The Templar Salvation (2010)

by Raymond Khoury

  He waited, his body stiffening up for the brawl, his hands tightening into fists, his mind’s eye converting every sound into a visual and projecting it into the impenetrable darkness around him—then he heard him emerge from the passageway and pounced.

  He hit him full-on and rammed him, slamming him against the wall. He knew the Iranian had a gun, and his hands dove straight for where he guessed the bomber’s gun hand would be. He quickly found his opponent’s right wrist just as the Iranian squeezed off a thunderous round that lit up the chamber in a cold white flash. Reilly kept his left grip clamped around the bomber’s gun hand, pinning it back against the wall and pounding it repeatedly against the tufa while his other fist flicked fierce jabs at the Iranian’s head. He connected hard, once, twice, hearing the cartilage snap and the blood gurgle, waiting to feel the man’s gun tumble out of his hand, but the Iranian was hanging on to it stubbornly. Reilly was looking to land a third punch when he got something he hadn’t counted on: a knee to the kidneys, quickly followed by a battering ram of an uppercut straight to his chin. The first impact winded him, and the second rattled his brain and caused him to lose his grip for a moment—which was just enough for the Iranian to shove him off with a scream of rage.

  The gun was still in the man’s hand.

  Reilly dove and rolled over himself just as the bullets drilled into the ground around him. Shards of tufa splintered off and cut into him as he yanked out his own gun and loosed off several rounds of his own, but none of them seemed to connect. His ears ringing from the deafening gunfire, he thought he heard his opponent scampering out of the chamber and he chased him out with a couple of rounds, but he didn’t hear the telltale sound of a round punching through human skin and bone and the accompanying outburst of pain.

  Worse, the Iranian was now heading toward Tess.

  Reilly found the cabling and felt his way forward, moving frantically now, one hand on the wiring, the other clutching the gun tightly, his ears attuned to make sure the Iranian hadn’t stopped and wasn’t about to ambush him.

  He stopped at the mouth of another tunnel. “I wouldn’t go out there if I were you,” he shouted into the darkness, hoping to get a handle of the man’s position and to distract him from finding Tess. “The Jandarma should be all over this canyon by now and they’re not going to let you walk out of here alive.” He waited for an answer, then added, “If you want to live, your best bet’s walking out with me. The things you know can be of great value to us.”

  Nothing.

  He crept through the tunnel, through another cavern, and up to the entrance of another passageway. “You want to die, asshole? Is that it?”

  Still nothing. The Iranian wasn’t a lightweight. But then, Reilly had known that already.

  He pressed ahead, through a curving stairwell and across another chamber, and was about to go up what felt like a tight tunnel when he heard her.

  “Over here,” Tess whispered, from his right.

  She reached out and pulled him to her.

  “He pass you?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “When you were calling out to him. He stopped to listen to you, but didn’t see me.”

  “Any idea where we are?”

  “No. But we’ve come up a bit. I’d guess we’re maybe a couple of levels underground?”

  “There’s no point trying to get him in here. It’s too dangerous,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “We need to get this belt off me first,” she told him. “There’s no signal in here. I can’t go go back outside, not while I’m wearing it.”

  Reilly’s insides knotted. “How’s it locked into place?”

  “There’s a padlock. On the back.” She took his hand and guided it around her back.

  He felt it. It seemed heavy and solid. He gave it a tug to test it, more out of frustration than with any expectation that it would give. “Can you turn it around so the padlock’s on your side?”

  “Sure, it’s not on that tight. Why?”

  “I can try to shoot the padlock off. But I need light.”

  Tess exhaled heavily. “You sure?”

  “If you stand right up against the corner of the opening of the tunnel, I’ll angle the shot away from you and into the tunnel. Even if it bounces off the metal, it’s not going to hit you.”

  “You sure?” she repeated. She didn’t sound convinced.

  “I want it off you,” Reilly insisted. “Trust me. But I’ll need you to flick the light on. Just for a second. On and off, that’s all. Okay?”

  He’d rarely, if ever, heard her scared. Hadn’t really known her to fear much.

  She was scared now.

  He helped her position herself right against the edge of the opening into the next tunnel. She tilted her waist out as much as she could and tucked her arms behind her back, out of view. Reilly held the padlock out so it was peeking out from the corner of the doorway. He brought the barrel of his gun right up against its body, pushing it even farther away from Tess.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “You ever done this before?”

  “Not really.”

  She shrugged. “Not the answer I was hoping for.”

  “On three. One. Two.”

  She flicked the light on at three and Reilly pulled the trigger. The padlock exploded with an ear-splitting crack and a flurry of sparks—and just then, several rounds punched the tufa around them.

  “Back,” Reilly hollered, pulling Tess away from the tunnel opening as rock sharpnel flew wildly around them.

  Then he heard it—the dead snap of the handgun’s slide locking back after it had belched out its last round.

  “He’s out of ammo,” Reilly yelled as he pulled the belt off Tess and flung it into a far corner, then grabbed the flashlight and charged out after him. “Come on.”

  He raked the beam ahead of him and spotted the Iranian ducking out of the tunnel and crossing another cavernous room.

  He chased after him, his legs flying now, closing in on his prey, the taste of the imminent catch coursing through him.

  ZAHED GROUND HIS TEETH as he hurtled through the honeycomb.

  He cursed the American woman—cursed her for luring him down here, cursed her for taking his rucksack, cursed her for leaving him out of ammo.

  It was time to cut his losses and get the hell out, assuming he’d be able to. He didn’t know what was waiting for him aboveground. He knew Reilly had to be bluffing about there being any troops there, but he couldn’t be sure of that. Even though the canyon hadn’t been swarming with tourists, someone was bound to have heard their earlier gunfight. They might have called the cops. The area could soon be seriously hostile, and slipping away from it wouldn’t be easy, given the limited number of ways in and out of the canyon.

  He had to make it out first.

  He stormed through a large communal room and dove into a sweeping passageway, the chasing light flickering in and out of view. It was helping him, bouncing off the walls, lighting up passages, giving him glimpses of clarity, but as long as it was there, he was the deer in the headlights. He had to get out of its range. He was moving frantically, as fast as he could, and didn’t know where he was going. It didn’t matter right now. All he could do was follow the cabling, hoping it led back to the entrance.

  He could hear Reilly keeping pace, not far behind. He needed to lose him. He glimpsed a narrow stairwell and took the stairs, two at a time. They led both left and right. He chose right and hunched through the passageway, moving quieter now, hoping to confuse his pursuer and buy himself some time.

  He had to do something. Delay him somehow.

  And then he saw it.

  At the mouth of the tight tunnel. A rounded edge, sticking out from the side of its wall. He’d spotted it on the way in.

  It was a millstone-like trapdoor. A circular, one-ton piece of rock, with a diameter of around four feet. It was designed to keep invaders out and could be rolled into place quickly just by releasing a couple
of timber wedges that held it back.

  “Freeze, asshole.”

  Zahed turned.

  Reilly was there, at the other end of the tunnel. The American had both gun and flashlight aimed at him, the beam making him squint.

  He glimpsed Tess appearing behind the agent. His eyes looked for her belt, but it didn’t seem to be there, and from the defiant glare in her eyes, he gathered she was no longer wearing it.

  “I should have killed you back in Rome,” Zahed called out to Reilly, buying time.

  “Too late now, dickhead. Put the gun down.”

  Zahed’s eyes darted across to the base of the millstone and back. The timber wedges that would have been used by the early villagers were long gone. Instead, a rusted piece of iron bar, a far more recent addition, stuck out from the side wall and held the stone in place. It looked like a crude fitting that had been put in decades ago, before the canyons had been condemned and evacuated. There were hardly any tourists visiting Cappadocia then, so safety hadn’t been a paramount issue for the local, self-appointed custodians of the underground cities.

  Which was just as well.

  “I can’t walk out of here with you, you know that,” he yelled out as he flicked quick glances at the iron rod, processing his options, evaluating his chances.

  “It’s your choice, pal. Walk out with me, or be carried out in a black zip bag,” Reilly shot back. “I’m easy, either way.”

  “On second thought, you know what?” He paused for a second, then shouted out, “Fuck you,” briefly enjoying the confused look on the agent’s face—and moved like lightning. He darted to his right, the edge of the millstone shielding him from harm, and flipped the gun around in his right hand so he could use its grip like a hammer.

  And slammed it against the base of the iron rod.

  The angle was perfect.

  The bar moved, crumbling the soft rock it was sittting in. A second strike jarred it further.

  Tess yelled something out, and Reilly was already rushing toward him, firing.

  The third strike did the trick, loosening the bar—just as a round from Reilly’s gun exploded straight through his exposed hand.

  REILLY SAW THE IRANIAN LUNGE sideways and raise his gun like a hammer.

  He didn’t understand what he was up to—but he knew it wasn’t good. He couldn’t get a clean shot at him, not with that protruding disc of stone blocking him. All he could see of him was his hand, gripping the empty weapon.

  “The millstone,” Tess yelled. “It’s a trapdoor.”

  Reilly charged through the tunnel like he’d been shot out of a cannon, firing as he moved. He heard Zahed’s right hand hammering away at something, each strike echoing back at him, his heart pounding inside him at triple-speed. He saw the eruption of blood from his opponent’s left hand and heard him grunt heavily from the hit, and was just a few feet away from reaching him when the huge stone disc suddenly rolled out of the wall. The ground under his feet shook as the millstone slammed into the opposite side of the tunnel just as he got to it, his fingers instinctively reaching out to stop it before pulling back at the futility of his move.

  The tunnel was blocked. Completely, utterly blocked.

  Reilly tried to push the millstone back, but it wouldn’t budge. It was designed to roll into position on an incline, and was too heavy for him to move back on his own. Reilly cursed aloud and ran his fingers all over it in desperation. It had a small opening at its center, about three inches square. He peered through it, a sinking feeling choking his throat. He couldn’t see anything on the other side. It was shrouded in darkness.

  Then he heard him. Groaning, cursing, agonizing over his injury. Which was nice to hear. The Iranian seemed to be in serious pain.

  After a few drawn-out seconds, the wounded man’s voice rang out from behind the trapdoor. “You comfy in there, Reilly?”

  Reilly brought the barrel of his weapon up to the hole and replied, “How’s the hand, jerk-off? I hope I didn’t put too big a dent in your love life,” before stuffing the gun through the opening and firing off four rounds. Their reports bounced through the tunnels and died out, then he heard the Iranian again.

  “Stop wasting your bullets and start looking for a way out of there.” His voice was loud, but not loud enough to mask the agony the man was clearly suffering. “It’s not going to be easy. I think it might be impossible. But try. Do it for me. Make the impossible happen. And if you do, know this. This isn’t over. Somewhere, somehow, I’ll find you. Wherever you are. I’ll come find you, and Tess … and then we’ll end this properly, all right?”

  Reilly shoved his gun through the hole again and emptied his clip feverishly, yelling out in frustration, hoping one of the rounds would find flesh and bone. And when the echoes of the detonations died down, all that was left was the furious mutterings and the distant footfalls of the Iranian, which receded until there was nothing left but a drowning silence.

  Chapter 46

  What about moles? They don’t have moles down here, do they?” “Moles?

  “You know,” Tess rambled on. She was finding it hard to keep quiet in the oppressive darkness. “Moles. Or any other kind of nasty critters with big teeth and claws.” She fell silent for a moment, then added, “What about bats? You think they have bats in here? We’re not that far from Transylvania. Maybe they have vampire bats out here. What do you think?”

  “Tess, listen to me,” Reilly said calmly. “If you lose it, I’m going to have to shoot you. You do realize that?”

  Tess laughed. It was a hearty laugh, borne more out of fear and nervousness than out of her thinking his words were particularly funny. The reality of their situation—being stuck down there, in a condemned underground labyrinth, several levels below the surface—was getting to her. She usually prided herself on not being the kind of person to panic. She’d lived through a few harrowing situations, and she’d done all right and gotten through them. Adrenaline usually kicked in and fueled her drive for survival.

  This was different.

  This was looking like a slow, agonizing, and frustrating end. Like being marooned in space without the relatively quick release of a limited supply of oxygen.

  It was enough to drive one mad.

  She’d lost track of how long they’d been down there.

  Hours, certainly. How many, though, she couldn’t say.

  They’d tried moving the millstone back, but it was impossible. It had been designed to be rolled back from the inside, but they lacked the timber levers to do so. They’d then looked everywhere for another way out, following the cobweb of electrical cabling in all kinds of directions. They’d used the flashlight sparingly, but it had eventally died out. They’d then resorted to the faint light from the screen of Reilly’s BlackBerry, but that had died out too.

  Tess knew these subterranean citadels were huge. Estimates for the number of people that could shelter in the larger ones that had been uncovered varied wildly, ranging from a few thousand to as many as twenty thousand. Which was a lot of space to cover. A lot of tunnels. And a lot of dead ends.

  She knew they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  “What if we’re trapped here forever?”

  Reilly held her tight, his arm coiled around her. “We won’t be.”

  “Yeah, but what if?” she pressed, tucking into him even closer. “Seriously? What happens to us? Do we starve to death? Do we die of thirst first? Do we lose it and go nuts? Tell me. You must have had some training in this stuff.”

  “Not really,” Reilly told her. “It’s not exactly the kind of thing they expect you to go through in the New York field office.”

  The darkness was absolute now, so dark it was actually blinding. There wasn’t even the faintest glimmer of light. Tess couldn’t see anything of Reilly, not even the ghost of a reflection coming from his eyes. She could only hear him breathing, feel his chest rise and fall and his fingers tighten around her. Her mind wandered to the not-so-distant past, to an ear
lier time, curled up with Reilly in the dark, not that far away from where they now were.

  “You remember that first night?” she asked him. “In the tent, before we got to the lake?”

  She sensed his face broaden into a smile. “Yup.”

  “That was nice.”

  “It was pretty amazing.”

  “More than amazing.” She thought about it, reliving it. It stirred up a comforting warmth inside her. “I’ve always wanted to relive that first kiss,” she told him. “Nothing ever compares to it, does it?”

  “Let’s test that theory.” He cupped her face in his hands and drew her near and kissed her long and hard, a desperate, hungry kiss that said more than any word could ever express.

  “I could be wrong,” she finally said, dreamily. “Or maybe there’s something about this Turkish air. What do you think?”

  “This air? In here? Not exactly doing it for me, but hey, don’t let me spoil your party.”

  Darker thoughts pushed their way through. “I don’t want to die here, Sean.”

  “You’re not going to die here,” he told her. “We’re going to make it out.”

  “Promise?”

  “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

  She smiled—then it all came back. What she’d been through the last few days, how they’d gotten here. A gaggle of disparate thoughts, swooping in and out of her mind.

  “The guy,” she remembered, “the bomber. He told me something. A couple of things he said I ought to look up. He said it was important.”

  “What?”

  “He asked me if I’d ever heard of Operation Ajax.”

  Tess couldn’t see Reilly’s features in the darkness, but she didn’t need to. His pause, and his breathing, told her all she needed to know. He knew what it was.

  “What was the other thing?” Reilly asked her, his voice still subdued.

  “He said I needed to find out what happened on the morning of July 3, 1988.”

  Reilly paused again, inhaling and exhaling deeply this time.

  “What?” Tess asked.

  After a moment, Reilly said, “I’d say our guy is telling us he’s Iranian. And that he’s got some serious anger management issues.”