by Matt James
The wall sprang to life and resealed itself. He removed the key from the lock and pocketed it once more. Getting to his feet, he turned and disappeared down the staircase. Jack clambered his way back down into the bunker, his current wind nearly spent.
The first thing he did was ditch the facemask. He gladly ripped it away and tossed it aside. He gave himself a minute to collect himself before continuing straight through the subterranean community to the train station. The steps to the platform passed by in a blur, as did his descent onto the tracks. Jack grumbled out a curse and started off. He used his barrel-mounted light this time. There was no way to know whether anyone had come back to check on Karl.
Knowing my luck, they did.
The best news was that no one could contact the team topside. As far as Emma knew, her people were still in control. Jack needed to diffuse the situation down here. There was no reason for anyone else to die today, including Emma and the others.
Like he’d done with Karl, Jack was perfectly fine with pacifying the remaining mercenary force using nonlethal measures. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said about the men upstairs, and those in the bunker. There was no way around killing them.
Jack’s light landed on the last place he’d seen Karl.
He stopped cold. “Shit.” Karl wasn’t there.
Fifty feet from the handcart, Jack knelt and scanned the tunnel ahead for movement. There was none. He got to his feet and hauled ass to the cart. The man’s bonds had been cut and dumped. Even the remains of his clothes were missing.
“See,” Jack said, under his breath, “this is what I get for being nice.”
Jack regretted not putting Karl in the ground. His compassion for life was a wartime flaw. It had gotten in the way and bitten him in the ass. He cracked his neck and readjusted the position of his rifle’s stock.
“Well, I guess it’s time to clean up the mess.”
Just inside the narrow side tunnel, Karl sat and waited for Jack to pass. As much as he wanted to, the plan wasn’t to kill him. The American would still prove to be a useful deterrent against an incursion from above. So, he’d wait for Jack to get further ahead, and then he’d follow close behind and strike when the time was right.
Gunter had finally come to check on him, finding Karl awake and gagged with a damp sock. Strangely, they found his clothes folded into a neat pile atop the deck of the handcart. Jack had taken the time to strip him nude and then politely set aside his clothing.
“He’s a very odd man,” Gunter said as Karl dressed.
Gone were Karl’s Kevlar vest, backpack, and weapons. Gunter loaned him his pistol and advised him to rejoin the rest of the team back inside the treasure room. Karl swiftly declined the order, much to the chagrin of his commanding officer. His reasoning was sound, however. He said he’d much rather wait for the man who had humiliated him.
Karl growled. “I shall do to him what he failed to do to me.”
He was going to kill Jack, but not before torturing him for a while. He wanted to make the bastard squeal. Karl wanted to have a little fun before he exacted his revenge.
16
Jack descended the pile of rubble and then snuck his way up to the treasure room’s entrance, extinguishing his rifle’s light en route. He searched for his targets but found none. The room seemed to be abandoned.
“Dammit,” Jack whispered, digging into his backpack. He didn’t like what he didn’t see.
The scene before him was a nerve-racking one, and not just because the loot had been left unguarded. Jack’s presence should’ve been expected. He anticipated a fight. He quickly looked over his shoulder and waited for movement. An attack from behind was an option. He saw nothing except darkness. So, he turned his attention back to his work on the tunnel wall, tucking his contingency plan deep into a fracture in the rock.
If the enormous room truly was lifeless, then all he’d have to do was come back and deactivate his little friend. But if the room wasn’t empty, and Emma was, indeed, waiting for him, then Jack’s surprise would be an explosive one to witness.
“It’s gonna be a blast,” he said, packing up and ducking in behind the rear of the train.
As an alternative to beelining straight to the platform, Jack stayed down below on the tracks. He did stop and eyed the left-hand platform. It was the last place he had seen Emma, Gunter, and Jurgen before getting into his tiff with Karl at the handcart.
But no one was home.
He got low and squeezed between the right-hand wheels and the concrete wall. It was a tight fit, and he had to scuttle forward like a crippled crab. Cramped, but moving steadily, Jack made it to the junction between the third and fourth cars before finally hearing someone’s voice.
Emma stepped out from behind a statue of an Egyptian pharaoh. She was followed closely by Gunter and Jurgen. Nothing about the way they were acting was off. They were just calmly speaking to one another while motioning back to the treasure.
“I really need to learn German,” Jack said, not understanding a lick of it. So, he concentrated on their body language. They kept pointing back up the slope to where Jack had initially entered the room.
“The temple?”
They’d found the hidden Templar stronghold and were just now returning from their hike. Had Jack read this whole thing wrong? Weren’t they wise to him? What about Karl, where was he?
“Hmmm.”
Either way, Jack didn’t like the smell of it. It was fishy at best. The space between the cars was too tight to use his carbine. So, he turned and slowly hauled himself out from under the train. When he was halfway up, someone reached down and gave him a hand.
The hand belonged to Karl—and it was more of a fist to the face than a gesture of aid. It connected like a sledgehammer. Jack did his best Roger Rabbit impression, and he saw stars. Then, the fully clothed mercenary gripped the straps of Jack’s vest—his vest—and pulled him up the rest of the way. Jack’s face was at a convenient knee-height level, and Karl took the opportunity to pummel him with a series of thunderous strikes. Jack blocked most of them, but two landed solidly and stupefied him further.
Half out of it, Jack was thrown to the ground and rolled onto his back. He was stripped of his gear, but thankfully, not his clothes. Seconds later, he was surrounded. Wincing, he looked up, spotting a blurry Karl first. The German’s bruised face and black eyes had darkened immensely since he last saw him. He reminded Jack of a raccoon.
“Hey, buddy.” Jack cringed as he spoke. “How’s it hangin’?”
Karl drove the tip of his boot into Jack’s side. Then, he did it three more times. Each successive blow, while lessened by the Kevlar vest, still hurt immensely, though Jack acted as if they hurt even worse. It was unconventional, for sure, but Jack knew what he was doing. He was allowing Karl to kick his ass. For Jack’s surprise to work, he needed to buy it a few more minutes. He needed to buy himself some time too. If they were busy beating on him, then they were too distracted to kill him. What better way to preoccupy your enemy than to be their punching bag?
Jack broke out into a fit of coughs—real ones.
Emma’s left hand rose. The nonverbal order immediately halted Karl’s feverous retribution. She leaned over Jack, hands on her knees, and smiled wide at his bruised and beaten form.
Jack’s lip was bleeding. He could also feel his right eye getting puffy. Even a few of his teeth felt loose. Still, he was alive, and he wasn’t actually in as bad of shape as his enemies thought he was. Yes, Jack hurt like a son of a bitch, but no, he wasn’t entirely out of it.
Slowly, he rolled on his side and casually lifted his left arm, pretending to shield his face. He was, in reality, checking his watch. It was cracked, but it was running. He also spotted his bracelet again, recalling something Bull had said about them.
Strength and courage are essential to a warrior because of blah, blah, blah. Jack rolled his eyes. Yeah, Bull, I know, I know…
“Oh, Jaaack,” Emma cooed, “what have you
been up to?”
He was this close to telling her that he had freed her hostages, if only to piss her off, but he thought better of it and kept his mouth shut. If she became aware of her men’s defeat, she might decide to abandon her plan. That meant Jack would no longer be needed. It wasn’t like him to think of only himself. Still, he knew it was time to save his own skin. To do that, Emma needed to continue to operate business as usual.
“I tried to reach the surface, but was cut off,” Jack lied. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Emma. Your goons know what they’re doing—except for Karl, of course. He’s got shit for brains.” The man huffed in anger but didn’t attack. “They—” A cold droplet of water fell from somewhere above Jack and slapped him in the forehead. He focused his attention on the cave ceiling. The drip had come from directly above him, originating from the largest stalactite in the room. I reminded him of the drip back at the train station. “They, uh,” he said, merging back into the conversation, “they drove me back into the bunker and resealed the wall.”
Both Schmidts beamed with pride. As far as they knew, their men were heroes. It was exactly what Jack needed them to think. He was still useful to them as a hostage. Luckily for him, they didn’t get the chance to re-cuff his wrists.
The subterranean explosion was deafening. It shook the treasure room hard, toppling the thirty-foot-tall statue of Julius Caesar and dislodging several enormous stalactites from the ceiling. With a thunderous crack, the one above Jack’s head broke free and fell like a bomb. Emma, Gunter, Karl, and Jurgen all snapped their attention skyward and then quickly dove away.
The distraction gave Jack the chance to jump to his feet. He sprinted toward the train and leapt through the gap in between the third and fourth cars. Clearing the couplers with ease, Jack stumbled as he landed on the other side of the platform. He peeked at the tunnel entrance and watched as thousands of pounds of stone collapsed in on itself, blocking the way back to Auschwitz. His surprise had worked.
It may have worked ‘too’ well.
Jack headed straightaway for the nearest artery into the maze of treasure, collecting a hefty Templar shield on his way in. Bullets tore into the ground all around him. He cumbersomely angled the shield behind him and was happy to see it take the forceful impacts with nothing more than a series of bongs and a jumble of circular indentions. The sight made him smile on the inside. He had just effectively blocked modern-day automatic gunfire with an eight-hundred-year-old instrument of defense. He sort of felt like Captain America.
If only I could heal as fast as that guy.
Jack zigged and zagged, desperately making an effort to lose his hunters. Out of breath, he stopped, hands on his knees. Heaving heavily, Jack tried to come up with a plan on the spot but couldn’t. He was too tired for his mind to focus that intensely. So, instead, he searched for something to defend himself with. Jack turned and—
“Oh.”
It was the same accumulation of weapons that he’d found the Persian scimitar inside of. Jack dove into the pile and drew the first armament he laid his hands on, an exquisite Japanese katana. He hurriedly drew the sword from its sheath. “Woah,” Jack said, gawking at the razor-sharp, steel blade. It was flawless, expertly engraved with a dragon that was inlaid with gold. The katana’s handle was also intricately designed, as was its sheath.
Japanese weaponry wasn’t Jack’s forte, but he did recall that the greatest bladesmith in the nation’s history was supposed to have lived around the same time as the Knights Templar.
I wonder if this is one of Masamune’s creations.
The answer to his question would have to wait. Footsteps erupted nearby. Even though Jack was armed—more or less—he didn’t stick around to fight anyone head-on with only a sword and shield. He ran and came upon something else familiar, scrambling up-and-over a voluminous sea of hardbacks and paperbacks.
He stumbled his way to the peak before he was discovered. Before he could celebrate his successful summiting, a barrage of gunfire forced him to dive forward. Careful not to land on his sword, Jack aimed for his downward turned shield. He rode it head-first like a reckless teen on a toboggan, using the stone footpath between two other enormous treasure mounds as an escape route. Sparks flew up all around him while he desecrated the priceless Templar artifact. The path dead-ended at a vast mountain of coins.
His abrupt arrival caught Jurgen off-guard. Jack reacted first and swiped his katana sideways across the gunman’s mid-section. He continued past the German and obliterated the once-rugged barricade that had kept the coins at bay for centuries.
Typically, someone wearing a Kevlar vest would’ve been safe from a common blade strike. But Jack’s sword wasn’t just some punk’s switchblade. Also, he had aimed low and found flesh.
Jurgen showed off his inhuman toughness and tried to bring up his rifle even though he’d been mortally injured him. Jack reacted quickly and leapt to his feet, slashing his blade sideways across the mercenary’s throat.
Eyes wide, Jurgen dropped his carbine and clutched his unprotected throat and gut as blood gushed from both wounds. As the mercenary stumbled away, Jack went for his felled HK416. He also relieved the struggling man of his loaded pistol and two extra, fully loaded magazines. Jack felt like a heartless pirate. Stealing the possessions of a dying man felt wrong. It was a despicable act.
As payment for his wretched behavior, the massif of coins leaned forward and buried him. Fortunately, for Jack, the loot was lighter than the books had been, and unlike the tempest of tomes, the coins filled in all the available space around his body. He held his breath and didn’t fight the swarm. Instead, he allowed it to envelope him.
Then, the world went dark.
Seconds later, Jack heard someone scream.
He stayed submerged for as long as he could. In the meantime, he took in small amounts of metal-tinged air. There wasn’t a lot of oxygen available to him, but there was enough for him to stay submerged beneath the pile until the area around him returned to a state of silence.
Minutes passed before Jack dared to move. When he did, the gilded blanket shifted with him. It grated at his ears, sounding like thousands of pieces of sandpaper on steel. He was forced to stop and listen multiple times, too paranoid about ripping it off like a Band-Aid so he could move out. There was no telling who could be waiting for him to emerge.
His right eye, ear, and temple were the first parts to clear.
Emma’s voice echoed around the chamber. Gunter called out from somewhere farther away. They were still looking for Jack. His decision to conceal himself for as long as he did was paying off. They had no idea where he was.
It won’t last, Jack thought, fully emerging. Eventually, they’d circle around to this spot and find him.
He gathered his equally buried katana and rifle and stretched his lower back. Looking around, he found the bloodied mercenary thirty feet to his right. Jurgen was lying on his side in an expanding pool of crimson. Jack slid the blade back into its sheath and then slipped it in between his belt and his jeans. Shouldering the carbine, he stepped around the viscous plasma and locked onto the German’s still, lifeless eyes. He had died quickly.
He regretted Jurgen’s demise, not because it was by his hand, but because it could’ve been avoided altogether. Emma was, indeed, to blame, though these men had knowingly followed her to hell. People like this understood the risks involved.
Stop feeling sorry for the bad guys!
Emma and Gunter’s voices picked up again, but this time, they were somewhere nearby. Jack rushed forward and searched Jurgen’s body and did his best not to pay attention to his still face. Jack grumbled when he didn’t find any additional rifle magazines.
“Sorry ’bout this pal,” Jack said, standing. “I really am.”
He was about to strip the man’s pack off his back but was stopped by a nearby shout. Jack sighed and got to his feet, knowing what needed to be done. Emma wasn’t going to give up and throw down her weapons and surrender. She,
and what was left of her team, were prepared to fight until the bitter end and die here—today.
Emma’s world was falling apart all around her. Jurgen was dead, eviscerated by a man she should’ve killed from the onset. Jack’s explosive charges had collapsed the entry tunnel, cutting off all communication to the outside world. As far as she knew, there was no other way back to the surface except to keep moving forward and see where the tracks would take them.
Himmler’s journal referred to a veiled exit somewhere en route to the Owl Mountains, but he had purposely left it vague enough so that the location couldn’t be found. If he had just come out and revealed it, then this place, Emma’s fortune, would’ve been discovered long ago.
Emma’s parents were well-off financially. They had no interest in finding the train despite their family history. When she was young, she’d bring up the mysterious haul out of sheer childhood curiosity. Her mother and father would only shake their heads and scoff at the idea of spending their money to maybe find more. Emma was lucky—blessed even—to have grown up in an affluent household.
Presently, she didn’t feel lucky or blessed. She felt cursed.
A single human being was ruining years of preparation in mere hours. Was her plan so poorly prepared, or was Jack Reilly that good? Emma wasn’t the least bit egotistical. She could admit that both were true. They had horribly underestimated the American from the get-go. She’d done it again when she’d brought him along as an insurance policy. Emma could’ve brought one of the meeker civilians along instead, but Jack’s knowledge of the subject made her more eager to bring him. His presence had severely clouded her judgment—so had the prospect of dragging a former Special Forces soldier around like a dog.
Maybe her ego was out of control? Even now, she needed to stop believing everything would be okay. She needed to start treating Jack as if he was a viable threat—because he was. But that didn’t mean Emma couldn’t come up with a way to neutralize him.
