For several heart-stilling moments Cade could see nothing but the curtains from inside Mason’s room blowing in the breeze.
Come one! Come on! he urged silently.
A shadow moved behind the curtains and then the Adversary was back. It stood in the window for a moment, its latest victim hanging limp in her arms, and then it bunched the muscles in her legs and cast itself out in the night.
At that exact moment, Cade fired.
The gunsmiths who had designed the baffling system for the weapon had done an exceptional job; Cade heard nothing more than a short huff as the tracking implant left the barrel and sped toward its target. Cade’s hand was already cycling the bolt and loading another round before his conscious mind caught up with him and he managed to get off one more shot before the angle and the Adversary’s movement made it impossible to manage a third.
He just prayed two would be enough.
He waited until the shadow had passed out of sight before throwing off the camouflage net and scrambling to his feet. He slung the rifle over one shoulder and headed down the trail, trusting his feet to carry him over the uneven terrain while reaching up and keying the mike with a free hand.
“Tell me we’ve got a signal” he said between breaths.
For a moment there was nothing but silence, but then Martinez let out a whoop.
“Two, I repeat, two solid signals, moving west at thirty miles per hour. Damn this sucker can fly!”
Cade grinned; the hard part was done. As long as they stayed in range, they could track this thing to the ends of the earth.
Riley’s voice broke in over the channel. “Meet at the pickup zone in five,” he said and then the line went dead.
They weren’t on a main frequency, but silence was still the better policy. The FBI and other agencies were no doubt already involved in the search for the missing servicemen and the Templars didn’t want to take a chance of being overhead by some local yokel who could mention their conversation to the authorities.
They had what they needed; talk was superfluous at this point anyway.
Cade hustled down the hillside and reached the bottom just as Riley pulled up in the van. Cade yanked open the door, threw himself into the seat, and then pounded the dash with one hand.
“Go, go!” he yelled, but Riley needed no such urging, having already stomped on the gas and gotten them headed toward the road.
“Which way?” Cade asked, looking into the back where Martinez was manning the tracking console. Cade could see the bright red dot signifying their target clearly on the screen.
“East,” Jimmy told him. “Take Washington to the Interstate and then head east.”
The tracking device they were using had a range of over 150 miles, so they normally wouldn’t have been worried about losing their target this early in the game, but the Adversary’s ability to travel literally as the crow flies, albeit much faster, had them a bit on edge. As he watched the screen Cade could hear Riley on the telephone, already recalling the beta team from their position in Baltimore. They had a Blackhawk at their disposal, but it was going to take them a little while to get in the air and head north. Until the chopper arrived on the scene, it was up to Ortega and the others in the van to keep the Adversary in range.
As it turned out, they needn’t have worried. The Adversary climbed to a height of a couple of hundred feet – high enough to be invisible from the ground in the darkness but not so high as to worry about dealing with flight paths of the various aircraft moving overhead – and then slew northeast at a steady pace. Riley followed Interstate 287 south east out of White Plains and into Scarsdale and then picked up the Merritt Parkway where it ran northeast into Connecticut.
The Adversary could have taken its latest victim anywhere, Cade knew, and several of the available options would have made it impossible for them to follow it. South over Long Island Sound and out into the Atlantic, for instance. Or north, all the way to the border and across into Canada. But lucky for them it did no such thing.
No, the Adversary made it easy, flying straight and true on a north by northeast course that paralleled Rt. 15 into the heart of Connecticut until it reached the town of Meriden where it finally stopped.
Riley pulled over to the side of the road while Martinez tried to get a fix on where the Adversary had gone to ground. The signal was still coming in strong and it only took a few minutes to convert the GPS coordinates into a physical location.
Martinez used a handy laptop and Google Earth to get a real-time view of the location, which turned out to be a valley at the base of South Mountain near Hubbard Park, and they could see from the aerial view that a large, sprawling building shaped like a capital letter I with an extra wing jutting off to the center left stood in that precise spot.
“What is that place?” he asked, staring at it on the laptop screen.
Riley and Williams answered at the same time.
“Undercliff Sanatorium.”
Originally opened in 1910 under the name Meriden Sanatorium, the facility had expanded slowly over the years and served a variety of purposes, from a mental hospital, to a center for children with tuberculosis, to a division of the state mental health program. The last patient had been discharged from the facility in the late 1970s and it had lain fallow ever since.
Undercliff had its fair share of ghosts stories, Cade knew. Children laughing when there was no one in the room. The sound of running footsteps and the shouts of orderlies from behind closed and locked doors. The sensation of being watched when you walked down the empty corridors. Given the agony the average tuberculosis patient had endured back at the beginning of the 20th century, Cade had no doubt that the place truly was haunted.
But it still seemed an odd location for the Adversary to hide in.
“It’s the medical equipment,” Riley said under his breath, startling Cade out of his reverie.
“Huh?”
“The medical equipment. That’s why the Adversary picked this place. Finding room to store a half-dozen coma patients is one thing, but having the equipment to keep them alive in the process means he either needed access to some that was already in place or he had to knock over a medical supply company. The former was probably the easiest. With a couple of pet doctors on hand to monitor the patients, it wouldn’t have been too hard to find the gear he needed inside of an abandoned hospital, right?”
Cade had to admit that it made sense.
It also made things much easier for what he needed to do next.
“How far away are Davis and the rest of the team?”
Riley checked his watch. “It’s three hundred miles from here to Baltimore and they’ve been in the air just over an hour...I’d say we’ve got another forty minutes before they get close enough to make a difference.”
Cade nodded. “Good enough. Gives us time to scope the place out, anyway.”
“Roger that.”
It took them fifteen minutes of driving to reach South Mountain and then another ten to find a forest road leading into the woods that was wide enough to accept the van. Satisfied that they couldn’t be seen from the road – not that there was much traffic on it anyway – the three men got out and began making their way through the trees to get a look at what they were up against.
When they reached the edge of the hospital property they discovered that it was surrounded by eight-foot high chain link fencing with barbed wire strung along the top. The fencing was old, however, clearly put up decades ago to keep the curious public out when the hospital had first shut down, and it didn’t take long to find a section that had fallen into so much disrepair that a gap had formed that was large enough to admit them.
They didn’t pass through it, however, just marked it and continued their inspection of the perimeter. Twice they saw roving pairs of guards, but both times they were given plenty of advance warning thanks to the noise the guards were making between them and Cade and his two companions were able to
slip into the undergrowth and wait for the patrol to pass without being seen.
By the time they had circumvented the entire property, it was clear that something out of the ordinary was going inside. They saw additional guards at both the main gate and at the front entrance to the facility – odd for a supposedly abandoned facility - as well as slivers of light seeping out past the edges of what were clearly covered windows on the third floor of the east wing.
Back at the van they double-checked that the transponder signal hadn’t moved – it hadn’t - confirming what Cade suspected all along; the Adversary intended to use Undercliff as a staging area for the ritual to come. The hospital had the equipment necessary to maintain the patients he had kidnapped as vessels for the other fallen angels in his scream and he’d clearly brought in some of his human acolytes to handle guard duty and other chores leading up to that point.
While Riley checked in with Davis, Cade stood by the side of the van, staring off in the direction of the sanatorium. His hand dropped unconsciously to the hilt of the dagger at his waist, running his fingers over the rough steel, as he thought about the confrontation to come.
Uriel had said that the power of the Tear would activate when it came in contact with the Adversary’s blood. He had, no doubt, believed that Cade would be striking with deadly force in order to draw that blood; the Adversary certainly wasn’t going to just stand around and let that happen. It was a logical assumption to make. Gabrielle’s body would be the recipient of that blow, hence Uriel’s remark that it would be deadly to her as well.
But Cade wasn’t convinced it had to happen that way. In fact, he was all but positive that it didn’t. He was going to use the Tear, just as Uriel instructed, but he would make sure the blow wasn’t the least bit dangerous to Gabrielle.
He would rescue his wife, just as he had intended all along.
They would beat this thing, once and for all.
Hang in there Gabrielle, he thought. Just a little while longer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Davis and the three men with him arrived ten minutes later and the entire seven man team suited up for what was to come. All of them pulled on standard Templar tactical gear that included dark ceramic body armor worn under black jumpsuits of flame retardant material without markings or insignia, lightweight Kevlar tactical helmets with built–in communications gear along with audio and video recording devices, and military style combat boots. For this mission a set of I2 goggles had also been supplied; the image intensifier headgear – what most people called night vision goggles – would allow them to see in all but total darkness. Each man was armed with a Heckler & Koch MP5 SD submachine gun, a HK Mark 23 .45 caliber handgun and the holy sword they’d been given at their investiture into the Templar ranks. Cade eschewed the MP5, as was his habit, taking extra magazines for the Mark 23 instead and slipping them into the loops on his belt next to the angel’s blade.
Last, but certainly not least, he picked up a long case roughly the width of a standard sword case but twice as long. He’d used the mirror in Riley’s quarters to slip into the Reliquary to get it, figuring what it contained would come in handy when they finally faced the Adversary. Now he stared at it, wondering if it was a smart move or not.
“You really gonna use that thing?” Riley asked, from over his shoulder.
Cade glanced in his direction and in that moment made up his mind.
“We don’t really have a choice, do we?” he asked. “The Adversary is ten times stronger than we are and that’s on an off day. We’ll have surprise on our side, sure, but if we’re going to beat this thing we need a little more firepower, too. This will give us that.”
“I’m all for more firepower, but you don’t know how to use that thing any better than I do,” Riley said. “One wrong move and it could blow up in your face.”
“Then you probably better stay behind me,” Cade said with a grin.
Riley was right; he didn’t know how to use the relic. But if Simon Logan could do it, so could he. He pointedly ignored the little voice in the back of his head that kept telling him that the Necromancer had years of experience in dealing with sorcerous artifacts.
Satisfied that he had what he needed, he stepped to the side and watched the men finish gearing up. He liked what he saw; they were focused and ready.
“How much have you told them?” he asked Riley.
“Just that we’re here to rescue the missing soldiers and that we think that the Adversary is behind it all. They’ve been instructed to focus on any human followers who might be present and leave the Adversary to you and me, no matter what.”
Cade nodded; the men were Echo veterans and that would be explanation enough for them. The fact that they were here at all spoke volumes about their faith in him. He intended to live up to that faith.
When the last man finished, Cade gathered them into a group just as they always did before a mission. Just another day on the job, he told himself.
“All right, listen up. Our objective is a ward on the third floor of the east wing. It’s there that the Adversary is preparing a ritual intended to drag six of his former allies back out of hell and stuff them into the bodies of the soldiers that he’s kidnapped. I don’t think any of you need me to tell you what bad news it would be for all of us if he succeeds in doing that.”
A couple of them nodded their heads. Cade had no doubt that they understood what they were up against and the stakes ahead of them if they failed.
“I know you’ve heard some rumors about me lately,” Cade told them. “Normally I wouldn’t dignify them by even mentioning it, but I want you all to be clear about what’s going on.”
He pointed through the woods behind him in the direction of the abandoned hospital.
“Inside that building back there is the motherfucker that murdered my wife. I think you all know that.”
Nods all around this time.
“I intend to make him pay for that; to make him pay for every missed moment, every stolen memory, every potential dream that I could have shared with her had he never crossed our paths.
“We know the Adversary’s in there, but the rest of our intelligence is pretty weak. We can expect him to have anywhere from a handful to a couple-dozen human followers working on his behalf, if past experience holds up, but that’s about all we can tell you. If they aren’t in a coma, they’re fair game. Your job is to secure the service personnel. Riley and I will handle the Adversary.”
Cade glanced around to be sure everyone was on the same page and then went on.
“Davis, Mills, and D’Angelo, you’ve got the front entrance. Distract and stall the guards there as long as you can. I’ll take Riley, Martinez, and O’Connor into the building from the rear and we’ll meet on the third floor, hopefully catching them between us. Questions?”
There weren’t any so Cade turned the group over to Riley, who led them in a quick prayer for safety and a successful outcome as was their custom, and then they split up.
Cade took his trio through the woods to the break in the fence. There they hunkered down and waited for Davis’ team to do their job.
It didn’t take long. Angry shouts soon floated through the night air and Cade watched as the roving duo of guards hustled past their position, headed for the front gate. He smiled as he watched them hustle past; he’d been betting their duty discipline would be poor and he’d been right.
Stop gloating and get on with it.
They slipped through the fence and hurried across the lawn to the rear of the main building. Cade and Martinez stood watch while O’Connor and Riley stepped up to one of the boarded-up doorways, crowbars in hand. The plywood nailed over the door was quickly pried off and the foursome entered the building, pulling on their night vision gear as they went.
Cade moved quickly through the lower floor of the main building, heading for the adjacent wing where they suspected the Adversary had set up shop. Behind him, the men followed in
standard formation, with Riley and Martinez behind Cade and O’Connor bringing up the rear.
As they passed from one section of the building to another, Cade could hear the sound of a generator rumbling somewhere above them. He held up a closed fist in the signal to stop and sank to one knee, the men behind him doing the same. He listened, trying to get a fix on the sound, and then waved Riley forward.
Cade pointed upward. “Second or third floor?”
Riley listened another moment and then said, “Second. Sounds too clear to be third.”
“Agreed.”
At the first stairwell that they came to, Cade headed upward.
# # #
The generator was set up in the middle of a second floor ward, just as they’d suspected. From where Cade crouched in a doorway down the hall, he could see that it was a large, industrial-grade model, the kind normally used outside for parades, concerts, and other large-scale events. Large black electrical conduits snaked away from it across the room, but Cade’s view was limited and he couldn’t see where they led.
Two men armed with AR-15s stood watch over the generator, but it was clear from their body language and positioning that they didn’t expect company. Cade watched them for a couple of minutes and the fact that neither man interacted with anyone else in the room, not even a glance, confirmed his suspicion that they were alone. He drew his pistol and then glanced across the hall to where Riley was crouched in a similar doorway. Riley had his weapon in hand as well. Like Cade’s, it had a sound suppressor screwed onto the end of the barrel.
A glance passed between them.
As one they lined up their shots on the unsuspecting men ahead of them and then fired, Riley a split second after Cade.
Both shots were true; the guards collapsed to the floor, the sound of their fall covered by the noise of the generator behind them. Cade waited a few seconds for a response, but when none was forthcoming he gave the signal for the squad to move up.
As Cade had guessed, the two now-dead guards had been the only people in the room.
Judgment Day (Templar Chronicles Book 5) Page 20
