by Rob Jones
Then, before they could regroup, another wave of soldiers approached them – but this time on foot and running directly toward them from a door beneath the mezzanine.
Hawke spun his HK around and struck one of the men in the face with the butt of the weapon. A terrible crunching sound came from inside the guy’s mouth, but before he could react Hawke punched him on the nose, breaking it and knocking the man into instant unconsciousness. He reached for the man’s weapons, leaving the submachine gun but taking a Sig Sauer and some ammo.
Hawke looked up just in time to see another man aiming an assault rifle at him. He dived to the floor and rolled to his left where he reached the cover of an antique chest at the side of the hall.
He raised the Sig Sauer and squeezed off a few rounds in the man’s direction, planting a line of hollow-points across his chest and exploding his throat. The man slumped dead to the floor.
Then, Zaugg’s forces decided the battle had turned against them and began a tactical retreat.
“I have to get to Zaugg!” Hawke screamed in the roar of gunfire. “He still has Lea.”
Reaper and Hart made an effort to run after the fleeing soldiers, going deeper into the compound and diverting their attention away from Hawke’s assault on the private quarters.
Hawke charged up the stairs and prepared for the end game.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The wounded man grunted like an animal and heaved himself over to her with every last bit of energy he could muster.
“I will make you suffer for this,” he said, spitting with rage.
Baumann grabbed Lea by her shoulders and lifted her off her feet as if she were a rag doll. He smashed her back into the wine rack behind her, and she howled in pain as the corks rammed into her spine. He growled and smashed her into the bottles a second time. Then a short giggle.
Lea’s spirits were raised when somewhere above her head she heard the unmistakable sound of machine gun fire – Hawke must have survived and was launching a rescue attempt at this very minute.
But how long could she hold out against Baumann?
She saw her torturer was pale now – he had lost a lot of blood since she’d stabbed his leg, but was it enough to take him down? She kicked out against him, but this only made things worse because Baumann simply grabbed her around her neck with his metal hand so he could use his free hand to hold her legs down. She felt the icy cold steel as it gripped her soft throat.
Her tormentor grinned like a maniac as he closed the steel claw around her throat and she felt her windpipe constrict. She gasped for air, instinctively expecting the cold air of the cellar to flood into her lungs, but none came. She began to panic in response, flailing her arms out wildly trying to strike her attacker, but his arm was too long, and he held her at a distance long enough to avoid any reprisals from her much smaller body. He nodded his head in appreciation of some unvoiced thought and increased the grip on her throat.
“Because you tried to kill me,” said Baumann, his breath in her face, “I’m going to make this last a very long time.”
Up closer than ever now, less than half a meter from her face, Lea looked at the face of Heinrich Baumann – his repellent milky eye and scarred face, the stench of some kind of lubricant on the mechanism of the steel claw, the gentle whirring of the humidifier on the wall beside her aching head. This, she thought, was going to be her last minute on earth – her last sight, her last sound, her last smell – all Baumann, for now and forever.
She began to lose consciousness.
With the blackness encroaching all around her, Lea Donovan had only a few seconds to think before her processing faculties left her forever. Her world was tiny now – Baumann and his claw, the feel of his breath, the sound of the humidifier…
The humidifier. Just a few inches to her left was a humidifier gently whirring away, and she saw now that it was plugged into the wall right beside her. Without stopping to think anything through, she reached with the last of her strength behind her head and searched with her hand until she felt a wine bottle, which she pulled from the rack and brought crashing down on Baumann’s head.
The giant man screamed in pain and released Lea, who now, finally free of his devilish grasp, collapsed in a heap on the floor. Both were now on the ground on their hands and knees – Lea heaving the breath back into her body and Baumann in a puddle of wine woozily trying to regain his balance and hang onto consciousness.
Lea acted fast, and out of pure instinct. She tore the cable from the humidifier, and then climbed out of the spilled wine and onto the wooden crate.
“Go to hell you fucking freak!” she screamed, and dropped the cable into the wine, causing a massive electric shock to course through Baumann’s body. She was pretty sure that wine was an excellent conductor of electricity, and was only too glad to put her theory to the test.
Now, Baumann writhed on the floor in a fiendish shower of sparks, convulsing like a dying fish, his blood-curdling screams bouncing off the cellar walls.
He groped and slipped about in a vain effort to free himself of the terrific electric current now frying him alive. His metal hand sparked and scraped on the concrete floor in his final death throes, and then there was nothing left except a damp, smoking heap, reeking of wine.
Lea pulled the cable from his corpse and pushed the end into the straw bedding around one of Zaugg’s most expensive bottles of wine. She watched the fire grow for a few moments before running to the cellar door.
She made it up the twisting stone steps and to the door leading back from the cellar into Zaugg’s compound. Gently craning her neck around the door to see if the coast was clear, Lea Donovan decided to make a run for it, but before she could even get into the room she heard a familiar voice behind her.
“I’m impressed.”
She spun around to see Dietmar Grobel standing in the corridor.
“You!”
“The very same,” he said. He pulled out a Sig Sauer and pointed it at Lea. “I was sent down to get Baumann, but instead I find you as free as a kite. How did you get away from him?”
“I burned him alive, and I’d do the same to you given half a chance.”
“Unfortunately I have at least double the IQ of poor Heinrich, and I don’t give out chances, half or full. Get moving.” Grobel waved the gun at the end of the corridor. “Herr Zaugg doesn’t like loose ends.”
*
Lea Donovan watched in horror as the elevator doors slid open to reveal a vast complex deep inside the mountain. Dozens of men and women were hurrying about, completing tasks in preparation for something big. Some were checking inventories and loading crates onto a monorail whose rail twisted way into a darkened tunnel. Others were examining what looked like an air-conditioning system on the rock wall at the back. They all wore black boiler suits with a white Z on the back.
“Bring the girl with us,” Zaugg said. He was holding in his hands Poseidon’s trident – heavy, gold, but smaller than she had imagined it would be.
Grobel acknowledged the command by pushing Lea out of the elevator with a hefty nudge in the small of her back, almost causing her to fall over. Lea turned and gave him a look that would freeze mercury, but she knew there was nothing she could do to help herself – yet.
At Grobel’s gunpoint, Lea followed Zaugg down the galvanized steel staircase which connected the elevators to the main loading bays. It was like any other industrial space, and reminded Lea of Victoria Bus Station with its smells of oil and machinery and the sound of heavy vehicles turning on the polished concrete floors.
“What the hell is this place?” she asked, simultaneously amazed and terrified.
“This is the future, Miss Donovan,” said Zaugg, proudly assessing his work and presenting it to Lea with a generous sweep of his hand. “This is the Ark. Built two thousand feet under the mountain and able to withstand a fifty megaton nuclear blast. This is the safest place on earth in the event of a catastrophe... Now, if you please...”
&
nbsp; Zaugg pushed a button on the door of the monorail carriage and it swooshed silently open. “Ladies first.”
He tipped his head to one side and smirked grimly as Grobel pushed Lea into the carriage, keeping the muzzle of his Sig Sauer firmly aimed in her direction.
When Zaugg was safely inside, the monorail began to slide gently forward and a few moments later the bright lights of the loading bay were gone, replaced with the subdued underlighting of the freshly carved transit tunnel. Lea felt the temperature drop once again, and was sure they were traveling deeper down in to the mountain, as well as towards the center of it.
“You impressed me a great deal with the way you dealt with Baumann,” Zaugg said. “By the way, what happened to him?”
Grobel replied: “She electrocuted him in a puddle of Coche-Dury les Perrieres.”
Zaugg was unperturbed. “And what’s the damage?”
“He’s dead.”
“I meant to my wine.”
“Oh...”
“Anyway, Miss Donovan – where was I?” Ah yes! Of course – the future. You see, the trident has yet undiscovered powers, but our reading of the ancient texts is that it is a weapon of such awesome power it would have been quite remiss of me not to make preparations for its use, as I am sure you will agree.”
Lea was horrified. “You can’t possibly know the extent of its power, Zaugg. You would be insane to try and use it.”
Zaugg was placid. “As ancient megaweapons go, Poseidon’s trident is the mother of them all. It is true we are not aware of its true power – not yet – but I cannot risk my life’s work, or my destiny. This is why we built the Ark – to keep us safe while the trident – how shall I put it – cleans up the world. After that, the way is clear for me to enjoy my immortality.”
“But without the map, you have no idea where the source of eternal life is.”
“Touché once again, Miss Donovan, but I fail to see how using the trident could make the search for the map anything but far easier. Once your puny rescue force has been eradicated, I will show you the first use of the trident in centuries – perhaps millions of years!”
They stepped off the carriage and walked to Zaugg’s private office in the Ark, but no sooner had they arrived when a man rushed into the plush room.
“Sir, our forces are being overwhelmed! It’s time to evacuate!”
“What are you talking about?” Zaugg said contemptuously.
“The enemy forces have taken control of the main compound. Your men are deserting you.”
Zaugg’s face collapsed into a mask of rage and bitterness.
“Just give up, Zaugg!” Lea pleaded.
“Never!”
“There’s no escape now.”
Zaugg laughed. “You think I would leave myself vulnerable to that possiblity?” He grabbed Lea by the arm and pulled her roughly across the room. On a bookshelf was a single statue of Poseidon. Zaugg pulled it forward and the entire shelf began to slide to the right.
“We’re going for a ride.”
He turned to Grobel, nervously waiting in the office and yelled more orders at him: “Initiate the self-destruct sequence.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The entire compound had now ceased to be Hugo Zaugg’s peaceful refuge in the mountains and instead an atmosphere of total pandemonium pervaded every corner of the place.
Previously loyal servants to Zaugg were now stealing anything they could get their hands on as Hawke and his forces swept through the rooms and corridors, the gym and the swimming pool, clearing them with their guns and grenades.
Only his most committed followers kept up the fight, firing back with machine guns and leaving booby-traps where they could in order to slow Hawke as he expedited the assault and closed in on Zaugg and Lea.
Now, in Zaugg’s private quarters, the resistance was even fiercer. Hawke ducked low and sprinted down a corridor lined with plush carpet and black and white pictures of Nazi rallies.
“Who the hell is this guy?” he said to himself as he ducked to dodge a hail of bullets fired over his head from a room at the side. He spun around and threw in a grenade, diving for cover as it exploded and fired shards of splintered desk and door and pieces of burned carpet back out in the hall.
“You talking to me?” said a voice in his ear. It was Nightingale.
“Sorry, no, N. Just enjoying Zaugg’s taste in interior décor. He has quite a nifty style of neo-Nazi gothic combined with postmodern whimsy.”
“Well, if you want to talk to him about it his office is a right turn then dead ahead.”
“Thanks.”
Hawke turned into the corridor to see two men with shaved heads standing outside a large oak door. They were armed with Heckler & Kochs and Hawke guessed they weren’t guarding the drinks cabinet.
“Got it, N – thanks for your help.”
The men began firing at him, tearing up the wall over his head and shattering a giant Chinese vase into a thousand pieces.
“Always a pleasure, she replied. “Don’t get your head blown off, please.”
She disconnected as Hawke launched his final assault, dropping to his stomach and firing the machine gun at the men who were, for all their firepower, sitting ducks at the end of a corridor. They returned fire but he made short work of them, and then headed towards Zaugg’s study.
*
In his panic and rage, Zaugg pulled a Luger from his desk and dragged Lea from his office in the Ark into the hidden passageway behind the bookcase. They stepped into another elevator and moments later the shiny steel doors opened to reveal they were standing on a windy platform jutting out of the mountainside. Lea watched the snow race past them as Zaugg pushed her out into the cold. She saw a single cable-car blowing gently in the wind.
“None of this will exist in ten minutes. You are coming with me as my insurance.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Another insurance policy, my dear. Recently scientists induced an avalanche in the Vallée de la Sionne, which is what you see below you. They used explosives to trigger the avalanche so they could study the results and learn more about these terrible acts of nature.”
“Why are you telling me this, Zaugg? If this is your way of charming women I think you need to rethink your strategy.”
Zaugg smiled coldly. “They wanted to study what they call avalanche motion, and the snow they exploded off the side of the mountain crashed down the slopes at a terrifying three hundred kilometers per hour. Do you realize how utterly futile it would be, trying to out-run millions of tons of snow moving at that speed?”
“And?”
“And I am about to detonate a similar series of explosives, but this time considerably more. They will cause avalanches ten times greater than those of the experiment and send millions of tons of snow crashing down in the valley below, killing tens of thousands of people.”
“You’re insane.”
“Not at all. The explosives are designed to ensure this entire compound is buried beneath half the mountain that now looms above us, crushing everything here, including anyone still in it when it happens. It will take months for the authorities to work out what happened here and go through whatever isn’t totally destroyed. It will also kill all of your friends. It is the ultimate home defense!”
“Please don’t do this!” she pleaded, looking over the rail at the town’s lights twinkling in the valley below.
Zaugg smirked. “I can’t let Hawke destroy my life’s work. Do you have any idea of the sort of effort and patience required to put a plan like this together – to wait until everything aligns? You think I would let anyone else have these treasures? Do you think I would let any other man control the trident or locate the source of eternal life?!” He waved the trident in his hand and held it aloft insanely, as if he were a god. For a moment Lea thought she saw it flash, but it was merely the reflection of one of the lights.
“You can’t kill all those innocent people, Zaugg!”
&nb
sp; “No one is innocent! Any one of those people would kill their mothers for the chance of eternal life!”
“Don’t judge everyone else by your own disgusting standards.”
“I will not let anyone else have these riches. This entire compound will be destroyed and the whole valley below will be swallowed by millions of tons of snow and ice.”
Lea was horrified. “I’ve never heard anything so crazy in all my life.”
“Like all the ants, you have no imagination.”
“You’ll kill everyone!”
“Not everyone, my dear. You think I am as stupid as that? Oh, no! I will survive and so will you, for now!”
“Let me go!”
“Silence! You’re coming with me!”
Zaugg grabbed Lea by the arm and dragged her from the platform towards the cable car.
*
Hawke found the study empty, but saw the elevator, which he rushed inside and ordered down to the lowest level. When the doors opened he was met by the same warehouse Lea had seen, but instead of a hive of activity it was now all but deserted.
Whatever Zaugg had been planning had obviously been big – this place looked like it could survive a nuclear winter. Stacked up along the walls was everything anyone could possibly need – food, water, weapons, generators, snow-plows, skis – the list went on.
“You!” he screamed at a man in a boiler suit. “Where’s Zaugg?”
The terrified man pointed down the corridor, and Hawke was at his office seconds later, bursting into the room to find Dietmar Grobel hurriedly stuffing gold coins into a suitcase. The German stared at Hawke with terror in his eyes.
“Where’s Lea?” he screamed.
“You’re too late, Hawke. Zaugg’s already gone, and he took her with him.” Grobel continued to stuff the gold into the case. “Listen, Zaugg is going insane! Get away while you can.”
