Restless Soul by Alex Archer Page B

“souvenir,” as he didn’t seem too upset that Zakkarat had stuffed his pockets.
    “You’re not taking that pack,” Annja told Zakkarat.
    “Annjacreed, you have no right to—”
    “You heard the lady,” Luartaro said. “Your pockets are plenty full.” He pointed to the Thai man’s chest. A gold chain with a topaz-encrusted fob hung from it. “You’ve taken more than enough to be a rich man.”
    With a soft snarl, Zakkarat sat the bag down. “You’ve no right,” he said softly.
    “Neither do you, Zakkarat,” Annja returned.
    Just then a thick bolt of lightning cut across the sky above the hole. The mountain seemed to rock with thunder.
    “Man has a lot of dirt that God needs to wash away,” Luartaro said.

8

    “You’re right, Annja. No use waiting out the storm,” Luartaro said.
    He gave the rope ladder a tug. “It should hold. We need to get back and find out who should be notified about all of this.”
    And so I can also set the proverbial wheels in motion to find out about the skull bowl, Annja thought.
    Zakkarat’s gaze traveled from Luartaro and the rope to Annja, and then reluctantly to the bag she’d forced him to leave behind. “No. There is no reason to wait out the storm,” he said. He shook his head in disappointment and started climbing up the ladder.
    Luartaro held the bottom to steady it.
    “This storm might last for days, Annjacreed,” their guide said.
    “After you, Annja.” Luartaro shrugged as if he was also reluctant to leave the wealth.
    Annja waited until Zakkarat was all the way up, and then she started, placing the flashlight in her pack, and making sure the bag was secure over her shoulders.
    Now that they were leaving, her mind began to race with all that had to be done and her stomach churned.
    The authorities needed to be notified.
    She wanted to get a film crew here before looters or the authorities could spirit all of it away.
    They’d likely leave the coffins, though, she decided. They’d left the coffins in the other caves.
    Her crew could film them, and she and Luartaro had hundreds of shots of the treasure to supplement whatever show was put together.
    Work had intruded on her precious vacation, after all. And she’d had to summon her sword to break through the earth wall. That part of her life had intruded, too, but fortunately she’d managed to convince Luartaro he hadn’t seen a sword.
    The hole in the cavern roof was just south of an overgrown and thoroughly muddy trail. Perhaps the cavern had been discovered by accident when someone went off the trail, walked across a thin section of rock and broke through. Maybe that particular someone decided to hide the treasure inside.
    As she emerged, Annja spotted a tarp caught on a bush and guessed that it had been used to camouflage the hole, but the storm had blown it loose. The rain beat down on her helmet. It pelted her shoulders, almost painful in its intensity.
    The ground she and Zakkarat stood on had turned into a sluicy mixture of mud and gravel. She stared at the trail, which was at best wide enough for a vehicle and more likely had been used for mountain bikes.
    “Difficult to get a Jeep up here, Annjacreed,” Zakkarat said.
    “Inaccessible,” she said. “Except to someone who is very determined.”
    “But people did not carry the Buddhas here in their arms, Annjacreed. And they truly did not manage that…” Zakkarat paused, searching for an English word. “Hoard,” he said. “They did not manage to hide that hoard in one trip. Many, many trips, maybe.”
    He didn’t meet her gaze when she looked up; he was clearly still regretting that she’d convinced him to leave the treasure-stuffed pack behind. Annja thought he also looked a little bit ashamed, perhaps because of the looting—even if he was doing it to help his family.
    She looked around, trying to get her bearings.
    They were in a low spot in the mountains, and the rest of the range rose like the spiny backbone of some