by Layton Green
They circumvented the wall and Stefan walked past a jumble of rocks and towards a shrub that looked like a million other shrubs on the hill. As they approached, Stefan pulled out a sleek transmitter, pointed it and pressed a button. Then he paled.
“What?” Grey said.
“There was no click. The locking mechanism’s been disengaged.”
They drew even closer, and saw that the shrub had already been moved to the side of the trap door. Stefan stood over the door, unmoving. Grey reached down and pulled on the handle, and the trap door eased open.
Light spilled upward from below. An iron ladder led down into the opening. Stefan started to descend, but Grey held him back. “I go first. We don’t know what’s going on down there.”
Grey had them follow behind at a safe distance. He didn’t want them in the line of fire down below, nor did he want them exposed on the hill like target practice.
After descending the ten-foot ladder Grey found himself at the base of a long, stone-walled tunnel. Fluorescent ceiling lights provided illumination. He scanned the tunnel, gun up. Twenty feet down a body lay in a pool of blood.
He motioned for Stefan and Veronica to stay by the ladder, and moved down the tunnel. He reached the body and bent over it. It was a burly man in boots and rugged clothing. At least three bullet holes had punctured his torso.
Stefan approached. “This man works for me,” he said, his voice catching. “I can’t believe—who would do this?”
“Were there any more guards?”
“Not tonight.”
“How many scientists were working?”
“Three.”
Grey looked down the tunnel. At the far end was a closed metal door. He glanced at Stefan, and then back at the door. The silence screamed at him. Why had that door been closed?
“Is it possible they locked themselves in there?” Grey asked.
“The guard had an access card.”
They started towards the door. Grey knew something was wrong on the other side. The place had the feel of death about it, a somberness littering the very air, as if the finality of the deeds committed that night had left their spiritual imprint in the tunnel.
Grey moved Veronica and Stefan to the side. Stefan slid a small card into a slot in the door, and Grey heard a click. He reached for the door with one hand and kept his gun ready in the other. He eased the door open and stayed behind it, shielding them with the heavy door.
It was a nightmare.
Three bodies littered the concrete floor like dirty laundry. Grey heard Veronica gasp and heave, and this time she didn’t stop. Stefan entered the room and sank to his knees, head in his hands.
Grey approached the bodies. The wounds were strange. Impact wounds, as opposed to edged or puncture wounds. Some type of heavy, solid weapon had been used. Something that had crushed the skulls and smashed the bones of these men. Blood flowed from the head wounds, which were devastating, and from the places on the body where the skin had broken from the impact.
Grey swept the room. It was huge and white-walled and full of broken glass. Four tables with the remains of shattered test tube holders, microscopes, and lamps took up the middle of the room. Three more tables held a collection of stainless steel lab equipment. File cabinets covered one wall, a bank of smashed computers lined another. The file cabinets had been moved aside, opened and emptied.
Stefan rushed to one of the file cabinets in the middle. Grey followed. There was a safe set into the wall behind the file cabinet, filled with shelves of broken test tubes in a temperature controlled freezer. The safe had been flung open.
Stefan stood in front of the empty safe and wobbled. His face was white.
“They took Al-Miri’s test tube?” Grey said.
“Who?”
“The test tube with the same design as the tattoo.”
“How do you know about this?”
“Later. We’re leaving. Do you need to grab anything else?”
Stefan looked around the room, his face shattered. “They destroyed the research. Everything. Do you understand—” he collapsed against one of the file cabinets.
Grey took him by the arm. “I’m sorry about your men and your lab. We need to get somewhere safe. They might come back.”
“For what? It’s gone. Everything’s gone.”
“For us.”
Grey led Stefan towards the door. When he turned and met Veronica’s eyes they were brimming with revulsion. She went to him and buried her face in his chest.
“We have to go,” Grey said.
She disengaged, wiped her eyes and her vomit-crusted mouth, and nodded.
He led them out of that gleaming tomb and back to the fresh surface air. They gulped it in.
• • •
“What now?” Veronica said. “Do you think the police are at the house yet?”
“Right now we’re going to get Stefan’s car and drive the hell away from here. Whoever killed those scientists might still be out here.”
“Why don’t you think it was the same men?”
“Some kind of bludgeon was used to kill them, and the men at the house didn’t have any weapons like that.”
“Why not shoot them?” Stefan said. “The guard was shot.”
“The guard was probably shot because he drew on them in the hallway. Why they didn’t just shoot the scientists… I have no idea. A statement, maybe.”
“A statement of what?”
“I don’t know, Stefan. Do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Lead us back to the house. Slower and quieter this time. Veronica, don’t use your gun unless you absolutely have to. It’ll draw everyone within miles.”
They began the careful walk through the darkness. Rocks and loose rubble from the ruins littered the hill, each one a potential beacon to anyone within hearing distance. Grey guessed it was their first time, and he knew how they were feeling: the rush that comes after confrontation with extreme violence, the debilitating fear that the same could be done to them. The wariness even to draw a breath, the frenzied dance of the mind. It didn’t get better; it just became more familiar, easier to compartmentalize.
But for Grey, another emotion surfaced. Rage at seeing innocent lives snuffed out. Violence, intimidation, murder: tools designed to cause fear. To allow one human being to dominate another.
Grey felt that he had very little purpose in this life, had nothing from his past or the present of any real value or consequence. He had no family, no home, no understanding of what he was meant to accomplish. He glanced at the two people beside him, the two human beings under his watch.
There was one thing he could do. One thing at which he was very, very good.
Halfway down the hill they ran into the first guard. They rounded a bend, stepped around one of the ruined walls, and he stood ten feet away, zipping up his pants. One of the men from the mexana, now dressed in the same camouflage as the men in Stefan’s house.
Grey saw the man’s gun resting on a wall three feet away. He sprinted straight at the man.
The man went for his weapon without a word. By the time the man reached the gun and swung it around, Grey was on him.
The man raised the weapon in his right hand and stepped forward, a few feet away from the wall. Grey grabbed his wrist with his left hand, stopping the upward movement of the weapon. Grey’s right hand opened and cupped the man’s chin, his fingers covering the mouth and nose for distraction.
Grey had come in low and centered. He held the hand with the gun at bay with one hand, and rose with his bodyweight. He jammed the man’s chin straight up with the other hand, pushing up and then back to confuse the neck muscles. Grey stepped through and behind the man. As the man’s head snapped back, Grey swept out the back of both of the man’s legs.
The man flew off his feet, and Grey guided the back of his head straight into the knee-high stone wall behind him. A throw such as the one Grey had just completed, a very violent chin Osoto-Gari, can pr
opel a man at more than 120 miles per hour.
Grey heard a sickening crunch. There was no need to check for a pulse.
Grey took a moment to regulate his breathing. They were very lucky the man hadn’t fired. He searched him and found no identification. Nothing except for a certain green-tinged tattoo.
He turned to the others, who were staring at him. “Change of plans,” Grey said. “They’re going to be watching the house, and probably the bridge. Is there somewhere else we can go? What about that village you can see from the ruins?”
Stefan clucked. “I know a better place. A monastery hidden in the forest. There is a path that will take us there, at the bottom of the hill. The monastery is far, but no one will find us.”
“What’s the best way to get there?”
“It is best to return to the lab, and continue to the bottom from there.”
“That’ll probably be the least guarded area, maybe one more guard on the other side. I think these guys have some military training. I’m guessing there’s a perimeter guard on the hill, maybe four or five men spaced out. The perimeter wasn’t up when we climbed; they must have found the bodies at the house. Same rules. When we get to the lab, point me in the direction we need to go. I’ll clear the way.”
Stefan led them back to the lab without incident. He pointed to the east, and said the forest path started at the bottom of the hill, about half a mile away. Grey nodded, led them a short ways down the hill to put some distance between them and the lab, and hid them in one of the ruined enclosures.
“I’ll make sure the way to the bottom is clear, and come right back for you. Just stay here and stay quiet. There’s no way they’ll find you unless they comb the hill, and I’ll be back long before then. Veronica, you know what to do if you have to.”
She looked up at him, eyes frightened but firm, and inclined her head.
Grey noted a withered tree they’d just passed, and left them huddling in the darkness. He could do what he needed much quicker and safer by himself. He had a sizeable area to work with; this part of the hill was a virtual labyrinth of ruins. The terrain worked both ways—Grey could hide at will, but he felt exposed every time he stepped around a wall. The perfect setting for a deadly game of hide and seek.
Grey was halfway down the hill when he saw the first guard. Grey crouched behind a wall and peered around the side. The guard was sitting on a wall, facing downhill. Every now and then he would turn and scan in Grey’s direction.
The guard was thirty feet away. A cluster of stunted bushes lay halfway between him and Grey. After the guard made one of his scanning movements in Grey’s direction, Grey crouched and crept to the bushes. He reached the bushes and flattened.
Grey’s heart thumped with adrenaline, his palms slick with sweat. If the guard happened to turn as Grey approached, or if he heard Grey, then Grey would have to shoot, and the alarm would be sounded.
Grey could see the outline of the guard’s head through the bushes, but knew it would be almost impossible for the man to see him through the dense brush. Thank God he’d worn black tonight.
The guard’s head swiveled to sweep the hill behind him, then returned to the front. Grey rose. He had seconds. He moved forward on the balls of his feet, praying he didn’t crunch anything.
The guard heard him, or sensed his presence, just as Grey reached him. Grey struck the guard on the back of the hand, just above the wrist. The man’s hand opened reflexively, and he dropped the gun.
The man was smart, and didn’t go for the gun. He outweighed Grey by fifty pounds, and he grabbed Grey around the waist and picked Grey up, probably planning to slam him to the ground, the natural reaction of a larger man. Grey had let the guard pick him up, because the man had made a fatal mistake: he’d exposed his face to a Jujitsu expert’s hands.
As the guard lifted, Grey grabbed the back of his hair with one hand and pulled his head back, exposing the throat. He struck with the web of his other hand, between thumb and forefinger, as hard as he could.
The guard gagged and clutched his throat, unable to cry out. Grey suspected his trachea had collapsed; that had been a direct, severe blow. He’d suffocate to death unless a precise hole was cut immediately below the trachea.
Grey didn’t take any chances. He slipped behind him and wrapped his arms around his neck like a python, cutting off the oxygen on both sides. A blood choke, far faster and more effective than a strangle. Grey leaned him backwards to off-balance him while he applied the choke. The guard struggled and tried to claw at Grey’s face, but Grey had his face buried in the man’s own back, and he could only slap ineffectively at the back of Grey’s head.
Six seconds and it was over. The trachea shot had already robbed the man of precious oxygen. The guard slumped in Grey’s grasp, with a heaviness that can’t be faked.
Grey dropped the body at the same time another man stepped into view. Grey swore and whipped the gun out of the back of his jeans. The man was already swinging his gun up, and Grey had to shoot him. The gunshot shattered the stillness.
Grey sprinted back up the hill, scrambling over rocks and rubble. Anyone near the hill was now on alert, although they wouldn’t know where the open-air gunshot had come from.
They had minutes, at best.
He overshot the place where he’d hidden Stefan and Veronica, but he spotted the tree and retraced his steps. Relief flooded their faces when they saw him.
“We heard a shot,” Veronica whispered. “I thought you were dead.”
He herded them down the hill. Voices floated in the air, faint but closing in. They rushed past the body of the guard he’d just killed. With every passing second Grey felt more exposed, and the voices grew in volume.
Veronica stumbled, and he yanked her to her feet. Worry about encountering an armed contingent of green and black camouflaged men had coalesced into a giant throbbing knot in his stomach, expanding with each step.
They reached the base of the hill, and Stefan led them another hundred yards along the bottom to a foot-wide dirt path that, in the darkness, was invisible from five feet away.
They entered the forest.
– 29 –
Viktor set a brisk pace down the finger-sized cobblestone street. A late spring chill gripped Prague, and he was thankful he had worn his gloves and hat.
He enjoyed a good nighttime stroll. He also enjoyed these rare moments of solitude in Stare Mesto, Prague’s old city. The madness of summer had not yet begun, and this street was tucked into a quiet cul-de-sac, off the tourist grid.
The Egyptologist in Cairo was unreachable over the weekend. Viktor had a few personal matters to take care of in the meantime, including this meeting, which was both personal and professional.
He stopped in front of a wooden doorway, splintered with age and studded with brass nails. A gaslight lantern flickered above a sign. The name of the establishment had been painted on the sign in a red scrawl, below a carving of wheat growing out of a skull.
The Drunken Mage.
Viktor pulled on the iron-ring handle. The tavern, which had opened its doors more than three hundred years ago, had been the informal meeting place of The Guild since its founding.
He passed a common room filled with shadows and long low tables. He entered the bar area in the rear, a rectangular space dominated by a mammoth fireplace opposite the bar.
An elderly man seated at a corner of the bar raised his glass as Viktor entered. Viktor removed his coat, and they exchanged a warm clasp. The old man’s hands shook, and he had the keen but wandering gaze of a lifetime spent in academia.
The man spoke with formal British flair. “I see you’re the same old chappie. Such a mysterious air you have. The dark coat, the clouded brow. Have a pint and shrug it off.”
“I believe I shall. I hear you’ve retired.”
“Bah. I tried. I’m teaching one class this semester, Chemistry 515. You’d have known that if you ever graced us with your presence at the University.”
Viktor smiled, then looked for the bartender. He glimpsed the array of absinthe bottles lined up on the bar, and his skin tingled. He swallowed and asked for a pint of Krusovice instead. He had work to do.
“And to what do I owe this rare honor? An honest to God, one-on-one visit with the infamous Professor Viktor Radek?”
“Do prdele,” Viktor murmured. “You know more than I’ve forgotten.”
“Which sphere of useless arcane knowledge do you wish to discuss tonight? Or is this purely a social visit? An ode to a forebear, a favor to a lonely old man?”
“Both, old friend, both. Let’s dispense with present business before we turn to the past.”
“What shall it be, then?”
“How involved are you with the Lazarus Foundation?”
The old man scowled. “I know of their work. Can’t say that I’m a fan.”
“Why not?”
“Alchemy is about tradition, honor, history. Not a desperate grab for fame and glory.”
Viktor decided to keep his own opinion to himself. Some alchemists had contributed to the advancement of science, but far more would have given up their first-born for a glimpse of the philosopher’s stone.
“Do you know some of the things Lazarus is exploring?” the old man said. “Disembodied heads in glass jars? Induced biostasis? Artificial intelligence? They’re looking for answers in a computer program, in shortcuts. That’s not what alchemy is about.”
“Is there a difference between a computer program and a test tube? Is not the purpose of alchemy to explore new ideas, even if they derive from modern technology? Why does it matter where the answers are found?”
“Because real alchemists understand that the test tube is just a vehicle. Alchemy is about the process of transformation, my boy. Not of lead to gold, but of the spirit. Understanding the universe. Applying the secrets of the ancients to the follies of the present. The elixir, the philosopher’s stone: they’re not just recipes. They are life itself.”
Viktor started to swirl the liquid in his glass, then remembered it was beer. “Are you familiar with a company called Somax?”
