"You know," I told Chief Wilson, head of my security detail, handing him the two H&K's from the limo, "you guys are the best part of living in San Diego.  Where else could a girl find so many guys so good with guns and knives all in one place?"   Wilson laughed, his head thrown back, his booming basso echoing off the walls of the security command post deep under the ground of my family's estate.
        "Kate," he said, "some day you're going to say yes to some society puke, and he's not going to like it that you keep a complete Boat Team of ex-SEALs on the payroll."
        "Have no fear, Chief," I told him "Your babies will be bald before that day ever comes.  But if it does I'll just have to set him straight.  No mere civilian could compare to you and your guys!"   We both chuckled.  For nearly 30 years there had been a succession of Navy SEALs in my family's employ, serving the far flung and sometimes extra-legal needs of Danbury Holdings.  One by one each had risen to positions of management and responsibility within the corporation, giving DH worldwide the reputation for the toughest management anywhere.  And the reputation was well-earned.
        I was comforted to be here with these men, some of the same men who had taught me to handle a machine gun and the gas mixes for deep diving and the controls of a Sikorsky.  Since I was a little girl I'd found I'd rather spend time with these honest, capable men than any room full of the society types and corporate hangers-on who buzzed around DH like flies.
        "Did Jensen get the second background noise enhancement done?" I asked.  The Chief nodded an affirmative. 
        "He also ran voice print analyses from the limo microphones.  Couldn't find your 'Amal' in any of the international law enforcement data bases, including Interpol, FBI, CIA, and Mossad, but that doesn't mean he's clean -- he could just be very new or very careful.  But he is telling the truth, or thinks he is, about how the emeralds came here, and his part in this affair."
        I chewed on this information.  So Amal was on the up and up!  He might be a complete loon, but at least he was an honest loon.  I nodded, and Chief Wilson  motioned to Jensen, the Boat Team's expert signalman, to run the recording.  The amplified sounds of human breathing poured out of the big speakers atop the computer console.
        "That's the breathing of the second person in the room," Jensen commented, "hugely amplified, and with your sister's voice edited out.  You of course wouldn't hear it during a normal conversation.  It's much too faint.  Sound print analysis shows female, almost certainly Caucasian, early 20's, stress patterns show stress but not duress."
        "Exactly the same as the analysis on my sister's voice!" I commented, surprised.
        "That's right.  As a matter of fact the two analyses are so similar that they could very easily have come from the same person with the same pattern of stressors, but they didn't."
        "So the question becomes," I said, turning back to Chief Wilson, "how someone knew of my involvement with the emeralds so quickly, and how have they apparently convinced my idiot sister to go along with them of her own free will."
        "Well," said Wilson, "your little dig across the ocean wasn't exactly a private affair.  Somebody with something to gain or loose could easily have picked up on you that way.  Especially if they had a personal stake in this before your dig even got underway.  As for your sister, you ought to know.  I mean, you virtually raised the girl yourself.  She's an adventurer.  Thinks she's immortal.  I mean, don't we all when we're twenty-one?  Who knows whom she followed where in London on a Friday night?"
        "What I really want to know is who it is that is threatening my sister and calling my unlisted cellular phone from across the Atlantic at 10:00 p. m Pacific Time, and I think that this man," I said, turning to Amal, "can tell us about it."
        Amal looked suddenly frightened.  "You have to understand that it could be anyone.  I mean, the gem is virtually flawless, and its color is simply unmatched anywhere in the world.  It would bring a high price on the open . . . ."
        "No, Amal," I needled, "this is more than a simple jewel thief.  People don't go to the lengths that this person has to track someone down, kidnap their sister, and send you packing across the ocean seeking help from a total stranger just to gain a few bucks on the rare gem market.  What's your part in this?  And why don't you tell us while we're driving, we don't have much time."
        Wilson motioned a fellow ex-seal over to the limo.  "Sterling!  Drive for us, will ya?"  Sterling nodded and climbed into the chauffer's seat. Wilson, Amal, and I all piled into the back.  
        As we pulled away from the estate, Amal said, "It started at the end of the first empire.  The eyes must be passed from Emporer to heir at the end of each ruler's life, and since the Eyes choose their owner, the heir to the throne isn't always the emporer's child.  The Emporer Amal grew to be a fine man, but married a selfish, if very beautiful woman who gave him his only son, Raja.  Raja was a lovely, strong boy, who could best the finest of Amal's nobles in his lessons as well as in athletic competitions, but he was cruel and petty.  He thought only of himself and how to torment his five younger sisters.  Amal thought that perhaps Raja would grow out of his childhood selfishness, but it only got worse as he grew older, and his mother didn't help Amal when it came to raising the boy on the straight path of Allah.  At the time of Amal's death, when the Sword of Justice and the Breastplate of Virtue were brought to the side of the dying king, his family and wise men gathered close to him, mourning the loss of their beloved leader, and standing close to see him to the next world.
        "As Amal's body weakened, and as he knew that death was near, he asked for his son to bring him the breastplate and the sword.  Amal laid one hand on the breastplate and the other on the sword's hilt, and as he took his dying breath, the light in the eyes glowed and twined between them.  Then came the moment that everyone had been waiting for:  The light made a sphere in the middle of the air above the dying king's bed and hovered there for an instant.  The group watched expectantly as the sphere wavered a bit, nudged itself to one side, and then traveled to the side opposite Raja.  It hovered over its chosen one, illuminating her like a god, and then flung itself suddenly at her chest.  The light illuminated her skin and she fell to the ground, but when she arose, she was a new creature.
        I gripped the door handle, "She?'" I screeched, craning my head around, "She??  Do you mean to tell me that the next emporer of your land was Raja's sister?"
        "Oh, no," said Amal, "The new chosen ruler of all of the conquered lands was Siracca, the 13 year old slave girl who was holding the water bowl for the Emporer Amal when he died."
        "Hmmmmm, I could only guess this did not make Raja very happy!  Nor the entire family, for that matter.  Why Siracca?  How did she overthrow Amal's family?  What happened to them?"   This story was getting better.  I only hoped it wasn't the product of noncompliance to a regular regime of psycho tropic medication on Amal's part.
        "Hold on, Kate, one question at a time!" he said with a chuckle and a amused glint in his eye.  "When Siracca was chosen the entire household fell to their faces before her to display their respect and devotion to their knew empress, except for Amal's wife and children.  Most likely, they would have been allowed to live in peace after Amal's death with a certain amount of respect, prestige and power, had they gone along with the new divinely chosen ruler.  But, of course, they didn't.  Once Raja realized that he didn't acquire his father's great wealth and power, he was filled with anger and hate.  He lunged for Siracca, attempting to kill her, but was brought down by one of Amal's loyal guards and died on the same day as his father.  Amal's wife and daughters were seen as a threat to the new dynasty by those who were truley loyal to the late Amal.  So, they were sentenced to the same fate as Raja but they managed to escape execution through the service or their own loyal servants.  To this day, there is a sacred cult of women who worship the wife and daughters of Amal and their descendants, claiming that they are the true divinely chosen ones, and someday will be restored to their rightfully place."
        "Okay, but you still haven't answered my question about why Siracca was chosen" I pointed out.
        "Quite simply," said Amal, "the Eyes of God require an empty vessel, one free of the accumulated pride and prejudices of privileged life.  For one who attempts to wield the power of the Eyes of God in any degree of unrighteousness is overpowered by the Sword of Justice and becomes, if he or she is strong, a bloody tyrant, or, if weak, a homicidal maniac.  This you have seen this very night with Lady Jane.
        "Time and time again as the death of an aging emperor or emperess came near, various strategems would be tried to establish a dynasty, but this the Eyes would never allow.  For thousands of years they chose the next ruler.  Never did the ruler chose him or herself.  And with only one exception, an old and very wise, very humble man, a counselor to the emperor, whose days were themselves very short, each new ruler was very young, nearly a child.  As a result the families of our land deemed it a great honor for their children to be placed in abject servitude in the royal palace.  "Several times during the Empire usurpers and thieves tried to claim the Eyes as their own, and each met a terrible and usually very rapid fate, as have your Mr. Stansfield and Lady Jane.
        "Then, nearly a thousand years ago, the Frankish hordes swept across our land in the jihad, the Crusades of their Christian god.   Across our land they flowed, slaughtering all in their path, including those of our people who shared their faith.  As the Christians advanced, the last of the emperors returned to the sacred cave with the sword and the breastplate, and there he deposited them to await the prophesied day when the entire world would look to our end of the Inland Sea for the solution to the wars and bloodshed that have swept across the globe ever since.  In all of that time, especially since the invading Crusaders were pushed back to their European homes, I have believed the sword and breastplate secure from discovery."
        I peered at him closely.  Wilson guffawed.   "You have believed??"
        "It was the perfect place to hide them away!  The cave was sealed from the outside, and the sword and breastplate were buried in its deepest chamber, which was at least a mile below ground level.  Great pains to were taken ensure that the prophesy did not come to pass,"  said Amal.
        "Why wouldn't you want the prophecy to come to pass?" I asked.
        "Because," said Amal, "with the prophesy comes the bloodiest war the world has ever known.  Peace is bought with a price, Kate, and the price of this peace will be death and destruction.  After the war will come a time of unity and harmony, where the tribes of Amal will once again rule the deserts, and the nations of the world will turn their faces toward us.  Then will follow peace and prosperity under the rule of the Eyes again.  But, Kate, the legends of the war to preceed this are horrid!  We had thought the Eyes sealed away for an eternity until the earth moved three years ago and the cave was exposed.  Then your archaelogy team found the sacred cave with its alters and its offerings, and the sword along with it."
        "And the rest we know." snorted Wilson. "Except this:  How did you end up with the Eye of Mercy?"
        "It found me.  Stop looking incredulous, Kate.  That's just how it works.  The Eye of Justice blinded Stansfield to its mate and protected it.  The Eye of Mercy, in the compassion of the god, hid itself and the breastplate well, shielding Stansfield and the world from the fate of a double curse from stealing both gems.  You have seen the curse of the Eye of Justice.  The Eye of Mercy, if stolen, will make its thief anyone's puppet.  Thieves of the Eye of Mercy have been said to literally starve themselves and their families and friends to death at another's bidding.  They will steal, kill, maim, destroy, and mutilate under this curse, and nothing of their own self-will remains while they are in its clutches.  Can you imagine the murderous horrors of a person who has stolen both of these gems?  When the sword was taken from the cave, and your team left the site, the second Eye called me to my mission, and I obeyed."
        I shifted in my seat.  We were now pulling up to the driveway of my father's estate.  "Fine.  Please tell me, though, before we put tonight's operation underway:  Who are we dealing with, here?  Who's got my sister?"
        "My guess," said Amal, "Would be the Daughters of Tabar.  There have been other sects formed from other disgruntled emporer's families, but they are the oldest and the most fanatical.  They were subdued by the Emperess Siracca in the second regime, and pushed out of the boundaries of the conquered lands.  But they have since lurked on the edges, spreading terror, mayhem, and distruction at each Emperor or Emperess's death, waiting to usurp the throne that they consider their blood right.  When the empire was destroyed and pieced out after the Crusades, they made it their mission to find and possess the Eyes, but they have never been successful.  No one has until now, and now that they're found, the Tabarians want them dearly.  This is a very, very old feud, Kate, and the fires run deep and hot.  We must proceed with caution if we are to save your sister."