Park Skarda-April Force: Emerald Part 3

It was now or never- Bunching his leg muscles, he launched himself forward, dragging her with him, but he stumbled, his legs rubbery. He was weaker than he'd thought and she was almost dead weight. A burst of bullets chewed a line in the planking above their heads. As he tried to dive for cover, he heard running feet, and then the straw-haired man was looming over them, swinging the barrel of his rifle at his face like a club. With the last of his strength Skarda lurched to his right, twisting, taking the blow on his deltoid. Pain lanced through him like searing fire and he staggered backward, losing his balance. He hit the floor with a thud.

The commando towered over him, his eyes dark with hate. "You have...our plans...." He scowled, not finding the English verb he wanted. "...verdorben," he finished in German. His heavy boot lashed out, smas.h.i.+ng into Skarda's ribcage. Skarda wanted to scream, but he bit his tongue. He didn't want to give the guy the satisfaction. Again the blond man kicked him, enjoying it. A snarl of hate darkened his face and he aimed the rifle.

"Now...I shoot you."

Skarda shook his head. "I don't think so." The words reverberated inside his skull, as if he were inside a cave.

The commando's face registered a flicker of uncertainty. "Why not?"

"Because she's going to shoot you." Skarda's eyes slid toward the door.

The man was good, trained to expect the unexpected. Instead of twisting around to fire, he jacked his torso down between his legs, whipping the gun barrel down to spray the s.p.a.ce behind him with bullets.

But April was faster. She had already quick-stepped next to him, jamming the muzzle of the G36 into his armpit just above the edge of his armored vest. She pulled the trigger twice.

The man jerked and flopped over, dead by the time he hit the floor.

She stooped to Skarda's side. "You okay?"

He managed a grin through gritted teeth. "I don't think anything's broken. At least I hope not."

Beside him, Flinders was staring at the dead man, her shoulders shaking in jerky spasms. He put an arm around her shoulder. "Okay?"

Hacking out deep coughs, she moved her head up and down.

Skarda glanced at April's face and gown, splashed crimson with Cowell's gore. She was bleeding from several cuts and the wound where the bullet had nicked her collarbone.

Her face set into hard lines. "Stephen Cowell is dead. The rest of them, too."

Skarda paled. His stomach wrenched. "Oh, G.o.d..."

For a long agonizing moment, Flinders stared at her in horror, then started to sob.

By now, the thermite had burned itself out and cool oxygen was flowing into the room through the shattered windows. Still, Skarda's lungs were on fire. He gulped air.

"Come on," he said to Flinders. "We have to get out of here." Getting to his feet, he stretched out a hand to help her up.

She stared up at him. "Who are these people? And why would they want to hurt Dr. Cowell?"

"That's what we have to find out."

April was inspecting the pile of black wingsuits. "I've seen those before," she said. "Gryphon wingsuits. We used to call them 'squirrel suits'. Very cool. They can drop you from thirty thousand feet and you can glide for twenty-five miles, totally silent."

She rummaged through the dead man's pack, then held up a handful of what looked to Skarda like black pencils. "Detonators for C-4. They must have planted charges. We need to get out of here. Now!"

___.

April hit the sky deck at a run, supporting Skarda with her arm around his waist, dragging him forward on wobbly legs. Flinders raced behind them, clutching the papyrus in its silicone sleeve. Together they vaulted over the rail, hitting the Nile with foaming splashes. By the time they surfaced, shaking water from their eyes, the cruise s.h.i.+p had already sailed away a hundred feet, the autopilot keeping its direction true.

Around them the night sounds seemed to hush. Then the stern of the Queen Hatshepsut erupted in a hot, white flash and a rolling red fireball painted the water and sh.o.r.eline crimson as a second explosion blew through the fuel tanks, sending boards and debris hurtling skyward, pursued by a fireball of orange-red flames.

Within moments the cruise s.h.i.+p had sunk out of sight amid swirling black clouds of smoke and churning water.

Treading water, April made sure the papyrus was sealed inside the case.

Skarda glanced over at it, then at the flaming debris bobbing on the surface. "Looks like this qualifies for something unusual."

April turned her gaze toward him. "Yeah."

Holding the scroll above water level, she struck out for sh.o.r.e.

Skarda and Flinders followed.

SIX.

Luxor, Egypt THE muggy night swaddled Skarda. He was sitting alone on the balcony of their suite at the Sonesta St. George Hotel, staring out at the majestic sweep of the Nile, where reflected lights jiggled and s.h.i.+mmied, torn to jittering shreds by pa.s.sing river traffic. Wet and bedraggled, they'd hitched a ride on a donkey cart to a small village, where a toothless cab driver overcharged them for the ride into Luxor. April had taken a shower and gone straight to bed and Flinders had followed right behind her.

But not him.

From the sh.o.r.eline below the faint scents of c.u.min and turmeric and grilled fish wafted up to his nostrils, but he barely noticed them. He was trying to will his mind into a black emotionless void, the way April had taught him. He needed to put Sarah's ghost to rest. Enough time had gone by. But it was hard. He knew she wouldn't have wanted to see him like this. She would want him to move on, to make peace with her death and her memory. But he couldn't do it yet. So he'd come out here instead of going to sleep, hoping to let the soft night and the panorama of lights lull him into peace.

But peace wouldn't come. He closed his eyes. Images of Stephen Cowell's face scrolled through his memory, haunting him. He knew that guilt was a useless emotion, especially now that there was work to be done. But he still felt that if OSR hadn't funded Stephen's project, the archaeologist would still be alive. And that made it his responsibility.

A soft footfall sounded behind him, and then April lowered herself to his side, laying a gentle hand on his cheek. She was a constant source of amazement to him: those hands that could knife-edge through a plate gla.s.s window could also feel as velvety as warm silk. He smiled at the thought. Her feet were a different story: they were hard as slabs of wood. Having spent much of her childhood alone in the pine and cottonwood forests of the Bitterroot Range of southern Montana, she'd wandered for miles barefoot.

"Thinking?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Don't."

He half-turned to her, showing her the ghost of a smile. "Easy to say."

"Stephen was able to see his dream fulfilled."

Skarda didn't answer. For a while they sat in silence, watching a felucca drift past on the far side of the river until its sail dropped out of sight. "If Flinders is right, then the Emerald Tablet is the key to this whole thing. Something on Stephen's papyrus must be a clue to the Tablet's location. Or at least the Bad Guys think it is."

"We've got nasty people with big guns looking for a major power source that sounds like some kind of explosive to me. Not a good combination."

"I agree. We're going to have to stop them from getting that Tablet." He was silent for a few moments, turning something over in his mind. Then he said, "I think Flinders is over her head in this one. It's getting too dangerous. Maybe we should hole her up in a safe house. Keep her out of harm's way."

"I doubt she'll go. She's too close to this. Too obsessed."

He kept his gaze locked on the distant landscape. "I don't want her to get hurt, too," he said softly.

April's face was impa.s.sive. She knew the thoughts that were gnawing at him. But it wasn't her way to share his distress. She just accepted things as they were. "If they need her to translate, they'll keep her alive."

"That's what's been bothering me. I think the guy in the pilot house wanted to kill us both. Not just me."

"Meaning we've got two sets of Bad Guys."

"Yeah. And both of them seem to want the Tablet. But only Zandak recognized her. Meaning she's still not safe."

"I'm staying in." Flinders' voice came from behind them. She was standing at the entrance to the balcony, her eyes on both of them. "My parents died looking for the Tablet and it's the least I can do to honor their memory."

Skarda twisted around to look at her. "I don't think you realize what you're getting yourself into. These people are dangerous."

"I don't care," she answered him. Stubbornness stiffened her voice, but it was obvious she was scared. "I'm in. For better or worse."

Skarda glanced over at April's face. He knew what she was thinking: non-combatants just get in the way. And can get you killed. He came to a decision. "Okay. Up to you. You know the rules. You're in. But anytime you want to drop out, you can. No questions asked. Okay?"

Nodding, Flinders moved forward and plopped down next to him, letting out a nervous breath. Slowly she shook her head back and forth. "Don't ask me why, but suddenly I'm starting to trust you two."

April growled.

But Skarda's teeth flashed white in the darkness.

"Well...now that that's taken care of," Flinders said. "I'm starving. Have we got anything to eat around here?"

SEVEN.

Arctic Ocean, Two Miles Above the Gakkel Ridge WHEN the submarine surfaced, Jaz popped a hatch and jumped out on deck, coc.o.o.ned in a jet-black Mustang MIS240 immersion suit. At two degrees Fahrenheit the metal plating was already freezing over, but she expertly straddled the non-skid grating, playing out her lifeline tether, paying no attention to the wind that buffeted her body and the choppy waves that broke and foamed over the deck.

Fifty yards in front of her the black silhouette of an icebreaker rose up from the drift ice, drifting hove-to with the current and not showing any lights. Bought for a song from a commercial s.h.i.+pyard in Bergen, the s.h.i.+p was a decommissioned rusting hulk about to be sc.r.a.pped.

But it was perfect for Jaz's needs.

Two men popped out of the hatch, quickly inflating a Zodiac H-733. Within minutes the three were bouncing over the black water toward the icebreaker. Maneuvering amids.h.i.+ps, the pilot b.u.mped the flank of the Zodiac against the big s.h.i.+p's hull. Jaz stood. From the starboard railing above a cable boarding ladder snaked down, unfurling. Grabbing it, she climbed toward the deck thirty feet above.

On the forecastle deck, a telescopic boom crane was lowering a four-by-thirty-five-foot six-inch-thick t.i.tanium case, blackened with light-absorbing paint, into an open cargo hold. Down below, she knew, more men were packing the bulkheads of the bow, the rudder room aft, and the boiler room amids.h.i.+ps with M112 block demolition charges, enough to blow through the armor plate of the icebreaker's hull and sink her evenly on the Gakkel Ridge, two miles below the surface.

"Leave that hatch open," she yelled at the boom operator. "We want it to fill up with water so the pressure won't crush the case."

With the storm howling around her, she peered into the open hold, nodding in satisfaction at the sight of the case being nestled into place.

Her headset crackled into life. "Lights coming," a male voice said. "Ten o'clock off your port."

Racing to the opposite railing, she saw the running lights of an oncoming s.h.i.+p, blurred by a distant squall of snow. Men swarmed up the gangways, their jobs belowdecks finished. The crane operator hopped from the cab, running for the rail.

Jaz barked into her throat mike: "Get the EMP!"

Then she sprinted for the starboard rail.

One by one the crew clambered down the ladder, dropping into the Zodiac. The warm lights of the approaching s.h.i.+p were plowing closer now. Through gaps in the gusts of snow she could see it was a small diesel-electric research vessel, its hull strengthened for ice. Even with the storm and the dim illumination of the polar twilight, she knew they couldn't miss the icebreaker, but they wouldn't have a clue the submarine was there. Inside her faceplate, her lips curled in a death's-head grin. That was the beauty of the Russian Kilo-cla.s.s submarines: with the flooding ports removed on the forebody and anechoic tiles fitted to the casings and fins, the subs were virtually undetectable by radar.

Reaching the sub, she scrambled on deck, watching two men haul out an eight-foot length of what looked like various-sized sections of silver sewer pipe bolted together and connected to a square black box at one end. Cables snaked from the box down through the open hatch into the sub's interior. The men bolted the device to metal brackets affixed to the deck.

The device was an EMP pulse generator, capable of generating a ten gigawatt wave of electromagnetic energy that would instantly disable any electronic devices it swept across.

Jaz spoke into her throat mike. "Go."

The men stepped back as the tube emitted a low-pitched hum. Jaz kept her eyes on the oncoming s.h.i.+p, ticking off a silent countdown in her head.

Then, like a switch being thrown, the research vessel's lights went black.

She spoke a command. From the sub's forward tubes two torpedoes shot out, their churning wakes lost below the broken ice floes. Less than a minute later twin explosions shot columns of water from below the waterline of the research s.h.i.+p. Listing heavily toward starboard, the s.h.i.+p rolled sideways, its bow plunging into the black water in a burst of spray. Within minutes the stern and screws had disappeared beneath the waves.

Jaz let out a loud whoop of triumph. Grinning, she stabbed the b.u.t.ton of a remote detonator. From the hull of the icebreaker three loud whumps echoed over the ice floes, followed by the grating scream of metal being torn apart. Foam spouted up in churning gouts as thousands of gallons of salt water flooded the ruptured hull.

Soon the hulk would settle upright on the floor of the Arctic Ocean, the t.i.tanium case bolted into its hold safeguarding its lethal cargo.

EIGHT.

Alexandria, Egypt TO Flinders, the Bibliotheca Alexandrinalooked like a gigantic flying saucer had crashed into the East Harbor. Of course, she knew the designers had meant the structure to represent the sun disk rising from the waters of the bay, but it didn't matter. To her mind the five-hundred-foot circular slab of Aswan granite with its sun-struck, gridded gla.s.s roof was more like something out of Star Trek. Finished in 2002, the reincarnation of the great library of ancient Alexandria had been constructed near the location of the Brucheion, the Royal Quarter of the Ptolemies and the site of the original library. It exhilarated her to think that Alexander the Great had walked here, and breathed this same air that she was now breathing, as had Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, and a pantheon of famous scientists and scholars of the cla.s.sical world.

At Luxor they'd boarded the train for Alexandria, so that Flinders could photograph Cowell's papyrus in the library's Digital a.s.sets Repository. She could also store the papyrus here in a secure, climate-controlled vault.

Skarda would rather have flown for the sake of time, but on the train he could buy first-cla.s.s tickets for cash and keep their names off any pa.s.senger lists. Once in Alexandria, however, he'd had no choice but to rent a BMW X5 for mobility.

Walking into the entrance lobby, she showed her scholar's pa.s.s to the guard and he inspected the steel case she was carrying without questioning the papyrus, still in its silicone case, then waved her through. In the digital ma.n.u.scripts facility she opened the case, then slipped on a pair of latex gloves and shook the papyrus from the silicone bag.

With careful fingers she unrolled the leading edge of the scroll.

A chill snaked down her spine. She was looking at a time-stained sheet of pressed and hammered papyrus paper about 8.5x13 inches, covered with cramped lines of crudely-drawn symbols, with approximately an inch border around each of the edges.

She bent her head lower, her eyes roaming over the ancient glyphs.

Then she gasped.

___.