Could he condemn Skylar to that?
“Stop wasting time, Elad.” Ballard placed a palm on his shoulder. His voice came out gruffer through his mask. “Prove to me you’re worth trusting again.”
The numbers Ballard had showed him replayed through his mind. Enough money that, if he was just patient, he could buy himself a way out of this mess. Disappear somewhere far from Ballard, from Mossad too.
A new life where he could be free.
But Elad knew he would never truly be free from his nightmarish role in the Ring of Solomon. Not after the images and videos Ballard had shown him. Even if he never fully regained his memory, the knowledge that he had been a part of this was painful enough.
But there was no way he could make it out of this hellhole alive if he didn’t cooperate with Ballard. Skylar was going to die either way. No doubt about it.
And after all, how well did he really know this woman? Was she a good person? What if she had been out to capture the Ring of Solomon for the United States government? Or perhaps even for herself? Given the option, who wouldn’t be tempted by this much power?
She was just one life. It was either her or both of them.
The calculation was cold, logical. But it had to be made.
Elad opened the vial. He dipped the plastic dropper into the silvery liquid and drew it up. Then he faced Skylar.
He held the bulb up toward her face. Her eyes bulged, vessels protruding against her forehead and along her neck. Her furious voice was muffled by the cloth gag, but she didn’t look away.
“What is he waiting for?” Vahid asked. “I want to see the American whore rip herself apart.”
Skylar’s furious eyes dared him to do it, to prove that he was truly a villain. Behind him, Ballard and Vahid were getting anxious. Another rolling crash of thunder shook the walls, as if the world itself was telling him to get on with it.
Elad made his decision.
-36-
Alex held his hands up, letting his rifle drop on its strap. With five guns pointed at him, he didn’t have much of a choice.
The bulkheads shook. Dust fell from the metal beams.
Alex had no options, no angles to play, except one. He took a step forward, smiling and relaxed.
“I’m so glad you found me,” he said. “I’m with Archon. Got lost on the way to the head and then there was an explosion.”
The guards stared at him skeptically, as well they should.
“You think this guy is with the buyers?” one of them asked the others.
“Could have been spying while the rest distracted Ballard,” another suggested.
The leader of the five wasn’t perturbed. “Bullshit. Who are you?”
“Arnon,” Alex said into his mic, hoping she heard the call for help in his voice.
“Well, Arnon, you’re coming with us.”
“Copy,” the real Arnon said over their comm link. “Give me five seconds.”
Alex had left the line open during the entire exchange. With Arnon near the operations center, he wasn’t sure that she could do much. But she would at least know what had happened to him.
If he could no longer complete the mission, then she would have to do it alone.
“Now,” Arnon whispered into her mic.
The lights went dark.
Curses flew from the gunmen’s mouths. They weren’t prepared for this.
But Alex was.
He ducked low and flipped down his night-vision goggles. The blackness gave way to a sea of greens and whites. He could clearly see all five of his targets swiveling around blindly, groping for each other, for him.
He kicked the nearest gunman backward, knocking him into one of his brethren, then opened fire. In the enclosed space, his suppressed gunfire was deafening. The flash of the muzzle fire flared white in his NVGs, and he squinted against the brilliance. Rounds tore through the guards as they stumbled and screamed, trying to get away.
The last of them fell backward, pushing himself away from Alex on his rear, firing blindly up toward the ceiling.
Another blast from Alex’s rifle, and the man’s gun finally went silent.
“I’ve turned off the main power supply and emergency power generators,” Arnon said in a rush once the shooting stopped. “But they’ll be able to manually override the computer commands if they’ve got engineers in the platform’s power plant. I don’t know how long you have, but make it count.”
Alex was already running through the darkness. Dull emergency lights glowed overhead. Each was battery powered, meaning they would operate independently of the main and backup power supply. He shot them out as he went down the hallway, ensuring any adversary he faced would be blind.
“I’m moving,” Alex said. “What’s your plan?’
“Holding onto the operations center,” she said. “They’re trying to get in. I can cut off the fire suppression, antiaircraft defenses, and internal security systems as long as I hold this room. So do as much damage as you can before I can’t contain them any longer.”
“Understood,” Alex said.
He encountered frightened people wandering down the dark halls, using the rails along the walls to guide them. Alex ignored all those who didn’t appear to have a weapon.
Then he came to a T-intersection. He knew from Arnon’s directions that he’d find the research and development facility to the left. As soon as he peered around the corner, he saw three guards positioned at the entrance in firing positions. One of them had a flashlight pointed down the hallway, momentarily blinding Alex as his NVGs automatically flashed off to shield his eyes from the intense light.
A few well-placed shots, and all three men were crumpled on the deck in front of the door. The flashlight rolled out of the dead guard’s hands, coming to rest as it pointed at an empty wall.
“Arnon, I’m just outside the research lab. Do you have eyes inside the facility?”
“Negative,” she replied. “I don’t have access—”
She paused, and he heard a spat of gunfire over the line. More yells. Arnon spitting curses in Hebrew.
Then silence.
“Arnon?” he tried.
There was no answer.
Skylar wasn’t sure why the lights had gone off, but she wasn’t one to waste a free beer.
As soon as Elad had approached with the vial, she jumped back, getting as far away from him as possible. She had no room to maneuver. No weapons. Nothing but her own stubborn refusal to go down without a fight. Skylar tensed herself to headbutt the traitor right in his cowardly face as soon as Elad got close.
Frantic yells from the Archon mercs and Ballard rang out, garbled by their gas masks. Masks just like the ones she’d seen in the van back in Amman.
She heard footfalls all around her. Then red emergency lights kicked in, casting the whole place in a ghoulish tint. Between the rumbles of thunder, she swore she heard gunshots out in the corridor.
From the entrance of the room, voices barked over the radio from Ballard’s guards. She thought she heard someone mention intruders and another reporting that the fire was getting worse.
Good God, what was going on?
Was someone actually here to rescue her?
While Ballard barked orders at his guards and the Archon men huddled nearby, Elad marched toward Skylar.
“Let’s finish what we started,” he said, looking right at her. His eyes seemed almost demonic in the emergency lights reflecting over his mask’s visor.
Skylar screamed against her gag. But her voice came out in a pathetic, muffled cry.
She couldn’t believe this bastard was returning to Ballard like a whipped dog, eager to please his abusive master. An endless cycle of cruelty that even having his own brain zapped by the particles evidently couldn’t fix.
And now, as the whole oil platform trembled again, another explosive blast of thunder taking it, she was about to be infected.
Again.
Her freedom torn from her. Enslaved by tiny par
ticles only the very best microscopes could even see.
How could something so small take so much from her?
She struggled against her chains, desperate to free herself.
Elad’s fingers reached out, the vial and dropper in his hands. He had a look of determination, of sheer willpower bleeding through his expression.
Elad turned and lunged at the technician still standing nearby, shell-shocked, holding an entire rack of vials. But instead of just taking one, Elad took the whole thing. Then he swept a leg under the tech’s ankle, and the man fell.
The Mossad operative caught him just in time to twist the man’s head. The tech’s neck snapped with the resounding crunch of breaking cartilage.
With a heavy thump, the man crumpled to the floor, his white coat flapping around him, limbs useless and limp. Elad ripped the mask from the body and tossed it at Skylar. She caught it on instinct then hurried to put it on.
Ballard turned at the sound of the commotion. Before he could react, Elad sprung at Vahid.
“Elad!” Ballard yelled, drawing his pistol. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t shoot,” Vahid said.
“You take a step closer, and I will kill this man,” Elad said. “And don’t reach into your pocket for the controller, either.”
Ballard looked at the Archon mercs. “Which of you is next in line if he dies?”
One raised his hand.
Ballard shot Vahid in the head.
His body jerked, and Elad dropped the dying mercenary. Then Ballard slaughtered the other Archon men until only the one who raised his hand was left.
“I think you’ll agree that these prisoners killed your comrades,” Ballard said. “You heroically saved the day—and this purchase agreement.”
The man nodded vigorously with Ballard’s pistol aimed at his chest.
Then, to his three guards, Ballard said. “Kill everyone else, starting with the woman. Time to clean up this mess.”
Alex didn’t often get a chance to use plastic explosives, and he hoped he hadn’t lost the knack of making a shaped charge. He pressed the button on the remote detonator. With adrenaline already charging through his blood vessels, the world around him seemed to slow. A wave of heat hit him first, followed by an ear-popping pressure wave. The fiery explosion rolled through the hallway, trailing a billow of gray smoke. The hinges of the hatch to the research lab blew open, and the door went tumbling end over end into a dark chamber illuminated by a few weak emergency lights.
He pitched a flash-bang grenade into the middle of the room then turned away. Cutting white light tore through the hall, followed by an earsplitting boom that rivaled the intensity of the thunder outside. Even though he was prepared for the blast, his ears rang.
He rushed into the dark chamber. Through the gray haze, he saw the silhouettes of people. Most seemed to be standing transfixed, completely unaffected by the blast. It took him a fraction of a second to realize they were chained, their ankles shackled.
Between them, he saw bodies scattered over the floor.
One was David Friedman. His blood looked black in the NVGs.
A cold noose tightened around his heart. He and Arnon hadn’t been sure that they would even find Skylar and Friedman here. Now he would have to tell the Mossad agent that her comrade was dead.
Assuming Arnon was even still alive to hear the news.
He picked out three figures with rifles—guards—clustered around two men. Was one of them Ballard? Luria? Hard to tell with the gas masks obscuring their features. Alex scanned the room and froze. It was another figure, smaller than the men but stocky with muscle. He’d know that fighting stance anywhere, having sparred with his partner countless times during their training.
Alex let out a breath of pure relief and then fired on the three gunmen. Muzzle flashes flared in the darkness like miniature explosions. The guards yelled, cursing and screaming as bullets tore into their bodies.
One of the men they’d been protecting seemed to snap. He brandished a handgun, his ill-fitting suit jacket flapping behind him as he ran for cover. He looked out of place in that suit, and Alex figured he might be one of the Archon goons who had come to buy the Ring.
A dying guard shot a burst of fire toward Alex, forcing him to run at a hunch for cover.
The other man sprinted away, firing a handgun carelessly over his shoulder. Bullets pinged against the metal bulkhead and floor, sparking everywhere they hit.
Alex pushed over a cart full of tools that clattered over the floor, and he knelt behind it. Rounds punched into the cart.
But he couldn’t cower, hiding to save his skin.
Skylar was alive. But for how long?
He popped out of his position, ready to fire. A tall man with a gas mask was looming over his partner now, reaching out to her. As soon as he aimed at the figure, however, he saw Skylar start waving her hands at him. He didn’t understand what the gesture meant. But when she threw herself in front of the man, stretching her chains to their limit, the message was clear.
Don’t shoot.
Alex wanted to know why. But there wasn’t time. He just had to trust his partner.
Instead, he swiveled to find any remaining targets. The Archon man was crouched near the door, gripping his handgun. Before he could even get his pistol all the way up, Alex took him out with a burst of fire tracing up the guy’s chest.
The rest of the people in this room looked like they’d been through enough. He saw their skulls had been partially removed, revealing their brain tissue. If it weren’t for the adrenaline, he would have felt sick. He could not imagine what horrors they had suffered. The glint of the emergency lights on glass drew his attention to a man wearing a gas mask, standing amid the zombie-like crowd. Alex still couldn’t see his features, but the mane of dark, wavy hair was clear enough.
Ballard. Hiding behind the very prisoners he’d tortured.
Maybe cutting them down in a spray of bullets would be a mercy. But he couldn’t slaughter them all. Couldn’t sacrifice their lives just so he could get to Ballard.
But the treasonous agent didn’t have the same concern. As soon as he had a new magazine in his pistol, he opened fire. Bullets ripped through the catatonic prisoners. Those bodies that weren’t immediately dropped by the shots simply absorbed the bullets. Blood trickled from wounds that should have made them collapse in pain. But they didn’t even wince.
Ballard ran as he fired. He reached the other side of the room, where he paused by the door. Then he pulled out a few glass vials from a pocket.
Alex’s hearing was beginning to return. Someone was yelling his name. He turned toward the sound.
“Wolfe, get a mask!” Elad shouted, his voice muffled by his own mask and the ringing in Alex’s ears. “Hurry!”
It took Alex a split second to process this new information.
Elad was the tall man that Skylar had protected, which presumably meant that he could be trusted. They were both wearing gas masks.
So was Ballard.
Which meant he needed to find one for himself.
The closest masks were the ones on the bodies of the guards he’d killed.
Alex sprinted toward the dead gunmen. He was only a few yards away when he heard breaking glass. Saw the silver liquid splash out from the broken vials where Ballard had thrown them. The air swirled with the radiance of billions of those nanoscopic particles catching the light like so many tiny stars.
A distinct metallic odor played through his nostrils and over his tongue.
All the effects of adrenaline evaporated in an instant. He was drifting amongst those stars, completely relaxed. It would have been pleasant if he hadn’t known what would happen next.
-37-
Elad watched in horror as Ballard held up the control device. He tapped it once, and Alex stopped midstep. The American operative’s eyes glazed over.
Then Ballard pointed at Skylar and Elad.
“Kill them,” he said.
&nbs
p; That was Elad’s answer.
Alex lurched forward. There was no anger in his eyes. No recognition.
That made it all the worse.
He slowly lifted his rifle and aimed.
Elad dove to the side. Bullets lanced past him, smashing into the floor wall. Skylar rolled away, cursing. But she was still attached to the chain. She couldn’t move more than a few feet to either side.
Elad thought briefly of running. He could still escape. Leave all this madness behind.
But even as he looked out at the blown-out door to the corridor beyond, he knew he couldn’t do it. He could not live with himself, knowing the choices he made today. Not to mention the choices he had made before the particles had ransacked his memories.
Instead, he ran at Alex.
“It’s me you want!” Elad yelled, desperate to draw the attention away from Skylar.
The operative took the bait. He twisted, adjusting his aim, his finger beginning to squeeze on the trigger. Elad threw himself at Alex’s ankles, and they both crashed down together. The rifle flipped out of his grip, scraping over the floor.
Elad pushed himself upright and scrambled toward the rifle.
“Alex!” Skylar shouted. “Elad, don’t you fucking dare kill him!”
Elad reached for the rifle, but before he could secure it, strong fingers wrapped around his ankle and yanked him back. Alex had Elad in his grip and put him into a choke hold. He gasped for air, fighting against the man’s relentless strength.
The breath wouldn’t come. His lungs screamed at him, brain burning for oxygen.
The arm tightened around Elad’s neck. He could feel the cartilage straining, threatening to break. The nerves sparking with desperate, painful signals.
Darkness started its slow march across his vision. The pain started to fade. He struggled but couldn’t break free. The American was strong, and Elad was tired. So tired.
Skylar was still shouting and cursing. She was a fighter. But how would she survive chained like a sacrificial offering to some ancient god?
Demon Mind (Vector Book 2) Page 32