King understood. This was as far as the wraiths were prepared to back down. He had encountered the creatures before—in Rome, when he was looking for Alexander. Then the creatures had reacted similarly. They would flee in pain from bright light, but ultimately they would not shirk their duty. King hadn’t needed to actually kill one though. Alexander had called them off, the last time. King wasn’t even sure it was possible to kill them. Alexander had implied the creatures were early experiments of his, when he was looking for ways to use the Hydra’s blood for longevity. The man had said the wraiths were the inspiration for vampire legends. King could understand why after seeing them up close in Rome. They had hideous wrinkled gray skin. Some were missing facial features like noses and mouths entirely. Still, despite being scientific mishaps, they were each fiercely loyal to Alexander and his mysterious goals.
King took one single step forward and thrust the flashlight out. He needed to send a message to the Forgotten. He would not be dissuaded in his mission either. The tip of the flashlight touched the wall of shadow and a fine film of smoke rose up from the end of the light, filling the tunnel with a charred smell.
King heard Asya fire her weapon once behind him, but he couldn’t turn away from the wall. He knew if he did, the thing would be on him in a second.
“Pawn?” he asked.
“There is another behind us, but it stays back.”
“We’re in a standoff. Again.”
“What will we do?” she asked. King admired the lack of fear in his sister’s voice. She wasn’t worried at all in her abilities or in his. She was merely asking him about the plan.
“Be pushy,” King told her. Then he stepped into the field of blackness. The light sizzled harder. Then he felt a hand grasp his left wrist inside the wall of dark, pushing the flashlight up. With his right hand, King fired the Yarygin point blank into the blackness.
The hand still held his wrist and pushed his arm back. Then it moved forward and the field of supernatural darkness dissipated like smoke clearing in a strong wind. Only instead of being blown off to the side, the smoke retreated back down the length of the hallway. The hallway was suddenly revealed in the flashlight’s beam—the hallway, and the creature inside it.
A wraith stood before King.
The creature looked like a man in a tattered gray cloak. The skin not covered by the hood over its head was a dark charcoal. The eyes were sunken hollows. This one had a single vertical slit where its nose should have been. It had a lower jaw, but it looked fused to the skull, the flesh melted and scarred where the mouth should have been. Its taut skin clung to the muscles and skeletal structure, like the thing was malnourished.
The creature shoved his wrist hard and let out a clicking growl. King saw the bullet wounds in its chest, but the injuries did not lessen the creature’s strength or resolve. He struggled to force his left arm down, pointing the light at the creature again. It began to shake in his grasp. He fired two more shots at its chest, then moved to swing the arm up and point the gun at its head, but the Forgotten, with an amazing reserve of strength, forced the flashlight all the way up and back in one swift move.
When the beam of light hit King’s face, the wraith made a loud sharp bark noise. Then it let go of King’s arm.
King pulled his arm back to his chest and pointed the light at the wraith again, but it had leapt to the side of the wall and was retreating down the tunnel, following another looming by the door to the darkened room. Then a third wraith passed over his head, skittering along the ceiling of the tunnel, following the first two.
When the third creature reached the dim recesses of the room at the other end of the tunnel, the fluorescent lights all flicked back on again, suddenly filling the hallway with a brilliant glare. King shielded his eyes for a second, but he kept the Yarygin trained on the far end of the hall.
“What did you do?” Asya asked, coming up next to him.
“Nothing. I think we just got our first lucky break. Once it saw who I was, it retreated. Alexander must have told them he wanted me alive for some reason.”
“And me?”
“Let’s not stick around to find out.” King turned to move back to the file cabinet for the Manifold file, but he heard the guttural growling again from the end of the hall. He stopped and turned back to the hallway. Half the fluorescents had been shut off. He stood waiting, and as he did, the lights slowly turned back on, one by one. The message was clear.
“I think we’re being given safe passage out, but we don’t get to take anything.”
Asya gave a nod and slipped ahead, heading down the side hallway. King paused at the junction, staring into the darkness at the end, where the wraiths waited. He let the moment spin out, assuring them he was not afraid.
“Where is he?” he shouted at the darkened room.
He waited a full minute for a reply of some kind. When none came, he turned to leave.
But then he heard the distinctive tink of metal striking stone. He whipped his head back toward the dark room, and saw a small metal object come skipping along the rough concrete floor toward him. It wobbled to a stop just a few paces from where he stood. He took one long stride and bent down to pick it up. The cool metal in his hand told him what he held.
It was a coin. An ancient one.
King backed into the side corridor with Asya and made his way to the exit. He kept an eye out behind them, but the darkness no longer encroached. When they reached the door, King was prepared for absolute bedlam on the other side. They had fired several shots. The library and the plaza outside would be in an uproar.
“Get to the car as fast as you can,” then he swung the door opened and scooted the chair on the balcony aside.
The library was quiet. Business as usual. Patrons were down on the first floor, and an old man was in the stacks up here on the balcony, looking at them as they emerged from the wall. Asya shut the door behind her. The old man turned his attention back to a red leather-bound book in his hand.
King looked at Asya and she shrugged. She tucked her pistol into her purse. Taking his cue from her, King slipped his weapon into the waistband of his jeans, lifting his Elvis shirt over the grip. The gun was still warm against his skin, but not too hot.
They headed out of the library into the strong glare of the Mediterranean sunshine and strolled through the crowded plaza, toward the street.
Once away from people, Asya spoke up in a voice just shy of a shout. “Do you think secret passage was soundproofed?”
“Must have been,” King could tell he was shouting too. He hoped his hearing would improve before they got back to the airport.
“What did it throw?” Asya asked.
King held his palm out for her. She examined the small coin. It had rough edges, making it round only in the loosest sense of the word. On the face of the coin was a raised image of a woman, with a crescent moon over her head.
“An ugly woman?” Asya was not sure what she was seeing.
King laughed. “That’s supposed to be the head of a lion. This is a coin showing Tanit, a Punic goddess of fertility and war.”
“What does it mean?”
King’s face soured. “It means Alexander is in Carthage. Probably at the last Manifold facility. Omega.”
ELEVEN
Carthage, Tunisia
Asya Machtchenko sat in the white Mercedes cargo van, watching her brother negotiate with an Arab. She was constantly amazed by him, despite the façade she presented of disapproving sister. She was really coming to like him.
King was talking with the man, and the exchange appeared to be friendly. He had told Asya that he would be getting some necessary supplies, but she suspected he was negotiating for some weapons. They had ditched the Yarygins in Valletta before leaving Malta. Traveling across borders with firearms had become practically impossible, but there were always plenty of weapons on the ground in any country. A booming secondhand trade had begun in most parts of the world, and covert military and spies always
made purchasing side-arms their first step after clearing customs. Asya knew that in some parts of Russia, you could find the salesmen in the actual parking lot outside the airport. In this case, they had needed to drive into the surprisingly clean city of Tunis. Asya had not been to many locations in North Africa, although she and King had visited Egypt earlier in the year, following a lead. She found the wide streets and business-like approach of Tunis to be refreshing after the chaos of Cairo.
She watched as King, in yet another of his Elvis shirts—this one showing the aged and sweaty man with big square sunglasses on a red fabric—reached forward and shook the small Arab’s hand. Good, she thought. Almost done. The temperature in the van was fine with the air conditioning running, but she was anxious to get moving. She felt they were very close to finding their parents.
King was led to the side door of another van. The man slid the door open, slowly procured a few small packages and placed them on the floor of the van, stepping aside. King quickly examined the contents, nodding as he did, never keeping a package exposed for long. Then the man handed King what had to be a cloth-wrapped assault rifle. The weapons went into a nylon duffle bag over King’s shoulder. Then King passed the man a stack of US dollars. They shook hands again. King turned with his purchases and was walking away when the small Arab called him back.
This cannot be good.
King returned to the man, on guard. She could see it in his posture. She had no weapons if a fight broke out, but she placed her hand on the door handle anyway, prepared to leap out of the van and race to her brother’s assistance if necessary. The small Arab smiled and produced a tiny package from under his shirt. He handed it to King, and King laughed good-naturedly. Asya relaxed. King shook the small man’s hand again—far more vigorously this time. Then he came back to her van, smiling all the way.
King opened the rear door of the van and slid the nylon bag onto the floor, removing the rifle and laying it down next to the bag, still wrapped in its white cloth covering. Then he climbed into the driver’s seat, still smiling. Asya watched him the whole time.
Eventually he turned to her and saw the look on her face. “What?”
“What is so funny?” she asked.
“He said for being such a good customer, he wanted to give me a bonus gift.” King smiled and produced the small package she had seen the man hand over. King’s fingers removed the cloth, and Asya saw an olive drab WWII-era grenade, commonly known as a pineapple. She knew the weapon had been out of use since the 1960s.
“Bozhe moi, do you think that thing will even still work?”
King laughed. “Well, it looks like Vietnam era, so maybe.” The small dark thing had rust on the pin already. “We’re weaponed up. I got two Sigs and an AK. Now, where to?”
Asya showed King a small tourist map that highlighted the ruins of Carthage, and she pointed to one of the southerly sites labeled Tophet. “I think we start here. Your Tanit Goddess had connections to this place, or so the guide book says. If not this one, then we work our way up and check out all the ruins.”
King started the engine and they headed south.
Hours later, with the sun nearly going down, King was exhausted. They had visited each of the ancient sites, hoping to spot some indication of a hidden entrance to a former Manifold base, while also keeping an eye out for the Herculean Society symbol. But discovering Omega’s location was turning out to be far more difficult than finding the Valletta library’s secret file-room.
King wiped sweat off his forehead with a bandana. “As fascinating as Tunisia is, we haven’t made much ground.”
Asya sat next to him in the cab of their van, luxuriating in the air conditioning after being out in the heat all afternoon. She fanned a limp tourist map on herself and turned her head to the ceiling of the vehicle. “This is like Kyrgyzstan heat. I am melting. We have seen all of Carthage’s major sites.”
“Let me see that map,” King said, after taking a swig of an ice cold Coke he had bought from a nearby vendor. Asya handed him the map. It showed the archeological sites as orange shapes, and no other detail besides the roads. “This isn’t going to work. Can you bring up a satellite map on the laptop?”
Asya opened their rubber-coated magnesium alloy laptop, designed for rough treatment in the field. She had a small satellite antenna attached to the Ethernet port, which allowed them to access the vast array of computing power Deep Blue had back in New Hampshire, as well as a simple Internet connection from anywhere they could reach a passing satellite. Asya opened a satellite view of the ruins in Google Maps.
“You see, we are here,” she said.
“Zoom out a bit,” King said.
Asya’s finger slipped on the mouse’s scroll button, zooming the image out to where they could see the whole coastline of Tunisia. She apologized for going too far, then began zooming back in on the ruins, one click at a time.
“Wait,” King said, pointing. “What the hell is that?” His finger pointed to a huge rectangle, clearly visible, long before the other structures were.
Asya quickly re-centered the map on the rectangle, and zoomed all the way in.
“It is parking lot for the mosque.”
“The mosque?” King asked.
“You know the big one? We saw the tower, when looking at the ruins of the theater.” She sounded tired.
“Zoom out again a bit,” King said.
She did as he requested, then looked at him, still fanning herself with the useless tourist map.
“You cannot be thinking Ridley would get permission to build Omega inside a mosque. Not even Ridley had that kind of money,” Asya tapped the keyboard for a few seconds, searching for information. “The Malik ibn Anas mosque was built in 2003, and was originally called El Abidine. It holds 1000 worshippers and even has a radio station.”
“A radio station?”
“For broadcasting the call to prayer,” she told him.
“Ah. No. You’re right. Not even Ridley had that kind of clout. But I’m not thinking of the mosque. You said it was built in ’03?”
“Yes. But if not the mosque, then where?” she asked.
King smiled and put the van into drive.
“You are serious?”
“I’m telling you, this is where it will be.” King pointed at the lines and lines of parked cars. They had been sitting in the southwest corner of the immense parking lot, watching the worshippers arrive in droves for Maghrib, the evening prayer. The sun was mostly down on the horizon, as hundreds of men clad in a variety of dress had all jockeyed for parking spots and then quickly hurried into the massive white mosque across the Boulevard de l’Environnement. King had kept the engine running, chewing through petrol, so they could continue to stay cool.
“The parking lot? It’s insane. Look how full the lot is. How could Ridley and his people get in and out without being seen?” Asya asked.
King turned to her and grinned. “Easily, as long as he did it at any time of day except during the five times of prayer.”
Approximately twenty-five minutes after the last man had entered the mosque, the first of them began hurrying back to their vehicles. Then a swarm of humanity flooded from the structure and the parking lot was inundated with pedestrians and moving vehicles. King thought it vaguely resembled a swarm of fire ants around a hive. In twenty minutes more, the lot was nearly empty, and King marveled at the efficiency of the drivers.
They waited five more minutes and their van was the only vehicle in the gigantic darkening lot.
“That was amazing,” Asya said.
“Now to see if I was right.”
A few minutes later, he spotted a shadow darting from cover to cover in the little park on the far side of the empty lot.
“There,” King pointed, as the shadow shifted.
“A wraith, like in Malta?” Asya asked.
“Maybe.”
The shape darted behind white concrete, and then it was gone. King waited a minute, then drove the van across
the parking lot with the headlights off. He parked on the north side of the lot, where they had seen the moving shape. To the left was a tiny park with landscaped trees and shrubs. Directly in front of them was a small white fountain. A tiled walkway stretched to the right, off the edge of the lot. Beyond that, was the crosswalk over the boulevard and the courtyard in front of the massive mosque. King looked at the building, seeing the bright white surface suddenly illuminated with spotlights, as the dusk deepened.
Then he turned back to the not-functioning fountain in front of them. He glanced down to the laptop, still open on Asya’s lap. He reached over and zoomed in on the satellite view of the fountain.
“This will be the entrance,” he said.
“I was thinking the same,” Asya closed the laptop, then reached into the nylon bag behind her seat and pulled out the two Sig Sauer pistols, handing one to King. She got out of the van and stood in the lot, looking at the fountain. King stepped out, slipped the grenade into the pocket of his jeans and retrieved the rifle from the back of the van. He slipped its strap over his head and shoulder. Although the lights illuminated the mosque at the end of the giant parking lot, the small park and fountain area were still dark. He reached in the van one more time for the LED flashlight.
“Should we check in with Deep Blue before going in?” Asya asked in a whisper.
“No need. He’ll know where we are within an hour, when a satellite passes. I have a micro-transmitter on me.”
“A micro-transmitter?” She eyed him up and down. “Where?”
He gave a lopsided grin. “Where no one would want to look.”
They made their way to the fountain. There wasn’t a drop of water inside.
“It is bone dry,” Asya said, stalking around the structure and looking for a lever of some kind.
King looked to the west into the trees of the small park. Then he understood.
Omega: A Jack Sigler Thriller Page 6
