Kitsune said nothing more, what was there to say?
She watched Cassandra’s face change. She braced herself, mentally, said goodbye to Grant.
The idea came to Cassandra in a flash. So clear, so perfect, she now knew exactly what to do. Both she and Ajax knew their grandfather would die before he’d hand over the formula. But now they wouldn’t have to torture him to get him to tell them the combination to his precious vault.
At her feet lay a master thief, that’s what Lilith had called the Fox in a worshipful voice, and she’d sworn this pitiful woman was the best in the world. She remembered now Lilith had been devastated when they’d told her the thief had to die, it was too dangerous to allow her to live, but Ajax had finally talked her around and she’d given the order to Pazzi. But the thief, this Fox, had proved her worth, her skill—she’d actually managed to steal the staff out of the Topkapi museum. So why couldn’t the Fox open her grandfather’s vault?
Kitsune could nearly taste Cassandra’s sudden excitement. What was going on here? Cassandra leaned down and patted Kitsune’s face, then, she jumped to her feet and nearly danced out of the small office. “Don’t go anywhere,” she sang out over her shoulder. And without another word, she was gone. She heard Cassandra say to Giovanni, “We’re leaving now. Bring her. Leave the man.”
“Shall I kill him?”
“No, it’s a waste of a good bullet. Leave him for the rats.”
Kitsune closed her eyes. Why had the crazy woman kept her alive? What did she want? It didn’t matter. All she cared about was Grant, and she knew he’d be okay, Nicholas and Mike would find him, free him.
It was Harry who came into the office, and in his hand was a syringe. She saw some marks on his face from her blows and a bandage on his arm where she’d gotten him with her Ka-Bar. Even though he’d beaten the crap out of her, in that moment she didn’t care.
He came down on his knees beside her. “Don’t move or it’ll be worse.” And he rammed the needle into her arm and pressed the plunger. She was unconscious in under three seconds.
She didn’t hear Cassandra say, “On second thought, bring the man, too. We may need him for leverage.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Nicholas and Mike hiked in silence until the sun was down, the sky a faint pink. Mike turned and caught a glimpse of the lake below among the thick olive trees, the water now a deep purple. She heard crickets singing, saw a few bats swooping overhead.
“There,” Mike said quietly, and touched Nicholas’s shoulder lightly. “There’s the entrance.” A guard was standing in front of the orange tape. “Is that an L85 he’s carrying?”
Nicholas pulled out a monocular. “Good eye, Mike, yes, it is. New model, too. Cassandra and Ajax are quick, aren’t they? And he’s another Brit, I’d wager—the L85 is the favored assault model for our Special Forces. They aren’t messing around, not that I ever thought they would. But still, it’s only one guard.”
“Does he have night vision?”
“Maybe, though he doesn’t have his goggles out right now or we would have a serious problem. Sloppy of him.”
Mike readied her Glock. “You want me to take him, or will you?”
He stashed the monocular. “You don’t have a suppresser and we don’t want the noise. We don’t want him to have a chance to get on his radio. Give me time to get around to the other side, then distract him, let him see you.” He grabbed her arms. “Do not get shot, do you understand me? Just get in his line of vision, give him a glimpse, and I’ll take him from behind.”
“That goes for you, too.”
Their steps were silent, cushioned by the new growth of buttercups edging the grove. Branches of flowering borage and the deepening darkness gave them cover. They moved to within twenty feet of the entrance, then Nicholas signaled for her to get ready and started tracking off to the east to circle around.
Mike had counted to twenty when Nicholas hit his comms, gave her a tap in the ear. She shook an olive branch beside her, darted away, quick as a rabbit, twenty feet to another small grove.
The guard immediately went on alert, walked ten steps from the tunnel entrance toward her. He didn’t call out or get on his radio because it was dark and he knew there was a good chance he’d heard an animal prowling around. But his finger was on the trigger guard.
Mike moved again, drawing the guard’s attention to the right, Nicholas came silently around the edge of the tunnel entrance and hit the guard on the head with a rock. He went down without a sound and lay unmoving on his side, the rock, smeared with blood, beside him.
“Is he dead?”
“Nah.” Nicholas pulled rope from his backpack, tied the guard’s hands and feet, gagged him. Then he dragged him into the grove, covered him with branches of borage.
Without another word, they entered the tunnel. The lights from their flashlights barely cut through the darkness. Mike shivered.
Nicholas whispered, “I see the light fixtures, but the lights aren’t on and why not? The power came back on over an hour ago. Maybe they don’t use the lights unless needed.”
“I’m going to vote for unused. Nicholas, look. You can see two sets of footprints in the dust—one small going in, one large heading out. Kitsune and the guard are the only people who’ve been in this tunnel recently.”
She touched his sleeve. “This worries me. Why would the Kohaths allow such easy access to their house? They’re so security-conscious, it seems odd they’d leave a perfect tunnel in place for someone to waltz through the back door. And only one guard.”
“Think back, Mike, isn’t this how the Knights Templar would have gotten out when there was trouble? Don’t forget, not many people have access to the detailed plans Adam was able to find, plus it is private property. Watch your step there, we’re heading uphill.”
He grabbed her by the waist and swung her over a stake in the ground. He stopped and aimed his light on it. It was a piece of branch, sharpened to a point. “Kitsune’s trail of bread crumbs?”
Mike knelt down, examined the branch. “I’m thinking it’s a weapon she made if she had to get out quickly and needed something fast.” She stood, wiped her hands on her pants. “Whatever, she didn’t have a chance to use it. They got her farther up the tunnel.”
“Kitsune is very skilled, very dangerous. Do you think she allowed herself to get taken?”
Mike shook her head. “I honestly think she wanted to get in, rescue her husband, and get out as quietly as possible. From the noises I heard, someone bigger and faster surprised her and beat her. She was unconscious when I saw the guard walk by with her thrown over his shoulder, and I doubt she allowed that to happen. I only got a glimpse of him, but I think it was Harry. Oh, now what? This is all we need—the tunnel splits ahead.”
They pulled up short. Nicholas ran his Maglite over four different tunnel branches. “From the plans, we know to go north. That way.” He pointed to the center tunnel.
“What are they doing down here? This looks modern and we know the Etruscan excavations ended years ago.”
“Ben sent me a theory from St. Germaine’s first book on Appleton Kohath. One of the Ark legends has the Templars guarding the Ark for the Church. In the pages he sent, he pointed out the nearby church, San Bevignate, that temporarily housed the Templars on the orders of Pope Gregory. Maybe they stashed their treasure here instead of burying it under the church, thinking it safer to have it farther away. And the Kohaths came across that information.”
Nicholas said, “So Pope Gregory somehow got his hands on the Ark and gave it over to the Knights Templar to protect? Well, this is a seriously out-of-the-way place, but maybe that would be the pope’s reasoning. Safer in an unknown location than where his knights were housed.”
“It’s possible. And the Kohaths, knowing this, have been searching for the Ark here ever since. Explains why they bought the place, and modernized the tunnel reinforcements.”
“Makes a sick kind of sense.” Nicholas stopped, shine
d his Maglite on two more branching tunnels. “Okay, these weren’t on the plans. Which tunnel do you choose?”
“Whenever we have a choice, we have to continue inward and that means north.”
They moved deeper into the tunnel and into the mountain. A few minutes later, Nicholas put up his hand. “Do you hear that?”
Loud voices arguing, coming toward them.
They ran back to the tunnel junction and into another passageway. The voices grew closer, then faded away as the two arguing men disappeared down another tunnel.
They started off again into the north tunnel. Mike smelled dirt and damp, and blood, a copper smell like none other. She stopped, leaned into him, and whispered, “Do you smell something off here?”
Nicholas stopped. “I do.” He shined his Maglite around. “Mike, there’s a body here, poorly buried.”
He knelt down, began brushing away loose mounds of dirt.
“A woman,” he said.
Oh no, oh no. “Kitsune?”
“I don’t know yet.” Nicholas kept brushing away the dirt from the face.
A light and shadow suddenly appeared, and a man’s voice shouted, “Hey! What are you doing?”
Mike flashed her Maglite toward the voice, effectively blinding the man. She caught a brief glimpse of him—large, muscled, buzz-cut hair, shouting at them in a British accent—it was Harry.
He moved fast. Mike’s gun was in her hand, Nicholas by her side, his Glock up as well, shouting, “Back off, mate. You don’t want to tangle with us.”
“Drummond, you bastard—you took down Joey, tied him up and left him outside to rot? I’ve been tracking you. Ms. Kohath thought you two were long gone, but I didn’t. I’ve worked with your sort, knew you’d come back. I’ve been tracking you and now you’re going to die down here. No one will ever know what happened to you two.”
He had guns in both hands, but Nicholas was faster, he brought up his arm and fired, all in one smooth motion and shot Harry twice in the chest. Mike, a millisecond behind him, shot him in the forehead. The shots reverberated through the tunnel, echoing loudly. Harry looked at them, shock on his face, and then he fell, a gun landing on each side of him.
Mike grabbed Nicholas’s arm. “Everyone down here is going to be on us in a few seconds.” She looked toward the shallow grave. “Is it Kitsune?”
“It’s not Kitsune. It’s Lilith. Come on.”
They started off in a slight crouch, their Glocks at the ready, Nicholas’s Maglite lighting the way.
“I’m praying that Kitsune and Grant are together, and they’re still alive.”
Nicholas was praying the same thing.
They hurried deeper and deeper, until Mike grabbed Nicholas’s wrist, whispered in his ear. “There are lights up ahead.”
They turned a corner onto a large fully lighted cavern. It was a full-fledged underground operation. Nicholas saw a row of ten or so motorbikes by the doors, steel storage units, an array of tools. Half a dozen men were working. No one seemed to have heard the gunshots.
“I think they’re pulling up stakes,” Mike whispered. “Nicholas, look over there.”
They watched Kitsune being dragged from a small tunnel offshoot by a small man with gray hair, and ahead of them was Cassandra Kohath, calling out orders. “Be ready to leave within the hour. And don’t forget the man.”
They were alive. Mike said, “They’re going to run for it. Can we take them down from here, do you think? Before they miss Harry and the guard at the tunnel entrance?”
He nodded and pointed his Glock toward the cavern. “On my mark. Three, two—”
But Mike yanked him back against the tunnel wall, out of sight. “No, no, someone’s coming.”
They heard shouts, in Italian and English, accompanied by running steps. Too many, too many. She leaned up. “Either they found Harry or they saw us. We can’t get to Kitsune and Grant now. I hate this, but there are too many of them. We have to go back the way we came, and fast.”
They scrambled back down the tunnel, past Lilith’s body, into the darkness.
They heard shouts behind them.
“Can you understand what they’re shouting?”
“They’re on radios, calling for reinforcements.”
“Let’s duck in here.” They ran into a side tunnel, this one smaller, darker than a tomb.
Nicholas grabbed her arm. “Wait, stop. Do you hear that?”
“I thought I heard an engine. Like a motorbike.” They listened for a moment, but Mike could hear nothing but voices.
“I saw motorbikes in the central cavern. Now I hear them, they’re calling for someone to cut us off, to drive us back. Nicholas, this tunnel goes somewhere, it doesn’t dead-end. Come on.”
They ran into the offshoot tunnel. Without warning, a high-pitched motor revved, close to them, and they were blinded by the single headlamp.
A man started yelling, “They’re here, I’ve found them.”
And the motorbike raced toward them.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Mike, this way.” They turned and ran back toward the main junction, the motorbike right behind them, the engine whine echoing off the walls.
“More engines, more bikes. Run or make a stand?”
He flashed her a grin. “Sorry, sweetheart, but we’re definitely outnumbered. We’ll circle back around and surprise them on the other side of the cavern.”
“Where do we go?”
“Follow me.” He sprinted away and she was after him, running hard. Shouts, yells, in Italian and English, loud, closer than they’d like. A bullet whizzed past Mike’s head, slamming in the dirt wall.
Nicholas pulled up and threw himself in front of her, pushing her up against the dirt wall, protecting her as he started shooting toward the man on the motorbike. He shot three times and the bike’s headlight spun crazily, then the bike slid onto its side, the engine whining, grabbing dirt into the exhaust.
“Hurry.”
He grabbed Mike’s hand again, and together they ran toward the bike, the rider dead three feet beyond it. Nicholas righted the bike and threw a leg over. “Climb aboard.” He sent her a manic grin. “Sorry, no helmets.”
She swallowed a laugh and pressed against his back. “I hope Russo doesn’t show up to give us tickets. Go, Nicholas!”
Nicholas whipped the bike around and headed back into the smaller offshoot tunnel. The engine revved hard once, twice, nearly bucking them off the bike. Then it caught and they were moving into the darkness fast, only the headlight showing them the way. Mike’s pulse pounded, her heart leaped. She held on tight, the air whipping her hair, and she yelled, “Go, go, go!”
Nicholas grinned, couldn’t help it.
The smaller tunnel had offshoots, several paths in and out. Mike had no idea which direction they were headed now. Over the noise of the engine she could hear another bike coming fast behind them.
“Company,” she shouted, as a second man on a bike tailed the first, both of them shouting and waving guns.
Mike shot one, Nicholas twisted around, shot the other. Mike’s target dropped, his bike skidding into the tunnel wall, but Nicholas’s kept coming. He wasn’t shooting now, he was crouched low, speeding up. He was going to run them down. The instant before the bike hit them, Nicholas turned their bike down another tunnel. Mike nearly fell off, but managed to grab his arm. He pulled her back on. She held on to his jacket with one hand and started shooting behind her with the other.
“There’s more, they’re coming.”
The tunnels were full of the echoes of bikes and gunshots and shouts. Two more bikes appeared behind them, their riders low to the handlebars, guns raised. Mike caught one in the hand, saw his gun go flying. He tried to keep coming one-handed, but he couldn’t control the bike and finally dropped it on its side and started running after them. The other ducked off another tunnel and disappeared.
“They’re going to cut us off, Nicholas.”
“Hold on, let’s have some fun.�
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He slowed, planted his foot in the dirt, whirled the bike around and roared toward the oncoming bike. Mike shot the guard center mass.
More shouts now. Another bike came up from around the curve behind them. Nicholas started again down into the darkness. “They’re bloody hydras, every time we take one out three more pop up.”
Mike was twisting around in the seat, trying to look behind them and not fall off. “There’s three more behind us. They’re gaining. I need to reload. Can you circle back around?”
A fourth bike appeared ahead of them, speeding toward them.
“Down there, down there,” Mike shouted, and Nicholas took a hard left, so sharply they both hit the wall with their right shoulders before he could plant a foot and straighten the bike out. He gunned it and they flew down the tunnel into the darkness.
This tunnel was very old. It had a deep rut down the middle that wasn’t dirt, it was ancient stone. Etruscans had walked down this path.
The bikes behind them were gaining, and Mike could have sworn she heard one of the men laughing. And then she saw why. There was a wall ahead. A solid wooden wall. They were finally trapped.
Nicholas shouted, “Hold on, Mike, hang on tight! Keep your arms around my waist.”
Nicholas was shooting at the wall, emptying his entire magazine. She held on for dear life, felt the heat of the bullets from the men behind them pass close to her head. Her heart caught in her throat as Nicholas revved the engine and drove directly toward the wall. His bullets had splintered the ancient wood.
Nicholas slammed the bike into the wall, and through it.
She felt a cold rush of air, they were flying through the dark sky, but they were falling, falling fast, and Nicholas was shouting, “Jump! Jump!” in her ear. She saw a shimmer of water in the moonlight, then she was twisting in the air. She had a moment of clarity, realized they’d burst out of the side of the mountain over the lake, then something hard smacked her head. She saw stars, felt wetness, a sickening dizziness, and then she hit the water, hard. She didn’t feel anything more.
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