“Good luck, you two,” Jack said as he moved off. Everett nodded his head at Ryan and Mendenhall and Anya smiled. Alice Hamilton hurriedly kissed both men on the cheek and then Niles Compton tilted his head and shook it as if to say he’d skip the kiss on the cheek. Instead he nodded and then left. He knew his people realized he cared for each and every man and woman inside his complex—but kissing them good-bye was a line drawn in the sand.
The newest exodus of the Lost Tribe of Israel known as the Jeddah was off in search of a safe haven once more.
* * *
Major Donny Mendohlson knew he would have to take a chance as he saw several of the ambushers move away from the camouflaged opening to the temple and disappear to their rear somewhere.
“Do you see what I see?” the sergeant major asked as he squinted through his scope.
“Yes, they’ve been moving off in twos and threes for the past five minutes. They’re weakening their core defense by trying to flank us. That has to be a Mossad agent leading these idiots.”
The sergeant major laughed at the running joke that the Sayeret had with their intelligence service, just as American soldiers usually had very little good to say about the CIA.
“Okay, you and I are it. We have to get into that temple and place this bad boy,” he said as his gloved hand tapped the aluminum case that housed a small piece of the sun. The rain was still coming down in torrents as the major signaled for the remainder of his men to give them covering fire to the left of the entrance as they would try and flank the right and enter the temple complex on their own.
“And what do we do after we get inside and find out we’re outnumbered a hundred to one?” the sergeant major asked.
“Well, with our bodies riddled with foreign bullets we will do our duty and kill them all, or blow up the temple around us and them.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” said the old veteran of almost every conflict Israel had been involved in the past ten years, “except for the part where we die.”
“Goes with the territory, Sergeant Major, it goes with the territory.”
The hand signal was given and every weapon they had opened up on full automatic.
The final assault on the City of Moses had started.
* * *
Colonel Ben-Nevin ducked just as the fusillade of bullets struck the outcroppings of rock near him. He tried to rise to see what was happening but the incoming fire was so intense that he couldn’t move. He looked to his left and saw that most of the Russian’s men had started to try to flank the men to their front. Ben-Nevin knew the tactic was foolhardy and told the men so, but being like Zallas himself they ignored the warning and moved off in force. Now the colonel found he was in command of only twenty of the original seventy-five he was using for the ambush.
The colonel needed to move the remainder of his men to the entrance to ensure no one got by them. Ben-Nevin’s only salvation was to get into the temple and recover at least part of the lie Israel was covering up. That alone would satisfy his superiors and get him that nice retirement villa along with a hefty piece of the spoils. He started to shout his new orders over the force of the driving rain and wind when something bounced off the stone screen that guarded the entrance to the temple. Ben-Nevin wondered if the Sayeret had been reduced to throwing rocks when he saw what had been tossed it his way. A grenade came to rest only three feet from him. The colonel didn’t hesitate as he threw himself behind the stone screen just as the grenade went off. The explosion rocked Ben-Nevin. He shook his head just as another grenade sailed over the berm and then clanked off the stone screen. This time the colonel turned and ran for the temple entrance as he realized he didn’t have enough men to cover the assault that was about to happen.
The intense burst of fire that slammed any defender brave enough to pop their heads up had succeeded in opening up the front door long enough for the two men to stealthily run into the temple. Together they carried the one weapon that rivaled the power of God himself.
Major Donny Mendohlson was the very first Israeli soldier to carry a weapon that Israel has always insisted they didn’t have in their arsenal—a 1.2 kiloton tactical nuclear weapon.
* * *
Jack took point and Sarah was right behind him. The rest of the village was spread out for close to half a mile as the refugees from Patinas made their way along the ancient excavation that had long been forgotten by the Jeddah. Only the Golia knew the temple complex better than any living thing on earth. Jack could see the weariness of the villagers as fathers who were not used to anything more exciting in Patinas than that year’s wool harvest or the number of calves a certain herd had produced over the winter tried to keep their children calm as the explosions and bullets ripped the air around them. As they moved along the back wall of the City of Moses Collins felt the heat from the natural steam vents getting hotter.
Sarah tugged on Jack’s sleeve and with her eyes indicated that he should look up. He did and that was when he saw Stanus and Mikla. The two brother wolves as giant as they were had been nimble enough to maneuver the large frames into the tight spaces on boulders and outcroppings above their heads. Soon they were joined by Anya and Carl. Everett seemed to be animated about something. Collins stopped and waited as Anya and Everett made their way through the mass of scared children and frightened women and farmers and sheep men who didn’t understand why the outside world was trying to destroy their way of life. Carl winced as he heard the rearguard action formed by Jason Ryan and Will Mendenhall start in earnest. They were out of time. Ryan and Mendenhall, great shots though they were, would still be out of ammunition and still have over a hundred criminals to deal with.
“Colonel, the captain is saying he’s picking up Stanus’s thoughts … and also that of my brother,” Anya said, not understanding the dual aspect to what Carl’s mind was receiving stemming from Stanus as the beast watched the progress of the village as they moved out of the City of Moses.
“Now you’ve really lost me,” Jack said as he turned his head and scanned the rocks above him looking for any opening that could lead to the outside.
“The captain wants to ask Stanus for help, but every time he attempts a connection Marko is there in the Golia’s mind, it’s as if—”
“Your brother is dead, Anya.”
As they all turned and looked they saw three men from Patinas, one holding a sputtering torch and the other two had Madam Korvesky in a chair and they were carrying her. Alice saw this and became furious at the men.
“Put her down before you drop her,” Alice said as she moved past Niles.
“I am not leaving the temple. I will remain.” She looked at her stunned granddaughter. “Marko was killed earlier tonight by his new friends.”
Carl watched as the true feelings Anya had about her brother came through. She was in shock and angry that this was happening. She shook her head and placed it against Everett’s chest and then took a deep breath. She looked up at Carl and then made a decision.
“What is left of my grandson now inhabits Stanus,” Madam Korevsky said. “Soon the alpha will shrug off the memories of Marko and the man-child will be absorbed completely by the wolf, and this is how the Golia maintains its intelligence.”
Everett looked at Anya and she nodded her head and explained, “Each of us will bond with a Golia upon the arrival of death. Our bodies will become part of nature and join the earth, but our soul, our memories, and our love of the wolf and of the people will be taken into the memories of the Golia, thus we live on in a far simpler form, one that does not have the travails of man to contend with—the Golia are us and we are them.”
“Now, Captain, would you ask my grandson if he would help your colonel in leading my people from this mountain, for tonight God ends all here in this place,” Madam Korvesky said as her pulse was being taken by Denise Gilliam, who ordered the men to put her on the ground and place the torch closer so she could see. Niles Compton watched and knew for all intents and purposes that the o
ld woman was already dead and it was just her tenacity that was keeping her motor functions operating.
Jack and Sarah looked at Everett, who shrugged his shoulders that he didn’t understand, but he would try. Anya took his elbow and stopped him.
“Carl, if Marko’s mind is traveling with Stanus I don’t know how my brother will react to you. Stanus will accept you into his head, but Marko may create a conflict. I don’t know if he suspected anything about … well, about my having any feelings for you, but you have to be careful. Stanus could rip you apart and not understand why he’s tearing your arms off, not knowing Marko has a great deal of influence on his thought process. If my brother hated you because of me he could kill you.”
Jack, Sarah, Niles, and Alice saw the small smirk on Everett’s face.
“What would Marko have suspected about us?” Carl asked, not caring who was watching or listening as Carl slipped off his long-sleeve shirt in his preparation to climb the sheer walls and speak with Stanus and then possibly be killed by a mind hiding inside the wolf, all pretty straightforward stuff to the captain’s way of thinking. Meantime the gunfire from the city was starting to grow heavier; Jason and Will were now in serious trouble.
Anya looked embarrassed at the question. She looked from the stark blue eyes of the American and then found she couldn’t hold them. In that instant Carl realized that this woman had never even considered falling for a man. Everett smiled and then with a look at his friends who were watching with interest, Carl leaned down and kissed Anya firmly and deeply. He pulled back and the woman still had her eyes closed. Everett felt other eyes on him and he half turned and saw that Madam Korvesky was watching the two and the look on her face was not a pleasant one.
“Well then, maybe I better have a sit-down with brother Marko and straighten this out and explain that I plan on making an honest woman out of the Gypsy princess?”
Anya opened her eyes and then the smile she gave Everett made Sarah want to tear up as she took Jack’s arm.
“Until then, if I’m not back in twenty minutes,” he looked at Jack, “call the president,” he joked but before he could take his first handhold on the rough rock that led upward, Collins stopped him.
“Not this time, Jack.” Everett slapped Collins’s strong hand away and started climbing. “This one is mine, I have more at stake here,” he said and vanished into the darkness of the cave system. The colonel looked over at Anya and saw that her eyes were still locked on a form of a man that was no longer there. Anya slowly walked over to her grandmother and as the men placed her on the stone floor Anya sat beside her and then placed her head against the weak shoulder of the old woman. Madam Korvesky gently placed her arm around the girl-child and spoke with her softly about Marko.
The gunfire coming from the city a half mile distant slowly started to ease and Jack knew that Ryan and Mendenhall were now on the move trying to make for a harder target. Jack knew that the two professionals would hold them for as long as possible, they were that good at what they did. No, the two men would never give up to a bunch of gangsters.
* * *
“Think we should give up?” Will asked Ryan as he tossed the empty Glock away and then faced his friend.
“Nah, let’s hang out a little more,” Jason said as he squirreled his head around the corner of the foot of Anubis, or as they knew now, the statue of the Golia, and fired his last four shots and was rewarded with the cry and yelp of another criminal biting the dust. He looked at Mendenhall and raised his brows twice in appreciation of his own shooting prowess. Then the smile left when he noticed the Glock was frozen in the empty position. He frowned and tossed the gun away.
“Good, I just wanted to make sure the Navy wasn’t bailing out here,” Mendenhall said as he ventured a look over at the men streaming down the foot ramp from the outer temple. “One thing’s for sure, it’s getting a little crowded in here. May I suggest we take up station with Moses and Joshua, those doors seem a little more stronger than these toes of Anubis,” Will said as he burst from the hiding spot and ran for the columned temple of Moses.
Ryan watched his best friend run past him and then he sighed in relief when he saw that Will made it through the thick doors of the temple.
“You’re right about one thing, buddy, the Navy is going to bail out of this jerkwater place,” Ryan said and then with a burst of speed ran across the last hundred feet and then into the temple.
As Ryan and Mendenhall started bracing for the assault they knew would come quickly, the ground beneath their feet shook and then stilled. They exchanged looks and knew their situation was about to go from bad to worse.
The anchor pins holding Dracula’s Castle to the side of the mountain slipped three feet to the south.
The expansive engineered castle leaned forward far enough that drinks on tables shook, settled, and then if one looked and was paying attention, anyone could see the un-level surface of those drinks. The castle was now leaning forward by eighteen inches from where the building had started out earlier that evening.
The mountain was beginning to shed the shame of Dracula’s Castle as the American entertainer Drake Andrews took the stage. His opening set was so loud that the vibrations were sent through the foundation to the compromised anchor pins buried inside the mountain. The decibel level blaring from Castle Dracula started to eat away at the remaining earth securing the pins to the mountain.
The castle was close to rocking and rolling itself down the mountainside.
* * *
Carl Everett paused on the way up the sheer wall and swiped the sweat from his brow. The temperature had risen by at least thirty degrees since he had started climbing. The captain was about to place his hand in a better and more secure location when his left hand slipped free of the rock securing him and that was when he knew he was going to fall a great distance and that would be that. Suddenly he was in midair as he fell backward. Just as his hand slipped from the rock he was grabbed hard enough that his wrist almost broke. He was yanked upward like he was nothing more than a child and then before he realized it he was dangling over the ledge with Stanus holding him and staring right into his face. The wolf seemed to be smiling as the corners of the mouth turned upward.
“Oh, hi,” Carl said, as it the only thing that came into his head.
Stanus lost the good-natured look on its fur-covered face and then pulled Everett up so hard that he felt his shoulder almost pop from its socket. He was unceremoniously tossed to the floor. The area was so black that the only thing the captain could make out clearly were the yellow glowing eyes of the Golia. Carl backpedaled a few feet until he bumped into something. He stopped and then leaned his head back and looked up. In the upside view of the dark world around him he saw another set of glowing eyes looking down at him.
“Mikla,” Carl said nervously, “I’m glad to see—” Mikla cut him off by reaching down and pulling the large American to his feet. Everett brushed himself off and then wiped sweat from his face. Carl chanced looking away from Mikla and then turned and looked at the larger Stanus as the beast stood on both hind legs and was placing weight from one large clawed foot to the other. The breathing was deep and steady and their ears, much to Everett’s comfort level, were straight up and not lying along the side of the skull in an aggressive stance. No, if Marko was in there someplace he wasn’t inclined to kill him right off the bat. He glanced back at Mikla, who went to all fours with the loud popping sound of the skeletal frame adjusting. “Uh, Anya says hello,” was all Carl could think to say.
Stanus didn’t move. The animal just stood and swayed as if it were listening to a tune only the Golia could hear.
“Look, bad men are here to destroy the Jeddah and take their heritage from them. They must be stopped.”
Stanus growled, as did Mikla behind him, which made Carl close his eyes in hopes he wasn’t about to be raked by Mikla’s claws straight down his back until his spinal cord was exposed. Still he tried again.
“We have to g
et the Jeddah to safety. We have to leave here, now,” Everett said as Stanus suddenly went to all four legs.
The great Golia slowly closed the distance between man and animal. The eyes remained locked on Carl as it approached. Stanus was as close to Carl as Anya had been only minutes before, only the captain did not feel the same emotions coming from the Golia leader as much as he had from Marko’s little sister. Stanus, although Everett knew it was really the curiosity of the traveler inside, Marko, sniffed the man up and down and then the yellow eyes settled on Mikla. There seemed to be a symbiosis of silent commands and then Mikla sprang from the ledge and vanished in the direction of the temple.
“No!” Everett shouted. “That’s the wrong way, the bad men are that way, we have to go to the barn, Stanus, the barn!”
The Golia tilted its head as it tried to understand. Then the wolf nudged Carl and then nudged him again, almost knocking him into the wall. Suddenly Carl knew this wasn’t about an escape route to Stanus, but of a more personal nature to the man inside, Marko Korvesky. The Golia reached out and took Everett by the neck and then squeezed. The whole time the animal remained on three legs and the reach was simple to accomplish, especially since the captain submitted to Marko.
“Go ahead, that won’t change a thing about my intentions, fella, my mind was made up the minute I met your sister in Rome,” he said, as the grip of Stanus, or as Carl knew it to really be, Marko, increased until the air was cut off from Everett’s lungs. Carl became angry and held his breath as the beast slowly applied pressure to the human. The captain saw his vision start to narrow and knew before too much longer he would be hanging like a damp washrag in Stanus’s grip.
The whine was loud enough that Carl’s eyes flew open as Stanus released him and allowed the large American to slide to the stone floor. In the dark Everett could see the golden glowing eyes blink in confusion as Stanus whined again and then turned and looked around as if he were lost.
“You want what’s best for your people? This all has to end tonight or the world will descend on the Golia and the Jeddah and the people of the world will not understand. Believe me, we all know how the mob reacts to things that scare them. That’s what we do, my friends and I, we protect the world from our own fear of the unknown. Let me help Marko save his people, Stanus. Let me inside, we have to find a way out of the temple and get the Jeddah to safety.”
Carpathian: An Event Group Thriller (Event Group Thrillers) Page 59