Black Order

by James Rollins

  To Monk’s amazement, the creature backed off, growls fading, hackles lowering. As if under a spell, it lolled a bit in the doorway. Fire died in its eyes as it sank to the plank floors. A soft lowing moaned from it, half-ecstatic.

  Fiona reached their side.

  Monk stared up and down the hall. The other monsters fell under the same spell.

  “Waalenbergs planted chips in the bastards,” Fiona explained and hefted the device in her hand. “Had them wired for pain—and pleasure.”

  A contented mewl rose from the massive monster in the doorway.

  Monk frowned at the transmitter. “How did you get—?”

  Fiona stared up at him and waved the device for them to follow her.

  “You stole it,” Monk said.

  She shrugged and headed down the hall. “Let’s say I bumped into an old chum, and somehow it ended up in my pocket. She wasn’t using it.”

  Ischke, Monk thought as he gathered the others to follow.

  Monk helped Lisa with Painter. Gunther carried Anna under one arm. Mosi and Brooks leaned on each other. They made a sorry assault team.

  But they now had backup.

  Behind them, the pack trailed, a dozen strong, more joining, lured by the aura of pleasure emanating from the girl, their own little Pied Piper of monsters.

  “I can’t get rid of them,” Fiona said, babbling a bit. Monk noted how her hands trembled. She was terrified.

  “Once I found the right button,” she said, “they followed me from their cages. I hid back in the room where Gray told me to wait…but they must have remained in the halls and rooms around here.”

  Great, Monk thought, and we run right smack into them, the perfect postcoital snack.

  “Then I heard your yells, then the explosions, and—”

  “Fine.” Monk finally cut her off. “But what about Gray? Where is he?”

  “He took the elevator downstairs. That was over an hour ago.” She pointed ahead, where the corridor ended at a balcony overlooking a larger hall. “I’ll show you.”

  She hurried. They stumbled along to keep up, checking periodically behind them to watch the pack. Fiona led them down a set of stairs to the main entry hall. Closed elevator doors were opposite the massive carved front doors of the mansion.

  Major Brooks limped toward the electronic lock, flipping through a set of key cards. He swiped several before he found one that turned the red light to green. A trundle of motors sounded. The cage rose from somewhere below.

  As they waited, the hyena pack slunk down the stairs, lounging, basking in the pleasurable glow from Fiona’s device. A few padded the hall floor, including the one called Skuld.

  No one spoke, eyeing the monsters.

  Distantly, muffled by the door, screams and gunshots reached them. Khamisi was in the thick of his own war. How long would it take for him to get here?

  As if reading Monk’s mind, the double doors to the mansion slammed open. Distant gunfire shattered brightly, popping and blasting. Screams grew richer. Men poured in. Waalenberg forces in retreat. Among them, Monk spotted the black-suited figures of the elite, ice-blond siblings, a dozen strong, looking little fazed, as if they’d come in after a refreshing day on the tennis courts.

  As war waged outside, the two forces eyed each other in the hall.

  Not good.

  Monk’s team pressed back, pinned against the wall, outnumbered five to one.

  3:15 P.M.

  Gray stepped away from Baldric Waalenberg.

  “Watch him,” he ordered Marcia.

  Gray slid to Isaak’s former workstation, one eye on the Bell’s power meter. He reached to a toggle he had seen Isaak flip before. It controlled the blast shield around the activated device.

  “What’re you doing?” Baldric asked, voice sharp with sudden concern.

  So there was something that scared the old man worse than a bullet. Good to know. Gray snapped the toggle back. Motors rumbled underfoot and the shield began to lower. A sharp blue light pierced its top edge, blazing forth as the lead wall dropped from the roof.

  “Don’t! You’ll kill us all!”

  Gray faced the old man. “Then turn the goddamn thing off.”

  Baldric stared between the lowering shield and the console. “I can’t turn it off, you ezel! The Bell is primed. It must discharge.”

  Gray shrugged. “Then we’ll all watch it happen.”

  The ring of blue light thickened.

  Baldric swore and turned to the console. “But I can erase the kill solution. Neutralize it. It won’t harm your friends.”

  “Do it.”

  Baldric typed rapidly, his knobby fingers moving swiftly. “Just raise the shield!”

  “After you’re done.” Gray watched over the old man’s shoulder. He saw all their names appear on the screen along with an alphanumeric code marked GENETISCH PROFIEL. The man hit the delete key four times and the genetic profiles were erased.

  “Done!” Baldric said, turning to Gray. “Close the blast shield!”

  Gray reached to the toggle and switched it back with a pop.

  A groan sounded underfoot—then something cracked with a ground-shuddering jolt. The lead shield froze in place, partly lowered.

  Beyond the edge, a blue sun glowed in the heart of the blast chamber. The air rippled around the Bell as its outer shell spun in one direction and the inner in the other.

  “Do something!” Baldric begged.

  “The hydraulics are jammed,” Gray mumbled.

  Baldric backed away, eyes widening with every step. “You’ve doomed us all! Once fully powered, the Bell’s raw and unshielded pulse will kill everyone within five miles…or worse.”

  Gray was afraid to ask what could be worse.

  3:16 P.M.

  Monk watched the rifles rise toward them.

  Outnumbered.

  The elevator cage hadn’t reached this floor yet, and even if it had, it would take too long to get aboard and close the doors. There was no way to avoid a firefight.

  Unless…

  Monk leaned to Fiona. “How about a little pain…”

  He nodded to where the hyenas had retreated to the stairs.

  Fiona understood and shifted her finger on her device, switching from pleasure to pain. She pressed the button.

  The effect was instantaneous. It was as if someone lit the hyenas’ tails on fire. A mighty scream yowled from a score of throats. Creatures fell from balcony perches overhead, crashing to the floor. Others rolled down the stairs into the men. Claws and teeth lashed at anything that moved in a blind rage of fury. Men screamed. Rifles fired.

  Behind Monk, the elevator doors finally chimed open.

  Monk fell back, drawing Fiona with him, guiding Lisa and Painter.

  Gunfire peppered at them, but most of the Waalenberg forces focused on the hyenas. Mosi and Brooks offered return fire as they retreated into the cage.

  Still, it would be close. And what then? Alerted, the forces would simply chase after them.

  Monk stabbed blindly at the subbasement buttons.

  Time enough to worry about that later.

  But one of their party was not one to procrastinate.

  Gunther shoved Anna into Monk’s arms. “Take her! I hold them off.”

  Anna reached for him as the doors closed. Gunther gently pushed her arm down and stepped back. He turned away, pistol in one fist, rifle in the other—but not before staring hard into Monk’s eyes, sealing their silent pledge.

  Protect Anna.

  Then the doors closed.

  3:16 P.M.

  Khamisi raced through the jungle, hunched low over the motorcycle. Paula Kane rode behind him, rifle on her shoulder. Zulu warrior and British agent. Strange bedfellows. Some of the bloodiest history of the land had taken place during the Anglo-Zulu wars of the nineteenth century.

  No longer.

  Now they were a fine-tuned team.

  “Left!” Paula yelled.

  Khamisi twisted the wheel.
Paula’s rifle muzzle swung to his other side. She fired. A Waalenberg sentry fell back with a scream.

  To either side, gunfire and explosions echoed throughout the jungle.

  The estate’s forces were in full rout.

  Suddenly, with no warning, their cycle jetted out of the jungle and into a ten-acre manicured garden. Khamisi braked to a stop, skidding into cover under the branches of a willow.

  The mansion filled the world ahead.

  Khamisi lifted his binoculars from around his neck and searched the roofline. He spotted where the park helicopter had landed at the helipad. Movement drew his eye. He adjusted the binoculars, and a familiar shape focused into view. Tau. His Zulu friend stood at the roof’s edge and studied the war below.

  Then from the left, a shape entered the field of view, behind Tau, a pipe gripped above his head. Warden Gerald Kellogg.

  “Don’t move,” Paula said behind Khamisi.

  Her rifle’s stock settled atop Khamisi’s head as she aimed through her sniper’s scope.

  “I see him,” she said.

  Khamisi cringed but held still, staring through his binoculars.

  Paula squeezed her trigger. The rifle blasted, ringing his ears.

  Warden Kellogg’s head snapped back. Tau almost fell off the roof in fright, but he dropped flat, unaware his life had just been saved.

  Khamisi caught some of Tau’s fear, a tremble of foreboding after the close call. How were the others doing in there?

  3:17 P.M.

  “You’ve doomed us!” Baldric repeated.

  Gray refused to give up. “Can you slow the Bell from discharging? Buy me time to get below. To fix the shield.”

  The old man stared at the frozen blast shield, crowned by blue light. Fear reflected in his face. “There may be a way, but…but…”

  “But what?”

  “Someone has to go inside there.” He pointed his trembling cane at the blast chamber and shook his head, plainly refusing to volunteer.

  A voice called as the door pushed open. “I’ll do it.”

  Gray and Marcia spun, lifting their pistols.

  An amazing sight hobbled into the room. Monk came first, supporting the dark-haired woman who had just called to them. Most of the others were strangers. An older black man limped in with a clean-shaven youth in a military buzz cut. They were followed by Fiona and a tall athletic blond woman who looked like she had just run a marathon. The two supported an older man, limp, barely standing. Momentum seemed to be all that kept him on his feet. As soon as the women stopped, he sagged. His face, hanging down until now, raised, met Gray’s gaze with familiar blue eyes.

  “Gray…,” he mumbled numbly.

  A shock of recognition passed through him. “Director Crowe?”

  Gray hurried to his side.

  “No time,” the dark-haired woman warned, still supported by Monk. She looked little better than Painter. Her eyes studied the shield and Bell with a look of familiarity. “I’ll need help getting inside the chamber. And he’s coming with me.”

  She lifted a trembling arm at Baldric Waalenberg.

  The old man moaned. “No…”

  The woman glared. “We’ll need two sets of hands on the polarity conduits. And you know the machine.”

  Monk motioned to the black man. “Mosi, help get Anna inside there. We’ll need a ladder.” He then faced Gray and clasped him in a brief handshake, leaning forward to touch shoulders in a more familial gesture.

  “We don’t have much time,” Gray said in Monk’s ear, surprised at how relieved he was at Monk’s arrival. Renewed hope surged through him.

  “Tell me about it.” Monk unhooked a radio and passed it to Gray. “Get that contraption movin’. I’ll get things going here.”

  Gray grabbed the radio and headed out. He had a thousand questions, but they would have to wait. He kept the radio channel open. He heard noises and voices, arguments and a few shouts. Footsteps followed him, running. He glanced back. It was Fiona.

  “I’m coming with you!” she shouted and closed the distance by the time he reached the fire stairs.

  He clambered down.

  She lifted a transmitter with an extended antenna. “In case you run into any of those monsters.”

  “Just keep up,” he said.

  “Oh, shut up.”

  They ran the rest of the way, reaching the lower-level hallway and utility room.

  Monk came on the radio. “Anna and the old bastard are inside the chamber. Course he’s none too happy about it. A shame. And we were getting to be such good friends.”

  “Monk…,” Gray warned, focusing his man back on task.

  “I’m going to pass the radio to Anna. She’ll coordinate with you. Oh, by the way, you’ve got less than a minute. Ciao.”

  Gray shook his head and yanked on the utility door.

  Locked.

  Fiona saw him tug on the door a second time and sighed. “No key?”

  Gray frowned, pulled out his pistol from his waistband, and aimed at the lock. He fired. The blast echoed in the hall, leaving a smoking hole where the lock used to be. He shoved the door open.

  Fiona followed. “I guess that works, too.”

  Ahead, he spotted the motor assembly and pistons for raising and lowering the blast shield.

  A strange rhythmic static flowed over the radio, ebbing and flowing like waves on a beach. Gray realized it must be interference from the Bell. Monk must have passed Anna the radio.

  Confirming this, he heard the woman’s voice arguing through the static. It was a jumble of technical debate, an angry mix of German and Dutch. Gray tuned most of it out as he circled the motor assembly. Then the woman’s voice spoke more clearly in English.

  “Commander Pierce?”

  He cleared his throat. “Go ahead.”

  Her voice rasped with exhaustion. “We have our fingers in the proverbial dike up here, but it won’t hold.”

  “Hang tight.”

  Gray spotted the problem. A fuse smoked by one of the pistons. Using the edge of his shirt, he yanked it out. He turned to Fiona. “We need another one. Must be a spare around here somewhere.”

  “Hurry, Commander.”

  Static grew ominously louder, but not enough to cover Baldric’s words, whispered to Anna urgently. “…join us. We could use another expert with the Bell.”

  Even frightened, Baldric was playing all the angles.

  Gray listened more closely. Would she betray them? He motioned to Fiona. “Toss me that transmitter.”

  She underhanded it to him. He caught it and snapped off the metal antenna. He didn’t have time to find a spare fuse. He would have to jump it. He jammed the antenna between the contacts and crossed to a control board with a massive manual wrench-lever. The operation was self-explanatory.

  At the top was marked OP and below it ONDER’AAN.

  Up and down.

  Not exactly rocket science.

  Gray spoke into the radio. “Anna. You and Baldric can get out of there.”

  “We can’t, Commander. One of us has to keep their finger in the dike. If both of us let go, the Bell will blow instantly.”

  Gray closed his eyes. They dared not trust Baldric’s cooperation.

  Static had grown to a dull roar in his ear.

  “You know what you must do, Commander.”

  He did.

  He shoved the lever.

  Distantly her last words reached him. “Tell my brother…I love him.”

  But as she lowered the radio, one final statement rasped out—whether to answer Baldric’s offer, or to make a last declaration to the world, or simply to satisfy herself.

  “I’m not a Nazi.”

  3:19 P.M.

  Lisa knelt on the floor, cradling Painter. Then she felt the rumble of massive machinery below her knees. Ahead, the giant lead shield rose toward the ceiling, pinching off the blaze of blue light.

  She rose half up. Anna was still in there. Even Monk took a step toward the closing
blast shield.

  A terrified scream erupted from inside.

  It was the old man. Lisa spotted his fingers scrabbling above the edge, frantic, trying to catch a grip. Too late. It rose above his reach and smoothly clamped into the ceiling’s O-ring.

  His screams could still be heard, muffled, frantic.

  Then Lisa felt it. In the gut. A whomp of power. It had no description. A quake that rattled without movement. Then nothing. Complete silence, the world holding its breath.

  Painter moaned, as if the effect were painful for him.

  His head lay in her lap. She examined him. His eyes had rolled back in his head. His breathing grated with fluid. She shook him gently. No response. Semicomatose. They were losing him.

  “Monk…!”

  3:23 P.M.

  “Hurry, Gray!” Monk called into the radio.

  Gray pounded back up the steps, followed by Fiona. Below, he had delayed only long enough to find a replacement fuse and repair the shield. He didn’t understand all that Monk had relayed, but he filled in the blanks with what he knew. Painter had some form of radiation poisoning, and the Bell held the only cure.

  As he neared the fifth-floor landing, he heard a heavy booted tread stumbling down toward them. Gray pulled out his pistol. Now what?

  A massive figure, heavy-browed and pale white, appeared above, half falling down the stairs toward him. His shirt was soaked in blood. A ragged scrape raked the side of his face from crown to throat. He held a broken wrist to his belly.

  Gray raised his weapon.

  Fiona pushed past him. “No. He’s with us.” And in a lower voice to Gray, she added with a nod, “Anna’s brother.”

  The giant stumbled to them, recognizing Fiona, too. Eyes narrowed at Gray with tired suspicion. But he waved his rifle back up the stairs. “Blockiert,” he grunted.

  Blockaded.

  So the giant bought them time with his own blood.

  They hurried down the hall toward the Bell chamber. But Gray knew he had to prepare Gunther. After Anna’s sacrifice, he owed her brother at least that. He touched the man’s elbow.

  “About Anna…,” he began.

  Gunther turned to him, tensing, eyes going pained, as if he expected the worst.

  Gray faced that fear and explained in terse words, sparing nothing, ending with the final truth. “Her efforts saved everyone else.”