Anyone, such as Faceless Fritz, who was unfamiliar with the area, would travel via the Congo River. It was safer and, they assumed, faster. But the route was winding and the way uneven.

  Someone with enough knowledge of the locale could cut himself a far more direct path through the jungle and, with some fortune on his side, make it to the village before his enemies.

  And Armless O’Neil was that man.

  He spent the next several hours slashing through the jungle, running at a pace that would have been daunting to an ordinary man, one who had not spent decades of his life hacking away at vines and navigating tough terrain. O’Neil’s body was as tight and powerful as his face was lined and craggy, which was saying a lot.

  Finally, just before nightfall, he arrived.

  It was a small village, situated in a valley a few miles from the river. It was located near an array of ancient ruins. O’Neil had never given them much thought. He was the kind of person who lived in the now and did not dwell on the past. His own past had been painful and dangerous, and better left forgotten. That’s how he viewed the history and legends of people throughout the region, too. The fewer questions he asked, the better.

  But now, of course, he had plenty of questions.

  “Amon!” he cried out, waving his arms as he approached.

  A man stepped out from a small hut at the outskirts of the village. He was tall and slender, little more than skin and bones, with ebony skin and short black hair. He stood gazing out at the huge Irishman as others from the village fell in line behind him, for he was their chieftain.

  After a beat, he strode forward and embraced the large adventurer.

  “O’Neil!” he cried, in more than passable English. “It is good to see you, my friend.”

  “Likewise, Amon,” O’Neil replied, not returning the hug. The chieftain had spent several decades in Europe and had adopted more than a few habits peculiar to the Western world. Some were not habits that O’Neil preferred.

  “I’m afraid that this is not a social visit, my friend. There are others who are headed this way. Dangerous men. They’re looking for something, and we need to stop them. And they have your brother.”

  Amon nodded and his demeanor instantly shifted. The grin slid off his face and he gestured to O’Neil.

  “Then come this way. We have no time to waste.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The Nazis arrived shortly after full dark and, after tethering their vessel not far from Amon’s small village, set up camp for the night, opting to begin the final leg of their journey at first daylight.

  That gave O’Neil time to make a daring rescue, as was his style.

  What worked to his advantage was that the Nazis had made their camp on shore. Infiltrating a ship was not high on O’Neil’s list of favorite activities. But, based on the deployment of the soldiers, he had a pretty good idea as to which tent housed Mara and Edgar. Whether or not he would be able to retrieve the Professor’s book, though, would be a different story.

  But he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. First rescue the girl, then steal the mask right out from under Fritz’s noseless face.

  Nodding at the two tribesmen that Amon had sent along with him to aid in the rescue of his younger, estranged brother, O’Neil pointed at the tent in question. He hoped the language barrier would not be an issue.

  The two returned the nod, having apparently learned some Western habits from their chieftain, and broke away from the Irishman, disappearing into the jungle.

  A few moments later, they did their part.

  With a hideous crash that split the dark and starless air, a tree fell in the thick of the night. Then, seconds later, the jungle caught fire.

  The Nazi camp sprung to full alert.

  Once again, O’Neil was struck by the efficiency of the German soldiers. After the crash, their actions were crisp. When the fire broke out, they acted as one well-oiled unit, readying themselves to extinguish it.

  It was the perfect plan. Natives were used to lightning strikes and knew exactly how to deal with jungle fires, but these Europeans, who had spent precious little time in the rainforest, would certainly be unprepared and focused on the blaze, lest, as they feared, the entire forest burst into flames.

  As the Nazis hurried to secure water and sand, setting up a bucket brigade to extinguish the flames, they left the tent in question nearly unguarded.

  Just as O’Neil had planned.

  The solitary guard, who looked as if he was barely old enough to shave, stood at his post, clearly uneasy, holding his rifle in a death grip, his attention on the commotion around him rather than the job at hand.

  That probably explained why it was so easy for O’Neil to sneak up on him, leaping from out of the cover of darkness, putting his right hand over the guard’s mouth and putting the cold steel of his hook against the boy’s throat.

  “Drop your weapon and make no sudden movements,” the Irishman hissed in the boy’s ear.

  The boy complied, dropping his weapon to the soft earth and raising his hands in the air, somewhat unnecessarily. Then, with one blow, a hook to the back of the head, O’Neil knocked the guard unconscious, and his body slumped to the ground.

  O’Neil patted the guard down, taking his ammunition. He missed his own weapon, but his stolen luger would have to do.

  He pushed his way into the tent, ready to rescue the girl and get back on his quest.

  He did not expect her to be weeping.

  Mara did not look up as O’Neil entered. She was on the ground, kneeling over the body of Edgar, brother of Amon, her chest wracked with sobs.

  “Mara?” O’Neil was surprised by the level of concern he felt for this woman he barely knew.

  She looked up at him, her eyes moist and her face red.

  “He’s dead. Tortured to death for information. He didn’t have any. I did. So it’s all my fault.”

  O’Neil put his right hand on her shoulder. “He led a good life, but a dangerous one. We’ll grieve for him—along with your father—later.” He looked into her eyes, warm and green and filled with tears. “And we’ll avenge them, too.”

  She nodded and wiped her face on her sleeve.

  “Fleischer couldn’t interpret the journal. He needed me to tell him where to go. And he’s already left for the site.”

  “Good thing we’re faster and smarter,” O’Neil replied. Then his face contorted into the rarest of visages—a smile. “And better looking, too.”

  Mara couldn’t help but smile in return. “Then what are we waiting for?”

  And the two exited the tent, sped into the jungle, and continued on their chase for the Kuba Mask.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I don’t understand. There’s nothing there. The Kuba never had a settlement in that area. There’s no way a priceless artifact devoted to their god, Woot, would be in that location. There has to be something more.”

  Armless O’Neil was adamant. After all of the trouble he’d gone through to rescue Mara, after the deaths of her father and Edgar, he feared that he’d put his faith in the wrong person.

  After leaving Amon’s village, O’Neil had sworn to the chieftain that he would avenge Edgar’s death. He’d wanted to accompany O’Neil, but the Irishman knew he had to travel lightly. In fact, he wouldn’t have even taken Mara with him, but she knew the location of the mask. Or so he’d thought.

  O’Neil had assumed that the Professor and his daughter had intimate knowledge of the artifact. Despite his skepticism over the supposed power of the mask, he presumed that, with all the information supposedly contained in that book, Mara knew the location of the prize, and how they could get to it first. O’Neil still craved vengeance, after all.

  But he’d been wrong. Dead wrong.

  It was clear to O’Neil now, after they had made their escape, traveled a safe distance into the jungle and taken the time to confer. Once she sketched out for him the supposed location of this mask, he knew she was out of her depth.

  “You have to trust me, O’Neil. My father has been researching this artifact for decades, and he taught me everything he knows. Every fact, every map, every iota of knowledge in that book is right here.” She tapped her finger against her temple. “And I’m not steering you wrong.” She stared at him, directly into his crystal clear eyes. Most people—women especially—had trouble seeing beyond his worn, craggy face. They just tended to look away.

  “Please, O’Neil, can we just start walking while I explain?” She reached out her hand and touched him on the arm. No, not the arm. On his hook.

  Everyone he met spent the better part of their time together avoiding O’Neil’s hook.

  “Fine. Follow me. And keep up.”

  And then he was thrashing his way through the jungle, following the course she had laid out for them. She ran behind him.

  “We’re not far,” he called back. “We should beat them there.”

  “No, O’Neil. We won’t. Fleischer took the book and a few men with him several hours ago. For all we know, he’s already there.”

  He turned his head back toward her, not stopping his forward momentum. “So he already has the mask? Then we’re wasting our time?”

  She sped up, cutting in front of the large Irishman, stopping him dead in his tracks.

  “This is what I’m trying to tell you, O’Neil. They may be in the village, but finding the needle in the proverbial haystack will be impossible.”

  He stood there, not used to being interrupted. “What? Is it buried in the jungle or something?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, O’Neil. Around the turn of the century, the mask was taken from its original location. The Belgians were going to smuggle it out of the Congo and back to Europe, where they’d sell it to the highest bidder, probably the Kaiser’s men.”

  O’Neil nodded. “Go on.”

  She was gaining confidence. He was listening. “My father managed to track its path, sorting through the myths and the lies and the stories. He figured out where the Belgians took the Mask, and why it never made it to Europe.”

  “The war,” he said quietly.

  She nodded. He paused, silent for a moment. He hadn’t been on the continent during the Belgo-Arab war, but he knew enough people whose lives had been affected by it, whose relatives had been killed or villages destroyed in the crossfire.

  “The mask was taken to a Belgian settlement. It was hidden when the fighting reached the village. It was a slaughter. The mask never made it out.”

  “And you know where to find it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We never wrote the final clue in the book. It only exists up here.” She tapped her temple again. “And if you can get us there, I can find that mask and we can get out of Dodge before Fleischer and his men can even begin their search.”

  O’Neil nodded once, then turned and starting walking once more in the direction they’d been heading before.

  “Then what are we waiting for, Huston?”

  And, after a beat, she followed, too.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It had been, if he recalled correctly, a missionary village.

  O’Neil had never really given much thought to the missionaries. They were still around, of course, though not as many as before the war had broken out. The latest one, that is. The one that had started in Poland.

  Still, O’Neil tended to ignore them. Occasionally, a fresh-faced, rosy-cheeked Father Such-and-Such would traipse into one of his favorite watering holes and, seeing a ruddy Irish Catholic boy, would try and recruit him for an outreach mission.

  He never accepted.

  Without fail, they were men who didn’t know or care about the land or the people. They only cared about themselves and their mission. O’Neil had little use for closed-minded people. So, whenever he heard a tale of a mission that was abandoned or destroyed, he didn’t shed a tear.

  But he did remember.

  He remembered how many of these settlements, little more than ornate churches surrounded by ramshackle support buildings, had been razed around the turn of the century in the Belgo-Arab war. This particular settlement had left no impression on him, nor anyone else except, apparently, one lone professor, and now a crazed, faceless German.

  And now, the spire of the church was in their sights.

  “Alright, lady. What’s the plan?”

  It wasn’t often this man of action deferred to someone else. Tommy Huston’s only role in life had been to complicate matters for O’Neil. He hoped the man’s cousin had more affinity for solving problems than causing them.

  Especially since the Nazis were already there.

  Fortunately, it appeared that there were only seven of them in their crisp gray uniforms with their order and precision. They appeared to be combing the area, in an almost grid-like progression, radiating out from the largest, most prominent structure: the Church.

  “Are we too late? That thing has to be in the chapel, yeah?”

  Mara scoffed. “You didn’t think it’d be that easy, did you?” O’Neil thought he heard a trace of a smile in her voice. “Fleischer must have. Thought he could swoop in here, snatch it up and get everything he wanted without breaking a sweat.”

  O’Neil nodded, barely taking his eyes off the activity in the village. He was already formulating a plan. “What exactly does he want?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shake her head.

  “Haven’t you guessed yet? He wants his face back.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Without much time to prepare, O’Neil was forced to rely on his skills and, perhaps, a bit of luck. Something that was usually in scarce supply in these parts.

  After a few hasty moments in the jungle, he was ready. This time, Fritz and his men would not be distracted by fire. O’Neil himself would have to be the diversion. He just hoped he could buy enough time for Mara to locate the mask. And survive being outnumbered.

  As a well-tailored spy of O’Neil’s acquaintance would say, Piece of Cake.

  He checked the ammo in his stolen German luger and crossed himself. He might be a lapsed Catholic, but in the shadow of the crumbling church, perhaps a silent prayer couldn’t hurt.

  He wanted to shoot Fritz in the face—or what was left of it—but decided against it. He was going to avenge Edgar’s death and he was going to look that Nazi in the eyes—er, eye—when he killed him.

  O’Neil took careful aim. With two quick, accurate shots, he killed two of the Nazi guards. The gun barked but the men fell without a sound.

  For a moment, the jungle was silent. Then the remaining Nazis leapt into action.

  Faceless Fritz shouted and pointed, directing his four remaining men toward O’Neil. Two opened fire immediately, but O’Neil was already on the run into the jungle. He hoped they would follow him, as planned. He was counting on their ruthless efficiency to give Mara the time she needed.

  As he tore through the foliage, he could feel the bullets whizzing past his ears. Their shots were getting closer. It was time to make his stand.

  He stopped on a dime and cut a hard right turn, diving into the undergrowth. A few more shots rang out, but eventually the goons decided to cease their pointless firing. They were coming for him.

  He gave them credit for not wasting their breath on taunts or threats. Those Teutonic soldiers sure were cold and calculating. And O’Neil was ready to use that against them.

  He figured it would be standard operating procedure for these soldiers to split up and surround him, coming at him from all angles.

  They were going to make this too easy for him.

  “Come and get me, Ratzis!” He called. It was a little crass, of course, but he figured it would get their attention. He fired his gun into the distance to add to the temptation.

  In the span of seconds, he heard cries from two of the men, one behind and one in front. His hastily prepared snares—not easy to make with only one hand, but years of trapping in the jungle under the tutelage of Amon and his people had paid off—had worked. Two of the thugs were now dangling from the canopy.

  But the other two—one behind and one in front—had evaded the traps. They were savvy—or lucky—enough to avoid them. They were coming, and they were furious.

  One bullet ripped by O’Neil’s ear, fired from in front and to his right, and a voice behind him shouted in German.

  Now he had to make a move.

  Firing his weapon for coverage, he leapt, snagging a vine with his hook and swinging forward. His booted feet slammed into one of the remaining Nazis, knocking him to the earth. O’Neil spun and put a bullet right into the heart of the second one.

  His weapon dry, O’Neil smashed the butt of his gun against the temple of the man beneath him and dropped the piece, grabbing the soldier’s gun from his limp hand.

  He crossed to the closest strung-up Nazi. The man was speaking and pointing, probably trying to beg for his life, but his German was nearly incoherent. O’Neil put a bullet in the man’s head.

  Bu then, from behind him, he heard a thud and gunfire erupted once more. O’Neil ducked, dropping to the floor of the jungle, cursing. Of course the Nazi could free himself. All it would take was a little moxie and some knife work. O’Neil hadn’t thought matters out as much as he should have. He scanned the foliage, trying to catch a glimpse of the gray uniform peeking between the green.

  Then he felt a weight slam into his back. He grunted and his weapon flew from his hand. The other thug had circled behind and gotten the drop on him. The soldier must have had some experience in the jungle, something O’Neil had not taken into account. The Nazi grabbed O’Neil by the neck, trying to knock him out, not kill him.

  His mistake.

  O’Neil struck out with his hook, digging it into the Nazi’s forearm. The man screamed and pulled back. O’Neil spun, pressed his knee into the man’s chest, and slammed his fist into the blonde-haired, blue eyed young man’s face. The soldier put his arms up to protect himself, and O’Neil was about to slam him again when he felt the cold steel muzzle press into his neck.