She broke off, shuddering.
Skarda’s intense gaze narrowed, but he lowered his weapon “Did they have you locked up?”
For several seconds she stared at him with dead eyes. Then tears welled up and rolled down her face. Another shudder wracked her body.
Placing his hands on her shoulders, Skarda bent and looked her hard in the face. Something bad had happened to her, but he needed her to regain her focus.
They were running out of time.
“Listen to me,” he said. His voice was a whiplash. “You’re going to have to concentrate. Did they have you locked up?”
Her spine stiffened. He could see her visibly steeling her emotions. “Yes.”
“Take me there. No doubt they have our friend in the same area.”
Nodding, she said, “Okay. It’s on the next floor up, on a side corridor.”
“Can you fire a weapon?”
She showed him a confident smile. “I was an Army brat.”
Matching her smile, he handed her the Sig Sauer. “Okay. Let’s go.”
SIXTY-TWO
JAZ was sprinting for the doorway to the command center when the ceiling of the Great Hall exploded, sending great chunks of gilded stone crashing onto the main floor in billowing fountains of smoke. From the perimeter of a jagged hole huge cracks radiated in all directions. With a thundering crack another section of the roof broke loose, sending slabs of limestone plummeting to the floor with earth-shaking force. Men’s screams were cut off abruptly as they were crushed under tons of rock.
Green lines lanced through the gloom and dust billows of the hall: tracer laser sights sweeping over the room, finding their targets. Through the hole in the roof men in black body armor rappelled down from the smoking hole in the roof, their MK17 SCAR-H assault rifles on full auto, sweeping deadly arcs of bullets at the Atlanteans.
Men fell among the ruined columns, their bodies torn apart. Others dove for whatever protection they could find.
The invaders hit the floor, spreading out, firing in a storm of muzzle flashes. Jaz glanced up, seeing more of the attacking commandos plummeting toward the roof under the canopies of black parachutes. Another section of the vaulted ceiling exploded and crashed.
A thin green light found her chest and three rounds slammed against her armored breastplate, knocking her backwards. She staggered. Another shot hit her, slicing through the unprotected spot just below her left armpit in a sear of hot metal. The slug tore away of chunk of flesh, exiting the wound and ricocheting off a marble column in a spray of blood.
Her back slammed against the floor. Pain exploded in her brain.
For a few seconds she lay there, immobile. Then flipping over, she crawled toward the safety of the door, trailing a bright smear of crimson behind her.
___
Koyasan rushed back into the command center, issuing commands, his sonorous voice rising over the din of gunfire in the background. “This room must be protected at all costs. Mr. Tomilin, I need those codes now—“
He broke off, staring.
Tomilin stood at the outer edge of the computer console, training a rifle on the Atlanteans. The guards still clung to their weapons, but the barrels pointed at the floor.
Koyasan’s eyes narrowed to baleful slits as understanding hit him. “So you’re a traitor,” he said calmly.
Tomilin’s lips moved in a slow, arrogant smile. “Seems like everybody’s calling me that.”
“You were after the oil all along.”
Tomilin’s smile spread. “And the gold, too. As long as I’m here. After all, I’m a practical man. There’s no sense in drowning the world when I can melt the Arctic Ocean and be richer than I can ever possibly dream of.”
“The Russian people will own those oil fields. Not the Americans.”
The Senator shrugged with indifference. “Fine with me. Let them do all the hard work. I’ll make a fortune speculating in the international oil markets. Now that I know what’s going to happen.”
The command center crew were frozen at their stations, gaping at the two men. Fear and uncertainty clenched their faces as the sounds of gunfire and grenade explosions grew in volume outside the room, coming closer.
“Your men?” Koyasan asked.
Tomilin didn’t bother to answer. Gesturing with his rifle at the technicians, he said, “Now, instruct these men to do as I say. They will enter the codes for the satellite above the Arctic and they will fire the laser of that satellite only.”
With grim finality, Koyasan shook his head. His eyes blazed as he jerked his head at the guards. “Shoot him.”
Staring at Tomilin’s rifle aimed at them, they hesitated.
“Shoot me and you won’t get the codes,” Tomilin said. His voice was laced with arrogance.
Koyasan’s lips were razor-tight. “He has defiled the memory of Atalatarte. Shoot him.”
The soldiers raised their weapons.
Booted feet pounded in the corridor.
Koyasan whirled around.
David Charbonnet and three commandos burst into the room. Charbonnet lifted his SCAR, sending three short bursts into the Atlanteans. The bullets blew Koyasan’s spine through his stomach and his shattered corpse smashed against the floor in a fountain of blood.
Striding forward, Tomilin grasped Charbonnet’s hand. “Thanks, Senator.”
The younger man grinned. “You’re welcome, Senator.” Then he was all business. “We’re pretty much at a stalemate out there. Time to fire the laser and get out of here.”
“Can you hold them off? We have thirteen minutes.”
Charbonnet showed him his boyish grin. “No sweat.”
He ordered his men to guard the entrance and then he disappeared through the doorway.
Tomilin took a few steps back and lifted his rifle, looking at the throng of Atlantean faces now staring at him in shock. “I’m running the show now. Anyone who disobeys my orders will be shot.”
SIXTY-THREE
A hot, searing pain burned through Jaz’s flank as she dragged herself down the stone-floored corridor. It felt like a white-hot knife stabbing her over and over. Blood pounded in her head. Only adrenaline fueled her.
Coming to her room, she forced her body up against the door, reaching up to tap in the entry code on the key pad.
The door swung open and she stepped in. There was a rush of sound and Flinders leapt at her, her right hand raised, her fingers wrapped tightly around a hypodermic needle. She slashed it down, aiming to plunge the thin needle into Jaz’s carotid artery.
With a sharp snarl, Jaz batted her away. Flinders smacked the floor with her shoulder blades, her breath whooshing out of her lungs. The hypo bounced, rolling under the bed.
“Nice try, cutie,” Jaz said. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps. She aimed the barrel of the AK-47 at Flinders’ head. “Do it again and your brains will be all over this room.”
Not bothering to close the door, she unstrapped the tactical vest, letting it drop to the floor. The bullet had torn through the tight shirt underneath and bright blood flowed from the ragged wound.
Flinders gaped at her. “You’re shot,” she said. It was half statement, half an expression of relief.
Jaz stared at her, her eyes not quite focusing. “You think?”
With both hands she ripped away her shirt. Her shrunken breasts were matted with dark hair. From the vest she pulled out a trauma wound bandage, ripped open the pouch with her teeth, then placed the dressing over the wound and wrapped her torso with the elastic compression bandage.
Opening her own pack, she took out two hypodermics and a vial of steroids, filling both syringes with yellow fluid. Sinking to her knees, she stuck the first in a swollen vein in her forearm, depressing the plunger. Almost immediately a tremor shook her as the drug coursed through her bloodstream.
“Good as new,” she said. Her husky voice spit the words out through clenched lips. She laid the second hypo on the floor, closing her eyes as a second tremor s
hook her.
A sound came from the corridor. Like a flash of lightning Jaz bounded up as April shoved the barrel of her Barrett through the open door. Grabbing it with both hands, Jaz pivoted, dragging April through the doorway, then dropped down to one knee to lever the rifle over her head and send April crashing against the stone wall. She tossed the rifle into the hallway and grinned. “It’s about time we have it out, honey.”
Twisting in mid-air, April slammed the wall with her shoulder, then bounced off, hitting the floor in a tight roll and snapping up to a crouch. Jaz sprang at her, legs kicking in a whirlwind, both fists clenched and hammering pile driver blows. Blocking one punch with her left forearm, April turned to let the force of the next blow land on the armored chest plate of her vest, but Jaz moved with her, knowing exactly where to hit. The punch landed low, just above April’s groin.
Shocks of pain lanced through her nervous system.
Blocking another punch, April stepped into Jaz’s center line, watching the drug-fueled bloodlust dance in the woman’s cat-like eyes. Jaz outmuscled her and outweighed her, and the steroids were giving her superhuman strength and endurance, whipped to a frenzy by adrenaline.
But she had one weakness: the blood-soaked bandage on her side meant she’d been hit by a bullet.
April scythed her right foot up, aiming at Jaz’s kneecap. But the blonde woman stepped back. The boot glanced off her thigh.
With a ferocious grin Jaz swung at her head. Jerking her own head back, April turned, deflecting the blow to the side of her skull. Even so, the fist hit with the force of a sledgehammer, touching off fireworks of bright sparks in her vision.
Again Jaz swung, and again April took the punch. Even wounded, the woman was just too fast. April’s only chance was to wear her out, to wait out the effects of blood loss and spent adrenaline.
She painted a look of fear on her face.
Seeing it, Jaz grinned again. Then she sprang forward to attack, but this time April was ready. She ducked, feinting with her right foot, then swinging up with her left and connecting the toe of her boot with the bloody wound. Jaz threw her head back and howled in rage and pain.
With a surge of strength she grabbed April’s arm with her left hand, yanking her around, then clamping her right on the back of April’s neck while she ran her toward the wall, intending to smash her forehead against the limestone.
April let it happen. But just before they reached the wall, she threw up her free hand, slapping the palm against the stone, while at the same time snapping her head back to smash against Jaz’s face, feeling and hearing the grisly crunch of shattering cartilage.
In an instant Jaz let go, backing away as blood gushed from her nose. “Good one, honey,” she said through gritted teeth. She threw her head back and laughed.
She bent for another rush.
Behind her came a flurry of motion.
Flinders!
With a strangled cry she leapt onto Jaz’s back, her glasses flying, clamping her left forearm around her neck and hammering at her head with her right fist.
April’s hand darted down and then one of the throwing knives was gripped between her fingers, clenched in a pinch grip. But seeing it, Jaz spun around, making Flinders’ back a broad target. Crying out in rage, Flinders kept on pummeling her.
Instantaneously changing her aim, April threw. The knife flashed through the air, burying itself to the hilt in Jaz’s thigh. With a roar of pain she shook Flinders off, sending her flying backwards, the back of her skull striking the floor with a loud crack.
Jaz ripped the knife from her thigh and tossed it aside. The bloodlust in her eyes was a red haze of hate. Her face twisted, her flattened nose a mass of red pulp. With a great bellow she surged forward, fists pistoning against the air.
April plummeted to a low crouch, wrenching her hips around to slide through the pounding legs, then shooting straight up to slam a balled fist directly at the ugly wound on Jaz’s flank.
Howling in pain, Jaz ground her right foot into the floor, letting her forward momentum slue her around as she toppled on April, grabbing her by the shoulders and flipping her face-down. She landed with both knees on her back with pile driver force.
The breath exploded from April’s lungs, momentarily stunning her.
Grabbing April’s left arm, Jaz levered it behind her back while she bent low, clamping her forearm around her throat like a vise, forcing her head back as her knees kept April’s torso pinned to the floor.
Jaz’s arm was like a steel band, constricting tighter and tighter like some of kind of inexorable machine, crushing April’s carotid artery. Blackness crowded her vision. Desperately she clawed at the blonde woman’s rigid muscles with her free hands. From somewhere far away behind her she could hear the sound of Flinders’ screams, drowned out by Jaz’s sadistic laugh loud in her ear and the pulsing roar of blood inside her skull.
Giving up on trying to tear the arm away, she jerked her fist up, smashing again and again at Jaz’s shattered nose, but she was only rewarded with more laughter.
Digging her knees deeper into April’s back, Jaz squeezed tighter, bending her spine like a bow. Black shadows loomed all around the edges of April’s consciousness. Her lungs screamed for oxygen. Her neck felt like it was going to snap in two.
Then suddenly the pressure was gone. A horrible cry of pain filled April’s ears. With the last of her strength she rolled free, pushing herself to one knee, fists up, her chest heaving with wracking breaths, seeing Flinders kneeling next to Jaz, her hand jerking back from the hypodermic sticking from the woman’s chest, its plunger depressed to the maximum.
Flinders had injected a full syringe of steroids into Jaz’s heart!
Jaz shrieked like a wounded animal. Blood gushed from her mouth. On her temple, the vein twitched and writhed. She had sunk her knees, her back ramrod-straight, her hands thrust apart in front of her, the fingers open as if in supplication.
Through a haze of blood the verdigris eyes shifted to look at them.
Then she toppled forward to the floor.
Slowly, Flinders moved her head up to meet April’s eyes. Blinking, she found her glasses and climbed to her feet, turning—
She kicked Jaz’s prostrate body…once, twice…
Then with a frenzy of repeated kicks, she struck her over and over and over...
Abruptly she stopped, her foot hovering in mid-swing. She was shaking, looking down at the dead woman. “I told you I’d kill you.”
Then waves of shudders shook her body and tears cascaded down her cheeks.
Shoving to her feet, April put an arm around her shoulders.
Emotions tore across Flinders’ face. For several long heartbeats she stared into April’s black eyes. “I thought you were dead. Is Park—?”
She broke off as footsteps pounded outside the door. Skarda burst into the room, his rifle raised. His gaze swept over the scene.
Flinders stared at him as if he were a ghost. “You’re not dead...”
He grinned at her. “Not yet.” Glancing over at April, he said, “Eleven minutes to go.”
Behind him, Rachel stepped into view.
Seeing her, April’s eyes narrowed.
“She’s with us,” he told her. “I’ll fill you in.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s move.”
___
From the doorway at the eastern end of Great Hall, Belisarius scanned the battle. Jaz’s blonde head was nowhere to be seen.
That meant she was dead or wounded.
Either way, she was of no further use to him.
Ducking out of sight, he ran along the corridor of the T, coming to the gold storeroom that Tomilin had shown him. Without flicking on the lights, he stepped inside. On the brief prior visit his brain had already catalogued each artifact where it lay, and he’d already decided which pieces to take with him.
Cracking open his steel case, he looked down at the Emerald Tablet he’d already stolen from the mummy’s throne room.
An artifact like that would be worth millions on the black collector’s market.
With an indulgent smile of avarice, he began to fill the case with gold.
___
In the weapons storeroom, Rachel helped Flinders into an armor-plated vest, then handed her an AK-47 and spare magazines.
April hefted what looked like a shotgun with a Tommy-gun-style drum attached. “It’s an AA-12 combat shotgun,” she said, smiling. “It can fire five twelve-gauge shotgun shells a second, plus FRAG-12 rounds, which are basically little warheads. Good weapon.”
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