The Amulet of Power - Mike Resnick [82]
Oliver looked at his wristwatch. “It’s just past noon,” he said. “We can loaf here for the next few hours, or drive around and pretend we’re on safari.”
“I’d love to look around the Aberdares,” said Lara. “But the Mahdists seem so well-organized that I think it makes a lot more sense to stay here in the open where no one can sneak up on us.”
“Whatever you say,” replied Oliver, opening another can of soda and taking a long swallow.
“It’s nice to just sit and relax and not be shot at,” she remarked.
“It’s hard to believe all this is because of some trinket that Chinese Gordon stole from the Mahdi more than a century ago.” He paused. “What do you plan to do with it if you find it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You can’t very well turn it over to a government or give it to a museum, not if a million men are willing to kill whoever you give it to.”
“I haven’t figured it out yet,” she admitted.
“If it was me, I’d take it to Europe and sell it for top dollar. Get filthy rich, retire, and let the Mahdists chase the new owner.”
A pair of vultures began circling lazily overhead, riding the warm thermals, and the discussion changed to raptors and other birds, then to the habits of the animals that lived on the mountain range, and before she quite realized it four hours had passed and Oliver got to his feet and announced that it was time to leave.
“We don’t want to be in the park at sunset,” he explained, “because they lock the gates then and we won’t be able to get out until morning. Also, I lied about our identities when I registered at the gate, but by tomorrow, when we don’t turn up anywhere else, the Mahdists will figure out who we are, so it’s best to be out of here.”
“Which lodge will we go to?”
“The Ark. It’s closer. If we’d kept driving, we’d probably have wound up at Treetops.”
She opened the car door, and suddenly stopped. “Do you smell something?” she said.
“Half-eaten chicken.”
“No,” she said. “I think it’s . . . I don’t know . . . maybe gasoline?”
He sniffed deeply. “Yeah, I smell it.” He frowned. “Might be a little leak.” He handed her the keys. “Start it up and I’ll see if anything’s wrong.”
She climbed onto the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition.
“Gun it,” said Oliver, who had raised the hood and was peering underneath it.
She put her foot down hard.
“Damned if I can see anything wrong.” He lowered the hood, then pulled himself up onto the passenger’s seat. “Long as you’re sitting there, you might as well drive. It’s not often I get to just lean back and appreciate the sights.”
“So we’re not losing any fuel?”
“Not that I can tell.”
“I still smell that odor.”
“Start driving. If we’ve got a fuel leak, the gauge will show it sooner or later. And I’ll check it out thoroughly after we reach the Ark. They’ve got a pretty well-equipped garage there.”
She drove across the flat open area, moved onto the road, and began heading back down the mountain.
“The turn-off’s in about three and a half miles,” he told her. “We’ll still be pretty high up.”
The car began going faster, and raced into a sharp turn on only two wheels.
“Go a little slower,” said Oliver. “You almost went off the road.”
Lara frowned. “I can’t!”
“What’s the matter?”
“The brakes aren’t working!”
“They worked fine all the way up here!” said Oliver.
“Someone at the hotel must have tampered with them!” she said, struggling to hold the road. “We’ve probably been losing fluid all day!”
They came to another curve. Lara floored the brake pedal. There was no response.
“Try the hand brake!” Malcolm shouted.
Lara yanked the hand brake back; there was no response.
The car kept going faster and faster as it raced downhill. She downshifted to second, and they felt the gears strip. Oliver didn’t say a word; he didn’t want to distract Lara while she was trying to negotiate the road at high speed.
It was Lara who finally spoke. “We are in big trouble!” she