April twisted, bunching her muscles, testing the straps that bound her. But the energy had drained out of her. They felt like bands of steel encircling her.
Above her the woman leaned down and spoke in a sickly sweet voice with an East End London accent. “Don’t struggle, dearie. You’re not going anywhere.”
Maneuvering the gurney around a corner, the woman swung April into another corridor, then through a wide open door into a larger room lined by a series of glass-fronted cells, each bare except for a steel cot bolted to one of the white interior cement-block walls.
Opening the first of the cell doors, the woman pushed the gurney inside, leaning down and unbuckling the straps. April tried to lift her right arm for a strike, but it wouldn’t move. The woman scolded her again, then gave a quick wrench, tumbling April onto the bed on her stomach. Then she dragged the gurney out of the cell and touched a key pad on the wall to activate an electronic magnetic lock.
With a soft snick the armature clamped itself to an electro-magnet on the door frame.
Sprawled over the bed, April lay with the smell of a freshly-starched pillowcase in her nostrils. She struggled to concentrate. Her head ached. With an effort, she willed her body to turn. As she was wheeled in she’d spied the blonde head of a woman lying on her side two cells down, her back to April. But now she could only see a solid white wall.
A black cloud crowded the edges of her brain. Blood pounded in her skull, loud as hammer strokes in her ears.
Darkness closed around her.
TWENTY
Southwest of Sitia
HAULING on the wheel, Skarda forced the Q5 into a hard right, its deep-treaded tires scrabbling on the loose rocks. A oval-shaped boulder loomed, and he jerked the wheel again, narrowly missing crashing onto it as the SUV churned up clouds of dust.
The gunman let loose another fusillade. A line of slugs riddled the rear of the Audi with metallic clangs. The window starred, then shattered and burst, spraying the ground with a carpet of broken glass.
“Get down!” Skarda yelled.
He glanced over. Nathaniel looked frozen solid to his seat, his shoulders hunched forward, his face an inch away from the laptop screen. He was mumbling to himself.
Up ahead Skarda could see a path through a field of tilting boulders. Stomping on the accelerator, he shot forward just as the HK416 fired again, sending a shower of rock fragments cracking against the windshield, starring the glass.
The Eurocopter clattered past them overhead, banking for another run.
Wrenching the wheel again, Skarda put the Q5 broadside to the boulders, darting out into the open to gain distance before the chopper could complete its turn.
The cliffs zoomed closer. He was heading for the natural notch in the limestone wall.
Bullets ripped into the dirt, and then the Audi’s front bumper and headlights were torn apart. Skarda zigzagged, feeling the adrenaline surge through his bloodstream, making his skin prickle.
A explosion boomed on the right side of the SUV, throwing up a hurricane of rocks and dirt.
He snatched a glance through the starred windshield. A bald-headed man had joined the shooter in the open door of the fuselage. So Krell had recruited more men. In his hands was a weapon that looked like an oversized Tommy gun. Skarda recognized it: an Auto Assault 12 combat shotgun, capable of firing Frag 12 explosive rounds.
Rounds that would blow the Audi to scrap metal if they found their target.
Hitting the gas, he yanked the wheel hard left, just as the AA-12 man fired. There was a burst of orange flame next to Nathaniel’s door, followed by an expanding cloud of smoke and dirt. The Audi rocked on its suspension, the passenger-side wheels lifting off the ground, spinning uselessly for a split second before crashing back down and gaining a grip on a scattering of loose rocks.
The SUV rocketed ahead. The cliff zoomed nearer now—
The assault rifle chattered again and bullets ripped through the Audi’s roof, shredding the leather of the rear seats to ribbons. The dashboard exploded into pockmarks and then the windshield blew apart in a storm of glittering fragments.
Skarda threw up a hand to protect his eyes as Nathaniel shrieked, throwing his arms over his head.
“You okay?” Skarda yelled. Slivers of glass stuck out from his hair and forearm, drizzling blood.
No answer. But a quick glance showed no blood he could see. But the scholar looked frozen in place.
Ahead of them the cliff wall was looming higher now, zooming closer. Skarda floored it, sidewinding like a snake through the boulder field. With a cracking bang a frag round blew a big rock to bits.
“Nathaniel! I’m going to need you to grab the gun case from the back!”
No answer.
The Q5 fishtailed crazily as Skarda pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor.
In a cloud of dust, they reached the cliff. Stomping on the brake, Skarda popped the door and bailed out, dragging Nathaniel after him through the driver’s side. The scholar was white-faced and shaking, but unhurt.
Skarda pointed at the notch. “Run through there!”
His eyes wide with shock, Nathaniel took off, clutching the laptop.
Hunching down, Skarda crouch-ran to the rear of the SUV. He needed the M4 desperately. But the chopper was banking again, slueing around for another attack.
Maybe the gunman hadn’t seen his movements. On one knee he reached around for the rear latch—
Just as the man with the HK416 opened up—
Above Skarda’s head glass and metal burst into an firestorm of sizzling shrapnel.
Spinning around, he pounded toward the notch just as the Q5, hit directly with a frag round, erupted into a fireball of flame and smoke. He dived at the notch, hurling himself into the shelter of an outthrust spur of limestone. Burning hunks of sheet metal slammed against the bare rock of the cliff and steel-jacketed slugs tore up the ground at his feet. A acrid stench filled the air, making him hack out a cough.
The chopper zoomed through its turn, the sharp thudding of its rotors dopplering away. Had they seen him dive for safety? He didn’t know. But he doubted they were gone for good: Krell would check for bodies in the wreckage of the Q5.
Scrambling to his feet, Skarda pushed farther into the notch. It was dark and much cooler inside, the soaring rock walls on either side angling at their apex hundreds of feet above, out of Skarda’s sight, shutting out the sun. He moved ahead, his boots crunching over a carpet of sharp stones as the passageway twisted to the right, and then left again, until it straightened out and ended in a wider aperture brilliant with sunlight.
Stepping through, he saw that he was standing on another rocky plateau that stretched into the distance, hugging the base of a range of stacked hills and cliffs, whose farthest peaks to the south shone almost white in the sun. On what looked like waterfalls of gigantic tumbled boulders the gnarled trunks of plane and olive trees had taken root amidst green-gray carpets of phrygana scrub.
Nathaniel was sitting in the shadow of a fractured rock that towered above him. His head, as usual, was thrust forward at the screen of the laptop.
Skarda wiped some of the sweat and blood from his face and hunkered down next to him.
“We have to go. Those men will be coming after us. I didn’t have time to get the M4.”
Nathaniel looked up and blinked. His skin was the color of skim milk and his eyes seemed unfocused. “Okay,” he said. “We have to get to Miletus, don’t we?”
It was an odd thing to say, and spoken with an otherworldly quality that almost made Skarda shiver. He’d seen combat stress reaction before, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
Helping Nathaniel to his feet, he led the way forward, angling toward the stack of boulders that rose up like a stairway toward the first of the big ridges that would become mountains several miles to the southeast. He glanced up at the sky. For the time being it seemed like the Eurocopter had vanished, but he had little doubt that Krell would sen
d the chopper to search for them from above, once he found out they were still alive. And there would be men coming on foot, too, to hunt them down, because it was too easy to hide in the shelter of the rocks. He cursed himself that he’d lost the M4, but that was that. At least he still had the Sig Sauer.
They climbed the natural staircase as quickly as they could, their boots scrabbling to find footholds in the pitted limestone, their backs exposed to anyone who came through the notch below. At the top Skarda studied the line of the ridge and the low cliffs ahead. On their right was a weathered rock formation that looked like a gigantic knotted club; ahead lay a second spill of massive boulders that sloped up to an olive grove and a low, mesa-like escarpment that rose above what looked like the slash of a ravine.
He glanced back the way they had come. Still no sign of the pursuers. Turning back, he looked into the distance. From this point he figured they were about three miles from the coast, but it was three miles of rough, slow-going terrain. And he wasn’t sure Nathaniel was up to making the trek.
That meant he had no choice but to stop the Bad Guys right here.
The sound of oncoming rotors made him jerk his head skyward. Pushing Nathaniel deeper into the shadows, he crouched down, seeing the Eurocopter flash by overhead, then hover over the center of the plateau. The fuselage door was closed. That meant Krell and his team were on the ground, waiting for the pilot to spot their quarry.
From down below the noise of a boot scraping against rock reached Skarda’s ears. Inching up slowly, he peered into the valley, seeing the stocky man stick his head out into the open for a quick reconnoiter.
From the deep shadows Nathaniel turned his face up and asked, “We have to get to Miletus, don’t we?” His eyes were staring off into the distance, unfocused.
Skarda dropped down. “I want you breathe for me, okay, Nathaniel? Deep breaths. We’re going to get out of here. And then we can see April.”
The mention of her name made the scholar’s head snap up. For a moment he stared blankly, but then he slowly nodded and expanded his lungs.
Rising up again, Skarda stole another glance. By now the stocky man had stepped fully out into the open, a TEC-9 machine pistol in his hand. Behind him, a bear-sized bald-headed man and a man with tattoos on his arms and neck followed, each cradling an HK416. Slung around the bald man’s shoulder was the AA-12.
Then Krell stepped out, looking like a bird of prey.
Skarda felt something cold grip his stomach. Against these odds the Sig Sauer was useless. What he needed was one of the Bad Guys’ guns.
So that’s what he’d have to do.
TWENTY-ONE
London
APRIL awoke with full consciousness, her senses alert. She sat up on the bed, still naked, her black eyes roving around the cell, ignoring the ache that throbbed in the back of her skull. A fuzzy memory of the squat, ugly woman who had wheeled her into the cell flashed through her mind. But she was nowhere to be seen. Through the glass front she could see nothing but a blank white wall.
Getting up, she explored the cubicle. It was about eight feet by twenty feet, constructed from whitewashed cement blocks, with the bed bolted to the wall and a door at the far end leading to a bathroom. No other furniture.
In the bathroom she found a shower stall, a toilet, and a sink and vanity with no doors. The vanity contained a towel, a bar of soap, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a roll of toilet paper.
Picking up the toothbrush, she examined it as a possible weapon. But it was fashioned out of rubber. Useless.
But she eyed the vanity. It had been constructed in two pieces: the base and a snug-fitting top that formed the opening for the sink.
If she could pry the top off...
Returning to the main room, she lowered herself to her hands and knees, studying the bed. Two heavy bolts attached it to the wall. Without tools, it was staying where it was. She stood up, letting her eyes rove around the room.
Then she froze. On the opposite wall, where the line of cement blocks met the ceiling, she saw a vent, about four inches by six inches.
Instantly she knew what it was.
A chill snaked up her spine.
TWENTY-TWO
Southwest of Sitia
THE deep breaths seemed to clear Nathaniel’s mind. He glanced up at Skarda with a sheepish look. “Sorry...I’m not very good at this kind of thing, I guess.”
Skarda looked down at him and flashed a grin. “Don’t worry about it. That’s what I’m here for.”
He was still watching the plateau. By now the gunmen had split up: Krell and the stocky man were heading north, toward the opposite cliffs, and the other two had just begun the climb up the big boulders on this side. The Eurocopter still hovered above the plain, but now it had banked around, heading eastward, hunting for signs of movement.
What Skarda needed was a cave—someplace to hide Nathaniel until this was over. They moved out along the ridge, their boots dislodging loose stones that went clattering down the hillside. If he’d been on his own, he would have taken the time to choose his steps carefully, but there was no chance of that with Nathaniel along. They had no choice but to move quickly. He could only hope that the two pursuers were making as much noise as they were.
Past a jutting shoulder of limestone the bigger rocks leveled out into a scrub-covered pass. He signaled a halt while he moved ahead, stepping into the shadow of a vertical cliff edge. From here the landscape sloped down at a steep angle, then rose again to form a series of knobby ridges, and beyond them, the purple hump of a bigger mountain.
Above them, the Eurocopter was making a lazy turn, headed northwest. Skarda shrank back until it had disappeared from his field of vision. Then he quickly reconnoitered the cliff. To his left a pile of broken rock had fallen, looking like some giant had been tossing around pairs of enormous dice.
He moved closer. Some straggly pine trees had taken root here, their heady scent perfuming the air. There were gaps between the boulders, some big enough for a man to put his hand inside, others wide enough to crawl into.
It would have to do.
Retracing his steps to Nathaniel, he told him his plan.
___
The men would have to come this way. From the shadows of an overhanging pinnacle of limestone Skarda watched the pass ten feet below. Nathaniel had crawled deep inside the boulders, clutching his laptop like a security blanket, safe and out of sight.
The bald-headed man was the first to appear, the bright sun glinting off his shaved skin for just a moment before he vanished from sight. Half a minute later he stepped warily into view again, bent low, his eyes darting around the terrain, his rifle ready. The AA-12 was a split-second from his grasp.
A moment later the tattooed man followed him.
They moved forward in a straight line, hugging the wall of the cliff, making little sound with their careful movements.
A surge of adrenaline made Skarda’s fingers twitch, but he willed it away, closing his mind the way April had taught him. Barely breathing, he crouched motionless, waiting...
When the tattooed man was just below him, he jumped.
But the man was good. Sunlight flashed as his rifle barrel arced up, his finger twitching on the trigger—
In mid-air Skarda twisted violently. A burst of 5.56mm slugs blasted the pitted stone just to the right of his rib cage, sending a hail of rock chips exploding outward. Hot blood leaked down his flank, soaking his shirt.
Before the man could fire again Skarda’s boots slammed against his shoulder blades and he went down with a sharp cry. Bending almost in half, Skarda wrenched the rifle out of his hands, then flipped over to land on his back in front of him, at the same time pulling the trigger. The tattooed man danced spasmodically, his chest a gory ruin. His corpse slammed against the rock wall and slid to the ground.
Rolling fast, Skarda came to one knee, seeing the bald man whipping his rifle around, his face a rictus of anger and hate.
Skarda yanked ba
ck the trigger, but the other man had beat him to it—
In a fraction of a second Skarda recognized the danger and threw himself to the right just as the HK416 hammered out a staccato burst. Bullets slashed into the dirt next to him, missing their target. But one slug cracked against his rifle, tearing it from his grasp.
With a bellow, the big man charged at him, his face snarling, his rifle raised for the killing shot—
His hands stinging, Skarda hauled out the Sig Sauer and shot him. But his aim was off. The bullet plowed into the giant’s shoulder. A look of surprise froze the big man’s face and the HK slipped out his hands, clattering on the rocks.
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