by Bryan Devore
“Damn it!” David hissed.
“Hold on, John,” Rebecca said, reaching him. “We’ll take care of you.”
“Take care of the president,” John whispered. He felt himself growing weaker by the second.
“We can get you out, too,” Rebecca said.
“Her arm,” John whispered.
Rebecca paused, then turned quickly to the president. The president had seemed numb to the pain, but John could tell that Rebecca was now seeing what he had seen. It was bleeding far too badly for a flesh wound.
Rebecca jolted upright and looked frantically around the room, then picked up the machine gun that John had broken while slamming it against the wall. Her fingers moved quickly, pinching and pulling at the shoulder sling. After unbuckling it, she scrambled back to the president and began cinching the strap high on the president’s arm, close to the shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” David asked.
“She’s hit in the brachial artery,” Rebecca said. “She could bleed out right here.”
John hissed—the closest sound to a cry or moan that he could give in his worsening condition.
“We have to move,” David said, hobbling toward them. “I can hear them coming.”
Terrified, Rebecca looked at John. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“Well, I do,” John whispered. “Go.”
Her eyes were wet. “It can’t end like this.”
“This is exactly how it ends,” he gasped. “Take the president and go. She has to live. She has to . . .” Pouring out all he had in one final command, he said, “Protect the president!”
The president had grown pale, and John knew that her blood loss was severe. David, with a broken leg, would be doing good just to support himself. Rebecca moved in to help lift the president, who didn’t stand up to help her but listed sideways instead. Rebecca had to catch her and prop her up again before lifting her to her feet. John gave one last look at the president as she was moved away from him, and he saw her weak face and watering eyes looking back at him. He could tell that she had little strength left and, like him, was weakening by the minute. But he also knew that the bullets now in his body would have hit her had he not shielded her. And she knew it, too. He would never know how this insane night was to end. It was not his destiny to see any parade in his honor, any medal presented to him, or any smiles from grateful fellow citizens. He would die here, in darkness under foreign soil, as the screams of the enemy ripped through the silence.
And as he watched the president being half carried through the hole in the wall by Rebecca, he knew that she couldn’t be in better hands. Just when he thought he had taken the last glimpse at his countrymen, David turned away from the wall and tucked the submachine gun behind him. He put a hand gently on John’s shoulder.
“Sir, it has been the honor of my lifetime,” he said, his voice catching.
“My . . . honor,” John whispered, too weak to say more. There was so much he wanted to tell David, but the moment was rushed and he hadn’t the strength. Yet it was enough. The young man turned and hobbled painfully through the wall to help Rebecca, and John knew that as long as the two of them were together, they would somehow find a way to protect the president.
And now, with what strength remained in him, he turned to face the enemy that would soon come crashing into the chamber. His P229 still lay at his lookout post across the chamber. Too weak to retrieve it, he got up onto his knees, eyes sharp from the pain. The only thing he wanted more than to stare his enemy in the face would be to have his pistol—better yet, a working submachine gun—as they came rushing forward to end what little life he had left.
67
REBECCA WAS CARRYING HALF THE president’s weight as David hopped behind her, gasping in pain at every step. She couldn’t believe they had lost John, but she had no time to dwell on it. She was the special agent in charge now, and the only one functioning at a hundred percent. She could tell that David wouldn’t make it far. He struggled to hop with his injured leg dangling as he leaned against the rock wall for balance. And the president was getting heavier by the moment, as if growing too weak to support her own weight.
Rebecca had struggled for another fifty feet down the long, dark passage when the president went limp and she found herself suddenly carrying all her weight. The change was too much, pulling Rebecca left, and she toppled to the rock floor with the president. Tucking her knees under her, she sat up and tried to lift the load off the ground. As she pulled up, she could see that the president’s neck was limp, so that the slight lift made her head hang in an awkward position. Gently, Rebecca sat sideways and pulled the president’s shoulder onto her lap. Pulling the lolling head to her chest, she realized that her charge was now unconscious. She checked the carotid pulse, and it was still strong. Then she carefully lifted the arm and examined the tourniquet to make sure it was still tight. No arterial bleeding. Shifting out from under the president, Rebecca lifted the dead weight up across her shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
“How is she?” David said, finally catching up to them.
“She’s lost consciousness, but her pulse feels okay. Not as strong as normal, but strong enough.”
“Can you carry her?”
“Yes,” she replied. Her strong swimmer’s legs took a few steps, and she adjusted her hold.
David hopped and hobbled behind them, barely able to keep himself upright. The submachine gun strung over his shoulder made a thudding sound against his back with each jarring movement. He also had his pistol holstered on his hip, with a few extra magazines on hand. And she still had her P229, with three remaining magazines she had taken from the dead agents in the hotel basement. She hated leaving the spare P229, but it lay buried under the rubble of the fallen tunnel wall.
But none of that mattered. They had broken through the wall into the extended tunnel, but at great cost. And how could they hope to escape their pursuers when they couldn’t move faster than fifty feet a minute?
Still, she had no choice. The president was now unconscious and completely helpless. They had lost John. David was still strong but not very mobile. Through good fortune, she was still unhurt and as strong as ever, but what good was that in this desperate situation? She could drag the president for as long as she needed to, but the enemy would catch them. David could fight them as long as possible, but they both would eventually run out of bullets.
They were lost in the dark, trapped in a stone labyrinth far below the city, their strength fading fast. And the president was in danger of dying from blood loss.
They had lost more than they could bear. In this moment, she found it almost impossible to have any real hope. But she dug deep and pushed ahead, moving as fast as she could with her precious burden, determined never to give up.
68
JOHN BRACED HIMSELF AS A half-dozen men rushed screaming into the chamber. The moment they saw him, they raised their guns to shoot. He closed his eyes to die. But a single shout froze them all where they stood.
Opening his eyes, he saw a man move through the group, parting them as he advanced—obviously, their leader.
“Special Agent in Charge John Alexander?” the man said, looking astonished. “I am Maximilian Wolff, and I was hoping we would meet tonight. You look like a dead man. Where, oh, where did your president go?” Glancing at the gaping hole in the wall behind John, the man said, “Into the rabbit’s hole? Deeper into this accursed maze from which there is no escape.”
John said nothing but stared at the man, hating him.
The man turned to his men and pointed at the hole in the wall. “Go after her,” he said. “Take her alive if you can. Kazim will kill all of you if he isn’t the one to end this. It is his right more than yours. This man here was her strongest protector. Without him, her protection is weak. I’ll stay here until Kazim arrives. Now, go.”
The men loped past and through the hole like a pack of wild hunting dogs coursing af
ter their prey. And there was nothing John could do to stop them as they rushed past him, one by one, until only their leader was left with him in the small rock chamber.
“I’ve been planning an attack like this on your country for longer than you could imagine,” Maximilian Wolff said to him. “Like General Hannibal Barca, my entire life has bred me for war with the empire that seeks to dominate the world. The Roman Republic was endlessly hungry for growth in territory and people—both new citizens and slaves. They cared nothing for what their campaigns did to those cultures they conquered. And your United States does the same thing today. But instead of territory, your country hungers only for economic dominance—which you help guard, in part, with a massive military presence.”
Wolff pulled a large tactical knife from the sheath on his belt. He turned it in the light, as if admiring its workmanship. Then he jabbed it at the hole that David and Rebecca had retreated through with the president.
“Only in the last year did I identify my target. Only then was I able to start devising my tactical plans for tonight, gathering and preparing the rest of my men. I learned that your president would likely attend the economic conference, if that’s what you wish to call it. To me, it was more of a war tribunal.” He waved the knife in a wide circle, nearly striking its sharp tip on the rock ceiling. “We had the tunnel systems under Paris mapped so that we could adjust our plans—there were only so many places the president would stay.”
He then pointed the blade at John’s nose.
“And in our preparations, I studied many on the Secret Service’s presidential protection detail. You see, I began my career in the protection division for the Israeli prime minister—before he was killed by a fanatic in our own country. And in my studies of the PPD, I was particularly interested in you, an ex-Marine agent in charge who had lost his wife to cancer. What kind of man were you? I wondered. What kind of man gives so much to his country, then loses everything important to him, yet continues to serve. What kind of man, indeed?”
John Alexander sat slumped against the rock wall in the tunnels begun by ancient Rome. His broad shoulders slowly rose and fell with each difficult breath.
“You . . . will . . . fail,” he said, finding the strength to look up into the man’s gleaming, crazed eyes.
“But I have already succeeded,” the man said. “America is dying, Mr. Alexander. It has been dying for decades now. Your country is morally repugnant. Your educational system is broken. Your workers cannot compete with those of other countries. Your advantages in manufacturing and innovation have vanished. China will soon surpass your country as an economic power. Your wars are ill advised, unpopular, and immoral. Your politics are destructively divisive. Your class separation is twisting your society into a frustrated, angry people.”
John said nothing.
“America is a disease of the world! And it will be cured! Ancient Rome, too, thought it was a light to the world. It deluded itself for eight hundred years. It, too, had a time of glory at its pinnacle. And it, too, died.”
“America . . . is not . . . Rome.” John’s eyes locked on Wolff’s.
“If America is so strong, then why has this night happened? Like Hannibal, I will be remembered in history as a great man for daring to take on the colossus. Your president will die tonight.” He stepped closer, grinning. “You pretend that America is strong, but you are so weak, you can’t even stop me from killing you!”
Wolff plunged the blade into John’s abdomen.
In reaction, John grabbed the man’s wrist to prevent him from pulling the knife out and stabbing him repeatedly.
“Why can’t you even save your own life?” Wolff taunted. “You will die here, alone in this dark place.”
“America . . . will always triumph . . . over evil,” John said, his voice raspy from the struggle to keep death at bay just a little longer.
“And you think I am evil?” Wolff asked.
“Oh, yes . . . evil,” John groaned through the pain, his eyes holding his tormentor’s gaze.
“Then evil wins,” Wolff said, amused.
John squeezed hard and dug his thumb into the man’s wrist, causing him to release the hold on the knife still stuck in John’s belly. And in that same instant, John grabbed the knife with his other hand, pulled it from his body, and made a quick jab out and up, slicing into the inside of his enemy’s wrist to make a long, deep diagonal cut.
Blood spurted from Wolff’s wrist.
John dropped the knife and released the man, who stumbled backward in astonishment. Frantically Wolff squeezed the sliced wrist with his other hand, but it continued to spurt. He seemed to realize that he didn’t have long to live.
John, still kneeling, still dying, whispered with his last bit of strength, “Not . . . Rome. We are . . . United States . . . of America!”
And he spent his last seconds praying for the president’s safety.
69
KAZIM RACED THROUGH THE EMPIRE of the Dead while his men did their best to keep up. As he sprinted down the tunnel, his light caught the faint white glow of thousands of skulls staring out at him from the walls. Their wide eyes seemed startled by this intrusion into their silent domain.
He sprinted ahead, out of the black-framed entrance to the Empire of the Dead and down the high-ceilinged corridor below the ancient aqueducts. On he ran, past the overlook to the Quarrymen’s Foot Bath and the Décure sculptures, up a sloping passage, cutting tight turns left and right and eventually arriving back at the stacked rubble and the hole leading into the demolition tunnel. He clambered through the narrow space, leaving the catacomb tour path behind him. Arriving back in the IGC tunnels, he raced past the place where the demolition team had first done its drilling and explosions. He followed the long main tunnel until he saw a new flare by a side tunnel. It had to be Maximilian’s signal to follow. He darted in.
His headlamp sliced through the darkness, its narrow beam throwing a thousand shifting shadows on the limestone walls. Soon he raced into a small chamber, and the first thing he saw was Maximilian, lying motionless beside a Secret Service agent’s body. The body of one of Maximilian’s youngest soldiers lay slouched against the wall. Blood was everywhere.
“No!” he screamed as he ran to Maximilian’s corpse. His explosive yell echoed in the chamber.
He felt his upper back rising and falling in deep, angry breaths. With Maximilian gone, he was now the leader of their dwindling army.
He pointed at the hole in the wall. “Go!” he commanded. “Follow the president. Kill any men still protecting her, but leave her alive. She is mine to slaughter. I will be right behind you. Now, GO!”
The men rushed past him and ducked into the hole, and seconds later, he was the only living soul in the chamber. He looked at the young soldier’s body, then at the older agent lying dead next to Maximilian. He allowed himself a moment of weakness to kneel down beside his fallen friend. Turning Maximilian onto his back, Kazim studied his general’s face: hard, pale, empty of life so soon after passing. This man he had met years ago on the Mongolian steppes was now gone. This man who had given renewed purpose to his life had been taken from him, just as his brothers had been taken.
“I will finish this,” he swore to the body, as if its departed soul might still hear him. “I will complete our mission.”
Still gazing at his fallen general, Kazim slowly stood up, like a boxer rising from a knockdown, battered but still with enough strength for one last round. His strength returning, he rushed forward through the hole in the wall. His men were a half minute in front of him, and whatever men had been with Maximilian must be a few minutes farther yet. All were racing toward the president and whatever remained of her protection detail. He was the last in the procession, but he must catch up, for he must be the one to slaughter the president—for his brothers and for Maximilian.
70
REBECCA THOUGHT SHE SAW AN opening in the distance as she carried the president down the
tunnel. She could hear water rushing through aqueducts somewhere in the walls. She had the president’s left arm over one shoulder, and left leg over the other. She felt strong; she could carry the president like this for as long as necessary. But they were moving too slowly to escape the assassins, who were somewhere back there and coming fast.
David was still hopping behind her. It was a miracle he hadn’t passed out from the pain. She couldn’t think of anyone, other than John, who could have fought through such torture.
Together, they pushed on.
“How you doing?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“I’m okay,” she said, “but the president needs help soon. And we can’t move fast enough to escape.”
“I could stay back,” he said. “I still have rounds in the H and K. And I have extra magazines from my SIG. I could hold them off—buy you time.”
“No. We have to stay together as long as possible.”
“We’ll never make it out like this.”
“Please,” she said, “I can’t do this alone. You have to stay with me.”
As he managed to hobble closer to her, she felt how much her own pace was slowing. But she didn’t feel tired. If anything, she felt stronger than at any other time tonight.
“We have to do what’s necessary,” he said.
“I can’t do it alone,” she repeated.
“You’re going to have to. You protect the president, and I’ll protect you.”
“Not just yet,” she insisted. “Stay with me as long as you can. Please.”
Even though her body felt strong, she felt light-headed from the numbing bleakness of moving through these endless tunnels. It was getting to the point that she didn’t know whether it was even possible to escape. John was gone. David was injured. The president was dying. And the attackers were only minutes behind them and closing fast.
