Carmen came up behind him. Her phone buzzed in her pocket and the radio hummed, but first she wanted answers on whatever was going on in Tillus. Some instinct, deep within her gut, told her the reason that it had been redacted.
Her phone buzzed again.
Carmen took out the device and answered. “What?”
“Agent Svetlana,” her supervisor, Supervisory Agent John Stevens, said, “we have a situation in Tillus.”
Her voice became more conciliatory, almost apologetic. “I’m just researching it now, sir. I think I—”
“They’ve taken control of the town.” There was a long pause. “Without authorization.”
Linus finished typing and said, “You’re gonna want to see this.”
“Who took control of the town, sir,” Carmen said, trying to read the unredacted memo on the screen while also processing her phone conversation. Her attempt at multi-tasking just made everything more confusing.
“It seems our remaining agents stationed at the waterworks have gone rogue. Now, I’ve given Agent Redbeard a long leash with this silly nonsense about prophecies and magical girls, but this whole operation has become a significant liability.”
“Rogue?” Carmen put down the phone for a minute to finish reading the on-screen memo. Her gut feeling had been right. The confirmation still made her sick. All this work, deep undercover, and for what? She got to the paragraph about concerns regarding our agents’ priorities and put it together. “I see, sir.”
“Yes,” Stevens said with a note of resignation. “It seems that the UCD forces in Tillus are quite loyal to Agent Redbeard, and he left them with instructions to punish the town for its transgressions. Ridiculous. This sort of Wild West justice will not stand. It’s wanton and irresponsible. The potential for exposure is enormous.”
“What are you going to do, sir?” Carmen asked, her heart thumping.
“Fix the situation.” Stevens sounded nonplussed, as if his server had forgotten the lox on his bagel. “It is a pity, though. Good men. But, as you know, we are a secret organization. And such blatant disregards of the rules, well, they just invite scrutiny. I am not one for Congressional Committees. Cannot stomach them, in fact. And this entire operation has, thus far, produced no tangible evidence of a prophecy or imminent threat to the world.”
“Sir?”
“I am letting you know as a courtesy, since you reported to Agent Redbeard.”
“A courtesy? I don’t understand, sir.”
“Isn’t it clear, Agent Svetlana?” There was a beep, indicating that Stevens had to take another call. “A clean sweep. An industrial accident, perhaps. I’ll think of the cover story later.”
“But sir, some of those people are innocent—”
The call ended, and Carmen allowed the phone to drop to the floor. It shattered into a half dozen pieces.
“We’re going to destroy the town,” Carmen said, to no one at all. She stared dumbly at the faint orange glow of the streetlamps. “The UCD is going to burn Tillus down.”
“Might not be bad, considering what we know about the place.”
“I didn’t sign up for that,” Carmen said. She leaned against the radio, and suddenly the distress message came across loud and clear.
“Don’t move,” Linus said, hopping to his feet. “You’ve got the golden touch.”
They both listened carefully to the looping fifteen second clip. A man’s voice, pleading for assistance.
“This is Prashant Baral of the Shambhala resistance. We are under the rule of an immortal Roman Centurion named Cladius Maximus. We require the assistance of others to defend our world against certain destruction. There is a hidden way through to our paradise at the bottom of the Himalayas, an ancient path that has not been discovered by our captors. Please hurry.”
The message ended with a string of coordinates. Linus scribbled them down as Carmen held her breath.
“You get it,” she said with a tight voice.
“Yeah,” Linus said. He entered a series of keystrokes on the workstation’s number pad. “It’s in Nepal, surprise, surprise. Looks…totally uninhabited. Untouched.”
Carmen rose from the desk. The transmission plunged into white noise. She rushed into the adjacent room and hastily opened the gun locker. She removed as many clips of ammunition as she could carry, along with two pistols and two rifles.
She returned and Linus said, “Whoa.”
She tossed him a gun, and he caught it awkwardly. “You know how to use that?”
“Uh, I’m pretty good online. Top one hundred—”
“It’s nothing like that,” Carmen said. “Just point and shoot and be prepared for the recoil.”
“Sure,” Linus said, like he’d never been more unsure about anything. “But what’s it for?” He glanced out the window with a nervous expression, as if he was worried that goons had suddenly materialized on the doorstep.
“Paradise sounds like a dangerous place,” Carmen said. She slung the two rifles over her shoulders and walked towards the steps. She burst through the screen door with a lowered shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to come unprepared.”
“What about Tillus?”
“First we help save the world. Then, maybe.” But she was pretty damn sure that was a lie—to herself, most of all. When Stevens ordered something, it got done. No questions, no screw-ups. That town would be wiped from the map.
Best not to think about it.
“How are we getting there,” Linus said.
“The UCD has a couple tricks up its sleeve,” Carmen said. She reached into her pocket and removed a black keychain containing a single button. She pressed it.
Two minutes later, a town car rolled up and the doors opened.
“I hope this thing flies,” Linus said. “There’s not enough time to get to Nepal, anyway.”
“Just trust me,” Carmen said, tossing the guns into the back seat. “We’re gonna save your friends.”
Deep within her own chest, she wasn’t certain of her own words. But one thing was damn certain. She wasn’t going to let anything burn without a fight.
23 | The Diamond Dragon
Open the portal to save the girl.
Protect the girl to save the world.
Samantha Strike didn’t do prophecies. Or rhyming couplets. Or anything that resembled either in the faintest way. She had a low tolerance for bullshit. But even if her nature didn’t err on the skeptical side—a necessity born of experience—the series of events within Shambhala wouldn’t have passed muster.
“You ever wonder why no one can find this place,” Strike said. She spoke in a low voice despite the heavy wind. Darkness had fallen as she and Keene had followed the map up the winding mountain path. The pair had marched from the grassy valley into the chilled mountains with barely so much as a breather.
“Didn’t really cross my mind,” Keene said. “But a lot of other things have.”
“Like what?”
“Prashant. The berries. That look in Alessia’s eyes.”
“He’s using her,” Strike said. She pushed herself over a rock and continued walking. “Don’t think it’s the berries, though.”
“You would think, with satellites, they’d have found this valley years ago.”
“Unless,” Strike said, stopping to catch her breath, “it doesn’t exist on Earth.”
“Come again?”
“Paradise must be somewhere else,” Strike said. “Would explain the weird electrical storms in Tillus, that special root. There are different rules of nature here.”
“Who’s right, then?” Keene said. “Prashant and the resistance or Cladius?”
“Well, we haven’t heard Cladius’ side of the story, now have we?” Strike said with a grim whisper.
She rounded an icy corner and found that all cover disappeared. A rickety rope bridge spanned a massive chasm. On the opposite side was the fabled Diamond Dragon, the temple glinting in the pale moonlight. It was as majestic as Strike had imagined—a
building carved into the side of the mountain itself, expertly fashioned of little more than ice and rock. A sculpted dragon, breathing a stream of icy fire, stood perched above the entrance.
Keene ran into her back.
“Why’d you stop?”
“Quiet.” Strike backpedaled around the corner. “There’s no place to hide.”
Strike glanced out again. A solid ice door slid up, revealing a torchlit interior. Two Centurions, dressed in black armor that gave Keene a slight shiver, came through the entrance and stomped their spears in the snow. Then they stood up ramrod straight.
“I think it’s the two guys leading the charge from before,” Strike said, squinting to make out any distinguishing marks. Their posture was the same, demonstrating total control and focus. “Some sort of elite guard. Cladius must’ve sent them up here to hold things down alone.”
“How’d they beat us here?” Keene said.
“They’ve lived here for two millennia,” Strike said. “Would be kind of sad if they didn’t.”
The two soldiers scanned the mountaintop, then stepped back inside the temple. The entrance slammed shut with a thud that echoed for miles.
“They’re gone,” Strike said. She looked at Keene, who was fiddling with his knife. “I don’t think you can slash your way through the door, if that’s the plan.”
“It’s not,” Keene said, but didn’t bother to elaborate further. He tucked the blade back underneath his parka. “Where you figure Leif wound up?”
“I look like his keeper or something?”
“He should’ve turned up by now.”
A low rumble came from the valley. The ominous sound echoed off the pristine peaks. A burst of fire flashed in the dark fields below. A faint roar reverberated over the canyon.
“Maybe they actually can pull it off.”
“Who knows if that’s even what we want.”
“We could wait here and see how it plays out,” Keene said.
“I trust us,” Strike said. She considered the defenses. Carved into a mountain peak, the temple couldn’t be infiltrated from the back. Coming in from above was out of the question. Ominously, the only entrance was across the exposed bridge. A guard could easily take them out from the second floor crenellations.
But there was simply no other way, so Strike stepped out and began to run. Her soft leather boots hit the narrow, rotting planks of the rickety bridge, the structure swaying from side-to-side as she sprinted. Her shoulders were hunched, head tucked towards her chest.
If she was gonna come crashing through the front door, no need to be stupid about it. She heard Keene’s boots when she was about a quarter across the bridge. A little slow with the reaction time. He wouldn’t be winning an Olympic sprints—if he even knew what the Olympics were.
Strike’s lungs screamed from the thin air, but she didn’t stop. She glanced at the leering dragon, the plume of frozen fire, and thought I’m gonna burn you down, you son of a bitch. A patch of black armor passed through one of the windows. Strike’s heart skipped, but she couldn’t do anything but keep running.
Halfway there.
A red plume appeared in the window, an orange glow flickering against the clear blue ice. A thin gray trail trickled from the flame. Then it launched into the darkness, hissing and spitting, hurtling towards the bridge. Strike’s eyes locked onto the burning arrow, ready to dive.
But the arrow sailed over her shoulder.
Keene.
The footsteps behind her slammed to a halt, the cracking and creaking of the bridge immediately overtaken by the crackle of flame. Strike had no time to look back. The other second floor opening filled with an orange glow, and another sizzling arrow shot into the night, landing behind her.
But no scream came, no indication that Keene was wounded. The lonely sound of her own footsteps was the sole indication that something was wrong.
“Run, Strike,” she heard him say, and she gave her last bit of energy towards a final burst, pumping her arms so hard she was certain they were going to fly off into the chasm below. Then she felt what the soldiers up top were trying to do, her footing sagging, wobbling worse than before, a horrible groaning filling her ears.
She dove towards solid ground, arms outstretched as she slid across the ice. Behind her, she heard the bridge crumble and disintegrate into nothing.
They’d literally burned the bridges.
The crazy bastards had torched the only way back over the chasm.
Strike fumbled with her knife and brandished it towards the empty air. What she wouldn’t give for a pistol. No men in black armor marched out of the entranceway to detain her. No arrows came raining down from the second floor—although Strike was fairly certain she was safe beneath this overhang.
But she did notice one bothersome thing.
Across the chasm, where the remaining tendrils of rope flapped and burned in the wind, was a man struggling to raise himself onto the snowy ledge. Keene’s feet flailed over the endless space. Strike wanted to scream, rebuild the bridge, but all she could do was watch.
Up above, she caught the faint glow of another arrow.
“Keene, watch out!”
The flaming bolt hissed as it shot through the darkness, hitting Keene in the shoulder. His legs stopped jerking for a moment, and it almost looked like his struggle was over—that he had found some reserve of energy to pull himself up. But then he dropped into the chasm, the burning pitch lighting his descent until Strike could no longer see his body.
The whirring of rotors drew Strike’s attention away from Keene. She huddled back into the corner, between the natural rock and the carved fortress, making herself small. A nimble chopper rose from where the ruined, smoking bridge once stood and powered towards the temple. It soared out of sight, above the building.
A bitter wind whipped across the peak, snuffing out the remaining embers, when two terrible realizations settled on Samantha Strike.
The world would burn in less than three hours. Keene was dead.
And there was nothing she could do to change either one.
24 | Prepare for Landing
“Jump,” Carmen Svetlana shouted, her hands thrusting Wade Linus from the open door of the jet. Linus was hurtling through the thin atmosphere before he could protest. Wind whipped past his tight goggles as he somersaulted through the air. On his first turn he caught sight of the experimental aircraft that had whisked them around the world in under five hours. By the second turn it was gone, leaving behind a trail of orange smoke as it tore off at over two thousand miles per hour.
The UCD had some really cool toys at its disposal.
Linus streamlined his shoulders and tried to right his position. It had seemed simple enough when Carmen had explained the procedure from within the safe, pressurized confines of the jet. But all that brief training had evaporated now that Linus realized he was on a direct collision course with an icy mountain.
The Himalayas, while a beautiful shade of frosted white, didn’t look terribly soft.
Linus pawed at his straps, trying to pull the chute. A voice crackled over his earpiece.
“You’ll kill us both.” The words were hard to hear with the howling wind.
Linus, consumed by fear, kept working to find the ripcord. The moonlit mountains looked tiny below, like a toy village in a diorama. It wasn’t too soon to be safe, though. No, at this speed, he needed to yank the parachute open right now for even a chance of survival.
Carmen sped past him, her body assuming the shape of a laser guided missile. Linus stopped trying to open his parachute and looked at her. She seemed so calm. How was that even possible? Even if they hit the ground safely, their deaths were almost assured. Contacting the resistance via the radio frequency had been a huge bust. The distress call just played on repeat.
Linus saw Carmen form an X with her arms as she glided past.
“I get it,” Linus said, screaming to be heard. “Stop.”
“Good,” she said. Her hair flut
tered as she nodded. She held her arms out at her sides, slowing her descent. Linus’ heart began to pick up. He was going to collide directly with her. His eyes widened in terror.
At the last moment, she banked to the left. He felt a pull at his shoulder.
“Gotcha,” she said.
A whoosh let him know that the parachute had been triggered.
Linus breathed an audible sigh of relief, but his lips were trembling too much to say much. Two minutes later, they landed on a snowy peak. He heard a click, and the parachute disengaged, fluttering away into a crevice.
“Nice view, huh,” Carmen said, standing up and brushing herself off. “Thought you were gonna shit the bed up there.”
Linus got to his knees and took in the landscape. Snow, sky and more snow. Stars. No sign of a hidden valley or a tunnel.
“Are we in the right spot?”
“Speak up,” Carmen said. “You’re trembling like a goddamn leaf.”
Linus cleared his throat, but found it was dry. He fumbled at his thigh and pulled out a canteen. He drank greedily, almost finishing the contents. Then he screwed the cap back on and was about to reattach it to his belt when he felt an arm snatch away the canister.
He watched as Carmen packed it with snow.
“Tuck it under your jacket,” she said. She lifted up the front flap of his burly parka. The wind chill nipped at the layers beneath, and Linus shivered. “Your body heat will melt it and you’ll have something to drink.”
“Thanks,” Linus said. He finally struggled to his feet. “We hit the jump?”
“Perfect,” Carmen said. She pointed out over the identical looking peaks and valleys. “The entrance to the valley should be right over there.”
“Why couldn’t we see it coming in?”
“No idea,” Carmen said. She reached down to pick something up. “Huh.”
“What?”
“Looks Roman,” she said. “Check it out.”
Linus almost tumbled down the slope trying to make the catch, but he managed to corral the artifact without dying. After checking to make sure his feet were steady, he turned the stiff silver coin over in his fingers. The face on the front was worn away by the elements.
The Diamond Dragon (Kip Keene Book 4) Page 13
