by Greig Beck
Abrams looked at them – six, with ten rounds in each. He removed his own weapon – a large HK45C, and ejected the existing clip, sliding in one of the salt-based ones. He slid the rest into the pockets of his Kevlar vest. Sixty shots to save the world, he thought grimly.
He pulled his phone out and started to key in rapid words. If Kearns was still in communication, then he needed to listen, and right now.
Chapter 22
Matt watched Adira as she calmly disappeared around the block to scale a few fences and then try and make it to the brownstone’s roof. From there, she said she’d find a way in, and then come down through the building and open the door for him – simple.
He waited for what seemed like ages, and then turned and shrugged at Andy, who was sitting so low in the front seat of the car he was now just a hairdo and a pair of eyes floating over the dashboard.
Andy held up his hands, in a I-dunno-what’s-going-on mime, and then pointed at himself. Matt shook his head and waved him down. In turn, Andy shook his head even more forcefully. Matt ground his teeth and waved an arm. Do as you’re told, he scowled in return.
Matt turned back to the building. She’ll skin you alive if you fuck this up, he thought. He liked Andy, but the guy’s hormones needed to be recalibrated. So far he’d made a play for Adira – rebuffed, and then Tania Kovitz – ignored. He was batting two for none. At least he wasn’t a quitter, that’s something, Matt guessed.
Thinking about Tania made Matt wonder about how long the military woman had been playing the double game, watching them and informing on them every step of the way. Oh god, he had slept with her – not that he’d got much sleep. Hellcat, he remembered. He had kinda liked it at the time, but now that he knew she was just doing it as a job, it made him feel he’d been deluded about his own prowess. So much for his abilities to win her over with his fantastic love-making. His face felt hot.
He turned his focus back to the doors. He had to wipe his brow – it wasn’t just his face feeling hot, the heat seemed to be radiating up from the ground itself. He didn’t want to think about what could be causing it. He remembered an old literary quote from his high-school days – Hell is empty and all the devils are here – not quite yet, he hoped.
It was taking too long, he thought, and shifted from foot to foot, trying to act casual, standing out the front of a pair of huge double doors in a strange street that was still as death. He started to contemplate edging back to the car, or calling Adira on his phone, or at least texting her to keep the noise down.
Just then one of the huge doors eased open an inch or two and the stripe of blackness was broken by Adira quickly motioning him inside.
“Did you –?”
She hushed him. “Speak quietly or not at all.” She shut the door, plunging them both into darkness.
“This way.” She grabbed his hand and placed it on her shoulder and then together they eased forward along a dark hallway. He wondered how she could navigate so easily and then remembered this was a top female agent in Mossad’s Metsada unit who had had to ferret terrorists out of their tunnels as they tried to burrow into Israel. She had vision like a nighthawk and was totally devoid of fear.
Adira suddenly turned into a room that had a little more light peeking in through slits in heavy drapes. Matt looked around. It was a normal sitting room, with thick comfortable-looking chairs and sofas, a piano, wooden mantelpiece and wall tables set with vases and candelabras.
“Is anybody home…I mean here now?” he whispered.
She snorted softly. “There’s dust on the chairs. No one has sat on them or been in this room for many years. This way.” She led him into another room that looked like a kitchen pantry. It was fully stocked with tinned and packet food – everything to prepare a meal, but nothing half opened or used at all.
“It’s like a studio set, a prop, to give the impression of habitation, nothing more.” She looked around slowly. “No one has lived here for years…if they ever did.”
Adira crossed to a bench top where a knife block stood and drew out the largest of the carving knives – new, unused, and the blade more than a foot and a half long. It was as much a machete as a carving implement. She held it up, turning it in the air as she examined it, and then looked back at Matt, a humorless smile touching her lips for a second before she tucked the knife somewhere behind her back.
Adira then reached into her pocket and drew out two black flashlights and handed one to Matt. “Only use in utmost darkness, and point it to the ground…never at me, or at my face.” She leaned in close to him.
“Okay, okay, got it.” Matt looked around. “So where’s Drummond?”
“He’s not upstairs. There’s nothing but dust-covered beds, wardrobes full of clothing, all unworn, bathrooms with untouched soaps in dishes – all as fake as it is down here. He must be somewhere else, and I’m guessing it’s the basement.”
“Great.” Matt always knew it was going to mean heading deeper.
*
Andy kept his head down, alternately playing a game on his phone and occasionally flicking his eyes up at the black double doors. The windows in the car were down, and he could feel the radiant heat coming in off the road.
Twenty minutes back he had cracked the door and reached out to lay his hand on the asphalt – it was hot, and not just from the day’s fallen sun. He would have hated to have to run down the street barefoot. As a geologist he was intrigued, especially as he knew the area was old, stable, with no volcanic or geothermal activity for millions of years.
He tried to get more comfortable, failed, and sat brooding for a while – he wished Frank was here, and immediately felt a knot of regret turn inside him at the realization his old friend was gone for good. He shuddered at the thought of what happened to him and he prayed that it had been quick.
He checked his watch and shifted in his seat again. Over an hour – time was dragging and he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched. He wished he had some field glasses so he could zoom in on the windows at least. Though they were all as black as bottomless pits, he couldn’t help the crawling sensation that someone was peering through a crack in the shades or whatever they had drawn over the panes.
Andy’s phone pinged with an incoming message. At last, he thought. He flicked off his game and read – it was from Major Joshua Abrams and contained two words: Turn around.
Huh? Well, that makes no sense, he thought. Too late, we’re already here, big guy. He was wondering whether he should respond or maintain Adira’s radio silence when his phone pinged again. He read. Look behind you, numb nuts.
Andy frowned and swiveled in his seat. Up close to his car, a dark SUV had glided up to within ten feet of him. In the front seat he saw Abrams and the huge frame of the SEAL, Hartogg. Abrams looked pissed, but Hartogg was grinning.
Andy waved. Abrams pointed at him, and then beckoned.
Fuck, what do I do? Andy groaned and gave up. He got slowly from the car, and walked casually to Abrams’s window. “Small world, huh?” He grinned, but immediately regretted it.
“Shut the fuck up.” Abrams voice was like a knife. “Where are they?
Andy cleared his throat. “Ah, you mean Matt?”
Abrams growled. “Get in.”
Andy slid into the back. What did he have to gain from shielding Adira, and for that matter, why, and how else, would they have gotten here? He saw the tightness in Abrams’s jaw, and immediately decided that playing dumb would be plain stupid.
Abrams swung in his seat, and glared, his eyes drilling right into Andy’s soul. Andy cleared his dry throat; Abrams’s glare intensified.
Andy knew his rights, and he certainly wasn’t in the armed forces, so couldn’t be ordered around like some wet-behind-the-ears private. But out here, alone in the street, confronted by a furious army major and an enormous Special Forces soldier, he suddenly felt very vulnerable – And these are the good guys, he reminded himself.
Abrams glare was like an icepick.
Andy gave up, and exploded. “She came and got us, said that she needed to get the Book back; she’d bugged it in Egypt, but never told us. She also said –”
“Enough.” Abrams voice was like a punch.
“Hey, Major, listen, there’s no –”
“Son, I have full take-down authorization under the homeland war protocols, and right about now, I’m getting the urge to execute those orders. You understand what I’m saying?” Abrams red face seemed to extend on his corded neck right into Andy’s.
Andy nodded.
Abrams sat back. “Where are they?”
Andy pointed to the black double doors. “They went in there…about an hour-twenty ago.”
Abrams turned and said something to Hartogg, who immediately grabbed up a bag with something heavy in it.
“We’re goin in…and you’re comin.”
Andy nodded – he had wanted to go in anyway. At least now, he figured, he had two professional bodyguards.
*
Abrams led Andy and Hartogg up the few short steps to the door. He lifted an electronic lock pick to the door, inserted the pins and pressed the trigger. The pins vibrated a second or two, and then Abrams turned the gun – the door opened. He looked back at Hartogg, who had the ammunition bag over his shoulder and his rifle hanging loose at his side. The big man nodded, his eyes shining and intense – he was ready. Abrams then looked to Andy, who also nodded, but looked scared shitless.
“Stay behind us, okay?”
The geologist nodded again. Abrams eased open the door, and went through the gap quickly, followed by Hartogg and Andy. He shut the door silently, bringing down a veil of darkness.
Abrams switched on a small flashlight and Hartogg flicked on his barrel-mounted beam, and they snaked their way down the corridor. Abrams held up a hand flat and then stayed still and silent. Hartogg and Andy froze, listening to the sounds of the tomb-quiet house.
The major sniffed – dust, mold, the ocean maybe – Weird, he thought…and so silent, like it was soundproofed – he couldn’t hear the ticking of a clock, the soft whirring of a refrigerator or even the sound of wood settling in the old beams or dry wall. It was as if they had stepped into a vacuum. If Adira and Matt were close by, they must be concealed.
Abrams waved them on, and together they went quickly from room to room, finally coming to a door set into a wall – thick, strong, and ajar. He pushed it half open; there were steps leading down. He turned and raised his eyebrows. “Basement?” he whispered, and turned back to the door and pushed it wider. A blast of warm air, carrying an odor of mold and something disgusting like bloated bodies covered in fungus rushed up at him.
“Jesus Christ – stinks – dead fish…or whale?” Andy grimaced and put hand over his face.
Abrams shrugged, and then pulled his sidearm. “Ready?”
Hartogg nodded.
“No,” Andy said.
Abrams went in first.
Chapter 23
Matt followed so close behind Adira he had to keep a hand out so he wouldn’t keep bumping into her every time she stopped or slowed. He wished she’d let him use his flashlight more; just because she had the vision of a cat, he did not.
After passing down into and through the empty basement, they had then entered something far more complex than whatever underground storage facility one might expect beneath an old brownstone apartment block. Already, they had descended for what Matt felt must have been many stories below the earth, and the temperature rose with every step.
Sometimes they had passed through heavy stone corridors, the stone blocks huge, green and smoothed by untold ages, and at other times they crept between rough-hewn rock walls that looked chiseled by hand. Occasionally, there were alcoves holding torches embedded into the wall – none were lit.
Once, Adira had stepped in to one of them and pressed on the stones with her hand, looking for secret passages. She had dabbed a finger into the extinguished torch and rubbed thumb and forefinger together. “This was alight not that long ago.”
“Maybe when Tania and Drummond came through,” Matt responded in a whisper.
“Yes, I think so. They went down and never came back up,” Adira responded.
She motioned forward and once again they continued moving down along the slanting corridor. They next stepped through a large archway with wide-open thick wooden doors, and found themselves in a cathedral-sized chamber. The walls were covered in the symbols Matt had seen in the original copy of the Al Azif, and even now, they remained a mystery to him. As he stared at the glyphs, which were all in a reddish-brown paint, he felt the nub of a headache begin to bloom in his skull. It was if the images alone were like flickering strobe lights acting on some pain center deep within his brain.
Adira slowed and Matt nearly bumped into her. She turned. “It’s getting hotter, and the smell is stronger.”
Matt felt the perspiration running down his body, and he’d noticed the same thing – a corrupt fishy odor permeated the atmosphere, as if they were heading down to some dark beach where the tide was out, and strange slimy grasses and the bloated bodies of sea creatures had been left to rot under a hot, sunless sky.
“Look.” Adira clicked on her flashlight and pointed it.
Matt, relieved to be able to use his light, did the same. There was an altar at the far end of the room, and behind it and around the room’s edges, hidden until caught in the glow of the flashlights, were dark alcoves, these ones entrances to more rooms or passages.
The entire room had a sense of menace about it, and Matt felt his legs trembling. “This place gives me the creeps.”
Adira’s light caught something on the floor. “Hmm, not good.”
Matt frowned and crossed to the glistening fragment. He used his boot to flip it over, and immediately recoiled.
“Gack.” He backed away. It was a part of a face, or skull – an eye socket, eyebrow and nose. He felt his stomach flip.
“Is that…Tania?” He put a forearm over his mouth.
“Maybe.” Adira seemed unfazed by the grotesque body part. She looked up at Matt. “If it is, then this is nothing more than leftovers from something’s lunch.” She stepped over it. “Forget it; let’s go.”
“But…” Matt grimaced, both admiring and fearing the woman. “Wait.” He stood his ground. “Adira, there comes a point where courage starts to cross over into downright stupidity. This is more than we can handle.”
She stared for a moment, and then nodded, her face softening. “I’m sorry; I had no right to bring you down here, Professor. This is not a job for a civilian.” She smiled sadly. “But it is what I do. This is what defines my life.” She pointed to the archway. “Go back to the car and wait with Andy. I will scout a little more down here, and then I’ll come back up and meet you.”
She stepped closer to him, and Matt could see how her eyes burned with an intensity that he only ever saw in the eyes of elite soldiers on the eve of a mission. She put her hand on his shoulder.
“Thank you.” She went to turn away, but Matt reached out and grabbed her.
“Wait, wait.” He felt almost a physical pain as his conscience wrestled with his innate sense of self-preservation. “Forget it, I’ll come with you.”
She held a hand up. “No, you are right. You should not be here, and this is bigger than we expected. You need to go up and outside, and then call in Major Joshua Abrams and his team. Tell them what we have found. Tell them to come, and…to be ready.”
She turned and vanished behind the altar without once looking back. Matt shifted his weight from foot to foot. In the end he looked down once more at the piece of face.
The empty staring eye socket decided for him. “I’m outta here.”
Chapter 24
General Decker looked again at the updated satellite images of the Mammoth Park topology, now from only about three thousand feet. From this height, that part of Kentucky was usually emerald green. He exhaled, shaking his head.
“Goddamnit.
”
The entire area over the national park was a bilious smudge of black. Not just the dry ashen cast of forest-fire remnants, but a case of some sort of slimy malignant fungus that had caused everything to rot.
Much as he hoped it would all just go away, or get better by itself, the evidence was now impossible to ignore. He reached forward and toggled some keys. The satellite images shifted to another spectrum: stratigraphic sonar representations.
“Cthulhu; it’s real.” He blew air through his lips. There it was, the deeper smudge now taking on a definite shape – there was a huge central body, like some sort of coiled parasitic worm, except this horror had enormous branching arms reaching out beneath the skin of the planet.
“And when you break through…” He turned away from the screen and looked out at the parade ground, knowing what he needed to do. “…God help us all.”
*
Matt retraced his steps, keeping his flashlight usage to a minimum, and cursing softly as he occasionally bumped into a wall or protrusion he hadn’t remembered. He felt like a cowardly creep for letting Adira go on by herself. Of course he knew very well he wasn’t equipped to offer her anything other than company, and frankly calling in backup was the most logical and sensible thing to do. “I’m doing the right thing,” he whispered. “No, I’m a cowardly creep.”
Matt froze. There was a sound – no, a hint of a sound, from up ahead. He flicked off his light and stayed motionless, holding his breath, remaining that way for many seconds, until his head started to pound. He eased out the air in his lungs, feeling the blackness fold around him. He suddenly remembered there were things that preferred the dark, and saw far better than he in its stygian deeps. He switched his light back on and looked up just as something large collided with him, ramming him up against the wall.
“Clear.” The pressure on his neck eased as Hartogg stepped back. “It’s our missing professor.”
