Passage Graves (26 page)

Chapter 63

SATURDAY 7:26 p.m.

Stenness Basecamp

Orkney Island, Scotland

Marek’s eyes blurred with fatigue. He no longer had the discipline to refocus them.

After uploading the Hebrew language program into his soundex, he waited for the computer to initiate another language check. It was a simple program. One he could write in his sleep. Every word within a given language was encoded with a numerical sequence that could be compared to the numerical sequencing of the
noise recorded inside Maeshowe.

That was the gist. Matching numbers to numbers. Theoretically simple. Statistically
probable.

But goddamn frustrating.

It was taking forever.

The computer beeped every few seconds as it unscrambled new word
orders and determined old deadends. A box popped up onscreen with each beep: NO MATCH.

“No match, no match, no match,” he mimic
ked the voice of a computer.

The beeping stopped.

Marek sat up in disbelief.

A red box
flashed over the screen: MATCH.

He reached for t
he keyboard and pressed enter.

The computerized voice pronounced the matching lexicon. “
Tsaw-lakh’ saw-ar’ paw-rawsh
.”

He double clicked to translate
, and the computer processed the Hebrew to English.

WORKING…

WORKING…

WORKING…

He leaned closer to the monitor.

His mouth fell open.

COME MIGHTILY

COME WITH HORROR

MY HORSEMEN

“Holy shit.” Marek noticed the reflection of another person i
n the computer screen. He turned excited. “You’re not going to believe this—”

A bullet tore through
his brain. It slammed into the monitor, shattering the screen.

Another shell was fired into the co
mputer.

Thatcher stepped into the room, a backpack over one shoulder. “Marek, I need your—”

Marek’s body was slumped over the keyboard. His eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. The back of his head gone.

She st
ifled a scream.

The gun
turned and pointed at her.

Hummer lowered the weapon.

A wave of panic stopped her throat—

Hummer
knocked her backwards into the equipment rack. The metal frame fell, trapping her forearm and CB radio against the desk.

He pinned her against the rack, cut
ting off her airway with one arm, stopping her voice. “Brynne, listen to me.”

Grunting,
she clawed at his arm, trying to pull him away from her throat.

He cover
ed her mouth. “You don’t understand!”

Sparks flashed across her eyes. The room began to spin
. Her muscles went limp. She refused to quit. Clawing her fingernails into his arm, she caught his watch. The band broke. A spiral tattoo was inscribed on the underside of his wrist.

Hummer knew.

Her heart flailed in her chest. She had to do something. Hummer would kill her.

S
he bit down on his fingers. His bone felt like stone between her teeth.

Hummer loosened h
is grip and grabbed for her again.

Tearing Marek’s keyboard off the desk, she swung a
t his head. The console connected with his jaw. There was a loud snap. Hummer doubled over.

Thatcher
ran from the room, crashing into the corridor walls, hysterical.

There was nowhere
she could go. Nowhere she could escape her uncle.

She heard
Hummer yell into his CB radio behind her. “Breach!”

Th
e dimly lit hallway was a blur. Tears welled in her eyes. She tripped over rubble. Basecamp had been subverted by the earth, reclaimed by dirt and rock. Cement crumbled from the ceiling as she collapsed against the wall.

There was only one way out.

At the opposite end of basecamp—above the halogen lights and boxes of the synthesized TNT—was the elevator out to Stenness.

“Brynne, you don’t have to
do this.” Hummer’s voice relayed over her broken arm CB.

She screamed and
tried to pull the radio off. An egg-shaped welt had formed across her wrist where she had been pinned by the storage rack. Below the skin, a blood vessel popped. It was bleeding out just beneath the surface, bloating into an enormous bruise. She was too swollen to take off the strap.

“I
can’t protect you if you leave!” Hummer yelled over the receiver.

She scrambled o
ver the debris and climbed toward the elevator. The light was still on inside the opaque boxcar. The gelid, azure glow meant the lift was running.

Thatcher
sprinted passed the morgue. The bodies of Stenness had been left to rot after the last explosion. The underground mine would become their permanent grave. She reached the elevator and pounded the call button. “Come on! Come on!”

The door didn’t open.
She slammed the button with her fist.

Hummer had stopped talking.
That wasn’t good.

“Open, dammit!”

The elevator door began to slide open. It failed, stopping four inches ajar. She forced her arm through the crack, then her leg. Her hip was a tight squeeze.

A bullet screamed past her head and
slammed into the plastic frame.

Inches from her face, another bullet ri
cocheted off the corridor wall.

Lee appeare
d at the other end of the hall.

Thatcher fo
rced herself through the gap. She hit the up button. The doors began to close.

Lee
raced to the elevator, firing recklessly at the door. Slugs struck the conveyor walls. Plastic cracked upon impact. Thatcher threw her arms up to protect herself.

The door stopped short again
, this time by a few centimeters—enough for Lee to force his fingers through the door. He pressed back the sliding panel.

She slammed the button
again, praying the lift would activate. The elevator began to rise.

Lee slipped out the crack as the floor moved
above his chest and then head.

A wave of nausea filled her stomach
. He stepped into the shaft and stared up at her through the translucent floor. He was not giving up. He fired pointblank into the floor. The sheathing cracked. Entire portions of elevator floor broke away. Plastic tore like paper as he diced his way through the bottom.

Sliding to the corner
, Thatcher clung to the boxcar. The floor groaned under her weight.

Lee ejected an empty cli
p and replaced it with another.

“Cut the power!” he yelled into his arm radio.

The elevator climbed. Ten feet, and then twenty. Its laggard hydraulics was an ice sheet glacier, reluctant to leave basecamp.

A bullet exploded through the floor, spraying shrapnel like shattering glass
. Explosive confetti burst throughout the tiny box. Thatcher fell against the wall. A jagged shard had lodged into her calf. Her scream caught in her throat.

T
here was no time to react.

The metal crossbeams supporting the floor gave way with a terrible groan. One end of the floor collapsed, opening
by a full foot at two of the corners. She was exposed and trapped.

The power went off.

The elevator jolted to a stop.

Hazy sunset beckoned above—nine feet
from the elevator ceiling.

Below, basecamp
was pitch black. She studied the shaft floor, cringing in pain, searching for Lee. She could sense him crawling up the sides of the vault, a spider, scaling the walls.

A portion of the boxcar’s
railing came loose. She gripped the end of the rod and pried it off. It gave an ear-splitting screech, metal scraping metal, and peeled away from the elevator. She lifted the bar over her head and thrust it into the shattered ceiling.

The floor faltered, collapsing lower at the bro
ken corners. The hole widened.

She braced herself and then smashed the metal railing int
o the perforated ceiling. The top of the elevator split open, breaking like ice. She struck again and again until the gap was wide enough to climb through. Reaching for the hole, she grabbed hold of the ceiling. The thin crevice where she tore off the lining gave her feet leverage. Her fingers stretched beyond the opening. She gripped the ledge and pulled her torso through.

Lee grabbed her legs.

Half her body was inside the boxcar, and half her body out. She clung to the crossbeam of the shaft. She kicked him off balance. He tumbled into the corner.

The boxcar groaned under the
weight. She grabbed the shaft support beam with both arms and pulled herself out of the cage. Her arms burned but she forced herself upward.

Lee sprang from the elevator, seizing her an
kle.

One of her
hands slipped off the shaft beam. Her body swung away from the wall.

He fell back inside the elevator, spitting a mouthful of blood. He stared up at her. His li
ps curled, vulturine. With only one hand on the beam, she dangled helplessly above him.

Lee
leapt forward.

The elevator cables snapped.

With a torturous screech, the entire conveyor ripped apart.

Lee sli
d along her pant leg.

She clung to
the shaft beam with her legs flailing. For a moment, she supported both their weight. Adrenaline surged through her arms. Her biceps were trembling. The pain was blinding. Lee was pulling her down, clinging to her injured leg. If he went down, she would fall also.

The boxcar smashed to the floor, sending a wave of dust spiraling upwards. Debris choked her lungs.

Lee began to slip again. Their eyes met. The seam of her pant leg tore. Lee tried to reach for her as his hands slipped along the fabric. She saw the last expression on his face as he dropped, his somber realization. She didn’t watch him hit bottom.

Movement was unbearable. She commanded her
arms to climb. Every last ounce of energy was expended, and yet she had to move. Staring into the dusky sky, all she could see was the top of the shaft.

Moonlight. Glorious moonl
ight.

One arm over the over, again and again. Finally, she p
ulled her body over the top. She stayed on the ground, rolling in the dust, fighting for breath. Her leg was on fire from the jagged shrapnel.

“Brynne!” Hummer’s voice blared over her radio. “They’ll kill you—”

With a shriek, she tore off the CB radio and threw it into the hole. She cradled her injured arm. With stinging satisfaction, she could hear Hummer’s voice fade as it fell down the shaft.

Le
t it rest with the body of Lee.

She
forced herself to her feet, ignoring the searing pain in her leg. She had never felt so alone. Buried under debris at the end of the street, a military Land Rover was upright and intact. The vehicle was covered with wreckage, but nothing too heavy for her to move. Its windows were blown out from Maeshowe’s last explosion, but it was drivable.

Her t
unnel vision returned, focusing on one sustainable goal: David.

I
f he was alive, there was hope.

Hummer knelt over Marek’s body.

Marek had disobeyed a direct order, leaving Hummer with no alternative. Thatcher would never understand that. Nor would she comprehend that allegiance to the Abaddon required sacrifice. Thousands had died over the millennia, all for the greater good. Yet, as he considered his team: Bailey, Golke, Donovon, Marek, and Lee, the cost of each sacrifice dealt him a terrible blow.

Failure darkened his face.

Secrets of the dead were to remain with the dead.

Everything he
had held sacred lost its meaning. Death begat more death and truth unraveled. Every upturned stone came at a high cost. The consequences of his knowledge were unbearable.

He swallow
ed hard, edging toward despair.

T
he custom grip of his handgun was flush with the magazine well. He squeezed the rubber hilt and felt the aluminum trigger against his forefinger. He stared down the barrel, and contemplated the inevitable.

He
would welcome death.