by Jack Du Brul
He shouldered his assault rifle and pulled a silenced pistol. “Mercer, keep on the M-4. You’re my cover. Let’s go.”
Pouring out of the antechamber, the men rushed into the monastery’s central mezzanine, the sound of their advance deadened by the rich carpets on the floor. Grumpy peeled off to the right to begin searching independently while the rest moved to the stairs, climbing hard because of their exposure. Sykes motioned Bashful and Happy to check the second floor as he raced past the landing and continued upward. They skipped the third floor and Dopey and Sleepy were ordered to investigate the fourth. Mercer and Sykes reached the top landing. Halls ran off in three directions. Sykes arbitrarily went left with Mercer at his heels. The hallway was lined with small empty rooms and twisted crazily. Narrow staircases ran down to the floor below, creating a dark three-dimensional maze.
“This is going to take forever,” Sykes said after five minutes of opening doors on empty rooms. He opened yet another. The room was bare but inexplicably had its own set of steps leading down to the fourth floor. “And with all these staircases, someone can easily outflank us once we make contact.”
“Let’s hope there aren’t that many of them.”
Sykes looked at him hard. “Do you believe that?”
“Not for a second.”
Backing out of the room, Mercer bumped into someone. He whirled, bringing the rifle around in a blur. The stock caught the figure on the side of the jaw and dropped him to the floor. Sykes pushed past, his pistol held an inch from the unconscious man’s head as he patted him down with his free hand. His search turned up nothing.
The man was in his sixties, painfully thin and deeply wrinkled. He wore the robes of a monk. His breathing was even, though blood dribbled from a gash on his cheek.
“Jesus!” Sykes hissed. “You didn’t say anything about noncombatants here.”
“I didn’t know.” Mercer’s heart still hammered from the shock of the unexpected confrontation.
Sykes keyed his throat mike. “Dwarfs, this is Doc. We just ran into an unarmed monk. This place may be crawling with civilians. Be on the lookout.” He gestured to Mercer. “Let’s go.”
He hadn’t taken more than three steps when another monk rounded a corner. Sykes raised his Beretta. The monk, who was younger than the first, froze, his dark eyes widening at the sight of two black-clad soldiers inside the monastery, one of them holding a pistol on him, the other an automatic rifle. He dropped to his knees and cried out in Tibetan.
Sykes put his finger over his lips to silence the frightened man, but the gesture did no good. His cries grew louder and sharper. Sykes glanced back to mutter a disgusted oath at Mercer. The monk dropped his hands toward his waist. Mercer saw the movement. He held his fire for an instant, hoping Sykes would turn to see what was happening. There was no time for a warning.
As soon as he saw the gun coming from under the monk’s robe, Mercer fired a single shot. The rifle’s crack echoed down the hall as the man was blown back, scarlet drops spraying from the bullet hole in his forehead.
Sykes turned to see the gunman fall flat. His pistol lay on the floor next to him. “Contact,” he said coolly into the radio on the off chance his men hadn’t heard the M-4’s sharp bark in the otherwise silent monastery. “Shot fired. If they didn’t know we’re here before, they sure know now.” He unscrewed the long silencer from his pistol and tossed it aside before holstering the weapon and reaching for his M-4. “Nice shot,” he said to Mercer. “Thanks. I screwed up.”
He looked down the long corridor, trying to hear if anyone was coming for them. “This is going to get real ugly, real fast. There are seven of us on unfamiliar ground facing an unknown number of enemies. Situations don’t get much worse.”
“Look on the bright side,” Mercer said softly.
“What bright side?”
“I was hoping you’d think of one.”
Sykes took point again as they continued their search for Tisa. Every minute or so one of the other teams would report their progress. So far Grumpy was the only other person to make contact. He’d left an elderly woman bound and gagged in a temple room.
They’d covered no more than a quarter of the top floor in fifteen minutes. Sykes was becoming agitated. Someone must have heard the shot and yet no one was coming to investigate. It meant either no one else was here or they were laying an ambush.
A long burst of automatic fire from downstairs tore the silence. It was countered by the familiar crackle from a pair of M-4s.
“Sit rep?” Sykes shouted into the radio.
There was no immediate reply, and with his concentration split between his men and his own surroundings, he didn’t hear the whispers from around a corner. Mercer did and dove flat, knocking Sykes to the floor as three men charged around the hallway firing Chinese knockoffs of AK-47s. The jagged fire spitting from the barrels gave the dim corridor a hellish cast.
The barrage flew over their heads as Mercer and Sykes lay prone. Mercer fired off a quick burst that raked one attacker across the torso and punched through the shoulder of another. Sykes added his own shots, dropping the uninjured man with a head shot and finishing off the wounded one with a double tap to the chest. The hall vanished behind a swirling veil of smoke as an oil lamp’s contents dribbled like a flaming waterfall onto the carpet. Sykes stayed low as he moved ahead to check around the corner. “Clear.”
Mercer followed, taking the opportunity to change out his magazine for a fresh one even though he’d only fired a half dozen rounds. Before the next bend in the corridor they came across an open door. The room beyond was simply furnished, a bed, a small table and a bureau. A smoky lamp gave the spartan room a funereal cast. A window shutter rattled in its frame. Below the stench of cordite and the growing smell of burning wood from the hallway, Mercer detected a familiar scent. Not a perfume, but something more subtle. He moved to the bed. The blankets were still warm. He drew them to his nose and inhaled. The familiar scent drove a current through his heart.
“Tisa was just here,” he said. “Those men must have been a rear guard to delay us.” He realized bitterly that had he not fired that first unsilenced shot, they might have taken her guards unaware.
“Dwarfs, this is Doc. We just missed the target. We’re still on the fifth floor, west side. Grumpy, cover the main staircase on one — everyone else move west and keep sharp.”
The fire from the spilled lamp was growing as the ancient carpets on the floors began to burn. Flame licked at the walls, burning through the dried timber as if they’d been doused with gasoline. The pitch that had been used to caulk the joints in the wooden ceiling ignited like fuses when the flame touched it. In a few minutes the fire would eat its way into the roof, and once it opened a hole to feed its growing appetite for oxygen, it would burst into a raging inferno. The air was already becoming unbreathable.
Sykes and Mercer slipped on the gas masks they carried. Mercer had to use the flashlight attached to his rifle to cut through the thickening smoke.
More gunfire erupted downstairs.
“Doc, this is Sleep. We just tagged three of them on the fourth, but I think the target has already slipped down to three.”
“Roger that. Bashful, you copy?”
“Affirmative. Hap and I are on our way.”
“Keep them from reaching the ground floor,” Mercer said. “If they escape underground there could be a thousand ways out of the tunnels and we’ll lose them.”
Behind them the fire finished off the ceiling and began attacking the roof supports. The tiles above were extremely heavy and it didn’t take much for the section of roof to start sagging. More wood splintered and a twenty-foot chunk of timber and ceramic tiles crashed to the floor, sending up a shower of sparks and dancing flames. The sudden rush of frigid air tore down the hallways like a hurricane, pushing a wall of fire ahead of it.
Mercer sensed the danger as soon as he heard the roof collapse. He pushed Sykes hard and began to run. The hallway grew painfu
lly bright as the flames raced after them. The heat became unbearable.
Each twist and turn in the corridor slowed the men but not the fire. The walls and carpet were hundreds of years old, tinder dry, and seemed to explode at the slightest brush of flame. They’d be engulfed in seconds.
The stairwell was hidden in a small alcove and Mercer almost missed it as he ran. The sound of the raging fire made it impossible to speak so he tapped Sykes and stopped. He pointed back to the alcove. Sykes didn’t understand, and rather than try to gesture an explanation, Mercer dodged into the fire, ducking low and keeping his weapon ready. He felt along the wall and located the alcove. Sykes bumped into his back. Mercer found the stairs and was about to drop flat to see under the curtain of smoke when the floor lurched. Farther down the corridor a section let go, dropping down to the fourth floor and spreading the fire. Like tipping dominos, more of the floor collapsed, cascading into a growing chasm of flaming debris.
Without knowing what was below the violent swirl of smoke, Mercer threw himself down the stairs, twisting so he used his heavy pack to cushion the blow. The wood steps disintegrated when he impacted and a burst of machine-gun fire raked the spot he’d hit. He fell through the staircase, landing hard but managing to turn onto his belly. A pair of men wearing Western clothes stood a dozen paces away, momentarily confused by what had happened.
Sykes sent a barrage from above, missing completely but drawing their attention. Mercer cleared his weapon of splintered wood and fired. The first gunman dropped, the second remaining on his feet as Mercer pumped more rounds into him. He finally fell.
“Clear,” he shouted and slowly got to his feet.
Sykes had to jump from what little remained of the fifth-floor landing. He hit the ground and rolled. The air here was clearer and both men stripped off the restrictive gas masks.
“Which way?” Sykes asked.
“Looks like they were protecting the hall to the right.”
“Let’s go.”
“Dopey, it’s Doc. We’re on four now. Watch yourself. The fifth is burning and looks like the fire’s spreading.”
“Roger, Doc. It’s already eaten through a few spots.”
“Grumpy, what’s happening on one?”
“Quiet, sir. A couple of old monks came down the main stairs five minutes ago. They didn’t see me and I let them leave the monastery through a side door.”
“Stay there. We’re working our way down. Bash, you seen anything on the second floor?”
“Negative, Doc, but that don’t mean much. There must be fifty staircases here. The target group could have gone through when Hap and I were checking another area.”
“I know,” Doc acknowledged. “Do your best.”
He and Mercer exchanged a worried look and took off at a dead sprint, smoke pouring off their uniforms like vaporous cloaks. Above them the fire raged unchecked.
This floor was much more ornate than the one above. The carpets were thicker, the gilt more plentiful, the rooms better furnished. In one Mercer spied a collection of delicate vases near an open window. They were so thin that he could see the weak orange glow from the upstairs fire through them. He could only guess at their value. Another room was papered in incredible examples of calligraphy and ink and brush paintings.
Tisa’s Order sat on a priceless horde of Chinese art, perhaps the greatest outside government control. The entire structure was a living museum and in an hour or two the centuries-old building, filled with untold treasures, would be nothing but a smoking ruin.
“Doc?” It was Grumpy, whispering so softly that Mercer had to press the speaker deeper into his ear.
“Go, Grump.”
“I’ve got the target. They’re about fifty yards away, crossing the main foyer.”
“How many with her?”
“Twelve to fifteen. Tell Snow his Elvis look-alike has her in a hammerlock.”
Mercer picked up his pace, shedding his heavy pack as he ran. He had enough ammo in the pouches attached to his harness to see this through. Sykes struggled to keep up. He ran blindly down the first staircase he came across. At the landing, a group of monks clustered fearfully near a full-sized statue of Buddha. The reclining figure was covered in gold, and the Enlightened One’s half-closed eyes were fathomless blue cabochon sapphires. It appeared the monks were trying to find a way to save the statue. Mercer was sure they’d debate the rescue until the fire killed them where they stood. He fired a burst from his M-4 into the ceiling above the men and they scattered like pigeons.
Unbelievably, the third floor was more opulent than the fourth. What Mercer didn’t know was that the monastery was laid out so novitiates lived in splendor when they joined the Order, and only as they learned the mysteries and mastered their own desires would they move up the building, shedding luxuries and amenities as they progressed. Only after decades of service would they be allowed to occupy the stark topmost floor. It was the reverse of how the rest of the world worked, where those gaining success could accumulate and enjoy tangible fruits of their labor.
A door just off the landing opened and someone tossed an object into the hallway. Mercer threw himself back, dropping and rolling behind the golden statue an instant before the grenade detonated. The concussion was a hammer slap to his ears. Part of the statue’s gold veneer melted, and drops were blown across the foyer to splattered against the wall like gilded Rorschach blotches. The statue itself, made from the aromatic wood of myrrh trees, had been shredded by the blast. One of Buddha’s jewel eyes was missing; the other had been turned to powder.
The door opened again and a figure ducked his head out before retreating an instant later. Mercer searched for his rifle and saw it lying three yards beyond his reach. A young monk stepped through the door to check his work, a pistol in one hand, a second grenade in the other. He searched the area with his eyes, seemingly unconcerned with the destruction of the priceless statue. He spotted Mercer cowering behind the figure’s pedestal. His gun came up and he fired a snap shot that blew off the remainder of Buddha’s head.
Before he could take better aim, Sykes dropped the monk with a shot from up the stairs. He joined Mercer on the third floor. “Are you okay?”
Mercer barely heard Sykes’s voice over the ringing in his ears. He nodded anyway. With Tisa only two floors below, nothing else mattered. He gathered up his fallen rifle as two more robed men fired at them from down the hall. They were well protected behind a massive cabinet covered in ornate scrollwork. Mercer unclipped one of the concussion grenades he’d been issued. He pulled the pin and held it for a moment before lobbing it down the hall. He and Sykes covered their ears and screwed their eyes closed. In the confined space, the flash/bang had nearly the same effect as a fragmentation grenade.
One of the men staggered from around the tall bureau and collapsed. Mercer charged forward, firing three-round bursts to keep the other pinned. He stopped just short of the cabinet, held his gun around the corner and fired blind. When he looked, the second monk lay in a pool of blood, his woolen robe holed a dozen times.
“Clear,” he shouted back at Sykes and continued on, looking for a stairwell to get him to the ground floor.
Two stories above them, the fire had weakened a secondary support column for the building’s pagoda roof. The massive timber failed under the load of the baked tiles. The result was as if that part of the monastery had been dynamited. Tons of wood and barrel tiles fell inward in an implosion that pulled more material into the crater. The sloping roof lost the counterweight of its own construction and the entire eastern side of the temple sagged. A flood of loosened barrel tiles went crashing into the courtyard in an avalanche that quickly formed twenty-foot mounds of rubble.
The other three sides of the roof swayed, shedding tiles like a fish being scaled as wind tore through the burning structure. Lances of flame climbed seventy feet into the air, fueled by the ancient wood and bellowslike gusts funneling down the valley. As the building shifted, windows exploded from the
ir frames in staccato pulses, first north, then south, until the glass from two thousand panes littered the ground.
Inside, Mercer was thrown against a wall as the floors above began to pancake. One wing of the monastery collapsed entirely, dragging more sections with it. Dust billowed from the heap of wreckage in waves of ash and debris that engulfed the length of the valley. It was so heavy that even the ferocious Alpine winds couldn’t clear it. Mercer ran blindly, feeling the building tearing itself apart.
“Sit rep,” he heard Sykes shouting over the radio.
“Doc, it’s Grumpy. The target’s past me. I couldn’t risk a shot. They went through a door about fifty feet off the main foyer. It’s not an exterior door so I think they went underground.”
“Shit,” Mercer cursed as the others reported their position and progress. Tracking her in the enormous monastery was hard enough. Trying to find her in the warren of tunnels he was sure was under the building would be next to impossible.
As more of the building came down, he expected the defenders to give up the fight and try to save themselves, but as he came to a staircase, someone down on the second floor fired up at him.
Mercer pulled the pins from a pair of flash/bangs and let them roll down the steps. The explosion blew apart the bottom of the stairs and the whole structure nearly collapsed. He loosed a short burst from the M-4, tentatively stepped on the top stair and leapt back as the staircase caved in.
He and Sykes abandoned the ruined stairs in search of another.
“This is Bash, me and Happy are on the first floor. Grump, give me your position.”
Mercer tuned out the radio chatter. The third floor was burning freely now. The air was full of smoke and sparks that singed his skin and burned away tufts of hair. After what seemed like an endless search, the confining hallways opened up to a long balcony overlooking a mezzanine. This wasn’t the main foyer where the team was assembling, but a secondary space that was still larger than the lobby of most hotels. A set of stairs spiraled down along three walls, descending past the second floor and ending at the first. Standing at the railing, Mercer and Sykes swept the area through their rifle sights. It appeared deserted. They were about to descend when the wall behind them disintegrated and a torrent of flame exploded across the landing. They were both lifted from their feet and launched down the stairs.
