Emerald

by Brian January

  That made Tomilin boom out a laugh. “Traitor? I’m not a traitor. I’m a capitalist! I take care of myself, I put money in my pocket, and I don’t give one goddam who gets hurt doing it. That’s the American way.”

  Rachel glared at him. “You know that’s a lie.”

  “Is it? Maybe you’ve forgotten how this country got started—by exterminating an entire race of people to steal their land, in the name of God. They called it ‘Manifest Destiny’, an ad slogan cooked up by the spin doctors of the time, but it was nothing but wholesale slaughter, rape, and robbery. That’s the real story of America—a handful of privileged men making fortunes by breaking the backs of women, children, and immigrant laborers. And politicians and special interests making billions by starting wars, waving the American flag while millions die to make them richer and richer. It’s wholesale hypocrisy and greed.”

  Rachel glared at him with undisguised loathing. “You don’t care about the Atlantean cause. You’re just taking care of yourself.”

  “As I said, it’s the American way.”

  Her stomach churned with acid. She could barely stand to look at him. “So why am I here?”

  The Senator leaned back and regarded her with a smug expression. “I’m going to do you the honor of making you one of my concubines.”

  Rachel shot to her feet. “I’m not going to be anybody’s concubine!”

  With deliberate slowness, the huge man stood, towering over her. Dominating her. Raising his arms, he showed her his fingers. They were thick and gnarled, like blunt talons of gristle and bone.

  Rachel shrank back.

  “We’ll see,” Tomilin said. “I think a few sessions with Pteor might change your mind. There’s nothing he likes better than inflicting pain. Especially on women.”

  The huge man reached out, an expression of lust stiffening the hard planes of his face. His fingers barely touched the space between her collarbone and the base of her neck.

  A searing pain lanced through her body like a lightning bolt, exploding into a paroxysm of agony that brought her to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Bavarian Alps

  FLINDERS jerked to consciousness.

  She was lying naked in a tangle of sheets, her feet drawn up tight against her chest, her hands locked over her knees. Her shoulders shook. Again Jaz had accosted her, but she’d fought her off, screaming and clawing and rolling up into a ball until the woman went away, laughing.

  Rolling over, she darted her eyes over the room. Dark gray light filtered in through heavily-curtained windows, throwing the far end of the chamber into gloom. She was lying in a huge, carved-oak four-poster bed. A heavy oak dresser dominated one wall; against another stood an antique writing desk. Original oil paintings decorated the walls.

  It didn’t take too much effort to recognize her mother’s taste in decorating.

  It made her sick.

  Climbing out of bed, she found the heap of her clothes and put them on. Then she crossed to one of the windows, pushing back the thick curtain to look out at a plunging, snow-covered precipice and beyond it, the shark-toothed backdrop of the Alps.

  She was trapped. Marooned on a rocky island in the middle of nowhere. A great wave of loneliness engulfed her, followed by an overwhelming sense of despair. Park and April were dead, at the bottom of the Black Sea. Her mother had been murdered by a madman who turned out to be her father. And the entire world was about to be destroyed.

  A jolt of self-recrimination steeled her. What would Park and April do? They sure as hell wouldn’t give up. They would fight back with their last breaths.

  So that’s what she would have to do.

  Turning around, she hurried to the wide door, trying the lock. It wouldn’t budge. She glanced around the room, her eyes landing on the snarl of bed sheets. She smiled. It might be crazy, like something she’d seen in a cartoon when she was a kid, but why not tear the sheets into strips and make an escape rope?

  Racing to the bed, she ripped the top sheet from the mattress.

  FIFTY-SIX

  Airspace Over Southern Bavaria

  GUSTS of snow battered the cockpit as the Huey Cobra zoomed over the rolling foothills of the Bavarian Alps, running without lights. From an Army contact, April had bought two Barrett REC7 assault rifles, M67 frag grenades, two Sig Sauer 9mm pistols, and two Fusion Fulcrum throwing knives, plus tactical vests fitted with ceramic armor plates. In the gunner’s seat in front of her, Skarda readied his gear, stashing grenades in the pockets of his vest, along with extra magazines.

  From out of the storm the dark gray mist solidified into the stark slope of a scrub-covered mountain, the beginning of the alpine chain that thrust up suddenly from the Bavarian plain, separating southern Germany from Austria. Skarda peered out into the darkness. They knew Jaz had a crew of armed men, but their number was uncertain. But if they could rescue Flinders and eliminate Jaz from the combatants at the fortress, it would make their ultimate job all that easier.

  April looked at the GPS read-out on her HUD. “Five minutes,” she said into her helmet communicator.

  The Cobra’s rotor blades chopped through the snow-laden cumulus clouds. Skarda hoped the roar of the wind would cover the noise of their approach, but he couldn’t count on it. He leaned forward. Ahead on the starboard side he could see warm lights far below.

  Belisarius’ castle.

  ___

  Flinders’ teeth chattered so loudly they sounded like machine guns in her ears. But at least the makeshift rope was holding her weight. Twisting, she looked around her. She was about fifteen feet off the ground, swaying against what was a rear wing of the castle. To her left she could see the vertical edge of an end wall of the house; on her right another L-like extension ran almost to the edge of a snow-covered crag, where a few pines trees thrust up to the charcoal- gray sky.

  Shivers ran through her like spasms. The temperature was close to the freezing mark, but she had no coat. Her feet scraped against window glass and she kicked out, letting go and landing in a crouch in the snow.

  Her plan was simple: make her way to the garage and steal a car.

  Climbing to her feet, she dusted the snow from her clothing. Then a sharp click sounded behind her and a whoosh of air tugged at her. Too late she realized she’d been standing in front of a curtained French door.

  A heavily-muscled arm flashed out, crushing her throat as she was dragged inside the castle.

  “Hello, cutie,” Jaz’s voice purred in her ear. “Going somewhere?”

  ___

  April banked the Cobra, approaching the castle from the southwest. Skarda could see the lights more clearly now: tiers of rectangular warmth in the frosty-looking limestone walls, blurred by wind-driven snow. He checked his rifle. April, he knew, would be looking for a place to set down so that they could hit the ground running.

  The Cobra dived. Before them the rear of the castle opened up, hugging the sheer precipice of the mountain. But beyond it, a clearing denuded of pines that looked like a man-made landing strip.

  Pushing the cyclic, April headed for it.

  Skarda realized he was sweating inside his vest. At any moment a rocket could streak out and hit them broadside.

  Closer.

  A figure stepped out of a rear door, followed by two others straddling on their shoulders what looked like a long silver pipe.

  “EMP!” he yelled.

  “Hang on!”

  A lurch jolted Skarda as his HUD blinked out. The Cobra’s electronics had shut down! With a wrenching whine, the engine shuddered to a stop. The chopper yawed, shaking back and forth like a wet dog.

  Through his windshield, he could see the ground rushing toward them. But he knew that autorotation would keep the chopper aloft as the rush of air kept the main rotor turning in a freewheeling spin. The problem was, April’s controls were locked. And with the loss of control of the tail rotor, the chopper was rudderless. Now it was slueing hard to the left, tilting at
an ever-increasing angle as the gunship hurtled toward the ground.

  April turned her head, pointing at the cockpit exit hatch.

  Skarda gave her a thumbs up.

  The ground streaked closer.

  Ahead of them the limestone wall of the castle extension loomed, its outlines hazy with driven snow.

  Snow and rocks filled the windscreen, rushing at Skarda’s vision.

  Then, still whipping in a circle, the rotor blades impacted the ground, whirling forward in a vicious chop, ripping up a great gouge of earth like the blade of a plow. A shockwave struck the Cobra, dragging the fuselage along the ground toward the house wall in a succession of bone-jarring jolts. Inside the cockpit, Skarda’s head banged hard against the bulkhead, momentarily stunning him. With scrabbling fingers he freed the locks on the exit hatch, flipping it open. Wind and snow blasted in like a punch. The white-streaked landscape rushed past at dizzying speed.

  Snatching a quick glance to his left, he saw that April was already halfway out of the cockpit, her rifle slung around her back, flipping over to hang onto the window coping and letting her legs dangle in empty space. Even through his helmet, the screech of metal was deafening as the blades, still turning, ripped up furrows in the bare ground.

  Hauling himself out and flipping over, he saw April let go and kick away from the chopper. He followed suit, rolling into a tight ball as he hit the ground hard, the breath knocked from his lungs. Getting to his haunches, he looked right, seeing the rotor blades jump from the ground to chew into the wall, chopping through limestone and timber like a gigantic circular saw, as the nose and fuselage rammed into the house, crushing like an eggshell. Metal and fiberglass crunched and twisted. Aviation fuel spewed out in geysers, its stench fouling the air. A three-foot section of blade snapped off, hurtling toward Skarda, burying itself inches from where he was rising to his feet, leaping away.

  Behind them, assault rifles opened up. April was already sprinting for the hole the chopper had punched into the wall. Skarda raced after her. Bullets tore up the ground at his feet, spanging off the body of the Cobra, ricocheting so close to his head he could feel the heat of their passing. As April ran past she lobbed two grenades into the open cockpit window and disappeared through the hole.

  Seconds later Skarda joined her. Outside, they could hear the pounding boots of Jaz’s men, their weapons raking the house and the chopper with bullets. A man shouted. Then, with a thunderous roar, the grenades exploded, igniting the fuel and ammunition and ripping through the fuselage in a blizzard of superheated metal.

  ___

  Stepping off the elevator, Belisarius hurried down a dimly-lit corridor bored into the side of the mountain. Alone on his study, he’d heard the sounds of gunfire and the explosion. Was it the Atlanteans attacking? He doubted it. They wanted the Emerald Tablet and needed to keep him alive as a source of more orichalcum. Had Skarda and Force survived? Maybe by some miracle. At any rate, Jaz’s troops would take care of the interlopers.

  It was time for him to get to Mount Tavrida.

  Coming to a steel door, he tapped in a code on a touch pad and the door unlocked with an electronic snick. Pushing it open, he entered a small vestibule, where another door blocked his path. But this one had been constructed of thicker steel and here was not only a touch pad but a fingerprint scanner as well. He keyed in a code, then laid his palm against the scanner screen. This time there was no noise. He grabbed the heavy handle and turned, pulling open the vault door.

  Overhead lights blinked on automatically as he stepped inside. The vault walls were lined with tiers of steel shelves, cradling medieval and Renaissance oil paintings, a few Greek and Roman marble busts, and farther back, ingots of gold, stacked to the ceiling.

  Belisarius smiled, as he always did, when he saw the dull gleam of the yellow metal. Over the years he’d been converting more and more of his assets to gold. It was ultimately untraceable, able to be melted down and recast in any form or shape, a currency that was recognized and valued the world over.

  If the Atlanteans succeeded with their plans, he would be one of the wealthiest men on the planet.

  Moving into the vault, he walked past an original Rubens portrait to the spot where the Emerald Tablet rested inside a steel case. Opening the lid, he checked to make sure the artifact was still inside, then closed it and stepped out into the corridor, pulling the heavy vault door shut behind him.

  ___

  When the helicopter exploded, Skarda and April threw themselves against the hard slate floor. Jagged fragments of metal and stone burst over their heads, the noise of the blast echoing in their ears. Rolling to his feet, Skarda saw that they were in a long, rectangular great room dominated by hand-carved oak furniture, the walls hung with oil paintings. At the far end logs crackled in a massive fireplace.

  At the high opening leading to the house an arm and hand flashed motion. A round object arced through the air.

  “Grenade!” April yelled, immediately diving for the protection of a heavy table and tipping it over like a shield in front of her.

  Ducking low, Skarda leapt for the shelter of an oversized chair, clapping his hands over his ears.

  With a deafening whump the bomb exploded, sending a whirlwind of razor-sharp confetti in all directions. Waiting a count of three, the commando took a quick step into the opening, spraying the room with a burst of bullets from his G36, blowing big chunks out of the limestone walls and ripping several paintings to shreds.

  Behind the protective wall of the oak table, April waited, holding her breath, knowing that Skarda wouldn’t make a move until she did. Then in one fluid motion she rolled out, snapping up to a crouch, seeing the commando still standing in the open passageway, his figure obscured by a nebula of smoke.

  The man saw her motion and whipped his rifle up—

  Her hand moved and one of her throwing knives flashed through the air, the blade burying itself to the hilt in his neck. He staggered back, letting go of his rifle and clawing at his throat. His knees sagged and he dropped to the floor.

  Stooping to retrieve her knife, April wiped the blood on the commando’s pants and sheathed it. She peered out into a marble-floored corridor leading west. Nothing moved. Ahead a short passageway opened onto another huge doorway framed by an oak lintel. They moved forward, finding themselves in a circular room whose walls were constructed of stones and boulders mortared in place, clearly supporting one of the massive turrets they’d seen from sky. Floor-to-ceiling windows fronted the south side and above them a balcony perimetered the circumference of the second floor.

  As they entered, a man barged onto the balcony, swinging his rifle around in a tight arc, blazing fire.

  April dived right into the shelter of a long couch, crouching, bullets cracking all around her, sending up clouds of splinters. Whipping up the barrel of her rifle, she twitched her finger. A slashing stream of bullets caught the man across the midsection, doubling him in half. His body jerked back, out of sight.

  The sound of shouts came to their ears. Three more men blitzed onto the balcony from a second-floor corridor, their guns spraying the room with bullets. Skarda and April dove, hitting the wood floor with their shoulders, rolling for the protection of the balcony overhang, out of the attackers’ line of sight. Jumping to her feet, April freed a grenade from her webbing, whipping around to see Skarda following suit. The rattle of automatic weapons hadn’t stopped—bullets chewed through furniture and stone, chipping off chunks of the bouldered wall.

  Together they pulled the pins. April held up her right hand, her fingers counting out one…two…three…

  Taking a step out, they lobbed the grenades at the balcony.

  The explosions seemed to shake the house. A man screamed, then was abruptly silent. A mangled body pinwheeled to the floor, the dead man’s head crashing on an end table with a sickening thud and snap of bones.

  April traded a quick glance with Skarda. He nodded. Like one person they leapt out of hiding, flipping ar
ound in mid-air and landing on their backs, sliding across the polished wood floor, letting loose with their Barretts on full auto.

  Behind the railing of the balcony, one man was still alive, his blood-spattered face snarling with hate. Spotting him, Skarda fired. But the man leapt clear, whipping the barrel of his rifle around and pulling the trigger. A line of bullets strafed across Skarda’s chest, pummeling him as if he’d been hit by blows from a gigantic hammer. Gritting his teeth in pain, he jerked up the Barrett and fired. The rounds hit the commando in the mouth, blowing his jaw apart and splattering blood and brains against the wall behind him.

  Coming to a crouch, April knelt beside him, her black eyes probing his. “Hurt?”

  He shook his head. The movement made him wince. The bullets had felt like spikes had been pounded into his chest, but they hadn’t pierced the armor. “I’ll be black-and-blue,” he smiled ruefully.