Prophet Of Doom td-111

by Warren Murphy

  The first dozen were lying on their bellies between the lights and the main outbuildings of the Ragnarok complex. The other twelve were kneeling on one knee behind the first line, filling in the firing gaps between the outer row. All had relinquished their AR-15s and substituted shotguns, which were trained on the lean man standing vulnerable in the brilliant glare of the line of spotlights.

  Remo thought quickly. There were more men moving in from the rear than there were waiting up ahead, and ahead was where he would find Esther Clear-Seer.

  Remo took a step toward the spotlights.

  All at once the peaceful Wyoming plain lit up with a coruscating eruption of deadly automatic-weapons fire.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The first high-velocity volley exploded through the blinding wall of light like dozens of tiny solar flares.

  Through the spotlight glare, Remo could distinguish twelve distinct flashes erupting from the first row of gunmen, followed closely by another dozen explosions from the gunmen in the second row.

  Everything happened in a blur of sound and fury.

  The multiple attack was obviously designed to confuse Remo. He'd dodge the initial volley, and, in avoiding it, step into the second wave of deadly metal fragments. It was clever, in a rudimentary way, but it was also very, very presumptuous.

  Instead of dodging the first shots, Remo moved toward them, ducking and skittering in the manner he had learned during his earliest years of Sinanju training.

  A deer slug burned past his right earlobe, making the air sizzle.

  A split-second jog to the left, and Remo avoided a spreading wall of buckshot.

  It was a clever tactic to mix shells in with slugs. While single bullets were easier to dodge, the shot created an obstacle that almost forced him into the line of deadly fire.

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  His hands, lightning fast, shot out in a flashing blur, driving a hard wall of compressed air before them— and two slugs deflected harmlessly into the Wyoming night.

  Twisting and spinning his way through the deadly hail, Remo looked like a contortionist who'd turned tennis player, lobbing back bullets with an "air racket."

  He got halfway to the double rows of gunmen when a muffled radio command ordering the next round of fire reached his ears through a lull in the din. Two dozen fingers immediately depressed on triggers.

  Remo knew the attack pattern now. Every other man in the first row was buckshot, while those in between were bullets. The second row had been arranged exactly opposite the row of kneeling men so that its firing pattern complemented that of the first line.

  A tight smile of confidence riding his face, Remo moved steadily forward as all twenty-four men unloaded their weapons on his lean frame.

  His smile evaporated almost immediately.

  Remo knew then he had made a deadly miscalculation. The missiles launched at him now were not the same.

  It was as if the carefully planned first attack had given way to complete chaos. Shooters who had been firing shells now loosed buckshot, while some who had relied on shot now opted for the heavier slugs. But the tactical change was not just a mirror image of the first attack. The ammo redistribution was completely random now.

  For the fourth time that evening he cursed inwardly for allowing himself to fall into a trap.

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  I screwed up, Remo told himself.

  A single ball of metal was hurtling toward him where he expected buckshot. Remo surged left and rolled low—into a flying field of buckshot!

  His legs stiffened. He sprang forward, angling right, ahead of the metal shot fragments pelting the dusty ground behind him.

  Even as he closed in on the lights, Remo could feel his inner rhythm. It was off. Dangerously off.

  More shooting erupted beyond the spotlights. The steady burp of automatic-weapons fire this time. Remo could differentiate between powder loads and muzzle-velocity sounds. This was an AR-15, the weapon of choice for the Truth Church.

  No time to worry about that now. Five humming bullets came seeking his chest. Remo flattened himself on the ground to avoid them, then executed an impossible flip—like a pancake being tossed by a giant spatula—from his stomach to his back.

  Three rounds of buckshot kicked up a cloud of dust at the spot where he had been a split second earlier. They made ugly thucking sounds chewing up the red clay.

  More deadly slugs flew toward him, but the second wave appeared to be petering out. In fact, the rounds from the rogue AR-15 seconds before appeared to have missed him entirely.

  Remo twitched to the left—and another volley flew harmlessly past.

  The lights were now only a few feet away. He could feel the heat from their white-hot filaments.

  A final shot whizzed toward him from between the

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  spotlights. A deer slug. Remo had only to lean to one side, and the bullet missed him by a healthy foot.

  A second later he arrived between the lights and at the two rows of Truth Church disciples.

  Some were busy trying to reload their weapons. Others lay prone in their firing positions. He'd worry about the shooters on the ground later.

  The hands of those trying to reload shook as they scrambled to stuff shells into open breeches. Remo danced in between the two lines, cracking a temple here, shattering a sternum there. Broken shotguns dropped, scattering red paper shells like Christmas firecrackers. Stunned faces were mushed into the soft red clay.

  When he was finished, Remo paused, ready to deal with the ones who should have jumped off the ground firing by now.

  Except they didn't. They lay on their stomachs as if paralyzed. There were no preattack signals coming from any of them. In fact, no signals at all. The air was dead all around.

  Remo crouched to examine one shooter. He lay on his back.

  His flesh was inert. A fading warmth was seeping out of it.

  The man was dead.

  Remo flipped him over. A pair of crimson streaks painted the lighter patches of his camouflage jacket. Shot in the back.

  Remo checked the others. All had been shot at close range; even some of the ones Remo had finished off had suffered additional minor flesh wounds, he discovered.

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  It had to be the work of the lone AR-15 that had opened up while Remo was busy avoiding the shotgun attack.

  While he crouched beside the body of a fresh-faced believer, Remo felt an unaccustomed coolness at the back of his right knee. He turned his leg slightly and noticed a tiny rip in the fabric of his chinos. Pulling the material between thumb and forefinger, he discovered a second small tear. Both were the size of moth holes, and Remo realized that a single fragment of buckshot must have passed through the back of his pant leg during the second wave of fire.

  All thoughts of the dead Truth Church disciples vanished as Remo wondered how he could possibly have been sloppy enough to allow a single fragment of shot to touch his clothing.

  When he heard the questioning calls from the approaching Truth Church patrols, his gaze went to the perimeter fence.

  The firing had kept the rest of the Ragnarok soldiers at bay. Now the spotlights were having the precise effect they were supposed to have. His pursuers lurked out among the harsh fans of light, staying in the shadows.

  An army of holy killers, remote-controlled spotlights, phantom cameras. This assignment, which should have been simple, had gotten complicated. Remo wanted to finish it. Now.

  Remo left the soldiers behind and headed for the cluster of concrete buildings, determination writ in his face.

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  Raccoon Eyes had lost sight of the Evil One when the shotguns started blasting.

  He was surprised that he could hear the cacophony through the security bunker walls, and wondered if it was dug in as deeply as it should have been.

  When the dull thuds of the shotguns stopped filtering through the insulating sand and packed earth, he knew that the Evil One was on his way.

  But that didn't m
atter now.

  His expression bland, his skin drained of color, Raccoon Eyes stared at the scarlet toggle switch on his control board.

  "Come out, come out, wherever you are," chimed a happy voice from down the concrete hallway, as though humoring children.

  The Evil One had penetrated underground!

  The other men and women in the security room glanced nervously at one another. All had participated in the firing-squad-style murders of Truth Church dissenters—it was a requirement of Esther Clear-Seer that all church members not shy away from the blood of pagans—but the guns in their hands felt somehow heavier this night. In unison they lifted their weapons toward the open bunker doorway.

  The digital clock read 00.38.32. It was in military time, equivalent to nearly 12:39 a.m., and Raccoon Eyes watched the seconds click rapidly past in tenths, the numbers a flashing red blur.

  Nothing mattered any longer.

  "Yoo-hoo!" a voice shouted from somewhere nearby. "Can Esther come out and play?"

  He was getting closer.

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  Raccoon Eyes stared intently at the clock. His hand snaked out for the scarlet toggle switch.

  00.38.53.

  It didn't matter.

  00.38.59.

  Nothing mattered.

  00.39.04.

  Raccoon Eyes flipped the scarlet switch. An electrical current went zipping through shielded wiring, seeking a strategically buried cache of inert gray plastic matter.

  And a thunderous explosion rocked the security bunker.

  As tons of rock and earth collapsed behind him, Remo was forced farther into the tunnel. He found a safe spot at a reinforced angle, threw himself flat, then curled into a fetal position to protect head and vital organs.

  A succession of smaller, echoing detonations came, sealing off all branching paths that snaked off to the surface from the main tunnel.

  The last handfuls of dirt were tumbling in mini-avalanches down the piles of displaced earth when Remo got back to his feet. A cloud of choking dust rose into the tunnel's musty air.

  Remo shook dirt from his dark hair as he surveyed the ruins.

  He had descended into the subterranean bunker complex through the newly formed tunnel at the rear of Esther Clear-Seer's ranch. That belowground route was now blocked by a wall of solid earth.

  All exit corridors at this end of the bunker complex

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  had been effectively sealed. Remo saw he had no choice but to move deeper into the underground world.

  He moved along the chilly corridor, past room upon room of survivalist supplies, without encountering a single living soul.

  Remo checked several of the larger rooms along the way and found evidence of other cave-ins. Every escape route in the center of the complex had been collapsed. Remo felt the same vague concern at being outguessed by Yogi Mom he had felt earlier. It was as if she could anticipate his every move. He didn't like that.

  Targets didn't anticipate Sinanju. It was against everything Remo had been taught. This was all wrong.

  Eventually he entered a newly constructed section of tunnel. The soles of his loafers made not a sound as they glided along the concrete floor.

  The recirculated air tasted more stale the farther Remo went, and he recognized a familiar underlying odor that was growing stronger with each cat-footed step. It was the same rotten-egg smell that had clung to Esther Clear-Seer like a shroud; the same smell that had held enough significance for the Master of Sinanju to terminate his contract with Smith.

  While Remo ordinarily wouldn't have let a single awful smell dictate his actions, he decided that the strangeness of his encounters at Ranch Ragnarok were too great to ignore. He proceeded with caution.

  The tunnel ended in a series of concrete steps. Remo mounted them, entering the interior of the old airplane hangar that marred the church's slice of Wyoming real estate.

  The sulphur smell was stronger in here.

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  Remo could sense movement in a large chamber at the far end of the building. Carefully he moved toward the room through the yellow haze and flickering candlelight.

  There was a heavy woolen tapestry covering a cinder-block archway into the main chamber. Remo swept it aside.

  The sulphur stench poured from beneath the tapestry in a plume of thick yellow smoke. The odor soaked into his clothing, and though he was ordinarily able to block out offending smells, he found that the pungent miasma insinuated itself into his nostrils like a serpent seeking food. Remo's eyes watered as he fought an unaccustomed gag reflex. It subsided.

  The interior of the large chamber was well lit by dozens of brightly burning torches. Through the haze Remo noted an opening in the ceiling that served to let the offending smoke escape into the star-flecked night.

  Atop a mound of rock that seemed to grow up through the center of the floor, were two women and a man. One of the females, who was quite young, was seated on a small wooden tripod. The girl swayed back and forth as if being shaken by some invisible assailant. The man and woman, each in their forties, stood patiently beside the girl.

  "Right on time," the man said to Remo, glancing at his watch.

  Remo recognized Mark Kaspar from his appearance on "Barry Duke Live." He also remembered that Smith had said he wasn't due to return to Wyoming until the day after tomorrow.

  Esther Clear-Seer stood smugly beside Kaspar at the

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  top of the rocky hillock. At first glance the broken nose Chiun had given her as a parting gift appeared to have healed. But Remo could see the extra makeup she had applied beneath her eyes to cover the fading bruises.

  Behind them Remo saw a remote security panel with several monitor screens spread across its face. They had been watching his progress as he passed through the various Truth Church traps. Of course.

  The girl on the stool moaned loudly. There was something odd about her, and not just the way she twitched and jerked about. Despite the swirl of choking yellow smoke that poured up from a crevice in the rock beneath her, she breathed deeply. Almost like Remo himself.

  But the girl was irrelevant.

  "Shows over," Remo announced, taking the first few steps up the rocky incline in one bound.

  Kaspar smiled. "I rather think it's just begun," he said.

  As Remo began to take another step up, the girl on the stool raised a Browning pistol, which had been hidden at her side, and fired a round at Remo.

  On the steps below, Remo felt a slight tug at his right thigh.

  His face broke into shock as he watched blood begin to ooze from the bullet wound in his leg.

  He took a step backward as the second shot rang out.

  The heavy slug, like the first, bore through the fleshy part of his thigh—this time on the left—exiting cleanly out the back. It cracked through the top of a

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  lighted torch and into the cinder-block wall, sending up a puff of chalky dust and sparks.

  Blood pumped from the second wound, darkening the fabric of the black chinos. His body was already reacting to the injuries, rushing to clot and seal the bullet holes.

  Remo reeled on his feet, eyes all but uncomprehending. He shouldn't be shot. His training made him sensitive to every warning sign that preceded any kind of offensive strike.

  It was second nature for him to be able to sense when someone was carrying a concealed weapon. People with weapons walked and stood differently. In this case the girl should have sat differently. Remo's instincts had detected nothing.

  Yet suddenly there was the gun in her hand and the gun was spitting at him.

  And that was when the girl on the tripod spoke.

  "Sinanju is no more," rasped a voice that did not seem to fit. It sounded more like the voice of an old, old man. "You, Remo of Sinanju, are no more!"

  A hollow, victorious laugh filled the chamber.

  Esther Clear-Seer licked her lips nervously and backed away from the tripod. Her eyes darted between Remo and
the young girl.

  Remo took an uncertain step up the hill. His legs buckled beneath him, and he fell forward onto the carved stone staircase.

  "Bold to the end, young Sinanju master," the girl mocked. "Your pitiful house of assassins does not lack bravery."

  "Whoever you are," Remo growled, forcing himself back to his feet, "you're dogmeat."

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  The girl only smiled. "A pity the old one did not tell you of the prophecy. For when East meets West, the destiny of Sinanju will be forever changed. The end for you begins this day, for I have foreseen it.''

  "You have foreseen squat," Remo spit. He took another wobbly step up the rocky incline. His body was working hard to heal the wounds in his legs, and the diversion of energy was sapping his strength.

  The girl's voice became hoarse with menace. "I command you now, yield to the Delphic oracle. Yield to Apollo's Pythia. Yield to me, Sinanju, or die."

  The Browning was lifted again. A third shot rang out.

  The bullet snarled for Remo's shoulder. It was another warning shot—more significant than any fired over his head. The placement of the shots was proof that at any time the girl desired, a round could be fired that would end Remo's life.

  But this time Remo was prepared.

  The girl's posture hadn't provided a clue that she held a weapon until the moment the Browning was first fired. The second shot had found its mark only because Remo had been caught off guard by the first. But now Remo understood that the girl was somehow able to fire without any subtle signaling of her intentions whatsoever, so that before she could pull the trigger again, Remo had focused his concentration on the weapon itself. The shooter was unimportant.

  In Remo's mind the gun became the enemy.

  Remo watched the gun. The trigger was pulled, again without warning. The third bullet zipped toward his shoulder.

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  The bullet that was now his enemy. The bullet could kill him.

  Remo's hand darted up.

  His index finger caught the spiraling lump of lead a millimeter away from his shoulder, and he flicked the fragment up with the tip of a diet-hardened fingernail. His other hand swung around, forming a cup over the slowing projectile. The deflected round began losing speed. Remo slammed both hands together, guiding the lazy movement of the bullet until its velocity was spent.