Dagger Magic

DILLON went rigid, quivering convulsively as if struck by an electric charge, his lantern glowing momentarily brighter before tumbling from his hands. Plunkett backpedalled frantically, slamming into the side of the cliff behind him and dropping his duffel bag. When Dillon's spasms abated, he crumpled to his knees in the sand, staring blindly ahead. The man who had touched him caught him easily under one elbow to keep him from falling over.

"Jayzus, Mary, and Joseph!" Plunkett muttered, and hastily crossed himself.

The gesture did not escape Raeburn.

"I doubt that will avail you very much, Mr. Plunkett, unless you are a man of far greater depth than I take you for. And I wouldn't even think about trying to run. I doubt my associates would take it kindly. Mr. Dillon, please leave your satchel, and go back and get into the dinghy. I shouldn't want you to drown when the tide comes in."

Plunkett blenched visibly as Dillon shouldered out of the strap on the satchel and got to his feet, oblivious to anything around him as he walked back to the beached inflatable and got in, sitting statue-like amidships. Running a dry tongue across his lips, Plunkett managed to whisper, "Who the devil are you people?''

Raeburn disdained to answer the question, only tucking his pistol into his waistband as he turned back to the two Phurba priests.

"I see you got here in good time," he said in German. "So, which way is this cave?"

The two Tibetans traded glances. Then Kurkar silently turned and pointed with his Phurba toward a shadowy section of the cliff fronting the cove. Frowning, Raeburn directed the beam of his lantern upward, where its glare lit up a jagged hole in the cliff-face, with the edges showing raw like a newly opened wound.

Smiling faintly, Raeburn turned back to Plunkett and gestured toward the satchel Dillon had left. Nagpo had retrieved the fallen lantern.

"All right, pick that up and come with me."

Plunkett's gaze flicked to the pistol in Raeburn's waistband, but at his captor's pointed glance back at the nearest Phurba priest, he bent to obey, awkwardly slinging the satchel alongside his bag of flares, then reshouldering the duffel bag. He staggered a little under the combined weight as Raeburn directed him toward a tumbled rockfall at the cliffs base.

"I can't climb that," he protested, faltering to a standstill. "Not carrying these."

"My associates believe that you can," Raeburn informed him. "And you will - unless, of course, you prefer to find out precisely what happened to your man. Personally, I would advise against it. I'm told that he will suffer no permanent harm - but I am never entirely certain, when dealing with another language and culture, whether the vocabulary is exactly equivalent. Start climbing, Mr. Plunkett - and do be careful. You're carrying explosives."

"What the - "

"You did indicate to Mr. Kavanagh that obtaining explosives on such short notice would be impossible - something about government red tape intended to foil would-be terrorists. Fortunately, Mr. Kavanagh is extremely resourceful. Climb, Mr. Plunkett."

As he gestured upward with his lantern, Plunkett made a noise between a groan and a sob, now convinced that Raeburn himself was one of those terrorists, but he was already readjusting the weight of the satchel and the flares, to counterbalance the duffel bag, and began immediately, if laboriously, to climb.

The rockfall had made a rude stairway leading up to a diagonal ledge. Soon puffing and panting under his burden, Plunkett scuffed his way sideways along the ledge, now and then casting nervous glances over his shoulder at the moonlit beach below. Raeburn followed hard on his captive's heels, shining the electric torch onto the path ahead, his own thoughts carefully screened behind a mask of professional inscrutability. With Nagpo and Kurkar keeping close behind him, shadowing his every move, he knew he was as much a prisoner of the present situation as Plunkett. But with any luck, he might succeed in altering the circumstances in his own favor.

The threshold to the opening was choked with fresh rubble. Squeezing past Plunkett, Raeburn shone the lantern inside and then entered, bidding Plunkett to follow. With the two Phurba priests following after, the skipper of the Rose needed no further encouragement, though he stifled a curse as he stumbled on rough footing and nearly fell.

The opening became a passage that wormed its way into the fabric of the cliff. After a couple of tight, zigzag turns, the party arrived at the mouth of a second opening, where light from Raeburn's lantern dispersed into open space beyond. Peering ahead and past his captor, Plunkett gasped and nearly dropped his burden.

"Sweet Mother of Mercy!"