki, dressed in men’s clothing, managed somehow to distract him while on his way, to an isolated W.C., where he incurred a nasty bash on the back of his head, apparently self-inflicted by his broom, knocking him momentarily from his senses. She retained control of hers and, discovering him incapacitated, snatched the keys from around his neck before altruistically administering trained first aid procedures. She, like Brant, preferred to be prepared for any eventuality, and always kept with her an Elastoplast or a Band Aid for such crises.

Nikki had been busy that evening. She had spent the past hours racing back and forth, between the huge warehouse that held the plant’s material supplies, and the adjacent Camel Pound – the zoo-like area. She had been feverishly engaged – making connections.

With a five-pound spool of bailing twine and, later, heavier cable, she connected animals – some, sizeable – to significant support columns and brackets that held in place the towering tons of boxes that filled the warehouse.

To facilitate storage, a massive racking system gave the room’s infrastructure the look of an enormous jungle gym. Nikki used it all to her advantage in a marvel of engineering minimalism. She had the main support stays for the framework, for example, fastened indirectly to elephant ankles – a fashion statement the pachyderms seemed, though initially perplexed, damn proud to show off.

Other crucial components connected pairs of local addax, from the bases of their horns – taking best advantage of the big antelope’s powerful neck and shoulder brawn – to equipment essential to the bottling process, and so on, until she ran out of twine and cable, but not ideas. She had only to unlock the pens of critters, with the porter’s master key, for the connection ceremony to begin. That was scheduled to coincide with the plant’s final nightly prayer break, begging Allah’s deliverance from the dark. That was also when she ran into the other trespassers to the Cave.

“I never cease to be amazed at the people you run into on an evening’s walk. Nikki, I hope you realize all these animals are quarantined! Infected with… bubonic plague! They are contagious.”

“…That …is not a damn bit funny, Brant Cobalt!”

“It was not meant to be, dearest! I am serious! Just…,” at which point, Aristotle, who had been informed by him that Nikki would likely make a Cave appearance, ever the diplomat, intervened.

“It’s true, Nikki! We just found out, ourselves! I’m a devoted animal lover and I was investigating when we happened to find evidence that these… are plague-infected animals here by agreement with the Tunisian government to keep them away from the general public and out of trouble.”

“Well, I have not been bitten, or harmed in any manner and they have not given me any trouble, but I do have work to do! You can both help. …Brant! What happened to your arm!?”

Even before he answered her question, the antelope she was connecting dropped heavily dead to the floor, a 9mm bullet hole just behind its eye.

Crimson mousse oozed through the addax’s sensitive-looking eyelashes and down its cheek to drip, liquid, onto the tip of its exserted tongue.

The three interlopers scattered, scurrying for cover, on their guards for the half-man. He was somewhere above them watching, like a mad monkey in the treetops… with a gun.

From their sanctuary, Brant took the opportunity of their impromptu get-together to communicate his plan. “We need to take Wazawi alive, if possible. He has a date with a judge. If it should come down to a you or him situation, he loses every time. Never risk your own safety for his!”

While she tended to Cobalt’s arm, Nikki related a story she had heard that afternoon from Lawrence’s wife. The wife was inconsolable over a recent tragedy that befell her sister Fatima and young niece .

It was they, during an ill-fated louage journey to the niece’s audition, whose paths were crossed by Wazawi. The wife was able through her grief to give Nikki a complete description of the horrors inflicted on them, and Nikki conveyed the story to Brant and Aristotle.

As the PA system broadcast a muezzin’s taped summons to prayer from speakers all over the cavern, every employee answered the call. Legions of faithful dropped what they were doing and knelt prostrate on the floor, facing toward Mecca and away from their work station.

While an acre of heads bowed beseechingly, obediently, silently entreating their eastern celestial savior to intercede in their most intimate designs and desires, Nikki took time by the balls. By now, she had worked out a basic release chronology for her captive accomplices. Her goal was to have them synchronized acting as one. Aristotle helped her, while Brant kept an eye on the sky for Zitadoon. Slower animals – elephants and camels – went first, and the fleet-of-feet antelopes, later.

Nikki was astonished at the alacrity with which these beasts approached their new responsibilities. She imagined they had been penned so long, any occasion of freedom was a cause for celebration, then diligence toward their liberator. The elephants, with renewed purpose in life and a giddy-up in their gait, pranced about their duties with paramilitary precision. As a result, the braces for the racking system, subjected for the first time to forces they had neither been designed for nor expected to endure, contorted in techno torture and industrial agony.

One by one, slowly at first, but gradually growing faster, rivets began to pop. Loudly. POP! POP! POP-ping, like popcorn on steroids. Then, nuts popped from bolts, and rained a horrible hardware harangue of astonishing numbers and scale, amassing an armed acoustic assault unheard in these parts. The commotion set alarms wailing and arms flailing, and interrupted the prayerful ensemble of frustrated faithful, some of whom rushed to see for themselves just what wickedness had been loosed on their unsuspecting night.

Surprise was not an adequate assessment of one man’s reaction, as he slinked from the bottling works into the warehouse to find an alien landscape of havoc and bedlam. As he turned into the storeroom, his horrified eyes met a large, middle-aged, adult male chimpanzee locked in an onerous embrace of the anterior end of an addax. Both antelope and primate wore expressions of grave disillusionment and looked to him, as if for relief.

Just then, relief came suddenly and loudly, as several 50-foot-high cardboard towers teetered and crashed resoundingly to the floor. The clangor echoed throughout the Cave, for what seemed to him an eternity, with the distinct contrapuntal ring of an economy of emboldened ergonomics… enough to startle the odd pair into uncoupling.