by Madyson Rush
A bullet tore through his brain. It slammed into the monitor, shattering the screen.
Another shell was fired into the computer.
Thatcher stepped into the room, a backpack over one shoulder. “Marek, I need your—”
Marek’s body was slumped over the keyboard. His eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. The back of his head gone.
She stifled a scream.
The gun turned and pointed at her.
Hummer lowered the weapon.
A wave of panic stopped her throat—
Hummer knocked her backwards into the equipment rack. The metal frame fell, trapping her forearm and CB radio against the desk.
He pinned her against the rack, cutting off her airway with one arm, stopping her voice. “Brynne, listen to me.”
Grunting, she clawed at his arm, trying to pull him away from her throat.
He covered her mouth. “You don’t understand!”
Sparks flashed across her eyes. The room began to spin. Her muscles went limp. She refused to quit. Clawing her fingernails into his arm, she caught his watch. The band broke. A spiral tattoo was inscribed on the underside of his wrist.
Hummer knew.
Her heart flailed in her chest. She had to do something. Hummer would kill her.
She bit down on his fingers. His bone felt like stone between her teeth.
Hummer loosened his grip and grabbed for her again.
Tearing Marek’s keyboard off the desk, she swung at his head. The console connected with his jaw. There was a loud snap. Hummer doubled over.
Thatcher ran from the room, crashing into the corridor walls, hysterical.
There was nowhere she could go. Nowhere she could escape her uncle.
She heard Hummer yell into his CB radio behind her. “Breach!”
The dimly lit hallway was a blur. Tears welled in her eyes. She tripped over rubble. Basecamp had been subverted by the earth, reclaimed by dirt and rock. Cement crumbled from the ceiling as she collapsed against the wall.
There was only one way out.
At the opposite end of basecamp—above the halogen lights and boxes of the synthesized TNT—was the elevator out to Stenness.
“Brynne, you don’t have to do this.” Hummer’s voice relayed over her broken arm CB.
She screamed and tried to pull the radio off. An egg-shaped welt had formed across her wrist where she had been pinned by the storage rack. Below the skin, a blood vessel popped. It was bleeding out just beneath the surface, bloating into an enormous bruise. She was too swollen to take off the strap.
“I can’t protect you if you leave!” Hummer yelled over the receiver.
She scrambled over the debris and climbed toward the elevator. The light was still on inside the opaque boxcar. The gelid, azure glow meant the lift was running.
Thatcher sprinted passed the morgue. The bodies of Stenness had been left to rot after the last explosion. The underground mine would become their permanent grave. She reached the elevator and pounded the call button. “Come on! Come on!”
The door didn’t open. She slammed the button with her fist.
Hummer had stopped talking. That wasn’t good.
“Open, dammit!”
The elevator door began to slide open. It failed, stopping four inches ajar. She forced her arm through the crack, then her leg. Her hip was a tight squeeze.
A bullet screamed past her head and slammed into the plastic frame.
Inches from her face, another bullet ricocheted off the corridor wall.
Lee appeared at the other end of the hall.
Thatcher forced herself through the gap. She hit the up button. The doors began to close.
Lee raced to the elevator, firing recklessly at the door. Slugs struck the conveyor walls. Plastic cracked upon impact. Thatcher threw her arms up to protect herself.
The door stopped short again, this time by a few centimeters—enough for Lee to force his fingers through the door. He pressed back the sliding panel.
She slammed the button again, praying the lift would activate. The elevator began to rise.
Lee slipped out the crack as the floor moved above his chest and then head.
A wave of nausea filled her stomach. He stepped into the shaft and stared up at her through the translucent floor. He was not giving up. He fired pointblank into the floor. The sheathing cracked. Entire portions of elevator floor broke away. Plastic tore like paper as he diced his way through the bottom.
Sliding to the corner, Thatcher clung to the boxcar. The floor groaned under her weight.
Lee ejected an empty clip and replaced it with another.
“Cut the power!” he yelled into his arm radio.
The elevator climbed. Ten feet, and then twenty. Its laggard hydraulics was an ice sheet glacier, reluctant to leave basecamp.
A bullet exploded through the floor, spraying shrapnel like shattering glass. Explosive confetti burst throughout the tiny box. Thatcher fell against the wall. A jagged shard had lodged into her calf. Her scream caught in her throat.
There was no time to react.
The metal crossbeams supporting the floor gave way with a terrible groan. One end of the floor collapsed, opening by a full foot at two of the corners. She was exposed and trapped.
The power went off.
The elevator jolted to a stop.
Hazy sunset beckoned above—nine feet from the elevator ceiling.
Below, basecamp was pitch black. She studied the shaft floor, cringing in pain, searching for Lee. She could sense him crawling up the sides of the vault, a spider, scaling the walls.
A portion of the boxcar’s railing came loose. She gripped the end of the rod and pried it off. It gave an ear-splitting screech, metal scraping metal, and peeled away from the elevator. She lifted the bar over her head and thrust it into the shattered ceiling.
The floor faltered, collapsing lower at the broken corners. The hole widened.
She braced herself and then smashed the metal railing into the perforated ceiling. The top of the elevator split open, breaking like ice. She struck again and again until the gap was wide enough to climb through. Reaching for the hole, she grabbed hold of the ceiling. The thin crevice where she tore off the lining gave her feet leverage. Her fingers stretched beyond the opening. She gripped the ledge and pulled her torso through.
Lee grabbed her legs.
Half her body was inside the boxcar, and half her body out. She clung to the crossbeam of the shaft. She kicked him off balance. He tumbled into the corner.
The boxcar groaned under the weight. She grabbed the shaft support beam with both arms and pulled herself out of the cage. Her arms burned but she forced herself upward.
Lee sprang from the elevator, seizing her ankle.
One of her hands slipped off the shaft beam. Her body swung away from the wall.
He fell back inside the elevator, spitting a mouthful of blood. He stared up at her. His lips curled, vulturine. With only one hand on the beam, she dangled helplessly above him.
Lee leapt forward.
The elevator cables snapped.
With a torturous screech, the entire conveyor ripped apart.
Lee slid along her pant leg.
She clung to the shaft beam with her legs flailing. For a moment, she supported both their weight. Adrenaline surged through her arms. Her biceps were trembling. The pain was blinding. Lee was pulling her down, clinging to her injured leg. If he went down, she would fall also.
The boxcar smashed to the floor, sending a wave of dust spiraling upwards. Debris choked her lungs.
Lee began to slip again. Their eyes met. The seam of her pant leg tore. Lee tried to reach for her as his hands slipped along the fabric. She saw the last expression on his face as he dropped, his somber realization. She didn’t watch him hit bottom.
Movement was unbearable. She commanded her arms to climb. Every last ounce of energy was expended, and yet she had to move. Staring into the dusky sky, all she could see
was the top of the shaft.
Moonlight. Glorious moonlight.
One arm over the over, again and again. Finally, she pulled her body over the top. She stayed on the ground, rolling in the dust, fighting for breath. Her leg was on fire from the jagged shrapnel.
“Brynne!” Hummer’s voice blared over her radio. “They’ll kill you—”
With a shriek, she tore off the CB radio and threw it into the hole. She cradled her injured arm. With stinging satisfaction, she could hear Hummer’s voice fade as it fell down the shaft.
Let it rest with the body of Lee.
She forced herself to her feet, ignoring the searing pain in her leg. She had never felt so alone. Buried under debris at the end of the street, a military Land Rover was upright and intact. The vehicle was covered with wreckage, but nothing too heavy for her to move. Its windows were blown out from Maeshowe’s last explosion, but it was drivable.
Her tunnel vision returned, focusing on one sustainable goal: David.
If he was alive, there was hope.
Hummer knelt over Marek’s body.
Marek had disobeyed a direct order, leaving Hummer with no alternative. Thatcher would never understand that. Nor would she comprehend that allegiance to the Abaddon required sacrifice. Thousands had died over the millennia, all for the greater good. Yet, as he considered his team: Bailey, Golke, Donovon, Marek, and Lee, the cost of each sacrifice dealt him a terrible blow.
Failure darkened his face.
Secrets of the dead were to remain with the dead.
Everything he had held sacred lost its meaning. Death begat more death and truth unraveled. Every upturned stone came at a high cost. The consequences of his knowledge were unbearable.
He swallowed hard, edging toward despair.
The custom grip of his handgun was flush with the magazine well. He squeezed the rubber hilt and felt the aluminum trigger against his forefinger. He stared down the barrel, and contemplated the inevitable.
He would welcome death.
He lifted the com-link to his mouth. “Javan… Give me Javan.”
He waited for the Chancellor to connect.
“Thatcher’s gone…” he said.
There was a brief pause, an audible irritated sigh.
“It’s not like you to fail, Director.”
“She’s harmless…”
“She’ll have to be handled.”
“I will track her down before 2400. You have my word.”
Javan didn’t respond.
“I know how she thinks,” Hummer insisted.
“Stay where you are,” Javan answered. “I think we both know where she’s going. I suggest we let her get there.”
Chapter 64
SUNDAY 12:15 a.m.
Northern Scotland
David shivered as he passed a road marker for Boghole Farm. They were aiming for Stenness, driving east along the North Sea. He hoped to reunite at ground zero, even if Maeshowe was the most dangerous place on earth. Northern Scotland had been evacuated, and he was heading directly into the eye of the storm. Where else were they going to go? Thatcher would know what to do. She might even have answers—something he no longer had the energy to find.
Asor was asleep in the backseat, his face blank and expressionless, even soulless. He was a shell of skin and bones. Curled in a ball, the old man twitched like a dog trapped in a tormented dream. Bullet holes lined his jumpsuit with scorch marks. It was irrefutable proof of what David witnessed earlier that day. The numbers printed across the back of the fabric were tattered with bloodless wounds.
A swollen knot of anxiety lodged inside David’s throat. He couldn’t explain how or why, but everything was connected to the man in the backseat. The whole godforsaken mess was Asor’s fault. David’s brain had recorded their wild getaway. Images played back on the desolate roadway like a pavement movie screen. He couldn’t reason through it. For this kind of thing, there was no explanation.
They reached Boghole Farm. Along the main thoroughfare, shop windows were broken and businesses vandalized. There were no working street lights. He downshifted into the parking lot of a chapel. The motor cut and died.
Asor stirred awake at the sound of the parking brake. The black of his pupils had faded to vaporous gray. The fancy footwork performed at the asylum seemed entirely lost on him now. It was as if he had suddenly remembered his age.
David helped him out of the car and up the church steps. They stopped at the door.
Asor looked back over the town.
“‘A fire devoureth before them and behind them all is desolate,’” he whispered. “‘Nothing shall escape.’”
David fumbled with the lock and opened the door. Their hotel for the night would be a spacious, single room chapel. Rows of wooden pews were dim under moonlight. They passed through the nave and stopped near the apse at the front of the building. The old man found a rug on the floor and wrapped himself in it. He sat cross-legged behind the altar and stared up at a stained-glass window spanning the eastern wall.
David remembered Ehrman’s matchbook was still in his pocket. He lit some of the votives resting on the pews. The tiny flames grew in number and illuminated the chapel’s architecture. Wide stone pillars towered overhead. The gothic, hand-sculpted blocks looked older than time. Candlelight spread to the shallowest eaves, but the tops of the columns were lost in shadow.
The flames were mesmerizing. David watched as fire consumed the wick. His eyes were heavy. For the moment, they were safe. Asor was alive. Thatcher was forty feet beneath the earth’s surface in the Orkney Islands.
Asor interrupted the silence. “Look.”
David took a seat beside him and followed the old man’s gaze to the stained-glass window.
Votive light reflected off the art piece in a montage of color. The design was intricate, four monstrous horses with flared nostrils and bucking forelegs. They were arranged in the shape of a diamond. The horse on the bottom glowed with burnished amber. The steed to the right sparkled liquid red. To the left, the charcoal black horse was a smoky oblivion that swallowed the light. The horse on top was pale yellow. All four were ready to spring out of the glass and stampede across the world.
David lay back on the floor, folding his arms behind his head.
“Did you know stained glass windows weren’t built so parishioners could see outside?” Asor asked. “Nor were the windows designed to brighten the chapel. They are meant to control light, to manipulate the power of the sun, and change how people see it.”
David shook his head.
Asor smiled. “‘I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals, and then a voice like thunder said, ‘Come!’” He pointed at the white horse at the base of the stained glass. “‘I looked and beheld a white horse, its rider held a bow.’”
A bow and arrow was imprinted in lead on the beast’s chest.
David was unimpressed. “You know the Book of Revelations.”
“Soon after, three others will join him.” His finger curled with arthritis. He tried to point at the red horse. “The second horseman will bring war.” He moved to the black horse. Scales for measuring and weighing were gilded on its chest. “The third will rule the world with famine.”
David stared at the horse at the top of the window. Unlike the others, the horse’s breast was empty. An ominous black cloud stretched heavenward behind him.
“The fourth horseman—” Asor began.
David interrupted. “—will bring death upon the earth. You knew Brenton. These were my bedtime stories.”
“So who is the White Horseman?”
David shifted his weight.
“Some say he is the Anti-Christ,” Asor whispered. “Perhaps, your disbelief isn’t irony.”
David shut his eyes. “Go to sleep, old man.”
Chapter 65
SUNDAY, 1:09 a.m.
Helmsdale, Highland, Scotland
Thatcher drove through the streets of an abandoned town. The speed at which
NATO and NCEC had cleared northern Scotland was unbelievable. She’d barely made the last ferry out of Orkney, and was shocked when she wasn’t stopped. No one bothered with credentials.
The last she knew, David had met with Brimley and then headed toward the mainland coast. If he had made it anywhere near the Orkney Islands, he would have been forced to evacuate. Edinburgh was overflowing with refugees. Hundreds of thousands were displaced. Everything was working according to plan. There would be no witnesses of the AVX explosions. If Operation Silence was successful, people would return home after four or five days. The ravaged landscapes surrounding passage grave ruins would be quarantined as “Virus Burn Areas.”
No one would be the wiser.
The SUV’s high beams reflected off a phone booth. Thatcher sighed in relief. She’d been searching for hours for a call box. She would try reaching David, even if it was a long shot. She parked beside the booth and hobbled out of the vehicle. Her back, arms, and legs were stiff. The adrenaline had quickly worn away, leaving excruciating pain, especially in her calf.
She dropped coins into the slot and dialed, hoping to remember David's cell number. She had called him so many times, she should have it memorized it by now. She closed her eyes and listened to the ring tone.
“Come on, David, pick up...”
Six rings, seven rings, then eight.
She moved to hang up the receiver.
David’s voice came over the line. “Hello?”
Thatcher suppressed a sob. “David?” It was all she could manage.
“Dr. Thatcher? Where are you? We’re trying to get to you.”
It felt good to hear his voice again. She lowered her head against the phone booth.
“We’re in a tiny town along the North Sea, just off A96,” he said. “Boghole Farm. I thought my phone was dead.”
She suddenly felt every ache. The seriousness of her injuries was magnified by his distance. There was still a long way to go. “I’m coming to you,” she said.
“Do you have GPS?”
She glanced at the SUV. There was a system in the car. “Yeah.”