"At least your goods are safely hidden," said Severus. "And those escaping sailors will tell the scholars of the Empire what we did here."
"No," said Venator shaking his head. "No one will believe the fanciful tales of ignorant seamen." He turned and gazed back at the low hills in the distance. "It will remain lost for all time."
"Can you swim?"
Venator's eyes returned to Severus. "Swim?"
"I'll give you five of my best men to cut a passage to the water if you think you can reach the ship."
"I . I'm not certain." He studied the waters of the river and the widening gap between the ship and shoreline.
"Use a piece of debris for a raft if you have to," Severus said harshly.
"But hurry, we'll all be meeting our gods in a few more minutes."
"What about you?"
"This hill is as good a place as any to make a stand."
Venator embraced the centurion. "God be with you."
"Better he walk with you."
Severus turned and swiftly selected five soldiers who were unwounded and ordered them to protect Venator on their run for the river. Then he went about the business of reforming his ravaged unit for a final defense.
The few legionaries clustered around Venator-Then they made their dash for the river, shouting, and hacking their way through a loose line of startled barbarians. They cut and slashed like madmen on a bloody rampage.
Venator was exhausted beyond feeling, but his sword never hesitated, his step never faltered. He was a scholar who had become an executioner. He was long past the point of no return. There was only grim stubbornness left now; any fear of dying had disappeared.
They fought through the mad whirl of fiery heat. Venator could smell the odor of burnt flesh. He threw off another shred of his tunic and covered his nose and mouth as they fought through the smoke.
The soldiers went down, protecting Venator to their last breath.
Suddenly his feet were in the water, and he sprang forward, diving the instant it rose above his knees. He glimpsed a spar that had fallen free of a burning ship and feverishly paddled toward it, not daring to look back.
The soldiers still on the bluff countered everything that was thrown at them. The barbarians dodged and chanted defiance while probing for a weak spot in the Roman defenses. Four times they grouped in mass formations and charged, and four times they were hurled back, but not before they took down a few more of the exhausted legionaries. The square became a small knot as the few survivors closed ranks and fought shoulder to shoulder. Bloody heaps of dead and dying carpeted the land, their blood flowing in streams down the slopes. And still the Romans resisted.
The battle had been raging without let-up for nearly two hours, but the barbarians were attacking with the same intensity as at the beginning.
They began to smell victory and massed for one last charge.
Severus broke off the arrow shafts that protruded from his exposed flesh and fought on. Barbarian corpses carpeted the ground around him. Only a handful of his legionaries remained at his side. One by one they perished, sword in hand, buried beneath swarms of rocks, arrows and spears.
Severus was the last to fall. His legs folded under him and his arm could no longer lift his sword. He swayed on his knees, made a futile effort to rise, then looked up to the sky and muttered softly, "Mother, Father, carry me to your arms."
As if in answer to his plea, the barbarians rushed forward and savagely clubbed him until death released his agony.
In the water, Venator grimly clutched the spar and kicked his legs in a desperate attempt to reach the retreating ship. His effort was in vain.
The river's current and a puff of wind pushed the merchant vessel further away.
He shouted to the crew and frantically waved his free hand. A group of seamen and a young girl holding a dog stood on the stern, staring at him without compassion, making no move to bring the ship around. They continued their escape down river as if Venator did not exist.
They were abandoning him, he realized helplessly. There would be no rescue. He beat a fist on the spar in anguish and sobbed uncontrollably, convinced that his God had forsaken him. Finally he turned his eyes toward shore and gazed at the carnage and devastation.
The expedition was gone, vanished in a nightmare.
PART I
October 12, 1991
Heathrow Airport, London
No one paid the slightest attention to the pilot as he slipped around the crowd of media correspondents who overflowed from the interior of the VIP lounge. Nor did any of the passengers sitting in the waiting area of gate 14 notice that he carried a large duffel bag instead of a briefcase. He kept his head down, eyes straight ahead, carefully avoiding the battery of TV cameras aimed at a attractive woman with a smooth brown face and compelling coal-black eyes, who was the hub of the noisy activity.
The pilot quickly walked through the enclosed boarding ramp and halted in front of a pair of airport security agents. They wore plain clothes and blocked the aircraft door. He threw a casual wave and tried to shoulder his way past them, but a hand firmly grasped his arm.
"One moment, Captain."
The pilot stopped, a questioning but friendly expression on his dark-skinned face. He seemed idly amused at the inconvenience.
His olive-brown eyes had a gypsylike piercing quality about them. The nose had been broken more than once, and a long scar ran down the base of his face.
He stood nearly six feet four inches, thickset, with a slightly rounded paunch. Seasoned, confident, and standing straight in a tailored uniform, he looked like any one of ten thousand airline pilots who captained international passenger jets.
He removed his identification from a breast pocket and handed it to the security agent.
"Carrying VIPs this trip?" he asked innocently.
The British guard, correct, immaculately dressed, nodded. "A body of United Nations people returning to New York including the new SecretaryGeneral."
"Hala Kamil?"
"Yes."
"Hardly the job for a woman."
"Sex didn't prove a hindrance for Prime Minister Thatcher."
"She wasn't in water over her head."
"Kamil is an astute lady. She'll do all right."
"Providing Moslem fanatics from her own country don't blow her away,"
replied the pilot in a decided American accent.
The Britisher gave him a strange look indeed but made no further comment as he compared the photo on the I.D. card with the face before him and read the name aloud. "Captain Dale Lemk."
"any problem?"
"No, simply preventing any," the guard replied flatly.
Lemk extended his arms. "Do you want to frisk me too?"
"Not necessary. A pilot would hardly hijack his own airplane. But we must check your credentials, to be certain you're a genuine crew member."
"I'm not wearing this uniform for a costume party."
"May we see your carry bag?"
"Be my guest." He set the blue nylon bag on the floor and opened it. The second agent lifted out and riffled the pages of the standard pilot's aircraft and flight operations manuals and then held up a mechanical device with a small hydraulic cylinder.
"Mind telling us what this is?"
"An actuator arm for an oil-cooling door. It stuck in the open position, and our maintenance people at Kennedy asked me to hand-carry it home for inspection."
The agent poked at a bulky object tightly packed on the bottom of the bag. "Hello, what do we have here?" Then he looked up, a curious expression in his eyes. "Since when do airline pilots carry parachutes?"
Lemk laughed. "My hobby is skydiving. Whenever I have an extended layover, I jump with friends at Croydon."
"I don't suppose you would consider jumping from a jetliner?"
"Not from one flying five hundred knots at thirty-five thousand feet over the Atlantic Ocean."
The agents exchanged satisfied glances. The duffel bag was closed and the I.D. card was passed back.