The face.
Marcus had seen it. Where? Think.
The man who killed his family.
The Lion
Kazim said, “Either you do what you’re told, or I shoot you and search your dead body. Then I shoot the girl in the gut so she can wander off in the woods and die slowly.”
Alicia watched in terror, fearful that the man she loved was going to die in front of her. She looked over to Waterton in the pilot’s seat. He was reaching for something in the console next to him.
Kazim said, “With one hand, slowly reach into your pocket and set the spear on the ground. If you move quickly, you will die, and so will the girl and the pilot.”
Marcus did as ordered, taking the spear from inside his sports coat pocket and setting it on the ground in front of him.
Kazim glanced down. “Good. Now step back.”
Waterton shoved open the passenger door next to him in the cockpit. He pointed the pistol and squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit Kazim in the upper stomach, knocking him to the ground, the gun flying from his hand. Marcus picked up the spear and jumped in the helicopter. He shouted, “Go! Go! Go!”
Waterton started the engine, the rotor blade swinging into motion. Alicia looked out the window. “He’s going for his gun!”
Kazim crawled painfully toward his gun, trailing blood. The helicopter blade gained fast rotation, building lift. Kazim reached for his gun. He grabbed it just as the helicopter rose into the air, the prop blowing dust and grit into Kazim’s face, obscuring a clear shot. He fired three shots, one bullet striking the skids. Waterton flew above the office trailer, climbed over the tree line and set a course for Mount Etna.
Marcus said, “Thank you.”
Waterton nodded. “When you fly for the Royal Air Force, you fly armed. Who the hell is that bloke?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s this spear? What is it so important to him?”
“It has a long history.”
“Would the history go back two-thousand years?”
Marcus was silent.
Alicia said. “Yes. Two thousand years. You knew all along. How?”
“Your faces have been on the tube and all over the Internet. Now, do you two want to tell me the real reason you want to fly to Etna?”
Marcus looked at the horizon, the volcano growing closer. “The spear has to be thrown into Mount Etna.”
“What! Why?”
“I was told to do it.”
“Who told you and why?”
“I don’t know all the reasons. I may not know any of the reasons. Look, I truly believe I was told by God to do it.”
Waterton nodded, the volcano reflecting from his dark glasses. “That’s bloody good enough for me.”
Marcus looked at Etna growing closer. He said, “That’s the largest volcano in Europe. Some people believe when it blew up seven or eight thousand years ago, the explosions, quakes and energy sent a massive tsunami creating a flood of epic proportions over the entire Middle East and Europe. Maybe this spearhead will somehow keep that from happening right now.”
Waterton kept his eyes straight ahead, the volcano now a mammoth mountain in front of them. Smoke drifted eerily from the summit and trailed high into a flat cloud.
Kazim stood and walked to the trailer door. He fired a shot into the lock then kicked the door open. He went behind the counter and picked up a set of keys from one of two hooks on a bulletin board. Above the keys was a note held into place with a thumbtack that read: chopper two.
He pulled a bungee cord from a shelf next to the bulletin board, opened the door to a bathroom and found a clean, white towel. He lifted his bloodied shirt and placed the towel to his wound then used the bungee cord to hold it in place. He limped to his parked car and removed the rifle. Then he walked to the remaining helicopter, opened the door, and started the engine, the rotor blade whining. Within one minute, Kazim was in the air and flying the helicopter toward Mount Etna.
ONE-HUNDRED-SIXTEEN
Marcus watched Waterton work the helicopter controls, using his feet in unison with one hand on the cyclic stick. Marcus could feel the physics of lift and propulsion. “You ever fly a chopper?” Waterton asked.
“No. You make it seem easy.”
“Nothing to it that practice won’t conquer.”
Mount Etna was less than a mile away. It rose more than ten thousand feet above Sicily. The neck of the old mountain wore a scarf of snow. Silvery smoke drifted from its crater. Alicia said, “It’s breathtaking. Etna is fire and ice together on a podium high above the rest of earth.”
Waterton nodded. “No matter how many times I fly Etna, she always looks a little different. Sometimes it’s the light, the weather, or the mood Etna’s in at the time.”
Marcus said, “Maybe Etna’s in a cooperative mood. It looks like the wind is blowing the smoke to the north. Maybe we can get closer than what you thought.”
Waterton studied the smoke for a moment. “Like I was saying, Etna always looks different, but as many times as I’ve flown people up here, I’ve never seen the smoke sort of bow down like somebody’s pulling it in a near straight damn line north. Wish I’d brought my camera.”
Alicia glanced back to the west. Her eyes opened wide. “Paul, we’ve got company. A helicopter is coming behind us.”
Waterton looked to the west. “That’s my second bird! Who the hell’s flying it?”
Marcus watched the helicopter in the distance. “Get us over the summit! Fast as you can! Whoever it is wants to stop us. We’re so close.”
Waterton accelerated, banking into the wind and turning the helicopter to approach the volcano from the south. “Hold on. You never know what the winds will be like when you fly above her throat. God help us if the mountain decides to burp. Our uninvited guest will be here in less than a minute.”
Marcus removed the spear and the flash drive from his pocket. “Just a little closer…we’re almost there.”
Kazim held his bleeding stomach with one hand and worked the controls with the other. Blood soaked the towel, seeping between his fingers. Sweat poured from his ashen face. He lifted the rife from the seat next to him, used his feet to control the rotor blades, and held the helicopter stationary in one position near Mount Etna. With his pistol, he shot out the window next to him. The noise from the rotors was deafening. Wind blew hard through the open hole. Kazim rested the rifle on the hole in the window. He aimed, centering the cross hairs in the scope over his target, the helicopter now approaching the mouth of Etna.
He fired.
The bullet blew apart the windshield closest to Marcus. The round hit Waterton in his arm and entered the side of his chest, destroying ribs and collapsing a lung. He lost control of the helicopter for a brief moment.
“I’m shot!” he said, his face tightening in pain. “I’ll try to set her down.”
“No!” Marcus shouted over the prop noise. “We’re almost there.”
Waterton said nothing for a few seconds, his jaw line popping. He glanced down at the spearhead Marcus held in his hand. “You say that spear goes back two thousand years?”
Alicia said, “Yes!”
Waterton nodded. “Let’s make that delivery!” He pushed the controls and flew the helicopter over the crater. Marcus looked down. He could see the orange glow of molten lava bubbling, crawling inside the volcano like a life form, its gases and smoke swirling from the caldron.
“Get me to the center!’ Marcus shouted, cracking open the side door, the wind rushing against his face.