‘And if I can’t?’
‘No negotiation. Twenty-four hours, or you’ll never see him again.’
Despair swamped Cassie. She knew it was true. ‘How will you know where to call me?’
Katerina giggled. ‘We have your number.’
But of course they did. They had Ranjit’s phone. Cassie gritted her teeth and said nothing.
‘Get the artefacts. You’ll be heading to Malindi. That’s all you need to know for now. We’ll contact you. Soon.’
Fear and a raging curiosity were almost consuming Cassie. She wouldn’t ask Katerina another damn thing – not if it killed her – and besides, Ranjit was alive. That much she was sure of; Katerina was right. If he was dead, she’d have felt it in her soul. She had no choice but to go along with this, until she had a chance to think …
‘If you’ve hurt him – and I see that you have – you’ll pay for it, Katerina. You and your mother.’
‘Oh, I’m shaking in my Choos, darling!’ Katerina squeaked mockingly. ‘Oh, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me!’
Cassie gritted her teeth.
‘Lover-boy isn’t dead.’ Katerina smirked. ‘But fail to bring me what I want – what we want – and you’ll feel him die, all right.’
Cassie felt numb as she blundered through thorny scrub back towards the camp. It was just as well animals seemed to be able to sense her spirit, and kept well clear, because she neither looked nor listened for danger. All she could do was hug the backpack against her body, fighting tears as she tried to think.
Come on, Cassie. What should she do now? What could she do?
Pale light was beginning to filter into the sky, and she stopped at the edge of the bush, breathless, to watch the African dawn gild the horizon. The night sounds were dying fast, replaced by morning birdsong and the grunts and movements of diurnal creatures, the rustle of gazelle and zebra cropping grass. God, it was morning already.
But it didn’t matter. Cassie knew she wouldn’t sleep now, anyway.
Ranjit was close; so close she felt she could almost reach out and touch him. He was there for her to take – except that in return she must hand over the very artefacts she needed if they were ever to be together.
And she knew in her bones, let alone her spirit, that Katerina and Brigitte must not get hold of the Knife and the Pendant. They already had the Urn, because they had Ranjit. She had absolutely no idea what they wanted with all those ancient artefacts, but it couldn’t be anything good. How could she cheerfully hand over the two powerful weapons to such an evil pair? And where was her guarantee that they wouldn’t simply take the artefacts and then kill Ranjit before her eyes?
On the other hand, they’d be quite certain to kill him if she didn’t cooperate. She couldn’t kid herself about that.
She simply had to think of something else.
One thing was clear: she had to get hold of the Knife and the Pendant. She didn’t want to give them to the serpentine Svenssons, but she couldn’t think of any way around that at the moment.
So she was going to have to steal the artefacts. The thought made her feel sick to her stomach: she’d have to steal them from right under Sir Alric’s nose. Guilt and nerves at the thought made her even more nauseous. Get over it, Cassie, she told herself. It’s got to be done.
As she walked into the clearing, she stared bleakly at the Academy camp. No one was even stirring yet in the pale morning, thank God.
Something occurred to her as she stood contemplating. At least with the Knife and the Pendant in her possession, she’d be easily stronger than Brigitte and Katerina put together. She could probably defeat them without the artefacts, let alone with them – Cassie was more than a match for those women, and she’d proved it in New York when she beat hell out of them while she rescued Isabella and Jake.
With my help, dear!
Shut up, Estelle, she thought testily.
So all Cassie had to do was take the artefacts to them, rescue Ranjit, overcome the Svenssons and steal the artefacts back, go home and return them to Sir Alric, and then go through with her plan to separate from Estelle …
Piece of cake, right?
The very thought made her feel sick again.
Cassie made her way to her tent, hoping she hadn’t been missed by Alice. She needed a bath in that ridiculously luxurious tub in the middle of nowhere first thing when the camp stirred to life. Then, she’d get down to the task in hand.
Katerina be damned; Sir Alric be damned. She was not leaving Ranjit to his fate.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Monday took forever to come.
She didn’t have to worry that the clock was already ticking; her twenty-four hours would only start when they drove back through the gates of the Academy.
The trouble was, the twenty-four hours were already running in her head, even before they headed back to the plane. Alice noticed her distraction, the fact that she couldn’t eat and didn’t sleep, despite Cassie’s attempts to brush her off.
None of her classmates’ concern was any use to her, though, and for once it couldn’t even make her feel better. Cassie could only watch the second hand crawl around her watch, the sun make its achingly slow way across the splendid Kenyan sky. When Monday morning dawned at last, she ignored all the warden’s warnings about crocodiles and hippos and ran down to the river to plunge in. Just for a few seconds, she could feel light, she could wash the gnawing anxiety of what she needed to do when she got back to the Academy out of her head.