His finger pressed a series of four buttons; a loud beep sounded; the men scattered.
Except for two wildly beating hearts, silence fell in the subbasement. After several long moments, the men released each other, crawled forward, and peered down into the case.
They checked their respective watches and then looked anew at the red stick figures flashing on a glossy black strip inside the suitcase: 50:55 … 50:54 … 50:53 …
They jumped and ran. First down a narrow ramp opposite the boilers. Then past the heavy metal door that they had earlier found half ajar, its welded edges cut.
Now in the tunnel, Gabriel in the lead, they sprinted. The passage was six feet wide and not much taller at the centerline of its rounded roof, offering just enough space to accommodate its originally intended occupants: a stooped man, a straining drayhorse, and a wooden cart piled with coal.
Without slowing, Gabriel looked over his shoulder, grinning at Jacob. “Right now, we’re the two most powerful people on the fucking planet.”
Then the bullet smashed into his ear. The projectile shattered his cranium, dragging along the metal ringing his ear’s outer edge. He slammed against the brick wall. The lead slug and tangle of jewelry lost its momentum at the midline of his brainstem.
He slid down the wall and buckled to his knees. Then he collapsed forward, crashing facedown on the ground. His shirt rode up, exposing the exploding American flag inked on his back. Coal dust blackened the white of an upturned eye.
For a second, light shone on the body. Then the flashlight clattered against the tunnel floor. Jacob tried to turn around, but he felt like he was fighting through molten lead. His legs seemed to be going in every which direction, bent at unnatural angles. Great, wild slapping steps sounded as he started running.
A controlled, staccato clip of heels on brick overlaid the sounds of his scrambling retreat.
Utley stopped at Gabriel’s body. He planted himself with his shoes spaced an exact shoulder’s width apart, drew himself to his full height, and pushed out his arms into a prow-shaped formation. His lower hand clenched his flashlight, while the upper one gripped his Walther P99. His beam jittered over the diameter of the tunnel.
The gun locked on target. Now with flowing grace, it followed Jacob as he crashed from side to side, running as fast as his short legs would carry him.
Utley squeezed once.
Between the momentum of his barely controlled forward motion and the force of the bullet striking his back, Jacob tumbled forwarded. He landed face-first and skidded along the dirty bricks, until he stopped sliding after five feet.
The tunnel was silent. Powder smoke and stirred-up coal dust swirled in Utley’s beam.
Utley squeezed again. The bullet slammed into the delicate V formed by the man’s splayed legs; Jacob’s lifeless body merely jiggled like a block of gelatin flicked by a bored child’s finger.
“I guess this makes me the most powerful person on the fucking planet.” Then Utley sighed and jammed his again-shaking hand and the Walther into his pocket.
∞
The old man walked swiftly, stepping over the second body. After traveling another dozen yards, his flashlight beam landed on the neat lettering on the half-open door: “El Prado.” He slipped inside, went up the ramp, and scanned the room. Then he headed for the middle of the three boilers.
Utley looked down into the suitcase, as the display flashed 41:17.
Plenty of time provided the disarming sequence is unchanged. “And if it has changed,” he said aloud, as his finger trembled above the cylinder of packed plutonium, “then none of it will have mattered anyway.”
He flicked open the keypad cover, and his finger shook so violently that it brushed several buttons. Finally it landed on the center button; the suitcase beeped in acquiescence.
His eyes were on the keys, but Utley saw himself walking into the Oval Office. He was alone except for the president, who was rising from behind the desk. His hand was clasped. The president thanked him and pressed the medal into his hands. The usual murmurs were made about wishing for a public presentation. And Utley’s finger danced across the keypad like a tender ballerina on the stage of the Royal Opera House.
– 49 –
Sunday, 15 July
Madrid
“Daddy, this is a most unexpected surprise!”
Utley’s finger hovered a quarter inch above the key.
“But a delightful one in any case—it’s been so long.”
Utley looked at the blinking red numbers: 38:32.
He turned; the tiny blood vessels webbing his brain bulged like old garden hoses. The dark-haired beauties standing side-by-side between him and the ramp were nearly thirty years older. And they now held matching Beretta Bobcats. But to Utley, they were same teenage girls holding tumblers of laced scotch all those years ago, on the night leading to the horrible pictures.
“Well, what fine women you’ve become,” Utley said.
Nin Zanin stepped forward, her Bobcat locked on Utley. “Thank you, Daddy … you do still like to be called ‘Daddy,’ do you not? You certainly did that night in Prague.”
She shrugged at Utley’s silence. “First Solta and I must thank you for saving us the trouble of dispatching those spoiled little boys who thought they could change the world by buying a bomb, as simply as if they were purchasing a bag of their smelly drug to get high. We certainly couldn’t have them running around with what they knew.”
Her teeth flashed. “Next we must say how much we admire your patience. In your position, a lesser man would have retaliated years ago against those who had wrought his downfall.
“Ah, but of course”—Nin glanced at her sister—“you want more than revenge: you want your good name back.” She nodded. “And what better way to accomplish this goal than by averting the assassination—by the means of something as dramatic as a nuclear bomb, no less—of your pathetic president. Bravo, Daddy, a truly inspired plan.”
“Alas,” Solta Zanin said, “you will fail on both counts. The only shame is that you’ll miss the real show tomorrow with our other little friends”—her Bobcat nodded at the suitcase—“on the island.”
Utley grimaced. The others bombs were in play. He realized how foolish he had been thinking that the assassination of the world’s most powerful leaders would satisfy his old enemy. They have grander plans.
“Now, now, sister, let’s not bore Daddy.” Nin glanced at the suitcase timer. “We really must hurry to the airstrip. Sometimes Madrid’s dreadful heat is simply too much to bear. And I feel just such a spell coming on—in little more than half an hour.”
Utley’s hand shot for his pocket and the Walther.
But the Bobcats reached it first; two bullets permanently ended his hand’s tremor.
Utley held up his arm, looking at the bleeding pulp lying at his wrist’s end and then at the sisters.
He sighed. “Brava, my dears, brava.”
“I’m afraid the only word left to say is ‘adieu,’ Daddy,” Nin said.
Two bullets, one from each Beretta, tore into his chest. He collapsed backward, landing on his back in the dust.
The sisters shoved their Bobcats under their skirts. Nin bent down and pressed a series of keystrokes on the pad. A long beep sounded; the display continued its countdown, flashing 31:50.
Nin offered an arm to her sister. “Shall we? We haven’t long to escape the blast range.”
“But the control shot?” Solta asked.
Nin glanced at Utley’s body and its burbling red springs. “The old man is dead.”
Solta shrugged. The two women blew kisses at Utley. After a few seconds, “Goodbye, Daddy” drifted up from the coal tunnel. Then all was silent.
– 50 –
Sunday, 15 July
Madrid
“Talk about a piercing session gone bad,” Eric Hunt whispered, as he pointed at the fist-sized crater where the ear should have been.
Sam Quick nodded at the arm. “Look
familiar? These tattoos are the same pattern as the ink on the antiglobalization crowd on La Palma.”
Hunt nodded. “An old coal tunnel is an awfully strange place to hold a protest.”
“Sure is.” Quick said, grabbing the flashlight lying beside the body. “Let’s keep moving.”
After traveling another forty feet in the tunnel, Hunt whispered, “And here’s number two.”
“Someone’s been awful busy.” Quick barely slowed to step over the heavyset man’s leg.
From the boiler room, Utley heard the approaching footfalls and cried out. But only a frothy, red effluence dribbled from his mouth and ran down over his collar. His eyelids fluttered in resignation. His one functioning hand skittered over the dusty floor, while he stared straight up, seeing the Bosch painting with its seven deadly sins and its images of heaven and hell.
In the tunnel, Quick pointed at the words printed on a partially open door: “El Prado.” The flashlight went dark. Quick slipped past the door with Hunt following. Above them, a faint red light flashed.
They crept up the ramp. The blinking light revealed the center boiler. After a moment of hearing only a soft, regular beeping, and a louder, chaotic gurgling somewhere closer to them, Quick snapped on the flashlight.
“Number three,” Hunt whispered.
They moved in and crouched, one on either side of Utley. Red teeth grinned up at them. The eyes, heavily bloodshot due to the vessels bursting from the pressure spike during the bullets’ incursion, seemed to stare at the ceiling in wonder.
“Except this one doesn’t share the others’ affinity for tattoo parlors,” Hunt said.
Quick’s gaze traveled over the wounds. “Though I’m afraid in a minute, he’ll have something else in common with them.” She laid a hand on Utley’s shoulder, and his eyes broke from the ceiling and locked onto Quick’s.
He struggled to clear his airway. Then he managed to say, “Dr. Quick … ”
“Who did this to you?” Quick lowered her face next to Utley’s.
The man’s hand flapped against the floor. The flashlight beam followed the pointing finger and landed on the metal suitcase. The black cylinder, the trefoil symbol, and the Cyrillic script stared passively back at the scientists.
The old man’s gaze returned to the ceiling, as his finger stabbed unsteadily at the concrete. Quick swept her beam at the floor. A red paste of coal dust and blood formed a ragged but legible word: “island.”
“What island,” Quick said. “La Palma?”
Droplets of fresh blood sprayed from Utley’s mouth. He now saw only the Bosch painting, his gaze bouncing erratically between the images of heaven and hell. Then his tremors and his hopes finally stilled. And in the subbasement, all that remained of the old man was the gurgling reverberation: “Stop them.”
Quick jumped up. The flashlight beam swept in a grid pattern around the chamber and found the three boilers and abandoned parts, and the concrete and bricks sealing off the staircase to the museum above.
She looked around one time, reconfirmed Slater’s absence, and silently gave thanks.
“How did he know your name? And you really think he means La Palma?’” Hunt asked.
“I’m sure of it. But we have more pressing concerns.” Sam Quick peered down into the suitcase. The display flashed 24:19. And she looked at Hunt. “I don’t suppose your phone has a signal—two stories beneath a massive stone building?”
Eric Hunt checked his mobile. Then he shook his head.
– 51 –
Sunday, 15 July
Island of La Palma
Only one lantern remained lit. Shadows crept out from the walls, enveloping the cot and the women. Only the occasional groan of centenarian timbers and the uneven exit of fetid breath from the guard’s mouth broke the silence.
But nothing was unsteady about Kalia and Amanda’s gazes. Pupils fully dilated and unwavering, the women watched the Micro UZI rise and fall with each swell of their captor’s chest.
After several more minutes, Slater’s silent count reached one thousand, the number of seconds since the man’s chin had landed on his dirty shirtfront.
She looked at Amanda. The dreadlocked woman nodded. Slater’s hands began writhing in the metal cuffs. Amanda’s line of sight volleyed between the squirming hands and the guard’s forward-sloping face, as the gentle jingle of Slater’s cuffs joined the room’s infrequent sounds.
Despite Slater tricking the guard into locking the cuffs around the bases of her hands, rather than around her narrower wrists, the metal rings still needed to travel past her hands’ widest point, the line of joints at the base of her fingers.
After several minutes, Slater looked at Amanda and shook her head. It wasn’t working.
But I will never give up.
Her thumbnail sliced into the meat of her palm. Blood flowed from the cut, and she rubbed her other wrist against the wound, slicking the cuff with the warm lubrication. Then she tucked her thumb against her palm and pulled as hard as she could.
It moved.
Amanda nodded vigorously. With all her might, Slater yanked her right hand, which seemed nearest freedom. Tears cut the sweat and dust on her face; but Slater did not make a sound.
The junction of her fingers and hand locked in the bloody ring. Slater drew a sharp breath. Then she pulled with all her strength. With a sickening compression of cartilage, her hand slipped free. The empty cuff landed, clinking against the cot’s metal frame. Slater and Amanda’s eyes shot toward the guard, who snorted but failed to raise his head.
Slater pulled her hands from behind herself, with the remaining cuff still locked around her other wrist. She wiped away her tears; the swipes left bloody smears below each eye like war paint.
She grabbed the dangling bloodied cuff and wrapped her fingers through it; now it would not jangle if she moved. And Kalia Slater most certainly planned to move.
Slater crept forward. The undulations of the guard’s chest remained constant, while the women’s chests rose and fell like bellows, their hearts furiously pumping.
Near the wall, Slater squatted and placed her hands around a melon-sized hunk of red stone lying loose on the ground. Her mind flashed to a week ago, when she had arrived on La Palma with Dr. Quick and Eric Hunt to harvest ore samples from La Garganta del Diablo—samples of the very rock that she now held, from the very mine where she was now captive.
A few feet away, the guard slept with his head sloped forward, and his chin pressed to his chest—as if offering the back of his head for a pedestal to display the jagged stone.
Slater nodded at Amanda, who was chewing her lower lip and staring at her.
“Force equals mass times velocity squared,” Slater whispered as she closed in, lifting the rock over her head with both hands.
The rock smashed down; the guard somersaulted forwarded; his face slammed into the muddy ground. Slater raised the stone, prepared to bring it down again if necessary. But the guard’s body lay still, his chest barely moving.
Slater dropped the rock. She knelt, rolled the guard, slid her hand into his shirt pocket, and withdrew a key. The remaining cuff opened around her wrist; the metal fell to the ground.
She started to stand, but then paused and knelt again. The strap slid from the dead man’s shoulder. Slater’s head ducked through the nylon and metal circle. The gun settled like a pageant sash.
And Amanda finally released the breath she had been holding. This chick is steel.
∞
Slater and Amanda ran another few yards down the shaft. Then Slater held up a hand; the women stopped moving. Slater inched forward and peered around a rotting support timber.
She found a wider tunnel stretching without apparent end, with rail tracks cutting down its middle. The opposite wall was strung with cables and lights similar to those hung by her team during their first day at La Garganta del Diablo. Except these lamps were different: the bulbs were less frequently spaced and were fluorescents, whose bluish light t
urned the rock’s healthy red to a strangled purple. Slater stepped out onto the tracks.
“Which way now? We have to get to a fucking phone right now. I need to let my brother know what’s happening,” Amanda said, emerging from the side tunnel, watching Slater slowly rotate with eyes closed and face upturned as if the Hawaiian were soaking up sun. Has she lost it? She glanced at the UZI.
After a moment, a smile spread across Slater’s face; her head lowered; she looked at Amanda.
“The air is moving this way”—she jacked a thumb over her shoulder—“which means an opening of some sort must be”—she pointed in the opposite direction—“that way. And if fresh air can enter, then we may be able to exit.” Slater grabbed Amanda’s hand, and the women pressed close to the wall and started to run.
After several minutes, Slater felt a tug on her shirt from behind and heard Amanda whisper, “What’s that?”
Slater slowed. Two hundred feet ahead, something near the ground dully glowed in the fluorescent light. The UZI slipped off her chest and moved into the lead, with Slater’s finger locked on its trigger.
After a more dozen steps, the women stopped and stared. An open suitcase, made of brushed metal, sat alongside the tracks, roughly aligned with a spray painted yellow arrow.
“But what’s it doing here?” Amanda asked.
The UZI muzzle traced a series of numbers, letters, circles, and tick marks painted on the stone beside the arrow. “These characters represent geographic coordinates for, presumably, this very spot on the planet,” Slater said, as she crouched down. “But I’m more interested in the suitcase—not exactly Prada, but something much more special, I think.”
Her finger ran over the cylinder and its inscribed Cyrillic writing and the trefoil symbol, the latter of which she had seen so many times before on labels for radioactive materials in the lab. “Whatever the reason for its presence, I don’t think we want to stay around to find out. Let’s keep moving.”
The Red Pearl Effect (Sam Quick Adventure Book 1) Page 16
