“You haven’t asked me why.”
Looking up from the maps they were studying as they ate, Annja studied Tanisha Diouf. “Asked you why what?”
“Why I’m out here.”
Annja didn’t understand.
“In the savanna,” Tanisha said. “When I could be home in London with my kids.” She glanced at Kamil and Bashir. The boys played in the nearby scrub, going deeper and deeper into the wilderness as they got braver. “To hear my mother tell it, where I should be with my kids.” She sighed. “There’s nothing worse than a mom call.”
Annja had seen Tanisha talking on the satellite phone earlier.
“Does your mom call to give you grief over what you do?” Tanisha asked.
“I kind of missed out on that,” Annja said.
“You lost your mom?” Tanisha looked stricken. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up anything that would—”
“Actually, I was raised in an orphanage.”
“I’ve seen you on that show—”
“Chasing History’s Monsters,” Annja said.
“—and no one ever mentioned it.”
“Not exactly something you want advertised on a television show like that,” Annja said. She waited a beat. “So why are you?”
“Why am I what?” Tanisha asked.
“Out here. In the wilds of West Africa. With your boys.”
“I was working for Childress in London. Operating some of the drilling platforms he’s working in the North Sea. I had a deal set up with him where I was two weeks on-site and two weeks home with my kids. Still available for calls, though.” Tanisha ate another peach slice. “Then he approached me about this.” She waved her fork around to take in the savanna.
“Was the offer too good to turn down?”
“It was good. Don’t get me wrong there. But it was something else that made me come here.”
Annja waited.
“I grew up in London,” Tanisha said. “But my grandparents grew up in the United States. In Georgia. Near Atlanta. Before that, according to my father and grandfather, my people were here.”
“West Africa?”
Tanisha nodded. “They were from the Hausa.” She looked at Annja. “The same people who made that Spider Stone.” She shrugged. “So, in a way, taking this job meant that I could see my homeland. I didn’t know if it would make a difference.”
“Does it?”
Tanisha hesitated. “I don’t know. The job and the boys have been keeping me frantic. The sabotage and destruction of the equipment has been the worst. That always causes a drain on time and energy.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “But sometimes, when I’m alone or it’s really late at night, or when I’m talking to Jaineba, this place just feels like home.” Shaking her head, she looked at Annja. “Isn’t that weird?”
Annja thought about the sword she carried, the one Joan had carried into battle. I’ve seen stuff a lot weirder than that, she thought.
AN HOUR LATER, they came to a rise and Annja looked down into the slight valley below. A small stream, nothing like the Senegal River or any of the other three that fed the country, wound through the valley and—for a time, just as the Spider Stone map showed—became two streams.
There was something about the land that drew Annja’s attention. Pieces of the Spider Stone’s map and the topography files she’d been studying fit together inside her head.
She had the driver stop and she got out at the top of the hill.
Garin, noticing that she had stopped, ordered his vehicle to a halt also. He clambered out with his assault rifle in hand.
“What is it?” he asked.
“We’re here,” Annja said, controlling the excitement that filled her. “This is the Brothers of Water.”
Garin looked around at the area. “You’re sure?”
Annja nodded. She saw the landmarks she’d been searching for—the hills that formed a bowl-shaped depression and the two streams that made a wishbone only a little to the right of her position. There, like the Senegal River was formed by the mixing of the Semefé and Bafing Rivers, the two streams came from one, then pooled into a depression at the bottom of the valley.
“It’s here,” she said. “Or it doesn’t exist at all.”
THEY BEGAN in the center of the valley. Annja marked off sections by natural landforms. The hunt kicked off in earnest.
“What are we looking for exactly?” McIntosh asked.
“A door,” Annja said. “At least, that’s what I think it is. On the map on the Spider Stone, it shows a rectangle that I think is a door.”
“But you might be wrong,” he said.
“Archaeology isn’t as exact a science as mathematics or physics,” Annja said. “There’s a lot of guesswork involved, conclusions that you draw that may never be proved.”
“The rectangle could just as easily be an unmarked grave,” he said.
Annja replied grudgingly, “Yes. But that’s not what the stone says.”
TAFARI WATCHED the woman search the valley. Hours passed and the sun settled over the western horizon. Still, she didn’t give up.
Nor did he.
He lay on his chest on another hill and held a pair of binoculars to his eyes as the woman continued her quest. Eventually, some of those hunting in the area were pulled off the search to set up camp.
Zifa crawled up to him and handed him a satellite phone. “Childress,” Zifa said.
Taking the phone, Tafari cradled it to his face and said, “Yes?”
“I think this is a waste of time,” Childress complained. “Whatever she thinks she has, whatever you think she has, she doesn’t have it.”
Tafari said nothing. He kept watch through the binoculars. Below, the searchers were starting to use flashlights, not even giving up to the night.
“Did you hear me?” Childress demanded.
“I did,” Tafari replied.
“What are you going to do?”
“Be patient.”
“It’s just a superstition,” Childress argued. “If there was anything to find here, it would have been found by now.”
“Sometimes,” Tafari said, “secrets don’t come out so easily. What you’re talking about in this place, the gods have hidden.”
“In the morning,” Childress said, “I’m leaving. This has ceased to be amusing.”
“You would never make a good hunter,” Tafari told the man. “And if you leave now, you can consider our partnership in the matter of this treasure at an end.”
“Why?”
“If you’re not here to labor for the fruits, you won’t be allowed to partake in the banquet.”
Childress sounded upset. “I did my part. I delivered the woman.”
“But now you’ve become a part of it. If you leave this expedition early, that could warn her. She already senses that she’s being followed.”
“If she does, I haven’t seen any sign of it,” Childress said.
“You’re a civilized predator,” Tafari said. “You don’t know what to look for out here. The woman does. If you leave tomorrow, you will end our agreement because your departure will jeopardize my effectiveness in trailing her.”
“All right,” Childress grumbled. “I’ll be here for a few more days. No more than that.” He broke the connection.
Tafari handed the phone back to Zifa.
“There is a problem if the woman continues in the direction she’s headed,” Zifa said.
“What?”
“The village we destroyed a few days ago lies less than two miles farther in the direction she’s going.”
Tafari had almost forgotten about the Hausa village they’d eliminated. “Maybe it would be good if she and her friends see that place,” he told Zifa. “That way she’ll know what I’m capable of.”
FRUSTRATION CHAFED at Annja as she stared through the darkness. But the feeling that she was at the edge of discovery wouldn’t go away.
Moving slowly through the brush, her eyes burning, she searched for anything that might suggest a hidden place. Graves could often be found by earth that sank in after them. So could collapsed buildings and remnants of cities. Refuse built up over time, and she had no way of knowing how long ago Anansi’s treasure had been hidden.
“Annja.”
She ignored McIntosh’s call, knowing he would only want to try to talk her into giving up the search for the night.
“Hey.” McIntosh caught up to her, flashlight bobbing through the scrub brush. He took her by the elbow.
“Let go,” she said.
He took his hand back. “I’m not asking you to give up,” he said. “Just to wait. It’s dark out here. Somebody’s going to get hurt. Come eat. Get some rest. Then start again in the morning when it’s light. Everything will look different then.”
He’s right, she thought. She forced herself to take a deep breath. One of the most important things she’d learned while on digs was that the expectations of the leader tempered those of the people working the site. Pour on the expectation too early, keep them working too long and too hard, and there would be less to work with.
“You’re right,” she said.
“ANNJA,” Tanisha called.
Groggy from being sound asleep, her dreams filled with spiders, maps and murderous men, Annja blinked her eyes and focused on Tanisha Diouf as the woman unzipped the tent and climbed in.
“What’s wrong?” Annja asked.
“Bashir’s missing,” Tanisha replied. “I looked for him, but I can’t find him anywhere.”
Fear tightened Annja’s stomach, and she felt a chill against the back of her neck. Rain slapped against the tent, and from the sound of it she knew the ground outside was soaked.
“How long has he been missing?” Annja dressed quickly.
“Five, maybe ten minutes. I went looking for him, but I couldn’t find him.” Panic ate at the edges of Tanisha’s words.
Annja pulled on her hiking boots and laced them up. A glance at her watch showed her it was just after 6:00 a.m. It didn’t sound as though anyone else was up. “We’ll find him. Are Garin and his men up?”
“The sentries are.”
“None of them saw Bashir?”
“They saw him walk into the brush. They didn’t see him walk back out.”
Annja grabbed the pistol and slung the assault rifle. Reaching down, she grabbed her backpack. It contained medical supplies, rope and extra gear.
“Why did Bashir go into the brush?” Annja asked.
“To use the bathroom. He’s shy about that. Kamil knows he’s supposed to go with him, but he said he couldn’t wake up.” Tanisha shook her head. “I didn’t even know he was gone until I woke up a few minutes ago and he wasn’t there.”
Garin was up when Annja left her tent. So was McIntosh.
“What’s going on?” Garin asked.
“Bashir is missing,” Tanisha cried.
Garin looked over to one of the hard-eyed sentries.
The man shook his head, then spoke German. Annja listened.
“Did you see the boy?” Garin asked.
“The boy went into the brush,” the man said. “He does that. Likes to be by himself. Shy kidneys. I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Has anyone been around?”
“No.”
Garin held the assault rifle, barked orders to his men and looked at Annja. He spoke in English. “Let’s find the boy.”
FOLLOWING Bashir’s trail across the muddy ground was easy at first. The rain had softened the surface enough that his footprints sank into the ground. However, that same rain also threatened to wash them away.
Annja moved quickly. Mud clung to her hiking boots and made her feet heavy. Sucking noises sounded every time she lifted the boots clear of the muck.
Bashir had managed a circuitous route through the brush. From the way he stopped and his feet turned around, it was evident he was tracking something. A short distance on, Annja found the tracks of a hare.
“A rabbit,” McIntosh said, dropping to one knee to examine the tracks.
“Bashir saw them all day yesterday,” Tanisha said. “He wanted to make a pet out of one of them.”
A short distance ahead, Annja saw where a sinkhole had opened up in the earth, leaving a gaping maw almost four feet across. Her heart trip-hammered in her chest. She’d suspected that Anansi’s chamber was underground, but there was no way of knowing how large it was.
“Oh, my god,” Tanisha gasped. She jerked into a run.