And then he saw R24 creeping around the summit’s perimeter. Thirteen mercenaries and five smugglers. All with guns trained on them.
“Fuck me,” he said. “Can’t we catch a bloody break.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Gurka strode toward them with a livid expression.
“I should kill you,” he shouted. “Or at least one of you. No, I should kill you all!”
Nina was a step behind. “Now you will learn the hard way who is in charge.”
She came right up to Yasmine, unlucky enough to be her closest target, and punched her in the nose. Yasmine staggered and flung her hands up. Nina punched her in the gut. Yasmine twisted away and then came back with a side kick, quickly followed by a jab. Nina stepped back.
Two mercenaries fired just a few feet over Yasmine’s head.
“You will not retaliate,” Nina hissed. “What you will do is comply. That is what you will do.”
This time she elbowed Yasmine in the face, drawing blood. When the Interpol agent didn’t react, she moved on to Gunn, pushing him back hard so that he tripped and fell. Gurka smashed the barrel of his rifle across Bodie’s temple, sending him to his knees. Vash joined them, and then Belenko, dealing out punishment to the relic hunters. Only Caruso and Lucie were spared.
But as Bodie stared up through a haze of pain, he saw Dudyk move in and drag the blonde away. He pulled her to the edge of the mountain to confront her.
Gurka stepped in the way. “You try that again. Anything. And I will personally end half of you. I will make the others watch. You think you can escape? You can’t. Now, give me back the weapons you stole.”
Three mercs had their weapons trained at Bodie’s head. He offered up the empty handgun. Cassidy resisted until Nina had practically shoved a barrel in her mouth. Still, despite three hard punches, the redhead continued to give Nina a death glare.
Someone picked Caruso up and brought him before Gurka. The Italian looked shell shocked.
“You walked away from us,” Gurka said slowly. “You walked away. For now, I must assume—because you know we can hurt your woman and child like we hurt your mother-in-law—that the fault lies with your addled mind. If I find out differently . . .”
He drew out his long military blade. “I will tell my men to slice their throats like this.” Moving fast, he grabbed Caruso, spun him, and pressed the sharp blade to his jugular. Bodie saw a thin line of blood well up.
“Do you hear me, old man?” Gurka hissed.
“Yes, yes.” Caruso had tears in his eyes. “I do. Please don’t hurt them. Please.”
Bodie had had enough of all the intimidation. His team was pretty well banged up as it was. “Hey, you’ve got us now. What are you gonna do?”
“Whatever we please,” Gurka shot back. “Now, get out of my way.”
Lucie was struggling with an endless succession of fears. First the mountains and the wolves, then the panthers and R24. The constant pressure of being hunted. She forced it all aside and returned Dudyk’s stare.
His eyes were gray flint. “I’ve been told to hurt you. To teach you the wrong of what you did.”
Lucie fought down excuses and entreaties, staying strong in the face of the monster. Dudyk snarled at her.
“You embarrassed me. Shamed me with your escape. I should have shot you. They think I am not their equal anymore.”
Lucie backed away a step. Dudyk’s eyes were as mean as his body language. But she’d seen it before, in her uncle Jamie. She was able to betray no signs of outward fear. He glared for another few seconds before stepping in, fists bunched.
“Pretend I hit you,” he whispered. “For them.”
He swung quickly. Lucie twisted to the side, crying out a little, then brought a hand up to her face. When she glanced over to the main group, both Gurka and Nina looked over with satisfaction. Dudyk grabbed her good arm and pulled her farther away.
As they walked, he said, “Do not think this makes me weak. I will still hurt you if I have to. Do not think to take any advantage.”
But Lucie was wondering what the hell had just happened.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Even as blackness threatened to steal the scene from their eyes, Gurka and Nina ordered everyone to spread out and start searching among the stones.
At the peak of Draci, where the last standing stone awaits.
Bodie recalled the wording they’d found on the gravestone. It pointed him to one of two stones. To look at, they were unremarkable in the world of monuments. Slabs of concrete about three feet high uplifted in the earth, marking a dead-straight line. To what purpose, Bodie didn’t know, but it could have been many, from date lines to burial indicators. The stones themselves were plain, unadorned by any form of writing. He checked the earth around them first but found it hard packed and wondered if he’d be allowed a shovel.
Caruso’s voice stopped him. “It is this one.”
The Italian stood at the end of the line, looking down at the earth with fresh excitement. He turned an appealing face upon Gurka. “It is this stone,” he repeated. “I remember now that I am here. Please don’t hurt my family.”
“Dig it up, old man.”
The group drifted closer to Caruso as he fell to his knees and began scrabbling around in the earth. One of the mercs, to his credit, handed him a shovel. Soon, a mound of dirt had built up beside him. It grew so dark the mercs took flashlights from their packs to shine down the hole. Others built fires around and at the center of their camp. A good deal of illumination marked their position.
Good, Bodie thought. Assuming someone trustworthy got Heidi’s message, it will help the CIA to find us.
Twenty-four hours had passed since the call. But now they’d lost the phone. When Gurka had taken the cell back and checked it for usage, Bodie had been relieved to hear there was no call history on the device: Heidi had remembered to get rid of everything. He’d stopped himself from offering her a relieved look, knowing she wouldn’t appreciate it. But Gurka took few chances, and this was not one of them. He’d destroyed the phone immediately, leaving it buried in the earth.
Now, Caruso lifted a white cloth bag from the earth near the stone. It bulged at the bottom as though it was heavy. Setting it on the ground, he looked up at Gurka.
“Open it.”
Caruso untied thick twine from the neck of the bag before reaching in and pulling out an object. It was a moment before Bodie understood the full import of what he was looking at, but Gurka saw it immediately.
“Oh, you beautiful, mad Italian bastard. That’s the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen.”
Nina cooed softly, the most natural human reaction Bodie had ever seen in her. It was now that he got a good look at the object in Caruso’s hand. Under the artificial glow of the flashlights, it shone a particular color.
Amber.
Did Caruso bury a small piece of the Amber Room on his way home? Did he take a sample and decide to leave it as a marker? Bodie didn’t want to think that the Italian had lost his marbles, but this act went some way toward confirming it. Wrapped around the piece was a note, which Caruso untied and read out:
“The monument at the Polish Black Pond,” he said. “That’s all.”
Gurka almost leapt forward to take the piece of the Amber Room from Caruso’s hand. It was a rectangular chunk, maybe eight inches by three, and it burned richly in the stark light. Its edges threw off beams of light that speared through the air and into the ground. Its surface depicted part of the wing of an angel.
“You didn’t break this off?” Gurka asked.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“But do you remember?”
Caruso looked adamant for the first time Bodie could remember. “I would never do that to a relic. Any relic. I don’t recall burying it.”
“All right.” Gurka took the piece and the note and retreated to one of the campfires. Then he called Lucie over and asked her about the Polish Black Pond. The heat seemed to have go
ne out of their situation for now—even the mercs looked relaxed—so Bodie motioned his group to sit beside one of the slow-burning campfires near the center of the bowl. If they didn’t look threatening, maybe they could get some rest tonight.
It would refresh them for tomorrow, when a new raft of opportunities would open up.
He nursed his hand wound, and the others tended whatever cuts, bumps, and scrapes they had. Lucie didn’t appear to be struggling with her arm injury. Bodie listened as she described a well-known body of water on a nearby peak, just a lake like all the others around here.
Except this one was filled with black water.
Obviously, Bodie thought. As eerie as everything else that surrounded this op.
Nina came over to sit with them, saying nothing but shelving any plans they might have of discussing an exit strategy. Six of the thirteen remaining mercenaries took watch, disappearing into the dark. Bodie took note of how most of them limped or carried minor wounds. It was good for his team.
“Anyone know anything about this Black Pond?” Cassidy asked, mostly just to start a conversation.
“I know that it sounds bad,” Nina answered her, which surprised Bodie. He’d been expecting a disinterested silence from the woman.
“How many more clues to go, mate?” he asked Caruso.
Predictably, the Italian frowned. “It is a haze now. Perhaps when I see the next relic—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cassidy interrupted. “When we get there.”
“Why do you think the person who laid this trail chose a piece of the Amber Room this time?” Nina asked. “Assuming it wasn’t the idiot Caruso.”
Bodie blinked, unable to associate her with the woman he generally regarded as a murderous sociopath. “Maybe it was all they had left at this point,” he said. “To be fair, it could have been buried on the way to its final resting place, or after somebody found it.”
“Or it’s a trophy,” Jemma said. “Something they could come back to.”
“My family,” Caruso said, leaning forward, his face painted a lurid orange by the campfire flames. “Might I speak to them?”
Nina hesitated, which Bodie saw as a good sign. They had been on this trek for days now, and Caruso’s family had been taken some time before that. It had been a while since he’d had contact with them.
Bodie opened his mouth, preparing to argue all this with Nina.
“Yes,” she said, taking out her phone. She inputted a number, spoke softly to someone on the other end, and then looked at Caruso. “No more than a minute, and no details,” she warned.
Bodie made a face at the others. Pantera spoke up. “Any chance I can call my wife?” he said with a smile, suggesting that he was joking. Heidi was quick to add, “I have a daughter,” but her face was gravely serious.
Nina shrugged. “No more calls. We need his cooperation until the end. Not yours.”
“Then tell me again—why the hell are we here?” Bodie asked.
“Do you not listen?” Nina counted the points off on her fingers. “One: due to your circumstances, we could acquire you quite easily. Two: you are the best at this, and if even once you prove useful, then we profit. Three: This is the Amber Room. Of course we need the best. Four: I like complete skill sets. Five: our motto has always been Why the hell not? And six: R24 thrives because it uses others. It always has and always will. The further removed we are from view, the better for us.”
Bodie stared at the campfire as Caruso said a few words to his wife and son. The man’s blue eyes shone with tears in the flickering light, but Bodie saw a smile and was happy for him.
At least for now.
Tomorrow, they could all be dead.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Lucie watched the others from her lonely place at the far side of the camp. Dudyk had built a small fire, but it didn’t help her feel safe for a number of reasons. Firstly, they were situated close to a rocky ledge that was accessible from both above and below their position. Secondly, the flames didn’t cast much of a glow.
And then there was Dudyk.
He watched her. He gazed as if studying something he might like to dissect. What was wrong with him?
He scratched at the scrub of bristle that passed as hair before throwing more wood on the fire.
“Why did you help me?” she asked in a small voice.
Dudyk glared. “I don’t do everything they tell me. I am not the monster they think I am.”
Again, he reminded her of Uncle Jamie. She hoped that the similarities were not too close, however. She didn’t like where Jamie’s demons had eventually taken him. She had realized early on that Jamie was suffering. Someone who’d terrorized him at school had gone on to the same college. It was personal, and it was wicked psychological intimidation. Jamie had presented all his pent-up emotions through anger to the outside world. The bully had eventually been caught and charged through evidence on social media.
But it hadn’t stopped Uncle Jamie from being so overwhelmed by hateful emotion that he’d walked distractedly in front of a speeding bus.
Lucie gathered her errant emotions, concentrating on the man in front of her. “You spared me just to spite them?”
“Maybe.” Dudyk stirred the flames with a long stick. “I don’t know.”
“What other reason could there be?”
“You should stop talking now.”
“Dudyk.” Lucie gathered her courage, ignoring the darkness that nestled around and the indeterminate noises coming from the mountains. “I am a simple girl from a simple background. A historian. I don’t make conversation. You noticed my sweater before we put on all these coats?”
Dudyk grunted in a noncommittal manner.
“Woolly and usually embroidered with an animal. That’s my talking point. That’s how I get people to chat. I think that’s sad. Don’t you?”
Dudyk poked the fire strenuously, still saying nothing.
“Look, I’m a screwup. I don’t show it, but I’m one big fucking catastrophe. My entire family died from natural causes. All of them. Now, I suffer every day—no, every hour—from intense paranoia that something similar will happen to me.”
Dudyk had stopped poking the fire halfway through her revelation and now stared. “Through all this, you think you will die naturally? That is—”
“Insane? Yes. Welcome to the world of Lucie Boom.”
“How will you die?” Dudyk suddenly grinned. “Eating a can of beans?”
Lucie was shocked to see his reaction but chose to go with it. “Your rations are pretty bad.”
“If a rock fell and struck you, would that count?”
Lucie now saw he was mocking her. “I don’t think my fears are funny.” She spoke in her old clipped tone, happy to find it was still there.
“Oh, I am not meaning to insult,” Dudyk said seriously. “I was trying to ease your fear.”
“You were? Well, thanks.”
It was an odd discussion, Lucie thought, and made stranger by the way they smiled at each other right at the end. The moment was broken when a branch snapped inside the fire, sounding like gunfire. Lucie jumped and wrapped her arms around her body.
“God, I hate this,” she whispered.
Bodie kept an eye out for everyone. He saw Lucie’s exchange with Dudyk. Nina staring from Gurka to Pantera and then to Yasmine and the others, evaluating them. He saw figures slipping by in the dark—mercenaries on guard. He heard the mountain noises, both the natural and unnatural ones. He assessed the members of his team, concluding that, apart from weariness, they were all in comparatively good shape. Of course, there were aches and pains, bruises inflicted by R24. There were fears running deep. But there was hope too.
Since Nina had proved to be genial tonight, Bodie moved close to Heidi.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I guess.” She held a thick stick in the flames, watching the end catch fire, before shaking it out and starting again.
“Can they track us?” he asked, meaning
the CIA. To avoid anyone overhearing, he kept his voice as low as possible.
“Nope.” Heidi threw a surreptitious glance at Nina. The woman was gazing in the other direction. “But they have a general area. I also mentioned the train tracks. I hope the tech passed it through to the main office pretty quickly.”
“When?” Bodie kept it short so that Nina wouldn’t get suspicious, but the black-haired woman didn’t seem interested.
“Another day?” Heidi guessed. “Maybe longer.”
“Crap. We’ll be at the Black Pond in the morning by all accounts.”
“We survive,” Heidi said. “Another minute. Another hour. Another day.”
“They’re bullies,” Bodie said flatly. “I’ve dealt with bullies before. I’ve defended my friends against bullies. Believe me, we won’t die here.”
Heidi smiled fondly at him. “Well, that’s really nice of you, Guy. I assume you have a plan?”
He shrugged. “Nah, but I get that you’ve been trained by people to whom plans are everything. I’ll think of something. And when this is over—” Bodie began.
“Don’t start.”
“Uh, what?”
“I know what you were gonna say.” She affected a deep voice. “‘When this is over, we’re leaving the CIA, dude.’ Or something like that.”
“I never say ‘dude.’”
“What about the rest?”
“Yeah, something like that. You have to give us our lives back.”
“Me? I’m not the Central Intelligence Agency, Bodie. I just work for them.”
“You’re saying your hands are tied? How can that be?”
“You wish. But I don’t have the final say, which you know. If it were up to me . . . you’d have been cut free after the Zeus thing, let alone Atlantis.”
Bodie wondered at the double entendre. Was there a way they could explore the unspoken lure that drew them? Should he mention it clearly, without ambiguity? Bodie couldn’t see it going any further, but then he wondered if this was some kind of plan—a CIA trick, ensuring that they got close enough so he wouldn’t try to escape her. He wouldn’t put anything past the CIA.
The Amber Secret Page 17