The Mongol Objective (34 page)

“NO!” Renée aimed and fired two more rounds that ripped into Qara, taking her in the neck and then the skull.

But it was too late. Qara’s motion completed and the case was flung in a high arc over Renée’s head. She turned the fading light on it, and had only the barest glimpse as the silver case turned end over end, sailed over the first ranks of the terra cotta warriors, then dropped in the midst of the second row.

Renée turned to watch Qara fall, bullet-riddled and lifeless, as the river welcomed her body in a silvery embrace. She cursed and headed back to the shore

And then the light went out altogether, leaving her in complete darkness at the threshold of Genghis Khan’s army.

#

She stood motionless, taking deep calming breaths. The light from the flares was fading, and too distant to help.

Think, think.
This isn’t the end.

There were others here: the bodies of her men. Surely she could recover the weapons and flashlights of the dead, then retrieve the case.

It all depended on planning. Precision and memory. She was careful not to move from her last position. She remembered exactly her location relative to the first line of warriors, the walls on either side, and the water at her back. Now it was only a matter of a careful sweep, side to side, inching forward until finding what she needed.

She had time, there was no need to panic.

She began. Working in utter darkness, her own breathing echoed across the chasm of darkness, past the lifeless army standing just ahead.
Let them mock me
, she thought.
I still have destiny on my side. I am the chosen of Marduk. And this is but a test.

She moved ahead, sweeping the earth now with both hands, crawling on her knees. After a minute she paused. Had she been this way before? Was she sure she had moved parallel to the water, or had she veered off at an angle, and the next sweep would only take her farther away? It was like the open-water scuba test the first time she had taken it, where the final portion involved going deep and getting from point A to B only by using a compass. While assuming she was on track the whole time, she had failed; the slightest deviation from the compass heading had led, over time, to a major variance.

She froze, and her pulse quickened. Paralysis was creeping in. Too afraid to move in any direction, she decided to go back to the water and get her bearings again.

But just before moving back, she saw something appearing out in the darkness.

A glowing shape. Not far. She squinted, shook her head and tried to focus. Yes, there it was. Someone was there. Someone with a light.

She pulled out her gun. Stood up and aimed. “Freeze!”

But it didn’t stop. She could tell it was a man now, emitting a radiance, which must be from a flashlight directed on himself. Saw his clothes, his stooping shoulders. His red hair.

Montross.

“I said freeze!”

Damned psychics
. There must have been another way out, or else the explosives hadn’t done a good enough job. Oh well, this was actually good news. Proof that she was chosen. Marduk had sent her a gift.

“Montross! Get over here and give me that light.”

He stopped, turned toward her. Didn’t speak.

The light was odd. It only seemed to glow around his body, without providing any illumination beyond. She couldn’t tell if he was back at the shore, heading for the boat, or maybe just past the portal. The only thing she was sure of was that he couldn’t be in the army’s midst. Or else the arrows would be flying and swords would be hacking him to pieces.

That was good news for her. And it was his fatal mistake.

Screw this.
She aimed and fired.

But he was still standing, maybe a little to the left of where he had been. She aimed again.
Wait.
This was Xavier Montross. She remembered. He could see his own death. That meant her attempts at taking him down would have been foreseen. He was toying with her. But she could get around that.

Look at him. So arrogant.

Fine. If you can only see your death, then I won’t kill you. Just hurt you real bad.

He’d never expect it. She lowered her shoulder and flexed her legs, judging the distance. He had to be only about twenty yards ahead. Just like Quantico’s qualifying tests. She’d be on him before he knew it.

She took off. Bursting with speed, running headlong, preparing take him down and beat his face in with her gun.

Six strides in, she realized she’d been played. The first giveaway was that Montross—or whatever it was that looked like him—broke into a huge smile. The second was that she brushed against something hard that jarred her sideways into something else, something man-sized.

Another stride and she realized her left arm had been cut to the bone, blood spurting and flailing uselessly.

I’m in the army.

She tried to stop but her momentum carried her forward, almost ten feet away from him now, where he had folded his arms, and his smile had vanished, replaced by a look of grim satisfaction.

At his feet lay the briefcase.

Mine!
She thought, and lunged for it.

She heard a click, and the ground beneath her feet settled.

There was movement. Lots of it. Grating sounds as warriors swiveled to her location, limbs flexed, swung and drove. She felt her rib cage snap as it was penetrated from left to right as a cold implement burst through her spine and out her stomach. She looked down to see the glint of steel. Looked back up and Montross’s glow was fading, his image disappearing even as that smile returned.

She had only time left for one brief thought.

I’m not . . .
the Chosen.

17.

Montross opened his eyes. His fingers unclenched from each other. Disoriented, he teetered on the edge of the crypt, almost falling backward into water before Nina caught him.

He blinked, took a moment to catch his breath, then glanced around before nodding to Nina. “I’ve taken care of securing our items for later retrieval. Now, what’s up with this crew?”

Nina shrugged, aimed the light at the feet of the four psychics, with their eyes closed, lost in their own trances. “They’ve been like this for three minutes. We don’t have much time left.”

Montross pulled himself up. He bent down at the head of Genghis Khan’s coffin. “Grab his feet,” he told Nina. “Let’s make us some room.” They lifted him, gracefully, carefully. Then, following Montross’s lead, Nina gently set the body down, lowering it onto the surface of the rising water. Then Montross gave the leather shoulder pad a reverential push, sending the body floating away.

“Farewell, Lord Temujin.” He stood on the center of the crypt dais next to the lever that had brought down the tower and studied it. “Give them another minute, then we’ll try something. It has to involve this lever somehow.”

“Or not,” said Phoebe, blinking and standing up fully. “It might be something much worse.”

Orlando woke himself up, then Alexander looked their way. “I couldn’t see anything.”

“Me neither,” said Orlando.

“And my dear brother Caleb?” Montross shined his light on Caleb’s face, which remained placid, motionless except for his eyes, which seemed to be fluttering in the full stages of a dream-vision.

“Don’t need him,” Phoebe said with a slight smile.

“So, what did you see?” Nina asked.

“I saw that somebody’s going to need to brave the eels.” She took a deep breath. “Those three step-stones down there that you used to activate the tower’s descent? They’ve got to be unstuck, pressed down again. Dragon, gryphon, centaur.”

Orlando took off his boots and got ready to jump in.

“What?” he said when everyone turned to look at him. “I’ve just done the math. I’m the expendable one here, the only one with a shot at this. And since gnarly girl here has still got the gun, I’m not going to wait to be asked.”

Phoebe smiled at him. “You’re my hero.”

#

He dropped over the side where Alexander was pointing. “That should be the dragon.”

“I hope,” said Orlando as he jumped in. With a splash, his feet struck the bottom and the water rose to his neck. The stone beneath his feet shifted, then rose up. “Okay, one down. And then up, I guess.” He watched the lights stabbing into the dark water around him. “Uh, Nina? I hope you’re as good a shot with these eels as you were with those soldiers.”

From above, a light darted around his body, scanning for movement. “Only because we need you,” she said. “Otherwise, you’re not worth the price of ammo.”

He was about to move clockwise toward the gryphon at the twelve o’clock position, when Nina fired. He flinched with the splash right in front of him. A gout of purplish blood erupted, and an eel thrashed and spun, contorting itself into knots. Orlando saw a flash of yellow eyes and needle-sharp teeth, then it was gone.

“Great,” he said. “Now you’ve made it bleed. It’s going to lure its friends. Hope they’re cannibals.”

“Maybe not,” said Montross, pointing to the soldiers’ bodies, “but you may luck out. There are a lot of other lunch options floating around.”

Orlando moved, treading water and swimming to where the lights led him. In his peripheral vision he saw a floating body, waterlogged. A head turned his way and a single eye, half-eaten, blinked at him from a partially devoured face. As he watched, a grayish-blue eel slithered around the corpse’s neck, then attached its jaws to the man’s neck.

“Eyes ahead, Orlando,” Phoebe called.

“Easy for you to say.”

“Almost there.”

Another gunshot, another eel popped and splashed spastically behind him. He cringed, floated to the narrow portion at the head of the crypt, then waited.

“There,” said Alexander. “Hit it.”

Using his arms, Orlando pushed up like the start of doing a jumping jack but with his palms open, and sent himself down. He stomped with both feet and felt the stone give way, release and push up. “Got it.”

“Okay, one more. Hurry. Three o’clock position.”

Treading water again, he swam a half-hearted breast stroke, reaching out and helping himself by pulling along the crypt wall.

Another shot, and an eel’s head exploded right in front of him.

“
Judas Priest!
Do you think you could—
Ow!
” he screamed, as he jerked his hand out of the water and shook it, trying to dislodge the eel sawing its teeth into his flesh.

“Stop moving!” Nina yelled. “I can’t get a shot!”

Still screaming, Orlando spun around, then slammed his arm sideways, pounding the eel’s body against the crypt’s side. There was a satisfying
crunch
, and the jaws loosened. In the dazzling white light, those glowing eyes were locked on his, even as the jaws loosened.

“Get off me!” he yelled as his blood rushed down his wrist. Another swing, hard, vertically up and then down and then it snapped free. “Those things are evil.” He rubbed his hand, then washed it under the water, not caring at this point about attracting more critters.

“You’re almost there,” Alexander shouted. “Another few feet.” His flashlight beam pointed the way, and under the water, Orlando could just make out the outline of a centaur. He moved to it and was about to step ahead when something nipped his leg, just above the calf. Then, a pain as great as anything he could imagine as something chomped into his back, just above the tailbone. It felt like it was trying to burrow inside, gnawing and thrashing into tendons.

He barely heard the gunshots over his own screams, and he certainly didn’t notice that he had staggered forward, depressing the centaur stone and then he slipped under water, struggling against a sudden onslaught of eels. A veritable horde, jumping and wriggling like spawning salmon, converging on live prey.

“Orlando!” Phoebe’s shout was the last thing he heard before they dragged him under.

#

“No way I’m losing him!” Phoebe jumped to the edge, leaned over and yelled back. “Someone grab my hand.”

“Ah shit,” Nina said, putting away her now-empty Beretta, and gripped Phoebe’s wrist with one hand, then hung on to Montross with the other. She lowered Phoebe down, just above the thrashing pile of slithering eels, and then a hand, thrust up in wild desperation.

Phoebe lunged and caught it, gripped it tight. His head emerged, bloody, an eel snapping at his ear. And then Montross yanked backwards, reeling in Nina, who slipped, but caught herself and got her footing just as Phoebe fell halfway in. Nina found some leverage and heaved her catch out of the water.

Four eels were still attached to Orlando. Phoebe hauled him up and together they slid him onto the flat mortuary slab, and as he writhed, screaming, bleeding from a dozen wounds, Nina pulled out a military knife, ten-inch standard-issue, serrated.

“Just like Fridays at the fish market,” she said with enthusiasm, and hacked down on the first eel, lopping its body free from its head. Again with the next one. “Hold his leg still!” she yelled, as she slashed down again. She turned to the last one on his neck. It must have seen the fate of its friends as it let go, hissed at her, and flopped sideways to escape.

But Orlando’s left hand rose up and caught it by the neck. He sat up, still screaming, and turned to the side, whipping its head down hard against the stone. Once, twice, three times until it was a bloody, lifeless mess. He pushed it aside, then looked down at himself. The torn clothes, the blood seeping everywhere.

And he smiled. “Did I do it?”

“Yes, but we’ve got other problems,” Alexander said, and he seemed to be shaking, swaying back and forth. “We’d better hold onto something.”

Phoebe pulled herself up, then reached over to grab Caleb, who was still somehow unconscious through all the screaming, still lost in the depths of an unbreakable vision.

“Hang on tight!” she yelled.

The tower shuddered, rocked, then roared upwards. The gears released. Hidden counterweights offset levers and pulleys and shot the tower back up, pulling free of the debris from the explosion with just a bump in its ascent, grinding upwards. Water spilled from its length, eels and bodies tumbled away with the recoiling waves.