“Not much farther, buddy,” Sean encouraged him.
“You…get the…car…and meet me,” Tommy managed to blurt out amid heaves.
“Not happening. Keep moving,” he barked.
Sean looked to his left and saw the man who’d been at the top of the temple now running down the stairs. He’d already reached the second landing and would soon be on the ground and heading their way.
With twenty yards to go, Sean urged his friend to pick it up. “Here they come,” he said, pointing at the guy descending the last set of stairs. Tommy found his second wind and pumped his legs harder.
Sean fished the keys out of his pocket and hit the unlock button on the keyless entry. The locks clicked as he reached the door. In two seconds, the door was open, and he was inside, shoving the keys in the ignition. Tommy skidded around the gravel and to the passenger side. He opened the door and slid in at the same time Sean revved the car to life.
Through the windshield, they could see the man from the rooftop sprinting their way with a black handgun held outstretched, pointed straight at them. As soon as the first shot was fired, Sean kicked the car into reverse and backed up, spinning the front tires and sending gravel flying into the grass. A second after the gunman squeezed the trigger, panic struck the tourists on the grounds. People screamed and started running for cover. The gunman fired again, now only thirty yards away but still too far to be accurate. His shots were out of desperation more than anything.
Sean spun the wheel, shifted the gears, and punched the accelerator. Before turning the car out of the parking lot, he saw two other men running at them from the woods they’d left moments ago.
The little car whipped out onto the cracked pavement and sped away, leaving the attackers to chase on foot.
Tommy was gasping for air in the passenger seat. Sean removed his rucksack and tossed it in the backseat before checking on his friend. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I really have to get on a workout regimen when we get back.”
Sean diverted the conversation back to the issue at hand. “That’s three times in three separate countries that someone has come after us. We need to know who they are, what they want, and why they’re trying to kill us.”
“Once we find out the answers to the first two questions, I’m pretty sure the third will answer itself.”
“Good point,” Sean nodded, shooting a quick glance out of the corner of his eye.
“The other questions I want answers to is where that relic went. Why was the box in the temple empty? And what did those engravings say?”
“I’m sure the kids will have an answer for us soon enough on the latter. But you’re right. Why would someone go to all the trouble to hide something of extraordinary value in a highly secretive place just to put it somewhere else?”
The car hit one of the many potholes, but Sean kept it on course.
“You think it might be a decoy?” Tommy asked. His breathing had begun to slow. He looked nervously out the window into the rearview mirror.
“Maybe. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through to set up a decoy, though.”
Sean swerved to miss another pothole, this time putting the right-side tires onto the edge of the lane. The rubber kicked up some debris, but a second later he was back in the middle again.
Tommy’s phone beeped at the same time Sean felt his vibrate in his pants pocket. Tommy checked the screen. “It’s from Tara.” After tapping the device twice, he looked over at Sean and grinned. “We were right. It’s Sudanese. And apparently, the message carved into that stone box says that we will find what we seek in the halls of the Tiger’s Nest.”
“Tiger’s Nest?” Sean’s eyes narrowed. He kept them facing forward, though, as he weaved around a slower-moving car.
“That’s what she says.” The phones beeped and vibrated again, signaling another message had arrived. “Now she says that there’s a Buddhist monastery high up in the mountains of Bhutan called the Tiger’s Nest. She thinks that might be our best bet.”
Sean considered the information for a moment before speaking. “That would make sense, I suppose.”
“Of course it would.” Tommy spoke with renewed excitement, the exhaustion from the long sprint a distant memory. “With the proliferation of Islam in Indonesia, the Buddhist monks who were entrusted with the Hebrew relic must have known it would be in grave danger. According to the history of Borobudur, the monks abandoned it. They wouldn’t have left something so precious behind.”
“They would have thought to take it somewhere safe,” Sean finished the thought.
“Exactly.”
“Bhutan is a pretty mountainous country. If it’s one of those monasteries that’s up on a cliff, it would be about as safe a place as any to hide something like that.” He spoke with confidence, but in his mind a twinge of nausea crept in. Sean had always been terrified of heights. On a trip to Machu Picchu, he’d barely been able to force himself up from a crawling position as he ascended some of the precipitous steps. The memory blurred his vision for a second, but he snapped himself back to the present. No sense in worrying about something until there was something to worry about. Maybe this Tiger’s Nest wouldn’t be as precariously placed on a mountain as the ancient Incan village.
Sean caught a glimpse of something move suddenly in the driver’s side rearview. A silver sedan dove into the other lane, passing the car Sean had just blown by a minute before. His eyes shifted back and forth from the road ahead to the car behind them. He didn’t want to alarm Tommy for no reason, but when he saw the man pop out of the passenger window, aiming a submachine gun at them, Sean figured it was time.
“Get your gun ready,” he ordered without explanation.
Tommy looked at him, puzzled. “What?”
Sean’s eyes flicked to the mirror. Tommy followed his gaze, and as soon as he saw what his friend was looking at, he sagged a little in the seat.
“We have company.”
19
Sean stomped on the gas, getting all he could out of the weak four-cylinder engine. The motor resisted but eventually picked up speed as Sean deftly ducked the car in and out of the ever-increasing traffic heading into the city.
“If we go back into the city, they’ll catch up to us, and we’ll have nowhere to run,” Tommy warned. He’d retrieved the gun from his holster and held it ready by the window.
“Yep. I’m aware of that.” Sean jerked the wheel to the left, narrowly missing the back bumper of a delivery van. He hammered down on the gas, speeding the car directly at a flatbed truck in the other lane. “This is gonna be close,” he almost yelled.
Tommy gripped the handle over the window until his knuckles went white. His entire face cinched into a grimace as if that would help the car somehow magically go faster.
At the last second, Sean pulled the wheel back toward the right lane. The flatbed rumbled by, its blaring horn accompanied by a loud, vibrating swoosh. They only missed the truck by a few inches.
The road ahead was mostly clear, but Sean knew that would change as soon as they reached the outskirts of the city. He glanced into the mirror again and saw the silver car zip easily around the delivery truck and fall in line behind them once more. The other vehicle was much faster and this time closed the gap between the two cars in mere seconds.
The man on the passenger side leaned out of the window again, brandishing his weapon. He opened fire, sending a barrage of bullets at the two Americans. The rear window cracked into spider webs as three rounds pierced the glass and went through the front windshield. Sean instinctively yanked the wheel to the left and back to the right in an attempt to throw off the shooter’s aim, but that tactic would only be effective for a short time.