The Black Madonna by Davis Bunn

Author:Davis Bunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone

BUT WADI HADDAD WAS NOT to be found. Ahmed led him about the oasis. There must have been fifty or so people involved in Ahmed’s little operation, an equal number of men and women with a host of children. Several men showed genuine anger at Harry’s presence. Ahmed tried to hide it, but Harry could see that not locating Wadi Haddad troubled the smuggler. And anything big enough to turn their lone protector skittish set Harry’s gut to crawling.

Ahmed tried to draw a response from a nearby woman tending a washing machine sheltered beneath a palm-thatched lean-to. She pretended that the diesel generator powering her washer made it impossible to understand him. That was when Harry spotted the reception committee.

They numbered about ten. Two outriders and a bear of a leader, all of them pointing various guns straight at old Harry.

Ahmed started to pull a pistol from his belt, but Harry gripped the man’s arm. “Too late for that. Check out the cave up to your right.”

Three men stood on a ledge about thirty feet above the oasis floor. One of them had Emma by the hair, a revolver jammed into the base of her skull. He was wearing Emma’s sunglasses and grinning hugely. The other two were barely teens, but they held their carbines like they knew what they were doing.

Ahmed shouted in rapid-fire Arabic while advancing toward the burly man. The bear heard him out for about thirty seconds, long enough for Ahmed to get in close enough to wave his arms in the man’s face. Then he reversed his pistol and hammered Ahmed once between the eyes. Ahmed staggered but refused to go down.

As the bear took aim for a second blow, Harry stepped forward and said, “I think my pal’s got the picture.” He gripped Ahmed by the arm and turned him toward where Emma waited. “Marching up there is the only real choice we’ve got.”

The farther they climbed up the path leading to the cave, the louder Harry’s body protested. Emma managed to shrug off her captor’s grip and hurried over to take Harry’s weight. Harry grunted his thanks and took as long a breath as his ribs permitted. They were ushered toward a cave whose door would not have looked out of place on a medieval dungeon. The iron frame was molded to the cave’s mouth and bolted to the rock. The door itself was six inches thick and studded with nails. Harry had a final image of dark, leering faces, then the door boomed shut.

He figured a coffin would have had more light.

Then he heard a click, and the glow of an electric lantern illuminated Wadi Haddad. “You come to rescue me. How very nice.”

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