Holiday Reading

Here’s an excerpt from my third novel in The Silk Road Series – The Blade of Shiva. A new adventure to new lands, but also with new threats.

Just when Douglas Thorsby thought things had settled down after they finally found the Taklimakan Treasure, the mysterious object they found in the desert has been stolen and the scientists studying it murdered. Someone is targeting everyone who had anything to do with the discovery of the cylinder and its dangerous contents. Douglas and his friends are being systematically hunted by a murderous enemy who can reach across continents, but they are completely in the dark as to why. Why is someone willing to kill to possess an ancient piece of stone no bigger than your hand? What other secrets does it hold?

Rachael turned back to her GPS, and Douglas looked around the countryside. The road was crammed up against steep cliffs at this point, a narrow ribbon wending its way between sheer rock bluffs at the very edge of the pavement on the right and the flat, brown river directly below on the left. Beyond the river on the left side, he could see what looked like a sizeable town nudging up against the water with several tall, steely towers and, surrounding it all, a broad plain cross-hatched with fields disappearing into the smoky distance. 

He pointed at the towers, “What’s that?”

Rachael tapped her screen, “That…is the town of Kolkhozabad. That gives us…” she did some figuring in her head, “less than ninety minutes to Aiwanj, I think. We are making good time.”

Li grunted agreement, but added, “Possibly not for long, however. Look ahead,” he pointed. 

The road ahead was narrowing to one lane because of an apparent rockfall from the bluffs above. There were cones and ropes barring access to the lane closest to the bluff and they could see large stones and shattered rock scattered across the pavement. Two men in hardhats blocked the open lane, waving and indicating that he should slow down. 

He took his foot off the gas and glanced ahead at the road and behind in the mirror. There was an old truck that had been behind them for a few miles, but that was all. Ahead he could see a boxy sedan parked just off the road beyond the rockfall that he assumed belonged to the workers.

Something about it all suddenly didn’t feel right to Li. He spoke to Rachael, “What do you think?”

She had pegged it immediately, “I think those two aren’t dressed like highway workers.”

“I agree.” 

The men were wearing hardhats, but the colors didn’t match. Nor were they wearing any sort of uniform or working clothes that someone would wear for heavy outdoor physical labor. One was wearing a bomber-style jacket and the other a checkered shirt over jeans.

Li applied the brakes gently, slowing to almost a crawl as he drew up to the two men. Checkered shirt was just off to the side of the road and bomber jacket was standing directly in front of them with both hands up in front of him.

“What’s going on?” Douglas asked, leaning forward.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Li replied as he slowed the ancient van to a walking speed. Inside his pocket, he had an army pistol he’d coerced out of the sergeant at the airport in Dushanbe. He reached in and rested his hand on its grip.

Just in case.

*

In the truck behind them, Perso watched as the military van approached his men and slowed. He’d had an easy time following the foreigners through the outskirts of Dushanbe, with all the traffic on the roads to help mask him. After they’d left the suburbs and met the highway south, however, the traffic had died off quickly and he’d had to fade back quite a bit. 

It had been dicey going for most of the last two hours, pulling up to within a kilometer or so every ten minutes to make sure the van was still ahead, then slowing and dropping back, allowing the odd other vehicle to get between them so as not to draw attention to himself. Now he pulled up close as they neared the detour and checked his mirror. 

No other vehicles in sight. Perfect.

He’d called his men in Aiwanj and had instructed them on what to do. There was little highway maintenance to speak of and no towns of any size along the southern border, so he felt confident they could pull this off with no one to see and, if there were witnesses…his finger rested on the trigger guard of the pistol in his pocket. The curious could be taken care of as well.

Each of his men had guns on them too, with orders to take all three in the van without firing a shot, if possible, but by all means get their hands on the Caucasian man. The fate of the Chinese and the woman depended on their reactions to this event. Alive or dead, it made no difference in the amount of money Perso would be paid.

He allowed his truck to coast to a stop a few meters behind the van, keeping one hand on the pistol and the other on the truck’s door handle, ready to jump out.

*

As Li pulled up to the roadblock, the man in front moved slightly to the side, so that he could speak to him. His name was Duma, and he had that dangerous combination of little imagination and experience coupled with over-confidence and a gun that often brought trouble.

The van slowed and Duma lowered his right hand to keep it closer to his pistol, which was in his right jacket pocket, and kept his left hand up in the air. He wore what he imagined was an innocent smile on his face as the van crept to a stop, slowly putting his hand in his pocket to grasp the gun. He craned his neck and could see Perso’s truck pulling up behind the van to hem it in.

The three figures in the van weren’t doing anything but sitting looking straight at him. They hadn’t apparently even noticed Pilan, his companion, on the roadside, who already had his gun out and hidden behind his leg.

 Duma’s smile widened. This was going to be easy.

*

Li eyed the man at the side of the road warily. “Get yourselves down a bit,” he advised as they slowly drew up to the man, “without making it look like you’re doing so.”

Douglas asked, “What’s going on?”

“I have a sudden bad feeling,” Rachael muttered as she slid down.

Li gripped the wheel tightly with his left hand while taking his right hand out of the pocket with the gun and putting it on the door handle on his side, “I don’t know but these two don’t look right. Just keep a tight hold on something.”

In the mounting tension, Douglas gripped the rickety armrest of his seat, “Oh boy, here we go again.”

Li kept his eyes darting back and forth between the smiling man with his hand up and the other man over at the roadside, who was now standing with one hand out of sight behind him. A quick glance in his mirror showed him that the old truck had pulled up right behind him. He couldn’t see the driver because of the reflection of the sun on the windshield.

As the van was just about to stop, he shifted his attention to the nearest man, whose smile wasn’t reflected in his eyes and who was reaching to put his raised hand on the edge of the van door. At the same time, Li saw the man’s other hand pull the black butt of a gun from his pocket. 

The man opened his mouth and started saying something as his hand clamped down on the van door. Off to the side, Li saw the other man now in motion, making for the passenger door, a weapon appearing at his side.

Without hesitating, Li tromped on the gas and the van jerked forward, roaring mightily, but accelerating slowly. He pulled up on his door handle and thrust his shoulder against it. The door flew open and collided with the yelling man, who lost his grip on its sill and was knocked aside.

The windshield in front of Li spiderwebbed and he saw the other man in a shooter’s stance at the side of the road. Without hesitating, he yanked the wheel hard, and the van slewed around to aim for the other man now, who dove out of the way as the van rumbled by, missing him only by inches.

A second shot rang out and one of the rear side windows shattered. Douglas uttered a startled squawk and lay down flat on his seat as Rachael went to her knees in the floor well of the passenger side.

The van was gaining speed agonizingly slowly, and skidding now on the gravel scattered across the concrete. Li fought to keep it under control as his open door was flung wide and he almost slid out.

He regained his grip on the spinning wheel with both hands and almost got the vehicle straightened out when a tremendous impact struck them from behind. The twin windows in the rear doors shattered. The old truck had apparently rammed them.  

The impact caused him to lose his hold again and the wheel spun madly, sending the van across the road toward the opposite side. Beyond the edge of the road, he could only see the tops of a couple trees and the muddy water of the river far below.

Li only had time to yell, “Hold on!” before the van broke through the low wooden barrier at the limit of the pavement. 

Its front wheels went over the edge and the van went airborne over the side of the steep embankment.

*

Perso’s glee at how easy this was all working out rapidly changed to surprise, shock and finally rage as he saw his plan fall apart in a span of mere seconds.

Duma walked up to the van’s driver with his hand up and a big smile on his face, while Pilan cleverly maneuvered himself closer on the other side.

Suddenly the brake lights went off in the van and the driver’s door opened, hitting Duma and knocking him down. Pilan drew his gun and fired a shot as the van accelerated away and Perso instinctively tromped on his own gas to give pursuit.

The fool Pilan fired another shot into the van and Perso yelled uselessly at him to stop. There was to be no indiscriminant firing for fear of hitting their intended target. 

He roared past the roadblock in his truck and made straight for the rear of the van. He had to force them to stop.

His intention had been to nudge the van to let them know they couldn’t escape and perhaps force them to the other side of the road, but in his blind anger and haste, he still had the gas floored when he hit the back of the van. He immediately hit his brakes and skidded to a halt in the middle of the road, but it was too late.

He watched in horror as the rear of the van disappeared over the edge of the road.

Li had no choice but to hold onto the wheel with every ounce of strength he had, keep the brake pinned to the floor, and hope for the best. It wasn’t a sheer cliff, but steep enough that stopping was out of the question.

The front of the van impacted with the side of the slope about ten meters down. The force snapped the front axle, and the wheel was wrenched upward out of Li’s hands. His fingers went numb from the shock as a scraping roar filled the vehicle. 

They caromed off a tree and a whirlwind of broken branches came in through the shattered windshield. Li threw himself sideways onto the seat and gripped Rachael’s arm, which was reaching for him. He dimly heard Douglas shout, “Oh shit!” but couldn’t muster the breath to yell himself. He just hung on.

It felt like the world was coming apart. Douglas was thrown up and down and back and forth across the back seat, insensate to everything but keeping himself curled up. Rocks, leaves and dirt pelted him, and it seemed at one point that the van must be rolling because he found himself face to face with its ceiling before crashing down again between the seats.

The van bounded down the gravelly slope at the whim of momentum and gravity, ricocheting from tree to tree, plowing over saplings and loosening a rockslide of shale as it went. Five meters before the water, the slope ended in a bluff with a drop directly into the river. 

Eight seconds after leaving the road, the battered vehicle bounced and slid at a forty-five-degree angle off the top of the bluff and heeled over to hit the river on its driver’s side. 

With all of its windows shattered, it rapidly filled with water and began to sink.

I hope you enjoyed this short excerpt. Find out how Douglas and his friends got into this predicament and how (or if) they’ll get out by ordering a copy of The Blade of Shiva, as well as any of my other novels, from Amazon by visiting my author page at:

amazon.com/author/jaygould

All the best for your year-end festivities. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.