Emerald

by Brian January

  Quickly she bounded to her feet, snatching up his rifle. Thirty seconds later she had scanned the heaps of dead bodies, searching for signs of life.

  None.

  Then she grabbed the scroll and went to find Skarda and Flinders.

  ___

  Keeping as much as possible to the shadows, Skarda glided along the rail of the sky deck, straining to hear footsteps, but the only sound that reached his ears was the soft gurgle of the bow wake. The rattle of rifle fire below meant that the commandos had raided the party. But April was there. He knew she could handle the situation. But Flinders and Stephen Cowell?

  Right now he needed a weapon to take care of any men that were stationed up top. As the walkway curved he could make out the pilot house, a box-like enclosure surrounded on three sides by windows. The door stood half-open, spilling out a fan of dull, diffused illumination.

  Padding closer, he risked a glance into the room. His stomach twisted. The captain sat sprawled out in his chair, arms and legs flung wide, his chest a gory mess. One of the mates lay draped across a computer console; another was crumpled in a pool of blood on the floor. Computers and communications equipment were smashed, their guts strewn everywhere. On the fore end of the cabin lay a stack of what looked like black jump suits with solid webbing sewn under the arms and between the legs.

  The wingsuits.

  But no weapons.

  Then from the open door he heard the sound of running footsteps. Flinders burst into the pilothouse, her chest heaving.

  “Park! There’s men downstairs attacking the ship! April sent me to get you!”

  Before he could answer he whirled around, seeing a straw-haired man framed in the open hatchway, his arm arcing up in an underhand toss.

  A small silver cylinder sailed toward them.

  Thermite grenade!

  Without hesitation Skarda dove, grabbing Flinders by the waist and dragging her down as he rolled toward a cubbyhole under the far console. With a loud, hissing pop the grenade exploded, spewing a white-hot burst of napalm at four thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Flinders screamed in his ear. His nostrils burned with the odor of scorched gasoline and waves of heat rolled around them, sucking the oxygen from the room and searing the soft tissues of their lungs and throat. Pinwheels of light danced behind Skarda’s eyeballs and a fit of coughing wracked his lungs. Writhing chemical flames melted steel and aluminum as if they were cheap plastic.

  Thoughts raced through his head. If they stayed where they were they’d be burned or suffocated alive, but if they tried to run, they’d make an easy target for the commando.

  But it was their best chance.

  “We’re going to have to move!” he whispered in her ear.

  “No!” She was shaking, clutching at him, terrified.

  “If we don’t, we’re dead!”

  Dragging her from the cubbyhole, he helped her crab-walk along the shelter of the console. Pools of flame burned like mini volcanoes. Skarda’s chest heaved. Flinders was bent in half, coughing. The searing heat had shattered at least half of the windows, and night air was rushing in to fan the flames. But the openings—fanged with jagged glass—were big enough to dive through, if they didn’t get shot first.

  It was worth a try.

  Inching to the edge of a computer station, he risked a peek into the main room. The grenade had spread napalm around the cabin like flung paint, burning in sticky pools and igniting whatever it touched. Black smoke belched from the flames.

  But no gunman.

  Skarda’s lungs screamed for oxygen. Flinders was coughing violently, still shaking. His head reeled.

  It was now or never—

  Bunching his leg muscles, he launched himself forward, dragging her with him, but he stumbled, his legs rubbery. He was weaker than he’d thought and she was almost dead weight. A burst of bullets chewed a line in the planking above their heads. As he tried to dive for cover, he heard running feet, and then the straw-haired man was looming over them, swinging the barrel of his rifle at his face like a club. With the last of his strength Skarda lurched to his right, twisting, taking the blow on his deltoid. Pain lanced through him like searing fire and he staggered backward, losing his balance. He hit the floor with a thud.

  The commando towered over him, his eyes dark with hate. “You have…our plans....” He scowled, not finding the English verb he wanted. “…verdorben,” he finished in German. His heavy boot lashed out, smashing into Skarda’s ribcage. Skarda wanted to scream, but he bit his tongue. He didn’t want to give the guy the satisfaction. Again the blond man kicked him, enjoying it. A snarl of hate darkened his face and he aimed the rifle.

  “Now…I shoot you.”

  Skarda shook his head. “I don’t think so.” The words reverberated inside his skull, as if he were inside a cave.

  The commando’s face registered a flicker of uncertainty. “Why not?”

  “Because she’s going to shoot you.” Skarda’s eyes slid toward the door.

  The man was good, trained to expect the unexpected. Instead of twisting around to fire, he jacked his torso down between his legs, whipping the gun barrel down to spray the space behind him with bullets.

  But April was faster. She had already quick-stepped next to him, jamming the muzzle of the G36 into his armpit just above the edge of his armored vest. She pulled the trigger twice.

  The man jerked and flopped over, dead by the time he hit the floor.

  She stooped to Skarda’s side. “You okay?”

  He managed a grin through gritted teeth. “I don’t think anything’s broken. At least I hope not.”

  Beside him, Flinders was staring at the dead man, her shoulders shaking in jerky spasms. He put an arm around her shoulder. “Okay?”

  Hacking out deep coughs, she moved her head up and down.

  Skarda glanced at April’s face and gown, splashed crimson with Cowell’s gore. She was bleeding from several cuts and the wound where the bullet had nicked her collarbone.

  Her face set into hard lines. “Stephen Cowell is dead. The rest of them, too.”

  Skarda paled. His stomach wrenched. “Oh, God…”

  For a long agonizing moment, Flinders stared at her in horror, then started to sob.

  By now, the thermite had burned itself out and cool oxygen was flowing into the room through the shattered windows. Still, Skarda’s lungs were on fire. He gulped air.

  “Come on,” he said to Flinders. “We have to get out of here.” Getting to his feet, he stretched out a hand to help her up.

  She stared up at him. “Who are these people? And why would they want to hurt Dr. Cowell?”

  “That’s what we have to find out.”

  April was inspecting the pile of black wingsuits. “I’ve seen those before,” she said. “Gryphon wingsuits. We used to call them ‘squirrel suits’. Very cool. They can drop you from thirty thousand feet and you can glide for twenty-five miles, totally silent.”

  She rummaged through the dead man’s pack, then held up a handful of what looked to Skarda like black pencils. “Detonators for C-4. They must have planted charges. We need to get out of here. Now!”

  ___

  April hit the sky deck at a run, supporting Skarda with her arm around his waist, dragging him forward on wobbly legs. Flinders raced behind them, clutching the papyrus in its silicone sleeve. Together they vaulted over the rail, hitting the Nile with foaming splashes. By the time they surfaced, shaking water from their eyes, the cruise ship had already sailed away a hundred feet, the autopilot keeping its direction true.

  Around them the night sounds seemed to hush. Then the stern of the Queen Hatshepsut erupted in a hot, white flash and a rolling red fireball painted the water and shoreline crimson as a second explosion blew through the fuel tanks, sending boards and debris hurtling skyward, pursued by a fireball of orange-red flames.

  Within moments the cruise ship had sunk out of sight amid swirling black clouds of smoke and churning water.

  Treading wate
r, April made sure the papyrus was sealed inside the case.

  Skarda glanced over at it, then at the flaming debris bobbing on the surface. “Looks like this qualifies for something unusual.”

  April turned her gaze toward him. “Yeah.”

  Holding the scroll above water level, she struck out for shore.

  Skarda and Flinders followed.

  SIX

  Luxor, Egypt

  THE muggy night swaddled Skarda. He was sitting alone on the balcony of their suite at the Sonesta St. George Hotel, staring out at the majestic sweep of the Nile, where reflected lights jiggled and shimmied, torn to jittering shreds by passing river traffic. Wet and bedraggled, they’d hitched a ride on a donkey cart to a small village, where a toothless cab driver overcharged them for the ride into Luxor. April had taken a shower and gone straight to bed and Flinders had followed right behind her.

  But not him.

  From the shoreline below the faint scents of cumin and turmeric and grilled fish wafted up to his nostrils, but he barely noticed them. He was trying to will his mind into a black emotionless void, the way April had taught him. He needed to put Sarah’s ghost to rest. Enough time had gone by. But it was hard. He knew she wouldn’t have wanted to see him like this. She would want him to move on, to make peace with her death and her memory. But he couldn’t do it yet. So he’d come out here instead of going to sleep, hoping to let the soft night and the panorama of lights lull him into peace.

  But peace wouldn’t come. He closed his eyes. Images of Stephen Cowell’s face scrolled through his memory, haunting him. He knew that guilt was a useless emotion, especially now that there was work to be done. But he still felt that if OSR hadn’t funded Stephen’s project, the archaeologist would still be alive. And that made it his responsibility.

  A soft footfall sounded behind him, and then April lowered herself to his side, laying a gentle hand on his cheek. She was a constant source of amazement to him: those hands that could knife-edge through a plate glass window could also feel as velvety as warm silk. He smiled at the thought. Her feet were a different story: they were hard as slabs of wood. Having spent much of her childhood alone in the pine and cottonwood forests of the Bitterroot Range of southern Montana, she’d wandered for miles barefoot.

  “Thinking?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t.”

  He half-turned to her, showing her the ghost of a smile. “Easy to say.”

  “Stephen was able to see his dream fulfilled.”

  Skarda didn’t answer. For a while they sat in silence, watching a felucca drift past on the far side of the river until its sail dropped out of sight. “If Flinders is right, then the Emerald Tablet is the key to this whole thing. Something on Stephen’s papyrus must be a clue to the Tablet’s location. Or at least the Bad Guys think it is.”

  “We’ve got nasty people with big guns looking for a major power source that sounds like some kind of explosive to me. Not a good combination.”

  “I agree. We’re going to have to stop them from getting that Tablet.” He was silent for a few moments, turning something over in his mind. Then he said, “I think Flinders is over her head in this one. It’s getting too dangerous. Maybe we should hole her up in a safe house. Keep her out of harm’s way.”

  “I doubt she’ll go. She’s too close to this. Too obsessed.”

  He kept his gaze locked on the distant landscape. “I don’t want her to get hurt, too,” he said softly.

  April’s face was impassive. She knew the thoughts that were gnawing at him. But it wasn’t her way to share his distress. She just accepted things as they were. “If they need her to translate, they’ll keep her alive.”

  “That’s what’s been bothering me. I think the guy in the pilot house wanted to kill us both. Not just me.”

  “Meaning we’ve got two sets of Bad Guys.”

  “Yeah. And both of them seem to want the Tablet. But only Zandak recognized her. Meaning she’s still not safe.”

  “I’m staying in.” Flinders’ voice came from behind them. She was standing at the entrance to the balcony, her eyes on both of them. “My parents died looking for the Tablet and it’s the least I can do to honor their memory.”

  Skarda twisted around to look at her. “I don’t think you realize what you’re getting yourself into. These people are dangerous.”

  “I don’t care,” she answered him. Stubbornness stiffened her voice, but it was obvious she was scared. “I’m in. For better or worse.”

  Skarda glanced over at April’s face. He knew what she was thinking: non-combatants just get in the way. And can get you killed. He came to a decision. “Okay. Up to you. You know the rules. You’re in. But anytime you want to drop out, you can. No questions asked. Okay?”

  Nodding, Flinders moved forward and plopped down next to him, letting out a nervous breath. Slowly she shook her head back and forth. “Don’t ask me why, but suddenly I’m starting to trust you two.”

  April growled.

  But Skarda’s teeth flashed white in the darkness.

  “Well…now that that’s taken care of,” Flinders said. “I’m starving. Have we got anything to eat around here?”

  SEVEN

  Arctic Ocean, Two Miles Above the Gakkel Ridge

  WHEN the submarine surfaced, Jaz popped a hatch and jumped out on deck, cocooned in a jet-black Mustang MIS240 immersion suit. At two degrees Fahrenheit the metal plating was already freezing over, but she expertly straddled the non-skid grating, playing out her lifeline tether, paying no attention to the wind that buffeted her body and the choppy waves that broke and foamed over the deck.

  Fifty yards in front of her the black silhouette of an icebreaker rose up from the drift ice, drifting hove-to with the current and not showing any lights. Bought for a song from a commercial shipyard in Bergen, the ship was a decommissioned rusting hulk about to be scrapped.

  But it was perfect for Jaz’s needs.

  Two men popped out of the hatch, quickly inflating a Zodiac H-733. Within minutes the three were bouncing over the black water toward the icebreaker. Maneuvering amidships, the pilot bumped the flank of the Zodiac against the big ship’s hull. Jaz stood. From the starboard railing above a cable boarding ladder snaked down, unfurling. Grabbing it, she climbed toward the deck thirty feet above.

  On the forecastle deck, a telescopic boom crane was lowering a four-by-thirty-five-foot six-inch-thick titanium case, blackened with light-absorbing paint, into an open cargo hold. Down below, she knew, more men were packing the bulkheads of the bow, the rudder room aft, and the boiler room amidships with M112 block demolition charges, enough to blow through the armor plate of the icebreaker’s hull and sink her evenly on the Gakkel Ridge, two miles below the surface.

  “Leave that hatch open,” she yelled at the boom operator. “We want it to fill up with water so the pressure won’t crush the case.”

  With the storm howling around her, she peered into the open hold, nodding in satisfaction at the sight of the case being nestled into place.

  Her headset crackled into life. “Lights coming,” a male voice said. “Ten o’clock off your port.”

  Racing to the opposite railing, she saw the running lights of an oncoming ship, blurred by a distant squall of snow. Men swarmed up the gangways, their jobs belowdecks finished. The crane operator hopped from the cab, running for the rail.

  Jaz barked into her throat mike: “Get the EMP!”

  Then she sprinted for the starboard rail.

  One by one the crew clambered down the ladder, dropping into the Zodiac. The warm lights of the approaching ship were plowing closer now. Through gaps in the gusts of snow she could see it was a small diesel-electric research vessel, its hull strengthened for ice. Even with the storm and the dim illumination of the polar twilight, she knew they couldn’t miss the icebreaker, but they wouldn’t have a clue the submarine was there. Inside her faceplate, her lips curled in a death’s-head grin. That was the beauty of the Rus
sian Kilo-class submarines: with the flooding ports removed on the forebody and anechoic tiles fitted to the casings and fins, the subs were virtually undetectable by radar.

  Reaching the sub, she scrambled on deck, watching two men haul out an eight-foot length of what looked like various-sized sections of silver sewer pipe bolted together and connected to a square black box at one end. Cables snaked from the box down through the open hatch into the sub’s interior. The men bolted the device to metal brackets affixed to the deck.