The four horsemen an and.., p.1
The Four Horsemen: An Andie Sullivan Adventure, page 1
THE FOUR HORSEMEN
An Andie Sullivan Adventure
Benjamin Wulf
Deep in the Sahel, along the blistering edges of the Sahara desert, the wind raked ragged lines over sand dunes. It carried screams in its tail.
***
Thizara heard them and burst from her tent, knowing that they belonged to her mother. As she ran, sand stinging her eyes, violet scarf flapping, she heard others from the tribe emerge behind her. Feet flying over the dunes, she scanned the ground, searching.
Suddenly, she stumbled on a bulky object and pitched forward, crashing hard into the ground.
A moan rose up from where she had fallen. Thizara crawled on her hands and knees until she found a heap of rags on the desert floor.
“Mother?” she asked, her voice tinged with fear and incredulity.
The shadowy shape stirred and Thizara found herself staring into the face of a woman she hardly recognized. Her mother’s long dark hair was stringy and matted with dirt. The fine lines and planes of her face were covered in filth. It had been four days since her mother had left for the mountains and they had apparently been cruel ones. Upon seeing Thizara, however, her lips were broken by a weak smile.
“My child,” Adaeze struggled to say. “I told you I would return.”
“Let me help you,” Thizara managed to lift her to a sitting position, eliciting another piercing scream. Adaeza fell back into the sand. As she did, a tied sack she had been clutching tumbled to the ground.
The woman mumbled something unintelligible. Thizara bent her head to hear the words. “Oya,” was all she could discern. Was her mother praying to the goddess for help?
“Mother,” she said softly, “what happened on the mountain?”
The words came between shuddering breaths. “I saw the goddess herself, child. Oya met me on the mountaintop and gave me these,” she gestured at the bag, which shifted from some unseen force in its center. “She was angry and that anger is a terrible thing. People were already forgetting her. Squeezing her out of the histories or smearing her name.”
Thizara nodded, understanding. Oya had been known for centuries as a revered wife of Shango, the queen of heaven. Yet now, with more and more tribes around them embracing the one-God concept, her existence was problematic. Thizara’s tribe was the only one that had remained dedicated followers and it was the reason that they had been banished from their beloved homeland. They had spent the majority of Thizara’s childhood passing through the valleys and canyons of this ancient land, until landing on the edge of the desert a few weeks previous.
“Because of our loyalty, she has entrusted us with a great secret.” Again, Adaeza looked down to the bag she was clutching. “What sits here has the power to destroy all mankind, fashioned by the dark forces. Oya stole them away, placed them in our care.”
She shifted and her tunic fell open, causing Thizara to draw a sharp intake of breath. Covering her mother’s side was a trail of dark burn marks, raw and red in the moonlight.
She felt the pinch of her mother’s hand on her arm and then her face was inches away. Desperate, pleading eyes bored into hers.
“I’m dying,” she croaked.
“No, don’t say such things-”
“Listen!” Her mother cut her off. “It is your responsibility now. You must take them, hide them.”
“Where?”
A small man with dark flowing robes had appeared at their side, the tribe’s Dibia. “My queen!” he gasped, upon seeing Adaeza. He began to pull at her arm, gently urging her back to the camp. Her hand caught him in the nose, sending him backwards.
“One will come, one like us,” she continued, reaching out to trace her forefinger along Thizara’s cheek and point at her right eye which shimmered purple in the moonlight. With a moan of pain, Adaeza’s fingers yanked away as she doubled over.
The Dibia was tugging at her again, insisting that she must come back to the camp if he were to help.
Adaeza pushed the sack towards Thizara, who reached out and grabbed its side.
A lightning bolt of hot agony shot up her arm, causing her to cry out.
“They are our burden until we can send them away,” her mother warned her.
Thizara nodded in acceptance, bringing a gaze of affection to her mother’s face. She flung her arms around her, holding tight as she felt the life draining away.
“What if I fail?” the girl whispered.
She waited for an answer but it never came. Pulling back, she noted her her mother’s slack jaw and glassy eyes. Death had come for Adaeza.
Just as destiny had come for Thizara.
4000 YEARS LATER
One
Pulsing, slanting rain. Dense mist wending its way through the low green mountains. Andie Sullivan watched it all roll past the already-fogged windows of the Range Rover without reaction. It had been a few years since she had last been here, but it was as if no time had passed. The landscape had probably not changed in centuries.
“Is it always like this in Lagos?” a voice broke the silence.
Andie turned to the man sitting beside her. “No. It’s usually worse.” She gave a thin smile as he turned to her, shaking his head. The coat that Roger had brought with him was had been shrugged off long ago, abandoned on the seat beside him. Something shifted in Andie’s coat pocket and she instantly pulled out her mobile. There was nothing but a “No Service” message on the screen. Wishful thinking again, she mused, believing that it had vibrated for a new message. The device hadn’t been functioning properly since the previous night, when she’d found herself at a perfectly charming but completely isolated rural inn. Andie was used to far-flung locations with little or no contact to the outside world but it still managed to unnerve her every time she was cut off from her phone and email.
She glanced up as, outside, the clouds that coiled around a rocky outcrop parted for a moment. “There it is,” Andie pointed.
The looming mansion looked to be carved out of the mountain itself. Creeping vines covered large swaths of its large stone walls. Here and there, chinks of warm yellow light spilled out, beacons in the darkness created by the rainy weather. A brightly colored flag fluttered at its top.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Sure, other than being away from anything resembling the modern world,” retorted Roger. “Know anything about it?”
The facts began ticking through Andie’s head. “One of the last remnants of the British colonizers, the owner was a Major General who imported an architect that fashioned it after a castle in the Scottish Highlands. He was a particularly cruel man- he used the inside courtyard to hold races.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Races between people. He usually hung the loser."
She enjoyed catching the shocked frown on his face. “I should learn to stop asking you questions like that,” Roger sulked.
“Yes, you should.” Andie leaned back into the soft warmth of the leather seats, letting her mind drift to the meeting. There would be tough negotiations. It’s what she was here for but she still always felt the need to prepare herself as if she was going into battle. The homework was done but there was no telling how the opponent would react.
She felt the slight tilt of the earth as the car wound around a gravel path that curled around and up the mountain. The rain thinned, allowing Andie to catch a glimpse of the dark forest canopy beneath her and its stretch to a slate-gray ocean. At the barest edge of the horizon, three smudges of edifice could be made out, their pylons lifting them above the choppy sea.
Oil rigs.
As the Rover rounded a switchback, misty rain ensnared the car again, obscuring their view. Roger was thumbing through a slim leather notebook, glossy slides encased in its binding. “Don’t bother,” Andie told him. He looked quizzically at her. “If all you needed was a fancy PowerPoint presentation and a bunch of pointless pie graphs, you wouldn’t have hired me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, trying to quickly hide the large variegated pie graph beneath his right hand. A sigh whistled through his lips. “This is a big one for us, Andie.”
“Don’t worry. They only call me when it’s a big one,” she reassured him, turning to look out the glass as they reached level ground again and the car glided to a halt.
A shadowy face at the window made her flinch.
The beefy man with dark stubble tipped a cap and grinned, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. A high-powered rifle was slung over his right shoulder. “Welcome to the Chisholm Estate.” He opened the door, allowing Andie to step out. Roger followed, nervously but silently noting the weapon and the grizzled appearance of its owner. Another guard, this one young and wiry, instantly flanked them while casually cradling the same gun as his partner.
Andie reached into the backseat and withdrew a small leather folder and a long, thin black case, causing the ‘click click’ of two safeties to instantly be thumbed off. She turned to face the guards. “It’s for the master of the castle.” The younger guard moved to take it from her but she pulled it back. “For his eyes only.” A metal wand appeared in the heavyset guard’s hands and he ran it over the case, causing a loud high-pitched whining. His bushy brows lowered over suspicious eyes. Andie returned his stare with calm. “Now you know it’s not a bomb. I’ll let you hold it when we’re in the meeting if it makes you feel better.” The wand disap peared beneath the man’s coat as he gestured towards the front of the home where a large door lay open, darkness pooling beyond.
Andie stepped forward confidently, Roger trying to keep up. As they approached the door, he gave a small tug at her sleeve. “What the hell is going on here? This is supposed to be a business meeting!” he hissed. Andie shot him a warning glance and jerked her head towards the door. They entered into a grand hallway and instantly felt as if they had stepped back in time. Torches roared in stone sockets along the wall. Hulking suits of armor gleamed in the dim light, butting up against huge woven tapestries. The floor beneath their feet was solid oak and stretched in front of them for an eternity.
“We’ll let you know when Prince Chisholm is ready to receive you,” the beefy guard said and headed through an archway to the right. Roger waited until the accompanying escort had discretely placed himself out of earshot and then whirled on Andie.
She held up a hand to calm him before he uttered another word. “Over the past six months, there have been two attempts made on Gerald’s life,” she said. “For all he knows, they were orchestrated by your company.” As Roger began to protest, she held up her hand again to silence him. “If you’re going to try to tell me your firm hasn’t been involved in the business of violence, don’t bother. I know about Libya and I even know about Brazil.” His eyes shifted but his mouth remained firmly shut. “So stop the histrionics and let me do what you paid me to do.” He responded with a terse nod.
A voice called out, “He will see you now.” The heavyset guard was back in the archway, gesturing beyond. Andie passed an antique polished mirror leaning against the wall and quickly checked her reflection.
Her hair fell to her shoulders in a tumble of dark curls, stopping just above the designer outfit that highlighted her slim waist. It was an outfit that she thought Chisholm would appreciate if his reputation as a ladies’ man was accurate. Making small shifts to her appearance was a key to Andie’s success. She possessed a chameleon-like ability to transform herself into the best version of what her clients required. Her parents’ backgrounds had come together in her to create a near mystical ability to shape shift and Andie had learned to take full advantage of it during her life.
Taking another step, they moved past the archway.
Clicking down the new hallway, Andie noted the subtle shift in aesthetics. The Prince may have chosen a castle that could have been at home on the Scottish moors, but he brought the contemporary billionaire aesthetic to the interiors. On the walls, modern artwork mixed casually with older pieces. An ancient Greek urn sat atop a small stone pillar while a sketch by Modigliani peered down from above. Alcoves hid tiny treasures. Jewel-encrusted daggers and delicate Egyptian statues. She flicked her eyes to Roger who was looking at everything with slack-jawed wonder. “Close your mouth,” Andie told him. “We’re about to meet the prince of the castle.”
“He really is a prince, eh?” Roger asked.
“Yes, but it doesn’t really mean the same as it does in England. Throw a rock in any direction in Nigeria and you’re bound to hit a Prince from an ancient tribe.”
Bushy Brows held out an expectant hand towards the thin, black case. Andie passed it to him without a word and strode forward.
The tunnel-shaped hall ended in a huge room with vaulted, beamed ceilings and a stone floor. Stained glass windows filtered in weak light from high above. There was no mistaking that this was once the Great Hall where the Major General greeted his visitors and held lavish feasts of colonial celebration. At the far end, sitting in an intricately carved throne that his ancestors would envy, was Prince Gerald Chisholm. He rose and casually placed his hands on his hips, watching with a small smile as Andie and Roger approached.
The statistics on him ticked through Andie’s head. Forty-four, never married. Born to a Nigerian mother and a Scottish father, he was raised in the Southside of Glasgow before receiving a full scholarship to study engineering at the University of Edinburgh. His Nigerian line stretched back to a royalty that had been decimated by the British two centuries earlier. At twenty-three, he took every pound he had and bought a one-way ticket to Lagos. Three years later, his Chisholm Energy Group had taken over three oil wells that were thought to be dry and had them pumping out more barrels than ever before. Shortly after that, he joined the ranks of Nigeria’s billionaire class.
One of Gerald’s first purchases on his rapid ascent through wealth had been this house. As Andie had told Roger, it was built by the Major General at the turn of the last century. Andie’s research had told her that the land had once belonged to Gerald’s ancestors when they were a part of the Ekumeku movement that plagued the British empire’s expansion into the area. Whereas most of the colonial relics had been razed, Chisholm wore his as a badge of honor. He enjoyed being back on his ancestral lands and had taken pleasure in squeezing the Major General’s descendants who had tried to turn the mansion into a hotel and failed at their attempt.
“Andie Sullivan,” he stepped forward, hand extended and not so subtly raking his eyes over her.
“Your grace,” she bowed her head respectfully, earning a broad grin from her host.
“You know, I tried to hire you once.” She raised her eyebrows questioningly. “Yes, a few years ago. I was buying a company expanding into rural parts of India and was running into quite a bit of interference there. Local customs, complicated tax laws. Then your name popped up. Call Andie Sullivan, one of my business partners said. Best person for the job. But you were busy. Off in Kazakhstan or some such nonsense.”
“Turkmenistan, actually. And I hardly think the Gates Foundation would call what I did there nonsense,” she said, her tone more teasing than offended. “But I’ll be sure to clear my schedule for you the next time you call.”
Chisholm gave a nod, casting a glance at Roger. Andie spoke for her companion.
“Roger Brand is with UK Petroleum.” Roger gave a polite hello. Gerald looked at him with something between disdain and amusement.
“UKP sends a bloody office drone to try to do this? I thought they have more tact than that,” he shook his head.
“They do,” Andie replied. “That’s why they sent me with him.” Gerald’s mouth slipped up in a tight smile as he stepped down to meet her formally. He gestured towards a small oak table in the corner of the room. Roger took a step to follow but Andie motioned for him to stay where he was. He did, the frown on his face betraying his annoyance.
The Prince and Andie seated themselves in two plush red velvet chairs flanking the table. He leaned forward, placing his palms flat on the table. She noted the lines and roughness of his skin; this was not someone who spent all of his time tapping away at a keyboard.
“Culturalist, eh?” he began. She gave him a noncommittal look. “That’s what they call you, isn’t it?” Andie nodded. Gerald stared at her intently, most likely the same way he did when sizing up CEO’s of the companies he was about to acquire and dismantle. “Why are you wasting my time today, Ms. Sullivan?”
“I would never want to do that. A businessman like you has several precious resources but one of the least plentiful of those is his time.”
“Resources? Like the oil underneath my land.”
“Exactly.” Andie opened up the slim leather folder she had held on to, fanning a sheaf of documents in front of her. She plucked one out and pushed it in front of Gerald. “You’ve got what geologists predict is over 10 billion barrels of oil underneath the land that you control. The three oil rigs that you built offshore are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of production capacity.”
“And UKP wants to get their greedy little hands all over it.”
“They are prepared to make you a very substantial offer to do so.”
Gerald laughed and raised his arms upward, sweeping them to indicate the vast hall. “I’m already rich, Ms. Sullivan.”
“Please, call me Andie.”
“Andie…short for Aanaya, isn’t it?”
“You have done your homework. But it’s Andie.”
“Fine, I’m already rich, Andie. What does it matter if I have four billion pounds or twenty billion pounds?”
“It doesn’t really. You’re right.” It wasn’t the answer he had expected and Gerald’s smile began to fade as Andie locked her gaze onto him. “UK Petroleum knows that you can’t be enticed with money. They know that because I told them so. In fact, there’s only one thing that I think could sway you in your decision. The one thing that a man like you, someone who has everything, could still want.”
