And a bull had a damned thick hide.
Borthwick unfurled the leather coil.
Singh Rao’s eyes dropped to where the braided length slapped the ground, and for just a moment, a flash of disapproval cracked through the man’s cool facade.
The subedar pulled the feeling back behind his mask, directing his gaze forward.
Singh Rao wore a sidearm on his belt next to a sheathed dagger.The two soldiers at the door both held rifles.
Borthwick had the whip.
Four men, all armed, stood against Adam and one skinny twelve-year-old girl.Even with his machete, he would be shot as soon as he moved, and it still wouldn’t save the kid—but he couldn’t stand there and watch Vanika get flayed.He couldn’t.
Borthwick used the handle of the whip to push up Vanika’s chin, forcing her to look at him.“Do you know what this is?”
Angry, frightened tears streaked down Vanika’s cheeks.She nodded.
“Answer me,” Borthwick ordered.
“Yes,” Vanika replied, her voice shaking.
Adam’s hands clenched on the frame of the desk.
“You’re going to tell us where we need to go.”Borthwick continued smoothly.“Because I’m going to show you what happens when you try to get the better of me.”
Fear and anger knotted tighter as Adam’s sense of desperation rose.
Paper crinkled under his grip.
The map.
There was one way Adam could stop Borthwick’s sadistic lesson—besides throwing his body into the path of it, which would only delay the inevitable.
He could make it unnecessary.
Subhas Konja had known where the clue from the manuscript pointed, but Adam hadn’t bothered to press him for directions, focusing on his own mission.He inwardly cursed himself for that now as he traced the blue curves of the topography, urgency pounding through his skull.
The ridge that points to the dawn of the longest day.
Sunrise on the summer solstice… here in the Northern Hemisphere, that meant the sun’s furthest northern point of rise before shifting back east with the shortening of the days.
Odisha and Chhattisgarh sat at a similar latitude to British Honduras, so Adam knew pretty damned well where the sun would rise on a sultry late June morning.
The change in the topography of the mountains was subtle, just a slight variation in the contour at the top of one of the low, rambling peaks.A little jut of land pointed like an arrow ten degrees north of due east… right where Adam needed it to.
Borthwick ran his hand along the length of the whip, his eyes on the girl.“Shall we, then?”
He made it sound like an invitation to dance.
Adam couldn’t worry about all the problems he was causing for himself.He would deal with that later.
Right now, all he could do was act.
“It’s here,” Adam announced loudly, setting his finger on the paper.“The ridge that points to the dawn of the longest day.”
Borthwick glanced back at Adam with mild surprise.
Singh Rao stepped forward to study the map.
