Earth

Roland waved him to silence. He pushed aside one of the tiger skins, still sniffing, and then crouched where he had first picked up the scent. It was strongest near the floor beside the glass case — now emptied of its brown jars of macabre powder. His fingers touched a warm breeze.

“Hey, give me a hand,” he asked, bracing a shoulder against the wood. But the other recruit flipped two fingers as he walked away, muttering. ” Amerikanskee kakanee zas-sixa …”

Roland checked his footing and strained. The heavy case rocked a bit before settling again.

This can’t be right. The guy who owned this place wouldn’t want to sweat. He’d never sweat.

Roland felt along the carved basework, working his way around to the back before finding what he sought — a spring-loaded catch. “Aha!” he said. With a click the entire case slid forward to jam against one of the huge, toppled tusks. Roland peered down steep stairs with a hint of light at the bottom.

He had to squeeze through the narrow opening. The tobacco smell grew stronger as he descended quietly, carefully. Stooping under a low stone lintel, he entered a chamber hewn from naked rock. Roland straightened and pursed his lips in a silent whistle.

While this hiding place lacked the first one’s air of elegant decadence, it did conceal the devil’s own treasure… shelves stacked high with jars and small, bulging, plastic bags. “Hot damn,” he said, fingering one of the bags. Gritty white powder sifted under a gilt-numbered label adorned with images of unicorns and dragons, though Roland knew the real donor must have been some poor, dumb, mostly blind rhino in southern Africa, or another equally unprepossessing beast.

“The freaking jackpot,” he said to himself. It was definitely time to report this. But as he turned to head back upstairs,-a voice suddenly stopped him.

“Do not move, soldier-fellow. Hands up or I will shoot you dead.”

Roland rotated slowly and saw what he’d missed in his first, cursory scan of the room. At about waist level, near a smoldering ashtray in the corner of the left wall, some of the shelving had swung aside to reveal a narrow tu

“Do you doubt I can hit you from here?” the man asked levelly. “Is that why you don’t raise your hands as I command? I assure you, I’m an expert shooter. I’ve killed lions, tigers, at close range. Do you doubt it?”

“No. I believe you.”

“Then comply! Or I will shoot!”

Roland felt sure the fellow meant it. But it seemed this was time for one of those inconvenient waves of obstinacy his friends used to chide him for, which used to get him into such trouble back home.

“You shoot, and they’ll hear you upstairs.”

The man in the tu

Roland shrugged. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“So. A standoff, then. All right, soldier. You may keep your hands down, as I see you’re unarmed. But step back to that wall, or I will consider you dangerous and act accordingly!”

Roland did as he was told, watching for an opportunity. But the man crawled out of the tu

“So I heard. You been a busy guy, Mr. Chang.”

Brown eyes squinted in amusement. “That I have, soldier boy. What I’ve done and seen, you could not imagine. Even in these days of snoops and busybodies, I’ve kept secrets. Secrets deeper than even the Helvetian Gnomes had.”

No doubt this was meant to impress Roland. It did. But he’d be damned if he’d give the bastard any satisfaction. “So what do we do now?”

Chang seemed to inspect him. “Now it’s customary for me to bribe you. You must know I can offer you wealth and power. This tu

Roland felt the piercing intensity of the man’s scrutiny. After a moment’s thought, he shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Now it was Chang’s turn to pause. Then he giggled. “Ah! I do enjoy encountering wit. Obviously you know I am lying, that I’d kill you once we reached the other end. And I, in turn, can tell you have more urgent goals than money. Is it honor you seek, perhaps?”

Again, Roland shrugged. He wouldn’t have put it quite that way.

“So, again we have a standoff. Hence my second proposition. You help me load my trolley, at gunpoint. I will then depart and let you live.”

This time Roland’s pause was calculated only to delay. “How do I know…”

“No questions! Obviously I can’t turn my back on you. Agree or die now. Begin with the bags on the shelf by your shoulder, or I’ll shoot and be gone before others can come!”

Roland slowly turned and picked up two of the bags, one in each hand.

The “trolley” did indeed float a few millimeters above a pair of gleaming rails, stretching off into interminable darkness. Roland had no doubt it was meant for swift escape, or that Chang would be long gone by the time UNEPA traced the other end. The guy seemed to have thought of everything.

He tried to carry as little as he could each trip. Chang lit a cigarette and fumed, watching him like a cat as Roland leaned over the tiny passenger’s pallet to lay his loads in the trolley’s capacious cargo hamper.

Roland’s experience with babushkas and grempers back in Indiana helped, for he seemed to know by instinct how to just brush the inside edge of provocation. Once, he fumbled one of the clay jars. It hit hard and trickled powder onto the tu

“Hurry up!” the Han millionaire spat. “You move like an American!”

That gave Roland an excuse to turn and grin at the man. “How’d you guess?” he asked, slowing things another few seconds, stretching Chang’s patience before grabbing two more jars and resuming work.

Chang kept glancing up the stairs, obviously listening… but never letting his attention waver long enough to give Roland any foolish notions. You should’ve reported the secret passage the minute you found it, Roland thought, cursing inwardly. Unfortunately, the opening was behind the display case, and who knew when it would be discovered? Too late for Private Roland Senterius, probably.

The look in Chang’s calculating eyes made Roland reconsider the scenario. He knows that I know I’ll have to jump him, just before the end.

What’s more, he knows that I know that he knows.

That meant Chang would shoot him before the last moment, to prevent that desperate lunge. But how soon before?

Not too soon, or the smuggler would have to depart with a half-empty trolley, abandoning the rest of his hoard forever. Clearly, Chang’s profound greed was the one thing keeping Roland alive. Still, he’d have to do it before the cargo hamper was topped off… before Roland’s adrenaline was pumping for the maximum, all-or-nothing effort.

Five loads to go, Roland thought while fitting more jars snugly into place under Chang’s watchful eye. Will he do it at three? Or two!

He was delivering the next load, begi

“Senterius! It’s Kanakoa. And Schmidt. What the hell you doing down here?”

Roland froze. Chang edged against the wall near the steps, watching him. There came the scrape of footsteps on stone.