Captain Snelling was a bald, tall, buff Brit, with a red goatee. A red eyebrow went up. “No harm, eh? They’re pointing weapons at our heads. FBI? What’s this all about, Rafael?”
Nicholas said, “Captain Snelling, Aldo, we need to get to the island. We are FBI agents and the Kohaths captured two of our people. You ferried them in, so you know. I suggest you wait here with Rafael until we come back.”
Aldo grabbed the captain’s sleeve. “You know if we go back, even with their guns at our heads, they’ll kill us.”
Mike said, “They will not kill you. We’re going to shut down their operation. I strongly recommend you remain here with Rafael.”
Captain Snelling said, “No, Aldo, the old man wouldn’t kill us.”
Rafael said, “Maybe he wouldn’t, Captain, but those twins are here now. Both of them are mean as snakes, and twice as crazy.” He looked at Mike and Nicholas. “Don’t get me wrong, the old man is nuttier than a fruitcake, but he’s smart, and so long as you do your job well, he’s kind. But the twins, they’re not like him. They have something wrong, deep inside. Oh yes, they’d kill us in a flash.”
Mike asked, “The two prisoners with them, a man and a woman—what shape were they in? Drugged? Beaten?”
Captain Snelling said, “She wasn’t drugged, but she’d been knocked around. As for the man, he was still out of it. He could barely walk.
“Cassandra backhanded the woman for no reason I could see. I wanted to help her, but I knew the crazy witch would kill me without hesitation.”
Nicholas said, “As I said, we want to rescue them, shut down this operation. Will you let us do our job? Will you stay here with Rafael?”
Snelling looked from Aldo to Rafael, back toward the island and slowly nodded. “Everything is different now that the twins are here. They were manic, I could feel a sick sort of excitement rolling off them. Listen, I’m afraid for the old man.”
“We are, too,” Mike said. “We’ve already learned firsthand how ruthless the twins are. We’ll be back as soon as we can. How many other guards are there?”
“Four, all as vicious as the twins,” Aldo said. “Maybe more so. We keep away from them.”
Snelling said, “I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering why we’re giving up so easily, that we’re going to screw you over. Not going to happen. I know those twins are here to do something really bad. I don’t know what it is, but they need to be stopped.”
Mike asked, “Do you know what Jason Kohath does here?”
“I haven’t got a clue, he’s always very close-mouthed, but he’s the smartest man I’ve ever met in my life. We occasionally play chess. I’m not bad, but he can look at the chessboard and I know he’s picturing twenty moves ahead with at least fifty possible variations. Once I was on his command center, that’s what I call it, anyway, and there was a bank of computer screens, mostly showing the world weather.” Snelling paused. “What he’s doing, it’s criminal, isn’t it?”
Nicholas said very deliberately, “If we don’t stop him, he will destroy the earth.”
Snelling clearly didn’t believe him. “Destroy the earth? What is he doing?”
“You saw the news a couple of days ago—the sand blizzard into Beijing from the Gobi Desert? He’s responsible for that.”
They still didn’t believe him, and Nicholas couldn’t blame them. “Listen, we have to hurry. Come on, mates, make up your minds.”
Snelling nodded. “Okay, we’ll stay here, wait for you. A couple of things you need to know or you will very likely die. The computer systems will reset the exterior wall once the boat’s signal registers—it pings as we pass through, that way, they’re sure it’s us sailing in and out. If we don’t ping the system, a storm unlike anything you’ve ever seen will roar up, and you’ll go down. You can sail through the barrier, or fly over it, and if you aren’t identified as a friendly, you are turned away, so to speak. The old man doesn’t like surprises and he doesn’t like strangers.” He frowned. “But something’s not right. The island shouldn’t have popped up so quickly, it’s something the old man never does. I think the twins have taken over. When they arrived with the man and the woman, we knew something was up. I suggest you both be very careful.”
Once they were transferred, Nicholas gunned the boat forward.
The ocean was turbulent, and Mike was having a hard time keeping her feet under her. She hung on to the railing for dear life. She forgot the headache, the hits of nausea, the nibbling of fear at being on the water, that was all for yesterday, now, today, she flung back her head, felt the wind tear her hair, make her eyes tear. “It’s a trampoline! I love trampolines!”
Nicholas wanted to hug her, but instead he pushed the engines as fast as they would go. Both he and Mike stared at the gorgeous green island drawing closer and closer.
“It’s amazing,” she shouted over the wind. “Look at that volcano in the middle. It’s Fantasy Island.”
Nicholas said, “Both Rafael and Captain Snelling were surprised the island appeared so quickly. That makes me think that Jason Kohath is indeed no longer in command. This smacks of Cassandra and Ajax, and they don’t know the protocols. They’ve taken control and are running things now.”
“Do you think they’d actually murder their own grandfather?”
“To be honest, I don’t think anything they could do would surprise me.”
“There’s a reason they brought Kitsune and Grant with them. They need them to do something for them. What is it?”
He shouted back, “We’ll find out. Who do you think would come out alive if you put Cassandra and Kitsune together in the ring?”
“Kitsune,” Mike said without pause.
Nicholas agreed. They saw a huge crevasse in the mountain, a natural cove that sheltered an elaborate dock. Nicholas slowed, tightened one hand on the wheel, the other on his Glock.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Ajax was fast. He grabbed Kitsune’s hair as she scrambled away, yanked her off her feet. She landed hard on her back, right next to Cassandra, who was sitting with her palm to her forehead trying to stanch the flow of blood.
Ajax stood over her, an ancient Colt revolver in his hand, probably his grandfather’s gun. Kitsune watched Cassandra tear off a piece of her knit top, make it into a bandage and press it against the cut. Only then did she turn to Kitsune. She reached out her hand and lightly stroked her hair. “You could have pulled it out, Ajax, all that beautiful hair.” Without another word, she slapped Kitsune. Kitsune wanted to attack, but she heard the click of the Colt revolver and didn’t move. “Now that I’ve got your attention, tell us how you got out of that room.”
“Through the air vent.”
Both twins looked up and in that instant, Kitsune leaped to her feet, stomped hard on Ajax’s instep, and sent her fist into his throat.
His gun went flying out of his hand to spin across the smooth stone floor. He grabbed his throat, gagging, but she hadn’t hit him hard enough, she hadn’t collapsed his trachea.
Cassandra scrambled to her feet, grabbed the wooden chessboard and came at her. Before Kitsune could run, Ajax was on her again. She ducked his fist, but it landed solidly against her shoulder, spinning her around. Cassandra lifted the chessboard over her head, ready to smash it over Kitsune’s skull.
Kitsune went in fast, head-butted Ajax in his stomach and knocked the air out of him, sending him stumbling backward. She saw Cassandra in her peripheral vision, blood trickling down her face from the cut on her forehead, and she was swinging the chessboard madly back and forth in front of her. Kitsune only had a second. She spun around, ducked down, even as Cassandra swung the chessboard and came up behind her. She lashed out with her foot, right into Cassandra’s back, the force knocking her into her brother, sending the two of them crashing against the computer station, arms flailing as they tried to regain their balance.
Keyboards went flying. The huge screens on the walls started changing, showing numbers, equations, diffe
rent land masses, merging, splitting apart, like cards shuffled by a madman.
A warning Klaxon began, quickly built to an earsplitting crescendo.
Kitsune saw a satellite turning lazily in space, then a beam of orange light shoot away into the darkness. The next screen showed the orange beam hitting the earth.
“What have you done?” Cassandra screamed at her over the siren. “Stop it, Ajax, stop it! We don’t know if it’s going to Washington now, it could be going anywhere. Stop it!”
Kitsune didn’t wait, ran toward the hallway and stopped cold. Two men were marching Grant between them. He was barely conscious, and they had handcuffs on him again. Blood trickled down his chin from a cut on his lip.
She should have stayed. Together they could have taken these two goons. But they’d had weapons, probably came into the cell with them. Grant hadn’t had a chance.
Cassandra yelled to them, “Kill the man if she moves!”
Kitsune was so angry she was vibrating, so scared for Grant she wanted to weep. She was panting hard, but she didn’t move. Neither did the two men. Everyone was watching Ajax typing frantically. They knew something was wrong, very wrong.
Ajax hit a final computer key and the screens stopped shifting, the siren cut off midwail.
“Where did the laser hit?” Cassandra asked.
“Five hundred nautical miles northeast, as best I can tell. It went straight down to the seabed.”
Cassandra stood mute, watching her twin move through the screens now, searching the data as it began to scroll onto the center screen. “I don’t know what it will do. Depending on the strength of that blast it could shift the seabed. Someone could have seen it strike the water, alerted the Coast Guard.” He swiped his hand through his head. “We need the storm in position to strike D.C., and now I think it’s back on track, but I can’t be certain.”
“It will be all right, you’ll see. You’ve very good, Ajax, it will hit Washington, D.C., just as we planned.”
“Cassandra, if the algorithms are off a meter, or the strength isn’t properly measured, the lasers aligned just so, it can cause a global catastrophe and not hit Washington, D.C. at all.” He drew in a deep breath. “As close as the hit was to us, a seabed earthquake could send out a tsunami and wipe our island off the face of the earth. Then if the hurricane hits Washington, D.C., we won’t care. It would have all been for nothing.”
Cassandra looked over at Kitsune. “I told you, Ajax, I think the Ark is here, in the vault. Grandfather’s big secret. She will open it for us and then we will have the power to control the Coil again. Trust me, Ajax. We will not only control the Coil, we will control everything.”
Kitsune heard him snort, saw him studying first one computer, then another.
Cassandra had knotted a cloth around her forehead to keep the blood out of her eyes. She looked at Kitsune. “This better not leave a scar or I will take a knife and carve up your face.” She nodded toward the behemoth holding Grant’s left arm. “Now, you will either open the vault for me or I’ll have Bantam Weight break your husband’s neck.”
She was calling that hulk Bantam Weight? What did she call the other one? Feather Weight? Her brain was squirreling around; she had to get it together, figure out what to do. She looked over at an old man, silent, unmoving, his head bleeding on the floor, another dead man beside him. “You killed your own grandfather. And for what? You honestly believe Jason Kohath has been sitting on the Ark of the Covenant this whole time?”
Cassandra laughed. “You’re stupid, you have no idea what you’re talking about.” She turned to the two guards. “Bring the man.”
Ajax stopped typing. He was staring at one of the screens, as if willing what he wanted to happen.
“Straighten up and walk,” Bantam Weight said, and kicked Grant.
It was then Kitsune saw Grant’s eyes. They were clear, focused on her, and she knew he wanted them to stay together. She knew hope.
Kitsune said, “Let’s open the safe.”
Cassandra said to Bantam Weight, “If either of them tries anything, shoot him. Ajax, do you need to stay here or will you come with us?”
“There’s nothing more I can do,” he said, rising.
They walked through byzantine passages, forking left, then right, fanning off intersections. Kitsune realized these passageways had been dug out and reinforced decades earlier—probably by the Russians—they were stark, cold, well-maintained by Kohath’s guards no doubt. And always, they walked deeper into the heart of the volcano itself.
They came into a large space carved into the rock, lights inset, reflecting out a gauzy red glow. The walls weren’t metal, they were smooth rock, like the back of the small room where she and Grant had been locked in.
On the far wall Kitsune saw a commercial-grade vault, one similar to those she’d seen in Swiss banks in Geneva and Zurich, state-of-the-art, virtually impossible to open. She’d need special tools and several hours to have a prayer of getting into this vault.
Cassandra pointed to the round steel door in front of them. “This is one of the most secure vaults in the world. It is made of steel-reinforced concrete. The lock is a dual combination and key. I have the director’s key right here, a gift from my grandfather. You need to figure out the combination.
“It is a class-three lock, and it’s set into an explosive charge. Get it wrong, and you will be vaporized. Once inside, there will be another door, but you won’t have to worry about that one, it’s a special climate-control door.” She twirled the combination lock. “You have twenty-two minutes.”
“Listen to me, Cassandra, you know well enough I can’t have the combination miraculously appear. I need a thermal lance to cut through the rods, even with a class-three, it will take me an hour, if I’m lucky.”
She tossed Kitsune a stereoscope. “You have this. And I’m not kidding about the time, this door is set to self-destruct if the dial is moved and no one puts in the combination. When I spun that lock, the timer started inside. Twenty-one minutes, now. Get going and open that vault, or I will slit your husband’s throat.”
“You want me to use the stethoscope to listen to it open?”
“Bring her man. And a knife.”
“Be reasonable, there’s over a million possible combinations. It would take a computerized crack system three days to run that many.”
“You’re speeding down to twenty minutes.”
Kitsune looked at Grant. And in his eyes she saw certainty. That she could open the vault? Well, yes, okay, she could open the bloody vault, she was the best, after all. Kitsune grabbed the stethoscope, said over her shoulder, “I need complete silence, and your breathing sounds like cannons in my ears. You want it open? Leave me.”
Cassandra gave her a long look. “We’ll be in the corridor. Do not even think, for one second, I won’t hesitate to kill your husband, should you not get it open.”
Kitsune laid her hands on the metal and felt the earth move under her feet.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Mike, take the wheel. I’ll get the rope to tie us to the dock.”
Mike steered the boat toward the dock and stared at the green jungle. It looked impenetrable, so thick it crowded against the white sand that covered a beach at least twenty feet wide. Off to her left were spectacular bare rock cliffs that had shifted over the years, spilling boulders onto the beach. This could have been a paradise, not a hideaway away for a mad genius.
As they motored into the natural harbor, the air grew cooler. She continued to search the beach, and saw a narrow path that led to a door.
“There’s no one here.”
“In the jungle, perhaps, but there are cameras on every pylon, and one farther in, above that metal fire door. If anyone is watching, we’ve certainly been spotted by now. No hope for it. Cut the engine.”
Nicholas threw a rope to the nearest pylon, anchoring the boat to the dock.
As their feet hit the sand beach, Mike felt a tremor, then another and an
other, gentle, like rolling waves. She instinctively reached out and grabbed Nicholas’s arm. The ground they were standing on shook harder, and she braced her feet wide. Then nothing.
She saw Nicholas’s face had gone white.
She ran her tongue over her dry lips. “This isn’t okay, Nicholas. It’s tremors. You know volcanos are almost always related to a fault.”
“I’m thinking it’s related to the Coil, maybe a malfunction. But whatever it is, we have to hurry, Mike.”
When they reached the fire door, Nicholas turned the handle. “Luck is with us, it’s unlocked.”
“I don’t like this, Nicholas. No guards? And Captain Snelling told us a man named Amos would be here, he’s the one who controls entry and exit, but I’m not seeing anyone.”
A man’s deep voice came from behind the door. “Don’t open that door or an explosive will blow you to bits. That door is a dead end. I have to bring you in. If you look to your left—”
Hidden in a vine-covered wall was a door with a window. The voice said on a chuckle, “Pretty good camouflage, don’t you think? Not that we’ve ever needed it. I’m going to open the door now, and don’t worry, I don’t have a weapon.”
Nicholas hoped the man wasn’t lying. The door opened a crack and they saw a small bald man with bushy white eyebrows step quickly back and stick his hands in the air.
“Get back, into the room. You’re Amos?”
Amos’s eyes never left Nicholas’s as he inched himself back against the wall, his hands still up. It was a security office, and it was empty except for the three of them.
Nicholas looked over at a control board, but didn’t recognize much.
Amos said, “This is where we run the dock. I developed all the protocols. If someone unwanted bypasses the other security measures and gets too close, I can trip them up here. It’s only happened three times since I’ve been here, fifteen years now.”
Mike asked, “Why didn’t you let us open the door and blow ourselves up?”
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